Orin saves the Day! Whoop! Whoop!

The venerable old Massey 750 broke down Saturday. The water pump failed. The combine has been wanting to overheat for most of the season and it has been one thing after another. Small leaks in hoses, the rotating screen plugged up with fine dust, not to mention the A/C problems.
We had ten acres of Meadow Foxtail to combine and it is supposed to rain Monday. The Foxtail is a very very light seed and requires a very slow speed. We put cardboard over the intake on the wind on the combine so it doesn't blow the seed out the back.
We thought we had a spare water pump but it was of a different style. The Perkins engines change water pump styles with every application and they do not interchange. Then I got the bright idea of Texting fellow farmer Orin (who is not a lazy farmer) and it so happened that not only did he have a water pump but his father was driving to a family reunion in my very city. So, we had a new water pump within the hour and were up and running before long.
It was a relief to find out Orin was actually a real person, actually I did meet him last year at the ag show. Who knows with the internet. He could have been a lady in New York City pretending to be a farmer. You know that makes no sense. I've got nothing funny to say this morning...
Anyway, we got the combine running, but it still wants to overheat and now the water temp gauge failed and the sensor that tells you if the return concave thingy is working flew apart and then the wind started blowing so hard we wouldn't unload the combine, or fill the tank above half full, so we quit and put trucks in the barn.
Such is life.
I should be in Church right now so probably next week will be a mess also.
Tonight we are watching movies on the barn.
It will be a cartoon extravaganza!
(unless it rains)

A brush with fame?

I had an interesting experience yesterday. The editor of No-Till farmer came to visit me. It was not really an out of the blue sort of thing. He is in Oregon to interview a couple farmers who are strip-tilling and no-tilling  and he wanted to talk to a fellow I am internet friends with.  This farmer is sort of a mechanical genius and has invented a really interesting one pass tillage system.
I did not really get ready for the visit, as in clean the shop and polish my drill, as I figured he was just going to stop by as a friend of Ed Winkle.
The idea of being in a national magazine made me a touch nervous and as I have a lot to do I kind of rationalized it all away. As in, if you ignore the problem it will just go away.
I'm just a touch on the insecure side anyway, especially this year as prices are down and our crops tend to be a little weedy and not exactly the yield record setters in the country.
Anyway, the editor was a very nice fellow and quite interesting in his own right. He had lived in Oregon and was familiar with the area and some of the people I know. But, I was a bit on edge when he pulled out his camera.
He did not pull out his little reporter's notepad so I'm thinking I'll be a side bar in a main story. A paragraph, a photo of me talking on the phone and perhaps a good pull quote.
But, I've been thinking about it all after the fact. We spent several hours together and I showed him several fields. Not the best examples... I should have mentioned more people who did more than I and I should have showed him other fields. Oh well...
But, I tend to ramble on and tell stories in much the same manner as you find here on the Lazy Farmer.
I am approaching no-till from a little different perspective. I realized this when we ran into a couple customers when I was showing him a field I may plant. They raved about their results from no-till but used the field I was just saying I could plant into, as an example of a field that would not work.
So here is what I do, and this is why it is different from most other no-till farmers.
A farmer calls me to plant for him. If I have the time I take a look at his field. I look for evidence of pests who will eat the small seedlings. I ask about the pH levels. I check if it is too wet or too dry. I then may try to talk the farmer out of planting-if I really think it won't work, and most of the time I am unsuccessful in that effort.
A lot of times the farmer will just direct me to a field and tell me they have a truck with fertilizer and seed on it and give me the seeding rate and the acres.
So basically, I'm given a field to no-till and I do my best to make it work. Only on our own farm do I plan rotations or make decisions on what crop to plant and where. I've become pretty good at making the best of really difficult planting situations. Our own farm is not even a good example as I often do the paying customers first.
I'm not sure how you would work that example into an article about no-till farming.
Looking back on the discussion I really think the best story would be a feature on how odd our farm is and an article for Farm Show about the Rube Goldberg additions I've made for my drill because I can't afford to buy off the shelf GPS or Fertilizer rate controllers, or foam markers or any other other stuff people pay to have installed on their planters. I have this whole elaborate hydraulic plumbing system so my markers go up and down with the drill, I've got my foam marker wired to a windshield wiper delay  so it makes big piles of foam instead of the usual dribble (it doesn't really work) and I wired up a device using multiple lighting solenoids to turn my GPS, fertilizer rate controller, and acre counter on and off when I raise the drill. And... what sort of strange fixation do I have with driving straight that I have three types of guidance on my drill? Not to mention that I lost my wiring diagram when i hooked all this stuff up and I totally forgot how it is wired. Even my fertilizer plumbing is odd. I have a 30 year old NOS Blumhardt spray boom instead of the universal t-jet boom. I ordered the stainless fertilizer tubes direct and special order from Blumhardt. It is not off-the-shelf stuff.
After the meeting I came in the house and washed up for lunch. (I should have tried to score lunch at the Amity Cafe but I did need to get my bales picked up). I looked in the mirror and realized I was wearing a filthy hat that didn't say Minneapolis-Moline on it. I t read Killingsworth Gear and I got it five years ago at the Tulare ag expo-and a t-shirt that said something about Rhode Island being a state that was not really an island. Somehow I don't think I'm going to make the cover of Successful Farming magazine.
As asked my wife if she had noticed how I was dressed. She said she had but thought I was making a joke or a statement or something. So I guess I've become unconsciously the punchline to my own jokes...
In other news, the transmission is failing on the stacker, the water pump failed on the combine, it may rain, I have four truckloads of straw in the field, the soybeans need water, the Teff is a weed patch and needs to be cut, the alfalfa is now in nearly full bloom and must be cut, but then that brings us back to the long range forecast of scattered showers, which is not hay weather, and I have written a really long sentence. I'm setting in Grandma's old rocking chair and hiding from the world. If you ignore it, it will go away...
Have a nice day...

