How I really feel...

Going to work in the belly of the beast has its advantages. I got a week of paid time off between Christmas and New Years.
I've been working here at home.
I meant to post every day. But, I've been surprisingly busy.
What finally got me to stay up late and rant was started by Scooter Boy and followed up by a perusal of FaceBook.

My brother is in Indiana for Christmas and I'm keeping the store open.
Scooter Boy showed up yesterday and attempted to buy a $3.00 can of staring fluid with a credit card. I said, "Really?!!!"
I told him I couldn't find the credit card machine. I didn't want to be honest rude but I was not going to attempt to figure out how to run a credit card payment for a can of starting fluid.
He needed to get something started for the couple he sold his house to.
I asked him if he thought he still owed me money for hay. He said he had so much trauma in his life that he didn't remember if he paid for hay.
I can't find my receipt book so I guess I don't know either.
I gave him a nearly empty can of starting fluid that I had been saving to shoot with the .22 so I suppose the joke is on me.
He went off on the Russians hacking the election...

I think I can categorically state at this point in my life that I have complete and utter contempt for Democrats. There is no point in arguing with them. I've taken to just laughing and saying, "hey, you know I voted for Trump..."
He repeated what sounded to me like new talking points so I opened Facebook to check out what the shrill shills had to say.
Yes there are new talking points. Apparently they all read Politico every morning or maybe it is just telepathically beamed to them when they roll their first joint of the day.

If I can relate just a few points to perhaps clarify my stance. My wife and family discourages me from telling people they are stupid misguided on FaceBook.

The new word is that the Russians are hacking everything. I saw one comparison to the attack on Pearl Harbor. I did not comment with any bitter laughter. Not really a lot of sailors dying in pain while swimming in burning bunker crude with a Russian Phishing scheme (but upsetting nonetheless when it is that evil Demon (ex Democrat) Donald Trump) and a suspected find of code associated with Russian hackers on a laptop that might be connected to a Vermont Utility.
Look you dumbasses... Two things...
First, The reason Hillary was in trouble was that she her own server outside of gubment and storing classified info on her own computer. It was not considered secure. I want to say, "Look you IDIOTS, this is why she was NOT SUPPOSED TO DO IT."  Of course when you just go ahead and give up your password it doesn't matter how many layers of security you have.
Not to mention Weiner Boy...
Secondly, For years, conservative alarmists have been going on about the vulnerabilities to the US electrical grid. For years they have complained about the gubment's indifference to this problem.
Here is an article from this summer off of NewsMax.
Now that it might have happened it is Trump's fault. How do you not expect my to just flat out call you a moron?

And finally...
About the election hacking...
1. The USA and every other country in the world does what it can to influence politics in other countries to its best advantage. SO why wouldn't the Ruskies? AND, of course they have been doing it for years. It is probably why Obama got elected in the first place.
2. What about the information that was revealed and what about the early reports that the Republican's were not stupid enough to fall for a fake Google email requesting a password?
Also, In a side note: I think all the fighting and dirty tricks the Republican's were playing on each other probably came out in the primaries so I suppose I could add that to the Loony Liberal theory that Trump was picked by Putin preferably presumptuously.
3. This idea that the Russians have the goods on Trump and are going to blackmail him to do something. I'm not sure people's opinion on Trump could really go any lower. I'm not sure it matters. I fail to see what the long range goal would be. Perhaps not bombing Islamic nut jobs?
4. When I was a young liberal leaning fellow it was the CIA that was evil and the Russians were just misunderstood and really they were a more free and equal society the us. Not exploiting brown people in any way and never killing anyone who didn't really deserve it.
Last week the Russians became completely evil...
Eurasia has always been at war with Oceana..

The absolute proof that Liberalism is a Mental disorder can be seen with their incredibly ability to ignore years of their own ranting about dirty tricks general evilness of the CIA and count it as a major plus that Hillary was endorsed the CIA. It is amazing to point out what should be an utter conundrum and see the gears skip a fraction of a rotation before that programing they got way back in 1965 at University of Oregon with the purple Koolaid or whatever it was they ingested, kicks in and they happily and gladly exclaim, "Trump is a racist!"

I really don't need to point out that I think Trump is a complete moron and suspect he will do more harm that good and note that he is not Draining the Swamp, Throwing Hilary in Jail, or planning on following through on a lot of other BS, but that is not why I voted for him.
I voted for him just to see you squirm...

That is just wrong on so many levels-I suspect.

What is really disturbing to me is that there is no self awareness on the part of so called liberals.
I can accept the idea that George Bush set the stage for the turnkey police state with the Patriot act but Obama set it in stone by running on a ticket of hope and change and pretending to care about essential freedoms and then expanding censorship, right of due process, restriction of internet security, and the acceptance of the aforementioned Patriot act. And not only that, he continued the was in the Mid East with the upsetting of Egypt and Libia.
I know a few young people who were pretty angry about that and while I think they were misguided in thinking Bernie was going to fix it all, I do understand why they refused to vote for the big H.
But if I can hold George Bush responsible and I can be angry enough to never vote for a Bush again, then can't the libritards admit Obama sold them out and Hillary was his Judas?
Nope!!!
It is back to another pint o special Democrat affirmation cocktail probably happily administered anally...

Now that I have this off my chest, perhaps I can go back to making polite conversation with people who should know better but refuse to think outside their chosen world view.

Merry Christmas

Christmas marks the passing of a year for me much more than does New Year's Day or even my Birthday.
Things are now different...
Here is a sunset I took at the beginning of the Month.

Here is a sunset I took at the end of last week.

Hope you all have a happy Christmas.
I've been a bit remiss in my postings due to my schedule, my dying laptop, my Stupid Apple Phone, and laziness. Perhaps next year will be better.

You are what you eat

One of the fundamental principles of the delusional democrat is the belief in the "low information white voter."

This can be distilled down to if you are white and didn't get a four year degree and you work for a living you tend to be more conservative.

I have found this concept to be accurate for people of color that I meet as well but then I suspect I seek likeminded people. Or perhaps conservative people of color don't fit the consensually desired narrative and so are ignored.

Since the people who work for Slate and Politico have all been to college and know more than anyone else this is intrupted as conservatives are stupid and don't deserve an opinion.

The counter argument says that colleges present information from a liberal perspective.

After working in a college grounds department and being invisible for a year I would have to say to my fellow low info friends, 

You just have no idea the BS your hard earned dollar is buying for the re-education of your children.

And now I have to return to shoveling leaves in the snow. 

I leave you with a picture from warmer times/climes.

