d1 Resume

When reading the Capital Press newspaper, I occasionally read the Help Wanted ads wondering if I have the skills and experience to get a job on a large ranch.  Some of those jobs, especially the manager positions, look very tempting. Family housing, a new pickup, free beef, a 401K, ranch provided horses, and the ability to grow professionally.  Most of my ranching experience has come from being an owner and operator, so I put together a resume to see if I have what it takes to get a job as a ranch manager on a ranch like the Yellowstone…(That’s right Rip, I am coming after your position) Please give me any input on the below resume and if you know any positions where my skills and experience would be a good fit, let me know. Thanks!

Don

                 W. Donald Hill Jr.

                             Email: d1livestock@gmail.com

Objective:  To seek a challenging position as a Ranch Manager, were I can use my skills and experience to help a ranch grow and prosper.

Education: Southern Oregon University, B.S. in Communication 1991 (2.0 GPA)

                                   Skills and Experience

Organization skills: Able to organize small reminder notes, lock combinations, phone numbers, and cattle notes in the center console and the visor of pickup trucks. Developed an effective way to gather ear tags from dead calves and input them into a large database.

Communication skills: Effectively use direct and personal messaging on Facebook, Instagram, Snap chat, and Twitter. Have experience in using face to face communication.

Machinery and Mechanical skills: Efficient with fencing pliers, crescent wrenches, bailing wire and duct tape. J-B Weld and Flex Steel Certified. Proficient in using Angie’s List to find professionals to make any repair.

Haying and Irrigation skills: Experience with calling Hay Brokers and arranging pricing and delivery dates. Able to direct the squeeze operator to the correct placement of hay stacks.  20 years’ experience of flood irrigation, able to effectively use tarps to block water in irrigation ditches. Interested in how pivot irrigation works.

Cattle Handling Skills: Able to quickly move large amounts of cattle into small pens. Hot-Shot Certified, Powder River Calf Table Certified.

Animal health skills: Experienced in holistic and organic cattle health methods. LA-200 and Lead-Mycin Certified.

Unique Traits: Accountable, Honest and Hard working.

The Summer Blues on the d1

It has been awhile since I have posted anything, so I thought I would try a V-Blog. Let me know what you think and I will try post something once a month.
Thanks
Don

d1 Christmas letter

It is that time of year were I am excited to go to the mail box and receive Christmas cards from friends near and far. I look forward to seeing pictures from old friends who have a bigger waist line and a receding hair line, and of course their beautiful athletic successful kids. I really appreciate the Christmas cards and letters that are a single spaced one page letter that explains their wonderful year. This year I would like to try to write one of those letters describing mine and Janelle's experience on the d1.   I thought I would try it on my blog before I send it out to all my friends far and beyond: please let me know what you think before I send…

     Dear Friends,

                        As 2016 comes to an end, Janelle and I have been reflecting on the years past, and we have been really appreciative of our good fortune, family, friends and health.  

Janelle had neck surgery last year and fortunately everything went well. But during the surgery, her vocal cords were damaged. Janelle’s voice all of sudden turned into the sound of a Minnie Mouse’s voice.  It was funny at first, but it eventually turned out to be very annoying, especially when we were sorting cattle.  As she tried to yell at me to cut off the black baldy heifer, her tone changed from a cute Minnie Mouse voice into a poltergeist devil voice. Janelle’s vocal cords eventually recovered and it has been refreshing to hear her voice yell at me as I let that black baldy heifer through the gate.

     Last year we finally had a real winter.  After two years of drought, the snow fell and covered up the little feed we had. On New Year’s Day last year, I was ready to call the Sheriff’s department to report that someone had replaced our cows with skinny weak cows, but the d1 left rib brand showed up well on those skinny ribs. We quickly started feeding and we only lost a couple of cows.  As you know, green grass grows underneath that winter snow, and we had one of our best growing seasons ever on our summer pastures.  We had some outstanding looking calves this fall, some of the best we have ever seen. Obviously, the cattle market did not care how good our calves looked this year.  As I opened that envelope from the auction yard that contained our check of hard work, I anticipated another year of good fortune.  I reluctantly[d1]  revealed the amount of the check to Janelle, and she said: “what the f___! How the hell are we going to pay our loans?” As always, I quickly came up with a solution to our problems. I have several old empty water troughs filled with empty beer cans that should make a large redemption. If I win both of my fantasy football leagues with the combination of selling our mistletoe from our infected oak trees, we should be able to make our loan payment.  If not, I will send a link to our Go Fund me web page.

