A Wild Cow Investment
A casual comment by Doug Casey triggered my thoughts on how to get triple duty out of an atypical investment. My priorities are a little different because mothers focus on making money and being certain our families are taken care of, particularly when it comes to trifles like putting food on the table literally. My current focus is on working out ways that “typical” city-dwellers could manage to get access to at least a bit of land and small livestock as an insurance policy against a deep, lengthy depression or periods of food shortages caused by any number of things we Doom & Gloom sorts are obssessed with. The fabulous Doug, however, got me to see this in terms of traditional investing to get the same sort of insurance with a good ROI and not having to fuss with raising chickens or learning to milk goats.
Even successful farmers and ranchers think a good year is one in which we make a 4% profit–the same percentage your local grocery store strives for in far more comfortable working conditions; gas stations, I believe, try for 3%! This year a Christmas Eve snow storm collapsed the roof over a goat shed, which, with the bitter cold, upset a friend’s goat herd so that they flew en masse into slightly premature births. A full third of next spring’s sales crop is dead and the goat mamas got so hysterical that they can’t sort out which baby is whose! Some of the kids aren’t getting fed, others have two mommies just like Heather, and Barbara will have to add to her load by bottle-feeding the emotional orphans. She’s facing a big loss in 2010 cash income and the work still has to be done, a good reason why most people don’t want to be farmers or ranchers. Again, as me dear auld faither always said, “You can’t afford to run cattle unless you have a private income!”
Most farmers and ranchers–even successful ones–generally need loans yearly to cover seed, fertilizer, and some operating expenses until they make their crops, be those corn, beef, cotton, or truck gardens. Sensible banks aren’t loaning money; they borrow the stuff at .25% and go buy bonds or treasuries that offer a much better return, and phoo! on lending money to maniacs who want to buy houses, enlarge their businesses, or spend frivolously on amonium nitrate and nitrogen-fixing legumes and might well not pay it back. Loans are hard to come by, and no loan means no planting or stock purchases.
That one tidbit of farming lore alone may incline you to consider options for next year’s commodities in particular. An ultra-harsh winter and lack of available financing does not bode well for bumper crops or beef and pork bellies at prices which won’t make their producers weep in the coming year(s.) Cattle are being sold at half price to halt the hemorrhaging on hay and grain right now. Small dairies are hit quite hard, and a few weeks ago the average head run through the Fort Worth stock yards represented a loss of $150. All in all, this rancher and rancher’s daughter says that by next summer and fall meat and dairy prices are going to be considerably higher and continue to rise for at least two or three years, probably for a decade. We lucky few are increasing our herds because we can buy a lot of hay with the average $450 we save on each prime young cow. Rueful smile. With luck the $1300 that just went in the hay loft will hold the girls through the end of the month. For the nonce cash is really king for small producers ready to expand operations–and remember that Texas was last to feel the effects of depression and has the lowest job losses and relatively fewer problems across the board, other than the border areas with what amounts to incessant invasion by Mexico. Gas here averages 15 cents less than most of you pay, we tend to get feisty about States Rights, and we have a large secessionist movement, the only independent power grid, our own deep water port, so much light sweet Texas crude we can’t get it to refineies, and at least an occasional inclination to ask “What do you think we need you people for?”
What if you found yourself an individual farmer to invest in, one raising both crops and livestock, within easy drivable distance of where you live? You put up two or three thousand dollars, or whatever operating expenses he needs, your investment backed by what he expects to produce based on previous records as shown by his books. However, you don’t want money back. What you want is edibles! (That may give your CPA heartburn and let the IRS figure out if cabbages, cucumbers, and carrots are capital gains.)
The Manager of our newest venture at the Bar TS, a truck farm and growing our own grain for feed, was mentored by a man who has a waiting list and a customer base of 125 families he provides at least eight varieties of produce for every week, different each week, thirty weeks out of the year, at $25/week, delivered to eight or ten reasonably central locations. He swaps with other such entrepreneurs, and has already agreed to take all we produce, at fair wholesale value, one reason I’m sure the venture will be a splendid success. I already have the product sold over what we use, and that will cover our costs of feed, fertilizer and good profits for both the Manager/Tenant Farmer and the Home Farm. I provide the land, machinery, and few remaining start-up costs (a bit of fencing and more fertilizer than usual) and John contributes the expert knowledge and labor.
Obviously, if part of your ROI were superb produce for which you would have to pay $750 if you were part of a CSA (an excellent bargain) you’re off to a good start, and if you got three customers of your own lined up and your share were enough for four families you provided the same variety and superlative vegetation, $2000 would return $3000 in kind. Since $25 does not represent what it costs to produce the produce, your farmer is still doing very well, too, because he is returning green, yellow, red, brown, and purple things instead of cash. You could probably do well donating any excess to Meals on Wheels or some other charitable organization if you don’t want to hawk vegetables to your friends; the difference between the value of produce fresh from the field and commercial market value is startling. Given that there are waiting lists for CSA memberships, it should be easy to find those who will agree to the arrangement, in which case (all going well), your ROI would be vegetables worth more than the $750 we have valued them at and $2250 from what you sold privately, or you could negotiate for a flat percentage of the profits. At the most conservative estimate your investment should return 50%.
But…what if we expanded what you invest slightly? We’re talking of finding a farm that has fields of arugula, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, and so forth and cattle and chickens in all likelihood. As part of your deal agree that Farmer Brown will care for any animals you buy in lieu of interest. A feeder calf will cost you $250 in Texas at present, but will represent almost no extra work or expense for Farmer Brown. He’ll turn the calf out to become pastured beef, rather than feed lot beef, so even once you cover the processing costs and original price, you’ll end up with 600 or more pounds of superb beef that cost you less than two dollars a pound when wrapped in white butchers’ paper. That means no antibiotics, no hormones, and quality that will astound you. Work out how many eggs a week you want, figuring six per hen per week, and fork over enough at $5/head to buy four or five when Farmer Brown gets his, supposing he free-ranges them. A pullet will pay for herself in less than six weeks with eggs at $1.50/dozen (free range eggs sell for twice that.) Allowing fifty cents a week to supplement with a little pure grain, those little beauties are producing at least silver eggs, and the best you ever tasted. Sanderson Farms spends fortunes on sickly caged birds, but it really isn’t enough more work to feed a couple of hundred loose chickens than it is half that many; feeding even two dozen for you would mean scattering one more small coffee can full of “scratch,” which is mixed milo, cracked corn and oats. If you get extra chickens for meat you’ll have processing costs, supposing you aren’t up to wringing necks, dunking dead birds in boiling water, pulling out their soggy, smelly feathers, and disembowelling them–something I refuse to do myself–but free-range chicken sells for ten dollars a pound! And worth it. They take three times as long to reach eating size as caged birds on hormones and antibiotics you don’t want your family ingesting.
I can sense your incredulity. “Mrs. Traynham! If the basic costs are so moderate, and it doesn’t sound like much work, how come farmers don’t make more?” Because the rules and millions of local and federal regulations are set to favor Agribiz and this only works for small operations. Start thinking you can turn it into a business and you’ll end up with half a million tied up in a single poultry house and far more employees, work, taxes, and expenses than you want to consider. Small-scale agriculture fed families and villages for over a thousand years and still works beautifully. Agribiz has only been around about seventy-five and leads to low-quality products at much higher prices, but feeds cities year around. So far. Transportation available. A small farm cannot produce year-around in the quantities even a modest local grocer requires. Homesweetfarm.com has 18 acres under constant cultivation, but working at full capacity year-around the owner could only provide luxurious vegetables and salad greens for a hamlet of 500, and that less than two-thirds of the year. Albertson’s, HEB, Safeway, Fred Meyer, and Krogers cannot function that way; vast urban populations require imports with affiliated transportation, labor, fuel, and currency differential costs–and the additional problems of contaminated products from third-world nations. We Americans have such finicky ideas about not defecatimg in fields, and washing our hands…
Depending upon local regulations and precisely what Farmer Brown turns out, you might also be able to negotiate for real milk, butter, cheese and occasional spring lamb. Farmer B might also have expansion dreams of his own, meaning he would welcome an offer to increase his herds. A good registered dairy goat ($250) or Guernsey cow ($1,000) would be an upgrade for both of you, particularly if he already has a dairy license or a commercial kitchen. The goat will give a gallon of milk or even more (now $16/gallon in Kroger’s, not that the dairy farmer ever sees anything like that much) for 300 days, and the cow several gallons/day for the same length of time. It is very unlikely that you need that much for your family; if you aren’t the one who shops for groceries find out how many gallons of milk you use a week. It won’t take long to discern the time required to amortize such an investment: at even two gallons, cream, and butter a week Bossy pays for herself in about a year and a half, not even counting that she produces your feeder calf every year. What’s in it for the farmer? In return for milking the critter and giving her a bucket of feed, he gets to keep most of the extra milk and cream. He turns a little extra work into having the benefit of a thousand dollars he doesn’t have to come up with now or ever. An agreement that he could substitute a young bull from his herd for a heifer your cow produced for your table beef would likely be a major inducement, because that would increase his productive herd at no cost and yield more value than sending an unwanted male to the local auction house.
What will make this deal work splendidly for both of you is that Farmer B gets his operating expenses–be generous and charge no interest because if this works as well as it should you don’t ever want him borrowing money from a bank again; you want all his business for the next few years–and returns superior products that are worth more than you paid for to produce them and cost him less than returning cash. If you don’t happen to want gourmet quality food, work out a simple percentage of the profits, but my idea is better.
