Tailgate Lectures: Fields of Our Fathers

I haven't posted a Tailgate Lecture in a long time. I'll remind you that these posts are filled with stories and lessons I learned from my Grandfather. This Tailgate Lecture is a little bit different. In the fall of my senior year, we had a special assignment in Journalism Class. We were to write about the pivotal moment in someone's life, the person was to be very special to us. I easily chose my grandfather as my subject. In true fashion, I procrastinated about the project and ended up interviewing him during a trip home from a cattle sale when the only way I could write his answers was to use the light that shined in from the trailer of heifers we were hauling home. The essay turned out to be the neatest thing I have ever done for someone in my entire life. He was truly proud of it and it turned out that I got it written just in time - he passed that summer. I am proud to share this essay with you: 

Fields of Our Fathers

My grandpa loved farming, ranching and FISHIN'!

 His voice is deep and coarse. You can almost hear the dust, inhaled during countless hours spent in the fields plowing; settle in his lungs after he clears his throat mid-sentence. His skin is dark and weathered like a cowboy’s favorite pair of boots. Nevertheless, he is a stately man, tinged with the rough edges from the hard times in his life. Archie Rooney surpassed great adversity to own a farming  and ranching operation that encompasses nearly 20,000 acres in Southwest Kansas.

Grandpa Archie and my dad on "Doc" the family cow horse.

The beginning of Rooney’s life as a farmer, however, was not a smoothly paved road. It might be better described as baptism by fire rather than holy water. 

“I was 19 when my dad passed away. He left behind 2,000 acres and a young kid to run the place. I had always helped him out on the farm, but never made any real decisions,” Rooney said. 

Rooney’s father, Harry, suffered a severe cerebral hemorrhage while changing a flat tire. The hemorrhage led to his eventual death. Fear is the only feeling Rooney could recall upon the death of his father. As a college student, he was left with the responsibility of a 2,000-acre farming operation and a herd of about 100 head of commercial cows. Equipped with only the knowledge from his high school years, he had to make the farm work. A neighbor convinced Rooney’s mother to send him back to finish the semester. A few months from the end of the term, Rooney spent every weekend at home, working in the fields around the clock in order to get the spring planting finished for the farm.

“It was hard, and it was all I could do to keep up with the farm and school. Mom would sometimes have to put on her jeans and hop in the tractor like a man to help out. She hadn’t always. You see in those days women took care of the home; they didn’t work in the fields like the men,” Rooney said.

4 Generations of Rooney Farmers - Grandpa, Dad, Marguerite (Grandpa's Mom), and my brother, Bret.

 

Over 50 years later, the kid who took the reigns of the family farm has become the retired man who enjoys watching his children and grandchildren carry out the daily tasks of farming through the kitchen window as he sips his coffee and reads the newspaper. He watched the farm switch from ditch to pipe and now to pivot irrigation. He witnessed the fluctuation of the cattle market and met the demands of both the commercial and purebred industries. He drove open-cab tractors over his family’s land and watched a new tractor equipped with Global Positioning Satellites practically drive itself over the same fields. Rooney has witnessed so much change, not only in the farming business, but in himself as well. 

“Dad’s death ended up being a good experience for me. I just never realized it until the farm became successful. Things got better, after I learned how to make it work,” Rooney said.

Later Rooney would experience a tragedy not completely unlike the one that befell his father. In his 70's, he was diagnosed and treated for lung cancer. For a time, he wondered if his success was coming to an end, but Rooney, unlike his father, had the chance to look out his kitchen window to see his son plant the same acres of wheat he had planted for his father 50 years before.

My Grandpa and I in April of 2007 - He wasn't about to let me go to Prom without his approval

All my best, 

Tera Rooney

Tailgate Lectures: The winner receives immunity...

I love watching Top Chef and one of the infamous lines that comes out of host Padma's mouth is, "...and the winner will receive immunity."

Immunity is important in the game of Top Chef because if won, in the first round Quick Fire challenge, the contestant can not be eliminated in the second round Elimination challenge. If I were on Top Chef, I would definitely want IMMUNITY!

With calving season approaching back home and in full swing for many producers right now, I can think of a lot of ways IMMUNITY could be useful.

I can remember checking on our momma cows with my Grandpa in the early hours of the morning. It was always important for us to stick around after a baby was born and make sure the calf was able to stand and suck milk from the cow's udder. Grandpa always preached to me about the importance of the immunity being passed from the momma cow to the baby calf. He always used to say that a calf without immunity from its mom is as good as dead.

