There was a wildfire here on the Palouse last week, burning up wheat stubble, closing highways and demanding the best efforts of the area fire crews. It wasn't far from my house where it finally was halted, and a lot of the traffic was rerouted by my house.

As I was surveying the damage that night and early the next morning, I started thinking about how others outside of agriculture might view what had happened. I live near a college town that brings in a lot of people from urban backgrounds with no relation or understanding of agriculture. Granted, a wildfire is a large enough situation that even the city folk would have due respect for being rerouted and the damage it might cause, but what about when we're moving farm equipment down the highway or driving a herd of cattle to spring range? What about weather conditions wreaking havoc with our crops and the volatility of market prices?

I often fall into the trap of an "us vs. them" mentality. I was raised on a cattle ranch, and I can't imagine enjoying any other lifestyle. But when I force myself to pretend I'm walking in a city person's shoes, I can see how they would have a hard time understanding cattle ranching or why I wouldn't want to live in a mile radius of shopping malls, coffee shops and nail salons. With limited to zero knowledge of what cattle ranching and agriculture is truly about, it's no wonder the media can sway people into believing everything it prints.

That's why I would like to encourage you to participate in the Masters of Beef Advocacy program (www.beef.org/mba). It's an online, six-course program that presents concise information and points to use in presenting a positive and accurate portrait of the beef industry. I've just completed the second course - each one is about an hour in length. While a lot of it is information I already knew, the Masters of Beef Advocacy program takes that information and puts it in a consumer-friendly package to help explain what the beef industry is really like.

There can't be an "us vs. them" mentality for the beef industry to continue thriving. Those of us raised in, working in and passionate about beef cattle need to be ambassadors for our livelihood in our own daily lives.

Burned wheat stubble on the Palouse from a wildfire at the end of August.

As of today, I am officially no longer a beef cattle producer. My heart is crying. Really, it is. When each of us kids turned 13 (I was 14), my dad gave us a first-calf heifer. It was partly an investment lesson - mostly an invaluable lesson in how volatile the cattle business is - and partly payment for the hours we put in. I say "partly", because - although I never tallied it up - I'm sure my payment equaled fractions of a penny per hour.

For the past 11 springs, I've cashed a calf check. Some of those years I cashed more than one, because I reinvested my income in expanding my single-digit herd. (Ya gotta start somewhere, right?) Over the past decade, my reinvested dollars died off, had twins, came up lame...all the usual suspects, but I've always had at least one cow to my name. Today, I got a check in the mail - my cow check - and my one-head-herd is now down to zero.

It was time. She was old, and I hadn't put in time on the ranch in years. But I still felt a twinge of sadness, because - well - she was mine. She helped put me through college, make car payments, fall in love with the cattle business. She also made me mad when she'd do something dumb but in equal parts made me especially proud because I owned such a dang good red cow (of course she was red...of course!).

So it's officially official - I am no longer in the cow business, not as a producer. There are other ways to be involved, of course - I'll still be a part-time ranch hand for my friends. I'll continue to write here, and I've got some ideas brewing in the wings. But all of that doesn't strike a chord in me the way owning cattle does so someday, somehow, some way, I'll start building a herd again. One red cow by one red bull!

“I've always made a total effort, even when the odds seemed entirely against me. I never quit trying; I never felt that I didn't have a chance to win.” ~ Arnold Palmer

A couple weekends ago, I was out for a ride. As I was passing through the pasture with the tail-end calvers, I glanced down into the steep canyon to my right. There, in the very bottom, was a black cow. Grazing, switching her tail, every so often looking downward into the ditch.

"I spect we best go have a look," I said to Patch as I turned his nose downhill.

Having a look - such an innocent, completely harmless little phrase, right? I wasn't thinking so a few hours later, I'll tell you that.

In the uttermost bottom part of the steepest canyon in this particular pasture was a little red heifer calf. Nice-looking little bugger, but it hadn't had a meal since it'd been born considering its gaunt sides and the tightness of momma's bag.

I hoisted it out of the bottom of the ditch and worked it a few feet up the side hill, and then I left to check everybody else. Thinking, hoping...praying?...that I would come back and it would all magically be fine and normal.

When I swung back by an hour later, the calf was back in the bottom of the ditch. Despite my hopes and prayers, this situation was obviously going to need some help taking care of itself. So I went back down to the calf and spent the next two hours trying to get it up on top of the canyon where I could reach it with the truck.

I didn't allow myself to think about just how I was going to get the calf into the truck, transport calf and momma up the road without having an escapee, tie everybody up to get the calf to suck...I was going to cross those bridges when I came to them. More...

