Birthday Girl Talks Beef

The baby of the family had a birthday!   I'm not exactly sure where the time has went, but as people say, it goes fast. The youngest of the Hadrick 5 has entered into the final few years of the single digits. This year we held a Art Studio Party for her friends.  Miss R's favorite subject is art and unfortunately she doesn't get enough of it, so what better way to celebrate then to buy some canvas and let there be paint! 

The party started out with tacos and dinner conversation that consisted of meat.  Of course, what else would 7 & 8 year old girls want to talk about... Miss R was quick to point out that the meat we were eating came from the cows outside our window. That left a few of the girls with confused looks on their faces. 

One friend said, "How can you eat something you care for?"  Which is a common question for many people.  Miss R never missed a beat and quickly respond, "We care for them, but they also make good beef that helps us grow strong." 

Another friend suggested we quit talking about cattle at the dinner table. But, the girls had many questions and comments about eating meat and they just kept coming.  

The class had recently been to the veterinary office on a field trip and started to relive moments from that adventure.  The discussion about how to make a steer was probably my favorite and the point where My Cowboy and I started to laugh and had to turn our backs. Apparently Dr. B explained how to band the scrotum to the kids and then the bull becomes a steer. The girls all laughed and I thought this is certainly not the usual conversations these girls have at their dinner tables. All of them were Miss R's town friends. To my kids, these are normal conversations we have at the dinner table. 

But for one last comment, from Miss Grace (I can put her name because her mother will know it was her anyway) "Well your dad raises some good beef and I need another taco!" BTW all the girls ate their tacos. We went on to paint some really cool pictures and of course did cheers and played games. 

I always tell My Cowboy that we can never get away from talking cows at the dinner table. I guess even at our daughters birthday party, we talk cows.  Maybe it's the table...

Midnight Ride to the E.R.

I knew that Cowboy wasn't waking me up at 4:30 am to visit about my day.  This time of year I don't get to see Cowboy much, he's night calving so when he's in the house during the day- he sleeps.

Nope at 4:30 am the conversation will start like this: "Can You Come Help Me?"  Which can mean one of two things:
1) I need help outside with a cow calving
2) I'm bleeding

Unfortunately for me it was #2 last night.

Cowboy had went out to night check around 3:30 am and was helping a new mom 'with the finer points of motherhood' as he put it. Somehow in the process of holding the calf up close to her for it to nurse she showed him.  He got kicked in the head and tore his lip open.

Now a conversation I've had many times in my tenure with Cowboy is the "Should I go to the Emergency Room?" Which usually means if we are having that conversation the answer is YES! But second and third opinions are always welcomed.

Cowboy had woke me up for that opinion.  Now something you need to know about me is that I don't like blood.  Up until I met Cowboy I had only been to the emergency room once in my life- and it was to take some people who wreaked a pickup down the road from the ranch.  In the first two years I was dating Cowboy I went to the emergency room 3 times! Once right before we got married (that's another post).

Although I don't like blood I can usually hold myself together until we make it to the Emergency Room. Each time I have taken him in the staff and Doctor always ask me if I'm ok before tending to him! I must be a sight because he is the one usually bleeding.

It only took one glance with sleep still in my eyes at the cut for me to know an Emergency Room visit was his next stop.  We're so fortunate in our little community on the prairie to have an amazing hospital with staff that stitched him right up! He was in and out in a little over an hour.

He was home and dressed to go back outside to try again with the new mother before 6 am.  No rest for the tired or hurt when baby calves need to eat.

Let's hope that's our only visit to the E.R. this calving season. But, I fear we are just getting started...

August Was For Australia

August was the month that My Cowboy and I were visited by our Australian friends. As we've traveled in Australia the past year we have always said to people if you get to the states we would love to host you.  Who knew they would actually take us up on it! Let's face it South Dakota is not on the beaten path. Just by pure coincidence, the ones wanting to come see us, all wanted to come in August.

We should have known some crazy Aussies would make the journey.  The one thing we learned while traveling in Australia is that many of the Aussie's have seen more of the states then most Americans.

David with my dad

David Maconochie is a great friend we met on our last trip down under.  David and his family run Hopkins River Beef in Victoria.  David had won the Young Feedlot producer award and was given a trip to America to tour feedlots. It just so happened he picked the exact time I was planning a feedlot tour for my job so he was able to influence lots of South Dakotan's with his Aussie views.  David's blog, Aussie Beef Boy details his trip to America and his views of the beef industry.

David and I spent a memorable trip driving across Kansas and he even made it up to South Dakota to do a little R&R in the before moving on. There are so many memorable things about David's trip that we continue to laugh and can't wait to see him again.

