Just another day at the farm

My disk mower self destructed again... Only have 80-90 acres of hay to do. Found a neighbor to help me-I think.
The hay we picked up in the rain is going to mold in the stacks as it is wet on the edges.
Came in the house to discover there are plans for the last weekend of July and first weekend of August. This is why I never plan things in advance. Antique Powerland has been at the same time in July and August for 30 years. I guess I didn't actually get it on the calender. It is basically the only thing I plan on attending in advance. I like to take my daughter. Last year it was too hot. Perhaps I'll see if the nephews are going.
It is much easier if you just work all the time.
I think I will go to bed...

Since you really don't want to hear about my personal annoyances here is another robot doodle

I have always like Robots. I once read a book called "Runaway Robot," it was a good book. I had the book at my old house but I can no longer find it.
I am not so sure why the Robot theme. I drew them a little at a time. One would expect a robot to play techno but these are actually playing Bonaparte's Retreat.

.. After this I do have a Robot playing fiddle but perhaps I shall save it for another day. Now I am off to grind pig feed. I'm sure this will be very enjoyable as I know everyone like the nice itchy feeling of barley dust down the back of your neck in 75 degree weather!

Sometimes I get bored chopping silage

I was cleaning out my tractor cab and found some relics from last silage chopping epic. Snickers wrappers, Farm Show newspapers, random scraps of paper with phone numbers on them, pop cans, and so on.
When I'm chopping I hate waiting for trucks to come back from the dairy for another load. I like to keep busy. While waiting I greased the chopper, sharpened the knives, washed my windows, read Farm Show magazine,  and then I started doodling on a pad of graph paper I found in the cab.
Here is one for the banjo players. It needs a caption. I do not know what inspired me but I drew Robots.

For some reason I had a lot of trouble sizing the picture to fit the blog. I hope someone will tell me if it appears too large.
That thing in the lower left hand corner is supposed to be a Robot Chicken. It didn't turn out so well... This is more of a washing-machine engine powered Robot. i'm not so sure about the whole concept.

Rain

We baled another 675 bales. Half of them got rained on. I stacked them anyway so the neighbors wouldn't see them setting in the field. I think they will mold.

Farm life

It is 6:57 a.m.  I just checked the weather for the 10th time today. Weather.com says it will start raining at 3 p.m. I have known them to be wrong, but...
We have 15 acres of hay to bale today. It is a very small amount in the grand scheme of things. We do 20-60 acres fields on a regular basis. But, it is some of the nicest Timothy hay we have. I have no idea if we can get it raked and baled and stacked by 3 p.m.  There are also six very nice blocks to be hauled home.
The corn could use the water.
I guess I'll just pick up my scaffolding peg and go to work... 25 minutes to go...

Why my daughter will throw me in a resthome when I get old

I tell my daughter she is my favorite. She replies that is because she is my only daughter.
She helped me chop silage last week as the lovely and gracious Mrs. Budd E. Shepherd was still teaching. The daughter (who we refer to as "Lulu" in this blog) was finished with school several days earlier.
We generally had a good time. We sang silly songs and discussed if the surrealistic life of the Lazy Farmer on Happy Daze Farms led to the dadistic interpretation of farm life as expressed in the blog of the same name. It was her opinion that applying a term such as dadistic (which I didn't even know how to spell) to this blog was a tad pretentious and a more apt description would be, "undisciplined, and grammatically challenged ramblings," and if big words were to be used in the description, perhaps "didactic," although "cheap sentimental and pedestrian moralizing," would probably be more accurate.
Actually, we did sing silly songs and she spent a little effort trying to get the truck driver to take his teeth out, which we find quite funny.
It was nice to have company.
Although, I have a hard time not messing with her head.
In the photo below we have had a major hydraulic failure. A hose blew out and we lost about five gallons of hydraulic fluid. She wanted to help so I let her pump the fluid into the tractor.
I bet her she couldn't pump five gallons of oil into the tractor in less than a minute. Usually she says, "show me the money" when I make bets with her but this time I told her that her boy cousins were wimps and couldn't do it. So I set the stopwatch on my phone and away she went. I gave her lots of encouragement as I leaned against the tractor tire. She actually did it in a minute and a half but I lied and said it was 58 seconds. Now I owe her an ice cream.
She is the best daughter ever!

I love Ashes Cafe and pie, but I kind of hate hay...

Today we attempted to bale hay. We had 20 acres cut in like five different fields. There has been a lot of dew in the mornings and the grass hay just does not want to dry. The ground is also wet and so it soaks up moisture from under the windrows.
We cut Monday and made narrow windrows so the ground would dry out and because I knew we would not be baling until we finished silage. Thursday we tore the windrows apart with a rotary fluffer. Friday we did it again as there were wet spots.
Today we raked 11.4 acres just outside of Amity. I intended to do more but people came after baler twine and chicken feed this morning and then we had to work on the irrigation pump. My helper fluffed the field with the rotary tedder. We set it to make windrows.

At 3 p.m. I double raked the windrows and at 4 p.m. we started baling. We made 110lb three-tie bales.
At some point after 6 p.m. I started stacking. I had to deliver three loads with the stacker. These were blocks of 80 bales.
My brother said the fellow was having dinner at the cafe but would go and unlock his gate for me. I did not want to stop the stacker on Hwy 99W and wait for the fellow to unlock the gate. So when I got my first load I stopped at Ashe's Cafe to see if the fellow was still there. I figured I would hit him up for a piece of pie or a milkshake as long as I was there as I had no money in my pocket.
The farmer was gone but it was suggested that if I wanted a milkshake I could pick it up on the way back. I was going to do that as it would give me an excuse to block 99W with a stacker while I went in to pick up my milkshake as the idiot Amity City manager managed to remove most of the parking in town. (You can get by with almost anything if you have a big truck or a farm vehicle with 4way flashers.)
Alas, I was broke. And so I declined the milkshake offer.
I walked back to Dad's Market parking lot and started the stacker. I looked in my rear view mirror and say the owner of Ashe's running after me with a box. She brought me a piece of rhubarb pie. She said her husband felt sorry for me and thought I should have some pie.
I almost hugged her but I have a fairly large personal distance and the pie did not have ice cream on it.
I was having my usually bad day and the gesture of a large slice of my favorite pie gave me the strength to brave Saturday traffic on a state highway. Brightened my whole week. Plus, it was really good pie. It tasted like it was straight out of the old Betty Crocker cookbook. Old fashioned crust, not too sweet, no Strawberries in it. Perfect!
So, we baled 675 bales. I picked up the rest of the field. There are six blocks of 56 bales in the field and I brought the last load home. The blocks will be picked up with a large squeeze and sat on a truck. A 40 foot trailer holds four blocks.

