Senile Texas Aggie - comic relief for the rest of you

[farmerjan]

The kids at our local Fair rarely made big bucks on anything. Often they barely broke even. Some years the add-ons were the only money they netted. They did not pay big bucks for anything either because they did not have the money. Many of them were inner city kids, living in apartments, and the FFA livestock program was very good for them. It turned around some that were heading for trouble in gangs. As far as buying a lot of animals, if the leader did not buy the market animals for the kids in the program and bring them back to the school the kids did not have any animals. These were city kids so the leader found the market animals for them and the kids bought them from the FFA program. The FFA Booster Club raised the money for the kids to borrow to buy their animals and feed, and they repaid it to the Boosters after the Fair.

I used to bid on the FFA kids' animals because most of those kids did not have buyers. One year I paid less for a finished lamb than the girl had paid at the college feeder lamb sale! I bought 3 lambs that year from FFA kids because they didn't have buyers. Even though DH had a barn full of show meat rabbits, we used to buy up all the unsold rabbit pens as well and butcher them out just so the kids did not have to take them home. (They would not butcher them and put them in their freezers.)

The animals that were bad tempered were the ones bought privately. There were only a few kids who bought expensive show animals. Their parents owned their own businesses and wrote off the difference between the price they paid and what the sales price would have been at the slaughterhouse. They would arrange to bid on and buy each other's kids' animals for a big price that way. Those families did not bid on any other animals.

Our own kids made a little money, but not the thousands some fairs bring. Mostly they raised the animals because they liked doing it and it was a good lesson in economics. It certainly taught them to appreciate the hard work done by farmers and ranchers, and the importance of agriculture.

That's really interesting about the leaders buying for the kids and many of them being inner city. I guess being such a farming community area here, there isn't the same situation. I do know that there have been a few kids in 4-H that didn't have a place to raise the animals and there were farmers that would offer places to board them, or other 4-H'ers would keep them in exchange for some work tradeoff. Most of the kids here, being more "directly from" farming folks within a generation or 2 , will buy the animals and then get sponsors to help them pay for the feed. There are alot of businesses that do the sponsor thing as it is good advertisement. Then when they have the sale, the local stockyard/sale barn will put a "floor price" on the animal according to the current market value/price. They will buy up all the ones that "don't get sold " for the "big money." We have bought animals, paying the difference above the floor price and let the sale barn take them instead of taking them to slaughter. This gave the kids more money than just floor price, and we did not have to ante up a huge price. Plus since we raised our own animals for meat, often did not have the freezer space either.
Yes, there are a few that "bid each others up", but it wasn't real common. Even if it did happen, they did "pay the price". There were also several slaughter houses in the area that would bid on the animals because they had people looking for meat and such.
Our Farm Bureau would "buy" several, as well as the different "farmer" insurance companies. Also the feed companies would "buy a few" that they knew were using their particular brand of feed. The kids did alot of letter writing asking for sponsors when they got the animals, and then when they were close to the show/sale, would write and let friends know that they were showing and selling their animals. There was always a huge participation. And you would get a competition between different "buyers" just in the fun of it.
The few that we sold to kids to raise and show, we deferred the cost until they sold them. And we always gave them a break on the calves. And those were often the ones we would bid on also because the kids would send pictures and updates on how they were doing.
The FFA and 4-H have a poultry project in several counties where the club buys chicks of a layer breed/hybrid. The kids that can, take home 10 to 50 all according to what they want, or have room for. Then when the fair time comes, they bring in at least a pen of 3 for show and have to donate a minimum of 30 % for the auction. The money they bring goes back into the "kitty" for the next years birds. Several of the kids would raise 25 or more, and after what they had to donate back, would sell the rest as started pullets. One young man took 50 2 years in a row, and started an egg business, after he sold the required birds. They had to buy their own feed, or in the case of the younger kids I am sure the parents bought it. But they had to account to the leaders for them, take care of them, and they were checked on. I think they had to keep a ledger of sorts showing their costs etc. Good way to teach responsibility and work ethics for them.
I commend you for buying animals that you didn't "need" and helping the kids out.

 

[Ridgetop]

We love AG and we did this to encourage the kids to try to follow careers in it. A couple went on to be vets, and AG teachers. Hopefully, it gave the others some experience in the growing of food and taught them to respect farmers and agriculture. We didn't think of ourselves as doing this to be charitable or get kudos, but because we appreciated so much what the AG experience brought to our children who grew up in it. We wanted these other kids to get a similar good experience and learn that farming and ranching is not just sitting around watching stuff grow. While it is hard work, the satisfaction it brings you is food for your soul. Which is a good thing when you are bone tired, hurt all over, and have to go down to the barn in the middle of the night to assist a difficult lambing!

