By Betty Jo Gigot Publisher
I know. His name is Arlo and was a gift from my friend Barbara Jackson. Arlo decorates my living room, reminding me to be awake and aware in this rapidly changing world. I think Arlo and I look a lot alike some days.
Thinking back on the past few days, the terrible floods in the Texas Hill Country have to haunt us all. My late husband, Dean, and I spent three winters in our motor coach at the Buckhorn Lake resort in Kerrville. What a delightful community on the banks of the Guadalupe River and what a reminder of the power of Mother Nature and the whipsaw life can bring. Heart breaking.
Another part of those floods hit the Lincoln County area of New Mexico where my father’s family lived and ranched for years. The second flood in two years through the heart of Ruidoso brought havoc to that area also. My dad was a conservationist and an expert on water. His standing comment to us kids was, “Keep the water, keep the water, keep the water!” He thought some day water would be more valuable than oil. Why does there always seem to be too little or too much?
The other attention grabber for me was the bombs that we dropped on Iran. I was having dinner with a recently retired military family when the word can that we had, silently and successfully, launched planes from very close to where I was staying at the time to cause serious damage to a long-standing threat to the world. We all watched the President together, reflecting on our world as a whole.
Top of mind for all in the cattle business has to be the ever-changing New World screwworm debacle. CALF News writer Larry Stalcup and I discussed the situation this morning and decided we were too far out from mailing the magazine to even try to say anything constructive. We all just know it could be devastating to the industry if the insects cross the border.
As I write this, today’s discussion is on land owned by China here in the United States. Now I really look like Arlo.
The same on again off again goes with the tariffs and what the final decisions are for Brazil and Canada, and other supplier and customers for our beef. These are shifting sands, making it hard to plan ahead.
Something that hasn’t gotten enough attention is the change in the estate tax structure. That has been top of my wish list forever and, after we lost Dean 10 years ago, a very terrifying one. Our family was able to keep the farm in our case but that hasn’t been the case for many. There are other items in the “Big Beautiful Bill” that will affect us as we go along. Lots to learn.
A blessing, as I see it, is the new Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. She certainly has taken hold of the issues and, for once, has actually had a halter in her hands. We all know communication is key to getting things done and she seems to be very good at that.
I started to call this CALF News issue “Patchwork,” since we have a plethora of different topics. From the Beef Improvement Federation seminar to Beef Empire Days, to the recent California/Arizona meeting, to new cow-calf topics, a delightful farm-to-fork establishment and updates on the fires in Texas, we covered the waterfront for you. Patti Wilson updates us on biproducts and our Canadian contributor Will Verboven and his wife traveled to Scotland and reported back on Angus beef there. There is something for everyone as we head into fall.
Meanwhile, Arlo and I will be excited every morning to see what happened overnight and adjust to our fast spinning world. Onward.