This is a multi-purpose investment; so long as things remain relatively stable you will get superb food worth far more than you paid for it, freeing up cash for other investments. You always have to eat. If we slip into a deep, long depression (or rationing) you will have locked in access to food that others do not have–and you can eat it, sell it, or barter it. If the worst happens and there is a breakdown of the food distribution network for some weeks or months, your food is still being produced and is earmarked for you.
With a little research (or possibly a simple note left on the bulletin board at the nearest feed store or Producer’s Co-op! “Will swap seed/fertilizer money for a share of the crop!”) you might come up with a good investment which insures you against two sorts of catastrophe while making an excellent return if this is “just another bump in the road.” Besides, you’ll enjoy going out to pick up your bounty and playing with the little animals. It will do your children a world of good to find out where food comes from, and that weekly outing (with picnics when the weather is nice) could become a major source of family bonding and enjoyment.
If you’re a “prepper” (one trying to become prepared for TEOT-WAWKI) I’d carry my blinding flash of the obvious one step further once I were on good terms with the Brown family. I’d take out a second insurance policy that Farmer B could like a lot because it increases his ability to prepare for the future by having precious cash to invest now in return for something he may never have to provide, that being the sort of deal that allows insurance companies to flourish while protecting us against the catastrophic. This is just like flood, fire, hurricane, and tornado insurance. Insuring your life against hunger caused by fires, riots, and all those things on my “Ten Things I Worry About Most” is vital even if you do not believe it is urgent, as I do.
The biggest benefit will come from seeing if you can negotiate sharing his far safer farm if there are riots in the cities or a breakdown of economic, social, and financial conditions and/or food distribution. Even if he thinks you’re insane chances are you can arrange to park a used motor home or travel trailer on his place, with his only responsibility being protecting it from vandals, something that will require nothing more than the precautions he already takes supposing you stick it out of sight somewhere.
The agreement you want to nail down is that IF things fall apart for a while you will live in your house on wheels, provide your own basic supplies (flour, sugar, rice, olive oil, spices, and the ordinary things of life like toothpaste and toilet paper), and pitch in with basic chores and sentry duty to ensure general safety. If the right person asked me I’d smile, agree, and charge him nothing, because he would add to my basic security. If FB wants a couple of thousand–give it to him, because what you just bought is peace of mind and a place to store your rice and space blankets.
What you need most in the minds of Preppers is a destination and a place to store your emergency preparations safely, and nothing makes more sense than the country and where you have a stake in the food being grown. With that imperative luxury prepared for all you have to do is pick up a nice old motor home or RV at $50-100/running foot off Craig’s List, the biggest you can afford in case you have to live in the thing for several months, and stock it (Less space at a vulnerable storage rental outfit will run you a minimum of $100/month fpr 100 square feet. Put that way, you could store Christmas decorations and out of season clothing and be ahead in less than a year and a half by buying a trailer you have someplace to park, although that would be very poor use of the space.)
The real safety factor comes from having the bulk of your emergency food and barter goods tucked away safely where you intend to hunker down, IF it comes to that; if you start thinking it is all going to blow, grab the kids, the dog, and whatever else fits in your biggest vehicle and GOOD, as we say: “Get Out Of Dodge.” “IF” what could happen does, nothing will enhance your family’s safety more than being able to escape the confines of a city and get off freeways and interstates quickly without extensive packing and shopping. If you are polite (and of course you would be) you could surely spend an occasional enjoyable weekend in the country stocking your hideaway and burying your collection of Mercury dimes and such other things as seemed sensible to you. This will be a whale of a lot cheaper and more convenient than any other alternative I can come up with and will not involve learning to farm, living in the country until there is no safer choice, or having to milk goats and cows twice a day around the rest of your life now.
Thanks, Doug! If you hadn’t triggered the thought processes, I might never have come up with anything this easy, profitable, and sensible!
Warm regards,
Linda Brady Traynham
January 4, 2010
P.S.: Send in those applications, Shooters!
WANTED: A retired vet or doctor who will enjoy being part of an extended family. Remuneration includes your very own “guest quarters” (AKA a motor home or recreational trailer with bath, kitchen, heat, AC, sleeping facilities, blessed privacy) and utilities (limited only by how long the electric grid is functioning and diesel fuel for the generators holds out), and full board. This phrase is unknown to most people but means that all meals, and in your case kitchen access, are provided. This includes fresh produce in season, pastured beef, free range chicken and eggs, milk, cream, butter, our elegant farm cheese, home-smoked sausage and hams, pecans, citrus fruit, and ample supplies of flour, sugar, salt, rice, sour dough, unadulterated deep well water, and so forth. Peaches, if we can keep Buck out of them. BYOB, or be prepared to run the still when we build one. (It is still legal to produce five gallons a year/person, I believe, tax free.) Amenities include riding horses, stocked lakes with bass, catfish, and perch, deer and wild hog hunting, wi-fi (so long as the cell phone towers are functioning), and your choice of farm activities if you find any of those agreeable pastimes. Bridge, Cribbage, Pinochle, Backgammon, Dominoes, and Hearts players available, as well as erudite conversation on almost any subject. Smokers welcome. For nonsmokers, you have your quarters and we run 4 Ionic Breezes in the public areas. War is hell, live with it. Funds will be provided to stock medications and the most basic equipment; sorry, can’t afford an MRI or X-ray machine. Your responsibilities at present would include basic health care for 21 head of Black Dexter Cattle (lovely, placid little cows who give birth easily and are very hardy), a very sweet and gentle Guernsey, a Jersey, three hogs, two horses, and fifteen goats. In 2009 the only vet bill was for a young bull who died of oak leaf poisoning; the hand responsible has been fired. During 2010 we expect to see an increase of 20 young goats and ten calves, and as many hogs as anyone cares to catch in the big A&M trap. Three very nice dogs and a miniature Jerusalem Cross Donkey, and if anyone has an accident during TEOT-WAWKI suturing an occasional wound or setting a broken bone, if that came up. I don’t know that this is like cats (“Put both ends of the broken bone in the same room and it will heal.”), just do your best. We’ll see to it that all blood types are known and find a way to come up with Ringer’s Lactate. Bring your own tongue depressors and we’ll respond to, “Just say ‘Moooo.’” This is the deal of the century for someone who no longer has a full-time practice but is concerned about being self-sufficient and would like very congenial companions and to work with nice animals occasionally. We only have a few rules around here: don’t throw cigarette butts down in my pastures, don’t shoot anything that belongs on the place without my permission, don’t waste food or electricity, close gates you found closed, and if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything. Your pets are welcome so long as they don’t kill chickens or fight with ours. Lessons in everything from Egyptian hieroglyphics to marksmanship available…and what would YOU like to teach? Someone will be interested!
Also interested in a retired gunny or smadge, special consideration given to a submarine medical corpsman, COB, or Viet Nam era vets in reasonably good health. Chuckle…Colonels are a dime a dozen, but an old centurion will always get you through safely. An expert in making cheeses…a butcher…carpenter/handy man…a chiropractor…anyone honest, reliable, responsible, laid back…tell me what you have to offer to my joyous oasis that makes it worth my while to feed you if the worst happens.
Linda Brady Traynham
Linda Brady Traynham is a former editor and analytical project report writer and is now a Whiskey & Gunpowder field correspondent on a ranch in the Republic of Texas. She studied Counseling at Boston University and got her Masters degree in Philosophy from the University of Hawaii.
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You are some kind of wonderful.
Martin Powell
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Linda, are local feed store postings the best way here, or are there online exchanges for what you’re talking about? Sort of like Craigslist for these sorts of swaps. Just because I’ve not seen it doesn’t mean it’s not there, but if it is then I’ve been missing it. The Seattle area may just not have enough local farmers…
Erik
From this, I can not assume you are not going to open a your own VA hospital and feed everybody, too.
It sounds like you already have your production sold to a solid retailer…good luck in the new cycle.
Linda,
Your reading our mail. We tried to talk our city friends into getting their dad/father-in-law to come join us. He’s late 50′s, short on ss contributions due to having crop dusted in the Dominican the last 20 years and currently he’s a mall cop in Memphis (can’t think of anything more scary and dreary). If we ever get him up here, we know he’ll love it. We have so thought of this. Where are the people who want to be farm hands?? Aren’t there people who have recently become vagrant-y due to foreclosures and unemployment? I guess unemployment pays these days. We have 400 acres in the Ozarks and it is more than one man can handle. We grow a mean garden, LOTS of assorted meats and all the dairy products you could want. I personally think dairy is going to be more valuable than gold in the near future. Linda, you’re inspiring. We can even saw the logs for a guesthouse for the right fit.
We are trying to think creatively in these times and we thank God everyday for being able to do what we are doing,
Linda,
You’re reading our mail. We have tried to get our city friends to talk their dad/father-in-law into joining us. He’s in his 50′s, short on ss contributions due to crop dusting the last 20 years in the Dominican and he’s currently a mall cop in Memphis (can’t think of anything more scary or dreary). Where are all the farmhands? Shouldn’t there be vagrant-y people these days due to unemployment and foreclosures? We have a big farm in the Ozarks but it is more than one man can handle. We’re hoping for like-minded sons-in-law but we don’t want to be pushy. We grow a mean garden, LOTS of assorted meats and all the dairy you could want. We can even saw out the logs for a cabin for the right fit. We’re keeping our radar up.
Can’t get my comment to take.
Hi, Erik. I don’t know, never having tried! I’m just saying that is where I would start, my local feed store, Craig’s list, maybe an inexpensive ad in American Classifieds. I know a young woman who raises heirloom seeds in Olympia, and was consulting me on what sort of dairy goat to buy last year. I’m friends with Dale, who raises lots of apples and could have beat Gary Locke a couple of gubernatorial cycles ago if Ellen Craswell hadn’t jumped in with every vote she was ever going to get the day she announced and the Democrats hadn’t whooped with glee and voted for her enthusiastically in the primary. However, I still think I’ve got a good idea here and that it is worth pursuing. Good luck! Linda
Mine either, but W&G has such cyberspace muscle (no hormones or antibiotics)—they tend to pluck them from the past and present them in the future, so we shall probably be reminded of what we wrote, tomorrow.
