is the minimum wage enough?

The Day after Black Friday

     Well the dribble about minimum wage and raising it to provide the lower class with a better living wage has decreased somewhat . Not saying that lower class people don’t deserve their fair shake but can remember back to my years of starting into the working class and what I was getting paid at the time.

    It seemed like years ago, but my first job was working with Jake Hanlin, a local dairy farmer who paid me a whole dollar and twenty five cents for an hour s worth of throwing hay bales in the summer heat. Mom and Dad paid nothing but instead offered us a cow of our choice in exchange for working all summer long. This wasn’t to bad a deal then when I was growing up although I was never real fond of the parents telling me how to spend my sudden wealth and the fact that they used it as a means to hold you to the farm. As long as you had cattle then you were expected to help provide for them and theirs as well. They would pay us for picking berries though and sometimes a summers picking might get you a whole twenty five dollars if you were lucky enough to find a good patch of berries at ten cents a quart.

     I think talk the talk about minimum wage needs to be put into perspective as I see it in my opinion. Again I venture into the realm of politics and I am going to try and walk the line and see both sides in this matter as well as the impact on us older folks as now I myself am on a fixed income under Social Security and what a higher minimum wage means to me.

    I believe the minimum wage was a whole 2.65 per hour when I first started working and paying into Social Security. It wasn’t much but still it was just subsistence living and it meant that if you didn’t like it then, you needed to learn a better job and receive better pay. It was not meant to be all you needed to survive and for the most part if you were offered something better or longer hours, you took what you could and didn’t cry about it. And out of that pay you still had to pay your Social Security and you were being taxed at a single rate with no insurance or food stamps to subsidize your existence. But then back then in 1974 Reese’s cups were a nickel a piece. Now you can’t even find penny candy or a candy bar for a nickel. And then they were bigger and better. Now it costs over a dollar or better to get the same thing

my old dog bud riding in the bucket and babe clearing the way for me by chasing cows away from the fence

     At that rate a Reese cup was 1.8 percent of your hourly wage at a rate of 2.65 cents per hour. Now a Reese cup is 1.19 cents and is approximately 16.4 percent of a 7.25 cent per hour minimum wage. This is just to buy a Reese cup to sustain your desire and treat yourself to a minimum of your nutritional requirement. The cost of the Reese cup has increased 23.8 times the nickel price in the same time frame although now they package two in a package requiring more paper products that are about the same size as one back then , making you think there is more but in effect is probably less than one back then. So at that rate the minimum wage would have to be around 10.00 dollars to just keep pace with inflation and to make things equal to back then. this is a poor example but still is reflective of inflation as the prices are still real prices for the same item purchased . 

      But now the poor will be getting food stamps and free education if you are within the poverty limits and food stamps to subsidize that 7.25 cent per hour wage. Surely not everyone is college material but still there are a lot more trade colleges now that specialize in getting people employed at higher wages through training at career workshops not available to us then. We had to learn the hard way and college was something that if your parents could afford to send you then you went, otherwise you learned through the school of hard knocks. Most of the kids I went to high school with never had the opportunity and those that did understood that was the difference in getting a good job, and were rewarded for their time at minimum wage.

    Now we are at the age of retirement and it seems as if our bodies have paid the price and some of us are on fixed incomes, much the same as seniors were back then when we started to work. The government had been warning us for years to put more back for these days as social security was not going to keep pace with inflation and it hasn’t. The money I make on disability is going to be the same the rest of my life and except for cost of living increases.
       Inflation and the trickledown effect will soon make the wage increase a temporary fix in an ever growing gap between the rich and the poor. While seniors will feel the brunt of the increase as their monthly checks will remain the same. Those that produce goods and services will just push the cost of minimum wage back on to the consumer and eventually widen the gap disproportionately between the rich and the poor and create a heavier burden on the old retired portion of the population. This will eventually end up with the poor even more dependent on the government.

     Food stamps are a subsidy to the farmer as well to the consumer that uses them and is intended to help sustain the nutrition of those who receive the services. Reform in this area would lead to better usage of this resource for all involved. Specifying the foods that are good for nutrition and eliminating those that are just loaded with sugar and other harmful additives as well as processed foods should be part of the food stamp program. This would force people to eat foods they prepare themselves and eliminate the chicken nugget syndrome we have fallen into. Buying whole foods also helps the farmer directly and subsidizes his income. Unfortunately there is no way we can buy directly from the farmer and up the value of our food stamp dollar without exposing the system to more fraud.

     Buying directly off the farmer as we did years ago eliminates the middle man and yields higher quality products while keeping our small farmers afloat financially. Now we leave it up to the government to subsidize small farmers of whom I am a small part, but our farm does not receive help at all except for an exemption on our land usage resulting in fewer taxes paid on the land.  At the same time large farmers and corporations are receiving tax dollars to support their business and those I believe should be eliminated on all farmers or ag corporations making over a million in gross sales . This is where the majority of the farm support goes. And it these ag corporations that are receiving the most benefit of our food stamp dollar.

      I feel for the young of our society and those that lack the skills to get a better job than what minimum wage will allow. But I don’t think minimum wage was supposed to be the end to the means. It is as it says it is, and I think the young and disadvantaged are much better off today than they were. I think we need to increase our support with food stamps not cut it and we need to make sure those dollars are spent on locally grown whole foods instead of the pre-packaged sugar and salt loaded candy coated gobs of fat, that the food industry wants to shove down our throats, as they buy more medical stock knowing the shit they feed us will eventually result in diabetes and healthcare needs we will have to address later.

      Every person in the U.S. should have good healthcare and good nutrition and this should be as much a right as owning guns, and both should be affordable. Raising the minimum wage will serve no purpose but to spur inflation which will result in increased costs for everything. Instead let’s think about a more practical solution to the problems like maybe replacing those in power as we try to stem the tide of inflation by breaking up the good old boy network that lobbyists find so appealing in Washington. I really don’t know the answer is but instead wonder if we will ever find the answer to making all things equal and at times doubt if we will.

     But who am I?  I hope I don’t rub you all the wrong way but this is my opinion . I respect how others feel and at times have a hard time keeping my mouth shut. But in spite of being an advocate for the little man still have to try and look at things for what they are and I try to the best of my ability. Take it for what it is. And if you don’t like what I say start your own blog.

     

thanksgiving on the farm

Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving

    Well was going to try and impress you with some elaborate story , but again I fell short so instead decided to tell you about my day and share with you how I am going to spend my Thanksgiving Day.

    The last few weeks kinda seemed to fly by, hurried along with an early winter. Hate to seem like the pessimist but it seems as if these were January storms and that we are getting our hard cold biting storms earlier. Could this be a sign of global warming? Just asking, hate to get anybody’s dander up.