Immunity, not in the form of a free pass to culinary stardom, but rather in the form of milk is referred to as colostrum.

What is colostrum, you say?

A calf nursing at Star Lake Ranch in Oklahoma

Colostrum is the cow's first milk. It is produced just prior to giving birth and is vital to the health of a baby calf. This milk provides a balance of immunological proteins that give the newborn calf the antibodies it needs. Cows don't pass these large molecules through the placenta to the fetus, so it is imperative that calves receive them orally.

Many veterinarians suggest that calves receive colostrum within 0-6 hours after being born. It is also suggested that the future performance of the calf is dependent on receiving colostrum as well. For more information on the importance of colostrum straight from a veterinarian, read this article from Beef Magazine.

The best part about colostrum is that it is FREE! Such an important piece in the production puzzle and it doesn't cost a dime!

Padma doesn't ever give a Top Chef immunity for free, but the 30.9 million beef cows in the US are giving it to every calf that hits the ground.

Tailgate Lectures: Good Stockmanship

Grandpa told me to stand on the fence watching while he entered the pen. He looked back at me and said, "You know a good stockman can sort the baby calves off from the mama calves without saying a word. Good stockmanship takes practice." I was amazed as the old man stood in the pen of cows and calves and moved slowly, raised a hand here and there, shifted his body, and kept a calm voice and demeanor while one by one the cows ran into the left pen and the calves grouped in the right. I could see that he cares for the well-being of his animals and let them do the work.

That day in the pasture, I understood the importance of stockmanship practices that promote animal well-being. I've noticed that these buzzwords in the media, especially referring to TV media, are oftentimes misused. The misuse of a word or phrase can lead to consumer confusion and ultimately lead to choices and opinions that are not based in fact. When I hear these words like Animal Rights or Animal Welfare, I go back to that day of working cows with Grandpa. It's that memory that clears up the confusion for me. I thumbed through a dictionary to look at a few definitions to help clear up the confusion for you.

• welfare - noun: the good fortune, health, happiness, prosperity of a person, group, or organization.

• well-being - noun: the state of being happy, healthy and prosperous

• rights - noun: that which is due to anyone by just claim, legal guarantees, moral principles

• animal rights - plural noun: the rights of animals, claimed on ethical grounds, to the same humane treatment and protection from exploitation and abuse that are accorded to humans.

You'd have to search pretty hard to find someone who doesn't agree with the idea of animal well-being or welfare. It is our human responsibility to provide health, happiness and prosperity to an animal in which we come in contact with. I believe in this responsibility as a human and take comfort in knowing that agriculturists around the world, especially those involved in animal agriculture, take this responsibility very seriously.

I do not believe that the same inalienable rights that are accorded to humans and have been fought for throughout history, are due to any animal by just claim, legal guarantees or moral principles.

You see while animal rights is a social movement in my mind, animal well-being is a practice. It's a good and important practice that is being utilized by stockmen across the country.

I'm always interested in hearing other opinions on this debate and welcome that discussion.

My best,

Tera

Tailgate Lectures: This is the Life

I can remember sitting in my grandpa’s office, helping him gather receipts from the fiscal year. I was told to find the receipts from all things related to feeding the cows, gather them together, staple and file. Easy enough. We worked in silence for a long time with an intermittent piece of advice from the old man about organizing your finances so that you can avoid getting audited. He paused when we had gotten through one stack of papers. He said, “Tera, I’ve got a great family, successful farm and beautiful cows. Grew up on a farm and this is the life.”

This is the life.

The idea of growing up on a farm isn’t something everyone can relate to. This is a pretty obvious concept as the cityscapes spill out onto new land making a wider swath of urbanized culture through America’s heartland. Suburban subdivisions that were once surrounded by corn fields become surrounded by more subdivisions and we’ve created an even bigger division from rural America. Don’t get me wrong, urbanization isn’t all bad. With urbanization comes stronger economies, more jobs, higher land prices, diversification of farming practices, easier production methods and the list goes on. Part of our mission with Food for Thought is to keep the idea of farm to fork alive. We want consumers to have a source, close to agriculture; to gain knowledge about where food comes from. So that people who are removed from agriculture can still come back to the farm, per say.

There are other initiatives that are literally bringing people back to the farm! I have to commend several municipal systems for setting up farm zoos so that families and children raised in the city can have the opportunity to see a cow being milked, pet a goat and play with baby chicks. It is things like this that help children better understand where it is that there food comes from. Make it a point to visit a farm zoo near you, I have found several in near and far places:

Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead, Overland Park, KS

•  I have personally visited this farm zoo and it has an abundance of opportunities for children to learn more about agriculture on a farm. You can milk a cow, plant corn seeds, feed goats and during the Fall make apple cider! It’s a wonderful initiative by the City of Overland Park. Admission is $2 to boot!
  

