My cats will never cease to amaze me.
This morning as I was walking toward my kitchen I heard what sounded like a coffee pot brewing. I looked down the hall and there was Trixie on the ground purring. Then Spuds started scratching on the scratch pad which made it sound like the coffee pot finishing. Wow that was a good impression. I officially have talented cats.

Oh, by the way I'm very excited because there is now only one month till I get hitched. Yeah!!!!

Chicago got confused!
Last night Karly and I went to Old Chicago and confused the whole restaurant I think. First thing, it was the first night of the Holiday Tour and they have a sampler which I partook of but they didn't get the 4th beer on the list yet so I had to sub a different one in. This apparently was too much for the bartender as it took over 15 min to get my sampler and about that long to get water for each of us. Then the pizza, we ordered the chicago 7 stuffed pizza but wanted the black olives substituted with andioulle sausage. Well the beer showed up about 15 seconds before the pizza and we took one look at the pizza and said oops that's not what we ordered. So they put in the right order the second time while we continued to eat the original. Then the manager came over and told us that the pizza and sampler would be of no charge to us. Great, this is what restaurants who screw up should do. So we ended up getting a second round of beer and the final bill was around $12 for 2 stuffed pizzas, 3 beers, and one beer sampler. We left very satisfied.

Duck, Duck, Duck, Duck. M R Ducks
R Not
R 2, C D E D B D I's

So I was in charge of doing the necropsy on a duck today. Oh what fun. It ended up being a duck with ruptured air sacs and air sacculitis likely fungal in origin.
Life is interesting being a vet.
Here's to life.

It's true cow manure does have an unusual smell.
So this morning is our last in Nebraska. I woke up early this morning to watch and take some pictures of the sunrise. I would put pictures on here but I still really haven't figured out how to do that. Anyway, Karly called me at about 6:45 I think she knew I would be up and wanted to know about drug interactions (of which there were none so you're safe and this is a good site to check them at http://www.medscape.com/druginfo/druginterchecker?src=google ). So she got my brain rolling bright and early and I walked out to watch the sunrise "with her" in the palm of my hand.
Now for a little step back in time. Last night was confusing. We had someone come into class telling us that a trip to Oak where there's a neat restaurant/pub. Well there was a group of us who were interested in that but some wanted to stay and eat tacos which were planned by room 4 for the night. So after a while I come to hear that everyone is going to stay for dinner. That upset me a little because I was looking forward to going somewhere. Then a couple of minutes later Dr. O'Connor comes back into the room and says well I guess we're going to Hastings for dinner. So I quickly jumped on that bandwagon and ended up having ribs soup... at a place called Murphy's.
When we got home that night I was stuffed beyond belief and in the mood to call Karly. So I decided to take a walk and call. That's when I found out she needed a little more time to clean the house for my parents arrival the next day. I hung up but wasn't done walking. I thought I would walk around the perimeter of the facility we were staying in. As I was walking on the oppposite side of the property from our apartments I notices a set of tire tracks heading off northeast. My curiosity was peaked and I followed the tracks to a gate. Well that meant I needed to continue over the fence into the pasture. As I was walking away from the light of the facility I noticed it didn't seem to be getting any darker. I looked up and the moon was bright and illuminating my pathway. I followed the cattle tracks to the feeder in the pasture and then off into the distance. As it was approaching cheap cell phone time I realized that I was getting cold and it was quite a ways back to the warmth of the buildings and I wanted to talk to the one I love before returning. So I looked around only to realize that there was no wood, there were no trees and nothing to burn but dried grass and that didn't seem very safe to me so as I stood there I kicked a cow pie. It went thump and broke free from the ground. It was mostly dried out and a lightbulb went off in my head. I remembered what they did in the old west and still do in Mongolia. Cow pies burn very nicely. So I made a little ring of more moist cow pies and gathered some small hunks of cow chips. Then I filled the ring with loose dried grass and lit it on fire. It created a small glow that was very warm but going to die quickly so I added a couple of the dried cow chips and they almost immediately started on fire. They lit somewhat like charcoal in how they got really hot to the point of glowing red but didn't let off much flame. I created a very warm pile of embers to sit by and talk to my love Karly by the campfire. I felt like a true Nebraskan for a moment. But then I returned to the confines of our facility and slept in a good old fashioned bed. I think it would have been nice to find a clearing of grass and start a small fire to keep warm by and go to sleep out there in the open plain with the stars and moon overhead.

I'm on break in between class sessions right now. I have this to say. Classrooms and buildings should never be built without windows. It is actually bearable to sit in class for 4-8 hours when you have sunlight streaming in windows. I think the vet school was foolish for building the way they did.
On another note, CowCalf5 is a really cool program once you figure out how to use it. I strongly suggest that producers use it for their operations.
Anyway, I miss Karly but things are ok here in Nebraska. As usual studying is hard but I am able to accomplish some studying every night. It is a lot easier to study while in Ames.

Corn, Corn, Corn...
That's what Nebraska is all about. Corn. That is corn and cattle. I find the whole irrigation thing very interesting as well.
Oh, by the way, I'm in Clay Center Nebraska for the week. We're here for Beef Production Medicine at the Meat animal reasearch center (MARC) which is a 38,000 acre section of a former munitions plant left over from WWII. It's a project coordinated in cooperation between University of Nebraska, Kansas State and the federal government. It's been a lot of fun down here so far. The facility is wonderful with 5 apartment style rooms which are divided into two bedrooms with walk in closets and a common area with a kitchen. We're sharing the responsibility of cooking dinner so each night a different room cooks. The first night the ladies cooked spaghetti, tonight was pork roast with corn bread cooked southern style by our friends from Mississippi.
Corn Bread
Corn meal
Flour (self rising)
Sugar
Milk
Mix equal parts of flour and corn meal. Mix in sugar in ratio of "if you add 1/2 cup flour you add 1/3 cup of sugar" add milk and cook until it's done at around 400.
Allan Ethridge

These are as you can tell very precise directions that even the most qualified chef would have to ponder prior to cooking.

There is more to come on Allan but to conclude for this evening.
Today we went to a 30,000 head feedyard in lexington NB. It had some really good management points that were quite informative.
That is all

More updates on the crazy life that the love of my life and I lead.
We will be heading to Red Wing Minnesota tonight to meet up with our organist. Yes Red Wing is the home of Red Wing shoes (really good shoes). Then on Saturday night we will be heading back to Ames to go to church on Sunday and then I leave for Clay Center Nebraska for a week of more beef management stuff. While I'm there Karly plans on getting invitations done and some other stuff so I'll look forward to finding out all of the wonderful things that she has accomplished upon my return. I hope my cell phone works in Clay Center, it was very annoying not having it when I was in Mississippi.

posting again just for the sake of posting!!!