Today is sale day for this group of calves. They will be sold in the NETBIO (Northeast Texas Beef Improvement) sale. It is a special sale of pre-conditioned, weaned calves that are certified to have been properly vaccinated and taught to eat from a feed bunk and automatic water system.
I'm proud of this group. We have been working for a number of years to get our genetics to where we wanted them. This is a very uniform set that will hopefully do well in spite of a market that has been disappointing recently.
One of the things people outside of agriculture have difficulty grasping is that "harvest" only comes once or twice during the year. To put it plainly, there is no income, only expenses, for the greatest part of the year. Selling your crop has to pay all of the expenses required to produce it and provide an income above that to the farmer or, rancher. It is just a "side gig" for us, so we aren't dependent upon it for our living expenses.
Most people can't imagine living on borrowed money for 11 months of the year and then hopefully, paying it back when you sell your crop. It makes a person better at budgeting.
Right now, as we enter into the Fall Harvest season, keep the farmers and ranchers in mind. For many, it has been a very difficult year with flooding, drought, severe storms that brought hail and high winds and it has been a year of "Tariff Wars" that have been highly disruptive of the markets. Many of the farmers and ranchers won't be able to cover their expenses of producing a crop this year let alone covering their cost of living.
As you enjoy your abundant selection of foods at the grocery store, or in your favorite restaurant, think about the folks that produced it. They're going through a hard time right now.
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