I saw this bicyclist three days in a row

He is my cousin's husband. I don't think he recognizes me and I wave too late. 

He is a nice guy. I should wave sooner.

Another Memorial Service

I went to a memorial service today.
It was for a local fellow who I have known for many years. He used to drive a Studebaker Stationwagon. I think his wife drove it until the late 1990's.
He was a machinist who could make absolutely anything.
He was 71 years old.
The Doctors had a lot of trouble figuring out what was wrong with this. He was in a lot of pain. I'm not sure I ever heard exactly what was wrong.
Here is the deal...
I've gone to church my entire life, I've heard a lot of sermons and I've heard a lot of talk about being a proper witness to the local community, the importance of saving souls,
In fact I heard quite the sermon from his pastor at the memorial service. He laid it all on pretty thick. No real disrespect intended, your typical modern pastor who is a good speaker.
However, that is not why the church was packed.
My friend was a good guy. He didn't make a big deal out of his faith. Rather, he lived his faith. His word was gold, he treated everyone as he would prefer to be treated and he did the best work he could do.
There were people at his memorial that that no amount of tract passing and lecturing would never bring into a church.
They had pie and ice cream after the service.

While I was having pie I received a text from a good friend noting that his father died last night.
So, who is next?

Pond turtles, butterflies, and the King's Forest

I worked up a little field this afternoon. If I knew what to plant I could plant it...
I'm a little frustrated.
I was talking to a friend the other day who told me that they sold a key piece of farm equipment to pay for fertilizer. Later that day I ran out of prepaid fertilizer money and I realized I have $20,000 worth of unsold hay in a neighbor's barn that would pay for fertilizer if it would sell.
However, I was unwilling to run up a bill I couldn't pay so I parked the fertilizer spreader and my daughter and I rode the motorcycle to retrieve my pickup.
Since I am moving around the neighborhood by myself I have borrowed a motorcycle trailer and I move my pickup and then ride the motorcycle for the fertilizer truck, then retrieve the motorcycle and go after the tractor and then go after the motorcycle and so on.
She wanted to try out her new helmet and so we took a ride to get my pickup from an unnamed location.
We arrived to find a whole contingent of gubment vehicles. They don't carpool.
I said to my daughter, "they are vultures," my friend is talking about selling out to the conservation folks and they are swarming him.
It turned out that it was not the "hard sell," conservation core but rather a nice girl counting pond turtles and some guy doing weed control, and assorted support staff. I figure that since it was a gubment job it and it was a beautiful spring day, it was one guy to roll the joint, one guy to light it, and they they went to find to pond turtle girl and were most likely sitting under a tree somewhere baked out of their skulls.
It is not like any of it is real.
Some years ago a clever "scientist" put together a good powerpoint presentation stressing the importance of pond turtles, blue butterflies, and the theory that at some magical point before white Europeans arrived, they whole state was "White Oak Savannah," and so it is... The whole focus of the local state conservation agencies in a nutshell.
The only reason there are pond turtles at this sight is because the grumpy old Dr. just dug his own ponds without advice from the clever folks and then controlled access.
If you have to deal with these wonderful gubment folks you soon find out that what is meant by "public land" is property of the King which is paid for my your tax dollar. It is NO LONGER your land, it belongs to the gubment and is administered by petty bureaucrats who make exceptions for their friends, but claim to be completely honest. Sort of like your local church leadership board.
This morning I read the Capital press and I see that while "Our Dear Leader" has issued a fatwa declaring illegal immigrants legal, in order for them to become really legal they have to do paperwork (of course). To do the application they need to request records from their employers which then alert the employer that the applicant is an illegal alien with false papers. The employers are then required by law to report the employee as an illegal alien who can then be deported because.... HE HAS NOT FILLED OUT THE PAPERWORK. And the gubment wonders why people hate them...
If Lars Larson was not a complete idiot he could do a whole show on that insanity... Someone should call him. Except he would misunderstand the caller and start an argument with himself and the caller would just get tired and hang up.
But, I digress...
It could be worse. My friend could be selling his farm to a winery. The alternatives, housing development, winery, gubment. At least it will be preserved and he gets money. Giving it to the Nature Conservatory would mean they would rape the land the same way they did with their donation up Gopher Valley. Clear cut the sucker. Probably turned it into a winery, sterilized the hillside, put up fences, attracted bicyclists.
Perhaps I have issues...
Anyway,
This is what I did today.

