Ultrasounding cattle

This is probably my last post from South Dakota photos for a while! (Until October, anyway.) When I was home, Jason and dad spent a couple days ultrasounding cattle. Not to check if they were pregnant, but to determine their back fat and marbling and the date they would be ready to sell.

favorite photos

Flowers Dad and I got mom for Mother's Day and dad's boot.  Dirty, cracked leather...  I like it!

Auto-steering tractor

Everytime I go home we have some fancy new-fangled thing.    This new tractor has auto-steering.  It has a computer and GPS in it.  Dad needed to turn the tractor at the end of the row, get it about where he was supposed to start planting the next row, and the auto-steer took over.  It drove the tractor in a straight line until Dad took over to turn around.   This computer/GPS also keeps track of things like what variety of corn was planted, what time, which field it is, etc.  At harvest time, the computer is put in the combine, where it records moisture, bushels per acre of yield, etc.  Dad and Jason can now keep incredibily detailed track of everything about a field.

Planting Corn

Dad planting "Round-up Ready" corn.

birthday cake

This is the cake I made dad for his 60th birthday.  It's a retro-colored cake.   (Really, the frosting was supposed to be white, but mom didn't have any white shortening.  So it turned out yellow.  I decided to tint it slightly blue, but the blue combined with the yellow to make green.  So I kept adding blue until it wasn't green.  Not exactly what I had in mind!)

photos from South Dakota

Here are some more photos from my trip home - one night we went to look at the cows and their new calves with Shannon and Chloe. Chloe kept saying "Hi Baby Cows!" in a super cute 3-year-old voice.  The town, Vilas, is a few minutes west of Howard.  Yes, that is a population sign, and yes, it does say 19.  When people in China say "I'm from a small city, only 2 million people" we can't quite comprehend what is small about that.  I think our whole state has a population of 800,000, with a population density of 1 person per 1.7 square kilometers.

Toastmasters in China

I gave a speech at the District 78 Toastmasters Convention while I was at home.  Here is a link to it.  http://www.vimeo.com/4367664 China has blocked Blogger, which I use to publish my blog.  Posting will be slim for a few weeks.  I can post via email, but then I can't edit it.  Everyone seems to think the block will be lifted after the anniversary of a certain incident in Beijing involving a certain square. I don't think photos will come through either.  If there is no photo with this post, I can't post photos and probably won't post until the block is lifted, unless I just host the images on my own server...  Anyway, hopefully this test post works!

South Dakota

November 12 - Whiskey Creek Grill

A while back, the SD Cattlemen's Association was invited to a new restaurant in Mitchell, SD called Whiskey Creek Grill to "brand" their bar. That's right, everyone brought in their branding iron and left their mark on the bar.



The "John Reisch" brand. It's made of a lazy R and rocking J. (correct me if I am wrong, mom!)


After we get the crops in, everyone who helped gets invited to a Harvest Party. We had this year's party at Whiskey Creek.


Tim explains how he made his wedding ring out of a quarter. (yes, made, as in hammered a lot to get it in the perfect shape.) He made his wife's out of a nickel from her birth year!

Emily & mom making S'mores.

October 3rd - Geocaching

October 5th - Deadwood

October 5th - Wiener dog races

Deadwood was holding their annual Oktoberfest celebration that weekend. It included Wiener Dog races!

First there was a costume contest:




Then the race! There were several heats. Most of the dogs didn't care too much about being the first to the other end - they were more interested in each other.

This guy won! He'd been in a few competitions before. His owner's secret was to have a T-bone in his pocket, let him smell it right before the race, and hold it so the dog would race to the bone. It worked!

October 4th - Gambling in Deadwood

Before we moved to China, we went to Deadwood with Jon's parents, brother and sister-in-law. We cashed in some hotel points for 3 king suites. We decided to do this again. Typically, I hate to gamble. I can't even put in a whole roll of nickels before I get tired of throwing the money away. This time, I got lucky though!!

I'd put in just a few nickels when I hit it big! (OK, so it was about $40. But that's a lot when you are betting 5 cents!) So, I cashed out just to hear the hundreds of nickels clinking out of the machine. The sound of winning!

This made me a bit braver to put in some more money. I still liked cashing out the best though. Jon also made some money playing black jack. Seriously, we came out over $100 ahead on gambling. That never happens. We decide how much money we are going to allow ourselves and when it's gone, that's the amount we traded for an evening of entertainment.

Whenever we go home, we buy a few dollars worth of scratch off lottery tickets. It helps pass the 6 hours it takes to drive from Jon's parents house to my parent's house. This time, we bought 6 tickets and 4 of those were winners! Most of them just covered the cost of the ticket, so nothing special. We really liked the design of the Crazy Cat tickets though - it reminded us of the paw-waving cat that you see in about every shop in China.