The bales are checked for moisture with a hand held meter you stab in the bale. We also have a meter that reads the moisture of the hay going through the baler. You can see the moisture as you bale. Judging from the weight of the last stack I picked up last night...the meter may not be working. Or someone wanted to finish the field!

I don't like to work late but I do like task completion
And rhubarb pie...

I am done with spring silage! I guess it ain't spring no more neither...

The neighbor started calling me the "4th of July Silage Company," I told him if he was 52 he'd be a deck.
We repaired the disk mower and mowed enough for five loads. After four loads I discovered a bearing out in the header of the chopper. I GPSed the field and we had 4 acres left.

Bearing was an easy fix. It gave us time to mow the rest of the field.

This is the best bearing puller in the world. It has a cage that you tighten down which holds the jaws tight against the offending object that must be pulled.

We finished the field at 9:30 p.m. I suppose I could have gotten more on the truck if I would have really tried.
(what do you all think of my post title? Does a triple negative make a positive?)
Now we must do hay!
At Muddy Valley...wonder if there is any way to check the weather at Muddy Valley from here at home? Hmmm....

In a side note: my neighbor was giving me a little crap about taking so long to do the silage. This was not because of our garage sale farm equipment but rather due to the dairy guy not wanting to run long hours and the fact that the fellow who was supposed to bring his truck to help me did not show up. Our usual plan to deal with the dairy fellow's short days is to get three trucks and just swamp him and then I turn off my phone.
This year I rented a truck and my helper and I mowed, chopped, and trucked it all by ourselves. We only had two real breakdowns. There were broken shear pins and blown hydraulic hoses but only that is all in a day's work. Not bad for the first Hesston 1340 sold west of the Rockies, A New Holland 900 rescued off a dairy that had not run for 15 years and a pickup header we dug out of a manure pile. Not to mention the White 2-135 that I got from a fellow because the motor was blown. The 2-155 I actually paid money for.
Bottom feeding at its best!

Five acres to go...

It is like that song where the cowboy dies within five feet of the house...
We have five acres of grass to mow and chop. The mower had a serious bearing failure. I bought a Hesston 1340 disk mower some years ago. It has been a good mower but it tends towards yearly bearing failures. I think this has less to do with the mower design and more to do with buying a used disk mower-and then keeping it for a decade. It needed to be upgraded as soon as it was paid off. Of course I bought a 12ft Hesston and everyone in this neighborhood has either 14ft or 9ft New Hollands.  I know of only one other 1340 in the county.
Anyway, we would have nearly finished last night. Instead we pulled off the outboard disk and replaced a bearing. I should have taken photos. It nearly ruined the hub. Never heard it go bad but it severely wore down the hub to the point that we could not get the snapring out. I handed it over to my brother who chucked it in the lathe and Bill and I went and chopped the three loads we had cut. We returned at 10:30 p.m. to see that the brother had somehow repaired the hub and even had the bearing pressed in correctly. I usually press it in upside down and ruin a $100 bearing.
We pretty much accept these catastrophic failures as general everyday events. By contrast, the whole silage chopping operation came to a halt yesterday when the dairy fellow broke a 2" u-bolt. Bill was dispatched to the farm to make a new one. It took him half an hour but I suspect he spent 15 minutes in the bathroom...
I guess us bottom feeders just have to have the technology!

Note: I think I was wrong on my understanding of the ethanol incentives. See the Corn, beans, spent brass blog for someone who knows what he is talking about. Of course if you had news organizations that actually reported any real info and not just headlines a person could actually understand what is going on in the world...

Smokers are an oppressed minority

I will never finish chopping silage. The goal is 20 loads a day but it doesn't always happen. Today the dairy faerie didn't want to start till after lunch as he had to do the milking himself today. Then he wanted to quit at 7:30. We squeezed in one more load but only did 16 loads today. We need to be doing 30 loads and actually spending at least 10 hours chopping. I am doing this with only myself and my helper to mow, chop, and haul 100 acres of 16 ton to the acre grass, we need to work longer hours.
As it is I have run out of things to think about and am listening to talk radio.
NPR was talking about the latest government meddling option. They are putting scary pictures on cigarette packages.
I want to know what the government has against cigarettes.
30 years ago everyone smoked and the government promoted it. Then one day there was a power shift, someone important decided they were against smoking.
I think it is a cynical manipulation of public opinion. Possibly just an exercise to see if it could be done. I don't know who conspired to do it. It was probably just an agreement of like-minded people. Or a scam by lawyers to get a lot of money.
I suppose I should state my bias.
I don't like smoking. I don't smoke. I think it is a silly habit. I think it is crazy to inhale smoke on purpose.
But... I think all these statistics are baloney. I do not believe that second hand smoke kills people, unless you spend all your time in a smoke filled room. I seriously doubt that the health care industry spends millions of dollars on smokers.
I think many smokers live otherwise unhealthy lifestyles and smoking is one factor which increases health risks. But, so does your family genetic makeup, how much dust you inhale in your life, and then just random bad luck.
I think there are a lot of things people do which make them unhealthy. Smoking is obvious because you are inhaling smoke. I doubt it increases your risk of health problems as much as it makes an obvious visible target to blame for any illness doctors can't explain.  Sure, I've seen lungs covered in tar and if you are a smoker and die of lung cancer or throat cancer I could see a direct link. But, I've also seen the stats that show that smokers die earlier in general and save their insurance companies a lot of money by avoiding expensive end of life care at age 80-105.
I think it is really stupid to ban smoking in all bars. I think it is ok to ban smoking in the workplace but it is unfair to ban smoking everywhere. You can't even have a business dedicated to smoking and allow your customers to smoke there.
People do lots of unhealthy things. It is just that some of those things are accepted by people who have influence.  People die climbing Mountains in the Pacific Northwest all the time. They get lost and require expensive rescues. Mountain climbing is still legal.
The bottom line is not the fact that smoking is bad for you or expensive to society. It is that smoking is favored by a group of people who no longer have political influence, but do not qualify as a persecuted ethnic or sexual minority.
Marijuana smokers have more social acceptance than tobacco smokers. We live in a backwards world...
And I don't even like smoking!