 

Queens Farm Zoo, New York City, NY

• Within the Queens Zoo lies a portion where agricultural animals thrive. Information about cattle, chickens, goats and more. Part of a funding project from the Heckscher fund, a great addition to this park.
  

Kentish Town City Farm, London

• Free entrance to this educational and recreational project set up to simulate a town that is based in agriculture. Along with farm animals, stables and gardens there is the correlation of what agriculture can bring to a small town.   
  

 

What a way to experience agriculture with your children! Now you can get the idea of what my grandfather was talking about when dubbed growing up on a farm with family as, “This is the life.”

 - Tera Rooney

Tailgate Lectures: A New Language

“Simbaws! C’mon cows, simbaws! Tera run down by the windmill around that drawl and round up that last mamma!”

Working the cows with my family is always a fun experience. First off, it is always a big production, everyone gets involved, and we always had bets placed on the new words that would fly out of Grandpa’s mouth. Nobody really knows what the word, “simbaws” means or how to spell it for that matter, but my brother and I have a pretty good idea of what the “drawl” in our south pasture is. My grandpa’s language was definitely one of a kind!

Now, there is another language in production agriculture that can be pretty hard for consumers to understand. Walking down the meat aisle at the grocery store got me to thinking about how people are expected to understand what this food language really means. At least our meat choices aren’t labeled with words like, “simbaws” but some of them don’t seem any better!

These are some common labels found on meat products that are recognized and defined by the USDA. There is an Agricultural Marketing Service department of the USDA and they take care of this language:

NATURAL:

A product containing no artificial ingredient or added color and is only minimally processed. The label must also explain the use of this label. For example, if the product does not include added color that is what must be stated in the label.

NO HORMONES:

The term "no hormones administered" may be approved for use on the label of beef products if sufficient documentation is provided to the Agency by the producer showing no hormones have been used in raising the animals. This label cannot be used on pork or poultry products because the use of hormones are not allowed with those two species.

KOSHER:

"Kosher" may be used only on the labels of meat and poultry products prepared under Rabbinical supervision.

FREE RANGE or FREE ROAMING:

Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to an outside environment.

CHEMICAL FREE:

The term is not allowed to be used on a label.

ORGANIC:

This is a whole new blog topic! If you’d like to learn more about this program, please refer to these factsheets put out by the USDA. 

I would like to point out that while food is often placed in a category with these labels that explain different production practices, it does not change the nutritional value of the product. Organic beef is just as healthy as conventionally produced beef. Kosher poultry has no nutritional differences from free range poultry. If you ever have questions about food labels, the USDA is a great source of information.

 - Tera Rooney

Tailgate Lectures: Corn Farmin' Kids

When my brother and I were little I can remember our obsession with planting our own corn fields in May when dad set off in the tractor to sow his many acres. We wanted to grow our own corn on the cob to enjoy! We plotted out a square behind the barn and planted the little seeds we picked up off the ground outside the machine shed. We had to flag off our plots so that Grandpa wouldn't accidentally mow them over. He always taught us about picking a fertile piece of ground and remembering to water the plants each day. He taught us about conserving the land and being responsible with pesticides and herbicides. He taught us about our family history and how generations had planted the same piece of ground year after year. He should have taught us a little more about patience because it takes about 3 months for a corn plant to finally tassel and in little kid time - that is a century! When the plants would finally mature enough to produce an ear, you can imagine the built up excitement that my brother and I possessed. After shucking the first ear we were so thrilled about our end product and excited for our sweet, succulent corn on the cob.....we were absolutely thrilled, that is, until we realized it was field corn!

 So, what's the difference between field corn and sweet corn? 

• Sweet corn is often sold in the produce aisle at the grocery store. 
• It only accounts for about 5% of the corn grown in the U.S. 
• It is bred for it's sweet taste. 
• It is harvested in the milk stage when the kernels are soft. 
• It is more susceptible to pests and stress. 
• It often produces much lower yields. 
• It is planted later than field corn when the ground is warmer.

• Field corn is often used in animal feeds or processed further for human consumption.
• It is bred for it's starch value. 
• It is harvested in the hard and relatively dry kernel stage. 
• It is much hardier, taller and has much wider leaves than sweet corn plants.
• The seed kernels are much smoother. 
• It is genetically dominant to sweet corn. This means that when a pollen from a field corn plant pollinates sweet corn, the kernel will always result in field corn. 
• You can eat field corn, just like corn on the cob, but it is not preferred. 

