Working for chicken feed and planting radish

I have created another semi-failed business for myself! This would be good if it was winter, but making feed when it is over 70 degrees out is not that much fun. 

Earlier in the week I got calls from my two (2) steady pig feed customers. They were running low!

I have been on a 150 acre planting job so have not really been thinking about pig feed.

I want to get all the 1000lb bags out of my hay shed and get ready for hay. 

Thursday and Friday I made pig feed. My method is not the best for safety but it is moderately effective. 

I have a big bin and set it on a homemade scale. Then I dump large bags into the bin and recored the weight. I put the info in a spread sheet and it calculates the percent protein. (I don't pay attention to other important values because no one I sell to cares.)

It is essentially 1/3 peas, 1/3 oats, 1/3 barley. Then I add Canola or Flax or Clover seed, or more peas to reach 16 percent protein.

Then I suspend the bin over the New Holland 358 mixer grinder and let er rip. I have to be careful not to add more than 5,000lbs as the mixer over flows.

The problem was that I put in too much oats and it all would not fit. So I had to unload a ton and then balance the mix for what fit in the mixer. I ended up with over 8,000lbs of material. This is fine as it all fits in a bin and I won't have to make more feed this summer.

Or so I thought...

The next step was to make pellets for my second customer and also for Chicken feed sales. Pig feed and chicken feed are the same. However, the chicken feed needs to be pelletized so it is not dusty and the chickens utilize it better. Plus, pellets are an excellent way of getting rid of Buckwheat which nothing will eat if it is not mixed with something. Rats don't even like buckwheat seed. 

It took me five hours to do 2000lbs of pellets. There were distractions.

One of my customers got lost. I had to go find her. It would seem that her GPS took the setting, "Avoid Busy Roads," quite literally and sent her on gravel roads for 60 miles. This is pretty hard to do on the 99W corridor coming from the Portland metro area. But it can be done.

I set up my bagging system as customer really liked my 80lb hand tied bags. I decided to make extra and sell chicken feed so I fed the pellet mill by five gallon bucket. This lets me throw in sunflower seeds which the chickens love.

Unfortunately, I did not look at my messages until I had bagged up 1000lbs and discovered I had made 95lb bags instead of 80lb bags.

My Customer decided on 40lb bags and she wanted twenty. Fortunately, I had made 1200lbs of bulk pellets already. So I bagged up the smaller bags. I got 23 bags out of 1200lbs. This meant they were 50lbs!

In the mean time I got a new customer. A lady drove two hours for my delicious oat/alfalfa pellets. 

Her and her husband turned out to be very nice country folk type people and we had a great chat. I gave them some CBD pellets to try with their nervous horses and they bought 1000lbs of bulk pellets and decided to try 150lbs of pig/chicken/goat feed.

I can't believe no one thinks my pigfeed label is funny! I think it is a hoot! Of course I do have a recording somewhere of HR telling me that people do NOT think I am funny. I really am a meanie.

Things a GPS does not steer you around!

Earlier in the week I planted 100 acres of hillside ground to tillage radish. The water table was so close to the surface when I went back the next day  the no-till openers and maker slots were running water.

You really can't tell how steep the hillside was from this video. Actually, I have planted worse. I had a nice view. I just put it in fourth gear and shifted the three-speed. The biggest problem is that my good GPS antenna died and I had to go back to the old Raven 210 that I only use for speed. I like to use the GPS with the mechanical markers to keep me straight. The 210 would drift from one end of the field to the other on the hillsides but was adequate on level ground.

In other news...

My former employer has a new president and a new budget. In 10 years they have not been able to balance a budget. They are running a deficit of 4 million a year.

They have sold off ground, become a University, rebranded the place, built a new science center, offered generous retirements to get people to quit, and raised tuition and added an apology for stealing land from the Indians 100 years ago to every piece of University correspondence. 

No wait, they have done more... They have added pet friendly dorms and also managed to recruit a number of Trans students and Furries. 

There is now another round of voluntary separations going on. This time they are offering to continue the free tuition for students who parents will retire.

This is of course a genius plan which has proved so successful in the demise of many businesses that have lost touch with their customer base and are going broke.

