Never let go of the rope

When you have been farming as long as my husband and I have — most of his life and all of mine — you embrace and respect the ups and downs of agriculture. You learn to face the challenges of the day as they come and move through them carefully, thoughtfully, and with determination to move on to the next day.

At the dawn of this year, we knew the cost of operating the farm was going to be a challenge. But the old adage, “never let go of the rope,” seemed fitting. For the uninitiated, “never let go of the rope” originates from cowboy days. Once you get a rope on a wild horse or calf, you don’t let go. You hold on with more stubborn than that wild critter and just make it give up. Now, arguably, there are better ways to gentle an animal but if we’ve met you know I’m about as stubborn as they come. So I like keeping to at least the notion of “never let go of the rope.”

As predicted, costs for everything, for everyone, have gone up horribly and quickly. We are sympathetic to those cost increases because we feel them as much as anyone. We feel the pinch of more money for fewer things in the grocery cart and fewer gallons in the tank. We also feel the pinch of rising fertilizer, parts, equipment maintenance, baling supplies, and other on-farm input costs.

We cannot promise we will be the least expensive feed around but we can promise we will continue to strive to be the best quality we can offer for the most competitive price we can offer while still keeping the farm a viable business for years to come. “Never let go of the rope” means figuring out how to be stubborn enough to keep the farm running and, right now, that is what we are doing.

We appreciate you being here and trusting us with the feeding and care of your livestock.