What is “broke”

Well the other my my wife and I had gone back to South Dakota to visit some relatives and we got to discussing horses as we are prone to do in our family and the subject of “broke” came up.  Now I am not referring to the condition that most cowboys encounter when they leave the bar by any means but I am referring to what does broke really mean when it comes to a horse.  In my opinion, the term broke has been thrown around so nonchalantly that it’s meaning has been misconstrued greatly.  I will give you an example, a long time ago I was working for a rather infamous horse trader in the Midwest and what he called broke was any horse that you could crawl up on and ride bareback with a halter on his head.  OK, now to me, that is all good and well but that does not mean a horse is “broke”.  In my opinion it means he is GENTLE and nothing more.  Now in regard to the conversation that occurred at my relatives house recently, the term broke was being used in a lot of different ways and it was mentioned that “there is different types of broke” which is a statement that I vehemently disagreed with.  To me a horse isn’t broke until he is soft and responsive in the mouth as well as the body no matter what discipline that horse is involved in be it dressage or barrel racing.  Now one thing I hear from many people is this “Well for what I do (i.e. barrel race or whatever it is) I can’t have a horse that broke” which is another way of saying that that person can’t truly ride a broke horse.  Example, Sherry Cervi’s horses are much better broke than most of those runaway non responsive idiots that we see at the rodeos nowdays.  The reason is she can ride one like that and she is constantly working at getting them softer and more responsive all the times.  I know many girls would probably fall off of Sherry’s horses because they are so responsive.  I have also seen some team ropers who could not ride a stick horse unless they could hang on it’s mouth for balance.  I have also seen some so called cowboys say they have a really broke horse but they can’t get him to turn around in a 40 acre pasture unless they use two hands and pick his nose up.  My point is this, I would like to hear from you guys out there as to what you all consider a truly broke horse and maybe an experience or two about a truly broke horse you rode at one time.  I would like to see if we could come up with a consensus as to what “broke” really is.  So please fire away and let me know what you think.  I look forward to all of your responses.

Chapter 4 in the life of a sailing cowboy.

     Well all I can say is….what a difference a day makes!!!!  Today, Jan 6 we pulled into the Straits of Gibraltar and I saw land!!!  Oh what a joy that was.  I figured that if I fell out of the boat now I would at least know which direction to start swimming.  It was absolutely amazing.  You have to remember that for the last 2+ weeks I have seen nothing but water and blue skies.  I am starting to hate the color blue!  If you want to know what the ocean looks like just imagine Amarillo without any trees or I-40 and color it blue and there you have it.  The captain actually told me that if the weather is right that you can see for 25 miles!  When we pulled into the straits it was like a whole new world.  I saw a whole bunch of other ships coming and going and even saw a school of dolphins playing right by us!  That was way cool for this old cowboy.  I am still trying to figure out a way to rope one of them!!

    So anyway, we pull into this little port town in Spain called Cuerta and all of us on board were hoping we would get there before the shops closed so we could buy something but alas those hopes were dashed when we had to wait for a port pilot for about 3 or 4 hours to come and take the boat into port so we could refuel.  You see in each port, the port authority mandates that only local pilots can pilot the various boats into port as well as out of port until they reach international waters.  Don’t ask me why, that is just the way it is all over the world I was told.  So we are all waiting to get into port and we don’t get in until about 11:00 local time.  No shops obviously.  BUT…being the ever resourceful individual that I am I started talking to one of the local guys at the port and asked him if there was a place he could go to get beer or something like that.  Well apparently my Spanish that I learned on the ranches of south Texas and Arizona  is pretty comparable to the Spanish that they speak in…..Spain!  He understood what I was wanting and jumped in his little car and took off like his head was on fire and his ass was catching.  He comes back about 20 minutes later with….no beer, but he did have 5 bottles of various choices of alcohol refreshment.  He brought a bottle of scotch, two bottles of Spanish wine (for my wife) and two bottles of Smirnoff Vodka.  He asked me what I wanted and I told him “all of it”.  I gave the vodka to the captain and stashed the other bottles in my cabin for safe keeping. We didn’t end up leaving the port until about 2 am but I will say this, it sure was nice to be on dry land again even if it was for a brief period!!  We are still expected to pull into the last port and unload on either late in the day on the 12^th or early 13^th.  I am hoping to be home in time to celebrate the anniversary of our first date on Sunday the 15^th.  Either way if I am or not it will have been an adventure that I never believed possible for someone like me.  I mean really, an old cowboy who has never been on a boat of anything close to this magnitude and sail across the Atlantic to Turkey? Oh well, I guess that this proves that old saying is true, “Never say never”.

