Burrito of gastronomical distress

 My little helper had a rough day yesterday. Many things went wrong. Too many to list with my typing thumb.

On top of all the defugulaties he was not feeling well.

I think it was the burrito.

Yesterday morning I was sitting on the tongue of the dump box marveling that I still had fingers and my helper kept asking me if I was ok. I was just over reacting a bit and didn't want to explain my trauma. So I sent to the deli for burritos.

Of course they were out of the dollar burritos and hot sauce so he got their ultimate breakfast burrito. It should have been called the tardis burrito, cause there was infinity more grease on the inside.

He was not the same afterwards.

He made two trips back to the shop to poop.

I quit early to go to dinner with friends.

The plan was for little helper to mow hay for a couple hours as we also need to get moving on hay.

At 7 pm I got a text. He had shat himself getting in the tractor. I told him to go home.

This morning he is fine and mowing like mad.

I was able to lose the dipstick out of the tractor hydraulics and blew a hundred bucks worth of hydraulic fluid on the ground,

My chicken farmer friend is driving truck for me. Seems to be enjoying himself.

Maybe a little too much!

A Hippo On the Lawn: Of Communists, Fascists and Others Born Out Of Wedlock

A Hippo On the Lawn: Of Communists, Fascists and Others Born Out Of Wedlock

Just use my blog as a link page and read Hippo On the Lawn every day. Much more entertaining than reading about a whiny farmer who gets a little nick and publishes it to the world!

I did not cut my fingers off

I think the rubber glove saved me. That and the fact I was holding on to the one chopper knife that is out of adjustment and not razor sharp. I am not the Hippo on the lawn guy and blood, pain, deep bruises make me queasy. Would have been a shame to waste those five cups of coffee I drank this morning.  Coffee is expensive. Wish my fingers would stop tingling. Really annoying.

AND... Yes, everything was shut off. Too complicated to explain.

Posting with an iPhone

Wife and daughter conspired to buy me an iPhone. It is kind of addictive. Writing a blog with my thumb and not plugging up the chopper is a bit of a challenge !

Oats up in three days

It is too late to plant oats. Every day after mid April is a loss in yield. Despite what you may hear from people trying to sell you forage oats, late planted oats are usually a failure. 

But, as usual I panicked and planted what ever seed I could find when the swamp that is our farm started to dry.

Yesterday I could have gotten a contract for Teff seed. A buck a pound and they clean it. I do know how to fail at growing Teff.

Anyway... Planted Montezuma oats three days ago and the are out of the ground this morning!

It never rains when you want it to

We have a 30 acre corn field that is golf ball clods on the top 3 inches and mud underneath. Too wet to strip till or disk. Weather forecast said rain so we planted. Rain is falling on nearby hay fields but not on our corn.

As I'm chopping grass silage I watch the rain clouds go by

We serve no corn before it's time

My brother is planting corn . That is as close as I can come to a corn photo.

Need more stuff in my cab

Waiting on trucks and playing with my new phone

My Wife and daughter bought me an iPhone 5. My wife implied it was a free upgrade, my daughter just laughed. 

It  has made the silage chopping much more enjoyable. Now, whilst I am waiting for trucks I  can look at Tractorhouse.com, craigslist, and there iss an app for blogger. I am using a bluetooth keyboard totype. it is a pain in da arse.

I amwatching the neighors chop clover with a big Claus chopper and 10 trucks. We are down to the IH as our neighbor helper had a dentist appointment. 1.5 loads an hour right now...The Claus is doing a Semi truck   evey five minutes.

Sitting in the G1355 with my  a/c on and looking at White American series  tractors on Tractorhouse.

Note: Dont look up White 2-110 on the craigslist app. Your wife willl not uderstand if you click on the wrong adevert. Much, Much, Worse is White 4-270.

More silage

I hate these Reader's Digest Condensed versions of spring. All the adventure in 20 pages.

