RHD Print Item in Druckenmiller Benefit Auction

We invite everyone to check out the Druckenmiller Family Benefit Auction, going on now through May 25th at Clubcalves.com.

This online auction is set up to help support some of our fellow friends in the cattle business. Bode and Brystol Druckenmiller of Iowa are two wonderful boys with loving, caring parents. Both are hemophiliacs with Factor 8 deficiencies and Brystol was also born with a complex heart defect requiring multiple additional cardiac surgeries. Each has has multiple recurrent hospitalizations over essentially their entire lives, yet today they are strong, bright young boys that I hope the cattle community will see fit to help.

RHD has donated a 1 page ad design that can be used for your ads in the August 2009 State Fair issues. We will create and design your ad for you that you can place in any magazine(s) you wish, or even have flyers made of this ad if you don't plan on advertising anywhere.

We are also working on getting a web site donated too!
Our print ad donation item is at http://members.boardhost.com/druckenmillers/msg/1242931832.html

If you are the winning bidder we will need your ad materials by June 25th and you will need to contact the publication of your choice and let them know that you are wanting an ad.

If anyone is interested and has questions just email rachel@ranchhousedesigns.com

My Dream PROM

Oh yeah, that's right, it's PROM time!! I know for me personally, anytime I stroll through Dillards or Macy's at the mall I always want to stop and admire all the beautiful prom dresses. I love them all...especially the ones that are sequined, beaded, or strapless!

Let's back up to 1996 and 1997, the dates of my very own junior and senior proms. Despite the amazing sophisticate I am now, I'll admit, back in my high school days I wasn't really into fashions and I didn't even highlight my hair! My token outfit was jeans and a polo t-shirt. So a fancy prom dress really wasn't on my radar.

My prom date in 1996 was my good friend and fellow Brahman showman Matthew "Peabo" Bryson. He kindly came down from Dallas and was my dream date (just as friends). We went as a big group of people with myself and my best friends Russell Sciba, Justin Walker and their dates. Our vehicle of choice was my mom's suburban (no stretch limo's here). We went to eat at Pappadeaux's in Houston before-hand and I remember thinking we were SOOOO COOOOL because we all ordered strawberry daquiri's sans alcohol obviously.

In 1997, I had decided I wasn't even going to the big Boling High School prom, because I'd rather go to a cattle show instead. But as it turns out I changed my mind at the last minute, and this time my date was another one of my best friends, Taylor Burns. Taylor was a sophomore so he was pretty cool by having a date with a senior girl. (Just kidding, I was no catch!) We had a great time again, but nothing too out of the ordinary. I don't even remember what we did after prom, I think we might have went bowling. This time we went in Taylor's Ford truck.

So for most girls, the exciting part about prom is choosing your dress and getting your hair done. Again, not so much for me. My junior year, I got a dress at Dillards that was a short, red Nicole Miller dress that was somewhat of a halter top. It was cute, but nothing special and certainly no beads or sequins. I did my own hair in hot rollers at my own house. Fun fun.

For my senior year, I guess my dress was a little fancier, but I purchased it at this old lady boutique in our hometown. So it definitely wasn't a "prom" dress, it was more of just a fancier dress. This one was a long black dress that kind had a sheer mid-driff. That was about the most risque thing I ever wore in high school, and embarassingly I continued to wear it a couple times in college at some formals. But again, no beads, no sequins.

Finally, in 2008, I got my dream prom dress. Well, sort of. I was hanging out at my cousin's the Forgason's house about a month ago and my 16-year-old cousin Emily offered to show me her prom pictures. After looking at them, I saw my dream dress, and it was owned by Emily. I said..."hey, I want to go put on your prom dress". I think she thought I was lying, but I said again, "no, I really want to".