Garden Club Diplomacy

Someone should write about what influences diplomatic and political decisions.
When I read a lot of spy novels, If someone was say the chief of staff of an important diplomat or a former president's spouse and it turned out their father was an important KGB officer, and there was a scandal and plot twists and then there would be a love crisis, and it would be a great story.
What if you just change a few of the settings and plot devices and set it in the 21st century? 
Does anyone think we could possibly have engaged in regime change and bombed a country due to a plot line out of a dime novel?
I suppose after the sad and bizarre events of the last decade of war anything is possible. Especially if it sounds like a comic book plot.
But I am just a farmer and not important and I know nothing...

I really want to buy this movie on eBay but I lack the $35...

An interesting tidbit from WebProNews

For some reason I get a news letter from WebProNews. It is a really interesting website. Not sure why I subscribed.
Click here for this article accusing Google of giving the Our Dear Leader a special deal on advertising. Then read the comments below the article. This is NOT NewsMax or any sort of conservative publication.  Wow! People are really cynical and suspicious these days!

Then go to Mindless Ramblings to read what is up with my namesake, The Lazy Farmer...

Just a little lack of perspective in our neck of the woods

The big deal on the news yesterday was that a drunk guy took a leak in the Mt. Tabor reservoir
They drained it. Eight million gallons of water.
There were people who had observed dead birds being taken out of it in the past. Not to mention that ducks swim around in it on a regular basis or that the treatment plant dumps gallons of chlorine in it. I suppose if he would have crawled over the fence and taken a dump...
Anyway it is all BS. The feds want it covered cause there are terrorists behind every bush who plan on tainting our water supply. I know this is true because there was a Green Lantern story about it on the old time radio CD I bought last year!
Some of the commentators thought the 21-year-old should have to pay for the water drained. I think the city official who made the decision to drain it should have to pay. The 21-year-old should have to drink the water.
In his defense he said he thought it was a sewage treatment plant and that you really should not be able to pee in the city water supply. He also said it was the wrong thing to do but he had a really good buzz going and didn't think about it.
The city is just going to use this as a means to spend more money and in the process kick a little back into their own pockets. They should give the guy a little kickback  as well.
Sam Adams will probably offer him an "internship." And knowing the folks in Portland, when did anyone there ever object to a little Golden Shower?

-In other news Ralph Goff over at Mindless Ramblings has a post about my hero-The Lazy Farmer.

Why the idiots in congress messing with subsidies matters to you and I...

Unexpected market forces...Why the wieners that run this country need to have a real job before running for election.
You put the subsidy for ethanol in place and it creates a demand based on the subsidy. An whole economy starts up based on the subsidy. You cut suddenly the subsidy and that economy crashes.
So...
I listen to the senator or congressman or whatever going on about how high feed prices are hurting the chicken industry in his state. (translation: certain mega-chicken-farmers are upset). He says the price of corn is too high and it has made other feed prices skyrocket.
That is true.
So... You cut the subsidy and crash the market.
The feed mills are all ready full of high priced grain, the contracts are signed, the grain is planted. The honest people and the small people are going to go broke. It will hit hard next year and by then no one will see the connection.
Consolidation of the market is a good thing, right?
Now wheat prices are falling as harvest nears. Uncontracted grains (like my barley) will crash.
But, fertilizer and fuel will stay high.
You can bet on the fuel staying high. That is the point. Those guys are committed to over $4 per gallon gasoline and once you get an idea in their heads, you sure can't change it-unless the wind blows a big pile of cash their way or they smell re-election possibilities.
We all knew it was a bad idea to begin with but suddenly pulling the rug out is not the way to go either. Not being an idiot would be a good start, but I suppose that is too much to ask...
Have a nice day! I'm going to go burn some $4 diesel.

In case you were wondering how it all turned out...

The family returns at 2 a.m.
I fixed the washing machine but knocked the vacuum hose loose that runs the switch that shuts off the water when the thing fills with water. It was a good thing I was more or less watching the washer. I flooded the laundry room anyway.
The neurotic dog thought I had a gun and ran away again. I tried calling her but she walked to the middle of the road in front of a car and stood there staring at me. The car stopped. The dog looked confused.
I actually had a really big screw driver and was prying the clamps loose that hold the electric motor to washer transmission. I wasn't angry or anything.
Earlier she ran away when my helper opened the pickup door.
I used to really like the dog. Now it is just getting annoying.

The family returns, the dog is neurotic, i need 1.2 million dollars, the sky is blue...

I am setting in my pickup waiting for my bulk fuel tank to fill with $4 diesel. It is kind of painful. Painful because of the slow speed of the transfer pump, and painful because that will be $400 of diesel which will last me two days of mowing and chopping silage.
My wife and daughter return tonight at around midnight. I am not exactly looking forward to this. Not because I dislike my wife or daughter but because I know they will not be happy. They are coming back from disneyland to the reality of life. I have no money and I have the washing machine in pieces. It is hard to explain to one's wife that you did not take time to get a father's day present or a coupler for the washing machine because you were busy chopping silage when there is no money in the bank and there won't be till I either sell some hay or start planting. I think the silage money will go to make up for the shortfall of cash that comes from our good friends, the seed cleaners, not getting our seed cleaned or tests sent off so it could be sold and losing various lots of seed. And then there are the folks who owe me money for hay and are broke and then there is that 100 ton of my personal hay that didn't sell last year. I just don't know what to say. It is different when you are working for someone by the hour. Perhaps I should be...
Then there is the problem with the daughter, she will be unhappy. My daughter's dog keeps running away. She made me promise not to shoot it but I don't think she totally trusts me. It is an old dog. The dog has been abused. When the dog lived with my brother-in-law I really liked it. It always came to me to be petted. I thought it liked me. Actually it is just neurotic.
I have finally figured out that it is totally motivated by doggie treats and not by kind words or petting. My daughter thinks the dog loves her but really the dog just knows that kids drop little tidbits of food.
The dog is obsessed with my wife. It follows her everywhere. Of course since this was a "special needs" dog it has to live in the house. I don't like this at all but I am over-ruled by the females.
While wife and daughter are gone the dog alternates between hiding in the bedroom and when I take it outside, hiding under my wife's pickup. Now it just runs away from me unless I have food.
This morning it would not come out of the house. It is afraid of guns. I was working on the washing machine and slammed the lid. This sounded like a gun being cocked.
The dog ran past me and out the door.
Now it is wandering up and down the middle of the road and runs from me when I call it.
I have never really disliked an animal before. I've always prided myself on being able to build it's trust and make it a friend. I think perhaps it is the victim mentality that the dog shows. It is really the first dog I've just wanted to shoot...
I guess I'll just have to buy a box of dog biscuits and give it one every time I see it. I can't help but compare it with the two farm dogs who have a doggie life. They run around and investigate stuff. They don't crap randomly or stand in the road. If they are standing in the road and you yell at them they move! Then they come to be petted. If a car is coming the get out of the way, (unless the person slows down for them to move...) Right now they are chewing on each other and rolling in the driveway.
The neurotic dog is running from house to barn to wife's pickup and back again and looking very distressed.
The cat ate neurotic dog's food this morning....
Perhaps I'll have to find some doggie treats.
I do have work to do-And now the tank is full.
Have a nice day.

