Montana skies, good friends, and..........liberals??

I've been pretty darn busy the past couple weeks-hence the sparse posts! This morning I'm writing from one of my favorite places I've worked and spent 1/4 of my year the last couple years. I am in the middle of nowhere Montana.....well at least the ranch is its own little middle-of-nowhere haven! This is the first summer in the last few that I have not worked out here at this guest ranch. Needless to say I'm missing it quite a bit this summer, I spent all my waking hours working outside, meeting people from all over the country and even the world, and being with some good friends. I'm lucky to have made some life-long friends from my experiences there so I came back for a little visit and a few of us are going to head to Great Falls tonight for a road trip and concert!

It is really interesting when you think about places around the country. Here I am in Montana, in between ranch country and the Bob Marshall, yet I'm surrounded by more Obama stickers, hippies and the such than anywhere I've been lately. It always make me wonder how people get to the point where they go to the extreme left and are able to keep their blinders on, ignoring the world right outside their backdoor. Western Montana is a great example of that, in my mind. It is an area that is rich in diversity from timber, cattle, mining, to its incredible biodiversity and amazing natural resources. How is it possible that people living in the heart of an agriculturally dense, natural area could be so clueless to deciphering truth and hype?

What I have learned from my many summers spent working about an hour east of Missoula, is that no place is too far removed from the leftists' agendas and their voices can be heard from even the deepest canyons. We have a job to do! People EVERYWHERE don't understand about farming and ranching and they aren't going to learn unless we teach them! I work for an ag lending company and there are many people alongside us who don't know anything about the farmers and ranchers that we lend to. Sometimes they believe the same crazy stories being portrayed in the media that those infamous country music stars buy into. Because most people believe the media is their source for "fact-filled" news, they are flying blind-folded. We need to take every opportunity to educate them. Recently, my boss hosted a field-day to take certain employees of our company to show them a farm, harvest, and different types of equipment. Many of the people who went had never even been on a farm or ranch, yet they work for a company that lives and breathes agriculture!!! We all know what happens when we make assumptions.....so don't assume someone knows what goes on at your farm or ranch. Take the opportunity to show them pictures, tell them a story, or take them out their for dinner, on your lunch break or for the whole day! You will not only teach someone about our industry, but possibly gain a new friend in the process!

Political Careers

I'd say we have a future as lawmakers, wouldn't you? :) This picture is from our YCC trip, during our congressional visits, as seen here with Doc Hastings! Wouldn't the world make a lot of sense if we had a bunch of rational hard working ranchers creating our laws, deciding our taxes and budgets? Whew.............. :)

So my last post was a bit heated and off the cuff, whew guess I can get fired up sometimes! :) On the bright side, at least you know where you stand with me and I won't be wishy-washy on an issue right?? :):)

“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing”

This was forwarded onto me this morning as the quote of the day. How about we just make it the quote of 2009? Today was an intense day to an end of an intense couple of weeks regarding cattle, agriculture, and environmental issues. Between Obama's health-care plan flowchart, the lawsuit against the WA DOE regarding stockwater, HSUS & ALL they entail, and the parents from my hometown of Selah, WA suing JBS Swift-I'm exhausted. I have had enough call-to-actions, letters to write to papers & lawmakers, and blog comments that I would be RICH if I could just get paid to do that all day! :) So the question is: to give up now because the end is near or stand and fight? Hmmm.... STAND & FIGHT of COURSE! :):) Any of you who know me, know I would say that. Remember, I should have gone to law school to make good use of my Negotiating skills (also known to some as arguing skills)!

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel to all of this? Maybe I should just sell my land, sell my cows, give up my water rights while I still have a chance? Maybe you should-but if you have any gumption and will in your bones you won't let a few wackos decide your life for you. There is some hope in all of this, you just have to be willing to put in some blood, sweat, and tears, along with some typing, talking, and reading!

People are fighting FOR US everyday and when you find examples of that-thank them. I found letters to the editors today on the Yakima Herald Republic that were fighting for us ranchers and providing a positive image and truthful knowledge to the public. There are people out there who are "telling our agriculture story" and have been for years without going on a YCC, or taking the Masters of Beef Advocacy course. Heck-these people invented ideas such as those! All each one of us has to do is just start being heard. Take some initiative and write some letters, educate some people about science based facts-instead of letting them be educated by the media, government, and other radicals! And remember, find those people who are doing actions all across the country in little ways to fight for your way of life and THANK THEM! :)

Stupidity

Ladies and gentlemen of the United States if the picture to the left isn't proof then I don't know what is: Here is the proof that you are 100% an IDIOT if you voted for this man!