Dentists

I want my old dentist back. I think I would gladly give Lisa my triumph and my entire collection of Freddy fender albums if she would just come in and give me the shot and talk me through the visit.

Tooth wouldn't go numb so I got second shot. I hate needles.

Whole side of my head is numb. 

I can't sit in this parking lot forever.

There is a local airport, I think I have enough money for a one way to Florida.

I ain't ever coming back.

I quit drinking Pepsi.

I hate novacane.

I hate dentists.

No solid food for 24 hrs...

Update, made it across town. Can't feel my ear or nose but yet my brain hurts.

This is why you need to practice driving drunk, safe driving, when you are young.

What the heck did they give me?

Made home, found rocking chair, doing much better...

Farming a housing development

Two things I avoid with my own farm. 

Ground in multiple locations and housing developments.

I've gotten rid of most of my random little fields and focused on the fields that are not too bad a drive.

I hate checking fields ten miles away.

So at the point where I was ready to get a different job and do no-tilling my spare time....

I'm driving through town to farm a housing development and then farming five miles on the opposit side of our farm.

You can't say no to ground and I'm helping a friend but....

Plus, I prebought all my fertilizer and I did a lot of planting and would fine financially through the summer. Now it's back to poverty.

There has gottabe a better way to live.

And when I worked on the kitchen faucet I knocked the dishwasher drain off and the fake wood floor is curling up and I have to go to the dentist and my new dentist is not my old dentist and global warming is making the grass grow and I still have multiple semi-truck loads of hay and I'm lazy! I don't want to work. I want to switch time streams.

Perhaps I need a different hat, and a flux capacitor but my studebaker won't quite hit 9mph any more...

I upgrade my Mac and wonder why anyone still buys Apple computers

Actually I know. I hate to switch. I hate the PC. It could be worse...
I just did the free upgrade from OS 10.6 to 10.7 and it is horrible. I mean laughable.
I went from having a moderately fast MacBook Pro to having an iPad one.
I only did it because I had to upgrade Intuit products.
I also hate Intuit.
It is so incredibly slow I can't even believe it. AND all the things I hate about my iPhone I now can hate on my main computer. BUT, the iPhone is faster!
Have been looking at the Surface RT on eBay. Think I'll switch.
This is funny.

Riding a motorcycle down this road is much more fun that moving a 15 foot grain drill!

There is a lot of wind noise in this video. You might turn your audio down a bit before watching.

I live in a wonderful part of the country to ride a small displacement light motorcycle. Cool weather and twisty and hilly roads with not a lot of traffic.
It is perfect for the 650 Triumph because you hardly ever have to shift. The Ascot VT500 is a little different. I find it amusing that Honda fitted the V-Twin with a six speed transmission and you really do need all the gears. It has a definite powerband and it likes to be wound out.
The Ascot also has a little vibration. I don't really notice it after riding a 650 Triumph without proper engine bracing for 25 years, but I notice things coming loose. The windscreen and mirrors need to be tightened each time I ride.
I also need to find original mirrors. I'd like to find a sport type fairing off of the European version of this motorcycle. There is one in England on ebay for $250 plus shipping and not including mounting brackets. Probably not buying it...
Took daughter to town to get Chinese Food for lunch, pick up a device to convert optical audio to analogue audio, and get a few paper plates. Ended up buying a wireless headphone set for my father-in-law so he can watch is giant TV without disturbing the neighbors.
Carried it all home on the motorcycle.
With no luggage rack or saddlebags. Had a nice time. Daughter and I stopped at Starbucks for iced coffee.
Of course I forgot the connecting cord so I had to go back. Daughter opted to stay home. I bought her one of those complicated Lego VW vans for her birthday. It is amazingly complicated.
I went a little faster without her.
I stopped to see my friend's new tractor on the way home.
I should have gone to MuddyValley's house and welded hooks on his loader bucket. I now feel guilt. Not a lot. Just a little.
Muddy Valley gave me a set of Tandberg Fasett speakers. This would be somewhat of an expensive gift but one of them is slightly melted from a fire. But, one does not look a gift horse in the mouth...

