#rxchat

Today's the day for #rxchat!!!!!

I'm soooooo excited to finally get this project off the ground!

The idea for this project came about from my participation in @agchat on Tuesday evenings. I've only been able to join in the conversation a few times, but I've often gone back and looked over everyone's answers to the questions submitted on the topic after the conversation was over. #agchat has allowed me to connect with several ag tweeps across the country and I thought, "why couldn't I do this for pharmacy?"

Well guess what? Now I'm doing this for pharmacy!

The first ever #rxchat will take place on Twitter Today!! I've had this idea for a few months to create a pharmacy chat on Twitter where pharmacists, physicians, patients, and anyone else who wants to join the conversation can answer questions about specified topic related to the pharmacy profession.

 

If you're on Twitter be sure to follow @rxchat and to use the hashtag #rxchat in the search column to see the tweets and updates from the conversation.

Here's all the info:

The Twitter #rxchat will take place Today, April 11th from 4-5pm CST. The chat will allow participants to share their views on the questions asked and allow students, faculty, and pharmacy professionals to network, and connect with each other. The topic for the chat will be "the role of social media in the pharmacy profession." There will be a series of approximately ten questions asked over the course of the hour. If you have any questions you would like to submit for the chat please send them in a Direct Message to @rxchat

 

I hope to see you join the conversation this afternoon! Wish me luck as I jump in with both feet and moderate my first Twitter chat! I'll let you know how it goes! 

A BIG THANK YOU goes out to Kelly M. Rivard,  Brandi Buzzard Frobose, and my General Medicine I preceptor, Eric Wombwell, for all of their help and guidance with this project!  You guys are awesome and I couldn't of done this without your encouragement! 

See you on Twitter at 4pm! 

 

Philly Cheese Steak Stuffed Peppers

Happy Monday! 

I know everyone is still on a high from the Superbowl and the awesome pro-Ag commercials from Ram Trucks and Budweiser. If you missed them you can catch them here. So with all that excitement you probably haven't thought about what your're going to make for dinner yet. 

Well your'e in luck because I've got an awesome recipe for you today!

Last weekend I had my family over for dinner and I tried out a new recipe on them. I had been wanting to try this stuffed pepper recipe I saw on Pinterest, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.  The Philly cheese steak stuffed peppers were a big hit with Adam and my family! I'll definitely be adding this one to the favorites list and making it again!

Recipe from: Spark Recipes

Minutes to prepare: 20

Minutes to cook: 20 

Servings: 4 

Ingredients: 

2 green bell peppers 

8 slices of provolone cheese 

1 medium onion chopped

1 cup diced bella mushrooms

8oz of roast beef

2 Tbs. of unsalted butter

2 Tbs. of olive oil

3 cloves of garlic 

Dash of salt to taste

Dash of black pepper to taste 

Instructions: 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice peppers in half lengthwise, remove ribs and seeds. Spray with PAM and roast in the oven for 15 minutes. 

Slice onions and mushrooms. Sautee over medium heat with butter, olive oil, minced garlic, and a little salt and pepper. Sautee until onions and mushrooms are nice and caramelized, about 25-30 minutes. 

Slice roast beef into thin strips and add to the mushroom/onion mixture. Allow to cook for 5-10 minutes. 

Line the inside of each pepper with a slice of provolone cheese. 

When the meat mixture is done cooking, drain in colander lined with a paper towel to get rid of excess water and oil. Fill each pepper with the meat mixture until they are nearly overflowing. 

Top each pepper with a slice of provolone cheese. 

Bake for 15-20 minutes until the cheese is golden brown. 

Nutritional Information: 

Servings per Recipe: 4 

Amount per serving: Calories: 429.8, Total Fat: 30.6g, Cholesterol: 84.7g, Sodium: 619.8g, Total Carbs: 10.2g, Dietary Fiber: 2.2g, Protein: 31.3g 

This recipe does have a little more fat, cholesterol, and sodium than what I usually like to have in one serving. However, you can reduce theses amounts by making a few modifications such as using  light olive oil, and purchasing low sodium provolone cheese and roast beef. You can also only use one slice of provolone cheese per pepper to cut down the above numbers as well. 

All the ingredients. 

Slice the peppers in half lengthwise. 

Place them in a pan after you have removed the seeds and spray
with Pam. 

I hate chopping onions, my eyes were watering the whole time!

Slicing up the mushrooms. 

Line the peppers with a slice of provolone cheese. 

Sauteeing the mushrooms and onions. 

Slicing up the roast beef, I just purchased a pound of the roast beef
from the deli counter at the grocery store.

Cooking it all together. 

