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Hello, It’s been quite awhile since I’ve let you know how Shirley and I are doing. We are both healthy and hope that you are too. In fact, I’m so healthy it is bordering on obese, but that’s another story. I’ve often told you how Shirley cleans up real well, but most days, especially this time of year, I prefer to see her dressed in a stocking cap, Carhart coveralls, Handy Andy gloves, and mud boots. Because we are feeding cows and calves. Last week we had a deal happen that I just had to let you know about. You see, we are feeding cows south o...
Hello, I’ll start this week by wishing all of you a Merry Christmas. And probably a Happy New Year! Twas two nights before Christmas as I write this. It is with some regret, and also some relief, that I am letting you know that I am going to retire from writing my weekly column. No, it’s not something you did. It’s just that I don’t do as much as I used to and I don’t want to have to make anything up or exaggerate anything. That is how I roll. Well, maybe a little. I started writing a weekly column for the McKenzie County Farmer and the Dunn...
Hello, Maybe you noticed that I didn’t get a column in last week. I apologize. It’s not my fault. Well, in a way it is. You see, I was in Las Vegas. Sin City. The city that never sleeps. Or is that New York? I get mixed up. Two things you will never find in Las Vegas are clocks and business centers in a motel. I’m not real tech savvy. I know you find that hard to believe, but it is true. I can’t sit down with an iPad or my phone, take a fat finger, tap out a column and send a message out to the newspapers. I have to sit down in a comfort...
Hello, December is a tough month for me. My notes are due at the bank. My calves are just weaning and usually I have to doctor a few that catch a cold after weaning. The snow is starting to accumulate and I have to dig through the drifts to find stuff I left to pick up tomorrow. I start to count my hay bales and see how many I can feed a day and still make it to May. And, this is the kicker; Shirley’s birthday is next week. You know by now that I am not much of a shopper. If they had a liquor store at Runnings or Tractor Supply, I could p...
Hello, Shirley says to, “Tell everyone Happy Thanksgiving!” So there, that is from both of us. I hope you had a great day, or several days with family and friends. The diet after Thanksgiving begins now. Many of my friends from years ago remember the years I served in the State Senate. I did a ten-year sentence during the eighties and early nineties. During my time, I never saw a gaming bill that I didn’t like. Maybe it was because agriculture is such a gamble anyway, that to risk a few dollars on the turn of a card or a roll of the dice is mu...
Hello, Well, the storm that was forecast for opening day of deer season wasn’t as bad as was anticipated. Although in many parts of North Dakota, it was wet enough that the trails a farmer or rancher has to drive on all winter, are full of ruts and hunters are going to be cussed for a long time. And judging by the pictures posted on social media, a lot of big bucks were harvested. It doesn’t always take a big buck to make a successful hunt. I recall a day back in the eighties when we had a house full of deer hunters snowed in for several days....
Hello, Over the years you hear lots of stories. Stories of jokes that guys have played on one another. I’ve written about them in the past. About Johnny putting the dead calf in Clarence’s pasture. And Clarence buying a pail calf and then unable to find the mother of the dead calf. I’ve written of the night they hauled Terry’s bulls home, and then returned his pickup to where it was parked behind the Buckskin, and left the endgate open. But I don’t think I ever told you the pig story. Oh, I know I’ve told the tale of my experience, or rather S...
Hello, I’m not a real good fencer. You can ask my neighbors. But yesterday I was forced to build a quarter mile of four barbed-wire fence. It happened because on Saturday evening, I was rudely taken from a pinochle game to get cattle off the road. And Shirley wasn’t home to get them in. So yesterday morning, we went to fencing. We being Shirley and I. There is nothing more attractive to me than a woman wearing Carhartt Overalls, a Scotch cap, and leather gloves, with a fencing plier in her hand. Gorgeous. I mean it’s not Victoria’s Secret,...
