[AT] Update

[Cecil Bearden]

Indiana Robinson wrote:
> Unleaded regular $2.59.9
> Funny thing is it is running around $2.84.9 just 12 miles away???
> .
> Rain.
> #$%& rain.
> More #$%& rain.
> Still more #$%& rain.
> Cold miserable and clammy.
> We may finally see the sun Thursday.
> They are talking 92 next Monday...
> Probably about time for the drought to start...
> With all of the #$%& rain the #$%& grass is so flimsy that the #$%&
> mower doesn't cut it as well as it should even with new #$%& blades.
> Of course you don't get much chance to get it cut with all of the #$%&
> rain...
> Did I mention that it has been raining?
>
>
>
>   

Same here in OK
I lost my 30 acres of oats that were conventional tillage.  Hail storm 
on Sunday took out a strip about 5 miles wide through OK.  Hail was 4 
inches deep on the ground.  Then about 2 inches rain in 30 min.  The 
hail knocked it down shattered what had headed and then beat it into the 
ground and the rain turned it into mud.  I turned the horses into the 6 
acre patch on the hill, and the sheep are going into the 24 acres here 
at the house today.  If I had a draper swather and a finger reel, I 
might make 1 bale to the acre, if the swather could get across the wet 
field.  If I could buy about 20 head of old cows and graze it out,  I 
might get back the seed and fertilizer cost.  I  could keep throwing 
money and time at  this , but  Mother Nature has won that battle, the 
old bitch.
The no-till oats in the 120 acre field are up only 8 inches and starting 
to head.  The cheat or wild oats is taking over.  The native grass is 
nearly as tall as the oats.  Oat plants have about 25% damage from the 
hail.  I got about $6000 in seed and spray and fertilizer in this field 
and if it doesn't quit raining and warm up, I never will get anything 
off this field.  
It really looks like the best thing to do with this place is sell it off 
in 10 acre tracts and get out of here.  I have fought this for 30 years 
and had 2 decent years in 30.  I have a place rented out 50 miles to the 
SW that has never experienced this type of severe weather.  The wind 
blows over 20mph 75% of the time here.  The storms that hit in the 
spring and fall follow a promontory that extends from OKC to Santa Fe, 
NM.  No  weather man has ever  mentioned it but it appears that this 
promontory directs  some of the most severe right down toward north 
OKC.  The hail storm that got me followed that ridge and left 4.25 inch 
hail at Okeene, 50 miles NW, we had 2.25 inch hail here.
Most all of the farms here were bought from folks that settled it in the 
run and found they could not make it.  The only way to get any money off 
this land is from grazing cattle or selling the land.
The handwriting has been on the wall for over 25 years, it is time to 
move on.   I have about a years worth of work to salvage all this 
equipment I have collected over the years.  There is a company in Enid 
that will bring a dumpster and pay about $120/ton and do the hauling.  
The situation with my father has screwed up nearly all of my spare time, 
so it is time to sell out.

Cecil in OKla