I've been remiss on my repairs and so a lot of things are not ready to go. I kept thinking I'd hire someone or take the stacker somewhere to get the brakes repaired, but I didn't.

The weather has gone from rain to sun in a day and the worked ground is now round rock-like clods on top and mud underneath.

We were faced with the decision to work the ground to kill the weeds and risk getting it rained on and packed down or dealing with two-foot-tall annual ryegrass to work under. Now the ground is sealed up and since the water table is less than 18 inches below the surface, I think the strip-tiller will bring up mud.

I have traditionally been the silage chopper operator so it is up to my brother to make the decision on working the ground for corn. I suppose we should have all worked all night like the real farmers do...

Yesterday I planted 12 acres of barley for my neighbor and 13 acres of oats for us. This was a lot of replanting, cleaning out the drill, and talking. But it needed to be done.

Today we are back to silage chopping.

Last Saturday we finished our clover field by noon. At around 3 p.m. I got  a call from the fellow that lives on the gravel road that leads to the dairy. He was upset by the speed of the trucks going by his house.

I do find it sort of entertaining that people complain about the speed of a 1971 International tandem and a 1976 Chevy tandem. The drivers also complain about the speed, or shall we say, Lack of speed...

I've told the drivers to take it easy on the gravel, especially past Jose's house, the house of the fellow who owns the clover fields, and the fellow who says he works at home for an internet company but who I think actually spend his time in that windowless "office" looking at porn and playing with starwars toys.
But I digress,

The new neighbor works in the wine industry. He is quite proud of being in the wine industry and thinks this somehow makes him part of the local farming community.

He came over to introduce himself and to buy hay this fall. He noted that he was in the wine industry. As a result I added twenty percent to the price of the hay.
We did have a nice chat. I asked him if he realized that every time a truck went down the gravel road the wind would blow dust into his house. He did not see that as a potential problem.
He was wearing short pants and Romeo slippers with no socks.
If found that somewhat amusing.
Eventually I listened to the message he left me. He thought the trucks were going too fast, too much dust, AND he was afraid they would hit his dog.
I found the message more amusing than anything else. I live 50 feet from a road that has continual truck traffic. I figure that if we have a dog dumb enough to get hit by a truck then we might as well get it over with sooner than later.
It is good to have another reminder of the difference between us and THEM.
I think it is my responsibility to keep my dog out of the road, they think it is the truck driver's responsibility NOT to hit their stupid dog standing in the middle of the road.
I feel sort of bad for them. They bought a house which is down wind from a gravel road. Every afternoon at 4 p.m. we get quite the sea breeze. The dust is very bad.
The must have bought the house on a rainy day.

Happy, happy! Blessed is the day!

For those of you who read my blog and worry that I may run off to sunny climes and not cut your hay... I have recovered somewhat this morning. I am in a joyous and thankful mood. (yesterday was a bad day) Not really that bad, no one got hurt, no serious damage, just my usual luck, many little annoying things went wrong. I was constantly reminded that I am a pathetic farmer. Just the usual... Wears one down after a while. A/C keeps quitting. I tightened up the belt and put the mounting bolt though the bottom of the A/C compressor. Fixed it with loctite and silicone jammed up the hole...
Last night I took my prescription of muscle relaxant, (thank you Dr. R.M. Rose) and actually slept well. And it is overcast so I overslept a bit. This morning I got my dose of scripture reading from Buffalo and Perpetual.
I fixed myself some eggs and bacon. Left a little bacon for my daughter who is sleeping in, and I'm almost ready to face the day.
My little helper arrived early and is setting in the store drinking coffee. He likes to set in the store and drink coffee. I'm thinking he will probably NOT fix his tail lights. He also has a huge leak in the radiator on the IH truck. I need diesel and gas and something else which I don't remember....
Perhaps I shall fall back on the medical efforts of Dr. Rose... If it were good enough for the CSA then it oughta be good enough for me....

Yesterday things went wrong, today things also went wrong.

