See nothing, say nothing... Why you should NEVER tell anyone in authority anything. Ratting out your friends for their own good...

"Don Miller was an amateur archeologist. He is now 91 years old and much of his collection was behind glass and in his basement. 
It is now being looted by the FBI.
What brought the FBI in to raid his basement on April Fools day? Well it certianly was not info from Russian Intel that Don was a whacko Islamic terrorist!
Nope, you see Don loved to share his collection. He made the mistake of inviting his so-called-friend, Richard M. Gramly, a Harvard-trained anthropologist to see his collection. 
Richard turned him in. Richard M. Gramly, ratted out his friend!
Don had worked on the development of the weapon to end all wars. He saved a few government surplus items.
"Convinced that it could fall into the wrong hands and that someone could potentially use it to make a dirty bomb, Gramly decided to call the authorities. ”I hate to rat someone out, but it’s no longer a private thing.” He reached out to a relative of his who was a colonel at the Pentagon, who told Gramly to contact the FBI, which he did. That was in 2008."

But what really happened? 
A soft-ball sized chunk of Uranium in someone's basement for 60 years? BS...

"Gramly is convinced he did the right thing: “Miller is getting to an age where he could die any day. How would you like to go to a yard sale and buy that nuclear device for 50 cents?” he asks. “I feel like I’ve done my duty.” (To quote the article again)

Wonder how Gramly felt about Don's artifact collection? Wonder if Gramly is just stupid? Wonder if the whole thing is a lie? Wonder why the FBI didn't just knock on the door and ask for it back?

"Neither the FBI nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Indianapolis will comment on the Gramly matter. But both offices in Indianapolis confirm that federal agents visited Miller’s house 18 months to two years earlier on an issue unrelated to the Native American artifacts. That visit, potentially to look into Gramly’s tip about the bomb components, could have possibly triggered the action at his farmhouse last month and the deeper look into Miller’s collection of artifacts." 

Welcome to the modern world. Wonder if they shot his dog?

Former Freeman Baler Employee comments on post

I posted about J.A. Freeman and Son's awhile back. One of the employees left comments on the post. If you are interested click here.
Someone should write this history of the Freeman Baler company.
I think we have the second and third balers that they made.
J.A. Freeman and Sons was one of the last old-style family companies left in American Agricultural Machinery production.
I think that the Darf Rake company (Nikkel Ironworks) might be the last.
You could go into Porland, walk into the company office, AND they would give you a tour and a free hat!
The drafting room was amazing. Huge old multipane windows and old wood drafting tables. The whole building was like a tour of the industrial revolution. Old milling machines, old wood shelves, a little dust here and there....
Freeman made the same baler for decades. They were virtually made by hand out of off the shelf dimensional steel.
They featured huge bull and pinion gears instead of a gearbox and a massive flywheel to store kinetic energy. The massive plunger compressed hay at 75-85 strokes per minute. Everything on the baler was rebuildable.
We have two 1970's Freeman 200's that have been rebuilt countless times. The reason I don't use them is 1. The Wisconsin V-4 engines are tired, 2. They need to be rebuilt again and I don't have the time to do it correctly. 3. Rebuilding a knotter 800 times does not give you a new knotter, welding in a new top  on the bale chamber is not an advantage if you get it 1/8" to one side. 4. They make a huge amount of noise, have a 1930's design for feeding hay, and you have to get on and off the tractor to put them in gear.
And finally... I wanted to make 14x18 bales and the kit to change the 16x18 baler to 14 x 18 was $6,000. (What I really want to do is find a Freeman 370 with a diesel engine on it and convert it to a 15" chamber. I think I could still get the extra bales in a stack but they would be easier to pick up.
When our running 200 busted a pinion bearing housing I bought a New Holland BC5075. It turns at 97 strokes per minute. It is shiny and new. I baled 7,000 bales with it and broke three bales and two shear pins in one entire season.
Someone needs to write a book about the Freeman Baler company. It is an incredible niche market baler. The slow speed and the design of the feed system makes it the best alfalfa baler ever made. It does not knock the leaves off the plant.
The balers are so heavy that we used to make 85 pound 16 x 18 x 46" 2-tie wheat straw bales with below 12% moisture.

Baling with the 200 last year two days before it exploded...

Ducks and ducting but no duck tape or duct tape and no one yells, "Duct" and is a little duct called a "ductling?"

My wife splurged on a new exhaust fan for the stove. She got on some sort of closeout special. It has touch controls and a remote control. Pretty fancy.
It also has a pretty big fan in it and a really bright light.
I was given the task of connecting the fan.
Since the stove was moved over a foot or so, it meant that the exhaust fan ducting needed to be changed. I do have some experience with ducks as a have been stalked by a duck for quite some time now.
So, I put my ducting skills together and... Well, I have no duct making skills, other than making drain pans out of sheet metal in shop class some 30 years ago.
But, I just happened to have a box brake laying around. I salvaged it from going to scrap twenty years ago and I've been tripping over it in the shop ever since then.

