Well, ok….

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

"Hello Alan R McDaniel Jr it appears that you have not posted on our forums in several weeks, why not take a few moments to ask a question, help provide a solution or just engage in a conversation with another member in any one of our forums?”


ask a question: What is the square root of 2401?
provide a solution: 49
engage in a conversation with another member: Anybody?

Alan

[crashdive123]

Alrighty then. Thanks for that question and answer. They have both been on my mind for a while.

[Rick]

I have seen plenty of round roots. Dug a bunch of 'em. Can't say I've seen any square ones. Although, those would make right handy fence posts. Wouldn't want to set 2400 of 'em though. That's a lot. 49 would be quite a few. Fair days' work, that's for sure. Okay, maybe 4. I could watch 4 being set. I'd have to have coffee after that.

[crashdive123]

And bacon. Don't forget the bacon.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

AH HA! Engagement! When I was a youngster (so long ago I had to let spell check spell it for me), I worked for my uncle on his ranch. He hated Mesquite trees (among other things), well actually he hated them where he didn’t think they were supposed to be. The workers (of which I was one), had the task of “grubbing” out the juvenile trees with a grubbing hoe (not as sexy as it sounds)… anyway, He would sit on the tailgate of his pickup with a stick that was cut to some length approximating 12" (I think it was like 14" but he said it was 12”). We would grub out a tree and present the root to him and he would measure it. If it were over the stick length we could go on to the next tree. If it were not 12” we would have to go back to the hole and secure a length of root (square or round did not matter) and present it and the insufficiently grubbed root for inspection… This would go on for hours… days sometime. But I was assured $1.65 for each hour, and it was slightly more pleasurable work than walking along the road in front of the pickup pounding protruding rocks back into the roadbed, but that’s another story….

Alan

[Rick]

That is inhumane. I had a similar pleasure with dandelions. My brother and I had to remove dandelions from the yard. I'm not at all certain why. They grew back faster than we could dig them. Not that they grew fast, we just dug pretty slow. Worse, my brother, being ten years older was a self-appointed supervisor. Meaning I dug and he pointed out the ones that needed to be dug. Thank god for winter. We also white washed trees. That wasn't too bad. You could dab ants while you painted tree trunks. We had a lot of white ants running around. By the weigh, never trust spell check.

[Old GI]

"Calculator" has it.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

Even when spell check is wrong it’s usually a better speller than I am…

My uncle was one of a kind. He owned a huge ranch with his brother (who was a normal person), had plenty of money, but was eccentric to a fault…. He wore khakis every day, often the same ones which allowed him to save on wash water. He was a rotund person and had long white hair and a long white beard. Kids would call him Santa all the time. He’d mostly growl at them… He was a perfectionist in his ranching practices and wore a blue calico bonnet… yes, a blue calico bonnet. He had a huge St. Augustine yard with a sprinkler system, and despite his aversion to mesquite trees, had a number of big mesquites in the yard which produced bumper crops of beans, which of course, we had to pick up. There were oak trees too but we didn’t have to pick up the acorns, but I’m sure it was only because there wasn’t enough hours in the day. His house was built of 3’x3’ square cut caliche blocks and the roof was half split elm logs with Spanish clay tiles. The original house was built in the 1800s some time and was a stagecoach stop. The windows were a good ten feet off the ground to keep mounted Indians (Comanches likely) from being able to shoot inside the house from horseback. There was a lot of History on the place. I think I recall that the blocks were quarried using a cable as a saw. I don’t know for sure. It must have been quite an undertaking as both houses are very large and the original is two story.

All that didn’t keep him from being who he was though. Myself and the other hands were asked to be pallbearers at his funeral and we were surprised that we didn’t have to dig the hole and tamp down the dirt on top to ground level…

Alan

[Rick]

If you had told me you had to measure mesquite roots with the stick when they dug the grave, I would have called foul. Interesting history, though. A seven foot indian on a Clydesdale would have been a deal breaker that's for sure.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

But, When it came to cattle, he was exacting. He would buy the best Herford, Brahma, and Beefmaster bulls he could find and kept only the absolute best heifers every year carefully maintaining a clear F1X bloodline. In the later years he started using Beefmaster bulls. The F1X X Beefmaster cattle were absolutely beautiful and were exceptional in producing a high percentage calf crop. But, like all good things, … more than half the ranch has been sold off and I don’t know if the cattle herd is still the same or not.

Alan

[Rick]

Did you just make up that F1 Beefmaster thingy? That sounds a lot like an FX movie. Beefmasters of the Universe. So, I'm not exactly doubtin' your word but there is a bit of room for a breeze to pass through. Just sayin'.... I know Herford is a town in Massachusetts and Brahma is one of those Eastern sects. I've been around the outhouse a time or two. This is not my first carousel.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

F1 Cross is a cross breed of 5/8 Hereford (the cattle breed) and 3/8 Brahma (also the cattle breed). The Hereford blood is for beef production and the Brahma adds heat tolerance. It’s sometimes (8 months of the year) a little warm in South Texas. This cross makes an excellent commercial beef animal. The Beefmaster is basically an F1X with Shorthorn mixed in as well to increase milk production to grow those little ribeyes out faster. As an aside the Santa Gertrudis (King Ranch cattle breed and no relation to That other Santa from the North Pole) is a cross of Brahma and Shorthorn.

Perhaps, had you spent more time around the barn and less time at the outhouse doing whatever you were doing in there, you would know these things…


Alan

[crashdive123]

I grew Beefmaster tomatoes this year.

[Rick]

I was...5/8 of a cow?...how can...I'm confused.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

You don’t eat a good cow like that all at one time….

Alan

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

Beefmaster tomatoes. Keeps the dang vegans out of the tomato patch…


Alan

[DSJohnson]

We have a family in Garvin County that has raised Beefmaster cattle for the last 50 years. They seem to be great cattle, the mommas are good calvers, the bulls do not make giant babies but the babies gain weight quickly and they taste pretty good too.