I sort of hate farming. In theory I love farming. Being your own boss, growing crops, working ground (it is like playing with Tonka trucks but on a huge scale), doing different things all the time, carrying through with a plan. And I like how things work together.
I hate farming in that I never succeed. I hate farming because modern farmers are dickheads. I hate farming because I see people who are morons, who are arseholes, who are totally undeserving, who probably are less endowed than I, but yet they are making bucks up...
I've been attempting to chop clover silage for my neighbor. It is not working well at all.
The windrows are just a touch wider than the pickup on the chopper. We have another one but it is broken and nothing ever gets fixed here at poop and sit back down in it farms... (PSBD)...
I would complain to the farmer but I have not the slightest idea why he hires us to chop his clover anyway. Who wants 30 year old crap running around in their field?
I watched the clover silage process at other neighbor's farm. I have been trying to score his sixty acres for the local dairy for the past couple years. His silage guy came in with a 600 hp Krone and 15 trucks and they did it in three hours. It would have taken me a week- at the rate I'm going at.
Our utter piece of crap IH blew a tire yesterday. We can't work after dark because we don't have tail lights and my little helper doesn't know how to fix them.
The silage chopper has had multiple bearing failures. But then again, it never got serviced at the end of the season last year and barely was serviced before starting silage.
Today I wore a hole in the spout liner which cause the clover to not fly out of the spout which resulted in me digging silage out of the spout for a half hour.
I took it home to work on it. A new liner from New Holland is $400. My little helper is a little short on energy. We have enlisted another broke neighbor to help haul silage. His helper is quite capable. He dove right in and helped change the spout. He pays attention to what we are doing and asked intelligent questions. I'd love to have him spend a week doing everything my little helper won't do.
Two of his previous employers have repeatedly warned us that he is a kleptomaniac. Of course he is... If something is too good to be true, then it is...
On the way back to the field I blew out a tire on the chopper. The little car that was passing me when the tire blew did not stop to help. (Probably was in a hurry to clean the poopie out of her pants.)
I sat in the ditch whilst waiting for my little helper to bring me a tire and watch the real farmers go by. No one even waved.

I hate antique crap, I hate farmers in general, I hate nice weather, i hate rain, I hate silage, I hate silage choppers, I hate old equipment, I hate working, and I've never really been fond of cheese.
The ONLY nice thing that happened to me today was the smile on my daughter's face when I picked her up from school on my old Triumph. I suppose that not having your stomach in a knot for 15 minutes out of the day would be a glass half full moment for most of my highly spiritual and agriculturally successful readers.
Perhaps tonight I will have that wonderful dream where I have a D-8 cat and push everything on this stinking farm into one big pile of recycling....
I need to register the farm name I think as well. Perhaps I'll just go by the acronym. PSBD or is it SSBD?

Yesterday many things went wrong but we soldiered on...

We are chopping clover silage for our neighbors.
We have to drive down a long gravel driveway past some very odd and annoying people. The people whose house is five feet from the road wave at every truck. The people who live 200 feet from the road got angry. Sort of a road rage incident.
Plus, bearings went out... Got the wrong bearing, KRRB103-2 and I got a KRRB103- random number which was wrong. About 20 minutes of road time later and 1/16" difference.
Took a long time to put it back together.
Fuel tank leak. Used a tooth pick jammed in the microscopic hole to slow it down.
Planted 6 acres of flax, cleaned out the drill, charged the A/C on other 2-155, chopped 13 loads of silage. Kind of a lot of nothing.
Here is the PTO bearing, the oil seal popped out. We didn't have a spare bearing. I packed it full of grease and popped the seal back in.

Here is the bearing that failed had to weld around the inside of the race to get come out of the housing.

And the work begins, Chopping silage with the G1355

Yesterday I chopped silage...
This is the view out my window.

Orin send me a hay cutting photo which I seem to have lost. He was claiming it was the 1970's. Well, we are into the 1980's up here in the North Valley.

