The Victim and I Pt. 02

As she now had 11 profitable operating restaurants, she did not have to go looking for places to buy and rehab. They seemed to seek her out in hopes of striking a deal to save a failing venue and thus keep someone out of bankruptcy court. It seemed as if she was constantly fielding inquiries from different places seeking a buyout. Most she either discarded or sent a simple rejection note to, but some stuck her interest and her grouping slowly grew.

One day she was sitting across from me in my office discussing business casually. She had a stack of financial papers in her hand and asked, "Do you have any idea just how much we spend on meat each month buying top quality meat from suppliers? I am paying sometimes over $12 a pound for the top steaks. Of course, we are selling those for about $30 or slightly more, but still we could make a lot more by cutting this meat bill. Do you have any idea what people who raised their own beef had in their beef?

"I have no idea, but I will gladly research it for you. I knew a lot of it depended on the price one pays for feed and processing and even the price of the cattle themselves. A lot to consider, but I will give you a full and honest estimate of the different costs." Off hand, I thought that we should be able to cut her meat bill in half or even better if we had enough land to raise the cattle, a feed lot to fatten them up, a processing plant and delivery trucks. More could or should be saved by raising our own grain and hay for them. More to research. The things a guy does for the woman he loves.

"Oh, one more little thing I forgot to mention, Honey. I'm pregnant."

Stunned. Absolutely stunned. That is the only way one could describe me at that time. Beverly asked me what I thought, and I told her that as soon as my brain started working I would tell her how excited and happy I was and that we need to call mother and tell her she was going to finally be put to work soon. Mom was beyond overjoyed, as was I. Beverly seemed to take pregnancy in stride, but I thing she is as happy and excited as the rest of us. I can hardly wait, but Beverly told me to not converting any bedrooms to nurseries just yet.

I did spend the next couple of weeks doing research on the cost of raising animals of the quality we would want to serve in the restaurants. We would need lots more land if we were to raise our own animals, namely angus as they have the reputation for juicy and tender meat. They would have to be fed an assortment of store bought cattle feed and hay for a couple of years and then to really get them into prime condition they had to be placed into a feedlot and fed corn for 90 to 120 days, letting their muscles soften into tender meat. We would need tillable land to raise corn on for their feed, plus some good hay meadow for the hay.

A toss up to me was whether or not to buy a meat processing plant to butcher the meat for the restaurants and then sell whatever is left. Either that or pay a processor to do this for us. Either way we would probably need at least two reefer delivery trucks to take the cold fresh meat to the restaurants. You can't deliver to 22 places in a day when they are miles apart. So many factors to consider. One pays for each of these things but as you are buying a packaged product you don't realize it. Lots to consider, for sure.

You should have seen Beverly's face when I said. "Beverly, each steer will weigh somewhere around 600 to 800 pounds when we send them to the packer. You can probably figure on maybe half of that weight in packaged meat, but only a small portion of that will be the prime steaks you want. There will be some roasts and briskets but there will be tons of hamburger to dispose of. How may hamburger stand do you want to open?"

"What??? None, not a damn one. That hamburger meat will be prime angus so it should be able to be sold to someone. If not, maybe we can donate to a shelter or something and take a tax credit for it. We can talk to our accountant on this, but I am not about to start dishing out hamburgers to anyone but us. Forget that whole idea."

"Gosh, it was just a simple question and I was kidding. We can deduct the wholesale price of hamburger on our taxes, we just have to keep accurate records on how much we give and when. And the idea of selling to hamburger places does have merit, but they are mostly interested in cheaper meats.?

"I should know you would think of about everything. So how much is our total outlay and what will be our return?"

"Damn, you use funny words since you got an education. We will spend maybe 2 ½ to 3 ½ million for land, depending on exactly how much and where it is. About $150,000 getting a usable feed lot up and running for our size operation. I doubt we can find a readymade packing plant next to a feed lot so one of those would be maybe another $250,000 with all the equipment, as it would not have to be large. It could be tad more, though. About $70,000 for the refrigerated delivery trucks. Then the farm equipment. Good stuff is damn expensive, but you can get some deals at farm auctions and good used stuff works about as well as new and is a whole lot cheaper. We would need probably one large tractor and one smaller one, a combine, grain truck, planting equipment, and then grain bins for storage.

