The Useful Duck!

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Sunday, August 30, 2015

Why I hate Conservatives or is it just Republicans?

I really like liked the People's Cube. Excellent political satire, I like the artwork, I have a People's Cube t-shirt and I've started sharing his posts on Facebook.
But, and that is of course a big butt...
Like most conservatives the love of unrestrained capitalism has tainted the golden elixir of truth and humor.
The People's Cube has popup advertising. Popups are the bane of the internet. The best way to make me avoid your site is to have a nice little pop-up that I have to click through to access your content.
Sort of like inviting me to your house for dinner and selling me Amway or a wonderful investment opportunity. It won't happen twice.
So now, the People's Cube is dead to me..
If I could remember how, I would remove the link on my blog...
The online conservative movement really hurts its image by being such a bunch of advertising whores.

In other news...
I got all my straw hauled in before the rain.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

It is most likely going to rain in two days

In two days I will very likely have some 8,000 little straw bales setting (hopefully) in 80 bale blocks in various fields in a ten mile radius of my house.
This will be 10 semi truck loads of straw. I may do 14 truckloads if I have time. 
They are scheduled to be hauled Saturday, in the rain.
I did get everyone else's straw stacked for them. This is why I'm so late. The longest run of dry weather in history and I will get my straw rained on.
I do wish the person who asked me to stack ten truck loads a year for him would have considered that I also have my own commitments before he went ahead and baked 40 truckloads.
Or a least trained his baler operators to make decent bales.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Man prosecuted for imaginary death ray gun, Major Wolfgang Hochstetter is quite proud!


Why would anyone want to hear about my boring life when other people's lives are so much more exciting.
I have been watching the local scanner page on Facebook with my iphone. Lots of local fires and crazy accidents. 
But I have a libertard Facebook friend (accidentally clicked on the friend button whilst perusing his paranoid liberal insanity-dude is a 35 year-old skateboarder which I find amusing) and he posted a link to the Crooks and Liars blog, and I clicked.
According to the FBI, it is possible to build a death ray device and according to the blog, being a "self-professed" KKK member means you can actually do it.

“Glendon Scott Crawford is a terrorist who would have used a weapon of mass destruction to kill innocent members of our Muslim community were it not for the good judgment of citizens who quickly alerted law enforcement to his diabolical plan and the outstanding work of the Albany FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force,” said United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian  Captain Wolfgang Klink. “This case illustrates how vigilance, the shared values of Americans of all faiths, and vigorous investigation can defeat dehumanizing bigotry and hatred.”
(Click to read blog)

Be sure to read the comments below the article. Comedy gold, in a sad ironic sort of way. No one even considers that the weapon could miss-fire if you got really nervous and said "Kapow!" instead of "phew! phew!" when firing the alleged death-ray device.
I also was wondering about the "constructed using off the shelf components!" Is this off the shelf of Sears or Toy R Us or do they shop with the formerly evil Dr. Drew?
I did my research by googling indestructible and came up with a smaller death ray gun.
I would also like to know if anyone actually belongs to the KKK in the 21st century. I understand that in the mind of the average self-described Democrat everyone with a southern accent is a Klan member but in real life I suspect it is not so. I'd bet that at your average five person Klan rally four of the cars are gubment vehicles and the other guy rode his bicycle from the Southern Poverty Law Center to spy on the others. The reason for the four gubment cars is the infiltrators are from all different agencies which have fortunately not communicated about their covert operations.
And then one lone wacko inters the room.... And it is now a sting...
But, I digress...
I am protected, I'm wearing a funnel on my head!

Sunday, August 16, 2015

An update from the drought stricken west

I have so many topics I don't really know where to start.
Things that have happened...

1. I have spent the summer stacking some of the worst bales I have ever stacked. I have photos to prove it.

2. As a result I am just now starting to bale my own straw.
3. It has been hot and dry and there have been multiple fires all around us.
4. A weasel or perhaps it was a mink, it was black, appeared and slaughtered a number of rats.
5. My numbskull hay customer pointed out to my wife that the weasel would start killing her chickens next.
6. The 14 year old neighbor boys heard about a wild weasel on the loose and staked out the barn. One of them ended up shooting himself and got a life flight ride. The other one seems to be grounded. The Sheriff noted that a little blood makes a good teaching experience... !
7. Stanley killed the weasel two days later.
8. Stanley may also have eaten the weasel. I tell you, we do feed our dog.


9. It rained.

10. All my straw got rained on and now is of lessor quality.
11. I am in a prennial bad mood.
12. My daughter and I bought a silk screen kit and are attempting to figure out how to silk screen t-shirts.
13. I hate the new Mac OS.

I'm setting in the rocking chair with an ice pack. Daughter is at youth group. I told her I was going to work on t-shirt designs but it was a lie.
Computer technology probably peaked in 2002. Since then it has been a downhill slide of bloatware and harder to use operating systems.
Apple took many of the bad ideas from Microsoft and Microsoft has become more Mac-like.
I need to scan an image and clean it up in Photoshop and add text. I honestly wish for a simple program like Ready-Set-Go or early Pagemaker or just give me a good photocopier with an enlarger feature and a type writer.
I think I can just photograph the old clip art image with my iPhone, print it out on the laser printer. Print out my text in NotePad, then put the whole thing together on a light table, photograph it again with the iPhone and then print out a transparency so I make a screen.
Ten years ago I would have just used my Mac.
However, it is now easier to go back to doing it by hand.
I need to buy a useable computer.
I think I will buy a Windows Surface tablet and get a keyboard.
I am no longer considering a Mac.