Note: There are several kind of technical farming terms so if you want to know what I'm talking about read previous posts or just ask.


Also, There is now an 85% chance of movies on the barn, most likely tonight but I'm still not sure. I have a lot to do today. AND, who would check the OFFENSIVE box on the barn movie notice/post from last night? Is it your barn and you are offended because I have not invited you yet this year? Are you opposed to Woody Woodpecker? Do black and white movies frighten you? Curious minds need to know...

Movies on the barn

75 percent chance of movies on the barn Saturday or Sunday night. Call or email for more details.

I'm all wet...

I guess everybody knew that...
Here is another scene from our living history museum! (for your viewing pleasure)

Wine people are snobs

I'm getting ready to go stack in the roughest most pain in the arse field in the neighborhood. I could be worse, it could be a hillside. I am almost finished with baling. The last week has not been the best. As the summer winds down you are faced with poor prices, people who haven't paid you, the actual yield on crops that were underwater for two weeks and a host of small tedious jobs which I hate.
So I am setting in my chair with a cup of coffee and public television. Public TV is all we get since the switch to digital. We get like four channels of OPB.
So this cute lady is explaining to a buff looking gardener type fellow how to taste wine. They are sloshing the wine in the glass, and taking sips... He asks her how you can taste hints of berries and toe-maa-toes in your wine. She smiles slyly and says it is a good question. I suppose this all some sort of lowgrade romance TV that I don't understand but to answer the question, how can you? You can't. They just make this crap up.
Like you could separate out berry, fruit and tomato scents out of the evaporating alcohol in a wine glass? It smells like grapes! Rotten grapes! Lets just be honest and comment it does not taste like rubbing alcohol and how quick it knocks your girl friend on her shapely bottom, or how quickly it impairs her judgement-which I think is the goal anyway. Or how fast it gets you to forget how small the portions of your $100 gourmet meal are, and how many glasses does it take for you to not care that you could have had a big arse steak for the same price?
Can you really taste the difference?