Well it is day …

Well it is day 4,327 here on the trip…….not really.  But it feels like it.  We have actually been gone for a week now and the monotony is all but overwhelming.  I guess that can be a good thing actually because the last thing I want on a boat is any kind of excitement!  Like maybe….sinking or something exciting like that.  Yup.  I guess monotony can be a good thing.  One thing is for sure, I didn’t bring near enough DVDs for this trip.  Or books for that matter.

 I guess I could tell you guys about the ship.  It has 5 decks where the cattle can be penned and then the top deck which is open is where they put all of the hay and feed for the trip.  They have a crane looking thing that one of the guys operates and they will put the feed from the very top of the ship to an elevator that will carry it to whatever deck it is needed on.  The vast majority of the cattle are on the bottom 4 decks and I am using the 5^th deck for my hospital pens.  I also am using the 5^th deck to put some cattle from the 3^rd deck that I felt were overcrowded and couldn’t get to feed properly so I loosened them up a bit and took some out to the 5^th deck.  Anyway, I just kinda get up and walk these pens every day and look for problems such as sickness or whatever might stick out and then I try to solve whatever issue arises to the best of my ability.  I rigged up a way to doctor any cattle by simply running them in behind a gate in one of the empty pens on deck 5 and then I tie the gat to the other panel and voila! Instant squeeze chute.  It works ok if you don’t get in hurry and just let the cattle work themselves in there.  As far as the crew goes, there are 22 people on the boat from what I have been told.  There are guys that just work in the engine room and there are guys that are electricians and then there are the actual sailors.  As far as the officers, there is the captain, the chief officer and then the first mate.  They drive the boat I guess you could say.  It is pretty impressive to see all of the charts and maps and such that they use to navigate the Atlantic Ocean.  Of course they have radar and all of the modern devices to help with the navigation but it is still a lot of man-made calculations that get us to where we are going.  It made me wonder and marvel at the sailors that sailed across these very waters way back when.  It must have been quite intimidating to set out a journey like this and only have the stars to guide you.

 Back to the officers, they all have 4 hour shifts that they take.  For example, the captain works from 8-12 both am and pm.  The first mate works from 12-4 both am and pm and the chief officer works from 4-8 both am and pm.  The engineers and electricians all have the same type of schedule.  4 hours on, 8 hours off and repeat daily.  Kind of like shampooing your hair- lather, rinse, repeat.  That is the funny thing about the directions on a bottle of shampoo, it says to lather and then rinse and then repeat.  It never says when to stop.  I guess they figure you will stop when the bottle is empty.  That is when they know when to stop repeating their shifts here on the boat I guess.  When they run out of water to sail on they stop. 

Someone here on the boat told me that the captain on this boat has been gone for a year and a half!  I honestly can’t imagine being on this boat for more than a month much less a flippin year and a half!!  I have heard several folks her on this vessel describe working on a boat as like being in jail.  Not that I would know what that is like(OK, quit laughing.) but I can see what they are talking about.  You can only go so far here and then you have to start re-tracing your steps in some manner.  One thing I know for sure, I am damn sure looking forward to seeing American dry land again in the very near future! 

Well thanks for…

Well thanks for tuning back in to see how the story goes on the adventure of the sea-faring cowboy.  I am kinda curious myself as to how it will progress.  So anyway we get the feed loaded at the dock and finally at about 5 pm on Christmas Eve we shoved off and it was then I realized that there was truly no turning back.  Not unless I wanted to swim a really long ways!  The guy who got me this job, who shall remain nameless for now so I can decide whether I like him anymore or not for getting me into this ordeal, told me that I would definitely be “emotional” when I was leaving and watching the land get further and further away.  Well nobody will ever know if that came true or not because I made my final rounds on the cattle and then I went to my cabin and took a sleeping pill and went to sleep with the drapes closed.  I figured if I was going to be emotional I would do it in my sleep!

