Better on Beef!

For a start I would like to thank Jim Conroy from Semex and Haylee Herriot and the team at Angus Australia for the incredible scholarship opportunity that has allowed me to come to the US and attend Kansas State University for the spring semester. An opportunity I feel very blessed to have been granted and am absolutely honored to be a part of.

My boots hit US soil on the 3rd of January! I'm now going on my fourth week here and the beginning of my adventure saw me catching up with family in Colorado for two weeks. During that time we were busy helping out around their feedyard and ranching operation with the regular daily routines, which are a little different during the winter season. The freezing cold temperatures present a whole new set of challenges to livestock producers that people in most regions of Australia would not even imagine! An excellent example of this, was the mornings I found myself out on the ranch cracking thick ice on water troughs so that the cattle could have a drink that day. There is something I’ve never had to do in Kyancutta!

The following week, I rode down to Manhattan with my cousin who also attends K-State. We had to leave Colorado a few days early so as to beat the ice storms forecast on the weather channel. I moved into the Clovia house, met Dr David Nicholls (who is my fabulous contact here at K-State) and got all set up with the classes to sit in on.

So far I am having an absolute ball! I now have a very full schedule and am auditing many brilliant classes all run by incredibly inspiring people! I love all of my classes. I am learning so much in general about cattle production, meat science and the US livestock production industry. I am eager to get more involved and am doing my absolute best to get as much of this invaluable information sunk in as possible!

Just in the short time that I have been here, I have met so many brilliant, kind and extremely welcoming people. Every now and then, I catch myself wondering how I could’ve possibly been so lucky. It is still tremendously surreal in my mind, that this could all happen to little old me. Hence, I cannot stress enough to Haylee and the Angus society of Australia and Jim Conroy from Semex, just how thankful I am to have received this once in a lifetime, absolutely unforgettable opportunity. I am doing and will continue to do my absolute best not to waste a single moment of my time here at K-State!