Randomness

There I times I run out of things to type. Not that I don't do things, it is just what do you put down on the World Wide Web for everyone to see?

Do I talk about the guy who wants to know if I can give technical support for his marajuana operation? That was interesting. He thinks it could be the new cash crop for this area. :(

Do I talk about the agency people who are so wrapped up in regulations and paperwork that they can not manage the lands and are degrading our natural resources because of it. Not to mention what the reduction of public lands grazing has done for the local economy and small rural communities.

Do I write about the conspiracy theories associated with Agenda 21 and Executive Order 13575 (Establishment of the White House Rural Council). Scary!

I think I will tell you a story that warmed my heart. We have a little horse show here with Working Cow Horse classes, cutting, and ranch rodeo type competitions. My daughter who will be two next month, gets out of the car, gets a huge grin on her face, and says "Papa me rope cows!" Now that warms my heart for a future!

The things I do

I don't really like to talk about myself. If you notice most of the time, I talk about my husband or someone else. But I have a job that is interesting for the most part. I get to deal with everything from livestock to animals... OOPS I mean 4-H parents.

Lately, I have been dealing alot with federal agencies- specifically the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The people that run these agencies on any level are intelligent beings. Sometimes though, they outsmart their common sense.

Unfortunately, for people to move up through the food chain they have to transfer. In doing so, their is alot of knowledge lost. There is also some out of the box thinking. For example, the range con who collect the information on the last reissuances of forest permits is not usually, the program lead for the next reissuance 10 years later. So, it is almost like starting with a blank slate with only the data to back you up.

I don't know if this is good or bad. It is difficult to deal with a whole new senior staff Ican tell you that. They do not understand why we do it this way. Not necessarily, we have always done it this way but perhaps we have tried it other ways and this works the best.

Agencies

Something I don't do much is talk about my personal life. I am a professional in some sense of the word, working for a land grant University. Recently, I rewrote my job description. It is one of the perks of being a UC employee is you get to determine what your job description is. As part of that I added a clause "to work as a facilitator in bringing diverse groups of people to work together to discuss issues, and possible solutions. Basically, I help producers that are having problems with state and federal agencies. Somedays it raises my blood pressure WAY WAY up. I shouldn't let that happen, I really have nothing to gain or lose by the outcome of most of these meetings besides maybe - RESPECT.

So, today I spent 3+ hours discussing monitoring protocols and trying to convince federales that we do not have to reinvent the wheel. The information is out there. We just need to use our collective resources to do it. The funny part of the whole situation was you could see the look on many of there faces change the closer we got to quitting time. The also became more compliant. Note to self- schedule meetings with BLM and USFS close to three. The are much more congenial. :)

I was upset though, besides the wasting of time, the guy in charge of the meeting blamed livestock for juniper encroachment. Not quite sure how that all works but I am going to do a little research on it. I will keep you informed and if HE IS WRONG rest assured he will definitely be informed at 2:59.