Texas Land

Back in the day to finance the railroad the U.S. government gave the railroads government land (land taken from the Native Americans) on either side of the railroad right of way to sell as a means of raising money to build the road ways. My Grandparents purchased the family farm from the T&P Railroad around the turn of the Century.  They raised 6 kids sending all to college while farming a West Texas dirt farm. My guess it was tough. My Grandmother also raised me until I was old enough to go off to boarding school in San Antonio. Over the years I lost touch with the family for reasons. BTW, I will get to the chase.

A couple of days ago I received a phone call from an investor who offered me a sum of money to buy my share of the farm that I did not know I owned. Of course he was trying to "steal" it. After a couple of days on the phone trying to pin down ownership, it is looking like I may own 90 acres of West Texas. It gets even stranger: My clients this week were present when I received the call about the farm. One of the client's son is a "Land Man". For those of you not from the oil patch, a Land Man is an employee of drilling/oil companies whose job is to buy mineral rights and drilling permits from land owners.

Bottom line: He, the Land Man, is nailing down ownership and will buy the mineral rights if I still own them. He said there is good activity in the area and the property may have some value. That could be the best of all worlds, mineral rights go for about the same per acre as the land price. If everything works out I will keep the land and lease it to one of the local farmers and sell the mineral rights. Could be a nice unexpected chunk of change in my pocket and a good monthly income to help with retirement.

I'm not headed to the Chevy dealer to order my new diesel truck yet but it will be a nice surprise if it does work out.

On a totally unrelated note. MsBubba called me this morning in a panic, one of her friends said there were many house break-ins happening in our part of town and she is worried we do not have enough insurance to cover my shop and the contents of the house. The only answer is "yes Dear I will call State Farm about the house coverage". In line with the call she wanted an inventory of the shop, as she put it "what it really cost, not what you tell me it cost". The old gal is pretty sharp :-). The good news, we have $250,000 USD house hold goods coverage and a very generous accounting of replacement cost for everything in the shop is only around $60,000 USD and I want to see the thief that can pick up almost 2 tons of pig iron and run with it.  BTW, I've got to go out and buy more tools because MsBubba guessed there were more than $100,000 USD of tools in the shop, I've $40,000 to go because I sure do not want to disappoint the boss.

See you guys on down the road,

ken