Meet the “Host”

About Me

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Howdy there! I’m Matt McKinley, and we’re burnin’ daylight.

I was born in Denver, Colorado and grew up in the extreme southeast corner of Baca County, the southeastern most corner of Colorado. I was raised around cattle and horses, riding as many as 25 miles a day on my dad’s week-long trail rides and helping family, neighbors and friends move, brand, sort and ship cattle. I attended Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado (Go Rams), graduating with bachelor’s degrees in Animal Sciences and Agricultural Business, while simultaneously earning a doctorate in all around jackassery…don’t act like you’re not impressed.

From there, I spent a winter in Montana working for a large ranch, trying my damndest to be Monte Walsh, but to no avail…Montana had my number and I was soon southbound and down. After bouncing around as day trash for a short while, I took a job with Grant County Feeders in Ulysses, KS. I was immediately baptized in putrid waters that roll out of the sewers of the corporate feedlot scene. Learning far more what not to do, rather than what I should do to be successful, I served a little over a year as a manager trainee in all the cattle departments at Grant County Feeders.

An opportunity arose with Cactus Feeders at Syracuse Feedyard in Syracuse, KS, where I learned to feed delivery side of the feedlot business for the next year and a half. In January 2012, I met my smokin’ hot wife, Rebekah. After a disastrous first date, I managed to not creep her out enough to get her to agree to a second. We were officially a thing come March of that year, when the big wigs in Amarillo decided to cease feedlot operations at Syracuse Feedyard and pursue an experimental confined cow-calf operation.

Over the next 4 years, Rebekah and I got married, and made an absolutely perfect, gorgeous demon-child named Sophia (Phia Monster). Countless hours, endless amounts of blood, sweat, and Coors Light yielded a stint in a confined cow-calf operation, which was brought to a screeching halt, rather unceremoniously, when I was fired in February of 2016. After of year of scraping together pennies to buy beans, and the conception of our second child, Augustus, opportunity again arose and like our ancestors before us, we loaded up and headed west, over the Rockies and the Great Divide, toward the Pacific Ocean and the setting sun.

Settling in rural Lyon County, Nevada, the McKinley continued our unorthodox journey in pursuit of our American Dream. Two years into a head first dive into the buckaroo style of ranching and cowboying, and after much urging from my loving wife, I embarked on yet another journey chronicling my experience as my world of the High Plains cowpuncher collided with that of the Great Basin/California vaquero or buckaroo.

If you read all that, congratulations, it’s all audio content from here. Welcome to my podcast, a collection of stories and ramblings explaining and celebrating the life of the working cowboy. Join me throughout my work day as I cover current events, politics and the principles of liberty, with a whole bunch of tall tales and stories about life, love and cowboy shit. I sure appreciate y’all stopping by, but I’ve got a podcast to record, sweet, smooth, sultry goodness delivered straight to your ear canal and eventually into that black chunk of ice that is your heart.

Come back again, but I got shit to do, now move your ass! We’re Burnin’ Daylight!

The Outlaw Gang—

Matt McKinley
Lead Philosopher / Chief Burner of Daylight

Rebekah (Ro) McKinley
Regulator

Robby McKinley
Sergeant at Arms / Assistant to the Lead Bullshitter

Young Katie

Producer

Doug Weissmann

Social Media Director