We are currently involved in a new kitchen remodel project. This fall we had a busted hot water pipe underneath the house that we did not know about for a month. A word of advice to all home owners; if you notice a lot of condensation on the inside of the windows, a noisy hot water heater, a bubble on the kitchen floor and a weak well you might have a burst hot water pipe underneath your house. Call me Mr. Obvious, but we found the leak and my plumber friend Nick fixed the pipe.  Fortunately Farmers Insurance knows a thing or two because they have seen a thing or two.

Here on the d1 we always seem to have challenges, so we own the challenges, fix the problem and move on to enjoy the great things that happen every day. We hope you and your family have a great Christmas and happy New Year. Please keep in touch and we always have a warm fire at our house and a good cocktail, even though you might need to sit on a box that reads kitchen supplies.

Merry Christmas, Don & Janelle

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 [d1]

Leadership and Mangement on the d1

When I am driving down the road in my truck with my stock trailer in tow and my three dogs tied up in the back of my truck, I look like a pretty punchy dude who could ride 10,000 acres gathering any long eared calves that came into view. Well, looks can be deceiving. I have a nice truck, trailer, and horse but my dogs are far from winning any stock dog competitions. On the driver’s side of the truck Mojo leans over the bed, filling the side mirror of my truck. On the passenger side, Roo peaks his nose over the side of the bed cowering as if we were driving through the back streets of Baghdad.  And then there is Sammy, who sits in the middle starring up into the sky pissed off that she is not riding in the front seat. We all look good driving down the road, but when the tailgate drops the bullshit stops.

I have been working a long time on creating some dog power, but instead, I have resorted to studying the astrology of my dogs before I gather cows.  Every time I move or gather cows I wake up in the morning thinking maybe today is the day my dogs will work great. Once, on September 14, 2014 at 9:00AM they worked well together for a while.  It was a great day. Mars and Juniper were aligned and it was a half-moon, but unfortunately, I will not see that alignment again until 2030. The other day I ran into a neighbor and he said “I knew you were ups there the other day gathern, cuz when you are yellin at them dawgs  it sounds like you want to take their mothers to Fuddruckers.” I am just glad his hearing is not that good and he just thinks I am weird for yelling “Ducking Ditches” every time I am moving cows.

                                                                       Roo

 

 

Let me introduce you to my pack. Roo is a 10 year old male Border Collie who suffers from bipolar disorder. I diagnosed his bipolar disorder when his horoscopes were not matching.  Roo is a Gemini. So one morning before going out to work cows I read his horoscope:
Volunteer to take on an extra task today. When someone declares that there is a bit of extra work to be done, don't be afraid to jump on it. Doing so will put you in good favor with your superiors and will lead to big opportunities down the road.

Well none of this came true, in fact he thought it would be better to run back to the truck so he could spend the rest of the day decompressing.

 

                                                           Mojo

 

 

 

 

 

Mojo is an 8 year old male McNab. He has great athletic ability, very muscular, and has the ability to cover a lot ground and never get tired. The only problem is that he has no herding instincts. My wife really likes Mojo, and she constantly makes excuses for him and thinks that he is just a late bloomer. Every time we go out to gather cows, I tell my wife if Mojo gets a head of the cows, he can sit at the dinner table and eat a steak. It was always a confident bet for me, but one day on September 14, 2014 he got a head of the cows. I debated the incident and insisted that a ground squirrel had lead him to the front of the cows. Well he did not like sitting at the table but he sure liked that steak.

 

                                                        Sammy

 

 

 

 

Sammy is a 4 year old female Catahoula cross. Sammy is the best cattle dog I have and she is very good at stopping cattle but after that, she does not understand the phrase “that will do” or “get behind.” Sammy is ok most of the time, but not very consistent, which brings me to why I think cows can communicate between one another. If cows could talk I think there conversation would go like this: “ok number 120, you stay back 3rd from the lead, when they send the dogs, and that tri colored dog comes by you…start a fight with her and that will start carnage and confusion…then it will give the rest of us time to run into the brush, split up and then we will all meet back here tonight.”  Even though I like Sammy, my horse hates her because he usually has to run up and down hills to fix the carnage she starts.

 

I am a true believer in that there is no such thing as a bad team only a bad leader. So I will continue to study the moon and stars, anticipate the cows’ strategy, and continue to help my dogs succeed at their job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Damn Sod Busters

Marijuana is now legal in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and very lenient medical marijuana laws in California.   Much like the old western films the marijuana sod busters are expanding into rural communities of the Northwest, unfortunately we don’t have the villainous Rancher destroying their crops.  Ranchers and weed growers have coexisted for many years and even some of them have dual agriculture roles.  Recently a marijuana grower purchased 160 acres next to one of my pasture leases in the Southern Oregon Cascades.  He is currently growing 90 plants in one area, and possible more in other areas, but my recon skills are lacking to gather anymore intel. Please  don’t think that I am some goody two shoes against drugs, in fact I grew up in Humboldt County California in the 1980s, so I am very familiar with the Chronic, The KGB*, and The Icky Sticky.