We were once gifted a $100 bottle of wine. It was horrible, sharp and bitter with a yeasty aftertaste. I tasted no berries or tomatoes. I was complaining that we should have regifted or sold it on ebay and instead of ruining our Christian testimony by imbibing snobby wine. But, my wife is a happy cheerful person (13 years of marriage to me has brought her down a bit...) and hates to waste things. She flashed a cheerful smile and said,"We'll have Spritzers!" So she fetched a tray of ice and a can of Sprite and you know it was not so bad. It became a happy dessert drink!
So here I live in the middle of "wine country" and I think any wine that costs more than $20 a bottle is pretentious and I officially don't drink anyway...

The Last MM tractor through the shop?

The uncle ain't as young as he used to be. He took on this Minneapolis-Moline G1050 for a clutch repair job. I really want this tractor. The old fellow who just bought this tractor, wants it to plow and plant 150 acres of hay. I have considered offering to do his plowing in exchange for his tractor. The G1050 has a very reliable engine and good hydraulics. They were not produced in large numbers

Farm Mascot?

I was going to post about the idiots who tailgated me home when i was driving the stacker, or overhauling the knotters when it was 100 degrees and getting the baler in the field after the temp dropped to 75 and a thunderstorm was approaching. Or perhaps rant about AGCO prices. I've got photos from the swather window as we swathed tinder dry wheat stubble in 97 degree temps, I've got photos of what may be the last MM overhaul in the Uncle's shop. But, it is 7:46 a.m. and I should be at work.
Here is something I found behind my seat. I think it came as a price in a box of soap when I was but a wee lad.
Anyone recognize the cartoon character?
I wonder if he should be the farm mascot?

Our Towne

For some reason the Battle Flag of the Confederacy is flying out the window of the apartment above the Mexican restaurant on Main Street. I really doubt there is a Confederate war veteran living above the restaurant.
Confederate Heroes day is mostly celebrated in January. Perhaps the fellow in the apartment plans to secede from the union. 
I think sometimes certain folks get their politics and symbols all mixed up. Mostly likely the flag means that he is proclaiming to the world that he is a dumb ass...
Unless he (or she) is doing it to annoy the pansy bottomed leftist winetasting bicyclists that infest and plague 99W in the summer. Then I think he is a hero...

No movies on the barn

This was supposed to be a movie weekend. But, you may remember that I killed both projector lamps. I ordered two bulbs last Sunday evening. I used our PO box and the farm address thinking perhaps one of them would be faster. We got a bulb at our PO Box but alas it was the wrong bulb. I think it would have worked but I didn't want to get all set up with people waiting for a movie and then have a projector failure again.
So we went to the river. Some friends came out and we all went swimming. They have two boys and the employee brought two boys and so Sadie had plenty of kids to play with. We all had a good time. Sadie tried to teach me how to dive and I lost my sunglasses. She told me to take them off. They were safety sunglasses and were getting a bit scratched up.
The river is still pretty clean which is amazing for this time of year. You can actually see six feet down which is pretty much a first in my memory. I still took a shower afterwards.
We are having a heat wave. Temperatures are in the 90's. (Using the non-communist scale)
Today it is back to work. Combining grass and baling straw and irrigating the alfalfa. Whoop! Whoop!

Stuck in a baler, what I did yesterday

It was a tight fit. I'm working on the baler. I am fixing the bumper that comes down and keeps the plunger from hitting the needles if something goes out of time. I need to be working on the twine finger drive but this broke completely.
I have to weld and patch together what I can. AGCO has put the price of Hesston parts to the point where it makes the title of their photo website ironic. Instead of Saving the Family farm it should be perhaps a Dairy Theme and the titled would be "Milking the Family Farm," or if we are a bit more crude perhaps it should have more of a progressive theme, like "Alternative Lifestyling the Family Farm." (Oh no, I can't find the AGCO saving the family farm picture website. Perhaps they've discontinued it. Never heard of AGCO discontinuing anything before. Probably want to focus on a core brand, like on Valtra and Massey Photos)

More Police humor...

