Sweet Sunday: (1) John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that He sent His one and only son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." -John 3:16

Of course, most everyone has seen or heard about the "most famous" verse in the bible, John 3:16. It's the very first verse I memorized as a child, it's one that is retold and retold. John 3:16 tells us that through his son, Jesus, we will have eternal life. 

But, today our pastor pointed out an interesting thought, has anyone ever associated John 3:16 with 1 John 3:16?

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." -1 John 3:16

Not only did Jesus come to the world to save our souls, He came to show us how to love. He showed us stories like loving the outcast, standing up for the sinful (because aren't we all?), feeding the hungry, and quenching the thirst of those needing spiritual water.

I'm not saying I do a good job all the time, but praise the Lord we have an example to follow.

Sweet Sunday: 2 Timothy 1:9

"God has saved us and called us to a holy life - not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time."

-2 Timothy 1:9

Ah, the first Sunday of lent. The celebration of the first Sunday of six before Easter arrives. In the traditional Catholic church, Christians are called to give something up for 40 days. This lent I've heard people giving up sodas, cursing, alcohol, chocolate and many others.

Although I am not Catholic - I'm a Methodist - I still like to give up for lent. But this year I have decided to put my own spin on it. (I'm not Catholic, so I guess this is okay :)). This year, I have decided to add to my life instead of taking out. 2 Timothy tells us Jesus has called us to a holy life.

This year for lent, I have decided for every day for the next 40 days, to go out of my way to do something nice for someone else. I'm not really sure how this is going to work, I guess I'll figure it out. But, the point is, I am going to consciously think  about bettering the world around me - one small act at a time. If you've ever seen the movie "Evan Almighty", I guess this is exhibiting an ARK: Act of Random Kindness.

Our pastor this morning encouraged us to do 3 things for lent:

        1. Connect with God every day

        2. Give something up

        3. Connect with people every day

If you're giving something up that you genuinely feel attached to, I suppose connecting with God every day will come much easier!

Happy lent, have a happy week!

Meat FULL Monday's - Beef Frittata

Hey folks! Time for another meat FULL Monday - yum! Now, don't think that I came up with this recipe, in fact, I decided to support the awesome Beef It's What's For Dinner website and use their Beef and Veggie Frittata recipe.

But, luckily, I cooked it and took step-by-step pictures for those of my friends who needs pictures to cook - you know who you are.

Alright, first things first, set your oven to 350 degrees. Then, grab yourself some red potatoes - oh you know 3 or 4 of those buggars - and peel 'em up.

Now that you've got them peeled.....slice 'em!

Oh yeah, you're doing it right. Chop, chop, chop.

Next, put a half of a cup of water in a pan and throw your potatoes in and pop a lid on it.
Note: remember if the vegetable is grown underground, keep in under a lid. If it was grown above ground, keep it free - no lid needed.
I saw that in a church cookbook one time, it was like a divine light that went off in my head! Thanks for the help Jesus!

Alright, once you've got your potatoes in a pot, chop up an onion.  One small yellow onion ought to do the trick.
Keep it together, I know you're excited to tears. I cry every time I chop onions too, it's an emotional experience. Or something like that....

While you're spending an emotional time with your onions, throw a pound of ground beef in a pan and get it browning. Once you've chopped your onion, toss it in the pan with the ground beef too.

Ground beef is one of my favorite meat products to cook - it is so easy to deal with!

Watch your potatoes, once they start boiling, let them boil for a few minutes, but don't leave them on the heat too long. If you leave them on the burner too long, the water will evaporate and the potatoes will burn to the bottom of the pan. Burned potatoes are a sure-fire way to get complaints. Believe me, I've been there a time or two. (Or more).

In the mean time, grab a zucchini and slice it up! Or as the professional call it: "julienne it". You can call it whatever you want, I'm not fancy.

Note: I only sliced one zucchini, but I think two would compliment the dish too.

Don't forget to keep your zucchini and potato peels to go feed the ducks at the park! They're depending on you.

Okay, once you've got everything cooked and chopped, toss it all in the pan with the ground beef. Beef, onions, potatoes, and zucchini  - they're a happy mating.

Add some salt and pepper to the party.

Once you've got the party in the pan going, leave it on low heat and find yourself some eggs and basil. Crack open 6 eggs and put them in a bowl with 2 tablespoons of basil, and add a little more salt and pepper.

