Tuesday

I lost my planting job.
I had a 60 radish planting job but I didn't want to work Sunday and someone else younger who had spent a lot more money on GPS than I did want to work. So I lost my job.
The farmer called and apologized and I of course said the goal was to get his field planted.
Monday I had to make feed anyway.
I tried to do it Sunday but I broke my forklift.
After church I took daughter to get softball cleats and a mitt. In the process I discovered there are no more local sporting goods stores. Just chain stores. Big Five Sporting Goods is not that great.
Then we played catch for a while. She was incredulous that I did not play sports. I did not point out that I objected to the homo-erotic overtones of Football or that I didn't like coaches and had no school or team spirit.
Later I was a newspaper sports editor.
But, I digress...
By the time my arm was worn out from playing catch it was almost dark.
I started weighing ingredients to make feed, but the fan belt flew apart on the forklift and it kept getting hot.
Then I checked my phone and discovered that I had lost my planting job anyway and I could make feed Monday morning.
Monday I was able to get the other forklift stuck and then I ran out of propane.
That all took a while.
My brother went into town and got me a fanbelt and propane. That helped out.
Then I went to plant oats.
The ground was so rough I decided to disk it.
But, then a chicken feed customer called and said she was out of feed.
I discovered that the front and rear main seals on the 2-135 are so bad that oil pours out in a stream when the engine gets hot.
So I went delivered the chicken feed.
Then I got the 2-155 off the drill.
I finished the field at 9 p.m.
Now I have to let the dirt dry out a little bit and then figure out how to get damp soil with a lot of wheat stubble mixed in to flow through a harrow.
I may plant the oats with the Great Plains no-till drill and then come back and plant the clover with the little Minneapolis-Moline drill. The GP drill has so much down pressure that you have to get the ground packed to keep it from burying the clover seed.
My helper was of course not here yesterday.
He needed to go to Salem to get government help to pay his electric bill. I suspect that he has not been paying it for a while. I did not point out to him that if he would come to work, and do things like weld, work on engines, sand sheet metal to paint, load hay, make one decision per day, do things he doesn't want to do, then he would no longer need government assistance.
Of course there would still be the evil ex wife who pops out babies to gain child support income but there are also lawyers.
I've inquired around and discovered that with his benefits he is getting decent wages for a farm hand that won't be in charge of anything.
He is a really nice guy. If he would have showed up for work yesterday I would have bought him a new car. The scrapper had a really nice Chrysler Imperial on his trailer. I ran to the house to find the phone number and then thought, screw it, he ain't here anyhow...
And now I am off to work. I really wanted to go with my cousin to look at an IH 1430 pull type combine. I wish I would have seen it first. I think a big IH pull-type would look really good behind the 2-155 FWA.