I tried to give Linda kudos on having her production pre-sold to an established retailer, and wish her luck.
This essay was a bit difficult for me to understand at first. Those 4H kids and Future Farmers always seemed incomprehensible.
No wonder.
If Larry Summers and PrezO get wind of this, they will be calling Linda, asking for economic advice and trying to co-opt her to run the Dept. of Agriculture. Hold out for Treasury, Linda!
For the record: carrots can be capitalized, depreciated, and treated as assets for capital gains; the cabbages must be expensed; all cukes are handled OTC, in dark pools, by unwashed hands.
Swapping credit with farmers can be risky, since they can be quite adept both at moving things all over creation and at taking care of #1, sometimes at the expense of #2. That $250 feeder calf that Farmer Brown raised for you–it died, kicked in the head or ribs, spoiled before they found it. Or, less nefariously, you financed or owned a share of the Xmas ’09 snowstorm preemies.
Even a minor default (the calf) can be a major setback to this type of venture.
Which, as the 4H kid said to the Future Farmer, is why we have credit swap default insurance!
We have gardens but no gardener.
A neighbor just mentioned the need for a community garden, he grows but no garden. We have known each other 30 years or so and is trusted. He provides an extra set of eyes for security. I guess it is time to consider the details to ensure we are in agreement.
My wife and kid’s bird dogs keep killing the chickens. I tell ya, I would never allow my dogs to do that.
But I sure do appreciate them letting me hunt over their wonderful dogs come hunting season.
Not a veternarian or a gunny, just a semi-young Ssgt. I can shoot a running rabbit through the eye, lumber-jack, hit the iron nail on the head 99 times out of a hundred, and work a mule (four-legged variety) Am I in?
Dear Martin:
Delighted chuckle, thank you. I’m LOTS of kinds of wonderful! The only problem is…it took me nearly 70 years to get this way.
I figure I’m the happiest little old lady in at least Texas, between the ranch, Charles, the guys who work for me, and the sheer joy of being allowed to write for W&G and my great readers. If y’all could see my eyes light up when I discover I have 11 comments…well, thank you VERY much for writing, and keep working and you can probably come up with a life as great as mine. Pretty much it is a matter of knowing what makes you happy, never being in a hurry, and never, ever exchanging a single cross word with your mate–even when he’s being stubborn and is WRONG! Yes, even the most fabulous man in the world has such moments, and I’m laughing as I tell you. It has been so COLD in the house for a solid month, and I kept asking Mr. Electrical Engineer if just possibly at least part of the problem were an ancient thermostat. Nope, couldn’t be, wouldn’t even consider it, he KNEW what was wrong and as soon as he got over Bronchitis he’ll fix it because it is clearly a blown circuit breaker, probably outside, since we can’t find it.. Well…today another dear Engineer friend came over, because HE was certain that the problem was in the part up in the attic. It was riotously funny, because he got stuck halfway in and halfway out of the hatch, like Winnie the Pooh! The only thing he found wrong was that the washable filter was very dirty. Then…HE finally looked at the thermostat, and guess what? When he took the cover off…the problem was that just enough of the plastic piece that turns the control had broken off, so when you turned the dial nothing much happened! And was I insufferable about it? No, of course not. I laughed until my ribs ached over Pita getting stuck (which was fine because he was laughing harder than I was; Pita’s quite trim for his 67 years) and when Charles gets back EYE (for bold-faced underlined “I”) am going to leave it to Pete to tell him about why he needs to replace the thermostat. The guys adore me–and vice versa–but they will always see me as a mere female who couldn’t possibly deduce a short in a lamp or a burned out bulb. Nobody has to be perfect, and those two are so close anyway…LOVE your life and laugh kindly over our foibles. If I give Pete an all but impossible problem he’ll come up with an incredibly brilliant field fix and have whatever it is working in no time without even a trip into town…but when he got worried that a maritime shipping container (one of the BIG ones) I had bought couldn’t be delivered he took three hours to come up with a $25,000 plan–no, I am NOT joking–that involved pulling down a couple of hundred feet of fence, several truckloads of gravel to fill ditches that would have to be removed afterwards, widening the cattle guard, and then removing the gravel. Me? I asked two professional truck drivers who had been through that cattleguard, and their immediate responses were, “no problem, any competent driver can pull right in. Call us if yours has problems.” (One lives about three miles away.) Me? I figured a slight appeal to vanity wouldn’t hurt, so I told the delivery man before he left how wide the cattle guard is and asked if I needed to do anything. “No ma’am,” replied the burly truck driver on the ‘phone, “I won’t have any problems at all.” And he didn’t! Moral: we’re all wonderful sometimes and we all have our ditzy moments–but since I’m telling the stories I don’t have to ‘fess up to some of mine! Hold on, I’m thinking…well…nobody allows me to fry because I had a fire. It was only a little one! I knew just what to do about it, too: I backed as far away as I could get, since the stove was next to the door, and squawled for my husband! Hey, that’s what men are FOR. He enjoyed grabbing one of his beloved fire extinguishers, put the fire out, and we went out to dinner. If he hadn’t been there? It was a gas stove, I had access to the baking soda and a sink full of water, I’d have managed. That darned stove wept oil for weeks, no matter how hard I cleaned, and the Old English sheepdog brushed past it constantly getting greasy and leaving hair stuck to the stove. It was kind of like Christmas tree needles, I guess? You can vacuum for months and STILL find them blown under the sofa.
Hugs, and thanks again. Linda
Erik…I”m sure I answered you. Let me check with Gary and see if it is stuck in the filter, again. Bottom line? You can but try, my dear! I can come up with a young mother who grows heirloom seeds in Olympia and was looking into getting goats last year…Backyard heirlooms, something like that? There are lots of apple and cherry orchards in WA at least…yes, I’d check for a CSA, but I’d also go hang out in feed stores. Everybody’s always friendly in feed stores! Our big one has meetings of breeders/farmers and free seminars on Saturdays, so you could check for when goat breeders meet. (See my archived “They ain’t no Lib’ruls in Feed Stores.”) I’d check Craig’s List and the American Classifieds (usually out in public for free on Thursdays) for pick-it-yourself places… Adam hasn’t gotten my article on leasing a little land posted yet (the holiday season), and I just learned that SOME cities have lightened up and will let you keep chickens. I was lucky enough to inherit some land, and land you can live on or at least drive out to on weekends is the key. If you could find a couple of friends it could be done, even with a goat or cow that needed milking (I know there are at least BIG dairies in WA: I spent 9 years in Tacoma and 6 in the Tri-Cities, stqrting in 1990.) Yes, it takes ten years to become a REAL farmer, but you don’t want to do that. As I’ve said before, read “Square Foot Gardening,” out in a new edition. If you’ve ever tried to garden and failed he’ll tell you why: you planted more than you could take care of and more than you could eat if you hadn’t given up in frustration. My new Farm Manager (HURRAH!) knows that one man working FULL time who knows what he is doing can handle a two-acre garden, but we’re talking about all day every day and growing many thousands of pounds. We have a great deal: he’s basically a tenant farmer! (Horrors, how wicked can I be?!) Until the first crop starts being harvested I provide him a big motor home, utilities, all meals (including for his dog and four goats, now pregnant by my buck) AND the land, machinery, seeds, fertilizer, our farm equipment, fencing and anything else we need. He has savings still for haircuts, which is about all that’s left. Come this summer, half of the income is his, and half goes into the farm accounts for more fertilizer and machinery–and I won’t charge him rent, either. A workman is worthy of his hire. A group of three or four friends/ families could lease some land if nobody had any. Land here leases for less than 1% of the value per acre per year in large tracts! Smaller lots might cost as much as $50/acre, but you only need about 5 acres for a goat, a cow, some chickens, and the garden. If you could pitch in enough for living expenses for whoever has the worst job and pick up an inexpensive motor home/rv if there weren’t an inhabitable building on the place, you could start to build real security for yourselves “if.” Whoever could probably work at least half time, too. Our standard daily chores for 23 cows, 15 goats, 3 hogs, and a passel of chickens take less than 1 1/2 hours a day even when we’re milking a cow or some goats. The problem is…the goats and cows MUST be milked at least every other day and they don’t like it and don’t give merely as much milk. They much prefer every day and WANT to be milked morning and night. Anyone who knows what he is doing can milk one in ten minutes or less. Particularly if you kept your garden manageable and used the black plastic (garbage bags or even newspapers would do!) to control weeds, you could be far more self-sufficient this very year. And fun? You have no idea! It really is important for someone to live on the place if at all possible. My goats are “fenced” by love–NEVER buy just one goat. A minimum of two IF there are people around; they’re herd animals, like dogs. A bored goat could probably find a way out of a high security prison. We have a rule: if you throw a bucket of water at a fence and any lands on the other side, that fence isn’t goat-proof. Pita has over a hundred goats, and he spends so much time keeping the electric fences up he rarely gets anything else done. At present he can’t live on his farms. 2 goats that were bred one in the spring and one in the fall would provide at least a gallon of milk 300 days a year, sometimes more, and during the overlap…You need roughly two chickens for every dozen eggs you want a week…but they have to be shut up at night or predators will get them. All you can do is see what you can work out! Best of luck to you, Linda
Hi, Steverino, my friend, and don’t be snide. There are already VA hospitals (the horror stories are legendary), and since it wasn’t my army, no, I’m not going to open my own. (If there is a retired doctor, either gender, who would enjoy being part of a crazy, fun, extended family, all expenses paid and more joy than you thought life could still hold? If so, please write! Hospitals, no. My own private doctor who doesn’t have to make house calls because he/she lives here? Of course! I’ve got a real talent for living en prince.)
