Sometimes it works out

I've been a bit depressed lately. Lot to do and no money coming in. I was planning on going to a fairly good sized agricultural show today with my sometimes a great employee young farmer kid but I found out S. was winning an award at school. So, I got D. to help me move farm equipment out of the river bottom. We had our 3 antique Hesston 6600's, the New Holland 1085 stacker, freeman baler, G1000 Vista, and a dead ranger pickup all lined up in the field. The idea was to blow them all off with the aircompressor, move them up to the shop and wash each one and find a shed to put them in. Well, the main employee just never came back to work a month or so ago and it didn't get done. I'm finally rained out from planting so I've been trying to get things put away. It is almost painful for me to see wet hay in the bale chamber of the baler.
D. helped me pull a the stacker out, it was stuck. Then he bought me lunch at Alf's. Had a very good hamburger I might add. He was trying to cheer me up. He has plans. We are going to build a shop...
We were going to go to the Ag Show but I found out S. was to get that award. She just had a teacher conference and the teacher said she is really good in all her courses. Math, spelling, and science. So, I'm thinking she is getting an award for something academic. I never got those awards. I was pretty happy.
I got to school and saw a former employee. We called him Smilin' Dave as he grinned a lot and is missing his front teeth. His kid vandalized the school last year as a second grader. He broke in and stole a jar of licorice. The kid likes school this year and is really doing well. He got the math award. His dad says he hates math...
S. got an award for being a nice person. I am postive she is my daughter but yet sometimes I wonder. I think the nice person award is kind of BS. I was going to take her to the AgShow with me today. I didn't so that she could get the award. She was kind of dissapointed. I think she figured she was up for something a little more substantial.
I took her home with me. Got her out of the last 20 minutes of school. It was close to 3 p.m. so we had coffee break. I had a pepsi and she had a coke. She drew a pretty good picture of us setting at the coffee break table. I think she is a good artist.
My brother called and was back from truck driving and thought we could still make the show. S. decided she wanted to play with her cousins instead. So I picked up my brother and took off.
Now for the amazing part of this story.
We walk in and are looking around for the Great Plains drills. I see a fellow I sold straw to last year right before the market crashed. I said hi to him and he says he has been looking for me. He pulls out his check book and starts writing. He hands me a check for $5,000. I ask him if he has sold my hay from this year. He says no this is from the straw from last year. He said he didn't want to get too far behind. Then he thanked me for encouraging the local dairy fellow who kind of went down in flames last year. I did think the dairy fellow kind of over reacted when I told him he was a really good dairy fellow that I always respected and as I knew he was having some tough times I was not going to charge him for planting his field. I didn't realize he was really depressed. I did want to encourage him and the field was only 12 ares. I set the drill wrong and ended up doing it again, and the GPS tablet crashed, and I really had no idea the true acres and I just thought I'd just not charge the guy. The fellow who bought my straw said I gave the dairy dude encouragement at just the right time. That made me feel worthwhile. It does kind of make the idea of doing the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing and not to be thinking of doing the right thing to make yourself look good but, doing it because you want to, much more rewarding. Now that was a run on sentence... Anyway I feel much better this evening.
I really didn't expect to see that money. Wow! Glad I decided to go!
I pretty much have the money spent already-but it does take a lot of pressure off me. Half the stacker payment right there!

I rant again...

Perhaps I should just get a therapist. Hopefully someone finds my annoyance intertaining... I got pretty worked up about this post of NAT last night and then saw people who agreed with me this morning. So now I don't really care that much.
Then I had to fix the dryer.
Then there was the garbage on the lawn. Stanley the large Great Dane/Aussie Shepherd hid in his doghouse. Stanley and my brother's dog Sam like to bring home unattended bags of garbage. I think the way it works is-Stanley rips the door off and then he and Sam share the bag in front of our house. I am not actually sure that it is just Stanley who does the door. Sam has aways been a garbage hound. Stanley is just bigger. Also, Stanley knows he is not supposed to do this. At first I put a lot of blame on him, but now I am not so sure. Who ever the culprit is... We know not to ever leave bags of garbage or bags of anything that smells good to a dog, outside over night. You can't really stop the habit if you can't catch them in the act... And if I ever do there will be some sore doggie bottoms in this neighborhood.
Wife and child picked up the garbage before the school bus got here.
Here is what annoyed me last night.... It is about Amish people and NAT posters. I'm not completely right nor am I completely wrong. I'm just ranting...

I wandered back over to the NewAgTalk forums this evening. There seem to be a lot of new people on there. More morons than there used to be. Someone posted some photos of Amish people harvesting corn. I found the comments to be offensive.
I'm wondering why it annoyed me so much. I am not Amish.
I replied to the draft dodging comment only to put my post in the wrong spot, so I ended up looking like an idiot. So I left. I don't like NAT so much anymore anyway.
I guess it that I've been reading to many internet posts by people who don't have a clue about people of faith, because they have no faith.
I think it is depressing that no one believes in anything that has any deeper meaning. NewAgTalk provides a pretty good cross section of armchair farmers so I suppose it is somewhat representative of modern America.
It is such a short step from apathy to antagonism. From people who are stupid and don't care to people are stupid, don't know it, and want to impose their stupidity on everyone else.
Now, I may not have all the stuff right about the Amish but this is how I understand it.
Amish people really do things the hard way. They do this because they decided to stop following popular culture way back in the social revolution of the post WW I years. The point is to live a separate and called out life. A life not caught up in the modern rat race. A contemplative life that is close to God. Amish people believe in taking the sermon on the mount quite literal. They do not fight back if attacked, they believe in humility, in helping those in need, and in turning the other cheek.
Of course they do have problems as they are human. Sure at times they end up with a legalistic religious belief. But, why can't we still admire them as people who practice their faith in the daily lives. Why not appreciate that they are first on the scene in every national disaster. That they forgave the psycho who shot up their school.
Why laugh at them because they don't farm half the county and own a giant John Deere 4wd.
When I wrote my little newspaper I defended farmers to the death. I was infatuated by the ideal of the noble and hardworking yeoman who was somehow a part of the earth that he farmed. I thought the whole Jeffersonian ideal of the landowner and his native common sense was still a part of the modern farm.
The more modern farmers I know the less I like them. The de-evoloution of the farming character is just a little ways behind big business, real estate agents, developers, and society in general. Instead of the occasional self serving jackass being the exception to the rule, the exception is the rule, and the far thinking, honest, person with a real belief system is far and few between.
I no longer see the heros of my youth. I think they are all nearly dead. I suppose that is progress.

As for the issue of the Amish being draft dodgers I find that pretty offensive. They attempt to live their faith every day. They did not dodge the draft, they did alternative service which did not involve killing people. Not every fellow in the Army is a front line soldier. Are clerks and typists and mechanics somehow not doing their part because they don't get shot at every day?
If more people lived like Amish do you think there would be so many wars?

Oh whatever...

It doesn't really matter. People don't like Amish for a lot of reasons. Some of the Amish do smell bad. Their slow moving stuff on the highway is annoying. They stick together, they marry to close to home, some of them are greedy and some of them are lazy. I guess you can find what every you want in a group.

I am amazed at the horse drawn technology. I do think that a person could make it as a horse farmer. It would require a lot of self disipine I think. Perhaps an outside job to get started. You could not borrow money. I'm not sure I have the horse sense to do it. I always wanted to try before my dad forgot everything he knew about horse farming. (They farmed with horses till the 1950's.)
Jose our Mexican worker farmed with horses in Mexico. I tried to get him interested in modern horse farming stuff but he wanted a tractor. Hmmm...