One good year

It was a harbinger of things to come that my wife and I started our beef herd in 1974, which was one of the worst years in the modern history of the cow business. Thanks to two seven-year drouths, a year where we had a 74% breed up thanks to a neighbor’s Trichomoniases education program (he taught us all about Trich) and another year in which we decided to feed our calves and sell them to a packer, allowing us to treble our losses, I think all together we’ve had exactly one good year in the cow/calf business. And when I say it was a “good year” I mean that we maybe had a 5% return on our investment and got paid about $1.25 per hour for our hard labor.

Because my wife and I never got trapped into being prosperous, we didn’t know how to act when we were finally able to open a savings account. When we had to pay income tax on our cattle operation for the first time, I explained to the wife, “You do know that we’re going to have to conceal our good fortune? We don’t want our landlord thinking that we’ve become members of the leisure class or he’ll raise our already outrageous rent.”

“Does that mean we have to keep being suboptimal spenders,” asked my wife.

“I’m afraid so. We can’t all of a sudden start going out to expensive dinners and tip 5%.”

“Not even Taco Bell once in awhile?” she pleaded.

“Only if you’re careful about it. I know how much you like nachos, but don’t splurge and buy that huge nacho pack they’re advertising on TV or friends and neighbors might see you and get the idea you’re acting uppity. You can’t change your spending habits at the grocery store either. You know how checkers talk. If all of a sudden they see you buying lobster and filet mignons and Knotts Berry Farm jellies and jams instead of the no-name brand they might get the idea this cow business is a great way to get rich. And we don’t need any more competition.”

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