What I find especial hilarious is that these are the people who HATE Donald Trump but yet their only solution, aside from virtue signaling their way to success, is to use the Trumpain business model of getting rid of the best employees and selling off assets.

Apparently, it is hard to get students to spend $50,000 on a liberal arts education at a third tier University when you can go to a tradeschool/community college/ state school for practically free and even possibly have actual JOB PLACEMENT.

It is really kind of sad as there are so many local opportunities for this University and yet it continues to be somewhat of a local joke. 

If I had $120,000 (average four year tuition) for every person who has said to me, "I can't believe you lasted 9 years with those freaks," I could in fact, balance their budget.

I suppose no one from Linfield secretly follows my blog anymore, but if they did they wouldn't have a clue.

Yeah, be more Trans friendly, that will bring in the local students! Raise tuition! Great idea! Raise tuition and include $300 per book class materials in tuition so you can raise your student debt even higher! That is a great plan taking the pain out of raping students with over priced text books!

Encourage all the long term employees to retire, cut class options and departments in stead of recruiting, rename a street after a local Indian tribe!

Also, two words... MORE FURRIES!

 

Planting follies, Nice weather, liberal idiots plague my facebook page

And the days go by...

Will it ever rain again? 

We have had the most dry April on record. The river is still high. The fields are dry where they are tiled but wet spots are bottomless. 

The river is running fast and fairly clear. I moved a log off the trail so I can find my happy spot.

I feel that more regulations and increased taxes is the answer to all of our weather issues.

Speaking of idiots, I have been on FaceBook at lot as I am selling feed through marketplace. Suddenly, all the usual liberal tools have the same activist post comparing buying a gun to voting. I am old school and I really wish they would pay homage to the old commie bastards by working in "running dogs of capitalist imperialism," but we must make way for new catch phrases as it is the 21st century and we are working on the great reset. 

I copied these posts of the idiotic Threads app. Somehow I got this installed so it shows up on my FaceBook and Instagram pages. It is an app for idiots to post stupidity. (Sort of like the way FaceBook is for old people)

I have a friend that I worked at the college with. He is very sincere about everything and he is a pastor. I thought he was somewhat of a free thinker, especially after the idiots at the college forced him to get multiple vax shots which nearly killed him twice. Either the third shot gave him mental issues (as it is known to do,) or this torture has given him a "thank you may I have another," complex and he is convinced that the USA is now Nazi Germany. Or what ever the puppet masters post on his morning news feed. I did not post his reworking of the above posts. I just thought I would post his source material.

At least there is pushback. People are tired of hearing about The Great Gun Show loophole myth, the myth of walking into a gun shop IN EVERY STATE and coming out with a gun, is not the reality for most of us. Although, I am not in favor of the Federal Gubment taking over regulations which have traditionally been left up to individual states. I am extremely uncomfortable with the Real ID which is just a step towards the infamous implanted chip. I am very angry with Republicans for supporting the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, and I see the certainty of DOGE becoming the next vehicle used by Big Gubment to restrict our freedom and consolidate power.

I also get a good laugh out of my neighbor who advocates for farmers on her page. But her identity is as a liberal. So people are forever getting on her about the use of glyphosate or her disagreement over Oregon trying to regulate every aspect of farming.  

She is also convinced that Trump is going to send every person of color or odd sexual orientation to a concentration camp so she had to attend two protests at the Capital yesterday. Sort of opposing sides but she feels this means she is open minded.

I must say that at present I am greatly enjoying Trump upsetting the Apple Cart.  I don't have stocks. I essentially do not have retirement. I will have to work every day until I die. I don't like the gubment, it takes my money and restricts everything I want to do. I hate the educational establishment, they fired me and by working for them I lost my daughter. I enjoy seeing them all go broke. If you work for the machine you are the machine, until it turns on you, and then you just need to shut up and take one for the team.

Will it hurt me? Sure, I sell hay to these people. I sell grass seed for their lawns. I buy cheap crap from China. But, if I am going down, I take a lot of pleasure in seeing people who have more than I, losing more than I.

The scary part of this is that I am not alone.