I should be planting. I need to plant. I have flax to plant and corn to plant and oats, and barley, and other people want me to plant.
But, it is also silage time.
Red clover is grown for seed in this area. The first bloom of clover comes in a couple weeks. This is not a good time to harvest seed and so the clover is either mowed back, turned into hay, or chopped for silage.
We found the silage chopper and started servicing it.
At noon my phone started ringing. I ignored it and tucked into my steak and baked potatoe. Then the shop phone rang. Then my wife's phone rang.
My neighbor was quite worried about her hay. They cut Sunday and discovered the ground was too wet and the hay was not drying. Would I chop it for silage?
And so we did.
Pretty much a record in getting ready.
Silage chopper was in the back pasture. Took the corn header off, put grass header on, washed it, greased it, hooked it up and started chopping at 5 p.m. A neighbor did the hauling. We took a dump box and the 2-155 over to make up for not having a truck ready and because the field was so soft.
It is a long haul for one truck.
The A/C works on the G1355 but not on the Smith and Smith 2-155. (of course)
I put the 1355 on the chopper because I like the A/C. Plus my little helper has trouble getting in the door.

See nothing, say nothing... Why you should NEVER tell anyone in authority anything. Ratting out your friends for their own good...

"Don Miller was an amateur archeologist. He is now 91 years old and much of his collection was behind glass and in his basement. 
It is now being looted by the FBI.
What brought the FBI in to raid his basement on April Fools day? Well it certianly was not info from Russian Intel that Don was a whacko Islamic terrorist!
Nope, you see Don loved to share his collection. He made the mistake of inviting his so-called-friend, Richard M. Gramly, a Harvard-trained anthropologist to see his collection. 
Richard turned him in. Richard M. Gramly, ratted out his friend!
Don had worked on the development of the weapon to end all wars. He saved a few government surplus items.
"Convinced that it could fall into the wrong hands and that someone could potentially use it to make a dirty bomb, Gramly decided to call the authorities. ”I hate to rat someone out, but it’s no longer a private thing.” He reached out to a relative of his who was a colonel at the Pentagon, who told Gramly to contact the FBI, which he did. That was in 2008."

But what really happened? 
A soft-ball sized chunk of Uranium in someone's basement for 60 years? BS...

"Gramly is convinced he did the right thing: “Miller is getting to an age where he could die any day. How would you like to go to a yard sale and buy that nuclear device for 50 cents?” he asks. “I feel like I’ve done my duty.” (To quote the article again)

Wonder how Gramly felt about Don's artifact collection? Wonder if Gramly is just stupid? Wonder if the whole thing is a lie? Wonder why the FBI didn't just knock on the door and ask for it back?

"Neither the FBI nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Indianapolis will comment on the Gramly matter. But both offices in Indianapolis confirm that federal agents visited Miller’s house 18 months to two years earlier on an issue unrelated to the Native American artifacts. That visit, potentially to look into Gramly’s tip about the bomb components, could have possibly triggered the action at his farmhouse last month and the deeper look into Miller’s collection of artifacts." 

Welcome to the modern world. Wonder if they shot his dog?