Today has not been one of the best days. I've been baling at our field just outside of town. The lock that prevents the plunger from hitting the needles broke and dropped into place. I was almost asleep and enjoying the nice cold A/C in the 2-135. Suddenly there was a loud crash and all the dust on the baler sheet metal lifted about an inch. I fixed the shear pin but could tell it was up against something solid. So, I removed the offending mechanism and took it home and welded it.
So, I got another evening to observe the follies of the local force. There were no cops on patrol during the day. It was only after 6 p.m. that the speed trap went into operation. They were not so enthusiastic this evening.
I quit baling at around 11 p.m. when the moisture came up and I had to stop. When I went by the police cars I could see that they had a fan club. Several of those girls who wear pajama's when it is not evening were gathered round the patrol car. Cop groupies?
I texted that info to Chronic Boy's sistkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk;;;;;;;;;oo
Whew! it has been a long day. I went to sleep at the keyboard...
Anyway, I texted some funny commentary to Chronic Boy's sister. Turned out her husband was one of the cops on duty. I suspect we will hear more of this one...

Keystone Kops?

I've been baling right next to 99W where I get to watch our highly qualified local police force entertain themselves. Of course, after thousands of bales locations where no one ever can see us work.... The baler has decided not to tie! Right next to 99W!
So the local cops are running a speed trap. The skinny little fellow who kind of looks like Pee Wee Herman is running the radar gun. He hides behind a mailbox. Then the rest of the Adam 12 team has the low profile "pursuit" car.
What they like to do is let the offending car get a good head start. This makes the chase so much more fun. So this is how it works.
You see a random string of cars go buy. Then you see Pee Wee jumping around with the radar gun. Sometimes he actually runs to his car to give chase, but most of the time there is a delay. Then from out of nowhere rockets the pursuit car. When I say rocket, I mean they floor it. You can see them in the car grinning and sometimes they pound on the roof. What is really funny is the expressions on the faces of the people who get out to the way for the keystone koppers. First is worry,"is it me?" Then it is relief, and then they all laugh.
Somehow I just don't feel all that safe...

One happy kid...

Joey got to run the disk. He is very happy and quite pleased with himself. A dusty hot job... I think kids all went swimming later.  Sadie and I took him a Pepsi when we went to move the combine. Kids really respond when they are given a little responsibility. (yes he is a little young and yes I've been to the safety seminars so complain away...I'll forward the complaints to his father. Joey is a nephew)

 

Actually Joey is very careful. He always shuts the engine off when messing around with stuff.

Water pressure problems

I may be an idiot... We have been plagued with water pressure problems since getting this little manufactured home. I thought we checked all the basic things like screens in the faucets junk in the lines when we first moved in.
Now I am not a real handyman around the house. There is always so much to work on with tractors and balers and such that I just don't get needed repairs finished. On the other hand my wife is actually quite hand at many things along this line. So, it was not such a big deal when she decided to replace the bathroom counter.
She got a sink from Jimmy Carter and mounted in on an old vanity. I was called in to finish the plumbing. When I turned on the faucet there was not water pressure. I was a little busy with hay at the time and could not take it all apart again.
Today I decided to tear into it again. I was worried that the shut-off valves had very small orifices so I replaced the valves. Still not water pressure. So I took apart the valves on the sink. I had plenty of pressure there. I examined the faucet closely. It really looked like there was a screen in the end of the faucet spout. So, I took the vice grip to it. Sure enough it had a watersaver stufed up thee and the scren was plugged. On closer exhaminatin I found three more of them in the house.
How I have water pressure.
I may have ruined the water savers.
First I beat them on an anvil

Then I torched !em

And that was the end of them! Have a happy day!

