Beef Month

So May is Beef Month. And true to my normal timing, I'm doing a blog about beef on the last day of the month so enjoy beef not just in May, but the rest of the year.

I grew up on a beef farm and married into a beef farm so our freezers have always been full of beef for cooking. My mom was always really busy with farming, cattle, paperwork, cleaning and taking care of us to do a lot of cooking which was fine by us. Since getting married, my mother-in-law does a lot of cooking for us, but with our own freezer of meat to cook and a husband to cook it for, I've been trying to learn some new recipes and cook with cuts that I haven't used before. Matt would probably tell you I'm failing miserably, but since I grilled hamburgers for him before he got home tonight a few minutes ago, I don't think he should complain to much.

I'm, of course, still learning and will always be learning. One of the ladies in the Leadership KFB class that I'm in works for Certified Angus Beef. She pointed me to their website and I've found it very useful. It will show you where the cut came from on the beef and give you several recipes and ways to cook it to perfection. Here is their website- https://www.certifiedangusbeef.com/ I would highly encourage you to visit it before visiting your grocery store to know which cut to choose or if you already have some meat in your freezer it's very handy for new recipe choices.

We've been spraying some weeds today and been getting ready for a busy week coming up. We'll be very busy getting the rest of cattle rearranged to grass, drilling the triticale ground, possibly replanting and helping my mom get her cattle out to grass.

Lots more to tell you about what's going on on the farm, but it's off to get some sleep for me with a very busy week coming up.

Hope you have a great week!

In the Blink of the Eye-Dad's Accident

How fast things happen...in the blink of an eye everything can change. This week Matt and I have been doing a fair amount of fighting. Stuff that I think are such a big deal, really aren't. I always think of two things when Matt and I fight. 1. Lierz' Philosophy of Life. My FFA advisor and huge role model in my life taught us with his Philosophy of Life the reason we get mad about anything is because our expectations aren't met. This is always true when I'm mad at Matt. I expect him to do something or not just do it, but do it my way and we he doesn't I get mad. The second thing I think of is something Dara, my FSA co-worker, told me towards the end of the time that I was working there. I was complaining about something Matt did or didn't do and she told me some advice that she was given one time. Growing up mothers are their little boys cheerleaders...everything they do is wonderful and right. They are always cheering them on, no matter what they do. Men grow up with their mothers always telling them good job and how wonderful they are. Then they get married. Wives, or maybe it's just me, are constantly nagging and tearing their husbands down. Rather than being the cheerleader that they are used to, they are now given somebody that is constantly telling them they are doing something wrong. Another thing I think about is one of my classmates, Adam, that was killed our junior year in a car accident. Everything can change so quickly and most of the things that I choose to fight with Matt about are inconsequential. While I work the long hours with Matt, I'm not making the thousands of dollar decisions that he is. I simply do what he says. I don't have the stress that he and his father and every other farmer out there has. I try to remind myself that I need to be understanding and patient rather than questioning and doubtful. That approach would get me so much farther than the way I currently use. Matt, I love you and I'm sorry that I nag and I really appreciate everything that you do. 

Today, my mom called me to tell me that my dad had been in a four wheeler wreck. Mind you, this is the man that drives at least 20 miles below the speed limit at all times, always is yelling at us about going too fast and to be very careful on loose gravel. Nobody was with him or around him when the wreck happened so we don't know for sure, but the guess is that he hit the loose gravel that was wet and went for quite a tumble. I haven't seen the four wheeler, but I hear it's done. Dad went in the ambulance to Topeka to the hospital. After doing a CT scan they don't find any broken bones or anything else. He's complaining about his lower back hurting, but that could be just being in a wreck. He's very very fortunate. It could be much much worse. He's staying in the hospital overnight for observation, but hopefully will be able to come home tomorrow. 

It always seems that when I get shallow and Matt and I are fighting there's something that comes along that reminds me that it's not that important. As a human, I'm not perfect but I'm going to try to be a better wife and daughter. 

Be very careful as you go about your daily activities. Don't get complacent in your habits that you forget to be careful. Everything can change so fast! Be thankful for what you have and the blessings in your life. 

There will be an update next week on Dad's status. Have a great week!

Happy Mothers' Day

Most important this week, today is a special day for a couple of reasons. Today is my Grandma's 102nd birthday. 102...Can you imagine? What all she has seen in her years. Happy birthday to a great woman that means so much to so many people.

