I spent Tuesday and Wednesday morning at the Colorado Farm Show, and as always I got to visit with many of our faithful readers. Thank you all who stopped to chat or just to give us a thumbs up on our magazine. Many of you told me how you have been getting The Fence Post since it came in to existence, which we so appreciate. And others signed up for another year or two of receiving the magazine for which we are also grateful. And welcome to anyone who has just joined us.

I was impressed as always but the tons of people who visited the farm show. You definitely keep us hopping in our booth. And as usual all the farm equipment was shiny and just waiting for the kids to come in an pretend they are driving out in the field. Wish I would have brought my great-grandson he would have loved it.

Most of you that I talked to wanted to talk about the wolf situation because it is so frustrating for livestock producers who have enough to do without trying to keep their animals from being killed by wolves. The so-called reintroduction of wolves in to Colorado rightly leads livestock producers to distrust the state government and their fellow citizens who voted for this misguided effort. There are so many life improving efforts that government should be working on and funding rather than repopulating the state with wolves. I wish there was more we as a magazine could do to fix this but all we can do is to cover the situation and make sure that ranchers voices are heard. And that we will continue to do.

Another topic I hear a lot about is the post office and the concerns that our readers aren’t getting their magazines in a timely fashion. This has been going on for a couple of years and I can assure you we are just as disgusted with the situation because we pay to have the magazines in your hands on time. I wish I could just wave a magic wand and the post office would be back to where we got our mail on time, but sadly that’s not going to work. Our circulation department has been keeping track of where the deliveries are late so that if there is a proposed solution we have information that could be of help to the post office if and when they decide to rectify their delivery system. I have seen stories where congress people in some states have been meeting about post office delays and news organizations have been complaining to their representatives in congress about the problem.

In the meantime, we will be watching President Donald Trump’s new hires in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to see if they are up to the task to make sure farmers and ranchers can continue to feed the world. A new farm bill is sorely needed and lawmakers need to quit kicking the can down the road and get to work. I don’t think it is much to ask the ag committee to write a new farm bill every five years. Imagine if they had to do it every year, which would make sense because every year creates different challenges for farmers and ranchers.

The situation in Washington is very fluid and the threat of tariffs is concerning. We need to know that the new president and agriculture secretary are working together to make sure ag exports aren’t impacted and if they are that producers are compensated for their losses.