I required records from my 4-H project kids and required them to turn in record books. In fact our club required every member to turn in a record book or they could not run for an office. I ended up being the leader for most of the large livestock projects in our 4-H club, as well as the dairy goat leader. DH was the rabbit leader. Mainly because no one else wanted to and because no one else wanted to bother to learn about the animals. We went to livestock seminars to learn so we could teach the kids. We had 4 kids raising everything and super active in every aspect of 4-H so I was very strict with my children as well as project children. No entry in showmanship, no market animal in the show, no record book, no future market animal, no thank you note to the buyer, no check. I was known for being super strict, but for some reason the kids liked it, They knew they could rely on me to stand up for them as long as they followed the rules. They also knew I would come down hardest on them if they did not. When I sold market goats or lambs, I charged half the price I could get from strangers. If the kids worked hard (we checked with the AG teacher) we would bid on the animal and give them add-ons.

The FFA kids only had the school farm to keep their animals. There were no farms here any more. Only the 4-H and Grange members could keep their animals at home. Sadly the farms at all the schools are gone now as are the AG programs. Pierce College was originally set up as a straight Agricultural college. The San Fernando Valley Fair when it started was the largest Fair around. It was started when it was called a "fat stock show". Over 1000 animals would be exhibited by farmers and ranchers alone, then there were the separate youth livestock entries.

By the time my children started to exhibit livestock, the college had taken the barns away from the Fair and were selling off the Fairgrounds. We had our Fair for the next 18 years on rented premises. By the time my children graduated we were down to just a few families and had invited youth from other Ag Districts to show and auction. Those kids didn't bring any buyers since they saved their personal buyers for their own larger fairs where the prices were higher. Prices went down, entries went down, AG programs were dropped as schools looked for vacant land to put portable classrooms up. The San Fernando Valley is so built up now that there is no AG anywhere. Even the horsekeeping areas are being phased out. The San Fernando Valley used to be all AG, with walnut, orange, lemon, apricot, and plum orchards, corn, tomato, and squash fields, market gardens, etc. There were several dairies, including one across from our first house (which we bought from my grandparents). My mother went to school with the daughter of "the asparagus king" the grower of most of the asparagus on the west coast. The soil here in the valley is fertile, and grows anything, now it just grows buildings and parking lots. It is pitiful. Even the Antelope Valley which used to grow the best alfalfa has been built up. Water prices forced farmers to cut back alfalfa fields. Farm income dropped, and the kids did not want to farm like their parents.

My grandparents had a couple acres where my great grandmother kept dairy goats, and poultry. They grew a hog each year as well. My great grandparents lived with them and worked on the animals and gardens too. They canned everything. When the depression hit, the goats were sold when feed got too costly, but their garden, fruit trees, and poultry kept them fed. As a child, my grandfather still kept ducks, and geese. The gander was very mean and I could only go in if Grandpa went with me. One day it chased me all over the field when I went in looking for Grandpa!
OOPS! Sorry STA I didn't mean to hijack your thread! I forget which thread I was on!

 

[Baymule]

If city councils were wise, they would zone in farm areas, drop the taxes and keep farm land in close to their cities. Someday they might need it, but it will be too late.

 

[greybeard]

If city councils were wise, they would zone in farm areas, drop the taxes and keep farm land in close to their cities. Someday they might need it, but it will be too late.

In many socialist nations, that's exactly the way it's done. Gooberment owns the land, then leases it to it's citizens or more often than not, passes strict laws and rules how and when private landowners can do 'anything'..with their own land.
Numerous lawsuits have been filed by landowners in our own country to free
up land of private owners so their land can be valued properly and fairly. Most state's (and probably our federal) constitutions contain statutes that prohibit govt from setting either floors or ceilings on land valuation.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

Yeah..right...

Reserving land for Ag is one of those 'sound good/feel good' things but we live in a more realistic and pragmatic world, and it only sounds good right up until the time the owners of that farmland realize their land would be worth hundreds or thousands more $ per acre if it wasn't zoned and restricted Ag use only. In the real world, most farmland has increased dramatically in market value over the last 50 years, but, that increase pales in comparison to what suburban or city land has done.

Often, only a thin line on a map or a 12 ga barbed wire separates many thousands of $/ac in difference.