So, up the stairs we go to Emily's bedroom and start putting on the dress. It was the coolest dress I've ever seen. Red, strapless, very shiny, and lots of beads. The back is laced up and gorgeous. So Emily laces me in the dress, and for a brief moment, I close my eyes and picture myself walking into the BHS Prom Grand March of 1997, complete with the Clay Walker "Keeper of the Stars" song playing in my head since that was our prom "theme". :)

After getting all laced in, we went downstairs and proceeded to take pretend prom pictures, i.e. on the stairway, posing, etc. The funny part was that ironically, my still good friend and fellow 1997 BHS Prom-Goer, Russell Sciba also happened to be at the Forgason's that night clipping some of their calves. Emily and her sisters tried to talk me into walking out to the barn where Russell was clipping and ask him if he'd be my date to the prom. But, I was honestly a little scared that if I stayed in this dress too long I might bust it open since Emily is a little bit skinnier than me!

So.....I finally have gotten my dream prom dress, if only for 10 minutes. And I have to admit, it looked a lot better on Emily and her date! But if I ever do need a dashing gown to wear to some big formal event, I know who to ask if I can borrow this dress!

Hannah Montana Movie

This Saturday, I braved the movie theatres along with several other loyal Hannah Montana fans to see the opening weekend of the Hannah Montana Movie. Now, I bet you wouldn't have picked me for a Hannah fan...considering I'm several years past junior high.


But, I'll admit, I'm a closet Hannah Montana junkie, and I'm not the only one. I got into watching Hannah on Saturday mornings with my friend Stephanie, who's dad is the right-hand cowman on the ranch. Last spring when I was stuck inside with my broken ankle, Stephanie came to visit me and we would watch That's So Raven, followed by Hannah Montana, followed by The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Ironically, this year at the Lone Star Edition sale I also found out that another adult, Laci Bracewell, also loves these three shows. So this gave me hope that I'm not the only person above age 14 who is addicted to this stuff!


In addition to the Saturday ritual of watching HM, I also have purchased a few signature Hannah items....again -- all for gifts for my friend Stephanie. But anytime there is a birthday or Christmas, you can be sure we're getting her something related to the teen pop star idol. These gifts range from movies, t-shirts....and the all time best --- a REAL Hannah Montana blonde wig, which we all put on and model for a good laugh!


A few months ago during one of our Saturday 'girls mornings' we saw the preview for the movie, and we made a promise that we would go watch it together. As all loyal Hannah fans know, Friday was opening day. Of course there are no theatres in Boling, so our normal theatre is in Rosenberg which is near Houston. I went online to check it out on Friday morning (opening day) and all the tickets were sold out online.


I decided to check out another local theatre, which is Showplace 3 in El Campo. This theatre is quite a bit older, doesn't have stadium seating, doesn't show as current of movies, but it's a lot less crowded. As I find their web site, I am definitely suprised to see that this small town theatre is offering Hannah Montana on opening weekend!!! I'm thinking this is the hook up because surely it won't be as crowded and we can go.

So Stephanie and I make a plan to go to the early show at 1:00 p.m. We get there about 30 minutes early and to my suprise, there are plenty of seats. I'm even happier when our combined bill for two tickets is $4. One ticket at the other theatre is like $8.25 -- so I'm thinking this is a real deal.


As we sit down, the first thing I notice is that the background music they are playing in the theatre is the song "Hanging Tough" by New Kids on the Block. I think this is a random song, but I'm pleasantly suprised to hear the rest of the New Kids cd from circa 1990....considering I was in elementary school when it came out. I'm guessing this theatre needs to update their music collection.


I won't give away all of the secrets of the movie....but I have to say....it was really good. The music and songs by Hannah are great, and I really liked the new song that Taylor Swift sang on the movie. Rascall Flatts sang a few songs, and Billy Ray Cyrus also had a new song on there. I loved Hannah's outfits....I would love to have the dress she wore on her date! And I loved the hometown setting of Miley's hometown in Tennessee. I wish I could paint a chicken coop as good as Miley. And I might even download that Hoedown song on my ipod and see if I can figure out how to do that dance.

I'll also admit that I love Miley's new song -- The Climb. This performance was the finale of the movie...and I'm not too embarassed to say -- I got a little tear-y eyed. The movie had a great moral and it was one I'd recommend to anyone, young or old....especially if you like Hannah/Miley.

And...as Miley says....Life's always a climb....but the view sure is great :)

March Updates Top 5

RHD Statistician Luann Williams proudly announces our TOP 5 Most Frequent Updaters for the month of March! Check out these sites and see all their news items!

American International Charolais Assn. - 14 updates in March
American Brahman Breeders Assn. - 11 updates in March

Of course, you would expect breed associations to be updating this frequently since both of these groups have lots of activities and programs going on.

Here are our top breeder web site updaters for March. Spring sales are keeping everyone busy with their sites by adding new photos and information!

GKB Cattle - 12 updates
Lautner Farms - 9 updates
Hudec Cattle - 7 updates
Matt Lautner Cattle - 6 updates

If you ask these clients they'll tell you that they get the best response and results from their web site when they update it with new information. People love seeing new photos and reading new text. So just a reminder to take some time to look over your web site, and let us know if there is anything that can be added, updated, or freshened up.

Oh, and for whoever the idiot was on SteerPlanet who posted that RHD only updates web sites on Sundays and on the weekend, you'll like this little bit of info. # of updates done in March: 212. Average turnaround time - 3 hours.

TGIF!

Four Covers in One Month

By now most everyone has had a chance to flip through their favorite livestock magazines that came out in April. If you're anything like me I'm sure you took advantage of reading these during the many hours spent sitting on the showboxes at Houston or the Beef Expos.

The month of March was a big month for us, we designed exactly 99 pages of ads that were in all kinds of magazines.....Showbox, Show Circuit, NLE, Livestock Plus, Angus Journal, Brahman Journal, Show Times, Purple Circle, Shorthorn Country, and more. If you get the magazine, basically we designed an ad that was in it.

So the big highlight for the month of March was that for the first time, we had FOUR different covers that were designed by Ranch House. The only major cattle magazine we didn't design the cover for was Show Circuit, but we did send in 39 ads for that magazine, so RHD was pretty well represented.

Anytime you design a cover ad, there's always just that added little bit of pressure...because after all...it's the COVER! And, from our clients perspective, the cover costs a lot more to buy, so we have to make sure what we do stands out and is something that makes someone want to pick up the magazine and look further.

When I see these four covers designed by RHD, I just can't help but feel a big sense of pride. Ten years ago, I was driving from College Station to Crockett, Texas on nights and weekends just to get experience working with a magazine. I spent countless hours scanning in photos at The Showbox, so the designers would have the photos to work with when they got into work the next morning. It took me a whole year until I got enough experience just to design a 1/4 page black and white ad! Now, ten years later, I'm designing the cover. And, we also got to design the cover for the April Showbox, which I think is really cool, you'll have to watch for that one.

So even though I'm writing this blog at the END of March, and I probably should have done it closer to the beginning when the magazines actually came out, it's still exciting. And to those clients of ours who trust us with putting their business on the covers, we thank you. The four covers this month were Lautner Farms - Livestock Plus Cover, Habeger Cattle - NLE Cover, Nick Reimann & Brian Martin - Showbox Cover, and Matt Lautner - Showtimes Cover.

I'm starting a new poll today too -- which is your favorite cover design. I have my favorite and I already cast my vote...Let me know what you think!

The Incredible Liz

One of the joys of working at RHD is the people I get to work with. To be honest, we all really like each other and it really makes the work day go by so much faster when you can be around 6 other people who you really like.

So I have been joking with Liz that I was going to write this blog about her and all her funny stories. I should back up by explaining that Liz is from a small town, and she did 4-H Horse Judging, but she's a lot more of the typical graphic-design-hippie type and less of a cowgirl than say, Me, Christa, or Tricia. For example, I think Liz would die before she would be caught wearing cowboy boots, a concho belt, and turquoise. She usually is wearing some trendy outfit straight out of the mall and updates her facebook status like literally every 30 minutes with the most trendy and deep "statuses" i have ever heard. For example, "Your individuality provides a light for others. ;)." And just this week, she got her hair died half black and half red. (I'm jealous actually...it's really cute and I'd be too scared to every do anything that gutsy!)

Well, Liz is a very talented graphic designer, but the funniest thing about her is that she has very little actual experience in the cattle business. She especially has NO experience in the swine business. So as we sit in the same office day after day, it's hilarious to me to listen to some of the things she says.

Here are the top "Liz-isms"....

1. Today, while working on the Top Cut Sires Swine Catalog, we are trying to locate a photo of a Hampshire boar. This is when Liz asks me if a Hampshire is the one that looks like it's wearing a white sweater. (Their white belt)

2. While working on the Copper Penny banner for Brian Martin and Nick Reimann, she took down their information over the phone about the sire and dam. When I went to start designing it, I noticed she had written the pedigree is "Woodstocker". I think, hmmm, I don't know of a bull named Woodstocker. But I put it in anyway. Brian approves the banner, with the word "Woodstocker" on it. Before I hang up on the phone with Brian, I say, "Hey, who is the Woodstocker bull...I've never heard of him?" Brian is like "Huh, what??" And I said, "You know, on the banner, where it says Woodstocker."

Wanna guess what it really was........
WITCH DOCTOR!!

Good thing we caught that before it went to print!

3. About the same time, she was taking info on another project for a Denver bull. We have this form that we fill out on all the sires we represent. One of the items on the form says "TH/PHA Status:______". On this form, in that area, Liz has written: "TH/PHA Queen". A TH/PHA Queen huh? I sure wouldn't want to see that cow. I had to inform her that the person probably said TH/PHA CLEAN and that there was no pageant or anything that awarded someone as the PHA Queen.

4. She also refers to a Chianina (Chi) steer as if it were the type of steer that you would use to flat iron your hair Chi (pronounced chee for all you guys who don't know what a chi iron is.) instead of a "key" steer.

And the best Liz story is this....

This summer, she called Pearl Walthall to order a photo from the Missouri State Fair. I was kinda just in and out and I overheard Liz on the phone saying...

"HI, this is Liz with Ranch House Designs. I need to order a photo of the Grand Champion SENTIMENTAL Steer". (Simmental steer)

I'm sure Pearl got a big kick out of that one! SO now it's our inside joke about all those sentimental steers.

Anyway, of course, I'm just giving Liz a hard time, and I know that for someone who's not quite as familiar with all this cattle and pig stuff as us, I'm sure it's a big adjustment! She says her favorite thing is working on all those boar catalog...the pictures of all the boar booties gives her a chuckle every time!

We love you Liz!! And for our loyal blog readers, next time you call our office, why not ask Liz how all her sentimental steers are doing!

2009 Ft. Worth Stock Show

I had the chance this year to attend a little bit of the 2009 Junior Heifer Show at Ft. Worth. This was my first time ever to come to Ft. Worth and come to the Stock Show, so I was really excited! My husband is one of three ag teachers at Boling High School and he oversees the heifers so I was able to go with him and hang out with the Boling FFA!

Well, I couldn't go up right away with him, so he left on Thursday and I was riding up there with a family on Friday. Everything had been worked out and we were good to go. Thursday comes along and he leaves bright and early Thursday morning with the kiddos, the 8 heifers and a loaded down trailer! I'd get a phone call or text every now and then to see where they were at and make sure everything is okay.

About 2:00 or so that afternoon, I get a call from my husband and he says they have broken down in Cleburne which is about 30 minutes from Ft. Worth and his truck won't start. So here is a truck, a fully loaded trailer with cattle, 3 students and an ag teacher, stranded on the side of the highway. Luckily for them, there is an RV park across the access road and they are able to cross the access road safely to get a way from the highway and get some numbers for a tow truck.

So they find a number for a tow truck to come "tow" the truck but now they have to figure out how to get the trailer full of cattle to Ft. Worth and get checked in on time. While they are figuring this out, an 18 wheeler had a blow out and the truck is heading straight for the trailer of cattle. You can imagine what everyone is thinking at this moment. Luckily the truck driver was able to straigten up a bit and passed the trailer with out any problems. It was a close call.

Well, with the help of a gracious person, they were able to hook up the trailer and get up to Ft. Worth. I'm glad that everyone was safe and that they made it up to Ft. Worth.

You would think after all of that, nothing could go wrong and the worst is over. Wrong! I get a call that night from my husband after they had checked into the Quality Inn and Suites. They had originally booked two rooms with two double beds in them. Well, the hotel didn't reserve a second room, therefore, they only had one room with two double beds and had to resort to a room with a king size bed and have a roll away bed put in it. They were supposed to get another room the next night (so the hotel workers said). It didn't happen.

I got up to Ft. Worth Friday night and met them at the hotel. Everything was going fine until the family I rode up there with was trying to check into their room and were told they didn't have a room ready for them. Our first sign that something was not right about this hotel should have been when the trusty old Garmin took us through a lightless back ally of a road. But, did we think anything of it? No! The room they originally wanted to put them in was occupied and so they were going to put them in another room; but they had to check to make sure it was clean, because they weren't sure it was clean. We are thinking, this is not looking good.

So eventually everyone gets a room and things are okay. The next morning, everyone had stories to tell of things that had gone wrong in this Quality Inn and Suites. Here's a few of the stories condensed and maybe a big sign that this hotel should not be in business:

1.) When you go to the front desk and ask if your room can be cleaned because it hadn't been cleaned while your were gone, and your are handed cleaning supplies and told "go clean it yourself", maybe you shouldn't stay there.

2.) When you go to take a shower and see a used towel and used bar of soap in the bath tub, maybe you shouldn't stay there.

3.) When your room gets cleaned so you think; the beds made, fresh hopefully clean towels, and new shampoos and soap, but no trash taken out maybe your room really wasn't cleaned and maybe you shouldn't stay there.

4.) When you step off the second floor and it smells like sewage, maybe you shouldn't stay there.

5.) When you have to use a chair to prop up a night stand because it's coming apart from the wall, maybe you shouldn't stay there.

6.) When you walk to the front desk and there's no one insight but a little sign that says "We will be back in 10 minutes. Thank you for waiting", maybe you shouldn't stay there.

7.) When you try to get a reciept for school purposes and they tell you they can't give you a receipt because the computer is slow and it will take a while to print, maybe you shouldn't stay there.

8.) When you are about to leave Ft. Worth to come home and go back to get a receipt and they try to give you a copy of the check you gave them and you tell them, that is not what I need, maybe you shouldn't stay there.

As you can see, this Quality Inn and Suites has some major issues. I have never been in a hotel where the service was this bad. No one that stayed there was happy and the employees just didn't understand.

It certainly made for a long and interesting weekend. But everyone made it safely home. My husband's truck got fixed, the students did very well at the Stock Show and we now know not to ever stay at the Quality Inn and Suites in Ft. Worth, Texas. Besides all of that, I had a great time at the Ft. Worth Stock Show and would love to go back next year!

What a great first experience of Ft. Worth!!

RHD's Top Ten of 2008

Drumroll please....this report in just hot off the press from our official Ranch House Designs statistician, Luann Williams.

One of Mom's job here at RHD is quality assurance on web site updates and keeping track of our web site updating performance. She monitors all the updates to make sure they are done in a timely manner and done correctly. This morning she just finished up the reports from 2008 and here are some interesting figures....

In 2008, our web updates division did a total of 2,468 web site updates for our clients! On average, web update requests are done in a 1/2 day turnaround. One of our biggest goals is accurate, timely web updates, and we've got a year's worth of data to prove it!

In our "Honorable Mention" Frequent updaters are:

• Dismukes Ranch
• Bryant Combine Parts
• Brad Hanewich Cattle
• Top Sires
• Catching Tractor
• Virginia Club Calf Producers
• Tusa Cattle
• Mid Texas Angus
• Rolling Hills Angus
• Mid Texas Angus Association

OUR TOP TEN UPDATERS for 2008:
#10 - Matt Lautner Cattle - 39 updates
#9 - Maternal Legends (Sullivan) - 39 updates
#8 - Lautner Farms - 44 updates
#7 - Aegerter Marketing Service - 45 updates
#6 - Stock Horse Association of Texas - 50 updates
#5 - Independent Cattlemen's Association - 52 updates
#4 - La Muneca Ranch - 59 updates
#3 - Washington County Fair - 62 updates
#2 - American Brahman Breeder's Association - 98 updates

And our #1 most frequent updating client is.....
#1 - American International Charolais Association - 115 updates

So, here is a reminder to our clients that if you haven't updated your site in a while, shoot us an email and let us know some news for your site! It pays to keep your site as fresh and interesting as possible!