Former Freeman Baler Employee comments on post

I posted about J.A. Freeman and Son's awhile back. One of the employees left comments on the post. If you are interested click here.
Someone should write this history of the Freeman Baler company.
I think we have the second and third balers that they made.
J.A. Freeman and Sons was one of the last old-style family companies left in American Agricultural Machinery production.
I think that the Darf Rake company (Nikkel Ironworks) might be the last.
You could go into Porland, walk into the company office, AND they would give you a tour and a free hat!
The drafting room was amazing. Huge old multipane windows and old wood drafting tables. The whole building was like a tour of the industrial revolution. Old milling machines, old wood shelves, a little dust here and there....
Freeman made the same baler for decades. They were virtually made by hand out of off the shelf dimensional steel.
They featured huge bull and pinion gears instead of a gearbox and a massive flywheel to store kinetic energy. The massive plunger compressed hay at 75-85 strokes per minute. Everything on the baler was rebuildable.
We have two 1970's Freeman 200's that have been rebuilt countless times. The reason I don't use them is 1. The Wisconsin V-4 engines are tired, 2. They need to be rebuilt again and I don't have the time to do it correctly. 3. Rebuilding a knotter 800 times does not give you a new knotter, welding in a new top  on the bale chamber is not an advantage if you get it 1/8" to one side. 4. They make a huge amount of noise, have a 1930's design for feeding hay, and you have to get on and off the tractor to put them in gear.
And finally... I wanted to make 14x18 bales and the kit to change the 16x18 baler to 14 x 18 was $6,000. (What I really want to do is find a Freeman 370 with a diesel engine on it and convert it to a 15" chamber. I think I could still get the extra bales in a stack but they would be easier to pick up.
When our running 200 busted a pinion bearing housing I bought a New Holland BC5075. It turns at 97 strokes per minute. It is shiny and new. I baled 7,000 bales with it and broke three bales and two shear pins in one entire season.
Someone needs to write a book about the Freeman Baler company. It is an incredible niche market baler. The slow speed and the design of the feed system makes it the best alfalfa baler ever made. It does not knock the leaves off the plant.
The balers are so heavy that we used to make 85 pound 16 x 18 x 46" 2-tie wheat straw bales with below 12% moisture.

Baling with the 200 last year two days before it exploded...

Ducks and ducting but no duck tape or duct tape and no one yells, "Duct" and is a little duct called a "ductling?"

My wife splurged on a new exhaust fan for the stove. She got on some sort of closeout special. It has touch controls and a remote control. Pretty fancy.
It also has a pretty big fan in it and a really bright light.
I was given the task of connecting the fan.
Since the stove was moved over a foot or so, it meant that the exhaust fan ducting needed to be changed. I do have some experience with ducks as a have been stalked by a duck for quite some time now.
So, I put my ducting skills together and... Well, I have no duct making skills, other than making drain pans out of sheet metal in shop class some 30 years ago.
But, I just happened to have a box brake laying around. I salvaged it from going to scrap twenty years ago and I've been tripping over it in the shop ever since then.

I just used standard stove pipe fittings. I built a square box to hide the connections. It was a little challenging because I just have a box brake. You can only bend 2" deep and it is difficult to do corners. So you have to think about how you want to put your little box together so that it looks nice and so you can take it apart to install it.

I just bought light gauge galvanized metal from the local large hardware store. I've never tried to bend light sheet metal before. It was much easier that then 16 gauge stuff I usually attempt to bend.

I wash my truck and have a milkshake

I am planting peas ten miles from home.
I'm pretty much planting between showers. Which breaks up my day. I also have to get equipment ready for the new season. Sell feed, hay, straw, talk to people look at fields, that sort of thing.
I get started with a project that should only take a little while and then it takes five times as long and I don't get started planting.
That is what happened two days ago.
I got my little helper to change the muffler and do a complete service on the 2-155 White that I got from Smith and Smith last year. I'm still quite angry that they lied to me about the FWA. I also continually amazed how they destroyed the tractor for only having it a short amount of time. I wish I would have been the second owner.
I was trying to the get A/C to work properly, which led me to a low voltage problem, which led to replacing the ignition switch, which led to taking the dash apart, which led to....
I was supposed to be planting two hours earlier.
On the way to plant I decided to stop at the DQ and get a Chocolate milkshake. The day before I had a strawberry and I like to stay milkshake integrated. However, I do not like butterscotch. I guess I'm a butterscotchophobic person. I should be more open minded.
But, I digress...
Milkshake in hand, I got to thinking that it was time for my yearly truck wash. If moss is growing on your truck it is time to wash it.
So I pulled into the coin operated carwash at the local auto-parts store.

