Karina Jones

More trucks rolled in yesterday. The pairs that we had sent north for the summer returned to our home place. Maybe it’s just me but I swear as those trucks round the corner a mile from my yard, I can hear the ole girls belting out a little Ozzy, “Momma, Momma I’m coming home!”

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!

Speaking of new… We have had an extreme corral makeover project going on the last few weeks, replacing the rickety wood posts and rotting fence from our working facilities that are under the most pressure when processing calves. It was beyond time.

Do we have any Yellowstone fans listening? Before I go further, I will admit, I’m not like a super-hot fan girl. I have my own cowboy and live this life every day, in a way less romantic, more wind and dirt kind of way, but I do like analyzing the hype.

If you want to teach the virtues of humility, courage, and independent thinking to a child, have them compete in a dirt arena.

I can think of no better place to teach compassion, responsibility and joy than in a barn! It is no secret that our girls love to be in the barn! From goat kidding to calving season, they love experiencing the new life that is bursting at the seams!

Those kids don’t know it, but every one of them grew personally that day. They gutted it out and learned perseverance. That experience made them into better livestock judgers, competitors and better humans!

Let’s just kick off the week with a full-on confession, a bearing of my soul, if you will. I am the parent who unapologetically allows, errrrr, scratch that, encourages my kids to miss school to take advantage of other learning opportunities outside of the classroom.

Our big girls are showing cattle this weekend in Kearney, NE which is not too far from home. Competing in that arena is only a small part of the experience. I have told you that I am a student of life. I look at any situation as a classroom.

A few years ago, it became very apparent to my husband and I that if the next generation wants any possibility at being able to come back to the family farm and ranch, we have to make some systematic changes today in order to ward off the threat of vertically integrating the cattle industry like what has been done in chicken and hogs.