 Well I woke up the next day was Christmas to the smoothest seas that a man could imagine.  At the time I thought  nothing of it because I had nothing to compare it to as you can imagine.  It was like God himself said, “Let’s ease this poor sucker into this deal kinda slow”  Well we went through our daily routine of feeding and checking cattle and just trying to make sure everything was just fine.  We had a heavy bred cow calve out the first night and I was unable to save the calf unfortunately but the cow is fine and we are milking her down twice daily as you can imagine.  That night the captain had a little Christmas party for the crew and even had a beer and shot of whiskey for everyone on board which surprised me greatly.  I figured that alcohol would be” verboten” on a ship but I guess it isn’t on special occasions.  So anyway we all a beer a shot and took a lot of pictures and wished each other Merry Christmas about a thousand times.

 Then that night something happened.  Reality hit.  I realized that the seas aren’t always that smooth as they were on the first day.  Holy Mackerel!  I have ridden pitching horses that didn’t move that many directions at once!  Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that this reality check just happened to hit at night while I was sleeping.  Notice I said WAS sleeping because after the seas became a tad “unsettled” shall we say, sleep became a thing of the past quickly!  Yup, I was up for the duration after that.  The next morning I stagger into the galley which is what they call the kitchen and asked for coffee.  Well what they gave me was nothing like the coffee I had come to know and love.  Those of you that know me, know how important my coffee is to me in the morning.  I was raised by my dad since I was about 10 or 11 and he went to the coffee shop every morning and after a while I decided that I was old enough to drink coffee just like him.  Well that decision came at about age 14 and I have been drinking it ever since.  Faithfully.  OK now back to the story I was telling you me walking into the galley and asking for coffee.  I sit down and they bring me a cup which was no bigger than maybe 2 ounces literally.  I am thinking “wow it is gonna take a bunch of these little cups to get me going every morning”  WRONG MISTER!!!!  I took one sip of what I thought might have been diesel fuel laced with kerosene with a side of hydraulic fluid thrown in for good measure and decided that I might not be as tough as I once thought I was.  Nasty would be a conservative description by all means.  So anyway, I manage to find some instant coffee that is made in Turkey or India and I decide that it will suffice until I can get back to the US of A.  In regard to the food, well I went down and gave it the old college try a couple of times and decided that I was a very smart man for once in my life because I had the forethought to stock up on granola bars , beef jerky and summer sausage and the like.  I have enough beef jerky to make any trail driver jealous and enough granola bars in my bag that if you didn’t know any better you would say that I was a tree hugger or something like that.  So I have been able to eat enough of my own food to exist for sure.  I also am glad that I brought a bunch of DVDs and books and my Kindle fire is stocked up with reading material and a few TV shows because there is nothing in the way of entertainment on this ship.  Hell I can’t even sit around and BS with the guys because most of them don’t speak English good enough to carry on a conversation.  There are a couple of guys on here who do speak English very good but I don’t see them every day.  Their work schedule sometimes doesn’t gibe with mine so we miss each other at times.  Plus I don’t know exactly how much I could have in common with a sailor from the Middle East.  There is one guy from Lebanon on here has lived in Detroit for a while and speaks very good English.  As a matter of fact, his parents still live there from what he has told me.  This guy’s name is Al for short and he speaks 5 languages.  Five frigging languages!  Hell I am proud just too able to fluently discuss my menu options at the Mexican food place we like to go to.  I would get thoroughly confused trying to keep all of those languages separate in my head.  I can just now see how that internal conversation might go: “cuss him out in German, no Japanese no wait use Mexican!  Aw hell jus use all of them at once and let them figure it out!!”  So anyway, I have a little bit of entertainment in my cabin and an endless supply of panoramic views of……water.  Lots and lots of water.  Good Lord there is a lot of water.  Which reminds me.  Let me inform you as to how we are making this great journey across the sea.  First of all we sailed south from Wilmington Del. and continued south until we got south of Bermuda and then we turned to the east to go towards Turkey.  I was told the reason for this roundabout way of going was because of a hurricane in the North Atlantic Ocean.  At this moment of hearing this little tidbit of information I instantly hugged the captain and told him he was a genius. I then learned that the whole trip will encompass 5326 miles traveling at a top speed of approximately 13 miles an hour.  That’s right I said 13 miles an hour.  That gives new meaning to slow lane driving.  Go do the math and come back and tell me how many days and hours that is.  Go ahead I will wait.  I will tell you how long it is…… A LONG DAMN TIME IS HOW LONG IT IS!!!!!!  Oh my Lord.  Talk about testing a man’s patience.  But hey at least I am still in the boat and not overboard.  That has been the recurring theme to my worst nightmares, falling overboard and watching as the ship slowly slips away.  Needless to say that I maintain a death grip and whatever railing might be handy when I am out walking the deck.  All of the experienced sailors laugh at me but you can bet your ass I am not turning lose for no amount of money.  Well that about catches me up.  I gotta go make my rounds for the evening and then come back to my little castle on the sea that I call my cabin and find some way to while away the hours.  I wonder how many times it takes to watch Lonesome Dove and memorize the script?  Let’s find out, shall we.  Tune in later for another installment of “The adventures of Damon on the high seas or as I like to call it, did I really need a job this bad?”

