Mud, hillsides, and I could have died on the way home or at least been somewhat stranded along the highway

I have often thought of my mental state as "swimming in mud," that was almost a literal thing yesterday.
I was planting a number of small fields in a new residential neighborhood. There was a spot where water was running across the access to a field. The farmer said they drove though it all the time and it would be fine.
I almost didn't make it though to plant the field. On the way back I got a run at it. I almost made it.
I briefly considered unhooking the drill and driving the tractor out, then towing the drill out from dry land. I had a heavy log chain with me.
Then I smelled the faint oder of human poop.
So stepped back into the tractor and I called the farmer. Actually I called his farm manager, Armonado. Armando is a nice guy. He sent someone to pull me out. I sat for an hour and it took five minutes to get me out.
I do not like to get poop on my shoes.
I think someone has some issues with their septic drain field.

I planted another 20 acres and then drove several miles up into the hills to do a 60 acre hillside. The field was worked in the fall. It appears to be a black heavy clay soil like our river bottom. There was no way to pack a soil like this last fall, because there was no rain until late, and then it never stopped raining.
The ground was crusted on top and alternated between fluffy underneath, rock hard clay and gravel underneath, or mud.  The tractor and drill sunk into the fluffy soil and made wheel tracks. I managed to get lucky and pick the correct way to go around the field and I encountered the wet spots going down the hill. Otherwise I would have planted the tractor and drill.
Contrary to the hopes of many experiments, planting a White tractor and Great Plains drill in the spring does not result in many little tractors and drills in the fall. I suppose it is because the White is a hybrid.
Then I lost a press wheel bearing.
I also realized I lost my knife which I use to pry the press wheel apart to replace the bearing. Then I realized it was 4 p.m. and I had promised to be at my daughter's softball game which was 20 miles away. (Only five miles from home)
So I went home.
I remembered a really bad bump in the highway. Yamhill Country has the worst roads in Oregon. There was my pocket knife. I stopped and picked it up.
On the way home I spied the farmer out standing in his field. I told him the field was too soft to plant grass seed in with my no-till drill and he should work it. He said ok! No one ever say's "ok... you know best..." They always try to talk me into planting-even if they have to drive 20 miles in a tractor to pull me out. I think I shall give this farmer a discount!
I headed to the game.
I almost drove my pickup straight to the game but instead pulled into the farm in the hopes that I could find someone else to fix my presswheel. (I had the bearing with me)
Instead of turning into the driveway the pickup continued straight into my sister-in-laws garden.
The tie rod end had come out of the socket!!!! I did remember a funny pop noise when I was going through that ditch in the other field...

I took the family car to the game. On the way I though about the number of opportunities I had to die on the way home. I think I shall attribute my "luck" to divine providence as affected by the earnest prayers of our hot-headed by very sincere tractor collecting friend who calls to check on my spiritual state from time to time. The only person I know who has been permanently banned from Weyerhaeser land and had to sell his logging truck as a result.
My daughter's team won! It was a hard fought game.
Middle school softball is often pretty boring as it is mostly the pitcher trying to get the ball near the plate and the kids end up walking.
This game had hits. Line drives and fouls and almost a home run. (by the other team)
My daughter's team had a pretty good pitcher and ended up winning in the last inning.
Now I have to empty a grain drill that holds 2,200lbs of wheat.
Grass seed is fluffy so it won't be that much work.
Better digging grass seed out of a drill with a five gallon bucket and a vacuum cleaner than pulling a stuck tractor out of a field.
Below is a photo of the planting job when I started. I am at only 280ft above sea level. Ignore the bird poop on the back window and look at the levels in the foam marker tank and the fertilizer tank. This was not even the steeper part. I couldn't really take a photo at the steep part.

Motivational Issues

I should be planting...
Or Disking...
Yesterday Morning I was working ground.
This morning I am less enthused.
I have acres to plant 85 + 85 +20 + 40 + ours (50-100). These fields are spread out over 15 miles or so.
The Dairy fellow wants to chop grass silage at the end of the week.
I have to help at daughter's school fund raiser auction this Saturday. Next Saturday we are going on a trip. We may visit Zetawoof. Or at least honk randomly when we get within 20 miles.
The silage chopper and truck are not ready.
My helper got the mower almost ready yesterday but he was not doing well by 7 p.m. and I don't expect him early today.
Yesterday I planted another four acres of Flax. have been planting a few acres at a time as the field dries out.
The problem is I have not felt good for a month or so.
I am tired, I have sinus issues, I can't think clearly, I have no motivation.
For example.
I looked all over for the last six bags of Flax seed from the variety I started planting. I couldn't find them and assumed I planted them. Yesterday I found them on a pallet. I think someone unloaded them from my pickup but I don't know. I try to be careful not to unload seed onto anything but the pallet it came off of.
The strange thing about this is I know several other people with the same symptoms. It is some sort of strange virus or radiation poisoning or something.
It ain't my usual depression because 10,000 mg of Vitamin D made no difference.
AND now I am going to work.

