A Day In The Life

I saw this idea on someone else's blog and thought I'd give you guys a glimpse into what a normal day looks like for me.

The day I chose was last Tuesday.

6:00 am: wake up and get myself and Hunter ready to go.

7:20 am: go check cows before Hunter and I leave for work.

8:00 am-4:30 pm: work, work, work.

Oh, and throw in an hour of Zumba in my conference room on my lunch hour...

5:30 pm: help serve dinner at the FFA Banquet for about 60 people.

7:30 pm: head home, get stuff ready for the next day-Hunters outfit, my outfit, replenish the diaper bag and pack my lunch.

8:30 pm: Hunter in bed and I bake banana bread and no bake cookies to send to our cousin Nathan who attends school at Montana State. He has 2 weeks left of school so I thought I'd send him some goodies to get through the last weeks of school.

10:00 pm: finally in bed, read for about 20 minutes and then lights out! 

This was one of the nights Patrick was up helping his aunt and uncle seed their crop, so it was just Hunter and I. Usually after baby goes to bed, Patrick and I spend some time together.

This was a pretty busy day, but about normal for us. We are always running here or there, an often have different meetings or engagements in the evening. 

What does a typical day look like for you guys?

Life Lately...In Pictures

I was so proud of myself for doing a blog post each day of the week for two weeks straight...and then I fell off the face of the earth again. Ha! 

So I'll provide a recap of life around Hackley Land and Livestock...

We sold and loaded up my garden shed. We are building a giant shop next to our house, and Patrick told me I could have a corner all for my garden stuff. Away she goes! And yes, we are lifting a building with our tractor. Don't worry, it's legit.

We went to Dallas for a wedding...Hunter did so great for his first time flying!

Chay and I before the wedding.

My mom flew down there to watch Hunter for the day of the wedding, because there were no kids allowed at the wedding. She was grateful to have some grandma and Hunter time!

AND the greatest part of the trip was getting to meet one of my long time blogging buddies, Shayna! We had dinner at a little Mexican restaurant near the hotel. We talked for 2 hours straight and could have kept going! 

Since coming back from Texas, we've just been gearing up for seeding and checking cows. We've had lots of little babies being born!

How cute are they?!

Hope you all have a happy week!

Weekend Wrap Up

Aaaaaaand we're back to Monday! I honestly don't mind Mondays because I love my job and I love the people I work with. Well, most of them ;) And for me it's really like Tuesday because I have a short week this week. I'm headed to Vegas on Friday for the weekend !Woohoo!

This weekend was pretty low-key for us, which is nice. Friday night we went to dinner with my brother and sister in law, and then headed in for the night. Saturday Patrick worked around the farm a bit, and was checking cows and saw that we had the first calf of the year!

All of our cows are red angus, but we are taking care of our neighbors' herd of 235 cows this winter, so this was one of his. While he was out working I started cleaning. He came home and entertained Hunter while I scrubbed the floors, cleaned bathrooms and got ready for company we were having that night. He also started planning out some corrals and a riding arena that we're going to put up this year.

As I mentioned, we were having some of our friends out for dinner. They have a 6 month old little girl named Trinity. Let's just say I have one chunky monkey for a child, because she is twice his age and they weigh the same and are the same length. We were joking that it was their first date together and got some pictures together. They were so cute! After a few seconds she sort of cuddled into him and started holding his hand. It was adorable :)

Sunday we went to church, Patrick did some work stacking hay and loading his semi, and well, I blogged :) I am happy to report that I have a blog entry for EVERY day this week! That hasn't happened in months!!

One thing I've started doing to be more organized for the week, is a lot of prep work. Sunday I usually do meal prepping for the week. I go to the grocery store on Thursday or Friday, then get everything ready for the week. I usually bake something for Patrick to take in his lunches, get stuff ready for my lunches, and make a couple dinners ahead of time. This week I am making some marinated round steaks for tomorrow night and lasagna for another night.

I also set out Hunter's outfits for the whole week, and my outfit for the next day. Staying super organized like this definitely helps me get to work on time, and allows me to get up at my normal time that I always did in the mornings, even before baby. I'm still able to make a nice meal every night, and make a lunch for myself and Patrick every day. All while working full time! But believe me, I get tired!

Sunday night we decided to have a movie night, so I got some microwave popcorn, candy and some ice cream for both of us :) we rented Last Vegas and it was pretty funny.

Overall it was a nice weekend with my little family. We're looking forward to a week of hard work, and then a trip for me starting Friday, and some daddy/Hunter time for 3 days!

Happy Monday friends!

We're Still Farmers Too...I Swear!

