Hay goin ta Texas

[gendronf]

Ok, for the record. I been thru this once before. My momma was a Cajun and my daddy was a Hillbilly,

Thanks Rookie to be who you are.
I did'nt know the meaning of Hillbilly and I made a search. I suppose that somebody on this forum would like to Know. If there is another definition let me know

Marcel



According to the Oxford English Dictionary (whose editors persist in hyphenating the word as "hill-billy"), a hillbilly is "a person from a remote rural or mountainous area, especially of the southeastern U.S." The earliest written occurrence of the term on record is from the New York Journal of 1900, which defined a "hillbilly" as "a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him." Oddly enough, the OED does not classify "hillbilly" as a derogatory term, although that quotation contains ample evidence that it is, at least when it's coming from the pen of a New Yorker.

While the "hill" of "hillbilly" is no mystery, the "billy" part is harder to explain. "Billy" has been used to mean "fellow" or "brother" in northern England and Scotland since the 16th century, and may be related to "bully," an earlier term meaning "good friend" or "gallant comrade" (from the Dutch "boel," brother). That's the same "bully," by the way, that turns up in modern English in a twisted form meaning "tyrannical thug." On the bright side, it also served as President Theodore Roosevelt's favorite expression ("Bully!"), by which he meant "excellent" or "bravo!"

 

[backhoeboogie]

I had an old boy tell me that he be sendin 4x5 round bales down ta Texas by the semi load and they be sellin for $70 apiece. Can anyone down there confirm those kinda prices ? :shock: ? :shock: ? :shock: ?

I've got horse quality coastal ont he lower flood plain. Several folks are offering as high as $80 a bale in the field. It is hard to say no to them.

You have to bear in mind that we broke all records locally on last year's drought. Worse than the dustbowl, hands down. Fort Worth was crying but they received much more rain than we did. We had grass/brush fires every day.

You read the old time stories of folks burning the cactus needles off of prickly pear and feeding it to cows, during the 50's drought. Last year is was so dry that all the prickly pear died and that was not even an option. I saw six year old hay sell for $60 a bale. There are no reserves of old hay left.

About the only way you can get hay here is to have it trucked in.

No one locally, with cattle, on irrigated flood plains is selling hay. There are some folks who have sold out all stock and they are selling hay for a premium. That is what I should do. Fertilizer is expensive and fuel for irrigation pumps is at an all time high too.

We've had a bit more rain this year. Tragically we got 7 inches in one day which washed out top soil off of dead fields and filled most of the dry stock tanks with sand/silt. Terraces that have held for years and cut to pieces. There was no vegetation to hold in dirt.

Cactus is alive this year and it is not as bad as last year. But times are not good. We are behind on rainfall this year and the land has not recovered from last.

Those who over grazed last year wound up with nothing but dry topsoil that was either carried away by the wind or washed away in the 7 inch rain we finally received, all at once.