Calendar Babe

My Blizzard Baby is a Calendar Babe. Who needs pin-up girls when you can have pin-up calves?

I was surprised to receive a 2015 calendar in the mail last week. It is a calendar sponsored by the Kansas Farm Bureau and UMB Agribusiness. The photos were from among those entered in the annual KFB-sponsored photography contest.

My Blizzard Baby is the February model, though not the cover girl. All the photos beautifully represent the unique landscapes and scenes of Kansas.

The caption puts the Babe and me in Greeley County, which I am sure is another beautiful place in Kansas, though not our actual location. But that's OK. I have firsthand knowledge of missing errors, no matter how many times I proofread.

Ironically, I chose the same February photo for the family calendar I complete every year. I list birthdays and anniversaries and use my photos to decorate each month.

Great minds think alike!

Happy Anniversary, Rayl's Hill!

September 2011

A faithful sentinel has provided a backdrop for all the Kansas seasons for 100 years. Since 1915, the Rayl's Hill elevator has been a landmark for travelers on 4th Street Road just west of Hutchinson.

The elevator has "Thos.Rayl, 1915" embossed on the south side.

Thomas Rayl was 3 years old when he arrived in Hutchinson, Kansas from Indiana in the back of his parents' covered wagon. In 1898, Rayl, 24, married 16-year-old Clara Page. The young couple moved to a home on a small "hill" west of Hutchinson. In other parts of the country, the small "rise" probably wouldn't be considered much of a hill. But the definition was different in the plains of central Kansas.

Rayl became a successful farmer and needed a place to store his grain. In 1913, he began designing the elevator, but it wasn't completed until 1915. He had plenty of children to help him put up his harvest. The couple raised 13 boys and a girl on their Reno County farm.

According to an article in The Wichita Eagle, the Rayls' youngest child, Willard Rayl, said cement was 10 cents a sack, adding that his father used "lots of cement and rebar." The elevator cost $2,000 to build. The family used it was wheat storage initially, then used it to store silage.

June 2010

Near the elevator and across from a cemetery on the hill, there's a granite historical monument. It marks the June 23, 1923, visit to the farm when President Warren Harding helped cut a wheat field. Harding had stopped in Hutchinson to address the nation's agricultural problems. Harding spoke to 8,000 students, then made a trip to the state fairgrounds to deliver a speech. He was guest of honor at a public reception at the Bisonte Hotel before taking the five-mile trip to Rayl's Hill.

 

Harding was reluctant at first to climb up on the tractor and operate a wheat binder, according to an article in The Hutchinson News. However, First Lady Florence Harding prodded him, saying, "Oh, go on, Warren! Don't disappoint the newspaper boys. You know they want a story!"

The News praised the president: "A friendly smile, a hearty handclasp, a word or two of greeting."

September 2009

The family farmed the ground until the 1960s, when it was sold. The elevator hasn't been used for years. But it still is a substantial reminder of days gone by, when elevators dotted the plains, accommodating the horses and wagons hauling wheat and other grains in from the surrounding fields.

 

The elevator has certainly been the backdrop for many a Kansas landscape photo, including several for me. I doubt these will be my last.

Beautiful Beginning

A Time to Think

The more I study nature,

 the more I stand amazed 

at the work of the Creator.

 –Louis Pasteur, French chemist

A Time to Act

Take notice of the changes around you.

A Time to Pray

God, thank You for the moments

 that wake me up

to this perfectly beautiful world.

(This sunrise was one day last week - not this morning. 

Every morning is different, but beautiful, in its own way.)

This is from an email devotional from Guideposts.

#FiveWordsToRuinADateWithAFarmer

I need to take a Twitter class. I keep watching the notices for technology classes from the Hutchinson Public Library, but one hasn't come up lately.

I'm on Twitter, but I'm not really ON Twitter ... though I sometimes stalk it. (Yes, I'm admitting it to my sister and my niece who have wondered if that's the case.)

