I read a book...

I don't read as much as I once did. I have a problem with reading. I have to finish the book once I start it. So, I tend to read short stories. But, my Father-in-Law sent me a whole bag full of spy novels, detective stories, and WWII thrillers and I couldn't resist.
Sunday I started reading the "Jackdaws," by Ken Follett. It is a WWII thriller about ladies who blow up a Nazi telephone exchange which saves lives on D-day. It certainly reflects 21st century ideals. One of the first pages notes that the Nazi's got along very well with France's "conservative mayors" in small towns. Talking down to us much?
Then there is the 21st century subplot of oppressed Gay people. Which allows Ken Follett to slip in some lesbian kissing and a cross dresser for extra spice. We also have a love scene where we get some special attention for the woman, not quite as detailed as "Key to Rebecca." At least we all know Ken Follett loves to please...
I wonder just what my FIL thought reading some of the love scenes tacked into these stories. Sometimes I feel somewhat embarrassed.
But, i digress.
I read the whole 485 pages in a day.
And I still helped my daughter put together (we didn't finish) her Lego set number 3182, City Airport, that we got at Goodwill. We thought it was $13 but it turned out to be $31 as someone was reading the box upside down. I picked up a Nerf Vulcan Machine gun for what I thought was $6 but turned out to be $9 and it doesn't work. We can take it back.
Goodwill prices are way too high. I would have put the airport back but I couldn't stand to see the sad face on my daughter and I felt like a dislexic maroon. I suppose the GoodWill people should understand. Just the same....
I find the current world situation very depressing after reading WWII literature. The worst and most undeserving people in the world have all the money and the political momentum.
I read this morning that the museums in Egypt are being looted. I wonder if they will blow up King Tut like they did Buddha?
Our leaders are just like the pre WWII leaders and there is no Churchill. Heck, there ain't even a Harry Truman. We wouldn't even get a Berlin Airlift today, unless they agreed to prevent farmers from saving their seeds and insured that teenagers didn't illegally download U-2.
Now I'm to go plant 12 acre fields 15 miles apart, in what is sure to be a swamp, with a 2wd tractor, cause I'm broke and have to do whatever brings in the cash... @#$%^&*(

I love Macs and if you sell your computer on ebay-erase the Hard drive!

I bought an iBook for my Dad. sort of for his birthday as he shut his screen on a pair of scissors and busted the screen. This was a day after daughter and I looked up from playing poptropica on the office computer, we were stealing the shops new DSL, (but don't tell any of my relatives), to see my 92 year old father trimming his nose hairs with a pair of pinking shears. I guess they were just really big scissors. I said "don't run with those," and daughter almost lost it. Somehow, I guess after an intense personal hygiene session, they got shut in the lid of his iBook ruining the screen.
So I found a dead iBook for $50 on ebay.
Well, it turns out that it was only the power cord connection and after borrowing the battery out of my wife's iBook and then logging in to the terminal mode (which I've never done before) I was able to create a new administrator account and then with some more fooling around-I was able to look at all the personal information and photos of the previous owners. It is kind of boring but has kept me occupied for three hours longer than I ever meant to waste. I really don't want to take the screen out for my father at this point. This is fun and since my iBook has a broken hinge and a bad airport card and is only a little 12" one I am having a hard time turning this 14" fully loaded with other people's information G4 iBook loose. However, the power connector is loose on the mother board and I will probably ruin it when I try to resolder.
Sunday afternoon I'll just pull the screen and fix Dad's.
Oh well...
I spent the afternoon with a crappy PC tablet I use for GPS, which would not recognize the second serial to USB adapter and so the GPS didn't stop recording when I was not planting. Gained an extra five acres that way.
PC's are such utter crap I cannot believe the world is powered by them. I love the FarmerGPS program but I hate the platform. Perhaps he will write a version for the Android and I can have an iPad type GPS computer. Ooooh, write FarmerGPS for an iPad. Now that would be livin!

