Blogs

Americans love a good list of rankings. We list our ball teams, presidents, influential books, favorite movies, all by rankings.

I once saw a post on Facebook from a member of a women’s ag group asking for examples of ranch lingo her daughter could use as part of a school presentation. There were dozens of helpful comments ranging from “pushing the drag” to vocab terms like “free martin.” I grew up on a ranch, but some of these terms I’d never heard, and my first impulse was to hop on Google and see what I could find. Then, my common sense caught up with me and whispered, “Some things you just don’t find on Google.”

For those of you who forgot how easy it was to get started in farming, let me tell you about my friend Con. Many years ago, he bought a farm in the wilds of Minnesota. The feller who sold him the farm had his farm sale the day Con arrived to take possession of the land.

Despite my mostly deserved reputation for tardiness, I was on a pretty good roll that morning. I had most of the feeding done by the time Mr. Sunshine finally eked his lazy head over the snowcapped peaks to the east.

The last few weeks have been full of disappointments. The kind that wrench your gut. I haven’t wanted to write about it because it is hard for us folks in agriculture to talk about the things that hurt.

It’s summer! Time to revel in a mask-free environment (at least outside anyway), get a new sunburn, work on the golf game and catch a fish or two.