Good Monday morning to all you critter and land loving folks. Welcome to a new year, a time when many have high hopes for things to come. I want to start this fresh season off with two things: a thank you, and a challenge to us all. The thank you is to all of you that have listened, supported, encouraged, and taught us to think outside of our box over the past several years. We are so grateful to have you all in the Working Cows Podcast community.

Now the challenge…a question…who is your neighbor? Are they your family? Friends? Strangers? Enemies? Are they “those people” who don’t fix their fence, don’t keep their bull away from your heifer pasture, or just the talk of the dinner table? Now, before you think I am not asking myself the same thing, I will tell you a little about who my neighbors are…scandal. The ones under the same roof as me are my family, and the ones down the road may very well be a mix of the other three. What is the big deal, that is just life right? My challenge to myself and you is…check in. Check in on all the above mentioned type of neighbors, starting in your own home. The ones down the road may be the best neighbors you could imagine, but do you really know how they are doing? Could it be possible that wonderful neighbors can be lonely too? I am guilty. Guilty of not checking in, and of all the excuses as to why I haven’t. One of my hopes for this year is to do better at checking in. Push the full schedule aside, push the pride aside, and just check in. If we are honest, we check on everything else the neighbors are doing: their cows, their tractor, their hay supply, their fence. Instead let’s fill our beat-up thermos full of good coffee, and snag store bought cookies if we need, and cross the fence line. Let’s make this year about putting a face back on our neighbor, and checking in on them, no strings attached. It will only cost us a little of our time, and if we are really willing to branch out, it will be our time and genuine love.

Do not forsake your own friend or your father’s friend, Nor go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity; Better is a neighbor nearby than a brother far away. Proverbs 27:10

Blessings to you, yours, and your operation…and your neighbor.