Well I am going…

Well I am going to try and resurrect this blog that I started years ago and use it to post all of my writing from the trip and maybe try to get back in the habit of writing regurlarely again.  So here is the first installment

You’re gonna do what!? 

That was the general response I got from many people as I told them that I had gotten a call offering me a job on a ship as a “herdsman”.  My job was to more or less take care of all of the cattle that were on the ship for the duration and to ensure that they were fat and happy and in good health when they got to their destination which on this trip was the Middle Eastern country of Turkey.  Yup.  Turkey.

 Now that is not the whole of it by any means.  First of all, the biggest boat I had ever been on up to this point had just one oar in it with no directions on how to operate it or owner’s manual.  I guess the folks that made the boat and the oar figured that if you were too stupid to know how to operate that equipment then you were on your own.  Next, the furthest I had ever been out on the water was never more than eyeshot from the shore.  That way if I fell out of the boat or lost the oar I would at least know which way to start swimming.  The next thing was that I learned of the job 3 days before Christmas and left on Christmas Eve.  Yeah, I know, A whole lot of planning went into this trip didn’t it?  Actually it kinda did.  You see I had been outta work for some time and was tired of lying around the house being a nuisance to my loving, wonderful, caring, exceedingly gorgeous and more than understanding wife.  (This is the point where I am kissing up in case she is reading this).  But I must admit I was getting real tired of making telephone calls and sending out resumes with no results for quite some time.  So when this job offer came in over the phone via a friend who referred me I jumped at the chance.  Kinda.  Sorta.  OK well I simply accepted the job offer with some trepidation because I had no idea what I was getting into.  And as I am writing all of this now on the ship I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT I HAVE GOTTEN MY SELF INTO!!!!!  I am pretty sure this is the point in the story where the camera zooms in for a close up of the lead actors face which is of course me, and I look up and scream MOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!  But I didn’t and I haven’t yet and I am going to leave my options open to do that later though.

 OK so anyway, I leave my house in Rochester MN, get on the plane bound for Philadelphia PA and get picked up by some guy named Omar.  Omar is his real name I think.  And the only reason I don’t tell you his last name is because not only can I not pronounce it, I can’t spell it either.  So Omar works just fine.  I mean hell, he had to spell it out to the front desk clerk at the hotel they put us up at the one night that we stayed in Wilmington Del.  Oh that reminds me, I gotta tell you about the hotel.  First of all we were supposed to leave on the 23^rd of Dec but the loading took much longer than expected so it was put off until the 24^th and that meant of course that we had to find a place to stay.  We meaning the owners of the export company handling the shipment of cattle.  I say “we” because there was no way in Hell I was gonna stay on the ship just for the grins and giggles of it when there was a nice warm bed and cable TV awaiting me in town!  I didn’t care who payed for it including me but I wasn’t gonna stay on the boat when I had other options seeing as I had approximately 3 weeks in front of me with no options other than the boat.  So anyway, they ask me if I wanna go stay in town or stay on the boat and my response was “hang on I will be right back, I am gonna get my bags”  I think that answered their question.  So we drive off in search of a hotel in Wilmington, Omar and me.  Omar tells me there is this really nice place in Wilmington that we might be able to stay at if we can get a good rate.  I am thinking a good rate is 60-80 bucks right?  Wrong.  Their normal rate goes from 249 to 449 but they would let us stay there for 149!  I asked if Omar needed a loan because at this point I was past the point of haggling about price just get me a room and a bar!  So off we go and we pull up in front of the Hotel DuPont in downtown Wilmington and let me tell you something, those folks looked at me when I walked into that place like I had 3 heads!  I am sure they were wondering what in all that is holy’s name is a cowboy doing here!  At the Hotel DuPont, in Wilmington 2 days before Christmas!  When I came in the lobby carrying my bags and computer case there was this tall good looking lady (but not nearly as good looking as my wonderful, long suffering, patient and did I forget to mention extremely hot wife) who was walking out of the lobby obviously going somewhere very important.  She was dressed to the nines and she looked over at me with my denim jacket on and my black cowboy hat with the 5 inch brim and handmade (insert” homemade” here) leather hat band and my tall top handmade Beck Boots and she proceeded to walk right into the 25 foot tall Christmas tree that was in the middle of the lobby!  I just pretended I didn’t see a thing and kept right on walking.  To the registration desk with Omar.  As soon as we got our keys to our respective rooms I went up and dropped my bags called my wife, (I think you might have remembered me mentioning her previously) and then went to the bar to get something to eat and a nightcap.  Needless to say, the rest of those well-to-do folks kinda looked at me like the lady did in the lobby but I didn’t let that hinder my progress by any means.  I must inform all of you by the way, that I DID NOT proceed to get all tore up to celebrate my last night ashore like I am sure many of you are probably thinking right now.  I had two beers, ate my Filet sandwich with fries and went to my room.  So there. 

