Countdown to Armageddon (11 page)

     “This over here is called forage. It comes in bundles and is all organic material. That means anything that comes out of the ground could be caught up in here… grass, weeds, leaves, whatever. It’s a lot cheaper than feed, but it takes a lot more to keep your cattle full. Plus, forage doesn’t have the vitamins and supplements your cows need, so if you give them a strictly forage diet you’ll have to give them vitamins to keep them healthy.

     “A little more expensive than the forage, but cheaper than the compound feed, is hay bales. Hay comes in several varieties. If you have horses too, they can eat the hay also. But they can’t eat the compound feed, because it’s not made specifically for horses. It’ll clog their intestines.”

     Scott was thoroughly confused, and wasn’t afraid to admit it.

     “Okay, Tom. My head’s spinning now. If you were just starting out with ten head of cattle, what would you feed them?”

     Tom roared in laughter. “Well, I’ll admit it’s like buying a new truck. There’s a thousand of ‘em on the lot but only one that’s just right for what you need.

     “If it was me, I’d buy a combination. Do they have good grazing land for the warm weather months?”

     “Yes.”

     “Okay, they’ll be used to eating grass, so you’ll want to keep them on a similar diet as much as possible. I’d buy two hundred bales of hay. That should get them through a typical winter. I’d also recommend you keep about thirty sacks of compound feed on hand. Give it to them periodically throughout the green season, maybe a couple of scoops every week or so. That’ll ensure they get the vitamins and nutrients they need, even if the grass is poor quality.

     “Make sure you replenish your feed stock going into the winter. You’ll want those thirty sacks standing by in case the winter is extra harsh, or drags on into the springtime.

     “Now, then. Do you plan on keeping horses too?”

     “I haven’t thought of it, to be honest. But I guess I can’t be a real cowboy unless I have horses, can I?”

     Tom slapped him on the back.

     “Now you’re talking, partner.”

     He took Scott to a stack of hay and took out a pair of wire cutters from his back pocket. Then he cut the wires on one of the bales, and pulled off a section of hay from the bale.

     “This here’s called a flake. Bales come in different sizes, but ours come twelve flakes to a bale. A good sized horse will need one flake in the morning, one flake in the afternoon to keep up his strength. If you work him hard, or if it’s particularly cold, feed him three a day instead of two. He’ll still need two pounds of feed every day in addition to the hay. That’ll keep his innards working so you don’t have to flush him out with a garden hose.”

     Scott pictured himself performing such a task and commented, “I don’t think I’d like having to do that.”

     Tom laughed again and said, “Trust me, partner. The horses don’t much like it either.”

     Scott’s mind was racing as he tried to calculate how much he’d need.

     “So, two hundred bales and thirty sacks for the cattle, one bale every six days for each horse… oh, hell, just me another two hundred bales for the horses too. It’ll get used.”

     “Atta boy. I saw you pull up with a trailer behind your truck. We can load you up, but it’ll take a few trips. Or we can deliver. Anything over two hundred bales, there’s no delivery charge.”

     “Okay, then. If there’s no charge, I’ll just take my empty trailer on back and let your guys do the haulin’.”

     “Okay, let’s go to the counter and get the paperwork done. Unless there’s something else you need.”

     “Well, as a matter of fact, I’m going to try my hand at raising pigs, chickens and rabbits too.”

     Tom put his arm around Scott’s shoulder and said, “You’re my new best friend, little buddy. You just made my truck payment next month for me.”

     He laughed uproariously.

     “Let’s go over to the swine and poultry shed and I’ll tell you what your options are on the rest of it.”

     An hour later Scott stood in front of the sales counter as Tom wrote up his sales ticket.

     “When’s the best day and time to make delivery, Scott?”

     “How about Thursday?”

     “Thursday it is. Morning or afternoon?”

     “Morning is probably better.”

     “No problem. What’s the address?”

     “Rural Route 8, Box 54, Junction. I’ll draw out a map for your driver.”

     Tom stopped writing and looked him dead in the eyes, as though disbelieving him.

     “Well, I’ll be damned. You’re the fella who bought the old Ryan place.”

     “Well yes, yes I am. Did Mr. Ryan buy from you guys also?”

     “Yes, sometimes. But mostly I recognized the address because it’s almost the same as mine. We’re neighbors. I live at Box 58. It’s the first house on County Road 7.”

     Now it was Scott’s turn to be surprised.

     “The red house with the windmill out front?”

     “Yep, that’s the one.”

     “Small world, I guess.”

     “Yes sir, buddy. Welcome to the neighborhood, and if there’s anything I can do to help you get settled into that place of yours, you just let me know. I’d offer to bring you a batch of cookies, but it’s just me now. The wife passed several years ago. And trust me, you don’t want to be eating anything I make.”

     Scott reached out his hand and Tom took it.

     “Forget the cookies, Tom. I’d rather have a good and friendly neighbor than cookies any day of the week.

     Scott walked out of the feed store three thousand dollars lighter than he was when he walked in. But he felt good about it. He was an excellent judge of character, and he knew that Tom Haskins not only gave him a fair deal, but solid advice as well. And he knew they’d not only be good neighbors, but also very good friends.

     When they parted ways, Tom shook his hand once again and handed him a piece of paper.

