A song for the Nude Year-er New Year!

Perhaps 2010 won't be such a crappy year after all. I have actually accomplished two difficult tasks this morning. I am soaking wet and slightly annoyed but yet strangely optimistic.

I made up a song about it.
Sung to the tune of "I shot the sheriff"

I started the Studebaker
It was not all that e-a-sy!

I started the Studebaker
It took me five cups of cof-f-ee!

I started the Studebaker
and then I moved the Vista off the river-bottom

I started the Studebaker
And now I am positively giddy!

What a way to start the New Year-as personal triumph and a song. If only I had a banjo...
Ooooh! I should also start the Triumph!

What I did was fix the flat tire on the Studebaker Cruiser and charge the battery. I sprayed a little starting fluid in the intake and she fired right off. I even had a sound track. I did a big no-no and left my Tom Petty cassette in the tape deck. IT started right up with, "Sometimes this world just seems a little hopeless..." I do not dare to ruin this fantastic radio shack stereo as you cannot buy dual shaft radios that will fit in the dash of old cars. Plus this one has a input jack for my ipod!
The flat tyre was also a problem. I found a tyre repair kit which is the kind you stab a patch into the tyre. Fortune was with me and the tires were only like 2 ply cheapos so it was not so hard to stab the patch through the steel belts.

 I didn't actually drive the car as I got distracted.
I was thinking about tires and I realized the our 1967 Minneapolis-Moline G1000 Vista that once belonged to John Fogerty (or his brother or cousin or something, according to the auctioneer-course they will say anything...) was still setting in the clover field with a flat tire. I had about 100 ft of airhose on the reel in my pickup so I strung it out to the tractor and waited for an hour.

The tire is so bad the side walls are shredded. I had to keep moving the tractor to keep the tire from leaking. I barely made it up the hill into the pasture before it was clear flat. I turned the tractor so the tire guy could get to it. I love that tractor, I wish I could restore it.

I am waiting for my friend from High School to call me. He is visiting for the holidays. He called and said he would come visit me. I suggested lunch at the Amity Cafe. This will not happen as I started to add up the time from where he was when he called to what he needs to do and the other people he needs to see and where he planned on going tonight. It is nice to have goals and it made me feel pretty darn swell that he called me. Perhaps I will drive the Studebaker in to have lunch. The tags are pretty much expired but perhaps I can get off with a warning if caught. If is a 1964 Studebaker. Obviously I don't drive it much and I have proof of insurance as I forget to de-insure it.
I do have to be careful about driving it as the green idiots that run this state have mandated alcohol in the gas. Alcohol in the bloodstream is fine. Of course in this advanced modern world they have got it all turned around. Alcohol in the bloodstream is now considered bad but alcohol in the gas is GOOD! Go figure...

Edit: 12 people have viewed this blog since this morning. But-does anyone comment? Look, you can say something rude if you want, I don't care. Just my luck, I find the 12 lazy farmers left in this country and they follow me. You could at least click the offensive button. My easily offended follower seems to have given up on his little hobby...

Some photos of Minneapolis-Moline tractors

We have been cleaning house to get ready for Thanksgiving. I found a journal from 1993. I think I was a different person then. Perhaps not. There are things i would like to say but really who cares. It takes a person a long time to learn some very pretty simple truths. Truths that they don't teach you in school and they don't teach you this stuff because THEY (whoever they are-I suppose you could just say that it is the modern adult conspiracy, er post modern adult conspiracy...) don't want you to know this stuff because it is a lot harder to sell things to you if you are self contained.
I just talked to a friend who wants to quit his job. It is a not a good job. It is selling insurance. Insurance is a scam, and making cold calls selling people stuff they don't want but know they have to have is horrible. But, it is a job. You get paid. You don't really have to work real hard.
A person has to learn to separate things. You are not entitled to be happy. You are not entitled to have the perfect romance, the perfect job, the perfect anything. You must take your happiness when you find it. Have a hobby, have a happy spot in your mind, do what you have to do survive and make the money to live. Save for a happy day. Make your own happiness. One freaking foot in front of the other, you get up in the morning and force you butt out the door and down the street and you just do it...
So, when I look back on 1993 and I read what I missed and see that I was an idiot it doesn't matter. I do what I do now and I must do my best...
Anyway here are some photos. End of my speech. I need to call this guy and say, look you got a wonderful girlfriend, you are an artist, you have another life, just put your time in and save some cash and take the next opportunity. I'm not sure working for me and going to school again is an opportunity. I think it is a cop out... I probably won't call.
Photos! Your are here for pretty pictures not philosophy.