Filling the peppers with the meat mixture. 

Topping with another slice of provolone cheese. 

Bake for 15-20 minutes and enjoy!

Now what you've all been waiting for, the announcement of the winner of the giveaway! Thank you to everyone who entered, we had a total of 55 entries! So without further adieu the winner of the $25 Dally Designs gift card is........

Congratulations, Becky! Enjoy your gift card and you'll have to share with us what you purchased! Thank you again to everyone who entered for a chance to win the gift certificate, and to Dally Designs for pairing up with me for this giveaway.

That's No Bull

Guest post from Adam

One thing I’ve never really talked in depth about is the selection of bulls for our herd. Selecting good genetics is the most important thing in having a long lasting, productive cow herd. Traits we look for when choosing bulls start with how good of females they will produce. We want daughters out of these bulls to have good milk production, udder quality and good mothering ability. If you don’t choose bulls to make productive cows, you can’t make productive calves and productive heifers to keep and make more productive calves. It’s a big circle.

For about ten years, my dad and I have bought bulls from Swearngin Angus in Lawrence, Kansas. They raise bulls for the ordinary cattleman, which produces extraordinary results. Bulls are raised on a forage-based diet; they don’t pump them full of corn to look good at the sale and then fall apart when they go home to work. Their bulls have added consistency, profitability and awesomeness to our herd!

Just today Melissa and I went to the annual Swearngin Angus bull sale at the ranch. Melissa’s two uncles, aunt, and her two cousins own and operate this cattle company. Tom Swearngin and Craig Guffey are Melissa’s uncles and they've built a reputation for breeding stock that work in the real world and they've been selling bulls for 24 years. Tom and Craig can tell you numbers and they can go back to the bull’s great-great grandmother and grandfather without looking that up. They can recall all of that information because they are out there working with their cattle everyday.  They’ve studied the bloodlines and culled out the characteristics they see as undesirable. Tom and Craig know what works and what doesn't and they can tell you everything you ever want to know about a calf until they’re blue in the face and until you’re confused out of your mind. But the truth is, they know what they’re talking about. They know the Angus breed front to back. I know that from first hand experience.

Today I bought bulls 12 and 13 (pictured at the top of this post) from Tom and Craig. Those weren’t the lot numbers from the sale, those are the 12^th and 13^th bulls we’ve bought from Swearngin Angus since we started buying from them ten years ago. There’s a reason we keep going back to them. You may be thinking, number 12 and 13 bulls in ten years, that's a pretty high turnover rate. The thing is, between my dad and I, we have 11 bulls. Our pasture size doesn’t allow us to put 35-40 cows with a bull. It’s more like 15-20 per pasture. My dad and I have our own separate bulls, but we still buy bulls from the same place. He has bought bulls from other producers over the years, which is fine, but out of our 11 bulls right now, 7 are from Tom and Craig.

In the last post I talked about selling calves. That was a great 15 minutes and we got paid very well and that’s all fine and good. Now three days later I’m spending $9400 on buying two bulls. That’s right folks- one bull cost $5,400 and one cost $4,000. That may sound like a lot……and IT IS! Holy cow that’s a lot of money, (pun intended). But, on the same hand the calves that we sold averaged over $1,100 a piece across the board. You just have to think of it as reinvesting your money into your herd to make it that much better. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.

As Melissa and I have said in previous posts, production agriculture, whether it be row crop or livestock, is a very rewarding profession but it also involves a lot of money and risk. Buying these bulls today, I spent a lot of money. But from 10 years of my own experience with their cattle, I know I will get my money back over and over again…….and that’s no bull.

Getting everything ready to go before the sale. Craig was going
over the rules of the cowboy style auction.
Melissa's Uncle, Craig Guffey, was the auctioneer for the sale.
Melissa's Aunt Kim and her cousin Gavin are also in the picture. 

This is the pen of bulls I bid on. I bought two bulls from this pen.

It was a full house at the sale. 

Tom, Gavin, and Kim.
Grant wasn't able to be here because he had a basketball tournament. 

Melissa and I with Gavin in the pen of bulls we bought.
One of the bulls we bought was owned by Gavin. 

The bulls are so docile. This is a testament to how much Tom, Craig,
and the boys are out working with their cattle each day. 

Gimme 5, 7 half-now 10. Come on!

Guest post from Adam

Gimme 5, 7 half-now 10. Come on!

