Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Redneck Investing

I was talking to my cousin the other day and bragging to him about how I own part of Tata Motors so I decided to check in on my investments...


...steel yourself against the shock you are bound to experience after witnessing the magnitude of this portfolio!
Sorry about the small image - the original is legible, but Blogger seems to have "adjusted" this one for me : (

Turns out those two shares of Tata have done quite well. Tomorrow marks the period of one year of ownership of the Indian Auto Manufacturer and they've done quite well in that time. Even more impressive, that fraction of a share of Magna has really been a cash cow. If only I would have invested some more in these guys back then. I suspected it was a low-point in the market and my suspicions have been confirmed by a 75% increase in value over a one-year period.

The lowly farmer is now accepting offers to become a wealth manager. Send in your requests (and money) fast - space is going quickly. I charge only 5% per year.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Texas Blackberries


What a surprise! I was out cleaning up the fenceline in the pastures with Ginger and Winter this evening and saw a bit of red down in the grass. At first I thought they were wild raspberries. Then I saw the black ones and the memories came flooding back of picking bucket-full after bucket-full of wild Washington blackberries with the family and eating blackberry jam sandwiches until blackberry was more of a drudgery than a delight (what a shame! And what an ungrateful kid was I to fail to recognize that blessing!)
Anyway, this pitiful little bowl was the full extent of the 'ripe' ones that we could find before it got dark (of course we had to eat some straight off the vine too, so there were actually a few more than this.) The good news is that there were quite a few more red ones on the bushes, so we should be able to go back and get some more in a few days. Strange that I have never seen these on our property before...maybe the wet spring weather of the previous few years has affected the growing season?