A.Cowgirl & her colt

A.Cowgirl had a birthday this week. When asked the o me thing she wanted to do for her birthday; "ride Pete". Pete is the colt she is starting. We has ridden him two or three times. Mind you, to h er this means sitting on his back & perhaps being led around. But this is amazing for a 11, nope 12 year old. So on her birthday we worked with Pete & let her "ride" him for a while.

THIS is what life is about!!

Showing

THIS is why we show. We raise good cattle. They make great beef, & they have even better dispositions. The show-ring thing drives me nutz.
I get really frustrated that a heifer who is rude, or even downright mean or NOT broke can do well in the ring. Disposition IS a culling factor in our herd. More on that subject later.

I also get frustrated with the families that show cattle & the children just walk in, in time to lead the calf in the ring. The child doesn’t WORK with their calf. Then there’s the type that show & get really upset when they don’t win. They are rude & mean when the judge doesn’t pick them.

And another thing that frustrates me is the politics! A judge who has no consistency & just picks the stick that’s leading them, or breeding them. THAT really gets me going.

BUT my Honey loves to show. He grew up showing & loving cattle. Our girls are really doing well with their cattle. But to me, the main thing is that they WORK with their cattle. Each day, they get up before dawn, catch, wash, blow, brush & feed their calves. Then, several times each day, they’re out checking & walking their heifers. Each night, they again work with their heifers to make sure they are fed.

Their calves are calm, tame & broke before they ever step in a showring. Don’t get me wrong, there have been days when Freedom wants to play or Sophie wants to just stand still & not walk. But our heifers would never be mean to a child.

We love to go to shows. I love how the girls get so excited & intense watching the classes & the judge. I actually enjoy the preparation too. I like getting up early on show day, washing & getting the heifers all ready. I LOVE talking with all of the other exhibitors & breeders. The comraderie is awesome.

The thing that I really love about showing is truly the smiles!! I love the smiles on our girls’ faces when they go in the ring. I love how intense A.Cowgirl gets. Each child that smiles and enjoys themselves is really the ONLY reason to go to a show.

 

Smile!! & Eat Happy Beef

~GreenRanchingMom - Mama to the Momma Cows @ the ECC

What have we been up to???

Blogger doesn't like me.  Won't let me upload pictures.  It let me upload this one picture.

But, I do love this picture!!!  A.Cowgirl talking with her heifer (Freedom) before she took her to the ShowRing at the Iowa Beef Expo.   These two have an amazing bond!  A.Cowgirl loves all animals!  Her dog Lola broke her foot Sunday afternoon.  A.Cowgirl sat with her in the porch & read a book to her all afternoon.   We splinted her leg & A.Cowgirl was so careful with her.  When we took her to the vet yesterday, A.Cowgirl was right in there holding her dog & making sure she knew exactly what they were doing to her dog.  She took her outside 4 times yesterday & made sure she protected the cast with a plastic bag each time.  It is SO WONDERFUL to see her love her animals!!!

Wonderful Week

Well, we're back from State Fair! We had tons of fun and the calves showed pretty well too!

A.Cowgirl & Freedom (her heifer) did pretty well. She was outshown and should have done better. But, its really hard to walk your heifer fast with her head held above your head. And the girl that out showed her is one of the best in the country. I think that she has won the Maine-Anjou Jr National Showmanship Award for several years in a row. So, for A.Cowgirl's first big show, we were VERY proud of her. That's why we let A.Cowgirl show HER heifer.

Freedom was named Reserve Grand Champion Winter Heifer, so we're happy with how the heifer looked.

The bull we took was a little sore on his front right show day. But Honey showed him thru it & held his head so it wasn't too bad. He would take a light step every 5th or 10th step. The bull looked great and was named Grand Champion Winter Bull.

All in all, it was a good week, we had some friends stop by on Friday & enjoyed petting & playing with Freedom & Ultimate (the bull).

Whew!!! Nothing died & THEY're HOME

Whew, well, you might have guessed, but my family has been gone ALL week. Yup All of them. Honey had planned on taking A.Cowgirl & J. to his hometown County Fair in Illinois to show Freedom & the Steer. I needed to stay home to do chores & take care of the calves that we're going to show @ State Fair & trying to sell for show calves. Late in the day on Sunday, Honey's brother called & said that they wanted to have Squeak come too. They would watch him during the day & Grandma would have him at nite. Because 3 kids & fitting 2 calves would be WAYYYY to much for Daddy to handle by himself. o.k.? Can I do this??

Can I really stay home.....by.....myself????

Well......I did it!! I got lots done outside & wasn't in the house more than 10 min at a time while the sun was up.

