Seasons – December 2020

End of the Year Wildlife Management Activities

By Kameron Bain, Landowner Account Manager

‘Tis the Season to Start Talking

By Margaret Menicucci, Braun & Gresham Attorney and Counselor

As seen in Margaret Menicucci’s 2017 blog for Braun & Gresham.

My father passed away in 2010, after a long and meaningful life. Visits to my parents’ home were periodic because I live in a different state. In the last few years of his life, each time I visited, he would make me sit in his study and review his assets, his filing system, his meticulous records, and his plan for supporting my mother so she could continue to live at home after he passed. When he died, he left plenty of resources to support my mother comfortably. He also left a clear and effective Will, beneficiary designations on his accounts, and guideposts in every file in his study that would help me help my mother manage those assets that are critical to her support and comfort. He taught me this powerful lesson about estate planning: an excellent estate plan requires good documents and records and meaningful communication of your goals and expectations with your loved ones.

In 2016, Fidelity Investments conducted a study focusing on the extent to which parents and their adult children communicate in-depth about a range of financial and retirement topics. In the study group, 69% of the surveyed parents of adult children said they have had detailed conversations about their estate plans, but 86% of the surveyed parents said they had not had in-depth (or sometimes any) conversation with their children about long-term care and eldercare. The issues around eldercare and long-term care are especially sensitive and, at times, complex.

‘Tis the season to start talking.

Family visits in the next few weeks are prime time for discussions about parents’ long-term care and their legacy – how they want to pass their assets to family and their community. Certainly, an estate plan provides the critical tools for directing the care of aging parents and for distributing wealth when they die. A strong estate plan will include a Will or revocable living trust along with disability planning documents such as financial and medical powers of attorney and a health care directive. Our role, as your attorneys and counselors, is to guide you and your family in creating a personalized estate plan that works well. Communication among family members, however, provides that extra level of certainty that the estate plan will be implemented correctly and with respect for personal goals.

It may be too awkward to transition a conversation from football stats to medical powers of attorney. You will have more success with intentionally and honestly asking to set aside time for a discussion (not unlike my father bringing me into the study to review records). A request for time signals the importance of these conversations – this communication is about working together as a family to care for each other.

If adult children are starting the conversation, begin with high-level questions regarding goals and expectations and the ways you can help (not what is in it for you). You are there to learn and understand. Some starters could be:

• “Mom, you have worked so hard to maintain the family ranch, what vision do you have for its future?”
• “Dad, if there comes a time when it is difficult for you to manage your investments and health care, what kind of assistance would you want us, as your children, to provide?”

This August 2017 article in MarketWatch, an online news service published by Dow Jones & Co., provides more instruction about how to continue these conversations.

We have had clients come to Braun & Gresham for estate planning after they have handled the distribution of a parent’s estate. Those clients often tell us that the planning done by their parents, combined with their parents’ thoughtful communication of their wishes, was a priceless gift. It eased their minds, minimized sibling conflict, and helped expedite the probate process.

This season, a simple and priceless gift that you can give to your family is taking the time to talk about a parent’s estate plan (or need for one) and their expectations about retirement and long-term care.

If you have any questions or want to learn more about the estate planning process before or after the holiday season, please call Margaret Menicucci at (512) 894-5426.

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News for Texas Landowners

Texans can Take Steps to Prevent Spread of Oak Wilt

Article by Leighton Chachere with Texas A&M AgriLife

Oak wilt is one of the most destructive tree diseases in the U.S. and has been killing oak trees in Central Texas in epidemic proportions.

The Texas A&M Forest Service urges all Texans, particularly hunters, to take preventive measures and be cautious when collecting and purchasing firewood to reduce the spread of oak wilt.

“We all have a responsibility when it comes to limiting the spread of oak wilt,” said Jonathan Motsinger, Texas A&M Forest Service Central Operations department head. “One simple thing is ensuring that we are not moving firewood and potentially introducing the disease to new areas. Hunters on a ranch need to leave any wood they find there. Don’t take it back home and be the one who starts a new disease center…”

Read more

Monarchs, Bees Use Cultivated Milkweeds as much as Wild Ones

Article by Dana Kobilinsky with The Wildlife Society

Monarch butterflies and bee species use ornamental milkweed plants — the kind sold at garden centers — just as much as they use native plants, researchers found.

“There’s a ‘native-plant’ movement going on right now,” said Adam Baker, a researcher at the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment and lead author of the study published in PeerJ. “We wanted to look a bit deeper into that, especially the use of cultivated native host plants in conservation gardens.”

Baker knew that cultivars — natural variants of native plants crossbred or hybridized with ornamentals for their appearance and disease resistance — can provide nectar and pollen at times where wild plants lapses.

He and his colleagues wondered how well monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) and bees benefited from them…

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Accepting & Loving a River

Article by Daniel Oppenheimer for Rock & Vine Magazine

The Nueces River is vast, even by Texas standards. It starts high up on the Edwards Plateau.

Sourced by emerald, spring-fed creeks in Edwards and Real Counties, the Nueces River cuts through the rocky Hill Country before pivoting amidst the South Texas Brush Country, onward toward the coastal prairie; it pauses at Lake Corpus Christi, before it ultimately empties into the Gulf of Mexico at Nueces Bay.

Few, if any, know this river better than Sky Lewey. Born in Uvalde, Lewey was raised outside of town on the banks of the Nueces River. “I was swimming before I was walking,” she said.

The river has long supported Hill Country agriculture — cattle, cotton, wool and mohair production — while also providing fishing, hunting, and other recreational opportunities…

Read more