Waste Not Want Not?

Common Sense? I'm wondering if that term will soon be erased from our vocabulary. My eldest son just called and was sharing his thoughts on a trip to eastern Kansas he had taken with his granddad. They went to ship cattle. Have you heard of the Wild Horse Program? It's a very lucrative business. The government pays a land owner so much a head a day to run a wild horse for the duration of its life. Thanks to animal nurturing groups like the HSUS (Humane Society of the U.S.) laws were passed to stop horse slaughter. Animal activists won. Sadly the horses lost. Nature's perfect balance of supply and demand had, for years, kept old horses slaughtered and young horses utilized. Results of their supply and demand tampering: a horse market crash. Today you can barely give one away. For the past few years horse owners have been leaving their horses at sale barns, in ditches, in other people's yards and pastures, turning them out on Bureau of Land Management Land with no water etc. Emaciated horses have become a common sight around the country. Horse owners simply can't afford to feed them. Today my son witnessed absurdety. On one side of a country road tall, green lush grass a head tall covered a large pasture. That land belonged to the U.S. government. On the other side of the road a large track of privately owned land with around a thousand wild horses grazing on it. The government pays the owners of that land a daily fee to run a horse; an average of around $29,000.00/head/life of each horse. Go figure... someone better because the government isn't. And they want to manage our health care system and auto industry...and lives!

Mama Mia...Make Me Over

Most of my life is spent in blue jeans, overalls, or running shorts and tennis shoes. I know, I should try to work a decent wardrobe into my daily routine here on the ranch, but it never fails that when I go to exceptional lengths to look nice, I end up having to drag around in a dirty pickup, drive a tractor, chase a horse or cow or whatever. It just doesn't work. So I'm definitely not a clothes horse. I never know exactly what to wear when I have to go to a special function with people from the outside world. I've had a terrible bone spur on my heel and yesterday bought some of those rocking orthopedic old people's shoes...in white. I didn't care. At least maybe my foot wouldn't hurt. Today when I left for OKC to attend the MBA class I still didn't care what I looked like, my foot hurt so bad. I wore the white orthopedic old people's shoes that rock and some blue jeans and a T-shirt. I forgot it was Commencement for the MBA program...until I saw everyone else in nice slacks, suits, etc. To make matters worse we had to get up in front of everyone in attendance...mostly professionals, and be interviewed by another professional... while being filmed. Humiliation doesn't describe it. It wasn't until I got up to be interviewed that I became accutely aware of my lack of taste in clothing. I suddenly felt like Elly May and Granny Clampett, mixed with Daisy Duke and Ma Kettle. To top it off my knees started shaking which accelerated the rocking motion of my white orthopedic old people's shoes. Answers to the questions the interviewer asked in front of the pained crowd seemed as difficult for me to decipher as a calculus problem. All I could concentrate on was not getting sea sick in my shoes. The poor interviewer was as pained as I was.
Afterwards, I went to the mall and wondered around. I'm just not a shopper but decided it wouldn't hurt to look. As I passed a very nice clothing store I stopped to take a look at the $9 shirts they had on a sale rack...my kind of price. As I stepped inside, the owner, a small dark lady with an Italian accent began telling me that I needed a makeover. "Do's jeeeens must go, dey have been out of style fo yeers... and oh my "de hair neeeeds cut." Talk about adding insult to injury. Well, I stayed and let her make me over. I won't tell you what that cost. More than the white rocking orthopedic old people's shoes.

Summer Time and the Living is easy??!!...NOT.

Wow, a lot has happened in a month. The fire situation is still a priority, but we are almost finished moving the cattle around to new homes. I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about the FSA, NRCS, EMS, OSBI, OSFMA and didn't know there were so many ways you could figure a grass lease. It has been an unusual learning experience. I will say it again...God has a plan.

We lost a great friend this month. A.J. Smith, editor of the Oklahoma Cowman passed away at the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Convention. He was a very special person that will be missed by so many.

I just returned home from OKC. A group of us finished up the Master's of Beef Advocacy Program sponsored by the National Cattlemen's Association/Cattlemen's Beef Board. It's a great program focused on promoting the beef industry via the media.

He's Answering Prayers

Back from the fires again. They were billowing again, but not nearly as bad. I contacted the Emergency Management Director today to see if there was anything being done about assistance for those who lost grass, cattle, etc. He was exasperated and said that more less the Federal Government is denying any help for rural disasters. He said he had been taking up donations for some of the county firefighters that were running short of supplies. He said it was just ridiculous what has happened since the new administration has taken over. He asked me to spearhead an effort to gather information on all those that had losses. There were around 40 landowners and nearly 60,000 acres destroyed so far. Cattle losses aren't as bad as you'd think, but I'm not finished gathering info either. The bright side...I got to meet or talk to all of my neighbors in the Valley! That was kind of neat. There will be a silver lining in all of this, it may be years, but I know God has a plan! We found grass in eastern Oklahoma!