For more information, and if you'd like to plant your own sweet corn plot this spring - contact your local Extension Office. Or you can visit this Extension.org!

Now I'm craving some roasting ears, 

Tera

Tailgate Lectures: Milk Man

The sun settles into the horizon signifying feeding time, Grandpa starts up the old white feed truck that goes an astounding 15 mph on a good day and we head to the North Pasture. After dumping out the alfalfa cubes for the cows to munch on, we take a seat on the tailgate and watch the calves milk during the communal “treat time”. I loved seeing the frothy white mustaches the calves would acquire during this time and have Grandpa explain to me which cows were good mothers. 

You’re probably thinking this post has something tied to milk and the process involved in getting it from the cows and poured into the glass you just dunked a cookie in. While it is a logical follow-up, you’re wrong. I’ve had nagging questions about this post’s topic for a few weeks and it is time I share the answers I was able to find.  In all actuality, it has little to do with the milk-related scene I remembered from my past. Same beverage, different animal.

Have you ever wondered why we don’t drink pig milk?

That’s right, pig milk. Or sow milk, as sow is the term used for a female pig that has given birth to at least one litter of piglets. Pigs give us a lot of food products. They give us bacon, ham and pork chops. Pigs are mammals so we know that they lactate, but why don’t we harvest it so that they can give us milk too?

From researching this topic I have learned a few things about the pitfalls in the logistics of a pork dairy industry. Likewise to any discussion, there are a few pros, like the fact that pig milk would taste great. It has 8.5% butterfat content, compare that to the 3.5% in cow milk and you know it’s a good thing! It has the same percentages of lactose and water as cow milk. The cons I came up with are as follows:

•            A pig will only produce 12 pounds of milk on an average day. A cow will produce 60. While pigs consume less feed in a day, it’s not a big enough difference to swing a staggering 48-pound deficit in  milk production.
•            Piglets must be weaned for the sow to become pregnant again. Cows can still be lactating while in gestation. You would have to take a 113-day hiatus from collecting milk every time the sow needed to have a litter.
•            Sows have around 14 teats. Cows only have 4. Can you imagine a 14-teat milking machine?
  
•            Speaking of milking machines. The hormone that stimulates milk to let down in mammals is called oxytocin. A cow will continue to let down milk after the onset of this hormone transmission for 10 minutes. The sow is stimulated to let down milk from the suckling that piglets provide. The ejection time is around 30 seconds. Now imagine a 14-teat milking machine that can collect milk from a sow in less than 30 seconds!
  

Now that is some food for thought. Meanwhile, support the cow dairy industry and dunk that chocolate chip cookie you were about to eat in a glass of cold, refreshing milk today!

Tailgate Lectures: Call the Fire Chief - Better Safe than Sorry

I can remember sitting on the back of a tailgate with my Grandpa after feeding the cows. Looking out over the sandy hills of our pasture, through the dust haze settled over a feedlot and right along the horizon seeing a flicker of orange blaze. He told me to grab the bag phone (yes we had those sweet bag phones) and dial the fire department. He rattled off the intersection of old county roads committed to memory and told me to relay the information to the fire chief, Sonny. Always be safe, he said, it's far better than sorry...

Now, I still get that urge to call in a field fire if I happen to stumble upon one driving around the Manhattan area. If you are from the Flint Hills of Kansas you would probably laugh at that urge. If you aren’t, then let this post help you out. It’s pasture burning season in the Flint Hills and if every country kid from Western Kansas called in a pasture fire, I have a feeling the Fire Department would laugh into the receiver. Here’s the low down on why farmers and ranchers must burn off the grasses in the Flint Hills every year about this time.

•  Cedar trees and scrub brush are considered noxious weeds to pasture managers. They must be eliminated so that they don’t choke out the nutrients that grass needs to grow. Burning is both an economical and environmentally friendly way of eliminating such growth.
  
• The dead grass needs to be removed to promote the new fresh growth of nutrient dense grass. Burning is the only way to accomplish this, unless you could invent a mower that could bag thousands of acres and remove the blades of old grass. That’s a big Grasshopper!!!
  
• Sometimes cattle are picky and favor one side of a pasture. The grass then grows unevenly and is less desired. Good pasture management and prescribed burning can take care of this problem too. 

