New Stuff

Now that the subterranean Mole People have released me, I will get back to blogging on a somewhat regular basis. Since the last time we talked, Catherine and I have had a lot of developments in our life.

First, I got a new truck! That's right, the old red hornet (my P.O.S. Jeep) is gone and now look at what I get to ride around in. (P.S., the tagline of Neumayr+Neumayr Ranch Photography is a joke. Just wanted something a little different than the Our Little Ranch photo treatment, today.)



Now I can get hale bales and put them in the bed of my truck and not throw them on top of the Jeep. I can also pen cows with reckless abandon thanks to the fancy Ranch Hand bumper on the front of the truck.

Other developments in our life include: new calves, new knee, new decor, new job, new computer, new business, new spelling of name, new picture subjects, etc.

Stay tuned for the stories behind all of these developments. Right now, I'm out the door to go work some recips, paint their tails, and last but not least, sweat through every layer of clothing that I have on. I'm going to try to convince my partner in crime (Catherine) to come along, because she loves painting their tails. We'll see.

Whittling...

Do you ever have the urge to whittle? I sure do! I love to grab a piece of wood (or anything else for that matter that is hard and able to be whittled) and whip out my pocket knife and see what I can create. For the longest time I would think to myself "If I had a whittler, I would whittle in the morning, I would whittle in the evening, and I'd whittle at suppertime," but the problem was I did not have good whittling equipment. Now I have a great knife and go and whittle stuff often. You may find me in a random person's yard whittling a bear out of a stump.

I mean who does not like to whittle. I think that whittling is a hobby for some, an obsession for others, and a joy for all! I got that from the World of Whittling web site. Words to live by I tell ya!

Anyway, my most recent whittling project was a sign for Catherine and I to put in our yard. This was about a week long project, but the final results are pretty good if I do say so myself.

First we had to dig a hole for the sign. Since it's hot, and I am not so much for using a post hole digger to make a 4 foot hole in the ground, I enlisted two of the ranch workers, Frank and David and the use of one yellow tractor with an auger attached.



The ground was incredibly hard and for a minute I thought that we struck oil, but it was nothing. We had to let the hose run in the hole over lunch to soften up the soil a bit so we could dig deeper.



Frank and David (who the ranch could not function without) made quick work of the digging after the soil was wet and soft.

The next picture is of the sign that I have been whittling on. Not quite what I had hoped for when I started, but once I get better skills I can make another.



Not to bad for a novice whittler huh?

As you can see, I still need to wipe off the bottom part of the sign with our last name on it, but after all the hours of whittling that I did, I just wanted to be done with the sign for awhile.

Look at all the detail that I put into this sign, magnificent.

Ok, ok. Much to your surprise, I did not make this sign. I got it as a wedding gift for Catherine. You see, we also got a really large sign for the ranch entrance. We got this as a Christmas gift for Catherine's parents and I sneakily had one made for Catherine. So when the big sign came in we had a big to-do over it and made Catherine's parents come out of the house with blindfolds and then unveiled the new sign. Then when everyone was gasping in amazement at the new sign I brought out the smaller sign that I got for Catherine. We had hoped to have the big ranch sign up before the wedding, but the weather was not cooperating so we did not make that deadline and it still happens to be waiting to be put into the ground.

But I could not wait any more for our sign to be put in, and this past week I have been working on getting it assembled and put up. Now we just have to decide how to decorate around it. Feel free to leave suggestions of thoughts you have. Flowers, just mulch, stone? I don't know.

If you like this sign, I would suggest visiting Sign-It Signs to look at all the great signs that they have made. Noella was the greatest person to work with and I could not be more happy with the end result. If you have always wanted to get a sign for your ranch or business check them out.

On another note, Wilma is doing great! We have so many pictures to share with y'all of her. But having a new puppy really takes it out of a person. So we will try to find a way to manage keeping up with our blog and keeping up with our sleep. It is a little more complicated than we thought.

Treasured Gifts

We just got married in December 2009. We got so many great gifts and we appreciated all of them. One of my favorites was a cross stitch piece that my grandparents gave me and Luke. It was a beautiful cross stitched project and it was given to us beautifully framed and ready to hang up. We were so excited. What a thoughtful gift that we will treasure forever! It hangs in our bedroom and both Luke and I commented the other day that we just love it. We also got a homemade afghan from one of my cousins, and it is also in there. That room just looks so homey! What a difference gifts from loved ones make.

