We’re thrilled to tell you that a national talk radio host has tried some of our product and loves it. Specifically, he said the following: “Once you’ve had a SteakBurger, you’ll never go back.” Now that is pretty exciting to us out here deep in the Heart of Texas. We have tried very hard to produce meat that is unique in the market place. I won’t go on like a commercial here, if you want all the reasons SteakBurger is so good, go to www.SteakBurger.com.

Blaze of yellow wildflowers in the next pasture. Wow is it bright and beautiful. What a great day it is today. Clear blue sky, green grass, 75F and wildflowers.

Brittney, our Australian Shepherd enjoying the fragrant Texas Blue Bonnets.

We had a big Spring Fling party down at the Ranch today. Families and friends from the office in Dallas. The hay ride is always a fun thing to do. Probably more fun for the kids than for the parents, but isn’t that true of most things in life anyway?

A stop at the lake is a necessary part of any decent hayride. The kids must have a chance to get muddy and fall in the lake if at all possible. The parents are so glad we could stop here!

These guys are having the time of their lives. Actually, weather-wise, it’s been a beautiful day. Up at Ranch HQ, the wind is blowing pretty good, but back here amongst the trees, it’s quite pleasant.

Just had to show you some pictures of some of the youngsters in their silly poses. For everything else, there’s MasterCard, right?

A hayride is better than anything you’ll get at Six Flags. See some nervous people on this little downhill section?

Rebecca is standing on a stool to braid the mane of Legolas Lark. He’s one of our registered quarterhorses for sale. He’s 2 years old and a real sweet tempered horse. He’s going to be a nice one. He’s the son of Lark’s One For The Money. Rebecca is preparing to make a DVD of him moving at various gaits for a couple of interested buyers. Diane will be sad to sell this one, but someone will be lucky to get him.

Here he is all prettied up.

This is a brand new baby calf born just a day or two ago. He’s a little bull calf (in about 5 months he’ll be a steer). He was born real late in the season, when we thought we were pretty much all calved out for the Spring. He probably weighs somewhere about 70lbs. Surprise, surprise, but we aren’t complaining.The interesting thing to me is how soon after birth they are up and about. I guess they have to be ready to escape predators very early in life. This one seemed particularly attracted to Diane and me. As we walked by, he stared at us and then followed us all the way down this fence line. Eventually his mama came calling and met up with him.

These two young calves stared us down pretty good. Very inquisitive. Notice the difference in these animals. Both are products of a Hereford Mama and a Black Angus bull. Both are called Black Baldies, but sometimes you see the one on the left more specifically referred to as BWF (black w/White Face) and the the one on the right (a nicer stockier build compared to the lanky one on the left) is referred to as a BMF (black w/Mottle Face). Their both good looking 2 or 3 month old calves. Life is good for them right now, pleasant weather plenty of milk available on demand and even grass as they begin to sample what their Mammas are eating.

This afternoon we went out and picked some flowers for a bouquet. This year has been quite sparse on our property for Blue Bonnets. Not sure why that is, but these Indian Paint Brushes are plentiful. The boys were thrilled to present their mother with these flowers. She was appropriately thankful they thought of her.

These are yellow flowers like daisies. They are very fragrant but I’m not sure what they’re called.

These are some beautiful purple flowers that I don’t remember seeing before. Who would have thought Texas was such a pretty place. Unless you come to Texas to visit this time of year you have no idea.

This is a big tree out near the road that fronts the property. Ryan, Peter and Red give a perspective of how big the tree is. It shows signs of being struck by lightning in years past.

And here’s the finished product that Diane arranged. Beautiful huh?

There was big excitement for us guys today. We’ve been needing a push mower for some of the tighter spaces around trees and by the outbuildings. Everyone was anxious to do some mowing. Russell did most of the work during the day.

Along the Eastern edge of the ranch is the Abandoned Road. It’s an old county road that was abandoned many years ago. It was overgrown with branches when we moved here, but after many hours clearing it, now it is a cool place to walk. In the summer time, with all the shade, it’s noticeably cooler. At Halloween time we usually take visitors on a hay ride down this road. Kind of spooky at night.

Most people that come for a visit are justifiably concerned with things like stepping in a cow pie. I don’t worry about such things and don’t even hardly notice them since they’re all over the place and plus cowpies don’t stink ;-).

These heifers (black baldies — 1/2 Black Angus and 1/2 Hereford) found some real nice tall grass. I thought I’d try to get close and get a picture. I never anticipated running right into a skunk.

I walked right by this skunk slumbering in a tall clump of grass. I was focused on taking a picture and didn’t see it until I nearly stepped on it coming back to my original position. YIKES! That could have been a stinky encounter.

Rebecca turns 15 today. She’s really growing up. To celebrate, we rounded up part of the herd. We wanted to catch a couple of bulls. We’ve learned by trial and error that if you want to get bulls to do anything then you better get a bunch of cows involved. So we went and rounded up a pretty good crowd and sure enough the bulls followed along. A couple of four wheelers can round up cattle pretty quickly. It helps that these mammas are used to this and when they hear me calling them they usually come to me. Then Rebecca follows behind and keeps any stragglers from falling too far behind. We like to move the cattle in a low stress, no hurry fashion. As long as their moving in the right direction, we just follow them nice and slow.