     Yesterday I sat through another story of the bad winters they had years ago. How the lane was so full of snow it was easier to walk down through the field than to wade through the snowdrifts. Mom and my Aunt would stay at the Shaner residence that used to exist at the end of our lane. This is all gone now.

    I look back at the winters I have experienced here on the farm and try to see if any measure up to the really bad ones. I guess when I lived in Wooster the blizzard of 1976 was the worse for me. I was unable to get to my house about 3 miles out of town. The National Guard had to use bull dozers to clean the roads. And I almost was stuck in it in the middle of the worst blizzard I ever saw that scared me so bad I felt that I may have problems getting to safety. Whiteouts and vicious biting wind of  the worse I ever saw. By that standard this was nothing.

      Love to see it dump a bunch of snow like that. The next day everything is white. Including the fence in front my cows as I took a picture of them. The stark contrast of anything against that white wet snow clinging to the fence looks great.  We ended up with around a foot to my best guess. Enough at one time for me. I still have to plow out the lane and parking areas.  

      Been having a trying time with my heater in the greenhouse and trying to keep plants from freezing. It takes a lot of wood and a lot of tending to the greenhouse. Then last night I tripped in the snow heading up to fire the wood burner and took a pretty good fall. Nothing hurt but my pride, so far as I can tell.

      Seems like that is the way things have gone lately as all I do is fight fires. Trying to get the next thing done, before something else happens. I have been trying to get wood cut and hauled in to help keep the fires going. But I am just barely able to keep up and question why I worry. I have heated spaces at my house and at Mom’s to place the most wanted plants and let the greenhouse go cold. It is hard to watch things die off but then again it is a natural process and plants do need to be hardy. I really don’t need to heat the greenhouse till late February to have plants for Mother’s Day. This is my goal and last year I managed to do well so expect better results this year.

    Anyhow like everyone else I am still struggling to keep up but letting the greenhouse go cold will also have some positive benefits as I retrofit the present heater to get better efficiency out of my heat. I plan on adding heat to the floor with recirculating hot water to warm the greenhouse from the ground up. This will make a major difference.

     Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I would like to say especially to Anonymous, a big thank you for wishing me a happy thanksgiving, and  I would like to say the same to whoever wished me that. Kinda took me by surprise.

    It was nice to hear that from an unexpected source and I’m sure it was heartfelt. This helps me as I am alone and spending Thanksgiving cooking turkey dinner for Mom and James, the guy who helps me around here, or at least tolerates me . All I know is it costs me.  So the three of us will share a dinner for Thanksgiving., butI would always like to see more around the table and understand that others in the family have other obligations, so anyhow we plan to celebrate regardless of it all.

    Well if anyone out there is alone for Thanksgiving, I feel your pain as I have had that same feeling for years. I always wanted a family and all the trimmings but in the end I just have to be thankful for what I have. Fate seemed to have other intentions or maybe it I karma, or maybe this life is a precursor for better times as I hope to see some day. But then again being home eating dinner with the two best friends one can have, what could be better. Oh I forgot I just walk outside at home and there is Babe as I slip some turkey parts and pieces to my third best friend. I am thankful for all I have, and hope you are having a good Thanksgiving also.  

     Also would like to wish Sandy and Dad a happy birthday. they both shared the same birthday and i always think of both at thanksgiving, and  neither of them are with me now, but still in my thoughts. 

truth or fiction?

Submerged

    I have been driving along thinking as I pull onto the bridge with my old 57 Plymouth Belvedere. Its spotless interior is thanks to my dear wife who is the reason I need to cross this damn bridge tonight. There seems to be a line of last minute Christmas shoppers mixed in with a few department store trucks as we wait for the light to turn green on the other side of the river. It is another dark dreary Ohio gray day with a spit of rain in the air. Not a warm rain but instead a nasty cold rain, not enough to make you run for cover, but enough to irritate the hell out of you if you stayed out in it. it seems the bridge is full a of cars heading into West Virginia to take advantage of lower tax rates , and a better selection of items for Christmas.

     I looked down the river as I had just climbed on the bridge when I was stuck in traffic , a dark gray mist rose above the river valley as the approaches to the bridge gave me a good viewing point to see almost a half mile or better , but it all looked none to good .

      It is always kind of eerie sitting here on this bridge as it seems you feel every car that pulls on to the bridge and then you feel them stop. I look in my rear view mirror and the cars are backed up on my side clean back to where I turned on the road, as we wait for the light to change.  

        I look down through the open metal grate of the bridge deck floor, and see the water swirling around the piers of the giant suspension iron trussed bridge I am sitting on.  It’s not too bad waiting on the bridge but when all you have to do is sit and look out the window , and then be able to see the cold water below it even makes eerie, eerier, if that is possible.

     I try to keep my mind off how high I am sitting above the water and focus on why I am going across this damn bridge in the first place. I just didn’t want a repeat of last year’s fiasco of trying to find a Christmas gift for the wifie and end up with a vacuum cleaner for her. I was young and dumb, how did I know you shouldn’t be practical and buy something that a woman could use. Instead I was supposed to buy her little what not’s and things she wouldn’t normally get. Diane said even  box of chocolates has more surprise than a fucking  sweeper as she smiled that smile that sent shivers down my spine on this cold ass December day. Never again was that going to happen. In fact I was thinking of surprising her with a diamond to replace that second hand gold ring we bought in a pawn shop when we eloped.

     God what was that?   I am feeling the bridge suddenly lurch and it seems as if I am falling, this can’t be real I am falling and the car is too, as we fall towards the river the iron is crashing all around me and the car is now in the water as the water is starting to come in my floorboards and it is cold. I try the door handle and I can’t get the door open. I look out and it seems like I am floating and that the water is cold and my heart feels like it is going to blow out of my chest. I just need to relax as the car sinks deeper and it feels as if I am weightless as the car slowly feels up with water.

      The roof of the Belvedere is now under water and I feel numb as the cold Ohio River water swallows my nerves. I struggle to open the door but it is still fruitless as I am still trapped.  It is dark inside the car with the little air I have trapped inside. I have my head up searching and preparing for that last gulp I am going to take. I decide to try and kick out the windows and find little success with that. I feel around for anything I can use to bust the window and release me as I am going to die if I don’t get out of here. I float to the other side and grab the door there, as the car bumps something and something busts the driver side window out and then I yank the door handle and it releases and I am able to maneuver in the cold and darkness and climb to what little light there is as my lungs were burning with my last gulp of air. I blew through the surface of the river, and coughed up some water in the process. I thought the worst is over now relax and get control of yourself and slowly head to shore as I could see flashlights along the water where they were looking for people already.

