Karina Jones

We are right in the middle of celebrating National FFA Week here on Ranch Raised. Because I love history, I have enjoyed taking a look back at what molded the sea of blue & gold in to what it is today.

“We need to abandon the cut and dried formula of a period when a man was ‘educated’ only when he knew Greek and Latin.” 1905, Henry Wallace, Editor Wallace’s Farmer. I immediately felt that when I read that quote! 117 years later and I feel like we are coming full circle. There may be no better time than now than to celebrate and fight for ag education and FFA in our school.

Weighing in heavier on most people’s minds today, in the Midwest, is the artic blast that we gonna get hit with. Please make sure that you are prepared with what you need in your vehicle. Bundle those kiddos up before they head to school.

Winter evenings on the ranch are a season that I definitely look forward to. I really feel like the good Lord gives us this season to rest. Or maybe that is just a rancher saying I know how insane the month of May is, I’m good not rushing into the next season.

During the week, our kids are pretty pumped to get home, even when they know that the next fews hours will probably be spent working. But, like their parents, they seem to get some sort of weird satisfaction by doing work! Weird, right!

I am going to give a little glimpse into the night life here on the Jones Ranch. You may be inspired. You will probably be bored. Or it may energize you to know that I am in your corner! You can unplug your family and go forth living a full, abundant life without others dictating your every minute.

I will humbly admit that we get a lot of comments about how we are raising our kids. That our life is so different than the mainstream. We are probably considered “old fashioned” and I will admit, that might be our purpose. I wouldn’t say it is my life’s goal to make sure my girls never play video games or are ever exposed to the evils of the world online.

Welcome to this Valentine’s Day edition of Ranch Raised! That little ditty that I wrote popped up on my Facebook memories from 7 years ago. We used to AI our heifer on Mother’s Day weekend so that we didn’t need to make any dinner reservations, in town, on Valentine’s Day, because we knew we would be spending the evening next to the ones we loved in the calving barn. Ahhh, how romantic, right?

Although popcorn is typically thought of as a snack food today, popcorn was once a popular breakfast food. Ahead of its time and very likely a role model for breakfast cereals to come, popcorn was eaten just as we eat cereal today.

Farmers and ranchers only make up around 5% of America’s population. Unfortunately, that is a population that also keeps shrinking. There is an old saying, “When the cows leave the land, the people leave the land.” I don’t want to lose any more neighbors. I don’t want to erode any more of our most precious resource, our young people who leave rural America and don’t come back.