I think their signs asking you not to wash off stuff that is muddy are pretty funny. The whole point of the carwash is to wash off muddy stuff.
Now I have a system for washing cars at the car wash. The key is to use as little money as possible. You can do it in two washes if you are fast.
You plug enough money in to start the carwash, hose off the car with the hot soap, and then you use the foaming brush to scrub the car. Then when it start beeping you either put just money in to rinse or you keep keep scrubbing as the foam keeps coming for a while after the wash ends.
Then you plug the minimum amount into the carwash and rinse the car. Then if money is left i do the tires.
However, the truck was really dirty so I put in $3.50 and kept scrubbing. But...the beeper that tells you when the wash is about to end didn't work and I had one side of the truck rinsed and the other side covered in soap.
It annoyed me so much I kicked all the mudflaps to make a big pile of mud and I drove off with one side of the truck covered in soap. I showed those guys...
Apparently my new mental age is around 5 years.

I got to the field and it was totally dry. I could have been planting all day. I worked till 10 pm or so. I planted 26 acres. I left the corners and little sliver in the center of the field until yesterday to finish.
It took me way too long.
The next field was just across the driveway. I started on that yesterday morning. But, first I fixed the hot tub. It took me an hour to find the secret reset button. I really am going to have to go to the chiropractor so that I can bend over just a little further. I think I would have found the elusive reset button a lot sooner.
I planted two rows of peas and one row of fescue. The fescue stays in for five years so you need to drive really straight with the drill. I didn't drive that straight. Then I got a flat tire on the drill transport. There are duals so I just kept going. I ran over some very sharp object in the field.
When I got down to the center of the field I had to take the tire in for repair. It was 20 miles away.
I got to drive the farmer's old Izuzu diesel pickup. It is kind of cool.
What this all means is that I didn't have time to bring the drill home.
It is now raining and the drill is setting in a field several miles away. It needs a few repairs and I don't want to drive it home in the rain.
Perhaps I'll go fishing.

I catch a fish and ride a motorcycle but not at the same time

I'm having a little trouble getting into the swing of things. Monday morning I found the fishing pole leaning in the corner and thought it looked a little lonely. I really did need to drive around and look at fields to see if the Peas were coming up.
I sort of took a wrong turn and ended up at the river.
My second cast I hooked a bite sized bass.
Thought about keeping him and then I mentally computed the chances of me catching another one to share and I threw him back...
Didn't even get another bite.
At 8:30 my phone started ringing non stop and I decided I had to go to work.
Then my daughter showed up. She didn't have school and my wife saw me sneaking out leaving with the fishing pole. We did a little exploring.

Yesterday I looked at my motorcycle. It looked sort of lonely. Plus, I had it parked between the work bench and my tool box. My little helper tries to squeeze by it to get to my tool box. I thought this was pretty funny until I saw that his belly had broken the turn signal and the mirror.
I thought I would get it out and clean it up. It really only needs tires and rear brakes. I just never get it done.
It took a couple kicks to get it started. Not bad for setting for a year....or two....

I actually planted 30 acres yesterday.
I would tell you about the planting and the misshaps that occurred on the way to plant but now I have to go to work. That is a story in itself...

My new chicken feed advert for the Portland Market

Chicken Feed Produced by the imaginary collective Which is much better than a Real Collective because we don't really collect things...

Boycott the industrial agricultural complex! Buy working class feed from the local oppressed peasant class. 

We have the best feed for non-bourgeoisie chickens. It contains representative samples from locally raised grain. Wheat, Oats, Barley, Peas, flax and Camelina are all represented according to their nutritional value.

Flax and Camelina are essential grains as the seeds came from our brothers in the struggle against the running dogs of capitalist greed. These seeds were provided by workers in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. They are high in Omega 3 fatty acids which will cleanse your system of sedentary bourgeoisie influences.

Feed this in a free choice manner. The Collective of Chickens will utilize it accord to their need.

There are no contaminants from the greedy capitalist corporations who are poisoning the proletariat with Genetically Modified seeds.

We are asking for a simple donation of ten dollars for one reusable bucket that will not weigh less than 15 kg.

This money will go to provide for the re-education of brother and sister workers into the glorious local socialist collective.

