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! :)

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!