(If you have commented in the last couple days and I have not responded, please don't take it personal. I'm kind of busy.)

Google and the rest the internet is officially useless, unless you want to send photos of wieners or porn, or natter on about what you did in the last five minues... Or watch videos of the legendary Stardust cowboy.

Well the title about sums it up...
The dairy fellow wants to start later today and so I have something like 5 minutes of free time. I drank about 10 cups of coffee this morning so I am able to make good use of that time. 
I am trying to find the best USED washing machine. The new Google search engine revision seems to bring up nothing but content farms and e-how worthless stuff.
We have a Kenmore washer and the rubber coupler between the drum and motor has failed for the fourth time. I did search on craigslist where I found several Kenmore 90 series washers which were in perfect condition but for a problem where the drum doesn't turn. Fancy that...
Of course buying a new one would set me back some $600 and would most likely be crap. I'm sure there is only one washing machine manufacturer left and they are deep in the BOWELS of China where they are put together by slave labor. Remember when we used to complain about stuff made in Mexico. If only we could buy things made in Mexico. The quality was so much better!
The new part is live $3 so I suppose I should just fix it again. I think I will go to the Jimmy Carter store and see what Jimmy has for sale. I wonder who made the Kenmore and if all washers of that era are the same? Perhaps I should try a used appliance store.
I have a lot to do, this is one of those rainy day things to do.
My wife is the craigslist expert, but her and daughter went to Disneyland. They went with the senior class from the school my wife teaches at. I am alone and living on poptarts, salsa, and snickers bars...And coffee!! Lots of coffee!
The washing machine would of course fail when I should be planting, chopping, baling and farming all at the same time. #$%^&! Of course with all this coffee I can do all those things at the same time. I'm actually working now. I'm checking the weather! Oh, scattered showers all week...great! Can you OD on vitamin D?
It is too cold to go naked...
I leave you with...

Another rant about moral values so just click on by...

I had some interesting comments about Google Analytics vs the plain old stats which I may go on about later. One of the sites that sends me the most referrals is not the site that brings repeat readers. Most just click through with an average of .10 seconds per view.
I had a story about attempting to no-till 30 acres of fescue and having the fertilizer pump rupture and spray a fine mist of humic acid all over my drill.
But instead I'm going to rant about useless people and my lack of Christian compassion.
We were chopping our alfalfa field today when my employee's family came down to the river camping. He had asked me in advance and i just mumbled an affirmative answer as I like his kids and didn't want to think about his ex wife. I see the whole crew show up. Usually they are driving, I kid you not!, a late seventies big old station wagon, but today they had a early 1980's chevy pickup.
I really dislike his ex wife and so when the deaf and slightly lecherous elderly neighbor man showed up looking for his cows, I sent him down to the river where the ex was camped. Apparently she was sunbathing topless and he came back quite excited and animated, talking about naked women and getting quite worked up.
Very amusing!
He also mentioned there was a guy there who said he was married to the employee's ex-wife. I asked Mr. B just why the dip..t was camping in the middle of the weed. B said that he had quit his job and the whole family was living on foods stamps, welfare, and B's child support check.
I sort of got agitated. I am working for no wages, living of sales of chicken feed and no-till planting so B does not go to jail for lack of child support payment or lose his house, and where does the money go?  So his slut of an ex-wife can get child support and go camping on our river while we are working our bottoms off.
His ex has something like three bastard children added to the three she had with him and she is married to an absolute idiot who I am happy to say, treats her like crap. She gets money for doing this. AND she has pride, she is a mother!
Now here's the deal. She says would never be a prostitute. She says that is offensive and she has pride.
What a joke. A prostitute provides a needed service and is deservedly compensated for her efforts. I imagine most provide a good value for the money and probably have good customer support. I can never make use of one due to my issues with people I don't know violating my personal space but I'm sure they have made many a man happy for that glorious instant between gratification and guilt but now I'm getting off subject again...
B.'s ex wife uses sex to get money from men and from the government but is not honest about it. I have respect for a prostitute, I have no respect for the ex wife.
Then there is the husband. He has patterned his life on Southern Rock songs and mid 80's country western music. He looks at porn with his kids. He is an amateur tattoo artist who put a tuna-looking dolphin on B's daughter's leg.
Apparently I was starting to get worked up. I think B thought i was going to go kick them all out. In fact I was... He told me to think about his kids and how much they loved the river. He said the ex and her husband didn't matter. I pointed out the $$ I loaded him a few years back so they rent house together as part of their reconciliation process and how she screwed him out of the $$. I reminded him of the $$ I loaned him to get a lawyer so he wouldn't end up in jail for not paying child support. I suggested the only use for his ex-wife and her idiot husband was as tasty protein supplement in a science fiction movie. He thought that was funny the situation was somewhat diffused.
Then I thought about my earlier post about God and Church and Christians and I calmed down a bit. I only said perhaps four swear worlds.
Later I was listening to the "progressive" talk show and they were making fun of Christian people for believing in an old book of faerie tales. I kind of had to laugh. They believe in things like string theory, and man-made global warming (or cooling depending on which theory is popular) and have their own mythology. It is better sounding and more modern in many ways but it has less positive means of social control. No ten commandments cast in stone.
I suppose that is the problem. No one ever got past the cultural anthropology 101 course when your learn about creation myths or past Philosophy 101 where you learn that religion is used to control the morons. You never get to the point where you figure out that can't escape bias or that you can't escape control of some sort.
So we tossed our belief system and let the peasant classes go back to screwing and fling excrement on at the walls and feel good for being intellectuals and above it all.
Somehow I should have been showing the love of God to those people. They need to be in a church community. They need to believe in God and think of a higher purpose than how to get the next can of beer. Have standards of cleanliness, and learn not to defecate and sit back down in it. Not to have sex in front of their kids or let there underage kids have sex in front of them because that just results in unwanted children and social diseases and just general messiness and unhappiness.
Our society needs to encourage them to accept this benevolent form of control. I could see them in a good revival meeting. I know they drove halfway across the country to a faith healer because one of the bastard children had rickets or something. (Did not work so well.)
Unfortunately I am a failure as a Christian. I can't talk to them without baiting the guy in to telling me what an idiot he is. In fact I can't even talk to the ex wife at all. I just get angry and have to leave.
What good is all my talk if I can't have compassion for idiots?
I just don't know...

