Grillin 'N Chillin: Preston Winery Pasco, WA

Join the Washington Cattle Feeders Association for an evening of grilled beef from Washington Beef, Tyson Fresh Meats, and Painted Hills Natural Beef. Also enjoy fine wine from Preston Premium Wines or a selection of popular beers

Saturday, September 26 Time: 3:00 to 7:00 P.M
Location: Preston Premium Wines
Winery Address: 502 E. Vineyard Drive, Pasco, WA 99301

Musical Guests: Highland Drive Band

Price Per Person: $40.00 Presale or $45.00 at the door

Tickets may be purchased:
· Online at www.bffairrodeo.com
· At Preston Premium Wines
· Mail coupon to WCFA, PO Box 1256, Quincy, WA 98848
· Email your request to ed@wafeeders.org
· Contact Ed at (509) 398-6253

When life gives us Memories

Free Publicity! Wait...did you say FREE?

Recession, welfare, stimulus, bail-outs.....BLAH, BLAH, BLAH! If I have to keep hearing these words I might just give someone a piece of mind. Oh wait-I think I have this teeny tiny tendency to do that anyways! :) Is anyone else sick of hearing people whine about the state of the nation and the world? I don't even have TV, so I can't imagine what those of you who do have it are feeling like. I've decided its probably best for my health if I don't even watch a bit of Fox News at the gym anymore.....or maybe its just the gym that I just need to veto instead :)

Since I work for an agriculture lending company, I have a slight insight to what the economy is doing and I'd like to share my profound wisdom with you: The World is Not Ending! Yep-I am really that wise! The economy is a little worse than it has been in the past couple years, a few more people have lost some jobs, and prices of goods have risen slightly. Get over it or do something about it. Those are your options so you better choose wisely. The best bet would be to stop listening to the naysayers. Turn off the TV, turn off the radio talk-shows, and turn on some good old music. The older the better too! If you want to instantly feel better about your life listen to a song or read a book about yesteryear-its an instant happiness lift, guaranteed to make you feel better about life today!

I always have thought that people who didn't have everything were much more creative than those who had it all. You ever think about just how many writers, singers, and poets were faced hard times before they made it "big". The newbies all lie about their hard times, I'm talking about the old folks: Loretta Lynn, Mark Twain, etc. When you don't have everything, the only thing you do have is the ability to think and dream. You get creative about finding a way to get where you want to go. If there is a will, there is a way-the strong-willed will know just what I'm talking about.

As we all know the Cattle Industry is usually not dancing around in piles of money. The cattlemen's association is no different. Pay for advertising? Nope, that's definitely not going to work-how was I going to get more people involved if they don't know about us? I sure as heck didn't get very creative. I called the radio station. That was it-one phone call ended up with a sound-byte they started playing. I crossed my fingers they would want to hear more and let me on the air for a "segment". Who says that you need to "pay" to get heard? Grab hold of your confidence, brush up on your sense of humor and get out there on the airwaves. The WCA, WA Beef Commission, NCBA, and the BEEF Industry owes this station thousands in advertising by now. I spent 2 hours in the studio the first time I worked with K102.3 and frankly I didn't want to leave. If they were closer I would go in every Friday and work the morning show. I've called in numerous times since then to advertise Bloomsday, Beef Day on the Hill, the WCA Scholarships, etc. I have an open invitation to come talk in the studio or to call-in with some new information.

Pick up the phone and grab onto some of the free money that's out there. You will do far better for our industry than sitting around reading the weather and you will make some friends and business associates in the process. Tell them about what WE are doing for them day in and out, get out and tell our agriculture story!

30 days to live?

Do you count down the minutes of each day waiting for it to become the next? What do you spend your time on earth doing? If your not really sure what you are doing every day, you might be simply taking up space and much needed oxygen! Maybe we should all push ourselves a little more than that! We were given a soul and a very large brain. Use them, preferably both at the same time. :) No more counting down the minutes, because you never know when it could be your last minute breathed, or someone who is close to you. Consciously start thinking daily about what you are doing here and what you are spending your time doing. If you knew you had 30 days to live would you live your life the same way? If you would spend your time differently, then what is stopping you from doing the same right now?

Ma'am where's the emergency stop button?

Am I the only one that feels like I'm on a treadmill, or even worse a rat wheel and I can't get off? Whew! I actually think I'm starting to exhaust MYSELF these days-and if you know me then you know I passed you a long ways back! :) So much goes on in a day, that sometimes I feel like a week went by. So just some brief little tidbits of really exciting changes, things to come, and buzz on the "street"!