I plant and listen to the radio and think the world is in a mess

I just listened to NPR.
They are doing a lot of coverage on the events in Egypt. They are way to excited.
BO and Hillary are concerned.
They are making remarks about "democracy."
There is one thing I have learned in the last decade is that the USA does not care about human rights or "democracy" unless it can lead to the humiliation of a long standing US ally. I chance to bomb someone and get into a war without end, or radial Islam will profit.
I think it is funny for BO to speak out against being mean to demonstrators after the US's torture scandals. Or even after renewing the "patriot act"
So I figure these so called democracy movements will end badly somehow.
Women will be stoned for moral offenses in Egypt on a regular basis.
I was unable to get AM on my new Commie manufactured radio so I don't know what the talk shows were saying.
OPB was really concerned about a policeman that was shot on the coast. The OSP has SWAT teams running around and  everything. That has got to be a circus. OPB has got an angle here. Soon the other shoe will drop. Must be about gun control.
I like it better with no radio.
I'm just posting this so I'll have it written down to prove I'm right in six months.
I have a funny story about some kids in town riding around with a cheap stereo in a backpack. I also have boring planting information but I think I will go to bed and perhaps post tomorrow.

I am rediscovered by (a) subscribers to The Daily Strumpet! Whoop! Whoop!

I tell you the Blue Goat is one hot topic in town. Even though my attention span is short enough that I don't really care so much anymore.... I think that many locals were watching the renovation and hoping desperately for something like the Sage Restaurant (Soup, Sandwiches, Salad, and really good) and now they are a little let down.  (I liked the Sage as it was located above the ladies underwear department in the 1889 building and you would have to walk by all the delicates to get to the stairs. A cute girl would usually offer to help me and I always wanted to say, "I'm looking for something for my....Aunt.... she is really tall. But I figured they would just scream and run away and not laugh at all!)
But, I digress!

Anyway, I woke up this morning after a fitful sleep, dreaming of expensive tractor parts and junky old international trucks, to find this comment in my email!
While I think they should have registered with Google and become a follower, and it could be just someone messing with my head, here it is! An old subscriber found me!

"Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Blue Goat":

Oh, buddy how we have missed your columns over the years. I still revel over past issues of The Daily Strumpet. It is good to see you back in print. After visiting the The Blue Goat myself I found your observations to be quite an accurate. I love the description of their "Scantily Clad Pizza". I had a quite different pizza when I ordered it. Mine had potatoes and 2 pieces of onion and not much else. Good flavor and all, but potatoes? That's where your friends mothers potatoes went. My friend thinks the phenomenon of the the Emperors New Clothes is going on in Amity right now. Every one is raving about something that is really not there, namely "food on a Friday night". Do those skinny restaurateurs not know that the folks in Amity food that they can recognize and larger portions. My salad that came on my plate consisted of 5 very small pieces of lettuce, 3 or which were radicchio. Yes, those are bitter leaves. So that left me with 2 leaves on my plate that were edible to my taste. I think they have great potential. But someone should tell the emperor that he has no clothes."

Well, I must say, you did tell the emperor he was a scantily clad as his pizza.
I will say that judging from the local comments I have heard, Amity is desperate for a NICE place where you can get a quick salad and sandwich or perhaps a bowl of soup. The menu could be eccentric but should have "safe" items. The portions don't need to be huge, but not gourmet sized (small). And they should make really good chocolate cake. (I just threw that in)
I think it needs to be upscale enough to kind of deter the rabble (such as I). Cause if the nice ladies in town really wanted to eat lunch with their husbands they would go to the Deli, and all the tables are full already.

To buy or not to buy, to go or not to go, to --- or go blind, I am going deaf....