      I can swim on my back so I flipped myself over and slowing my breathing, began to pace myself as I set for shore about 100 yards away. I am shivering as I am swimming and then I bump into a something under the water and a hand wraps around my mid-section, it is a woman I can see in the dim light as she grasps on to me. I can help myself when swimming but have a hard time saving anyone and I sink like a rock when I am not moving in the water. On my back I can float forever. She grabbed onto me and hung on and she too pleaded to help her and all I could do was to remain calm and continue for shore. I set my mind to the task and forced my arms to move harder and more controlled and backstroked my way towing her along, and in the dim light I swam to a mangled piece of bridge strut sticking out of the water. I was becoming exhausted not only trying to save myself but then save another. I yelled for her to grab on to the metal strut and hang on, but she didn’t want to.   Then at that time I felt myself slipping back into the water and then a hand pulled me up out of the cold and pulled me back to that strut. It was the same woman I had helped who was saving me.

      Voices and a boat were getting close as I hugged her in the icy water as we clung to the iron that had failed us such a short time ago. Soon we were in the boat and headed for shore , the boat was close to being over loaded at that moment with just the four of us, we off loaded the woman and I , and I helped her up the slick muddy bank and into the arms of waiting fireman who offered her and I blankets and a trip to the hospital .

    Before leaving for the hospital the sheriff took my name and asked if I had any passengers. Again he repeated that with the woman who I had helped earlier, and she said her name and indicated she was alone too. And soon we were racing down icy back roads to the hospital. I was becoming scared as the driver was hurrying too much and I asked him to slow down, and this he did as I looked at the woman who was now huddled in my arms as we shared warmth. We needed help still, but not another accident at the moment.

      When we arrived at the hospital we could see other survivors that had arrived before us and some were laying there in agony as they had missing arms and tourniquets and gauze covering apparent bloody stumps. I tried to look in the face of the poor soul lying there but could not bring myself to share all his pain.

     After this incident I had to ask myself why I allowed myself to be there at that moment when the bridge collapsed and what it really meant to me. It was almost an end to my life and realizing what it was that made me want to be there was not really that important as much as living.

    I had good intentions when I bought her a sweeper, and no it wasn’t a diamond ring, but still my flawed sense of reasoning and her aggressive reaction forced me to be there. After the accident Diane was forever being apologetic and realizing what had happened to me and why I was there , made her only want me more.

    Too little too late. By now my mind was made up to never to go down that road again. I was spared for a reason and that was to save Maxine’s life. She too, had been floundering in a going nowhere relationship, and we kept in touch after the bridge collapse. At our second annual picnic in remembrance of the day and the souls lost on the bridge, I was finally able to propose to her, having divorced Diane.

      Maybe the reason that I divorced Diane was that I was just trying to please her, and that was what put me on the bridge and nearly sent me to my death, but it was Kathy who reached out to me in the darkness and pulled me close, saving me from certain death. And it is only her touch I need in the middle of the night when the dream appears and I am sinking. It is Maxine that reaches out to me and says it will be all right it will be ok. With her it is always good.  

Point Pleasant, WV Bridge Over Ohio River Collapses, Dec 1967 | GenDisasters ... Genealogy in Tragedy, Disasters, Fires, Floods

   

new directions?

Agonizing Reappraisals

They are asking themselves , "Whats he talking about?" 

       So I was going to take up the political issue of hunting and choose to pass on the subject. Partly because the political nature but also because it is  something I have emotional issues with and really can’t see how I can discuss it without offending someone in the process.

     It is hard to not do that when writing a daily blog or are trying to. You only have so many personal common interest stories under your belt and yet when you veer from center into black or white areas, arms get raised and people start sharpening their pitchforks to tame that forked tongue of yours they think is personally directed at them. In the end it is all about liberty and we do live in the land of the free and brave don’t we?

    But a wise friend once told me to pick my battles carefully. And this I will try to do despite giving up that chance to speak my peace. In the end I have to choose how I want to live my life by alienating old friends or are they?  By just letting things be  or say how I feel as if my opinion really makes a difference. .

      This I guess is the power of the printed word, I can yell fire and everyone will jump and run for the exit, but it seems when you print your words, you not only allow the people in the movie theater

to jump and run for the exits, but as an observer I can tell the horrors of everyone scrambling in the dark running for the exits as bodies pile up, and luckily save one reporter, me.  I was able to post a story about it.

     This analogy is kinda like me taking a political position. When I state my political position I am an active member of the audience running for the exit signs. As a reporter I am more like an observer trying to give an unbiased account of the tragedy happening before my eyes, one without emotion and based on facts from neither the left nor the right. A view to be shared by others and after exposing all the dirty flaws let the audience be the judge of whether it is right or wrong someone yelled fire in the first place.

     You never know who is reading your blog so daily I try to find a safe subject, and this is hard to do. I strive to be a better writer and at times, and like just doing fiction as there you start off telling everyone you are telling a lie whether you are or not. Let them figure out what is the truth and what is bogus.

     People look at news story as to what is the motivating factor that a person does something. Why did the senator use coke?  It could have been the stress or possibly marital problems. Chances are he just likes getting high. But we always try to read more into a story than what it is. With fiction I simply lie my butt off and no one gets hurt. Chances are the opinions are mine but since I wrote the story, and instead I embellished those opinions as I seek reader approval but no one is none the less bothered by what I say. It is all fiction. They knew it from the start, and this is why I like writing just fiction.

      So beginning tomorrow I will tell some stories and leave it up to you the reader to tell whether it is a lie or the truth. I may or may not acknowledge the truth. Instead reserving my right to protect my sources and desire to add flavor to the stories.  So just enjoy and try not to hold me accountable if it stirs you to emotions and you desire to unload on me. I am just the messenger, whether it is a lie or the truth it is still fiction.

something to get charged up about

Future of Electric Power

 robot generator being rescued by repair bot 

     Well if the lesson of Fukishima and nuclear power isn’t obvious, it should be. I doubt if anyone had in mind the size of a tsunami as that which hit Japan, and forever changed nuclear power as a primary source of providing electricity. We know that coal is harmful to the environment and that it increases the likelihood of warming the earth. Gas and oil are just Band-Aids as they too have contributed to global warming as well as the use of internal combustion engines. It seems as if solar and wind power is the two best tools we have in our tool bag to produce electricity efficiently and in a green manor that is least harmful to the environment.

    Water power is also a manor of producing electricity, and is also a green means of generating electricity but in that case it seems as if we block a river valley, we cause harmful problems associated with migratory habits of animals and fishes in particular. We forever change their habits as they try to adapt to new changes in their environment if they can. It is also an expensive venture in the initial cost as well as the continuing maintenance of said structures into the future.

