Paul Marchant

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me well, but I was running late. I had to make the 230-mile drive to the Salt Lake airport to catch a flight to Dallas on my way to Tulsa.

We finally had most of the calves weaned. As a matter of fact, on the late October day when we gathered the bulk of the cows to pull the calves, you couldn’t have asked for better weather. After a two-week stretch where we’d seen the temperatures dip into the teens, we were experiencing some unusually nice weather.

I spent a few days around Springfield, Missouri, this fall, and although I was a couple weeks too early to take in the spectacular scenery of the beautiful autumn colors the Ozarks annually offer up, I was somehow caught up in the spirit of the Shepherd of the Hills.

I’ve never been particularly fond of birds of any sort. Really, there’s nothing pleasant about a mess of nasty starlings or pigeons nesting in the eaves of the calving shed or devouring the silage pile. It’s the bird world’s answer to rodents – pure avian avarice.

I’ve been hobbling around, dragging my leg like an old stifled bull for two or three weeks now. What I had thought and hoped was simply a pulled hamstring appears to be something a little more severe.

I tend to get a little sentimental at times. Sentimentality is not an altogether bad trait, but it sometimes gets in the way of practicality and things like wise business choices. No doubt, sentimentality has cost me more than a few dollars over the years.