I am not a mechanic

My wife had been complaining about the brakes on her pickup making noise.
I don't hear it.
I just gave up and pulled the rear wheels.
A wheel cylinder had failed.
This is not a difficult task. It is a 1998 Ford F150 and has brake shoes in the back and disks in the front'
We went to church this morning. There was a nice Christmas program. The daughter sang in the choir.
I am rather disappointed that there was not a brown paper bag full of unshelled peanuts, Christmas Candy, (with a couple chocolate dollars) and an Orange. A Christmas program is not complete without the brown paper bag of Christmas treats.
But, I digress...
After a sumptuous Sunday dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn I staggered out to work on the pickup.
It is kind of sad when there is so much crap in both shops that it was easier to do the brakes in the driveway in the snow.
It took me all afternoon and I only did one wheel.

I couldn't get the emergency brake mechanism to go together right. There is one little tab that was in the wrong spot.
And then, I didn't realize it was out of brake fluid and when I went to bleed the brakes I got air in the lines. It was dark and i was suffering from frustration.
That is what I get for working on Sunday.
In other news...
We went on vacation to San Diego.
It was nice.

Should have saved a little bit of money to fix the brakes on the pickup.
Perhaps I'll post more of my adventures.
I think I'll go read a book.

A day at work and a link to a news story that you won't think is funny

That's not funny...

I have found the liberal sense of humor to be quite amusing, but not so much in the way it was intended.

I find the total lack of self awareness kind of a hoot. For example, I am quite aware that I am a balding middle aged guy who for some reason can't pronounce words properly and occasionally farts in public.

I listen to both kinds of music, Country AND Western, have a blog, have a terrible bias (due to my whiteness) and think I'm a lot smarter than I really am.

This is all common knowledge but here is the little secret that I understand and occasionally have to admit... I'm not always right!

Here is a funny story, as a disclaimer I will admit that folks often don't find the same things as funny as I do but that is because they are low-brow knuckle draggers.

CLICK HERE        (I think it is funny the guy went to the local Friends school as well. I attended a college founded by Quakers)

Yesterday was a rough day at work.

We had a hearing test, it was cold, it was Friday, my building parter is quitting smoking.

The hearing test truck was stuck in traffic so everything was delayed.

We entertained ourselves by exclaiming "What?" as a response to every question. Then giggling hysterically. 

I swear it never gets old.

Then the two hispanic friends, lets call them Hose 1 and Hose 2, (in reference to another hilarious (non)  story from work that I told you last summer,) took off for coffee. 

They go to the cafeteria for free coffee nearly every morning in the winter. 

You see, we can't make noise before 9:20 because it wakes the children. 

Exclaiming, "They are paying $45,000 a year for their education, they better get their lazy bottoms out of bed in the morning," was met with a long lecture which I kind of missed as I have a short attention span and I started thinking about feed grinders after the first 30 seconds.

But, I digress...

Hoses 1 & 2 went for coffee and left the rest of us White folk standing around pretending like we couldn't hear each other and laughing.

The Safety lady decided to give us our hearing lecture before the test rather than after the test and Hoses 1 & 2 were "discovered" to be riding together on a quest for free coffee and a nice chat with the ladies that run the cafeteria.

Our supervisor gave them the standard lecture about budget shortfalls and the department needing to look busy because they might decide to cut us. Hose 1 was very offended. Hose 2 said funny things in Spanish. I denied ratting them out and hinted that I implied that they were riding together for other reasons (using my limited Spanish) which would be protected under the college's diversity and safe space policies. This was met with much mirth. Or at least I hope so because I just blurted it out without really thinking about what I had said.

After the lecture we waited in the cold for our test. Those of us in the grounds crew annoyed the rest of the facilities workers by saying "What?" to every statement and then laughing. "Oh, it never gets old!"

The test was in a mobile van. There were little compartments with earphone and a clicker. You were to press the clicker when you heard a tone.

The guy running the test said that people often asked "what?" when they came for the test and it was not a funny as the first time he had heard it.

I made a comment about the booths looking like restroom stalls. I had several clever comments occur to me whilst waiting in the booth for the tones. 

Like exclaiming, "There is no paper left in my stall," or "Hey, this one won't flush." I don't remember which one I actually said. People did laugh which was my plan. I hate the sober silence in group meetings.

I got the best hearing by just clicking anyway whether I heard anything or not. Well, that's not completely true. I hear lots of things in my head, not all of them are hearing test tones.

I had to take an early lunch as I was called on the manage a crew of volunteers clearing Ivy and Black berries from the creek area. My morning was kind of broken up anyway and my building mate had the pole saw. While waiting for him to return I experimented on the ill fitting hard hat by dropping things from the second story loft in our building. 

The large rock just bounced off, the brick left a mark. He returned as I was contemplating dropping a ten pound bag of sand. He wanted to see the brick and rock drop again so we tried it all again. 

The bag of sand caused the hat to fly across the room and hit him in the shin.

So he dropped the old hydraulic cylinder off the loader on it. 

That actually punched a hole in the helmet.

This was so amusing that he offered to help me trim the branches away from the lights in the parking lot. He does an excellent job with the trimmer. He actually is a qualified groundskeeper.

And now I suppose I should got to work at my former real job. I hear my hard working brother out loading a truck of hay already this morning.

Our farm is a lake

My daughter and I went kayaking on our farm this afternoon. I'm thinking we won't be combining Sudan grass. Don't think it is there anymore.

Bake Chopper vs Silage chopper for chopping hay

I have a Goossen bale chopper. I paid way too much money for it. I bought it to chop hay into smaller pieces to run thorough the mixer grinder, back when I had a mixer grinder, for making pig feed.
My neighbor wants one of my old silage choppers for chopping up crappy hay for his cows.
I kind of hate to sell him a silage chopper for this purpose.
It is really dangerous. The silage chopper is mean to be towed behind a chopper to pick up hay in the field and chop it into small pieces. It has rotating metal knives which clear a shear bar by 1/32 of an inch. If you run a rock or a pitchfork or a wrench or you fall into it, the results can be rather catastrophic.
By contrast my Goossen bale chopper is made to shred a bale of straw for erosion control but it also works great on hay. It doesn't cut the hay but instead shreds it. There are no close clearances. You can't really call into it.
But, I'd like to get $2,000 out of it. You can buy a used silage chopper for $500.
Whatever...

