On to 2022

The wind chill tomorrow is supposed to push temperatures to a minus 21. Mark said I would need to put on every piece of winter clothing I had. He doesn’t know I’ve already been doing that. There’s only so much you can put on and still move.

The cattle are on full feed now from the haystack. I enjoy feeding my one load of hay each day with Mark driving. We go to the young cows who are expecting their first or second calf. They gather to greet us every morning. I’ve been doing this for a lot of years and we’ve found ways to make it doable for a gal my age. The best thing was trading a COLD feed truck with no heater and the road visible through the floor boards, for a heated pickup pulling a flat bed trailer. I get the best bales, not those that have been on top of the stack and have frozen strings (thank you Jesse and Milee for taking the frozen bales to the main cow herd). Mark has learned his lesson and loads the bales with room around them so I can get my body behind the slices and save my back. He opens and shuts all the gates. And best of all, when it’s really cold (like tomorrow) he’ll put his gloves on the heater and swap mine out midway through the load. Ahhhhhh. I call it social justice for ranchers.

We had a nice holiday mostly sitting around being entertained by the babies. Since the parties ended, we’ve been looking at finances at night and in the morning before the sun comes up. High hay costs make us sharpen our pencil and then sharpen it again. I told Mark if we hadn’t watched our balance sheet over the years, I’d have never made it on the ranch. A business like this is short on cash, so keeping track of a growing cow herd, and counting calves in the feedlot and hay in the stackyard as assets, make me know we continue to be solvent. We have money borrowed at the bank to finance these future sales and that’s just how it works. Get used to it.

It keeps snowing, every day since the 23^rd of December. We need it so I’m not complaining. Besides, we have tractors that can blow and pile snow. We have beef in the freezer and wood for the stove. We’ll be fine. Many folks are not fairing so well, so we feel blessed. 

We regret the current headlines claiming that beef leads the way in an escalating grocery bill. We want our product to be affordable to everyone. Beef is nutrient dense and still a good value for the dollar if you compare it to many processed foods like breakfast cereal. Even vegetables can’t compare with the complete nutritional profile of beef. Look for economical roasts to put with root vegetables in the crock pot, and ground beef to add to soups and other winter-ready meals. And please remember we ranchers aren’t getting rich, just paying the bills with enough left over to cover living expenses. We’ll do our part to keep costs down if you all keep eating beef!  

 

little Freya with Grandpa
feeding the herd