So anyway, we head back to the shipyard the next morning and finish loading all of the feed and the other things that are needed to make a trip of this magnitude.  But more about the hotel, I really feel like the best way for you to learn about it would be to Google it and look at the website but I will try to describe it to you the best that I can and then maybe you will understand a little better why the lady walked into the tree in the lobby.  The Hotel DuPont is a very historical 5 star hotel that is owned still by the DuPont chemical company folks.  This place had bellman that wouldn’t let you carry your bags and a big ballroom, the whole shebang that you would expect from a 5 star hotel on the eastern seaboard.  So needless to say, I was a bit out of place in there but I didn’t let that deter me by any means.  I talked to everyone and wished them all a Merry CHRISTmas too!  I didn’t care if it is politically correct or not.  I made a few of ‘em grin too!  So any way, we stayed at the Hotel DuPont and then went back to the ship the next morning to continue loading and finally prepare for departure.  I will leave it there for my first chapter in my attempt to chronicle this magnificent adventure!   I sure hope it’s magnificent when I look back on it anyway.  Be sure to keep up with it all as I get ready to start chapter two.

I know it has been a long time but……..

Folks I know it has been awhile but I have recently moved back down to Texas and I have no internet unless I drive 20 miles to town and force myself to sit still long enough to write something.  Lately that hasn’nt been an option.  It has been go, go, go for me lately trying to stay busy.  I have been shoeing horses riding colts building fence, just whatever I can do to to earn an honest dollar in these tough economic times.  But hell I ain’t gonna complain by any means whatsoever because at least I am back home in Texas.  That in it self in a major victory for me!!  I am going to try and start posting more often if it is possible and keep all of you infomed a little better.  Thanks for checking in.

Well here is another one of my originals. Hope you like it.