Hello, You know there is a saying I often heard about cowboys. “Everyone wants to be a cowboy, until they have to do cowboy ….” You can fill in the blanks. The editor doesn’t let me say it. I guess that was never truer than a deal last week. My make believe friend Shannon and I were at the local livestock sale. You know Shannon. He’s the guy I partnered on the dollar bull with. He’s the guy that, when we partnered on a couple bulls, we played poker for the best bull. I won and then when we were branding his, it kicked him in the belly and t...
Hello, This is the time of the year that I miss Pat. Pat O’Brien. He passed away several years ago after a lifetime in the cattle industry. I knew him mostly as an auctioneer. You have to understand that this is the time of the year that most ranchers are marketing their calf crop. It is a time that you have actually been laying plans for, for more than a year. It started when you were selecting replacement heifers a few years ago and buying a battery of bulls that you hoped would improve your herd. And for most of us, it ends when you are s...
Hello, We were lucky. Real lucky. I’m sure you have seen the stories and pictures of last week's snow storm in North Dakota. For an October storm, it was a doozy. Up to two or three feet of snow and strong winds. But we missed it here in the west. I guess by about fifty miles. Two days before the storm, we decided to bring cows home from a pasture we had rented over in Kidder county. A hundred and sixty miles east of here. I know, I know, you say I must be crazy. Don’t tell me. Shirley has made that abundantly clear. Thanks to a friend, I was a...
Hello, You can read lots of economic forecasts. And many of them tell of an impending recession. I suppose you can put the blame wherever you want, but it seems we have recessions every ten years or so. It happens. I don’t need to read of an oncoming recession. If you are in agriculture, the recession has been here for years. Maybe it is a depression. I guess it is a fine line. But the easiest way for me to forecast the economy it is how I deal with many purchases. Sometimes we revert to one of the oldest, truest forms of capitalism. The b...
Hello, Every once in awhile I run across something that makes me smile. Actually, I run across a lot of stuff that makes me smile. And smiling is good for one’s soul. A weasel walks into a bar. The bartender had never served a weasel before, and he says as much. “I’ve never served a weasel before,” the bartender says to the waiting weasel. “What would you like?” “Pop,” goes the weasel. Admit it. It made you smile. And there was this. But if you don’t live in an area where many Ukrainians settled, you may not get it. This Ukrainian gentlem...
Hello, Shirley has been happily married for well over forty years. I know a lot of you realize that she is a lucky woman, but I have to remind her once in awhile. We started producing rodeos the day after our wedding. And we produced rodeos for many years. Amateur, high school, college rodeos, and lots of jackpots. But all things must come to an end. So a number of years ago, we decided to hang it up. We had lost all the money we could. But we had to keep a few of the best old mares around. Then we bought a bucking stud and went into raising a...
Hello, Did I ever tell you about my military career? If I did, I’m sorry, because you are going to hear about it again. You see, I was in the Guard. The National Guard. A long, long time ago. Back in the day. As cowboys say, “Back when the chutes were wood, and the men were steel.” Bob was, and is, a close friend of mine. Since we were both farm and ranch guys, we often partook in events following drill that made us a bit slow in the morning. I apologize, but it happens. One Sunday morning we were a bit tardy for roll call. Not bad mind you, bu...
Hello, Do you remember when that elderly lady from Grand Forks that became an international star because she wrote columns about restaurants? She was a wonderful writer and a delight to listen to. I’ve always enjoyed eating. You know that. And to me, there is no meal that is complete without meat. Usually beef. But sometimes I’ll eat a pig or a chicken. Drummies are good at happy hour. Bacon is for breakfast. But most of the time, it’s beef. In southwest North Dakota, there are not a lot of steakhouses. You can visit the Crossing in Dicki...
Hello, It’s September. September mind you. You put up hay in June and July. Not September. In September, if you farm, you combine. If you ranch, you give calves fall shots. You clean your pens out. You weld up broken gates and line up feed bunks. You pull your bulls from the pasture and practice swearing at them. You don’t hay. Not normally. I’m not a religious person. Oh, I was an alter boy for a lot of years when I was a kid. I still maintain that if it hadn’t been for Schlitz beer and girls, I may have gone into the priesthood, but that’s...