The election of Trump strikes home. The Duck becomes stressed and his terrible breath nearly sabotages my burgeoning career as a groundskeeper

I like to have a little solitude while I eat my lunch.
I have found the secret to happiness in life is the concept of controlled access.
Thursday I was quietly minding my own business during my hour lunch break.
I was enjoying a very tasty short rib and onion sandwich skillfully crafted by my lovely and gracious wife.
I was sitting at the Groundskeeping department meeting room taking advantage of the Faculty and Staff WiFi and reading about two Confederate brothers who invented the landmine.
I was gleefully envisioning Blue Belly Yankee Devil Hillary Supporters being blown to smithereens by the evil racist rebels of the South when faint whiff of familiar stench infiltrated my senses.
 I must say the the duck did sneak up on me. I did not hear his usual gruff quack. I would qualify the announcement of his arrival as as more of an angry hiss. Obviously a sign of displeasure in the results of the recent election. At first I merely thought his arrival indicated a desire to find a safe space where he could find emotional solace through the diversity, sustainability, and inclusiveness of our department.
But, soon his foul breath had declared his evil intent. He had become overcome by the injustice of the Electoral College and its denial of the popular vote for our almost dear leader Hillary. He has succumbed to the temptations of violence and anarchy and it would not be a nonviolent protest.
I soon realized I was somewhat trapped in a unventilated space and the hands of the office clock were quickly approaching the end of the lunch hour.
If one of the groundskeeper ladies were to come into the office for some Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) they would perchance not notice the duck and blame me for the act of fowl aggression.
I beat a hasty retreat out the back door into the repair shop and headed for the golf car parking area where the smokers hang out.
No foul duck breath can compete with the aromatic essence of second hand cigarette smoke.
I paused at the doorway to survey the scene.
My supervisor was feet from the office door. I quickly ducked (but without any foul essence or quackery) back into the hallway and headed for the time clock.
I was quite relieved to hear him exclaim the name of the hispanic fellow who sits next to me. Jesus is a pretty decent guy and I hate to get him in trouble but of course, better him than I. I'm not sure why my boss used an American pronunciation of my friends name as the boss is also hispanic.
I quickly clocked in and headed back to work.
When I returned for afternoon break I found the office to be reeking of strong disinfectant. Probably the result of an accidental spill.
I am quite sure no one suspects I was the target of an evil duck whose attack on my safe space was responsible for the desecration of the meeting room.
Perhaps I should file a report with HR.

Oh the Humanity...

My day as a groundskeeper at a small college was both depressing and highly amusing.

I was amazed to see girls walking around weeping openly. 

The President of the college sent out a letter noting that it was truly the end of the world and we had a racist for president (but in nice polite academic terms saying you should not talk bad about people)

He noted that here was a multicultural lounge where students could get together and hug and say bad things about Republicans.

My work study student seemed pretty upset but she is not the crying type. She stopped to talk to me on the way to class. I told her to dump the Maya Angelo crap and stop feeling sorry for herself and I gave her Rudyard Kipling's "If" but didn't tell her it was Rudyard Kipling. She found encouragement from "If" and gave me a bad of chips from the Safe Space Lounge.

At break we heard updates on the sad and depressed student situation. Some humor was found in the whole situation. Fellow groundskeepers and other member of the facilities staff seem to find it hard to imagine that Trump will become a dictator or send anyone to a concentration camp. Of course I do hang out with the smokers.

In the break room once of the hispanics I hang out with in the hopes he will give me food started to build something with playing cards between us. He said it was a wall. I asked if he was going to make me pay for it. He said he was building a tunnel under it. Another Hispanic fellow said it was to smuggle drugs and Chinese people.

Much hilarity ensued.

I asked them if they didn't hate Americans because they created the market for drugs which ruined their country.

They said yes, because it was the poor people like us who suffered in the rich people just got richer off the conflict.

It would've led to an interesting discussion but it was time to go to work. 

And I digress.

Outside,I got so annoyed with the whining and crying that I read "If" to a couple of my work-study students. They were quite impressed. I did not tell them the reason they had never heard of Rudyard Kipling was that their beloved academics have deemed him also a misogynist and racist. 

My main work study assistant then appeared and informed me that he Safe Space Lounge now had pizza and grape Koolaid. I noted it was quite Jonestown of them, which drew mirth from all the old folks.

We went for the pizza but it was of course just plain cheese. No one could be offended that way. There were a number of crying students. I avoided the purple drink. I had another bag of chips.

We went back to work.

I am a bit amazed at the utter despair of the Clinton supporters. I see they are being whipped into a frenzy by the news media. I suppose the riots will continue. What ever it takes to bring us into the New World Order.

I came home and checked Facebook. One relative cried all day. Several are convinced it truly is the end of the world. It is kind of insane as Trump is not much to the right of Bill Clinton when he ran for office.

It is all how you spin it I suppose. 

And the Democrats give us Donald Trump for President

The whining and hand wringing, rivers of tears, you need waders and a raft in your favorite safe space.

But being a liberal seems to mean never being able to admit the person you choose as your dear leader is a criminal.

I plan on pointing out to a number of people that if they would have voted for the whacko most representing their beliefs in the primary and rejected Corpratist shill and criminal Hillary, Bernie Sanders might have been president. 

I voted against Hillary and it took a lot of prodding by democrats to get me to vote for Trump.

Of course now it will be four years of smarmy liberal bastards calling me a racist and a chronic misoganister and whiny progressives throwing temper tandrums in the streets...

I am not chronic, I don't have very much hair on my knuckles and my eyesight is fairly good.

I plant whilst Rome burns. Can't accuse me of fiddling around

I spent the evening listening to Nation Public Radio and planting Triticale.
I came home and took a shower and discovered Trump was almost certainly president of the USA. It sounds as if the Clinton Crime Syndicate would have to get quite a few More dead people to vote to bridge the gap.
But... They are trying.
Podesta came out to say it is not over.
Pretty funny...
The democrats are already crying racism, bigotry, homophobia, and note that the sky is falling.
They don't stop and realize that if they would not have sold their soul to party unity and realized that Hillary Clinton is not just a harmless old lady who happened to make a mistake with her email and loves puppies and accept the obvious fact that the only reason you would set up a server outside of the secure organization was so that the organization would not know what you are doing cause you want to commit crimes, would have noted that many people hate Hillary because she is a horrible person, and would have voted for the person they really wanted in the primary, people like myself would not have voted from Trump. In fact if they would have s...canned Hillary a few years ago Trump would never have been on the ticket.
Or just realize that Hispanics do not want criminals following them to the USA because that is one of the reasons they left Mexico.
But then most liberals I know have not spent extended periods of time doing hard manual labor with Mexicans either. They just sit back and lecture me about my white privilege. I didn't see any of them out planting at 10:30 pm this evening.

Not that I'm saying I think Trump is actually capable of running the country but then the sad thing is, I don't care.

And America becomes the most powerful Banana Republic in the World...

Beyonce performed at the CMA awards and The Clinton Crime Syndicate will take office.
On the slim chance the CCS doesn't take power the Donald train wreck will attract all the loony lefties and it will be endless opposition from the shrill classes.
Exponentially worse than the end of the Jimmy Carter era as there is no charismatic leader to pull the country back together.
The United States will continue as the bully nation of the world, refusing to help anyone who doesn't subscribe to our idiotic shizophrenic dual values of Tin Hat Democracy, promotion of pseudo gay rights, abortion, and the rights of corporations vs supporting radical Islam all at the same time.
Absolutely never ever in my wildest dreams would I imagine that one could even imagine that Russia would possibly lean towards being on the right side...
But yet...

Those Ruskies would NEVER let Beyonce on stage at the Country Music Awards. Never!!!