Another reason, of course, that today is a special day is the celebration of where we all came from, Mother's Day.

This is a favorite picture of mine from the wedding. It's where I came from. My grandma and mom, both great people that I love dearly.

I'm so blessed with amazing women in my life. I have so many amazing role models. First, my mom. She's always been there for us. She's an amazing person that's stronger than anyone I know. Short and sweet I know Mom, but maybe you'll get  chance to read it while you're so busy with calving. I don't tell you enough, but I appreciate you and everything you do. I wish you happiness and hope you have a great day! I love you!

My mother-in-law, Margaret, is the best mother-in-law a girl could ask for. Anything I need she has or will get. So thankful for her in my life. Margaret is so thoughtful, kind and caring. I appreciate everything she does for her baby boy and his wife. We're so thankful for her in our lives and often forget or neglect to tell her. Thank you Margaret for all that you do.

A whole host of other mothers are in my life as well...too many to list by name, but I appreciate all of you for the love and support you've given me in the last 23 years. From my sister and sister-in-laws to family members to my FSA co-workers to friends, you all are wonderful and I want you to know that though you remain nameless in this blog, you mean so much to me. I wish you all the best Mother's Day, you've ever had. May you be spoiled and pampered on your day.

About the farm work lately...we've been doing a lot of cattle work this week. It's been raining so much (I'm not complaining!) that we can't get in the fields. I hope it's not washing the crops out, just giving them some growing moisture. Taking the opportunity to get all rested up before the hard work really begins.

A short blog this week, but I'm sure all of you are busy with your mothers and not worried about reading blogs. Enjoy! Have a great week!

Planting is Done!

Several things happening on this NE KS farm. I know we aren't the only ones hopping at this point to get everything done. The guys were hoping to finish up planting tonight before it rains. I wasn't very involved in planting this year. They got a lot of the corn done one day while Margaret and I went to garage sales. Then I was gone Wednesday through Saturday of this week for another session of the Leadership KFB that I'm in. I helped some today, but I'm sure neither Matt nor Henry is very happy about my lack of participation in planting. I'm sure I'll make it up later in harvest. I've got quite a few pictures stored on my phone so thought that would be the easiest approach for this week. 

I think Miss Abilene may have been trying to tell me something. She went in the bathroom on her own and hopped in the tub just looking at me. I had just finished mopping and that's normally when she gets a bath. She's very smart and picks up on routines very quickly. She definitely has some blue heeler in her though because she can be very stubborn. Then again, maybe she's just picked up on some of my behavior. 

Couple shots of the planter. Didn't get very many. Again due to my lack of participation. If you look closely, you can see both Matt and Henry in the tractor. Matt's trying to teach Henry how to run the technology in the tractor. If you know Matt, you know that he's short on words most of the time and would rather do it himself rather than teach, so I'm not sure how well this lesson went. 

I'm not great at food shots, but am so thankful to Matt for grilling steaks for me one night when he came home. He was exhausted and would much rather have been doing something else I'm sure, but he took the time to do it. They were a little rare because he got tired of cooking, but they were still delicious. 

We got to see the twins last Sunday. They are growing like crazy! So much change happening in them. This is their mom, Matt's sister, Jenny with the boys in one of our tractors. 

I don't know what it is about having a clean kitchen table, but it just makes me much less grumpy. Ours is hardly ever used, which makes it a great place for piling stuff. But I got it cleared off and got some fresh lilacs to enjoy before I left for the end of the week. 

It's time to turn cattle out to grass. The grass has been a little late this year due to the colder weather, it wasn't growing as fast. Most of the cattle are turned out now. That means the summer pasture checking has started. They were thrilled to be turned out on green grass to eat so they wouldn't have to eat hay. 

This is one of my friends, Janae. She's getting married the beginning of June. She was so creative with all of the shower and wedding gifts she got for me so I tried very hard to do something homemade and crafty for her. Matt had to help me and basically just did it, but it's a heart barb wire wreath with her last name initial in the middle. If only I could get Matt to help with my Pinterest attempts, they would turn out much better then they do when I make them. 

