Blogs

Last week, I was interviewing an operator for the January edition of Progressive Cattleman. This operation is a little different (OK, a lot different) than your average ranch. They run 800 commercial beef cows, farm 2,000-plus acres and operate a 1,500-cow dairy.

Yer not gonna keep ’er, still, are ya Dad?
She must be twelve years old.

I reckon she’s closer to fourteen now,
And naturally half-polled.

Colleen is my neighbor. She and her husband, Rick, live on a little 9- or 10-acre piece about 5 miles down the road from my place. Colleen rescues things.

My family talks funny. My mom and grandparents on her side of the family are all gone now, but I can still hear them using words like privy, lariat, pipsqueak, scuttlebutt and wieners.

The summer before my first semester of college, I took a job as a cashier at a mountain resort convenience store. Nestled in the Utah mountains, the winding roads and mountain air attracted cyclists like mosquitoes to a stagnant water trough.

It is fall and most of us are getting pretty excited for a paycheck. Come November, we'll be selling calves and putting money in the bank for the rest of the year. We budget, like most ranchers do, but then the skid steer broke, our main truck died and one of the kids needed her wisdom teeth out.