My Auction Buddy.

There is nobody in the world who loves an equipment auction more than Ranch Boss. 


No, sorry Danny, Durwood, Mark; R.B. loves them more.

A day at the equipment auction for Ranch Boss is like a day in Starbucks, Barnes and Noble, theMetropolitan Museum of Art and the spa all rolled together, for me.

His palms even get sweaty as he throws them up on a hay baler that he totally does not need but "it's such a sweet deal." Actually, he never throws his hand up, that's what rookies do. He just catches the bid-catcher's eye and nods. That way nobody around him really knows who is doing the bidding.

Believe me this little addiction is not without its perils. 


Once, we nearly brought a $7,000 horse home in the back of my Nissan pickup. Ranch Boss was insulted that such a fine horse should sell for so paltry a sum. The bidding stalled with him at $7,000. I had no idea, he held the winning bid. The loud sigh of relief he blew when someone bid $7,500, tipped me off though. 


If we'd hauled a trailer to Fort Worth that day, I'm pretty sure we'd own that horse. This is a long way of saying, we may have to hold an auction intervention soon.


The auction yard is crawling with coveralled, cigar-chewing men in sweat-stained caps that bear the names of local implement dealers.


One guy, who wears a lifetime of farming on the skin of his hands,eased his field-worn body up into the seat of an old Massey Ferguson and assessed - correctly I might add - "what she'll bring." 


But don't kid yourself, this is no place for rookies.
Some of this equipment has clocked enough peanut and hay field mileage to go from here to the moon and the guys with the implement caps know it. They stomp clutches and raise buckets, check hoses and hookups.


Ranch Boss, who's been going to equipment auctions since he was a kid in North Carolina, knows too. So I'm thinking maybe I should rent him out to auction rookies who want to buy some used equipment but don't know what they're up against. I think I'll call it "My Auction Buddy" or something like that.


Sounds like a win-win to me. March 20, 2011

Dig It!

At Kirk Ranch Organics we really love plants...I mean really love them. 

So much so that we will spend 8 hours digging up a 100 square foot raised bed to the depth of 24", just for them. This is a ton of hard work, which over the next ten days will be repeated five times.

Normal people build raised beds from the ground up with construction materials and then fill them with dirt. We used to be normal. Then we met John Jeavons and read his book. Now, we dig down and attempt to create a bed of "spongecake" for our baby plants. 

Prior to this activity, our midsections resembled spongecake, but after two straight days of double digging, we think John Jeavons might just have a hot new weight loss program on his hands.

The theory is this: Most plants have deep root systems. There is a lovely band of topsoil for about 12" in our garden. We even add year-old kitchen scrap

compost to this topsoil (can you believe that's what's in the wheelbarrow)? Unfortunately, under that topsoil is hardpack red clay. It makes sense that if plants aren't working to penetrate the clay layer, because we have already done it for them, they will have more energy to grow strong and healthy with abundant vegetables.

So we dig.

This is driving ranch boss seriously crazy. Anything that cannot be done with a diesel-powered machine may not be worth doing. Our custom farmer friends, who certainly know a thing or two about growing stuff, confirmed upon surveying our progress yesterday that "Yep, there's no machine that can do that." 

So we dig.

The funny thing is, this really is not driving me crazy. In fact, we are rather enjoying ourselves. During a little rest break yesterday, we heard the cranes, who are coming back to Texas. We need to ask around a bit about them because all we know is 1.They are definitely cranes 2. They make a noise that, from 1,000 feet overhead, sounds like doves cooing. We sat and watched them fly over and noted with glee this definite sign of spring. The last time we saw them was  November with their V pointed south.

So yes, double digging 600 square-feet to make spongecake beds for baby plants is hard, but so are things done in office buildings. And in office buildings there are no cranes.

So we dig. March 15, 2010

You Bought a What?

I'm one of those lucky women who gets whatever she asks for.

Why, just the other day, I casually mentioned how nice it would be to have something to move large quantities of compost into my garden, something like, I don't know, a dumptruck.

Yesterday, Ranch Boss and his buddy Boone ran down to Comanche to drop a hay rake at a ranch auction. Just to be clear, RB is a seller in this case. Despite being the first day of spring, the 40mph wind and sideways sleet encouraged me to stay home.

"Is that a good idea?" asked Mother Jane who knows that I am a "tempering" influence at auctions.

"What's worse," I told her, "he's with a guy who said he likes ranch auctions better than....uh...anyway...."

Hours passed. 

When Ranch Boss finally called, it sounded like this: 


"Ohmygod, Honey, you are not going to believe how well that rake sold, I mean it was amazing, they just started bidding and it was so great and Boone's with me and we've had a few Coors Lights and we made so much money on the rake that I boughtabiggerrakeandaseederandadumptruck."

"Whaaaaa was the last part?"

Yah, well meet Davis the Dumptruck.

Davis has 131,000 miles that he'll admit to, a 454 with a split transmission (whatever that means), a smashed windshield, mismatched tires, a driver window that won't roll up, tired brakes and a smattering of crescent wrenches and screwdrivers that someone didn't grab from under the seat.

But the best part is DAVIS RUNS AND DUMPS!

This might be where Ranch Boss is a genius because he paid less for Davis than a decent used mountain bike.

Davis and I were born about the same time and the beautiful thing about vehicles of that vintage is they lack all the annoying, unfixable, electronic nonsense that runs stuff like air-conditioning and power steering. Ranch Boss can fix Davis' minor cosmetic and mechanical issues with one-arm tied behind his back. Soon Davis will be hauling everything from gravel to bat guano.

You might be asking yourself how we came up with such a clever and pithy nickname for Davis in less than 24 hours of ownership?

Genius, I suppose.


March 21, 2010