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.
Posts
Let me see if I read that right: It costs you 26 cents to make something you sell for 23 cents? I would guess you could improve in your math skills which would make you a better businessman. Of course if that 26 cents includes a salary for yourself of minimum wage you might still be coming out ahead. It almost sounds like you could get a job as a government economist.
ReplyDeleteKeep growing that food.
Grace and peace
I am rasining my price to at least break even! So far this enterprise has resulted in a lot of facebook messages that don't result in sales and one guy who keeps bugging me about 5 ton in one load. Of course things go wrong so I will never get the 5 ton.
DeleteProbably best I have not done the calculation to see if I am making a profit on the grains I grow. And I normally have no comment on other country's politics but in light of recent remarks about our leaders and us becoming a 51st state... well probably best not to comment. I'll just say I have never seen so many Canadian flags on display as in the past few weeks.
ReplyDeleteFarming is about a lifestyle, or that is what I have heard. Profit is a luxury. You guys should threaten to give Quebec to the US. that would stop this 51st state nonsense!
DeleteMusk throwing out probationary employees (those with a year or less of service) is a bit like throwing out the OR people that hand the surgeons their instruments. He did get rid of probationary employees at the FAA...people who change light bulbs along the runways...but that makes sense for a guy whose company makes things that fly straight up. Read about Curtis Yarvin if you want a fresh perspective on the 'deep state.'
ReplyDeleteRetirement buyouts are also poor business planning. The people who take those buyouts either know they are qualified enough to get a better job or have the motivation to leave a sinking ship. The deadwood and the unqualified tend to stay. (In my limited experience) Trump and company are doing what new ownership does to ruin and old company but keep the name and is why we hated him back in 1985. On the other hand, Harris was a loony liberal and would have blundered us into four more years of printing money to pay the bills, inept foreign policy, pandering to China, and Trans Clowns in government. I am not particularly optimistic.
Delete