Weekly Review May 15-21

Happy Monday, all!

View of the Sweetgrass Hills from a recent trail run.

Here with a Weekly Review of last week's Fitness, Farm, and Life!

Fitness
My week wasn't as slow as the previous week for fitness, but it wasn't stellar, either. I had a minor accident on Wednesday which put a damper in a few of my plans. More on that later, though! Let's just jump right into the week's breakdown!

Sunday-4.2 mile trail run!!! Love trail runs so much!

Monday- rest.
Tuesday- 3.2 mile run before school.
Wednesday- worked cows... more to follow!
Thursday- Divisional Track meet in Great Falls = no dedicated workouts.
Friday- 30 minutes yoga, 15 minutes leg strength routine, 30 minutes incline walking on treadmill
Saturday- 30 minutes/2.75 miles light jogging on treadmill

No biking this week because, again, it was really rainy and all our roads were too wet to ride on at the times I would have been available to ride. I also didn't swim. I had planned to go to the pool on Friday, but, well, you'll see as you read on why that didn't end up working out.

Year to Date through May 21-

Running: 217.05 miles 
Walking/Hiking: 67.2 miles 
Yoga: 980 min 
CC-Ski: 500 min / 14.1 miles *Done for the season
Alpine Ski: 3 days *Done for the season
Mountain bike: 38 miles

Farm
Another busy week on the farm. Jeff and Tom finished seeding our organic farm ground on Tuesday, which was another nice accomplishment. We knew it was supposed to rain on Thursday and off and on throughout the weekend, so it was good to get the seed in the ground before the moisture hit. The other major task of the week was vaccinating our calves and sorting our cow/calf pairs into breeding groups and then getting them out into their pastures before turning out the bulls to join them. We didn't have enough help from friends or neighbors because they were busy with their own tasks, and, again, we really wanted to get this chore done before another rain system hit, so I had to take a day off of school to help out.

Mama cows are very noisy when separated from their calves!!!

Calves are less noisy and typically quite curious.

Once Jeff had brought all the cows and calves up to the corrals from the pasture they were in, it was time to sort the calves off of their mamas and vaccinate them.

This went really quite smoothly. I helped work part of the squeeze chute and helped with the sorting process.

Then, we were tasked with sorting the cows into their breeding groups. I was in charge of moving a metal gate and sort of using it to allow some cows from a larger pen into a smaller pen, while keeping other cows out of there for the time being. Well, even though really our cows are used to people, used to corrals, and typically work very smoothly, they are still unpredictable, very large animals. One cow decided she did not want to go into the smaller pen and backed up forcefully into the gate I was holding...which resulted in me catching the metal gate with my chin, and expressed as a deep gash under my lip.

Jeff and Carol walked me back to the house and Carol, a former First Responder, examined my lip and assessed that I probably should have it looked at and might need stitches. A quick trip in to the clinic in Chester and a visit with medical provider left me with three stitches under my right lip. Honestly, I'm quite lucky that the damage wasn't much worse.

Icing my face after receiving stitches. Fun.

With fresh stitches in my face that I wasn't really supposed to get wet, I had to put the kabash on my plans to swim on Friday and really took all exercise fairly easy until several days later when I knew they were set and good to go.

Jeff, Carol, and Tom finished working and sorting the cows on Wednesday and then later Jeff and Tom brought them out to their respective pastures. I was bummed to miss out on the rest of the day because I do like working with the cows and I really like driving them to pasture. I'm sure I'll have more opportunity in the future! I'm glad my "incident" wasn't any worse than it was. If nothing else, I have a decent story. I may have a scar, too. Perhaps having a story and a possible scar will up my bona-fide Cowgirl quotient?

Life
Last Thursday was Divisional Track in Great Falls. We had qualified almost all of our kids for Divisionals, so a great number of our athletes competed. Overall, it was a mixed bag of performances. I'd say largely people did well. We had a lot of personal bests and gritty performances. I was very proud of the hurdle crew that I worked with throughout the season. In the end, we qualified eleven of our student-athletes for State, which will take place this Thursday through Saturday in Missoula. We will be represented in the following events: Boys-- 4x100 relay, Pole Vault, Javelin, Shot Put, 100 Meter Dash, and High Jump. Girls-- Pole Vault, Shot Put, Discus, and 800 Meter Run. Should make for a fun weekend with so many kids qualified in a variety of events!