Why people visit the Lazy Farmer

I looked at my stats today.
Someone found the Lazy Farmer as a result of a search for John Deere #9 pitman arm parts. They should have emailed me as I think I may have some...

Here are some other search phrases that brought people here this week:
mm 1050 (5)
corn planted too deep (2)
how to split a tractor (2)
my wife is lazy but pretty (2)
porno web cat zaping (2)
30" row beans planting (1)
addhd (1)
almost perpetual motion machine (1)
amish farms are swat teams (1)
amish people are scary (1)



I really didn't know there was interest in "porno web cat zaping," that must be pretty a specialized category!  I am happy to see interest in my "almost perpetual motion machine," I was kind of proud of that invention. But, who knew Amish people were scary! The always seemed pretty mild sorts to me.

The all time greatest hits are
three different spellings of the lazy farmer (53, 42, 41 hits)
blue goat amity (31 hits)
can cows walk down stairs (25 hits)
roberta spen (24 hits)
lee bellinger scam (14 hits)
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The griper of the usa has sent me 197 referrals and gorges-smithe.blogspot.com has sent me 79
www.jeffords.blogspot.com has sent me 61 in the last 3/4th of a year since I signed up with blogger stats.

No one has come here after doing a search for The Legendary Stardust Cowboy! I am quite upset...

A post about church for Gorges Grouse

Today I heard a really good sermon. I actually went to church to hear what I consider to be one of the last of the old-style good preachers (that I know of.)
He said in the introduction to his sermon that is was close to 40 years since he had knelt with his wife at the front of the church and dedicated their marriage to God, and I think it was some 30 years since he had been ordained to the ministry. I missed a little bit while I was annoying my nephew.
But, what made me think of Gorges was the title to the sermon which was, "The Million Dollar Church." Gorges has expressed his frustration with different churches in the past and I tend to agree with him.
It is very hard to find a "good" church, it is easier to stay home.
The pastor was talking about the great value of a good church. The Million Dollar Church seemed like a pretty catchy title as the idea of a Million Dollars sticks in one's mind as representing a lot of money or value.
The message listed six characteristics of a valuable church.
First, the church is for the building up of the saints and the continuation of the gospel.  He noted that the book of Revelations talks about the victorious church which stands true to God and wins in the end. He noted that all we see in the news is the defeated church but what we need to build is a church founded on a Bible-based way of life. Stop playing around in the "world" and live according to the Word of God. Parents decide they can accept a few little things, their children accept a lot, and the grand children have no faith at all.
He stressed a literal interpretation of scripture, again using the "slippery slope" argument but quite passionately. Where do you draw the line with your interpretations and relating the meanings to "today's culture."
His second point was evangelistic fervor.  The Million Dollar church must have a burden and compassion for lost souls. "The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few."
Quoted a message from another pastor whose name I didn't get.  I think it was Jim Newsom, probably this Jim Newsom and not this guy who is a jazz musician.
The quote basically was that if your church is spending your efforts on winning the lost, that compassion for lost souls will turn to a criticism and evaluation of individual church members and your church will turn inward into legalism and self criticism.
The third point was the importance of christian brothers (a little sexist language but he is old school) to stand together. This means helping each other spiritually and also financially in tough economic times.
"Brothers in Christ must stick together through thick and thin, showing each member that they truly care."
The fourth point was about spiritual energy. You come to church to worship God and to become spiritually energized. The Church brings you the word of life to help you make it though the week. You come together with other Christians and share a common purpose and support each other. Without the fellowship of saints you will go dead spiritually. You can't make it on your own. You need to create a spiritual energy to sustain yourself.
Fifth point was that the pastor should have the welfare of the church at heart and you should be able to trust your pastor to lead you spiritually. He did not address how tough it is to find a pastor that is not a flake... Or that actually believes what you are asking him to guide you in.
Six was a church you can trust to guide your children. Many adults compromise on a church  only to see their children being influenced negatively by the church. Safeguarding your children is so very important.
I found it a very good sermon, one of the best I've heard in a while. He was energetic and full of passion. Tears came to his eyes at particularly passionate times. He walked around the podium, he rested his foot on the rail and spoke earnestly, he shouted at the right times, and he spoke with enough volume he did not really need the microphone. AND he tied it all up at 11:55 with five minutes for the closing song and prayer. A truly masterful performance!
I also appreciated the content. I don't know how to find such a church or really how to build such a fellowship of believers. Of course I am the cold cynic who needs to be on the outside looking in and not the one advocating for evangelical fervor. I think it speaks volumes to the sad state of the church in America when people like myself actually want to do something.
There was a very good potluck afterwards, which I skipped as my wife and child stayed home and I just didn't feel like explaining anything. Good hymn singing, friendly people, good fellowship.
On the way home I was listening to John Doe and the Sadie's tribute to country music. I got to thinking about the soulessness of post-christian America. I think someone left a comment about opium being the religion of the masses instead of religion being the opiate of the masses and I think the common man has really been failed by modern society.
Look at people around you. We think we are so clever as to not need religion but we will be controlled by some ideology or some religion whether we want it or not. The white trash folks you see tweeking and stealing your tools would be much better off controlled by our traditional belief system rather than random drug uses and screwing like rabbits.
Christianity had built in safeguards, reformation abilities, and it gave individuals a conscience. Look at how the liberals make fools of themselves supporting the Wiener texter. Years of women standing up against sexual harassment can be ignored when it is one of your own doing the harassment!
We focus on the priests having sex with boys, Salem witch trials, slavery, women's rights, and ignore two things. First, Christians do not approve of sex abuse, murder, oppression, and they have given their lives to oppose it within their own religious framework. Secondly, nonChristians have slaves, kill people, oppress women, hate homosexuals, and do all sorts of depraved acts, and they conquer countries, it is just that they are a diverse group and are not targeted as a whole. And they have no stance against such things.
I don't have the evangelical fervor. I don't care what you believe. You can tell me I believe in the Sky Fairy and I don't care. You can point out my double standards and my foolishness. I admit I have them. Just know that you are being controlled and will be controlled and being smug and deluding yourself won't make a bit of difference.
Oops, I got off subject...
The point was this was good a good sermon which addresses issues Gorge has commented on in his blog. If I could find a tape of it I would send it to him.
I may have been listening to too much old time music lately. The Louvin Brothers come to mind.
I leave you with this...