What is that? What the heck does that mean? That my friends is an auctioneer. Well, I can’t do it EXACTLY the same, but if you’ve ever heard one, you get the gist. Auctioneering is a competitive way to sell things, to try to get the highest price for something. Just this last week it was our calves from last year that were being sold. We took them to St Joe Stockyards, in St. Joseph, Missouri. It is one of the oldest and biggest places to sell livestock in our area. It took about 15 minutes to sell them. That’s it. 15 minutes to find out how much we get paid for a whole year of our work, time, sweat, tears, money, satisfaction and an occasional cuss word. I’m gonna take you through that whole year, month by month. 365 days and it all comes down to 15 minutes. Here we go!

Where our calves were sold at on Wednesday.
The auctioneer is under the roof and all of the bidders are sitting across
from him. The cattle are brought in on the right and exit on the left. 

Let's start the day after we sell calves.

January 31st- 

We are doing chores; taking care of the cows that are going to have calves in about a month. The heifers are already calving, as they started about the first of January. We are feeding hay and silage every morning, rolling out hay for cows to lie on and checking for new babies. Melissa wrote a post about all of these activities not too long ago, to read it click here. 

The heifers are having calves during this time of the year.

Rolling out bales of straw so the calves have a warm place to lie down
during these cold months.

The calves love the straw!

Feeding hay to the calves. 

February-

Once late February gets here, cows are just starting to calve. Also in February we are spreading fertilizer on grass, both on the pastures that the cows will be on in the summer, and on the fields we will mow for hay. In the meantime, we are clipping brush in the pastures; trying to clean them up so there is more grass for the cows to eat. Unfortunetly, this is a process we do ever year. There are always trees to clean up. 

March-

March comes and goes, cows are calving everyday. We are getting fence checked over, getting more mineral ordered for the summer and ordering vaccines to work cattle before we turn them out to grass. 

April- 

April 1^st we turn bulls in with the yearling heifers. We breed them early to have them calve before the cows, as they take a little more time and attention. By mid April pretty much everything has calved, so we get them all in and vaccinate each one to prevent diseases such as black leg, and we also casterate the bull calves. Then it’s off to grass! We haul everything out to different pastures. They are so happy when they run out of the trailer into knee high green grass. 

The cows out in the green pastures. 

May-

Middle of May we take the bulls out to the pastures with the cows. This will have them start calving in the later part of February. The bulls stay in with the cows for 75 days. In late May we get all the hay equipment out and ready for the hay season. Mower, rake, baler and trailers. 

June and July- 

We are mowing, raking, baling and hauling hay home from the pastures. Hay season usually lasts from the first of June to about the middle of July. To read more about hay season on our farm click here.  In June, July and August of this past year we also experienced a severe drought, so we were hauling water to the the pastures twice a day to make sure the cows and calves had enough water to drink. We are also checking in on the cows at least once a week and taking vitamins and minerals to the pastures at least once a month. 

Checking on the cows and taking them some mineral.

Picking up the hay that has been baled. 

Once all of the hay is stacked on the trailer we haul it to the barn. 

The big round bales being brought home.

Hauling water to the cows in the pasture because the pond has
dried up due to the drought. 

August-

After all the hay is hauled in we get ready to chop silage. This normally takes place between mid August to mid September. This summer after silage was done I built a new corral at our house for the calves, but this is just a one time deal. I haven’t mentioned it, but throughout this whole spring and summer, while all of this is going on, we are checking the cows at least once a week, to make sure they are healthy and don’t have any fly trouble. AND we are farming all of our row-crops. 

The silage chopper getting ready to start another round in the field. 

The truck dumping the silage into the pit. 

My dad using the bulldozer to push the silage in the pit. 

The corn goes through the chopper and is then blown into this truck. 

The tractor smoothes out the pile once all the silage is in the pit.

In August I also started building a new cattle corral.
This is a picture after we had got some of the posts set. 

Setting the posts for the new corral. 

Sawing the tops of the posts off of the hedge posts
so they are all even. 

Welding the clips on the steel pipe. 

September-

After silage is done, we get on with the harvesting of our crops. Sometimes we'll turn cattle out on corn stalks. They will go out and pick and eat some of the corn that fell on the ground from harvest. 

October-

In mid October, we bring everything home and run everything through the chute and vaccinate again to prevent diseases. Also, we preg check the cows to make sure they are bred to have a calf this next winter. 

November-

Two weeks later, the first of November, we wean calves and they're brought to our house to grow. They are fed silage and protein everyday, putting on the pounds! It can be a noisy time at house for the first week the calves are here!

A picture of when the calves were brought to our house after
they were weaned. 

December-

After calves are weaned, we take the cows back out to grass until about the first of the year. This gives them time to flesh back up and get in shape to have a calf in a couple months. If it is cold enough outside and the ponds or creeks are frozen we're out in the cold chopping ice everyday to make sure the cows have water to drink. 

