Oh you are ____________'s Mom.

It is funny how once you become a Mom you lose part of your identity. To all of your kids' friends and even some of their parents you are now _________'s Mom.  I really kind of enjoy it.  I think it is flattering. In the cow world it is very similar.  If a cow has a high selling calf it no longer has an identity.

For example this cow was once R534, but now is known as Kitty Cat's Mom.  I know you are intrigued how she got her name. Here is the story  . . .

A few years ago we decided to break a couple of our better heifers to take to the Perry County Fair for an experience.  We asked Jacie, what she wanted to name the heifers.  She said, "Kitty Cat and Tree" and so there we were in the barn with two heifers named Kitty Cat and Tree.

Jacie had her first trip in the ring.

We then sold both of the heifers through the County Line Sale in Bremen, Ohio.  The process really made the girls tired enough to sleep on square bales.

Hurricane Katrina was hitting the gulf the weekend of the sale and on the other end of the phone was a phone bid from the hurricane.  Eventually Kitty Cat sold and a few weeks later, she made her way to Texas to a teenage girl that was overjoyed to have bought her. 

Jake sent me a text while I was fixing supper the other night to tell me "Kitty Cat had twins".

Reviewing my parenting ideas and adding 4-H Cloverbuds.

I often reflect on our parenting strategies, reviewing any major life altering mistakes we have made and then looking into the future and visualizing where we need to end up.  Jacie is 8 now and I believe we need to be focusing on life skills.
She is becoming an outstanding reader and I am happy after doing an extra workbook on her own over Christmas Break in the area of math she is doing much better in the math department. I also send thanks to my friend Barb and her introduction of the Stack the States game on the IPAD, Jacie now knows all the 50 states and several facts about each.
However we have some work to do in the area of life skills.  With all of the mandatory testing we cannot expect teachers to teach these skills.  I really don't think politicians will ever consider basic life skills important enough to put on a test.  They think we all eat out, have housekeepers and people who change our oil.  I don't know who they think will do this for them, if no one is trained.  At any rate we are beginning the 4-H Cloverbud program this summer.  Jacie is taking the Road to Cooking Project.  We had an old book, which I believe will be very similar to this years so this weekend we did lesson one in the old book.  The first lesson includes a scavenger hunt for different cooking equipment in your very own kitchen.  It also includes cleaning celery, cutting celery and putting peanut butter in the celery with raisins on top. With the help of only her sister, this became an hour long activity, that was all fun.  Ok there was a little squealing over putting the peanut butter in the celery as it ended up on her fingers and did not look as neat as she had hoped.  

Calving Season 2013 is underway.

The girls had a friend over last night.  They put themselves to bed at 10:30PM and awoke at 7AM. Is that normal girl sleepover behavior? I didn't think so.  They went with Jake after eating breakfast to feed a couple groups of cows.

What nobody realized, is that they would find the first calf of the season. Now that is a sleepover bonus! And it's a girl, how appropriate.

After lunch Jake needed to take a 4-wheeler north, so we dropped Colleen off at her house.  We hope she won her soccer game.  Then is suddenly it got really quiet in the backseat.  All the excitement caught up with them.

 

Ear Tags and Number Sense

There is one more group of late bloomers, late born, hiding in the brush calves left to ship.  Jake brought home some EID ear tags to be sorted last week.  The girls and him spent an hour or so sorting numbers and writing the batch numbers down, before putting them into the calves ears.  It served as a good lesson in counting and ordering numbers for the girls.  Practical learning makes me smile.

An update on the calves that were supposed to ship last week are still here because of the snow storm south and east of Ohio.

The girls and their kitchen

While I was working on a sewing project this past weekend, the girls were cooking.  They like to take your order and bring whatever you ask for, as long as they have it.  The best part is they also bring you a credit card to pay with.  You can see mine to the right of my meal.  Likely it will be a used gift card or old library card. This was a great meal of steak and baked potato.  It came complete with a salad (lettuce, tomato and egg) and sweet tea. The steak was so tender you could cut it with a butter knife.  I am hoping they will be making "real" suppers soon. What do your kids make in their kitchen? 

Ohio Valley Cattlemen's Banquet

I am aware that most American families go to the movies or maybe bowling on Saturday nights.  However this past Saturday after we went to Mass we attended the Ohio Valley Cattlemen's Banquet.  If you have not attended your local cattlemen's banquet - you should.  It is good food, usually the best steaks with a salad, green beans, potato and pie.  There is usually a speaker followed by door prizes.  I'll take you through the night as it unfolded.

We ate a lovely dinner of steaks, potatoes, green beans, salads and pie.  We had lovely company, as we sat across the table from two older couples.  One of the ladies shared with me that Russet Potatoes make better mashed potatoes than Idaho Potatoes.  That is good information you can't get at the bowling alley. She also told be that Riesbeck's has them this week.  Looks like I will be going there.