I am also very excited to watch Christina Aragon compete at the State Meet this year. She is a phenomenal distance runner from Billings who has already competed at some high stakes meets, including recently at the Payton Jordon Invitiational. Right now, she is ranked fifth on the all-time fastest high school girls 1500 meter run list, with names like Mary Cain and Alexa Efraimson. And she's from Montana! Check out this article from FloTrack if you're interested in learning more about Aragon: 4:16 High Schooler Christina Aragon...

Jeff and I also attended some Graduation parties over the weekend as both North Star and Chester-Joplin-Inverness celebrated their High School graduations this weekend. It was interesting to see people's reactions to my stitches as we attended events together.

All in all, it was a good week, even with a minor hiccup. Hope you all had a nice week, too!

Harvey always has to be first!

Twins

Have you been hankering for a glimpse into the life of the rancher during calving!? This time of year, we are quite the bovine maternity ward round here! In this post, you'll learn all about the extra special circumstances of when cows have twins. Special thanks to Jeff for helping me write this post and making sure I had my facts correct. Enjoy!

As I mentioned in my previous post, overall, everything is going very smoothly with the calving operation this year. The weather has been agreeable to late-night and early-morning walk-throughs, and we've had relatively few issues with the birthing process in our cows. Sure, we've had to assist in a few births by helping turn a calf who was coming backwards or even "pulling" a few to help the cow. That's pretty typical.

We've only had a few calves die, which is also good. Each year there are a few who get sick or are born with some sort of issue and just don't make it. Obviously, we do everything we can to help the calves and their mamas, but sometimes there's just nothing left to do.

And then there are the twins. We can usually count on one or two sets of twins born every year. While it is a good thing to have twins in a sense because, hey, we just got two-for-the-price-of-one, it can also place added stress on the mama cow. Typically, a cow produces enough milk to raise one calf, so twins can really put a strain on her ability to give the best nutrition to both calves. Also, sometimes the births themselves are much higher stress and almost always require assistance, or even a trip to the vet.

This year, we had three sets of twins. Sort of.

Our most recent set of twins. Keep reading to find out how they're doing!

When Jeff and I were gone to Minneapolis a few weeks ago, Jeff received a call from those manning the calving operation - Tom and our friend Jim - that we had lost a calf. It had been born dead. Not to worry, however, because the very next animal that calved had twins. They were able to "graft" one of the twin calves onto the cow who had lost her calf. Very serendipitous. Because the twins were born so soon after the other calf had died, the grafting took easily-- the mama who had lost her calf accepted one of the twins as her own calf, after a brief "warming-up" period.

A few weeks later, there was a cow who started acting really funny in the pen. She would stomp around, act a little territorial, and then began trying to claim the newborn calves of other cows. It's not unusual for a cow to have the first pangs of contractions, and look around, finding another cow's newborn calf, and confuse it for her own, thinking she had given birth. This cow did that with several others' calves. She showed signs of nearing calving, but hadn't given birth yet.  For a whole day, she could consistently be found causing a ruckus. We knew she was close to calving but something just wasn't right about her.

Finally, she started the actual calving process. Only, it was taking her quite some time and she was making very little progress. Jeff eventually went in to investigate, you know, going shoulder deep to feel around inside the animal. What he felt was what he thought were twins, but who were tangled up together inside. He and Tom attempted to sort them out but couldn't make progress at it. They called the vet, who instructed them to load up the cow and take her to town to be checked out. The vet ended up doing a C-section to get the calves out, but they both were dead. The vet's opinion was that one of the calves had probably died a week ago or more, and the other one may have been fine but it was tangled up with its dead twin, so the cow couldn't birth him correctly. Ultimately, there was nothing we could have done. Jeff loaded up the cow and took her home, stitches up the side of her belly.

So, this is what a post- C-section cow looks like. 

Again, serendipity would have it, that very shortly after this incident, another cow, actually a heifer, gave birth to twins. They are the two tiniest calves I have ever seen! One of them was quite weak, and was definitely not acting as lively as a calf should when it is first born. We thought for sure we'd lose him. Jeff and Tom piped some colostrum down him since he wasn't able to stand and suck on his own, and hoped for the best, but didn't really think he'd make it through the night, he was so weak. We all sort of agreed that with the teeny tiny size of these two calves and the way the one was sort of developmentally lagging, it seemed like they had maybe been born prematurely.