Age 12

Being 12 is an interesting state. You are not grown up and you are not quite a child.
Our daughter is 12.
We, as in our family of three, made the decision to put the daughter, who was part of the decision, in private Christian school this year.
I have gotten some negative feedback from people in the neighborhood who are strong public school supporters.
I've heard some negative feedback from people in the church who think the school is a little modern and they also think I'm a little modern.
I'm not especially modern, more post-modern I suppose, mostly just kind of negative and cynical about life in general I think would be more descriptive.
I wanted her to go to private school because I don't really see any point in joining the real world any sooner than you have to.
That is the bottom line.
The private school is populated by kids whose parents care enough to spend money and time in order to send their kids there. The kids are a little sheltered-but, for the most part, they are happy and friendly and enthused and positive.
They have yet to learn the essential survival skill of distrusting authority.
Yesterday, my wife went to see her father and my daughter and I stayed home. I don't really know why. That is just how it worked out.
We went to Church and then went for Chinese food.
Had a nice time. We talked about her school and I told her some stories about being her age. We discussed the differences between my early years of school and how I turned out to be a weird and contrary kid and how she seems to be fairly happy and well adjusted. We discussed how lonely I was as the youngest with my brothers being six and ten years older and her being an only child.
I didn't do all the talking.
We came come and whilst I pondered my turntable plinth misadventure she practiced her guitar. I suggested she look up the girl band, The Donnas. I'm not sure that was a good idea.
I also suggested she learn some Joan Jett songs and pointed out how funny it would be to do a school talent show dressed as an Amish girl and singing a nice song and then launching into "I love Rock and Roll."
We discussed using humor to deflect embarrassment and the theory of making funny sarcastic comments which forced your opponent to laugh but also relieved your frustration. Or how to be actively passive-aggressvie as opposed to a victim.
Then she made an airplane out of cardboard boxes and we mounted Nerf guns in the wings. I took up a position on the trampoline with the Nerf machine gun and she bombed and strafed me.

It could be that she is watching way too much Hogan's Heroes.
We had a nice afternoon.

It was pointed out that there is somewhat of a contradiction between attending a Mennonite school and playing war. I noted that the Nerf machine gun was orange. That was not accepted as an argument.
I suppose I should add that, The Donna's are also not the Gospel Echoes.

The Donnas

The Gospel Echoes

Someday I will realize I am a failure as a spiritual leader in the home. This is what happens when two youth group outcasts get married...

My daughter is already better than I and seems to realize her father is full of crap. Is having this all out in the open now better than having a false illusion and finding out your father is a fraud later in life?I do not know...
I think I shall go and plant something...

A reader sends in a very useful plan...

I think MuddyValley pretty well captured the essence of why I did not ask for help online.

However, I think it could work...
Have been looking at the GSA auctions for a Hercules. Found a Beaver. Have been trying to get rid of Beaver around here. Who knew the GSA had one from 1956.

An interesting link that will waste a couple hours of your life...

My wife says going to sleep on the couch at 10 p.m. is almost the same as going to bed at 10 p.m. I am not so sure.
I found a link to this place on NAT. (http://www.dontevenreply.com/Click Here)
I was going to post asking for info on putting a military Hercules into a White tractor. Hopefully I would get detailed info.
Most likely I would get...
1. Why don't you buy a John Deere?
2. Why don't you put a Cummins in it?
3. Someone thinking it was the little engine in an Oliver and not the big engine in a 2-155/2-135
4. Commentary on the viability of White tractor is in the 21st century
5. Off subject but interesting stories of tractor pulling
6. Nothing at all because I have not been commenting on a regular basis.

But I got distracted by a guy who makes prank emails to people on craigslist. Very funny. I need a new hobby. I just need to figure out those proxy servers.

I was just explaining the fun of prank phone calls to my daughter's friends at her sleep-over. I suppose that was a bad idea. I did explain caller ID and how you needed to borrow someone else's phone.
I also taught them how to have an argument conversation by purposefully misunderstanding words and taking it personal. Thus, you keep getting angrier/more offended/whatever while the other person attempts to explain away their offense. We did a couple practice conversations.
I think I have made the world a better place for those efforts.
Have a nice day.

I build a tow bar

I needed a ride to the field and there was no one to give take me.
So I built a tow bar for my pickup.
It took me a couple hours and a raid on the scrap barrel.

Then the kids killed the forklift while lifting the lawn mower (another story) and I took my pickup to jump start it. After getting the forklift running I discovered that I would have to walk. So I hooked the tow bar tot he forklift.
And I turned too short.

I think I should have made it a little heavier.
But, I'd wasted two hours and I still had to get the truck from the field.
So I got the welder back out and found a large hammer and a few more scraps of metal from around the band saw.

I don't think it is safe for highway speeds.

I pulled the pickup behind the truck while delivering hay to the neighbor, it provided some entertainment for several other neighbors. Fortunately it did not break off and crash into the ditch.

It is raining

I have been replanting wheat with the no-till drill.
It is a little depressing as the neighbor just hired me to replant a field of wheat to oats. The wheat field that he sprayed out looks better than the wheat field I am replanting sections of.
I was going to ask my brother if we had decided to plant wheat or flax or barley or oats in the sections of the ryegrass field that drowned out. Or that was consumed by Geese who are from Canada and probably use the metric system and are socialists.
However, my brother was not at the shop and since I got in trouble yesterday from my Uncle for getting mud on the driveway, and not really feeling like I am 16 years old, I came to the house to warm up some coffee and see if the strange comments I posted on the Contrary Farmer got a response.
Then it started pouring down rain.
The house is dark and quiet, other than the rain hitting the tin roof of the porch. I can hear the clock ticking somewhere and the chickens clucking happily on the porch.
I am suppose to shoe them off but it is a losing battle. Unconfined chickens tend to make a mess.
I fixed myself some eggs and toast.
I was in the process of filling out an application for a night janitor job at a local college. I then realized I would have to work there for the next decade so that my daughter could get free tuition. But, then if I waited ten years they wouldn't hire me as I'd be too old, but who says they would hire me now. I haven't had a real job in 20 years.
Perhaps some optimistic millionaire will hire me to provide a negative balance to their eternal optimism. Now that would be a great job.