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.

That's a Bunch of Bull!

That time of the year has rolled around again. The time when we put out herd bulls. Personally, I think looking at cows is much more fun when you have a big impressive herd bull roaming the pastures with them and I get real excited when the bulls are loaded up from the bull pastures and then dropped off at their designated breeding grounds. I don't think that I need to say this, but I think the bulls are a little more "excited" to see their ladies than I am, but you know what I mean.

What really adds to the excitement is when we have a bull that went from being a show bull to a herd bull. They normally make a stop at the bull stud to get some semen collected, so we can breed or flush cows to them, before they get turned out with cows. While they are getting collected we don't get to see them everyday and when a trailer leaves to go pick them up, we all sit by our phones waiting for the call to say that the bulls are getting close. We, normally everyone around the ranch, go to the pasture where the first bull is getting turned out and anxiously await for the door to the trailer to open, and a big herd bull come stepping out.

This particular bull, pictured above, is one that is very special to us. His name is Mr. V8 463/6 and he is the 2009 National Champion Bull. I have a very strong bond with 463 because I was the lucky one that got to show him for most of his life.


Here we are at the Kick-Off Classic in Brenham. He was just a little guy this day, but he did big things. He went home with the Reserve Grand Champion banner. What a stud!

We also like to give our bulls nicknames, because calling one 463 over and over again get a little boring. But we also have some that don't get names. So it is kinda a crap shoot if they get a name or not.

Anyway, 463 did get a nickname. We call him Roany. A roan colored calf is one that has different colors of hair mixed together. Roany has a red tint to him and also black, as well as his grey body. He has parts that it all mixes together and therefore was dubbed Roany. He also has some snowflakes on his backside. Look below, those are pretty cool, huh?



This was the big man when he was National Champion. What an exciting day!

So back to turning out herd bulls. When 463 was turned out, Catherine's dad called us and said "Come look at 463, he looks like a million bucks!" So we grabbed our camera and headed down the road to the backside of the Donaldson to check him out. Sure enough, 463 looked like he had just came out of the showbarn.

We took a few more pictures and one will be selected as his official photo that will go in our semen brochure, on the web site and used in our print advertising. But we have not selected which one that will be yet. Once we do, I will share it with y'all.

It ain't pretty.

That's the thing about ranching. But... it sure can be funny.

As I'm sure you've figured out by now, Luke and I aren't at a loss for humor. We find something to laugh about in even the most boring of all situations.

We have 3 head in our little pen right by our house. We have 143/6, who is the alpha cow of the group, plus two younger heifers that we bought earlier this year that we are 'growing out' until they are ready to be bred. 143 is so nice to us... she lets us pet her and stands at the gate morning and evening at feeding time. However, she's a big bully to the two younger heifers. They want to be friends, and they want to get pet and scratched too, but 143 isn't letting them. Anytime the little heifers inch towards us, or stretch a curious neck out thinking about giving us a sniff, before long, 143 comes a-runnin' and butts them out of the way, as if to say, "Hey... if you're giving out the petting and scratching, here I am." It's not her most attractive personality trait, but hey, I'm sure we've all known people just like her who push others around to get in the spotlight. And just like those situations, we let 143 manipulate us into getting what she wants — we begrudgingly oblige and give all our petting to her. As I'm writing this, I feel guilty.

Anyways, these 3 lovely Brahman ladies needed some hay the other day and since both Luke and I are SUV drivers, we usually have to borrow a truck to go to the hay barn (which is only about 200 yards from our house, I should mention) and get them some square bales. We used to have our own round bale circle hay rack thing, but it got stolen by my dad an unknown thief.

None of the ranch's trucks were available and we had to... improvise.

My husband, the yard man, got on his trusty red lawn tractor (okay... it's not a tractor), drove it down the road to the hay barn, loaded up 2 bales in the "foot" area of the mower, and headed back to Our Little Ranch. Now... he is getting really creative with the hay moving, because if you'll remember, last time he loaded it on top of his Jeep. This time, he was already mowing the yard and I'm guessing a light bulb went off. Hey, whatever works.

I could NOT miss this. I took a break from laughing hysterically at how ridiculous this hay transportation was to run inside for my camera.


