HORACE MCQUEEN: Request for Rain – and Higher Cattle Prices!
We are ready for a frog strangler of a rain — that will bring new life into hay meadows and pastures. Hay baling pretty well stopped in our area as we wait for is still a downer — prices are down as much as 15% or so in the last few weeks. Maybe producers need to consider keeping those ready to wean calves and put them on a separate pasture with some feed and pray for better prices.
Last week at local sale barns steer and heifer calves again dropped considerably compared to the previous week. Sellers never know what to expect from one day to the other. But when the market drops $5 to $10 a hundred pounds in one week, it may be time to start looking at the reason (or reasons) for the price plunge. One thing for sure, we have plenty of commodity traders sitting in their fancy offices in the big cities and trading in the cattle futures market. These traders don’t own a cow — or plan to. But they are a gigantic influence on what cattle bring at local markets.
Michelle Shepard lives in Anderson County and says she is a 100% gardener-homesteader. Michelle says she really loves to hear from old timers about the history of Texas, especially East Texas where we live and work. She has got interested in weather modification — or what most folks call “cloud seeding.”
Back several years ago a group of ranchers in Borden County, Texas decided to hire a fellow with an airplane who said he could “seed” any clouds that came by and bring rain. So the ranchers gathered their dollars and ordered rain — didn’t happen. In Garza County, Texas a fellow named C.W. Post decided to bombard passing rain clouds by firing cannons into the sky in 1910-14. Still no rain! (This same C.W. Post founded the company that makes Post Toasties and other cereals.)
Maybe dropping silver crystals into a dark cloud or blasting the cloud with cannonballs can work, but it doesn’t seem to be a sure thing!
It’s not a bad deal when cattle raisers can attend a meeting that offers a lot of information about agriculture–plus a rib eye steak sandwich dinner. Billed as the East Texas Beef and Forage Seminar, it takes place August 22 in Troup at the downtown Troup Library.
The program starts at 4:30 p.m. and will be over by 8 p.m. Topics include gopher and mole control, cattle herd health and an update on controlling the destructive feral hog. Cost to attend is $10. Call 903-683-5416 by August 18th for a reservation.