Session 3 of the Leadership KFB class was held in Wichita this last week. We got to attend KFB's (Kansas Farm Bureau) event called Zest & Zing among several other tours and events. Zest & Zing is an attempt at bringing producer and farmers together to help answer questions. Not a great picture, but this is a picture of Tiya, one of the ladies in our Leadership class. She did a talk about her operation and why they do what they do. It was a great turn out and was an exceptional event. 

After being gone and in a city for a few days it was sure great to get home to the cattle. Got home early enough to go check some cows and spend some time with puppy before going to bed exhausted.

My oldest sister is also in this class and since she lived on the way, Autumn asked me for a sleepover the night before the meetings started. It was great getting to see her and all her new things that she was excited to show me. I hope they enjoyed their mini family vacation in Wichita after the session. 

Yesterday was also Matt's 25th birthday! Being the true planner and thoughtful person that I am (for those that know me, know  this is a straight out lie), but I did get him ice cream cupcakes. I braved the Saturday shopping rush of Manhattan to get him those and some groceries. That's about as much love as you can get from me after being in a big city for a couple days. 

Anyway, Matt just got home and I think my meatloaf is getting too done. Hope you have a great week! 

Back to the Farm Full Time!

My time as a federal employee for the FSA office has come to a close. I will once again be working for the farm. I’m so excited to be returning to the farm and to work with Matt full time helping him do what we both love. While I’m not naïve enough to think there won’t be times that I will dislike him and his father, I’m grateful I’ll be working outside and in production agriculture with my Forever.

What have I learned about my time working for the government? I’ve learned while I love working with my co-workers, I intensely dislike sitting in an office all day. I enjoy working with most of the producers, but dislike being set in a schedule of having to be at work for a set period of hours. I enjoy having a reason to be inside out of the cold in the winter, but honestly miss working with Matt. I’m looking forward to having just one job rather than evenings/weekends on the farm and the rest of the time at the “town job”. It’s frustrating not knowing what’s going on, on the farm, but being expected to know where everything is and what’s going on.

While I’m infinitely grateful to have had this job opportunity, I’m very excited to be returning to the farm. I took this job with the knowledge that it was temporary. Whether that be a bad thing if I really liked it, but couldn’t stay on permanently or whether that be a good thing if I didn’t decided it was for me, we knew that it was temporary going in. My official end date was originally March 21^st so I made it almost a month longer on the extension. This job gave us the chance to see if Matt and Henry wanted to work with me like they had been for approximately a year since Matt and I got married, or maybe if it was best if I wasn’t there all the time. It gave me the chance to take a step back to see if I really wanted to work with them as well. And we figured it out. They have more than plenty of work to keep us all busy on the farm and I will be able to spend my time outside and be much more active than I have been while sitting in a desk chair for nine hours a day. Again, it has been an incredible experience. I appreciate the new friendships I have made, the experience of being a government worker and being able to test out the “town job”.

What I won’t miss about the job-having to get ready every day and doing it on a schedule so I get to work on time, packing and unpacking lunches, paperwork, filing, sitting in a chair 9 hours a day and not having the spontaneity to take care of errands/clean our house on rainy days like I can on the farm.

What I will miss about my job-the producers and my co-workers. I have been so blessed with amazing co-workers. I’m thankful to call them all friends now.

David, my boss, the Master Chef. He has a recipe for everything and I mean everything! I don’t think he’s ever had the same meal twice. If he cooks something twice, he tweaks the recipe and comes up with something completely different tasting. He likes to think he’s been a positive influence on my cooking skills and that I will now be a better/more frequent cook. While I’ve cooked more while I’ve been here, I don’t see it lasting much longer.

Kathy, the excellent cook and crafty one. No matter what the occasion, Kathy has the perfect craft project you can do or a recipe to make the gathering just a little more special. She has the longest duration in the office, so I admit I was a little nervous to ask what I felt was stupid questions. Kathy never made me feel bad about asking questions. She encouraged questions first rather than having to correct my errors. Another mom and grandma, she’s great about giving advice when solicited. A true blessing and joy to work with and know.

Dara, the closest to my age and mother of three children under the age of 5. She and Jamie are fantastic for making sure I don’t get baby fever. They are full of children horror stories, but are always great about ending said horror stories with “…but kids are so great and you love them so much, these little things don’t matter.” Ummm…I think I’ll stick with nieces and nephews for now, but thanks! Dara is a great influence in my life and I appreciate her love. She is always willing to give a kind word and build you up. Not afraid to share about her relationship with God and invite people to church, she’s an amazing role model that has been placed in my life. I’m blessed and honored to call her a friend.