 Seven a.m. on a Sunday morning, 30,000 feet and scotch on the rocks makes me sound like Kris Kristofferson and hell I might be by the time I reach where ever it is I am going.  Hard to tell some times what I might be seeing how I refuse to grow up.  Growing old is inevitable for most, growing up is not.  I consider that a choice to make.  I said that growing old is inevitable but let me add that that is for those fortunate enough to grow old.  Many never got the right.  Anyway back to 30,000 feet and scotch on the rocks,  I guess you might say that by having the scotch in front of me at 7 in the morning pretty much insures that I will be high in some form even though I am scared of heights even at 30,000 feet.  You would think that a supposedly grown man would know better than to cloud his judgment with such spirits at such an early hour and with very little on his stomach and a whole lot on his brain.  But then again maybe clouded judgment is just what the doctor ordered since a clear head hasn’t served me very well recently.  Now please don’t take it wrong when I insinuate that I may not know where I am going on this sunshiny Sunday, because I do.  You see I have an itinerary that tells me clearly where I am headed at least for today.  I just forget to look at it sometimes but then don’t we all.  I try and occupy my slightly addled brain that has been up since who knows when by listening to Ian Tyson sing about Old corrals and Sage Brush when I haven’t seen those things in so long I have forgot what they might look like.  But I haven’t forgot the smell of them.  That has been filed in my sensory memory bank to be recalled for times just like this.  Times when I want to go back to being just me.  Just the guy who grew up in the middle nowhere on a place that no Jehovah’s Witness could find nor an insurance salesman but it seems like we always had company around as long as they didn’t mind opening and closing the gates it took to get there.  Maybe that is where I am going or at least trying to get to.  My past, my foundation my safe place or whatever those folks that have more education than I do would call it.  I have even been back physically to that place once since I left it so many years ago but I go back all the time when I need to revisit times when I need to simplify.  Simplification seems to be the key to getting by in an ever increasingly complicated world and lives that we lead collectively as a generation far removed from the simple chore of opening and closing gates to get home.  A lot could be accomplished by simplifying things in our life and opening and closing more gates even if it is nothing more than figuratively.  I can remember times when I have contemplated life’s problems and complications as I leaned on the gate post while holding on to one split rein that held on to colt that one day might turn into something if I didn’t give up.  I guess that is the key to everything though really.  Don’t give up.  It is kind of ironic how this trip started, at the gate and it will end the same way or at least this part of it will anyway.  But there won’t be any gate posts to lean on or any split reins to hang onto while I close it.  Nor will there be any oxbows or monels to stick my toe into when I get through the gate.  But that is where the simplification comes into play.  I will be there soon enough I guess.  That is if the 30,000 feet and scotch or the heights don’t kill me first.  Gotta go.  I got gates to open and close and a set of split reins that are tied to snaffle bit that is on a colt that needs some miles and time put on it.  So do I.  So do I.  Whoa dammit. 

One of my originals…

  I wrote this observational piece after coming home from this years NFR.  Going there always makes me proud to be an American and especially a cowboy.  Read this and hopefully you will see why I feel that way.

 

    To me, life is nothing more than a collection of moments.  Some we remember, some we don’t.  I just returned from the NFR recently and obviously there are many moments that I remember from there.  Just some I remember a little better than others but that is a story for another time and for someone else to tell because they will be able to tell it better than me, I am sure.  I never cease to be amazed at the reaction of the Las Vegas locals and how they become a little friendlier when the NFR comes to town.  It must be contagious and come from the visiting cowboys and cowgirls from all over the west even if the west means just west of New Jersey.  You see it really doesn’t matter where you come from if you are a cowboy as much as it does if you have adopted the ideals that calling yourself a cowboy does.  That means opening a door for the lady or helping someone get their bags from the car to the bell desk even if you know them or not.  You just do it.  I remember the first year I was married and I took my wife to the NFR.  I was just so proud to introduce her to everyone that I knew that I could bust.  But I wasn’t just proud of my wife but I was proud of being a cowboy and being surrounded by cowboys who had the same ideals as I was taught such as take your hat off when you meet a lady and look her in the eye when introduced.  She is a ranch raised girl from South Dakota and is familiar with the practice but had gotten away from those ideals when she moved to Southeast MN to work for the Mayo clinic.  When we came home she commented on how polite everyone was out there and not what she expected.  She wasn’t ready for the other moment that has always made me proud either.  We went to the Gold Coast to watch the performance on closed circuit TV as many folks do and after we secured a seat with folks we didn’t know but they invited us anyway, she settled in to watch the greatest rodeo in the world.  But then it was all interrupted by all of the cowboys rising in unison for the singing of the national anthem.  Now let me try to put this in perspective for you.  How many of you have gone to a sports bar to watch the ball game du jour and heard the anthem play and saw everyone in the bar stand up?  I personally have never seen it happen.  But every year at the NFR and numerous locations all across Las Vegas, cowboys and those folks with the cowboy mentality will rise and shed their chosen lid be it the Nevada buckaroo flat brim or the west Texas taco shell and show their respect for the flag and country.  Makes me proud.  Every time.  Thanks dad for raising me the way you did and showing me that respect never goes out of style.  Life really is nothing more than a collection of moments.  Some we remember and some we will never forget.

I feel this is worth passing on to everyone

Got this in an email andf thought it was worth passing on!

