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!
Do any other parents of school age children get to this time of year and feel like you are a hamster just trying to stay on the spinning wheel?!?
The music concerts, the end of year banquets, and all the spring things happening to close out the year. Not to mention the track meets that take up long hours of our most precious days, that I can’t seem to make it to. It can be overwhelming!
The balance between parenting life and ranch or farm life this time of year can be described as walking a tightrope the diameter of dental floss. I know I am always just one hour away from forgetting a kid’s activity or missing the alarm to pull CIDRS on heifers. Then of course for a few short weeks, I have to purposely shut out any thoughts of working in my garden because there just are not enough hours in the day. I guess watering my rhubarb will just have to be considered “gardening” for this short while.
I know I am not in this boat alone and maybe that is why it is good to remind ourselves to extend grace to those around us. Extend grace when your husband comes in the house late for supper, dirty, tired, and with little to say because this time of year requires every ounce of his energy outside. Extend grace to the kids who are a little rowdy, wanting to stay outside a little later in lieu of bathing. They just have spring fever and there is just so much to explore.
I salute the generations before us who have weathered these challenges and I salute my fellow parenting peers who are in the thick of chaos. One day at a time, my friends, 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 former 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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