By Blaine Davis Contributing Editor
Spending the last week of 2024 and the first week of 2025 at “our happy place,” my wife, Tammy, and I, along with our daughter and granddaughter, didn’t think much beyond the proverbial ranch gate other than how much sunscreen to apply before going to the beach. Seeing Port Aransas and the Texas Gulf Coast in our rearview mirror, the winds of change soon became evident – they were straight from the north. There was a definite temperature drop and evidences of two major winter storms that crossed the middle United States. Beyond experiencing these changing climatic effects, the year 2025 dawns with a different perspective and welcoming winds of change.
With the 2024 election certified and a new regime to take its place in Washington, D.C., I think of Bob Dylan’s 1962 political protest anthem, Blowin’ in the Wind. Just possibly the results of this election could add a spin with new lyrics such as, “How many years can we endure the false rhetoric? How long must we listen to the lies in regard to inflation, the economy, border security, crime, inane climate change policies and foreign relations? The answer is blowin’ in the wind.” The answer riding this wind appears to be the four years of the soon-to-end Biden presidency.
Having lived in eight different decades, I believe the winds of the past four years to be some of the most trying and disruptive from everyday needs such as grocery shopping, filling my gas tank, utility costs and even affordable property insurance. Being my prime occupation involves the construction industry, I find escalating building material costs are preventing the average family an opportunity for a roof over the heads, and most of my projects are on hold or terminated. With most material suppliers hesitant at best to quote prices, contractor estimates may only be valid until the ink dries.
Closer to the “ranch” our bottom line has been disrupted with lower commodity prices and escalating input costs. Then, Mother Nature delivered not one but two devastating hail storms. These two events dealt us a 78 percent loss on a promising wheat crop and caused the corn crop to be replanted twice. With this late replanting, the last truckload of corn left the field a week before Thanksgiving. While apropos to finish before a holiday celebrating what we have and our gratitude for such, it was still a harsh wind with substandard crop yields and limited marketing opportunities. Buffeting this wind was a consolatory insurance adjustment that does provide subsistence for crop year 2025 and an optimism that the winds of change will be at our backs.
The most recent weather forecast is for even colder winds of change. I reflect on the past two-week warm reprise at “our happy place.” Having a couple of my projects completed, a few new ones commencing and under control, the past year’s crops sold and a few weeks until farm decisions are needed and subsequent field work is required, just maybe, I can ride the north wind back to the Gulf Coast. If this wind proves too cold, I can retreat to the beach house with a couple of Texas history tomes. My “answer blowin’ in the wind” is I might have become a “Winter Texan” after all.