The way it goes here on the farm

The day started with my wife having a splitting headache. She went back to be bed and Sadie and I went to church. She was still in bed when we returned. I have been worried I will make her head explode and I looked carefully for any swelling. She just looked really tired.
I retired to the river with Sadie and texted everyone I could think of that I had invited to watch movies.
When we returned from the river we had visitors. I guess I forgot I have semi local friends who drove an hour to see movies on the Great White Barn.
So, we talked till dusk and it really seemed pointless not to watch movies. So I fetched the projectors.
The bulbs were burnt out in BOTH PROJECTORS. The second projector I don't even use for viewing as it is an auto loader and it tends to eat fragile film.
This is the way it goes here on the farm.

I miss the Don Edwards cowboy music concert and am annoyed...

My lovely wife and my precocious daughter bought me good seat tickets to see Don Edwards at the Elsinore Theater in Salem.
Don Edwards is an old fashioned cowboy singer who has been around since slightly before the flood. I saw him years ago when he shared a show with Ian Tyson at the Alladin Theater in Portland.
He tells stories and sings and is a really nice fellow and I thought it would be a pretty cool experience for my daughter. The plan was to have a steak dinner at the Jonathon's Oyster Bar next door and then see the show. Sort of a dress up sort of thing. Hopefully it would not lead her down the road to honkey-tonks and yodeling and unrestrained banjo picking.
But that is all a moot point as I missed the show.
My friend called to tell me that Joan Jett was going to be at the Clark County Fair Douglas County Fair August 22nd and suddenly I thought of Don Edwards (which is in no way connected to Joan Jett is just how my mind words). The tickets were on the bookshelf. I pretty sure that was around the 16th of August. No... It was the sixth of August. I'm an idiot... Perhaps we will go see Joan Jett. Sadie is a bit of a rocker, I over heard her singing an AC/DC song while driving the pickup the other day. Of course this was followed by "This little light of Mine," so I suppose all it means is that she will grow up just as confused as I am. Nothing like passing on a little "angst" to your kids. I just hope she doesn't say "sh..t" during a youth group meeting, or yell, "You M.... F......er" (Massey Fergusoner)  in front of an Amish fellow when sprayed with really cold water... Not that it happened to anyone I know...

I did look up his tour. I think I can catch him again at a better time. October 18-20th he is going to be at the Fairy Baptist Church Revival in Fairy, Texas. I need a good revival and this could be just the one. Look at the link to the Church!
The town of Fairy seems to be somewhere in the middle of the state. See this link, I am sure it would be an adventure. Too bad I don't have my travel trailer anymore.

I was thinking it would make a great trip. We would first hit the Lone Pine Film Festival in Lone Pine, Ca and then just ramble down the trail to Texas.
This will very likely not happen...
But, speaking of film festivals, there will most likely be movies on the side of the Great White Barn that blocks our view of Mt. Hood. Featured will be Woody Woodpecker in "Cracked Nut," the usual crowd pleasers, "Farmer Alfalfa and the Mechanical Cow," and a 1970's farm safety film from International Harvestor. We may also watch "Surf Side Six," if Mrs. Shultz shows up. Bring your own chairs and blankets and popcorn. Our microwave quits when we do popcorn and we don't have the cast-iron pot to make it on the stove.
Those of you on the other side of the country may not be able to make it with such short notice. I will apologize as the Lazy Farmer Film festival is a totally random event. The show starts at sunset.

Some people can't take a joke-this is funny!

I am waiting for daughter to wake up so we can go tie the tops of our straw stacks an event which she enjoys but I don't have time to explain. I've been wondering why my pageviews suddenly spiked and did a search for thedailystrumpet on google.
This is funny, it comes from www.metricationmatters.com  I'm not sure they have a real good sense of humor...
I quote:

3 Oddities

The Lazy Farmer wrote about his rain gauge:

It reads out some decimal system number. At least it doesn't read out in commie numbers. Everyone knows the commies are behind the metric system. Well, also the Nazi's and those degenerate French people. Well, and the rest of the world perhaps... But I still hate it.

