Jul. 22, 2006 ~ Cows, dogs and a coupla other things
Last night Husband and I put pen to paper and figured how long we can expect our hay to last. Normally - and things haven't been normal for a while now - we start feeding hay and sacks of feed (cubes) in November. However, this is our second year of severe drought in our area of East Texas, following several years of an unusual weather pattern. It's been dry and dusty for a long, long while. There is nothing but dead brown grass for the cows to eat, and most of that has been eaten. So we started feeding cubes in June. And today we started feeding hay. We'll have to limit them to two large bales of hay per week until November, but still, that means we're spending close to $200 a week to feed in the summertime when we normally spend nothing. And of course we are not the only ones. Lots of folks are selling out, taking their entire herds to auction. Supply and demand being what it is, with lots of cows for sale, the sale price is going down.
Husband and I have talked about selling out, too, but it sure would hurt. Not only do our cows have names, they have middle names. Not just Bonnie - Bonnie Sue. Not just Bessie - Bessie Lou. We bought every one of our original cows (and our bull) from our friend Earl, and the rest have been born here. These are Earl's grand-calves. His own cows are long gone. His son sold them days after Earl died. So these are special, special animals, every single one of them.
But.
There's always a "but."
We decided to feed them this summer in hopes that next year will be better. But if we have a third straight year of drought like this, we will sell. I will probably cry, but we will sell.
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Meadow is a very expensive example of a "free" dog. Son gave her to us to watch (she was supposedly his dog) right before he left for Iraq. Turned out she had belonged to a friend of his, who was also about to be deployed. Son hadn't really wanted Meadow, he just didn't want her to be put to sleep. So he brought her to us, and she wound up being our dog. To make a long story short, she is now the proud owner of a dog pen which cost approximately $750.00. It has a 10 X 10 foot concrete floor, 6 foot chain link walls, and a pitched roof made of a tarp. She lived happily in the pen for a couple of months, but today, frightened of thunder, she went a little nuts, and chewed and pulled at the chain link till she tore a place big enough to crawl through. She actually did that in several places in the pen.
So. Off we went to the farm supply store and bought two very expensive 20 foot horse panels, which Husband cut to the appropriate sizes, and he is just about finished attaching those panels to the dog pen walls. Horse panels are a special type of fencing which is not regular wire, it's sturdier and thicker than that. Not quite the width of a pencil but pretty thick. The grid is 2 inches by 4 inches and she can't get through that.
We hope.
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There have been some interesting developments here. I recently wrote about unclaimed property of my brother's - that has now been returned to me by the state. It isn't a large amount, but it will help with College Boy's tuition this semester.
We are still waiting to hear from Bubba's insurance company regarding his mysterious life insurance policy. The customer service department originally gave us the incorrect contact information, but that has now been straightened out, and the appropriate forms and documents have been mailed. They have officially received them, and now we just wait and see. Could be another couple of months before we hear.
And then there's the other thing.
We recently signed a lease with an oil company, and it looks as if they started drilling immediately afterwards (but not on our land), and I don't understand all this, but the well is good. It is official. More wells may follow. Now, we don't have a lot of land and we have even less mineral rights, so this isn't going to change our lives. No need to start singing the theme to the Beverly Hillbillies just yet. We won't be buying any new cars or anything like that. But maybe it will finance the occasional evening out. Or maybe not.
This is all brand new to us. East Texas is rich in oil and gas, so this is old news to lots of people here. Lots and lots of folks get royalty checks from oil companies, but some of those checks are only for a few dollars or even pennies, because their mineral rights are very small. Ours are small, too.
So maybe that "evening out" will be burgers and fries.
Which is okay, too.
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