What an interesting year so far and like most years there are not any two of them alike.
I don’t like to think negative but this area that I am in could be very depressing if you are a worrier. From Woodward—if you go east or south 50 miles—most places got enough moisture to green the wheat back up and at least allow some thought of having some wheat to pasture out or hay or harvest.
From Woodward west for quite a large area most of the wheat looks dead or barely green. I know wheat is a hardy plant but we have got to have some moisture very soon for it to survive. One customer 40 miles south of Woodward said, “I have 1,000 acres of wheat and only 25 cattle on it.”
They can talk all they want about high placements in the feedlot but in our area placements will be a lot lighter than normal from March through May. Every week I expect our numbers to drop drastically but it looks like we will have a decent size sale Thursday (March 8) judging by the number we caught on Monday (March 5).
It is still surprising low numbers of cows moving for as dry as most are. That could change any week but it may very well because most ranchers were already culled down from the drought a few years ago and now that it is springtime most are ready to calve so they probably think let’s go ahead and get this calf and hope it rains.
I have mouthed all my cows and put the 9- and 10-year-olds in one pasture so in case it stays dry they will go first. Also in the eartag we will put a notch in the tag on the year we think they were born like on a clock since I buy a lot of my calves.
My sister has told me several times that I don’t have very good judgment on what I put in this column as she thought some of the jokes were too off colored. And a lady from Kansas wrote me and suggested that I should get my Bible out and read Romans 8. And truthfully if I am debating that it should probably tell me no.
Editor’s note: Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
