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Tuesday, May 20, 2014

More silage

I hate these Reader's Digest Condensed versions of spring. All the adventure in 20 pages.
I've been remiss on my repairs and so a lot of things are not ready to go. I kept thinking I'd hire someone or take the stacker somewhere to get the brakes repaired, but I didn't.
The weather has gone from rain to sun in a day and the worked ground is now round rock-like clods on top and mud underneath.
We were faced with the decision to work the ground to kill the weeds and risk getting it rained on and packed down or dealing with two-foot-tall annual ryegrass to work under. Now the ground is sealed up and since the water table is less than 18 inches below the surface, I think the strip-tiller will bring up mud.
I have traditionally been the silage chopper operator so it is up to my brother to make the decision on working the ground for corn. I suppose we should have all worked all night like the real farmers do...
Yesterday I planted 12 acres of barley for my neighbor and 13 acres of oats for us. This was a lot of replanting, cleaning out the drill, and talking. But it needed to be done.
Today we are back to silage chopping.
Last Saturday we finished our clover field by noon. At around 3 p.m. I got  a call from the fellow that lives on the gravel road that leads to the dairy. He was upset by the speed of the trucks going by his house.
I do find it sort of entertaining that people complain about the speed of a 1971 International tandem and a 1976 Chevy tandem. The drivers also complain about the speed, or shall we say, Lack of speed...
I've told the drivers to take it easy on the gravel, especially past Jose's house, the house of the fellow who owns the clover fields, and the fellow who says he works at home for an internet company but who I think actually spend his time in that windowless "office" looking at porn and playing with starwars toys.
But I digress,
The new neighbor works in the wine industry. He is quite proud of being in the wine industry and thinks this somehow makes him part of the local farming community.
He came over to introduce himself and to buy hay this fall. He noted that he was in the wine industry. As a result I added twenty percent to the price of the hay.
We did have a nice chat. I asked him if he realized that every time a truck went down the gravel road the wind would blow dust into his house. He did not see that as a potential problem.
He was wearing short pants and Romeo slippers with no socks.
If found that somewhat amusing.
Eventually I listened to the message he left me. He thought the trucks were going too fast, too much dust, AND he was afraid they would hit his dog.
I found the message more amusing than anything else. I live 50 feet from a road that has continual truck traffic. I figure that if we have a dog dumb enough to get hit by a truck then we might as well get it over with sooner than later.
It is good to have another reminder of the difference between us and THEM.
I think it is my responsibility to keep my dog out of the road, they think it is the truck driver's responsibility NOT to hit their stupid dog standing in the middle of the road.
I feel sort of bad for them. They bought a house which is down wind from a gravel road. Every afternoon at 4 p.m. we get quite the sea breeze. The dust is very bad.
The must have bought the house on a rainy day.

6 comments:

  1. I can agree. Especially the part about the 71 International not being very fast. http://youtu.be/6wxCw5M--9E

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  2. maybe you can give him my blog post about cit-idiots who move to the country and let their damn dogs run loose. he might need different shoes to put in that fence tho. fencing solves a lot of problems but not the dust in the house. good luck with that one.

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  3. I didn't say anything to the truck drivers. I don't really care that much. Here is the question... I wait another ten minutes in the field for a truck and I have people in short pants who don't like me, or I chop silage...

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  4. is it even your road? you gotta watch them short pants people. my bad neighbors dont even have short pants and they dont like me at all. i'm ok with that. *shrugs*

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  5. The fastest I ever got out the old loadstars was 65 mph going downhill.

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  6. If the dog chases cars, and the cars slow down, the dog might catch them, which will not turn out well for the dog.

    As for the dust, my grandparents lived on a gravel road near a gravel pit. When those gravel trucks were rolling by, my grandma had to dust every afternoon.

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