Windmill Wednesday

Here's my Wednesday Windmill View. What's your view today?

Branding Menu:

As part of our appreciation for everyone help we prepare a good supper and lots of beer to drink and socialize after the long day of work. I simply cannot handle being in the house cooking all day while everyone else is outside working with the cattle so I prepare nearly everything in advance.We usually have a crew of our 40 friends and neighbors come over to help with our branding.  This year we had a small group help run our cows through to get a breeding shot, weight, and a pour on. So we needed a lunch for the few helpers in the morning and then a big meal to accommodate all of the afternoon help.

Lunch was simple. Hamburgers and brats thrown on the grill right after the last cow had been through the chute. We had a simple macaroni salad, chips, and brownies to go with the burgers and brats.

Our supper consisted of BBQ Beef Sandwiches, Cheesy Potatoes, Corn, a couple of macaroni salads, leftover chips from lunch and a cake for dessert to help celebrate my brother-in-laws birthday.

For the BBQ Beef  I cooked 10 chuck roasts all week long in the crock pots while I was at work.  In my opinion the chuck roast is the best for shredding. Every night we would sit down and shred the roast, pour some BBQ sauce on the meat store it in a big bowl in the fridge. Bonus by cooking the meat ahead of time, I get help from Tyson shredding the meat. J On the day of branding I put all of the meat in a roast and warmed it on low a few hours before we planned on eating.

BBQ Beef

The cheesy potatoes is one of those recipes I just throw things together in a roaster until it looks and tastes good. I used about 6lbs of frozen hash browns (left in the fridge overnight to thaw). I added in sour cream, cream of mushroom soup, onion pepper, shredded cheese, and cream cheese. I put all of the ingredients together in a roast at lunch time and let it cook until we were ready to eat it.

We have lots of sweet corn left over from last summer, so took some out of the freezer the night before and let it thaw in the fridge then put it in a crockpot at lunch to warm as well.

The macaroni salads my mother-in-law prepared in advance and brought them out for us. My sister-in-law made some deviled eggs and took care of the cake for her hubby.

Our group likes to enjoy a few beers after the branding, so we have a couple of coolers filled with beer. I also have some bottles of water, and some lemonade to go with the meals.

Here is Tyson.. Enjoying his beer while working. 

Honestly the meal is a lot of work, but with a little prep work ahead of time it isn't so bad.What do you feed your branding crew? Do you make it ahead of time or do all the cooking the day of? Or do you have it catered? 

Branding 2015

We had our branding this past weekend. Branding is an important part of ranching. By branding our cattle we ensure the our calves do not get lost or stolen. The cattle brand helps folk identify cattle that may have gotten out. With the high price of cattle these days, I am ever so thankful that if our calves are lost or stolen they can be properly identified and brought back to the correct owner.

With a brand we also give our calves a set of vaccinations that help to prevent any viruses they might pick up during the summer. These vaccinations are much like those that you give to your children before they attend school. We also choose to implant our steer calves. We band our bull calves at birth therefore making them steers. All of our calves get an ear tag at birth as well. Each ear tag has the mother's tag number, the date of birth, and the AI sire if there is one.

Here are some photos from our branding this year.

My brother-in-law was in charge of the branding iron. 

Waiting on the branding iron. 

Our neighbors are awesome!

My mom with Clara. She was loving the action.

My brother-in-law and nephew from Eastern Nebraska. 

Our brand an upside down TV. 

Don't let him go! 

Ready to go back to her Momma. 

How do you do your branding? Do you use any practices to prevent illness in your calves during the summer time?

Wordless Wednesday

Tough little guy!

Calving Season

First I must apologize for the lack of blogging! Finishing up my last semester of school at UNL and planning a wedding really keeps me on my toes! The following is an update on Calving season for the Narjes Cattle Company!

This year the boys have taken on about 150 more head of cows! That is a lot of extra mouths to feed and mommas to calve out this year, but is still quite manageable for two people.. plus the boys have some great spouses that love to help them out at well.



Replacement Heifers: A crowd of good looking girls!



This calf was born in the middle of the night with a windchill of -40.. brrrr! With two calves already in the heat boxes this little guy had to come into the house to warm up! The boys usually check cows every 2 hours to make sure none of the cows are having any problems, and when it is as cold as it has been lately at night it is imperitive to bring these little guys into the warm barn. A calf can freeze in as easily as 45 minutes in these extreme weather conditions.

I am partial to black baldy calves so here is one of my favorites. It also happens to be one of Tyson's Uncles favorites as well. The calves love playing on the piles in the yards.

Here is another one of my favorites with her momma. Hope we can keep this heifer as a replacement for next year!

Calving Season just happens to be one of my favorites on the farm. I love see all the young spunky calves around and the protective mommas trying to keep up with their babies. It is a great way to experience the blessings of new life! I am already looking forward to next year's calving season when I will be living at the farm full time and not just on the occasional weekend I venture out to see Tyson.

Be on the look out for future updates on calving. Hope everyone elses winter season is going just as well as ours.

Narjes Branding

I apologize for the lateness of my post, with finals and preparing for my upcoming France trip I don’t seem to have much spare time.

This weekend marked the second annual Narjes branding and my only ever second branding. Tyson and his brother Ryan decided last year that they wanted to start a cow/calf herd together so that they could take over renting their Grandpa’s pasture. I believe it has been a huge learning curve for the both of them, as they have never had their own cow/calf herd. Neighbors and friends have been more than willing to help them get started and give advice to the boys, which I know they are truly thankful for.

I’ll be honest last year I was completely new to this thing they call branding, and I had no idea what I was doing. The brand inspection area starts just west of where I grew up, so I had never experience a branding before. In eastern Nebraska there are no branding laws and we are required to fence in our cattle, but in the brand inspection area, cattle are still “free range” so to speak and producers are required to fence out other animals. The brand is used to identify animals to a certain producer and make sure that the person selling the animals has right to do so.

The weather Saturday wasn’t exactly what we had hoped for with 40° temperatures and winds up to 40 mph, but the boys pulled the stock trailer up next to the barn to use as a wind block. It was actually not too bad behind the barn, and I must say it was better than last year when it was raining and just as plain cold! The boys had plenty of people show up to help so the whole process went fairly quickly. 

Here are a few photos from the branding this past Saturday:

Tyson's brother Ryan worked the cows as they came through the shoot, he was assisted by his soon to be father-in-law Joe and his fiance Laura.

On the other side of the shoot, Tyson's oldest brother Kyle was branding the cows that the boys had purchases this year and hadn't been given the Narjes brand yet. Kyle and his girlfriend Sarah came back from Denver to help!

Sarah has never been to a branding before either, so she was eager to jump in and help, she did great!

Here Tyson is giving the calf a vaccination to help protect against diseases. The vaccination will last all summer long while the calf is in the pasture.

The boys had so much help that this is about all the action I got when it came to actually helping. Here is Tyson's younger cousin Allyson helping hold the calf while waiting for branding and vaccinations.

Here is why there was no need for me to help, look at all these strong men! :) Many friends and neighbors came out to help for the day, thanks to everyone who helped out!

After the quick branding and vaccination, the calves are soon back on their feet and reunited with their moms. You can   see the upside down TV, which is the Narjes brand.                                                                                                                                       (Don't mind Kyle in the background, I believe he was practicing his yoga or something...)

After all the work was done Susan, Tyson's mom had a great lunch ready to eat and cold drinks for all.

Here's the whole crew that showed up for the branding, minus Susan. Many thanks again to everyone that came out, it was a lot of fun! 

 Also many thanks to Tyson's mom, Susan, for all the wonderful pictures!