If you eat, this is worth your time.
Listen here.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Texas drought update...
Like most Americans, I watched news of Hurricane Irene’s soiree along the East Coast. While I am sure there was damage done with her passing, I need not look further than out my front door to watch a much more devastating but less newsworthy catastrophe unfold. The drought I refer to is not as spectacular as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and the like, but I assure you, it has proved a more lethal, silent, and effective killer than any of the above this year.
As I type, an accurate thermometer registers 111 degrees from the shade of my front porch. We have suffered days, weeks, even months in sweltering heat with no rain. The ground is parched and cracked, the grass dead; desert termites encase the last of grass carcasses with mud tubes, adding insult to injury to those that might have saved a pasture for grazing.
While someone from Phoenix or Death Valley California may say this is an every-year occurrence, they do not live near large concentrations of beef and poultry farms like those near my home in South Central Texas. We raise more cattle than anywhere in these United States. Or we once did, anyway...
As I speak, broilers are dying by the droves while farm managers and workers watch helplessly. Cattle, horses, sheep, goats and pigs hide in what little shade they can find, panting. Some will die. Whole herds of cattle appear at overstrained livestock auctions around the state. Most ranchers have no hay to feed their animals; some no longer can provide water for them to drink.
Wildlife also suffers; who knows how many thousands will succumb and die today.
Trees are dying. It may be a while before you notice, but notice you will.
There was a catastrophe today, but it had nothing to do with Hurricane Irene.
Texas is burning.
As I type, an accurate thermometer registers 111 degrees from the shade of my front porch. We have suffered days, weeks, even months in sweltering heat with no rain. The ground is parched and cracked, the grass dead; desert termites encase the last of grass carcasses with mud tubes, adding insult to injury to those that might have saved a pasture for grazing.
While someone from Phoenix or Death Valley California may say this is an every-year occurrence, they do not live near large concentrations of beef and poultry farms like those near my home in South Central Texas. We raise more cattle than anywhere in these United States. Or we once did, anyway...
As I speak, broilers are dying by the droves while farm managers and workers watch helplessly. Cattle, horses, sheep, goats and pigs hide in what little shade they can find, panting. Some will die. Whole herds of cattle appear at overstrained livestock auctions around the state. Most ranchers have no hay to feed their animals; some no longer can provide water for them to drink.
Wildlife also suffers; who knows how many thousands will succumb and die today.
Trees are dying. It may be a while before you notice, but notice you will.
There was a catastrophe today, but it had nothing to do with Hurricane Irene.
Texas is burning.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
The drought turns deadly
Sabbath eve, August 12, 2011.
I walk outside into a night lit by an almost full moon. Dukes and Polly pad along behind. I see forms on the ground, scattered near the boundary of our property. I know what they are; I shouldn’t be out here, but then, I must. There’s a shoulder, a hind leg, skinned but still otherwise intact. I notice the hoof. Then a torso with a familiar head, remains of a cow I called Butterfat.
I sold the cow about six months ago to Martin, a hand that lives and works on another place my dad owns. I sold her bred; she soon calved, a beautiful pure-bred Jersey heifer. I did this as a favor to Martin, not because I wanted to get rid of her. I have several milk cows, he had none. She raised her own calf and two more, and even gave two gallons of additional milk per day. That is until the summer heat began taking its toll.
I’d drive by occasionally and see her lying under a lone shade tree, panting. She’d had difficulty with the heat last year as well, so I didn’t think much of it. Then, about two weeks ago Martin asked if I would like to buy her back, saying he didn’t have time to care for her properly.
She stepped off the trailer. I noticed she had lost a lot of weight. She staggered as she walked. I was disheartened but determined to restore her to health.
I fed her grain twice a day, gave her all the hay and alfalfa she could eat and treated her for mastitis. Two quarters were swollen; who knows how long she had been in trouble.
