Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

Computer upgrade causes 40,000 computers to crash. My hired man would say that this just shows how evil computers are. I disagree, they are not evil, they just do what there told and crashes sometimes occur especially when using Microsoft products. The whole thought of 40.000 computers crashing though is really scary when you consider the US Air Force is turning to Microsoft for it's security needs in a computer system. The "Blue Screen of Death" brings on a whole new meaning with this announcment. The thought of Microsoft's bug ridden, insecure operating system controlling the Air Forces systems is truly scary to me.

My moms have taught me to be open to difference and live life honestly, even when it is scary. Sol Kelley-Jones

I sometimes wonder if my cattle can read my mind. The cows were still out in the hills scrounging for feed and later in the week I was going to let them come down towards home. You will note the "were" in the statement. They decided to break the fence down and come home without any help. Luckily the next fence held long enough to move some other cattle around to let them the rest of the way down. I hate when I have to do things unplanned and in a hurry but we managed. We spent a while fixing everything and I am back under control for now. "If" there are any cattle left in the hills I will let them work in if they want. The ones that came home will start getting a cake supplement now and I will hold off haying them. The hired man wanted to know if I was rewarding them for breaking the fence down and coming home. I told him "we" were rewarding them for not breaking any more fence down than they did and patiently waiting while we moved some other cattle around before they came down. Got to look on the bright side.

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. John Ruskin

Had another enjoyable trip to my well seasoned mom's place for Thanksgiving. It's always enjoyable for family to get together and visit during the holidays. One of the things that isn't expected is when you have to work for your dinner. Seems mom and her husband needed a roof put on a shed so we were shooed out to put it on (notice the black hat, my good one not my work one) before we were allowed to eat Thanksgiving dinner. I have to add to my thanks for Thanksgiving the fact I didn't fall off and kill myself. Don't get me wrong it was no big deal, these are the things you do for your well seasoned mom and her hubby.

While I was busy working on the roof my wife decided to bring the boy out and try to get pictures of me falling off the roof. Since I didn't fall off she failed in her goal but the boy did decide to play while he was outside. Kicking this ball around was great fun. Quite a few members of the family joined in and great fun was had by all, except those of us working on the roof of course. Later my wife noticed a squirrel wandering around and walked up to it and took it's picture. She said it had to have been fed by humans cause it was really fat and not scared of her at all.



Then the time came to have our meal. David requested pictures of the meal so here it is.



The arm you see on the counter is my Darling Wife coming around to chase me out of the way. They didn't have all the food out yet so it isn't complete. The next time I saw it there was a very big dent in the food and it wasn't very photogenic. Now that David has seen the spread when are we going to see pictures from him is what I would like to know.

We spent about 3 days down visiting before we came home. All in the family were tired and even my mom's dog had enough of the get together and was glad to see us leave. He was so tired he could barely wiggle by the time we left. A good time was had by all and I hope everybody else had a good time too.

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence. Erma Bombeck

I got back from my visit to my well seasoned mom yesterday afternoon I have a couple of pictures to share but haven't got that far yet. Maybe this afternoon. Did find on my return that a new computer security problem has come up that affects all operating systems and all web browsers. Poison applet peril affects IE, Opera and Firefox. This is a Java vunerability that is easy to fix. You just need to download the newest version of Java and install it. Here is where the download page is. Wht you're looking for when you get there is the link to the "JRE", or Java Runtime Environment, right smack in the middle of the page.

I try to keep up on these things and let people know the problems. Maybe I am the lone voice in the wilderness when it comes to these problems but I am letting people know. If they wish to take action about it that's there decision to make.

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience. Mohandas Gandhi

Conservation parks on Mars. Sounds a little bit like they are putting the cart before the horse to me.

Next time you go for a stroll on Mars, be sure you don't leave any litter behind. A plan to keep parts of the red planet in their pristine state could see seven areas turned into 'planetary parks', regulated just like national parks here on Earth.

Seems to me like we should be worring about more practical problems before such wild-eyed fantasies.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. H. L. Mencken

Animals have played a very important part until recently in most wars through out the world. Dogs particularly still play a large roll but others have slowly been fading out. I see that the British have erected a memorial to animals who served in time of war. I am not a big fan of memorials but this one seems appropriate. Animals have helped man through the years, inside and outside of war, and it doesn't hurt to recognize, and make people think about, thier efforts. Hell of an idea, maybe it needs considered on this side of the "pond."