(Ed Winkle, if you read this tell me what photos have been posted on NewAgTalk cause I don't
 remember..)

This was me in 1982 or so...

 This is how you get the uni-combine off the power unit. If you ever see a hoist like this at a farm you know they had the uni-system. They seem so small now!

This is the tractor that put us into the 100 horsepower range. Bought it used at a farm sale. Seemed like a big tractor when we got it. Has been 17 or 15 years I guess now. Before we farmed with three M670 supers. Did 200 acres or so. Usually had 50 acres of corn.

This is from the early 1990's. When we really got serious about baling. We did over a thousand ton a year with these two balers. I remember stacking straw. Sometimes the stacks would be over 1/4 mile long. Put the straw up with a New Holland Super 1048. Loaded the bales on trucks with a farm hand F-11 loader on a 1964 M670.

This photo makes me sad. It is from ten years or so ago. We found the Studebaker in a barn. Had fairly low miles on it. We absolutely killed the truck. We should be banned from collecting!

 

Switch hitting

I've spend a week wiring a stupid switch for my grain drill monitor. I am some what of an anateur at electrical wiring. Now when I say amature I mean "pathetic failure," but we should not quibble with semantics.
Those of you who are interested in things like flowmeters, microtrak spraymate monitors, Great Plains 1500 drills, no-till, and FarmerGPS may actually read this post and enjoy it. Perhaps someone will click the offensive comment box. I don't know.
Anyway, I wired a magnetic switch so that when you raise the drill it puts the flowmeter, and calc-an-acre, and the GPS on hold so they stop counting. At one point it also turned the fertilizer valve off. I also have a landmark foam marker that has faulty wiring.
So, I'm trying to wire this all into one switch box. I used a plastic conduit box and made use of several bosch relays and a hay baler stroke counter sensor to do all of this. However, the wires and relays now won't fit in the box and I have to redo it a bunch more.
Yesterday I was soldering the grounds together in the foam marker box and it just started pouring. I decided it would be better not to get electricuted so I gave up on that. Then a fellow came by to discuss no-till and Great Plains drills. Then a fellow showed up who wants me to plant. Then I took my daughter to her Mom's school so they could go into town and watch "the biggest loser," at niece's house. Then I get back and I get started soldering again and it gets dark. I turn on the tractor lights, then it pours. I go in the house and get warm. I come back out and start the tractor and crank up the heater and work on the wire in the cab.
How can it possibly take so long to crimp and route wires and figure out double-pole-double-throw switches? I actually need to get this done and do things I really need to get done. I can't quit now I've got everything apart.
But....It is wet. I'm a little worried about my last 200 acres. I really, really, need the money...
Wonder how many people will click here by mistake with "amature" in the body text. I've thought about spiking a post with all sorts of keywords to see what will happen. Now if I'd combine "amature, naughty, spanking, wanker, and Studebaker" as keywords, I wonder if I would get british studebaker collectors who do all the restoration work them selves, sometimes shoplift, and have an embarrassing personal habit that cold lead to blindness. Now there would be an interesting demographic.
Once I did a search for amature radio. Oh my goodness! And that was with the safe search filter on!!!!