The past two months have been mostly consumed with Hunter, but as you all know, life still happens! For us, we've still been doing the winter farming/ranching stuff. The tractor pictured above, we bought early this year. It's not brand new but it's in really good condition. 

Patrick was hired by a neighbor to feed his 275 cows, so he does that every day. We also brought the bulls over near our house instead of where they usually go when we separate them from the cows. He feeds all 11 of them along with our neighbors 5 horses in the same pasture. 

One day when I was on maternity leave, Hunter and I went with him to feed the neighbor's cows. Big mistake! I forgot how bouncy it is driving across a field of frozen cow turds! He slept right through it though.

Patrick has also been hauling grain, and attended Farm Bureau's annual Young Farmer & Rancher Conference in Virginia Beach. Winters are pretty slow for farm work, but this time of year is filled with lots of paperwork for the bank and taxes. But that's ok, cause in only a couple short months we'll be hitting the road running with farming season!

Photos from my phone

I know I'm not the only one who randomly will go through all of the photos  in their camera roll on their phone and reminisce about all the good times had over the past year. 

I was scrolling through these last night and was just laughing out loud at some of them, and thought it would be fun to share them with you all. I'm sure you've probably seen most of these at some point or another on my blog, but hey if I didn't remember the pictures, surely you guys won't remember some of them too. That's my hope anyways...

Calving shed from last March...love all the icicles!

Helping my hubby load grain. That was probably the first and last day I'll go with him for the entire day...he said I asked too many questions :)

A weekend trip to Billings for an FFA state officer 10 year reunion and the PBR rodeo. In the grand scheme of things, Baby Hackley was about 3 weeks old at the time :)

My handsome boys after their annual spring haircut!

My backyard fire pit...my favorite place to spend time in the summer...

Branding...

Ohhhh and the dancing cows!! How could we forget that?! I literally crack up laughing every time I see these pictures!

Miranda Lambert concert...only my 3rd time seeing her :)

My MIL's birthday present...patriotic pallet flag that I made!

My friend Chay and I at the Wolf Point Stampede rodeo.

Good friends wedding....don't mind the giant goblet of booze my friend Emily is holding...it's a sorority tradition :)

My garden!!

Back when I had a teeny tiny baby bump, and looked more bloated than pregnant. Pretty sure that shirt would fit about halfway down my stomach right now, ha ha.

So I just realized there are way too many pictures to share with you for one blog post! This is the first half of the year, so I'll save the second half for another day!

Happy Wednesday friends! I'm working from the comfort of my living room in sweatpants :) roads were crappy and my boss didn't want me driving on them, oh darn :)

'Til the Cows Come Home

It's that time of year where we wean the baby cows from their mamas and give them their vaccines to keep from getting sick. Last week, Patrick was up helping his uncle for 2 days, then the crew came down and finished up with our cows. It always makes me a little sad, because for the first few days the mamas are really loud trying to beller at their babies and get reconnected with them.

On Thursday, I had to stop at the grain elevator and pick up some Lick Tubs for nutrients. We pulled into the lot to a bunch of loud cows, and the mamas waiting for us to open the gate because they thought they could reunite with their babies.

Unfortunately for them, I backed right into the gate so they couldn't get through. Patrick rolled the tubs out for the calves (the tubs weigh like, 300 pounds or something ridiculous, I don't know). These tubs provide them with all if their vitamins and nutrients, and run about $125 each.

Meet Hercules, the Polled Red Hereford bull we have. He's gonna make some cute babies in the spring!

And this cow was hysterical. I had my window down and she just walked right up. I didn't even zoom in on my phone, that's how close she was. She just sat there staring at me with her big eyelashes while I talked to her for a minute.

Sadly, the babies we decide not to keep will be sold at the auction in the next couple of weeks. It makes me sad to see them go, but that's the name of the game we play as ranchers. But next spring, there will be a whole new batch of babies to name :)

Beef and Hormones

I know a lot of us hear a lot of different things about hormones in beef, beef is bad, blah blah blah.

In my opinion most of it is a load of crap. 

 (And this my friends, is literally a load of crap)

I'm a beef rancher. I love cows, we treat our cows very well, and if you've read on here for awhile you know that we name some of our cows. We also give our cows vaccines to help keep them from getting sick-particularly pneumonia and black leg-which is when their leg gets infected and will start rotting off. When they do happen to get sick, we nurse them back to health first and foremost by using vitamins, and only if we have to, antibiotics. Would you rather eat a healthy beef that you know was taken care of, or a sick cow that had to suffer because people want things "organic"? Again, that's just my opinion.

