Random Wednesday Giveaway!

Remember when I told you I have some awesome giveaways coming up in celebration of my one year blogiversary starting Monday? Well, that is still happening, but here is a little fun to start the fun!

I recently hit 100 Followers and that is pretty darn cool to me! 

 

I don't get paid to blog; I blog simply to share my story about ranching life.  

So, the fact that you are here because you like what I write is flattering and pretty awesome!

{Thank You!}  

Stay Gold Media is going to help us celebrate by giving away an 8 x 10 Barnyard Animal Print!

 

Here's how you get your hands on this adorable print. 

Please post a separate comment for each entry.


Mandatory Entry – head on over to Stay Gold Media and come back and tell me what item is your favorite. This entry is mandatory and no others will count if this is not completed.

Additional Entries –
1. Follow my blog. You are already here so why not?! If you are already a follower, just leave a comment so I know you were here.
2. Like Stay Gold Media on Facebook. 
3. Follow Stay Gold Media on Tumblr.

Winner will be announced Friday, July 29th!

Wordless Wednesdays - Summertime Jigs.

Mutton Mondays - "Sweetgrass"

I recently had the opportunity to watch a documentary on sheep ranching. The film is titled, Sweetgrass and although it is a purely observational film (aka sans narration) I found it interesting to watch.

I welcomed Aubrey Gallegos the Community Engagement and Education Department at POV to give a brief synopsis about the film. Hope you enjoy and check it out!

Here's Aubrey!

This summer, POV, a social issues documentary film series on PBS, is including in its 24th season line-up a film about a dying tradition in sheep ranching. Sweetgrass, which is now streaming on-line for free, follows the Allestad family who, in 2001, led three thousand sheep and five dogs through Montana's Beartooth Absaroka Mountains for the last time, due to public land grazing policies. Described by the filmmakers as "an unsentimental elegy to the American West, Sweetgrass follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana’s breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture. This astonishingly beautiful yet unsparing film reveals a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed."

]

For a quiet film about sheep, Sweetgrass has stirred up quite a bit of conversation concerning its unique observational style, which does not mince around the realities of sheep ranching. Sweetgrass is a sensory ethnography, applying anthropological and ethnographical research methods to filmmaking in the telling of this real-life story. The film forgoes narration, even during the more startling scenes, such as the unsentimental sorting of lamb orphans to pair them up with ewes, docking tails, and shearing the sheep. The result is a meditative film, unadulterated by commentary, interviews, or explanation, that puts the viewers in the midst of these massive herds of sheep and the raw, solitary life of the people who lead them 150 miles through the mountains and back again.


In a Live Chat interview on POV, one viewer asked directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash, “Were you ever concerned that the purely observational style of the film would lead some viewers to false or premature conclusions about the rough handling of the sheep by the herders?” Castaing-Taylor responded, “Not really. The advantage of observational styles is that they let viewers come to their own conclusions, rather than being spoon-fed something by a journalist or producer. Anyone can draw conclusions, false or true. Many urban folks whose experience of non-human animals is just of pets or in zoos have little idea of human-animal interactions over the last 10,000 years…Narration is a way to control and disempower the viewer, to tell them what YOU the filmmaker want him/her to think and know and feel. Fiction films don’t usually have an omniscient narrator or on-screen commentator. No reason why documentaries have to use narration as such a crutch either.” Barbash adds, “We did not want to tell people how and what to think. We have too much respect for viewers…We wanted people to sit back and watch the film for themselves and have their minds changed again and again...”

- Aubrey Gallegos, Community Engagement and Education Department at POV

This video is the first observational film I’ve watched. I do wish the video offered some narration, for purely educational purposes. One that doesn’t know sheep might misinterpret some parts of the movie, but I also understand the goal of the producers.

There are quite a few similarities between the family in the film and how we run our sheep. So if you are interested in getting an idea as to how our ranch is run or about the sheep ranching industry, this film is for you! 

If you’ve seen the film I would love to hear what you think. If you haven’t you can view Sweetgrass on-line here until October 4th.

I was not compensated for this post.

{happy friday!} Where the hell have I been?!

Wowza! It's been a busy last couple of weeks.

We got back from vacay and jumped right in to planning our local Farm Bureau's summer picnic. The picnic was last night and although the turnout wasn't as large as we'd hoped, it was still a success!

Now that the picnic has passed, I will begin working with a committee on our local county fair. Before the fair however, a few city slickers er, I mean family members will be coming into town!

My mom, Aunt Toni, Aunt Dolores and Grandpa will be coming to visit us next week! I am so excited for them to come, see and live my life out here in the country for a few days. I know they will love it, after of course, they get passed the sheep sh*t on their shoes, the elevation change and the mosquitos attacking every uncovered part of their bodies.

I predict this visit will be a great success because I have some very fun things planned.

Here's some insight to one place I'll be taking them ....

Yee haw!



source: from here



So, tell me what fun things do you have planned for the weekend.

Hope you are staying cool wherever you are!

 Stay tuned...

I have some awesome giveaways coming up the first week of August for my one year blogiversary. 

You don't want to miss 'em!

Wordless Wednesdays - Lunchtime Photo

I ran home for lunch today and snapped this photo with my cell phone.

It may be a VERY hot 85 degrees today (even hotter in my car because the A/C is broken) but even on the hottest of days this view never lets me down.

Happy Wednesday!

The Wave.

Let me tell you about The (friendly, two-finger) Wave.

I'm talking about the old-fashioned "country hello" that drivers on the road give one another. 

Nothing brightens my day like a friendly wave on the road from a stranger.

It's silly really, but if you've ever received The Wave then you know the instant sense of community and friendship you get from this. Maybe it's powerful for me because it's new?

Where I come from people don't wave...and if they do it's with their middle finger.

Do they "wave" where you live?

If they don't - try it!

You never know, you might just brighten someone's day.