I’ve got a lot to write, but not a lot of desire.  We’eve been to the OK state FFA convention.  Tired, wore out, dragging ass and therefore, not in the right frame of mind to hit the keyboard.  Catch you later.  

First of all, I want to start this post with a nod to the Shattuck FFA members that competed this weekend.  Kaylee Holt was 4th at the State FFA Public Speaking finals in the 9th grade FFA Opportunities division.  It has been many moons since a Shattuck kid competed or placed at the state finals.  Congrats Kaylee.  I won’t list all of the kids but congrats to all of the ag-science kids that competed.  Addie Swanson was a state winner in the ANSI division with her project that involved dissolving kidney stones in goats.  The Shattuck kiddos were 3rd overall in sweepstakes.  Great job kids.  Hats off to all of the big winners at this weekends contests.  Lot of good ag teachers and even better kids.  

The diva sale was Saturday.  Small selection of does, but wicked good quality.  I’m not going to hit on every goat, but it is apparent that the yankees are closing the quality gap.  Goretska brought a doe kid that was impeccable in her type and kind.  Way cocky and cool in her front end with a round rib and a square hip.  She handled very good.  Stack just a bit of bone and foot size under her and this one was as good as you will find.  Criswell brought a square to the ground, cool fronted deal that was way shapely when you put your hands on her.  She brought a pile but it may have been cheap money if she produces a wether that handles like she did.  Nice set of females.  Of course, it is hard to BS about goats without mentioning the Schneberger clan.  Addie, Big Un and LIttle Un brought a Rumour Has It doe kid from frozen semen that was real good.  She brought a nice chunk of change (enough that you don’t give soembody crap for selling one of that quality.)  Sometimes, you just got to pay the feed/hay/flush bills.  

We left the sale and headed to Eischen’s in Okarche.  There are few days on the calendar that I eat chicken.  But this is one of them.  Great food, cold .  and even better people to share a table or two with.  

I could write a bunch of different crap here tonight.  But, I think that I will close with a story.  There is a Shattuck lejund that I will leave un-named. Several months ago, this lejund made a comment in front of several kids and myself.  I haven’t forgotten the comment.  Sometimes, you just hear pure genius and remember it.  

Today, I was showing Duke how to put DEF into the diesel pickup.  I showed him that this part of the nozzle lets the bottle breathe as the DEF is being poured.  I started laughing.  He said, “What’s so funny?”  I replied,”I just remembered a comment made a while back.”  Duke laughed and said, “You gotta tell me.”  So here you go.

The comment came from one of my favorite Americans.  Great guy, even better person.  This guy is not a skinny lad.  He wears overalls as often as possible.  Comfort is key.  We stopped by one day to look at cattle.  He was finishing lunch and was pulling his boots on.  He kind of had to hold his breath as he sat there, bent over, pulling a boot on.  Somebody made a comment, like “You alright?”.   He replied, “If I could breathe out of my ass when doing this, I would be just perfect.”  

I wish that I could lay claim to that comment.  It needs to be in a movie.  Have a good day and a better tomorrow.  Here’s to horseshoes and shamrocks for all that actually read this knowledge.  

And speaking of breathing out of your ass.  Why do any of us goat breeders sell at this sale?   It is a great place to deliver online sale goats.?!?  But other than that??  There isn’t any cross-over sheep to goat traffic.  I guess it all helps the economy.  Good night. 

  Ladies & Gents, I am here to tell you that some days are better than others.  Especially, in the goat biz.  I almost enjoyed looking at my doe herd.  The sun was out.  The ground is moist.  Wind–minimal.  The herd of brombies are in various states of shedding hair, needing a hoof trimmed, some are bagging down, others not yet and all are full belllied and content.  I stood there in the middle of a grazed, green pasture of triticale with the mob all around me.  GARP standing next to me–dang, that is a big dog.  I was kind of in a good mood.  

It is scary to scan the herd and think about how much money is tied up in these rips.  It is even worse to think about the time involved.  But, there are days when it just kind of seems worth it.  I can sound extemely negative about a lot of topics.  But, if I really don’t like something, I won’t do it.  I really don’t like does, but there is obviously something that drives me to tolerate them a bit longer.  

