Hat Tips

Hello,

I don’t know why we celebrate Labor Day. We should have a day to celebrate not working. Maybe it’s because if you are involved in animal agriculture, every day is labor day. Oh, sometimes you can sneak away for a few days. If you have family or friends that will come over and let the dog out, feed the bum calves, grain the saddle horses, check the water tanks, put out a little hay, go around the fences, repair the fence the bulls tore down, give the sick pen a little medicated feed, feed the fat cattle, pick up the mail, feed the barn cats, water the garden, walk through the heifers, and kind of look things over and see what else needs done. But as many say, if you love what you do, you really never have to go to work.

Now, I have a nephew that is a lot smarter than I. In fact, I have several nieces and nephews that are smarter than I am. I suppose you are thinking that I also have a lot of other relatives and non-relatives that are smarter than me. You are right. But enough of that.

My nephew runs a very successful business. So, he takes time from his busy schedule to have several “not labor days” a year. And he loves to hunt. I mean really hunt. Not hunt cows in the badlands. Not hunt for a garden hose under the snow. Not hunt for the fencing pliers or the wire stretcher. He hunts like pheasants and deer.

He recently went on a hunt in Africa. I’ve never been to Africa. I did go to New England for a volleyball game. That was nice.

Anyway, he went to Africa. There he harvested one of the largest crocodiles on record. It was huge! I mean really huge. It must have been 20 feet long and weighed 1500 pounds.

Well, I had the picture of this croc on my phone. In a local pub, I was showing it to some friends and a couple of strangers wanted to know where this crocodile was taken. I informed them that it was harvested at Lake Ilo, in Dunn County, North Dakota. That’s near Killdeer where we have pasture. I told them how it had been released in this lake because it was too large to remain someone’s pet. It had begun grabbing our cattle as they watered at the lake and had to be harvested. They were really in awe. Especially the part about how we staked one of our grandkids out as bait. I may be turned in to social services.

The highlight of the discussion was when I explained to them how to tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile. You don’t know how to tell them apart?

It’s actually pretty simple.

If you see them later, it’s an alligator. If you see them after while, it’s a crocodile.

Later, Dean