Back to the Drawing Board

 The drawing board is pictured above...

My wife says I should stop being grumpy and not look at customers as potential annoyances but as opportunities. I need to start answering my phone and be friendly because what I am really doing is just thinking about myself and it is counter productive.
She does make a good point. If I truly "didn't care," then I wouldn't be affected by annoying people because, why do they annoy me? Because i am thinking about myself? Right?
What I wonder is what other grumpy people think.
Why do you want people to "just leave you alone?" Is that selfish reasoning?
I have read, "How to have friends and influence People," and I do realize I get very good results from following the ideas in that book.
Going to farm meetings and talking to other farmers is the way to make friends and bring in business.
If left to my own devices i would muddle about the farm and build useless things and mess with old stereos and grind feed but not sell it to anyone.
I think the real problem is that deep down I am lazy. Being grumpy and remote facilitates that...

More things that make me happy

I am still pretty messed up. I can now stand on my own. I can pick up small objects. I can lift my coffee cup. I can turn records over.
I was going to go to work but them my helper showed up.
I just don't want to have to talk to him. I will have to sit in the store and have coffee and explain the whole injury and then he will pretend to care when really it is the first of the month and he is out of gas. Then he will offer to do all sorts of things for me which he fully intends to do when he offers but if I make the mistake of taking him seriously I will be very disappointed.
We are getting quite a storm so I guess I am off the hook for planting.
I gave my brother a list of instructions for the helper.
There is really nothing to have him do other than grease the drill.
The shop is full of unfinished projects which he won't want know how to finish. I don't want to start new projects as that means more unfinished projects. He mostly likely will only work long enough to put us in danger of an OSHA inspection. While he has been to nearly every safety seminar we can't just tell him to go put shields on stuff as he will just drink coffee for two hours, say he doesn't know what to do, and then go home early.
He won't be able to fix the window in the truck he is going to drive, he may be able to fix the air leak, I changed the oil in my tractor myself, I don't really see him finishing the sprayer as he pretends he can't weld.
Frankly, I don't know what to do with him until I am well and not grumpy.
Perhaps I'll send him over to help MuddyValley build fence...

Eye of Polyphemus: The Real Issue with Sandra Fluke

Eye of Polyphemus: The Real Issue with Sandra Fluke:

1. Everything seems to be about politics and sex and money.
Wife and I went to the Sleep Number store and looked at beds. There was a card to fill out as to where you heard about the Sleep Number bed. They advertise equally on Air America and Lars Larson.
You could check a box for Randi Rhodes or Michael Savage or Rush Limbo.
Rush only apologized because he was losing advertisers.

2. The girl who was offended came to talk in front of congress about her need for birth control. It is all kind of an inside joke sort of like the "Slut Walk" girls. Now of course I live out in the backward part of the country but I have some younger friends and I listen to them talk.
No one wants to shut off the flow of free sex and no one wants to do anything to make "chicks" raise their standards but at the same time, girls who put out frequently get no respect.
Now it is a complicated thing. Guys will get so carried away with the easy access that they will marry the girl and of course drama ensues. But, unless they guy is such a stud that he can get sex from other women with the snap of his fingers and just doesn't care, there is always that little bit of distrust.
The contradictory thing that really sets the one dimensional thinkers in academia on the path to free love is that guys don't admit this to anyone but other guys. In fact, guys will do what ever it takes to continue the free love, lying is perfectly acceptable, lying to yourself works also, and a general disrespect for women is what follows.
Then there is the other problem, guys fall in love and suddenly the little trollop becomes quite virtuous.
Put this all together and you see the strange confusion that is life and love in 21st century American culture.
This is just my opinion from local observations.

Could someone come over and change records for me?