Would I start a business if I weren’t sure of my market? Of course not! What would I DO with a ton of turnips?! Well…probably goats will eat them. Goats will eat almost anything and chew on the rest of it.
I’ll keep y’all posted on our adventures in agriculture. John is going to plow and do farmerly things. I’m going to have the guys put my greenhouses together, including one attached to the house, and raise herbs, flowers, and tomatoes pretty much year around away from heat, cold, bugs, weeds, and snakes, on nice raised beds. My engineer friend Pete insists that I’m Marie Antoinette and le petit trianon revisited. Mais oui, mon cher. Certainement! I tied a wide blue satin ribbon around one of his goat’s necks once to amuse him. And if he hadn’t shown up ten minutes early (the man is ALWAYS late) he would have found me milking Sister. I was all set to slip into a floor length, extravagantly beaded gown I wore to the Opera! I think that would have been a hoot. I may do it yet and see if I can get Gary to put up a photograph for all of you to see. Hey, it’s all about having FUN while becoming as self-sufficient as possible. What could be more fun than a sleek, glossy black goat being milked by a lady glittering all over?! I don’t even OWN a sunbonnet.
Linda
Jennifer, I LOVE getting your letters, although I’m not reading your e-mail. You’re always upbeat and excited about what you’re doing. Every time I see Gertrude or her cream I think of you.. I think it would be fabulous to get an older man in reasonably good health, once you get your guest house done (We have a small saw mill, too!) My REAL solution to that problem thus far is collecting good, older, used motor homes and rv’s. That’s a mini-apartment with everything–bath, heat, AC, kitchen, sleeping quarters, privacy. It isn’t luxury but it is quite comfortable. I’m going to check on a 34′ motor home tomorrow–$1500! We don’t plan on taking any coast to coast trips in it. If the motor is good for a thousand miles that’s more than we are ever likely to need. As a place to put a hand or house a grown chilld if necessary during the Depression, it cant be beat. Once you’re growing all your own produce and ample supplies of meat, milk, and eggs, the only cost is a few utilities–in our case, only electricity because we have our own well and septic tanks. Why do all you great people live on the Eastern seaboard or Minnesota? Aren’t there any of you in Texas?! For someone who wanted that type of life and had only a small pension working on a modest farm/ranch would be a real God-send. The right person would probably be very pleased to work for what I just described and a couple of hundred dollars a week. YOU tell them that we don’t slave from can see until can’t see! So long as nobody tries to emulate Sandersons Farms or Archer Daniels Midland it just doesn’t get any better than the leisured life in the country. Again…wage slaves are lucky to have two hours a day around work, commute, meals, housework, and wardrobe upkeep. Their weekend goes on errands and more house or yard work. They live for the two or three weeks vacation they have. EVERY day is “vacation” to us! If we all want a break, we do the 1 1/2 hours it takes, and all four of us knock off for the day. Cold, windy, and rainy? Let Gertrude’s calf in the barn with her and forget milking. The worst constraint is that until there is at least one hired hand we can’t just pick up on the spur of the moment and leave town…but we don’t want to go anywhere anyway! Between John and Asia, Charles and I do virtually nothing but enjoy life and plan as a general rule. I have only cooked twice in the last year–and that because I’m the one who can toss things in pots and make superb gravy and perfect Hollandaise sauce. I don’t vacuum, clean bathrooms, or do the wash. There isn’t anything reasonable we want that we can’t have. (I regret I cannot have the $75,000 Harry Winston diamond and emerald earrings that have been on e-Bay forever, or a private plane and pilot…) If what we have isn’t incredible wealth, what is it? What more IS there to want than love, leisure, crazy animals,lots of books, and great food? My SS check pays for Asia and could cover another hand if I could find one worth it. We could live pretty well most places other than New York, Washington, or Seattle on Charles’ pension…but WHY? Nothing would make us happier than the life we have. Let’s both keep telling them, Jennifer girl! I really like your idea of the fellow with the small pension, and I’m sure he’d be happier and healthier in the country. BIG hug, Linda
Wahoo, Robert, and great going. If you provide the land and maybe water, and a neighbor or two do the work, you should be able to have lots of produce, and that’s a fair trade. Mother always allowed a couple of ladies from her church to have a garden out here just for the pleasure it gave them.
I know the frustration with the chickens. Hank’s every instinct shrieks “I’m a herd dog!” He doesn’t know how, and I don’t know where to get him lessons. These days he’s practicing on the goats and cows, but we’ve been through our periods of “Oops, Mama. Hank not mean kill tiny chicken, Hank LIKE chickens. They so fragile…” What about building a movable covered run on skids for the chickens, something I want and haven’t gotten to? Dogs can’t get in, chickens can be moved easily to new ground full of yummy disgusting things (fertilizing as they go) every week or so, that will keep them safe from snakes, possums, skunks, and raccoons, and they will have to lay in the nest boxes instead of wandering off. We find eggs in the darndest places! On top of freezers…in the doctor’s buggy…in the hay loft…under vehicles…
We can DO this if we think creatively. Linda
Your other comment just surfaced, Erik. Thanks for the kudos, but that was part of finding the right man for the job. As for Nancy, Harry, and Barry, they’re more likely to make what we’re doing illegal! Yes, we should be pretty sure we can trust those we’re dealing with and insure the livestock (farm/ranch policy), but I’m trying to toss out every alternative I can come up with so that eventually we’ll hit on the right combination for those of you who really want to have a go at it but think the cost is beyond your budget. Hey, yeah, you can toss a half a million into a relatively small farm and ranch very easily, but you don’t HAVE to. If you have friends or family you trust who are interested, even if nobody has any land, but you can find a little to lease reasonably close, some combination of our ideas would work. I’m serious; our 232 acres leased as pasture until last year for $8,000 a year! The tax break from the ag exemption was worth twice that, which is why we did it. Having our own livestock keeps the exemption. If we wanted to be really picky we could say that until I have raised enough we can eat or sell to cover the $8,000, we’re losing money–but nobody who knows how many deductions farms generate would. I’ll be able to deduct salaries and virtually every mile we drive. We don’t go to town other than on ranch business! (Yes, I log the 1/4 mile sidetrip to Kroger’s, which is not deductible–unless I’m buying food for the guard dogs..) Machinery, depreciation, seed, fertilizer, electricity to the barns, red diesel,hay, feed, equipment virtually every cent we spend around here can be written off as a farm expense. Now, if I could just come up with a way to cover our Half Price Books habit…and if you CAN’T swing it now keep trying and raise at least onions, carrots, herbs, and tomatoes in your kitchen. Linda
Brian–you’re bound to be “my” Brian from earlier correspondence…you sound like a very good candidate to me! What branch of service? If we got serious could you really pick up your life and move? Dependents? They good for anything? If you’re serious, write to me at ranchLT4@gmail.com and we’ll talk about it! I’ve got a BIG use for a fellow who can swing that mean a hammer (a big expansion to the house needs framing in, as well as building the commercial kitchen on the slab already poured, we can’t put the rest of the new Galvalume roof on until the expansion is built, the sort of small repairs barns and fences always seem to need, building a smokehouse), work well with terrific fellows like my Charles and Asia (If you like to rehash old wars you’ll love my two military history buffs), and show initiative. I expect a Ssgt to be responsible in that way and to pay attention to detail, failure to do so being why two previous hands got fired, besides laziness, lying, and pilferage and never working more than a couple of hours a day. The last one was guaranteed to be a SEAL who had worked with horses. Hah. If he was a SEAL, I’m a walrus; he couldn’t handle a pistol and managed to shoot a hole in a friend’s vehicle shooting at chickens! (What kind of idiot shoots at chickens?) He was a useless joke in the woods. One of the truly great things about our life is that around specific pretty short term projects like those I just mentioned, and that we all pitch in when someone else needs a hand, usually literally…you could pick your own tasks and suggest ways to make the ranch better. One of the simple things I want is somebody with enough sense to ask incredulously, “You really want me to walk down to the woods every pretty day and spend an hour and a half reading while the goats eat brush? Just to SIT there with a book/playing video games, and drinking iced tea, lemonade, or even a couple of beers?” Uh-huh, I really do! See, the goats are very, very gregarious, and they don’t WANT to go off to eat by themselves. Pretty much, anything a goat doesn’t want to do–well, don’t argue with it, other than coaxing it into a pen, which is easy! They won’t go browse unless a human stays with them, making the alternative cutting brush daily, bringing it up here, and hauling off the stripped branches. The good thing is that we have far less trouble than anyone else I know because our goats are fenced by love. They have no REASON to go away. On top of that, there are deer and wild hogs in the woods, so you could take a rifle or shot gun and shoot anything that menaced them and any skunks, raccoons, or ‘possums you saw because they all kill chickens. I figure we’ll put a motor home back in a nice clearing (a refrigerator to keep drinks cold, AC if really needed, although the woods are always 15 degrees cooler), and in time Faith will get tired of going in to visit you! Maybe. Take ‘em down around one of the lakes and catch bass and catfish. Yeah, the goats don’t care when they go eat! They only care about having fresh brush every day to go with their hay and grain–and if you like animals at all, ya gotta love goats. They’re a riot. A dog would be fine so long as he didn’t kill livestock or fight with our two. Otherwise he’d have a big pen and could only be out when under your personal supervision. None of what we do is hard, and most of it is interesting. We cross-train and we’re all good at it; I can be counted on to stand there and hand tools down to fellows under cars, or keep the iced tea coming. In short, we all know when we’re chiefs and when we’re Indians. At all times the COB is the COB (Commander of the Boat, the senior enlisted man on a submarine) and sort of like the Sergeant Major: his word is law. Never mind the Colonel! You know exactly what I mean, right? Fortunately, he is both reasoable and almost invariably right! Snicker…except about thermostats. Grand fellow; everybody loves him. Chuckle…sometimes I tell him I want something and he tells me why I can’t have it/do it my way. Give him a couple of days to think it over, and he’ll come up with a way to get it for me! We are STILL discussing how high the ceiling is going to be in the new living room…but I’ve gotten him from 7 feet at the outer wall to 9 feet! Gentle smile. Betcha by the time we’re started I’ll get what I want. You any good at building bookshelves? That could practically be a full time job! The pay is lousy, except the job comes with a big motor home or RV, ALL meals/kitchen raiding rights (and boy, are there good cooks around here), the very best food, utilities–basically all living expenses are paid except haircuts, and we’ve got a Wahl set if you want a #3 buzz cut. Fatigues and good boots supplied. About as dull as it ever gets is occasional inventory. Um…forgot the new kitchen for the house, on hold temporarily while a friend finishes the custom solid maple cabinets and counter tops. We have enough fun projects to keep us busy for years. The rules are simple: don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t throw cigarette butts down in the pastures, don’t shoot anything that belongs here without my permission, take responsibility, don’t abuse animals, and we don’t ever, ever, ever raise our voices to each other. Of course I don’t think you would do any of those things, but that shows you how few rules I think are necessary to build an oasis full of love and laughter. If there is anything you’d like to learn how to do, Charles or Asia can do it. The two day a week kid trains the horses and rides fences and herds cows around for fun. So…if any of this sounds good, let me know. If you don’t like any of it you can TRY telling me. I’m always reasonable, so if you never wanted to learn to milk a cow, you can do something else. I don’t milk cows myself, and milk goats only when Charles and Asia are off bringing home another motor home or some sort of farm equipment. (I’m so bad at it the goats laugh at me. But they stand still until I’m through.) A driver’s license–amazing how many don’t have them–would be a big plus because occasionally somebody needs to run a hundred miles or so to pick up something we bought off Craig’s List, or go over to our place in Hamilton, 125 miles away, for something.. Hope to hear from you! Linda P.S. Laughing at our jokes is entirely optional. Extra credit for being sniper qualified?!
