Welcome to the Friday edition of the HOT BARN REPORT
Heard ONLY on American radio stations across the nation and online at hotbarnreport.com!
Karina Jones, Field Director for R-Calf USA joins us each Friday from her ranch in the heart of Nebraska covering new and important cattle industry news and policy.
Any Alan Jackson fans out there? Welcome to this special Friday edition of Hot Barn Report!
I got piece of mail this week that most wouldn’t have given a second look at. It was a large postcard from the Loup Basin Public Health Department which is our health department that encompasses the 9 north central counties in Nebraska. It was reporting the most recent demographics of our area. 2 stats stuck out the most to me. The average household size is 2.15 persons and the median age of this area is over 48 years old, almost 50.
It sucked me in and for some reason the Alan Jackson song, “Remember When” hit me.
Remember when neighboring towns battled on the football field on Friday nights? Now we have to consolidate athletics with the neighboring school to piece together an 8 man football team and many of us consolidated schools see the 6 man field closer in our future. Well, with an average household size of 2 people and median age of 48 in our area it doesn’t look like young families make up the bulk of my neighborhood.
Remember when dirt hogs were raised by someone on every square section? Now my kids think all hogs are white, except for the colored ones they see at the State Fair, and are raised on concrete in a climate-controlled building. They look at a pork chop in the grocery store and say, “what is that squishy white thing?”
Remember when every family had a milk cow? As I’ve told you my great grandma was partial to her Brown Swiss girls and I’ve been known to have a Jersey in the barn. And if you didn’t have a family cow you went over to the neighbors to dip that milk out of the bulk tank like my husband grew up doing. You didn’t have to pay for it because you pitched in and were their relief milkers when they had to occasionally go out of town. Now, panic grips our society when they have to stand in front of a grocery store cooler empty of that white gold and we pay $6-8 for a pound of butter.
Remember when you would come out of the post office to find a dozen eggs and a zucchini on your car seat during the summer. Eggs were so plentiful in the countryside that anyone with more than a few hens was eager to share. Now, all eggs are white, tasteless, and people in town are paying $6 a dozen at the grocery store for them but they used to raise an eyebrow when the gal outside of town was trying to get $3 a dozen.
It would do a lot of Congress some good to pick up a shovel this week and find a farm or ranch to help scoop out from under this winter storm. To ride around in a tractor feeding cattle would be the best Farm Bill listening session they could invest themselves in. Because in another term they may be faced with ultimate challenge of trying figure out how to feed a hungry nation. We all told them when it comes to the family farmer and rancher, “Remember when…..” But when it is gone, it is gone.
Check out the end of the year action at these Hot Barns: Stockmens livestock, Lemmon livestock, North Platte Stockyards, St. Onge/Newell, Platte Livestock Market, Tri County Stockyards, Torrington Livestock, Creighton Livestock Market, Bassett Livestock Auction, Mobridge Livestock, Ogallala Livestock Auction Market, and Presho Livestock. Catch them all on CattleUSA.com.
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