    Water power can be a means to an end though if designed properly. Throughout the country we have hills and mountains where we could impound water from excess electricity that is generated from our existing power plants. We produce way to much at times and a lot of it is lost in heat generation as the electricity pulses over long distances in the lines that service us. Whatever we don’t use is eventually lost to the environment as we have no real means of storing excess electricity. Also current practices of generating electricity have us generating in one location and using it over a 100 or miles away from the original source of producing the electricity. And this may be so even if closer sources of generation are available. That means if Con Ed has a nuclear plant up the road and American Electric Power is in charge of the grid next to it. Then only in emergencies of low line voltage will one sell to the other to avoid a black out.

      But if we took all the excess electricity that was generated out of our power plants at full operating capacity where they are most efficient, and used this to pump water to higher locations geographically speaking. Then when we need more electricity we could always flow it back to a lower level and in the process regenerate the surplus electricity. This is one means by which we can store electricity.

     Storing electricity has never been a priority before but is something that needs to be done. This idea of using stored water to save electricity was proposed for our area before. In fact it was in Norton, Ohio where Morton salt company has extensive underground caverns this was proposed before. There they were going to use the underground caverns and a vertical drop of almost 600 feet to generate more than enough power to efficiently operate a hydroelectric plant underground, using the pool of water above to fill the electrical needs of the grid  as opposed to generating more electricity from other means like coal. For some reason the project was scrapped or is being done secretly as I have never heard any more about it.   There are hill tops in Ohio where we could have similar vertical drops and achieve the same thing.

      This would allow us to use our generating facilities more efficiently running them for shorter periods of time and it would also allow us to upload excess electricity from solar generation and wind power whenever we wanted to and not just when the electric company needs it. Virtually every electric meter on the grid would then become a meter where you could upload electricity to, any time regardless of who was generating the power. If we reached a critical mass where we are producing more electric than we need, we simply pump water uphill at a variety of locations. This would require a pool of water at both locations at the top of the hill and the bottom and generating facilities. Some water will be lost to evaporation, but this all depends on how soon the pool is being used. The possibility of coupling it with solar where the cells would generate electricity during the day and pump the water uphill then at night when the sun isn’t shining you could reverse the flow when you need electric most.

      As much as I like the free enterprise system I think it is time to take electric generation out of the hands of private enterprise as there is little incentive to be frugal with these resources as we have become more dependent on electricity all the time. We are letting the major power companies become monopolies and the money is being spent lobbying the use of coal and other sources of greenhouse warming sources of fuel, and then passing these costs on to the consumer. Whenever they want a rate hike it seems it is just a matter of time before they get it, and eventually we all pay for it.

       There is no incentive to use naturally occurring sources of electricity as they know the eventual end of what it all means. It is up to the individual consumer to ease that burden by reducing your need for electricity. If possible, be able to generate your own electricity and use it first. We use only an eighth of all sunlight energy that hits the earth daily for power generation. Once solar is in place it tends to pay back far greater returns than what it costs for investment. Turning that meter around should be priority for us all.

     Coupled with other forms of energy I can see hybrid rovers eventually panning our landscape for better wind and sun positioning in remote areas where power generation never would have been thought of before. An operator comfortably nestled in his house could send robotic energy gatherers out and collect energy in the form of electricity from solar or wind depending on whether one or the other was the prominent generating source and when full of stored electricity would dock itself at an upload station and download all the power stored in its batteries then go out and gather more working incessantly 24 hours a day 7 days a week without much human intervention except maintenance primarily. This could be done to pump water uphill as I previously described and then download the power generated to the grid when the pool of water is full.

     We have the technology now to accomplish this task presently. There is very little difference between this and the initial rovers put on Mars only we are here on Earth. This could for the most part be all renewable sources of electricity.

         And if we look at renewable sources of green electricity we could help ourselves by planting vast swaths of trees for the purpose of power generation alone using their mass to fuel the boilers like we did years ago in the early stages of the industrial revolution.  Planting trees that will be consumed 20 years down the road is just the same as passively storing solar energy as the trees do so well what we can only attempt to do. There is no reason we couldn’t get into a system where trees would provide our needs in fuel. At the same time we lock up carbon dioxide that is causing our global warming and achieve two goals at once. This would also provide us with a utilization of waste materials that normally end up in landfills.

     At one time during World War 2 our country proposed a means of capturing the gasses off of wood through the use of degasification and the resulting product was fuel for our vehicles and for power generation without the harmful effects of burning wood openly. This is done through a wood gas generator and the plans are still available on the net. When times get tough, like when hurricane Katrina or World War 2 was around and people knew they had little choice, then our government would issue the bulletin describing how to build your own wood gas generator. This was used extensively in Europe and here in the United States during World War 2 and had a beneficial use of extending our resources then as much as we need to now.

       Coupled with increased planting on marginal lands we could reverse the effect of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere in less time and with less expense than it took to get in this shape in the first place. We have shown that we can affect atmospheric changes in a wrong way, and now it is time for us to reverse that trend in a positive way, and think about leaving our children with a legacy of caring about our environment instead of destroying it through profitability.

         Sometimes as in the use of fossil fuels we find their use easy and the costs fixed so that one knows with x amount of investment I will get y return. Our environment cannot be limited to an algorithm that we just plug numbers into and then spits an outcome. Sometimes we don’t see the outcome till the polar caps start to melt. Then even then the naysayers will still say it isn’t a problem as they move to higher ground and reassess the damage and convert it to a profit. We can’t let Wall Street tell us where to go as they no doubt will be on the next spaceship to planet b as soon as they can buy a ticket leaving the rest of us poor souls behind.

       So I guess in conclusion if you have made it this far you are taking the first step to achieving awareness of a problem of our generation and the ones before and informing yourself about where we should go in terms of direction humans should take when it comes to or creature comforts and how we should provide the power for them to operate without harm to the environment. Profit can be made and money can be spent wisely instead of kicking the can down the road. We can’t keep going on like we are without some kind of repercussion. Massive storms and loss of life are on the horizon as our planet heats up. Last night should be an example. As well the typhoon in the Philippines is also an example of how the excess energy in our environment is changing our weather and lifestyles. Where does it end or are we looking at the beginning of the end? Informing yourself to viable alternatives is the first step. Electing representatives who also believe in the same thing is the next step. Turning off that bathroom light will all help when it we pass this issue and others down to our children.


http://www.allpowerlabs.org/gasification/resources/papers/Handbook.Reed.Das.pdf
http://www.woodgas.net/files/FEMA_emergency_gassifer.pdf

how small can you go?

Mini Homes and Cheap California Acreage.

     Recently I have been spending quite a bit of time checking out cheap acreage in other parts of the United States.  As well I have also been checking out mini homes with square footages as small as 100 sq. ft. complete with a working bath and a loft bed. These seem to be the trend as people want to be able to move right in on a location and be able to set up shop, so to speak.  These places are ideal for a second get away and in some cases people are actually living in these on a full time basis.

