Under the Wire

It is an honor to have been a part of such fine publications throughout these many years.

It’s time to give you a little information about the guy who has been writing this.

Raised on a ranch in the foothills east of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, my wife, Sue (Carnahan) born and raised in Riverton, Kan., and I, along with son David and his wife Kathy, run a cow/calf operation near Brush. Growing up, my parents helped run a livestock auction in Fort Collins, where I was bitten by the “auction bug.” Following a stint as a Vocational Agriculture instructor, I went to work for a large livestock auction in Brush. Years later, Sue and I left the ranks of the employed and began producing these “Under the Wire” columns and a syndicated radio livestock market report, “Livestock News Network.”

Thus, when I compliment all the livestock auctions, rodeos and these fine publications, I speak from experience. The same can be said of my admiration for the cattle industry in this region. As an old Texan once said, “Why, they’ve got grass, water and cattle and they are all in the same pasture!”

“Under The Wire” is about the humorous side of the lives you and I live while pursuing what I think is the greatest way there is to wander through this world, stewards of the great land God has provided us and caretakers of our grass harvesting machinery, cattle.

Using my own goofs, mishaps and “shouldn’t have done that” experiences, I’ve been writing about you, relax, no names mentioned. Quite often readers will tell me what I wrote about had happened to them. Others take a different approach. One lovely 90-plus-year-old lady once told me, “I’ve been reading your stories for years. Some are funny.” You could hear the air rush out of my puffed up chest a quarter of a mile away.

We love our cows, well most of them, anyway. Number 412 and I had an argument over a newborn calf she was insisting on taking from another cow, while in labor with her own calf. This happened years ago but the outcome is still fresh in my mind, along with the pledge to never do that again. The score was, me with 16 broken ribs, two cracked vertebrae, a lung beginning to look like a half-full paper grocery bag and a helicopter ride 60 miles to an emergency room. Number 412’s ride was in a stock trailer to the Sterling livestock auction. Yes, I carry a grudge.

Did I mention I have no intention of ever doing that again? Sue and David, whom you have read a lot about on these pages, are in charge of never letting me forget that bone-head idea. Quite a few other equaling inadvisable adventures as well.

You have found no political agenda or any other kind, for that matter, in these stories. No malice towards anyone and a guarantee your mother can read them all and not be offended.

It has been a great adventure you and I getting together all these years, you reading stories of kids, good cow dogs and sometimes not so good ones, horses, cows, even bankers once in a while. Everything I know about people I have learned from a much smarter cow. That was a pretty constant thread through these stories.

I sincerely hope you have enjoyed reading these columns as much as I have writing them for you. As the ole saying goes, biblical I do believe, there is a season … it is now my season to turn over this column space to a new columnist for you.

Thank you publications and readers. Sue and I sincerely will miss you all.