High Hopes

After a lifetime in the cattle business, 52 full-time years by my reckoning, I’ve maintained that there are three variables that determine our economic equilibrium: the market, the weather and politics.  When only one of these variables is unfavorable, we can usually get by for another season. But when all three are unfavorable, we’re in dire straights.

To make matters worse, 2020 has introduced another variable I never considered: an international pandemic that has bludgeoned the global economy, and here at home closed restaurants for all grades of beef.  We are not the only business impacted, further impacting us all.

At the moment, any realistic hopes of corralling Covid-19 to some sort of normalcy are six to nine months away.  But those hopes may encourage better beef markets at the end of spring 2021.  How the political impacts, stimulus packages and reduction of tariffs, etc., will ultimately shake out is anyone’s guess. 

Now two months into our rainy season with less than a half-inch of rain to date and no green grass, we are keenly focused on the weather while feeding lots of hay.  The Wagyu bulls have arrived and we must have our cows in shape to breed.  

Here on Dry Creek on Saturday, we only measured 0.16”, but our hopes hang on the latest forecast of 0.3” today and tonight and another 0.45” Wednesday and Thursday.  Always optimistic, the combination may be enough to get our grass seed germinated.  But like always, much can change in the next four days.