     A tiny house being one that has less than say 500 sq. ft. has an advantage over a much larger house in the fact that if designed properly is more efficient and has less impact on our natural resources, is easier to pay for, and has less time of construction, and offers the flexibility of allowing you to pick up and move elsewhere. I doubt if one would want to raise a family in one but for the empty nesters it may be a solution to their housing problems as the old family house has now become too large to manage since the kids flew the coop.

      Coupled with a parcel of cheap land, one could easily see that this may be an option for someone my age to have a piece of the American dream of owning your own slice of heaven.  I have found quite a few sites that offer cheap parcels of land with as much as 10 acres for less than 15000. I have found forested parcels in Oregon for less than 10000 for 3 acres. Also I have found desert land in Nevada in parcels of 10 acres or more for less than 10000. Of course with desert land water is always a problem, but mowing the grass isn’t , as there is none. But solar and living off the grid is definitely an option in these areas. Caution must always be exercised when buying land in an area you are not familiar with as local zoning laws sometimes prohibit or require you to have a minimum size house, before issuing you a permit. Always check local zoning laws to make sure your needs for housing are met appropriately.

     Besides just searching through your browser, you should also check through craigslist or a similar free ad agency that offers real estate for sale. This will give you an idea of how much property is worth in the area you are trying to purchase land from. Real estate companies may or may not also be a source of information. Some are just trying to sell and some have good intentions of trying to sell you what you need. Look at the disclosures they are listing as a source of information as to the possible pitfalls of doing what you want in that area. It is also important to look at the value of the land being improved versus unimproved as a reference to how important your investment in that land should be. Also before I would invest in any land I can’t see I would have to plan a visit and take a good look at what I am buying as well as the surrounding area. Consider it part of the cost of buying the parcel whether you buy or not. Also check out the realtor or the individual selling the property to assure right to sell the land described.  

      The ideal scenario I am looking for is a piece of property with a small building a pre-approved septic and possibly a well with good water. I would accept less if the land was the right price and the location was one I wanted to be in.  Some place I could move a tiny house I would build here and transport to the site and set up in a matter of hours. Something I could tow across the country if necessary and pull it right onto the place I intend to build at and be able to live out of this tiny house until I have better accommodations I could afford. Also this tiny house would serve as a means to take all I wanted to go with me when I left. Meaning it would also be used to convey those things I hold dearly, as I make my way across the country to my new destination wherever it may be.

     When considering something like this, the most important thing to do is research everything. Including you. Knowing how little space you really need is going to be the deal breaker here as well as how much you can afford. It doesn’t have to be expensive and if well planned could easily last you the rest of your life, allowing you the flexibility of living without a high mortgage or paying exorbitant renting and heating costs. This would allow you the opportunity to enjoy your retirement in the way you should, free from worry of debt.

     I will provide you with a couple of links and hopefully you will take a few minutes to check them out and think a little outside the box. If you like the rain and the cold this may still be an option in our area. Lately with the oil field I have seen a trend to living in fifth wheel campers in RV parks and also I have seen people moving campers in on property that wasn’t an official campsite before. I have to question where all this waste goes, but apparently they must be allowed to do it in this area, so living in one of these tiny houses in this area is not out of the question I would assume. Assume being the key words here as you should check with local authorities before doing anything like moving a camper in on a piece of property and just setting up. The expense of removing it will be all yours as well as any clean up that can be expected from such an adventure. The property is yours to do with only as long as you pay taxes and obey rules, no matter where you live here in the land of the free and the brave.

      As much as I like the people in this area and family, at some point I need to move on as I have very little to hold me here after some future life events happen. I desire to be free of the farm and of the responsibility of perpetuating it on. I have no kids and currently have no one in my life but my dog babe. I know as long as I live here on the farm, there is always work to do and things that need to be done. I would rather choose how to live my life than let my life chose for me. Thus is the desire to move on. How it will all work out is still up in the air. But it is a challenge I am looking forward to.  

 Links to tiny houses and cheap land 

100 Sq. Ft. Prefab NOMAD Micro Home: Could You Live this Small?
Accessory/ Cabin for sale
California Land for Sale - California Land Auction (ended on Mon Oct-28-13 6:20:26 AM PDT) - BillyLand.com

my how time flies!

2014

     Never was crazy about 2013, I think it is the 13 number. I kinda like the even numbers better, and even better when they are the same paired number like 22, which happens to be my birthdate but then that always wasn’t so lucky as one girl I had went with decided to do my astrological chart and I soon found out I was born on the wrong side of the cusp and it was not going to work out. Wow what a convenient way to rid yourself of someone. Just do their chart.

    I couldn’t refute the astrological importance she weighed me down with as I was clueless about astrology. Hell I didn’t even know I was on the cusp. I just wanted love. She was 21 a year older than I, and I was still in college, kind of learning. I accepted that since she was older and much wiser in the world that our ability to get along was going to be severely hampered by this cusp thing.

        Cuss it anyhow.

       In fact if she had wanted a clear cut definition to any cuss word I would have gladly gave it to her at that point, you know words like bitch and asshole seem to top the list, but I not wanting to burn bridges I may have to cross again, I quietly headed for my V.W. beetle and put-putted away. Still reeling at how being born on the cusp was going to affect my young life.

       Just reflecting on 2014 though as being the year we celebrate our 40 year reunion, and I have made it to 3 of our five year reunions. This year we intend to go in with another class and celebrate both years together. It is kinda sad to do that in a way. We graduated quite a few people out of our class and several are still in the area. These are the people we are closest to. Not the class before us. Those were the buttholes who was trying to sell you elevator tickets and putting kotex in your lockers. Give me a break.

      Recently I took mom to her 65^th class reunion, and they try and get together once a month to just have dinner and catch up, there is 8 of them from the East Sparta High School class of 49. They even let me have the honor of sitting and having dinner with them. I really feel privileged. But have to admit that part of the reason I am there is Mom.  Mom always has good things to say about her class and I think back in 49 there was only 20 or so kids graduate. But then they knew each other so well.

    Our class had pitiful turnouts and we never knew when they were having a class reunion so that is why we are so disconnected. Hopefully we all have Facebook or at least know someone in the class to invite so with our class and the one before we may be able to fill Tozzis on Twelfth Street up. We never had the camaraderie that existed between the classmates of my mom. We heard of the war effort, they grew up in it. They would have paper, aluminum, and metal drives also.  We had Vietnam and independence, and drugs. Is it a wonder we turned out like we did?