A few weeks ago, there was an article in Grazing the Net, an email I get weekdays from Beef Today. I love their often humorous approach to serious animal agriculture issues. A hashtag title caught my eye:  #FiveWordsToRuinADateWithAFarmer.

Among the funniest to me were:

• I left the gate open.
• Can't you call in sick?
• I don't like gravel roads.
• I like my steak well-done. 
• Huh! The neighbors' yielded better.

And another one hit home:

Want to eat at Chipotle?

Our granddaughter likes the "rice and bean place," as she calls it. But I am going to campaign for substituting Jose Peppers or Qdoba. I am dragging my feet at spending money at a place that purports to be pro-farmer yet seems to denigrate modern agriculture at every turn.

Last summer, Chipotle said it was going to buy grass-fed, antibiotic-free beef from Australia because the restaurant couldn't find enough U.S. beef that met its "high standards." More recently, Chipotle said it stopped serving pork at a third of its restaurants because one of its suppliers was using gestation or farrowing crates, and there was a "pork shortage." (Read what a Minnesota pig farmer has to say about the Chipotle pork shortage and see Trent Loos' photos from pigs housed both inside and outside during the harsh Nebraska weather this week, along with his commentary. Thanks to my Christmas in the Country blog friend Dr. Lindsay for the link to that blog.)

We are conventional farmers. And while I certainly support organic farmers and the consumers who prefer to buy organic products, that doesn't mean we aren't raising cattle and crops with integrity, too.

We compassionately care for our animals, as do 99.9 percent of the rest of animal agriculturists - whether organically or conventionally raised. The animals are our business, and, if we don't take care of them, it impacts the bottom line. And, of course, we also believe it's the right thing to do. The same goes for crop production. We aren't using heirloom seeds and products. We are using the technology available to grow quality products. And we are feeding our own families from our corrals and fields.

I don't see Chipotle founder and CEO Steve Ells using technology from 150 years ago. If he was, he'd be sending advertising supplements out using the Pony Express, not paying for ads during the Super Bowl or designing his company's website around how much integrity his restaurants have.

So, I guess I will go to other Mexican restaurants. Or I'll make my own burrito bowls. 

Homemade Burrito Bowls

adapted from Iowa Girl Eats blog

Serves 4

1 lb. chicken breasts, pounded to an even thickness
15-oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved (or other chopped. fresh tomatoes)
1 1/2 cups sweet corn kernels, fresh or thawed frozen corn
4 oz. shredded cheese (I used a Mexican blend)
1 small head romaine lettuce, chopped

Seasoning Mix:
1 tbsp. chili powder
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

For Cilantro-Lime Rice:
2 cups water
1 tbsp. canola or vegetable oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup long-grain white rice
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Juice of 1/2 lime

Quick Guacamole
3 ripe avocados
Juice from 1/2 lime
2 tbsp. chopped cilantro
Garlic salt, to taste

For Seasoning Mix: Mix the seasonings together in small bowl. Reserve 1 tablespoon to season the beans.

For Chicken:  Mist or brush chicken breasts with extra virgin olive oil, then season on both sides with the mix. Grill for 3-4 minutes a side over medium-high heat until no longer pink. Let rest for 5 minutes before chopping.

For the Cilantro-Lime Rice:  Bring water, oil and salt to boil in a saucepan. Rinse rice in a strainer under cold water, then add to boiling water. Place a lid on top; turn head down to medium-low and simmer until rice is done, about 15 minutes. Add lime juice and cilantro. Stir to combine.

For Beans: Put drained and rinsed black beans in saucepan. Add 1/2 cup water and 1 tablespoon of seasoning mix. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low to stay warm.

For Guacamole:  Add all ingredients to a bowl and mash with potato masher. Taste and adjust garlic salt, if necessary.

TO ASSEMBLE:
Scoop cooked Cilantro-Lime Rice into bowl. Top with grilled chicken, seasoned beans, tomatoes, sweet corn, shredded cheese, romaine lettuce and guacamole. Serve with salsa, if desired.

NOTE:  I also prepared and grilled steak to substitute for the chicken. (though I didn't get a photo taken of it.) Randy prefers beef over chicken.

