The Yankee in Texas Cow Country. Part 2.
As promised in the previous post, this is about the softer side of ranch life and farming. In the video below I got to ride in a tractor pulling a hay rake, and watch a baler make huge round bales, all while watching cowboys sweat. Coolest. Thing. Ever.
(Follow this link if you missed the first part with the video of a bull calf being castrated. It should be noted here that my Texan friends all chided me for the lengthy disclaimer about the bull calf castration video, while my Californian friends are mortified at just the thought. I truly never imagined how diverse this country is.)
In California I only ever saw rectangular (“square”) hay bales. When I arrived in Texas all I saw were round bales. Huge, cylindrical bales standing 6 feet tall and weighing roughly 1200 pounds.
Below is the round baler, one that has a tendency to jam up. It was good for me…
But I digress. (And am close to becoming guilty of the very thing I have come to despise of late. More on that in the next post.)
One of the gentlemen above has about 125 head (the number of individual cattle) and is a full-time rancher. The other works full time in the steel industry and helps on his friend’s ranch in his spare time. He considers himself a steel worker rather than a cowboy. (But he wears nothing but jeans and cowboy boots and grew up in the country working cattle. I think he’s a cowboy who works in the steel industry.)
The virtue of round bales, as was explained to me, is that they store better due to their shape. While water tends to pool and run through the center of square bales, water runs off round bales keeping the centers fresh. (Round bales are stored on the curved edge, rather than the flat sides.) Stacked end to end, they tolerate the weather quite well when compared to square bales.
During a short visit to the local county fair, I was surprised to see hay is judged for quality and protein levels. I just thought it was all long grass.
In the following you’ll see a short clip of my ride inside a tractor pulling a hay rake, then see how the round bales are made. The thing hatches the bales like huge dinosaur eggs!
Each part of Texas is like a different country. (Actually, I’ve been to a couple foreign countries. Spain seemed much less like a foreign country to this once-long-time-Californian than Texas does. Honestly.) And the accents get thicker as you move east across the state. In East Texas the accents are thick as molasses. Have I mentioned how I feel about the accents? Good stuff.
This brings me to the thing to which I alluded above. There are two major, and surprising to me, differences between the U.S. west coast and here in the south: people are often openly racist, and men are often extremely chauvinistic. I’m not saying that racism and chauvinism don’t occur on the west coast, they do, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as here.
It should be noted that the majority of my recent experiences occurred in the rural areas, but are not limited to only “country folk”. I’ve met several men from large cities like Dallas and have been treated just as much like a second-class citizen. And I should add that the gentlemen pictured above are not those to whom I’m referring, but there does seem to be an overall propensity for preferring beauty above all else.
Rather than make this post much longer, I’ll continue my rant in the next post.
Hi! Met you in Monterey some months ago, and I’ve been following along ever since. Thoroughly enjoying your journey.
Hi Dean! Well, thank you so much!! I’m enjoying my journey, too 🙂 But I do miss Monterey! It’s one of the most beautiful places in the country! Thank you commenting!
Hey Kernut!
Wow, its like i know you. i started reading your blog a couple of weeks ago, somewhere near the end. I got here from a link on an RV website. the story intrigued me so much that i went back to the very first blog entry and have now read it all the way through!
first: so sorry about Checkers. we have two cats (ok, they have us). our first pair of cats made it 19 years. it didnt take long before we ended up with two more. glad to see that Pyewacket has adopted you. we also have a german shepard. we used to have two. wonderful dogs! at one point we also had two guinea pigs. at that time all six pets were females. our 12-year-old son said our house was like Noah’s Ark – for Lesbians! after we picked ourselves up off the floor, i mentioned that if Noah had done that the planet would be a very lonely place.
second: sorry your dating luck sucks so bad! you sure dont deserve it. cute, funny, blond(e). did i mention cute? hang in there, something will click.
third: kudos to you for getting the rv and striking out on your own. i wish we could do that, but with the job, and family obligations, blah, blah, blah. you know how it is.
anyway, if you ever get near williamsburg virginia and feel the need for a personally guided tour, just let me know. i would love to meet you. the wifely one would love to as well. btw, there is room in the driveway for a class A rig. only 20 amps at this time, but i plan to put in a 30 amp pedestal.
cheers!
Hi Andy! Wow! What a wonderful compliment! I’m so impressed, surprised – and pleased – you went through the trouble of reading all of my musings! Oh my, I sure hope you’re still ok after such a large dose of Kernut the Blond(e)!
I’m sorry about your kitties and the German Shepard who’ve passed on, too. They are like children, aren’t they. We had guinea pigs while growing up – great pets! Probably a good idea to have all females when it comes to guinea pigs – they breed like rabbits.
Your son sounds pretty witty! I don’t think I was that astute at his age! He may have a future in blogging!
Thank you so much for the invite to Williamsburg! I will definitely look you up if/when I’m in the area!
Cheers to you!
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