Greetings from north Siberia. We are having a heat wave and it is now hovering around a minus 40 degrees.
I am pleased to announce we have no ground cover of snow, but all the dirt is frozen solid and it is difficult to walk in the lot where the earth was churned by a hundred head of raunchy steers. There is now not one smooth spot. Dressed in layers, I am an experienced puller-offer of clothing as I try to walk across the place to feed and put out flakes of hay.
I may exaggerate some, and then who knows, I may be right about the temp this morning. It sure felt cold to me and I am a tough old feller. I did get the cull steers fed and am happy to report that they all appreciated it. They are going to town in the next week or two, and I hope they all act bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
How in the world do experienced beef producers miss culling steers when they are sorted and sold or saved as keepers? I have not one single excuse except that, as a calf ages, it changes and some defects don't show up early. We have kicked 17 head of culls out of the bunch we intend to send to a feed lot and thought we had severely cut out the less productive ones last fall. This business is a surprise every morning!
The Grands are all concerned about the school's new requirements to teach cursive writing. I am pretty worried about one of the older males. His brain works like greased lightning, his smile is bright and quick, and he walks with a bounce; but his printed penmanship is a code that only he can decipher. He says his fingers are alien to the printed word except on a keyboard. I suspect his parents may have to hire a tutor for his instructions. I'd hate to see him miss graduation due to lack of penmanship ability.
I ate some very good stew last week, ate it for four days. Once we had crackers, then cornbread, then the next meal was served with biscuits and then we started over.
My close relative had that expression on her face like I had better keep all my disparaging thoughts to myself, so I did. Then, as I asked the blessing, I asked the good Lord to prevent the making of a wash tub full of the same recipe in the future. Could have been a mistake on my part!
It is my opinion, and everyone has one, we had a good winter considering everything. We had some real mild weather and nice days up until the middle of February and that was a big blessing.
I have heard lots of moaning and pitiful complaints lately but no one ever remembers that warm week in early January when we are usually in dire need of sunshine.
The best advice I have is to remember and make the best of what we have this week, knowing the rest of March could be bad, too!
Keep your ears warm!
Bill is the pen name of the Gravette-area author of this weekly column. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 03/04/2015