Whisk, whisk, whisk it up!

Sorry I missed a few pictures here. Anyway, take your egg mixture and pour it over the beef mixture. Top with 2 cups of Italian cheese and put the whole pan in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Pull out the pan and top with chopped tomatoes.

Then, be sure to make it a balanced meal! I added caesar salad and fresh cut pineapple. Cutting pineapple is another blog for another day - I think it took me just as long to cut the pineapple as it did to cook the whole beef dish. If there's an expert pineapple cutter upper out there....comment below....I need help.

Well anyway, there's one of my new favorite meals! If you're a simple person, prepare yourself for all the flavors of this dish. For all you adventurists out there: this one is for you!

Happy Monday!

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
4 small red skinned new potatoes
1/2 cup water
1 small chopped yellow onion
1 (or 2) small zucchini, cut into 1/4-inch thick slices
2 teaspoons salt - divided
1 teaspoon pepper - divided
6 large eggs
2 tablespoons basil
2 cups Italian cheese blend
2 cups tomato (be generous here, it really compliments the dish

Directions:
Heat oven to 350°F. Combine potatoes and water in 10-inch nonstick ovenproof skillet; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 8 to 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Remove from skillet; keep warm. Pour off remaining water from skillet, if necessary.
Brown ground beef with onion in same skillet over medium heat 6 minutes, breaking beef up into 3/4-inch crumbles. Add zucchini. Cook 2 to 3 minutes or until zucchini is just tender. Pour off drippings. Return potatoes to skillet. Add 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper; mix thoroughly.
Whisk eggs, basil and remaining 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in large bowl. Pour evenly over beef mixture. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake in 350°F oven about 18 to 20 minutes or until eggs are set. Add tomato to the top.

The Life of a Dairy Cow

I know in a few of my previous blogs, I have mentioned the different stages of a cows life, and I promised I would write a blog over the life time of a cow. The way my momma raised me, you never break a promise. I was also raised to love cows, say 'yes sir', and go to church on Sunday. Don't forget that eating meat and praying should be supplemented at least once every day.

Anyway, time for some "Farm Fact Friday"! There are four main stages of a cows life: calf, first calf heifer, dry cow, and milk cow.

Let's start with birth. On our dairy, like most, we raise all of our own milk cows. The calves that are born every day grow up to become the cows that produce milk, so farmers make it a priority to get them off to a healthy start. They get to live in spacious hutches that protect them from wind, rain, and cold. The hutches provide a way to give individual nutrition to each calf, and allows for personal health care for each baby!

The babies will receive fresh milk from the cows, it's just in bottles that are portioned out to give the calf a healthy amount of nutrition. I've said before: a healthy baby is the best baby.

After the calves are strong enough and have built up a strong immune system, they will go into an open pasture to be co-mingled with other heifers and later become bred when they are old enough. In this phase, they are called "first-calf heifers". This heifer is one that has just been turned out in the pasture, she will just spend the next few months just growing, she is about 4 months old.

Note: a heifer is a female that has not had a calf, a cow is a female that has had one or more calves. Heifers will have their first baby at about 2 years of age, and will have one baby every year after that.

The first calf heifers are given extra attention, and additional nutrition since this will be their first time to have a baby. Here is a first calf heifer that is coming up on her second birthday. She should calves in about 2-3 weeks.

After they have their calf, the calf will go into phase one (as mentioned above) and the momma cow will then go into the milk pen.  For the next nine months she will be in an open pasture with about 600 other cows of various ages - that's on our farm, other farms may be different.

Professional nutritionists help dairy farmers develop a balanced and nutritious diet for their cows. Fun fact: cows have four components to their stomach and eat about 100 pounds a day.

Once the cow has been in the milk cow pen for 9 months, she should be about 6 months pregnant, at which time she will be moved out of the milk cow pen and into the "dry cow" pen. This means she gets a 90 day vacation! All she does is eat and sleep. It's a pretty dandy life.

Being a "dry cow" means that they do not give any milk and their udder's will "dry" up until right before calving. A dairy cow's main purpose is to give milk, and the cows like it, they like their routine - they get pretty fussy if we get out of the dairy routine! So, at first, they don't like the dry cow pen. But, then they figure it out and enjoy eating as much as they can. Then, they have their baby,  and the whole process repeats itself.

So, there is your Dairy Cow 101. Have a great weekend!

