Wordless Wednesday

Herd bulls watching me as I’m going for evening run!

Love finding new calves!

Calving is in full swing at our place. The second group of AI’d cows just hit their due date yesterday. We hit 80% AI rate on our first group of cows. So they bred really well last summer! We breed during a flush of high quality green grass in early summer. This helps the cows get pregnant with such high quality food. We match our breeding dates with how the quality of the grass is. If we wait any longer the cows would be on a negative plane of nutrition because the grass begins to loose its ‘umph.’

Troy just got back from his night check and they are doing well.

I found this little guy while I was riding through the calving pasture. Mom and baby are doing great!

The Illuminating Blogger Award

A big thanks to Seasonsgirl for nominating me!

Last week I was nominated for the Illuminating Blogger Award by Seasonsgirl. I feel very blessed that she was thinking of my blog in such a wonderful way. It truly is amazing how many lives we touch when we start a blog. I have been blogging for a little over a year now, and I absolutely love reading other peoples blogs and posting about my life. I have an avid follower from Ireland, and if it wasn’t for my blog, I wouldn’t have contact with such inspirational people! Seasonsgirl is a true country girl, and we share many of the same feelings about caring for our families and animals, nature and above all living a Christian life. She has some great recipes, and when you have time please visit her blog at http://seasonsgirl.wordpress.com/
Thank you very much for nominating me for the Illuminating Blogger Award!

So now for the Illuminating Blogger Award…
The Rules:
Visit and thank the blogger who nominated you (see above)
Say a few words of gratitude on your blog and follow the link (see above)
Share a few words about yourself and pass on the award to 5 other bloggers

About me
I live on a ranch in south central Nebraska with my husband Troy, son Zane, two dogs Rio and Bo and many cows, horses and mouse-catching kitty cats. Spring is my favorite season of the year. Nature’s palette paints the landscape with beautiful colors and the countryside begins to wake up after a long winter. My husband and I enjoy volunteering and are heavily involved in several organizations. My hobbies include spending time with friends and family, reading, gardening, baking and cooking, riding my horses and anything to do with the cattle. I love meeting new people and sharing my passion for agriculture and raising livestock!

Troy and I

Now for my Nominations!
The Lady of Ag, who is also my sister in law, has a superb blog. She blogs about her family’s adventures on and off the farm. She is always traveling the world or gone at some extracurricular activity and it amazes me how she keeps so organized! Dawn was one of the reasons I began to blog – so I owe a lot to her in getting me started! She has a wealth of information on many factors that influence consumer’s decisions on what to put on the supper table. Find her blog at http://ladyofag.wordpress.com/

One of my favorite blogs to read is about Tammy and her cowdogs. She is extremely hardworking, enjoys talking about good cattle and is a true inspiration by all she does during her days. She enjoys the same western way of life that I do. Stroll over to her blog at http://tammyscowdogs.wordpress.com/ to find out more!

Ever wonder what the life of an Irish dairy farmer is entails? Well follow Lorna and her Irish Farmerette blog and learn about her Irish lifestyle. She has an awesome blog and describes their life very well. Lorna was one of my first followers when I began to blog. She is very passionate about her lifestyle, family and they animals she cares for. You can read about her lifestyle at http://irishfarmerette.com/

My brother in law thought I would enjoy BoviDiva’s blog and brought it to my attention last week, so I am a fairly new follower. But from what I have read on her blog she has some great stuff. From pasture to plate, she helps close the gap between those that raise beef cattle and the consumers that enjoy eating it. She blogs about the concerns and questions consumers want to know about our product. Her blog can be found at http://bovidiva.com/

Another blog I enjoy keeping up with is Jill and her Fence Post Diaries. My favorite part of her blog is her Farm Wife Survival Guide – so funny but so true! She also has a passion about sharing her life on the farm and ranch. She adds humor to her posts and keeps the readers tuned with her great stories. Make sure to visit her blog at http://fencepostdiaries.com/

I have more blogs I love to read and keep up with, but unfortunately I can only nominate five blogs. Congrats and keep up the awesome blogging! Thanks again to Seasonsgirl for the nomination and make sure you visit all these great blogs!

The Z man and I hanging out at a friends bull sale yesterday. Troy was cooking ribeye steaks to serve their customers. My kinda bull sale!

And of course my blog wouldn’t be complete without a picture of the Z man!

Snow Storm!

When most of my non farming friends and family are baking and watching movies during a snowstorm, we have livestock to take care of. Taking care of our animals isnt a 9-5 job, its a way of life. The first thing we do before presents are opened Christmas morning  is go break ice and feed. We dont get holidays and weekends off, and I’m sure most of us can say “What’s a vacation?”

