The Useful Duck!

Thursday, July 16, 2026

I walk, make feed, do apparant vandalism, usual mucking about

My exercise program is cutting into my blogging time. I realize that somewhere in China there is a bot farm that misses my updates and I do apologize. 

I am sure that all five of my regular readers and dying for an update on my feed mixing obsession.

 

 
My neighbors are out of the 1/3 alfalfa and 2/3 oats mix so I gave making alfalfa pellets a try. We had some very nice first cutting alfalfa. Actually better than second cutting. I have a ton of pig feed that should be sold(oats/barley/peas/corn/clover and alfalfa hay) but the lady never brings her barrels. This holds up the works as I need to fill her containers and then I can put the leftovers into 50lb bags. I made a 6,000lb batch so I do have plenty.   


My neighbor who goes by Radiant Pony on Facebook marketplace and because of that I will never be able to remember her real name, likes my Weed&Feed mix. After an initial slight over dosage why resulted in her horses craving doritos and Peter Tosh music we have a solid plan. It pelletizes very nicely. My Mexican customers love the fact that it makes the next feed batch reek of chronic. That has boosted sales in the past.


 

I see interesting things on my walks. 

 

I get a little distracted on my walks. I have been pulling annual ryegrass out of the new alfalfa field. Then I started walking down to the river to see if I could shoot a nutria. But I get distracted there as well. No nutria were harmed in this walk.

 

 

Someone was tapping trees for Maple Syrup and forgot about it for a year or two. Aunt Jemimiah would never forget... Uncle Ben would remind her...

 

This target is dead. Looks like three different caliber. Upper right is a nice group of large holes. Someone was pretty accurate on the head. Maybe a little aggression there. Pretty sure the dude did not survive...

 

 

I load my bags of feed on an old truck and park it in my neighbor's barn. I rent his field and his barn. Sort of. He borrows my tractor and stuff and I attempt to pay him rent. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes he won't take money. This really annoys his uncle who apparently is a part owner in the property. Periodically he interrogates my brother on the rental agreement and what happened to the choker cables his dad left in the barn 70 years ago that have been missing for 35 years. Sometimes he corners me. I like to be vague about it. If he really annoys me I ask him if I need to just pay him directly and then he does the whole passive aggressive, "I don't want any money just want to make sure my nephew has money." Then I tell him I think I saw those cables last year and give some vague location. He thinks I stole them. I think he stole our logging tongs.

Part of his passive manipulating bullshite is to have some sort of anchor vehicle in the barn. He had a IH dozer in there for years but his nephew kept using it and so he took it to his house. Now he has this POS GMC Astro Van. It is white, perhaps his plan is to give out candy, I don't know. He says he is going to restore it. Astro Vans are hot collector items I know that for a fact.

I set up wood blocks so when I back into the barn with one dirty mirror in the dark I don't hit his pristine van. Apparently the wood blocks moved... The first time it happened I knew it. I was idling back in low low reverse and I hit it. So I set up the wood blocks. Apologized and all that. However, I have been hitting it on a regular basis. I honestly don't see how I did it. I am so confused I wonder if someone is going into the barn when I am not around and hitting the van. I really did not do this on purpose. This is actually embarrassing. I would rather be a vandal than a bad driver but I suppose I will just have to embrace the latter.


 

6 comments:

  1. Being critically short on indoor storage space I tend to do some parking by touch too. It works ok most of the time but there is always a risk factor there. If the blocks move in my sheds and I hit something it is only me that can be blamed.

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    1. I put up large blocks this time. However, I suspect the damage is done. It could have been that I didn't set the air brake and it rolled backwards also, but probably not.

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  2. "Parking by touch..." In my neck of the woods we call it driving by Braille.

    I am growing some "Yamhill" filberts. It is very productive and seems to be slightly more EFB resistant than Jefferson. Both were considered totally resistant when first released but it turned out that there are multiple strains of Eastern Filbert Blight in the east that were only slowed down by the Gasaway gene.

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    Replies
    1. Parking by ear... We are the only farm in Yamhill County that doesn't grow filberts. I never thought they would do well being submerged by the Yamhill river a week every year. However our upstream neighbors seem to be doing it, so I really don't know.

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  3. Distracted on a walk... my experience with farming is walking to the barn to get something, remembering I need to fix it, then realizing why I didn't fix it last time but I really need THAT thing to work for this chore and then half the day is gone finding and fixing three different things to get the chore done that it's now entirely too hot to do. So it gets put on the top of tomorrow's list. Distracted while walking sounds so much better than overwhelmed with a sea of halfway working equipment. I'm going to steal your line. It's not copyright protected is it?

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    Replies
    1. This morning I was late starting and then when i get to the alfalfa field I see the flipper is stuck on the irrigator and doesn't reverse. So I screwed around with that for a half hour and by then I was to irritated to walk so I found a semi abandoned vehicle and just drove back...I only did a mile and a half, sue me...

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