Reese Cates?

*****UPDATE: I now have much better pics of Reese here and here


Liz says so and he does look like his picture on his fledgling website. I put his picture up because I have had a number of hits from searches for pictures of him....so, here you go, folks.
Here and here are more pics of Reese

Also one of my favorite blogs has gone private access. Not sure what to think about that, since I am not one of the folks permitted to read it. Guess I will have to take the link down, but I really hate to do it. It was one I visited almost every day and really liked a lot.

More PBR Albany

Travis Briscoe won it all. There were 31 successful rides for an all time highest record and so many 90 point rides in the short go that guys with 90 points (6 of 'em) were fighting for third and forth place.
Amazing!

One real bad, heart wrenching wreck....Vince Northrup..that's why I don't go to more rodeos. I was praying every one of those guys from the chute, to the ride, safely off and back. It is just so horrible when they get hurt.

Liz's and my favorite, Cord McCoy

Another favorite, Kody Lostroh

Becky's favorite, Luke Snyder

PBR in Albany

(Or, watching your kid on TV is really cool.)

Photo stolen from Liz, taken at Vernon Downs last summer

The Professional Bull Riders Association came to Albany last night and brought along some great bulls and even greater cowboys. Such famous names as Travis Briscoe, Guillerme Marchi, Paulo Crimber (who danced and Liz has video) and Adriano Moraes were right here in upstate New York and riding their best.
Liz had a ticket for a seat not far from the chutes. At nine-thirty it was televised on Versus and of course we watched.

She really got lucky too. It was one of the best rodeos I have ever seen. Lots of good rides, (although nobody hit ninety), no really awful wrecks. My heart jumped right up in my throat though when Reese Cates' bull nearly flipped over forward (his face was digging into the ground) and Reese had to put his hand right down in the dirt to save himself from falling under him. Close one!

Cord McCoy, who is Liz's favorite, (and a really nice boy-we met him at Turning Stone) had a great ride for fourth place. She got to talk to him for a minute at the end which was nice too. (He encouraged her to buy a baby bucking bull though, which plumb makes me ner-r-r-r-v-ous....she is just the kid to actually do it.) I love to see Cord do well, partly because he came out of a terrible injury to do what he loves with a zest that is contagious. You never see him without an ear to ear grin.

Anyhow, all through the show we scanned the stands for her. We knew she was right down front and right near the chutes. Sure enough Alan soon spotted her..... taking pictures for BuckinJunction. I kept trying to watch for her too, but the action in front of the chutes kept distracting me.

Tonight the second go round and short go will take place (well, really this afternoon). Liz has tickets for today too.

And....(dum dad dum dum)..........One of them is mine...(we earned this trip by milking cows for five weeks without so much as a milking off when the boss was hurt....there will be no whining from the cheap seats). So if you watch Versus at nine tonight you can look about five rows back right by the chutes for the excited cow girl with the camera and the old lady with her hands over her eyes. See you there.

Iditarod

The start of the race is fast approaching, so here is a link to Cabela's Iditarod site. It is the one I use to keep track of things. I will put it in the blogroll until the race is done so it will be right here handy.

My personal favorite is Jeff King. He is an amazing innovator and this year is no exception. He will take to the trail with a cooker in his sled handlebars so he can have warm food on the trail. Cool...er, hot.... (BTW, to whom it may concern...King is 50).

Looks as if at this point there are 111 mushers entered, which will be a mighty large field.

Garth Brooks benefit concert

Liz and I stayed up past our bedtime to listen to the concert Garth gave to benefit California wildfire victims. We heard some of our favorite songs, but others were preempted for commercial breaks, which seemed interminable....as in one song, ten commercials. We are about to give up and go to bed when Friends in Low Places came on. We both stood there waiting to see if he did the third verse.

He did, so all was redeemed. It was worth waiting through all the commercials.
It made me sad to read that he really means to retire after finishing the series of benefit concerts. I hope the lure of the stage proves too strong though and he continues to perform at least occasionally. One of my dearest friends always meant to take me to see him, but passed away before we got the chance. I have always regretted that we didn't manage it.......Beaches of Cheyenne came out and I heard it for the first time on the way home from a dog training outing with her. I couldn't wait to ask her what she thought of it, as I liked it immediately. Sadly I never got the chance to ask that question either as I never saw her again. It was a very hard time...at that point in my life I had never lost anyone so close to me and the pain was darned near unendurable... that song will probably always bring me poignant memories. (and of course it was one of the ones they cut in half for commercials.)

Today was a good day though. We began the day laughing ourselves half sick over I don't remember what and ended up laughing over that third verse. I guess there are worse things than a day bracketed with laughter (even though in the middle of it we had to clean out a cave in of bridged feed in our grain bin, a long, miserable job, which involved hammers, mallets, screwdrivers, shovels and four of us...ugh.)

Gestation Stalls in Nebraska

Below is the text of an email I received today from Trent Loos. I was delighted to read that HSUS finally pitted their propaganda machine against the farmers and ranchers in a predominantly agricultural state. Usually they win dubious victories in states where there are few farms. Research has shown that pigs are not much affected by how they are housed but emotion will overrule science every time if the animal rights fringe gets into the deal.

