As I write this next blog, I look back on a day that reassured my sense of pride in the Canadian Agriculture industry. The day I’m talking about is Canadian Ag Day. It was a day that filled my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all other forms of social media, with posts of real-world experiences in the Canadian Agriculture industry. But it didn’t end with social media, throughout the university it was evident that Canadian Ag Day was acknowledged. Multiple booths were set up in a heavy traffic area all to showcase the industry and educate the passers-by. This was organized by the youth of the industry, with the goal of showing the university what our industry is all about. Plus, the thousands of cookies that were free to anyone walking by. It proved to me the strength of the industry was not only in the older men and women but flowed all the way down to the roots, the youth, the future.
Canadian Ag Day to me is much more than 24 hours long. For me Canadian Ag Day is 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week. There is only one thing that is different for me, instead of Canadian Ag Day, my version lacks one word. Everyday in my eyes is Ag Day. While I am very proud of our Agriculture in Canada, I am also very proud of Agriculture around the world because Agriculture is not just a job or a common interest. It’s a family, a community, and a lifestyle.
What happened in Queensland, Australia is absolutely devastating. After seven years of drought, monsoon rains dropped 28 inches of rain in no more than seven days. Flooding the plains and subsequently killing 300,000 cattle costing around $3 million. While this is the news that would devastate many, it is not the dollar value that the Australian ranchers are focused on. It is the loss of animals that are under their care. The failure to do what they have done their whole life, protect and care for the animals. This was not a failure that happened from lack of trying. They tried all they could to keep the animals safe, but it didn’t matter what they did, Mother Nature won. The experience they went through can be thoroughly explained by the words in one of Baxter Blacks many heartfelt and deep meaning poems “Helpless”.
“I do solemnly swear, as shepherd of the flock, to accept the responsibility for the animals put in my care. To tend to their basic needs of food and shelter. To minister to their ailments. To put their well being before my own, if need be. And to relieve their pain and suffering up to, and including the final bullet.
“I swear to treat them with respect. To always remember that we have made them dependent on us and therefore have put their lives in our hands.
“As God is my witness.”
Helpless.
The worst winter in Dakota’s memory, 1997. Cattle losses estimated at 300,000 head. And how did they die? From exposure and lack of feed. Basic needs – food and shelter.
Do you think those Dakota ranchers said, “Well, I’ll just close down the store and put on the answering machine. We’ll wait ‘til the storm blows over. No harm done.”
No. They couldn’t . . . wouldn’t.
“Charles, you can’t go out there. The cows are clear over in the west pasture. You can’t even see the barn from here.”
But he tried anyway. Tried to get the machinery runnin’, tried to clear a path, tried to load the hay, tried to find the road.
These are not people who live a pampered life. These are not people who are easily defeated. These are not people who quit trying.
But days and weeks on end of blizzards, blowing snow and fatal wind chills took their toll. Cattle stranded on the open plains with no cover, no protection, no feed, no place to go and no relief from the arctic fury, died in singles and bunches and hundreds and thousands, frozen as hard as iron.
Back in the house sat the rancher and his family, stranded. Unable to do what every fiber in his body willed him to do. Knowing that every hour that he could not tend to his cows, diminished him in some deep, permanent, undefinable way. Changing him forever.
The losses were eventually tallied in number of head and extrapolated to dollars. But dollars were not what kept him pacing the floor at night, looking out the window every two minutes, walking out in it fifty times a day, trying, trying, trying.
Exhaustion, blood shot eyes, caffeine jitters, depression, despair…knowing if he only could get to them, he could save them.
Then finally having to face the loss. His failure as a shepherd. That’s what kept him trying.
It is hard to comfort a person who has had his spirit battered like that. “It couldn’t be helped.” “There was nothing you could do,” is small consolation. So, all I could say to our fellow stockmen in the Dakotas is,
“In our own way, we understand.”
-Used with permission from his book “Poems Worth Saving”
Coyote Cowboy Company
P.O. Box 2190
Benson, AZ 85602
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These words written by Baxter Black illustrate just what the ranchers in Australia are going through. As mentioned previously, the dollar amount is not the focus for these people. It is the inability to do what they have done all their life, care for their animals. To modify what Baxter said only slightly.
To all the fellow ranchers in Australia,
“In our own way, we understand”
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