**Well, a brief snippet from Bloomberg today-Argentina may need to import beef for the first time EVER due to a couple year long drought they've been dealing with! I hate to celebrate one man's curse, but it is another man's blessing. If only we could be so lucky, especially if we can export some of our product to them! :) Fingers Crossed!!! These foreign export markets are absolutely essential to our industry-increases sales in a downward home economy but also these other countries will eat up parts of the carcass that Americans wouldn't dream of touching! I know I got a good wave of excitement this afternoon when I read the article!

**Officially joined the "Cattle Knowledge Team" of my company this week. My first conference call is Friday afternoon so I'm excited for what I'm to hear from across our 4 state region & also nervous for the work and mental challenges headed my way! This will be a GREAT resource for me personally to help build my all encompassing of every level of the industry and a big win for the YWCA venture & WCA as well. I hope WA cattlemen will be a great resource for me to share with others what our cattlemen's need, hopes, and fears are!

**Talked with a WSU Alum this weekend who has been eagerly wanting to get more involved with the WCA, and helping with the YWCA! That is literally an answer to my prayers. I can't do this alone folks. I was hoping to plant a little tiny seed of enthusiasm & watch it grow! I would love and NEED all the help I can get. I've never started a brand new charter group before and its daunting! I'm not artistic or super creative in the design department so bonus points if someone out there is! :) Thank you Lacy for wanting to get on board and be game for whatever I throw your way!!!

**I spoke with Kirsten this evening, the gal we are designating as the Student Director of the YWCA this year! Cows bellowing in the background, and kids hollering proved she was calling me in between showing and herdsmanship duties at her cattle show in Lynden! Kirsten has been so supportive, EXCITED and willing to help in any way since the very first day I asked her early last spring if she thought there would be any interest for youth in a college presence of the WCA! I only needed that one person who was looking for a group like this to be involved in and I could test my idea & I found my person! I love that those that have stepped up are game for an adventure that hasn't been tried before-they'll be mistakes, and falls, and hard paths to cut but they are just as excited to try as I am and that is all you need for success! :)

**I've been in contact with the NCBA Young Producer's Council leadership this week as they contacted all of us who showed interest in being a media contact for our individual states! They are starting a YPC Blog, a YPC twitter, encouraging everyone to get their MBA (Masters of Beef Advocacy degree) and then setting up webinar courses for us on further media training and policy briefing! I am SO excited for whats to come with this media outreach group. I only wish I could just focus on this stuff all day long....those dang day jobs sure do get in the way sometimes! :) More to come on this awesome venture from the NCBA YPC!

**BIG THINGS are happening every day through the MBA graduates, YCC Alum, YPC members-look for us. We are out there on every social network site posting FACTUAL information on the beef industry, responding to false stories, urban myths, and rumors on blogs, newspapers, television, and radio.

**My next goal is to get some Team Zip gear and try to get my rusty old hips to run some races here in the next year! (Ssshhh...just don't tell my physical therapists!!) They have a great blog on here: Team Zip The Power of Protein!

Monopolies: Good, Bad, or Indifferent?

The past couple days I've had much on my mind. My mind can be a pretty a scary place to be in most of the time, especially trying to muddle your way through some thoughts! :) Lately I've been thinking a lot about monopolies. Monopoly can be a pretty dirty word in the English language and a taboo topic most folks like to shelve for another day's conversation. But what is it about this word that gets us so fired up? Is it the fear of a socialistic, government-monopolized nation? Is it man's competitive nature rising to the surface and not wanting their neighbor to be stronger & more powerful than them? Is it lack of education or is it all of the above?

I'd like this topic to be my next Ketch Pen article but I wanted to bring it up to get people thinking. Are all monopolies truly bad? Or do we only think of them as bad because it has been imprinted on us from a young age? I have staggeringly different opinions depending on the industry, company, and situation, which obviously shows my lack of knowledge or education on the subject. I'm in no position to go on the O'Reilly factor any time soon arguing my opinions!

The monopoly "battle" I'm most familiar with is the one that has seemed to follow Microsoft around for nearly the life of the company. Now, I fully understand the importance of competition and all the benefits that healthy competition provides. However, in the case of Microsoft specifically can one company help that they have created a hold on an entire market through making a product that no other company has been able to recreate as well? Are we going to punish every person and every company who just happens to be the best in their class? It would be like telling Tiger Woods that he has to give up every win he has ever had just because he is better than his competitors.

Now on the opposite end of the spectrum for me is Wal-Mart. I fully believe that Wal-Mart is an example of an unhealthy monopoly. Now they not technically have a full-fledge hold on the market but they are certainly close and one could say there company's success has changed American Industry. I bring up Wal-Mart because of the fact that their stores with grocery sections can be very frustrating to shop in due to the fact they often only carry 1 or 2 brands of a product. When a corporation who has thousands of locations carries only a few brands in their stores, they are creating a chain of monopolies that trickle on down to every supplier, transporters, and even growers of their products. Do we need to worry about one corporation in one industry being a monopoly when we could have one corporation change multiple industries?