I could also go on a rant about politics. I suppose I shall refrain...

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Not wanting to be caught as the first one to stop clapping...

I wished the President happy birthday!

This was rewarded by a request for money...

And an opportunity to send him a message!



I have followed my mother's advice and I said nothing at all!

Note the name of the person who sent me the letter... In keeping with the spirit of this countries first "middle easterner" president.

But I'm a forward thinking person and so I'm looking forward to eight years of Hillary!
Somehow, I just never envisioned the whole world being run by total idiots. I've read plenty of history and I just assume a certain level of self-absorption and bureaucratic mess. However, this country is a far cry from Jefferson's ideal or the age when my father grew up.
You realize people would get together and have debates about subjects just for fun? Or memorize classic literature and give presentations at family get-togethers?
My neighbor could recite "The ride of the gillamonster," and something about geese flying, and if you pestered him, could relate Greek Mythology to modern events.
Of course he is now dead...

And now an update on farming...
My friend came to help me stack at 7:30 p.m. This was great, we were stacking' fools till dark came on and my light switch melted.
I twisted random wires together and picked up another four loads and then fuses started blowing.
I went home at 11 p.m.
I stacked around five truckloads during daylight. Not sure of the total in the dark.
Today is another day.
I have to decide what to do and where to go and what to have my helper help me with.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Momentum

It is 420 in the afternoon. (Of course now that somethings are legal in Oregon it's always 420 time here)
 I am sitting in a Wheatfield alongside the highway watching a steady stream of traffic heading either to the casino or coming home from A vacation at the beach.
A seemingly endless small field of wheat straw bales is staring me down.
It's not that big in the grand scheme of things but I won't be home until 11 PM tonight.
Note the sideways bale in front of me...

I didn't get a very early start. I spent several hours this morning cutting all the twine that it wrapped around the hydraulic motor on the bale pick up. It would seem that there is a problem with the center twine on the bales in the previous field.
I was also trying to help my helper figure out how to adjust the plunger on the New Holland BC 5070 Baler.
Rather cryptic, would be the proper term to describe the instructions in the service manual.
I should have told him to take another day off. But, I really should be bailing.
As spellcheck so aptly puts it, bailing, as in bailing out.
I downloaded a Suspense novel onto my iPhone to listen to but but it got to the sex scene, and when I heard a grandmotherly lady say "@#$%^," but not in reference to a chicken, i shut my phone off from embarrassment. It's back to Sherlock Holmes for me.
How was I to know it was porn? I thought Von LUSTbader was the guys real name...
I could decide not to burn my phone.
I think it will be a long afternoon. I have found, that there are people who are much more enthusiastic than I am.
I have pretty much given up my usual fantasy of a motorhome full of girls coming back the coast after a Husquavarna chainsaw calendar photo shoot who decided to stop along the highway and give the stacker operator hugs and ice cream cones just cause that is what over endowed Swedish girls do in America.
But, ice cream would be nice. The hugs would probably embarrass me any way. The the duck would quack unexpected and afrighten them, spill the ice cream and all would be for naught.

Sunday, August 2, 2015

I've been neglecting the Daily Strumpet.
It was been one hot summer in Oregon. We have had over twenty days of weather over 90 degrees. Everything is ready at the same time.
We did not replace the combine which burned up last year. We are using a Massey 750 and a White 8800. The Massey is not so bad. But it is nowhere near the capacity of a 1480 International.
Also, it is now so hot and dry we are just a little spooked by the possibility of fire. The White caught on fire numerous times combining peas. We have a water truck parked in the field at all times.
I've been stacking for the neighbors. I have baled very little so far.
My daughter has been helping me but I don't want her to bale by herself when it is so dry and hot. Plus, you can't bale two-tie straw and put it into an 80 bales stack you can pick up with squeeze when it is over 90 degrees. The straw just get fluffy and springy and you can't make a good bale.
No one else seems to care.
The one person I'm baling for bales all day long with two three tie balers. I can pick up the bales but the people who are hauling them are cursing me. It is not really my fault. I can stack just about anything. It doesn't make very good stacks but what am I suppose to do about it?
There has been a fire almost every day. Combines, stackers, mowers, random flames. My new housing development field had a five acre fire from a lawnmower. That is five acres less to bale.
Perhaps I will post some photos...
Today I daughter and I went to Antique Powerland.
I saw a friend from college and high school. He is now a school teacher. He does lego robotics with his kids and builds rockets. He told by daughter stories. I think I used to be a slightly different person.
Once we made up flyers advertising free beer and live music with the address of another friend of ours and gave them to the skateboarders in the local shopping mall. I had sort of forgotten about that particular event.
He also told be that Right Guard deodorant works as propellant in potato guns. I need to check that out.
I talked to him for an hour. After we left my daughter pointed out the large bugger hanging out of my nose. I picked it and offered it to her and she sort of freaked out. Oh well, I no longer have any pride anyway. Who really give a rat's bottom....
The only difference between Antique Powerland and our farm is that the tractors at Antique Powerland have good paint on them.
Tomorrow it is back to stacking for everyone else in the neighborhood. I've been calling people and giving up my straw fields. I need to find a different job...

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