And....NOTHING DIED. You see, most every time that Honey is gone, something died. 8 years ago, he was showing in Denver & I lost 5 (yup 5 out of 8) calves & his dog was hit on the road.
So, nothing dying was a HUGE accomplishment.

And, If you read my tweets you know that A.Cowgirl did really well & the steer won Reserve Grand over all on Wednesday. This was a huge show. There were 297 calves shown each day.

So, I met them in DesMoines @ my parent's house to trade trucks (honey took theirs, cause I had to haul pigs). That little steer I tweeted (he bloated really bad) about was doing ok, just a little bit of bloat (don't worry, I took some pictures, so I'll blog about bloating later).

So, we get home about dark, and all of us are doing chores (WOW!! its great to have my ranchhands er...kids... back). And we hear a goat crying. At one point it screams, & I ask "who's killing my goat??" Meaning that the dogs were chasing it or had one of the cows stepped on a goat? Nobody sees the goats. We had seen LadyBell & Checkers on the other side of the road with 7-up when we got home.

We get the air let off of the bloated calf (again) and I went to the south end of the barn to carry buckets the J had so graciously filed, and still hear a goat crying. I looked under the wagons (remember its getting dark). HMMM, I carry 2 buckets to the cows (the OLD babies in the barn). Lacey (my pet cow who is blind) starts walking out and trips on the poured water pad, & steps in the hole. A goat SCREEEEEAAAAMMMMS. YIKES!!! I holler for honey & go running to the hole. I stick my hand in the hole (really dark & can't see) & I feel ......HORNS. I grab his little horn & PULLLLLLL. Billy Goat is stuck in the hole. HONEYYYY! He's so fat I have to re-grab and use my legs to pull him out. Billy is usually VERY anti-social & after I pulled him out, I checked legs & stomach & he seemed fine. But he just stood there looking around & trying to figure out if he was ok. He let me pet him again & seemed ok.

WOW!! He got lucky! How did he fall in feet first?? Did a cow kick him? They usually drink out of the calf tank, WHY did he have to go in the cow pen? Wow, he was lucky that he didn't go head first or he'd be drowned. I guess we're lucky he has horns, so he didn't get hurt too bad when Lacey stepped on him. She just squished him farther down in the hole. Its a 6 ft tube that sits below an automatic waterer.


So, they made it home & we're all laying in bed snuggling & talking 90 miles a minute.

AND...........Nobody died while Honey was gone. THANK GOD!!!

A. Cowgirl's FIRST Cattle Show

A couple of weekends ago we took A.Cowgirl & Sibs to a cattle show. This was a little small town deal, & perfect for A.Cowgirl & Freedom's (her heifer) first outing. She had tons of fun. She asks her daddy every night "do we get to get up @ 5 and go wash Freedom?". So, she did some of everything at the show. Like here she is blowing the hair. She did this for about an hour.

She loves this heifer & the heifer is good to her too. It is a bonus that this heifer is actually REALLY good looking.

A little bit too spread out, but you get the general picture. By the way, we raise Maine Anjou cattle. Freedom is a purebred and is the ORIGINAL coloring of the breed. This breed has been crossbred so much that many of the calves are black (& that's ok). But so many people forget this, and asked (about a million times) if she was a Shorthorn. No, she's not a Shorthorn, just a great Red & White Maine.

I like the red ones, and they are even better if they have a little chrome (white). Guess that's just the horsey girl in me wanting some chrome.

This picture is so cute. The arena was really deep for A.Cowgirl (above her ankles) and Freedom got away from her at the end. The judge picked out the lineup (placing) and A.Cowgirl had NO CLUE that she had won the class. Here is her face right before I told her that she did great AND she WON. You can see Daddy was right there in the ring with her to rescue her when she had some problems & support her mentally.

When they went back in for the Champion Drive. A.Cowgirl was happier and even stopped her from getting away again. She also won again. She was "crowned" Grand Champion New Calf Crop.

SOOOO PROUD OF HER!!!

Did I mention this calf is out of my 'pet' cow Lacey? Well, she is, so I have a pretty soft spot for Freedom too.

A. Cowgirl's Special Day

WOW! I can't believe that 9 years ago today, I became a Mom! My world has changed SO much since then! When you are pregnant the first time, you are excited, and think you know what being a mom will be like, but you have NO clue!

You think you know what type of discipline you want to follow, and how much you will love your child. But, you don't. You have no clue about REAL discipline, real mothering, and REAL Love.

I have grown so much! SHE has grown so much!! (well a little anyways) Like the day she became a REAL Cowgirl. Yikes!! That added about 50 gray hairs to my head (thank God for being a blonde, so nobody knows I'm gray, sorry for honey, he's almost more salt than pepper)

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY CowGirl!! I hope you have a great year! I'm so excited to see how much we can learn together!