We are dry and, yes, we need a rain. The triticale I have planted looks like it was planted two weeks ago.
It’s an unusual drought. Normally in a drought cattle are going cheap. But with this drought covering several states there were a lot of cows culled that went to slaughter. Most ranchers did not have much hay.
Also in the mix was the packer buying the heavy bred cows to slaughter and for other purposes.
Now the prices the past month have gotten higher each week, which appears they definitely need something to kill. I’m not saying the packers can’t make money at these levels but where they have many employees it might be cheaper to give too much than run a packing house at half capacity. That’s the reason, in my opinion, most of them keep some cows on feed to use when the numbers are lower such as during bad weather.
Oklahoma National Stockyard sold over 5,000 head less this week than a year ago.
At breakfast this morning they said the next two days were going to be very windy. Last week, west of us 130 miles, it got so dirty with the winds that people driving on the highway all of a sudden went from being able to see to not being able to see at all. In fact, one trucker told me he could only see 10 feet in front of him. So apparently a car stopped in the middle of the dirt storm. Two semis stopped behind the car. The third semi hit the ones stopped, completely tearing the hood off.
A man who buys cattle at my sale was also behind that semi and he too was loaded with cattle and he swerved to the ditch. The highway patrolman said, “You are a heck of a driver.” He said, “No, the guardian angel did it as I swerved and I’m not sure how I missed the wrecked semi.”
Not long ago I was riding my horse across the neighbor’s pasture and rode up to a windmill with a large tank. Just then I noticed two gals about 20 years old skinny dipping with their clothes beside the tank. They were startled. I said, “Don’t worry, girls, I just came by to feed my alligators.”
I had a date last weekend with a gal I had met the week before. I took her to a restaurant and the waitress came up to take our order. My date said, “I just want a burger, but I insist that it is plant based.” She said, “I cannot think about killing a cow to eat.” I assured her that the burger on the menu was plant based—that is it came from a processing plant.
Editor’s note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the view of High Plains Journal. Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