And... You idiots...
Hillary had her own server so she could sell influence, make back room deals, delete emails, do whatever she wanted without archiving it all in the Federal Gubment. No Freedom of Information Act BS would derail her train of corruption and graft. She learned from the Nixon Tapes, didn't she not?
Honestly, what is the other option? She is an idiot?
So stop posting those stupid Facebook memes which build up Trump as a monster and Hillary as a little old lady confused about her email.

You finally convinced me to vote for the moron...

A post Halloween scare

Leon Payne was a country songwriter back in the days when there was such a thing as country music. He wrote such classics as "Lost Highway" for Hank Williams Sr. and "Psycho" for Eddie Noack.

Needless to say, the song was banned by Country Stations...

I first became acquainted with the song through the Roundup Records catalogue to which I used to subscribe.
It was redone by the "Beasts of Bourbon" on the album titled, "Axeman's Jazz." I bought the album because Marty Robbins had just died and Roundup Records said the song "The Day Marty Robbins Died," was an excellent song. It featured the lyric, "My house got divorced, and my pigs, they all cried, my Big Iron won't fire no more cause today Marty Robbins died."
I was young and impressionable and had to have the album.

Of course the real scare is the presidential race. You should look up the wikileaks emails. I'd link but I didn't finish my blog before it was time to go to work and I'm using my iPhone.

I tend to go off topic at work

My work study student has developed an interest in the design of the internal combustion engine.

Four stroke vs two stroke, how mufflers work, exhaust pipes, I didn't get as far as the rotary engine.

Last week it was how a turbine engine works and how you can make it drive something.

I had to find a white board.

News vs News, what is up with Dakota Access Pipeline?

I have sort of followed the Dakota Access Pipeline news. I have a bit of a basis as I believe strongly in private property rights and I think the concept of Eminent Domain is no longer relative as the basic infrastructure of the United States has been established and it has been proven to be used to steal land from private individuals.
(Click here)
or
Here
or
Here to see how Donald Trump has used it to screw individuals like you and I...

It would appear that a Canadian Company is paying off politicians to use "eminent domain" to take land for the Dakota Access Pipeline but for some reason conservatives don't care.

Click here to go to NewsMax and then scroll down to read the comments. While reading this remember that being forced into a choice between Hillary the crook and Donald the crazy aligns one with people who don't want to be aligned with.

I checked on NewAgTalk and found a lot of mixed feelings. Local folks don't like protestors from out of state agitating. We saw that to some extent with our incident in Burns.

My opinion is pretty simple.
If they want to go though your land and you don't want them to go through your land than you should be able to say no. The only Eminent Domain theft I would even consider is if they people who were attempting to legally steal your personal property were required to pay you 1000 times fair market value.
Likewise I am opposed to designating large tracts of land as public parks or reserves when there are private property owners who will be affected.
There no longer is a "greater good..."
A faint promise of jobs and a possibility of cheaper oil is offset by a history of importing workers from outside the local area and the reality that shale oil is not cheap.
I see no difference between the issues faced by ranchers in the West and the Indian tribes opposing a pipeline though their reservation lands, or farmers who don't want to sell easements to a foreign company.
I think it is huge missed opportunity that conservative types are not coming out for private property rights.
This is also why I do not want to vote for Trump but I know Hillary is worse.
If I had a nickel for this simple phrase,
"If only Gary Johnson was not such an idiot"
If there was ever a time for a third party to win an election it was this year. If the Libertarians would have put a real candidate out I think they could have won.
If the race would have been between Bernie, Ron Paul, Trump, and the Crime Lord I wonder how it would have gone...

A strange mushroom

My fellow groundskeeper says you can pick the little white spots off and brew hallucinogenic tea.

I'm not going to be the first to try it, or second or third or actually anywhere on the list.

Madonna is for Trump! Threatens Hillary supporters with a Monica. Ironic Comparison Missed Comedians Across the Country

The threat of assault by the Crypt Keeper should swing the male vote to Trump.
Click her for a reputable source
I really hope that she doesn't take the position that NOT voting for Trump is automatically a vote for Hillary cause I'm worried it would be the end of MuddyValley.

My view of the tropical storms

I'm leaf-blowing in the rain and sweating. Too cold to just get wet too warm for my Oregon rain wear.

Not saying I want cold weather just kind of bemused.

Farming at night 21st century

I hope you all realize this is not particularly up to date technology...

It is Lazy Farmer home brew technology.

Oh I like that term. It's what I should do with that left over ton of slightly moldy rye. Lazy Farmer Home Brew. The mold would be a hallucigenic addition. Whoop! Whoop!

I'm a little disappointed in Donald

I don't find is surprising that Mr. Trump has had women accusing of unwelcome sexual advances. I was surprised it didn't happen sooner. I suppose that timing is everything.
That video sure did surface at the right time.
I wish Mr. Trump would have answered the allegations of the women a little differently.
I think he should have pointed out that his goal has never been to be public office or moral leadership of any kind. The problem is that those who aspired to be political and/or moral leaders have failed and people have turned to him who has never claimed to be anything other than a rich playboy to pick up the slack. Because he is honest and tells it like it is.
Then he could have deflected the accusations by saying something like, I've hit on a lot of women, sometimes it doesn't work, sometimes they change their minds, so I back off. I've not tried to discredit them or have them walk in front of a train. I just move on, heck, sometimes I buy them furniture.
And he could have thrown in how this has affected his marriage cause his wife has found out he's a bit of a dog and how with the country at stake he would do better and then make a completely inappropriate joke about cigars in the oval office and pledge not to make his name synonymous with a sex act.
I mean really, at this point who cares if he offends the shrill classes. They are already offended.
I think it was a mistake to say the allegations were all untrue. Why not just embrace it. "Yeah, I like women, I'm a dog, Sorry, now that I'm going to president I will have to be more professional, the nation is at stake..."
Now it sounds to me more like he is just going nuts. There is not point in talking about a conspiracy or acting oppressed. We are all tired of that. I want him to move forward and show some leadership.
I'm actually leaning away from Libertarian or Constitutionalist and voting for Trump just cause I want to see what will happen.
I know Hillary will screw us. No mystery there. Might as well have our descent into hell as a nation be entertaining.

And back to farming

I got a planting job!
It is 160 acres of rolling hills. I'm planting annual ryegrass. It has been raining for several days and so it is kind of tricky going. I have adjusted my planting depth about 20 times as the press wheels build up mud and then I'm planting shallow.

I've raised up the harrow on the back of the drill as there is some straw on the ground and it is so wet it just balls up. I really hope this works. I suggested baiting for slugs and spraying 32 solution which should provide extra Nitrogen to help the straw break down.