"Victory was realized today for American consumers when science was recognized rather than rejected. Within 24 hours of introduction, LB 1148, which would have banned gestation stalls in the state of Nebraska, was withdrawn thanks to the charge led by the Nebraska Pork Producers.

Initiatives such as this have the potential to bring about unity within the agricultural community that has been needed for quite some time."

A personal thanks to Wayne Pacelle and the Humane Society of the United States for creating this unity opportunity."

Milking Shorthorn Holstein cross calf

Here is one we had born a couple of weeks ago. (I wanted to take his coat off, but it is pretty cold this morning.) As any of you who visit here regularly know, for the past three years or so we have kept a milking shorthorn bull to breed heifers. It has worked out quite well, but the boss has taken a good deal of flack from folks who are puzzled by our choice. It is not common in this area, although many people keep Jersey bulls and black Angus bulls for their dairy heifers. We have done so in the past, but wanted to get away from those breeds because of temperament issues (here in the east Angus tend to be mean as stirred up snakes) and the low value of half-Jersey calves.

Then I saw the our bull on the internet. I fell right in love with him. He was a beautiful mahogany color with little white snowflake-like spots all over him as a baby. It took nearly a year, but we got him bought and brought him home.

We just sold him a couple of weeks ago and actually got more than we paid for him. Now we just have to go up to Vernon and pick up the semen from him, then we can AI the pen of heifers we are breeding now. The calf in the picture was a terrific surprise though. Most of the crossbreds have been black or mostly black, with only two other red ones in all the time we had him. We had no idea that Licorice, his mother, was a red carrier, but it is kind of neat. We are keeping him and he will be raised for beef for our freezer.

Anyhow, I have mentioned the shorthorn cross thing in the Farm Side a time or two over the years....and, just the other day, the boss was driving by a farm in the area covered by the paper where they run beef bulls with the dairy cows (don't ask) and there, in place of the usual gigantic Hereford, was a milking shorthorn bull. Hmmmmm

We just had a crossbred heifer born this morning and she was up and walking around the barn when we got in at 5:30. Surprising since the boss checked at 11:30 last night and nothing was happening. The new one is plain black though. Guess Pop Tart probably doesn't carry the gene for red.

Tucker

I finally found the dog pictures I have been looking for. This is Tucker, a lab and junk yard dog cross we got for the boss way back before we were married. He will be featured in this week's Farm Side on Friday and maybe here too if I get a chance. He was a good dog. A very good dog...we still miss him all these years later.

Faded photographs

I have been looking for some specific photographs of a certain dog who used to rule here (he needs a nice Northview memorial post)....I simply can't find them, but here are some that I came across during the search. As any of you who know us will see..........we have aged.......

I am very nervous

We have to load the pigs today....I'll let you know how that turns out.....


****Update....here we go...

The bait

The arrangements for moving from home trailer to travel trailer.

Don't wanna

More bait

Done

Then, right across the driveway...

For some reason the pigs look small and cute in these pictures. Blame it on the camera, because really, they are much larger than they seem. Meaner too. They bite and try to knock you down if you are in charge of feeding...which we were when the boss was hurt. their tenure here has been fraught with pig induced peril to the point where they were the stars of two Farm Side columns when they got out and ran through the cows, down to the road....and just about everywhere else.

Today, two loaded quite well. The third...not so much. He wouldn't come out of the trailer for milk or corn or coaxing. The other two were barking and squealing up a storm in the front half of the travel trailer, which didn't calm him down either. We were under an unexpected deadline as the guys over at Nichols were only going to be there to take them in for an hour and we didn't know it until just before we started the loading process. I am very grateful for Martin Luther King Day, which, besides closing schools, afforded us tons of help, mostly used for gophering. (Gopher corn. Gopher string.)

Finally the boss tried the time honored method of moving a reluctant hog. (Gopher a bucket). He put a white pail over the pig's head and backed him out of one trailer and over to the other. Even that took a few interesting turns as the pig ran between his legs (big pig...almost a disaster), lay down in the pig feeder, and generally made his opposition known. Eventually we had them loaded though, along with more corn for getting them back off the trailer, the trusty white bucket in case they get stubborn and don't want to get off and some sand, since the driveway at Nichols is always icy. Now I am just hoping the trip goes well.

Irony

Does anyone else see the irony in a former gun-control advocate getting arrested for gun law violations? And check out his nick name...so perfectly fitting...

Dreaming over a lawsuit?

Mike

Or simply happy that the sun warms the dining room floor just there and he can steal Grandpa's old sweater and the quilted baby blanket from where they block the drafts coming under the hallway door and grab a snooze on a cold afternoon? You be the judge.....


****UPDATE on the sue-age thing.....monkeys can't.....yet.....

A man who wants to give animals the right to sue us

And has been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee. Be scared....very scared.

Lawence Tribe

Sarpy Sam Obama Animal Rights

(How's that for a string of words?)