Steverino:
Ever hear of tattoos and brands? You wouldn’t have a generic calf, you would own a PARTICULAR calf you would learn to recognize by sight and Farmer Brown would have to have a very good excuse for why yours was the only one dead. (Vets do autopsies, too.) He COULDN’T palm just any dead calf off as yours even if you didn’t know yours when you saw it; he wouldn’t be able to tattoo it after it died. If he altered his brand to yours, all you would have to do is skin the calf around the branded area; the alterations show clearly–and whoo-eeee! do we (at least here in Texas) not take kindly to that sort of dishonesty. The Cattleman’s Association would probably provide a dream team that made O. J.’s look like amateurs. This is a state where it is a FELONY to cut a fence if you cause over $125.00, yes, $125-POINT two zeros in damage. Back in the good old days they hanged fence cutters from the nearest trees. There is also a great indelible spray paint meant for cattle and so forth; mark yours with your signature or telephone number if you really can’t see how he is different from the others. The only two I can’t tell apart are two steers which are our beef later this year; they are always together, and I don’t make friends with things I plan on eating. The guys don’t care; they’re happy and well-fed and Maggie, the head cow, refuses to let them approach us even if they wanted to. NOBODY argues with Maggie..
In general, we DON’T have catastrophes like happened to my friend, and if she weren’t so determined to prove she can do everything herself (which, pretty much, she sure can!) even a couple of hours’ help would have made an enormous difference. Another soothing voice, keep the mothers and babies together…not even MY Farmer Brown can deal with two sets of breech birth (VERY rare) and 18 other goats giving birth at the same time. She would probably have had a couple a day drop kids if it hadn’t snowed–and it really doesn’t snow much a little North and East of Houston.
Last year we lost our prized buckling to the possible but unlikely: the little guy managed to find a very rare blisterbug and ate it; that was my fault for feeding him the very best alfalfa hay; they don’t infest mere “horse quality” hay (the second most expensive) and out of a great many bales there was only one bug. Unfortunately, curious Abyss Dragon of the Alps’ Draco found and ate it.. His throat began sweliing instantly and he suffocated almost immediately. It is possible that a vet on the premises could have intubated him or given him something for anaphylactic shock, but nobody can have a vet who does nothing but watch joyous little bucks play all day. I know half a dozen goat breeders and not a single one of them lost an animal to that. Blister bugs are better known as cantharides.
The one little bull we lost was poisoned deliberately by a cowardly hand who had been told NOT to feed the brush-eating cows oak branches and why. It was part of his job to cut brush for the goats and cows while we were short of pasture for a couple of weeks while getting rid of the former tenant, but he was scared to go in the woods! Yes, there are deer in there, and every couple of weeks at night the wild hogs come through, but he was under orders to carry a rifle any time he went in them, and yes, he knew how to shoot. His exposure was miniscule: get out of the truck, stand in the bed (put the rifle or shotgun on the roof of the cab) and cut the branches and throw them in the trailer, get back in the truck, come back to the house. He was paid off and thrown off the place. He cost me a five hundred dollar bull that was so tame he came when we called his name, and another five hundred for vet bills, and I guess it helps that I can take that off taxable income, but that isn’t much consolation. Abdul the Bull-Bull Amour was a big favorite around here and I don’t take kindly to killing sweet little guys who eat out of my hand, wrapping their enormous black tongues around the range cubes so gently. All Freddie had to do was come tell me the truth and I’d have gone with him and stood guard for the twenty minutes it took if no one else was available. I’m still furious. He was “afraid.” None of the rest of us are! Cautious, yes, but we wouldn’t endanger an animal for any reason OR be too big a chicken to tell the Boss Lady what the problem is.
Hmmm…we lose chickens occasionally to hawks, skunks, and raccoons, but not many. No, pretty much anyone with enough sense to take care of a dog or cat correctly can learn to feed cows, chickens, and goats and keep them watered, and it’s easy to learn to tell them apart. Roy left milking Gertrude too late the day after we got her, and she came up to the house, nudged the latch on the chain link fence up, came into the yard and stood there bawling, “I want to be milked NOW. At the very least, give my calf back. It hurts when I get too full, you know!” She was accustomed to being milked at six o’clock in the morning! How uncivilized. We moved her half an hour at a time to thinking that ten a.m. and six p.m. were quite acceptable.
I keep telling y’all how much fun we have, and even when disaster strikes it is always something very unusual or caused by deliberate disobedience or stupidity, which answers Jennifer’s question. Obviously I don’t know how to pick good hands, yet. The worst of it is those who have to be checked on constantly just to see if they have done simple chores correctly every day. It infuriates me to see helpless little chicks with NO water (they go through enormous amounts) and no feed. There is no excuse for that, and even Freddy wasn’t afraid of chicks. Roy, the purported seal lied about stupid things like when he started work and whether or not he had watered the little guys. It really doesn’t take long to dump the tray, fill a quart jar, screw the tray back on, and put it in the chicks’ pen, now, does it? Every time we took our eyes off him Roy would disappear to his trailer to sleep or play endless video games. Almost all of the pecan crop–ours was excellent, but that wasn’t so for the orchards–ruined because in three solid weeks, being reminded every day, Roy didn’t get his fat, lazy self out there and pick the things up off the ground. This is scarcely quantum phisics. He picked up perhaps–PERHAPS–ten pounds; last year we had over 200 pounds. THAT, Jennifer, is what happens when you hire one of those “unemployed” who came with a recommendation from his preacher (who had been letting him sleep in the church) and two close friends. What I learned is–don’t take anyone else’s word for it. You want references AND to see the calouses on his hands and the mud on his boots. Interview him for three hours, and hire on a temporary basis; he has one month to prove himself. Roy was offered the job on a trial basis; he was told repeatedly that his work wasn’t satisfactory. He didn’t care about getting off the street enough to do the simple amounts of work which would have kept his job safe. Both my losers were awfully bad about raiding the liquor cabinet and thinking they could shuck and jive Miss Linda. Freddy was black (not that it would have mattered if he had done his job. We had an emergency one night and he refused to leave his trailer saying he had just taken a shower! Uh…Freddy? One reason you get so much free time is that you are ALWAYS on duty, just like soldiers. When five dead hogs need loading immediately to take to a black preacher who can get them butchered the next day and distributed to his congregation, you get out here and help.) Roy was white, but a far bigger sycophant, liar, thief, and layabout. Next time I’m going to demand to see military records and marksmanship medals! Dang it, if I can’t trust a senior non-com if I can find one it beats me how else to judge a man’s character quickly and pretty accurately. Kristen–in Virginia–says SHE can’t find anyone worth hiring and she pays a lot more than I do, although she doesn’t offer full room, board, boots, and work clothing. C”mon, guys or even gals! Surely ONE of you out there can show me that you have the character and intelligence to do a simple job well in return for ALL your living expenses paid, a small salary, and the sheer joy of living in the Texas Whiskey Bunker! .
We’ve also decided at this point in our lives, we don’t want to go much of anywhere either. We’ve checked off every national park we want to see. What we want to see now is sunsets from the corner of our porch with a bottle of pinot noir. And we do it quite frequently! In these cold days we settle for hot chocolate or Constant Comment in front of the wood stove.
