If You Have To Cry Go Outside

I just finished reading Kelly Cutrone's new book, If You Have To Cry Go Outside: and other things your mother never told you.

I had really been wanting to read this book as I love Kelly from The Hills and now her appearances on The City. She also has a TV show of her own called Life on Kell that looks really good too.

Kelly appears to be one of those no nonsense, tough as can be, women. She admits that she often gets called a Bitch, which she refers to as Babe (or Boss) In Total Control of Herself.

The book does get a little preachy at time about her religion and faith, and the beliefs that she has, however, she does it to explain her life. She truly does open herself up to the reader, and holds nothing back. Kelly shares everything from her love life, drug additions, business practices, and insider stories to the fashion world.

Here are a couple of my favorite pieces from the book:

Everything Good Happens After Thirty:

1. Salary Increases

2. High End Fashion

3. A Baby. If you want one

4. The desire and the emotional wherewithal to date three men at the same time without remorse.

5. Vacations outside the USA sans youth hostel

6. Self Control

7. Property Ownership

8. The ability to buy a muscle car... if you want one

9. Decrease in overall paranoia and hysteria, which leads to...

10. Better sex!

The Empowered Girls Guide to Dressing for Work

1. No wife-beaters

2. No cleavage

3. No Belly Buttons

4. No Muffin-top

5. No stilettos or heels over three inches

6. No Flip Flops

7. No gold lame

8. Absolutely no corduroy

9. No belly piercings, eyebrow rings, facial piercings, or any other piercings that don't involve an ear

10. Nothing obviously more expensive then what your boss wears

11. No Chistian Audigier or Ed Hardy, which are forever banned from fashionable workplaces everywhere

12. No shipping the bra, even if you don't thing you need one

13. No cross-dressing

Drayton Valley Show

This weekend we were are the Drayton Valley livestock show. This show is our local show, that our family helps to run.

We usually take a string out, get the calves used to being off the farm, and ready to go to shows later in the year.

We had a great show. There were some excellent cattle, that will be really tough later this year. Here are some of the animals that we took to the show.

Tallagega x CDY Signature Black 9S

Champion Heifer Calf Power Drive x CDY Signature Black 2N

Reserve Heifer Calf
RJY First Date 1W- Joker x Dream Date
Reserve Jr. Female

Joker x CDY Signature 2N
Champion Bull Calf

IPU Revolution
Co-owed with Beechinor Bros. Simmentals
Champion 2yr old Bull and Grand Champion Bull

Champion Steer

Co-owed with Macleod's

A Real Man

A co-worker sent this to me today. Thought it was fitting for a Friday. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

A real man is a woman's best friend. He will
never stand her up and never let her down.
He will reassure her when she feels insecure
and comfort her after a bad day.

He will inspire her to do things she never
thought she could do; to live without fear
and forget regret. He will enable her to
express her deepest emotions and give in to
her most intimate desires. He will make sure
she always feels as though she's the most
beautiful woman in the room and will enable
her to be the most confident, sexy,
seductive, and invincible.

No wait... sorry... I'm thinking of wine.
Never mind.

49 Years in the Making

Well I have to say Congrats to the Chiacago Blackhawks. Tonight they won the Stanley Cup with a 4-3 win in overtime agains the Philidelphia Flyers.

It was a great game, and although I am bias, I really do think that Chicago deserved to win. They dominated at home, and were the first team to win on the road. A huge advantage in this series.

Before this series started I predicted that Chicago would win in 6 games, and looks like I was right.

Now people may say that I am a band wagon jumper, however, I have been a Chicago fan since grade 1. My parents were managing McDougall Cattle Station at the time. It was an Angus and Simmental operation.

One day we got a phone call from a guy that was interested in buying some Red Angus cows. Neither mom or dad were home, so I answered the phone, took a message and told the man that my parents would call him back.

Later that night, I told my parents the message and my dad asked me if I knew who the man was that called. I said that his name was Brent Sutter and he said that be lived in Illinois. My dad informed me that Brent Sutter was a hockey player in the NHL and played for the Chicago Blackhawks!