One of my very favorite bloggers, whose opinions I have come to greatly respect, has a rather frightening post today about Barack Obama's stance on animal rights. Sarpy Sam says it better than I can, but Obama's position illustrates a classic farmer/rancher dilemma. We probably understand our animals better than anyone who isn't a farmer or a rancher. After all, we live with them and their very lives depend upon our good care. We wouldn't work at such a challenging job if we didn't love them. Yet every Tom, Dick and Harriet in Hollywood and Washington wants to tell us how to do our jobs.

Kitties on the garden pond two by two

Wait a minute! There's Max, but where did Teak go?



******Update-there she is!

Red sky at morning farmers take....

Pictures

Not much

Because not much is happening of interest. It is getting cold again after our mini thaw. Another storm is predicted for tomorrow. It is winter after all.

We have been selling a few head to pay the property taxes, which tend to be the bane of any and all property owners in NY. So far we sold Rip Tide, a yearling heifer which developed the unacceptable habit of sucking other heifers (ruins the udders). Sometimes we put a prickly plastic tab in their nose, so if they suck they get kicked and stop. RT also kicked out behind real bad so....

Then there was Fitty (number 50, AKA Beech) Fitty kicked. Pinned people on the metal post in her stall to try and crush them. Killed her calves as soon as they were born if she got to them first. Had chronic mastitis (udder inflammation) so we fed all her milk to the pigs for three years. Got loose last week and tore up the barn and beat on baby calves (bad timing.) She still made it to ten years old, which is old for a dairy cow. Can't say as I miss being scared spitless if I got stuck milking her. (The boss usually did it, but he tends to wander off.) 187, another heifer. Had either an udder injury or some other serious infection and lost a quarter. Too bad, she was pretty gentle, and very well bred.

And by far the worst, old 49. Veronica. Daughter of Juniper Rotate Jed. Super high producer in her younger days, but almost 11 and not milking so great any more. One of Alan's cows, an old standby. A bit of a kicker but we all liked her. She loved the broom and would moo coaxingly at me whenever I was sweeping cows or currying them.

No one wanted to sell her but we couldn't get her bred this year and she was only giving twenty pounds of milk. If not for the tax man we would have made the not-so-businesslike, but after all this is our farm isn't it, decision to keep trying on breeding her. Let her hang around another year. We liked her. It hurt to put her on the truck and of course, she went sweetly, just walked right on the trailer. Alan swept her off and curried her a lot the night before and asked me to do the same yesterday morning. Of course I did and no doubt she was the best groomed cow at the auction barn. There are two more to go next week, Aretha, chronic mastitis, also feeding pigs right now, and 471, Marge, 14 years old and going downhill. (She could die on the farm and be buried here, but for the tax man.) Imagine selling SIX cows to pay just one of the two sets of taxes (that is just property taxes, school and county) on this place (and they will not pay the whole shot by any means.)

I wonder if the legislature in Albany, when they dump unfunded mandates on local governments and schools know (or care) that a nice old cow died early to fund their overspending. The other three would probably have been sold anyhow....maybe not Rip Tide (who will grow up to be a dairy cow on some one else's farm), but Fitty was long overdue before she killed somebody. Not 49 though. The poor old girl was taxed to death.

Live bucking bull auction

Going on right now (midday Monday). This is quite a thing to watch if you are a PBR far.
McCoy sale

Honorable fingerpain (no T)

You can't see the grooves that occupied these fingers last night, but they still sting a bit. Yesterday was our annual either too early for 2008 or just a shade late for '07 brother, sister and kids and cousins Christmas gathering. Part of the tradition is that next younger brother and I play some guitar. He is good, I am awful, but if I play real quietly no one says too much.

We played Leo Kottke's Pamela Brown
John Prine's Paradise
John Denver's Country Roads
Danny's Song

Mike played Amazing Grace.....I watched. It was beautiful. He is so good I get cold chills.

We played Coming into Los Angeles, which we used to play with the band. You would think I would remember the chords, but I had to watch his fingers and could not quite keep up.

Then there was LA Freeway...same situation with the chords. (I should really, really, really practice more, but every time I sit down with a guitar, people feel that if I have free time I should spend it talking to them rather than tuning it and learning new songs...so I have more or less given up.... whine, whine...)

It was a very happy time. There was talk of doing it more than once a year and I hope we do. He let me play his best guitar (mine stayed home as the neck isn't quite right. He plays a lot of songs with a capo....put a capo on mine and all she does is buzz). Because I was playing his best one, he played his 12-string, so his fingers were almost as bad off as mine. I have perhaps the best pair of brothers to ever be created. Dang, I love em.

Some cogent anti NAIS arguments

....are offered by these ladies. Cattle Network has run a long and aggravating series of pro-NAIS articles, mostly interviewing government folks who are paid to be in favor of it and folks from organizations, which have been paid or coerced to be in favor of it. The ladies interviewed in this other side of the coin rebuttal have made some great arguments here. Some of them are new to me even though I have been following this intently since it reared its ugly head.