Texas

by Paul , Thursday, May 04, 2023, 07:46 (505 days ago) @ pokynojoe

It's good to "see" you here. I was thinking of you just the other day when a bridge went down a few miles south of us. An important bridge on what passes for a "main highway" in the area. The result being, we now have heavy truck traffic heavily increased through our area, resulting in congestion, accidents and wear and increased wear and tear on our already neglected roads. I've heard all kinds of things, including it may have been sabotaged, but there's also a high probability that it simply couldn't put up with the heavier traffic of current times as it was built back when trucks were smaller and traffic sparser. But I digress.

Muleshoe, Tx! That's where I started in on the silage harvest back in the 20th Century. The feedlot in Muleshoe had 11 machines cutting for them. My boss and his two brothers had three of those machines. They were heavily customized Farmhand silage cutters that they built themselves. Their combines were factory and their main "bread and butter", but in the winter they'd work on their silage cutters and did some impressive work with them. Our three cutters put up over half the harvest, working six days a week. The remaining 8 put up the rest, working 7 days a week. Never had a chance to check out any donut shops in town, we were in the field from can't see to can't see, six days a week. Sunday to church, out to lunch, back to the trailer to read, write and rest. Then start it up again on Monday. My impression of Muleshoe was that it was built cattywumpus to the world as none of the roads seemed to run north/south or east/west and keeping directions wasn't very easy. Didn't see any armadillos 'round there, but there was a skunk on the side of the road that I went by a few times as we cut one particular field. It seemed to get fatter and fatter with each trip and finally I couldn't resist and ran the right side tandem wheels over it on my last trip from the feedlot. The language of the next driver to go past shortly after nearly fried my CB!

Anywho, it's good to "see" you again!