Issue Date: December 15, 2008 | Issue 51 | Volume 80 Truck still has to haul the cows (commentary)

By TRENT LOOS* *Trent Loos is a rancher, host of the “Loos Tales” radio show, public speaker and founder of Faces of Agriculture, which puts the human element back into food production. Find out more at www.FacesOfAg.com, or e-mail trent@loostales.com. THERE has been yet another attack on cows, and this time, it was in a front-page article in The New York Times titled, “As more eat meat, a bid to cut emissions.” The premise of the article was nothing new, which was basically that of how meat consumption is contributing more to global warming than transportation. When I heard about the article, I was out on the road driving my 2004 one-ton pickup with plans to check the oil at the next fuel-up. Upon seeing all the junk under the hood of a vehicle these days, I determined that a little research was in order. The first pickup I owned was a 1982 GMC half-ton that I bought new. It got 12 miles to the gallon, about the same as my 2004 pickup does. I called my dad to ask what the first vehicle he purchased was, and he told me it was a new Chevrolet Malibu in 1964, for which he paid $2,650. He remembers it getting close to 20 mpg. A recent advertisement said the 2008 Chevy Malibu starts at $19,995, and if you have the midsized motor, you can expect 19 mpg in city driving. So, tell me, what do all of those wires and computer sensors actually accomplish for us under the hood of these new vehicles? Why, in the past 44 years, have the science and technology invested in the automobile industry not accomplished one darn thing for me or the planet, with the exception of electric windows and more cup holders? More importantly, why does it cost eight times as much to buy a vehicle today than it did 44 years ago? On the other side of the equation, look at what we have been able to accomplish with the beef cow thanks to science and technology. In 2004, Dr. Thomas Elam and Dr. Rodney Preston released a report showing that through a combination of research, technology and innovation, the U.S. beef cattle industry has increased beef production per head of cattle by more than 80%. The two beef industry scientists, who recently wrote a white paper on 50 years of beef technology, said total beef production has doubled — from 13.2 billion to about 27 billion pounds — with a national cattle herd that’s about the same size today as it was in 1955. In laymen’s terms, that means that we generate the same amount of total beef with 90 million head of cattle that would have required 180 million head just 50 years ago. Fewer resources are now used to provide food, fuel, fiber and pharmaceuticals for an ever-increasing population. What about the dairy industry? Even greater results have occurred in that arena. Alvaro Garcia, dairy nutritionist with South Dakota State University, and Jim Linn of the University of Minnesota released a report indicating that today’s dairy herd emits 30% less methane yet produces twice as much total milk as the dairy herd did in 1924. The production of each gallon of milk today results in one-third of the methane that it took to produce a gallon of milk 80 years ago. Dr. Dale Bauman and colleagues at Cornell University have looked at greenhouse gas emissions and found that 63% less carbon per unit of food produced is emitted today than in 1945. A complete history of the cost of living for an average citizen of Morris County, N.J., which can be found online, shows that in 1964 — the year my dad’s car cost $2,650, incidentally — ground chuck cost 69 cents/lb. Today, ground chuck costs residents there $3.59/lb. What about milk? In 1964, the average cost of milk was 95 cents/gal., and in 2008, the cost is about $3.50/gal. So, the bottom line is that meat costs five times more and milk only three-and-a-half times more than in 1964, while the car is eight times more expensive. Meanwhile, cows are using only half of the resources they did in 1964, but cars are still guzzling about the same amount of gas. I hate to point out the obvious, but one of the above-mentioned industries is showing up regularly at our nation’s capitol with their hands out asking for a bailout. Meanwhile, the U.S. livestock industry continues to find new ways of staying alive in an economic climate in which no other industry would even try to survive. It all makes me wonder: If the automobile industry had made the same improvement in fuel efficiency that U.S. agriculture did with the cow, maybe it would not be in this predicament. The greatest irony is that I am now forced to use my inefficient vehicle to haul my efficient cows around the country

Well Here I am.

Well here it is, my first blog.  I have been entertaining the idea of having one of these bloggy thingamajigs for awhile so I could supposedly join the 21st century.  Apparently these things are a prerequisite to exist nowadays.  Who knew?  Well my plans are to use thing to display some of my writing and just to vent I guess.  Kinda like most of the rest of the folks do.  Anyway please tell all your friends about and I will try to stay in touch with all the happenings in the life of…….ME!