Happy New Year
We want to wish you all a Happy New Year and best wishes for 2017.
We want to thank all the family and friends who helped us out in 2016. We couldn’t do it without you. Bad weather, mean mother cows, busted equipment or grumpy ranchers, everyone stepped up when we needed it. Thank you.
As always 2016 had it’s ups and downs for the ranch.
Kara lost her Dad in February. A number of other good friends and neighbours passed away in early 2016. Spring was hard on the heart for a lot of people.
The year started with bad drought conditions. It was enjoyable not calving in the snow and cold 
🙂 but all the plants had a slow start to the growing season. The rains can in July which was a mixed blessing: the grass grew but the hail devastated the crops.
We had a couple hundred kindergarten kids come out from Cochrane in the spring to learn about Agriculture and the ranch. That was fun.
We doctored a lot of cattle in the pasture this summer. The wet weather caused a lot of foot-rot. It’s always fun to rope cows with Dad and the guys. Speed, planning, adrenaline, danger, fast horses and a 35 ft lariat combine to make an exciting mix.
Harvest went well (at least on the stuff that wasn’t hailed out).
Cattle prices were down by 40% from last year which was a major hit to us. You need to role with the punches in this industry so we’ll buckle down and see if we can get through to next fall.
Speaking of punches, the NDP isn’t doing agriculture any favors. Thanks to their policies we’ve had a major feedlot operator close, input costs are climbing with no end in sight and they STILL haven’t set the labour guidelines for Agriculture (Bill 6) even though they have been collecting the WCB payments for a full year.
The kids are healthy and are enjoying school. They are riding more and more. The new puppy loves to chase cows. The cows are fat and happy. The wildlife is around in abundance. Deer, elk, moose, coyotes, bears, wolves, cougars, etc, they are all here. We managed to do some team roping in Cochrane which is always fun. Kara and the kids spent the hot summer days in the creek with friends. We even managed to go camping….twice!!!!
With any luck 2017 will be even better than 2016. God Bless.