I now have a lemon tree

I ordered a lime tree for reasons relating to the term Cuba Libre' but we will not go into that one at this time. The fellow showed up with two lemon trees which we were going to trade for chicken feed. There was one that was a cross between a lemon and a lime which had lots of buds and this lemon tree. I took the lemon because he said it was more winter hardy and because I needed cash more than I needed a lemon-lime tree...
I kind of wish I would have taken both. Perhaps he will come back...

In other news we are planting BuckWheat. I'm not sure what you do with buck wheat except make pillows and pancakes. One of the more crusty old farmers asked me what the h..l do you do with buckwheat? I said, "it agitates Alfalfa," he didn't get it, he was too busy swearing about something. My employee was just setting in the truck shaking his head and laughing. "You are so weird," he said.
Here is a photo of my brother working ground that is almost too wet to work and it is June 12th!

For those of you from the midwest who think that harrow is too small for the size of tractor I will note that once it loaded up properly I had to put it in 4wd to pull it at 5.5 mph. Heavy clay pulls hard!

Also, check out this blog I found at random. She seems like a nice lady. Takes lots of pictures. Has some interesting photos from New Mexico. Look back a couple years. There are some interesting wide photos from WWI.

Why I am not a Republican continued

Somehow I signed up for the NewsMax newsletter. NewsMax is an annoying site. Endless blather about what it means to be a "conservative," followed by endless ads for penny stocks, idiotic gun training videos-like the "million dollar patriot" who wants to give you a free gun for an overpriced shooting course, and constant "action" alerts for a crisis which would never have happened if there were any "real" Republicans left.
So... This morning I got their newsletter which notes that the bill repealing the ban on incandescent bulbs has of course stalled. Well of course it stalled because congress never wanted to repeal it. They have already been paid off by whatever giant corporation is making money off the new Florescent bulbs-probably someone who needs to get rid of a lot of excess mercury since you can't have REAL THERMOMETERS anymore!!!
But, I digress...
Check out the quote I pulled from the newsletter:

"The bill banning the bulbs — which use more energy than newer bulbs — was introduced in 2007 by then Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat, and Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, and signed by President George W. Bush in December 2007.

Upton is now chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and while lobbying Republicans for the post he vowed to repeal the section of the 2007 bill that bans incandescent bulbs."

Well, of course... It could not have been done without the sell-out of Rep. Fred Upton, a longtime Michigan Republican.
I wonder what his pleasure is, Wide Stance, Wiener Tweeting, or most likely as a long time Republican-money, lots and lots of money, the god of the Republican party and the Short Pants Christian Church...
Oh, I get it now. He wants to be modern and progressive and for people to like him. See this article about his former "pro-environmental" stance that has now been influenced by the Tea Party.
Perhaps he is just a well meaning fool who knows very little about anything but getting elected. Look at this article and see how he has held his finger to the wind...Oh my! He has tossed us hardliners a bone!
Of course for those who read this blog and are "pro-environmental" I am not for clear-cutting the entire coast range (unless it is high line logging and I get to watch)  and I almost never burn tires. When I hear a senator is "pro-environmental" it just means they are taking cash from makers of solar panels, activists trying to keep me from farming, logging, doing anything worthwhile. (As opposed to "pro-business" which just means they are wide stance for General Electric, Monsanto, and their ilk.)
Anyway, I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that those compact florescents were a bad idea. The new LED lights are awesome.  I doubt killing the incandescent bulb will save anything. That technology has been paid for long ago. Just another way of sticking it to the consumer. Exactly the same thing they did when the outlawed Freon and ended inexpensive air conditioner repair, but only in the USA...

I overslept

I am not a real farmer. Real farmers are all at work by 7 a.m. They never have dreams that a huge magnet will descend from heaven and pick up every chunk of old scrap metal on the farm followed by a little check slowly floating down and then I spend the rest of the dream trying to catch the check...
Cause real farmers don't have the piles of scrap metal interesting old farm equipment sitting around for the magnet to pick up.
The question is, it is a nightmare or a happy dream. I don't know!
I see my employee has arrived and is setting in his car. Usually he goes to the store and has coffee with Dad and Uncle if I'm not around. They have not been getting to work as early. They are probably going to fall over dead any day. Hopefully someone besides me will find them.
The neighbor told my employee when he was weighing a load of silage that we had not paid our "scale fees" for three years but not to get me upset. I guess someone forgot. I don't see how we could forget when the neighbor has three gigantic straw sheds blocking our view and so we think about the wonderful fellow every day, first thing in the morning. Which does not excuse not giving him some random amount of cash once a year but, I'm just saying...
I think Ed Winkle was talking about being grumpy over at Highmark High Spots...

Why the new progressive superhero "Wienerboy" is important to you and I and should make you depressed

I was listening to the lady on Air America who used to be 747 mechanic or something like that and she was defending the Wienertexter. On and on about Republican's being hypocrites and wienerboy just liking his strange electronically. Oh, and the defense for offensive behavior that goes along the line of he just can't help it because he is just such a kind and caring sex maniac but it is because he is so focus and talented. (This defense probably will not work for the IMF dude.)
And on about how the Republican's are taking everyone's rights away and oppression and the usual blah, blah, blah.
So then I listened to Rush Limbaugh read some of the legislation Wienerboy worked on to punish and track sex offenders on the internet. Very intrusive and invasive of privacy, especially when you consider that a 18 year old making out with a 17 year old or 16 year old will get you sex offender status most places, even if you are both still in high school.
Then... I know this seems unrelated I came across this story at Chert Hollow Farm about ice cream.
After you read it I tell you why the Wienertexter is important....
This guy is making laws that affect us all and what does he spend his government time doing? Sending dick photos to his progressive groupies?
What do they do on capital hill? Larry Craig spends a lot of time in the bathroom with his wide stance, Weinertexter-the star of the new Democrats-is stalking his groupies, Mark Sanford is "Hiking the Appalachian trail" and good ole Bill Clinton ruined a perfectly good cigar.
What we see in the news could lead those of us who are cynical to think that most laws and regulations are the result of back room "monica's" and a couple envelopes of cash...
It is like freshman year at the state university. Adolescents running around with their pants unzipped and chicks "dating" teaching assistants.
AND we pay these people!

