Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

The Dispatcher had a conversation the other day during the fire that I wanted to share with you. She was calling BIA fire control when she had the conversation.

Phone ringing and is then picked up, voice on other end: Uhhhh?

TD (The Dispatcher): Hello?

Voice: Uhhh?

TD: Is this BIA fire control?

Voice: (very long pause) Uhhhhhh.........I think so.

TD: I am reporting a range fire at .........

Voice: Uhhhh, Okay, I'll try to find someone to tell.

Now isn't this a conversation that inspires confidence? They did obviously find someone to tell because help finally showed up but the phone etiquette was atrocious. Where do they find such people to do these things? Do you answer your phone with Uhhh? What I love is when you answer your own phone at home and the first thing somebody yells at you, "Who is this?" I always respond by yelling back, "You called me, who are you and who are you looking for." Most of the time they hang up then. Where are people learning their phone etiquette now days?

Confidence is a lot of this game or any game. If you don't think you can, you won't. Jerry West

The Democrats last fall took over our National Congress and claimed they would make changes. They would work for the people and solve all the problems that the Republicans dumped on us, the people. Now I haven't been very impressed with anything they have accomplished but I am a skeptic so that is not surprising. I see though that the American people aren't very confident in what they are doing either. A recent poll indicates that only 14% of the people have "a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in Congress." The real shocking thing is that this number is lower than the President gets at 25% and those evil big business get at 18%.

I don't trust Congress at all, but I am surprised that the number for Congress isn't higher. If you read any number of political blogs, on the left of course, on the web you would think the Democrats have led us into a state of Nirvana and all peoples should be bowing and scraping before the wonderful Democratically controlled Congress to solve all of our problems and woes and will spread cash out to all those unfortunate souls left out by the Republicans for all these years. It appears thought hat the average American doesn't buy into this, they still don't trust the crooks.

If such unhappiness exists in Congress, why don't the voting public vote the bums out and replace them with somebody they can trust? This is one of my few questions I do know the answer to. Everybody is almost always happy with their Congress Critters, it's just the rest of the country doesn't vote in anybody that they have confidence in. If everybody outside on my district would just vote for somebody good, defined as somebody who votes me money and not everybody else in the country, I would be confident in Congress as a whole. Since those Congressmen are always voting other people money instead of me, I won't have confidence in any of them.

I find the whole thing interesting, I don't think the whole poll means much, but it is interesting. Blogs on the right will have a field day with this one and it will be fun to watch the vitriol flow. I enjoy watching such arguments. It always makes me laugh and I can always use a good laugh.

The most important political office is that of the private citizen. Louis D. Brandeis

Shamlessly stolen from Larry Gabriel, South Dakota Department of Agriculture

Rains of Confidence

A recent headline read, "Rural Confidence Hits Four Year Low." The story was based on a bank's annual survey of Australian farmers. It concluded that drought and rising input costs caused farmers to lose "confidence" that next year will be better.

Among the farmers surveyed, 57 percent expected conditions to get worse in the next 12 months due to drought.

Even though Australia's farmers are on the other side of world and the other side of the equator, they often suffer long-term drought the same time we do. Their drought has been ongoing for the last six years in some areas, just like the drought in the Western United States.

In reading that story, it occurred to me that massive media coverage of drought and its threat to our future may be a greater threat than the drought itself. Discouraging words have an effect.

A farmer or rancher without confidence (I prefer to call it faith) is in deep trouble. Farmers and ranchers depend on a production system that is largely subject to all the whims of nature, whether it be fire, flood, wind or drought. Almost all our products can be lost to nature at any moment, leaving us only with that old familiar saying, "There is always next year."

Maybe that is why farming and ranching are not viewed as ordinary businesses. Maybe no sensible businessman could stand to live with the risks we face. The risk of enormous loss faced every year for the potential of a small or modest profit margin is not the most desirable business model. Yet almost every farmer and rancher does just that.

Isn't it amazing how a little rain can improve attitudes, build confidence, restore faith and press our plans for "next year," even if this one was a disaster? That is an unmeasured value of rain.

August rains came too late for many crops in South Dakota, but those rains restore us as much as they restore the vegetation on which we depend for our livelihoods and on which the nation depends for its food. They were too late for the wheat crop, but just in time for the wheat farmer's faith in the next crop.

It rained a little on the drought area of Queensland a couple of weeks ago, and the news story about the above survey said widespread winter rains in New South Wales improved the confidence of farmers in that state. News of those rains yields some hope of something similar to follow in the middle of America.

Crops and grass cannot grow without adequate water. They need a certain amount of it at the right times to produce. Everyone recognizes that, but few notice the people's need for rain.

For the people of the land, every rain is a blessing that nourishes our belief that things will improve. Rain gives us the faith to invest in next year.

The loss of faith is far more dangerous than drought. When our faith is watered, we believe all will be well, if not now, next year.

So true, a little rain would wash away so much nrgativity around the country it isn't even funny. I don't see any coming but I am hoping.

Japan prepares to lift ban on U.S. beef

Japan is expected to approve a partial resumption of imports of U.S. beef this coming week, a news report said Saturday.

The government plans to officially approve the resumption on Thursday, the national Yomiuri newspaper said, without citing sources, which is customary in Japanese newspapers.

It's getting closer and closer. Eventually there will be official news that this is going to happen and not just rumors. Is it going to make a difference? No. US beef is going to have a hard go of it in Japan so this isn't something that is going to make a lot of difference in the beef markets. Getting a foot in the door is a start. Building market share is the nest step. I'm not an expert on that but given time it will happen. It might be quite a few years before we get any kind of decent market share but it will happen. I'm confident.

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself. Marcus Tullius Cicero