Free

STAND ALONE

L.J. Abernathy PPP Columnist Happy New Year! As always, the new year arrives full of resolution, hopes and dreams. To those we add promises, commitments and hard work with a good dose of comradery and cheer. The entire Palo Pinto Press and Cherry Road Media team wish our reader family members and retail sales partners health, wealth and happiness. While we may yet have our usual “stock show” spell of cold weather, so far in the winter of 24 & 25, the Gulf Coast winds have blessed us with moderate temperatures and some needed moisture. In delivering single copies across the county the last few weeks, this Ole Heifer has noticed more and more “cow cake” trucks along the rural routes. For those of you who might not know what “cow cake” is: It’s feed for cattle compressed into cylindrical cubes. While some smaller livestock owners feed “cake” by hand, opening one sack at a time, larger operations have trucks equipped with bins into which the feed is loaded at the barn and from which it is distributed to the cattle in the pasture. In either case there is an art to feeding “cake” which requires calling the cattle out of the far corners of the pastures with a strong and ringing vocal call, honing a vehicle horn or a siren mounted on the trucks. All of this reminded this Ole Heifer how much of Palo Pinto County’s economy is rooted in beef production. And in turn how hard the livestock producers and their employees and families work to keep this most popular protein on our tables. Good thing Editor Ann chose a Holstein and not a Hereford or another breed for this Reader Column’s logo. Otherwise, this Ole Heifer might be a vegetarian. Haw and Mooooooo. With a wiggle […]