a missed stroke at golfing. 

   i had always wanted to learn golfing but i guess you just have to be born into it. numerous times of hearing the golfing stories of friends and family only lent itself to my desiring to learn more and do more. i have asked those same friends and family to take me golfing and of course have received the standard reply of "grab a bucket of balls and go t the driving range". now this is all quite nice but i have hit quite a few balls and already know how to chip it where i want to and would like to move into the full game status , to just see how i could do before i am to old to even walk the course. 

    i have come to the conclusion that no one likes to take someone golfing for the first time. and this could be for a variety of reasons , and the first being , what if they are better than me? nothing could be worse than being an experienced pro or at least you thought you were and maybe it is beginners luck , but still who wants to be out done by a new hack. i have found golfers pride is hardly outdone by any other field . number two  is what if they are worse than me. as who wants to drag someone around and listen to the old farts on the fairway bitch as your friend serves up the turf and leaves divots like craters on the moon. and three being as friendship only goes so far and friends dont take friends golfing for the first time,  or family as well . 

     cant imagine how golfing ever took off in the first place as it seems there is a clique you had to be aligned with in order to ever make it around the fairways. if you are rich , i am sure it is much easier to find your way around than if you are poor. because you could hire the pro to give you lessons and i am sure he would waste not time escorting you through the holes and counting his money . 

    being neither rich nor poor but somehow stuck in the middle and considering myself frugal i have attempted to edge my way into golfing with no real success. determined to try my prowess at golf i came up with the idea of heading to the local goodwill and obtaining a golf bag and clubs so i could practice at home in my yard  in perfect seclusion to assure i wouldn't make an ass out of myself when attempting to golf for the first time. that i would have an idea of how to hold a club and how much effort to use when making the chip shot to the tee. 

      at the good will i had noticed a lot of nice clubs and golf bags which i thought may have belonged to some now deceased old bitching fart who died of a heart attack on the golf course waiting and complaining about the newbie who wouldn't let them play through and was tearing up the course. the wife who could care less about golf but only as it served her well to get his ass off the couch and actually do something  could see no reason to keep his golf bag he cherished . off it went to good will in exchange for a tax receipt which she could use now since he was gone. 

      and so it was i was admiring one complete bag of clubs in fairly good condition , pulling each club out of the bag and trying to figure out its purpose when a snot nosed little butt hole come strolling by and grabbed a club out of the very bag i was admiring and wanted to buy. he began to swing it around in the store and nearly missing his brother who apparently learned how to duck at an early age , and began telling me how his mom was going to buy that club for him. a few more practice swings encouraged me to speak my piece before witnessing a bloody aftermath of mingled goodwill junk and his brothers scalp. 

     i strictly told him to put the club back into the bag as i was going to buy all of them for one price and that club was in that bag before he even came around. his brother heaved a sigh of relief hoping he would come to his senses and realize i was twice his size at 6 foot 4 inches and weighing over 240 pounds and looking like a pro football player, i might be someone he might listen to . no frigging way as this kid again took aim at the cheap crystal on the shelf in front of him . and i could tell by the look in his eye he was on a fairway and was getting ready to drive the white ball home. 

     again i told him i was going to check out and that i needed my club back in the bag so i could pay for them all at the same time. again he said his mom was going to buy it for him . and i said i could care less what he wanted but all i gave a shit about was getting that club back in the bag. 

     never have i seen the intestinal fortitude of a butthole so adamant about refusing to give up something he knew he would never have . a mexican standoff of sorts between me and this little shithead was happening but reluctantly he relinquished control of the club and slid it back into the bag. without checking anything else out about the bag and obviously disturbed by this imps behavior i almost ran to the checkout with my new found prize. 

      thinking the whole bag of clubs was 2 dollars as it was marked on the bag i felt as if i had made a steal. instead it was 2 dollars for the bag and 2 dollars for each club., which ended up costing me over 22 dollars for all. still not bad for a complete set of clubs including the one the kid had. 

     i had been working in the cleveland area next to some businesses that at lunch time would hurl their golf balls onto my work site as it was an open field.  so i had coveted quite a few golf balls and with my new bag of golf clubs in my yard at home could hardly wait to try out my new purchase, 

     i reached into the bag and grabbed a club i thought would be good for a chip shot . a nice little wedge that looked exceptionally clean and thought i would try and chip into a cup i had placed into the ground.i firmly took the club into my hand and immediately noticed something odd about the head. it was facing the wrong direction. in fact when pulling all the clubs out of the bag all except the one i had checked out at goodwill and the one the kid had in his hand , they were all left handed clubs. i could have killed that little snot if he was in front of me at that moment. i would have stopped at nothing less than beating him severely with every left handed club in that bag so that nothing could have been found of him and and then spit on the ground to wipe up what was left of the mess. and then i smiled.  

