It is so nice to see green in these pastures and wheat fields. Driving back from Oklahoma City for the past several months and seeing green there and getting less the closer you got to home and then at home mostly brown and dead looking it was a little depressing.
Even though I was thankful there was green somewhere, we are still in a drought unless it continues to rain but at least it is a start.
There are several feeders showing up at the auction but nothing like a normal May run with expectations of only a couple of weeks worth of bigger sales. In our area most all the feeders have been sold or went to the feedlot already. Fat cattle prices are better than the futures, which are good considering most have a hedge on their cattle.
But like one manager of a feedlot said where choice price is that figures $146 a hundredweight, which doesn’t figure the cost of processing but also doesn’t allow for what they get for offal and discounts for select grading and other things. But packers are making a lot of money and have gotten quite accustomed to that being the normal.
All in all most cattlemen seem more cheerful since we have received these two or three small rains. In a drought it is almost impossible to make money.
Several cattlemen were talking about tough times with a drought and then fires. One older cowboy spoke up and said, “I’ve been through a lot of tough times—but ‘hard work’ always works and if you have hard times work your way through it.”
Part of this story I really don’t like because I do not like the word “old man.” Basically I live in a make believe world and if I don’t look in the mirror I still think I’m young.
A younger auctioneer brought his girlfriend to the sale with him. She was about 22 years old and very cute. I was running back and forth like normal trying to keep the sale going fast. When he finished his hour of auctioneering he went and sat by his girlfriend in the crowd.
She was referring to me when she said, “I don’t know who that old man is down in the ring but they need to get him some help.”
One of the gals who has worked at the sale for years has cancer. We are all hoping and praying she gets better. The card we got her on the front says—“Work on getting well, don’t you ever quit or I’ll be there in person to give you lots of…” and after turning the page it says “…encouragement.”
And you thought it was going to rhyme with quit.
Editor’s note: Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
