What our families endured to reach this land says everything about the responsibility we carry today.

By the time Thomas Jefferson, joined by Ben Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston – all of them successful producers of cattle – worked together to draft the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, Americans were ready to throw off the shackles of a monarch state and build a place hundreds of millions would call home.

I glanced at the clock on the dash of my pickup as I rolled through the four-way stop sign. The gentle green 7:08 a.m. glow painfully reminded me that I was once again several minutes late.