Computer Crash.

When I crash a computer, I don't mess around. I am finally up and running again after a week of no joy. For any tech types reading this, I finally gave up trying to fix the computer. I re-partitioned, re-formatted and re-installed everything. I thank my stars that I have learned to back-up my computer at the end of every month. It could have been worse, but it was still a monumental pain in the @*$!. Ultimately, all went well, except during the process of reloading programs I ran into some "slight" problems and wound up cursing Microsoft in general and Bill Gates in particular and finally subscribed them both to several interesting new hells of my own creation.

In Alma, Nebraska, of course, spring has sprung. From snow flurries at the first of the month, we are now seeing greenery everywhere. Fishing is good, walking is good, life is good, and today it is eighty degrees.

I saw a big difference last night between rural Nebraska and Los Angeles. Alma High School had its annual junior/senior prom. My granddaughter, a junior, dropped by in her gown and brought her date along, a young man named Adam. Since facilities are limited, a formal dinner was held at the auditorium downtown and the dance was held in the Alma High School gymnasium later. Lots of adults gather downtown to see what kind of vehicles bring the kids to the dinner. Now, in California, we all know that the kids rent limos these days. There was just one stretch limo here, an SUV that seemed to have fifty kids in it (probably only about twelve), but aside from that the methods of arrival could only have happened in a farming community. How about big John Deere tractors cleaned and polished beyond belief, with even the tires gleaming a glossy black. I liked the big, big crew cab pickup truck that must have been polished for three days to get that kind of a gleam and the tractor cab from an eighteen wheeler that could only have been cleaned and polished by a team of workers. I think I saw everything except a riding lawn mower used to transport the various and gorgeous young ladies to the dinner. I hope the kids remember it as a special evening.

To satisfy my never ending curiosity, I attended an auction at the cattle sale barn last Tuesday. It was, indeed, an education. The local ranchers bring cattle to the sale barn in Alma once a week and every Tuesday, they are auctioned off. Most of the animals for sale were cows, as opposed to bulls, and were brought individually into an indoor pen about thirty feet square with entrance and exit gates controlled by two men. I immediately noticed that on every side of the pen was a protective barrier like we see in bull-fighting rings for the matadors to seek safety behind. I soon found out why. The cows were brought in one at a time and the auctioneer began his rapid fire routine. As each animal enters the pen, it steps on a part of the floor that is really a scale covered with dirt. The weight then pops up on a large LED display for all to see. The lowest I saw was about 900 pounds and heaviest was just over 1700. Sale prices ran from slightly less than fifty dollars per hundred weight to almost seventy dollars.

Many, many of the cows were really hard to handle and entered the pen with one object in mind: To hurt someone, anyone, as soon as they could. The two men in the pen were well experienced and didn't hesitate to get behind the safety barriers when circumstances looked dangerous. It was explained to me later that the bad attitude of those cows was exactly why they were up for sale to the feed lots: The ranchers don't particularly want dangerous cows in their pastures. It's no fun, they say to drive out to the far reaches of the ranch to repair a fence or check out a calf born the night before and wind up running for your life as you try to work. The cattle brought to the sale barn normally go straight to the feed lots to fatten up and soon after appear as the Thursday beef special at your local market.

Nebraska, of course, is known for its corn production, but cattle ranching is a huge business in this state. It is not rare to go to lunch at a local eatery (Bugbee's in Alma, for instance) and watch some ranch workers walk in wearing beat up stetson hats, cowboy boots and spurs. A lot of them work all day on horseback, and taking off the spurs is just too much hassle when they go to lunch. My oldest daughter is dating a fella who owns a small ranch (fifty head of cattle normally) and is a member of the local cattlemen's association. They had their annual dinner a week ago at "The Station", a local upscale restaurant and bar, and she said she has never been served a steak that big in her life. She also says she ate it - all of it. I think it's state policy to deport all vegetarians to other parts of the country. Beef is where its at in Nebraska.

A source of concern for cattle ranchers is the "globalization" of the meat packing plants. Swift and Co., a grand old name in meat packing, was purchased last year by a company from Brazil. That company is now looking at buying the next two largest meat packers in the U.S., which has all kinds of negative implications for the small ranchers. They fear the "chickenization" of the beef industry. Just as chickens are now produced primarily under direct contract to the meat processors for various fast food franchises, some can see that before long most ranches might produce their cattle on contracts from packing plants, and the thought does not set well with them. Only time will tell.