A Very Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, and happy birthday to Jesus! We have had a wonderful Christmas at our house! Hope yours is merry and bright and filled with God's love too!

 There were uniquely wrapped gifts

 We always give a lot of practical, usable gifts.

Had to share the Double H Photography mugs I got!

Fun gifts.

 The latest in sleepwear fashion.

 Sadly the one of all three of us was blurry.

My sister makes sure each dog gets a Christmas present too. Emmie thinks hers will be nice to nap on rather than rip apart.

My sister got a wii, and it was a big hit. We looked like this for hours today.

and like this...

and even like this.
Merry Christmas to everyone! May you all enjoy the blessings you have, and remember the true reason for this holiday.

Before the gifts...

...is feeding at our outfit. Christmas Eve morning everyone was busy feeding so we didn't have to feed Christmas day.
Cattle have a ruminant stomach that is separated into four compartments and is designed to maximize the utilization of the conversion of forages and grains to energy. A ruminant's stomach contains bacteria that allows them to adjust to digesting feed over a 24, or 48 hour period.
We feed our cattle every other day, and that allows us to dedicate one day to feeding, and one day to something else. It's a matter of time economics, and the cattle are used the routine and it meets their energy needs.
If it gets cold we will adjust our feeding schedule accordingly to ensure our livestock have enough additional energy to stay warm and maintain their body condition in the colder weather.
Where my family lives there is rarely enough snow to cover all the grass, and they can fill up on the old grass. We are responsible for providing them with the nutrients the dead grass is lacking, and that's why we feed a lot of cake. It's a good way to provide that energy in a way that is easy to feed.
But, where my uncle lives in the black hills, the grass is almost always under snow this time of year, so he feeds them hay to both fill them up and meet their energy requirements.
There is a lot of science, economics, humanities, weather watching and dietitian aspects to feeding cattle. We have to make sure their energy and nutrient requirements are met, they stay healthy, and we don't go broke feeding them.
We feed our cattle on this schedule no matter what, and Christmas is no exception. We feed before we eat our Christmas dinner, open presents, or play games.


Christmas Eve morning I went with my uncle to feed his calves and yearling heifers hay. We pull out to the feed ground, where the snow is packed down, after loading two round bales of hay onto the pickup.

Here is the hay feeding pickup. He uses a hydrabed, which will be demonstrated a little further down. Here we are adjusting where the arms are gripping the bale - you want the arms in the center of the bale, because you pull the bale behind the pickup and it unrolls. If you don't grab it in the middle it doesn't unroll well, and causes problems.
The calves arrive and wait patiently for the bales to be unrolled.



First is getting the twine strings off the bales. This is what holds the round bale together. Some bales are also wrapped with net wrap instead of twine.



All the strings are cut, then you pull them out. You want to have the bale picked up off the ground for this step, because trying to drag strings out from under a 1,200 pound bale is difficult at best.



A recent rain storm on top of the all the snow froze some of the strings to the bale. So my uncle used his axe, and pitchfork, to break up the ice, and free the strings.




Here is a chunk that is still caught in the ice. After freeing all string, it's looped and tied in a knot and secured in the pickup. A loose batch of twine string can make an awful mess, and mad ranchers.




Then my uncle gets in, lowers the bale to the ground, and takes off. The other bale just sits on the back of the pickup, and will ride there unless you try to go up a steep hill.





As the bale unrolls, you use manual controls in the cab to lower the hydrabed arms further to keep the bale on the ground and unrolling.
Sometimes you will pick up a bale backwards, and have to back up to unroll it.






Then you drive, and lower the arms as needed, until your bale is completely unwrapped.




Those two knobs are the controls for the hydrabed. One raises and lowers the arms, and the other moves the arms back and forth to grip or release the bale.



He just let the first bale go, and is raising the arms to grab the next one.






Pearl was supervising.




He will set the bale on the ground, get the arms centered on the bale, re-grab it, raise it off the ground, cut the strings, knock all that ice off, pull, loop and tie the strings in a knot, set the bale back down, then unroll the bale.
We fed these calves five bales, and repeated the same process for each one.




The calves fall in behind and eat. After every cow, horse and other creature on the ranch has been feed their ration, we go in the house, eat our dinner, open our presents, and thank the Lord for the birth of his Son, the food, our family, the cows and horses and other creatures we are responsible for, and the gifts we received.

