I have made the statement in the past that we do not actually break natural rules. The truth is that the rules will break us if we lose our alignment on any sort of a regular basis.

Our ignorance may be used as an excuse but I’ve been told by more than one officer of the court that ignorance of the law has never been considered a valid defense.

For the six weeks before I wrote this blog, we had cattle on two separate locations. This is generally not a good idea but one set of steers was long yearlings we have grazed for a year and the other set was short yearlings that we have been buying in for better than a month. Quarantining new cattle from existing animals for 30 days or more is always a good rule. But to run cattle in one herd results in much more efficient use of resources and labor. Grass grows when cattle are not standing on top of it.

We moved a little over a hundred head 12 miles in something around three hours at a cost of $3 per head. Yes, that is more than I would like to spend but let's take a look at the whole deal.

I own cattle, land, an old truck and just about nothing else. Burke Teichert had a good column about creating good labor relations in a recent edition of BEEF. I do not disagree with what he reported.

But the truth is that I have never really met anyone who really wanted a job. Americans want a position. When politicians talk about creating jobs, I often wonder who they are talking to. I am in favor of eliminating jobs. I agree that we need to stay active and that inactivity is the devil’s workshop but clock watching is not something my steers need to pay for.

My cattle were transported to fresh grass by independent contractors who own trucks, trailers and insurance. They farm, ranch and haul cattle as a sideline that flows cash. They are trained, and help sort and figure the loads. They pay attention. Their attitudes do not need adjusting.

Chances are you will never hear R.P. Cooke bad mouthing "hired hands" because he doesn’t have any. When I talk of a partner, chances are I am speaking about a member of the opposite sex. She should pull her weight but we need to remember that it’s "mama's house."

This country and likely the rest of the world will be a lot better place when we view jobs as a task or project to be completed with goodly amounts of competency by folks that own and run their own businesses. I would rather have my own rowboat than be the captain of somebody else's cruiser.

Years ago I was doing some business with a man who was carpenters' foreman at a nuclear plant construction site. There was a severe recession and the huge project was going to be erased. I asked my friend what they were doing and he said they had meetings most every day. He said they mostly discussed what they would need to discuss at tomorrow’s meeting. None of that sounded productive to me and as a consumer of electricity I have often wondered what I was forced to pay for such a system.

In agriculture, we lost a bunch when we left our local production systems and independence. The best answer to labor is for everyone to have and run their own business. Let’s not lower the ceiling while raising the floor so high that the sky is no longer the limit.