I know that I haven’t been writing much lately.  I just haven’t had a muse that inspired me to perform “my artwork”.  Which maybe, just maybe that means that I haven’t been into the barley & hops?  No.  I still have a few of those from time to time.

One regular reader told me that he couldn’t “go” on a regular basis lately.  His morning routine consists of reading this blog and there hasn’t been much reading so his morning constitutional has been out of whack.  Constipated.  I apologize.

Basically, my muse has just been so dang busy, that well–I haven’t been inclined to or inspired to sit down at the keyboard and type.

And now that I am hitting the keyboard, the letter K on this keyboard brings up a question.  Just how long can honey in a keyboard continue to be sticky?   The answer is obviously years.

Basically, I have been reading–a lot.  Like several books.  A devotional book and a sausage making book.  And at night, I have been watching a lot of cartoons–Star Wars cartoon series.  I had been avoiding those shows–because they were Star Wars cartoons.  And now that I watched a couple, they are so well written.

As I rapidly approach the age of 50, I find myself reflecting on the past years.  Accomplishments, mistakes, mistakes, other mistakes and the very few things that I did right.  This blog comes up a lot in my mental reflections.  I’ve done a lot of good over the years.  But, I don’t want to be remembered as just some opinionated bastard behind a keyboard.  Yet, those of you that know me, will agree, I am way more opinionated in real life.  I’m right.  And I truly do not  give a goat’s smelly nut snack who I offend.  I know there are people HOPING that I don’t type their name.  Why?  Because I am right.

To the very core of my soul, I love the art and science of raising kids in combination with livestock.  And to the very core of my being, I am wrestling with an internal demon of raising kids and livestock in a current stock show environment.  We are talking Balrog taking down Gandalf kind of match 2 the death.  I’m prepared to write more about it.  But now is not the time.  State to state, show to show–people talk about who is cheating, who is in charge, the politics in place, etc, etc, etc.  There has to be a correction in the marketplace.

When? Who?  Why?

I can only answer that last question–The Why.  In the show stock industry, there has to be that Troy Gosney that can describe ads from a 1983 Hampshire Herdsman magazine.  And can talk the damnedest set of reasons over Christmas trees–bookface him and watch it.  50 score.  A person like Jeff Bedwell that can–from memory–trace back generations of Shorthorn cattle.  Always, there needs to be a link from the origins to the present.  There has to be someone that can TRULY describe the genetics and why we do what we do.

I hate to type this…. yet still love to write this– a Blaine Rue that is SO excited to go work on goats–my goats, your goats, he’ll drive to the end of the Earth to go get goats ready.  PASSION.  He loves it. He goes to sleep at night thinking about goat genetics and wakes up thinking about working with good goats.

I’m real soured on the current state of the stock show industry.   I wish that I could go back 25 years.  We can’t.  It sickens me to know that a given judge is political, or that a firm has quick-connects for the air hose.

Here’s the thing!   NOBODY can tell me that I’m wrong.  The science & art of raising kids with livestock is a life-long lesson of responsibility, work ethic & pride that is hard to replicate anywhere else.  The desire of chasing banners at a stock show has turned into a political, money pit and orgy of negatives that is hard to justify in the real world….well, without a lot of prayers and confessions.

Keep it clean.  Forget the dollars and do what is right. The moral & educational foundation which the stock show industry was founded upon, is actually still there.  We have to respect that.

I’m out.