Off to Italy! This is going to be the best adventure of my life and I will be inspired for at least the next decade!

 I leave for New York City tomorrow morning.

Apparently, if you visit people in New York they don't pick you up a the airport because of traffic. So I am taking the AirTrain to Jamaica Station, then transferring to the E line towards Manhattan then the G line to Brooklyn. 

Me, being a regular city traveler, am absolutely not intimidated by wandering around NYC by subway. It will be fun! I was going to ask if it was the Last Exit To Brooklyn but wasn't feeling that chipper... 

My luck I will take Last Exit to Babylon and will be stuck in parallel timeline, which could be better or worse than my current one... This is what I am actually hoping for... 

For the past four months my friend has been telling me to relax, taking a month off won't make any difference, the work will still be there. You just need a reset. I have heard that from several people who are trying to be supportive.

Yes, the work will still be there. 

And Of course, when I plan something, things go sideways.

I had planned to have the last cutting of Alfalfa finished today. But, we got rain... We just found out our shed loan went through and the builder is coming mid September...It rained and I didn't finish planting Timothy, or get the annual ryegrass ground ready, other than 2x with disk.

So what I have left for my nephew has to do by himself when I am gone. 

20 acres of Alfalfa and 20 acres of Teff/Alfalfa hay, 200 acres of annual ryegrass ground to finish (one pass with vibrashank and probably 3 trips with harrow and roller-(fighting constant plug ups from residue.) Managing cleanup to build shed extension, building side racks for his truck to haul silage, plant 10 acres of timothy, deliver hay, haul silage...

When I get back, I can plant the annual, but I also need to make about ten ton of pellets, and do 150 acres of custom planting in November, plus another 100 acres of our own. And I promised my wife I would put new skirting around the house at least a year ago.

Then there are the dead tractors... 2-135 has no hydraulics again, plus a head gasket failing, three speed slipping in direct, oil leak from steering, 2-105 has no transmission lube pressure and I think it fried the PTO during startup because I forgot to put grease on the thrust bearing which became a serious problem with no transmission oil pressure. 1355 needs brakes, Stacker needs brakes, Both 2-155s are leaking oil around the head gaskets, as all three have about the same hours on remanufactured Hercules engines.

That is just a list off things to do right off the top of my head... 

Maybe I just need to start smoking Chronic...

I bet I will comeback from Italy completely happy and refreshed. I will be super enthusiastic and full of great stories and be really encouraged and inspired by the Yale graduates I will get to hang out with. This will be a new and better version of me. No longer will it be the Lazy Farmer, I will be the Inspired Farmer! This blog will rival Zig Zigler in inspirational material! I will be THE motivational blogger!

 

This is a representative image of my past summer and past life. After this trip things like this won't happen because I will have had an emotional reset and all will be right due to sheer positive energy!

I tried a dress rehearsal. I did 1000 feet up and 1000 feet down in 3 miles in the rain. It was sort of like groundskeeping only with no leaf blower and weird synthetic fabrics. I haven't tried the hiking poles yet. Feet still hurt. Mostly the foot I ran through the stacker cross conveyor chain 30 years ago.

Not sure about the man purse. Sort of uncomfortable.

I worry that the attractive ladies who post videos of hiking the Dolomites will lust after me due to my amazing middle aged physique. I wonder if there will be lots of Italian ladies splitting firewood while wearing improper safety equipment. I will take picture if I see them.  Also, attractive Italian ladies making hay on steep hillsides! I am pretty sure that will be my view on this trip. Also, cows. Cows are nice.

Wife says I can't wear my favorite hat...

 

Dolomites itinerary and what i should have done

I am leaving for an epic adventure Monday. 

Yesterday I got another detailed group email from my friend filled with helpful instructions on bus routes and antifungal cream suggestions. Ironically, I was about to reply to a previous group message by noting I had been successful in his request for Amish anti-hemorrhoid cream as a joke, but now I think it would be considered helpful advice. I may just have to bring a small pot. (In a TSA safe amount, of course)

In reality I should have agreed to the trip a year ago and spent the winter researching fun options instead of ignoring it until the last minute and then becoming beset with self-doubt and thinking how Rick Steves would be so disappointed in me and agreeing to go at the last minute...

This is not my thing.

Then... In a moment of frustration I asked CoPilot AI if there were scooter rentals to I wouldn't have to walk the whole freaking way to Venice. 

So I am going to one of the TOP motorcycle riding spots in the world and guess what? I am ducking walking.

I swear this is the story of my life. I almost win the lottery but through some sideways luck I don't quite pull it off.

My wife says it would be incredibly rude to ditch my fellow hikers and join a motorcycle tour. I could actually test drive a new BMW dual sport in the Mountains! It also would cost me quite a bit of money that I do not have at this point in the year. (and won't have if I don't make about ten ton of feed in the next two days, in the rain, which I can't do, so no I can't afford to drop four grand on a motorcycle tour) 

If I could think clearly I may be able to do it still. However my lack of thought clarity makes it hard. I don't have time to enlist daughter or nephew, and wife won't help me think on this issue. Maybe I could make a list. I never thought the final stages of turning into a bug would be this difficult.

Now I must go move stuff around in the rain and clean up messes made this summer.

My Weed and Feed customer whose name I thought was Radiant Pony until she Venmoed me yesterday, and who used to be head of grounds at Linfield College, has been telling me to put my tools away. I told her I would gift her the rest of the pallet if she would organize my shop and put my tools away. She took one look and left, laughing... I feel this might be a meaningful of my near total organizational collapse...

