How I knew I was at my kind of park and how I know the farm economy has recovered

In this day and age of safety railings and uptight parents and petty government officials it is somewhat refreshing to see a sign like this. And it is wonderful to be turned loose at a park where there are rusty door, dark vaults, dangerous drop-offs, gun emplacements, and that wonderful state of disrepair that was the hallmark of so many happy visits to the Oregon Coast-back when I was a kid.

I know you are all waiting to hear my economic wisdom and here it is. I know times are good when farmers start screwing each other over rent and straw stumpage fees.
The midwestern trend of whorish landlords and farmers who read "The art of the Deal," and are out to get every scrap of land they can beg, steal, outbid, or borrow hit our part of Oregon a few years ago.
There are some eager young farmers who are handy with the calculator and who pour over soil maps and public records and pay amazing prices for farmland.
It just happened to a friend of mine. He rented from an absentee landlord in Idaho who is supposed to be a retired farmer and who has invested in farmland.
He just got a registered letter stating this was his last year and he needed to pay his rent early. The landlord will provide no other information.
The word is another farmer is paying something like $400 an acre for this farm. It is good soil and irrigated and my friend has been maintaining organic matter and pH.
His landlord didn't have the decency to tell him he had been offered an outrageous rent, or give him the option to counter offer. He just cut him off.
If he would have talked to his renter he could have found out that this same farmer that offered him $400 is paying at least $450 an acre to the farmer who got the bale hookers to drive down from Portland. 
Another farmer friend told me he had to up his rent payment as my "high school buddy with the solar farm," (long story) had sent out dear landlord letters in the same vein as the previous mentioned farmer and had offered more rent. The landlord was somewhat peeved that this farmer had not just walked across the road and talked to him in person about renting his ground but was enough of a whore to go ahead and ask the current tenet for more rent.
I had to laugh at that one.

Note on Sunday, Aug 12th, 2012. 
I deleted stuff from the original post. It doesn't matter anymore. It was a decade ago... What is the point of pretending to be a Christian if you are bitter about crap that happened years ago. You do what you do for the sake of doing it and doing a good job and being what ever sort of person you want to be. What do I have left as a Christian? I don't work on Sunday? If I'm going to throw it all away it is going to be for hookers and beer and not because I'm mad at someone from saving me from working too hard.
And I'm not going to start working on Sunday cause I'm lazy. So if I have to get rid of a vice, I choose resentment...
I think I will keep the bitterness for now. It entertains people... continue reading below....

Old School screwing, "After all, God told me I was the best farmer in the world and it is only right you should give me your ground as you are not that good a farmer."
New School Screwing, "I've been given a better offer, you need to be gone by October 1st."
When we lose our rented ground I think I shall become an anti-farmer lobbyist. If you can afford $450 and higher an acre rent then farm subsidies and special law exemptions for farmers should not apply. Neither should you get a tax subsidy on your ground as a landlord.
Bitter? I'm not bitter!
"I have no friends but my dog..."
Speaking of... I have more wisdom from the same source as that quote. "Budd, You know how your neighbors who are better farmers sometimes take time out from being condescending and outbidding you on land rents and lend you a truck or a bigger tractor or tell you what a wonderful person you are? Well, they just like to throw you a bone now and then so they don't feel so guilty about screwing you for the past 30 years... " Ouch! He did not need to tell me that!
I prefer not to look at it that way myself but...sometimes....
Oh well, have a nice day!