In other news...

I got a 150 acre planting job. This is a Godsend! Of course things went wrong. 

The first problem was with the liquid fertilizer on the grain drill. 

I am planting tillage radish which will be grown for seed. I need to plant at 8lbs per acre on 15" rows. The drill has 24 rows at 7.5" spacing. So I need to plug the seed and fertilizer on every other row.

I have John Guest connector 1/4" valves on each row to turn off the fertilizer and I have a vintage Blumhardt spray boom so of course it is weird. 

After finding half of the valves broke when I turned them off, I cut the hoses on one side and redid the plumbing. The other side was ok. I don't know why.

But then I couldn't get flow. The boom was plugged with black goey stringly stuff. I removed the filter. It was full of feathers. I looked in the tank. A bird had somehow got into the fertilizer system. It was a mess.

However, I did get to the field. Only to find out that now my GPS doesn't work. This is a problem because I have to off set the drill to get correct row spacing. You see there is an even number of openers. Row 24 plants and row 1 is turned off. This is fine going in circles but back and forth planting results in overlap one direction and a double row skip going the other.

I use the program FarmerGPS which runs on a tablet PC. I can program the offset one side or the other and also take info from my automatic rate controller. However, I bought the program over a decade ago and support is essentially nonexistent. I found I needed to change my antenna as the Novatel Smart 6 doesn't handle 7" accuracy like the newer SmartAg versions. (I wish I could find a Novatel SmartAg with Bluetooth AND tilt compensation for a decent price.)

There were difficulties with the switch.

While waiting for the computer I amused myself by looking at fence row junk.

Once I solved the computer issues things went great for several hours. And then the low seed alarm went off. I got out to look and discovered I broke off a opener. I have no idea how this happened. The clamp broke and the clamp was new last summer. Chinese crap strikes again. I had spare parts and tools and I was back in business quite soon.

Spring may be here on the farm and I am spraying with the Gator

I have been listening to the "Sand Pebbles," while farming.  The book has really given me pause for thought. It is a story about a group of US Sailors on a riverboat in China at the time of the revolution.

I have a theory that popular fiction tells a more honest story about a time in culture than any text book ever will.  The novel is unabashedly biased. The author is playing off popular beliefs or activities of the time to build the dramatic effect. I feel this is most true for adventure stories or detective novels.

The actions of the Chinese in rebelling against the colonial powers and the effectiveness of the bolshevik influence are pretty interesting in when you look at the political climate today.

It is pretty hilarious to see soccer moms who have never had a thought about trade wars or tariffs suddenly posting on facebook and protesting in the streets against Trump. Or claiming to understand Fascism and causes for the Second World War when back in college they were not especially deep.

I am not real confident that Tariffs are the answer to financial wreck our past politicians (supported by the idiots who voted for them) have gotten us into. However, there are limited ways to control the deficit and printing lots of money to devalue the currency lower the value of the debt was not real helpful.

I suspect raising money though tariffs vs raising taxes may have advantages. Raising taxes must become counterproductive at some point. It is driving certain groups into a barter economy. Having lower taxes for corporations seems like it could attract them to the US or at least keep the businesses here.

Many people in the agricultural sector have a wait and see attitude, but I am no super optimistic. I wish Trump would keep a close eye on which people are getting deported as if it were not for the hispanics who came here to get away from gangs, he may not have been elected. I get a little tired of all the law and order Republicans who might be getting a little perspective when the nutcase liberals take over next election.

Speaking of nutcase liberals...

My former employer cannot boost enrollment and so is cutting staff and programs. Apparently while getting rid of anyone who knows anything and then virtue-signaling your way to success seems like a great idea to a certain class of people, it may not always work. 

I was talking to a friend whose daughter attends and he was irritated with the apology for stolen land tagline on every piece of University correspondence. 

"How did you last for ten years at that place, Man we were starting to worry about you," is a comment I get frequently.

I went to lunch with a work friend and then helped him remove a rusted bolt from a pump in one of the mechanical rooms. I mostly just encouraged him to get out the welder and apply heat. I also pounded on stuff. It was a success. His supervisor gave me the most excellent coffee and a fine time was had by all.