The next morning, on my early morning check, I couldn't bring myself to look in the barn to check on these twins. I just didn't want to start my day by finding a dead calf. But, fortune was on our side. Jeff called me later and said the calf was acting a bit more perky. The colostrum had done it's job and really seemed to be helping. The calf would make it after all! Both twin calves now seemed to be doing fine.

One of the twins with their birth mama.

She gives him a sniff...

...and lets him suck.
She's a heifer, so she's not quite all the way to being a full-sized cow. The calf could fit completely under her belly.
Gives you an idea of how small they were.

Only problem with these twins is that, having been born to a heifer, she has a very small bag (udder). In other words, she does not have much milk, even for two tiny calves. So, the idea light bulb struck that we could try to make a pair out of one of these twin calves and the c-section mama who had lost both of hers. We'd have our work cut out for us, though, as it had been two days since she had given birth via c-section to the dead calves. The longer you wait, the harder it can be to graft a calf. Add to the mix that she had become very nervous around humans and in enclosed spaces. I chalked this up to her having the traumatic experience of the entire c-section ordeal, but opinions are mixed on this. She also could just be a nervous sort of cow.

It took several days of locking her in a feeding chute in the calving barn and bringing the twin calf up to suck while she was penned in. Jeff and Tom tried everything they could think of to try to get her to claim him. She would let the twin nurse, but would never act like she had any interest in actually raising him. At times, she'd kick at him to keep him from nursing, but mostly the calf was getting fed. It just didn't seem like she would accept and raise him as her own, although the fact that he was able to nurse gave us some hope. Tom has always said in the past that if a calf can nurse enough from a cow so her milk passes all the way through him, and her scent/hormones are on his "hind end," the cow will then almost always take the calf. In this case, she'd sniff the calf, but never had any inkling of wanting to actually mother it, and always just escaped the barn immediately rather than trying to keep the calf with her.

Here's the c-section cow locked in the feeding chute so that the calf could nurse.

We had talked about different options. He could be a bottle calf that *guess who* would probably get to feed every day. Or, he could go to the neighbor's herd, who had just lost a calf of their own. Without settling on anything, we just kept trying to make it a pair with what we had, as futile as it felt at times.

Then one morning, probably fed up with the battle of wills between himself and the cow, Jeff just decided to go for it. He pushed the young, tiny calf out of the barn and into one of the larger pens. The cow immediately walked up to the calf and began licking him off and mooing at him-- as if she had just birthed him right then and there. Like, "Hey! I've been looking for you for over a week! Where have you been?!" Just like that, in spite of all of our best efforts, the pair was made.

Here's a short video Jeff took of the cow and calf-

https://youtu.be/VZy7tFTHND8

Now, every time I go out to do my walk-throughs, I check in on this man-made pair. Pretty much without fail, that cow is within two feet of the calf. She does not let him get away and appears to be very doting. Who knew!

So, that gives a glimpse into what goes on during calving, and especially the drama that can come with twins. I am proud of the attention and care given to our animals. Also, I think there's a lesson in there somewhere about an animal's will and instinct. People can try to influence their behaviors, but animals gonna be animals in the end. They'll do it their own way.

And just for fun... A friend of mine tagged me on Facebook with this cartoon. What do you think?!

Weekly Review 2/28 - 3/5 and Giveaway Results!

Thanks to everyone who read my previous post, my 400th blog post! Today, I'll be announcing the winner of the Giveaway that I did. But first, I want to write about the week that was in another Weekly Review blog post!

Fitness
This past week was a bit of a slowdown as it was bookended with travel. It can be very difficult to get in time for fitness when traveling, but I did make an attempt a few times. I focused largely on trying to get steps on my pedometer this week.

Shape Up Montana continues. Our team is ranked 27 out of almost 250 teams, so I feel really good about that. The teams I am coordinating at school are really kicking butt, too. Our top team is actually in 3rd place in the overall competition, which is AMAZING, and the other two are 23rd and 24th. I am so proud of all of them for being in the top 25!

Here's how my week actually broke down-
Sunday- Drive home from Bozeman. 3 mile pasture hike with Jeff.