January-

After the first of the year, we are watching the cattle markets and our feed supply, trying to figure out when the best time will be to sell calves. Also in January, as I said earlier, our heifers are starting to have calves. Remember when we turned the bulls in the pasture around the first of April? Once we figure out when we are going to sell, we get the calves consigned through St. Joe Stockyards and before you know it, it's time to haul them up to the sale barn. I took some pictures of the day we hauled them to town and they show us loading them in the trailers. The new corral worked awesome! 

The calves waiting in the holding pens before they are loaded on
the semi trailer. 

The trailers to haul the calves were lined up in the driveway.

Loading the calves on the trailer. 

And just like that the calves are loaded up and hitting the road to the
stockyards. 

Now we’re back to where we started. That’s it folks. That whole year we just talked about, and it's over in Gimme 5, 7 half-now 10……SOLD!

Don't forget about the giveaway Melissa has going on! You only have a few days left to enter the drawing for a $25 gift card from Dally Designs. Good luck!

Happy 2nd Birthday to the Blog!

Today marks the second anniversary since my first blog post. I've come a long way since that first post. I remember the anxiety I felt with hitting the publish button.  I've relaxed a little since then and I hope it has come across that way in my posts. When I set out to create this blog I had fears about no one wanting to read it. Now I'm humbled by the fact that I get readers and comments from all over the world! I've made connections with people from all over and other bloggers have even asked me to be a feature on their blog. How humbling is that! 

It's my hope that the blog will continue to succeed and I'm excited to see where the next year will take us and the connections Adam and I will make!

Some things I've learned along the way include:

1. Don't obsess over grammar. Yes, it's important, but no one is going to call you out for missing a comma in your post. (I probably have poor comma placement in just this sentence alone!)

2. Write from the heart. The posts that come from the heart and are filled with emotion are the ones I love writing the most. These posts are usually the ones your readers enjoy the most too. 

3. If you're thinking about starting a blog, just do it! I can honesty say I have no regrets about creating this blog. 

4. Don't worry if you can't write a post regularly. People get busy, readers understand this and they are reading your blog for a reason, so they'll be there when you do post something. 

5. If you're feeling lost and overwhelmed seek out advice from other experienced bloggers.  They are more than willing to share their experiences and help you get started. 

I've received great advice from Crystal Young of Crystal Cattle, Brandi Buzzard of Buzzard's Beat, and Judi Graff of FARMnWIFE.

Now for the stats since the inauguration of Born to Pharm. 

Adam and I have published 63 posts since we began the blog. It's been fun to come up with titles for posts and documenting what's taking place on the farm and in pharmacy school. 

The top five posts for the blog have been: 

1. Crock-Pot Honey Apple Cinnamon Pork Loin 2,163 views 

2. Father's Day Gift Ideas for the Farmer Dad- 2,100 views

3. The Truth About Being a Farm Wife- 1,391 views

4. Incorporating Agriculture in to Our Wedding - 919 views 

5. Building A New Cattle Corral- 638 views 

Where are the Born to Pharm readers coming from? 

Top ten countries: 

1. United States 

2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. Russia
5. Australia
6. Germany
7. India
8. France
9. Ireland
10. Spain

Thank you to everyone who has provided Adam and I with encouragement on this journey of starting and sticking with a blog. We've enjoyed meeting new people through the blogosphere and connecting with other farmers, ranchers, farm wives, pharmacy students, and pharmacists along the way. 

Now for the best part of a Birthday......ice cream cake!! Even though that is the best part of a birthday celebration it would be logistically impossible to give all of you ice cream cake. Bummer!

Instead of ice cream cake I'll settle for the next best thing about a birthday and that's presents!  In honor of the blog's birthday I've decided to do a giveaway. I've partnered with Lindsay Seichepine from Dally Designs for this giveaway. Lindsay is amazingly talented at creating rustic, country-themed home decor and all of her merchandise can be found on her Facebook page, Dally Designs. She specializes in making bowls, vases, baskets, trivets, and customized wall decor out of used team roping ropes.

Check out the pictures below to see some of Lindsay's works of art! 

Beautiful pieces with the prices listed. I really have to exhibit some
self control when I go in Lindsay's store, I want them all!

Some of Lindsay's customized pieces. 

I'm hoping to have a wreath like this on my front door for next fall!

A rope vase I have in my house from Dally Designs.

I'm using Rafflecopter for the giveaway.   You can be entered in the drawing for each item you complete by following the instructions below. The winner will be announced on February 4th!

Good luck and thank you for your loyal readership! Ready, Set, Go!! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway