I have officially been at the Gudmundsen Ranch outside of Whitman, Nebraska for two weeks now. It has been quite the change of pace, scenery, society, and culture.
Everything has been wrapped up in Lincoln. Bella is being taken care of by a fellow grad student who has two dogs of her own. Bella will have a backyard to play in and plenty of playtime with her new pals. I have to admit it is not quite the same here without her. Thanks to the help of some great friends and their vehicles I was able to move out of my old housing situation quite easily. I have a place to store my stuff. (Thanks Kevin and Jenn!) I survived finals, including Biochemistry and Forage Evaluation. Didn't stress too bad and kept things in perspective! A first for me.
The drive out here was alright and I caravaned with three other grad students who were helping me with my calf (baby cow) surgeries the next day. It was hard to leave Bella, my friends, and my church family, but research calls! Surgeries with the calves was long, but good. We put rumen canula's in five baby steer calves so that during my research trial we can collect diet samples. It is like a portal into their stomach with a plug. It was quite the endeavor, but we gotter' done! I am so thankful for the crew from Lincoln and the ranch crew for helping. Couldn't have done it without any of them. That night we drove down to North Platte, NE for beef committee meetings. This is where everyone involved with beef research gets together and grad students present their research. Presentations went well and a majority of the group got food poisoning from the caterer....no fun. Though, I didn't know what it was until one of the grad students returned to the ranch after I did and told me what happened. I knew I felt ill, but not that it was food poisoning. PTL, I had a low key week of work the rest of the week and weekend to completely recoup from illness and the craziness of the last two and half weeks of moving, finals, and transitioning to Whitman.
More to come....