Letter Perfect: Bill Snyder

I sent K-State football coach Bill Snyder a handwritten note a few weeks ago, congratulating him on his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. My favorite part of the national football championship was watching Coach Snyder walk onto the field during the coin toss.

I made my own notecard, using a photo I'd taken at the K-State-Auburn football this past September. I hand-printed my congratulations because he has done the same for so many people.

I didn't expect to receive a letter back. But I got one anyway.

In it, he apologizes that he didn't hand-print the letter himself. He got so many congratulatory notes that he responded via a typewritten letter. But he says he read each and every one. I believe him. He's that kind of guy.

I was a student at K-State in the late 1970s. Attending football games was a lesson in futility. I always went because I grew up a K-State sports fan. But I sure didn't have to fight for elbow room. Our football program was in the cellar of the college football rankings. 

Week after week, we'd make the trek across campus from the Derby dorm complex and sit in the stands. Despite our chants to "Eat 'em up! Eat 'em up! K-S-U," it was our football team who was getting chewed up and spit out on the field week after week.

Bill Snyder was hired in 1989 and has been called "the architect of the greatest turn around in college football history." The Wildcat program was in the midst of an 0-26-1 run when he was hired and had been to just one bowl game in its first 93 seasons. He took the worst college football program in the nation to a perennial top-25 contender.

He's a five-time national Coach of the Year honoree and a seven-time conference Coach of the Year recipient. He's coached the Wildcats to 16 bowl games and two Big 12 championships. He's compiled a 187-94-1 record in his 23 seasons as head coach. 

Impressive? Sure. I love cheering for a winning football team after so many years of drought. But what's most impressive to me is Bill Snyder, the human being.

Every so often, an athlete from a competing school posts a handwritten Coach Snyder note to Facebook or Twitter. Sometimes, it's an athlete hurt in a game vs. K-State. Sometimes, it's a player who has achieved something special on the football field. Every time I see one of those notes, I think about how blessed K-State is to have Coach Snyder at the helm of its football program.

Brent was born in 1988 and has been a big, big, big fan of Bill Snyder his whole life. For many of those years, we sat in the north end zone during football season. Coach Snyder and his team would walk right by us on the way to the locker room. It was a thrill for our biggest little K-State fan.

Snyder posters and quotes dominated the decor in his childhood room. Then, Coach Snyder sent Brent a letter. Brent won a national award while working for K-State Sports Information as a student intern, and Coach Snyder congratulated him. Brent framed the letter, and it has hung on the walls of his home, be it in South Carolina, Kentucky and back to Manhattan. It's one of his prized possessions.

I didn't think I could like Coach Snyder more than I already did, but when you encourage one of my kids? Yep, I liked him even more. And it made me think about the ways I could and should encourage others who touch my life in a positive way.

A few years ago, Coach Snyder came up with 16 goals for his football team:

• Commitment
• Unselfishness
• Unity
• Improve every day
• Toughness
• Self-discipline
• Great effort
• Enthusiasm 
• Eliminate mistakes
• Never give up
• Don't accept losing
• No self-limitations
• Expect to win
• Consistency
• Leadership
• Responsibility

Snyder believes the 16 goals are not only critical to success on the field, but also in everyday life. Once someone has dedicated themselves to doing things the right way, their chance of success in any field is dramatically increased. - See more at: http://www.kstatesports.com/16goals/#sthash.HUZ7JLbh.dpuf

Snyder believes the 16 goals are not only critical to success on the field, but also in everyday life. (More details about the goals can be found here.)

Yes, it's great to win football games. It's even better to have a coach who teaches these principles the football players will carry long after they quit tossing around the pigskin. The rest of us should pay attention, too. 

I'm proud to be part of the K-State family.

Thanks, Coach!

(Yes, I'm celebrating K-State football and Coach Snyder in the midst of basketball season. But, after last night's loss at Texas Tech and the suspension of two players, I guess I'd rather think positive thoughts about some aspect of the K-State sports program. Maybe a few people on the basketball team should review those 16 goals for success, too.)

