My Food Comes From The Grocery Store

Being in the Agricultural Industry, we have to deal with a lot of bull.

Pun somewhat intended.

There have been many debates on the existence of large dairies, feedlots, etc. Texas came back from school last night with some insightful information from one of his Animal Science classes. Long story short, people against these large operations suggest every one should produce their own milk, eggs, meat, etc. In other words, large feedlots (you could say our ranch is a large feedlot) shouldn't exist because the animals are not happy and are neglected. Instead, every family should have their own cow, chicken, pig, turkey, etc. in their backyard. Every person with their own 8-5 job should then come home after working all day and milk their cow, pick their eggs out of the chicken coop, and chop their turkeys head off - all so that these animals can live "happy".

This debate does not end here. When a housing development was put in next to a dairy several years ago in the town next to us, housing owners started to complain about the smell. Well, wouldn't you expect it to smell when you decide to buy a house next to a dairy? Instead of telling the housing owners to "ranch up", the dairy was put in jeopardy.

"It smells bad."

"There's too much dust."

"The tractors make too much noise."

"I can see a dead cow from my window."

All hypothetical, but likely, statements from these homeowners.

In many cases, after complaining about all the above and asked how they think the removal of a dairy/ranch/feedlot would affect them...

"Well, I just buy my food from the grocery store, so we don't need dairies or feedlots."

Seriously, people. I ain't making this up. No, I don't have sources for this information. But trust me, I've heard it before, and I will hear it again.

I'll end this little rant with the following picture I found this morning:

Just One Of Those Days

You know how some days, bad things happen to you from the second you wake up until the second you go to sleep?

Yah, well, I certainly had one of those days yesterday.

First sign of a doomed day?

When I went to start my coffee up, I realized that  none of the outlets in the kitchen were working... thus resulting in brewing my freshly ground coffee on the floor of the dining room. Awesome.

Second sign of a doomed day?

I think a ranch ghost pushed one of our Two Buck Chuck wine bottles (Trader Joes, I love thee) off of the backside of the fridge while I was gathering things up to leave the house. Luckily, it survived the fall. Yay Two Buck Chuck!

As I'm grabbing a plastic bag in the kitchen cabinet to carry my fruit for the day (key to weight loss? snack on fruits and veggies as opposed to cheese and crackers or granola bars, oops), I notice a plethora of ants.

SO MANY FRIGGIN' ANTS!!!

After a desperate attempt to scare the ants away with my loud and frantic screaming at 7 a.m., I decided I had better start clearing out the cabinets and spraying ant killer and 409 all about the kitchen.

This morning ant attack came after the previous afternoon's adventures of finding ants in the cabinets containing our pots and pans resulting in washing all of our dishes which is a real quick chore when one does not have a dishwasher. (According to Texas, I am the dishwasher.)

Thankfully, after the incessant complaining about the out of control ant situation, my mom had a pest control fellow called out to the scene immediately. We are now happy customers of a pest control service.

The ant attack set me back about 30 minutes arriving to work, but it turned out to be a good thing. Why, you ask? This is what happens next in the day of doomed events...

You see in the below picture how the metal bars the cows stick their heads through have a roundy deal at the top of the bar? Well, that roundy deal is what locks the cows heads in when we are needing to check cows for vet checks, pink eyes, etc. On this particular day, we were trying to pick out the cows confirmed pregnant from the previous day's vet check.

Why is this a doomed event? Well, when we take the confirmed pregnant cows out of the pen, they get kicked out to pasture to graze on grass instead of the high dolla feed. Before we kick them out on pasture, we give them a couple of shots in the neck. Usually, I just stick my arm over the metal stansions (thats the correct term for the metal get up you see in the picture). Well, one of the girls next to a cow I was shooting up decided to be a real sweetie and freak out while I was standing too close to the roundy part of the stansion.

End result? Pinched, broken open and bleeding skin dangerously close to my armpit. Ouch.

Promptly after I ripped my skin open, I ripped my jeans open on our herdman's "horse" (his 4 wheeler).

Texas decided to make my day a little less doomed by taking me out to lunch at one of our favorite spots in Oakdale.  Thanks Tex!!

Unfortunately, the doomed day continued with an uncooperative 4 year old horse, and the worst - coming home to a house without Air Conditioning, a working fridge/freezer, and oven. Apparently, the coffee pot situation in the morning was related to this huge appliance problem we were now having. Turns out, we had a bad main breaker in the house, and we had zero to low power. Luckily, we had caught the problem within an hour or so of the fridge/freezer turning off, so we didn't lose the meat in the freezer. We had an electrician come out this morning to fix the breaker as we had the house shut off on us again at 3 a.m.

Gahhhh! Such a long, long day. I thought to myself at one point that I should just spend the rest of the day on the couch, hiding from anything and everything in life that might come out and bite me. Phew. So glad yesterday is over.

Good thing about yesterday?

I still got this guy to hang out with 24/7. I think he was trying to console me in this picture after our Herdsman poured alcohol on my wounded arm.

Hope yall had a better day than me yesterday!

Redneck Woman

For the last month, I have been waiting on a special delivery.

I saw this item in a catalog a couple months ago and knew I just had to have them, especially since they were rather fitting for my new redneck of a horse.

Why is she redneck? Well, her registed name contains the phrase "Yawl", so obviously that means she's a little bit hillbilly, yah?

Anyways, back to the story. I ordered these special bell boots (boots that go around her hooves to prevent her from hitting her front hooves with her back hooves) about a month ago. They got lost somewhere between the mail lady and my mailbox, but they mysteriously ended up in my mailbox a day after I complained to the company I bought them from and the Post Office.

The End, And They All Lived Happily Ever After.

Wrong.

I put the boots on my precious baby girl, and they were too small.

Dang that red big boned, large footed creature.

So, I had to send the boots back and wait for them to send a larger size. Two weeks later, I check the tracking website to see what day to expect them.

Turns out, I missed the mail lady when she stopped by to deliver them the other day.

Does the world not want my horse to be stylin'?

I finally caught the mail lady yesterday and tore my package out of her hands, and then kicked her tire as she tried to escape before Texas came out with the BB gun.

Alright, that story may have been exaggerated just a touch, but I had some extreme anger and annoyance towards the mail lady for causing so much distress in my life over these joyous bell boots.

The End, And They All Lived Happily Ever After...

... In Their John Deere Boots.