Mail

I've always loved getting mail. Today I got a package with a elephant stamp from Thailand. Something about the writing, elephant and baht made it seem quite exotic to me (hence worthy of a photo). Thanks Esther!

On our farm, the mailbox was located on the gravel road at the end of the driveway, which is typical in the midwest. I heard a story once that my cousin John had a girl from California visiting the farm. Apparently she had never been in such a desolate area (said sarcastically by me) because she said to John "You really get mail out here?"

To which he solemnly replied, "Actually, it's just for looks. The Pony Express does come by once a week though."

Visitors from the USA

A few weeks ago, we had 3 girls visit from the US. They were student reporters covering the Olympics. Quinn was from Brookings, so they ended up visiting Daktronics Shanghai for a morning. She is writing articles for the Brookings Register - here is the one that she mentioned us in.

She also has a blog of her own where she posted more about Dak Shanghai and some photos.

Summer in South Dakota

Last month, a few of my co-workers from Shanghai and Macao went to South Dakota. Judd took a some people from the A/P region to the lake and Andy Tai (from our Macao office) shared these photos with us. Seeing these actually made me homesick for the first time since moving to China. Thanks for letting me put these photos up, Andy!

Beautiful blue sky, blue water... this is what SD looks like at the lake in summer!

Typical SD farm

Andy (PM in Macao), Fred (head of Shanghai repair center), and Gina (process engineer)

Judd driving his boat

the work never ends.... Jon S.

Fred and Gina taking photos of Judd

Jon trying to do a flip

SDSU group

We had a group of students from SDSU visit last week. They were just finishing up a 2-week trip through China. Three of the students had or currently worked at Daktronics in Brookings. We spent a morning talking with them about Daktronics and business in China.

Panorama

Here is another panorama made using Photomerge in CS3. It was taken at field with the canal running through it at Minors.

Here is a clip of tagging a new calf. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt them! It's just like getting your ear pierced.

Center of the Nation

My mom and dad drove from Howard to see us one day. Mom had relatives around Belle so we went to the courthouse and looked up their property records. She found where they lived and will maybe go out there sometime.

When Hawaii and Alaska entered the United States, the geographic center changed to Belle Fourche.


We also drove through Spearfish canyon and through Deadwood. It was still cold! Bridal Veil falls was frozen over (above).

Geocaching in Belle Fourche

We took the family geocaching again. We found every cache we hadn't found before in Belle. There were 10 of them.

Chance and Caleb

Some of the caches are very cleverly disguised. This one was in a golf ball!

Near the railroad tracks.

Belle has a huge bentonite plant. This was an old machine used to mine bentonite.

trip home

Jon's grandmother passed away this week. We found out about midnight Tuesday and were on a plane Thursday. We'll be in Nisland for about a week.

The plane from Denver to Rapid City was probably the smallest commercial plane I've been on - just 32 seats. Jon has taken an even smaller plane in Australia that was a really rough ride.

Leon has had four sets of twin calves already, and he's only about halfway through calving! This is a twin who's mother left her, so he's been keeping her in the shop and feeding her with a bottle. All of the kids were pretty excited to feed and pet her.

I helped make a collage of photos of Grandma Sadie. The service was today and it was really nice. Jenni really made the service the way Sadie would have liked it - from the old country music to the chili pepper cloth and cactus on the coffin. She also wrote an eulogy that really showed Sadie's character; she had family members smiling through their tears at some of the stories that captured the essence of her personality.

South Dakota

Jon and I left for the the US January 11th. We visited a few friends in Sioux Falls Friday night, stayed with my parents a couple days (mom took the above photo), went to Dak in Brookings for a day, and then went to Nisland to visit Jon's family. Monday his grandmother was put in the hospital and got out a week later. We decided to extend our stay four days more. Then, our boss asked us to come back to Brookings for a few meetings so we are staying even longer. I'll post some more photos when I have time.

Merry Christmas!

Jon cooked a delicous meal consisting of rack of lamb, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. I made an apple pie for dessert. Yummy. (We started looking for a turkey to roast a little too late. The only one we found was too big to fit in our oven!)

Our mini-tree.

Mom, Dad and Jared opened their presents in front of the web cam while chatting on Skype. It is our tradition to open gifts before Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. It was that time for them, but Christmas Day for me.

My dad. He was just elected to the national Farm Credit Services of America board. His term starts January 1st and will last 3 years. Congratulations Dad!!

