Good Monday morning to all you critter and land loving folks. We do have one kinda runny nose on the ranch right now, but you read that correctly I want to talk about catching the cold, not catching a cold. We recently made national news as our great state plummeted into the deep freeze and added wind chill just to be cute. We chored one night when my phone informed me it was a whopping negative fifty-three degrees out with wind chill. It is possible to bundle up, but I don’t think there are enough layers out there to be safe for any amount of time spent out in that. I was so bundled, all that wasn’t covered were my eyes, which I could have goggled up but didn’t, and at that negative degree I can tell you, my eyes hurt. It was something I am not sure I have experienced before; it was a type of adventure that I was okay with wrapping up. With that cold, we did manage to catch some snow and that is where catching cold becomes long-term exciting. We made some tough decisions to destock the past two years, we knew our numbers said to do so, and we thankfully followed through. We said good-bye to some cows (with names) and most of our flock. This allowed the past year for most of the ranch to just rest and we had timely rains that made forage go great guns. We left the majority of it standing for winter grazing. I walked through the property last week and I was amazed how much snow we had caught in that standing forage, super excited to see what that moisture will mean for this growing season. The past few weeks have been beautiful, and the cold snap seems a distant memory, but I hope it comes to mind this summer as we watch fat content cattle munch sweet green grass.

Blessings to you, yours, and your operation.