An example:
The land where the Astrodome/Astroworld was built was swampy cow pasture with Hereford cows on it when Roy Hofhienz bought the 500 acres for $5 million in the early 60s, (about $10,000/ac) spent $1.2 mil to do some drainage work on it, then sold Harris County 180 acres of it for the same $5mil price he had very recently paid for 500 acres. They used about 116 acres for Astrodomain. Today, the now empty 116 acres of former ag land where Astroworld also once stood is valued at just over $90 million. $776,000/acre. $2066/sq ft.

Would you want to be the owner of that 116 acres and be locked into getting only a fraction of what an adjoining land owner got for his land? I bet not. I know I wouldn't want to leave that much $$ "on the table" and wouldn't want to do it to my children or grandchildren either.

I also bet cities would have no where to expand to if their surrounding land was all restricted to ag use only.

 

[Baymule]

Well, since you put it that way, I'll just go sit in my corner and shut up.

 

[CntryBoy777]

I sure hope ya are okay over that way....with all the weather mess going thru the area....not a good combo with flooding and tornados.....just checking on ya.....

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

OOPS! Sorry STA I didn't mean to hijack your thread! I forget which thread I was on!

Miss @Ridgetop, that is quite OK. I enjoy reading your and others' posts here.

I sure hope ya are okay over that way....with all the weather mess going thru the area....not a good combo with flooding and tornados.....just checking on ya.....

Mr @CntryBoy777, thanks for checking on me. Yes, we are fine. Until yesterday, I had not done squat for over a week. I had been waiting on my rear end to heal from the supposed heat rash. While it had gotten better, it still wasn't completely healed. I was sick of watching YouTube videos -- I caught up on all of the channels I follow, and watched every YouTube video I could find on how to use a box blade, how to build a bridge over a creek, and wanted to get back outside doing something. My wife and I about decided that the rash on my rear end may be an outbreak of psoriasis, and if it is, there is no telling how long it will stick around. I have had outbreaks that ended after a week, and I have had outbreaks that have lasted over a year. So with that in mind, I put on some medicine, gritted my teeth, and got outside and got busy.

The first thing I did yesterday was to build a platform for my wood chipper. I want to keep all of my farming equipment that has moving parts, namely the mower/shredder, the wood chipper, and of course the tractor, along with my trailer, the Gator, the two lawn mowers and the pressure washer, in my shop out of the elements, as they will last a lot longer. But my shop is such that I didn't have room for the mower and the wood chipper without blocking access to the trailer, the Gator, and the lawn mowers. So I bought some rollers rated for 300 lbs each (the wood chipper weighs 800 lbs) and attached those rollers to a wooden pallet. That way I could set the wood chipper on the pallet and roll it out of the way, and then position it more easily when I wanted to attach it to the tractor. So I did that.

Next, I reattached the mower to the tractor. Attaching the PTO to the tractor took over 30 minutes! I don't know what it is that I am doing wrong for it to take that long, but I finally got it attached. After that, I went out and cut up the pine tree that had fallen down and moved the cut up pieces to a burn pile. Then I moved a couple of piles of brush to near the shop so that I could chip it up the next time I decide to attach the wood chipper. I piled up the rest of the brush I had cut from along the edge of the woods and burned it. Then I decided to mow the small section of pasture between the east side of the driveway and the woods, where my BIL and I had removed old fencing. I wanted to do that because if there was any pieces of fencing that were in that pasture, then I wanted to hit them with my shredder/mower instead of the guy who leased my land to hit them with one of his flail mowers. It appears we did not leave any stray fencing there.

While mowing that section, I discovered that my BIL and I did not cut the limbs on the trees up high enough. I kept hitting limbs with the canopy on my tractor. (Fortunately, I did not rip off the canopy the way I did last year -- I think I learned my lesson from that.) So I will need to go out and cut those limbs and then take pictures of the AFTER and then post pictures.

Well, that's all the news from Lake Woebegone.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[greybeard]

Ah..Lake Wobegone..
""the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve, but all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

(unlike the girls from the neighboring county that had so many piercings they looked like they had fallen face first into an open fishing tackle box)

 

[Bruce]

And now after all that work your entire body is so sore you've forgotten about your butt! Check out the CeraVe cream. It is a round container about 4" High and in diameter. Dark blue for the "serious" stuff, white for lighter irritation. I buy it at the grocery store in the pharmacy section.

Besides rolling things around on the pallets you can move them with pallet forks on the tractor. But you already knew that.

 

[Ridgetop]

STA: You have really been getting a lot done! You need a nice soft gel pillow on that tractor seat. DH has lost some weight and now his old bony butt hurts after sitting and driving all day! Had to stop at a Rite Aid and buy him a gel cushion on our last trip. For some reason, his butt lost weight but his stomach did not! When I suggested that I would be a fat donor if it would help he suggested I should go on a diet instead!