And The Walls Came Tumbling Down

Today I noticed two headlines side by side: Green Jobs On Increase According to White House, and Studies Show Swearing Is Healthy, Less Stress. Those headlines made me cringe. What emptiness we've created.
Green jobs will probably increase in the coming years. I wish someone could please explain just how those jobs will be substantiated. How can green jobs be created while the fundamental cogs of our nations gears are being left to rust...Agriculture and Small Businesses? Swearing might feel good when you let an expletive rip, but what did it ultimately gain?
The Bible tells about the wise man who built his house upon solid rock and the foolish man who built his on sand. The house built on solid rock stood firm. Today's liberal society has cleverly lured us onto shifting sand and many Americans have blindly built their homes there, unaware of the consequences. Satan is the great deceiver and an old hand at enticement.
How can a nation so deceived carry on much longer? A nation whose president refuses to acknowledge God; removing religious symbols from sight when delivering hollow speeches, upholding Muslims while denying America's Christianity, ignoring and even disdaining what created America.
The Bible is clear. They will not stand.

Got Grass?

Just got back from the fires. We hauled hay and feed blocks to the cattle we've gathered, and are holding in safe places, until we can get them to grass. We are looking for grass for around 350+ head. If you know of any please send me an email. Just watched the news and they reported that the fire could go on for days. Now I know what the people in California feel like each summer.

Burning Cheyenne Valley

What a week. On Friday a spark started from a transformer caught a pasture on fire one mile north of Chester. That fire ended up destroying thousands of acres of land...including the Cheyenne Valley Ranch which lays about 15 miles north of Chester. We were blessed though. We got most of our cows out. There are some cows still bawling, we may have lost their calves...we'll know more tomorrow or the next day. The old ranch house we had remodeled was not damaged. The fire came right up to it. Three firetrucks were there to stop it. Firefighters from all over Oklahoma are still out there as the fire was still moving north, or it was last night It has probably crossed 412 which is between Orienta and Bouse Junction south of Waynoka. If it did they said it would be extremely hard to contain as there are no access roads, just large pastures.
Friday went like this: I went outside to go to the office and looked north, I noticed smoke and worried about my brother who was bulldozing north of our house. I called him and he was O.K. Our son-in-law Matt that moved home from D.C. is now a volunteer firefighter in Dewey County. He got word that the fire was at Chester. He and Brad went on to check it out and Newley and my two oldest grandsons and I stayed behind to watch some cattle sell on Superior Livestock auction that we were wanting to purchase...good thing we didn't get them! After the sale we looked out north, it looked like an atomic explosion. We jumped in the pickup and headed out. By the time we got out there it had gotten to the ranch and had burned everything in its path as the humidity was low and south winds were blowing pretty hard. We drive up and Brad and Matt are on top of a hill that overlooks the ranch and the cemetary where Brad's family are buried, they watched as flames engulfed everything ... the cemetary, grass, fences, cedar trees (which is a blessing in disquise.) I cry and Brad says, "it will all be O.K., the Lord is in control." Brad was being very cautious about sending anyone out to get the cattle. About 30 years ago he had been in a tractor that stalled in a bad fire at our Corwin ranch, he knew what it felt like to be trapped and did not want to put anyone in danger...however when Newley saw the enormity of the fire he transformed into Mighty Mouse and got in the middle of it all. He jumped into the feedtruck with Nick our hired man and headed out to try and call the cows out of the pastures. I got Trystin and Brock together and we had a prayer for them and I started driving back south away from the fire. About that time Newley calls and tells me to come back, "Take the white rock road north and help us move these cattle out." He couldn't get ahold of Brad...his cell phone is dead. To the west I see flames shooting and the smoke is terrible. I hurriedly turn back around and as I travel north I approach an intersection where there is a congregation of parked vehicles, one being a sherrif's pickup. I tell the boys to get out and get in with the sherrif. As they get out Trystin questions my decision and says, "What if they won't keep us?" I say, "JUST GET OUT AND GET IN ONE OF THOSE VEHICLES." and I drive away into the smoke. In a minute I see flashing lights and the sherrif on my tail...He stops me (in the middle of nowhere!) and tells me he has an emergency on his hands and he can't watch those boys. OH REALLY??!!!! I tell him I know there's an emergency and explain that we are trying to get our cattle out of that pasture and my son needs my help. I drive off to help Newley. The boys were safe. The other vehicles had neighbors that I knew in them. Anyway we didn't go to bed all Friday night, gathered more cattle on Saturday and helped neighbors gather theirs. Morey said there probably hasn't been this much excitement in Cheyenne Valley since the Landrun. Last night we got to come home and clean up. I've never been so glad to get a bath! Just got off the phone, and the fire is raging again. Pray for everyone involved.