Editorial / Opinions

Times are getting tough for everyone. Recent occurrances on my parent’s farm have reminded me of this. No, I’m not talking about the effects of the drought – I’m talking economically.

Granted, I don’t hear as well as I did in my younger days, but I swear it’s getting more difficult for me to understand people who have thick accents in their speech. And by thick accents, I really mean people who were raised somewhere other than the Ozark hills.

A familiar name is buzzing around the Ozarks Farm & Neighbor world and I must say it seems I have some pretty big shoes to fill if I'm going to live up to the "Lynzee/Lindsay" name. I've experienced every emotion known to man in my first few days here but mostly I am just flat out excited to be joining the OFN world. I already feel right at home here – maybe because everyone has welcomed me with arms wide open or perhaps it's due to the cattle across the road that I can see from my desk – either way I think I'm going to like it here.

Early August is the time of year for class reunions. My wife, Pat, went to school in Huntsville, Ark. When I came to Arkansas in 1960, I taught school in Madison County. I taught my wife’s younger sister, Rita, who was in my biology class. She always took credit, or the blame, for getting Pat and I together.

About a month before I turned out my bulls with the cows this past spring, one of the older ones came up lame. When I ran him through the chute to check on his problem, I realized his lameness was irreversible and proceeded to take him to the nearest livestock auction. This put me in a bind, being one bull short just a mere two weeks before turn-out time. Most of the better bulls of breeding age were gone by this time so I made some calls.

A familiar name is buzzing around the Ozarks Farm & Neighbor world and I must say it seems I have some pretty big shoes to fill if I'm going to live up to the "Lynzee/Lindsay" name. I've experienced every emotion known to man in my first few days here but mostly I am just flat out excited to be joining the OFN world. I already feel right at home here- maybe because everyone has welcomed me with arms wide open or perhaps it's due to the cattle across the road that I can see from my desk – either way I think I'm going to like it here.

About a month before I turned out my bulls with the cows this past spring, one of the older ones came up lame. When I ran him through the chute to check on his problem, I realized his lameness was irreversible and proceeded to take him to the nearest livestock auction. This put me in a bind, being one bull short just a mere two weeks before turn-out time. Most of the better bulls of breeding age were gone by this time so I made some calls.

We all reach that point in our life when we look back and recall what made us – us. I’ve done a lot of soul searching recently after turning 30 years old. I thought that number was so far away, but somehow it snuck up on me. And, as I evaluate my life at 30 I’ve come to realize a few things…

The western writers of the America Annual Conference were in Bismarck, S.D., this past June. I was hoping to sneak off and fish for some walleye, but that never happened. Days before I left, I was on the phone talking about road conditions with a nice lady in Missouri’s road department. “You better take I-35 E to Des Moines,” she warned. “The rest of the country is flooded.”

The first time my wife ever set foot on a working farm was when we first started dating. Needless to say, she has learned a lot about farming in the first 28 years of our marriage. I guess I have too, but it sure hurts an old country boy’s pride when a city girl does the teaching.