I think it is going to rain again

We chopped clover silage yesterday.
This is red clover which will be combined for seed later in the summer. The early growth is cut for silage and the plants regrow and bloom more evenly later in the year. This bloom is left for seed production.
The farmer swathed this clover Saturday and then there was quite the thundershower on it. It was soaked all the way through the windrow. He started raking it ahead of the chopper but the 1945 Morrell rake just did not really pick up the windrows. We decided to stop raking after unplugging the chopper a few times. It does not like big piles of wet clover.
I started at 2:30 in the afternoon and quit at 9 p.m. We chopped 12 loads with tandem axle trucks. Probably 11 ton loads. I had to wait for the trucks as it is a five mile haul to the dairy. It is hard to find neighbors to help haul this year. Most people have trucks with trailers which do not dump well in the dairy's silage pit.
It looks like it rained this morning but I'm going to go and try chopping a little early. We shall see...

Father-Daughter time

My daughter is 10 years old. She just returned home from a visit to her Aunts. I think she grew two inches while she was gone.
Lulu, as she as agreed to be called when discussed on the Lazy Farmer, inherits my insecurities. She does not think her cousins miss her when she is gone and would not go over to visit them as they had company. She said she would rather hang out with me.
So we took a four wheeler ride down to the river and shot her wrist rocket sling shot. I taught her the proper technique for climbing hills and cutting cookies in the gravel with the 4-wheeler. You must lean to the inside so you don't "high side" the 4-wheeler. Kind of kick your butt over to break the rear wheels loose when you hit the gas.
She has a spot where she likes to go down to the river. The cousins and her were playing an elaborate game on the river bank before one of them fell in and nearly drowned. (I pulled him out. I think the cold shock of fast running water was a good lesson for all...)
We were skipping rocks and shooting the slingshot when we spied a dead deer in the river. I actually shot it with the slingshot thinking it was a log and then I smelled it. We decided it must have jumped off the river bank and broke it's neck. Who knows.
We were going to investigate a large bad smelling fire up river but Lulu needed to harvest her crops on Farmville so we went home.
I attempted to BBQ the last two steaks but got distracted when my wife's iPad refused to connect to "Idlewild" network. (it's an airport basestation-get it Idlewilde)
I burnt them but we ate steak anyway.
Goodtimes...
And now it is Monday and back to work.

I am alone and my attentions span is not what it should

I was going to attend church this morning. My wife is gone to Seattle to see her sister. My daughter is at her Aunt's house. I feel the need to attend church. I miss the hymns and I would dearly love to hear a good rousing sermon. Sadly to say in this day and age, good rousing sermons are hard to come by. A good sermon, hymn singing, and a good potluck dinner after church, with chicken baked in a cast iron skillet would require the Tardis and Dr. Who to fly me back a couple generations. Alas we would probably end up with cold Yorkshire pudding as that is my luck in life.
I would start my own church but for two reasons. We have one that meets the second and forth Sundays at a retirement center, and (2) I am not the church builder type. I'm the one who sits in the back and avoids responsibility but then ends up being the usher for 30 years. Not the firebrand organizer type. Sort of a bench filler if you will. I would also advocate for strict standards which I would then violate at will in my personal life causing people to get hypocrisy and indifference  and the person who make the old fashioned chicken would leave the church and thus ruin the potlucks.
I have no way of winning....
Somewhere I went wrong in life not the stuff of Hank William's, Lost Highway but some sort of dead end none the less.
But, I digress...
Since I am alone and have been instructed by my wife to sleep and since I am unable to sleep after she called  me at 8:30 a.m. and woke me up to tell me she was on her way home, I decided to repair the dryer vent.
This merely requires some special aluminum foil tape I acquired somewhere and now I have lost. Earlier I lost my coffee cup and was about to call my daughter (whom I shall hithertoforafter refer to as "Lulu"-I discussed this with her after it was brought up by someone that I should not use her real name on the internet-I don't remember why, but I am sure it was a compelling argument) but I realized that she would be somewhat "nonplussed" to say the least and would most likely threaten to break my ribs again for bugging her. (Give them a little power and they think they run things-this is what will make her grow up and be a gangster! or a banjo player)
But, one again I digress...
I pulled the washer and dryer away from the wall and then remembered I was hungry. I knew there was some leftover calzone which caused me to wonder why the BlueGoat does not add Calzone to the menu. That is sort of gor-met, not your "pedestrian pizza to go," and you could probably put green olives and pear sauce in it and toss in a little goat meat and Amity folks would feel down right sophisticated eating it. Would work good in that fancy oven they have there. And they could make them to GO! Which would make won of my readers very happy. But, the BlueGoat does not want my suggestions. Which reminds me I was going to take my wife there last Thursday but she made some really good soup and I thought of it too late.
Which brings me to the problem of my failing mind.
I'm cracking up quietly and a little bit at a time. Not the big train wreck you read about in the newspapers, rather the bizarre eccentric old guy that occasionally wets himself but has really interesting junk.
After tossing the calzone crust out the slider to the dog, I wandered into the "den" looking for the aluminum tape in my bag of random tools. There I discovered a pile of books my wife is sorting out of the bookshelf. Aside from "Gun Digest-1968" and "The Kodak Darkroom Handbook," I found "Attending Marvels A Patagonian Journal," by George Gaylord Simpson.
Naturally, I opened the book and started reading at random and became engrossed.
So, I'm sitting in the house on a sunny Sunday, I'm listening to the Louvin Brothers sing, "Satan is Real," and reading "A Patagonian Journal." I have the blinds closed so no one will know I'm home and try to buy chicken feed or talk to me about Teff hay.
It ain't normal...