Sometimes I forget what it is like to farm.
I planted 20 acres Friday evening after dark and got the drill set. Everything went great until a coulter bearing went out. I took it off and kept going. The v-openers were actually cutting in nicely. My brother bought me another coulter and so I planted another ten acres.
I got there Saturday morning fairly early so I could listen to the old-time Country Western hour on KBOO and I made one round and another coulter bearing went out. Then I discovered I had left my wrench in the other vehicle.
But it was ok. I needed to turn the coffee off at home.
I was in a hurry. I used a quarter tank of fuel to got to the field and back. It is a Ford F250 with a 460 cu in engine...

Everything went fine aside from me forgetting to turn a valve off before unhooking the fertilizer tank. I got a fertilizer shower at noon. So I was sticky the rest of the day. The next fill up I forgot to shut the pump off and blew the filler lid off the top of the tank and showered the whole drill with liquid 10-34 fertilizer.

Then I filled the diesel tank up after dark and spilled diesel over the whole front of the tractor.
Next I ran out of seed at 8:30 p.m. and did not have the right trailer hitch ball to go get more. Then I broke the shock absorber mount out of the frame of my pickup turning around in a ditch. The bolt was neither 11/16 or 3/4 so I couldn't remove the shock. I used a bungee cord and baler twine to keep it from hitting the tire. That should hold it for six months.

Then I went home and went to bed. Today it is raining. Tomorrow it will be sun but I have to work. I guess we shall see what we shall see. I hate to work all night on Mondays because that makes me fall asleep on the lawn mower on Tuesday. Tuesday I pick up the family at the airport.

Utter idiots destroy a PBY flying boat (link)

The utter incompetence is just amazing. Actually criminal. They should name the salvage company.

https://www.backcountrypilot.org/forum/pby-on-sandbar-17512

The story

http://www.flyingmag.com/news/catalina-pby-beached-during-filming-nicolas-cage-movie

Insurance claim should be denied...

It is a Sunday afternoon. It has rained too much for me to plant. I was going to go fishing or go visit Muddyvalley but then I ended up calling an old friend I had not talked to in a long time.

I put a steak on the BBQ and connected all the stereos in the house together.

I seem to have lost my Tom T Hall collection and Maria McKee and Lone Justice. I am also infested with fruit flies and I don't know why. 

I did all the dishes and took out the compost.

I'm listening to Don Williams and am kind of struck by the lyrics.

I find it disturbing to see history written in terms of the progressive assholes who have ruined our country with their sophomoric view of life. Their total inability to understand that a real person (and perhaps society in general) is made up of contradictions and it is the conflict between those contradictions that gives you a depth of understanding, is very frustrating. I work against it one workstudy student at a time.

"Soooo... I'm a conservative but yet you like me, how do you rationalize that one?" says I.

"but you are different, not what I expected," says they.

"I'll let you run the lawnmower all day long if you wear a Trump hat," says I...

"Nooooooooo," wails they.

For another perspective:

I called an old friend who I have have neglected and we talked about the old days.

I was struck by two things. First the reality that stories are written by the hero. Second, I went sideways, not a hero or an anti-hero.

When I used to do ag shows and sell moisture testers I like to hear from Organic growers who had failed. You don't hear about failure stories you only hear about success.

My friend's uncle was a tail gunner on a B17. He disappeared over Europe and no one knows what happened to him so you don't hear the story. He may have bailed out and survived most of the war in a prison camp but because he didn't make it through the whole war and write a book we don't know.

Ann Frank is a notable exception because her story was found. (or made up, take your pleasure)

I suggest you listen to the Don Willaims song. It is important as song writer remembers his upbringing but he has moved outside of it. He learned to talk like the guy on the 6:00 news. He remembers being told about honor with a Stonewall Jackson picture on the wall but he is not like his friend who self destructed. He escaped to write a song about it and to benefit from it. He is a better person because he rationalized his upbringing with his reality into a way that made him a better person.

I hope more than anything else in the whole wide world that my daughter can do that...
Forget Muddyvalley... I'm going fishing...

Living on boiled eggs and ham and getting up early

Yesterday morning I was already dirty by this time.
This morning I woke up early to go to work and I heard rain so I went back to sleep.
It didn't rain that much...

The family left me for England and the Continent last Sunday. My wife left me a laminated checklist of what I should do every day, a ham, a huge container of boiled eggs, and a chocolate cake.
I've pretty much eaten it all. Now I will have to cook for myself. My wife actually left me frozen food that I promised to eat. I can't just bum off of other people as she will know when she gets home.
Although, my brother did bring me several slices of pizza when I was planting last night.
I started out by losing the dry erase pen so I'm not sure what I did yesterday. I'm never all that sure what I did yesterday and frankly, my grip on reality at any one given point is not that strong. So, it is bad that I lost the pen.
The dog seems hungry but then he is a dog and I'm almost positive I feed him. The chinchilla was quite happy to see me, or at least he wiggled his nose and I assumed that meant something. I gave him a raisin and he nibbled away at it.
There are still chickens but I can't find their egg stash.
I am currently out of pants so I'm doing laundry. This is not really a no-pants day. I would get a little chilly, not to mention frighten the horses.
The family appears to be having a good time. I keep getting notices that their balance is declining on their Starbucks card so I know they are caffeinated.

I planted 20 acres of annual ryegrass yesterday on the corn ground. I see the fancy chopper left little white trails. I don't know if it was silage inoculant or the corn was green and it was milk from the grain. I guess it doesn't really matter to me. I should get that field finished today. The rain will make no difference on hard ground.

I borrowed a large roller from my neighbor yesterday. It is 16 foot wide and is extremely heavy. He wanted it back by this morning so when I ran out of seed last night I went back to rolling. It was so dusty on the worked ground that I could not see a thing.
SO I took the roller back at 11 p.m.
Not a car in sight until I get on the narrow gravel road past his farm. Then, out of nowhere a little grey car comes bombing down the road. I head for the ditch. The little car zooms past me, missing the mailbox and never slowing down.
I missed the guy's driveway and had to back up.
It did wake me up...
And now off to work, perhaps I will wear coveralls.

Reflections on working off the farm for one year

One year ago today I started work as a groundskeeper at a small private college in Oregon.

Look! A shrub!

Was it a good idea?
I really don't know...
I applied for the job because the stress of farming was doing me in. My father-in-law lived with us and my father lived with my brother. My father had to move into a nursing home and it looked like it was going to be an expensive proposition.
My father-in-law living with us made it so my wife couldn't work part time so supplement my farm income.
It had also been a very stressful summer. It looked like several of the jobs I do for other people were going to end and I have been finding it difficult to just keep up the pace of doing custom work off the farm to make up for the money we lose actually farming.

Look! A DC-3!

And...
My daughter gets straight A's and wants to go to college.
But mostly it is that farming is changing.
All the good guys are dead.
You can't make it on a handshake agreement anymore.

