My entire extended family had been farming and raising truck crops since they arrived in Texas around 1870 and probably had been doing that since day one in Ireland, Scotland and the Carolinas until the late 1950s when the Government Subsidy Bill came along and they made more by not raising crops and planting hay fields.
Ten years later when that contract ended, everyone started bailing hay and raising cattle and horses on that same land.
My brothers and sister were the first of our generation of kids to live in town and not "on the farm".?ÿ This was against Momma's wishes as she felt living "in town" was a bad influence on us kids...she was probably right.?ÿ I've got a bus load of cousins spattered from Hidalgo Co., TX to Woods Co., OK that still farm a lot of cattle, wheat, soybeans and cotton.?ÿ They all seem to be doing well, but they bitch all the time about how little money they make.?ÿ I think the main thing is they've managed to hang on to their swatch of dirt and most of their kids are carrying on the family work.?ÿ I don't think most of us would enjoy the "business end" of farming, every year you pretty much bet your entire working capital you can do it again.?ÿ If you're lucky you make a little money.
I talked to my cousin the other day not long after tax season.?ÿ He managed to pay himself around 35K for the whole year.?ÿ A whole year working some days twelve or sixteen hours and fretting about things that are either broken or fixing to break the whole year.?ÿ
I told him surveying wasn't much better...except surveyors don't have to get up early to feed cows. 😉
I made the mistake of moving to town in 1973. Got plum tired of towns by 1987 and moved back to the country where I could have my own water well and a place to do what I wanted to do or not do without there being some ordinance telling me what I could not do and some local yokel making stuff up as they go about what they thought I could not do and where there are no HOA or City Limits ever going to reach me in my lifetime.
0.02
Witnessed something today out of the ordinary. ?ÿA local ranch crew needed to move a couple hundred steers from one property to another. ?ÿSeveral semis were involved. ?ÿIt was far too muddy to take the trucks to the corral so the cowboys had assembled enough cattle panels and a loading chute to reach the west bound lane of a two-lane state highway. ?ÿThe loading chute was located precisely long the center of the lane. ?ÿEach semi would back against the chute, the cowboys pushed up enough steers to fill it, then the truck took off to let the next one move into position. ?ÿNormal highway traffic took turns making do with only one lane.
NOW THAT'S RURAL AMERICA
Sounds perfectly legal to me.?ÿ Isn't that what "public right-of-way" is for?..
"...use by the general public for passage and common commerce."
My Uncle Bill owned 80 sections in Delisle Saskatchewan Canada (Yes; 51,200 acres). His boys run the farm now; they grow mainly for seed.
Owns a little more than $1 million in equipment...
My Uncle Bill owned 80 sections in Delisle Saskatchewan Canada (Yes; 51,200 acres). His boys run the farm now; they grow mainly for seed.
Owns a little more than $1 million in equipment...
With that much dirt and only 1 mil in equipment Uncle Bill sounds like a penny-pincher! 😉
I mean you could wear a truck out in one season just checkin' on fence...
Our farm has been in the family since the early 1800s. We built our house about 1/4 mile up the road from my parents. They built their house about 500' down the road from my grandad's homeplace, tearing down the log house my great grandfather had built. When I was growing up my dad,his brother (who was a POW in Stalag 17 in WW2), and their uncle, who was in the Navy in WWI, were the remaining farmers. My uncles place was about a mile down the road, and we used to move cattle from our place to his and back for various reasons. Usually 50-100 head of cows/calves. At the time there were fences on both sides of the road for the most part, except for a couple side roads and some yards. Would always let the neighbors know when a move was coming so they could put up the dogs and try to keep the strays out of their yards. Had a few chases out behind a smokehouse or outhouse (everybody had an outhouse just in case). ?ÿHad to have a few in front to hold them back and a few behind to punch up the stragglers. At the time I thought it was great fun. Now all the fences are gone, it wouldn't be much fun.?ÿ
