January 2007 - Journal Archive

Tuesday 1/30 - Gave Ginger her new toy from the Fort worth trip today – a stuffed Possum found at Cracker Barrel. It was a hit and gave Ginger and Bella something to do for most of the afternoon. By the end of the day they had removed its eyes, but surprisingly had not pulled the tail off as I had expected.

Monday 1/29 - Showed in Ft. Worth today – it was a good day. Mimi placed 4th and Taffy won the Intermediate Division. After the months it took to bring Taffy back after being sick earlier in the fall, it was nice for her to have a good day again. Now she can retire on a good note. Had dinner at Cattlemen’s with the Cook’s and also at Joe T Garcia’s with a big Hereford crew – fun times.  Met Becky’s friend Dana and had a nice visit with him and his kids – Becky is a lucky girl, but then Dana is too. Could not believe the line we saw as the juniors were coming in with steers for the FW steer show.

Friday 1/26 - Made the trip to Fort Worth with no trouble. Delivered puppies on the way down – including bringing Miss Kitty to Kara. Dee found us in the line as we all waited in the park to get in the gate and took Kitty then – won’t be long before she is spoiled rotten.  As always, we were impressed with how nice and welcoming the staff at Ft. Worth is.  Brought Taffy, Mimi – they traveled well and look nice. Got stalls and tie-outs in good locations and found a hotel just down the street that we like. Good internet – always a big deal for us. Rich and Rox arrived this evening. 

Friday 1/19 - Watched the Rick Bobby movie tonight and nearly laughed till I cried – given that I grew up in S.C. I found lots of humor in that movie. Starting to get ready for Ft. Worth and hope the dang road is thawed out so we can pull the trailer out for the trip. The road in front of our house is still a think slab of ice, but Erica and Matt have power at the farm so that’s progress. They were running two generators and going through $70/day in gas to keep the well pump going for the cattle and various things --- including HBO going in the house. Claremore schools were out all week so everyone’s schedule was all messed up.

Monday 1/15 - Rox got back today and will return to Stillwater tomorrow. The puppies sure grew a lot while we were gone!  Cute and funny -- lots of calls and e-mails about them and several are spoken for already. The Calftrader web site (www.calftrader.com) is perking along and has its first set of listings.  Amusing to read all the hoo ha from the Denver bull displays on www.breedersworld.com . Guess we missed the excitement and handouts to advertise bulls in the yards. J We passed through there very quickly on Thursday morning – it was so cold we didn’t spend much time except to visit with Lecil and Jeremy Church and also to talk to the guys with Waygu semen. The kids are going to squeal when they learn I want to order some Waygu semen to use on a handful of black baldy cows – just a little experiment – you’ll never know till you feed one.

Sunday 1/14 - Erica reports filling the toilets with buckets of well water to flush and Rich told her she should have never torn down the outhouse – ha ha as if she would have used it. Glad to be home as we hear the travel tales of folks trying to get home from Denver. Rox’s flight from Denver cancelled because the Tulsa airport was closed. Let the puppies run loose in the house for an hour – pandemonium!!

Saturday 1/13 - Worried about Dee and her girls getting home from Denver and was glad to hear they made it in okay, same for Alexanders and Stotzs. Erica and Matt lost power at Langley and the reports of ice east of Claremore up to Langley are bad. The pump at the RWD station went out with no electricity – so no water. Good thing the kids have a fireplace and generators to run the pump on the well.

Friday 1/12 - Happy Birthday to Rox!  After the junior show Thursday we baled on the open show scheduled for Friday.  We got back to the hotel Thursday afternoon and looked at Accuweather, then decided to try to beat the ice storm home…glad we did too. We loaded heifers and tack in record time, I went to the NOP meeting while the girls got cleaned up and then Erica and I headed out at 8:30 pm – left Rox behind to do Junior Board stuff and fly home on Sunday. Erica and I drove all night thinking we would stop when we got ahead of the storm but it seemed it never quit snowing on us all night and so we just kept going. Lots of Rock Star drinks and Nickleback CD’s. When we headed south on I-35 we started hearing the radio reports of bad icy roads around Wichita and so we kept going and pulled into the driveway literally minutes before the sleet hit Claremore. In fact, as we were unloading the heifers it started sleeting and then continued the rest of the day. Had 2 inches of ice on the yard before dark.


Thursday 1/11 - We weren’t thinking and left Erica’s 4WD truck home so had the 2WD on the icy parking lots…not smart. Erica got stuck out there this morning while getting parked – needless to say she was not amused when Rox and I asked her why it took her so long to get back to us in the barn. The junior show went well and the heifers looked good even though they refused to drink ever since we left home – I told them they make beer with this water, but they were not impressed. Tried heating their water this morning and that seemed to please the divas enough that they drank fairly well. Anyway the show was good – Mimi stood 2nd in her class behind Jaci Blin’s little heifer and Taffy stood 2nd in her class as well….considering the ordeal she’d been through this fall, we were pleased. Congrats to our friends the Sims on a great day in Denver with their Romance heifer! The Alexanders and all the other kids from Oklahoma had a good day too.

Wednesday 1/10 - I spent all day Wed in an NOP meeting and the girls spent the day settling the heifers in the barn and getting their clip jobs tweaked. We brought Syrah aka Taffy and Mimi (her first show). After months of Taffy looking poorly as a result of illness in the early fall, she is looking better. Found a fun place to eat just across the road from the hotel – Famous Dave’s BBQ – really good, fun and not very expensive.

Tuesday 1/9 - We arrived in Denver for the National Western Stock Show in good order. The drive up was easy with good roads. Of course we saw lots of snow in western KS and CO as we approached Denver. It was pretty warm when we arrived - we were fortunate to get tie-outs on the hill as I understand the tie-outs by the river were pretty swampy and the walk down there included trekking across a sheet of ice – always a scary thought with a 1500lb. ballerina on the end of your lead rope!

Saturday 1/6 - Holidays are over and back to work this week. Been looking through my files and getting ready to wok on several spring projects. The Will Rogers classic is just around the corner and although hard to believe, it is time to work on year-end awards for OCCA and the Beef Expo Show. Rich and I went to an Oklahoma Hereford Association meeting in OKC today. We rode down with Dee and, as always, had a fun trip visiting and planning upcoming OHA activities. The OHA Board seems receptive to the idea of a Regional Hereford Show in 2008 – that will be a good opportunity for the Okies to host our fellow Hereford breeders in Stillwater. Rox called to say she has started working at the OSU Beef Barn and likes the job quite a bit.

Sunday 1/1- New Year’s Day – We went to see “We are Marshall” last night and thought it was a great movie. Then being the Par-tay crew that we are (ha ha) we came home climbed in bed and watched “Walk the Line”. At 12:15, when the movie was over, Rich, George and Ginger and I all sat up in bed looked at each other and said, “Hey, it’s 2007” response – “okay, turn out the light” We listened to the neighbors shooting fireworks and that was that. Now today was a banner day for me – as New Years Day was a James Bond Marathon day on TBS so guess where I have been all day – in front of the fireplace, laptop in hand – catching up on some paperwork and watching Bond, James Bond….my all time favorite movies!