I rant about politics and I work in hydrated lime and don't know what to do with all the paper bags it came in

Yesterday I posted a bit of frustration with the local elections. I worked ground all day and started out listening to the radio. I tried to listen to Lars but gave up. I wish he would ask good questions and get people to talk. I already know all of the Lars opinions. He gets great interviews and then fails to get the information. Just lectures the poor person on the most obvious. 

But I digress...

I was looking online and one of the posts on the Oregon discussion group was reporting low returns for Republican ballots. Of course I asked AI as it was easier than going to the Secretary of State website myself.

AI said that Republicans in Oregon usually wait till the last minute to vote and then frequently never get around to mailing in their ballots. I thought this was pretty interesting. AI also backed up the claim that Republicans were turning out in lower numbers.

This morning I asked AI again and got the reply that Republicans actually had a higher return rate so far as compared to Democrats, but Democrats had higher registration. I asked AI if they were lying and it started rambling about how AI works and voter rolls and blah, blah, blah.

SO clever man that I am. I looked up the Secretary of State Website and found out that Republicans are slightly ahead of Democrats returning ballots in my county.

Surprisingly ballot return in Multnomah County (Portland) are only 8.5% while most other counties are 10 to 14%. Basically a little higher than average turnout.

What I did discover was very interesting with yesterday's post was that my keywords brought instant results. This one of the things that is so irritating with the Republican party. Their research and propaganda abilities are pathetic. 

I got instant hits from google searches for the proper name for the trail. Also for the country and commissioner race. I also suspect someone has some sort of trackback activated for links to their pages. I did not get the idea the traffic was coming from "conservative sources."

In fact, this is one of the reasons the commissioner races is important. The "progressives," I guess you would say, seem to have a well funded cooperative network for funding and cross promotion. The "trail" is a great example of this. Media savvy people have gotten news coverage in a number of liberal/conservation outdoors and recreation pages. (Also, editorials like this one.) I suspect they have pretty serious funding. 

I know the TrailsPac has gotten enough signatures to put at least one ballot measure on an upcoming election and they have a pretty slick promotional campaign.

The opposition are farmers with limited fundraising abilities and the local crazy Republican cranks who probably do more harm than good.

But, the 6 people who regularly read this blog really don't care...

Yesterday I worked in lime.

Working in lime is a generally satisfying job. Until the transmission cooler line blew out showing the windshield with hydraulic oil. I worked it two directions before the rain showed up last night. It was nice to just sit in a tractor for a day.

 

We got this deal on Hydrated lime that was used for storing apples. Apparently apples continue to respire after picking and the Hydrated lime absorbs the CO2.

The lime is in 55lb bags and on pallets. It seems to be somewhat solid like it has absorbed water but breaks up easily.

This is pretty potent stuff. I wonder if I were to do it again, I wounder if you could just put two/three pallets per acre on unworked ground, dump the pallets, push the bags around with a front end loader and then hit them with the cover crop disk and drag harrow a few times, chisel it maybe, or vibrashank with a spring harrow, and then moldboard plow it to get rid of the paper bags. If it is cheap enough just use more lime to get coverage. Probably do it in the fall and then rework the ground in the spring. Take a soil test, and if it required lime in the top three inches put down a ton of ag lime.

 

My neighbor modified a litter spreader to apply the lime. He just dumped bags and all in the spreader and it chopped it and spread it so we got a lot of paper in the field.

The lime has a higher score than regular ag lime so you use less. It was kind of a pain in the butt and the stuff is seriously nasty to handle but hopefully the price difference will make it all worthwhile. Hopefully it could be a no-till trade that doesn't involve me transporting my drill 50 miles across a narrow bridge or though downtown Salem...