      Kind of look forward to 2014 and hope it is a year we turn things around and again are proud of who we are and where we come from. We do live in a good area of the country. Land of the serial killers, why shouldn’t we like it here? I am just kidding where Dillon and others have taken way too seriously. I think considering everything we didn’t turn out to bad at all.

      Anyhow I just wish we were more like my mom’s class where we have a standing invitation to show up and eat. If you want to, lie if you must, but still have a good time.  After all for the most part we spent 18 years together, that should stand for something.  We were an independent generation and I doubt it will ever happen but it would be nice if it did. 

lost my place

Lost My Place in Microsoft Word

So i wonder did Longaberger get buried in a hand-basket or a coffin? If in a hand-basket, had he never made it to heaven, then he would always have an option 

     

       But luckily my mind is still in the right place. Maybe not functioning as well as it did years ago. But then again years ago we had no computers, so I guess my mind is doing well. I not only figured out how to use one I also figured out how they can be frustrating at times.

       Anyhow was just trying to keep everything I wrote in one place on the old puter, and then I had an update. On Windows , where everything goes blank while the NSA or big brother as we know them and love them ,  downloads your browser history and tweaks a few things on your old puter and lets you have it back in the name of Windows update  for another 30 days.  Anyhow it asked me if I wanted to save a file that is open and  I hit the wrong button and deleted the whole thing as I let Windows update go ahead and close out all open windows before shutting down. Didn’t realize it meant Microsoft Word, but should have . Hindsight is always perfect vision as you can easily see the mistake you made.

       So as I spent a half hour looking for a nonexistent file, I finally came to the conclusion it wasn’t there. Thanks to my friends at the NSA. Conveniently after copying they just deleted it off my puter. How nice of
them.  Now my question is, if I die are they going to delete me also?  And can we confirm the use of deleted along with death, died, gone, spent, wasted, passed and lost. As in the computer hacker came to an untimely deletion due to circumstances beyond his control. He was found deleted after it was apparent he was caught shopping in some classified files.

     Been dealing with keeping up on the greenhouse and a few other issues and don’t seem to have enough time to write as I should. Prefer to write in the morning but never seem to accomplish as I should here lately. The time change has really messed up my schedule in some respects as my sleeping is out of order. Last night was better. It seems as if I get to around 7 or 8 pm I want to sleep so badly. But then I am up around 11 and have to go fire the heater in the greenhouse. This means getting dressed for the cold and going outside across the yard to the greenhouse, at almost 500 feet or better away. Not something you can do real easily. Throw wood in the fire and hang around to make sure there was enough coals to start the fire again, and then come back to the house.

        By now I am wide awake. After reading every news article on Yahoo,  I come to think ABC thinks we are all stupid and lazy , as they always want to play the video and tell you what you could read and this is the reason I end up on Yahoo. Well this is fine but I have to pay for my data so prefer to read and save the data for something good to see. I digress as I soon check out Facebook site, and then this bores me so much I am finally ready to go to bed around 1 and I am back up at 7 in the morning. Bottom line limited sleep with interruptions. Last night was better but still need to work on things a bit.

      This is only going to last for another month until winters solstice has arrived and the days begin to get longer. The trouble is I need to adjust to the changes now. Kind of thinking I should have left the clock where it was when we all had to change it for daylight savings time. Now I want lay around an hour longer and then when I start to feel like doing something it is dark thirty. Can’t seem to win. But then again if I did win it really wouldn’t make much difference as winning is a choice you have to make to avoid losing, which we all try to do at times. And in the end we are all just along for the ride , so maybe I should just lean back and settle in so far it’s been  a long trip and I am not ready to ask, are we there yet? a few things on your old puter and lets you have it back in the name of Windows update  for another 30 days.  Anyhow it asked me if I wanted to save a file I am I hit the wrong button and deleted the whole thing as I let Windows update go ahead and close out all open windows before shutting down. Didn’t realize it meant Microsoft Word, but should have . Hindsight is always perfect vision as you can easily see the mistake you made.

       So as I spent a half hour looking for a nonexistent file, I finally came to the conclusion it wasn’t there. Thanks to my friends at the NSA. Conveniently after copying they just deleted it off my puter. How nice of them.  Now my question is, if I die are they going to delete me also?  And can we confirm the use of deleted along with death, died, gone, spent, wasted, passed and lost. As in the computer hacker came to an untimely deletion due to circumstances beyond his control. He was found deleted after it was apparent he was caught shopping in some classified files.

     Been dealing with keeping up on the greenhouse and a few other issues and don’t seem to have enough time to write as I should. Prefer to write in the morning but never seem to accomplish as I should here lately. The time change has really messed up my schedule in some respects as my sleeping is out of order. Last night was better. It seems as if I get to around 7 or 8 pm I want to sleep so badly. But then I am up around 11 and have to go fire the heater in the greenhouse. This means getting dressed for the cold and going outside across the yard to the greenhouse, at almost 500 feet or better away. Not something you can do real easily. Throw wood in the fire and hang around to make sure there was enough coals to start the fire again, and then come back to the house.

        By now I am wide awake. After reading every news article on Yahoo,  I come to think ABC thinks we are all stupid and lazy , as they always want to play the video and tell you what you could read and this is the reason I end up on Yahoo. Well this is fine but I have to pay for my data so prefer to read and save the data for something good to see. I digress as I soon check out Facebook site, and then this bores me so much I am finally ready to go to bed around 1 and I am back up at 7 in the morning. Bottom line limited sleep with interruptions. Last night was better but still need to work on things a bit.

      This is only going to last for another month until winters solstice has arrived and the days begin to get longer. The trouble is I need to adjust to the changes now. Kind of thinking I should have left the clock where it was when we all had to change it for daylight savings time. Now I want lay around an hour longer and then when I start to feel like doing something it is dark thirty. Can’t seem to win. But then again if I did win it really wouldn’t make much difference as winning is a choice you have to make to avoid losing, which we all try to do at times. And in the end we are all just along for the ride , so maybe I should just lean back and settle in so far it’s been  a long trip and I am not ready to ask, are we there yet?

buzzard barn is no more.

Bet You Thought Something Happened To Me

buzzard barn on Moffit Street is no more.  

     It did, I grew a couple of days older but don’t know about wiser, and of course I took a few days off from writing.  I needed it but it doesn’t make much difference as you would think I would come back full of ideas about where to take you the reader next. I am looking at 18500 hits on my blog here soon and will be within striking distance of my goal to have 20000 hits, with the last 10000 coming even faster than the first 10000. All thanks to you the readers.

