I want to publicly thank God for sparing the life of one of my workers at the sale barn this past week. One of the truckers brought a semi-load of cattle into the sale.
After he got the cattle unloaded the gate that keeps them from coming back up the ramp of the chute was not closed. So two steers came back up and jumped out in the parking lot. A worker welding on the new chute beside it ran in front to stop the other cattle from jumping out, too. But at the same point the trucker looked in his mirror and saw the two steers had jumped out so he immediately backed his truck back up to keep more cattle from jumping out but he had not seen the worker trying to stop the other two cattle—thus pinning the worker between the truck and the chute.
Only the grace of God could have stopped that truck right there. Two more inches would have killed him or messed him up for life. Again, thank you, God, for that miracle.
Anyone who works around cattle and equipment knows how dangerous it can be but most of us never really think, “Today is my last day on earth” or that “Today, my life will change forever.”
Not many feeder cattle are moving. We sold several loads of steers weighing 800 to 830 pounds for $144 to $145 per hundredweight. And we sold a few 900-pound steers up to $143 per hundredweight. We generally run out of the true hard yearling cattle this time of year but I believe we are shorter in numbers than most years.
I guess you saw the breaking the news this week, “A man got hurt by rental car. Said it Hertz.”
The other night I went into the bar. No, I did not go in there to drink. I had heard they had great hamburgers there. It was very crowded. A man came in there waving a pistol and yelled, “I have a 45-caliber Colt with a seven-round magazine plus one in the chamber.” And he yelled, “I want to know who has been sleeping with my wife.”
A voice from back of the bar called out—“You need more ammo.”
Editor’s note: Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
