The difference a week makes

Last week I was looking at this!

The Road Really Did go on forever...

 Friday I was looking at this in front of me!

Poa Annua goes on forever...

Last Sunday this was the view out of the Crane Hotsprings!

Dramatic view last Sunday!

This weekend I descended into the bowels of the baler! Somehow the baler got put away without being cleaned and inspected. The top plate under the knotters was broken in four places. Saturday my helper and I took it all apart. This is the view from below. I am also sharpening the knives. We probably should be baling hay.

I think the handle of my hammer has dried out! It was a bit disconcerting when it flew off. 

And no baler repair is successful without injuring yourself. The amount of blood from such a small cut was amazing. 

I was removing a knife bolt with the big air wrench. I was holding the head of the bolt down with my finger. Laying on my back under the baler. The head of the bolt turned in the slot and a sharp sliver of metal sliced my finger. When I felt it happen I had the sinking feeling that I had really injured myself and was going to have to sit in the emergency room at 7 p.m. on a Saturday evening. 

Just a flesh wound. Makes it hard to type with a bandaid on.

Look, a smiley face. With like a bit of drool from one corner of his mouth. Like me when I am old and in the rest home.

We visit Crane Oregon

 We are staying at the Crane Hotsprings just a couple miles from the huge metropolis of Carne, Oregon. Crane is notable for being tiny and having a public High School where students board. The area is so sparsely populated that it is too far for student to ride the bus to school. So they live there!

We took a long drive today. The GPS tried to send us to Winnemucca, Nevada. This was not where we wanted to go. Fortunately we had a map. We went French Prairie. We wanted to see an old Ranch and were temped to take the Steens Mountain loop. However we settled for an Ice Tea at the French Prairie Mercantile and headed home. 

We did find a ranch for sale on Ru-Red road near the Malheur wild life refuge. If someone would like to buy it for me. It is only $295,000. A bargain!

The high desert is very dramatic. Rock formations jump out of the sagebrush. 

People also seem to like to live in really crappy old manufactured homes a half mile off the highway. There are also quite a few alfalfa farms. We even found a mint farm on a gravel back road.

A great time is being had by all!

The problem with vacationing

 I don't understand vacations.

I know the title of this blog is the Lazy Farmer. It is true that I am lazy. Perhaps too lazy to actually take a vacation. 

My hero is the original Lazy Farmer who was featured in farm magazines of the 1950's. He would not take a vacation. He was a worker! In that spirit, my goal as a Lazy Farmer is to avoid work. My ideal is to sit next to the wood stove on a winter morning with a cup of coffee and read Farm Show Magazine. My other goal is to have my wife get a good job so that I can sit by the wood stove on cold winter mornings and read Farm Show Magazine with out "Mirandy" telling me to get to work.

That has not happened in my life and so I do feel like I am a bit of a failure. I have had a lot of cracked pot schemes. No-Till planting, Non-GMO pig feed, Selling the original stock of Slik Toy tractors. (Still have several boxes), hemp, hemp pellets, pellets in general, hemp tonic, and 55lb wheat straw bales to feed stores and the latest and most ill conceived scheme of all- Being a Groundskeeper!

All of these schemes boil down a sinister conspiracy to keep me away from my rocking chair and a nice warm fire.

My lovely and gracious wife, who we shall refer to as "Mirandy" for the purposes of this story is a determined woman.

Mirandy alternates between encouraging me to work harder and worrying about me working too hard. Three years ago I declared a moratorium on vacations until our trailer manufactured home was paid off. However, I gave in. Mirandy was of the opinion that I either needed to up my life insurance, go to a doctor and get diagnosed for sleep disorders, or go on vacation. She was so sincere I agreed on a vacation. Mostly because that vacation was three months away from the time of the discussion.

Three months have passed and now I am on vacation. We are in Bend, Oregon. We are on our way to Burns Oregon. I am going to attempt fishing. Also, there are hot springs involved and a ranch. I like the idea of hot springs in the same way I like the idea of smoking hemp and listening to Willie Nelson all day. It is great to have goals but often achieving those goals is a bit of a disappointment.

We were going to visit a cousin in Bend. In fact we allowed time for the visit. However, I neglected to call the cousin and we went to GoodWill instead. 

Earlier we had lunch at the place in Sister's Oregon with a large stuffed dead Black Angus on the wall. There was also a bored looking Buffalo and a rather irritated looking Coyote on the wall.

