A New Year

Today I'm cleaning up from having company and thinking about my goals for 2009. I want to get back to writing again. Realistically I don't have blocks of time for my next book series while running the Bison Farm, but I can work in blogs and articles about my favorite subjects- buffalo and the prairie.

I cruised websites about blogging while watching TV and then looked at my latest photos that I had downloaded from my camera- to see what I could add to the next newsletter.

My mind went immediately from the noise of the TV, clothes washer, and clicking of my keyboard...to the silence of a windy hill we had visited while my sister was here. On top of my late uncle's pasture is an old abandoned cemetery that was started in the 1870s.

I walked through the scattered rows of stones looking and taking photos of these past sorrowful events. The wind fluttered the overgrown weeds and trees around the silent tombstones. Many young wives and children were laid to rest, never getting to live out their lives as their families had hoped. Now there are just elaborate stones left in a pasture.

It made me think of what I've done in the past, and what potential I have for my future. I have the new year of 2009 ahead of me. What shall I see, do, and experience? Watch to see what I do with it!

It's a wrap for Au Pair, Kansas

The "Au Pair, Kansas" movie film crew finished their scenes with the actors here last Friday before the snow hit. (And the cows were happy to wrap it up too.)

One young actor in this movie, Spencer Daniels, (who also plays the young Brad Pitt character in the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" which opens Christmas Day) wasn't so sure he wanted to get close to the fence when he was supposed to open their gate (but it was just a pretend motion of opening it).

Cow Colorado did a stomp and snort, which sent everybody back away from the fence line in a hurry. I told the crew to wrap it up quick because the buffalo were done with their scenes...

Touch of Winter Weather

Tuesday morning arrived with snow creating a ground blizzard, and giving the new calves their first coating of snow. It made me wish I could brush off their snowy faces and backs and give them a warm hug, but you can't do that with buffalo.

Long johns were our topic of discussion inside the Visitors Center because the packing room didn't feel much warmer than the walk-in freezer with the north wind hitting our hilltop location.

Seems like we were just wearing short-sleeved shirts a short time ago, and now into many layers to keep warm. Winter has arrived and the buffalo's fur coat looks a lot warmer than my long johns...

Full Freezer

Our last weekend was spent packing coolers for a special order that went out on Monday. It was a big company project we've been working and it was so satisfying to know we did a good job for the customer. I'm sure their clients will be impressed with our Kansas bison steaks!

Now we're getting ready for next Monday's shipping. I hope you'll place your order today so it's on the truck next week!

Weather wise we're cold and windy here in Kansas- perfect weather for shipping meat coolers!

Lights-Camera-Action-Esther!

A movie is being filmed in the area, and one of the settings is at our bison farm. The film crew was here at 7:15 am last Friday (when it was a very cold 15 degrees) to shoot footage of the bison, both in the pasture and moving from one paddock to another. It took a while for the herd to be comfortable with the camera and strange people, but they just ignored them both after a while.

For one scene the herd needed to move and the producer said "Action" and Esther (leading the herd) practically pranced down the alley into a another paddock, just like she understood what she was supposed to do.

Over the next few weeks the cast will be coming in and shooting more scenes too, but Friday was just scenes of the buffalo roaming and doing what buffalo do...

My New Camera

I've dropped my camera - by accident- so many times (pasture and elsewhere) that the battery latch wouldn't hold anymore and I had to hold the camera "just so" to make it work.

With over 8,000 photos taken with my little Olympus, it was time to retire it. I ordered a bright fuchsia colored Olympus camera (better to find in the tall grass) and got it yesterday by UPS.

Now I can really zoom in on things! The first picture is taken just stepping out onto the porch, and the second is zooming in on the buffalo herd. I'm going to have lots of fun with this new camera. Look for better videos in the future too.

A Sad Decision

One of the "lows" of working with livestock is that some decisions must be made that are tough to make and follow through on. Yesterday afternoon I heard the rumble of Dyllan's car and wondered why he was coming in after school. Then I got a lump in my throat. Not only was Verne and Dyllan loading meat bulls to go to processing, but Little Danny was going with them.

To fill in my newer readers to my weekly diary, Little Danny was a blind calf born in June of 2007. He never left his mother's side to run and play with the other calves. Then we watched him run into fence lines, posts, and anything else that was in his way. Danny couldn't see.

For almost a week during one of the hottest days of that summer, the herd, including his mother, shunned him and wouldn't answer his frantic call of "Where are you?". They knew he was a liability to the herd. But by a miracle he survived, mostly because one of the other bull calves started answering back to Danny and become his "guide". He followed the herd by sound from then on.

During the winter he seemed to learn how many steps it took to come down the alley and make the turn to get to the water tank. You could almost watch him count them off.

When the vet came to do the ear tags for the calves last March, Danny followed the group into the pen and the vet got a good look at his eyes. They were brown and looked okay, but had severe cataracts in them.

Verne didn't have the heart to have the vet put him down, so Danny went to the summer pasture with the other bulls calves. One of his eyes turned white and went totally blind since June, but he got along okay since it's a big open pasture with no posts to run into.

But the bulls were moved back to our main pasture this last Saturday. What to do with Danny now? He was a little stunted dwarf compared to his brothers, and would never grow due to his lack of nuturtion his first year. And Danny was a danger to us, others, the herd (and fences) due to the fact he couldn't see what or where he was going while running.

So, while Danny was in the pen with the bulls, he was loaded up with the meat bulls and took his final ride in the trailer yesterday.

That was a "low" for me, but we gave him the best year we could, and a decision had to be made and followed though...