I think pasture hikes are Harvey's favorite form of exercise!

Monday- 20 minutes HIIT, 3 mile treadmill run
Tuesday- 2 mile walk, 20 min yoga
Wednesday- 3 mile treadmill run
Thursday- rest. (travel)
Friday- rest. (travel)
Saturday- 30 minutes core and 15 min elliptical

Wow... what a slow week. Only six miles of running and only 20 minutes of yoga. Lots of walking. That counts for something, too, though I guess. I plan to pick it up a little this next week!

YTD through March 5
Running: 97.95 miles
Walking/Hiking: 25.7 miles
Yoga: 415 min 
CC-Ski: 500 min / 14.1 miles (since I started tracking mileage on 1/17) 
Alpine Ski: 3 days
Mountain bike: 10 miles

Farm
We really started calving in full swing last week. In a 24 hour period on February 29 and March 1, we had eleven calves! During calving, people take turns walking through the corrals and checking on the cows, watching for signs of imminent birth and/or distress. If a cow is in active labor, we usually just keep an eye on her and hope that she can have the calf on her own. If she takes an inordinate amount of time, or of we notice feet are coming out backwards, or anything else that's not right, then we may try to go in and help her out or pull the calf. We have had very few cases where we've had to help pull a calf this year, so that's good.

My time to check the cows has been the first-thing-in-the morning shift. I wake up a little earlier than normal and walk out there between 5:45 and 6:30 a.m. depending on the day. Jeff typically goes out at bedtime and then in the middle of the night between 2 and 3:00 a.m. Jeff and Tom split duties during the day. For the overnight checks, we leave notes to each other if there's something to watch out for or a particular cow who is "thinking about it," as we say.

I find that I actually really like starting my day with this little walk. I also like that I'm looking for new life. It's kind of an uplifting thought and a nice way to bring some optimism into the beginning of the day. My pedometer is also happy to start the day right off with some steps! ;)


Life
Jeff and I were in Minneapolis for the National Farmers Union Convention. I really enjoyed the opportunity to see some close friends I have made in this organization and to get caught up on policy and goings-on. I'll write more about the Convention in a separate post. Otherwise, calving is really the main excitement of our lives right now. Also, for me, Track Season starts very soon!! Less than a week away!

Giveaway Results
ICYMI, the previous post was my 400th blog post and I celebrated with a little giveaway! Congratulations to Adria- you are the randomly selected winner of a copy of Hattie Big Sky! You'll receive your book very soon! :)

Thanks for tuning in, everyone! Check back soon for a post about my trip to Minneapolis! 

Sorting Cows for Calving

Yesterday, I stayed home from school to help Jeff with some work on the farm. I have a bunch of use'em or lose'em personal days I need to use before the schoolyear ends, and we had lots to do to get ready for calving. Our tasks for the day included tagging our first calves, sorting all the expecting cows and heifers into groups in the corrals, feeding bales, and hauling hay.

Our first step was tagging the three calves that had already been born.

 We corralled the three pairs of mamas and calves in a small pen, then one by one Jeff would bring a calf to the ground and I would attempt to hold it down. Jeff would then use a scale tape to get an approximate weight of each calf, check for horns that might be starting to grow, and prep and install the ear tag. We had one bull calf that had to be banded, too. This process went pretty smoothly and without incident. One mama cow came up and really sniffed me pretty intensely while I was holding her calf down, but she wasn't aggressive at all.


Next, we trailed the rest of the herd of cows into the corrals and began the sorting process. This also went overall very smoothly. Jeff had lured them into the corrals with a bale of hay and then we trapped them. We took groups of about 20 animals at a time into our sorting lane and split them off into groups of "experienced cows," and "young cows." It's nice to keep them separate because the young cows- heifers and second-time calvers- are the ones who are more likely to need assistance with calving. It makes walking through the bunches and doing checks a little easier.

Once we had split the two groups apart, we further split the older cows up, sorting out animals we thought would be calving later on in the season. No need to include the in the big group being checked all the time if they're not going to go for a while anyway. Plus, it's nice to separate them out for the sake of space. Too many animals in a pen can lead to confusion and chaos. As calves are born, we'll tag them and kick the pairs out into the larger calving pen and eventually will move some of the late-calvers into the main calving pen in their place.