Dr. Francis Fluharty from The Ohio State University was the guest speaker.

Dr. Fluharty was my professor at The Ohio State University for Feedyard Management.  After the banquet I asked if he would let me use his slides.  He graciously sent them to me via email.  There were so many good points, that I will break them out over several blogs.  The first point was most interesting to me not only as a beef producer, but as a mom.

1950 those had to have been the days.  There were only two cities of more than 10 million people each,  New York City and Paris. 

This is the map for today.  This seems reasonable. But then . . .

This is the map that concerns me. In 2050 I will be 72 years old.  The girls will however be in their 40's.  What does this map mean to them.  Although the girls were sitting next to me, they don't yet grasp the concept of megacities, billions of people or even other continents.  Jake has since downloaded the app "stack the countries".  

This leads me into the next slide Dr. Fluharty went over. Which is where will we find enough Agricultural Land to feed all of these people?  As Agriculturalists that is how we think.  Dr. Fluharty later told me I should make sure the girls learn a second language.  I put that on the list.  This graph also makes you think of several other career ventures including International Agriculture and Real Estate Investments.

I will continue this discussion in the next few weeks about what this makes me think about the beef industry and ours along with the girls' futures owning a feedyard and cows.

The door prizes were then handed out.  The girls were excited as they began calling names.  The first door prize was handed out a hat from the local farm machinery dealership, and a couple gift cards.  Soon Jaelin's name was called.  She won a gardening hoe.  She kinda liked it. She used it Sunday to dig up treasures in the yard.

Then Jacie's name was called.  She won a tube of grease and showed little less enthusiasm.

It was a great evening of beef knowledge and fellowship with the local beef community.

Jaelin has lost her first tooth.

Jaelin has lost her first tooth.  She received a fifty cent piece from the Tooth Fairy.  She was very excited starting a few weeks ago when Lisa cleaned her teeth and she found a loose one.  Lisa told her the Tooth Fairy might me Santa. She asked me what that meant and I told her she would probably loose her tooth around Christmas time.  Lisa was right.  

Hillbilly ski slopes opened today!

I promised Jacie a sleepover with some friends over Christmas Break.  However the girls have some chest congestion that sounds like a terrible cough, especially when they lay down, no fevers though.  Rumors through the moms circle say, everyone has some kind of heebie-jeebies.  Therefore a sleepover of sharing germs, seemed like a ridiculous idea.  Then it snowed and I thought a family sled riding party seemed more logical.  The cold air seems to kill "nastyness" and helps the chest congestion.  I texted a few families and the Hillbilly ski slopes opened for a few hours today.

Jake got the cattle fed and came in just after noon, to grab a sandwich and get us loaded to head toward the field we would occupy for the afternoon.

We grabbed an old mineral feeder that most of our sledding group could fit in.  Of course the more weight in it, the farther you travel.

Sometimes the walk up the hill is good for you . . .

Colleen who volunteered to ride in the front of the trough most of the trips down was the real trouper of the day.  The person in the front takes a lot of snow in the face and most of the wind going down the hill.

Jacie, Colleen and Celia 

Jennifer and Joshua 

 If you are wondering who had the most fun today. It may have been our two dogs. Chip even went down the hill once with a load of kids.

Chip

Jag

Olivia - dressed for the weather.

Hillbilly ski lift.

Hillbilly ski instructor with his dog.

These two would still be on the slopes - if everyone else wasn't so cold.

Sled return, bathroom breaks, father daughter time.

"Hurry up with that sled - girls!"

It was a great afternoon with some great people and a memorable way to spend a day of Christmas Break.

The girls and their Dad

By mid-morning, with most of the Christmas decorations down and part of my house cleaned, the girls were bored.  I texted Jake who was fixing fence somewhere, to ask if he had anything the girls could help him with.  He had just the job for his girls, like he usually does.  It is really important to me that Jake spends time with the girls.  It is really easier for everyone that they just stay with me.  They play, I clean, cook and do paperwork.  He can get his outside work done easier and faster without everyone tagging along, BUT the father and daughter relationship  is so crucial, and I talk so much about it to Jake that he obliged me.


Jake took the girls to go track down a charger for an electric fence. They also had some hay to unroll for some cows.  Last winter there was very little hay fed here, because it really didn't snow and the cows grazed most of winter followed by an early spring and early grass growth.  However with snow on the ground and more forecasted for tonight. I am beginning to think this winter may be a little different.

"I hear the tractor ladies, lets go"

All the hay is neatly unrolled down a hill, where the cows get in line numerically to eat.

Here they come, get in order ladies.

Here they are lining up by number.

Ok just kidding . . . they just crowd in, but there is plenty of hay for all of them.

even the late ones

We just came for the sled riding!

They apparently took a timeout from feeding the cows for some sled riding.

perfect form - Jaelin

snow angels

crash and burn

 
This is what Christmas Break is all about.