I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get myself out of the wage slave business. Here’s what I’ve come up with: Jennifer’s Pumpkin Patch (or some such farmy name). If I can pruduce pumpkins this summer in quantity, I’m doing it. Hardly any investment except our time and energy. My husband is in and he’s the brawn.
I can’t find your personal email anywhere. How can you cc me?
Jennifer
Linda,
Here in Oregon, we have what I guess you would call “subscription farming”. People pay a farmer to deliver fresh produce each week. I think they pay up front for the whole growing season. Customers get fresh produce, farmers get income that is better than the normal wholesale. They are established farms that used to take their produce to local farmer’s markets, I believe. I’ve seen an article in the local paper about it some time in the past and it appears to be, if not common, then at least not unusual.
Afraid to go into the woods, huh? The end result of the nanny state and over protective parents, I think. We have raised a generation of utter cowards who are convinced that something deadly lurks around every corner or contaminates everything we eat, drink, breathe or touch. That they NEED the government to protect them every second of their life and tell them what is safe. Sad, sad, sad.
Your life sounds so great that it almost brings a tear to my eye, thinking about what it would be like just to work for you.
Vernon
Bummer, I could do most of it except the Vet part, and I was just a tad to young for the Vietnam War so am not a Vet, God bless all our Vets and current active military. Everything else sounds like a piece of Cake, and you get to eat it too.
Jennifer, my delight…will you write me an article to put up on The Texas Ring? You’re funny, smart, encouraging and a living inspiration to all of us–and the rest of you who think so write at least a quick “Rah-Rah!” for Jennifer, please.
For us, “the very best part of the whole long day” isn’t sup-sup-suppertime, it is the last two hours before sundown every single day weather permits. And I’m thinking of a way to get us an attached, glassed-in gazebo or porch for the rest of the time. No matter what, I close my computer, and Charles and I sit, talk (I usually have a glass or two of red wine, while he is still inhaling iced tea, usually), feed a few animals by hand, and inspect all of them from the comfort of our lawn chairs. They were very easy to “train” to come up around that time of day. Hey…why should we go wander around looking for cows to count them when a little treat and scratching their heads works beautifully to get them to congregate daily? The goats ALWAYS come running when a human shows up. We go outside the fence to play with them because goats take right to the proposition that they are “lap goats” and entitled to snag the twist of lemon off your tea glass. Charles has lived in Japan and the Middle East (Kuwait , Afghanistan, and Egypt) while I spent over ten years on the Continent; I know British Columbia well, and a lot of entertaining Mexican border towns. Yes, there are faraway places that are very interesting to visit, but since almost every place seems to have terrorists these days, it hardly seems worth the risk. We remember the old days fondly and swap stories of our adventures, but Dorothy was right: “There’s no place like home,” at least when you have the right home (we don’t!) in the right place and are doing things you love. In addition to pumpkins, why not put in a bunch of ornamental gourds? Possibly some of the small onramental corn? Those always sell well and are easy and prolific–plant some Loofah gourds. Yes, that’s where loofah “sponges” come from. I’m supposing you have a place on a very busy road where you could put up a little stand–or park that ever-handy old motor home or RV? You don’t want customers traipsing up to the house and not nearly as many would do it. We’re talking impulse purchases. You probably have a talent for arts and crafts–how could you not, as much like me as you are?!–and it is very easy to paint pumpkins–or dried gourds, for that matter. Try making a few bird houses out of them. An uncut pumpkin will last many weeks, particularly if it is on something that lets a little air circulate under it. If you were growing corn, throw together a few shocks for color and interest. I don’t know how much money you’d make, particularly the first year, but any would be better than nothing, it would garner some tax deductions, and it would be a lot of fun. The best part about farming life is that so long as you can cover taxes and all expenses it’s another form of lotus-eating. We don’t really CARE about big city ways. We don’t ever feel “deprived,” or so I find it. Not that anyone could call me “deprived!” I had the best of both lives…all those years I accumulated beautiful things as a consolation prize for not living the sort of life I have now. Nobody “needs” Han dynasty jade and sterling tea services, exactly, but they’re very pleasant to have. These days Charles picks me up some rare and beautiful bit of jewelry he found–generally in pawn shops, which we love!–but what I WANT is a row-binder or some other toy for my farm! Of course I love cashmere sweaters–except for the same price we can have a new pedigreed French Alpine goat. NO contest. Maybe how we live isn’t for everyone, but for those of us who love it nothing else will do. As a little girl I loved three toys: the Erector set, my castle with the knights and drawbridge…and my toy farm. I STILL get the same kick out of a “new” piece of farm equipment. We get all of ours off Craig’s List, ’cause those cute things you pull behind tractors cost BIG money new.
As for the article–write me about how you got interested and how the project grew, or anything similar. Write it just as you do here, “talking” to us. I added that because some people freeze and exclaim, “I couldn’t possibly write like you do!” (Nobody can; it’s a combination of talent and laziness!) They think that nobody would be interested, or start brooding about sounding “professional.” There isn’t one of you regulars who couldn’t write something that the rest of us like. You do it all the time, right here! When I answer I am LITERALLY talking to you. Piece of cake. Hugs, ranchLT4@gmail.com
Dear Vernon:
Thanks a LOT for telling us about the “subscription farming.” It’s good to know that’s in Oregon, which may well mean it is in Washington, too. How interesting that they charge for the whole season up front! I guess you’d have to have a pretty satisfied customer base to do that. On the other hand, if your farmer were honest and good at what he did, it could be VERY comforting to have your produce paid for in advance if there are shortages. Oregon is famous for blueberries; maybe you’d even get some of those. There’s a big market in Tacoma that sells great stuff direct to the public, including the best English peas I have ever eaten. Every year I’d buy about 50 pounds to freeze. Interesting, isn’t it, that your “subscription farmers” found what I said they needed: a loan up front to get their crops in!
Soft laughter…haven’t y’all figured out that I’m trying to conduct job interviews?! I have HAD it with trying to find…well, more than just a hired hand…in the usual ways. I want someone with fire in his belly, someone who really wants this kind of life, with real luck people who are at least moderately concerned about having to live through The Greater Depression, and particularly someone smart, goodnatured, and reliable who would really love becoming part of an extended family we create. No, we aren’t going to live in each other’s pockets all the time. The new kitchen I wrote of will be a garage conversion, but that garage is open (we have already pulled out the wall!) to a big area that will become the gathering place, the “family” room.
When I’m working on research and writing I don’t want to be distracted…but walking out to the “great” room (to put that old term in a different context) would be a sign that I were available for conversation, cards, helping someone else, or even working a jigsaw puzzle…or COOKING! I really love to cook, but with three good cooks in the house there are better uses of my time. “This, too, will pass,” and if things get bad enough I expect us to lose the Internet and telephones. At which point my darling Charles will bounce up and down with glee because he will have ALL my attention.
We’re dealing with a lot of variables, but with great opportunities, too. We need to be forming colonies, nuclei, working arrangements where we all add something of value, groups for mutual defense if it gets that bad, to build our own ability to be more self-sufficient, those who get EXCITED by the idea of being part of a great group and building for the future. Darling Jennifer was talking about trying to recruit an older man who lives a very meager life both financially and in a boring but dangerous job. IF he is the kind of man who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, is reliable, and one whose life would be enriched by feeling he is part of a family again, who would relish a reason to get up in the morning what a fine thing that would be for all of them. Older people in reasonably good health who aren’t in walkers or on dialysis have a lot to contribute. The things we do seldom require more than moderate strength–and I hire that done by professionals, such as the couple of times a year the cows need shots, ear tags, worming, and so forth. There is no reason for us to fumble around figuring out how to get cows in a squeeze chut and squirt medication down there protesting throats when there are all sorts of hands who moonlight who will be glad to do it for five bucks an hour! What is needed is strength of character and being absloutely reliable. Not panicking in an emergency. Doing whatever needs doing BECAUSE it needs doing, even if that is unloading the dishwasher without saying, “That’s women’s work!” No, that is work anyone can do and doesn’t take more than a few minutes–but we can’t hide any more dirty dishes in the machine until we take the clean ones out. I’ve got one! The kind of person who notices that the toilet paper is getting low and sets out a new roll so someone else doesn’t find out the hard way. The ability to check everything automaticaly. Is there clean water in the dog’s bowl? If the big feeder gets empty one of the dogs will start skittering the feeder around the floor! The ability to put things back where they belong, Rule One: “Don’t put it down, put it up!” Y’know…the world is full of people who can’t do any of that, who whine, complain, cause trouble, and shirk their duties. You know what I mean! Like the teenaged girl who disappears into the bathroom every night when it is time to load the dishwasher, and finish tidying away the kitchen, reappearing magically the moment all the boring stuff is done. Gosh, Il have fun talking to all of you. Group hug, Linda
Steve, Sugar, being a veterinarian is a dream I probably won’t get, and being the other kind of “vet” isn’t obligatory, either. It’s just that I grew up in the military and spent twenty years while John was in the Army, so pretty much I know what to expect from senior non-coms in terms of responsibility, attention to detail, and calm heads when things get hairy. True, even those include a few goldbrickers, but I never met a gunny (gunnery sergeant; you have to be pret-ty sharp to make that!) or Sergeant Major (ditto) who wasn’t, as we say, “a man to ride the river with.” For any who may not know, that goes back to the days when rivers had to be crossed without bridges, frequently under very dangerous conditions. You want a man who has your back if the savages attack, but also a cool, steady man who is always paying attention and will be there doing his utmost to stave off disaster if he sees it developing–and he’ll see it. He won’t watch casually while you are swept away because your horse fell by stepping in a deep hole neither of you could see. He’ll have a rope over you or in your hands within seconds, and be picking you up shortly thereafter. Then the pair of you can see if the horse broke his leg or has gotten back on his feet. Remember my adored Roger Staubach, legendary quarterback and the worst commentator ever? Roger ALWAYS knew where the ball was once it left his hand and if something went awry, when the pile was untangled, pretty much we expected to find Roger near the bottom with the football in his hands! Throwing a Hail Mary is what we do when there is NOTHING else to try; recovering the football is a basic part of the job and winning consistently. Pretty much what we do on the ranch isn’t difficult and it is dangerous only if rules are flauted flagrantly. We think it isn’t “work” if we’re doing it together. We take precautions; Brutus appears to be a very calm animal who takes care of the girls and appears to be on tranqualiziers (he isn’t) the rest of the time, but we had his horns removed and put a ring in his nose anyway. We almost never have to do anything with or to him–see note above about the twice a year we spray for flies, medicate, and castrate young bulls we don’t plan to use for breeding. Brutus is a very benign monarch (he thinks! Remember Maggie Thatcher’s view that he can get away from her stack of hay because he’s only useful once a year. NOBODY sasses Maggie or Faith, the head goat.) and his is another fairy tale kingdom: always plenty to eat, lots of good-lookin’ Babes in th’ harem, no work to do, and if life seems a little dull he can always go insult the bull across the fence. They don’t even get to the pawing hooves stage. I can’t think of a single circumstance where Brutus would be likely to be aggressive, but we treat him with respect, all the same. He is domesticated, not a pet, and he weighs 1200 pounds. I wouldn’t go up and yank on his nose ring (which hurts) and yell “Howya doin’ fella?” Animals don’t like loud noises or sudden movements. I’m with Maggie: he’s good for something–irreplaceable, in fact–once a year, but even then we don’t have to get close to him. He has already demonstrated that he understands his job perfectly. He’s six, so his personality isn’t likely to change. The cows are so calm and sweet that Charles can walk up to a brand new calf, run his hands over it, and check the gender, and Mama will stand there looking pleased and proud. You don’t try that casually with ordinary cows. Charles has a rare affinity with animals. If I didn’t have him I’d just wait for the calf to stand up! If the belly is smooth, it’s a heifer; if there is a a triangular tuft of hair about halfway between both ends, he’s a little bull. (Well, so I can walk up to the calves, too, but it isn’t really necessary, just fun. I get a kick out of telling the moms what beautiful babies they have! You bet they understand, and like all mothers, they’re very proud of their children.)