My wife found half a drywall screw in her French Fries. It was the non-pokey end and she didn't actually eat it so alls well that ends well I say.

We also saw lots of burned trees and a large dam. People were catching trout off the side of the dam. The other side of the dam had a better view.

I really am not sure what a person should do on vacation. If my daughter were still age 10 then I can think of all sorts of adventures. I kind of just want to read a book...

Choices of Books to read on vacation...

1. "Dangerous Visions #1,"  Science Fiction shorts stories curated by Harlan Ellison and Isaac Asimov. (present from my daughter)

2. "Farewell Victoria," by T.H. White. I'm sure that will depress me. End of Empires and God, Honor Country, and all that. Then I will start ranting about the idiot professor at work who has a degree in Post Colonialism, ok really?!!! There is a degree in drivel and you can get paid to teach drivel and no one knows why small private colleges are now irrelevant. I guess the gullible blue-haired girls need something to care about... I suppose I should not have read "The Once and Future King," at such a young age. Might does not make right, Ignoble means are not justified by a noble cause. Lancelot should not have been tapping Genevere, but Morgan LeFaye was hot. I would totally have gone for her.. 

But I digress... (In the worst way)

3."Modernism and Totalitarianism," by Richard Shorten. I started to read this to argue with my Workstudy girl who was taking a class in Nazi/Facism but it turns out we agree on most everything. Her family is hispanic and they work hard for their living. She is not happy with the BS she has to be subjected to in the Linfield College of Arts and Sciences but figures that is what she has to put up with to become a nurse. I try to encourage her. Doesn't like to be called "Latinx" No real Hispanic person likes to be called Latinx. It is kind of offensive. I haven't figured out why yet. I think it is the male/female tenses. 

4."Flotsam and Jetsam," by Robb White.  He wrote some of my favorite books from my youth, "Up Periscope," "Torpedo Run," "The Lion's Paw." 

But now my "Mirandy" has returned and I must concentrate on my vacation.

Have a happy day!

Addendium: The TV is on. What the heck is wrong with our Government. Declares the border open and then when refugees from the L.......d College of Arts and Sciences favorite socialist dream country show up and want asylum the border is closed. But it maybe it is open. But then they deny people are being kept in cages. Liberalism is a mental disorder. 

Also... People won't go back to work because of all the Wu-Flu money. I suspect the only reason the economy is still work a crap is because people are secretly working for cash but also collecting COVID bucks. It is the private economy that is the only thing keeping us afloat. 

And Now we shall pack up and hit the road. I shall catch a trout, club it to death, and I shall cook it with lemon and butter. Or I shall burst! Goal Setting is Important!

A selfie and a weather comment

 Life on the farm...

Last weekend I took the dogs for a golf cart ride. They were happy. It was a beautiful day. Today the rain has returned. But not enough.

Enough that I do not want to drive down Highway 18 with a 15foot no-till grain drill all the way to the Casino to plant twenty acres. Casino traffic is the worst. On the way to the casino they are all gamblers so they take chances. On the way back they are angry broke drunks and drive accordingly.

Highway 18 and a truck passing me.

Working late after my groundskeeping job

Beautiful Sunsets in Oregon too bad the state is run by idiots

Easter Sunday plans

 

This is what I will be doing after Church today. 

I am No-tilling radish seed. The radish will be used for covercrop.

I am planting on a compound slope. The GPS doesn't work correctly for this. I should have spent an extra $500 for tilt compensation when I bought my antenna. The antenna thinks the roof of the tractor is ground level so when you are on a long hillside it offsets you a foot one direction and overlaps a foot the other direction. If you have a compound slope it just gets weird. The antenna has "look ahead" software but that assumes the field is mostly level.

Also, I think my GPS company is calling it quits. www.farmergps.com 

I probably should never have gone to work at the college.

I tried joining a "Regenerative Agriculture" facebook page. Bunch of f...g Democrats. (not that there is anything wrong with that) The ideology there is strong. I joined because there is going to be a lot of money dumped into this sort of thing in the future. But it is mostly emotion and anti-plowing activists. I may do a project making fertilizer pellets using wool, alfalfa, and a weird secret organic ingredient. It will be fun because of the science but I suspect I will not like the people I will be working for. 

I miss The New Farm Magazine

I miss the Easter Sunday's of my youth. Mostly Mom making ham and mashed potatoes. 

Have a happy day...

