How many Kindergarten students do you know who are learning to read while learning to be businessmen or women? Our own kinder student, Mr. P, recently spent a day at the sales yard watching for his steer, Percy (out of his cow, Pudge), to be sold.

Since Mr. P is just learning to read he needed to add some sight words to his reading vocabulary so he could understand the business part of the day. To get Mr. P started off right he learned to sight read: cow, bull, heifer, steer, sale, head count, average, total price. 

Lots of Brands are Seen at the Sales Yard

While waiting for his steer to come up for auction the time was passed by learning the important info regarding brands and legal branding locations. A legal brand is proof of ownership of an animal – it can guard against cattle rustlers. Mr. P learned there are six branding positions for legal proof of ownership of cattle. They are the left or right shoulder, rib or hip.

A livestock business person must learn to read brands. The Grieb Ranch brand is a backwards G with and arrow underneath. The Willems’ brand is a lazy S over a horseshoe placed on the left hip.

This hat also sports the brands of an uncle and a niece along with the Willems’ brand and the Grieb Ranch brand. The first and last brands read bar crescent moon and crescent moon bar.  If you would like to see more livestock brands check out the online California Brand Book.

Kindergarten Business Lessons

Back to the sales auction . . . Mr. P’s steer sold and he now must calculate his profit. He must tally up all his operational expenses and apply them to the amount he received for his steer. Mr. P must understand the value of bringing quality livestock to the market. This brings repeat buyers for his livestock. Pretty big lessons for a Kindergarten-level Businessman.

Ranch Dog Dee was simply THAT dog.

The special friend who was put to task to check out the girlfriend to see if she was the one for life. Dee was THAT dog who was so special she was part of the ensuing wedding. She was THAT dog who was trusted enough to welcome home all three of children. Dee was THAT special friend who sat faithfully listening to expressions of the ups and downs of ranch life. 

Daniel’s Ranch Dog Dee was simply THAT dog.

Dee was Daniel’s faithful friend. She rode in and helped sort at more cattle roundups than any dog.  Her life was not easy being a ranch dog. Yet it was her purpose. Ranching life produced it perils: Dee dealt with several  broken bones by being smashed by charging bulls or cows. Dee loved her job and was counted on over and over for tracking wild cattle, bear, pigs, or whatever needed to be done.  Dee brought many years of joy! 

Dee was simply THAT dog. She is truly missed by all.

Ag Adventure day camp for kids provides farming and ranching experiences for 7-11 year olds. In the process they learn to appreciate God’s creation and understand how vital agriculture is to life. Here are some of the activities cowboys and cowgirls got to experience at Ag Adventure camp run by the Apela Foundation:

• Watching turkey chicks hatch then holding the new life,
• horseback riding every day,
• eating food made and prepped by the campers themselves,
• squirting milk from a goat teat,
• learning how to properly handle and shoot a BBG gun,
• playing horseshoes,
• learning to rope,
• building or making a craft,
• learning about and handling a variety of farm animals,
• doing chores
• and so much more

The Origin of Ag Adventure Camp

Ag Adventure camp is the brain child of Connie Grieb Willems and a few others who had like-thinking so they formed the non-profit, Apela Foundation. Now approaching it’s 10 year, many Ag Adventure camp memories have been made and much work has gone into this one-of-a-kind experience for youngsters.

Who Provides the Animals and Ranch Resources?

The Grieb Ranch family is one of the main suppliers of horses and tack for the cowboys and cowgirls to ride every day, the puppies for kids to love on, goats to milk, hatching turkey chicks, berries for the cobbler and many other fun items each year. Other local friends of Grieb Ranch also donate the use of their horses and livestock.

This endeavor involves the whole Grieb Ranch family and this year it took four generations to provide. Papa delivered the horses; Connie directed, taught classes, and managed help; Amanda assisted the staff; Cowboy P provided puppies and help; Little A kept his mama busy and played with other staff kids; while cousin Josh did all the heavy lifting and assisted where needed.

A great time was had by all, especially the campers many of whom experienced God’s creation through agriculture up close and personal for the very first time.

Is the cowboy life in the jeans . . . or is it in the genes? Perhaps it’s a bit of both. The cowboy/cowgirl way of life is passed down from one generation to the next as they work along side one another.

Cowboys and cowgirls learn to be good stewards of the land, efficient cattle raisers, train and ride horses to partner with them in the ranch work, help their neighbors, love God and love the cowboy way of life while using their gifts and abilities to serve others.

Out on the ranch life happens and sometimes you have to find humor and lessons in what transpires.  So today we’ll look into the question of, “What came first the chicken or the egg?” Hints to the answer comes from one of Connie’s chickens who got too close to a dog so it became a science project and dinner.

Science Lesson of How Eggs are Formed

Here’s the science project part: Did you ever wonder how all those eggs just keep coming out of a hen?  

Well here is the up close exploration of the interior egg tract of a hen.  All those eggs are growing daily getting ready to come out.  Right before the largest egg yolk makes its final appearance as an egg, the egg white and the shell are added.  So the hen has from microscopic beginnings of eggs to the final product always growing in her egg tract. So amazing.

Chicken is What’s for Dinner

What do you do with the rest of the chicken that wasn’t used in the science lesson? Dinner. A Chicken Enchilada Recipe is coming another day.

Chicken or the Egg Humor

In the meantime, Connie was looking for the joke, “Why did the chicken cross the road?  To get to the other side,” and she ran across even more funny chicken jokes. Surely you find yourself clucking . . . err chuckling . . . well at least smiling.

Which side of a chicken has the most feathers?
(The outside!) 

Why do hens lay eggs?
(If they dropped them, they’d break!) 

How do chickens bake a cake?
(From scratch!) 

Why can’t a rooster ever get rich?
(Because he works for chicken feed!) 

What’s the most musical part of a chicken?
(The drumstick!) 

What do you get if you cross a chicken with a cow?
(Roost beef!) 

If fruit comes from a fruit tree, where does chicken come from?
(A poul-tree!) 

Chickens rise when the rooster crows, but when do ducks get up?
(At the quack of dawn!)

The essential minerals in salt act as important electrolytes in all bodies, both humans and animals. These essential salt minerals help with fluid balance, nerve transmission and muscle function. Some amount of salt is naturally found in most foods, but we also add salt to enhance the flavor of our food. Historically salt has been used to preserve food.

Ranchers and livestock managers provide salt for their animals in the form of a salt block which they lick.

On the Grieb Ranch we use Salt in Many Different Ways

Our Animals Need Salt

Our animals need it. If we have a sick cow or young calf we mix up an electrolyte solution containing salt then administer it as a drench.

Throughout the year we keep our cattle supplied with different types of mineral salt blocks which they lick free-choice. However, we need to be careful where we set the salt blocks as the area around the blocks gets trampled and the salt kills the vegetation immediately around it. Careful management of salt blocks is necessary.

Our Food and Conversation Need Salt

We enjoy many meals at our ranch table and we add salt to enhance the flavor of some foods.  While eating, we also involve each other in conversation. God’s word provides a guide for our conversations, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Colossians 4:6 

So how do we as Christians season our conversations?  The salt of our conversations is described in Philippians 4:8, “Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy think about such things.” Salt your conversation accordingly and have it be an outpouring of your thought life.