Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

Yesterday morning was a little frosty around here.



The ice buildup was sure pretty, even if it was a pain to work in.

Continue reading "Frosty Morning" »

Rands hats might be a little pricey, but they are well worth it like Ritch says. Quality work and great service. My work hat is over 20 years old and still going strong and it is a Rand hat. My Darling Wife doesn't think much of it but I just love it.

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it. William James

I was just visiting with my Uncle from the Billings are who was unaware of my opinion of your Governor. He told me what a bang up job Gov. Schweitzer was doing. I turned to him and said, "Tell me one thing Schweitzer has done positive for the state of Montana."

He thought for a second and said, "I don't know, but the paper and TV sure talk him up all the time."

I kept pressing him to name one thing the Governor has done for the State. He could not name one thing that the Governor has done for the state so I asked why he thought he was doing such a good job if he couldn't name a single thing he has done for the state.

"That's the impression the newspaper and TV stations give all the time of him so I just thought he was doing a great job."

I told him he needs to study more what the Governor is doing and not just blindly believe all the divine adulation the media is fawning upon him. Typical con-man, has everybody believing his hot air blindly without ever thinking about it.

Only the very rarest of princes can endure even a little criticism, and few of them can put up with even a pause in the adulation. Walter Lippmann

It sure looks like they are all home after the storm. I will have to get out and look around though and I don't know when I will get a chance to do that, the weekend more than likely.



I wish I would have had a wide enough angle to get all the cows scattered across the flat but I didn't. They sure think they need a bale of hay with the fresh snow on the ground. By the weekend I will probably start to cake them and then I will have to see. The weather service keeps mentioning snow and if it gets to deep I will have to think about haying everything. I have the hay, I'm just not looking forward to feeding it.

Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way. Baltasar Gracian

First the Governor has a mind dump on what to do with the excess monies the State seems to have and now a Republican is having just as big of brain fart as the Governor.

House Republican leader Roy Brown said the state has a projected surplus in excess of $300 million that could be split up for school funding, property tax relief and to negate a coming water usage fee earmarked for the state's water rights adjudication system.

Brown said "bridge funding" for schools would allow them to put more money into the current school funding formula. That would give the interim committee more time to come up with a complex fix for a system the state Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional.

This is one time money, how are you going to use it for property tax relief or to negate the water usage fee you were so proud of when you passed it during the regular session. At least he admits it's not a fix for school funding like the Governor indicated, just a band-aid for the problem which makes sense. While property taxes are high how are one time monies going to help reduce them? I do know why he wants to negate the water usage fees, the notice just came out about the increase3es they passed and all the farmers and ranchers are howling about all the money it's going to cost them so this idiot wants to be the savior for them and fix the problem. Why did he pass the bill in the first place if he was going to negate it down the road?

I personally don't see much difference between this proposal and the Governors, both want to use one time monies to fix forever long term problems. Typical short sighted Government solutions to complex problems. Just wait though, all those sycophants that love the Governor will say what a brilliant man he is for his plan while the Republicans are stupid for proposing the same thing. I hate politics.

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. Edmund Burke

Also, Schweitzer added, "I feed off people."

I don't know about you but this quote flat scares me (found here). A good salesman or con-man "feeds off people." I want a leader, not a con-man leading our State.

At the end of the day, it is law-abiding, bill-paying citizens who pay for the bankruptcy of others, regardless of whether the debts involved were taken on by con men or those whose situations simply got out of hand. Orrin Hatch

We got another taste of winter yesterday and last night. Dave was wondering how much and when I wandered out this morning I would say 6 inches or a little more with 12 inch drifts where I looked. It could be a little more, hard to tell in the dark and it's still snowing lightly this morning.

Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday morning feeding the two-year olds.





With all the snow I might have to start feeding the cows a little. I will make that decision in a few days but one things for sure, this snow is here to stay. Not like the others that have melted off, this one won't melt off until spring thaw. Winter is truly here.

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. Josh Billings

Gift shopping for the rancher’s wife

Another common feature for the ranch “him to her” gifts is the “who really wants or needs this?” Gloves that are too big for her and fit him perfectly are regular offerings under the Christmas tree as are new saddles when she rarely rides, horses she never will ride, and that absolutely stunning truck tool box that unfortunately won’t fit her SUV. A complete assortment of hand and powers tools also fit into this category.

