sj, tim is not only not afraid to speak his mind, he actually enjoys it. he is a very fun person to be around. he gave me two pieces of advice i haven't forgotten. 1. when you are on an errand to town, do at least two. 2. tim, how do you like udders to be on a cow? "just like you like them on....." he is an excellent businessman and is rutheless with financial matters, and will barter. rarely buys new equipment. a good purchase he made was a fullsize skiploader to move feed and dirt. one time, me and one of the hired hands dropped a nut into the oil pan by accident. we fished it out with a magnet. he just laughed. he likes to help people help themselves, kinda like a fisher of men, teaching them to fish, rather than giving them fish. i drug the sickle bar on a harrow once, and he "let" me fix it rather than just fix it. he made a comment once that he was amazed the show calf industry has lasted as long as it has. he is very restless, which probably accounts for the fleckvieh and black baldies. did you see any of those there and compare them to straight offspring? with our apprenhension about cattle from south america, he has said that people who want to do grass fed beef should do an internship there for six months to learn how to do it. he sells semen down there, brought some back on at least one bull. great to see he is still importing cattle and trying new things. you might have noticed his pastures and how they compared to others out there. he's ruthless about that too.