Farmers and ranchers have an important environmental impact in the Flint Hills.  They have the ability to harvest thousands of acres of natural grasslands that would otherwise go unused because of the inability to farm the rocky soils. By harvesting the Flint Hills, utilizing cattle as natural lawn mowers, they can produce a nutrient dense food product for consumers around the world.

I’m from the very southwest part of Kansas. That’s past Salina, and Great Bend and even Dodge City, for some people who have trouble with Kansas geography. So I was in some of your shoes when I first moved to Manhattan and experienced the burning of the Flint Hills. For a while I just thought everyone in the neighborhood was grilling out. That’s a lot of hot dogs!

Talk to a stranger about why pastures are being burnt off. I often hear people complaining about smoke in the air this time of year. Maybe if they understood the importance, the smoke doesn't seem so bad. A little understanding can go a long way!

Tailgate Lectures: The Customer Is Always Right

The customer is always right. I first learned this lesson when a pot load of feeder calves arrived in our yard, only to be greeted by a very stern voice that I rarely heard come out of grandpa’s mouth. He had a few choice words about the quality of calves with the truck driver and the semi pulled out of the yard just as quickly as it had pulled in. “That kids, is why the customer is always right,” my grandfather muttered as we followed him back into the house. We were only disappointed in missing out on the fun of unloading a new group of bawling calves. I didn’t understand what he had meant that day, but perhaps it was an idea I reviewed when the waitress at our local café served a cold pot of coffee to a table of table of our bull buyers, this resulting in that stern voice again and ultimately a free meal.

I won’t go as far to disagree with the general concept of the customer always being right. After all, it is the idea that all good business practices were built upon, but I think it is a principle that could use some reflection. In the production agriculture industry, we have always looked at things from a more scientific perspective. I would say that some of our customers, or consumers, view things from more of an ethical standpoint. We all know how far apart the middle ground between science and ethics can seem.

Consumers today are identifying with a plethora of labels - the trends of organic, natural, locally owned, antibiotic and hormone free, sustainably produced and even the issues involved in animal welfare are trendy stickers in grocery store aisles. While these are all issues that consumers identify with and want to have an impact on how food is produced, they are also issues that consumers form opinions on that may not have sound foundations in science. There are reasons why corn is grown close to the cattle that consume it, why hormones and antibiotics are responsibly administered to livestock and why you don’t see rows of orange trees along the flint hills of Kansas. So we, as an industry are faced with a crossroad. Do we conform to what consumers demand and forgo the production practices that have built a safe, efficient, nutrient-dense food supply? Can we educate a growing population about the science and logic behind modern production practices? I could throw questions at the screen all day, but questions don’t lead us to solutions.

At the bottom line, today’s agriculture has created a safe, nutritious and affordable food source for our American consumers and populations outside of our country. At some point we have to realize that maybe the customer isn’t always right. I’m afraid that if we keep adhering to this concept while taking advantage of consumer (dare I say) misconceptions and the premiums available in these niche markets that we are going to find ourselves in a position of no opinion. In a place where we don’t have a say, and agriculture is controlled by these ideals that make it impossible to feed a hungry world.

Something to ponder,

Tera

Behind the Blogger: Tera Rooney

Greetings! My name is Tera Rooney, and I will be one of the Food for Thought bloggers. I am currently a junior in Animal Sciences and Industry at Kansas State University, headed over to the College of Veterinary Medicine in the fall. I will be putting an emphasis on food animal health on the industry side during my tenure at the CVM.

I grew up in a small town called Satanta in Southwest Kansas. It was easy for me to get attached to the agriculture industry because of the sense of pride in agriculturists that goes unmatched. We have a family farm that consists irrigated acres of corn, wheat and cotton; complimented with spells of involvement in the cattle industry. My true passions were realized when my grandfather transitioned from retirement as a cattleman and farmer to start up a new leg of Rooney Ranch that included a purebred cow-calf herd. Something I have come to realize is that he had the unique opportunity to use our cowherd as a tool to raise us kids. We had equal ownership and responsibility that translated to a dedication for success in all aspects of the industry we grew up in. “Tailgate Lectures,” are one of my fondest memories of my grandfather, and if you grew up on a farm or ranch, you know exactly what these entail - wisdom from years of experience tinged with the rough edges of adversity.

Look for more references to these, "Tailgate Lectures," in my future blogs! I had to include a picture of me talking cattle with my niece, Maggie. It's never to early to start teaching the next generation about agriculture. I would also like to note, we are not in SWKS - look at those trees!

All my best,

Tera Rooney