TOWNER, N.D. -- For a lot of farmers and ranchers, when fall comes, the year's paycheck comes. Crops come off the field, calves come off the cows, and, while our marketing window is a lot wider than it used to be, fall still has that payday feel to it.
Crops and cattle might get sold all year long these days, but taking a check to the bank in November or December before the year closes out feels right and makes a rancher feel pretty good.
So it seemed natural for me to roll out my newest book, Cowboy Logic Family Style, in the fall and early winter. Sell some cows, sell some cowboy logic. Hoping to meet the costs of raising a pound of beef with a little left over, hoping to meet the cost of printing the book and have a little left over.
Actually, having a new book ready to sell in November and December is what happens when you start working on putting the book together back in March. Things take time. And some things take more time than others.
I'm pretty proud of this new little book that rounds out the trilogy of cowboy logic books that began with my Collection of Cowboy Logic back in 1998, and continued with my Cowboy Logic Continues (pretty original title, huh?) tome in 2004.
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Cowboy Logic Family Style, like the title says, includes a lot of my stories and columns about raising a young family. Kids are pretty entertaining, and a lot of the columns about those rascals have some entertainment value. If you're a parent or a grandparent, you'll probably read those stories, and say, "Yup, that's right," and smile.
Other columns in the new book are about my parents and losing them after battles with cancer and Parkinson's, and they're more contemplative than entertaining. Life has its sad times to offset the glad times. That's just how life is, and this new book mirrors life. There's excitement as we bring new life into the world, and there's a profound sense of loss as we say good-bye to the ones who brought us into the world.
Between the stories of the ranch's new generation and preceding generation are stories of the ranch itself and the funny things that happen to a guy confronted with the exciting personalities of cattle, the frustrations of anything with wheels, and the characters and plot of life in a rural community where, for better or worse, everybody knows everybody.
The big fall sale with books doesn't mean hauling a truckload of them to the local elevator, or running them across the local rancher's scale to be sent to a feedlot for finishing. That may be just as well, I don't know if the book could take the scrutiny.
Unlike wheat, I'm unsure of its protein level and have no idea of the book's falling numbers. It weighs just under a pound, and, as near as I can tell, it's finished. It can't be docked for having horns or frozen ears, but it may have a steeper discount someday if a lot of its pages are dog eared.
This book is ready for market. Let me know if you'd like a copy, and if there's such a demand we run short on the first 5,000 copies, my printer said it'd make more. We're fully set up for e-commerce on this project, so check us out at
www.mycowboylogic.com . And we still get mail at the ranch, if you'd prefer, and I gladly accept personal checks from hard working Cowboy Logic readers. The amount is $18.95 ($15.95 plus $3 shipping), and if you're in North Dakota, tack on a little sales tax and the total is $19.75.
Christmas shopping made easy -- Cowboy Logic is easy to wrap, easy to mail, unbreakable and guaranteed not to spoil before the fruitcake does.
