Calf prices and the White House

The other day, I was working on some stuff for a local nonprofit. I couldn’t remember if a deed for some property was done a certain way when the property was donated to the group.

So, I had to call our former state senator and ask him if we did it the way I remembered. He’s about my age and he’s always been real smart. He was appointed to a highfaluting spot in President Biden’s administration.

I don’t call him very often, but he always answers the phone when I do. I called him one time during deer season, and I could tell he was aggravated at me. He answered the phone while sitting up in a tree stand.

His distant relatives also have one of the best herds of registered Angus cattle around these parts. They have a sale once or twice a year.

The best part about their sale is the food. They serve charcoaled burgers, or they cater in a bunch of barbecues. Folks come to the sale just to eat because it’s quite the shindig.

It’s kind of funny to me in a way.

On one hand, I’m trying to help a local nonprofit that can’t even afford to pay someone to cut the grass. And it just happened, when I called him, that he was leaving the White House after being in meetings all day.

Who’d ever think someone that just left the White House would answer the phone over a little bitty nonprofit in far rural southeast Oklahoma? In a way, it’s also kind of cool that he did answer the phone.

It didn’t take long for him to answer my questions before we shifted the conversation over to talking about calf prices and the cattle market, as a whole. He said, from his perspective, it looked like the beef producers were finally making some good money.

I agreed.

I told him, at the sale barn last week, a 240-pound black steer brought $1,050.

When I bought my first place, I literally bet the farm on a calf bringing $400. Back then, the top sellers at the sale barn would fetch about $600.

I figured, if I raised calves that were somewhere in the middle pricewise and if I could make all the payments basing my budget on that, then I’d be set up for the long haul. As it turned out, I did just fine that way.

As we visited, I wondered what calf price I’d bet the farm on today. I’d hate to be a young man trying to borrow money for all the stuff to start a farm.

It doesn’t take long to be a million dollars in debt if you own a decent-sized farm, including tractors, balers, cattle and land. It adds up, quick.

The interest rates today aren’t helping the young farmers, either.

As I made my evening rounds, checking calves and a few cows, I wondered what a meeting at the White

House must be like. I don’t even watch the news anymore because I’m sick of politics and all the arguing.

But, dang, I’d like to sit in on just one meeting, just to see what’s it’s like in there. I wouldn’t care who the president was because I’d just like to say I did it one time.

I’d try to make things better for farmers in some way or another. Thinking about all of this kept me occupied for several hours that evening.

I was just trying to help our little nonprofit make some money so it could mow the grass this summer. I wondered what those meetings in the White House were about and if they were trying do something sort of like I was, but on a much larger scale.

After thinking on it all day, I decided that it’s a noble thing to your help your community, whether it’s a meeting in the feed store on a sack of feed or a fancy meeting in the White House.

I hope our local guy can do some good because he sure spent a lot of time in the hay fields growing up.