Hello, I'm not sure how this will go. I'm writing on a borrowed computer and sitting on a box. So if somewhere in the middle of this article, I drift off and don't get it finished, so be it. I'm not very techy. If that is even a word. I never was a real techy guy. When I was much, much younger my friends were a lot handier than I. They would talk about car stuff. They would talk about 4 barrels and dual exhaust. They would talk rpm and gear ratios. I could drive a 4 speed pickup or a 2 ton truck with a load of grain. And I wasn't real good at...
Hello, If you’ve been reading my column over the years, you know how I appreciate county fairs. Not the big State Fairs. The little county fairs where you can see who in the neighborhood has the nicest garden, the best welder, the coolest photographs, and which 4-H club has put in the most work. The two county fairs I still love to attend are the Harding County Fair in Camp Crook, SD., and the Slope County Fair in Amidon, ND. We attended the Harding County Fair this past weekend. And I have to brag a little. Our grandkids dominated the hog d...
Hello, You can feel Fall is in the air. Oh, I know we’ve had some hot days. And the summer thundershowers have been rolling through the Dakotas at a pretty steady pace. But the nights have been cool and we had one morning in the forties this past week. It will get hot again, but you can see fall is getting close. Now, with fall getting close, you have kids getting ready for school. I think football was invented to make young boys more anxious to go back to school. Especially if you live in Harding County, South Dakota. The Ranchers take t...
Hello, I don’t often make mistakes. Well, actually I do. I’ve been making mistakes for seventy years. Some grievous, some not so bad. I made a mistake a week ago. I figured I was done haying. I’ve been haying for several weeks. I put some hay up too wet. I put some hay up too dry. In between I baled up a few bales that were probably just right. I don’t know which ones they were, but I’ll bet the cows eat every bale I feed next winter. They aren’t fussy when it is twenty below and a brisk wind blowing. I mentioned to a friend one time that I...
Hello, Well, after the fiasco at the airport we did make it to Alaska. Flew into Juneau, then on a floatplane to the fishing lodge. Missed most of the days fishing, but dang sure caught enough fish to get us excited about the next four days! Now, you know I don’t care to travel much. Medora is thirty miles and I hate to venture that far. Reva is 105 miles and that really tests me. I used to be a hotshot driver you know. But the trip to Alaska was a once in a lifetime, at least at my age, trip with my son, three grandsons, a nephew and his s...
Hello, You know I don’t fly a lot. I used to. Once in awhile to a legislative deal, or on an annual vacation. But I don’t really get excited about amassing airline miles on my credit card. Because when you get a lot of miles, you are tempted to use them on an airline ticket. But a week ago, I went. I saw. I conquered. Never mind, different story. A week ago, I had the opportunity to spend five days fishing with three of my grandsons and one of their cousins in Alaska. I couldn’t pass this opportunity up. To get to Alaska, unless you have an aw...
Hello, I’ve got a friend that’s a heck of a good cowboy. He can pick up a rodeo, calve a bunch of heifers, get his hay put up, and put a good handle on a broncy colt. When he was younger he followed the big rodeo and also rode bucking bulls. He raised a couple of great young men and is raising some wonderful grandkids. We ran cattle together on Fort Berthold for a few years. Now I’m old and fat and scared of horses, so he did most of the work. I just kind of tagged along. He had a saying I heard an awful lot. You could be riding along in blist...
Hello, I know many of you will find this hard to believe, but once upon a time, far, far away, I was a jockey. Really! A real jockey. Now that was not only many years ago, it was many pounds ago. Many, many pounds. The reason I am bringing this up is I want you to be aware that horse racing is alive and well in North Dakota. Belcourt just finished their race meet, and the next two weekends the horses will be running at the North Dakota Horse Park in Fargo. Now, I didn’t set out in life with a goal to be a jockey. But when I was young, I was t...