"So, we are looking at maybe $5 million tops to get what we want up and running. We need to look at how much we spend on meant and the saving we can get and see how long it would take to make that $5 million back. We need to talk to the accountant, but I think that if we can break even on it within 6 years we would be money ahead and should go for it. At least we would be paying ourselves and could always sell the land and equipment again if it doesn't work out. What do you think, Honey? This is mainly your business, but I guess I would get into the farming end of it. Be lots of work but might be fun for a while, too. Something different for sure."

"Per head and per pound prices are different. If we figure on butchering at 800 to 1000 pounds, we can figure on a total price of around $3 a pound, but that is for everything. Figure the discard and giveaway and we are putting top quality steaks and roasts in the locker for maybe $5 to $6 a pound, so figure on cutting your meat costs by somewhere in the 40 to 60 percent range. How would that work for you?"

"Looking at these meat bills, I think we are spending around $18,000 a month at each place. Save half of that and you wind up saving over $2 million a year. I think I is doable. You?"

"I like the idea. So, you going to be a cowboy now? I like cowboys, you know."

"No, I didn't know that or I would have bought some boots and spurs a long time ago. Actually, I am thinking more along the lines of being a gentleman farmer and cattleman. Will that work for you?"

"UMM... I think so. Let's go see, just to make sure. Turn out the lights."

Me? I have written and sold a couple of books that have been fairly successful. What about, you ask? Do you remember that I mentioned that the lower half of my property was tillable and a need for more land? Well, I hired a retired farmer to teach me everything I should need over a period of two years and documented everything he taught me and took hundreds of photos and compiled it all into two books and the rest is history. I did find that I loved farming and did buy more land adjacent to this place so I could have tons more fun. I started also raising some of the beef cattle for the restaurants in the upper areas of the farm,

When Beverly's demand for top quality beef materialized, I bought more land to both raise cattle and to grow corn and hay to feed the cattle and our horses, which I had developed a real fondness for. Repressed childhood cowboy fixation maybe? Nah, just a new-found love for the outdoors and for farming and ranching, and boy, did I love it.

We try to raise quality beef that we can use in Beverly's restaurants all we can and sell some and donate most of the rest. To feed our cattle, I am raising as much corn as I can for them, along with some hay. It is a good marketing tool that my MBA wife came up with all by herself. Sorta. Anyhow, she thinks so and I allow it.

Oh, almost forgot. My beautiful Beverly gave me two beautiful girls that are the spitting image of their mother. Boy, are they ever going to be smart and good looking. Boy, am I ever going to be in trouble and all three of these beauties have me wrapped around their fingers like the tendrils of a vine. And I love it.

One of my larger tractors had a front-end bucket for moving dirt on it, so around the second birthday of my first born, I hired an excavation contractor to come out and dig a twelve-foot-deep hole up in the trees and rocks. It took a little extra effort because of the rocks, but I loved that aspect of the endeavor.

As soon as he had finished digging the hole, I paid him and sent him on his way. Once prying eyes were gone, I opened the underground vault in the barn and removed all the remaining claymores and LAWS tubes, which I never got the pleasure of using. I put them into the bucket of my tractor and carried them up to the newly dug hole and dropped them in. I took a tour of my property and made doubly sure I had all the mines and their activation devices loaded and gone from the fields and added those to the hole before starting the backfill process. I did keep the listening and surveillance devices. I was hoping that the rocks might help anyone wanting to dig there change their mind. Once the hole was backfilled and compacted, I took a little of the left-over dirt and made a pile to use to refill it after a few rains and time had settled the dirt down some. I would plant a few sapling trees over the hole to further discourage any new digging there. Damn, it felt good to be free from that worry and stress. I love my life.