I injured myself.
I was helping my wife with her straw bale gardening project. I don't think the people who wrote the book on straw bale gardening really envisioned 110lb straw bales packed so tight you can't get your fingers under the strings and made with a centerfeed baler so there is no "cut" side.
We put a row of bales on edge and I was using the chainsaw to cut a "v" in the tops (actually the side but they are on edge) of the bales to put the dirt into. I think I need a skip tooth chain. It is not a easy as you think when you are sitting in your chair drinking coffee and talking about doing it.
Anyway, I felt a sharp pain in my side and kind of ignored it as I just wanted to get the project done. A few minutes later I discovered I couldn't quite straighten up.
After I put the chainsaw down and straightened up I discovered i could no longer lift the chainsaw. Heck, I couldn't even lift my coffee cup!
This was a bit of a problem as I have a planting job and I still needed to get the grain drill ready to go.
I got my wife to help me hook up the drill as I couldn't push in the quick connect hoses or even lift the bundle of hoses to begin with. Amazingly enough, we got the hoses hooked up correctly even though the little zip ties that I put on them to mark which hose went to which remote fell off over the winter.
I tried out the hydraulic power fertilizer pump and it worked! I turned on the seed monitor and all the rows checked out ok. The little TV camera that shows if the drill is full or empty actually worked!
I still need to remove two thirds no-till openers as I'm planting on 22.5" spacing. Need to shut off the unused fertilizer tubes, need to calibrate drill for tillage radish, need to unhook unused seed sensors and figure out if I have to reprogram the monitor. Need to grease the drill, fix a broken hub on one marker. Make sure the foamer works in case it is too wet to use the markers and the hillside is too steep for the GPS to read accurately, hook up the GPS so I will have glowing lights to watch while planting. Need to check the oil level in the front hubs of the 2-155, need to clean out my cab, need to look at the field. Actually I need to look at the field first as I want to plant some oats at home before I move 10 miles down Highway 18.
My wife declared that I was to sit down in my chair. She took away my laptop and phone and my little notebook that I am drawing pictures of the stereo stand I will never build. She brought me an icepack and Advil. She refused to turn on the Legendary Stardust Cowboy...
Later she relented on the laptop, phone, and notebook. But, not on the Stardust Cowboy, I don't know why.
I think it is because someone has to turn the records over for me. And my stereo has no remote.
Later today I have to attend a funeral.
I have been applying ice, now we are applying heat. If I didn't have the funeral to attend and 70 acres of radish to plant and 40 acres of oats and the sun wasn't out I would apply some Old #7 and take an afternoon nap.
At this point, I have discovered that for some reason I don't seem to be able to stand up. Well, at least not very well. Once I get up and moving then I am better. The last time this happened I had to crawl until I loosened up enough to stand up. It was most inconvenient.
I hate getting old...
At least if I am crying at the funeral people will think I care..

It is a sprayer you pull behind a 4 wheeler or small tractor

Supposed to work on wet ground but It may be a little heavy. No foam markers. It has 15ft boom, same width as the drill. If I measured correctly, and that is a big "if," the tires will fit down 24" fescue rows or 30 inch corn rows.
It has an electric pump. Note the battery and pump mounted on tongue. The tank can be adjusted fore and aft to change weight distribution. I was going to put mounting brackets for a row sprayer on the tongue close to the hitch, but ran out of time. Putting a row sprayer behind you is hard on the neck. The idea would be for it to be lined up with the wheels so as long as the tractor or 4wheeler tires are between the row the row sprayer is lined up properly. With a long tongue you have less problems with over steer and the resulting "cultivator blight."
Anyway, have to get drill going. Have a planting job. Sprayer is almost finished.

What I've been doing

What I've been doing... Needs some finish work. Paint, welds, hoses, spray, a field, just little items

Trouble in Paradise

I was sent another link to a story about the new religion of science. I am shocked to see that it has corruption in it just like the old religion.
It would seem there is a little room to skim at the grant writing, public funding, greenwashing private funding, tribal consulting, public tough.
Again, the fun is in the comments.
Note how all the University people support these guys. Note how "important" everyone thinks they are.
Note how they say how the wonderful "biologists"  can't be guilty because they are doing such great work, (for the environment) how they are such great people and how it is a set up by the DA and the Tribe.
I find it absolutely hilarious when the shoe is on the other foot and someone in the science religion is being prosecuted.

Main story

Follow up story

So they really were getting paid millions to tramp around in the forest and smoke dope all day count spotted owls. Can you imagine, getting paid to go hiking? Sure you have to count owls and the occasional lupine and its' accompanying blue butterfly, but what the heck, if you get it wrong-who is going to check up on you? Better to error on the low side than on the high side, right?