Blogs

Talk about takin’ a beating.

I stood on the porch at Dale’s horse farm and soaked up the view. It was deep springtime in west Tennessee. The grass was so green it hurt your eyes.

Sometimes I’m a walking cliché. I tend to leap before I look, try to run before I walk, step over a dollar to pick up a dime, put the cart before the horse, count the chickens before they’re hatched … Well, you get the idea.

One of the things a good cowman has to have, besides a good banker, is an early detection system for determining when an animal is sick.

My father-in-law is famous for saying “he’s not progressing; he’s degressing.” In fact, for his birthday last year, I gave him one of our spiffy Progressive Cattleman hats.

Through some recent life events, I have come to familiarize myself with the acronyms MSHA and OSHA. Before this year, I had never heard of MSHA; I knew OSHA had something to do with safety because I often heard cowboys say, “This probably isn’t OSHA approved,” while doing something fairly dangerous.

A sometimes underappreciated, if not completely forgotten, link of the beef production chain is the cull cow market and slaughter segment. I am probably one of those who, at times, has not adequately appreciated the significance and contributions of the cull cow to the grand scheme of our little cowboy party.