Sweet Sunday: Luke 17:6

"The Lord replied 'If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to the mulberry tree "Be uprooted and planted in the sea." and it will obey you.'"

-Luke 17:6

Faith. Faith is a strong emotion, but it's more than an emotion: it's a commitment, a love affair, a wanting, bonding towards the Lord. 

This verse is so great - it tells us that faith the size of a mustard seed can move a tree! Yet, we all know faith can move so much more - when you think Christ is moving 'mountains' in your life, it turns out He's been moving you all along.

Faith means a FULL belief. If you believe you have boundaries, or that there are boundaries in life, it's not faith. I know - it's awesome.

So muster up your mustard seed and see the miracles Christ can do!

The "Udder" Side of the Story

A few weeks ago, I suggested agriculturalists to "friend" PETA on Facebook, just to keep up with their antics. If someone is against me, I wanna know the mud they're slingin'. Most of the posts (ok, all of them) get my feathers ruffled. But then there are posts that flat fire me up. My first example, see exhibit A: PETAs bashing of the dairy industry.

So, unless you didn't know, my family and I live on a dairy. According to PETA, our dairy is a "big dairy" or "factory farm". Any farm with over 1,000 animals is classified as a "factory farm" and thrown into a category of misinterpretation and negative associations. I think it's hard for people to understand that "big dairies" can also be family farms. In case you didnt know 97% of farms are family farms.

Originally I was going to show you the pictures PETA posted, but then I realized that would be silly. The pictures they managed to snap are misleading, and only represent a small percentage of farmers who made a mistake. PETA loves to snap pictures and publicize "all the farmers are like this".  But, that would be like me saying "I saw a man once arrested for beating and starving his dog. You have a a dog, so you must beat and starve your dog too." Obviously, that would be a false statement. Not every person that owns a dog is cruel to their pet. Same with farmers. Yes, there are people in our industry who do it wrong. Yes, if found, they get in trouble. You and I are on the same page. I dislike anyone who mistreats their animals: wether it is dogs, cows, or chickens.

It is in the farmers best interest to treat cattle right. Keeping cows healthy, happy, and comfortable will increase milk production. It's a win-win situation.

Not to mention: it's the right thing to do.

Here's a picture of one of our baby calves! A healthy, happy baby is the best baby.

And, finally for my last point: PETA says "When you buy dairy products, you're supporting this cruel cycle."

Actually, that's an incorrect statement. When you buy dairy products: you're supporting my family. You're supporting my Dad's early morning feed runs. You're supporting late nights, staying up with the one cow that still has to calve. You're supporting all day, every day, love and care towards cows.

Sweet Sunday: Ezekiel 37:13

"I'll breathe my life into you, and you'll live." -Ezekiel 37:13

There are three things in this life that I'm passionate about: Jesus, cows, and people.

Think about the things you love and you know what I'm talking about. It's the chills you get when you see a "good one" (I'm talking cows here), it's a hug from a child, a smile from a stranger, a newborn baby calf. I also have a weakness for chocolate cupcakes, Criminal Minds, scentsy, looking at the stars, and laying in the sunshine. These are a few of my favorite things.....yes I sang that tune when I typed it :)

I love these things. Yet, all the love in my heart doesn't hold a candle to the love Christ has for me. I can love cows and love people for a lifetime, and God can still love me more in one day. That is a love that's "deeper than the holler, stronger than the river, and taller than the pine trees on the hill."

These are a couple of babies who made friends from across the fence. They're adorable.

Ezekiel states "I'll breathe my life into you, and you'll live." Living in Jesus Christ is truly living in love all the days of your life.

My new friend Klaire (her mother and I grew up together) and I "testing out" the tractors in Fort Worth :)

The Forth Worth heifer show. I could sit and watch these things all day, every day!

Have a blessed week. May it be filled with all the things you love!

Meat FULL Monday: Freezer Style

So, it's been a while since I've posted a meat full Monday blog post. Hopefully this one will hold me over until the next time, considering it's got THREE recipes packed into one and is all about freezer foods.

Freezer foods are one of my favorite things! There are days when you feel so productive and feel like cooking all day long; then there are days where you just know absolutely nothing is going to get done. So by cooking on the days you feel productive, and freezing everything, it's a win-win situation.

Over Christmas break, I went all out on the "cooking/productive" vengeance and made fully cooked meals for my baby brother to take back with him to college. Let's face it: boys are always in the "nothing is going to get cooked today" phase. Sister of the day award goes to me!

