Fun Time Of The Year
By Dennis Sun
As you read this column following Thanksgiving, our thoughts turn toward Christmas. Over Thanksgiving, we focused on being thankful for what we have, which has been challenging this year for those of us who watch or read the news. But, now is the time to move on, even if we have to do it with a mask on.
It is during this time in our businesses we look for trends, preferably positive trends. I guess every negative trend, might be a positive trend for someone else. The high cost of hay is a negative trend for some, but for those selling hay it is positive.
The same goes for the current horse markets. We all wish we had a corral full of good breakaway horses for sale and weren’t looking for a good ranch horse at a reasonable cost.
The Christmas season has started. We now reflect on the Christ in Christmas, wide-eyed children around a Christmas tree surrounded by colorful packages and hopefully, putting off any negative thoughts until after the first of the new year. It is the time of the year to dream of prime rib and leg of lamb roasts.
For those in the beef business, the latest CattleFax Update has some positive tones. Lance Zimmerman wrote, “The wholesale beef market has exceeded all reasonable expectations during its fall rally. The daily U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) composite boxed beef cutout was lifeless at its lows on Oct. 30 at $203 per hundredweight (cwt). Yet, three weeks later it has gained $31 and continues to push toward the fall 2019 highs at $238 per cwt.”
I would guess this shows the high demand at the retail sector. We feel for the food service sector as restaurant’s are being limited in number of customers and hours. With many people trying fake meat products, we hope they will come back to real meat.
We hope people control their fears of running out of toilet paper, paper towels and meat products. We also hope there will be no beef and lamb processing plant shutdowns due to the pandemic. This would really hurt us all, not to mention meat consumers.
We realize the cost of gain will rise as the price of corn has risen lately, but we hope as more consumers are staying home again, they will keep the demand for beef and lamb strong.
Consumer and export demand are keys to a healthy American beef and lamb market. These two factors have to stay strong because they are so important to the beef and lamb producers.
Those from Wyoming and across this great land, need to wish Sen. Mike Enzi a huge thank you on his 23 years as Wyoming senator. We realize the quiet manner of Enzi and his accountant background accounted for his many successes in the U.S. Senate.
Enzi got the job done with his ability to communicate across the aisle to gain support. He was a major force on the Budget Committee and many other committees involving finance, health, taxes, education and labor. Enzi believed people can agree on 80 percent of the issues 80 percent of the time, and if they leave the other 20 percent out, they can get a lot done. He did just that.
Both Enzi and his wife Diana are wonderful, nice people who care for others. We wish them both good times in their future, and we can’t say thank you enough for all they have done.