Stepping slightly down from my soap box...

So on the topic of beef and hormones I'm sure a lot of you have heard maybe one opinion or the other. Let me put things into perspective for you:

Knowing how difficult it is to explain hormone levels in beef to consumers,  with all the talk of nanograms and protein synthesis, etc. Nebraska rancher Joan Ruskamp, who is on the Beef Board for Farm Bureau found a great way to put hormones into perspective visually, by using M 'n' Ms. 

If you'd like to hear more about this topic or her interview, go HERE. 

Another great resource to learn more about this is from Jude Capper, a researcher at Montana State University. I've had the chance to hear her speak, and she's very knowledgeable. She is also a former vegan, and current beef lover. She has a website, www.bovidiva.com that has all sorts of useful information on this very topic. Including her research on this:

Source: www.bovidiva.com

Interesting, no? 

Your thoughts?

Family Time Visit

Last week I was a little bit MIA on the old blog, because some of my family came into town to visit and we were too busy having fun!

My mom, niece, grandma and brother's girlfriend all made the 10 hour trek from western Montana over to the Eastern side of the state. The first night we went out to show Kendall the cows, because that's all she was talking about! We let her pick out her very own cow and she named him Bingo.

I mean, I may be biased, but I happen to think she's one of the cutest kids around :) I mean, look at her hair! Those are natural curls!

The first day they were there we spent a lot of time outside in the garden...Kendall was helping water at first...

And then Uncle Patrick distracted her and they were playing on the little tractor.

Grandma was excited to eat fresh beets from my garden. Oddly, this was the only beet that was big enough to harvest, so she only got one while she was there. They all helped me pick green beans, and we got about 2 large trash bags full. We also picked and shelled peas, and did a LOT of weeding! My garden is almost caught up on the weeding, which is such a great feeling!

Oh, one other great thing about grandma? She's from the south...which means she makes some mean fried chicken and mashed potatoes :)

The county fair was also going on at this time, so we went and had great, greasy fair food (cheese fries, nachos, fried donuts, homemade corn dogs, fried pickles, pulled pork-no I didn't eat ALL of it!) Uncle Patrick took Kendall on some of the rides and she was a little scared at first, but then she loved them!

 My bro and his lady :)

  I mean...no words...so precious. He's gonna be a great dad :)

We had a great visit with the fam, and I wish we could have spent more time with them! This was my grandma's first trip out here and I think she really liked it.

Happy almost Friday, friends!

This Is the Way We Brand The Cows...

Last weekend we held our annual branding out at the ol' farm. We had a crew of about 20 people out there, which basically means I got to do most of the food stuff and not a whole lot else. I did bring a couple of the cows in, and helped take a smaller group back out to the pasture.

My MIL and I started the food the night before, cause it's a LOT of prep that goes into feeding 20 hungry cowboy workers.

That morning, we got a late start because it had poured rain the 2 days before and we wanted the sun to dry it out a bit. We got started about 10am, which is 3 hours later than normal. While most people went out to get the herd of cows, a couple of us stayed back. Which is a good thing, because the bulls actually escaped their pasture and got into one of our wheat fields just then. My MIL, myself and her best friend went and wrangled the big beasts back into their pasture. Apparently they thought just jumping over the gate was a great idea. We put up some panels over the broken wire and figured we could deal with them later. 

Then the branding began:

 

You may not recognize these two clowns, but they were featured two of the dancing cows in the video I posted on Monday :)

Most of the red cows in this picture are Patrick and I's. We try to keep them separate from the big herd because they are first calvers. We mix them with other first year calvers to make sure we keep a closer eye on them when they have their babies. They are certified Red Angus cows.

 Here Patrick is getting the hot branding irons out of the fire.

After all of the calves were branded and vaccinated, we ate!

Left side from the back you have the pulled pork, pickles, jello with whip cream, cucumber salad and rice krispies. Right side from the back is my super famous potato salad, fruit salad, brownies and cookies. For dessert was strawberry short cake! It was somewhat disappointing when I looked at it all like this, because it didn't look like we had done a whole lot. But it took 2 people about 6 hours of prep to do all of this! I don't mind though, I love cooking for crowds and making a bunch of stuff. 

So basically that's what we did last Saturday! And Sunday obviously was the day of the dancing cows. Weekends are never dull around here :)

So some bad news for this weekend-Pistol Annies had to cancel their appearance at the concert they were supposed to do, BUT Miranda Lambert is still coming to perform! Hey, I'm not complaining Jack! This will be my third time seeing her, and she puts on a helluva show!

Hope you all have a great weekend too!