     “Tuck that in your wallet, Scott. They don’t give working guys like me business cards, but that’s got my phone number. You’ll find out that there’s a lot more to the cattle business than first appears. I’ve raised stock pretty much all my life, and I’m pretty darn good at it. So anytime you have any questions about the way one of your head is behaving, or anything else, you give me a call. Or hell, just ride up the road and drop in anytime.”

     “Thanks, Tom. I’ll do that.”

-18
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     Scott pulled into the compound, and Joyce watched him get out of the truck. She was surprised to see him return with an empty trailer.

     “Hey, cowboy! I thought we were going to be stacking hay bales this afternoon! I even brought my muscles today and everything. What’s up with that?”

     “Well, it turns out I underestimated the amount of hay we’ll need. It would have taken me four trips to get everything. So they’re going to deliver it the day after tomorrow.”

     “All right! That means we have the afternoon free. And I know just how we can spend it.”

     She took his hand and led him to the house, and up the stairs.

     “Kick off your boots, cowboy. We’ve both been working awful hard. Now it’s time to have some fun.”

     That evening over dinner at Perico’s, Scott asked, “Do you ride?”

     She looked at him and smiled.

     “It depends on what you’re talking about. You already know I do a pretty good job riding cowboys. I can ride a horse, but I can’t ride a motorcycle. Always wanted to learn, though. Why do you ask?”

     “I’ve got an appointment tomorrow with a rancher up near Fredericksburg to look at some horses. Thought I’d take you along so you could pick yours out.”

     “Why, cowboy, what a great idea. And I’d love to go with you. How many horses are you going to buy?”

     “I don’t know. I’m thinking two males and three females.”

     She laughed. “Males and females, huh? Okay. Sounds good to me. But just so the rancher doesn’t make too much fun of you, you might want to call them stallions and mares.”

     Four days later, on Saturday morning, Scott pulled up in his truck with the boys for their usual Saturday morning fence work.

     Joyce met them at the truck and asked Scott, “Well, what did they think?”

     Jordan looked at his dad.

     “Think about what?”

     “You didn’t tell them, Scott?”

     Scott laughed.

     “Oh, heck, I forgot. Okay, guys, here’s the deal. I’m going to work on the fence today with you. Zachary, this morning I’ll help your brother on the fence and Joyce is going to teach you how to ride a horse.”

     “Cool!”

     “And Jordan, this afternoon you and your brother will switch out.”

     “Cool beans, Dad. Sounds like fun. But… do we still get paid?”

     “Yes, you still get paid.”

     “Well, in that case, count me in. Are you sure you don’t want to join us?”

     “No, son. That’s pretty much all I’ve been doing for the last three days. My butt is sore enough already.”

     Scott and Jordan spent the morning putting up fence panels. During a break, they each drank a bottle of cold water and paced off the fence line that still needed to be done.

     “Great. At the rate you guys are going, four more weekends and you’ll be done.”

     “And then what?”

     “What do you mean, son?”

     “I mean, do you have any other jobs we can do around here on the weekends? Or am I going to have to flip burgers somewhere?”

     “Oh, I wouldn’t worry much about that. There will always be work around here to keep you guys busy on the weekends. I thought for your next project you can learn how to drive the Bobcat and dig out the pond.”

     “Seriously? That sounds a lot more fun than hanging up fence panels. But what do you mean, dig out the pond?”

     “Well, the pond is too small and too shallow. If we had a bad drought it would dry up and kill all the fish. We need to triple its size and make it a lot deeper.”

     “How do we do that?”

     “Simple. We put you on the Bobcat with a bucket on the front, and you dig out a very large hole in the ground adjacent to the present pond. One bucket at a time. You drag the bucket along the ground until the bucket is full. Then you tilt it back and haul the dirt away.”

     “Haul it to where?”

     “To the perimeter of the property. You’ll take it to the edge of the property and dump it. Then the next load, you’ll dump next to the load before it. You’ll go all the way around the property and build a twelve inch berm.”

     “Why?”

     “To keep the rainwater in. That way if the stream that runs through the property ever dries up, or gets diverted by somebody upstream and no longer feeds the pond, we can do it with rainwater instead.

     “The berm will make sure that all of the rain that falls within the property stays here. It won’t run off and go somewhere else. A lot of it, of course, will soak into the ground, and that’s okay. It’ll help grow our crops and the grass for the cattle to eat.

     “But when the rainfall is heavy, and rains more than the ground needs, we’ll divert the extra into the pond. And there should be enough rainfall over the course of the year to keep the pond full. But like I said, if we ever have a drought, the fish may not survive unless the pond is a lot deeper.”

     “Okay, but how do we make the rainwater standing in puddles on one end of the property go to the other end where the pond is?”

     “Oh, it’ll take some time, but basically we’ll make a series of channels and waterways.”

    
Jordan gave him a puzzled look. He obviously didn’t understand.

     “Okay. We’re going to make a concrete drag. We’ll take a five gallon bucket, fill it with concrete, and stick an upside down u-bolt in the center of it, with just the “u” sticking out of the concrete

     “After it dries, we’ll cut the bucket away and we’ll have a big, rough, hundred pound chunk of concrete that we’ll be able to tie a long chain onto so we can drag it around.”

     “Okay. Then what?”

     “Then we just wait until we have a heavy rain. After the rain, I’ll go out with some three foot wooden stakes with orange surveyor’s tape tied to the end. You can go with me to help, in fact.