    Another goal of writing a years’ worth of blogs will also soon be achieved, currently I believe I have 327 blogs and need 365 to say that I have wrote for one full year . one of my goals when I started this blog. If you can remember I figured I would write for 1 year then I knew I was capable of writing a novel. Well sometimes I find it harder to write daily than write a novel. I have wrote a novel and I did it on here and  anyhow after nearly two years of writing  I hope to achieve by my birthday in a little over a month, one of my first goals with blogging. . This will require me to blog daily from here on to my birthday to meet this goal. Haven’t really sat down and figured if I have enough time but will see where I am at and figure it out shortly. If not I will give it one heck of a try.

      Again all this is attributed to you the reader of my blog. If no one would have ever read what I wrote and I admit some days were pretty lame, much the same as todays might appear to you. But if no one would have ever paid attention then I would have never made it this far, having gave up long ago. I watch the response I get by how many hits I get for a particular post I write, and some have been much better than others. I had a good following when I was writing my novel online and that was fun and a challenge to daily get up and create the equivalent of 4 pages of manuscript.  Something I had never done before and in the time span of 2 months I was able to write a 450 typed page manuscript. It wasn’t that great but it was an experience I am going to take up again here soon for another try. But not until after my birthday and after I accomplish a couple of the aforementioned goals, will I get around to starting a new novel. Again it will be online and it will be on my blog. Leann and Guy may be in for another environmental awareness adventure.

       Next up is a disturbing trend I have seen around here lately as many of our timber frame barns are being tore down to make flooring for high end homes. They are looking for the last traces of virgin timber our area has to offer. It just happens to be in our barns.

the same buzzard barn on Moffit a couple of days ago

       Let me say this is if a barn is falling down then I say more power to them, if they want to salvage the hardwood material out of it as compared to just letting it rot to the ground. Then go ahead it is acceptable to me.  We had a barn that they bought to reclaim and it was to the point it was a safety hazard, and needed to be brought down or set afire before someone was hurt by it. I would have rather seen this than let it go to nothing. At least there was some good come by it.

      But lately it seems as if the barns are still in good shape and with roofs on them that would sustain them for quite a while , and yet they are falling victim to the reclaimer’s as hardwood flooring must be taking an upswing and prices paid for the barns must be better than before. Three barns on Moffit Drive outside of Waynesburg on one road within a mile of each other are no longer there. Each barn looked as though they had limited if any damage to them that would require their demolition.  Yet they are gone forever. Not even to be replaced and it would be near impossible to replace these structures. Cost alone is prohibitive when it comes to replacing barns of this caliber. Post and tenon timber framing is a thing of the past. It requires intensive labor and is cost prohibitive when it is much cheaper and easier to go with the standard pole barn of today.

      I am sure the owners of these barns would like to have the right to do with their property as they see fit. And understandably so I think they should, as I would want the same. But still this is a blight on our countryside, a growing cancer so to speak, that will undoubtedly grow more as the economy improves. More good barns will son fall to the wrecker’s hands and we will undoubtedly lose forever a piece of our areas legacy.

      We can’t save everything and one thing for sure is change, it happens daily. Not sure what can be done or what should be done but an understanding and an admission we have a problem here is the first thing to do and discuss what can be done to correct it.  If nothing else, and you are the owner of one of these barns, allow someone to come and document in pictures the structure and its location , so that future generations will appreciate any existing structure that may be around in their times . Do this before you sell the barn to the reclaimer. There are some barn restoration groups that exist in Ohio and may take an interest in your barn. If nothing else they may be able to give you an idea of what your barn is actually worth in terms of a historical or replacement value.  

      Some of my best childhood memories happened in the barn. The time grandpa and I laid back on the hay as the rain pounded on the tin roof of the barn as he talked about the old days and building those barns. His voice trailing off as he would soon get groggy and was soon snoring away. Of course all farmers know what to do when it rains, and that is let it rain. It’s going to anyhow.

grow old to soon and smart to late

To Late We Learn

      I doubt that anyone that needs to see this will, but for the sake of others I will try. When I was younger and even when I was still a kid I have been always over using my body to get things accomplished. Some kids are lucky to never have that problem but still being from a farm we were always overusing our bodies. Not that I am afraid of work and still do what I can. It is that I was never taught the proper way to pick things up with knees bent. Instead I would just bend over at the waist and scoop things like feed bags, bales of hay, and whatever else came along that needed moved.

      I started working when I was young after riding a hay wagon and just enjoying things.  I wanted to be part of the family, and being the youngest of the boys , I couldn’t wait for my turn at working . Once they found out you could do something then it was your job for life it seemed whether you were capable of it or not. In fact my brothers would do all they could to point out the many positive aspects of doing a job so that they would never have to do it again.

     Some jobs were shared, like pitching manure with a pitch fork; I usually ended up with the pitchfork with the busted handle as I  was the shortest at the time. Other kids were allowed to go to summer camp and go swimming. We stayed at home and shoveled crap. There was always work to do, fence to fix, and cows to be fed and milked, all my life from age eight or so, I was firmly entrenched in farm work and chores that needed done.

     Really didn’t have a choice about doing the chores and never really questioned it as I was growing up , totally unaware of what it was doing to my body now. Recently I saw an article about where they wanted to change the rules about farming to keep kids that were my age then from even participating in farming. In some ways I feel this is good and bad at the same time. Sorry to be so ambivalent about the issue of child labor, but I do understand the effect it has on the body as we grow older. The experience of working was great though, as I was much further ahead of my peers when it came to understanding what it took to get a job done. No matter how formidable the task might be.

      Still as I am now 57 for a few more months, and I am now disabled due to problems with my back . I have to think that starting the heavy lifting so early in life when my body was developing and I lacked the knowledge of working smarter not harder, had something to do with my present condition today. Also if someone would have instructed me with how to lift a heavy object, how this would have been much better than seeing how much I could lift as when I played football.

       Regardless of how much I worked at home I was still involved in sports at school and was soon at the weight machine trying to push my body to the limit and beyond so I could look like a professional football player while still in my teens. This was the norm then as it is now. And yet not once in all my years of growing up did one person ever think of my back. Oh they knew who to yell for when they needed the engine block moved or needed you heft some immovable object into place so as to avoid injury by doing it themselves. It was always get the big guy. They didn’t want me for my smarts instead; it was for what I was capable of picking up. Yes, it landed me a bunch of jobs, where it was necessary to lift heavy things to get the work accomplished.

      Even when I went to work I was expendable if I failed to lift the heavy objects as they wanted me to. In the oilfield, it was necessary to lift up to a 100 ponds of iron at times to get the job done. Most of the time you were by yourself and in order to get home you needed to stow your equipment as no one else was going to do it for you. Yet again they never gave you any safety training to show you the proper way to lift a heavy object. Yet if you had a problem like a sore back or would file a workmen’s comp claim to cover the expenses of a medical visit, they would be sure to dump you at the first chance they had available.

