Eating the seed corn

Sabbath eve, April 29, 2011

I woke last night from a troubled dream into a troubled reality. Martin told me one of our pastures is toast and we will need to start feeding hay or move the cows. The pond from which they drink is also precariously low.

Hay is scarce, driving the price up. I have hay. Conventional wisdom says I should make money by selling the cows and selling the hay also. Once it starts raining, I could then take the money I receive and buy replacement animals.

However, this is the third drought since 2006. Cattle numbers are lower nationwide than they have been since the 1950’s. I live in the largest cow/calf producing region in the land. The dollar continues to devalue when measured against integral goods and services. So what happens if the cow I sell today for a thousand bucks costs five thousand dollars to replace a year or so from now? Or ten thousand dollars…

Worse yet: if everyone follows conventional wisdom, we kill all the cows in Texas.

The whole state is in a drought.

You can’t create a cow from a dollar bill. Doing so requires another cow and a bull.

So, maybe there are no cows to be bought at any price, or the numbers get so low it will take decades to replace them.

A man shouldn’t eat his seed corn. I suppose we shouldn't kill off all our breeding stock either.

Speaking of corn: There will be none in South Texas if it’s not planted under irrigation. Almost no corn is irrigated in these parts. We have cows but no grass. Cattle in feed-lots but little corn in storage and none on the way, chickens, both for meat and eggs, also requiring imported grains delivered by fossil powered transport.

Diesel hovers around $4 a gallon.

The weather forecast says we have a chance for rain a week from now. It’s been saying the same thing since February and we have not had a single drop this month. A hundredth of an inch last month and none this month. Fronts blow through dry and retreat dry. North of us I hear of floods and tornadoes. If we have to dodge flood waters and tornadoes to get a rain, I’d just as soon stay dry.

I see the Fed and their fucking minions in the major banks and fellow disinformation disseminators doing all they can to manipulate the price of precious metals and commodities to the low side. They will lose this battle. Stores of dollars rest in the treasuries of foreign countries. The owners of these dollars have begun to sweat. How long will it be until they release the flood in a fateful attempt to garnish at least some value from what will turn out to be worthless IOU’s?

I try not to think about this too much because it makes me want to grab Ben Bernanke by the throat and choke the living shit out of his ass. While that’s probably what he deserves, it harms me to walk around angry. And he is just one of many that believe the lies they conjure. His own will eat his kind once they realize they’ve been had.

A quick fuck you very much to Tim Geithner while I'm on the subject.

Meanwhile, the garden blossoms. I am blessed to have irrigation water. I harvested about a thousand pounds of onions this week. Potatoes and green beans are ready. Pinto beans are well formed, black-eyed peas, cucumbers on the way. Yellow and Zucchini squash have begun to produce more than we can possibly consume. Hogs get the excess and grow fat. We have large green tomatoes on the vines and have begun to harvest the first peppers. Sweet corn tassels. I set out sweet potato slips yesterday.

The cows keep giving milk; Leah continues making cheese and canning produce. I water, cultivate the soil and wait.

I suppose it could be worse.