A note in closing...
With my usual luck, I ran out of gas on my way home. A mile from home to be exact. 150 miles on a tank of gas. There was a problem switching to reserve. Not sure what I did but then I got it started before my wife arrived with a gas can.
Everyone was quite amused.

Cereal rye vs serial rye

This is a field of cereal rye. It should be fertilized and have growth regulator applied. But it is headed out.

Serial rye is different. If you drank George dickel green label daily for a year or so you would be a serial rye drinker. 

And a drunk.

AA is apparently different from AAA but may involve getting your car towed.

I can't help myself and post anther rambling blog post full of misspellings and grammatical errors which doesn't make a lick of sense...

Ok, some conspiracies are just too good to keep to myself.

Someone should call Lars with this one today. Other than I think Lars is kind of a Moron. He would probably think you were disagreeing with him and speak slowly and give an inane example to prove his irrelevant point, and then when you get really frustrated with his stupidity, hang up on you, leaving me (once again) sitting on the tractor sputtering, "BUT HE WAS ON YOUR SIDE...."

But, I digress...

So a couple neighbors were in the store here yesterday (I wasn't actually there but heard about it).

One of the neighbors has been on vacation in Hawaii where he spent time in a hot tub or pool with a longshoreman and discussed the strike at the Port of Portland.

I think they may have even splashed each other. I'm a little worried that the next time this guy asks me to plant for him I will instead have to bake him a cake or provide flowers. 

But, I digress once more....

The other neighbor who has vast experience with conspiracies then spoke up.

His theory is as follows:

New Supertankers are coming into service.

The Supertankers require deeper channels.

The Supertankers are better adapted to fewer but larger ports.

Shipping companies don't want to go up the Columbia to Portland it is a pain in the butt.

The Columbia may have to be dredged to accept Supertankers.

Environmentalists hate dredging.

Environmentalists want the dams on the Columbia removed. 

With no major port in Portland then several of the dams would no longer be needed.

The Supertankers are moving to California and Seattle.

This consolidates shipping which makes shipping companies happy.

And then I forgot several key points cause I got distracted by a pretty bird or a hay customer....booze

But, he tied it all together by noting that Environmentalists, The Feds, Leadership in several states, the Labor Unions, are all either democrats and buddies or lame-arsed Republicans and buddies and it has been shown that labor unions are pretty corrupt, that government agents have been used to coordinate protests in the past and that many people in authority could benefit from the Port of Portland being shut down.

I sure wish I hadn't forgot half the story. Oh well... I think Aliens were involved. I wasn't wearing my hat. 

And now,

I'm off to load a truck of straw that will go to Washington. No conspiracies there...

My little helper got a new job...

Also,

I have some issues with people who have been praying for me. If you are going to pray for me, pray specifically that I get 1.2 million dollars without anyone dying in a industrial accident or complications in my life or nearby lives. While some difficult decisions were resolved for me, and I blame that on the prayers of Ed Winkle and Gorges Grouse and that tractor collector guy that calls me periodically to see how my mental state is doing, the result is that I will have to work my lazy arse off this summer and I have other things to do rather than work. 