I am annoyed. I suppose it started last week but that is a long story which has partly been posted.
Yesterday I accomplished almost nothing despite working till almost 9 p.m. I am supposed to be making feed for my neighbor. That is not going so well.
I planned on taking my daughter and perhaps my father to the Northwest Agricultural show Wednesday as school is out at 1:30 on Wednesdays. Of course it turns out that my brother has an eye doctor appointment and my dad has a Dr. appointment at 1:30 and since we are reactive and not proactive the Ag Show is off. I can't go today, I can't take the kid out of school and the show ends early on Thursday.
365 days of the year and the one day I want to do something... Of course the Ag Show has been the last three days in January for 45 years. This is the first year in over a decade we don't have a booth.
In other news...
I'm sure there are some good money managers who look at the Lazy Farmer. Perhaps someone could tell me if this is the definition of throwing good money after bad?
I've found two engines for my International truck. The truck is in ok shape and has a good 24ft bed and a harsh hoist. The 479 cu inch gas engine blew up last spring. Second engine I've put in the truck in the two years I've owned it.
I found a 549 cu in that has not run in five years and the guy want's $1,200 for it removed. I found this truck with a 449 cu inch, a five and four, tandems, air brakes, pto, no hoist, and the truck is in really nice shape. I have the evil twin to the 449 cu inch truck with a bed and hoist and a 5 and 3, but it is very rusty and several stringers on the steel bed need to be rewelded. Both 449 cu inch trucks have a 206" wheelbase and I can't put the 24 foot bed on them. Evil twin 449 smokes a bit and has a bad radiator leak.
Options:
1. buy the 549 and install in 24ft international
2. buy the 449 international and install the 449 in 24ft International
3. buy the  449 and put the evil twin's bed and hoist on it and scrap the rest and rebuild evil twin 449 for later installation in 24ft international.

4. DO NOTHING
5. Borrow money and buy a good truck

The crisis is that at this point we don't actually have a truck. The only one that is safe to drive on the road is a 1967 Ford 650 with a 16ft bed.

 I think we will do nothing... I don't want more crap...

Another rant about what is wrong with the modern world...

I am an unabashed capitalist but...
Big business theory really irritates me. I suppose it is only natural for companies to try and eliminate competition and since this nation has successfully eliminated any rational sort of moral compass I am seldom surprised, but I am often annoyed.
Just do it... Get big or get out... Bootstrap Capitalists who forget the luck that got them to the top or those who helped them as in, it is easy to steal candy from a friendly baby who offers you a bit. It is fine to take a bite but when you don't hand the candy back is where it gets bad. Um, I don't know where I was going with that...
I'm annoyed because I am trying to buy parts for my White. There are no more grimy old salvage yards owned by Zeke or Mike or Earl. Cigar chomping characters who make up prices on the spot. Instead they are owned by big companies who bought out all the little guys when scrap prices were high. All the tractors are on a computer and they are tied in with a national pricing system and all the prices are half of new. This would be ok I suppose if new prices were reasonable. A new hydraulic remote for my White 2-155 is over $800, the levers and linkage adds another $150. So, when I call the salvage yard I'm looking at $500 for one stinking valve that no one will ever buy and it will go for scrap. There may be White three-speeds sinking into the mud but I couldn't afford to buy one. I know the AC 7190 shares many parts and seems to be a much less desirable tractor but it doesn't matter. AGCO parts are still so outrageously high that you can't even afford to pay half price for used.
I don't want a new tractor. I like my old White. It is good enough. I do not want a computer controlled ten year old tractor and I can't afford new.
We just had a long time dairy go out of business. They were bottling their own milk and had a label and shelf space in local supermarkets. Lars even did a segment on the loss of the local business and how it affected the local community. Fifty employees lost their jobs. Some had been there 30 years. (I'm not going to say the name as I may have some details wrong and don't want it picked up in a google search.)
First off the state of Oregon got the blame due to laws and regulations. But, after listening to all the talk it became obvious what happened. They were a medium sized operation. The small organic type bottlers wanted them out because they were direct local competition. The sustainability type folks hated them because they were an old school somewhat messy dairy on wet ground and right near a highway so there were times when it looked and smelled bad. The organic and sustainabilty folks made an unholy alliance with the big bottlers (perhaps a conspiracy of common goals) and got regulations though limiting the size of a dairy that could bottle their own milk.
The targeted dairy of course had to cut their herd size and started losing money. Now they are gone.
There goes another source of competition. Another semi local hay market, another local grain market, another place for local smaller dairies to sell milk. Oh, wait... How many local 100-300 cow dairies are left. One or two out of how many from 20 years back? I suppose that is progress.
The big farmers have screwed local ag as well. They got in a rent bidding war and so what if a couple of them are going, or have gone broke. Rent prices are not going down!
Here's another one that really annoys me.
I've been growing sunflowers for years. I plant them in the outside row on the corn planter so I know when I'm off the row with the corn chopper. We strip till and sometimes the planter doesn't track so well in the strip-tiller rows. Does the nice fellow from seed company that has the word Universal in the name come by and offer me a contract for sunflowers? Why does U........ S.... assume that I will quit growing my recreational sunflower hobby so that my neighbor can make a lot of money off of an exclusive contract?
Why can't I grow canola? Does U........l S..ds pay me not to grow brassica's (sp? I'm in a hurry) so that they can get rich off of specialty seeds? Instead they lobby for a law preventing me from using an important tool for no-till rotations.
And while I'm on a rant let me explain how they do business. They find a farmer interested in trying some alternative crops. Then they suck up to him and tell him what a good farmer he will be and how he will make lots of money, if he does it right... (there is always the catch) I'm watching it happen to another neighbor right now. They told him they liked working with him because he has enough big equipment that when they need 30 acres planted he can do it in a day. This made him quite proud so he went out and bought another planter and a cultivator and a combine. Strangely enough he didn't make quite as much money as he expected. Of course no one asks the previous guy why he stopped growing specialty crops as of course every farmer knows that God has chosen him and given him special abilities that make him the very best farmer ever and it is his manifest destiny to farm 4,000 acres. Amen...
Of course when my neighbor's ground is contaminated with all sorts of strange radish seeds and he is no longer useful, the nice folks at Universal will move on to the next sucker, and there will always be another...
Anyway, I suppose I should be used to being a wage slave.
(rest of the post deleted because of offensive content)