I really liked the people I worked with. It was nice to be part of the group again. The people who actually get things done. I didn't hang out with the paper pushers...

We welded a washer and nut onto the broken bolt. My friend had broken the easy-out off in the bolt. He was able to weld the nut onto the easy-out and unthread the easy-out. Then he drilled and tapped the old bolt out. It was hard work all the way.

I have been spraying with the gator-sprayer. I had to do 20 acres with 15ft booms. I have foam makers but it is hard to see the foam when you are low to the ground and in tall barley stubble. I need a new cord to go from the Novatel antenna to my computer as the com-port wires are damaged at the special connector. Then I remembered that the Smart-Ag has bluetooth. So I was actually able to use FarmerGPS for guidance along with the foam. This made things much better.

I sent my old friend from work a picture of my sprayer set up as his department was instrumental in me getting the gator when it was scrapped. He did not think my sprayer setup was going to inspire a lot of confidence in the quality of my equipment. Apparently, it is old.

My previous century farming setup. Which worked amazingly well.

Later I no-tilled peas. This was another long story. But it all ended well.

Life on the farm, pellets, failure, speculation that we no longer exist, whatever

 I am definitely going with the theory that the world ended in December of 2012. We don't actually exist but our minds couldn't accept that fact as our concept of existence is based on the relationship of consciousness vs nonconsciousness.  With out that conflict, we don't know if we exist or no. In fact probably all the real Christians were raptured and us chronic procrastinators, trash talkers, inappropriate, losers are all left behind.

However, without the rules of the Universe holding everything together, or "The Hand of God," random and crazy things happen. There is no longer order.  It it is all falling apart. 

Or not.

My wife finally got her knee replaced. She set it up in advance, she applied for medial leave, (which the State of Oregon has screwed up-because that is what the State of Oregon does) and was going to go to work Monday. However, work is slow and so she is being laid off until it picks back up.

I suspect this will result in even more paper work and confusion and possibly problems for her employer and us. You can't collect unemployment and state paid for medical leave at the same time. Having the medical leave paperwork filed and then being laid off before getting an official medical release to return to work will undoubtedly confuse the system.

In other randomness, the local weather people were convinced we were going to have wild thunderstorms, hail, possible tornado. My former supervisor texted me to make sure I stayed safe. I was running this large forklift. (see below) There was no thunderstorm, hail, 60 mph winds, but it did rain for a couple days.

I am not sure that alarmist predictions by the US Weather Service is going to say them from the crazy cost cutters. I have gone so far as to disable the weather alarms I used to get as not a single one of them was accurate. 

I am looking for the thunder clouds which didn't appear. It was a dramatic sky. No hail. Just rain showers.

My nephew adapted a junk loader to this junk tractor. I think it actually may work. I suspect the key to happiness is just lowering your standards for success.

I have been making feed pellets. This is 1/3 alfalfa hay and 2/3 oat seed. I sold like five tons and now I can't even give them away. I actually have progressed to where I am making a decent pellet. I got a tip on adding apple juice at the roller instead of just mixing molasses into the mixer grinder. The sugar liquid at roller makes more friction and thus a better pellet.

My neighbors are convinced I have a genius plan have given me lots of encouragement. However I am going broke at it,

I even resorted to filling bags. I was going to buy a sewing machine and do 40lb poly bags but decided to try burlap first. They do look rustic as heck but weigh 70lbs. 

The bag with the double xx has a little hemp bud in it. My neighbor's goats have been getting out so we decided to get them stoned for a couple days and see if it helped. No word yet.

One of my neighbors has a business of selling plastic totes. Sometimes they have material left in them and he has to pay to dispose of the material. I am seriously thinking of dumping this in my molasses tank.

I have been attempting to spray. This whole gator sprayer was a dumb idea. Now my GPS cable has failed. My computer died. Farmer GPS won't return my calls. Probably because Johannes H. is worried Trump will invade Stoney Plain, Alberta.

I need this weird Tyco connector. It is for a Novatel Smart 6L antenna. This should be the same as maybe an Ag Leader but I haven't found anything. Doesn't really matter if FarmerGPS only will run in trial mode.