      realizing that kid had got me in the end, and at the same time had saved me a lifetime of frustration and money pursuing a sport that i was probably never cut out to play in the first place. since i have never had kids i guess this was also a lesson to that effect. that maybe i was never cut out to be the kind of dad who would tolerate that behavior . i still dont know how to golf or to to put up with little snots who cant take no for an answer. 

obama with his funny hayhat!

part 3-safety on the farm

       cows in general ,  friends or wild animals? is there a symbiotic relationship between you and your animal that you think exists, or is it this is just a wild animal and must always be treated as such. this is just another aspect of farming one really does not here a lot about in terms of how deadly it is and why it makes farming especially livestock production potentially dangerous. being in proximity to large animals up to 2000 pounds or more, along with nervous cattle in over crowding conditions with  nervous cattle thrashing here and there to avoid you can suddenly turn bad , with you as the aggressor being run over by one or all animals in their efforts to avoid you.i really feel no cow has complete sense of loyalty to you when t is in fight or flight mode , the same as humans in that respect. this is the same way nature reacts across all species. 

       any animal will first seek to save itself from general harm , then second the maternal instinct of species is to save those closest to them as in a cow calf  relationship. a mother cow will easily stand up to predators when it comes to protecting her own. also a bull will stand up for that cow and all cows as he protects his herd. it seems as if humans are the only ones who actually go out of our way to not only protect our own but somewhere along the way started protecting other animals in an effort to make available milk and meat to sustain ourselves during times of need. we have forced this free roaming animals into fences and then pens and now into feedlots. 

       i was brought up with cattle all my life. one of my earliest recollections was when i was about 4 years old and following mom to the barn and sitting and watching her milk. i had done the same with grandpa as he owned 6 cows they would hand milk into buckets and then separate the cream  cool the milk . then they  place the milk by the road where upon a milk truck driver would stop and drop off cans and pickup the milk that day to be taken to the malvern dairy for processing into ice cream. all i knew or much cared about was the nestles quik we had stored on the windowsill. and that if i took my mirrored painted aluminum glass with me to the barn i could have mom dump a couple of teaspoons of quick into the glass and fill with the warm milk straight out of a cows teat as mom would stream the milk from the cows bag and it would whip up into a frothy head as it filled the glass. it was warm through the sides of the glass , and this would feel good on your hands as you were holding it and stirring and mixing the quik into the fresh milk. what a treat for young boy and i learned that cows could be our friends . and then at 5, i sat down and milked my first cow grasping and squeezing my own frothy steaming glasses of milk as mom soon tired of me interrupting her milking to fill my tin glass.

      so me and sally a Guernsey cow who had teats like handle grips on a harley would repeatedly fill up warm glasses of milk for me to drink. this happened til i went to school and found that cartons of chocolate milk to be just as flavorful . now drinking unpasteurized cow"s milk is now making a comeback with some back to nature groups.
       safety and cattle should hardly be used when talking about my experience of milking cows. i have also been kicked, swatted, stomped on , bashed, bruised, and downright wore out, or made sick by cattle over the years. once my dad , my brother and i were walking across a pasture field when a large bull we had, jumped into the air and planted his feet and gave the characteristic, i am going to kick all your asses head flop , and snorted to seal the deal . at this point he started to pawl the dirt throwing it high over his back. dad looked at us boys and calmly said , we will charge him on 3 and as dad counted down we all lunged and yelled at the bull who was so scared he turned and ran like we were crazy, and we were . we had no choice but to be crazy and call his bluff. we couldn't all out run him and we were in the middle of the pasture with a long way to run to get to safety and what if one was left behind. we only had one choice to surprise him. not nearly as surprised as he was the next day when he went to the sale barn. we have never kept a bull who has gone mean. a mean bull can easily kill .
          once when working on a 250 cow calf farm i was entrusted with the feeding of the bull. he was a pure bred simental bull from the simen valley in switzerland. they are a gentile milking and beef breed , who has cows that easily go over ton a piece. producing large calves of over 110 lbs at birth. this bull was recently weighed at that time and was 2409 pounds. his head was massive. at times he would rip his feed pails away from the sides of the bull pen he was kept in. the bull pen was an outside and inside pipe fence which was over 8 foot tall and had bars spaced at 2 foot intervals on each wall. it was tough to fit between them , but sometimes you could squeeze through to retrieve the bull's feed pans as we were never allowed inside by ourselves.  but he needed fed and so i took a chance and opened door to retrieve his feed pails and . i closed the door behind me and now i was inside the pen and i tried to keep my eyes on him. but in a second , i must have glanced elsewhere. the next thing i know , something hit my legs and started lifting me up as if was on an elevator of sorts. i was climbing the side of the bull pen as i went higher. i continued when the pressure left my rear and then i turned around at the top of pipe fence as i was now crouching at the ceiling, to see what i already knew. that huge ass bull head had just threw me to the top of the pen. common sense should have taken over now, but it sadly didn't as i looked at that bull and decided that just escaping was not going to be enough for me or him . and that indeed he needed rewarded for scaring the shit out of me. so i decided to let loose with a size 13 shoe between his eyes as hard as i could. he shook his head and snorted and ran to the outside edge of the pen as far away from me as he could and sulked like a little baby as if i hurt him.
         and maybe i had , but he hurt me also. my unwavering acceptance of cattle and thinking i knew everything , did not help me a bit when , nature reared its ugly head as it does when you least expect it. i had allowed my guard to be down and in an instant i could have easily been killed. unfortunately brushes with death seem to accompany me at times of my life and yet i am still here. still have all my appendages and have only a sore back and some distant memories to show for my years. farming does put you in more of a position to be hurt but then that is the nature of the beast we call farming. you work alone for hours on end with heavy equipment and in remote locations and until the recent cell phone explosion , we were generally with out any communication. the cell phone has been a blessing and will continue to be in the future as farmers become more dependant and consistent in carrying them on their bodies everywhere. you never know where a heart attack may happen or for whatever reason you may need help , to know it is only a phone call away is a real blessing for all farmers and farm labor. let alone the ability to communicate with your workers to direct them on work to do. farming has changed

