Editorial / Opinions

I’ve spent some time close to the earth in the past few weeks. From sewing grass seed, to picking blueberries, to mulching the family garden with old hay, I’ve been sunburned, tick-bitten and hot and sweaty. My mom and I weeded the potato patch a few Fridays back, and as the sun beat down on us, and sweat ran down our faces, she reminded me that sometimes you have to really spend time in the sun to appreciate the shade.

Some years back, while reading of one of the west’s reputation ranches, I spotted a picture of the ranch manager. The eyes, I am told are a direct extension of the brain; the closest one can come to determining what goes on in the mind is by studying the eyes.

When I grow up, I want to be a weatherman. What else, besides being an economist, can you be wrong more than 50 percent of the time and still keep your good-paying job?

It was one of those evenings when you really want to just sit down in front of the computer or the TV and let the evening slip quickly away. Instead, I let Ryan coax me out of his house to go for a walk. On a place he rents, a wet-weather spring had sprung, and I was a little intrigued to see this phenomenon myself.

The normal thing for me to do on the Sunday morning after the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation Conference, held in Oklahoma City, is to fly to Washington D.C. There I join my fellow directors in the nationwide rural electric coops talking to our congressmen and senators about how things are going at home. I know, I know, there’s plenty of sentiment about D.C. in the rank and file folks back in Arkansas and Oklahoma. But here you can’t let party lines or other things derail you. 

I come from a long line of “horse traders.” That’s the term my father always used to describe someone who was very astute at making good deals – and he was among the best I’ve ever seen.  Shrewdly, he could have more fun out of making a good deal on a truck, or tractor, or a bottle calf purchase than normal people could have on an exotic vacation or a day at the ballpark. For so many years, he was afraid he had not passed on that trait to his only son.

It was one of those evenings when you really want to just sit down in front of the computer or the TV and let the evening slip quickly away. Instead, I let Ryan coax me out of his house to go for a walk. On a place he rents a wet-weather spring had sprung, and I was a little intrigued to see this phenomenon myself.

What makes a cowman?

I come from a long line of “horse traders.” That’s the term my father always used to describe someone who was very astute at making good deals – and he was among the best I’ve ever seen. Shrewdly, he could have more fun out of making a good deal on a truck, or tractor, or a bottle calf purchase than normal people could have on an exotic vacation or a day at the ballpark. For so many years, he was afraid he had not passed on that trait to his only son.

I think you know that we here at Ozarks Farm & Neighbor stand with the farmer when it comes to politics and policies that threaten our shared way of life. The Humane Society of the United States has tried to gain a stronghold in Arkansas and Oklahoma through ballot measures in the past. In Missouri the HSUS is starting its first ballot initiative this year. We want to keep you informed and attuned to these important happenings, because as you know, every success the HSUS gets, the greater the threat is to our way of life as livestock producers. Make no mistake; the HSUS is not just about saving puppies and kittens from abuse. They want to end production agriculture as we know it, crippling the American farmer so we can no longer feed our own countrymen and women. We can’t bury our head in the sand. We as producers must continually be willing to fight back.