My neighbor hit the train last week. 

He spent the night in the hospital and was back to work the next day. He has a neck brace. Making jokes about not completely swallowing his Viagra Pill and getting a stiff neck causes him to laugh which then affects his neck which makes him laugh more. This never gets old. I suspect this guy is the only person who has hit a train because he had Sandi Patty turned up too loud on the tractor radio.

It is now time for me to build up the fire and get my wife another ice pack and a hit of OXY. Hope all three of my loyal readers have a nice day.

I don't know how to make pellets

Somedays are better than others.

I have a fellow who wants five ton of oat grain/alfalfa hay pellets. Nothing will work...

First off a chain broke on the mixer grinder. Fortunately I have a forklift which will lift the full mixer/grinder off the ground so I could get to the chain.

Now the pellets won't stay together. If I switch to the 4mm die I drop from 800lbs an hour to 500lbs an hour and I can't just wander off and leave the mixer running.

If I run the pellets through a second time they look good. That is not real cost effective. I don't know how to add heat. I did add molasses but that just made the material less easy to flow out of the bag I am using to fill pellet mill.

I need a bin to feed the mill and a cooler to cool the pellets and more production.

Or I should quit.

Quitting might be a better plan.

A Snow day and pellet making

We have had several days of snow and freezing rain. This is an exercise in frustration. The combo of snow and freezing rain essential shuts the area down for the day. 

Hardy midwesterners laugh at us until they attempt to drive and pile up in a ditch. Driving on wet ice is not easy and it is better to just stay home for the day.

My wife threatened to keep me inside due to last year's misadventure. But I opined that I certainly was not about to do it again.

The grass was covered with snow so I attempted to pull my daughter on her snowboard. This was a failure as any attempt to turn cause the snowboard to dig into the mud under the snow and down she went. We did try the gravel farm road with more success, until I pulled her through a snow covered mud puddle. It was all somewhat of a disappointment.

I have been making an oat grain/alfalfa hay pellet mix. Oats are at a pathetically now price right now, if they are selling at all. So I have been mixing a 1600lb bag of oats with 800 pounds of alfalfa. It is making a crumbly pellet and I can only get 600lbs an hour. So I am selling a pellet that costs $.26 for $.23 and making up the loss with volume. 

If I buy this pellet mill for $10,000 I can cut my cost from $.15 per lb to $.07 per lb for pelletizing. However that would cost $10,000. I am not a good businessman.

As soon as the snow and rain started I got commentary from my old job. Despite many emergency warnings, the college did not start apply ice melt until it started snowing and then it didn't seem to be working. I got a laugh out of that one. I kind of don't care. But, I could imagine the discussions.

I am somewhat sad to have wasted eight years of my life at the school. I appreciate getting the retirement but I feel my daughter suffered from me not working with her summers. If I was going to get an off the farm job I should have gotten a job that paid the most I could make. But, it is what it is...

Speaking of depression, I have been enjoying the comments I have been reading from people who pretend to be concerned that Trump voters are having second thoughts. 

There is a dedicated group of farmers that attend all the farm meetings and went to Oregon State and participate in all the programs and testify at the legislature and influence policy. They are great people.

Then there is the rest of us. We try to avoid involvement with gubment at all costs. Many of us have observed the change in NRCS and other farm agencies from being a "helper group," to being an enforcement group. We don't get subsidies and we avoid the small farmer workshops and farmer's markets and we just muck about selling to Mexicans on Facebook marketplace and we are happier for it. 

The fewer granola ladies in natural wool sweaters asking if my alfalfa is GMO (I lie) the better. They are going to bitch about something anyway. 

Trump is firing people left and right and it is cutting the ranks of bureaucrats and scientists alike. I am sure it will lead to problems down the road. But, to quote the Australian emigre who bought hay from me yesterday and might buy MuddyValley's tractor and disk tomorrow, "Yeah, me may be screwed, but the alternative was a feckin eejit." (Note, I looked spelling on feckin eejit and the web says that is an Irish idiom. So maybe I didn't hear correctly. However, I took it to mean that he felt the last administration and "Harris for President," was pretty much Looney Tunes)

In other commentary I got pretty much the same response. My friend Jose was drinking coffee with us the other morning and was asking about what I thought about Trump.

