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!
Welcome to “Psycho Spring” here on Ranch Raised! It is the farm and ranch season of life where we need 40 hours in a day and 10 days in a week to get everything done!
To be honest, I have a certain dread about spring every year. Infact, it maybe anxiety developing in my older age. I admit my mind races a bit every night wondering how we will get all the things done. So many miles of fence to get around. So many brandings to get to, including our own, then there is AIing and getting pairs to grass. My heart is beating faster just talking about it.
Forget the fact that we have kids to feed, bathe, and keep alive, a garden to plant, sourdough starter to feed, laundry and housework. Personally, I have always found spring to be our hardest season. We have an immeasurable workload and with every year it seems like the financial pressures of farming and ranching really mount at this same time.
It sounds so good in theory to give ourselves the mental pep talk that it will all get done. It will all work itself out. This is just a chapter or a page in the big book of life. But I truly get it. Sometimes it is hard to believe those words.
So, I guess today, I’m just giving life to what so many of us in rural America are feeling, in this season because I feel it too. It never gets any easier, even though some timely rains do help our mental well-being.
I salute all of the farmers and ranchers busting their biscuits this spring to feed this nation! I know the heavy burden we all carry!
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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
