cow/calf and Corian

@SSN_685 Idaho Falls (enlisted) and NPTU Chas (officer) for me

Navy nuclear trained personnel, after a lovely six month course at Nuclear Power School, have to attend an additional six months of training at one of the Navy’s land-based prototypes. Over the years, several have shutdown and they’ve transitioned to using decommissioned submarines, albeit, heavily modified for land based use. One of the older prototypes, and the one I attended was in Windsor, Connecticut. The plant itself was built by Combustion Engineering (who still has commercial plants in operation) with their headquarters next door to the prototype site. The plant was identified as S1C, and only one more was built, called S2C and installed on USS Tullibee SSN-597. I had the pleasure of touring Tullibee on her final deployment in late 1985 in La Maddalena. Small boat for sure and made me appreciate the spacious accommodations on my boat. Anyway, the site of the prototype was cleaned up and declared remediated in 2007. The pictures show then and now. Most people, especially in nuclear power loving New England, had no idea there was a nuclear reactor 3-1/4 miles in a straight line from Bradley International Airport, or 8-1/2 miles from downtown Hartford. The site is owned by the government through Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory so you sadly can’t just wander up and have a picnic. This plant, S1C, like the other prototypes, S1W, D1G, etc.. trained thousands of Navy nukes. Even though we spend only six months there, or more if we return as an Instructor, they set the standard for watchstanding and put all the theory that’s been crammed in your head to practical use. I have many vivid and fond memories of my time at S1C. More pictures in the first comment.

@MikeyDiMercurio @waronweakness Now do Melville and Moby Dick, paragraph long sentences. Great American novel though.

@waronweakness He needed a fookin editor.

Writing gurus : "Write short sentences and don't use big words" Charles Dickens in the first sentence of Oliver Twist: "Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born - on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events - the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.

@MCCCANM Don’t look at the reactor department in those CVNs. I’ll never forget my RO saying we were “Lilly White”. My RC division was 80 white dudes.

It’s been an Air War. I encourage you to investigate the demographics of a squadron. Pick one, any one will do. You have to have a degree to be a pilot in the Air Force or Navy (some exceptions). These are not “poor kids” getting shot at.

@44Bridger Did that once in the Wyoming badlands…fun stuff.

Gotta use the snow while it lasts. It makes GREAT gopher shooting.

@Okie_Rancher Love this. I sometimes think about where my calves go after auction, and just hope they’re bought for pasture and not the feed lots, but I know 99% go there.

I'm getting a lot of pushback like this, and I understand people defending the way they do business. I object to that way. I also know that way, very, very well. I've had calls from family friends that run feeder operations saying the same thing. They are good people. But they are good people doing what I think is the wrong thing for ranching, for preservation of ranchland, for care of livestock... I'm not going to say otherwise, though I'll break bread with them any day. I grew up on westerns where the land baron forced the small family rancher off his land to control it all. I didn't side with the land baron because "he was raising cattle too." Nowadays, however, the robber barrons don't need to force anyone off the land. The Big Four packers: Tyson, JBS, Cargill & National Beef, control 85% of beef packing and dominate feeder operations through contracts & mega-feedlots, just like Tyson controls chicken production with its tight vertical integration and grower contracts. They run factory feedlots treating animals like meaningless cogs, profit from economy of scale, drive prices down, and squeeze small producers out. Once out, any land sold is no longer AG, it's now priced for development, which makes it untenable to buy and operate as a ranch. Over and over. They dominate the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (with Cargill, Tyson & National Beef as members) and big local feeders are the guys at the front table for all meetings. They control most of the mandatory beef checkoff we all pay (bastards even have the nerve to send 4H kids 'checkoff payment reminders'--they have no shame); that checkoff doesn't go directly into their pockets, but they control how the organization spends it--and none of it is spent for the benefit of small family farms and ranches. The cattlemen's association should be renamed the feeders and packers association: controlled and manipulated by the big dollar feeders and corporate operators. Audits and @RCALFUSA lawsuits have flagged how checkoff funds favor packer interests across the board. Even the 'green' angle? These same giants partner in the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef with groups like WWF, pushing 'climate-smart' regenerative labels that are BS regulatory schemes they control. Classic greenwashing: Controlling the regs to force competition out of business while paying off politicians and controlling administrative enforcement arms to ensure they look the other way. Tyson is king of this strategy in the poultry realm, dumping waste into local water supplies while regulatory agencies look the other way for years. Then the state shuts down my neighbor's small poultry operation (where we used to buy our chickens). I've sent legislation over that would let him and others reopen, but no legislator bites. Why? Fear of Tyson retribution and dollars that will be spent to unseat them should they cross that line. I have the legislation drafted to email if any OK legislators are reading this. Too late this session--but next... This is the Tyson/JBS/Cargill model which packers and feeders with contracts support: backdoor regs, market power, and supply chain control hit small family ranches hardest. The modern day robber barrons don't ride into town wearing black hats with a gang of ruffians. The real world guys are smarter. They ride into town in a $150,000.00 one ton dually, wearing spotless white hats, $20,000 watches, and big, friendly smiles. Now, I also get that most don't watch westerns these days so the analogy likely falls short. Tolkien was one of my favorite authors growing up, still is, so in those more widely known terms, here is the issue. Our nation is celebrating the building of cattle feeder and packer Isenguards everywhere, while I'm fighting to defend the small family ranch of the shire.