Now what is the problrm with these things. Perfect gifts for the ranch wife.

Never to say the gifts aren’t truly appreciated one wife I know got a new cattle guard. It was to be placed where she had to open and close a gate 15 times a day coming and going. She would not have been happier if she had gotten big blue diamonds.

Always thinking of the little woman’s health and safety as well as her viability as the best if only help he has, he will gift her with things to keep her warm and useful. That list will include insulated coveralls, down filled everything including lingerie, and even a new rifle to carry on her 4-wheeler to shoot coyotes while she is checking heifers and new baby calves.

Yea these are a little more practical but the first list was nice to.

I'm just teasing though, I treat My Darling Wife better than this. In fact I just got an early Christmas present in the mail the other day and gave it to her. A brand new pair of mud boots. Her old ones were leaking when she did chores so some new ones were in order. I'm real proud of myself over that one.


Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers. Henri Frederic Amiel

Winter is almost here. The leaves are gone and the sun is getting real low in the sky. Snow is supposed to be on the way today.



The flowers are froze down and the color is gone. Snow beckons on the horizon.

In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular... sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice. Ansel Adams

Toxic river water flows through major Chinese city

I always here about how bad a polluter the US is and look at this story. Four million people without clean drinking water due to pollution of the river. What is going to happen to cities downstream when this plume of pollution reaches them? Same thing.

The disaster has highlighted the environmental damage caused by China's sizzling economic growth and the complaints that the secretive communist government is failing to enforce public safety standards. The government says all major rivers are dangerously polluted and many cities lack adequate drinking water.

China in general is a major polluter but for some reason everybody still looks at the US as the big Bad Wolf of polluters. Why is that? China is exempt from the Koyoto Protocols and they are a major polluter. Is this fair?

The explosive growth of India and China is putting great strain on the planet but nobody seems to be concerned, but this story shows that people should be concerned and paying more attention. Four million people without water, what a disaster for the people and the planet.

The environmentalists - the self-centered bunch, the waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual idiots that don't understand that they're leading this country into environmental disaster. Don Young

Its a stretch: Man, 50, pulls truck with penis

A little too much penis worship here for me.

I think worship is a lifestyle, first of all. Michael W. Smith


* TMI Too Much Information

R-CALF: Producers Praise House Efforts To Restore Mandatory COOL

(Billings, Mont.) – This Thanksgiving, American cattle producers will have another item to be grateful for as several bipartisan representatives in Congress announced H.R.4365, legislation that would keep in place the Mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling (M-COOL) law originally passed in the 2002 Farm Bill. The bill amends the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to implement M-COOL requirements for meat on Sept. 30, 2006, and now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Agriculture for review.

U.S. Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif., and her colleague Rep. Darlene Hooley, D-Ore., introduced the bill. Co-sponsors of H.R. 4365 are: Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo.; Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D.; Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo.; Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio; Rep. Denny Rehburg, R-Mont.; and, Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla.

“We want our friends in the House to know how much U.S. cattle producers appreciate their efforts to keep M-COOL alive not only for the cattle industry, but also for U.S. consumers who’ve consistently expressed their desire for such a program,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard. “Having this kind of support from such a broad, bipartisan group proves the worth of the program, and we’re extremely proud that these representatives will stand up in opposition to the recent back-door dealings of the Agriculture Appropriations Committee that secretly delayed Mandatory COOL until 2008.

“We are disappointed in the handful of congressional members who have used their official positions to block the implementation of this important legislation in order to satisfy their personal agendas,” Bullard continued. “However, the COOL law was passed because of the efforts of hundreds of diverse groups representing cattle, farm, rural and consumer organizations that together represent over 50 million Americans. These groups came together to bring the U.S. out of the dark ages with respect to food labeling.

“Of the 57 countries the United States trades with, the U.S. remains one of the few modern countries that refuse to provide its citizens with information about the origin of the food they purchase,” Bullard explained. “Without COOL, importers and retailers continue to sell imported food products that sometimes mislead U.S. consumers into believing they’re purchasing domestic products. In some instances, other countries have gone so far as to ban these very items because they know these items are not of USA origin.