Luke The Expert Driver had to finagle his way through a very tight entrance. The angle just doesn't do it justice, but the tiny gate from the yard to the pen left only centimeters on each side. Nice concentration face, Husband.



Taking the long way around. 143 is probably running my way right now, thinking, "Oooh, pet me!"



But sorry, 143, I can't pet you, because I'm always distracted by evening sunset photo ops.

The two little heifers in the pen probably saw this and high fived (or is it hoof-fived? high hoofed?) and said, "Haha, 143! You are losing your touch, loser!"

Facing My Fears

Just like anyone else, I have a few fears. Don't worry this is not going to be a soul-searching trip through my past to discover where these fears originated and how I can move past them. This is not that type of blog if you have not figured that out yet.

So I have three fears that really bother me. One on a daily basis and the other two only every three or four weeks. I will start with the first one.

Fear #1 - My zipper is down.
Haha, laugh it up. Seriously I am horrified that my fly is down all the time. I constantly check it and also have others check it. Well, how about other, Catherine. She is always having to look for me. And I know exactly where this started. It was in seventh grade IT (Industrial Technology) class. Our teacher, Mr. Gadd (he was from England and had an empty coffee can that he would kick across the room when he got mad. Isn't that interesting) was having us build a square box. I was cutting a board for my box and felt sawdust getting in places that it should not. So I look down and my fly is down. I mean the barn door was open and the animals were out. I quickly looked up to see if anyone else had noticed (not that there was much to notice in 7th grade. Is that too much? Maybe? Oh well.) and quickly put everything back in its place. Ever since then I have been horrified that I will run a re-run of that episode.

Fear #2 - I have lice.
Anytime my head itches I am certain that I have lice. I should preface that by saying that I never have had lice and I think that only long haired girls get those nasty head bugs. At least that is what I tell myself.

Fear #3 - I am going BALD!!!
I am also paranoid that I am going bald. Not that I have anything against skin heads, but I just do not think that would be a good look for me. I once had a buzz cut when I was in little league and looking back at those pictures, I was an embarrassment to my parents. It was awful.

So needless to say, when I go to get a haircut Fears 2 and 3 are compiled and send me almost into a panic. I mean I would almost just let my hair go, but then the long hair and lice thing would be even more of a problem. What is a boy to do?

Today Catherine and I went to get our wigs split before we head up to Indiana for Easter. I was just getting my hair cut while Catherine was going all out, haircut AND color.

I always tell Natalie (our haircutter) when I first sit down in the chair to check for lice and to make sure that I am not going bald. She always reassures me that I have a full thick head of hair and in no way am I going bald. Then after my hair cut, Catherine sits down to get her color added to her hair.


Then it has to process or something like that so while the color was doing what it needed to do, we jumped in the car and headed to Sonic for the first Strawberry Limeade of the season.



Widget was trying to get me to do some stupid pose and this is what she got for a response.

After a few decades waiting on Catherine to get her hair all did up, I had one of those "Oh Crap!" moments. I just remembered that I needed to put out a few round bales before we left in the morning for Indiana. I must have been too engrossed pulling my hair back and looking in the mirror at my hairline to remember about the cattle that were depending on me for food. Whoops.

So Catherine and I headed back to the ranch and we got some neat pictures while the sun was setting.





While I was putting out the hay, Catherine found two heifers that wanted to pose for the camera.



Maybe my favorite picture yet. Catherine snapped this when she came and picked me up at the hay barn. Speaking of Catherine.....


Check out her new hair color! How She wanted to do something different and bold. I would say that she accomplished that! I keep looking at this picture and thinking to myself "I have one bad ass wife!"



Photo caption: Catherine's first true love, Brahmans.

I bet there are some people laughing after that one!



When Catherine opened a gate for me, I stopped and we were even able to get a picture of us, using the timer on the camera and setting it on a fence post.



My favorite part of this picture is the barn in the background. Oh and that handsome devil leaning against the fence. Stud.



In all my rush to get the hay out before dark, I did not notice that one of the tires on the tractor was a little flat. Also pay no attention to the wet dirt in the corner. I had to go and did not realize that "the spot" was in the picture. Oh well we're ranchers, deal with it.