I wanted to get the thoughts rolling on the whole monopoly debacle because the biggest monopoly chatter I have always heard has been in relation to the PACKERS. That's right, I blew the cover right off of that bottled up topic!!! Are the packers a monopoly? If they are a true monopoly, does it really matter? Have you ever thought that perhaps all the regulations today make it almost not impossible for the strongest contender to stay? Survival of the fittest in food processing? You can't have it all ways....you can't have the safest supply in the world, the healthiest, the greatest amount, and STILL have multiple companies trying to save in that arena.

Hmm.....gets ya thinking doesn't it? :) Next WCA ketch pen article is brewing.............

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder......

Our preferences to nature's landscapes are a wonderful example of what each of us deem "beautiful" are independent opinions from one another. Do you feel that the most beautiful landscapes in the world are similar to what you saw outside your kitchen window growing up? The scablands or deserts of the US can be called eye-sores, or God's Country....its all in which lenses you are looking through! :)

Yesterday was a busy day for me. In addition to my actual "day" job I fit in a meeting in the morning at Senator Cathy McMorris Rodger's Spokane District Office. I met her Agriculture and Natural Resource Director, Mike Poulson. I had never spoken with Mike before and it was nice to sit down and chat about issues from healthcare & immigration reform to environmental policy and our state's constant agricultural legal woes! Mike is from Connell, WA and works for Cathy from our own state rather than residing in WA DC. That is such a blessing for our farmers and ranchers to have someone situated here locally giving our state Senator updates on the issues he is seeing firsthand. I left armed with some great ideas for getting more young people involved in the WCA and in agriculture issues in general.

When I was finally out of the office for the day and on my drive to Selah, I fit in a phone interview with AgInfoNet radio. I had been contacted earlier in the week by David Sparks who covers the program for them in Southern Idaho. After reading the great article on the YCC, WCA, and YWCA in the Capital Press, he was interested in bottling some of this enthusiasm and excitement for his Idaho listeners. My schedule had been so crazy this week that the time that seemed to work the best was 8PM last night while I was cruising along I-90...(oh hands-free of course right? wink wink!) David was a pleasure to speak with and is so supportive of everything the WCA and myself are trying to do in involving younger people and really taking action to save our industry! He said he would do whatever he could to help and it was great talking with someone who was also positive and excited about agriculture!

Everyone at my company this week has been abuzz over the Capital Press Article! The article was more than I could have it imagined it to be and is helping us do what I had hoped. It is not about me or anything I really even did on the YCC-its about creating a feeling of hope and enthusiasm in people, whether they are involved directly in the cattle industry or not! You are your own best or worst enemy and I hope that people can find hope in something out there in life. There is prosperity and life all around us if we choose to see it. You can listen to the news 24/7 and allow fear and worry get you down or listen to that doomsday/world-ending person next to you and allow their despair shred your sail.....OR you can choose to listen to those people that are willing to work through adversity and rough patches, knowing that a hillclimb is ALWAYS followed by an easy care-free descent!

Enjoy your weekend! :)

The Three C's: Cows, Constitution, Commandments

I recieved this as an email a few days ago from someone I work with who works out of one of our Montana offices. I went through our training "class" with him, he is about my age and from a ranch in Eastern Montana. Got to love those Eastern Montanans! I think this sums up how many of us feel-and the reference to BSE in the US is ironic considering I am from that county! :) You aren't alone in your thoughts and feelings these days. Its ok to state your opinion and not shy away from someone knowing you might be conservative, a christian, a gun-owner, a meat-eater, etc. What is not okay is to let only the other side be "allowed" to say their beliefs and them not allow us to share ours. Freedom...remember that??
(here's my contribution to speaking my mind..hehe:) my good friend Rachel found this and had to give it to me b/c she knew I would get plenty of use out of it...definitely a good party bag...lots of storage space for bottles of.........water....duh!:>)

Think About This: The Three C's: Cows, Constitution, Commandments

COWS

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing
that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track
a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right
to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington ?
And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are
unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around
our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow..

THE CONSTITUTION

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for
Iraq ... Why don't we just give them ours? It was
written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for
over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore..

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS

The real reason that we can't have the Ten
Commandments posted in a courthouse or Congress is this --
you cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' 'Thou
Shalt Not Commit Adultery' and 'Thou Shall Not
Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and
politicians .... it creates a hostile work environment.