“We are amazed that the same legislators and groups that object to informing consumers about where their food comes from – on the grounds that a labeling program is too difficult and costly to differentiate imported food from domestic food – are the very same individuals and groups that want to subject U.S. cattle producers to the costs of a mandatory animal identification program for every food animal in the United States, without even knowing what those costs are and how those expenses would impact producers,” Bullard emphasized.

“These positions are inconsistent and show that opponents of COOL are only trying to fulfill their economic self-interests at the expense of U.S. cattle producers and U.S. consumers,” said Bullard. “Compared to a national animal identification system, the cost and logistics of COOL are negligible, and the program can immediately be implemented at no cost to U.S. cattle producers.

“The government already is required to permanently mark all the Mexican cattle entering the United States in order to monitor the tuberculosis associated with these cattle, and no Canadian cattle have entered the U.S. since May of 2003 without a permanent foreign brand,” Bullard explained. “Therefore, under an effective M-COOL system, all the cattle in the U.S. under 30 months old that do not have a foreign marking could be nothing other than born-and-raised in the United States, and would be eligible for the USA label. The origins of all older animals could be verified with a simple producer affidavit.

“All foreign cattle can now be identified by their foreign markings, and the beef from these cattle could easily be labeled according to those marks,” he continued. “This no-cost method of verifying the origins of live cattle is called ‘presumption of domestic origin,’ and is precisely what Congress intended when it directed the United States Department of Agriculture to use the National School Lunch Act as a model for verifying origin.”

R-CALF USA Director of Government Relations Jess Peterson explained that this particular legislation from the house reflects exactly the recent bipartisan legislation proposed in the senate by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont. and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., (S 2038).

“It’s important that opponents of COOL know and understand that this is an issue we’re still winning, and they shouldn’t think this fight is over by any means,” said R-CALF USA Director of Government Relations Jess Peterson. “R-CALF will see to it that Mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling takes effect next September – for the benefit of our members and for the benefit of U.S. beef consumers who want to make informed decisions about the beef their families choose to eat.

“U.S. cow/calf producers and other independent segments of the cattle industry know that Mandatory COOL is a critical tool that will allow them to differentiate their beef products from imported products,” Peterson noted. “And, M-COOL will also provide complete transparency in the marketplace, with the result that we’ll finally know without a doubt the true value of USA Beef, which always has been the safest and most wholesome beef in the world.”

This pretty much says it all. Identify the foreign cattle coming across the border for COOL. This will minimize the cost to US producers, but this isn't the way the meat packers want it. They want us to identify all of our cattle and just let the foreign ones pour across the border. It sure doesn't make much sense, but when your just a dumb cowboy I guess your opinion doesn't matter.

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done. Josh Billings

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the blessings you have bestowed upon us this year. We gather at this time to give thanks for the blessings of a fruitful year and I thank you for the abundance you have provided this year.

Thank you for the crops in the field and the grass in the pasture which were abundant, rich, and life sustaining for all and provided us with a genourous harvest this year.

Thank you for friends near and far and the care which these people, whether Interent friends or real, bestow upon us and the help they provide to us in all the things we do.

Thank you for family whose love and support make it possible for us to get through the hard times, as well as the good times, with love in our hearts and joy inour souls.

Thank you for these blessings and all others you provide for us.

Amen

Happy Thankgsgiving to all!! Have a beautiful day.

Cattails in the creek by the house. Very little water in the summer here but enough for the cattails.



The brush denuded of leaves waiting for winter.

Sometimes I enjoy just photographing the surface because I think it can be as revealing as going to the heart of the matter. Annie Leibovitz

Schweitzer: State finances are less than meets the eye

While the state is forecast to have an extra $300 million this year and next, don't call it a surplus, Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Tuesday.

"We owe more bills than we have money," he said in an interview. "That's hardly a surplus. Only Enron accounting would call that a surplus."

Nonetheless, Schweitzer said he'll recommend one-time uses for at least some of the money.

Schweitzer said his top priorities are bolstering public-employee pension funds and school funding, and having money left over for emergencies, such as forest fires.

Use one time monies to "bolster school funding."

EXCUSE ME!!!!!

School funding requires money every year.

THINK Schweitzer, THINK. this isn't going to work.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap. Napoleon Bonaparte