I think that I am just jealous of marijuana growers, they get to live out in the mountains grow a product to sell and make a hell of a lot more money than me. For example my neighbor could possibly gross $250,000 from that 160 acres and I could maybe run 5 pairs on that 160 acres during the growing season and gross $7,500.  Believe it or not I did graduate from college, I just wish I would have taken more business courses. I have not yet had any problems with my neighbor but for some reason he has a problem shutting gates, I am not sure if he is constantly testing his product or he wants my cows to provide free fertilizer for his plants.

The marijuana industry has done a better job marketing their product than the beef Industry. The marijuana Industry came up with medical marijuana and they claim it cures everything, and all the beef industry could come up with was “Beef it’s what’s for dinner.” Agriculture producers should promote medical asparagus, medical milk, medical potatoes, and medical beef, or maybe if people consumed these products more often they would not need medicines.

This fall I will gather and ship my cattle to the market and my neighbor will cut, trim and ship his product to market. I will get a small check and he will get a bundle of cash, but I know my product will be much better for people and society.

*KGB: Killer Green Bud

Big Loops and Thumb Throttles

Hello, my name is Don and I am a 4- wheeleraholic.  Yeah, that’s right, I said it! Yes my 4- wheeler is beat to shit and my horses are fat.  But, I would like to think that I am a traditional cowboy.  I often find myself in the 4- wheeler saddle instead of the traditional cowboy saddle.  Like most good addicts, I can justify my actions of why I choose a 4- wheeler over a horse. The main justification is time. I complain about how long it takes me to catch my horse, hook up my trailer, saddle up my horse, and then warming him up so he does not buck me off again. On Sundays during football season, I don’t have a lot of extra time.  I love to be home before 10:00AM to catch the NFL games. My Honda Rancher seems to enjoy the challenge of quickly running up and down the hills and across the creeks to make it home just in time to watch Tom Brady grasp that well- inflated football.

I am ashamed of my addiction so I try to keep it a secret. I have a small pasture that borders Interstate-5, and when it comes to checking cows there, I go into disguise on my 4- wheeler. I cannot bring myself to wear overalls, but I do wear a King Ropes baseball cap so that the traditional buckaroos traveling on I-5 just think that they are seeing a farmer who has a few cows.  I do have a few Junkie friends that also utilize their 4- wheelers more than their horses, one has even taken it to a dangerous level. This Junkie is able to pin 3rd gear roping calves while steering with his left hand and roping with his right hand. He has got in so deep that he has been able to rope coyotes while traveling at up to speeds up of 40mph.  While this may be a YouTube worthy moment, his contemporaries and counterparts, in his geographical area, struggle with this practice.  They believe that cowboy tradition, and a thumb throttle, do not necessarily co-exist!!   

The debate between tradition and technology in society is something that will go on forever. This is a healthy debate as long as we appreciate the long lasting cowboy tradition.  But, we should embrace new technologies to improve some of our lives.  That said, this has been a busy spring gathering, branding, and processing calves.  Some days I look back at my trailer, with a 4- wheeler tied up next to a horse, and wonder how I still was able to achieve my 30 day chip of being horseback? Nonetheless, I will continue to hide my tracks, and justify my habits, and only hope…for a full recovery.

RanchFit

                          The Stretcher, 5-7 clicks per strand good shoulder and tricep workout

I would like to think that I am in good physical shape. I work out at the gym five days a week, lifting weights, running, swimming and playing basketball.  But when it comes to doing ranch work, I am consistently weak, tired and sore.  I can bench-press 250 lbs., but I struggle taking down a 250-lb. sick calf. I can do 15 pull-ups, but I have to take a 5-minute break after pounding one T-post. On the basketball court I might be able to set a screen on a 6’3” 250lb defender, but when that mother cow comes at me to protect her calf you can find me quickly climbing the closest fence.

Cross Fit is the new fitness fad that will fade like Jazzercise.  Cross Fit gyms are opening everyday across the US. Cross Fit members use terms like WOD, which stands for Workout of the Day, and the Cross Fit gym is called the Box. If you work out at a Cross Fit gym, you are encouraged to video-record your clean and jerk max and then post it to Facebook for all your friends to watch.

I am always looking for a new business venture, so maybe I should start a Ranch Fit Gym.  I think it would be a simple business model, paying me to keep you in shape doing my ranch work. Cross Fit is similar to ranch work, lifting more than you should too many times with bad form.  The Box will be called the Ranch and the WOD will be called Work. If you’d like to video your workout, it will be entertaining watching you getting mucked out by an angry mother cow.