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!
The year of the dumpster fire. Thanks for starting your week with me right here on Ranch Raised.
The Chinese calendar gives namesake to every year. 2026 they have given the “Year of the Horse”. If I had the power to bestow a name to 2026 I would call it the “Year of the Dumpster Fire.”
2026 has not been kind in these parts. Canals that provide crop sustaining water will not be filled. Fires continue to rage in Northwest Nebraska. Across the western half of our state livelihoods have been threatened and some will not survive. Lives have been changed and some will never be the same. I really can not put it into words the gravity of these situations. But when you see the faces of these men and women who are living this reality, you know. They don’t have to say a thing. The stress permeates off of them.
Our operations has been spared from fires but we are not immune to this gripping drought. I just drove across a meadow yesterday that I don’t think we could make a windrow on with a lawnmower. When you are in these situations the stress, the scenarios, the questions, they never leave your mind. The mind can be a battlefield that is a dangerous place. When you can feel that stress quietly boiling up inside of you or even roaring, you have got to get it off your chest and share it. When stress is high in ag country, the war against mental health rages and that is the field that needs nurtured and watered the most! Talk to a neighbor. Call a friend you haven’t talked to in a long time. Call a family meeting. Burdens get too heavy and no one’s shoulders can bear the weight of it all.
karina@youragnetwork.com or visit facebook.com/ranchraisedwithkarinajones
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