It was just that I had too many things doing on at the same time. For 30 or more years, I have been running on 3-4 hours sleep per night. A lot of that has to do with the pain from my many injuries, and arthritis the past few years, but a lot of it was also that I just had so much to do each day, that I'd spend from 11 or 12 at night till 3 or 4 in the morning working on the computer, then be back up at 6 or 6:30. Now ,with these heart problems that have come about this last year or so, my doctors are insisting that stress caused it, and that I need more sleep, etc., I just do NOT have the time to sleep that much and keep up with all I have to do. If the Kudzu- Corriente place wasn't 3 hours away, and if Scott was still able, I would have kept that. It was the least troublesome and least work of all my endeavors. And by far the most lucrative. Round up and tag ( cut bull calves) calves in March, Round up and wean them last of August and haul to the sale, and that was all I HAD to do with them. In the past year and a half, I bought those 3 herds for clients and made about $895k. !00;s of hours on the phone and computer...hundreds of miles traveling to go see cows to buy. supervising one client's working facility and barn construction, and spending a lot of time with another showing them how to use horses to work their herds, and teaching them how to keep the horses in working shape. My insurance business which I really scaled back, might have netted $100k. About every thing I do now, is split with other agents. They are my clients...they ask me to help them with complex cases that they don't know how to do. A LOT of time and exhaustive thinking is involved. My music production and promotion does take a lot of time, and last year I may have netted $40-$50k tops. The money I made since 2021 ( when we sold the last 110 claves al born in Feb) and selling that 120 cow herd, then last year buying 120 more to get back in it...then selling them...then buying ANOTHER 125 or so since January, and selling THEM.. I made 3 or 4 times what I did with those other endeavors put together. And basically zero work, except for that marathon trip to El Paso at the first of the year.
I keep a short list of the bones I have NOT broken in my life to give to doctors...all due to moto-x and rodeo. But not really, I never got hurt in a race, it was always in practice or just playing around with dirt bikes. Never got hurt in rodeo,, always, again, in practice, or working cattle for OTHER people. Or training OTHER peoples horses. Just like last week when I almost killed myself and Smoke, it was working cattle for other people that has added to my injuries in the past decade.
So all of this is to say, I ain't ;laying down and quitting by any means. I will be working Smoke each week at team roping, and riding the younger horse once a week or so doing cowboy mounted shooting. And I usually take both to the penning and sorting practices each week. I am keeping a couple of music festivals and bike rallies that I do, but these are so easy for me now. I have put together a hell of a production team, that last month one 4 -day event went over without a hitch and I wasn't even there. Selling the insurance business, but they are going to put me on a salary plus commission bonus to consult with them. In the next few months I will wrap up a project I have been working on for a few years. I have been helping a documentary film maker create `a documentary about Rodney Mills and Studio one, Lynyrd Skynyrd , ARS, and others. And I start doing a podcast next Monday with the same guy, featuring talent from Georgia every week. These are FUN...not stressful work. The only hay I will fool with is the original 8 acre bermuda field on my grandfather's old home place. 95% of that is bought in the field by repeat customers... I will just put up enough for my horses and the practice steers. There are about 10-12 of us that do this roping every week. Each person is supposed to supply 3 steers, and each person is to share in the feeding. but, nearly half of them are mine, and there are a couple of young boys that don't have the money to buy steers or help pay for the feed, so they get up the hay I keep for myself. So, I have drastically cut down on my time and physical work.
I tell you though, if pasture land was affordable to buy or rent around here, I would get back in the Corriente business if I could within 30 mins of the house. I will miss that easy money!