Everyone Likes a Happy Ending, But ...

Everyone loves a happy ending. We celebrate when Cinderella's foot slips effortlessly into the glass slipper and she gets her prince. We cheer loudly when the underdog triumphs over the bigger, stronger opponent.

But not every story has a happy ending, even when we do everything in our power to influence the outcome. Such was the case for a baby calf born on Sunday. Randy checked heifers before we left for church. He didn't see any eminent births, so off we went.

After we got home from Sunday School, he checked them again. And he discovered a baby had been born while we were in town. The mama had cleaned it off, but the winter wind was blowing hard from the north, creating a wicked, below-zero wind chill, and the new baby was cold.

So he picked it up and put it in the pickup, leaving the heater on high. It felt like a sauna in there after a few minutes. He tried giving it some warm milk replacer in a bottle while it warmed up beneath an old blue blanket. He tried to stimulate the calf's throat to swallow the milk, but it wasn't getting much down.

After 45 minutes or so in the pickup, we moved it back to the barn. 

Randy gave it more milk replacer via an esophageal feeder.

 

He put the baby in a calf blanket and left it in the fresh, dry straw.

Then it was time to move the heifer back in with its baby. It was anxious, and it took awhile to get her to go into the calving pen. But they were reunited.

Unfortunately, even though we'd invested quite a bit of time and effort, the calf didn't survive. It was the first calf loss for 2015.

Randy went out to the heifer lot frequently to check and see if others looked ready to calve. Thankfully, no others were born on that frigidly-cold day.

And even though we never like losing calves, there were some faces out in the corral that cheered us up.  These guys enjoyed the dry straw, too.

We also had our first three calves from cows on Monday, well before their February 10 due dates. Thankfully, they all survived, despite frigid temperatures.

No one ever likes losing calves. But, despite our best efforts, Old Man Winter can be a hard opponent to battle. Death is a fact of life.

Big Rig Journey

When you live 11 miles from town, road trips are a fact of life. However, my road trips don't usually involve hoisting myself up into a semi truck.

This past year, we added a semi truck, grain trailer and flatbed trailer to our farm fleet. It gives us the ability to haul grain and hay to markets.

Our usual trips are hauling grain just a few miles away to the Zenith branch of the Kanza Co-op. But transporting our hay to a customer has lengthened the journey.

I recently went along for the ride as Randy delivered a load of hay to Maverick Feeders, just east of Dodge City.

It looked like they had a fair amount of hay already in place.

These were sudan bales. We brought alfalfa bales, so they went in a different place.

Once we weighed the load at the scale house, Randy pulled the truck to an unloading area and started releasing the tie-down straps. (See how the hay was loaded in this post.)

Then the feedlot's front loader operator began removing the alfalfa bales, one at a time, from the trailer.

He put each one in a pile near the feed mill.

Inside the mill, they prepare a ration for the cattle. It includes ground hay, corn (stored in the silos), molasses (stored in the white tanks to the far right of the building). They also add wet distiller's grain (the yellow "pile" in the foreground of the photo at the lower right.)

In this photo, you can see the feed truck ready to go into the feed mill. You can also see the molasses tanks to the right of the mill. In the lower left photo, you can see ground hay. The yellow substance in the right photo is wet distiller's grain.

The feed truck dispenses the ration into troughs for the cattle to eat.

While the feedlot unloaded our hay, Randy worked on rolling up the straps, then stored them in the compartment between the tires.

We stopped again at the scale house for an empty weight. We had delivered 75,540 pounds of hay in the 30 bales we took to Maverick. Our maximum weight for this split-axle trailer is 85,000 pounds.

I must admit that I often read a book when I'm the passenger on a road trip. I didn't crack the cover this time. I was too busy watching the road and the scenery.

Out the front window ...

... or out the back.

And, if I'm totally honest, it also makes me a little nervous. I had thoughts of the bales rolling off onto the highway behind us, despite watching the guys carefully tie them all down. Since that didn't happen, I guess the journey was a success!