The first freezer meal I made was spaghetti. Oh so simple to make and easy to freeze.

I defrosted and cooked two pounds of hamburger - we're preparing for lots of "no-cooking" nights here....

I made the whole entire box of spaghetti noodles.

Then, when both of those were done cooking, I would put a little bit of both in a ziploc bag and pour some spaghetti sauce in with both, and maybe a dash of pepper or salt or basil if you're feeling frisky.

These are for my brother, so it's only about two servings per bag, but it made 8 gallon-sized bags! Whoo hoo!

The next two recipes were King Ranch Chicken and Smothered Pork Chops and actually had a lot of the same ingredients so it was easy to save some time doing them at the same time. Void the fact that your stove top may or may not look like this:

Hey Jack, it's all organized in my head.

I reused the pot I cooked the spaghetti noodles in, and cooked a whole bag of egg noodles.

Then, I chopped up three green bell peppers and two onions.

Put two bell peppers and one onion in a bowl

add a can of cream of mushroom, and a few splashes of Worcestershire sauce, and a small can of chicken broth to that bowl.

Lay down four pork chops and pour the bowl mixture (peppers/onion/soup/worcestershire/broth) over the top of the pork chops.

 Once you've done that, pop it in the oven for an hour at 350.

Now, take the other chopped green bell pepper and onion and sautee them in a pan with some butter. My grandma taught me to put butter and sugar on almost everything I cooked, so I'm actually keeping it fairly tame here people!

While you're waiting, take about 3-5 chicken breasts and bake them in the oven, alongside the pork chops. You can use however much chicken you want, I won't tell.

I wasn't really paying attention to how long they were in the oven - oops! But once they are white through and through (I usually pull them apart and make sure they're still juicy on the inside, but not pink) take them out of the oven and shred.

You can add whatever spices you feel like to the chicken. I used salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder.

Next, combine one can cream of mushroom soup, one can cream of chicken soup, and one can of mild rotel to a bowl.

Throw in your sauteed bell pepper and onion to that bowl as well.

Once you've mixed everything well, put the egg noodles, soup mixture, and chicken in a pan and top with shredded cheddar cheese.

Cook this in the oven for about 15-20 minutes at 350. It makes a LOT of meals. Which is convenient because this is my all-time favorite recipe EVER!

Well, that outta keep your tummy full for the next 3 weeks!





Have a fantastically delicious week!

Spaghetti
1 box spaghetti noodles
2 lbs hamburger
2 cans Prego spaghetti sauce
Oregano
Basil
Black Pepper

Cook the whole box of noodles, brown the hamburger, add the two in small increments to ziploc bags, along with the spaghetti sauce and a dash of oregano, basil, and black pepper.

Smothered Pork Chops
4 boneless pork chops
2 green bell peppers
1 large onion
1 can cream of mushroom soup
Worcestershire sauce
1 small can chicken broth
Salt
Pepper

Chop up the bell peppers and onion, add to a bowl with mushroom soup, a few dashes of worcestershire sauce, and chicken broth. Lay down pork chops and sprinkle salt/pepper on top, then smother in bowl mixture.

I had some extra egg noodles, so I added some noodles to each container of pork chops that I froze, but those aren't necessary.

King Ranch Chicken - the yummiest recipe ever
3-5 chicken breasts
1 green bell pepper
1 large onion
1 tbsp butter
1 can mild rotel
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 pkg egg noodles
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Onion powder

Cook the egg noodles, and bake the chicken at 350 until cooked through. Chop up bell pepper and onion, then sautee in pan with butter until soft. Combine rotel, mushroom soup, and chicken soup in bowl with sauteed bell pepper and onion. Mix thoroughly. Once chicken is done, shred into small bite-sized pieces. Then season chicken lightly with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. Drain egg noodles, then combine with chicken and bowl mixture. Top with cheddar cheese and bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, or until cheese is golden brown.

Enjoy!
 

What I Learned From Livestock Judging

I hope by the end of my blog, you will have learned how all of the topics I'm about to cover actually do tie together.

So, here we go. First off, not sure if anyone else does this, but I relate almost everything in my life back to cows or judging. If you think you don't do it, think again, you're probably fooling yourself! (And also, I apologize to my non-judging friends, this blog my be a smidge confusing.)

