The small produce company I run here in the Valley is by no means a large operation. We work on land inherited from my wife's family, it's just me and a couple of hired hands, and my daughter Ellen and I have been doing all we can to keep it running since her mother passed a few years back. We use a few greenhouses to grow watermelons year-round, and when we head to the field we'll plant our melons in mid-Spring and they're usually ready to harvest and deliver to market by mid-August.
A few months back, I noticed some people who work for one of the major land developers around here snooping on the property. If I'm right, and I usually am, they work for this fellow named Chuck Easterman who has really ravaged our area with heavy-duty oil and gas drilling. Most of the other growers have sold out to him, but his low-ball offer would barely give my daughter and I a chance to relocate. Plus, where would we go? Besides that, this is family land.
Unfortunately, things have started to escalate because the fellows I have relied on these past decades to haul my produce to market have stopped driving for me. One of them reported that they'd been getting threats from Chuck's men down at the Cup a Joe, and I didn't think much of it at first. But one dear friend of mine who took a load ended up getting stopped by Easterman and his men. They beat the crap out of him at gunpoint he was in the hospital for pretty near a week and torched his rig. If I can't get my crop to market, then I'm left with boxes full of rotting melons in a small warehouse sitting next to the Bobcat trailer, some leftover steel from an old project, a box of TNT I used to use for blasting some limestone, and my welding equipment.
Now I know most of you would say get law enforcement involved, but Easterman owns half the county and the sheriff, this pawn of his named Murphy, just came out for about half an hour after Red was attacked and said it was probably illegal immigrants behind the assault and get this -- that it'd ultimately be in my best interest to sell and move on. I've even tried going to the extreme of trying to find some "tough guys" of my own, but that ended up being a dead end at some Asian laundromat.
Should I try to call in the Texas Rangers or the state attorney general's office? I'm really at my last straw and with payroll to meet and the bank to pay back for a loan I took out to get this year's crop planted, well, if I can't sell this season's harvest, I might end up just losing the whole farm anyway.
Any ideas are welcome, and I do thank you in advance.
A few months back, I noticed some people who work for one of the major land developers around here snooping on the property. If I'm right, and I usually am, they work for this fellow named Chuck Easterman who has really ravaged our area with heavy-duty oil and gas drilling. Most of the other growers have sold out to him, but his low-ball offer would barely give my daughter and I a chance to relocate. Plus, where would we go? Besides that, this is family land.
Unfortunately, things have started to escalate because the fellows I have relied on these past decades to haul my produce to market have stopped driving for me. One of them reported that they'd been getting threats from Chuck's men down at the Cup a Joe, and I didn't think much of it at first. But one dear friend of mine who took a load ended up getting stopped by Easterman and his men. They beat the crap out of him at gunpoint he was in the hospital for pretty near a week and torched his rig. If I can't get my crop to market, then I'm left with boxes full of rotting melons in a small warehouse sitting next to the Bobcat trailer, some leftover steel from an old project, a box of TNT I used to use for blasting some limestone, and my welding equipment.
Now I know most of you would say get law enforcement involved, but Easterman owns half the county and the sheriff, this pawn of his named Murphy, just came out for about half an hour after Red was attacked and said it was probably illegal immigrants behind the assault and get this -- that it'd ultimately be in my best interest to sell and move on. I've even tried going to the extreme of trying to find some "tough guys" of my own, but that ended up being a dead end at some Asian laundromat.
Should I try to call in the Texas Rangers or the state attorney general's office? I'm really at my last straw and with payroll to meet and the bank to pay back for a loan I took out to get this year's crop planted, well, if I can't sell this season's harvest, I might end up just losing the whole farm anyway.
Any ideas are welcome, and I do thank you in advance.
Author of the TexAgs Post of The Day - May 31, 2024
How do I get a Longhorn tag?
How do I get a Longhorn tag?