Remember all those renowned generations,
Remember all that have sunk in their blood,
Remember all that have died on the scaffold,
Remember all that have fled, that have stood,
Stood, took death like a tune
On an old tambourine.

William Butler Yeats

Today on this day of Thanksgiving in the United States I wanted to share what I am thankful for.

As with the first Thanksgiving I am thankful for the bountiful harvest the land has bestowed upon me. I work hard at being a good steward of the land and it has rewarded me in turn. Even though it turned out to be a dry year the good Lord seem fit to make it a good year and I am grateful.

I am thankful for my wife and children. They stand beside me in my troubles and celebrate with me in the good times. Without them I would not be whom I am today and my life would seem very empty as it was before the blessing of their presence in my life was bestowed upon me.

I am thankful for the rest of my family and the blessings it gives me. My mother, father, sister, brother, aunts, uncles, and all the others in my extended family. These people in the past and even today support and guide me with their advice and most support me with there love too. You know there is an old saying that you can choose your friends but you are stuck with your relatives. As with all families this is true for me too, but even those who I would rather not admit to being related to have helped me in making me who I am.

I am thankful for my friends here at my blog and those who don't understand my blog. I will admit I don't trust people very easily and because of that do not have many friends, but those that I have I would trust with my life. These people yield valuable advice by there words and deeds that I can use as a compass in my life.

I am thankful for the intelligence and understanding to realize that even the things that have happened in the past year that are painful and bad can be accepted and folded into my soul to make me a better person. These bad things, whether they be an act of nature or a quirk of fate, have caused me to look deep in my soul and search and find the strength to lift my spirit, and those around me, to step forward and say to the world "You Will Not Defeat Me, I Am Strong Enough To Handle This."

Last but not least I am thankful for natural beauty that surrounds me on this earth. Whether it's the beauty of a newborn baby or the beauty of a perfect sunset I am thankful to the Lord that he has blessed me with the soul to see his beauty and marvel at it. These beautiful things are not always easy to see through the clouds of our everyday lives but what better thing is there than to look for them and marvel at them.

These are some of the things I am thankful for. I hope anyone reading this can relate to some of these things and add there own. I also wish you the best on this day and every day and that many thanks will fill your life with joy. You have but to open your heart to see them.

I awoke this morning with a devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself to me in his gifts? Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

The rest of the hay finally came in today. I should be more accurate, the last of the big bales. I also purchased 200 ton of hay in little small bales and I have only gotten 1 load in so far. I am going to have to start getting mean with him shortly.

Traveled down to Wyoming to my Mom's for Thanksgiving. It always amazes me that cattle can even survive in the country south of Brider down towards Greybull. It's like a desert around there. I worry about my grass. These people would think what I have as the land of milk and honey. It's all in the perception of things I guess.

There is no truth. There is only perception. Gustave Flaubert

Found over at Kill Some Time. It is really tough to do.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. Albert Einstein

Tests Show No Mad Cow, Cattle Prices Rise

John Clifford, deputy administrator for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said on Tuesday that federal scientists conducted two final tests on the animal's brain sample. The first test completed on Monday was negative. A second finished on Tuesday was also negative, he said.

"Negative results from both ... tests make us confident that the animal in question is indeed negative for BSE," Clifford said.

Cattle industry officials said they were relieved, but not surprised.

"All along, from the beginning, we knew that the screening tests, while very accurate, were going to have some false positives because of the sensitivity of them," said Chandler Keys, vice president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

"It looks like the North American system is robust ... We have no epidemic problem, as the Europeans did," Keys added.

Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success. Dale Carnegie

I wish I understood the intricacies of the currency markets. They talk about the dollar rising or falling and I have a real hard time wrapping my pea brain around what they are talking about and the concequences of it. I do know that a falling dollar makes our exports cheaper worldwide and imports more expensive which helps out the trade deficit that everybody complains about. That's why I found this story about the falling dollar interesting. Intrest rates may go up, "run on the dollar," Central bank interventions, a lot of things can happen and understanding all the nuances is like trying to figure out a woman, real difficult.