If only we could have the cows self-sort by filling out a form like this...

Photo from my friend Adria, who I think found it on Facebook.
Let's ignore that the wrong version of "your" was used in this poster.
I suppose cows don't know the difference anyway...

The entire sorting process took about two hours. Then, Jeff used a tractor to put hay bales in the feeders in each pen. I helped by opening/closing gates and cutting twine off the bales.

Almost ready to drop a bale into this feeder.
Don't worry-- the cows will get their heads out of the way!

Munching on fresh eats!

Again, the cow sorting process went really well. Sometimes sorting animals can be tense and stressful. They're pretty large creatures and at times can be stubborn. While our animals are really pretty tame and used to being around people, they still are animals and can be unpredictable. Additionally, sometimes it's hard for someone who hasn't grown up around animals to learn the best ways to move and interact in the corrals. Likewise, it can be hard for people who HAVE grown up with that experience to communicate clearly to a novice what it is exactly that they want or need that person to do. We only had a few brief moments of snapping at each other, and that was usually because one of us didn't hear what the other had said, or misinterpreted. Jeff complimented me and said that he could tell that I've learned a lot and my instincts around the cows have improved. That made me feel good. :)

Later in the day, I saw this from PinkTractor.com on Facebook...

I can't imagine that statistic is anywhere close to true. Yes, there are moments when people get hot and say things they wouldn't normally say when they're stressed, sorting cows. I tend to be more optimistic about it and would like to think that working through a stressful time might actually make a marriage stronger. 

When we ended our time in the corrals, we were both smiling. 

Jeff snapped this photo of me. Thanks, Jeff!

After the cow sorting and feeding process, Jeff and I had a little lunch and set about our afternoon task of hauling some hay from our former yard at Stan's over here to the corrals. I wasn't as involved in this process, but I did help a bit with shuttling vehicles. Notably, the red truck. Of course, Harvey wouldn't be denied an opportunity to ride along!

As for the rest of this weekend, I'm off to Bozeman for a baby shower, leaving Jeff at home alone. We've had four calves so far (there was another one born yesterday afternoon after our day of sorting- I guess we jostled one loose!) but it doesn't look like too many more are imminent. The weather's going to be good, too, so Jeff should be OK on his own. 

As for a re-launch of the blog with new URL, I'm thinking that will happen within two to three posts. I think I'd like to coincide it with my 400th blog post. This is post 398, I believe. Stay tuned! 

Have a great weekend, everyone! 

Weekly Review January 1-10

One of my "New Years Resolutions" for the blog this year is to do a weekly recap that will come out on Sunday or Monday each week, reviewing the previous week. This is the first installment of that. I didn't do one for the first Monday of January because there we were only three days into the new year. So, in this post, I'm basically reviewing the first nine days of 2016. Each post will review three things: my fitness for the week, what's going on on the farm, and life in general. I hope you enjoy!

First, up...

Fitness January 1-9
The first ten days of January have been very solid, fitness-wise. Jeff and I kicked off the new year with a day of skiing at Whitefish, and I've done quite a bit of Nordic ski around home on the farm. We are SO LUCKY this year to have had great snow for such an extended period of time! Typically, our snow is very dry and blows away. It's been wonderful to be able to ski right out my front door! The dogs love it, too!

Slightly blurry, but this is a photo Jeff took of Harvey, who caught (and ate) a Sharptail Grouse when they were out for a ski.
He's vicious! Prey drive is real.

I also kicked off the #RunLoveChallenge from Oiselle with my partner Wendie. Our goal is to build mileage each week until we can complete 10K distance. The challenge runs through February 14. This week, my "long run" was to do 3.5 miles. I knocked that out on the treadmill on Friday and plan to hit the same distance today. My partner, Wendie, crushed it this week, too! I am so impressed with her. She had a baby about two months ago and is already killing it on the runs!! Amazing. :)

Filling in my #RunLoveChallenge calendar!
Extra hearts on days when I meet or exceed my goal mileage for long run..