     This was the way it was then and yet I don’t feel it is much different now. We spend money to send kids to school but unless things have changed I doubt that they teach basic job surviving skills we so badly need today in our next generations youth. Instead are teaching them all the same skills to get a job as a CEO somewhere when the vast majority in reality will end up doing some kind of a labor job requiring them to stand on their feet for hours on end, whether it is in sales or whatever. It would be nice to see kids all become presidents of a corporation but most are not capable of even filling out an application, let alone running a major corporation after leaving high school. So wouldn’t it make sense to focus on what is important to the youth to assure they live a long and happy life?

     Having a bad back is no picnic and neither is being on disability as it you are limited in what you can achieve. I haven’t given up and have no intention to do so. I have the flexibility to do a lot of things I wasn’t able to of before like concentrate on how to do things by myself. You adapt and plan how I am going to pick things up instead of just grabbing something and hefting it into the truck. I do work smarter and not harder, taking time to appreciate life and my circumstances of how I arrived here at this place in my life where I have to make amends for that bad back. One way of making amends is making people aware of what a lack of education does to a person. Would I have been different with an understanding of how what I do early in life affects me in the future? It is hard to say exactly how it would have been different if at all, except knowing that if I was given instructions and the possible side effects of what heavy lifting could do to my body , then I would not be writing this blog at all . I would have been told.

     Instead the coach who was pushing me to be my best and kill other high school students, as they put it, or the boss who wanted me to bend over at the waist and unload a semi full of  60 pound boxes of dynamite, or the other boss who wanted me to climb down in a pit and shovel clay over my head to make sure the machine operated properly. These guys needed to be made aware that what they were asking was eventually wearing me down. None of them has come around to offer to help me now that I am disabled. All of them lack an understanding of that how you perform a hard task with even something as simple as using a shovel could ultimately land me where I am today.

    Just once before I was injured would I have liked to have seen someone instruct me or tell me to wait to get some help before moving a heavy object. It didn’t happen and I am not quite sure whether it is being taught now, but I think we need to have an understanding of how something so simple can be avoided. Time isn’t all money and whether it takes two to lift something is not going to make or break a company as much as paying those high workmen’s comp premiums will, or how much income is lost by folks like me as I now am unable to work due to an injury caused by working in an unsafe manner without instruction.

      After I was injured I had more than enough instruction on what I was doing wrong, but by then it was too little too late. We need to be aware of this as we go through our lives , and when we see, or we encounter a situation , take time to step back and look at how much or how little moving that object will be of importance to you,  and if there is a different way of doing it. By all means when you see our youth out there struggling trying to impress us with their prowess as they sometimes do, remind them that mountains can be moved much easier when you take time to think how it should be done. But I am sure it isn’t going to be on one person’s back alone.

my tribute to hump day?

Hump Day in Pair- a-dice

     Suppose if you lived in paradise you really wouldn’t need a hump day. Or does everything being perfect diminish the importance of living in the essential Shangri la, or Garden of Eden of your dreams. Or is more importance is now set to your own imperfections. Was that a fart I detected?

      I am sure perfect is nice but will settle for what I have and be thankful that I have the ability to appreciate it. Besides I doubt I could ever live up to a perfect person’s expectation or care to. In fact slightly off kilter is ok with me. The trouble with living on a farm is that one day becomes another, things change but not as quickly as you do sometimes. So hump day is just another day to the farmers of the world. You walk outside your door and you are at work, no commuting. Cows and fields need tended seven days a week. Whether you do the work or not it is still there as nature never takes a break.  

     But then most people have never experienced my idea of paradise. Just yesterday while watching a local farmer who has much larger investment in machinery, run his new combine over rented fields. This thing is huge and requires a separate trailer to truck around the head, and will try and find a pic of his old combine, but it is nothing compared to this new one. Seems he trades in on newer and larger all the time. Anyhow it was neat watching this guy run around in the darkness combining soybeans undoubtedly supplied by Monsanto.

Managed to get some painting done on Indian 

     This is my idea of paradise sitting in that cab and going across the field. Air conditionings, stereo, imagine it even has Wi-Fi. You set up high in this cab with monitors always checking production and functions of the machine as acre after acre disappear into the throat of this giant. No time for hump day here. Would love to do it and at one time in my life gave consideration to joining the combine fleets as they make a swath across the Northern central  and Midwestern states  of the United States, moving from one small town to the next. Like Gypsy’s of the fields. Imagine what it would look like in Kansas watching the sun come up over a golden field of wheat rolling beneath you. That would be my paradise. Now paying for all that stuff can be somebody else’s dream , plus worrying about who is responsible if Monsanto’s new soybeans suddenly help you grow that extra toe you always wanted.

     Well real soon I will be out the door eager to get this hump day over with, so I can look forward to the next. Well not real eager plan on taking my time. In fact if I see a rose, I might just stop and see if the faded blossoms will leave a faint trace of yesterday.  

another day another carving

Another Day, Another Carving

     Well yesterday my main focus was on getting me a different heat source for the green house and really lucked out on that one. Neighbor over the hill had a wood stove that was actually an add on for a furnace. It is missing the blower and thermostat but could easily be adapted. This thing is huge but still fit on the bucket of the tractor and thinking ahead I made the doors so that in the worst case I could take a panel down and then be able to bring the tractor inside the greenhouse if I wanted to. Well I wanted to and now have the woodstove sitting up on blocks and today I should be test firing it to see how well it does. It is an air tight and any heat wasted off the side of the furnace still ends up in the green house. So this may work well, I hope.

     Being able to keep heat in the greenhouse ill allow me to start the seeds earlier. I originally wanted to have the heat in the form of a radiator with the pipes in the floor. This I may still do as I can adapt this heater to that purpose if I wanted to. Just having sufficient heating capacity may be all I need to get seeds to germinate in early February. From now till February though I still need heat in the greenhouse though and will go from there, as it gives me time to tweak the system or come up with a better one by then.

looks a little rough but should clean up nice 

       I plan on growing out custom vegetable orders for plants like tomatoes and green peppers, will have some of those plants available but not in quantities like I did last year. I will be letting everyone know on Facebook when I am ready to take orders for plants  and will have to get back to you on pricing . As some varieties are more than others. I will explain that more thoroughly in my blog. So if there is a particular variety you would like or something special in terms of perennial or flowers you would like to see, feel free to drop me a line at kdavis3051@yahoo.com to submit your request , and I will try and see if I can get it ready by Mother’s day 2014.

        In addition to the wood burner I also plan on finishing an Indian sculpture I did of an Indian in a derby. I have seen photos of an old Indian who used to wear a bowler hat I think it is , and was a source of inspiration to me ,  so will do some grinding and some painting on the Indian sculpture if I get the chance.