When I got back to the hair barn, Catherine picked me up and we headed to Mach's to pick up our dinner.

Adventures in Cow Working

Well.... not really cow working. Just giving donors shots. Here's some photos I snapped yesterday evening.


Curious — but friendly — cows. I had just got out to close the gate. I was feeling pretty good about myself until hours later, Luke informed me that my tee-shirt had rode up in the back and when I went to shut the gate I had given Matt a view of the top of my undies. Sorry, Matt.



Easy enough, huh? How many times do I think she's been through this... more than a few!



I wish I had gotten a picture of Matt's super penning moves. At one point he went airborne and yelled out like he was competing in karate!



I wonder what they're thinking.



Now this situation - where her nose is between the two pipes - not the least bit scary to me. It's when they get their head on top of that top pipe that I start to see my life flash before my eyes and think they might jump out and come towards me. I should note: this has never actually happened, but it doesn't mean I'm any less scared. For years Luke has told me that my fear of culverts was irrational - but see post below about man flipping truck on 12 foot culvert. A-ha! My fear is validated and has completely intensified since then.



Sliding gate - freshly "fixed" where it actually slides and no longer has to be roughly tugged.

This cow became my friend. She stood there - very close - and let me take this and a few more photos of her.

I think she has a future on America's Next Top Model - this lovely lady struck this fierce pose for me and I was so excited. Work it, girl! Smile with your eyes! (If you don't watch ANTM you don't know what I'm talking about.)

When there's actual cow working being done at the chute —whatever that may be— these are the BEST seats in the house... Usually reserved for my two grandpas or whoever else is lucky enough to snag one. They sit up high off the ground like thrones and are way more comfortable than they look.

The friendly cow... and.... Matt & Luke finishing up just as we ran out of daylight.

It's that time of the month again.

Alright, alright. It is not what you are thinking about! Get your head outta the gutter.

There are a few things that happen once or twice a month around this ol’ ranch. Things like flushing cows, laundry, and Catherine bathing. Let’s take this one step at a time and start with the cattle.

Normally we flush cows every month, sometimes twice. For our city folk out there, when we say flush a cow we give them hormones to send their ovaries into overtime and hopefully they produce multiple eggs. We then fertilize the “donor cow” who has been turned into an egg producing machine. After the eggs are fertilized they are then removed from the cow and put into recipient cows who serve as a surrogate mom. And that concludes you lesson in ranching for today. Take notes, quizzes to follow.



Matt is bringing up the last two. I thought that we were going to have some good penning action in the morning, the kind where we all get to drive like mad-men, but they both ran right into the pen. How boring.



Here are the girls all lined up waiting to come through the chute and get their dose of hormones. Keeps 'em in a better mood.



All lined up in the chute. Sometimes I walk by each one and say something stupid like "Welcome" or "How is your morning going?" Considering that I can only keep one eye open at a time this hour of the morning I have to have my fun.



Matt is measuring the right amount of drugs to give to a certain cow.

Anyway we are now right in the middle of giving shots donors. This involves penning the cows twice a day (morning and night) and giving them a stick with a needle. The only problem with this is that the morning pen occurs right at day break. I usually roll out of bed, put on whatever clothes I can find (sometimes even my favorite Tabasco pajama pants that Catherine despises), grab a Coke or cup of coffee, and stumble to the truck.

But when the morning looks like this, how can I not look forward to getting up with the chickens.



I got real crafty and took a picture of the sunrise in my mirror. I think that I will more than likely win some sort of award for this.


The thin blanket of fog made for a very nice morning.

If the weather is good penning is pretty mundane, you just have to honk and the cows start to head towards the pens. However, sometimes there is a thick blanket of fog and then things get interesting or if a cow breaks away. If a cow breaks away it is all hands on deck!! I mean gravel flies, trucks do wheelies, and if you happen to be a passenger all you can do it grit your teeth, say a few Hail Mary’s and hold on.

After we pen and sort the cattle, we give the shots and go on about our daily routine. Normally, I head back to the house, make some breakfast and take a shower. And today that is when I noticed that it was laundry time. Just look at the picture.

