Karina Jones is a real-life ranch wife in the Nebraska Sandhills and one of the most highly sought-after speakers in the cattle industry nationwide!
It’s mid week and to be honest we are hanging on by a thread! Thanks for stopping in to Ranch Raised.
I can feel the tension in the air. I can see the pressure in every farmer and rancher’s eyes, and I am not necessarily talking about the barometer. Fall is a challenging season. Some have this romantic vision of farmer’s collecting their year’s bounty and rancher’s driving their herds home through picturesque landscapes. Well, that is all just a little too “Yellowstone” if you know what I mean. In the real world of farming and ranching, fall is stressful, fall is hard.
Fall is counting the stacks of hay praying it will be enough to feed the herd through the winter. Fall is harvesting the crops, trying to dodge the curveballs mother nature and lady luck send your way. Fall is praying for good pregnancy rates but knowing that last winter was hard and the feed pile was short. Fall is putting the pencil to paper stressing if it will all be enough. Enough to satisfy the banker, the gas the man, vet, the feed store, all the places that you sport and keep in business. It is all on your shoulders.
Maybe it is just us, maybe it is just this week? We are pushing to get 4th cutting alfalfa put up before this wintery blast makes it way here. We have pregged open heifers to get to Broken Bow Livestock for their big yearling and calf sale tomorrow. And I can’t forget we have a family with needs too.
So, I salute all the families that in the same trenches that we, fighting the same battles, one day at a time.
Karina ranches with her husband, Marty, and 4 children near Broken Bow, NE. She grew up in western NE, with roots also in southwest SD. The cattle industry and raising kids is her passion.
Watching the cattle industry go the path that it has gone, she could no longer sit quietly at home checking cows, fixing fence, and doing all the everyday tasks wondering when some else was going to make it all better. As she became more active and outspoken on industry issues, she was asked to join the R-CALF USA staff in September 2020 as the Checkoff Petition Campaign manager. That position transcended into her current role as full time Field Director for R-CALF USA.
You can hear her almost every Friday on Your Ag Network’s Hot Barn Report, where she deep dives into cattle industry issues and industry reforms. Listen to Ranch Raised on a Your Ag Network hometown station or www.youragnetwork.com where she talks about her daily life on the Jones Ranch.
Cattle producers are her people. She will meet you at the county fair, at the sale barn, or anywhere the dusty trail leads.
karina@youragnetwork.com or visit facebook.com/ranchraisedwithkarinajones
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