J.C. Mattingly: A Socratic Rancher

Everyone involved with farming and ranching knows the value of a good hired hand, just as hands know the value of a fair and decent boss. There's an old joke about the rancher and his hand. The hired hand asks for a raise. The rancher says, “At that wage, if you save up, you can buy me out in a few years, and when you do, promise you'll hire me back to work for you at these same wages so I can save up and buy you out.” When we have a good working relationship with a person in agriculture, whether with an employee, vendor, or neighbor, we value it. In some instances, we value it enough that we will put up with a few flaws the person might have outside the working relationship. In one case, I worked with a man, Don, who was one of the best — honest, prompt and skilled. Then he was given two dogs. Large dogs, Labs mixed with mutt, who were rather overfed and possessed of boundless energy at exactly the wrong times. The one time these two dogs made it into my house, I wondered how much my home insurance covered damage to the contents. From dogs...more