Whether there is "run on the dollar" (whatever that means) or foriegn banks move to support the dollar to support thier own exports, which if I recollect happened the last time the dollar fell like this, it's going to affect us and all our businesses. That's why I wish I understood it better so I would understand the implications of everything they talk about but this dumb cowboy just don't have enough smarts to figure it out. I'll just have to roll with the punches and deal with it.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I would really be curious to know where this timid attitude being shown in Asian countries come from. This attitude is what the cattle industry needs to address to open up markets again and get people buying again.

"Anybody who works in the beef industry knows that the danger is not high. But consumers have a tendency to think, 'Oh, one cow was found.' They get scared," said Lee We-hyoung, a meat industry consultant and supplier in Seoul.

People's attitudes, pretty tough hurdle to overcome.

Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. Walter Anderson

Actually so far it has been a very good hunting season with very few problems around here. I've complained about the few problems, gates left open and alike, and talking about it helps reduce the anger. I've always had people tell me that I should be out aggresively running unwanted hunters off. It would take a lot of time, effort and gas to accomplish this so it's always been low on the priority list. The other thing thats always bothered me is chasing a bunch of armed, aggressive men around isn't what you call the safest activity in the world if they want to get a little rowdy with you. As proof just look what happened in Wisconsin over a treestand. That I can see they don't know what triggered the whole thing for sure but 5 dead and 3 wounded in a simple hunting dispute shows that dealing with armed men can be tricky.

Most hunters I run into are fine but occasionaly you run into some that that get real confrontational. When there is 3-4 of them and only one of you it can get a little ticklish if they decide to be aggresive but in the long run it's always worked out okay. I don't know what the hunting dispute was about but it's sad that it came to this and shows what can happen when emotions run high amongst armed men.

When anger rises, think of the consequences. Confucius

A couple of notes of interest out there for the cattle industry today.

An effort to reverse mandatory country-of-origin labeling, or COOL, also failed Saturday; COOL is scheduled to become mandatory in September 2006. The mandatory labeling provisions require that U.S. consumers be notified of the country in which their meat, fish, perishable fruits and vegetables are grown.

This really suprised me when I read it. I thought for sure COOL was dead but I was wrong. I used my previous post on this subject to lambast Montana's junior Senator over the issue and even with this turn around the rant stands. I think Burns screwed cattle producers over and will do it again given half a chance.

At this point I will point out that I don't think COOL will help the cattle industry any. Meat is a commodity item to consumers so most of them buy it on price, not where its from. A fancy little label saying a USA product will have little affect on most people's buying patterns. Will it hurt cattle producers? The packers keep trying to put all the costs on to the little guy which could hurt if they manage that, but if we can keep that from happening I don't think it will hurt us either so I give COOL my half-hearted support.



The other thing I noticed was the draft rules have been published to reopen the Canadian border to cattle. The border was closed about eighteen months ago when a cow was diagnosed with BSE. A lot of US cattle producers see Canadian cattle as a 800lb gorilla in the cattle industry. They think they disrupt our market and drive down prices we recieve for our product and should be banned permenatly. I personally don't see Canadian cattle as a problem. To me they are like a fly buzzing around the US cattle producers head. Canada has a total herd size around 15 million head while the US has a total herd size close to 100 million head. Canada can affect our markets some but they aren't the big bugaboo that cattle producers make them out to be.

They just don't have the numbers to affect us that much. Our big competion world wide that we need to keep our eyes on is Argentina and Brazil. The number of cattle these countries can raise is staggering and if they ever get there herd health situations under control will flood the world with cheap beef that we can never hope to compete with. The only leg we will have against them is a quality issue so we need to focus on that, not the Canadian gnat in our backyard if we want to maintain a profitable business.

In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing. William Wordsworth

The first snow of the season fell last night. There is still a little chance this morning but I don't think we are going to get any more. It won't take too much of the white stuff and I will have to start feeding hay to the cows since the grass is real short and they would think they couldn't reach it. They get a little spoiled about getting thier hay once the snow hits. The only problem is that I still don't have all the hay in here. About 300 more ton to go and with the snow it's not going to make it any easier to get in. Oh well, that's the way things go.

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? J. B. Priestley.

UPDATE: My Darling Wife says it was destined to snow today, it's the Cat-Griz game today. I say it's the day the Cats are going to thump on the Griz.