It's a short blog today from me. I'm wrapping up a busy work week and I am ready to go sit out on the porch and watch the cars drive by. I'll post more soon!

A Preview of Our New Office

We are about to leave to go and see our friends Anne and Caleb McCain's new house that they just built. But before we leave and before I put all the pictures up of the new office paint, I wanted to give a very small preview. So here it is.



In the upper right corner you can see just a little bit of the new wall color. We are very happy with our color selection and now spend much more time in this room. When we get back tonight I will put the rest of the pictures up so you can see the whole sha-bang!

Renovation in Progress

Short blog today. I found a blog of a interior designer through one of our followers. When I looked at the blog, the first post was about the new colors for paint and interiors. Catherine and I have wanted to redo our office wall color for some time and now we know what color and everything. So after meeting with the painter and "bargaining" for a great price, tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. our office is getting an overhaul. Sadly, Catherine admits that as soon as she saw this "Make-Up color" on our walls, she knew that it was a mistake. We also have problems with this gulf coast humidity causing the paint on our door trim to buckle and peel. It ends up flaking onto the floor and looking very shabby. Please look for more photos tomorrow of the finished results. Hopefully we won't be thinking "What did we do!" tomorrow when the paint is dry.

Here are our before pictures. Don't laugh!



Can you see the make-up similarity?

It is kind of embarassing to show this picture, since it makes us look a little tragic/hillbilly-ish. But only for the next 24 hours will we have to look at this.

On a side note, we are now up to 20 registered followers. Thank you so much, we always get a little too excited when we get a new follower!

Until tomorrow...

This Old House

Whenever I graduated college and moved back to the ranch, my family and I remodeled a house that’s been on the place since it was purchased way back in 1973. While I’m not sure of the exact date, I’ve estimated the house that we live in to have been built sometime in the early 1900s.

Luke and I are always saying either you’re an “old house” person or you’re not. Let me go on the record as saying that when I first was walking through this house looking at it before deciding to move here, I would have never thought I was an “old house” person. As I walked through, I remember randomly commenting on things that would just have to be changed — like the old doorknobs, and the doors that don’t quite close, or the mismatched ceiling in one of the bedrooms, or the huge windows that no matter what, just won’t open.

I don’t know when it happened, but sometime in the hundreds of hours that my mom and I spent working on this house, painting, sanding, removing layers of linoleum, or trying to figure our why nothing in this house measures correctly (nothing is “square") — I started to love it. Somewhere along the way, I have grown to appreciate this house. There’s something special about an old house… I like to think about all the people who have lived here before us and wonder if, just like us, they tried to get the windows open, or griped in the winter when it was cold, or wondered how on earth they would find a place to store their Christmas decorations, or sat on the same porch we do and watched the cows graze in the pasture around suppertime. My own parents lived here from 1976 – 1983 when they first got married, and like me, they have a soft spot for these 4 walls. It’s a good house… it has history.

Speaking of history, one of my favorite things to do is collect cattle memorabilia, particularly Shorthorn. It’s only fitting that our century old house serves as the perfect canvas for all of my old Shorthorn treasures.

When it came time to start decorating my new (but old, you know) house before moving in, I didn’t know what my style was… but I knew my favorite thing in the world was Shorthorn cattle. I decided that I wanted to paint one of the rooms a Shorthorn red and use it as a place to put my favorite Shorthorn collectibles. Yes, that idea worked, but I should confess that there are Shorthorn collectibles all over the house!

I realize we have more Brahman cattle on this place than red, white, or roan. But you can’t change what you love – and I will always be partial to my beautiful Shorthorns. When I was about 14 years old, my mom, dad, grandmother and I took out on a trip to Colorado and visited the famous Ka’Ba Shorthorn Ranch, a prefix made famous by Ka’Ba Rose T90, a pretty special Shorthorn cow. I’ll never forget as we pulled up to their ranch, they had a huge sign that said: “This place keeps Shorthorns, Shorthorns keep this place.” I only wish I had a picture of that to share! It’s one of my favorite memories.