From that moment on Brent became one of my favorite players. Because he played for the Hawks, they naturally became my favorite team, next to the Edmonton Oilers...

Then again last year I had a run in with some Chicago Blackhawks. I was in Calgary at the Westin Hotel on a tour for work. I was looking at the hotel to potentially hold a conference there. While we were walking through the hotel I seen several men who looked familar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I asked the hotel rep if they got many sports teams staying at the hotel, and she replyed with a "Yes, we actually have one in house right now!". I then knew that it was in fact the Hawks that I was recognizing!

Later that night as I we meeting the hotel rep for drinks, a few of the players were in the lounge as well. We got talking with them and had a really fun night having a few drinks and laughs. They found out that I was staying at the hotel alone, and invited me to have breakfast with them before they left for their morning skate the next day.

Because of Ladd, Kane, Toewes and Byfuglien, my love of the team became even stronger. They have been an easy team to cheer for in the playoffs. Especially since Edmonton has not made it the last couple of years!

So Congrats to the Chicago Blackhawks on another sucessful year. It has been 49 years since you last one the Stanley Cup, so enjoy it!

Tags

I always get asked how I keep my cows straight and know which ones are mine. Although it is fairly easy for me to know all of our cows as we only have 50, when you get into larger herds of 200+ it gets to be difficult.

In our herd we have a simple tagging process.

This is one of my animals. You can tell by the SLY in the tag. All SLY animals were bred by me. The 12X means that she is #12 and was born in the year letter X. We use the letters of the alphabet to identify how old an animal is and when they were born. We do not use I, O, Q, and V. The Rev in the bottom left hand corner means that her sire is Revolution, and the 669 means that her mother is 669 also know as Ruffles.
This ones tag is slightly different. This heifer has a 2N at the top of her tag. That is because she is an embryo calf on a recipient mother. The 437 at the bottom right of her tag is the number of her recipient mother, and her sire is P.D. or Power Drive.

Having our tags like this helps when people come to look at cattle and during breeding season. It is really easy to know what pedigree animals are without having to think to much. As calves we also have a rough idea of when their birth date is depending on what number they are.

Once your get the process down, it does become a lot simpler.

Working on Cattle

Each weekend that I go home to the farm all my city friends ask what I do out there. When I tell them that I work on cattle, they look at me with a puzzled look on their face.

I thought it would be easier to show what I do rather then just writing about it. So here it is. This is a portion of "working on cattle"

Once I have an animal that is quiet enough to lead and is used to having the halter on them we will start to work on the animals hair and getting them quiet and used to humans.

We start by getting them tied up. They start looking like this.

We then use a regular old garden hose and a pressure nozzle like this one to get the animal wet.

They don't always like this, but it is a really good way to quiet cattle down. We get their whole body wet. Legs, tail, head, belly, everywhere but their ears.

Next we take a brush and brush all of the hair down. This gets any kinks out of the hair.The next step is to brush it all forward. You always brush from their tail to their head.Next we use this machine called a blower. It is a super powered hair dryer for animals.We blow the hair forward the same way as we just combed the hair. You need to make sure you get all of the water out, and that the skin is dry.You want to make sure that hair looks like this and is laying flat when done.Not looking like this with lines and it being all messy.When you are done they should look like this. A little bit more clipping and he will be great to show next weekend!

Contest Winner

So we have wrapped up our first contest. Thank-you to everyone who entered.

There were some really close answers, and I was impressed by everyone's NYC Landmark knowledge.

The big winner is....Cheyenne Stapley!

There were some really close answers, and I was impressed by everyone's NYC Landmark knowledge.

Cheyenne is a fellow blogger. You can find her blog here. Cheyenne please send me your contact info and I will get you your prize.

Here are the correct answers.
1.Statue of Liberty
2. Times Square
3. World Trade Centre
4. Empire State Building
5. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
6. St. Patrick's Cathedral
7. Rockafeller Centre
8. Hotel Empire- Chuck's hotel in Gossip Girl
9. Brooklyn Bridge
10. Central Park Carousal
11.. Central Park