The drill of wearing a mask, staying 6 feet apart and washing my hands for 20 seconds and often has been forever branded into my brain. We did get to church, but let me advise you about sitting through a worship service with a bunch of masked folks! What a deal! We sang songs and sounded like a cat with a mouth full of cotton in the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper! I figure the good Lord knows all about it and it will be fine but sure was strange.
The feedlot steers sold and we were blessed to sell on the high end this year because of the meat shortage. We can make the banker smile, pay for the water line and new automatic waterers and order feed! This is the first time we have ever hit a high and let me tell you it is sure nicer than I expected!
We worked cattle last week, all week long! Got all the bunches done, including the show heifer of the grand. The long and stressful days put lots of sore muscles in my old body. I suspect I do more sitting than I should, in the truck and on a saddle, but I like sitting! I did a fair amount of walking and pushing cattle, so it was not very strenuous but the years show up even at that.
My close relative had a crew in to help with feeding us the whole week. We hired a couple of fellers to help and, with the family, we were about eight to 10 workers daily. She was as tired as I was when it was all said and done! The close relatives in this family do work and sure know how to fix good food, including gravy for every meal!
An old and much-admired friend passed away this morning. He was sipping coffee and watching the news as he sat in his recliner and looked like he just went to sleep. We sure will miss him in this community and area. He had cattle, horses and did some farming on his place. I think we will be helping gather and sort cattle there in a few weeks. It will be too hot for the cattle but we will do it when asked. The feller had one son who was killed in a car wreck 10 or 12 years ago, so his widow will have her hands full. I'd be very surprised if any of the land will be sold as they had a beautiful place and she helped make it that way! Leased out land is hard to find and is pretty high dollar nowadays.
I am planning to get things cleaned up and order feed to fill the order for fall. The price rises in September and I would rather pay what is asked now! Remember the bulk feed I ordered last year and how smart I felt? We then had mice, coons, possums, squirrels so fat and slick we could have won blue ribbons at the county fair in every class with them! This year, the feed will be in bags!
It is my opinion, and everyone has one, the serious nature of the state of our country is serious! I do fret some over it all and mostly over the stupidity of the false news and scare tactics used on us regular folks. We sat back and let some laws be taken out and some laws written in without even being made aware of the event. We have representatives in the capital and yet we didn't hear anything about the activity, and I wonder why.
I am sure upset over some of the things our government has allowed such as who can be leaders in our government. We should stand firm on the requirements set down by the founding fathers and pay attention to who we send to take care of our business. We wouldn't close our eyes to bad things happening in our homes so what has made us so uninformed as to our leaders? Being complacent brings countries to their knees because there are others who want what we have and will take it if we allow them to ooze in!
Keep your fences tight and your hogs in their pens!
Bill is the pen name used by the Gravette-area author of this weekly column. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 05/20/2020