CRP Foul Up

Howdy friends and neighbors.  Hello summer!  I heard the dreaded term “high pressure system” the other night as I was looking for my rain dancing shoes.  Then I remembered, the shoes are at Ray’s leather shop getting some new tread.  “High Pressure System,” shoot!  Well, on the bright side, the wind shouldn’t be blowing.  Sorry, this just isn’t getting any better, so on to something else.

         

I think I could write a whole newspaper on the CRP critical grazing foul-up by USDA and the beloved National Wildlife Federation.  But instead and at the risk of firing-up my readers too much, I’ll just leave you with a few thoughts.  If you receive payments from the Federal Government, then this mess we are currently in is just more proof that special interest groups are gaining more control over your land than the one who pays the taxes on it.  It seems to me that the NWF has drawn the line in the proverbial sand.  What the idiots at the NWF don’t realize is that the CRP acres they are whining about wouldn’t amount to a pimple on the “left coast” judge’s butt that issued the temporary restraining order that stopped the haying and grazing by true sportsmen and cattlemen.  What about all the land that I and countless others manage that is not under a federal contract?  Do any other producers out there feed wildlife with grass, wheat, alfalfa, corn, milo, beans, cantaloupe, Chile peppers, or organic spinach?  Does the NWF compensate anyone for the damage and crop loss that occurs on a daily basis?  NO!

 

Thus, I have a plan.  All non-CRP landowners need to just round up all the wildlife and force them onto the CRP acres.  (Except Bob White quail, they are welcome on my place.)  Or better yet, we are told by the Wildlife Department that the “State” owns the wildlife so lets just let them round ’em up.  Plus, in my plan, I can solve another issue that the Federal Government has totally messed up, the horse slaughter issue.  The Feds and the State boys and girls can take the 30,000 unwanted BLM horses that they are feeding, at tax payers’ expense, break them to ride and then gather the wildlife and force them onto all the CRP acres.  Problem solved!  Well, except the wildlife will be way overstocked and overcrowding and disease will kill most of them.  Then, all the paying members of the National Wildlife Federation can find a new hobby.  Just remember, you started it.

 

If you are a member of the NWF, Pheasants Forever, Quail Unlimited, the National Turkey Federation, Opossums for all, or whatever, please educate yourself on the fact that cattlemen do care about wildlife and want to see them prosper.  Educate yourself about how grazing grass benefits wildlife.  I’m not a wildlife “expert” nor do I have a PhD, I just walk through pastures and observe cattle and wildlife.  I’m telling you that at least in my small part of the world, there is more wildlife activity where grazing has taken place.  If cattlemen and the wildlife boys can’t get along, it will ultimately be the wildlife that looses.  Plus, for a bonus to quail hunters, can any of you remember back in the “good ole days” when there were more quail than bullets?  How much CRP land was around then?????

 

Ultimately I think the white elephant in the corner of the room that no one is talking about is the fact that a pansy liberal judge in Seattle, WA, can issue a piece of paper and is able to stop “or thinks he stopped” 24 million acres of privately owned land from being used for what it is supposed to be used for.  It was RESERVED for disasters, as well as improving soil, water and wildlife.  Again a special interest group has cost cattlemen millions of dollars.  Talk about setting precedence.  What is to come for the rest of us landowners who receive federal payments?  I truly wonder if the payments will be worth the trouble that is coming?   Sorry, my short thoughts went long.  Cattlemen can now put the NWF up there with Oprah.

 

I’m Monte Tucker, and that’s what’s under my steaming hat!