I love having our kids at home. They love being home soaking up sunshine from sun up to sun down. Playing in garden dirt. Covered in dog, cattle, goat, or horse hair. Wild and free. Maybe a bit feral. Am I alone? You are probably rolling your eyes and calling me crazy. I just love having all my chicks in the nest.

We are still living with inflation. Energy prices may be down a little, but still very high. The food that we love costs much more. Ground beef surged up 11% from last year. The cost of bacon jumped 9.3%. Chicken breast is up almost 24%. From the farm and ranch perspective our prices needed to go up. Our costs for raising the crops that feed our animals continue to hit new peaks.

I love having our kids at home. They love being home soaking up sunshine from sun up to sun down. Playing in garden dirt. Covered in dog, cattle, goat, or horse hair. Wild and free. Maybe a bit feral. Am I alone? You are probably rolling your eyes and calling me crazy. I just love having all my chicks in the nest.

THEE Hot Barn Report! Heard ONLY on American radio stations across the nation and online at hotbarnreport.com!

It is the time of year when romance is waning. Cattle producers across the land are checking their bovine gestational pocket calendars to see when it is time to separate the boys from the girls. We call this process, “pulling bulls.”

THEE Hot Barn Report! Heard ONLY on American radio stations across the nation and online at hotbarnreport.com!

THEE Hot Barn Report! Heard ONLY on American radio stations across the nation and online at hotbarnreport.com!

I have special poem that I found about the county fair that I want to share with all of you!

Last week I unplugged and completely shut out the rest of world. It allowed me to focus on what was right in front of me. I observed a lot of great things like kids playing in the sandbox next to the show arena, jumping in bounce houses, and eating snow cones. I saw teenagers playing card games in the beef barn and helping their friends exercise goats. I saw swine kids offering their pigs for practice sessions and advice to kids who made it to the Elite Showmanship contest but did not have pigs of their own to practice on. I saw what I would consider heroic displays of sportsmanship, humility, and grace in and out of that dirt arena.

THEE Hot Barn Report! Heard ONLY on American radio stations across the nation and online at hotbarnreport.com!