I noticed she was having a terrible time with the heat and not eating well. I began spraying her with water at least once, if not then twice every afternoon. Day after day after day, temperatures soared above the century mark, relentlessly scorching the ground and all living creatures below. Sometimes I would pull on her tail to help her gain her feet when she tried to stand. She’d spend days in the shade of a walk-in shelter and get up to eat only in the evenings and at night.
A couple of days ago, pulling the tail wasn’t enough. When she got to her feet she staggered and fell, again, and again, and again. Then she quit trying to get up. At one point I lost it and kicked her in anger. I immediately felt like shit and tried to offer an apology.
Yesterday I found Butterfat laid out in the sun in a daze, shivering and pawing in agony as the sun baked her. She couldn't make it back to the shade and I was unable to move her. I took a hose and bathed her body for a while until she seemed a bit more comfortable and gave her a drink from a bucket. Then I got a gun and shot her in the head. (Even ex-felons can have black powder muzzle loaders.)
I cut up her body and left it for the dogs and whatever wildlife that may take their chances with a pack of Pyrennes guard dogs.
Fuck your goddamned stock market, the price of gold or silver, or oil or corn or whatever else you have to sell. I don't give a shit about any of this right now. I don't care who's doing who or why.
The heat of this awful drought just killed Butterfat.
I tried to save her, but I couldn't.
I walk outside into a night lit by an almost full moon. Dukes and Polly pad along behind. I see forms on the ground, scattered near the boundary of our property. I know what they are; I shouldn’t be out here, but then, I must. There’s a shoulder, a hind leg, skinned but still otherwise intact. I notice the hoof. Then a torso with a familiar head, remains of a cow I called Butterfat.
I sold the cow about six months ago to Martin, a hand that lives and works on another place my dad owns. I sold her bred; she soon calved, a beautiful pure-bred Jersey heifer. I did this as a favor to Martin, not because I wanted to get rid of her. I have several milk cows, he had none. She raised her own calf and two more, and even gave two gallons of additional milk per day. That is until the summer heat began taking its toll.
I’d drive by occasionally and see her lying under a lone shade tree, panting. She’d had difficulty with the heat last year as well, so I didn’t think much of it. Then, about two weeks ago Martin asked if I would like to buy her back, saying he didn’t have time to care for her properly.
She stepped off the trailer. I noticed she had lost a lot of weight. She staggered as she walked. I was disheartened but determined to restore her to health.
I fed her grain twice a day, gave her all the hay and alfalfa she could eat and treated her for mastitis. Two quarters were swollen; who knows how long she had been in trouble.
I noticed she was having a terrible time with the heat and not eating well. I began spraying her with water at least once, if not then twice every afternoon. Day after day after day, temperatures soared above the century mark, relentlessly scorching the ground and all living creatures below. Sometimes I would pull on her tail to help her gain her feet when she tried to stand. She’d spend days in the shade of a walk-in shelter and get up to eat only in the evenings and at night.
A couple of days ago, pulling the tail wasn’t enough. When she got to her feet she staggered and fell, again, and again, and again. Then she quit trying to get up. At one point I lost it and kicked her in anger. I immediately felt like shit and tried to offer an apology.
Yesterday I found Butterfat laid out in the sun in a daze, shivering and pawing in agony as the sun baked her. She couldn't make it back to the shade and I was unable to move her. I took a hose and bathed her body for a while until she seemed a bit more comfortable and gave her a drink from a bucket. Then I got a gun and shot her in the head. (Even ex-felons can have black powder muzzle loaders.)
I cut up her body and left it for the dogs and whatever wildlife that may take their chances with a pack of Pyrennes guard dogs.
Fuck your goddamned stock market, the price of gold or silver, or oil or corn or whatever else you have to sell. I don't give a shit about any of this right now. I don't care who's doing who or why.
The heat of this awful drought just killed Butterfat.
I tried to save her, but I couldn't.
Monday, August 8, 2011
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