I have on two mismatched socks and one of them is Catherine’s that I stole at some point. First off I have the worst collection of socks ever. I never sort them, I just throw them in a drawer, and wear them until they look like dental floss. The reason that I have smuggled some of Catherine’s socks is because she has little feet. I have feet like elephant. When the little socks are stretched over my boat feet they become very thin and comfortable. I came upon this realization once when I had no clean socks and had to borrow some of Catherine’s. Since then I prolly smuggle one to two pairs each month. Tried the underwear once, but she can keep those. Ha! Don’t worry Mom, that was a joke I am not actually wearing women’s clothing again. That was just a phase in high school.

Back to us needing to do laundry. It never fails, we make a pact that we are going to do a load of laundry every day so it will not pile up. That lasts for a couple days and then goes out the window. One of the great things about living on a ranch is that in general cows smell worse than people. However, sometimes in the middle of the summer when I get back from working all day when it is 112 degrees and 80% humidity, I think that Catherine would rather snuggle up next to a rank bull than get within 10 feet of me. So in keeping with the cow smell > human smell formula (read: cow smell is greater than human smell) clothes can sometimes be worn for multiple days especially in the winter when you have on a jacket and no one really notices that you worn the same shirt for 2 weeks in a row. It is also permissible to wear jeans on multiple occasions. I mean who doesn’t know that it is not until the third day of wearing that they are the most comfortable. And it is that theory that gets us into the predicament that we are now. We have no clean clothes and have used all our “get out of jail free cards” on multiple wears. So hopefully while I am writing this blog, my lovely wife will be washing my clothes.

I know this is one of our longer blogs but I am just going to add a little more. When you are around people every day and stand knee deep in manure with them, it doesn’t really matter that you may have a little bit of smell to you. When it does matter is when someone who did not make an appointment to come look at cattle comes to the ranch and wants to look around. I can think of one time when I was in this pickle. We had been working cows all day and I smelled like a boy’s locker room combined with catfish stink bait and that awful fly attractant that you put in those big jars that hang from the ceiling to catch flys. I was leaning so far out of the window when I was driving these people around the ranch in hopes to blow the stink off me that I am sure they thought that I had problems. I was hoping that maybe I just thought that I smelled worse than I actually did, but when I got home Catherine reaffirmed that I needed to be hosed off with bleach.

Another Weekend Flown By!

Here we are at the beginning of spring – officially. I see signs of it everywhere; I wouldn’t need a calendar to recognize them. New baby calves, wildflowers blooming, warmer and sunnier days, and now with the time change, an extra hour in the evening that makes more daylight.

We had a great weekend! It was a full weekend, though: birthday parties, grocery shopping, dinner with friends, trips to the movies… and of course excellent company!

The weather turned colder Saturday but is now starting to warm back up. Before the weather got chilly, I spent my Friday late evening riding around taking pictures. It was just too beautiful to miss the opportunity. So… the pictures on this blog were taken Friday to show you how pretty this time of year is in Texas!

Saturday it was rainy and cold – which resulted in a usually mundane trip to the grocery store turning into a monsoon-braving adventure.

This morning Luke rose way before me to go give the donor cows shots for the upcoming flush. By the time my alarm went off so I would have time to get ready to go to church, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Luke had prepared homemade breakfast tacos for me! What a treat! What isn’t so much of a treat is cow manure-covered blue jeans from the morning cow work that I have to wash.

Tonight in the last hour of daylight, I got to witness what can only be described as a Miami Vice style penning episode, complete with Luke and Frank each turning doughnuts in the mud in their respective vehicles. Boy am I glad I was just watching and not expected to actually get something in the pen!

Have an excellent week!


I'm embarrassed to say that we just now have taken down our Christmas wreath and replaced it with this springtime one that I snuck out of Target while Luke was outside in the car. I was only supposed to run in and get laundry detergent, so he waited in the car. I sheepishly wheeled the cart out with multiple sacks - including this wreath.



Why hello gentle new Shorthorn calf that likes being petted! Welcome, friend!