Christmas break

Tomorrow I will be heading north, and east, to my grandmas house in the black hills for the start of a week-long vacation. To say I'm excited would be a mild understatement.
We do a family get-together at my grandma's on Christmas Eve day, and have a big lunch and gift exchange. Tomorrow night is another family Christmas party (the Livingston one, in case I forget later), and I will be in attendance for the first time in several years.
I have called my grandma and made reservations to stay with her tomorrow night. She assured my that "my room" would be ready, and she would open the door and let it warm up. Thank goodness! That room is beyond brisk, and would pose serious issues during the winter if there were any water pipes in its walls. Fortunately the pellet stove is right outside the door, and my grandma is a firm believer in electric blankets! Add to that a heavy pair of socks and sweats, a dose of NyQuil, and I'll sleep like a baby...I hope.
Following all that fun and excitement, I will be headed home for Christmas, and a week long reprieve from typing stories, sitting at a desk and making phone calls. Bring on feeding hay and cake, chopping ice, discussing how the cows look, seeing the calves and whatever else comes up!
Wrapping up my vacation will be a bridal shower in Cheyenne, if the weather cooperates!
I'm ready to see this view, these cows, and to drive this road that is almost totally devoid of traffic, beyond that of the bovine variety. I am ready to out of cell service range, away from people, and surrounded by home.
In preparation for my week off, I have been busy freeing up space on memory cards (I have 12 GB of storage cleared up, and my computers are groaning at having all those pictures now saved on them), charging my camera's batteries, gathering up all my winter work gear and wrapping presents. I have added a whole new play list to my ipod, laced heavily with the Scott Wiggins Band, Cory Morrow and other Texas Country artists mixed with a little mainstream country and rock.
Tonight I need to wash my dishes, clean out my fridge (it looks like a science project), wrap one last gift, pack, load the car, and make sure to remember the Apples to Apples game and my old espresso maker!
Whew! So much to do, so much fun!
Hope you all have a Merry Christmas! While I'm sure there be other posts later in the day.. I am siting at my desk this week... I wanted to make sure I told everyone happy holidays! May God bless you and yours as we all celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in a couple days!

Christmas List

In my family we all write a Christmas list each year, and each year I swear I will write things down throughout the entire year as I think of things I need and/or want. Each year I either lose this list, or never get it started.
But this year I knew what I wanted, and promptly told my parents I would like to expand our ranch, and I want to live on the new addition. I was told to either find a way to triple my income, or keep writing. Then I haggled for just a pasture, with a trailer house and no corrals, and got the same response.
sigh. It's what I really want...
Anyhow, I managed to scrape together a list of desired photo equipment, Hobby Lobby gift cards to use for framing photos, gutters for my house, gift cards to such desirable stores as American Eagle, Buckle, Target, etc..
I fully expect to receive one of those gifts, from my mom. The remaining presents will likely be studded snow tires for my car (Kyle has checked out my rims beyond anything that's normal, even for him), or chains for my new car, maybe a shovel or rake, a gun, and other such feminine, resourceful gifts. All of which are useful items I would be happy to receive...with an American Eagle gift card tied to them in the ideal world : )
All joking aside, I will be happy with whatever I receive. The important thing is celebrating Christ's birthday, and remembering that I am blessed to have a wonderful family, and the resources to be able to exchange gifts during the holidays. The actual gift part has always been a fun part for our family, but certainly not the focus of the holidays.
As far as gift giving goes, I am almost done. Waiting on a couple items I ordered off the Internet to arrive, and am planning to finish up a couple photo based gifts this weekend.
I have already given one Christmas present this year...to Holly.

I got Holly tickets to the Carrie Underwood, Billy Currington, Sons of Sylvia concert in Casper in early December. (Please note: if the photographer had removed her finger from the flash, both subjects would be properly lit. Just a little photo tutorial thrown in).
While not a huge Carrie Underwood fan myself, and certainly not a person who would normally buy tickets to see someone who is a member of PETA, Holly ranks pretty high.
She also happens to be a HUGE country music aficionado, and Carrie Underwood ranks in her top five, current favorite singers. So I surprised her the day of the event with the tickets, took her to dinner at Pizza Hut, then off we went to the Casper Events Center. We had to buy a t-shirt - of course - which she put on as soon as we got to our second row seats.



Holly also had her new boots on, which are much brighter than the picture does justice. While we are very much alike, one of our more notable differences is that Holly is considerably more "girly" than I am. There is no way I could pull off fuchsia, fake alligator boots, with stitched swirls, skulls and flowers in a variety of bright colors on the black tops.. I'm sticking with plain old brown ostrich for now!


First was Sons of Sylvia, who were more of a rock band...and I didn't get a picture. Second was Billy Currington, who sounded good, and wore his sweatshirt, tennis shoes, and who hadn't shaved in several days. As someone there to look at him as much as hear him, I was slightly disappointed by the outfit.


While not really close to the stage, our seats were ideal for us. Holly and I could both see (we're short), we could sit, and had a clear view. Good seats - check!




Carrie Underwood was definitely the main event, and put on quite a show. Her stage had several lifts in it, and she could swing her band from one side to the other as she did different things, like swing on a rope swing several feet off the stage.



The highlight was when she rode out over the crowd in her Carrie-mobile, which was a fiberglass replica of a 19?? Chevy pickup. She explained she wanted a way to see the back, and involve the entire audience. It worked!



She sang for over 2 hours, and had lights, a movable band, stage lifts, a lot of costume changes, and of of course the pickup. It was cool, we were worn out by the end, and sat in the parking lot for an hour waiting for traffic to clear out. Holly snored in the passenger seat while I just sat there. Overall I think it was a successful Christmas present!