But I do have to sneak in a little time for baking cinnamon rolls or cookies during a snow day :)

Those chores are extended this time of year because we have are just getting started with our calving. The heifers are due on February 26, but the early ones usually come a few days early. The cows follow, with the first group of AI’d ones due around March 10. Luckily, being in southern Nebraska, we don’t get very many late winter/early spring snow storms. So calving typically is fairly uneventful.

Cutting the netwrap from a bale

Unrolling the bale for the cows

Yum Yum!

We do all we can to make the animals comfortable during and after a snowstorm. We make sure the pens are clean and their bellies are full of hay. When their bellies are full, they have extra energy to stay warm.

Patiently waiting for the cow buffet!

After the snow has stopped, we push snow and bed them down with straw so they don’t have to lay on cold wet ground. The animals are very thankful for the nice straw bed! The straw provides a layer of insulation between the animal and the ground and they stay very warm, even on the coldest of nights.

The group that we bedded down was the heifers getting ready to calve. We also bed the bulls and horses. Yes my horses are spoiled!

Pushing snow so we can put straw down for the cows. They like a nice dry place to lay down.

This particular snow storm we got 14-15″ of snow. We are very thankful for the moisture. Now the grass will atleast green up next month! This time of year the snow doesnt hang around very long. The days are getting longer and the temperatures melt the snow fairly fast.

And I will leave you with Nature’s colorful palette during the winter!

Before the Storm

We have to send cows about 65 miles away for about 90 days during the winter. We don’t have enough corn stalks to winter all the cows, so we sort the solid mouth (a term meaning Middle aged cows) and send them away. Hay is too expensive to feed an extra 90 days and it is very difficult to find extra stalk pasture in our area. We are very lucky that we have such a good deal to send them off and they are in great hands.

Because of last weeks snow storm (yes I’m a few days late posting this blog
we had to bring the cows home about 10 days early. When there is 10+ inches of snow on the ground it gets very difficult for the cows to find what they need to eat. So rather than worrying about them, we bring them home.

Trucks bringing the girls home

Z man supervising unloading trucks!

We got the cows home just before the snow hit. It was very cold unloading them.

Feeding them before it snows

A Little Catching Up!

Wow I havent wrote for awhile – time to get you all caught up on a few things going on in HuskerCowgirl country!

First of all, according to the UNL Drought Monitor, we are still classified in the extreme drought category, although we were lucky enough to see about 12 inches of snow in late December/Early January. It continues to be dry and most of the moisture making weather systems seem to skip around us.

37 Weeks Pregnant and helping load steers!

I continued riding throughout my pregnancy. At 37 weeks, I helped Troy gather, sort and load steers. I’m lucky to have a surefooted, trustworthy horse that took care of me! I only quit riding because  of the weather and the horses didn’t have snow shoes nailed on yet. Not riding has been hard on this cowgirl!

We sold steers during a blizzard at the Kearney sale barn. We left right after our cattle sold, and lucky for us, we got a good spot in the sale. What normally is an 80 minute drive home turned into a 3 hour drive home due to the heavy falling snow and what seemed like hurricane force wind. Several of our neighbors that sold the same day weren’t able to make it home and spent the night in Kearney. Over 5000 head sold that day and over 4500 spent the night in the yard because the blizzard had trucks grounded.

Moving cows a few days before Zane was born. Glad I had pickup duty because it was a miserably cold and windy day!

And for those of you that have cattle, what does a weather system spark in a heifer? Yep you guessed it-labor! I was almost certain our little cowkid was going to make an appearance that night. I told Troy several times maybe it would be a good idea to take a detour to Hastings on the way home from Kearney and stay in a hotel. That way we would be close to the hospital!

It’s a good thing he decided to stay put that night because there was no way we could have made it out the driveway, let alone a 45 minute drive to the hospital!

But no cowkid was born that night!

At 41 weeks, we were blessed with a healthy baby boy named Zane Milton. Parenting has definitely been a challenge for a cowgirl and cowboy who didn’t know how to change a diaper when I went in labor!

It’s been a steep learning curve for sure!

Zane’s first bull sale. Felt great to get out and see all our friends!

Zane is three and a half weeks as I’m writing this. He is a lot of fun and I look forward to including him in my future blog posts!

Zane’s first time in the saddle

Frosty Heifers

Heifers were extra frosty this morning! Thought I would share this picture with my followers.