Here's the fitness stats for the week:
Fri, 1/1: Resort skiing at Whitefish
Sat, 1/2: 2.2 mile run outside
Sun, 1/3: 160 minutes of cc-ski on the creek on our farm
Mon, 1/4: Rest/30 min yoga
Tues, 1/5: Run 3.2 miles
Wed, 1/6: 20 min walk (1 mile), 30 min core routine
Thurs, 1/7: Complete rest
Fri, 1/8: 30 min walk, 30 min shoveling snow (it counts!!), 3.5 mile treadmill run!
Sat, 1/9: 40 min yoga, 60 min cc-ski through the pasture

2016 Totals:
Walking: 50 min/2.4 miles
Yoga: 70 min
CC-Ski: 220 min (??? miles--need a way to record distance while skiing)
Alpine Ski: 1 day
Running: 6.7 miles

Making tracks in the pasture.
The sun and snow was so beautiful yesterday when I snapped this on my phone!

Not sure if my skiing is my cross-training for running, or the other way around, but either way, I'm going to ski as much as I can while the snow is good! We don't get this kind of snow year very often.

Farming Jan 1-9
This time of year, we're taking it pretty easy. We feed our cows hay bales daily because the snowcover keeps them from foraging. They also get some straw to bed down in. Jeff also has been doing some odds and ends around the farm and organizing things. This is also the time for book work and preparing taxes, and we have many discussions this time of year about what we will plant this spring. It's a constantly evolving plan, factoring in crop prices, availability of contracts, and opportunities that may arise.

Cows munching on hay in the feeding pasture.

One exciting decision is that we are going to be planting several hundred acres as organic farm land this year. Jeff has been working on the application to get the land certified. It is land that is just coming out of CRP and was tilled last fall in preparation for Spring seeding. We're likely to seed spring wheat on those acres this year. We are both excited about trying something different, and the challenges that come from thinking about farming and production in a different way from what we have known and experienced firsthand.

Life Jan 1-9
So far, so good. Last week was my first week back at school. It was a little tough to reorient my mind to school starting after being off for about three weeks, but I did miss the kids that I work with and was looking forward to seeing them. Overall, the first week went very smooth. The overall mood was pretty subdued. In years past, the first week after break and January in general has seen some pretty crazy things go down in the families that we work with, so I'm really hopeful that the smooth start will sail on into February and through the rest of the year. No reason to think that it won't. A few of my kids gave me hugs and told me they missed me over break on that first Monday back, so that rocked! :)

Also, Jeff and I continue to slowly organize in the new house. We've put up a few more photos on the wall and ordered some furniture pieces. We're also beginning to plan in earnest for our kitchen update. We're planning to do some painting and install new countertops for a minor facelift. I'm sure I'll post more on that as we make progress!

Lastly, I'm working with a dear friend of mine, Joellyn, on a new look for this blog. She's an excellent graphic designer and we've been bouncing ideas back and forth. I'm excited to invest in the aesthetics of the blog, and it may even come with a name change... Stay tuned!

This is a sketch I sent to Joellyn. Can't wait to see how things progress! 

How was your first nine or ten days of January? 

Snow's great for skiing, but not for running outdoors!
The treadmill has been my friend lately.

Scotch Hats and Cow Chores

Last night Jeff and I went to a ranching event in Dunkirk, MT sponsored by CHS, which is a company from whom we buy cattle supplies such as feed and supplements. Our friend works there and he invited us. Tom and Carol came too. When we arrived, we put our names in to win door prizes and I informed everyone present that I would probably win one, because, well, I win door prizes all the time.

Low and behold, the time for the door prize drawing came around and guess who's name was the first one out of the hat! (There were a lot of prizes, so it really wasn't that big of a shock that I won one.)

My fabulous prize was something I had seen many times but actually never learned the name of until last night-- A Scotch hat.

PayBack is a type of cattle supplement.
Their representative spoke at the event and brought the hats for door prizes.

Scotch hats are also called Scotch caps, I think interchangeably. They are popular among farmers and ranchers in Montana who wear them regularly, without a trace of irony. Perhaps when it's too cold for a cowboy hat?? They are also popular among hipsters and ski bums who may be wearing them ironically. Hard to say. You've probably seen them around.

All the same, I was delighted to win a prize and a fine one at that!

Traditionally, Scotch caps are made of wool and are quilted. The ear flap folds up inside the hat, or can be folded down to protect the ears and keep them warm. Some Scotch hats even have a little pompom on the top. Some are plaid. I've also seen some that have shearling.

Several views of the Scotch cap. 

