I hope you’ll slow down and enjoy the reprieve the weather has given us

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Sure have been happy about the weather this August. Never before in my lifetime has this cool weather occurred in the normally hottest time of the year. I wonder if the folks that named the Dog Days of Summer were experiencing this, as my dog loves it! He thinks the days and nights are just right and has even threatened to run a rabbit.

The deer grazed my close relative’s green beans to the ground night before last. She had babied them along, had to plant twice to even get a stand. We got a nice mess and she had a couple of gallon sacks in the freezer. I do not know where the dog was during the raid, probably so sound asleep he didn’t even hear them. He sure heard the ranting this morning as the disaster was discovered. Folks in town might have heard it too!

I am staying away from the feed store fora while. Bob is housing and paying interest on several hundred tubs of supplements we need in the hot dry summer to keep the old cows going and the heifers and steers growing. I feel for him; he was only doing what he thought to be prudent. It is not anyone’s fault that we cattlemen don’t need the supplements this summer. Oh, yes, I bought 10 just to ease my conscience and that only rubbed his itch, making it worse. I saw a flatbed truck pull in the other day, load out bales of twine and take off fast, like he was trying to get away from something!

The boys down at the coffee emporium are in their natural summer coma. They don’t have much to say about anything unless you want the Fox news repeated word for word. They don’t even get rowdy over the IRS and fellers selling out to Russia. I have almostfallen asleep in my cup, so I haven’t been hanging out there either.

All the time not spent at the feed store and round table has been directed into actual work. I have all the fences stretched tight and a new gate hung at the bull pasture. Drug the cow pasture and scattered piles, rewired the electric line to the old well house in that pasture and watched tadpoles in a mud hole for a while. I can stand a few more days of this dull time. I think some of my hair is growing back on my thin spot due to the lack of worry and fi dgeting.

It is my opinion, and everyone has one, while I am not a wealthy man, I sure am a blessed one.

I hope many in the business of raising beef to feed America will slow down and enjoy this reprieve we have been granted. Water in the tanks, green grass and temps in the 80s should make us all pretty easy to get along with! But, remember, the personal and property taxes are due October 10th!

Bill is a pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 08/28/2013