Here are some photos/stories behind some of my favorite collectibles.



The next couple of framed photos were my first "discovery" and I love them! These are antique prints that used to be distributed by the American Shorthorn Breeders' Association. This roan steer, Big Boy, is something to be proud of! These prints are very rare - I keep looking for another copy to give to a friend as a gift, but I've never seen them again.



International Champion Carload - would've loved to have seen this in person!

This framed scarf was a real diamond in the rough. I purchased it off of Ebay and it was in bad shape, all wrinkled, stained, and puckered/stretched. I took it to our local frame shop and they worked wonders on it. It's framed and hangs in the foyer/entryway.

Not really historical, but still one of my favorite treasured Shorthorn pieces in the house. This frame came from Classic Leather Designs and was a gift from my mom and dad. It sat empty for years as I could never find the perfect photo for it. Luke snapped this photo of me in 2006 with my favorite Shorthorn cow WR4 Delila D. She passed away shortly after this photo was taken. I had the print enlarged and finally had a use for this beautiful frame. Notice her eartag in the righthand corner.

Something about the red, white, and roan makes it gorgeous when it is painted on pottery! There's a lady from the northeast who paints all of these and they are few and far between. They sell every once in a while at public auction and I always bid strong to take them home. They are rare... but they are my absolute favorite thing! I probably have about 6 pieces and my parents have about 5 too... I can't wait to add my next piece to the collection. Notice one of my books there - "Profitable Stock Feeding." Have you noticed how fat our cats are? Haha!

I also collect rare Shorthorn books. My most prized find ever is Volume II of the American Short-Horn Herd Book. I searched for this book for at least 4 years before finding it in a rare book shop in New York! The herd books were published in the mid 1800s until the 1940s I believe. My "golden" find would be Volume I to add to my collection, but I don't think I will ever get it! I probably have one of the most complete collections in the United States... of (what I know) 130 volumes printed, I am only missing 11. Other books here on my mantle (most very rare and proudly added to my collection over the past 10 years) are:

• "A Record of Unfashionable Crosses in Short-Horn Cattle Pedigrees Vol. 1" by F.P and O.M. Healy, published in 1883
• "A Record of Unfashionable Crosses in Short-Horn Cattle Pedigrees Vol. 2" by O.M. Healy, published in 1887
• "The American Polled Durham Herd Book Volume 1" from American Polled Durham Breeders Association, published in 1898
• "Record of Shorthorn Prizewinners Vol. 1" by B.O. Cowan, published in 1911
• "Short-Horn Cattle," by Alvin H. Sanders, published in 1916 (not so rare, but important!)
• "History of Short Horn Cattle," by Lewis F. Allen (creator of the ASA Herd Book), published in 1883
• "Red White and Roan," by Alvin H. Sanders, published in 1936
• "Mostly About Shorthorns," by Frank W. Harding, published in 1940
  

A painting that was given to me by someone in my family (not sure who anymore). I had it framed and put it in the red room at my house. Beautiful Shorthorn cow!

Christmas gift a few years ago from my parents. This roan Shorthorn bull is on the accent table in the dining room. The person who makes these is at Louisville each year and she has all breeds.

Treasures from the Stock Show.

Catherine and I got back late last night from San Antonio. We ended up having Reserve Grand Champion Grey Bull, but we are a little more excited about some of the things that we got while we were there.

The trade show at the show was huge. It was in three different buildings and had everything from blow up sauna's to fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (Yes we tried the Fried PB&J and it was rather tasty.) We walked up and down the aisles and found some things that we thought needed to come back to the ranch with us.

First, we were walking along and found these neat Spanish/Senorita style pillows. We don't have a couch that is in need of new pillows, but we will thought we needed to get them. After you see the pictures I think you will agree that they were a good find.

We also found a booth that used pictures of outdoor elements to make the letters of the alphabet. It was very interesting to look at all the pictures of the different letters. Catherine and I decided to "just look" and see what Neumayr would look like with these photos. Well after we had all the letter lined up we thought we needed that too. So we picked out the details for the final framed artwork and the booth owner put it all together for us. I think that this is a really neat idea and I am glad we found this booth at the trade show.




Our new sign that hangs above the coat rack.



The rectangle pillow.



The two circle pillows.