I just used standard stove pipe fittings. I built a square box to hide the connections. It was a little challenging because I just have a box brake. You can only bend 2" deep and it is difficult to do corners. So you have to think about how you want to put your little box together so that it looks nice and so you can take it apart to install it.

I just bought light gauge galvanized metal from the local large hardware store. I've never tried to bend light sheet metal before. It was much easier that then 16 gauge stuff I usually attempt to bend.

I wash my truck and have a milkshake

I am planting peas ten miles from home.
I'm pretty much planting between showers. Which breaks up my day. I also have to get equipment ready for the new season. Sell feed, hay, straw, talk to people look at fields, that sort of thing.
I get started with a project that should only take a little while and then it takes five times as long and I don't get started planting.
That is what happened two days ago.
I got my little helper to change the muffler and do a complete service on the 2-155 White that I got from Smith and Smith last year. I'm still quite angry that they lied to me about the FWA. I also continually amazed how they destroyed the tractor for only having it a short amount of time. I wish I would have been the second owner.
I was trying to the get A/C to work properly, which led me to a low voltage problem, which led to replacing the ignition switch, which led to taking the dash apart, which led to....
I was supposed to be planting two hours earlier.
On the way to plant I decided to stop at the DQ and get a Chocolate milkshake. The day before I had a strawberry and I like to stay milkshake integrated. However, I do not like butterscotch. I guess I'm a butterscotchophobic person. I should be more open minded.
But, I digress...
Milkshake in hand, I got to thinking that it was time for my yearly truck wash. If moss is growing on your truck it is time to wash it.
So I pulled into the coin operated carwash at the local auto-parts store.

I think their signs asking you not to wash off stuff that is muddy are pretty funny. The whole point of the carwash is to wash off muddy stuff.
Now I have a system for washing cars at the car wash. The key is to use as little money as possible. You can do it in two washes if you are fast.
You plug enough money in to start the carwash, hose off the car with the hot soap, and then you use the foaming brush to scrub the car. Then when it start beeping you either put just money in to rinse or you keep keep scrubbing as the foam keeps coming for a while after the wash ends.
Then you plug the minimum amount into the carwash and rinse the car. Then if money is left i do the tires.
However, the truck was really dirty so I put in $3.50 and kept scrubbing. But...the beeper that tells you when the wash is about to end didn't work and I had one side of the truck rinsed and the other side covered in soap.
It annoyed me so much I kicked all the mudflaps to make a big pile of mud and I drove off with one side of the truck covered in soap. I showed those guys...
Apparently my new mental age is around 5 years.

I got to the field and it was totally dry. I could have been planting all day. I worked till 10 pm or so. I planted 26 acres. I left the corners and little sliver in the center of the field until yesterday to finish.
It took me way too long.
The next field was just across the driveway. I started on that yesterday morning. But, first I fixed the hot tub. It took me an hour to find the secret reset button. I really am going to have to go to the chiropractor so that I can bend over just a little further. I think I would have found the elusive reset button a lot sooner.
I planted two rows of peas and one row of fescue. The fescue stays in for five years so you need to drive really straight with the drill. I didn't drive that straight. Then I got a flat tire on the drill transport. There are duals so I just kept going. I ran over some very sharp object in the field.
When I got down to the center of the field I had to take the tire in for repair. It was 20 miles away.
I got to drive the farmer's old Izuzu diesel pickup. It is kind of cool.
What this all means is that I didn't have time to bring the drill home.
It is now raining and the drill is setting in a field several miles away. It needs a few repairs and I don't want to drive it home in the rain.
Perhaps I'll go fishing.

I catch a fish and ride a motorcycle but not at the same time

I'm having a little trouble getting into the swing of things. Monday morning I found the fishing pole leaning in the corner and thought it looked a little lonely. I really did need to drive around and look at fields to see if the Peas were coming up.
I sort of took a wrong turn and ended up at the river.
My second cast I hooked a bite sized bass.
Thought about keeping him and then I mentally computed the chances of me catching another one to share and I threw him back...
Didn't even get another bite.
At 8:30 my phone started ringing non stop and I decided I had to go to work.
Then my daughter showed up. She didn't have school and my wife saw me sneaking out leaving with the fishing pole. We did a little exploring.

Yesterday I looked at my motorcycle. It looked sort of lonely. Plus, I had it parked between the work bench and my tool box. My little helper tries to squeeze by it to get to my tool box. I thought this was pretty funny until I saw that his belly had broken the turn signal and the mirror.
I thought I would get it out and clean it up. It really only needs tires and rear brakes. I just never get it done.
It took a couple kicks to get it started. Not bad for setting for a year....or two....

I actually planted 30 acres yesterday.
I would tell you about the planting and the misshaps that occurred on the way to plant but now I have to go to work. That is a story in itself...

