Spring has sprung and the early arrivals keep showing up. In the last few days the killdeers and buzzards and mourning doves have arrived and in the evenings, I can hear the new, but loud, little peeper frogs in the lawn.
I’m still waiting for the purple martins and the barn swallows to show up any day now.
My newly-planted wildlife/chicken food plots are sprouting now and last fall’s plots are really greening and growing. I just need to go fishing with my buddies.
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Sometimes I wonder about the motives and the sanity of elected officials. I read that Colorado’s governor — for Pete’s sake — is advocating for a “Meat Out” day each week.
That’s nuts —- complete economic, nutritional, and environmental insanity. Has the good governor completely forgotten the importance of the beef industry to his state, the nutritional importance of eating beef, and the environmental benefits of responsible cattle grazing?
Good Grief, Charlie Brown. I swear if I could, I’d offer to buy every Coloradoan a big, thick, juicy, flavorful, medium-rare, prime, nutritionally packed Porterhouse steak. Maybe Colorado’s goofy governor might like one if he tried one.
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On the same subject, I see where the fake meat industry can now “print” a 3-D beef loin-eye. It’s a favorite of that esteemed agriculturist and huge landowner Bill Gates. He can have that fake, cardboardy meat.
Frankly, I’ll have my beef “grown” and not “printed,” nor imported. All I want printed clearly on it is the Country of Origin of the beef.
I decided personally a couple years ago to boycott Burger King — entirely because it makes such a big deal out of it’s fake meat Impossible Burger. BK can do its thing. I’ll do mine, thank you.
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I read this week that a scientific study showed that going barefooted in good for your health. I have reservations about the study. All I can remember of my barefoot childhood days is getting stickers in my feet, burning them on roads and sidewalks, bruising them on gravel, and once poking a rusty pitchfork tine through my foot and having to get a tetanus shot. Barefoot in the house and on the deck, fine. Outdoors? I’ll take shoes. I’ve a question. Who funds such research? And why?
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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a “nostalgia tour” that Nevah and I took to our southeastern Kansas childhood towns and home sites. My column garnered a response email from a nearby Lyon County rancher, ol’ Lukin D. Paast, about a similar trip into the High Country that he and his wife in 2019 C.V. (before Covid). Here’s parts of his email:
“Milo, your recent column on your nostalgia tour was very interesting. I was born & raised on the family farm, but in high school I decided I was going to be a Forest Ranger. After graduating from Colorado State University, I landed a job with the Forest Service and worked in Wyoming & Colorado for nearly 10 years. I returned home to form a partnership with my younger brother to continue the diversified farm and cattle operation we still operate today. I live in my grandparents old house We base our farm business out of the farmstead my brother and I grew up on just a mile away.
“My wife and I took a nostalgia tour in September 2019. She was a dry land high plains wheat farmer’s daughter from northern Colorado. We met at CSU and married after graduation and started our family in our Forest Service years. To celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, we took a 3-week trip through Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and back through Utah visiting the places we had lived and stopping to see friends from our Forest Service days.
“Many of these friends we had not seen for 40+ years. Like your trip, we reminisced seeing our old home sites and the location of many memorable occasions of our early years of marriage. Like you said, things certainly do change over time. Sure glad to have made the trip before all hell broke loose in 2020. Never thought I would see such a mess. I enjoy your calling out the crazy liberals taking over Colorado.
“Enjoy your travelogues and visits to your family in other parts of the country. Thanks again for all the memories and hang in there.”
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The thoughtful words for the week come from my ol buddy, Willie Makitt, in Missouri. He wrote me:
“There is not one box of ammo in Walmart, sports shops, or hardware stores. None to be found. Our local hardware took all its ammo inventory to a gun show and doubled and tripled its money. I went to a swap meet Sunday and saw why. Tables loaded with all sorts of ammo priced from $25 for 22LR to $80 a box for the big calibers. I didn’t buy any of it. I told them that comparing the price of guns and ammo to my little S.S. check, I’ve decided it’s a lot cheaper to just shoot the bull.”
Agree with that. And lastly, “Going out is really good. Coming home is even better.”
Have a good ‘un.