If you wish, you could read more of the lazy farmer's diatribe at at http://thedailystrumpet.blogspot.com/2010/02/mondays.html

Now I will kill two birds with one stone:
For the atheists out there who do google searches for this phrase: There are no atheists in the foxholes, ha! ha! ha! Merry Christmas!
And for the metric commies... Half and inch! thirty-two sixtyfourths of an inch, 19/32nd, 7/8ths, 32 degrees, ha! ha! ha!
And for all the hyenias out there, Mufssa! Mufasa!

Photos from my day on the farm

Things go wrong from time to time. My $5,000 not-quite-paid-for hydraulic driven v-rake suffered a bearing problem last night a 5:30 p.m. I do not have a parts book but I found the part number of a New Holland 216 v-rake online, and called the local international dealership. They left the bearing outside the door for me. I sent my employee to pick it up. It took two bearings...
So, we hooked up the old New Holland double hitch with a model 55 and a 256 ground drive rake. Let's just say they match the tractor I pulled them with... They actually did a better job! Too bad I ran out of gas. I think someone borrowed a little.

The dog enjoyed himself...

 Here is my view from the tractor seat. We just got started and I ran out of gas again... Employee offered to get me more, I guess four gallons was just not enough.

I love the smell of clover. We are putting water on it to lengthen the bloom time and it helps the seed heads fill out. I'm pulling the gun out with the tractor. You could really smell the clover today.

Here is AJ Foyt Jr. otherwise known as my daughter. I got my pickup repaired so that you can actually drive it without it dying. She just got back from two weeks of camping and visiting her aunt. She was giving me a ride to get a tractor and pick up some bales out of the alfalfa field. She punched it and we took off! "Stop taking my picture," she is exclaiming! She told me once she was bringing me the pickup and she she was going too fast. She hit a bump and she thought she bounced clear up in the air. Perhaps this is why 9 year-olds are not supposed to drive... So I found this tape under the seat and we were listening to David Ball, "Look what Followed me Home," She says, "Why do old guys sing songs about young girls." I gulped a bit and quit singing in my disjointed warble and said, "Well, young girls are happy and pretty and young guys like them. When you get old sometimes old guys wish they were young and so the old fellows sing songs about young girls because they represent youth in the minds of old guys. Sorry, I'm not a good singer." She said, "that's alright Dad, I'm used to it." Ah, I heard that snap as the bullet went by my head!
Later we lay in bed and I read to her. We are almost done with "The Horse and His Boy." It was the good part with the battle. I missed my daughter.

Trains and what I'm doing today

You know what they say about trains... That is a line from a song that is stuck in my head. I've googled it and really got nothing.  I like trains. They make you feel like you are going somewhere else. There is so much American imagery connected with trains. We stood there in the field and felt the ground shake as the train rolled by. Tremendous weight and power. I liked that part of the film we saw last weekend.

I completely overslept this morning. I was nice to actually sleep for a change. I have to travel 50 miles to stack 1800 bales for a fellow. He is trying to find someone local. It is a $700 job but I have to drive down Highway 18, and 99W though couple towns or cross the ferry and we bought the stacker we could afford, not the best one for driving down the highway. 40 mph on 99W, oh boy!