Disgusting, ridiculous, absurd. I don't care if every man in this world checks people out. The so-called "leader" of the most powerful country in the world is STUPID and has no self-control for doing this in PUBLIC! What a wonderful role-model for our nation-might as well have Howard Stern be our next president.

Socialism, communism, Stupidism-I rest my case!

Grateful to be back on the Eastside!

I haven't updated a new post in awhile as I have been on the go! Well, I'm always on the go:) but we were traveling a bit! I headed to Mattawa, WA for the 4th of July and got to spend the weekend with a great friend of mine from college and her husband. We had a low-key affair and just enjoyed good conversation, drinks, and of course great beef! I taught her how to make kabobs (she's not a very experienced cook) and beef definitely was what was for dinner! Mattawa is a pretty interesting town as anyone who has heard of it knows but it is a very diverse agricultural area so its great to be there in the heart of the growing season.

When I got back to my folk's place, I took my folks to Seattle for my dad's treatment at Swedish Cancer Institute. He is on a new trial there for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) with Dr. West, who is a very renowned oncologist on the west coast. He officially started the new drug and will be taking it in conjunction with Tarceva, the other cancer drug he has been on in the past. Both the Dr. and the nurse running the trial are extremely nice, positive people, and both have a great sense of humor. All traits needed and appreciated by my dad, or anyone going through this stuff.

I officially started a "Twitter" account, which I'm almost embarrassed to admit. I swore I wasn't going to get on that thing. However, on Dr. West's website it shows his Twitter posts and one was about my dad: "Saw a very nice cowboy today (never-smoker, no less!), now 5.5 yrs out from his Dx w/NSCLC & brain mets. Wouldn’t have imagined it possible."

That was enough to have me start a twitter and follow Dr. West. My dad truly is a miracle. Even a leading lung cancer oncologist can't believe he has overcome the odds of this disease for over 5.5 years!

Anything is possible in this world, so don't let anyone tell you any different. We can't control what happens to us in life, but we can control how we choose to respond. Its not up to us when we leave this earth and don't let someone try to decide your destiny for you!

Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

lots of miles, Independence Day, and Water.....

In a few minutes, I'm off to my (weekly) drive back to Yakima County. Since about February or March I have been making the commute from Spokane to my folks' place to be with my family. Some might say that can be a pretty boring drive on the eyes, but that opinion is all in the eye of the beholder. You can make the most of the drive or you can let it suck you dry. I try to make the most of it, and I won't lie to you: a cell-phone makes it a heck of a lot easier. It becomes a pretty amazing feat though when you really start to pay attention to what is around you. We need to remember how lucky we are in this state that I can drive from the far east side of the state to the lower central portion in just a few hours. If we were in Texas I wouldn't even have left a corner in that time. Washington is truly a beautiful place if you really stop and look around. We live in a truly biologically diverse part of the world and no part of this state is the same in pretty much an hour within any direction. On my drive I go from some light timber, rolling hills of dryland crop country, Columbia basin, Columbia River Gorge, sagebrush, irrigated crop-ground, and my drive ends with close views of both Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier in front of my windshield. The next time you think a drive across Washington is boring-head to the mid-west. I guarantee you won't see the diversity you can here!

This 4th of July make the most of the day. I truly believe this holiday is a sign of the times to come. Already patriotism has virtually died in our nation, I feel. I don't know about you but I haven't heard much about "Independence Day" in the days leading up to Saturday. In my opinion that's because our country doesn't much believe in our "Independence" anymore, so they sure as heck don't want to remind us of it. Teach your kids and grandkids what this holiday is for beyond hotdogs, fireworks, and Popsicles. Teach them who fought and died for our country so many times over. Teach them how important the freedom we do have left, is and instill in them a sense of pride and work ethic to maintain that independence.

This Independence Day brings one of the biggest battles I think our state has seen. We are in a fight for our lives with stockwater in Washington State. I encourage you to reflect on your own life as we enter into this next era and decide how important your freedom is to you. Are you willing to stand and fight in this "war" of the 21st century or are you going to lay down and surrender? How will you proceed and what kind of legacy do you want to be known for? This next chapter will reveal peoples true character, strength, resiliance, and passion.