Thursday

A short update on the ranch tour yesterday - it was about AI, preg checking, branding, etc.  As a female who had three pregnancies related back to cattle, it was probably the easiest for me to miss.

Today we started with a trip to the Konza prairie.  You would have thought that I would have been there as a teacher or a mom sponsor sometime in my life, but this was my first time to the buildings.  We took a 1.2 mile walk up Butterfly Hill and out docent identified about a hundred million types of flowers and grasses.  I took a picture of her because I just loved her look.  She is a retired engineer who just does this for fun.  She had her book in case we saw a flower she didn't know.

After lunch, we went to the Hal Ross building on campus which is the new facility for making flour.  The professor who talked to us was very entertaining and we got to look at a variety of wheats.  He had worked for a cereal company before entering academia.  Although it looks like the lady on the left had a headache, she was really having a good time.

We ended the day in Webber Hall and learned about food science and safety.  This volunteer was cooking hamburger with sodium nitrite and we also had the guy in the back with just the hamburger.  The professor checked the temperature with a thermometer for the hamburgers in a frying pan which I guess you should do, but I sure don't.

One more day.  I think we will be back in Thockmorton for most of the day.  They have kept us really busy, but it has been a great week.