He pointed out that many of his friends and relatives voted for Trump to "keep the bad peoples out." Jose and many other Mexican people came across the border two reasons, economic opportunity here and crime at home. The reason they came across illegally was the United State's utter failure to manage planned immigration and work visas. They came here illegally and then worked hard to get citizenship. They don't want criminals, gangs, child molesters, Venezuelans, Cannibals, or any other undesirable people following them here. Many would (and do) maintain property in Mexico and would be happy to come to the US and work, and then return home again. 

It is pretty simple and I know I am right. I have heard people try to explain this to Lars Larson, I have tried to explain this to the Liberal idiots at Linfield and they all go off on stupid tangents. Lars whines about them breaking the law, the Liberals talk exploitation. Thing is, none of these people actually have coffee or eat lunch or do hard work with anyone who is outside their little world. 

I am pretty sure the Republicans will totally screw up the immigration issue and completely lose the hispanic/latin/Mexican vote which comes from people who I feel I have a lot more in common with than many of the douche cleverer-than-you-oh-you-are-an-oppressor-this-is-stolen-land idiots that run this state.

Making feed in the snow. The snow blew in on everything. I need a better building!

Rosco was happy. Of course Rosco is always happy if there is a chance to run.

The Pellet making process

Rosco and the snow

Planting and losing things

A year ago I broke my hip. 

I slipped on ice in my driveway and fell hard.

It is amazing how much difference a year can make in your life. I was in pretty good shape up till last January. 

I am not complaining about my recovery. I got better really fast. Up to a point. Now I just seem to be sore all the time. Maybe I should start doing exercise on purpose instead of by accident.

I find it hard to stay positive.

We have had a long run of cold weather with a fair amount of sunshine. I took the opportunity to replant a small field of rye.

I no-tilled the rye in October at 120lbs per acre. The rye sprouted and looked like a really good stand. Then it started to disappear from the center of the field outwards. It is only a six acre patch. 

I applied slugbait two times and found dead slugs. But the damage seems to be already done. So I replanted.

The plan was to plant at night when the ground was frozen as when the sun comes out the ground gets sticky. This did not work.

When I went to get my GPS computer, the box was empty. I have no idea where I put it. My idea was to use last years field record to find and plant the field in the dark. So I got up early with the intent of planting at daybreak. Of course things went wrong. It takes as long to set up a 5 acre field as it does to set up for 100 acres. 

It was a beautiful day for planting!

No-tilling without GPS in daylight is not a big deal. It would have been nice to lay out the field with the computer as I wanted to go at an angle to my last planting.  But it all worked out fine in the end. Other than the field being 6.5 acres instead of five and I ran out of seed with 1/2 a pass left.

I imagine the computer will turn up somewhere. My daughter thinks she saw it in my pickup. My helper thinks he saw it on the bench in the shop. My wife says I left it on the kitchen table for a long time. I thought it was in my pickup. Who knows... Unfortunately FarmerGPS is not responding to my repeated emails requesting a new activation code for a different computer. Of course I did buy the program 15 years ago.

I was really hoping that the nice weather would generate some no-till planting jobs but it could be that my no-till planting business is over. Different times and different farmers.

I did find a set of keys that has been missing for several years. It was under the seat of the pickup!

In an other direction... I see that there is now a big push to promote stories of disappointed Trump voters. I was sent a video in which an angry guy was talking about farmers (Trump voters) worried that their tomatoes will rot in the field because they can't find cheap undocumented labor to pick them. 

That seems to be a stretch. My experience with Occupational Health and Safety has pretty much frightened me enough to doubt there are farmers making a serious practice of hiring undocumented workers. Also, Trump was pretty clear that his first goal was to shut down the border and ship back the illegals. So if you were depending on exploiting illegal labor for poor wages and living conditions and you voted for Trump I would have to laugh at you.

I feel much of the liberal mind set on farm labor comes from reading "Grapes of Wrath," in eighth grade.

But what do I know?