I am not a political person. I’m just not. My idea of fun doesn’t include sitting around a table, sipping on gin and tonic and debating politics. That’s okay if other people enjoy it; I’m not one of them.

 But these days, it pays to perk your ears up when legislation is being discussed, because there’s a lot on the table that could have some pretty heavy impacts for the beef industry. Greenhouse gas regulation, wolf laws, water rights, crop insurance, et cetera. 

Ignoring what is happening up on Capitol Hill can be disastrous. It can be easy to bury ourselves in work, in the challenges of just making it from day to day. But to hole up and stick our heads in the sand? That’s not the answer.

Unfortunately, I think we’ll be wading into some stiff battles on the political front pretty soon – in the beef industry and agriculture as a whole. The more information we have, the more educated arguments we’ll be able to make. Maybe we won’t be able to change anything. Maybe upcoming legislative decisions will be handed down with a “Do Not Pass Go” ticket stapled to it. Maybe we’ll get saddled with all types of regulations.

Okay, but that doesn’t mean we can’t dig our heels in, get informed and fight for what we believe in. That’s what my dad taught me anyway.

Beef is beef, and good beef is good beef.  That's my motto.

 If you look around the country, you'll find a lot of black cattle.  When I was a the sale a feew weeks ago - a sale of 4,800 head - there were a lot of black yearlings moved through the ring.  And, just for the record (and to save my own rear), I am not against black cattle.  At all.  There are a lot of good black cattle out there.  At the same time, I don't have any reservations about letting my partiality to red cattle known.  It's the type of operation I grew up on, and I can't lie about how much I like seeing a hundred head of reds scattered across the hillside.

I called up my dad a few weeks ago to talk cows.  I'd been thinking about this color topic for awhile, so I asked him if he ever noticed a disparity between the way his sets of red calves sold in the ring compared to blacks.  Apparently, two or three years back, dad took his heifers to town.  They were the second tier set as he'd already pulled his replacements out.  That same sale, a black cattle breeder brought some of the replacement heifers he'd kept back and didn't need.  They were the best of a quality black operation, and dad's red heifers topped the sale.

That was the long answer to a question that simply could be answered with "No, color doesn't matter.  Quality does."

And that's just one example.  Like any cattlemen knows, sometimes the quality just isn't there due to a variety of reasons. A bull that doesn't produce like he should have.  Bad weather.  Poor feed.  My dad's set of calves this year wouldn't top a cull cow sale, it sounds like; it's just been one of those years.

Everyone has their preferences, just like my preference is for red cattle.  But I think it's easy to get too focused on one particular trait at the cost of others.  On a world that is bent on black cattle, sometimes hide color becomes too much of a priority.  The same goes for any other breed of cattle.  My dad doesn't keep a heifer as a replacement just because she's got red on her back, and he won't load a cow for town simply because she's black.

Beef is beef, and good beef is good beef.  Quality wins every time; that's my motto. 

The smoke drifted hazily up to the rafters, and the cadence of the auctioneer's voice sounded just like I remembered. The cattle in the ring, a nice set of black steer calves, sold just under a dollar, and I smiled. The market was up, the buyers were in the seats - it was gonna be fun.

I haven't been to a livestock auction in years. I used to go with my dad when I was growing up. We didn't go that often - there was too much work to get done, but when he was looking for replacement heifers or selling the cull cows, we'd hay and feed and then head to the sale. Oddly enough, I don't ever remember looking around and wondering why there weren't many other girls there, especially young ones as I was. Everybody knew dad and I just thought that's where I was supposed to be.

The best sales to go to, of course, were the yearling sales. There's an energy surrounding yearling sales that doesn't exist at a cow sale. Maybe it's because all the feedlot buyers are there. Maybe it's because a year of hard work and hard times are sitting in the ring. Maybe it's because there's just something about seeing a nice set of red steers...or black, white or yellow...milling about in the ring. Everyone in the crowd kind of leans forward when one of those nice sets of calves come through the gates. There is an appreciation for good beef at a livestock auction that doesn't exist outside of this world.

The thing is, the cattle business can feel awfully lonely. If it's not calving struggles, it's shortage of feed, bad weather or slow market prices. And all of those lead to the ultimate problem of the banker knocking on the door wanting his money. Pretty soon, it feels like you're the only one facing these problems. Cubicle workers don't have to fight mud or lie awake at night wondering if they should keep the steers on feed for another two weeks in hopes of the market improving, and sometimes the overwhelming task of trying to beat the odds gets pretty heavy.

Popping into the sale last week reminded me what I liked so much about the livestock auction. It's a culture. It's a support group - in an informal, unspoken way. Just looking around, you realize you're not in this business alone, and sometimes, that's all it takes to help you jump out of bed ready to face another day.