My intense frustration started that Spring silage season.
We have been chopping silage for a few neighbors and the dairy down the road from us. Our equipment is old and I haven't been keeping up with painting stuff.
We have a 160 hp tractor and a pull-type silage chopper. I get a couple friends to help haul and so it takes a week or two to get it all done.
I've been a little frustrated as it is hard to get our own crops done and the silage chopper is expensive to run. I had to buy a tractor to pull it, repairs are very expensive, we have to have a truck and a driver. But, it brings in good money.
However, everyone else has 600hp choppers and they haul the silage and pack it for the dairy and do in a day what it takes me a week to do.
So I'm working my little heart out and I blow up my tractor and get another tractor hooked up and I don't even lose a day, and I hire a guy to come out and rake the clover that the farmer put in a row too wide for the chopper to pick up (for the fifth year in a row) and all I hear is how the other guy has a new chopper and gets a lot more done than I do. And we get the dairy to chop his grass and all I hear is how that other guy can chop it all in a day and will pack it for him and I'm out there working my little heart out and I wear out my disk mower and truck and bend the cylinder on the dump box and I lose $40 a ton on my hay cause I'm chopping for people that apparently are just giving me the job due to charity.
And then I start stacking and all the bales are crap and the people making the bales don't really care and I kind of forget how much money this all brings in to run our farm.
And then we start chopping our corn silage and all I hear is how this other guy will chop it and put it in the pit and pack it and how he will do the dairy guy's farming for practically free and so I figure screw it...
So I take this job and I figure I that I can do a lot after work and if I make it a year I'll have more vacation time and I can take time off work and still get stuff done and I probably exaggerated all my frustrations any way and people will still trust me cause I've always got their stuff planted and chopped and stacked.
And I have one customer left.
I got all his bales stacked. However, I don't think that is going to be enough to make my tractor payment and that money was supposed to go to supplement my personal income.
All said and done... I'm in worse financial shape than a year ago, but I do get an hourly wage and have my daughter's college tuition taken care of and Monday something like 20 percent of my measly income will go into a retirement account.
On the other hand I'm up at three a.m. because I can't sleep.
I think I will go work some ground before it rains so that we can plant a crop which we won't be able to afford to fertilize and will probably fail anyway...
Monday I'll go back to work and when the loan comes due I'll just have another mini nervous breakdown and perhaps something will work out or it won't.
Whatever...
But, worst of all... The dairy guy will come over and tell me what I nice guy I am and how he sure hated to take the job away from me but he thought it would rain and boy they sure got it done in a hurry.

Look! A $1,100 tire with a split in it and corn in the background which would have paid for the repair!

Why I became a groundskeeper reason number 25 or I take three days off work don't go to England so I can chop silage and the neighbor hires someone else at The last minute

Well my entire blog post was in the title so I have nothing really more to say.

I'm going to take my two days off to plant our own crops which always get neglected in favor of helping other people. So far doing work for other people has given us worn out equipment and we have neglected our own crops. If we don't go broke this year I'm kind of thinking about stopping the whole work for your neighbor program. They don't appreciate you anyway.

So screw em.

Used New Holland silage chopper with three row corn head and wide grass pick up is going to go on craigslist this afternoon...

Your blog this morning was angrily brought to you by apples wonderful speech to text program on the iPhone.

Largely unedited.

My family leaves me for an adventure in London and Paris and randomthoughts

I dropped my family off at the airport this afternoon...
My wife got a small inheritance from her father and she has always wanted to go to England and to Paris.
I told her that Paris has a lot of dog poop, people are really not that friendly, and the Eiffel Tower is kind of small.
I pointed out that people in England talk funny and you can't understand them and that they charge you money for bog paper in public restrooms.
This proved to be ineffectual as it was pointed out that I am just kind of negative in general.
I was invited but opted to stay home and work.
Great decision on my part....(sarcasm)
My wife says she will actually go to the "motorcycle breakers' and find me a fairing and mounting brackets for a red Honda VT500E.
I insisted that they take a roll of the best double layer plush toilet paper available. I think they ignored me. When I went to Europe many years ago the two things I that I appreciated the most was the roll of good toilet paper and the roll of electrical tape.
We were able to to convert the our Citroen 2CV from a 1-CV back to a 2CV and drive slightly below traffic speed on the M-1 using that electrical tape on a leaky spark plug wire.
But, I digress..
For lunch we had Dim Sum at the House of Louie in downtown Portland. Click here for a really good commentary on how Portland has changed. I hate modern liberals...and Hilary Supporters. Oh wait... one and the same.
I never thought it would come to this but give me a corrupt republican over a Hilarycrat any day of the week...

But, I digress...again...

The lady at House of Louie asked us if we wanted Calamari and Baby Bok Choi right away. In fact she seemed to already know what we wanted off the Dim Sum cart.
The first time I went to House of Louie was in 1984. My wife and I have been going there since 1985 or so when we first met. I suspect we went there separately when we were not dating. And we have gone there off and on since we were married and have taken Lulu a couple times a year since she was born.
Is it possible that the waitress remembers us???
It does not seem likely to me.

Now, I have to go look at a field to plant and if I were worth a crap I'd finish working some ground for annual ryegrass. I kind of want to just not do anything...

Happy Birthday to me

What I did on my birthday...
I was actually singing "Happy Birthday to Me," but it didn't show up on video.

The lovely wife and daughter and going to England. My lovely and gracious wife was left a small inheritance. She has always wanted to see London. They are leaving this weekend. I figure I can live on Snickers and coffee for a couple weeks...

Plowing

I plowed today.

I forgot the radio was on when I took the video

I also forgot how to plow.

I laid out the lands after dark using GPS. I went 100 feet instead of doing the first land at 100 and the rest at 200.

My helper took over this morning and seems to have figured out how to fix the problem.

I took the suction tube from the filter to the hydraulic pump out five times attempting to fix a hydraulic leak on the number two 2-155. I welded up the wear grooves on the tube with the wire feed welder and sanded it downs smooth. 

Then the other end started leaking.

I put bigger o-rings in. It seems to have stopped.

I hooked up the Melroe 911 plow with AC bottoms to help plow. It would not go in the ground.

I went back home and attempted to grade the driveway with the only tractor that worked and had three point. The number two White 2-155 with duals. It was dark and the three point is a little jumpy for grader work. Several shrubs died in the process.

A crisis solved

I was hurrying back to the main facilities building for my break. When I was flagged down by the cleaning crew supervisor and her helper.

They excitedly informed me that there was a big nasty slug on the steps of one of the dorms and they were afraid someone would slip on it.

I am mediately passed it off to pest-control which is my supervisor and suggested that they fill out a work order.

But I am basically a happy agreeable person and so after break I went and picked up the slug. 

It was a truly horrifying experience.

Although, I really did expect it to be somewhat larger...

Labor Day to do list

Blah, blah, blah...

Gene Logsdon died...

I've been feeling my age... Not to sound too much like a whiner but the truth is that this blog is one long running whine...

In a few more days I will be a deck.

I went to MuddyValley's brother's party yesterday. Folks seemed a bit older.

On the other hand I posted a photo of my Triumph on a Triumph owner's group on Facebook and I got 74 likes and counting.
So I got some validation. Ain't that what Facebook is about?