Anybody else got an idea on a shorthand test for character? One of the ways they sold me a pup with Roy the purported “SEAL,” was that he reads voraciously. He does, too. In general that betokens high intelligence and a broad range of interests. In him, it means he reads a lot, particularly sci fi. (Nothing wrong with Sci Fi! Charles and I have doted on it most of our lives.) I knew the moment he opened his mouth that I’d made a big mistake, but you really can’t tell a man, “Sorry, you aren’t going to work out, here’s your return ticket to Ft. Worth as promised” before he has had any chance at all to show what he can do. A man who won’t pick up pecans when told to, lets helpless little chickens and my goats go thirsty because he’s holed up in his “hootch,” and leaves his trash lying around the living room and kitchen expecting someone else to dispose of it–or leave it; he was very slovenly–isn’t suitable as a hired hand, far less as a member of a survival group. A man who will whine, “I fed them all this morning; they’re just greedy” when the goats are nibbling bare branches and licking empty feed pans is not only useless, he takes me for an idiot. However…SOMEWHERE out there are guys who know how to “ride for the brand,” as another saying of the Old West goes, who would think life here is as wonderful as we do. I’ll keep looking! Linda
Steve, let me try again to see if this will post.
Finding myself a retired veterinarian is probably a futile dream…but being the other kind of “vet” is not obligatory. It’s just that I’m the daughter, widow, sister, aunt, niece, cousin, and daughter-in-law of career military men, and I was looking for “shorthand” for the qualities most long-term soldiers have developed: attention to detail, devotion to duty, trainability, pride in what they do, pride in their outfit, decency, honor and similar old fashioned ideas. Sure, there are always a few goldbrickers, but by and large our professional military are very fine men. In particular–and no offense to a lot of terrific field grade officers I have known and admired, in particular General E. J. Delaune, and another General who had a sister you may have heard of. Sang a little bit. Name of Leontyne Price!–I’d be mighty glad to have a couple of Centurions.
Senior non-coms get more troops through battle safely, passing on wisdom that goes back before the Caesars. They see what has to be done and do it. They’ll chew a kid who isn’t trying out very colorfully–but carry that same soldier to safety under heavy fire. They think on their feet, know all the scams, and I’d be thrilled puce if a Gunny (gunnery sergeant, for you civilians. I never knew a gunny who wasn’t terrific!) or a senior Staff Sergeant with a sleeve full of hash marks wanted to share our lives here. Hey, I have a good use for a Motor Pool sergeant, too! Every time I turn around one of our numerous vehicles needs some little repair…we don’t have any tracked vehicles but we’ve got lots of big trucks and jeeps and Jaguars and tractors, and a bucket truck, even! I’m a great QM and promise you’ll never run out of rags or POL.
It isn’t so much that I need warriors–although I love them–as the kind of man I can count on when the chips are down AND to water chickens every day without fail! Age isn’t really a barrier either way so long as a man is still reasonably fit, what counts is character and WANTING to be part of what I think is both a magnificent way of life and the best chance we have to get through the next ten or twenty years well fed and happy. Delighted laughter…hey, guys, I’d offer to build you an NCO club, but unless my brother comes to visit we haven’t got an officer on the place. I’ve got MUCH worse: the COB. You don’t shape up right, he’ll “lay a little leadership on you” as he always says in his calm, quiet way. My COB is absolutely unflappable; I’ve seen him go through things that would have any other man of my acquaitance throwing screaming, howling fits. Charles just smiled and said cheerfully, “It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure!” In case anyone missed the explanation the COB is “Commander of the Boat,” the senior enlisted man on a submarine. It is his job ALWAYS to be right, to make split second decisions that save lives and avert disasters, and Chief Stewart is as good as they come. Hey, he got me, didn’t he?! Sure, I like a nice Captain as much as the next girl, but the COB taught tactics and strategy at a school you might have heard of, over Maryland way, AND he can dock the sub. We don’t have a sub. Land-locked, you know. Besides, we don’t need a special club because we’re all having fun all the time. More laughter…you can have one of the motor homes or build yourselves a cabin in the woods if you just need a place to go tell outrageous stories and use language which you don’t think ladies should hear! You remember the very nicest Colonel’s ladies you know, and I’m a lot like that, except you won’t have to wonder how a great lady like me married someone like…what WAS the name of that fellow we hated so much that for three months, day and night, the only song played on the juke box was “If we make it through December” when he was leaving?! Ah. I remember, but it wouldn’t be polite to say. Fondly, Linda
Howl! Let me go complain to Gary and Adam again, crew. Hugs, L
8 hours later, recent comments not up and new not posting. All right, who told the spam filter I’m on the no-write list?!
Hi Linda. You certainlly have a great deal of tenacity. Do you have any oil wells on your place that need minding? I’m pretty good at it having done it for the last 30+ years. And I understand your love of Jaguars. Sold my 94 XJS 2 years ago and still miss the old girl. Only 14 MPG with the 6 liter V12 though. Had a 84 that was a better car but she was ruined when I put her up in storage for twelve years while I went to see the world. Always did my own work on them, including two water pumps!
Hi, Oil Well Doctor! Yes, indeed, I’m one tenacious little babe. We’ve got a couple of capped wells, and the place is still under lease. Wassamattayou, selling a Jaguar?! If nothing else, use her for a paper weight or plant petunias in her. Chuckle…maybe I could coax you to come look at the one which was my usual town car until I let a friend talk me out of putting her on a car carrier, as befitted her dignity, to bring her 175 miles over to the ranch. Up on a dolly she went, and he bumped over a kerb. MY theory is that the baby girl was not only offended but thought that either (a) she was being stolen–and you KNOW how many built in precautions we have against that– or (b) that she had been wrecked and was going to BURN! Oh, dear, what to do?! She shut her fuel pump off and nobody can get the re-set button to work. The local mechanic came out sounding like something out of Maybury RFD, “Gol’ Dang if she ain’t th’ purtiest thang! Ah gotta go do some research.” He hasn’t been seen since. By now I’ll have to drain the gas tank and change all the hoses, gaskets, and filters, I guess. It would probably be more fun to get the ’68 Dime road-worthy, a Daimler being nothing more than a gussied up Jag, of course. She’s right-hand drive to match the ’66 Mark X, the only thing Charles and I have that he insists is “his!” ‘Sokay, that’s why he bought me the Dime. I’ve got a couple of ’88s that only need registering, insuring, and replacing all fluids as a sensible precaution. The problem is…I’m surrounded by men who cosset me and don’t like me to go to town by myself! I guess I need to get tough: they can chauffeur me around, but they have to drive the vehicle of MY choice. Alas, all the Sixes are just transportation, being automatics. What I’d really like is a replacement for my ’82 528e, the one they only made 400 of. Now THAT really WAS the ultimate driving machine. Oh, oh, a new friend who loves Jags! You know what we could do for fun? We could call AAA and tell them we have a run-down battery! The joke, non-Cat owners, is that if you don’t know all the tricks and secrets you can accumulate about six crews and they STILL won’t get to the battery, which is in the boot–which locks automatically and will not even open with a key under that condition–and that there is a tiny terminal that looks like an ordinary bolt hidden under the bonnet which is where you connect the juice. Thanks for reminding me of the great things in life, oil wells and Jaguars. I took time off to read James Howard Kunstler’s “World Made by Hand” tonight, enough to make anyone want to think serene, beautiful thoughts. Linda
Dear Oil Well Doctor..I answered you yesterday. Is there a spam filter doctor in the place?! Would write again but there’s a small flap going on…the hard freeze burst a pipe on a water well that was capped (the well we use normally has better-tasting water from a different strata) and odd things are going on. It’s my equivalent of calling the standard AAA man and telling him blandly that the battery on the Jag is run down when he doesn’t know that the oversized battery is in the boot, that the boot won’t even unlock with a key at this point, or where to find the hidden secret charging point that looks like an ordinary bolt! This, too, shall pass. Linda
Tenacity. This is my third try to try to say I am always interested in knowing a fellow who might know what to do with a couple of capped wells and loves Cats. Linda
Hi Linda!
