Re: [gardeners] heat

George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Thu, 09 Jul 1998 14:57:18 

At 12:10 PM 7/9/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Now George,
>    What are you people to the east of Texas going to do if you ever do
>get a drought. 91f at midnight indeed! George its been in the 90's at
>6am here after being up to 106-108 during the day. Mind now the heat
>index is around 115f., still only 1.7 inches of rain since April 19th.
>That total came in 4 rain events, .1, .1, .1, and 1.4 a virtual gully
>washer by this years standards.

We haven't quite been that high in temps except for a few days. Mostly the
heat index is 100-105/110F around here. Not much rain except for 3 inches
that fell last month. We are way behind in rain and our cattlemen are bad
off too.

>    All joking aside. That was jokes except for the facts. We are all in
>a hell of a fix. George, the year before last we went 11 months with no
>rain. Cattleman big and small had to sell off herds because they
>couldn't afford the high price of hay from our symphathetic Yankee
>ranchers from Colorado and other places. There were some fine people in
>the Midwest that actually donated hay. Thats d o n a t e d like free.
>Lots of it. But still many cattleman sold out lock, stock and barrel. My
>dad sold his herd. First time since my greatgrandparents bought the
>place that there wasn't a single cow critter on the place. The prices
>were so low that some of the farmers and ranchers talked about shooting
>the cows and burning the carcases instead of selling for so little to
>the Yankee buyers. The gov't found out about it and told them that they
>couldn"t quailify for emergency loans at low interest rates if they
>didn't sell to the Yankees.
>    Now I have a question for all the grocery buying persons in the
>household. Did you notice any drop in beef prices? We sure didn't see
>any here in Texas. You know where them Yankees sold all  that beef?
>Overseas to them foriegners!!

Yeah, we did see a heckuva drop in beef prices around here. Kroger was
selling whole sirloins for 98 cents a pound last year and around $1.98 a lb
this year. That's low and it's coming out of someone's pocket, generally
the cattleman.

 Now think on this one. Where does the
>gov't get its money to make those loans? You and me cuz. Taxes! The
>gov't doesn't have any money of its own! Ok. Now I am all for the gov't
>making low interest loans to people that have suffered from weather
>disasters drought, flood, earthquake, tornados whatever. The bone I have
>in my teeth is when the gov't lets people like those Yankee cattle
>buyers buy cheap off of one mans disaster and sell it over seas at
>obscene profits. The gov't should have made 'em sell it here for what
>the market would bear. Which wouldn't have been much since there was
>such a glut of cattle to be sold,shipped and slaughtered that some of
>the cattle had to wait so long to be shipped that they died from lack of
>water and the heat from being overcrowded. Any body ever been downwind
>of a large herd of cattle on a hot day? The extra heat given off by the
>cattle would blister your face.
>    Wait a minute. Get your hands off my soap box. I gotta go George.
>This gov't fella saying something about "exciting to riot"or something.
>    Your Texas Cuzin
>    Allen
>
I know, I know. We all live in our little worlds and often don't stop to
think what's happening to the folks that raise our food. My Dad's folks
were driven off the farm by something called "eminent domain." Where the
original homestead was in Grant Parish, Louisiana has been part of the
Kisatchee National Forest since 1925. Didn't matter that my great-granddad
settled it when it was wilderness, didn't matter that the family wanted to
stay where their home had been for over 100 years, didn't matter that there
was no way they were gonna get what the land was really worth to them. You
gotta go says the gubmint. You singing to the choir Allen. We have become
so urbanized that many children don't even know that food is raised and not
just magically dropped off at the supermarket. Don't blame me for the
current gubmint, I didn't vote for Slick Willie and crowd. Didn't vote for
Bush neither.

George