Snow Day

While I write this we have spent the day dealing with what the schools and lots of business are calling a snow day. While we did get some snow and little bit of freezing rain the majority of what we got was sleet and a lot of extremely cold temperatures.

Many people got to take the day off because the roads were terrible. However, we spent the day breaking ice, pitching it out of troughs, feeding extra grain, unrolling hay and saying lots of prayers that the calvers decided to put off calving just a little bit longer and that everything makes it.

During the last storm one of my friends Alex Morcom of Morcom Cattle brought up the meme’s we all see floating around Facebook during every storm. It goes something like “Ranchers aren’t dealing with the weather for you to put ketchup on your steak or to cook it well done.” She flipped that around and said “Ranchers aren’t dealing with this weather for you to eat an “Impossible Burger.” She then went on to say that she didn’t care how you enjoyed your beef as long as you enjoyed real beef!

I think that she hit the nail on the head! While we work really hard to raise beef that grades high and is a product that we don’t think needs steak sauce or needs to be cooked well done if that is how you like your steak so be it! We all have different likes and taste and as long as you are picking real beef I am a happy rancher.

One of the arguments that the “Impossible Burger” uses as why it’s better, is treatment of animals. I can’t speak for all producers but I can speak for myself, the neighbors that we passed today that were out there with us taking care of their animals and lots of my friends that were posting their adventures of taking care of their animals in this cold weather. Producers really care about their animals. If they didn’t you would not see them brining an unpotty trained, stinky calf into their home to warm up, passing up lunch to make sure every animal was fed and watered, getting pelted by sleet while trying to break ice and scoop it out and spending a fortune to feed extra feed to be used as bedding and added comfort not straight gain.

So if you get to enjoy a snow day cuddled up at home do a rancher a favor and eat some real beef however you like it best! Oh and maybe send some coffee and snacks! Thank goodness the local gas station always manages to open even on the worst of days!