I don't know where you are located, but it has been nasty at our location.

Luckily, we have not received any freezing precipitation at this end of our shipping lanes. Crazy thing is, you would expect the Northern extremes to be the worst driving conditions but that hasn't been the case. The Eastern route has been the most treacherous, as was the case Thanksgiving weekend.

We have had fog, we have had drizzle, we have had light rain showers. Not enough to amount to anything, just enough to make it messy and miserable. I think I have ranged in height from six foot to six foot six inches, depending on how much mud had accumulated on my boots. You get in your vehicle and the windows are covered with a thick wet slurry of mud, lint and moisture. I don't need windshield wiper blades, I need rakes!

The trucking report card for last week looked impressive once again. Leading the way on seed shipments was Carlos in unit 23 and Cowboy in GMT 1 with 18 loads. Adan and Sammy followed with 16, Israel had 15. For the week we shipped 105 loads from that end of the plant. Not a record, but a good number just the same.

On the other dock, LM led the charge with 21 loads of bales. I believe 16 was the next closest.

Last week DOT was holding up bale trucks with inspections and weighing. Luckily we only had minor infractions, most of them driver related. Since Saturday DOT at Tahoka and Lubbock have been stopping our seed trucks with regularity. I am hoping we wear them down and they will get tired of stoppping us and not finding any violations. They stopped Carlos twice in three days and weighed and inspected him and all he got was a warning for one of the triple "I.D." lights on the trailer. Israel had the same type encounter receiving only a verbal warning for being two hundred pounds over-weight. Adan is the only one to have equipment violations and it was probably weather related.

We have been ginning seed block and will have more of it over the next two days. This is letting us have a real impact on drawing down the seed house. I think yesterday we took out nine loads. Our biggest problem yesterday was the Caterpillar loader they use to load us went down with some sort of computer control glitch. That meant Roy had to switch to his backup loader which is much smaller and slower. He was one mad camper by days end! The big loader holds three thousand pounds in it's bucket. The little one about nine hundred pounds. As a rule of thumb, sixteen big buckets to load most trucks, compared to fifty-three of the small ones.

Hey, time is money. At least for Roy. He was on the clock until nine last evening.

I will have to admit that while the weather has been horrendous here, it has forced us into cold weather foods, which I love. Last evening Krl made a pot of taco soup along with a big pan of corn bread. Ummm! Delicious! Best part is we had enough left over for today, which as all soup, chili, stew experts know, the second day is better than the first!

Actually by looking at our groceries we bought Sunday you would think we run a soup kitchen. Most of what we bought was soup or stew stock, cornbread fixings, crackers, dried beans.

Texas staples!

The new bale driver (who is an old driver that returned) that started last week may be short lived. He whines a lot, complains that he is working harder than his counter part, refuses to answer his phone, and yesterday told me I had too many trucks running.

I guess that would explain why I had bales on the ground and loaded an outside truck.

After coordinating this operation for fifteen years, I think I have a pretty good grasp on what needs to take place, so in no uncertain terms I told this driver I would run this operation and what I say is final and not debatable, if he has a problem he can go to the next stop in his illustrious work history.

I have one employee who is leaving at weeks end. One of my backup forklift operators is going to his ailing grandmother. He was my last hire and has only worked here for three weeks. He had asked off December 29th to go to New Mexico to have his daughter christened but came to me with the change of plans late last week. Actually I don't think there is a sick grandmother, I think he just wants to get a head start on the holiday. I don't think he realizes his kin folks boss and I are friends so often times we compare notes.

This is usually a problem all of us have this time of year. Hopefully, he will be the only casualty. I explained that he would be forfeiting his incentive pay, but of course that isn't too much considering his brief employment. He did tell me thanks for the job and he hoped I would not have filled it by the time he returns.

I am hopeful that Baldemar will be interested in coming after the holiday. If that would happen four of my six on the ground people would be previous employees. I figure toward the end of January my guys are going to want to take some time off so we begin a rotation allowing them this. Of course if it is scheduled, they do not jeopardize their incentive package.

Keep the home fires burning! Have a day!

FATHER, thank YOU for YOUR love and care!