The ranch is covered in these yellow flowers every year for about 3 weeks right at the beginning of spring.



No longer wondering when the hay is coming - there's green grass growin' now, ma'am!



My favorite tree on the entire ranch - this one curves over an area where there used to be a railroad tracks in the civil war days.

Chilly nights mean plenty of fire-pit time.

Head shots or is it Headshots?

We are gearing up for our next flush at the ranch and I have been checking heats on the cows that we are planning on using on this next flush. While I was out this evening, I got some good head shots (is it one word or two?) of the cattle as they were out grazing in the evening sun.

Now I am about to go watch all the good TiVo that we got tonight starting with American Idol!

Spring is here!

Well... maybe I jumped the gun. My grandpa was just here and told me that it is supposed to get down to 40 again this week. Anyways, today, the sun is shining, a breeze is blowing, and it is right at 70 degrees. Who could've asked for a more beautiful spring-like day?

We have a little trap (or pen, to our northern friends) right beside our house that we usually keep a few special cattle in. In the past, we've kept some of my old Shorthorn show heifers, or maybe some yearling heifers we've picked up at sales to grow out and feed.

Since the two queens of that pen - Myrtle Bo and Cumberland (two of my old Shorthorn heifers) have been away getting flushed for a few months, its been empty. With the recent rains and then the few days of sunshine mixed in, there's a ton of grass and green clover in the pen.

So... we're so excited to have an occupant living there again! And it's not just any ol' cow, either. We've got the International Champion Miss V8 143/6 living here for a while. It's interesting to note that me and 143/6 go way back since I actually was the showman on the day she won the International Show when she was just a calf. My dad and my sister each had older ones in the champion lineup to show. You can imagine my skepticism when they informed me I would be showing the calf champion. First of all, they had these powerhouse older females that had won plenty of shows. Secondly, and most important to me though, I pictured the calf as a barely halterbroke, nervous, crazy-acting fool. Much to my surprise though, she was the sweetest little calf ever and I was so happy that she acted good! Even more happier that she WON! Everyone was surprised!

Anyways, nowadays, she needs a place to rest while she recovers from a foot injury, and our little pen is just the place. Today Luke spent time getting her place all ready - I actually saw him driving down the road with hay bales ON TOP of his Jeep. Wish I had a picture of that! He cleaned out our feed room and filled it up with 143's food. We're excited to have something to actually feed and pamper every day. The best part is that she is so gentle! She loves to be petted and I think she knows she's in a place where we love taking care of her! I'm thinking about raiding the showbarn and getting some brushes to get her all fixed up!

Anyways, while Luke was working he realized what a cool photo subject she was. Here's her posing in her new pen!

The Wait is Over!

Ok so the past two weeks have been crazy! Houston is our International Brahman show and the ranch took just shy of 30 head to the show. As the word "international" would suggest many Brahman breeders from around the globe invade Houston during the stock show. Not only do the foreign breeders want to see the show cattle, but they also want to come visit the ranch. We have had visitors from Thailand, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Columbia, Australia, Honduras, Paraguay, and Oklahoma. Although the language barrier presents problems, as many do not speak English, when everyone has the same interest of looking at cattle, it is much easier to overcome.

One of the biggest perks of the foreign breeders coming is they almost always bring gifts from their respective countries. The group from Thailand brought a beautiful little "thing." I have no clue what it is. It looks like a urn that you put ashes of a past family member in. However, this is small. Like the only ashes it could hold would be ashes of Stephanie the pet hamster. My personal favorite gift was from the Columbians. Any guesses on what that could be? COFFEE!!! Pure Columbian Coffee! After my first cup I re-roofed the house, caught a salmon swimming up stream and beat Chuck Norris in a race. I mean this stuff is potent!

In other news, I have a few pictures to share with y'all tonight. Hopefully the ones we took in Houston will be making an appearance shortly. But for now, these will have to do.



A cow waiting in the pen to head down the chute.



Same cow, different pose.




When I was showing around a group from Venezuela, these calves were enjoying the morning sun and were right next to the water. I thought that there reflection in the water was cool so I took a picture.



The other night we had a real pretty sunset so guess what......we took a picture!