I tried my hat one right away and it fit really well. It even fit over my ponytail without being too loose or too tight! Fitting over the ponytail is key.

This morning Jeff and I woke up to negative temperatures outside and it was my day to help him feed cows this morning. Perfect opportunity to test out the Scotch hat!

Almost completely layered up and ready to feed.

When it's -10, you put on a lot of layers. I had long underwear, sweatpants, and my over-pants, plus knee-high ski socks on my lower half. Feet jammed into my super-warm boots that are rated to -40. On top, a tank top, base layer, medium-weight layer, fleece, and then my Carhartt jacket. Other accessories were a face mask, sunglasses (which do actually help keep your eyes warmer, believe it or not), and two pairs of mittens. I topped it all off with my brand new Scotch hat, which I wore over another ear band, and I flipped the ear flap down, too. Time to see how warm the Scotch hat really could be!

I'm smiling in this photo-- can't you tell?!

This was the ensemble I wore all through cow chores. Jeff drove tractor and I helped by cutting net wrap off bales. I was outside for about an hour, which is long enough when it's that cold out. Thankfully, the sun was shining and there was no wind or it would have been extremely miserable!

I'm happy to report that the Scotch hat was all that I needed to keep my head warm. It was actually warmer than I thought it would be! My head never got cold. I'm definitely a believer in these hats now and I won't be wearing it ironically!

Have you ever worn/owned a Scotch hat?

Thankful Thursday ~ School's Out For The Summer!

School's out for the summer! Our last day of school was actually a few weeks ago, on May 21. I spent that first weekend at State Track and in Bozeman and then all of last week was spent catching up on housework and me-time. Yes, I'm posting my Thankful Thursday post on Friday (sometimes that happens. I don't have all my shit together all the time, but who does? That's why you like this blog, right? Because I'm real? I'll tell myself that anyway... ;) ) and today I'm thankful that school's out for the summer! 

So what does school being out mean for me? In actuality, I still have to work over the summer. I'm not a teacher and I'm not employed by the school, I just work in the school environment most of the time. My co-worker and I are actually running a summer program for the kids in our program. So, we meet with them two days a week and continue therapeutic services, interventions, and a whole lot of positive skill-building throughout the summer. It's a little like summer camp or day camp for the kids. We do crafts, activities, and have deep and meaningful discussions and sharing circles. It's pretty fun, actually. Even though we're the ones as adults who are supposed to be serving them, and we are, often times it's the kids who teach me something. I get just as much "therapy" from them as I hope they get from me. That's definitely something to be thankful for.

In our first week of summer program, the kids painted flower pots in "a way that represents their personality," then they got to plant flowers in their pots and we had a discussion about what it means to take care of something, and empathy.
This is my flower pot, which I painted to match my patio furniture. :)

I'm also spending a lot more time with Jeff, which is awesome. Last week I helped him with several cow chores, including feeding range cake, some fencing, and setting up back-rubbers out in the pasture. I've also helped him with some farm and crop-specific stuff, too. It feels great to be involved and know that I'm helping out with our operation in a tangible way.

Cows eating cake. Love these ladies! 

Here's my arm, holding some barbed wire as we stretch it across the creek. I'm a RancHER. :)

Scouting out the pea crop. What do you think, Harvey? 

I'm thankful for more time during the summer for outdoor recreation and fitness pursuits! And again, thankful to be able to do more of that with Jeff, and Harvey of course, too. Last Sunday we went for another pasture bike ride. We think we covered between 8 and 9 miles. Photos from our previous pasture ride can be found HERE. The weather was warmer this time, so we made sure to find plenty of water stops for the dogs...

Harvey and Abby are enjoying some wading and a drink in the creek that runs through the pasture.
Jeff and I opted to remain on the bridge.

Of course, I'm getting in more running than I did during the end of the school year. I'm thankful that I have a little more flexibility to fit in some runs, and more time to fit in longer runs. Governor's Cup is just over a week away!

Here, Iggy is accompanying me. We officially adopted Iggy earlier this summer.
He's old, but he still likes to go for runs at his own pace.

And I've also been helping Carol, Tom, and Jeff with finishing up with planting our garden. We've got our raised beds full and the seeds are sprouting and yesterday we transplanted our tomatoes and peppers. We're all set, just need to keep up with watering and weeding and we'll be enjoying bountiful harvests, soon! We have already been eating the spinach from the garden and I think there are radish sprouts ready, too. I'm thankful in advance for the yummy veggies we'll have all summer long! Can't wait! 

