Christmas Approaches

I had intended to get a Christmas Tree today. 

I generally try to get one for free, just because it is the thrill of the chase. Also, because I am often broke.

I have always liked a messy tree. It should be full of battered Shiny Brite ornaments from countless Christmases that have gone on before.

I thought my daughter was coming home today and perhaps we would decorate the tree. However, there seemed to be some sort of mix up of plans and people. It happens. Best laid plans of Mice and Men. Or so says Robert Burns....

On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November 1785.

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O' what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
                        Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
                        Wi' murdering pattle.

   I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
                        Which maks thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion
                        An' fellow mortal!

   I doubt na' whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
                        'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
                        And never miss't!

   Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
                        O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's win's ensuin,
                        Baith snell and keen!

   Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
                        Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
                        Out thro' thy cell.

   That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,
                        But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
                        An' cranreuch cauld.

   But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men,
                        Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
                        For promis'd joy.

   Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e'e,
                        On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
                        I guess an' fear!

I encountered an old friend from college. If you consider random internet clicking on friends of friends an encounter. I was surprised to strike up a conversation. Especially since I tend to fail to censor or proofread text messaging. It is interesting to talk to people who had the same upbringing and see how it has shaped their life. There are things programed into you that are always there. You think you are just a bit weird until you run into someone who gets it. Kind of funny...

I used to love Christmas. Now, I find it stressing. There are two reasons for this. 

Christmas and Fall are events that represent the end of the year for me. Fall is the wakeup call. The second good rain and Summer is gone and the fall rush is on. But, Christmas is the end. I have two weeks to sleep and then I got to get my arse in gear and fix the equipment I put off because I was planting or I was cold or I was too lazy to work on after getting home from my other job.

Christmas used to be about family and food and working on a Christmas program for Church and what am I going to get my daughter, and can I talk my wife into letting me put up all the old Shiny Brite ornaments I acquired over the years, and playing scratchy Christmas albums on the HiFi.

This is the year my brother goes to his wife's homeland for Christmas so it wold be the year we would get Dad. So that means falling asleep watching old Star Trek episodes and going to see Uncle Harold and Aunt Elsie on Christmas day. Perhaps looking up Uncle Ted, and having pie.

And my wife and I and daughter putting together brown paper bags full of candy, unshelled peanuts, and an Orange for the Christmas program at the Rest Home where we had church services. 

It doesn't happen like that anymore.

In other news. Wife and I went out for dinner Friday. Walked around the downtown and looked through the windows of expensive wine bars and antique shops. It was cold. Today it is snowing and I am waiting for my call to go to work and spread ice melt.

Downtown McMinnville on a Friday night. No more movies in the theatre as something broke, furnace maybe. We are on our way to get ice cream.

Daughter just texted me to see if I wanted to get Sushi Monday which I should do. I have an hour lunch but can probably stretch it at bit.

Hope all my gentle readers are ignoring politics and the stress of the 21st Century and are looking forward to Christmas.

I leave you with a random video that comes to mind whenever I say twentieth century...

And my favorite bad Christmas Song...

Budd E. Shepherd Returns

 

My White 2-155 like the Parson's Shay, will one just turn to dust...

I am slightly optimistic that will now be able to comment on my own and other people's blogs with my blogger identity. In the next half hour I will know if I can actually post this blog update...

I switched to Chrome. I decided why not have google track every movement of Budd E. Shepherd? It was one my goal to gain lots of followers who wanted to read my complaints about farming and astute observations on life? Perhaps, some NSA spook, bored to tears from reading home improvement blogs about freaking Chicken Tractors, will find the Lazy Farmer and get a chuckle.

This has been a busy year. I ended up doing quite a bit of farming in the evenings after my other job. I am not sure why I am so tired this year. Perhaps I am wearing out, much like the tractor in the above photo. It wasn't that long ago that I bought it. But then again, so much has happened in the last decade it is hard to believe.

To read more about the Parson's Shay, but not about my White 2-155 click below...

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45280/45280-h/45280-h.htm

Before 2007 I had a different blog. I deleted it for various reasons. I wish I would have saved a backup. I suspect it had all the details of my No-till beginnings and also my 2-155 tractor purchase. The first Daily Strumpet/ Lazy Farmer blog shows my second grain drill. My first drill I pulled with the MMG1355.

To read about my early no-till, click below...

http://thedailystrumpet.blogspot.com/2009/02/latest-no-till-effort.html

Things I do when it rains

I am setting in my easy chair. My wife raided the scrap barrels and set up a booth at a local flea market. She actually got money out of old springs and broken sprockets that were IN THE SCRAP barrel. It never ceases to amaze me what middle aged women will spend money on.