Edit: Yesterday I attended the memorial service for my Aunt. She was the last of the old generation. When I was little she was a little hard to get along with. Somewhere over the years she became nice. I think it had to do with her dementia. She was really sweet in her final years. My wife said it will be the opposite for me. I once was nice, but then I got grumpy... Small Children and dogs still like me so I guess all is well...

Planting in March

Facebook is a blessing and a curse.

I love reading about WWII airplanes, White tractors, Moline tractors, the occasional AC tractor, pictures of stuck tractors, Dynaco tube stereos, and people who make fun of Democrats. 

Last week a memory picture popped up and I was planting the same field on the same day as I had planted several years ago. Pretty neat to see what you did last year. But then the ten years ago picture pops up and I am just depressed.

I have been no-till planting. It took in an inordinate amount of time to get ready. 

Eight years ago Uncle Harold would not order me Pioneer quick couplers with the built in valve to bleed off pressure so you can unhook under load. He said $175 was too much money. So I rebuilt my old ones. 

They failed just as I wanted to go to work. I bought new ones for $350. 

I no-tilled Radish Monday. Radish is used as a cover crop in the Midwest. The radish roots displace packed soil and add organic matter. I also planted clover as a companion crop. Red clover seems to do well with Radish. After the radish is combined for seed the clover should last two more years.

My friend who is currently obsessed with honey bees says the bees don't do well with Red clover as the bloom is too deep and their proboscis  doesn't reach the nectar. I did not know this.

The radish is planted at 7lbs per acre on 15 inch spacing. The seeds are bigger than clover. Similar in size to Millet but round.  My wife built me little dividers for the drill as I have to block off every other row. This is a continual battle. How do I block off rows but still get the seed to flow evenly? I have made cardboard dividers and duct taped to the drill box. The duct tape is a pain to remove. 

I got started Monday after work. I had problems setting the drill. The seed rate was too low. This usually means there something wrong in the drive and the shaft is skipping. I found nothing wrong. 

The next problem was low power to the fertilizer rate controller. Then a hydraulic hose failed. 

I requested the next day off of work.

Tuesday was a beautiful day. I ran a new wire direct from the battery to the fertilizer controller. I found my  Seed-Meter and set the drill properly. 

I had my wife's dog Goldie with me. She wants to be a farm dog so badly. She is a rat terrier and loves to chase rats, mice, and squirrels. She also loves to ride in the tractor.

Unfortunately she decided to lay between the drill openers and the rear mounted harrow. I had let her run loose as I was getting in and out of the cab a lot. But, when I was working on computer issues and was stopped but did not get out of the cab she apparently made her ill fated choice.

I soon realized she was missing. I checked the brush along the river. I drove around and called her. I first suspected a Billy Coyote. He is a rascal. Finally I drove the two miles back to the house. Goldie was on the porch covered in mud and shaking. I found a pretty bad scratch on your tummy. I cleaned it and put Hemp Tonic on it.

She seemed fine. A little sore but she is a little dog who ran 2 miles. But, when my wife got home. Goldie could hardly move. The scratch was dirty and she wouldn't let us near it.

So, I took her to the vet the next morning. It was an hour wait. The vet thought she looked like she was in a lot of pain and wanted to keep her on antibiotics and pain meds. I pointed out that she had in fact, ran two miles home in panic. The vet thought that explained the symptoms and sent her home. No stitches. All is well...

And now I have exceeded my allowed blogging time and my wife says we are going to church! Have a nice day. I was going to complain anyway... 

March update

I miss Sunday afternoons with my daughter. She is away at college. My wife went to meet in her town. I think they are going to GoodWill bulk bins or something. The daughter and I have differences of opinions nowadays.

I am listening to the David Allan Cole radio station on Amazon. David Allan Cole is not politically correct. Current song is Hank Williams Jr. "Dinosaur," He does not care for gay guitar pickers and is not really in to Donna Summers. I suspect this is where I'm headed. I have been really hoping for some seriously offensive David Allan Cole but have been disappointed so far. One of the most offensive David Allan Cole albums is "Underground Album," I always assumed it was satirical but the idiots of today take it quite literal.

They also can't put Dr. Seuss in cultural context which has driven the price of the best Dr. Seuss book, "I saw it on Mulberry Street" though the roof.

I have nothing to say. Think I will go make hemp buds into pellets that no one will buy anyway...

Hemp chicken crumbles! The right side of the photo is barley, peas, clover, and a little hemp. Left side is hemp bud and top leaves. Pretty sticky and "dank," probably could put it in a pipe. Pellet mill heat might even boost the THC. Perhaps I should pack a blunt...