Brian’s Morning Newsletter for June 30th 2009

Ghosts in the darkness

Good Morning
Too bad for you that our camera is worn out. These bull elk hung around until well after dawn this morning. We were afraid that the usual group of four bulls which like to spend the night in our fields every Summer was down to two elk.  This morning however, we had visual confirmation that the herd has actually grown by one bull elk. I know a lot of you remember the days when I would shoot a lot of images and post them here on the BMN. Sorry about your luck. I cry about a lot of things, and I realized just now that I shouldn’t be crying about the camera. I get to see these magnificent creatures every morning. Sorry about your bad luck. If however you would like me to continue with my photographic work here at Las Tusas, I suggest you raid your change jars and organize a wildlife photography fund. Once we know how much we have to work with, we can scan craigslist for cameras with high quality lenses, including a high power zoom.

Okay, or as they say, "Meanwhile back in the jungle…" Pretty wild news this morning, wouldn’t you say?
US troops pulling out of Iraq six years after the invasion. Not sure how that will work out, but it seems like it is an Iraqi problem now. Also in the news Iraq puts major oil fields up for bid , hmm that didn’t take long. Then the horrific drunk driving accident
outside of Santa Fe.   Madoff To Rot Behind Bars , We already know how everyone feels about Madoff, so that is a good thing. GM May Put Obama Auto-Rescue Plan a Month Ahead of Schedule Don’t know about this last one. Did somebody ask us if America ought to take over a failing car company? We have no choice but to see where this goes, I fear it will end badly.

Let me see if I can get back to an upbeat feeling after reading all that nastiness. While I wait for the diagnosis on the Isuzu turbocharger, I’m still trying to shift gears and work on projects which do not require a second set of hands. Yesterday my brother and I went back to the Central Meadow to look for a place to cut a few big trees for firewood for this Winter. The Rodgers family has been considering renting out the Central Meadow to Family Moon productions for a music festival with the possibility of creating extra income from the land. Austin said that negotiations have broken down and it looks like the event has been tabled. There has been some talk among us that perhaps a live music festival in which we run everything wouldn’t be a better plan.

Anyway, everyone here is quite pleased with this years Tusas Campo. We believe it was the best Campo ever, well of course I can only speak for myself. We left the tarp up over the round table in case we wanted to use it again this Summer. I tightened the ropes and it looks real good, and very inspiring back there in the meadow. While Jackson and I sat on the park bench around the big tree presumably looking for a couple of trees to fell for firewood as well as opening up the meadow a little bit more, I kept coming back to a vision of a blues band playing on the stage. Another band which came to mind is John Gold’s bluegrass band from Taos. What if the Rodgers were to put on a overnight music festival with a couple of bands, could we expect enough attendance to pay the bands, insurance and supplies as well as make money for the ranch?  

One of my favorite lines from a movie comes from Beatle Juice, the dad is in his office looking out the window at the neighboring buildings when his daughter bursts in exclaiming there are ghosts in the house, to which father decries, "Can’t you people leave me alone for a minute, Daddy is trying to figure out how to make some money while he relaxes." First I like the way he calls his family "you people," then the reference to making money while relaxing. Tell me this isn’t the way to live? Make money while we do the things we love. Yeah, right. anyway, with the state of the economy and the president buying up banks and SUV manufacturers left and right, I can’t help but wonder if the recession will ever end.

Being fairly resourceful I keep thinking of new and better ways to make a few bucks. We don’t need much, we are frugal, but we do need to change the way this ranch is run, well again this is the way I’m thinking, the rest of the family probably thinks differently.  I came up with the idea of using the money from the hay to fix the fences so we can keep the cattle in the pastures longer before they break out. By having the cows on longer we should be able to make up money spent on the fences. Along comes this new thing, which we don’t know yet but may be falling into our collective laps. I found this ad on craigslist:

Small Herd of Longhorn Cow/Calf pairs – $600 (Trementina)

Reply to:

sale-q84ew-1232834532@craigslist.org

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Date: 2009-06-21, 4:33PM MDT

There are 13 two year old Texas Longhorn cows, 11 with week old calves, 2 still waiting to birth
My wife gave me an ultimatum – she or the cows must go. She loves them too much, and does not like the industry.
Some of the cows are registered, and all have had calves. They are free of disease.
All the cows are gently, voice trained to come, and they are caring mothers.
These cows will provide 18 more years of calves, because they are survivors by nature and continue to grow new teeth.
Texas Longhorns will deliver large black calves without horns if bred to a polled Black Angus.
The meat is low in cholesterol and fats, so it more healthy than most other beef.
These cows were to be our livelihood, but attitudes have changed since my neighbor lost three cows to cattle guards
not properly maintained by the county – the trapped animals blocked my wife from going to the post office and traumatized her.

• Location: Trementina
• it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 1232834532

I really don’t know yet what they mean by $600, but I have written to them several times and now I added my brother and father in on the email round tree. I’ll put you in there too Mona if you think this is a workable plan. Of course this is totally different than anything we have talked about so far. For the record I haven’t followed this idea through very far into the future. Here is the deal though, let’s say for argument sake that these people want to get this small herd to a new home with loving people that we know we are? Perhaps, they will be interested in letting us make payments, or some other terms? That would change everything I should think.

Obviously we were not ready to have a herd of cows, but if the deal was sweet enough couldn’t we get ready? If we knew we were buying a herd of cows we ought to keep a sizable part of the vega hay to feed our new herd through the Winter. Timing is everything. Do have time to decide before we sell all the hay? I can tell you that the above photo of the woman feeding the cow by hand means a lot to us hippies. It means they have become friends with their cows, a big no no, any rancher can tell you, because once this happens the animal is no longer a food or cash income source, it is a pet. We know it has happened to us.

So there it is, more fodder for our minds, everything a BMN ought to be, wouldn’t you agree?
Brian Rodgers