I am not complaining...

In other news, I am making pellets. I am not sure why. I rarely end up selling the pellets. However, they do take up less space than bags of screenings.

The bags were 1200lbs each. One looked like wild rice but I think it was just broken grass straw. It was full of little black seeds, barley, wheat/triticale, and smells suspiciously of Dog Fennel. The other bag was barley screenings, tops, straw, and hulls. It reeked of mouse piss.

Running the screenings though the pellet mill did not make a real good pellet but it got rid of the mouse piss smell and the fennel smell. The pellets crumbled pretty badly. I think I needed some sort of oil seed or molasses added. However, I combined two bags into one. It took about four hours so I suspect I lost money.

I did learn about hydraulics so perhaps it was useful.

I found a flow divider so I could run two hydraulic motors off the one remote on my White 2-60.  I didn't quite understand that flow divider on a hydraulic pump with 12 gallon a minute actually splits into two outlets which then have six gallons a minute. That is not a lot of flow for the hydraulic motors.

The auger was supposed to feed the mill and the conveyer cools the outgoing pellets but the auger didn't have enough power to turn when full of material. So I swapped the conveyer which worked. Then I used the auger to cool the pellets. It tends to break up the pellets badly. I need another conveyer I suppose. Or more power for the auger.

I updated something and now I can't comment on blogs

I am a little frustrated with Blogger. I have no idea what I did but I can't comment as Budd E. Shepherd on anyone's blog. I get a message with browser is configured wrong. 

Google suggested I change my email id due to a problem with mail.com. Now my email is buddeshepherd52@gmail.com.  Which also doesn't seem to work.

Oh well...

I can still be reached at buddeshepherd@mail.com but not at buddeshepherd@mindless.net

Perhaps it will fix itself with the next update.

Wet hay!!!

When no-till actually works it is a beautiful thing! Barley into annual ryegrass.

I am still lazy, barley is barely up, hay got rained on, I am a bad employee

I am skipping my college's graduation. 

I always volunteer to help on graduation Sunday. It is not really volunteering as I get overtime pay for helping and a free lunch. It usually turns out to be like ten hours.

Friday morning I unvolunteered. I am not sure why. I told everyone my daughter was coming home. This is really not a big deal as she only lives 15 miles away. The real reason was I just didn't feel like doing it.

I would have gone if my work best friend would have gone. We usually work together. We are both problem solvers so we go off and fix stuff. We can drive tractors and move trailers and try to find the easy way to do things. 

There is also a big problem with the graduation field that drives me absolutely nuts. We have had a lot of rain. The people who put out the chairs put down plywood for walkways and then left the plywood for two weeks. When they removed the plywood the walkways are yellow from dying grass. It is wrong... I will get constant commentary about it  and I will have to see it. 

Then I will have to note that the grounds department was kicked out of the process three weeks ago and that puts me back into the negative view of my job. My college spent a lot of money on a conflict resolution company that finds out what you are doing wrong in management. They produced a nice report that listed several really obvious things and then that was it.

Here is an example of what happens at my college.

We got a bonus from the COVID giveaway. This was awesome until you read the fine print. The bonus was two percent of your pay with a minimum of $1000.  So you are really grateful for the $1000, until it is pointed out that 1. All of us in facilities are getting the minimum, meaning no matter how qualified and how many years you have worked, you will never make $50,000. 2. People making over $50,000 just gave themselves a bonus. 3. In this economy, with housing costing $1,800 a month, gas at $5, you can't live on less than $35,000 and that is considered a good wage at my college.

They should have just given everyone the same bonus. 

I personally don't care. I am not going to look down on $1,000. I appreciate the gesture!  However, a number of people who have worked longer than I were cynically laughing about it. 

The work culture at my school, perhaps the whole culture at my school, needs to be looked at if they really want to do something. Or they could just get rid of the people who have been there a long time and have attitudes.

In other news....

Last week I no-tilled barley. It is barely up. (See what I did there) It actually looks really good. 

It is always gratifying to see no-till working.

We also cut hay ten days ago when the forecast looked good. 

It doesn't look so good now.

This was the problem. Serious stem moisture. The hay passed the twist test where you grab a handful and twist it three times and see if all the stems break. It also passed the loose hay test with a moisture tester, but the joints were we as can be.

The Sun comes out and I am of course not ready. Perhaps I will go fishing!