Yee-haw - Shanghai, South Dakota

It's a bit strange to see a stuffed steer here. It's quite realistic. This is outside of a Japanese restaurant near the office. Abram, Sofia, Yvonne and I had sushi there for lunch once.

On the day before October holiday, Sofia wore these cowboy boots to the office. I pictured my dad wearing his cowboy boots with shorts..... first of all, farmers and cowboys never ever wear shorts. And they live in their boots. Of course, like any city, here they are just a fashion statement.

Party photos from Brad and Niki's wedding

Taking a shot at the Saf (Safari Lounge) in Brookings Thursday night. The Saf is an old haunt - most of our friends worker there as bartenders, bouncers, the DJ or waitresses at some point! Alos, Brad and Niki met there. Our group of friends is scattered around now (Colorado, San Francisco, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hamsphire, and a couple still in various corners of South Dakota) so weddings are the only time everyone really can get together. So we pretend we're young again and try to party like we did back in college! :-)


Niki and Brad. Congratulations!!!

A lot of the photos are from John and Megan Sievers - thanks guys! Megan has an iPhone - how cool is that?? Although she is kind of technology-impaired so many she should give it to me... (just kidding Megs!) Although - their camera really made me look like a ghost. I was going to tan before I left, but it costs about $10 a session here! Chinese love white skin (almost all of the face soap, body wash, etc. is labeled as whitening) so at least it is desirable here, even though it is not back in the US.

The red Oldsmobile used to be mine. I started driving it in 8th grade when I was 14 years old. Mom and Dad gave it to me at my high school graduation and I drove it until we moved to China and sold it to our friend Aaron. Someone hit the driver's side mirror a few months ago so Jon (Mr. Fix-it) helped glue it back on.

Back in the USA

Jon and I were back in South Dakota for about a week. We managed to squeeze in a wedding (not ours!) and seeing both of our parents. Dad grilled juicy T-bone steaks for us - yummy!

It is starting to get cold there. What a change from Shanghai! I took quite a few photos of our family and farms specifically for our friends here in China. I made a separate page for them, as it would take a long time to upload here.

We found 13 Geocaches around Nisland and Belle Fourche too. That was really fun! A lot of them were micro caches that were very cleverly disguised. My best friends Chad and Kendra had their 3rd baby, a little girl named Emma Elizabeth, about a week ago. She was born four weeks early due to Kendra's high blood pressure, but both mom and baby are doing great. It was a wonderful surprise for me! Emma has a full head of dark hair, just like her little brother Gavin did.

Enjoy! http://www.emilyminor.com/HomeSept07/index.html

Minors at the Falls...

Marcie, Caleb, Lilly, Chance and Chris at the falls.

We also went to the Beef Unit at SDSU for some photos. 

I took portaits of Charlie Thompson today for the SDSU Alumni magazine. He did the website for the Opportunity Farm.  

More photos from the bike trails yesterday. Very nice trail, don't you think? 

I love the texture in leaves. These leaves were huge. 

Light at the end of the trees... 

Jon and I went for a 10.67 mile bike ride today. (We got a bike mount for our GPS to see exactly how far we go.) Today I took my camera to capture some of the fall colors. This is one of the many bridges on the bike path. 

Pretty fall colors reflected in the water 

Shed with the fisheye lens 

Bumble Bee

When I was lying on the green taking the photo below, this bumble bee landed on the clover. Perfect timing!

Golf

This is at the Newell golf course. It's so dry west river; the course is partially green where they try to irrigate and the rest is dried up brown.

We watched fireworks from the side of the road west of Sioux Falls - as did the rest of the town apparently!!! It was bumper to bumper traffic all over. Very unusual for SF. 

Happy 4th of July!!! 

Our friends Hanna and Henrik have been visiting the last 9 days from Sweden. I have been taking hundreds of photos, even though I haven't been posting them. I promise to make it up. Scroll down for highlights of our vacation! 

Wine Tasting Group

Crystal, Carl, Lura, Shon, Hanna, Henrik, me and Jon.

Grapes

We did a wine tasting at the Wilde Prairie Winery in Brandon. Very nice people and very fun!

Roughlock Falls

Another of the falls in Spearfish Canyon

Bridal Veil Falls

We climbed over the river and to the base of the waterfall - very cool!! We've seen it several times but had never gotten right up to it before.

Mallard Duck

Mallard Duck

Ducks

Ducks at the DC Booth Fish Hatchery

Devil's Tower

Hanna and Henrik at Devil's Tower

Prairie Dog

Prairie Dog at the town near Devil's Tower

1963 1/2 Ford Falcon convertible

Jenni's 1963 1/2 Ford Falcon convertible - let's just say it made up a debt from many years ago! :-)

Mount Rushmore

Mt Rushmore

Face

Look at the face!