Just discovered your writing and you remind me of my own days on the farm/ranch in Arkansas. We had enough room for all the family when life as we knew it ended, but it has taken many years for that to actually loom on the horizon. Instead, we finally figured out the only way to afford life on a small small holding was to give up that dream, sell the farm, and drastically downsize. Sad, after all the fun we’d had putting up hay, tending cattle, shooting mistletoe off the oaks, watching out for snakes around the doorstep, canning peaches, and growing more (delicious)cantaloups than we could eat before they rotted. The geese ate every row of young organic lettuces promised to the local grocery store, which ended our participation in the local economy….and each and every one of our 2 dozen laying hens was pulled from the chicken yard and killed with one bite to the back of the head–sadly, my memory bank can’t dredge up the name of the animal that did that dead, though you will know it, I’m sure. And we’d left for the day and evening to celebrate an anniversary in Fort Smith. Some happy day. NOT. If only we’d spent our time making a more secure chicken yard on Thanksgiving Day that year, instead of stringing wire to keep Fred the bull in the pasture!
My COB was a Navy E-9 with a mystical calling to raise cattle and plow the earth and produce fruit on trees. He retired and went home to Arkansas, then ended up on the side of a mountain in North Carolina, where he communed with the birds, bees, and trees before Taps.
I appreciate your appreciation of such a man. They are irreplaceable and I hope you find one to live in your RV. A good test, I think, is to hand a man a bag of black walnuts and ask him to shell them. If he succeeds in that, then give him the binoculars and see what he does with them, what he sees and how he describes it. When he does well in that, watch how he washes a sinkful of dishes. Sure test of man. Does he let the water run or does he conserve it. Does he rinse of the soap or not. Does he take care with the glassware. Does he dry and put away. Does he police the area, looking for things that need washing? If he asks for rubber gloves, you know you have a loser right away!!!
Best wishes and much success in attaining your dreams,
Em, who mostly stays home now.
btw, the worst thing about Arkansas is chiggers. I assume they have them in Texas, which is why, when I visit my relation near Houston, I try to stay on the pavement. LOL
Giday Linda, A couple of the things I would like to comment on:
I wonder if you have solar panels? They are kinda expensive but they do
prolong the life of perishable foodstuffs. A refrigerator accessed sparingly
(only) during the day and covered over at night times to reduce heat ingress
could be invaluable, especially for holding medicines (also ice for drinks).
The nice thing about PV cells is that they are passive, last for a decade or three,
no generator noise to attract unwanted attention, and you don’t need more than
a few KW to keep the caviar cool. Remember some drugs need cool storage!
Being close to Mexico a friendly MD could prepare a list of useful drugs to purchase.
Some of these drugs are prohibited to Australians (strangely enough Viagra is OK).
I would seem the ideal candidate would be a vet vet. The problem with that is
the military probably doesn’t have animal vets any more. A vet doctor should
have a commission = a minimal rank of captain .but i digress . that’s irrelevant.
Speaking of MDs or Vets I would suggest you first try for a pair of females,
Your local university will have final year medical students and a percentage of
their number will be survivalists who may well be interested in making contact
with a Mogambo Guru EOTWASKI type bolt hole… just in case. A thinking
female in particular should be drawn to a safe survival place when times get tough.
If the worst sort of anarchy hits the world may well be a nasty place to find yourself
as a female without physical and moral support… females know this instinctively.
Next best would be a breeding pair. Intelligent people must have mental stimulation!
The reason I suggest a pair of females is that as soon as the TEOWASKI situation
starts to stabilise communes will have to barter and trade for goods and services.
Who knows, in a year or two if your commune council plays its cards right you
might even be able to swap a good looking MD for a really nice jersey milche cow.
The bible, Proverbs 31:10 says ” who can find a virtuous woman for her price is far
above rubies”
(I don’t know how much Ruby is worth but I guess that it is a lot especially in a
TEOWASKI situation).
At this point I now don my flame proof underwear and duck for cover, tongue
firmly in cheek “:O)
Cheers Alex
ps Almost multiplied the metaphor? Tongue firmly..In cheek! Ax
Em, what a truly delightful letter! Skunks got your chickens; they only drink the blood, blast them. (Literally, whenever possible.) My COB has spoiled me so thoroughly that if I didn’t fade away quickly from grief if anything happened to him I wouldn’t settle for anything less than another. Sure, he can be a little over-protective, and KNOWS that he must be (and is!) right at all times about all things, but that’s what COBs DO, isn’t it? They make life and death decisions and they and everyone else have to hold fervently that the COB ALWAYS knows what to do. And they do. He is utterly unflappable, NEVER raises his voice, and always comes up with a way to get me what I want. He doesn’t patronize me, even! He is an absolute darling, and I’m sure you miss yours terribly. No chiggers. Hugs, and thank you VERY much for writing. Spurt of laughter…imagine a life that had TWO COBS in it! I guess I’d have to go to Gold Crew and Blue Crew! Linda
Alex, what a pity you live in Aw-STRY-lyuh, judging from the salutation and closing. My cousin, Andy, was a vet who was wounded while asleep in the Q at Ton Son Hut, the first one to be so since the Spanish American War, and that one was kicked by a mule. The A&M Medical School is in Galveston, but there is a very fine vet school right here; I’m going to see if I can find myself a bright kid who will be thrilled to have room, board, and a place to keep his horses. Solar and wind are both on the list, the last big purchases other than a third water well. Already got a Jersey and a Guernsey, and the Dexters are milkable, even though none of ours know it. The problem is getting a dairy license! Almost impossible. Comes the deluge, no one will care, at least. Have you seen the photo of one of our snipers? A beautiful young woman with a lovely complexion wearing small diamond stud earrings. Lots of ladies are good shots. Hope we don’t need any. Linda
Hi Linda,
no spam filter, the time difference is 11 hours. I am living in Kazakhstan right now, thus the need to sell the kittys. Did manage to get one of my HD’s over here though; relieves some of the home sickness! Most of the cars here are Japanese, and quite a few SUV’s. Mercedes too, but not he top of the line stuff.
Before I forget, go to Jag Lovers if you haven’t been already. Best Jaguar advise in the universe. Search the forums for your particular problems. Lots of great folks still like the beasts and most are pre-FMC. http://forums.jag-lovers.org/ Fuel pump should be an easy fix. Can you hear it run for 5 or so seconds when you turn the key? If not, I would think it the inertia switch next to the driver’s kick panel. Fuel pump is on the outside of the tank in the boot on earlier models and you could jump it to the battery and see if it runs. Tough finding a good Jaguar mechanic and that is why I did all my own work. Remember, a black wire can be a hot wire on a British car (lack of that little piece of information cost me plenty!).
Jeff
Jeff, m’dear, thanks for the advice, and we’ll try it. My “favorite” problem is an ’88 with all keys missing…and that was before anyone kept records. Eventually she’ll have to be put on our car carrier and carted away to have her ignition replaced. The fun part was the very arrogant master locksmith who declared he had never seen a car he couldn’t cut a key for. He has now. When are you due back from the Stans? I had an idea…I’ve got a couple of capped wells, shut down for receding production when oil was cheaper…and Byron King got me thinking. This is rather like shale oil, is it not? That is, now worth saying what we can reclaim. The holes are there, the pipes are there, the field is still producing, so what would happen if we popped an engine on those babies and see what comes out? All they have to do is pull out enough sweet, light crude for MY needs. Our basic diesel machines (cars, trucks, tractors, generatores) will burn practically anything greasy. Am I dreaming, or am I on to something? Whatcha doing in Khazkistan? Write me at ranchLT4@gmail.com if you get lonely for a Texas ac-cen-unt and some genuine interest in what you’re doing. Sure, I’ve got room for another oil engineer in my heart; I already have three. Ah dotes on Engineers; such fascinating minds! My COB knows I’m an unreconstructed South’n belle and both the biggest flirt in Texas AND totally harmless. Wild? One day I did some asking around and discovered I know FOUR people who knew Red Adair well! BIG Texas cat-lover hug, Linda
Can tell you plenty of stories about the oil patch. Cut my teeth in Denver City and Midland. Notrees, Monahans, I have been thru many a West Texas oil town. Wonders are what they are doing now. Making 95% water when I worked there in the late 70′s. Working for a large independent producer here in KZ. Kinda funny actually, they had to hire me on day-rate to teach their folks how to operate. Their wells are all offshore and they had no onshoe experience. Just waiting for a sign from the good Lord on when to pack it in and head back to the USA. I will be towing wife #3 back with me. Met her in Baku when I worked there a couple years back. Reading W&G and Kunstler’s posts, I wonder if it is a good choice. I am told there are awfull nice beaches in Phuket!
Anyway, I gotta run. Ebay is a good place to search for those key blanks for your kitty. Jeff
Oil Doctor: Thanks, guy. Let’s keep in touch, and when you get ready to come back stateside I know a great little restaurant…Linda