See my discussion with CoPilot below... 

 

Walking and blogging with iPhone

This morning,

I walked 2.5 miles with 20lb pack. Yesterday I did 3 miles and 20 step ups per leg. I took Tuesday off.

I am not ready for 4 miles and 4000 foot changes in elevation.

So.. I got to say there are ideas that are really great sounding ideas and they should stay ideas..

Like becoming independently wealthy with a Chinese pellet mill and a bin full of oats…

(I did sell two ton yesterday)

-blogging with the iPhone-

The few is so heavy that my feet are wet by the time I get back. Going to be difficult to make hay.

Mobile Blogging?

 I have been busy. 

I missed a couple weeks. People have been asking for The Daily Strumpet news letter. This is not really happening. For some readers people that read The Daily Strumpet (Americas favorite irregular newsletter) never transitioned to The Lazy Farmer.

Last week My brother and family were gone to a funeral and I attempted irrigation. I think it would suffice to say that things went wrong.  

I am experimenting with blogging from phone in preparation for upcoming trip. 

My butt goes numb before I can post.

I did flush earlier so smell is not an issue…

Barely any Barley this year. Should have planted more

Smoke in the hay field and an unedited post that rambles about nothing important

I skipped my walk this morning. I kind of feel like crap. My wife thinks it is the smoke. I think it is the sheer volume of things that must be done before September.

The TV says this area currently has the worst air quality in the world. I can smell burning wood all the time. It does not smell like Oregon Powerland, it smells like the baler or stacker is catching on fire. I have had enough fires in my life that I am always just a little on edge.

I have been listening to eatonrapidsjoe's prepandemic book on audible which got me thinking about COVID and working at Linfield University.

During the summer of COVID we had our first big wildfire season. I had to wear a cloth mask while mowing because Linfield was run by idiots. Ten acres and I had to wear a cloth mask. I suggested an N95 which would give actual protections. However, that idea was rejected because the idiots interpreted the CDC call to conserve N95's as a prohibition on N95s.

At the end of the day my cloth mask would be black from smoke. The smoke was so bad that visibility was limited to like one mile. I was told I could double up my cloth masks.

So I found another department head to get me a supply of N95's. It was explained that here was no real safety protocol written for heavy wildfire smoke so no PPE was required and by extension of this, no PPE issued.

The NEXT summer we had training on working on days with heavy smoke from wildfires and we were issued N95 masks when there was a slight haze.

These are the people who train your children...

I need to pull the air filters today and see how black they are

Just counted stacks and I am one block short of a full load. I have heard this before...

 What really irritates me in this smoke is the realization that these fires are the fault of government mismanagement. For the last 40 years I have heard that with the way forests are being managed there were going to be major wildfires. For the last 40 years every timber sale even imagined has been fought in the courts by the crazies. For the last 40 years they have all blathered on about roadless areas and natural cycles and the benefits of wild fire, but the only management done was through regulation and oppression of private landowners.

To add insult to injury, I don't think government run fire services can actually put out fires. I have observed local incidents where not only was the combine lost, the field lost, but there was real danger of houses being lost. All because they set their hoses to stream and not fan. 

I have heard tales from people hauling water and doing contract work for the Forest Service of Fire Bosses shutting down at night and the fire taking off again, of purposely letting the fire go to keep the money and management perks going, of just plain leadership stupidity where people die or get injured.

You always hear the prepper types talking about when society breaks down you will have to fight hordes of city zombies coming after your stuff. This will never happen. The city zombies never get further than city transit. It is the Anthony Fauci types and their accompanying police forces you are going to have to worry about.

They force you to evacuate, burn down your house, make it impossible to rebuild, impose regulation upon regulation, and then raise your taxes.

Its a brave new world... 

And I got to get this pathetic alfalfa harvest over with!

Buy yourself or everyone in your family a sketchbook. 

This is a shameless promotion of my daughter's sketchbook sales attempt

 

We bale straw, it rains, daughter has an Etsy Store where you can buy really nice sketchbooks and journals

My daughter came home to help bale straw. It was just a weekend thing. It was nice.

 

We baled a semi load of straw. Eight blocks at 56 bales per block. We raked alfalfa. We raked more straw. Then it rained.

 She has an Etsy Store where she sells hand made sketch books. Makes the paper covers by hand. Stitches them together by hand. They are made from good quality paper. You can get a little charm to go with them I think. I think everyone should request a Minneapolis-Moline tractor charm. I don't know how to promote Etsy stores. I suspect my readership is not really a market for sketchbooks but you never know...

Click Here for the store 

 

 

 

 

 

Life Work and Balance is BS when you got stuff to do...

  

It is 8 a.m. and I am sitting in my chair trying to come up with a plan for today. I cut hay yesterday. I walked three miles and make five trips up and down the hill behind the house. 

I can't be gone for most of September. It is insane...

Looking at the old crap we farm with is depressing. When I was my nephew's age in 1987 we were stilling farming with UniCombines and a Minneapolis-Moline M670 and G706. We still have the the tractors and the combines we have now are older than the Uni's were back in 1989.

I gotta get on it. Have feed to sell. More hay to cut. A PTO to rebuild. Straw to rake. Baler to hook up. Ground to work. Timothy to plant.  Sitting in my chair starting at blogs is not going to get the work done..

Nephew is an over achiever. He went from crane truck (RIP crane) to 20ft flatbed with hoist in like two weeks. This is the first load of hay being hauled with his truck. Our farm is the last stop in life for Ford Louisville trucks.