I've had a lot of comments to add to this blog but I mostly forget them by the time I sit down to write.

I know it was coming but Gene Logsdon was writing hero of mine. So I will take a moment and remember Ed Winkle, Frank James, and Gene Logsdon. Then I shall go find the cover crop disk and a tractor and disk up some ground that will probably yield half of what it should and move one step closer to loosing the whole damn dern farm...

Also, what ever happened to that guy from Africa? Now he was NOT a whiner. He is probably getting something done somewhere... Wonder if I still haves his email address.

Perhaps I'll throw in some random pictures. Everyone loves photos!

Could I pull this with my 2-155 white? How do I tell if they are 16" or 18" bottoms? I don't think I can pull 6-18" inch bottom in Whapato soil.

Another weekly blog without a catchy title

I don't understand how it was that I had more time to blog when I was working 18 hrs a day farming but now that I have a 7:30 to 4:30 job and farm in my spare time I have no blogging moments...
If the iPhone had actual speech recognition like my old android instead of just randomly imagining phrases I suppose it would be a little easier...

Random thoughts on a Sunday morning.

1. I watch my Facebook page for my liberal friends and relatives rants about Trump and find a lot of entertainment out of their purposeful misinterpretation of his random rants. They have nearly convinced me to vote for Trump. I think the only way I will be able to vote this fellow who has annoyed me since "Art of the Deal," came out many years ago, is to just listen to the Democrats whine about him.
Comedy gold...
I also find the Hilary supporters HILARIOUS, (get it?)
I grew up during the Reagan area and find the irony between what was said about Reagan as criticism and what Hilary does and is applauded for.
Ok, get this... A CIA head endorses Hilary and that is a positive? The CIA used to be utterly evil but now it is not?  I could continue but won't...

2. Protest votes... Republicans who endorse Hilary should be noted as they are the ones who have sold us out...

3. Republican policy makers unite against Trump. But of course they do, that is why Trump is in the race. We hate them. They got us into idiotic endless war. They bailed out the banks and screwed up the economy.

4. Bernie Sanders supporters who are voting for Hilary. I am not a Republican and can vote for whomever I want. I was going to vote third party as a protest. You must vote your conscience. If you are a Bernight you must vote for whatever whacko group best fits you, the Greens or Communists, but preferably Libertarian.  As a conservative independent I will vote either Libertarian or Constitutionalist. I'm not happy with some of the Libertarian party planks. I don't think they are taking themselves seriously. I think this is an election where they could really gain votes.

5. I actually bought new old records. I put on Slim Harpo, and Lightnin' Hopkins for Sunday Morning  Omlette Session. Never before played records.
It was beautiful. Lightning' Hopkins guitar blues sounds amazing. I'm not good at describing these things as I am not using proper terms I think. The acoustic guitar has an unbelievable crispness. It sounds like a live performance. A lot of the old blues performers have voices which tend to distort around the edges at higher volumes. Hopkin's voice as clear and there was no fuzziness when he hight the high ranges. The tone was also amazing. A very warm sound but well balanced. Perhaps you could say it had an airiness to it. Again, it sounded like he was in the room and not in the speakers.
Now I need reel to reel tape so I can preserve the sound and not ruin the record by playing it till the record grooves are flat.

6. Baling straw is not going well. I have one customer who buys 7,000 to 10,000 small bales from me. The bales are 14" x 18" x 46" long and weigh 55lbs. The baler must be turned to maximum tension and you cannot bale at 90 degrees temperature. Despite my warnings, my helper baled at too low a moisture and they bales are fluffy and light. This is bad as they are stacked into an 80 bale block and picked up with a squeeze. It will be a nightmare.
I'm mixing the bales Lulu made at night with moisture with the dry bales.

7. The stacker won't stack. The second table won't push the bales back into the load rack far enough and they fall forward. When you raise the bed to dump the push off feet come out. When you want to lower the bed the push off feet won't retract.
Sometimes they will retract if you raise the bed while retracting the feet.
I put a different master valve on from a salvage yard. It cost $500. It helped for half a day. By evening Saturday it was getting frustrating.

8. I must get ready for Church.

Flat tires and more

The day before yesterday arrived at the field to find three flat tires on the stacker.

When I arrived yesterday the people I am stacking for at the offending tires repaired and mounted on the stacker.

I did some minor repairs and then got Lulu started baling.

I came back to the stacker picked up one load and broke a hydraulic cylinder.

I took it home and came back.

Lulu is listening to books on MP3 and wanted to work late.

I was picking up the last few bales of the day when I hit a rut and heard a loud pop.

It took me a little while to discover that the bolts holding the steering gearbox on had broken.

When I got to our Strawfield I discovered that Lulu had 2000 bales on the counter. She worked past 11 o'clock and seemed a bit tired.

The news is predicting rain on Sunday. I'm taking today off from grounds keeping.

Since this blog is mostly about my stress level

Or perhaps I should say, whine level....

I am now further behind.

I got to the field last night and there were three flat tires on the stacker.

I went to sleep mowing yesterday and The street sign with the mower so hard I almost knocked it out of the ground.

I propped it up, I'm going to blame it on Student drivers.

I'm almost positive no one saw me.

I'm betting that today will be a wonderful day.

Please tell me if you can see what is been mowed and what is not.

Because I can't really tell and I'm the one mowing it.

What I'm doing after "work" today

Filberts....

I quit last night after knocking over a stack. I was working up to a discussion of when you realize you are old with yesterday's post.

But I just brought my iPhone to the bathroom this morning...

Overkill horsepower but good a/c for Lulu. 

She fixed a broken bale problem on her own. With the help of the manual and text messaging.

 A monumental step!

The end of summer?

I woke up this morning and looked out the window. There was a heavy dew, it was almost like it had rained. I looked over the river bottom where the heavy fog is laying in like a fall morning.
It is only the first of August.
My wife called from the living room to let me know there may be showers tomorrow morning. She wondered if I wanted someone to bale wheat straw. I pointed out that there was not much point in baling wheat straw when I had a hundred acres of grass straw to pick up before I could get close to wheat straw.
I'm at the point were there is not really much point in even looking at the weather forecast...
I suppose I could call in sick to work...
Yesterday I needed to adjust the hitch on the two-tie baler.
I have a fairly new New Holland BC5070 baler. The hitch bolts screw into the tongue. I needed remove eight bolts, raise the tongue and lower the PTO shaft, hook up the moisture tester, baler stroke counter, lights and adjust the plunger.
It took me four hours to adjust the hitch. The modern New Holland company apparently buys crappy cheap steel from China to build their implements of frustration. The metal is soft and the hitch bolts are grade eight. I had to re-tap several holes.

To add insult to injury the fasteners seem to be a curious mix of metric and standard.

