People, would you stick to the topic?! This is important!

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

My initial flock came with the purchase of the house, including the two donkeys. Had a neighbor with a much bigger sheep outfit, he had some Maremma dogs. Awesome.

My young girl I have now is Pure Anatolian mixed with Akbash. She doesn't work, as I have no sheep, but she does a great job of keeping the house safe.. I have one dog left from the sheep days, he is about 11 and has slown down a bit, and enjoys retirement. These LGD breeds are the best in the world, mostly because most of them still do the job they were bred for. Thankfully, they really are not good pets for most people, so the breed has not been screwed up for the most part.

OK, Matthew McConaughey likes sheep....

I was exaggerating a mock hillbilly pronunciation of pecan. It's a really effective humor affect that I often use.

Not sure what kind of pecans my grandpa had in his yard. I do know they were huge. The lowest branches were way too high for me to reach and I was a tree climbing foo' in that day. He would shell them by hand with a pocket knife. Saw it with my own eyes.

My dad was not a cowboy in his adult years but worked long hours with his uncle up until he was 15 and went off to work at the copper smelter in Morenci. His biological father died after his horse stepped in a hole while riding at speed out somewhere. Wasn't found for a couple of days and had serious complications, spinal damage, etc. Had been a foreman on a big ranch and a rodeo champion.

He told me that the land around Duncan and the Lordsburg, NM area was so sparse it would support about 5 head of cattle per section (640 acres IINM). I dunno, I suspect that working cowboys don't feel that they look that much different than a pecan farmer. If they have an attitude about it, F 'em I say.

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

That's the one part I'll give him a nod for. I've long felt that gratitude has a much better pay off then resentment, for starters.

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I watched Dallas Buyers Club last night: VERY good and moving movie. One tends to forget the wave of terror and anguish that spread throughout certain parts of the American (actually the world) society when the HIV/AIDs thing was a known death sentence. A very sad period in our history and the attitudes shown by the medical community/big pharma & especially the FDA is indicative of what is wrong with our country....

If your grandpa's pecans were very long and relatively skinny, they would have been Giant Mahan's. If there were larger than a native, but sort of fat, there are quite a number of varieties that fall in that category.

The Giant Mahan's don't seem to be as popular in a commercial orchard like they used to be for some reason. They seem to have been quite popular for individual planting in past years. I THINK that the Giant Mahan is not popular in a commercial setting because they don't go through the automated shelling equipment as well as the ones that have a more normal aspect ratio.

My SIL and BIL had a quite mature Giant Mahan tree in their yard that had been planted in 1940 when the house was built. In the early eighties we pretty much filled a short narrow pickup bed with grocery sacks off of that one tree.

Pecans as a crop are pretty unpredictable. Some years you will get a bumper crop like the truck load I described, and the next year, the crop might be very light. Unlike most crops, the reason doesn't seem to corelate with rainfall amounts. I think it has to do with pollination. Maybe Bot knows something about this.

Down memory lane of sorts ,I remember as a kid growing up in Shreveport La. their was once a grove of pecan trees along the red river ,the trees were planted their by some of the early settlers of the town in a kind of a reminder of greatfulness for all to enjoy .

Since no-one is really obliging your prediction, I can fight with you a little bit if you want.

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"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."

Wait! Wait! Are you saying that...

that...

__________________
"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."

Shreveport and points South along the river is great pecan country. As of the seventies, there were some ancient and apparently abandoned Pecan orchards. I always thought it would be fun to be able to go in and put them on a spray program and get them back in shape.

If I remember correctly there was one of these old orchards drove by back in the seventies, not far North of Nactitoches.

In the case of really old stands of Pecan trees as you describe, once there are a few mature ones, the squirrels will expand them with the nuts that they bury, but never find.

Interesting pet you have there. What did you name it and what is up with the leash?

There was a prof at a local university who helped a farmer over near Stonewall, LA with his pecan orchard. The orchard was very profitable and the farmer, on his death, deeded the pecan orchard to the university in part to honor the prof.

Later it turned-out that the orchard was sitting on top of Haynesville Shale.