A rambling post in which I forget my point and wander off to the kitchen for more coffee

I had the biggest comment list ever with the discussion of the Blue Goat restaurant. I suppose it is an indication of the culture clash which has sparked some of the angst which drives the content of The Lazy Farmer.
The BG and the customer base if supports are the younger and more clever folks in town. (with a few fellow travelers in the geriatric group) I suppose I represent the old way of farming and culture, although it doesn't seem to be that long ago that I thought I was more clever than the old folks.
The BG is like a mission outreach from the young and clever. I kind of understand how the naked savages felt about the new mission down the street. They kind of enjoyed the music and thought the food was interesting but they also sort of wished they would just go away. Although, it is fun to screw with their heads. Especially with the cultural anthropologists. Perhaps that is a better analogy.
(I now feel differently about missions after we had a fellow who preached to gangs in Mexico speak in church Sunday. He preached in Spanish and our pastor interpreted. It was the best sermon I've heard in years. He gave out God's phone number, "Jer. 33:3" His passion was inspiring. We need more missionaries from Africa and Latin America to come to the USA. A good revival would be good for us. Although, the clever folks would laugh as they only focus on what they imagine to be negative and  not the positive change of heart produced, as in not telling lies, not stealing, not nailing your neighbor's wife, helping out poor people. They would spike it cause they think someone would be against gay marriage or breatfeeding in public or something.)
But, I digress.
Perhaps I should say, "How the natives felt when the Peace Corps moved in...."
I always thought it was really hilarious that the Samoans lied and told Margaret Mead that they had sex all the time (when it turned out they were really quite prudish) and that formed the whole rationalization for college sex in the 1960's. If the noble savages can get it on all the time then so should we! I suppose that Leaky and the, "we are descended from monkeys," idea explains skateboarding. If monkeys can spend the day in self abuse and flinging poop at the wall than so can we! Skateboarding is not a crime! Anarchy Now!
But I digress.
Oh man, I don't even know where I was going with that speech. I guess I'll just post it anyway... This should give people plenty to make fun of me about as I've just proved my stereotype! I wonder if it is my day to take the kids to school. I suppose someone will tell me if I forget... They say your mind is the first thing to go. But where? I have got to quite listening to all that banjo music on KBOO!