Linda, the calm, cool and collected one. She’s a mom through and through. She’s always thinking about other people and how she can help them. She can “talk you off the cliff” like Dara says. Linda is wonderful at making things that seem like they can’t ever be fixed, fixable. She will listen to all your stories and problems. She has answered thousands of questions that I’ve had since starting the job. Rather than being mean and telling me to figure it out on my own, she has answered the same question thousands of times. Linda is a joy and blessing in my life and I will be forever grateful for getting the chance to get to know her better, but don’t appreciate her dyslexia rubbing off on me!

For those that have been in the office know that we share space with NRCS. I worked for that side in the mornings of my senior year and a couple summers part-time. So I knew most of them, but had the chance to really interact with them more.

Roberta, of course, is organized to a T. She keeps her board happy and always stays super busy planning events and being involved in a lot of statewide activities.

I worked briefly with Janice, but got to know her much better. You can always count on Janice, not only to have delicious food on food days, but have the fancy presentation and dishes to go with it. She has amazing smelling meals every day for lunch and does it all without an oven!

Cecelia, I don’t remember working with. An amazing asset to the office and to her co-workers. Very thorough in her work and a saint, like Linda. When dealing with disgruntled producers, how they can say what needs said, but in such a way that calms the producers down is beyond me. You can always count on Cecelia to have a listening ear available and a word of advice when wanted. She also makes such beautifully shaped bread, I feel guilty for consuming it at food days.

Brad is who I spent a large majority of my time with in the field when I worked here before. It’s been nice working in the same office again. I gained a bunch of weight from the doughnuts he would bring on occasional Fridays though!

Jamie was the wild card. She started working here after I had left for college. Jamie has been awesome getting to know. Also a mom of three young children, she has more energy and passion for her job than I could muster with everything her kids are in. Jamie is an asset to the county. She’s always trying to learn new things. If she doesn’t know the answer, she isn’t going to make one up. She will search until she finds the right answer.

I’m sure you don’t really care about all the people, but it’s important to me for them to know how blessed and lucky I feel to have had such amazing co-workers at my town job, but also to know that I can count all of them as friends and positive role models for me. I know I can turn to any/all of them any time in the future and they’ll not only be there for me, but treat me like the most important person in the world. I’m not the greatest at telling people how much they mean to me, but I’ve been told I’m a pretty good writer so that’s the avenue I usually choose. So thank you all for the amazing experience. Should you ever move to having outdoor office space and not having to sit in an office all day or deal with paperwork, let me know! Thank you all so much!

I’m excited to be returning to the farm. With such beautiful weather farmers are itching to get to the field to start planting as soon as the rain stops and the fields dry up a little. My next blog will be about planting and how it’s a lot more than dropping a seed in the ground.

Until next time, be careful and have a great time!

Just Give a Damn

What beautiful weather we have been getting her in NE KS. It's painful having to sit in an office with such beautiful weather outside. Just a little while longer than I'll be outside all the time!

One of the things my parents have both been very good at through the years is showing us girls how important it is to be involved in organizations that support the agricultural industry. They've both been involved on several boards from the time that we were very young. 

All 3 of us remain active in several different organization, but one common organization is Farm Bureau. My parents have been on the board since I can remember. They have now retired from the board, but their daughters still remain actively involved. My oldest sister, Kristen, and I applied and were accepted into the first Leadership Kansas Farm Bureau class. There are 10 women (not planned to have just women, just the way it turned out) from across the state of Kansas. We will have 6 sessions, 5 in Kansas with the closing one in Washington D.C. The class wrap-up and "graduation" will occur at the Annual Farm Bureau Meeting in December in Manhattan. 

Our first session of Leadership KFB was in Manhattan at the end of January. We started with an overview of what the class was going to entail and some goals we wanted to garner from the class. Jill, our KFB staff who is in charge of the class, lined up some speakers to go over several topics. My favorite being, the NBAF presenter. NBAF stands for the National Bio-Agridefense Facility which is coming to the Little Apple. At some point, I will do a blog about that presentation. We also had the opportunity to tour the brand new KDA (Kansas Department of Agriculture) building and the Wheat Innovation Center. There was a quick stop at Call Hall for world famous ice cream for those that had never had the delicious K-State dairy made ice cream. 

