After I watched the the new Ray Hunt videos I spoke about in a earlier thrown loop, it got me to wanting to explore connecting with animals more. I had read a book before that Tom Dorrance recommended called “Kinship With All Life”. I decided to read it again and looked for it on my iPad. I found a follow up book titled “Adventures in Kinship With All Life” by J. Allen Boone.

I read it and really enjoyed it. It has got me to working on connecting with animals and people better. I have really been working on it.

I saw quite a change in my animals at home. I worked with our horses to get them better to catch. I didn’t want them to force them to hook on and be caught, but get them to decide to be caught because it felt good to them to be caught. There is a big difference there.

I have been in Amarillo this week working for Texas Cattle Feeders doing some cattle handling/BQA workshops. I got a lot of chances to work with different pens of cattle and I really feel like I got along much better than ever before at relaxing the cattle when I went in the pen, could move and place a single animal just how and where I wanted, and pulled the cattle out of the pen without fear and force but made it there idea. I have a real satisfied feeling with the way I got along with the nice horses I partnered with and the cattle I worked with.

The people that were in attendance were told to be there by their boss. They are a tough lot that deal with very difficult work conditions with lots of rules. They were real interesting to present to. I really tried to use some ideas I learned from the book to connect with them and hopefully give them some ideas to get them better at their job and improve the quality of their life because of the work they are doing. I really hope I did.

Joel Ham was also presenting, and we spent a lot of time discussing stockmanship  in our free time. He is a real thinker and has studied the principals of Bud Williams and Ray Hunt for many years.

I love a good chicken fried steak. Green Chilly Willy’s is a great place to have one. It is kind of a hole in the wall type restaurant just south of Amarillo. We went there two nights in a row, and it was so good, and I think the waitress we had must have read kinship with all life, because she connected with everyone in there and made people feel so good. That’s what I like so much about Texas, it is Kinship.