Missed Out

We've been out of town for a spell, and after reading Betsy's blog about the sky opening up, it seems that we've missed out on some excitement in the area. Our rain gage had only 3" of water in it, but the post it's secured to is leaning over at a 45 degree angle.

I mentioned yesterday that a problem area of broken concrete and manure piles on the farm had been smoothed out for us, so last evening we drove over to our farming neighbors to thank them. The very first thing out of his mouth was "you can't leave the state anymore". We soon heard about the over 7 inches of rain that fell here, as well as some individual reports of nearly a foot not far north of us.

Water flooded low areas along Medicine Creek, and the heavy rain has washed quite a bit of freshly planted corn into a wasteland of muck silt mud. I asked about what benefits his farm got from the rain, and he said it saved 40 acres of wheat, but at the cost of 300 acres of corn.

One of his neighbors seems to have dumped a lot of trash into a canyon, and over 100 tires washed onto a field including personal trash. The last time we were out of town, the excitement was a terra handler sliding off a berm into the creek that got the attention of paramedics and tested the vehicle recovery skills of those involved for several days.

Fortunately, serious injury was avoided with the terra handler, and my neighbors farm didn't completely wash away.Hearing about the difficulties brought about by the recent round of heavy rain and tornado's in the area reminds me that missing out isn't all that bad sometimes.

Notes from the weed war zone...

We've completed the counter attack and have recovered lost ground. Now that we know our enemy will never surrender, we've decided to stay the course by attacking routinely with the light assault vehicle (riding mower), selective chemical attacks (Roundup and Weed-B-Gone), and yesterday we brought the personal attack unit (gas weed whacker) into the battle for the first time.

Even though logistics procured sufficient ammunition for the personal attack unit, the speed of expenditure is alarming and additional supplies are needed for long term operations to continue. One other vintage design weapon has volunteered for duty and has already seen limited action. The manual enemy attack device (hand scythe) has been on patrol around the barn and has chopped down a substantial number of enemy troops. This weapon is a pain in the back to be used effectively.

One Tripper

I've been noticing the farmers are sure busy around, but not real close to our place yet. Yesterday I did get to visit with my farming neighbor and learned just a little bit about one farming implement.

On the back of his tractor was a "one tripper". Now I don't know if that is what it is really called, but the machine looks really complicated from a distance. Hoses, disks, spiked prongs, what sorta looked like hand mower reels, and strange corrugated wheels made up this implement. It was hooked to the tractor via a hydraulic lift/ram system and the tractor was equipped with "saddle" tanks.

Once I got a chance to look at it a bit more closely, and found out what was in the tanks, it's pretty easy to see what it does...put fertilizer in the ground in preparation for seed planting. Now that may not seem like any astonishing revelation, but to this city slicker, it's the very first time that I've learned exactly what and why a farming implement does what it does and learned the advantange/disadvange of same.

Notes from the weed war zone... Weekly skirmishes are keeping the enemy at bay. The battlefield itself has proven to be a tough opponent though as rusty wire and metal scraps have been located in numerous locations intent on damaging the light assault vehicle's main weapon (riding lawnmower blades). Fortunately, damage has been minor and quickly repaired, and supply lines for more of these hidden dangers have been cut off.

Some Assembly Required

I mentioned a few days ago that we bought furniture, what I didn't mention was that some of it requires assembly. Our new kitchen table and 6 chairs came in 5 flat boxes that the furniture store offered to assemble for $50. Heck... we can save 50 bucks by doing the job ourselves, so we rejected the "costly" offer for assembly.

First off, the furniture store didn't deliver the top of the kitchen table due to an oversight, so we were in no hurry to start assembling the chairs. However, when we returned from a quick trip to Denver, the table top had been delivered to the barn so it was time to get busy.

The table top was HEAVY, in an awkward sized box, and about 50 yards from the house. Once we got the unruly box inside, we started unpacking it and another box to get to the instructions and hardware necessary to make the table useful. The instructions came on multiple sheets of paper printed on both sides explaining with drawings and verbage intended to make the assembly go smoothly with the proper sequence of events to accomplish the goal.

Oh yes, when starting this "little" project, it's good to be goal oriented. Interchangeable parts are great, the the furniture manufacturer makes a quality product in my opinion too, but there are a lot of parts and fittings that had to go into assembly of the set that will make most people attempting it wonder if the $50 charge isn't well worth the money. So far, the table and table base and 4 of the 6 chairs are assembled and glued. It took the better part of yesterday to accomplish, and I'm not done yet.

Today I'll put the last 2 chairs together and be done with it. I'll tuck the experience away in the back corner of my mind as reference for the next time I buy a product with "some assembly required".

Good Day, Bad Day

First the bad... We started painting the living room and kitchen ceilings in the house and it's not going quite according to plan. The problem it seems is the textured coating that was sprayed on sometime in the past.

As soon as we started this project, we knew we were going to have problems. Applying paint to the textured coating with a roller ended up "pulling" the coating off in spots. OK... so if we're careful and not go over the same place twice with the roller, the stuff seemed to stay put. Well, kinda at least. At completion of the first coat of paint, we had about a dozen small areas where the coating had come off.

We came up with an idea to use a sponge and drywall compound to provide a close match to the sprayed coating. We allowed this to dry overnight and then painted a second coat of paint. Well, this worked pretty good except that we ended up with another 1/2 dozen places where the coating actually fell off the ceiling about an hour after we'd finished painting. More work awaits.

The good... a regional furniture store advertised it's going out of business sale and we ordered new stuff that arrived today! I can't wait to sit down on our own furniture instead of camping chairs and other furniture that others didn't need or want anymore. As nice as it was to have the "hand me downs", they will get good future use in our basement family room.

Notes from the weed war zone... Our fragile peace continues. Our light attack vehicle (riding mower) has been up to the task of patrolling the area and knocking down the few stragglers that have not learned the zero tolerance policy in force around the farm(stead).

Heroes At The Gates

A news piece this morning about the second place finisher in the Kentucky Derby made me think of heros and bravery as the story told of a filly racing colts that came in second in the greatest race of her life, only to go down at the end of the race with broken bones and euthanized. I wondered how long the horse knew it was in trouble before it crossed the finish line, perhaps running on guts alone, and it got me thinking about heroes for some reason.

Then I got the following email to make my day...

The Cowboy At Heaven's Gates

A Texas cowboy appeared before St. Peter at the Pearly gates.

"Have you ever done anything of particular merit?' St Peter asked.

"Well, I can think of one thing,' the cowboy offered.

''Once, on a trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota, I came upon a gang
of bikers who were threatening a young woman. I directed them to leave
her alone, but they wouldn't listen. So, I approached the largest and most
heavily tattooed biker, smacked him in the face, kicked his bike over, ripped
out his nose ring, and threw it on the ground.' I yelled, 'Now back off!! Or I'll
kick the crap out of all of you!!'

St. Peter was impressed, 'When did this happen?''

''Just a couple of minutes ago...'

Proved It!

Shortly after I started writing this blog, I got a comment about Nebraskans that included a statement that went something like... It is best to keep quiet and be suspected a fool than to open mouth and prove it. That said, the above lost cat sign is NOT me showing my foolishness, I just like it and wanted to pass it along.