I have a good fishing pole, I have a new (new to me is 1984) motorcycle, I accidently bought my daughter a really cool birthday present on ebay while waiting in line to get fertilizer which will bring house of enjoyment and tramping through the woods carving CROATON on trees, I have new record albums to evaluate, in SHORT I do not want to work, I do not have any way to combine extra acres, I want to move to Florida, I.... I.... I.... 

need more coffee.... Wish someone would load this truck for me...

something is eating the leaves off all the peas I planted...

To put it in terms for the Lars Larson Show:

Laziness= Good

Work=Bad

NOW STOP ARGUING WITH ME, it is my blog!

Another friend died

All my heroes are dying or dead.
I think I will take a break for a while...
It was a beautiful day at Muddy Valley.
He should post more.
Read his blog.
He has pictures of spiders...

Ed would have given us an Easter Post..

Here is one of his from last year. (Click)
Ed's goal was to turn his blog posts into a book.
I suppose it is good to have goals.

We interrupt this blog about aliens and stupid hats to mourn the passing of Ed Winkle

My brother came to my house at lunch time to point me to NewAgTalk. Ed Winkle has left this vale of sorrow for the great hereafter. 
I suspect everyone there is quite positive and they all practice no-till planting, always use the proper inoculant, and are quite happy.
It would seem that many of my favorite people are dying. Went to a memorial just the other day for a really decent man who lived an interesting life and, well, he was just a really good guy.
What do you say?
Perhaps I will go look at my White planter and read the label on my humic acid container out of respect.
I will miss Ed and his HiMarkHighSpots.

I try a new hat

This hat is more comfortable but it does leak a little.

Plus, I have problems with visibility. However, if I would just paste a photo of something I want to see on the inside, then I would always be where I want to be.
When I was in high school we had a film on mental health issues. I always thought the fellow who was in the corner rocking back and forth had a pretty good thing going... As long as your mental world is happy..
But I digress,
I could also take part in jousting tournaments in my spare time! I could be Sir Fartsalot and my duck and I would be quite famous, in the weird little circle of jousting people...

Tests of different devices to protect me from alien mind control rays

I have been wondering if our neighborhood is being bombarded by alien death rays. I have been experimenting with hats to see if interrupting these rays will improve my thinking ability.

I thought I would start out with this Mercury hubcap. I'm having some trouble getting it to stay on my head.

My appeal for money, and rain photos

The I have been working ideas for a gofundme page to buy a really good colander to wear on my head instead of the stainless steel strainer. I was pretty anxious to find those missing minutes where I may have gone to sleep been kidnapped by aliens but I'm thinking that perhaps I was just eternally driving in circles and it would be really boring.
I need to incorporate a really good emotional hook. Having some problems.... Especially since the real reason for my need for money is to buy a Lee Moses album, Four Roses legos for my daughter who is too old to play with them, Four Roses parts to restore my Triumph, Four Roses, and if there is any money left, a FWA White 120 to mow hay with.
Here it is so far...

Give my your money! I am a poor struggling farmer who need money to support his closet drinking problem family.
I must buy a new colander to wear on my head to protect myself from aliens who want to steel my brain in order to create banjo playing robots. This could mean the end of the human race as we know it because, I DON'T PLAY THE BANJO!
I only need 1.2 million dollars! (this is only a one time donation of $1 for 1.2 million people.)
While the colander may cost slightly less, the family dog has fatty tumors and my require surgery again. He is a good dog.

I think it will work...

In other news:
It is now raining... Here is a photo from the day before yesterday. See the nice young fellow who is helping me spread fertilizer. He is an energetic young farmer who is not depressed at all. He loves farming.

Here is a photo from yesterday. I'm getting ready to vacuum out the drill. It is raining. I'm setting in the pickup attempting to warm up.

Here is a photo out the window of the tractor whilst planting orchardgrass for a pasture. There was a nice rainbow.  Someone stopped and took my photo framed by the rainbow. I imagine it is on facebook somewhere.

Five minutes earlier