@LEAADFarms Lucky you

I’m not sure what to say. 🙏🙌

@KamikaziKoala Squeeze chute and a sawsall

Ok, there is babying your animals but this is to the extreme. 30 seconds, a dab of horn paste on each bud, done and done. Must be nice to have so much time on your hands, but each to their own.

@USN_Submariner Coffee cup not nearly stained enough. Not nearly enough cigarette butts in those ashtrays. But yep

Happy 133rd birthday, Navy Chiefs! In honor, here’s the most chief you can pack in a chiefly image of chiefs doing chief things in the most chiefly space to ever be occupied by chiefs.

Guess I’m showing my age. I was at Naval Nuclear Power school at that time. They let us out to lunch a few minutes early to watch as we were in Orlando and could see quite well. Most went into the chow line before the rush, I stayed on the grinder. Had seen many by this time from Orlando so when it blew I thought it was odd. When the SRBs went spiraling off I knew what happened. For days, maybe a week, the Air Force laid out smoke grids to map wind currents I believe to try and figure out where the pieces landed.

@emzanotti I remember watching Challenger at school. I doubt they would have shown us a replay if they knew what had happened.

I remember Columbia, not Challenger, but I think this is wrong. Teachers competed for Christa McAuliffe’s spot. There was a full court press on incorporating Challenger into elementary education. It wasn’t typical to watch a shuttle liftoff, but Challenger’s was intentionally broadcast to schools.

@KamikaziKoala Nice win

Our latest Miracle calf, Duckie. Not only was he backwards, he was upside down! So it was a race to get him out b4 suffocating & trying to spin him enuf so we didn't break his back. Came out not breathing but a little puff in the nostril & slapping him around got him going.

@THEsodakRANCHER Looks like a slice of heaven to me

This might look like a boring old prairie photo to some people, but it means a lot to me. The old homestead on the horizon is where my great great grandparents settled in the 1920’s. They raised 2 daughters there on the Plains of South Dakota. Not an easy task, especially in the mid 1900’s. The homestead was reduced to a pile of nails. It burned down when a wild fire swept through September 2024.

Well I did get up. All is well. I think mom just lost track of her calf for a bit.

Ok, have a couple I was checking last night close. Also have a 3 week old calf. It’s 12:47 am and I got someone calling in the pasture. Coyote problem? Birthing problem? Had one come get me after a stillbirth last year. Really don’t want to get up and check it out. #ranching

@Susieqbeme @scottwestacre Tough to keep paying to feed an animal over winter if she doesn’t return something.

@scottwestacre @DravenInFlorida Dang you all make some heartless decisions ( not saying they aren’t right decisions). I’d make a bad farmer, i’m too soft.

Update: heifer had no interest in calf - was really more scared of it than trying to mother. Wouldn’t eat alfalfa we put in pen to calm her. Don’t think she remembers calving Thanks for suggestions. Think it would have been fine in pen w cow but a first year heifer ?!???!!??

@Supersonic_Red Reminds me of the time I was up north on the test sight with 5th SFG doing stuff and we though a plane went down. We were on the range and were told to head back to the main base area for a while. Never got details.

72 hour rule applies.

@scottwestacre Nice win Clay

Makes it all worth it. Tough pull on calf limits oxygen once cord is broken/pinched. Pulling involves getting head and front shoulders through birth canal as the back half is generally smaller in size. Cow is recovering from trams of birth - all good. Watch the end ✅

@Okie_Rancher @ArneAlvarado @MattWalshBlog Thanks. I chose not to, and after a week in the pen they are back in the pasture seemingly both doing well.

@DravenInFlorida @ArneAlvarado @MattWalshBlog If red there is injury or infection of some kind; we milk pasture cows often enough when a calf won’t suck and we’re training them or one of the udders gets mastitis. If red I wouldn’t drink it.

Our second new baby of the day! Our milk cow —- the new calf’s name will be Mattie, after @MattWalshBlog because he brought attention to the beauty of drinking raw milk straight from the farm!