Speaking of the Louvin Brothers check out the interviews on YouTube. I really admire true believers!
(well if they fit my standards of what I consider a true believer and they are not crazy nuts predicting the end of the world or advocating craziness so I guess I should say I just admire certain sincere people who I just choose at  random)
Ira was my favorite brother, but Charlie has my utmost respect and admiration. I suppose I'm just a product of modern culture. (or is that post modern? Is there a post modern, post modernism? Like postpostpostmodernism...)

PS, I found this book on my bookshelf with an inscription from my grandfather dated 1973. I was in what, second grade. Perhaps I'll read this to Lulu. Read her a testimony and then ask her if she really things she wants to go to public school... The book is called, "Dying Testimonies of the Saved and Unsaved." You can download it on PDF here.
"He went to her bedside, threw his arms around her, and told her of the Savior's love for sinners, but she cried, "It is too late for me, Charley; I am lost, lost," and she continued repeating this until her soul took its departure," (Page 259)
The book comes out of the Christian Holiness movement of the 19th Century. My Grandfather's people were Methodists and remembering his sermons I think I can see the influence. I'm betting the nice lady at the local Methodist church is not using illustrations from this book for today's lesson...
I leave you with The Edge...

We actually accompished something today...

208 tonnes of grass silage. Mowed, chopped and trucked by two people... Started at 7 a.m. and I made it home by 10 p.m. I suppose it is not that much by real farmer standards but for a Lazy Farmer it is quite an accomplishment.
That would be 25 loads chopped with a sub $1000 chopper found on craigslist.
There were problems but lets not go into that. I could advise that if you have a choice between a Hesston 6600 swather and a 1340 disk mower from mowing grass for silage you should go with the disk mower.
Now I am going to bed...

I see sunshine

As a lazy farmer I really wish I had Mirandy to do the work for me whilst I sit in my rocking chair...
I suppose today will be a silage chopping day. A one truck silage chopping day and I really hate to sit in the tractor and wait for trucks. I grease everything on the chopper and tractor. I oil the chains. I sharpen the knives. Finally I run out of grease and have to wait in the tractor. for the truck to come back. Perhaps I will take a book.
I used to keep old copies of "The New Farm" magazine to read in the cab. Perhaps I can find a copy of "Farm Show," and learn how to turn an old White combine into a snow blower.
Here is a horrible quality video of me grinding feed. It is amazing how much you can grind in an hour if you actually get the belt really tight and straight.

We need to plant corn but the ground is still too wet. I got out the "Glenco" which is just a 14 ft wide spring shank cultivator. I think I will cultivate the ground two directions and work the preplant fertilizer on. If I can get the clods rolled down for a smooth and firm seed bed the no-till planter will work up the ground pretty well.
It is kind of funny to note that on a year when we are totally broke, living 30 days at a time, I am opting for more conventional tillage than no-till. I notice this with my planting for other people. When money is tight they don't experiment with no-till. They work the ground.
One of my no-till corn customers called me to say the corn is all up and while it looks a little yellow. The spacing is good and the corn came up pretty even. He is quite happy with the planter and the planting job. He didn't say anything about the crooked rows.
PS: Check out The Contrary Farmer, Gene has a field guide to farmers. I should come up with a west coast version. It is pretty funny.

The War on Drugs

Here is a link to a BBC article about the war on drugs.

Scroll to comment 368 or see quote below:

"368. jesus bermudez -As I feel that drug comsumption comes from the need of an indivual to resolve issues of his/her insecurity, whether drugs are legal or illegal, it will never address the problem.The body, looks for security, and if it resolves this using drugs, then the mind of such a body has to to change this."

The most insightful comment I have seen on drug use and it has 15 negative marks.

 

As I was telling my daughter after she got a drug lecture at school in second grade. They are lying to you. Drugs work. They make you feel good. If they didn't people would not take them. However, there are some like Heroin and Meth that destroy your brain. You have to have the self discipline and self control not to take them. There is no other way. I'm telling you the truth because if you sneak a joint when you are a teenager and feel good I don't want you saying your parents lied to you and then just ignore all the other advice we gave you.

Anyway... It is my opinion that the body is self medicating. I'm opting for religion instead of Heroin and am encouraging the daughter to do the same. You may disagree.

A post for Gorges

I have been looking at Gorges "Blogging My Way" post in my sidebar and for some reason it makes me think of this song.

(with apologies to Frank Sinatra)

This link will certainly get him an extra 36 views today!

Chopping silage in the rain

It didn't start out raining. We were a little hard on the field but got it done. The last two loads I had to drive the chopper and box to the road to load as we would get the truck out of the field. Why do I always find fields with mud and hillsides?
I think I should have told the farmer not to swath his clover this time. I was not looking at the weather forecast and neither was he. (obviously)

June first and no corn planted

I planted 180 acres for my neighbors but not a single acre for us!
I drove around the neighborhood begging for money yesterday as I am something like $15.37 short on my $5,800 drill cart payment. If I call CaseCredit and tell them I am $15.37 short and need 30 days will they laugh at me? Probably... A real farmer would be $10,000 short or $350,000 behind. $15.37 is pathetic... Chicken feed-literally in my case...
But, I digress.
I opted not to no-till corn as it has brought us spectacular failures in the past. I think some of the fields I planted look a little yellow. It is too cold and too wet.
Saturday it is supposed to be 80 degrees! That would turn our ground to concrete.

This is what I was doing last week...
It costs something like $7,500 in corn seed to plant 85 acres. All the field corn guys think they have to have round-up resistant corn.

From Pioneer (of course). I would think it would really be painful for some people to have to hire a White planter pulled by a Minneapolis-Moline tractor because it is the only no-till corn planter in 50 miles. But then again, they didn't hire me...
The isolation between GMO corn and sweet corn is a problem in some places. At this point, corn with less than 90 day maturity is very scarce and finding it non-GMO is very difficult. Most smaller farmers work together and try not screw up someone's sweet corn with GMO field corn. Although, Monsanto claimed at one point it did not cross-pollinate. (mostly when they were suing people)
I have learned something about planting corn in the last two weeks.
The difference between 32,000, 34,000, and 36,000 seeds per acre may only be 1/2" per step but it means a whole bag of 80,000 seeds over 80 acres and one bag is $175.
I was worried about closing the seed trench but if it rains for two weeks after planting that is not as important as getting the seed in too deep.
It is better to plant for other people and let them take the risk, than plant your own corn. (I think)
Have a nice rainy day! I'm going to go grind pig feed-whoop! whoop!