Walking in High Cotton
- highcottoncattle
- Jul 14
- 3 min read
A name is more than a collection of words... It's the first representation of who you are.
When we were looking at turning our family herd into a legitimate cattle operation, questions of what to call ourselves rattled around my head for weeks. As I was driving through South Tennessee one day with fields on both sides of the road, "High Cotton" by Alabama played and the very first lyric rang out.
"We didn't know the times were lean,
Round our house the grass was green,
It didn't seem like things were all that bad..."
The song goes on to recap memories from earlier in life -- realizing that despite lean or difficult circumstances, walking in High Cotton is an appreciation for those simple things that make life so sweet.
After years of medical issues and the trials and tribulations of life, this sentiment hit especially close to home... No matter what challenges we face, hardships we endure, or battles we fight, we are still walking in High Cotton as long as we are surrounded by a community that cares to share in the walk.
Now, as much as this message still resonates with us today, it wasn't necessarily enough to commit to the name. After finishing my drive home that day and watching calves bask in the sunshine, I quickly realized our little British White calves look like a small bundle of cotton laying out in the field. Whether it's a change in my awareness of the breed or an actual growth in its popularity, British Whites seemed to be less common around our area at this time, and I wanted to be able to represent the breed through our name in a thoughtful and creative way. So, with the realization that our white cattle resembled cotton, as simple as that may sound, it was one more check mark towards the name, but was it enough?
We were close, but I felt there was more that I was missing. As proud as we are of our roots in Montana, that's just the Hendrickson side of my family. The Lane side, my maternal family, are born and raised here in the South and as representative of southern hospitality as it gets. We'll talk more about the Lane family and their impact on our mission in another blog, but it goes to the point that despite our connections out West, I am still a southern man by blood and by birth. With my mission to honor the generations before me, on both sides of our family, it still seems fitting to have a name that represents our roots in the South while paying homage to our roots in the West through our way of life.
After putting all these pieces of the puzzle together, High Cotton Cattle Co. felt right. Heck, it was just icing on the cake when I realized "HC" was my initials backwards. Now, when you see our name and logo, we hope you understand it's more than just a name to us. It's an attempt to represent who we are, and even who we want to be when we fail to meet our own expectations. After all, we are walking in High Cotton even when times are lean.
Thank you for taking the time to learn more about us. Stay tuned for more, including an explanation of The 4L Ranch.
