I don't know how to make pellets

Somedays are better than others.

I have a fellow who wants five ton of oat grain/alfalfa hay pellets. Nothing will work...

First off a chain broke on the mixer grinder. Fortunately I have a forklift which will lift the full mixer/grinder off the ground so I could get to the chain.

Now the pellets won't stay together. If I switch to the 4mm die I drop from 800lbs an hour to 500lbs an hour and I can't just wander off and leave the mixer running.

If I run the pellets through a second time they look good. That is not real cost effective. I don't know how to add heat. I did add molasses but that just made the material less easy to flow out of the bag I am using to fill pellet mill.

I need a bin to feed the mill and a cooler to cool the pellets and more production.

Or I should quit.

Quitting might be a better plan.

A Snow day and pellet making

We have had several days of snow and freezing rain. This is an exercise in frustration. The combo of snow and freezing rain essential shuts the area down for the day. 

Hardy midwesterners laugh at us until they attempt to drive and pile up in a ditch. Driving on wet ice is not easy and it is better to just stay home for the day.

My wife threatened to keep me inside due to last year's misadventure. But I opined that I certainly was not about to do it again.

The grass was covered with snow so I attempted to pull my daughter on her snowboard. This was a failure as any attempt to turn cause the snowboard to dig into the mud under the snow and down she went. We did try the gravel farm road with more success, until I pulled her through a snow covered mud puddle. It was all somewhat of a disappointment.

I have been making an oat grain/alfalfa hay pellet mix. Oats are at a pathetically now price right now, if they are selling at all. So I have been mixing a 1600lb bag of oats with 800 pounds of alfalfa. It is making a crumbly pellet and I can only get 600lbs an hour. So I am selling a pellet that costs $.26 for $.23 and making up the loss with volume. 

If I buy this pellet mill for $10,000 I can cut my cost from $.15 per lb to $.07 per lb for pelletizing. However that would cost $10,000. I am not a good businessman.

As soon as the snow and rain started I got commentary from my old job. Despite many emergency warnings, the college did not start apply ice melt until it started snowing and then it didn't seem to be working. I got a laugh out of that one. I kind of don't care. But, I could imagine the discussions.

I am somewhat sad to have wasted eight years of my life at the school. I appreciate getting the retirement but I feel my daughter suffered from me not working with her summers. If I was going to get an off the farm job I should have gotten a job that paid the most I could make. But, it is what it is...

Speaking of depression, I have been enjoying the comments I have been reading from people who pretend to be concerned that Trump voters are having second thoughts. 

There is a dedicated group of farmers that attend all the farm meetings and went to Oregon State and participate in all the programs and testify at the legislature and influence policy. They are great people.

Then there is the rest of us. We try to avoid involvement with gubment at all costs. Many of us have observed the change in NRCS and other farm agencies from being a "helper group," to being an enforcement group. We don't get subsidies and we avoid the small farmer workshops and farmer's markets and we just muck about selling to Mexicans on Facebook marketplace and we are happier for it. 

The fewer granola ladies in natural wool sweaters asking if my alfalfa is GMO (I lie) the better. They are going to bitch about something anyway. 

Trump is firing people left and right and it is cutting the ranks of bureaucrats and scientists alike. I am sure it will lead to problems down the road. But, to quote the Australian emigre who bought hay from me yesterday and might buy MuddyValley's tractor and disk tomorrow, "Yeah, me may be screwed, but the alternative was a feckin eejit." (Note, I looked spelling on feckin eejit and the web says that is an Irish idiom. So maybe I didn't hear correctly. However, I took it to mean that he felt the last administration and "Harris for President," was pretty much Looney Tunes)

In other commentary I got pretty much the same response. My friend Jose was drinking coffee with us the other morning and was asking about what I thought about Trump.

He pointed out that many of his friends and relatives voted for Trump to "keep the bad peoples out." Jose and many other Mexican people came across the border two reasons, economic opportunity here and crime at home. The reason they came across illegally was the United State's utter failure to manage planned immigration and work visas. They came here illegally and then worked hard to get citizenship. They don't want criminals, gangs, child molesters, Venezuelans, Cannibals, or any other undesirable people following them here. Many would (and do) maintain property in Mexico and would be happy to come to the US and work, and then return home again. 

It is pretty simple and I know I am right. I have heard people try to explain this to Lars Larson, I have tried to explain this to the Liberal idiots at Linfield and they all go off on stupid tangents. Lars whines about them breaking the law, the Liberals talk exploitation. Thing is, none of these people actually have coffee or eat lunch or do hard work with anyone who is outside their little world. 

I am pretty sure the Republicans will totally screw up the immigration issue and completely lose the hispanic/latin/Mexican vote which comes from people who I feel I have a lot more in common with than many of the douche cleverer-than-you-oh-you-are-an-oppressor-this-is-stolen-land idiots that run this state.

Making feed in the snow. The snow blew in on everything. I need a better building!

Rosco was happy. Of course Rosco is always happy if there is a chance to run.

The Pellet making process

Rosco and the snow