I have heard there are some loaning institutions that are going to require you to be stewards of land in order to borrow money.
I think it is all right to have a few qualifications like, for instance, if your land is blowing away and affecting the neighbor but I am afraid that is just one step closer to complete control from the government. And a lot of times you get young, highly educated people who can’t run their operation let alone yours.
I had a man call me this past week from Colorado that has a feedlot that he owns that is not extremely small but I would guess holds 10,000 head. He told me he had 1,000 cattle that were very fat and had been in too long in the feedlot to use them. I hope that is not the front part of what is to come, like when they decided to weed out the individual hog feeders that fed them to be ready to butcher. They told him they had plenty of fat cattle already committed from these bigger commercial lots.
When they are making $800 to over $1,000 per head you wouldn’t think they would care where they come from. Whatever the case is—we have to do something if we individual cattlemen are going to survive.
A young man was talking to an older cowboy at the sale barn. The young man said to the older man, “I’m sure you could teach me a lot.” He said, “What advice would you give me?” He said, “Son, there are two times that are very important that you need to be there when it happens and that is when your cattle sell at the sale barn and when your wife gets pregnant.”
I learned several years ago that when your children are teenagers, it’s very important to have a dog. That is so when you come home at least someone is happy to see you.
I just learned this week that the majority of archaeologists are women due to their natural ability to dig up the past.
Editor’s note: Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