FIRST SNOW IN WHARTON, TEXAS!

December 10, 2008. 1:48PM. Tricia yells at us from her office,

"GIRLS IT'S SNOWING!"

And what do we do...of course what anyone else would do, right? We grab the camera, run down stairs ecstatic, and out the door we go to catch snow flurries! We can hardly believe it but it's true.

Pam was gracious enough to take a picture for us. Thanks Pam! (we swear there is a snow flurry by the arrow!)

Now all we can do is stare out the window with big smiles on our faces like a kid looking into a candy store! After we got inside we just had to call everyone we knew in Wharton County and tell them! So now it just needs to snow a little more for us to build a snow man.

What a great afternoon!

Written By:

Christa Jo

Backtracking!

How many of the RHD Loyal Blog Readers rely on technology way too much? I know that I do. For example, I have got to be the most directionally challenged person in the world. So bad that any time I print off directions to a place I had to make sure that it said "turn right" instead of "turn north," because something about the acrostic Never Eat Sliced Worms to remember the directions North, East, South, and West never stuck with me. Thankfully, people who are much smarter than me created a navigation system called Garmin.

Everyone I know has a Garmin, except the old die hards who still think that reading an atlas is cool. These handy little devices can tell you the quickest route from Texas to Indiana and all of the eatin' joints along the way. However, every once and a while Garmin makes a mistake. This September when the Texas A&M Judging Team was heading to the National Barrow Show in Austin, Minnesota, we relied heavily on the navigation skills of Blake's Garmin.

A quick history on the Barrow Show trip. This trip is called the pilgrimage because every university and junior college that has a team all travels together to different hog farms around the Midwest. I once counted 32 fifteen passenger vans travelling in the pilgrimage. This means that if all vans were full a total of 480 students and coaches are all travelling together.

So back to the main story. Due to the large numbers of people we split up for lunch and set a time and place to meet after we finish lunch. So we set the location in Garmin, load up in the van, and we are off. Up to this point Garmin has never got us in any trouble. Well we quickly notice that the roads we are on are getting worse and worse. Finally we reach a point where we cannot go any further. The road we were one was about ten feet wide and about 50 yards in front of us, the road ends in a creek. Hmmm.....what now, the road is too narrow to turn around on and we have a trailer full of our luggage. Our only option is to unhitch the trailer and make a 12343 point turn around. Finally we get turned around, re-hook the trailer and we are off.

This was the first and only hiccup that Garmin has had on our many trips so I will continue to endorse the almost flawless navigation skills of Garmin.

Speaking of great strides in technology, I recently fell victim on the BlackBerry craze. My new BlackBerry can tell me the weather in Banff, Alberta and get me all of the emails that my fans send me constantly. But the best feature of this hand held office is the only game that is comes with, Brick Breaker. Gone are the days of Snake and Brick Breaker is what everyone is talking about. This game has a simple concept of bouncing a ball off of a paddle and hitting the bricks to bust them open and hopefully reveal a secret prize such as an additional life or a laser. As any of you know that have taken a long trip where you are sitting in a car or an airport, you have to have something to do during the down time. On our past judging trips, this game has saved us from certain insanity. Our games range from just comparing high scores to passing the phone from level to level and see how long we can last and how many bricks we can break. Unfortunately, just like Garmin, Brick Breaker has its flaws. Frequently, the ball will slip in between two bricks and not hit a single one. How does this happen? No one knows! Another problem that should be fixed is when you lose all of your lives you must START AT THE VERY BEGINNING AGAIN! I really have to fight back the urge to throw the phone against the wall when this happens, but somehow I think that the next time I will make it past that level and get an even higher score.

So choose carefully when you are selecting your next piece of technology to add to your collection as some of them can get you lost in the backwoods of Illinois or invoke a wild competitive mode that you did not know you had.