A random post about bible school and sex and cynicism

Warning! Puckerbutt alert!
If you are easily offended please feel free to comment. Although, if you are easily offended why are you reading a blog titled, "the Daily Strumpet." Have any of you former subscribers ever seen the early editions of the Daily Strumpet? What about the extremely rude caption accompanying the photo of the very fat girl playing softball? Or the comments about the neighbor lady and her "iced tea" or offensive comments about those I worked with at the News-Times? Perhaps you have not... That is for the best...
Today was not a good day for me. I've been feeling a bit elderly. The crops look bad, I have no retirement, attractive young women do not want to steal me away from my loyal wife. (It felt good to have that as an option. Although it only happened once and I kind of panicked and ran away. Long story...)
Which leads us to the story which will offend people. My employee and I were talking about life and where we went wrong and why I am depressed today. So I got to telling him about things which made me cynical.
Where I started to lose my faith was not in Cultural Anthropology class with the psycho atheist lady. It was not the classic argument of why bad things happen to good people. No busloads of school children going off a cliff shook my faith. I've read the book of Job and I get it.
It all started going wrong one day in my early teens when I was in the old Bible Book Store in Salem. It was just after a series of inspirational revival meetings where I was kind of tempted to go forward but not quite overcome by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit and I might very well have but I kept thinking of the very attractive neighbor girls running around in cutoffs and bikini tops and I sort of lost my focus on the sermon. The plaintive melody of "Just as I am" always got to me but I figured it was mostly the chord combination and the emotion of the crowd so I kind of thought I was being manipulated anyway.
No, I found a book. It was titled 101 sermon illustrations and in it I found the little story of sin and redemption that the evangelist had told as his own. I wish I could remember the story but I was shocked. I mean it was funny he got it out of a book, but isn't that cheating?
Which reminds me of another story of when I was at Rosedale Bible Institute. (I didn't do so well there I don't think. I just got back for a trip where I backpacked around Europe, although i was much too shy to get into trouble, I could have if I would have wanted to. I had just had my first taste of alcohol at the Hieniken brewery in Amsterdam and I thought I was pretty damn sophisticated) The professor was telling a story of his days in prison ministry and the dangers of alcohol and I think county-western music. His illustration had to do with a prisoner who had the imprint of a cowboy boot on his face and who was going to swear off drinking. I thought it was a joke and I laughed out loud. I was the only one. Everyone stared at me.... Um I kind of lost my point there.... Oh that makes me think of another story from Bible school.
We could stay up late and study in the school classrooms. In one room was a kid I really didn't like and his clever friends. My friend and I were in the other classroom. The other kids had got into the kitchen and stolen ice cream and they didn't give us any. So.. We pushed a cart full of chairs down the stairs. You would not believe the amount of noise.
We ran back to our desks and started studying.
The dean came running up the stairs two at a time. He was in mid yell when he stuck his head in our room. We had our noses buried in our books. "What was the noise," My friend, asked? The dean sputtered and ran to the other room. They were all making lots of fuss about the noise and trying to hide the ice cream. They got in a lot of trouble. Their protests were in vain...
Where was I?
Oh, yes! Where I went wrong with sex.
It was in perhaps seventh grade. I don't think it was sixth as I can remember the ugly institutional lime green heaters. I was setting in the back of the class with the ne'er-do-wells  and this guy and girl were talking about sex. Now at age 13 I knew absolutely nothing about sex. This was before the days of sex ed in first grade. We didn't get sex-ed until we were freshman at least. Which reminds me that we had this really nice and sweet teacher for sex ed and I talked one of my class mates into asking her if anal sex was a good form of birth control. She turned beet red and kicked him out of class. I actually felt bad...
But, I digress...
So, I kind of perked up when hearing about this mystery subject from the seedier members of my class. They were talking about "staying power," and the guy claimed he could go for hours and the girl said she could go all night. I kind of knew what they meant but at that point in my life I had not even seen a naked boobie although I really wanted to and the thought of it all just kind of made me feel guilty.Which for some reason i kind of liked. We will not go in that direction at all this evening...
So I just turned around and looked at them. They of course started to make fun of me, which was amusing in itself. Sort of like the time in History class in High School that the girl behind me told me that she had multiple organisms, I turned around and said, "you mean Orgasms," and she said no you idiot I have organisms and I said, "Yeah, I bet you do," and she thought she won the argument.
But, I digress.
I was looking at these two kids trying to one up themselves on sex.  That is when it hit me. The girl was ugly. She perhaps had a nice figure but she was wearing a dumpy grey sweater. Her hair did not have the lustre of the ladies underwear section of the Sear catalogue. Her nose was very large and frankly she had an unpleasant disposition. She said "fuck" a lot and it kind of disturbed me and not in a good way. The guy didn't smell all that good and he was wearing this three-inch wide leather wrist band with a broken watch and when I looked closer it was held together with a twisty tie off a loaf of bread.
Looking back I realize that they were sad and insecure people who needed God's love but I didn't see that then.
No, it all came to me clear as day. Ugly people had sex too. They probably had a lot more sex than the clean cut nice looking people I had seen in my imagination. And they did not know they were ugly. And well, I really thought at that point I would just wait for marriage. I've been a bit cynical about the whole sex thing since then. I hear one of those country songs about strawberry wine and instead of the romance and a cute girl in love, I see an underage plump chick with bad posture and a scraggley haired 20-something farm hand getting it on down by the creek. Sometimes It is hard for me to get past the low budget porn film that plays inside my head.
Perhaps I need therapy...
Um, I did read over this post which is something I never do and I forgot the whole point of the story so I guess it is not all that offensive. Perhaps some other time...

