1. Our old horse slipped last week and has a minor sprain in his
back leg. The vet gave him apple flavored medicine, and of course, we have the
only horse in the world that hates apples. It's been comical to see him sniff
it out and snub his nose when we mix it into his grain. That picky old
Fart! Today, I tried mixing it in molasses first and then mixed the molasses
into his grain. He took one bite and had a bunch of sticky grain hanging from his
old whiskers. He does not like having sticky whiskers one bit! He rubbed his
chin on the pipe railing after every single bite to wipe the grain off. It gave us all
a good chuckle but it worked. He ate the whole thing!
2. Here are two signs I saw next to each other while parking in downtown Phoenix near the fairgrounds. They gave me a chuckle.
This one's for "patient" people. Ha!
3. My girls have been more independent lately, and have been doing
their own hair in the mornings. While I appreciate their determination, some of
their crooked pony tails, braid attempts, and hair accessory choices have me scratching my head. I just let them wear their hair however they want when we're home, and only ask to help
them when we have some place to go. I don't want to break their creative
spirit. It makes me smile because I think my mother would say that my
chickens have come home to roost. When I was just a bit older than them and still learning to do my own hair, I went
through a 3 year phase with huge bangs and lots of hairspray that made my
mother cringe every single day. I keep reminding myself that no matter how many
flowers, headbands, and barrettes my girls wear, it could never be as bad as my
late 80's bangs. Ever.
4. Thanks to some tech savvy phone help from Mega Mind (my little
brother) we now have our receiver and blue ray player working and hooked
up to the internet for things like Netflix, and You tube. But the thing I'm
most excited about is having Pandora Radio in surround sound! For two years,
I've been listening to Pandora with my iPhone placed in a bowl to project the
sound more loudly. (That's definitely a first world problem. LOL!) Having
my favorite music floating through the whole house now is Epic!
5. I'm going to invent a stock tank camera that runs off a battery,
and is linked to the internet. I'd mount it above the reach of the cows so I can check ice/ water levels
with a click of the mouse in pastures without electricity. Then I won't have to
make the long drive to check the tanks every day. Wouldn't that be cool? It would be terribly expensive, and horribly impractical but the concept is possibly a brilliant one. ( Don't you love how I just shamelessly proclaimed my possible brilliance? Ha! I crack myself up!) I've
seen this principle work with a live camera mounted in an eagle's nest so
people could watch the baby eagle eggs hatch from their computer. My motto:
work smarter, not harder. The alternative: We could just sell this
stinkin' house so our cows can all be in one place for the winter! Sorry. I
lost my 10 minute patience there for a minute.
5a. Here are terrible iPhone pics of the first encounter between barn cat and cows. Curiosity nearly killed the cat, but she made a narrow escape through the fence. Yes, this is what entertains me for hours while I'm filling up the stock tanks. It's the simple things...
6. We went to the stock show last weekend and took a class to
learn how to "fit" show cattle. I've seen a lot of show cattle in my
years, and fitting is an art form that can make a difference in the show ring.
Professional fitters are like glorified hair stylists for cows, and I can't
believe how detailed they are when they get a steer or heifer ready for the
show.The clipping, the spraying, the teasing of hair, and the blow drying: it takes hours and they
don't leave a hair out of place! There are more sprays, paints, and glues for
cows than there are for women. I'm surprised show heifers don't have
false eyelashes. Everything else is fake. I want those fitters to do a makeover
on me! I'm confident they could make me look like a million bucks! They're
miracle workers! We definitely have a lot to learn before our kids show their first steers
for 4-H.
7. I'm in the process of looking for some new software to help us
keep better records of both our cattle and costs. I need something that
can generate quarterly reports, too. I've been reading up on several
choices, but I would like some advice. Does anyone out there use
something that works well for them? Anyone still out there? Hello? Is this
thing on?
Thanks to all two of you for reading this list all the way to the
end!
Nell
i l.o.v.e. your random lists...i always look forward to them. if only i were so creative. sigh.
ReplyDeletemaybe someday i will get a random list together. i always think...this is so random/dumb NO ONE cares! lol
Have a great weekend!
Hope the horse makes a quick recovery. When our girls were showing steers it was always the one that you knew never touched the steer that won. It would make me so angry to see a 4-Her that couldn't hardly lead the steer have 3 professional fitters taking care of it. Finally, the last year V showed they enforced (sort of)a no spray rule. The cattle were washed and blow dried at that was it. It would even be better if they would just show them shaved like sheep now. Sorry, I'll get off of my soap box. Good luck with the project.
ReplyDeleteI think your wifi capable stock tank is a BRILLIANT idea! I love the idea of showing steers, but I hear it's frightfully expensive unless you raise your own show steers! Perhaps we'll push our children down the path of creating wifi deicers for stock tanks... :P
ReplyDeleteBy the way, glad to be stalkin' ya on Pinterest, now! :)
I like the mounted camera idea for the tanks. We have camera mounted on building downtown to show us how the falcon chicks are doing etc so why not out in the pasture. Perhaps you could hook it up so that when it reached a certain level, it would text you. That way you won't have to keep looking at your computer!
ReplyDeleteI loved hearing about the fitters. I know they have things like that in the dog show world. A friend raised show beagles. They have fur that is often changing from black and white to browns(they are usually born black and white). They put some type of paint to make the dog appear blacker etc. He says the dog does not look like in person what they do in the show ring. Interesting world. I would love to see a big sassy cow with false eyelashes!!
Carol Lee
Our good friends have CNN in the calving barn. It's Cow Nightly News.
ReplyDeleteHaHa! Love it!
DeleteAppreciate thhis blog post
ReplyDelete