The rain has stopped and the sun is shining. My weather app says the rain will return in ten days. It is May 22. Should we cut hay? The retired fellow who comes out and helps in between garage sales and drinks a lot of coffee says the ground is too wet.

It I were home on the farm full time I would cut. I would set the mower narrow and mow 20 acres. I would not touch the hay for two days. On third day I would run the Tedder on it and spread it wide. Ted it again the fourth day. Hopefully rake and bale on the fifth day. Maybe... It always changes.

It is all academic as I have not adjusted the baler knives. The mower tractor is on the feed grinder and still has the duals on it. Plus, I didn't check the hydraulic pressures to see why the hydraulic system is so noisy, and I didn't fix the door latch.  I was also going to change the new disc mower PTO to 1000 rpm so there would be more of a choice of tractors to use.

Instead of doing actual useful work this winter I made feed, built a trailer that sort of works, took my White 2-60 apart and busted the exhaust manifold off, ordered parts which won't be here for a week, and otherwise did nothing useful.

This what the inside of a CAV injector pump looks like. I replaced the o-rings on the throttle and fuel shut off shafts. I only had to take it apart four times!

Will you look at that! All back together again. I even used my special SK wire twisting tool to affix the safety wire!

Thursday I was dispatched to find more Perennial Ryegrass seed. I replanted the Baseball field and was doing quite well till I returned from lunch and picked the wrong mark to start. Since we are planting at 5lbs per thousand square feet which is like 250lbs per acre. Half an acre or so overlap does go through the seed. I was able to talk baseball with a sales rep and score 500lbs of hard to find seed. Then I ended up with 800lbs. The college crummy is not as heavy duty as one might have expected!

The seed company is right next to the International Dealer so I stopped in to look at Great Plains drill. I really want to try out this drill on our 11 acre practice field. I actually have been contemplating buying a small no-till drill and planting pasture, government conservation projects, and cover crop between Filbert rows. I am not sure I really want to deal with planting for those sort of people after working for a college for years. Not sure I have the patience.

One of the nephews got a swather out and cut five acres. This is good as it will put the pressure on to work on the stacker and the baler.

When it looks like an early spring we work like crazy and get everything ready to go. When it is a late and rainy spring we always seem to be behind.

Saturday I no-till planted barley into the dead spots in the clover field. I found a little clover to put with it. I planted the barley at something like 200lbs per acre and the clover at 5 lbs. This will be good for the hay as the barley and clover need rain to sprout as I did not roll the field after planting. So I figure the potential for a planting failure will offset the potential for a hay failure.

I could find a roller and pack the whopping five acres of barley or I could take the dog fishing. 

What would the Lazy Farmer do?

I make misjudgments and misalignments and have a tomato

I spend a lot of time driving around in circles.

My mind tends to wander. In order to keep from texting the President of the University with odd observations and pointless puns I have been designing things in my head. Due to somewhat lack of a connection to reality, or just plain bad judgement, my designs do not always turn out as planned.

Some years ago my wife bought a Harbor Freight trailer at a yard sale. Quite recently I acquired a John Deere Gator. 

I had a cunning plan!

My wife and I have been helping with the landscaping at our Church. I hate filling the pickup with lawn debris as it is annoying to clean it out. I also need to spray fence rows and black berry patches at our different hay fields. What if I had a trailer for my Gator? And, what if that trailer could carry the Gator and then be quickly converted to pull behind the Gator to haul debris?

I have been planning this for a month. Sure the Gator undoubtedly weighs more than the weight limit on the trailer but as a Farmer I know weight limits are really just recommendations. I also didn't realize the price of steel has tripled and plywood for the deck costs more than I paid for the trailer.

But, I was given bigger wheels to fit my trailer and I forged ahead!

Yesterday I decided to see if it would hold up. So I lifted the Gator onto the trailer with the forklift.

I think I have misjudged things a bit...

It actually towed fine. But, when I went to back the Gator off the trailer I discovered that the deck tilted down prematurely as when the rear wheels are off the deck, the front wheels are still over the pivot point.

Good sense would have declared an end to this misadventure as I now have a great Lawn Mower trailer. But, I decided to add a couple feet of deck space. It is not completely finished.

Of course this is the point where all my projects end up. Not quite finished. I still need to add turn signals, bolt the deck down. Make sides for the trailer. Paint it. Details... 

In other news, I had my first tomato of the season! It was quite sweet. I grew it in the College Greenhouse. The greenhouse is over run by aphids. I have tried Lady Bugs, toxic chemicals, lemongrass and soap, and this year I have ordered Green Lacewings. We shall see....