Also, thankful for honeybee pollinators! Look at the size of those bumbles! 

Big bumblebees on chive blossoms! Seriously. We did NOT have bumblebees this large in Iowa! 

So many things to be excited about and thankful for when it comes to summer time! What are some of your favorite summer activities? What are you thankful for this week?

Harvey is thankful for pickup rides. I'm always thankful for Harvey!

Thankful Thursday ~ Abundance of Beef

Yesterday we received our beef from the butcher. We have a bit of a problem with freezer space. There's still a lot of meat left over from previous years' animals, so it took some problem solving to make room for this year's cut order. As I organized various cuts, trying to make the most room I could, it felt a bit like playing a strange version of Tetris..."I can fit two packages of Sirloin on top of the T-Bones, and fit six bags of ground beef around the perimeter...hooray! I formed a new row!" 

Organizing last year's remaining beef in the freezer.

Then I thought about how it really was a pretty good problem to have. We get to eat our own beef that we raised ourselves on our farm. As my husband so eloquently stated last night, "I know about every bite of grass and feed that animal has eaten and every (poo) it's taken since it was born." He probably watched its birth, too. The only part of the cycle from birth to death to food on our table we miss out on is the actual slaughter and butcher process. For that, we have to outsource.

When I was growing up, my farm experience was pretty limited and our meat came from the meat counter at the grocery store. I can remember watching as my dad approached the meat counter and ordered a few cuts we'd use throughout the next week or so. I knew that beef came from cows, yes, but for me, it came from that meat counter at Fairway. We trusted that the store sourced their meat from reputable places. For most Americans, this is how meat is purchased. In some cases, people struggle to make the connection from living animal to food on their plate and have no idea how that cycle works. I feel pretty lucky and thankful to be integrated into that process, and to get to enjoy the tasty fruits (or meats?) of our labor.

Steak salad I made for lunch yesterday, including spinach from our garden.

My friend Stennie, who has been to our farm for extended visits a few times, has a really nice essay published on the topic of eating animals: Whose Muscle is On My Plate. She goes into the meat-raising and eating cycle in detail as she's experienced it in some of her work. Very interesting ideas, and ties in quite well, I think, with being thankful for one's food source and the methods used to raise and slaughter that food.

The longer I live here, the more I learn about how to prepare and cook with various cuts of beef. We certainly don't eat beef exclusively, but we do eat it more than I probably would if I were not living on a ranch. Jeff and I even had beef served at our wedding. Prime Rib, to be exact. Since I was definitely a newbie to beef cuts at the time, I remember asking during the wedding dinner exactly where on the animal a prime rib cut would come from. This produced lively discussion among my new in-laws, with Jeff and Tom and the rest of us, in our wedding day finery, gesturing and demonstrating on their own bodies where a prime rib would be located.

Because beef cuts are a common topic at our family dinners, my Mother in Law got me this awesome beef-cuts platter a few years ago for Christmas!

Since joining Team Beef Montana a little over a year ago, I now know even more about the health benefits of incorporating beef into a balanced diet. Beef has zinc, iron and protein, among other helpful nutrients, to help fuel your run and your recovery. It's an efficient source of protein, too, meaning that you don't need much to pack a big nutritional punch. And, a recent article in the Washington Post highlighted a study done right here in Montana, that showed that eating a cheeseburger after intense exercise can be just as good as refueling with other options. Check out the article to read more:  Need To Recover After A Workout? Eat A Cheeseburger.  I guess all those post-track meet stops taking the team to fast food weren't such a bad idea after all!

Image from www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com

Yesterday, I actually did get in a short three mile run and then followed it up with a delicious cheeseburger at dinner. There's not much better than a hamburger or cheeseburger fresh off the grill!

Team Beef sent me some cool stickers, right!?

With beef on my mind this week, it was pretty easy to be thankful for the abundance of it that we do have and to be thankful that we are part of the process of bringing quality beef to our own table as well as to those of consumers. Now, I'm off to get my workout in and you know what's for dinner tonight? Beef and asparagus stir fry! 

What are you thankful for this week?  Do you have any favorite beef recipes? What foods fuel your life?