I have not been as careful about keeping the baler undercover. It sat outside through a couple rain showers covered in dust. The metal is rusting under the paint.
This baler sold new for $24,000 (not what I paid). You would think New Holland could come up with some sort of metal coating to prevent rust in five years.
I finally moved the baler to the field and starting baling. It is a very nice baler design. It is just made from tin foil.

I took my daughter for a motorbike ride. We were off to a good start when she remembered youth group at the Christian Church. So we modified our course to arrive at the Church instead of Starbucks.

AND now I see it is 7 a.m.
I must go to work. I think I will just post this and perhaps finish it later. An installment blog. Whoop, whoop!

Any bets on if it will ever be finished?

It ain't the same speech, it was the same speechwriter! Navin R. Johnson wrote both speeches...

Of all the things that annoyed me enough to write a blog post it was the idiotic claim that Melenia Trump copied Michelle Obama's speech.
The reason they sounded the same is that they were both a collection of similar phrases and idioms.
Saying, "my word is my bond," was not invented by Obama's speech writer.
Not to be horribly cynical but really there are only so many versions of the "I was born a poor black child" speech.
"I was taught to work hard, tell the truth, and never to steel hubcaps. Being poor is tough and family is important," see I did one myself!
I'm just glad when Navin R. Johnson wrote their speeches he didn't put in that joke about finding out what his special purpose was for...

Weather and whether

The mower is broken. It is a New Holland 1411. I suspect it was made around the turn of the century. It had all its shields until this year so it felt new to me.

A gear is out in the cutterbar. In theory our local new Holland dealer will have a complete cutter bar gearbox section for a few hundred dollars and we can bolt it in and go. Total repairs for this mower this season have well passed 20 percent down on a newer Hesston 1345 which is what I want.

Rain has been scheduled for Thursday through Monday. We have 15 acres of alfalfa and 100 acres of grass to mow.

The 4th of July usually is the start of swathing fescue for seed. Many people have started combining. Not a good time to be waiting 3 days for parts or a week for rain.

Stacker is broken anyway. Need a solenoid coil for a gresen electric valve which of course, New Holland doesn't have...

My wife appears to still be ill.

I can't decide which motorcycle to ride to work.

I forgot the frying pan

Last night Lulu wanted to go camping. We were making t-shirt screens and I screwed up both of them when washing out the emulsion.

I said lets go.

She loaded up the recently acquired furd exploder and we headed for the river.

We had food but I forgot the cast iron.

I did have a shovel. I burnt the paint off it, scoured it with gravel. It sort of worked. It would have been easier to drive back home for breakfast...

My week

I have a new assistant. She is a history major. She likes to discuss the War of Northern aggression.
She can argue about theology, (can actually quote scripture), politics, guns, philosophy, and she is learning to back a trailer.
It is amazing to encounter a young college student who is interested about everything.
Sometimes she gets a little carried away with her driving.
It could be that I am a bad example...
She did get a little close to the beaver pond. I was actually impressed at how far she got off the trail with the Gator.

In other news...
I left the Ford Ranger in the middle of 350 acres. Someone stole the wheels off of it. We have let some young people go fishing at our farm. A friend of a friend is a tweeker.

I called the Sheriff. There is really nothing you can do about it. No serial numbers on aluminum rims and half worn out tires.
Speaking of half worn out tires... What sort of a moron steals worn out tires and aluminum Ford Ranger rims? You risk getting shot and go to all the work of exchanging wheels at 4 a.m. over something you could get for next to nothing from your local scrapper?
We got the license number of the vehicle leaving our farm. Just thought it was one of the kids fishing.

On the other hand...
My faith in humanity was restored yesterday.
I was moving the Tedder down highway 99W and my hat blew off. I of course slammed on the brakes because I didn't want to lose my hat. My bald spot would burn.
A passenger in one of the cars that I backed up, (a long line) jumped out, grabbed my hat, and brought it to me.
I said, "thank you very much."

My nephew from Portland came to visit. He got to experience farming. I sprayed molassas on the rained on hay. He helped. I rigged up a sprayer on the bumper of my pickup and we followed the windrows around the field.
I suspect he thinks farming is boring and full of strange misadventures.
He seems to be somewhat saddened by the violation of my Ranger. I suspect he respects my ability to not get stuck with bald tires.

I have an 80 percent higher risk

Of dying from prostate cancer because I eat two eggs a day.

MuddyValley harshed my mellow yesterday by telling me eggs increased my risk of prostate cancer.

I was going to suggest that it depended on which end you inserted the eggs but desisted.

One of the work study students asked me yesterday if carrying that heavy load ever got me down, that heavy load I carry because I'm so full of shit.

I had it coming. She had been gushing about the magic of water. This brought on several comments from other students groundskeepers.

Like, you got the wrong plate of brownies sister, and then someone brought up fluoride and someone else pointed out that fluoride makes you gay and much hilarity followed.

But I digress...

Popular nutritional research that increase your risk of colon and/or prostate cancer.

I found one person that disagrees.

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2013/11/healthfulness-eggs/

I try out the hot tub and drink coconut oil to improve my brain functions!

I woke with a start this morning. It was a bit of a panic. I was alone in bed and the sun wa streaming through the window.

Chickens were clucking the rooster was crowing. 

I looked at my trusty fitbit which I've been using to quantify my lack of sleep, and it read 9:45 AM.

I quickly texted my daughter, not really wanting to get out of bed, to see if she thought she could get ready for church in one half hour.

She did not answer.

So I drug my aged carcass across the living room down the hall into her bedroom. She was asleep.

We quickly reached a consensus. Not a chance.

So went looking for the lovely and gracious mrs. Shepherd. She was wrapped in a fuzzy blanket on the couch.

I remembered the old adage, it is best to let sleeping dogs and wives lie and so I retired to the bedroom with a not quite steaming cup of coffee, (evidence that she was up early) to attempt to find out if I have enough money to make my Baler payment and purchase twine. After three hours of trying to get quickBooks Pro 2012 to work with my iBook, I gave up and got out of bed. QuickBooks no longer works on my iBook. I need these stupid upgrades that bloat your computer and make it unusable.

I stuck with Apple for years but unfortunately it is now worse than a PC.

Frustrated beyond belief, I mixed up a healthy dose of coconut oil and brown sugar in my coffee, found a piece of Odd Moe's pizza in the refrigerator and retired to the hot tub, pizza in hand.

and attempted to blog using text to speech. 

Apple products are overrated.

My daughter came out and told me to quit talking so loud.

I think she was a bit put off by the possibility of a naked father eating pizza in the hot tub. 

I was not naked.

Note: I checked the sleep catigory on the Fitbit and I got ten hours of sleep. This is up from my weekly average of six and because of that I got a smiley face. That really motivates me to sleep more. I like smiley faces!!!

Note: it is really quite peaceful here. I can hear the bells from the distant monestary which seem quite cheerful. No doubt soon to be replaced by the caterwauling of an Imam if the ruling elite get their way...