The Sun shining on 1/2" of Water in the field

I got my field planted...
If I were not such a lazy farmer I would get out of my armchair and get my camera. I could yell at me wife to do it and if I said "please" there is a really good chance she would, because she is a happy and helpful person. But, i hate to push that. Perhaps I'll try for another cup of coffee from her, and see if I can talk her into fixing me something really good for breakfast.
I'll try psychology.
"Those were really good sausages we had yesterday," said I.
"Those were really fatty," she says.
No such luck.
I'm eating the heel of a loaf of bannana bread.
"Are you saving this foil for something else," she says.
"Yes," I reply.
So much for psychology...
S. has two basket ball games and we have a wedding to attend. I should not try amature psychology on my longsuffering wife under such circumstances.
She grew up in the city. Her father was home evenings and weekends.
I am often gone even though we live on the farm now.
I always work on Saturdays.
When I don't work I am tired and often grumpy and I never get stuff repaired around the house.
In my imagination farms are like the Marx farmsets from the 1960's.
Barn full of cows, chicken house with chickens, a little Minneapolis-Moline 335 for a tractor, four kids. That sort of thing.
Have you ever been in a barn stuffed to the rafters with hay? Especially if you worked your bottom off stuffing that hay in to the rafters. And you picked up the hay in the field with a 1949 Studebaker and a 1942 Chevy truck....
It is the middle of winter and cold outside. But the cows keep the barn warm. There is a warm yellow light from the old incandescent lightbulbs screwed into the dusty white porcelain fixtures. You can smell a comforting mixture of grass hay and molassas and just enough of a faint hint of cow crap that you know you are not just waking up to a breakfast of hot oatmeal, (unless you actually live in a barn).
When you open the old barn door you hear the squeek of the pulley on the counterweight. Someone had a good idea 40 years ago. When the cows hear the squeek they all start talking at one. They know it is feeding time. You climb the stack and kick down a couple bales of grass hay. The hay is so green inside and the smell of summer comes out of the bale. You fork the hay into the manger, you get a five gallon bucket of oats and screenings, and then top it all with a dribble of molassas. The cows are all happy and chewing away. You can hear the sound of 20 cows all chewing at once. There are some snorts and sniffles and cows playfully butting each other. If you stick your head over the manger a curious cow will stick her head up and give you a watery sniff and sometimes stick out her tongue. Of course as soon as she lifts her head, her neighbor dives into her spot as she is sure that there is something better next to her.
The chickens are all asleep as it is dark out. When you open the door you hear a faint murmer of clucking. They know it is breakfast time as well. The eggs are still warm when you pick them up. You have to watch old mamma hen who wants to set. She will peck you if she gets the chance. Sometimes the water is frozen and you have to pour hot water on the waterer to thaw it out. You fork some clean straw in and the more adventurous chickens start scratching for seeds.
By now it is light out and you have to make a run for the house, get your school clothes on and make it to the school bus on time.
We don't have cows. We don't put hay in the barn by hand. The barn is full of stuff we can't throw away. We burn the bad hay. The kids watch cartoons in the morning.
I don't feel like getting up early.
Progress I suppose.
 So I wrote all that and realized what I wrote didn't match the post title.
My lovely wife brought me poached eggs and toast. But, no coffee. I don't have the nerve to ask.
I finished the field I was so worried about. Sadie and I went out yesterday morning and we just fired up the White 2-155 and put the drill down and went.
We had to use the 4wd pickup to get to the field. There was a 1/2" of water on parts of the field and the sun was shining. I have some photos but I left the camera in the pickup. Every opener was plugged with bits of straw from the combine run oats. I pretended I didn't see it. The no-till coulters were working the ground enough that the harrow covered up the loose seed that spilled freely out of the seed cups. There was only four acres left plus another four acres of headlands. The field was two foot tall wheat stubble, probably 130 bushel yield, cut with a 20 foot header. There were windrows. I realized why I bought the Great Plains drill. It all flowed through, didn't plug, the air-design scrapers worked perfectly. I didn't look at seed depth. I didn't see any seed on top of the ground.
We got it done. It was a little slimy on the headlands.
There there was the delemia of getting the tractor out of the field. I needed to move the drill home but S. is only 7 years-old and shouldn't be driving on the highway. I put the truck in 4wd. S. drove the truck and followed me. It was pretty slick getting the tractor and drill out but S. did really well in the truck. Once on the highway I went back and shifted the truck into 2wd and put the flashers on. Sadie followed me down the highway several hundred yards to the farm grain tanks. She did very well. She is a careful driver.
Then we went to the cafe for lunch. We are farmers!
The drill is absolutely covered in mud. A good two hour wash job.