The transition has begun. I am not ready for it, and I can't do one thing about it. Here it comes and today it is going at full speed. The leaves are struggling to hang on at least until they turn colors, and plastic sacks line the fences between here and town. My close relative has sheets on the clothesline and they are whipping out the wrinkles.
The temperature is high, and so is the humidity, so it is not the most comfortable kind of weather to work in. I have been on the working end of a shovel all morning cleaning out the pens in which we had calves to doctor. My shirt was soaked and salt-stained by nine o'clock and I had just started well. I suspect a weather change to immediately follow this, maybe a front of some sort.
We have piled in the feed for the winter, have the hay stacked and ready, and I hope the fences will hold for a few more years. I repaired the line fence between us and our neighbor to the south this summer, but the wire is rusted and the posts are rotten. I guess I should have spent some of my banker's money for new posts and stretched new wire, but I think we are stretched about as far as the poor old banker can go.
How much you like what you do is sure the bottom line in this business. I am never completely sure how we are gonna do the winter until it is over and we made it. I know we don't waste money on fool things, but we also slide a bunch of it through this place of business. I mean in and out of here in a big rush! I know we are more than blessed to have enough for the offspring to continue on here with us, but some days I wonder if they would like to quit and work in town. Lining pockets is not gonna happen here! Or, it hasn't happened here yet!
The pumpkins and corn stalks are all over the front porch. I can't imagine why we have to buy stalks, but I guess because it is necessary! I have been hearing about a costume party at church and the need for some older male members to dress up for certain parts of the scary stuff. I left the building, but my close relative hung around in there. I hope she did not volunteer me as a scarecrow again!
It is my opinion, and everyone has one, the cattle business is the best way to spend my life. Raising kids, calves and picking up rocks has been a dandy one for us. Now that doesn't mean there are no other ways to make it in this old world -- just would not be another way for me that would make me as happy.
I am, and I hope you are, too, happy! We can meet up at the coffee emporium, visit and laugh, help one another when needed and still keep body and soul together. I'd like to think about that today, you know, being happy and satisfied.
Smile at your close relative, pat the dog and change the oil in your truck because winter is coming!
Bill is the pen name used by the Gravette-area author of this weekly column. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 10/17/2018