I’ve been studying a pile of numbers regarding E.T. work, frozen semen and the whole FLUSH process.  Numbers don’t lie and the FLUSH business is not as bad as it feels.  There are opportunities to make strides in a herd via AI, ET and gathering some genetics from popular genetics.  

This blog almost sounds like I like a lot of this crap.  Obviously, the lack of wind and other positive environmental factors has me a little bit off.  Thanks, have a good day and guess what, a better tomorrow.

     Wait, what?  RUSM?  Prince is dead.  That dude ain’t much older than me.  Dead?  ‘m not a big fan, but he made some catchy tunes.  Purple Rain, Little Red Corvette, Raspberry Beret, When Doves Cry….I don’t have a one of his songs on iTunes, but I know them all.  People, his stuff was on the radio A LOT back in the mid 80s.  Prince was the smartest song writer of the last century.  Prove it you say?!  Alright.  Prince was the singer/writer of the 80’s hit “Party like it’s 1999”.  That song generated more cash in the year 1999 and the Y2K bug fear than it did when it was new.  

I’m going to have to watch some old Chapelle Show clips.  The “True Hollywood Stories with Charlie Murphy” stuff always made me laugh.  One of the best is the pickup game of b-ball.  Prince wins and then they eat pancakes. Classic stuff.  

  I feel old.  

I don’t care if you are 45 or getting ready to turn 26, it is still cool when somebody hands you a Benjamin for your birthday.  Even though a $100 may not go as far today as it did when I turned 26, it is still a cool feeling when your mom hands you a crisp $100 bill.  Even cooler when same mom/mimi hands your daughter/her granddaughter a $100 bill at the same time for an upcoming birthday.   Of course, I asked “Should I just go ahead and hand my $100 to Kela as that is where it will end up anyways?”  

Even though it hasn’t happened yet, Kela’s upcoming 26th birthday is a milestone in my life.  Technically, her vehicle insurance and lots of other expenses from my account become HER expenses.  This is a hollow victory for me as I realize that the money funnel will simply change directions and instead of me paying directly, I will make indirect payments (which will be money well spent as it will keep the Dragon Lady happy which is way cheaper than a divorce).  However, Duke is nearing 16.  And in Kelln years, that means it is time to start saving for bail money.  

Speaking of Benjamin’s, I remember having a Benjamin goat sale  5 or so years ago.  That was fun.  I sold goats that won classes at the state fair, etc for not much money, but that was fun walking around in camo shorts with a wad of Benjamins.  I ain’t never been a pimp, but it kind of felt like it.  Ironically, I think that we went to Vegas the next week.  And yes, I probably still have most of those $100 bills.  

And it is still kind of cool to look at all of the names listed on a group text.  That way, you know whether to reply or not.  Especially, if there is NOT appropriate text and you realize that there is a woman included in the group.  All I know is that there are way more messed up people in the world other than me.  Some people  go to the bathroom at target.  Just wrong!

And NO–he won’t put it on facebook.  We will just announce the first U.S. female president’s candidacy on this, here Kelln blog.  hillary does NOT count as a female or a president or a candidate.  This chick is way better suited for the job and way smarter.  Unless you count who she is married to.  

       I apologize to all that have read this far as there was nothing to learn.  But, I hope , that it is still cool for you when you get a crisp $100.  Spend it wisely.  Or don’t.  

     Wednesday morning.  Hump day is here.  Not only does it feel like we are getting over the hump for the week, this almost feels like the hump for the school year.  Very few contests left this year.  One speech contest is left–state.  State CDEs and State Agriscience are this weekend.  That just leaves the State FFA Convention next week.  The year is nearing the end.

     The district speech contest was last night.  Our kids did good, but could have been better.  Although one of them did very, very well.  Extremely good competition.  Hats off to all of the ag teachers and parents that help these kids succeed at a true life skill that they will use, time and time again.  Tammy and Kela both judged at this contest.  This was Kela’s first time to judge, but as she has a state championship title to her credit, I think that she is qualified.  I don’t know if Duke will ever win a big one, but he does give speeches and does a nice job.  He is not scared to get up in front of people and talk.  That is the main goal.  Of course, we like hardware when you can get it.

     Hitting the road this morning.  Hope the trip is worthwhile.  Have a good day.  And slide on over the hump.