We go to a movie!

My lovely and gracious wife and I went to a movie today. Sadie is at her aunts and my wife has been in Georgia at art school for a week. She got a grant to study art education. I don't know if I mentioned that she is a high school art teacher.
So, we went to see Inception. I've linked to IMDB so you can read about it.
I'm not doing a review just a quick comment on it.
The premise is that this guy can control dreams. He puts you to sleep, he goes to sleep, his team goes to sleep and then they muck around in your mind. It was a good movie. If followed the standard formula, minor crisis, Major crisis, extended car chase, clever use of "it's not what you think, and then it ended. Oh, but there was yet a bit of doubt. What was real and was was not!
I just can't suspend reality anymore. First I was wondering how they figured the dosage on the "sleep aid," then the car chases and gun play got to me. Was the reason they didn't get hit by bullets from automatic weapon fire because the dream controller willed it not to happen? But then why not just will the bad guys away? No one can drive that good, and if you are in a van that is sprayed by an AK-47 it is going to hurt.
I kept waiting for someone to cry out "Rosebud." It bugged me through the whole movie.
I can't go to movies anymore...

Oh no! I've been featured on Eye of Polyphemus and this is the week I had nothing to say!

It always happens when Eye of Polyphemus links to me. I have nothing to say. In fact I have been working non-stop and have not been online all that much. The whole mad straw baling and not really keeping up with irrigation and combining and just getting stuff done is making me uptight.
The fellow who was buying/transporting my straw couldn't get it hauled in a timely manner and so I called another fellow. Both fields needed to be hauled post haste. The second field was going to be blocked by irrigation by Monday. He said no problem and was there the next day (Saturday). The catch is he put it in his barn to sell in the winter. I don't know when I will get paid. I think it is somewhere around $16,000. I kind of need the money...
My wife didn't wake me up this morning. I think we missed church. I just woke up, it is 12:57. Sadie is with her aunt in Junction City. I've heard that is kind of a granola area. Home of fruits flakes and nuts. Don't know of anyone else from that area. They probably all run Massey Combines and listen to Hit and Roll music down there... Put duals on their swathers. Grow annual ryegrass, which is a weed to the rest of the world.
But, I digress,
Eye of Polyphemus has been featuring reviews of the Wild Wild West TV show of the late 1960's. I have seen several episodes on eBay and think it might be good for movie night on the great white barn.
Would this movie be good on the side of a barn? Wild Wild West, Night of the Undead on Ebay. I went nuts last week and bid $200 for a 16mm copy of Blade Runner. I wanted to do a double feature with Blade Runner and Metropolis but Blade Runner went for $900 and Metropolis went for $800 and something. I need to win the lottery. Local culture would really improve.
Not that I have time to show movies this summer. I've got four reels of assorted cartoons which I have not shown. I assume people want to see them...
Perhaps I am just strange. The kids like them...

Update: I am not buying it. I just realized I am broke... No cash in PayPal... You know they baled out the banks... I could use a $100,000. Heck I could use $5 and a pat on the head...