Flat Stanley helps a Rancher in Nebraska

This past week, Janice Pearson @jplovesCotton, was tweeting that she’d like to ag people participate in her nephews ‘Flat Stanley’ project with his second grad class.  If you’re unfamiliar with who ‘Flat Stanley’ is check it out here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Stanley

Stetson and I thought it would be interesting for Stanley to follow Stetson while he does his morning feed route.  15 miles  :) Below is the info we sent and pictures of Flat Stanley and the fun he had while being a rancher for a morning on a feed route!!

Good Morning to Jake and Ms. Rorie’s entire second grade class.  I was so tickled that Jake’s Aunt Janice wanted to send Flat Stanley to different agriculture based places.  We are a cattle ranch in the Western edge of the Nebraska SandHills.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Sand_Hills

The Sand Hills are the largest grass covered sand dune area in North America.  They are also located above one of the largest under ground water aquifers in the the world called the Ogallala  Aquifer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_aquifer

The grass these Sand Hills grow makes fabulous feed for cattle and horses.  Our water is easily pumped from the ground because of the Ogallala Aquifer.The Sand Hills we live by are very large and are very tall, almost like small foothills in the mountains but made of sand.  :)    We can go sledding and sometimes with enough snow we can go snowmobiling.  That is great fun.

http://maps.google.com/ Ostrander Road, Gordon, NE.

We live 32 miles from the nearest town and it only has 1800 people living there.  When I go to Wal-Mart I drive 80 miles, that’s a long ways.  Our nearest neighbors are 3 miles away.  Because not many people live out here we see lots of animals.  We have white tail deer and muley deer, pheasants, grouse, owls, coyotes, rabbits, and the list could go on.  We raise cattle and have a momma cow herd of about 400 cows.  We also have year old cattle in the summer called yearlings.  Our baby calves are born in the spring and get to live with their moms all summer.  I raise Quarter Horses and we have colts in the spring also.  It’s a great time of year to see all the young livestock playing.

1. Doctoring colt-Flat Stanley held on to halter

2. Stanley takes a ride

3. Stanley watches as Stetson feeds old cows

When you go with the feed guy you 'get' to open gates for him )

Stanely watches as Stetson breaks ice in tanks

More ice breaking

Once you have the ice broke, then you pitch it all out

These are heifer calves we fed

Stanely enjoying watching the calves eat & the scenery.

Feed coming out of feeder

Calves following pickup & eating

Reloading pickup with feed mixture

Stanley was right at the top

The pickup feeder has a counter so we know how much we feed

Momma cows

Stanley enjoys the scenery

Stetson driving & feeding

Happy momma cows eatting.

Our riding horses & bulls are fed together.

These are heifers that will have their 1st baby calves this spring

Smaller calves that are fed in bunks.

We have a creek that runs thru the home valley.

We had a blast putting these shots together and figuring what ‘Stanley’ could do next!!  THNX!! to Stetson who was a great sport, but I did open all the gates for him!!  :)

Well, I hope you got to see that Stetson has a big job to do each day in feeding cattle and horses.  He does this when the weather was beautiful like today and also when it’s bitterly cold like two days ago when it was 0 degrees and the wind was blowing making the wind chill -25.  I think Stanley liked to ride along with Stetson and get to help me open the gates.  We saw some grouse and pheasants but didn’t get a picture.  We also saw some deer but they were a long ways off.  We love raising cattle and hope you enjoyed getting to see what Stanley got to do.