This class, thanks to Jill, is giving us the unique opportunity to meet with people we may ultimately never have got the chance to have a sit down conversation with. The first being, Secretary Jackie McClaskey. Jill scheduled a dinner with her, so not only do we have the opportunity to chat with her for a minute, we get an entire evening to pick her mind about what it going on in the world of Agriculture. 

The second class meeting was held the beginning of March in Topeka. With not a lot of guessing I'm sure you can figure out this class was focused primarily on legislative issues. Again, we had the unique opportunity of not just chatting with Governor Brownback, but actually being allowed back to the "inner chambers". When asked how he deals with criticism, he responded that he prays a lot. Whether you agree with him or not on the issues, that's a noble answer. We must remember that he is a human being too, and yes he chose to run for the office and yes you may not agree with him, but that doesn't give us the right to be outright cruel to him. It comes down to the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That's the best way to get results anyway. 

As a class, I think we all agreed that Ms. Allie Devine was our favorite part of the weekend. Again, we got to have most of the morning with her. Allie has a resume a mile long including, but definitely not limited to former Secretary of Agriculture. She gave us a brief overview of what was going on in the agriculture industry including, but not limited to, Senate Bill 178 which thank goodness is not going to pass, education update, income tax and sin tax. For those that don't know, Senate Bill 178 was trying to change the way that ag land is taxed. Allie is great with numbers. She said, I hope I got this wrote down correctly and didn't misunderstand anything, 12-14% of income goes to taxes in production agriculture. 2-4% of commercial income goes to taxes. The whole debate about this was that ag land wasn't paying it's "fair share" of prices. Well, these numbers obviously prove differently. 

But it wasn't these issues and Allie's knowledge about these issues that really struck me (believe me, she knows her stuff so her knowledge is VERY impressive) it was what she said in the last five minutes we had with her that will stick with me for a long time. As I said, this is the first class of the kind for Kansas Farm Bureau so we're all being guinea pigs of sorts. She commended us on our commitment to this class and for trying something that nobody else had done yet. She encouraged us to become more involved with organizations in our communities that most of us normally wouldn't, such as school boards, city/county commissioners, local non-ag industry groups, etc. One of our class members said something about being involved in so many things already to which Allie replied, it's amazing what can happen when somebody will just give a damn, isn't it. Don't get complacent about just being involved in the same organizations or shy away from "political spots" such as commissioners or school board members just because that's the way it's always been done. When you give a damn and be the change you want to see in the world, it's amazing what can happen. How true that statement is. It struck me that I'm involved in the things I am because my parents did it or because I was in the organization in school so now I'm in the alumni chapter, but how often have I actively sought out being on another sort of board or started something new in my community to help solve a problem? 

Allie's closing was even if you don't get involved in those different activities, just give a damn about the things you are involved in. Don't just do what has always been done because that's the way it's always been done. Think of new ways or new ideas. Whatever you're doing in your life, just give a damn about it.

So that's the way I will close this week. As we get into a very busy time of year for the farming community with planting coming on and all the preparations for that which must be done, remember to give a damn about what you're doing and why you are doing it. I encourage you if you're doing it because it's always been done that way to reflect on that to see if it is in fact the best way to do it. But ultimately like Allie said, you have to be do something in life, you may as well enjoy it and give a damn about it! 

Have a great week!

One Year Blog Anniversary!

I missed my one year blog anniversary! I have officially been blogging for a whole year! My how fast time goes.

We're about done with our first round of calving. The second round will probably start soon. This past week my parents started calving, two to three weeks to early.

Work has been crazy lately. Our first deadline for the new farm programs was on Friday. They were hard and set that they weren't going to extend the deadline so we've been working extra hard to get everybody in and served. Then about 11:30 Friday afternoon they decided they were extending the deadline so both the yield and base updates and the program choice is all going to be done at the same time. So for all you farmers reading the blog, you have until the end of March to get everything done; however, you definitely don't have to wait that long though!

There's always so much to do. Since I don't work with Matt everyday, I hardly get to see him so on Sundays when he's a little more willing to take some time off, I love spending time with him. Some time I'll get a good ag blog written!

Have a good week!