The Increasing Battles of a Rancher
Some rancher logic includes, “Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction.” Farmers and ranchers are the world’s realists. They don’t need a lot of extravagance or philosophical concepts. In the most sensible of worlds realism and pragmatism live and thrive on a ranch.
I met many ranchers in Montana. It could be a sunny 95° outside, but a true rancher, it seemed, always wore long pants, either Carhartts or jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt. Their feet had to be cooking in full-length cowboy boots. Sundays were for black jeans, a long-sleeved button-down shirt, which is cut in a Western design, and the shiny Sabbath boots were pulled on. Except for Sundays, baseball caps were seen more frequently than cowboy hats.
But Sundays did not mean an absence of work. While many were sleeping the rancher had already been out, in his typical work wear, doing varying tasks which were constantly dictated by the time of the season. In the fall cattle were loaded and headed for market. In the early spring calving was, at times, the most arduous time of the year. Ranching has neither an off-season nor an off-hour.
No sooner were the cattle sold and the operating loan from the bank repaid, when the rancher was seated in front of a bank’s loans officer negotiating his next operating loan that would allow for the ranching enterprise to continue into the upcoming season. Ranchers incessantly battle the elements, the financial institutions and now the climate activists.
The linked article states that Ireland’s government, to meet climate targets, is preparing to reduce that nation’s cattle herd population by some 200,000 head. Further, it has been reported that a $1.6 billion dollar plan has been approved to buy out livestock farmers in the Netherlands - a nation in turmoil because of demonstrations by farmers and ranchers relative to drastic reductions in fossil fuels needed for the production of fertilizers. As well, the story suggests that no bovine herds anywhere, including the United States, are safe from fanatical environmental elitists.
One must also remember that the cattle I speak of are, for the most part, beef cattle, but the same fate is expected to befall the dairy industry.
In my article Getting Kerry’ Away, I write, “Furthermore, Kerry claims in a Reuters article that emissions from agriculture must be severely slashed to avoid worldwide catastrophe. This claim despite the record harvests under elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide. For personal relevance and amplifying self-importance Kerry constantly fabricates his own statistics.” Kerry‘s agricultural mandates include the slaughter of cattle.
Now in Montana, the city-slickers in a law firm situated in progressive Oregon are pitting Montana youth against their own economy. Only one youth of 16 was of age to be named in the suit, thus it is called, “Held vs. the State of Montana”. Written in the linked story on the case is, “Held was brought to the legal table by a meandering path that runs through the heart of her family’s ranch. Held grew up on a 7,000-acre cattle ranch and saw the destruction of the land and her family’s livelihood caused by the changing climate”
Imagine the ignorance and blindness of such a statement. If one truly believes in climate change, and places even a single speck of blame on self and versus the tyrants of nations like China and Russia one is obviously innocent of the truth and blind to reality.