While out on the road David and I were able to meet up with two very special friends.  Angus Street & Elly Daley. Angus and Elly served as our tour guides while in Australia and we love them. They were both mixing business with pleasure on their US trip and were unable to get up to South Dakota to spend time at the Hadrick place but were able to meet up for supper in Denver one night. You may notice that My Cowboy was not in the picture.  He was home working while I was out having fun.

Angus, Me, Elly, and David

August finished out with our last visit from Ray & Leah Vella. Ray is a Nuffield scholar and is spent 6 weeks in North America learning more about land and farm management. Ray has a great blog about his travels and life in Australia.

We had visited Ray & Leah at their place in Queensland on our last trip. We were able to spend a short day with them and their wonderful family at their house.  These crabs are from the ocean that their land touches. They were amazing! Leah and I hit it off right away.  I really admire her for the rural life she leads and homeschooling her oldest child while balancing the two younger children.  Leah has to homeschool her son because of how far they live from town.

Vella's had been on the road for almost a month when they arrived in South Dakota. We were so excited that they were able to spend a few days with us.  I paraded Leah through the schools for show and tell and Ray helped install a new fence at the feedlot. It was great to catch up with them and look forward to the time when we can get back to their place and spend some time.

Me, Leah, Ray, My Cowboy

So, to all our Aussie friends that have not been here- the spare room is ready! Fall is coming on- so you might want to wait until spring it's a much better experience when it's not cold. Can't wait to see you!

Morgan, Teigen's 4-H Show Heifer is a mom! 

That was big news at our house. We all had been waiting very patiently for this baby to arrive. Morgan had been staying in the barn and being fed 'special' feed and being treated very well in her last days of pregnancy. We almost were at hour by hour updates from all the family members who were dropping in to check on her. Finally the day arrived and after the kids got home from school we headed to the barn as a family to see the new addition.  For all you wondering it was a- BOY! Teigen was excited and Miss O "knew it was a boy" she claims.

Morgan is a good mom. There is nothing like hearing a cow talk to her calf with their low sounds they make. I love to listen to that and it always makes me smile. It amazes me how a cow instantly knows that she is responsible for taking care of her baby and goes to work getting them cleaned and stands waiting for the calf to get up and take their first drink of milk.

Within the first day a calf is born on the ranch we tag them, give them a shot-a vaccine for common diseases that calves may be exposed to and monitor both mom and baby to make sure that they are ok. Teigen wanted to be a part of all the details when it came to Morgan.  Here he is putting the number on the calf tag. You can see his little sister paying close attention to detail. She can't wait for this to be her someday! When it came down to it- we all agree that dad should be the one to put the tag in the calf's ear and give the shot. We sorted Morgan off from the calf, into another pen where she could still see the calf and in less then 15 seconds the old pro had it done and mom and baby were reunited. We all thought it was cute how the new baby looked with his new clean ear tag.

I think Morgan the mom is going to have some new lessons for Teigen to learn and I'm excited to see how those unfold- I'll keep you posted.

Our Favorite Animal

Last week Miss O had her school open house. The kids showed off their work and skills they had accumulated so far this year. One of the things the kids did was to draw a picture of their favorite pet and write something about what it does. In the Hadrick house we don't have pets. I'm an anti pet mom- let's face it I can bearly handle 3 kids let alone throwing an animal into the mix. My Cowboy and I agree and we're fine without a pet. But it's times like this that I feel for my kids because everyone else has a pet to talk about. But I was proud of Miss O she did what any good young cowgirl would do and drew this picture of "Baldy" her bucket calf and wrote a darn good supporting sentence with her picture.

She added important details like his white head - note that's why his name is 'baldy' since he has a white head and his white belly. She loved taking care of baldy last spring and summer. Every day she helped feed him and take care of his water needs. She felt an amazing sense of pride with this animal and I think it's really great how she loves to work on our farm and take care of animals.

I'm not sure if you know it or not but the Department of Labor has proposed rules regarding Child Labor laws that would restrict children under the age of 16 from working on a farm and ranch. The things that children will not be able to do is shocking for example kids will not be able to work with animals over 6 months of age- which would include 4-H show animals. They also could not build fence or operate any type of equipment from tractors to power tools.  I think how this will effect my family and our community. Our kids have pride working with us on the farm I don't want it to be illegal for me to have them help work cattle or harvest crops.  This will also effect our community- what are the kids who live in town and come out to spend summers working on ranches in our area going to do? So my call to action: Let the people in Washington DC know how this will effect you. I know I know - who contacts their legislators...you should. I want Miss O to be able to tell people her favorite animal is a cow because she is able to go out and work with them everyday.

For those of you still upset that we don't have a pet. Don't tell the kids but we're considering a dog more and more...you know something that we can hunt with.