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!
Happy Thursday and thanks for tuning in to Ranch Raised! I have some sage words of wisdom today that might be mildly sarcastic, or heavily.
If you enjoy brisk evenings under the stars with your spouse, questioning every decision you have ever made in your life, while pushing your physical being past the point of exhaustion and dragging your kids through this experience with you, then I highly recommend calving heifers and kidding goats at the same time. Infact, if you want to ensure that you and your husband will be working side by side 27 hours of the day ushering in, I meaning pulling new life to the surface, I even have a so-called heifer bull I can recommend.
Oy Vey, what a week! Our heifers started calving over 3 weeks before their AI due date. And it quickly became apparent that one of the three AI sires that we used on our heifers was a HUGE mistake. Believe me, I am using that pun as intended.
Luckily our girls are now home for spring break, which actually resembles more of a prison work camp scenario. We have hit our March kidding cycle, which I did not expect to be so robust, but here we are with over 15 new kids in the three last days and more heavy does filling the barn. Our girls can pretty much handle all barn duties on their own. I may not let them return to school next week.
I have plenty of coffee, but I am dangerously low on chocolate, so I will need to have the warden pardon me for a quick trip to town to refill the ranch supplies.
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Karina ranches with her husband, Marty, and 3 daughters 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 that is broadcast on 60 radio stations with coverage in 9 states, where she deep dives into cattle industry issues and highlights R-CALF’s work on 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 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