     We’ve been syncing some does the past week or so.  Needed a few to come in so that we could clean a few bucks out.  You know, to get rid of the rusty load.  Got a few more synced to go on a trailer ride to make sure that there are some hot does when we collect bucks.  And an open doe or two might have came into heat last night.  All of these hot females in a small area has the bucks fired up and making some wicked sounds.  Walking outside at 5 AM in the dark and hearing these grunts, growls, groans and other vocal utterances that bucks can make would make one think that they were at a convention of wookies with Chewbacca presiding.  

On occassion, it actually rains in this part of the world.  This weekend, it happened.  It started raining Saturday afternoon and kept at it until Sunday morning.  There are 2 inches in the rain gauge.  The only thing that keeps it from being a perfect rain is that it is a couple of weeks late getting here.  But, we will take it.  

And with the rain, other issues happen.  Saturday evening, I was on the couch watching some tv.  I heard a vehicle coming down our road.  Who the heck?   I looked out the window to see a little, silver 4 door Ford car heading west.  I thought to myself, “I hope that don’t try to go on west down that road.”  They did.  It is a known fact that when it is wet, that you don’t want to go west of our place as the road gets really slickery.  

I moved to a different window for a better vantage point and sure enough, some lady was now out in the mud, surveying her situation.   I went to Duke’s room, who was watching the all time great John Wayne movie, The War Wagon.  I asked if her heard that.  He said, “Yep, I bet they are stuck.”  So we grabbed some chains and put the pickup into 4 wheel drive and headed out into the rain and mud.

We got her unstuck, but it wasn’t fun.  These new cars have NO place to hook a chain.  And there dang sure isn’t any push points.  I ended up covered in mud as I had to get down low in order to get it hooked up.  It happens.

Some days just end up better than others.  There was a wedding in OKC this weekend.  And somebody’s favorite daughter flew in for it.  Tammy went to the wedding and brought Kela home for a few days until she has to head back west.  

Lots of stuff on the calendar this week.  A busy week keeps me out of trouble.  

      I might have been looking at a certain other website, that I kind of like to frequent.  It has lots of humour on it.  One of their topics was discussing the English language.  I can’t argue with the posts as it provides some definite proof that our language is plumb sideways.

I haven’t seen any of his stuff in quite some time, but I always enjoyed the humour and wit of Gallagher.  Hold on, hold on…I’m referring to the comedian Gallagher, not Garland Gallagher.  We’re talking about Gallagher–the dude that used to smash the watermelons at the end of his shows.  Garland Gallagher doesn’t smash melons.  He just gets in lots of banner pics with LOTS of winning Gallagher-bred goats at the end of major shows.   Ha!  

Anyways, I enjoyed reading these posts regarding the English language.  Here is an excerpt.

Cough

Rough

Though

Through

Why don’t these words rhyme?  But for some reason, pony and bologna do rhyme!

Have a good one!

We’ve had a couple of sets of triplets born in the past couple of days.  Luckily only 2 of each survived.   But one thing about a lot of sets of triplets is that one or all of them will be spraddle legged for several hours.  They just can’t seem to get their legs underneath themselves.  Some of this is a result of triplets being all tucked up inside together.  Some of it may be the result of kids out of old (not older) does.

We help them get ahold of a tit.  Getting their bellies full helps give them some energy to set stronger.  Then we put them in a rubber tub which gives them some traction and some sides to lean against and give themselves some leverage.  The Dragon Lady is awesome working with these spraddle legged kids.  She gets them up and going.  In a day or two, you can’t tell which ones had a slow start.  

It is truly amazing at how close a yipping coyote can sound like it is sitting right on your front porch.  3:54 am this morning and I was outside with a rifle that has a light mounted on it.  I first thought the critter was in the front yard, then by the mailbox but as it turned out he was sitting down by the north pond.  They can throw that voice out there.

Another amazing thing is just how nasty it is when a nursing doe gets the runs while in the kidding pens.  She doesn’t act sick but she crapped all over the place. You could paint a wall with a doe’s tail.  A couple of sulfa boluses and some spectam poured out of the bottle and down the hatch since the squirt top cap has decided to quit working and I bet she is fine. 

It is also truly amazing as to the number and different kinds of excuses kids can come up with as to why they don’t have their speech memorized, even though they have had them written for months. 

Here’s to hoping that it is an amazing day.