My new chicken feed advert for the Portland Market

Chicken Feed Produced by the imaginary collective Which is much better than a Real Collective because we don't really collect things...

Boycott the industrial agricultural complex! Buy working class feed from the local oppressed peasant class. 

We have the best feed for non-bourgeoisie chickens. It contains representative samples from locally raised grain. Wheat, Oats, Barley, Peas, flax and Camelina are all represented according to their nutritional value.

Flax and Camelina are essential grains as the seeds came from our brothers in the struggle against the running dogs of capitalist greed. These seeds were provided by workers in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. They are high in Omega 3 fatty acids which will cleanse your system of sedentary bourgeoisie influences.

Feed this in a free choice manner. The Collective of Chickens will utilize it accord to their need.

There are no contaminants from the greedy capitalist corporations who are poisoning the proletariat with Genetically Modified seeds.

We are asking for a simple donation of ten dollars for one reusable bucket that will not weigh less than 15 kg.

This money will go to provide for the re-education of brother and sister workers into the glorious local socialist collective.

Large jugs of Vodka will also be accepted...

For more information please contact...

My week in review with various photos of things other than corn

It has been pointed out to me that I should not let work get in the way of posting to the Lazy Farmer blog, after all, it is in fact called, "The Lazy Farmer."

I do feel bad about letting down my 37.5 loyal and faithful readers and so here is what has been happening in my life.

WITH PHOTOS!

This is the view out my back window sometime midweek.
Our swamp of a farm is slowly drying out and I am planting it five acres at a time. This view represents quite a step for us. We have moved from 12ft equipment way up to 16 feet. The neighbor farmer passed away and I made what I thought was quite a low offer on a harrow, cultipacker, and double corrugated roller. My offer was accepted and I said thank you very much!
I've wanted a double corrugated roller for several years. Ever since the babbit bearings wore out on the McCormick Deering model we were using before.
The double corrugated roller features two rollers mounted in tandem. The rear roller is smaller than the front roller and is off set so the point of the rear roller breaks up the ridge of the front roller. It leaves a corrugated finish on the field. Those grooves left in the soil then help preserve moisture. It works really well on our river bottom soils for reasons that I am sure Ed Winkle could tell you in detail.
I should have been planting but I got caught up to my little helper who wasn't coming in till 9 a.m.
I've been no-tilling flax. I'm a little hesitant to continue with straight no-till after May 1st. We tend to go from wet to dry fairly fast. Bare ground with high clay content tends to crack badly dry out so when you no-till with no ground cover you can loose your soil moisture very quickly.
So we worked the bare ground lightly before using the no-till drill.
This is an example of what I've been no-tilling into. You can see the line where it was too wet to plant.

One of the seed companies heard that we have been experimenting with flax. He needed someone to grow Golden Flax for birdseed and possibly for human consumption. He is not getting a lot of interest from real farmers. He was so happy we agreed to plant flax for him that he gave us hats, pens, and two $50 gift certificates to Olive Garden. We shall see how this all turns out.
Flax is a nice rotation for us as it allows for weed control Proso Millet, Rat tail Fescue, annual blue grass and other weeds that plague our corn and annual ryegrass rotations on really wet ground. It makes me a little nervous to plant after May 1st but it is hard to know what to plant this late in the year.

I found it interesting to see that the flax is not a product of the USA. I am sort of hoping the Agri-Tec seed salesman looks like this but I doubt it...
Later I planted oats and fescue. Two rows oats and one row fescue. This is not always a good idea. The fescue is seed crop for next year. The oats may steal all the moisture and the fescue may fail. Usually, you spring plant the fescue alone and expect a crop the next year. With the higher rent we are now forced to pay it is hard to lose a year of production and so we planted the oats.
After planting the oats I moved several miles down the road to plant more oats for my neighbor. He had made one pass with a disk and so I needed to beat the scheduled downpours at the end of the week. The Great Plains no-till drill does do a pretty nice job as a secondary tillage tool but it does slow you down a bit. I got there at 5 p.m. and finished the 35 acres by 10 p.m.

Saturday I planted another 30 acres of triticale. It drizzled on and off for most of the day but the dirt was still crumbling behind the drill so I kept going.
Today my daughter and I attended our former church. Dad is at the Valley View retirement center where we used to help with church services. It was a good service. The pastor had a good sermon about "hope," and there was an interesting discussion about wisdom and world views in Sunday School class. I really like the old folks that attend the chapel and the service is usually pretty simple but I find it enjoyable.
Dad was not at Church. We went up to see him and he said he missed the bus. He was eating his lunch and I felt really awkward standing around. I was going to eat with him but he is not going to the dining room and I didn't know how the whole dinner thing works. I have never been very good about having a conversation with my father. I was going to go back later but I started helping my wife with the kitchen and didn't.
Valley View retirement center is a pretty good place. The staff really seem to care about the residents and the residents are generally happy. He seems to be really well cared for. I think it would be a good place for him to stay. I just need to figure out what to say and do when I go visit him.