tough winter

    at least it was on me. soon after my last post and up until recently i have been sick . not your run of the mill flu sickness but instead full blown flu symptoms to i am going to die sickness. one trip to the emergency room and one initial trip to the doctor which started this whole thing off in the first place. and in the end can attribute all my sickness to to a new prescription , which was having an adverse reaction to my system. it was close to shutting me down at times. finally i kept questioning the new medicine and after finding out that it definitely interacted with my current medicine , i stopped it after again consulting with my doctor and went back to my old medicine schedule and began feeling OK as it took awhile to make a comeback and after working a little while still find myself weak at times. the joys of getting old. 

      the frogs were carved and painted just before Christmas and i was going to do some more trimming with my chainsaw when i burned the clutch out of my chainsaw. i continued on with a regular chainsaw and a couple of other electric tools i have and managed to get them painted just before Christmas, but they still were not done and now i was sick and waiting for chainsaw parts. 

    now i couldn't even make up a better story for my effort of trying to obtain the right part from a so called trusted authority on chainsaw parts. bailey chainsaw parts is one of the largest in the nation sending parts worldwide and specializing in carrying parts i need for my carving bars and chain. 

     well the first part they said they left at end of our lane in the paper box and then slipped a piece of paper in the mailbox saying the package is in paper box. anyone who has ever seen the end of our lane knows it is no place to leave a package in the open. it wasn't there and doubt if it ever was. only the tin man knows for sure and he isn't talking. i looked high and low for package and then went online to check the routing to assure package was delivered. i called ups (united parcel service) , and i couldn't even make it to a representative before being booted off phone 3 times. i called baileys and explained to them , and they started a search from their end and 2 days later after Christmas started to send a new part to replace the one lost. in the meantime ups called me and accused me of stealing the piece and were pretty down right outrageous in their actions of not really doing what they were paid to do in first place. deliver the damn parcel to the house. the lane was clear , my dog was in the house at the time they said they delivered. not once did they even bother coming up lane and delivering as they should, but instead hurled accusations at me for them not doing their job. 

      well after replacing the lost part their service has become considerably better. baileys continued on a down hill slide , as the part they sent to me wouldn't fit on my saw. i ordered another but again it was wrong. then i returned both of those parts as a salesman assured me he had the right part for me. it was the same part i had before . then they sent me a needle bearing as they felt the needle bearing was the problem. i checked the inside bearing race of the old sprocket i took off and determined the part i was getting from them was flawed and called and told the salesman who ordered parts for his saw, from his company and claimed they fit his saw which was identical to mine and couldn't see why the parts wouldn't fit. well  after a month and a half of being sick and dealing with all these yahoos who could do nothing but accuse me of malfeasance in not knowing one end of a chainsaw from another. i told them i had enough. i called another chainsaw supplier and found what i wanted and for one fourth the cost , at which point i called casey my expert at baileys and told them i had enough of making them and the postal service solvent again and i was returning their defective parts to first casey, the expert to install on his chain saw and if he could then to just keep the parts and i would absorb the cost . if he had problems installing on his chainsaw then they owed me a full refund and an apology for being such asses. 

        so far i have had a half ass apology as the parts were defective as i said. he said he was waiting on parts to send to me. i told him i just wanted a full refund of all money i have paid them since this fiasco began. i have  my chainsaw running again and with parts from a different company and still i am waiting on my refund to be credited to my account for absolutely nothing but a hard time. 

       no wonder i was sick. doctors who cant prescribe, delivery people who don't deliver and parts suppliers who send me scrap iron. whats a guy a to do, but worry about what is next.