For instance: I attended the International Livestock Congress this week in Denver, Colorado and listened to some awesome speakers give life advice. One of the speakers was talking about job placement and important traits to consider when applying for a job. I can't believe I'm giving out free advice. If you're applying for a job against me, please ignore the rest of this blog.

Loni Woolley and I after a day full of conferences. We were very thankful to have been selected to attend.

He mentioned how incredibly important it was to remain honest in everything you do and write. If you're applying for a job at Cargill, and get placed with the poultry division but have no experience with poultry, just tell them! I think this relates to being completely honest in reasons. Sometimes we want to cover things up and say it "truthfully with fluff." In a sense - you're not lying....but you're not relating the whole picture. "She could use a bit more body" and "she does not have enough rib to stay productive" are both the same thing, but totally different.

He also talked about organizing your life priorities. Making sure you meet a deadline versus searching facebook or answering emails are all problems we may face. Organizing the most important to least important items is key. Same thing in reasons. "She's a bit up in her tailhead, out in her chest and a tick tight hocked" versus "she is too tight hocked, it doesn't help she's  out in her chest and up in her tailhead." Yep, organize priorities.

And finally, my most FAVORITE advice: go with your gut. There's going to be times in life when you are faced with a tough decision. Whether it is taking a job, moving towns, or accepting change, there's not always a right answer. Just remember your gut instinct is usually right. When judging in a contest (or shows I'm finding out) decisions aren't easy. It's important to stick with your initial reaction. If you wanna do it, do it.

I think being in Denver around livestock is bringing out my judging side - oops! Good luck to all contestants tomorrow in the Carload Contest, and to all teams Friday evening at the awards banquet.

Have a wonderful weekend!
P.S. Since I have been in Denver all week, I hope I can use that as an excuse for ignoring my blog profusely. Please forgive me!

Don't Cage the King

I hope by the end of my blog post you will all realize just how clever this blog title is. I'm not a very clever person, but I'll take pride on this one :)

So, I'm sure that all of you have heard about the 2013 Farm Bill, and many of you have heard about the oh-so-controversial King Amendment, proposed by Rep. Steve King (R-IA).

I came across some articles today that discussed the King Amendment, in a negative light, and let me tell you what, a light went on inside my head. It was an angry light, in case you were wondering. Sorry, this blog is going to peep into my political interest and fire!

I'm sure there are many things about the King Amendment out there about how it "supports cages, supports abuse, and supports animal cruelty." Where did this come from? Well I hope my blog explains a few things. Not that it matters to any of us that can't actually vote on it, but hey, it's good to know our facts right?

The King Amendment is called the "Protect Interstate Commerce Act." The whole Amendment is geared solely to protect states rights to set their own laws within their own states, without setting laws in other states.

The idea stemmed (I can only imagine) from California's Proposition 2, banning gestation and veal crates, and adjusting the size of chicken crates allowed. Prop 2 was voted on by Californians to affect the agriculture practices within California. The problem: any eggs/pork/veal sold in California must also abide by these rules as well, whether produced in Nevada, Oregon, or Texas! Thus, California setting laws that Nevadans, Oregonians (I had to google that one), and Texan agriculturalists must abide by.

Whew. That's a lot of political mumbo jumbo! So, moral of the story: King's amendment would prohibit California's Prop 2 from controlling agriculturalists outside of California. Thus, allowing farmers and ranchers that had chosen to keep their animals in certain areas, to remain so.

Now, I hope this is somewhat informative on what the King Amendment stands for, and that we shouldn't "cage the King" if we only know a part of the story. I am BY NO MEANS a political expert, nor am I supporting/against the King Amendment. I just wanted to set a few facts straight for anyone that had strong opinions on the matter. Misinformation is my pet peeve, hopefully this has been informative!

Have a great weekend.

Feed the World?

Well, now that family Christmas' have come and gone, I'll share an interesting new idea I picked up at my family Christmas.

You see folks, by the year 2050, the world population will double. And farmers and ranchers will have that much more pressure to produce enough food to feed the world!

Not to worry, one of my aunts has a grand suggestion: insects. 

Okay....well.....maybe not!

Don't worry folks, thanks to farmers and ranchers constantly improving genetics, nutrition and technology used in modern day farming techniques, you can rest assured. I have complete faith in the American farmer to produce the food needed to fill our tummies now and in the future. 

Thank a farmer folks :)