Be thankful we aren't fighting plagues of frogs

I got my leather gloves out of the truck and pulled the sharpshooter spade from the back. The thistles are growing good this year and I fight them constantly. We sprayed and the offspring spot spray several times every summer. I dig the nasty, evil weeds up and haul them to a burn pile. I will never understand how snakes and thistles continue to thrive when the rest of the animals and plants turn up and die! Pun intended.

I wish I were wise about the names of all the plants that grow in our pastures. I don't know a bunch of them and I also don't know what will harm cattle. I do understand about purple mint, and then there is a wild hemlock that I can't identify correctly. I try to remember what I learn, but my sponge of a brain is already filled to capacity, I reckon.

I haven't seen much purple mint this summer. I know it is around, but so is the grass and maybe that has curbed the abundance of the menace. I keep the lots and traps mowed so, when cattle are penned, they are not tempted to munch off the stuff. I sincerely hope you are preventing it in your operation.

Another sore spot in raising beef is the aggravation of flies and ticks. I am a spraying fool, and yet the flies seem to get bigger and thicker all the time. I have used some of the chemicals you give to the cattle in feed to kill the eggs in their manure. It is the most expensive treatment I have ever done and, if my neighbors did it too, it might have worked a little better. I wish for a dipping vat every summer, like the ones they used when they ran cattle up from Mexico to Texas years ago.

I keep Snip in a little trap and, when I have to pick ticks off of him, I get real testy. I spray that horse and check him every morning and he still shows up with a tick or two every week. A horse should never have a dang tick! Old Dog wears a collar that costs over twenty bucks, but I am tickled to pay for it because it works. We never find a tick on him. Can't say that for myself, and the tiny little seed ticks are the bane of a man's existence.

It is my opinion, and everyone has one, neither man, or more importantly, Grands, should ever have to feed a nasty tick, an insect looking for an opportunity to give a human being a debilitating disease, with their life blood! The other thing about raising beef with the infestations of flies and ticks, the blood suckers are thieves of pounds of flesh and that is what we depend on to keep us on the land! Keep on killing the thistles and spraying the insects and be thankful we aren't fighting plagues of frogs. On second thought, frogs do eat flies!

Bill is the pen name used by a local writer and longtime resident of the Gravette area. Opinions expressed are those of the author.