Large jugs of Vodka will also be accepted...

For more information please contact...

My week in review with various photos of things other than corn

It has been pointed out to me that I should not let work get in the way of posting to the Lazy Farmer blog, after all, it is in fact called, "The Lazy Farmer."

I do feel bad about letting down my 37.5 loyal and faithful readers and so here is what has been happening in my life.

WITH PHOTOS!

This is the view out my back window sometime midweek.
Our swamp of a farm is slowly drying out and I am planting it five acres at a time. This view represents quite a step for us. We have moved from 12ft equipment way up to 16 feet. The neighbor farmer passed away and I made what I thought was quite a low offer on a harrow, cultipacker, and double corrugated roller. My offer was accepted and I said thank you very much!
I've wanted a double corrugated roller for several years. Ever since the babbit bearings wore out on the McCormick Deering model we were using before.
The double corrugated roller features two rollers mounted in tandem. The rear roller is smaller than the front roller and is off set so the point of the rear roller breaks up the ridge of the front roller. It leaves a corrugated finish on the field. Those grooves left in the soil then help preserve moisture. It works really well on our river bottom soils for reasons that I am sure Ed Winkle could tell you in detail.
I should have been planting but I got caught up to my little helper who wasn't coming in till 9 a.m.
I've been no-tilling flax. I'm a little hesitant to continue with straight no-till after May 1st. We tend to go from wet to dry fairly fast. Bare ground with high clay content tends to crack badly dry out so when you no-till with no ground cover you can loose your soil moisture very quickly.
So we worked the bare ground lightly before using the no-till drill.
This is an example of what I've been no-tilling into. You can see the line where it was too wet to plant.

One of the seed companies heard that we have been experimenting with flax. He needed someone to grow Golden Flax for birdseed and possibly for human consumption. He is not getting a lot of interest from real farmers. He was so happy we agreed to plant flax for him that he gave us hats, pens, and two $50 gift certificates to Olive Garden. We shall see how this all turns out.
Flax is a nice rotation for us as it allows for weed control Proso Millet, Rat tail Fescue, annual blue grass and other weeds that plague our corn and annual ryegrass rotations on really wet ground. It makes me a little nervous to plant after May 1st but it is hard to know what to plant this late in the year.

I found it interesting to see that the flax is not a product of the USA. I am sort of hoping the Agri-Tec seed salesman looks like this but I doubt it...
Later I planted oats and fescue. Two rows oats and one row fescue. This is not always a good idea. The fescue is seed crop for next year. The oats may steal all the moisture and the fescue may fail. Usually, you spring plant the fescue alone and expect a crop the next year. With the higher rent we are now forced to pay it is hard to lose a year of production and so we planted the oats.
After planting the oats I moved several miles down the road to plant more oats for my neighbor. He had made one pass with a disk and so I needed to beat the scheduled downpours at the end of the week. The Great Plains no-till drill does do a pretty nice job as a secondary tillage tool but it does slow you down a bit. I got there at 5 p.m. and finished the 35 acres by 10 p.m.

Saturday I planted another 30 acres of triticale. It drizzled on and off for most of the day but the dirt was still crumbling behind the drill so I kept going.
Today my daughter and I attended our former church. Dad is at the Valley View retirement center where we used to help with church services. It was a good service. The pastor had a good sermon about "hope," and there was an interesting discussion about wisdom and world views in Sunday School class. I really like the old folks that attend the chapel and the service is usually pretty simple but I find it enjoyable.
Dad was not at Church. We went up to see him and he said he missed the bus. He was eating his lunch and I felt really awkward standing around. I was going to eat with him but he is not going to the dining room and I didn't know how the whole dinner thing works. I have never been very good about having a conversation with my father. I was going to go back later but I started helping my wife with the kitchen and didn't.
Valley View retirement center is a pretty good place. The staff really seem to care about the residents and the residents are generally happy. He seems to be really well cared for. I think it would be a good place for him to stay. I just need to figure out what to say and do when I go visit him.