Badlands II

Warm glow of the setting sun at the Badlands.

Badlands at Dusk

The Badlands at dusk.

Hanna and Henrik

Hanna and Henrik sillouted at the Badlands.

Marigolds

Mom and I went on a garden and winery tour today. These are some freshly watered marigolds at our first stop.

Fence and Moon

Taken while geocaching in Sioux Falls. Yeah, nice weather!!

Spring!!

It is SPRING in South Dakota!!! It's been raining like crazy and green is popping up through all of the brown. I love spring and summer!

Windshield View of Bear Butte (August 2002)

At DPChallenge today, there was a 24-hour Speed Challenge. The suject was 2002. Basically, you could enter any photo taken in 2002. I searched my harddrive and found this. It was taken when we were moving from Nisland, SD (where my in-laws live and Jon and I lived during that summer) back to Brookings. I had an Olympus 1.3 megapixel camera. Now my PDA has a 1.3 megapixel camera in it. Amazing how quickly technology evolves.

Little Red Flowers

This will be the last one from the Butterfly House. The last one for now anyways!

Grandma Creta & Baby Butterfly

This little butterfly left his cocoon about 3 minutes before the photo. Grandma is about 45.6 million minutes old. (Give or take.) Crazy, huh?

Red Butterfly

Thought I would try something a bit different. The red in the flowers was about twice as vibrant in the original shot but I think it looks better toned down.

Big Flower, Little Butterfly

More butterfly photos - I like this purple one! Happy Valentine's Day.

Butterfly II

Same type of butterfly, different photo! I like this one because of the flowers. This could be my new favorite photography site.

Butterfly

I took about a hundred photos in the Sertoma Butterfly House today. It was about 85 degrees in there - what a great break from the SD winter! The butterflies were just beautiful! I will probably post more photos later. It was an awesome place to spend a few hours with hundreds of beautiful butterflies floating around our heads in a green, tropical environment.

Falls in Winter

Jon's mom, dad and grandma Creta came to visit. Of course we had to take them to the namesake of Sioux Falls!

I like flowing water shots. This water must be freezing - I like the way it looks with the snow on the ground. 

Rocks

I like the texture in these rocks.

Geese

The dark water and winter background made these geese look pretty bland, so I thought I'd try them in black and white. Shot with my 300 mm lens.

Berries

The sun was hitting these bright berries just right.

Cliff and Moon at Palisades

Doesn't the title say it all?

Flowing Water

Well, I know this is a "Photo A Day" not five photos a day, but I thought I'd make an exception this once. The camping trip went well. It was really cold, but the cabin was very warm and nice so it made up for it!

Night Sky

I have always wanted to try the long exposure at night photo. This one was the first one I tried - the shutter was open for 47 minutes. I had to adjust the levels in photoshop to make the sky darker. The sky had turned too light during that long of exposure.

Rain in January

Today it rained. Hard.

In January, in South Dakota, this is against everything we've ever known. It should have been blizzarding and the snow should have shut everything down for a couple days. Instead, the gray sky pushed fat rain drops to the earth.

On Thanksgiving, it was so nice we almost left our winter coats at home. Fortunately we didn't, because halfway through the six hour drive across the state we were stuck in a blizzard that shut down the interstate for two days and snapped hundreds of power lines. It left some people without power until after Christmas. Crazy.

And today, it rained as if it were April.

Bridge at Palisades State Park

Yesterday at lunch my husband told me he'd rented a camping cabin at Palisades State Park for the weekend. What a nice surprise! There was just an article in the paper about winter camping and how nice and peaceful it was.

Today we went to the park to check it out. This bridge was an easy walk from the cabin and the sun was setting so the light was shining perfectly on the rocks. I'm so excited - I'll probably fill my whole memory card that weekend! Our friends Crystal (check out her blog here) and Karl are going to come too. I'm looking forward to hanging out by a fire, hiking and taking lots of photos. The only not-that-great part is that the restrooms are closed for the winter so we'll have to use the vault toilets. They are made of metal - BRRRR!!!

Cattails in the Winter Sun

Cattails at a local park. I really like the way the sun was shining on them. We had a warm spot in the cold South Dakota winter and I took advantage of being able to go outside without freezing.

Barn at Sunset

This was a grab-the-camera-and-go shot - the pink sunset was reflecting in the clouds and was just beautiful, but it was almost over by the time I got out of town. Sunsets go so fast! I didn't even have time to grab the tripod so it is a bit blurry too. *sigh*

One more winter photo. I love the texture on this photo. It's much better as a large print though. 

The Twin Buttes. They are in the pasture behind my in-laws house in Nisland, SD.