Field Dance

Most folks have at least heard of the Tennessee Waltz and The Charleston, but what about The Field Dance? I've observed the former on TV and in movies over the years, but I witnessed the later just the other day and it brings a whole new level of enjoyment to those uninformed watching it for the first time.

PETA Warning... The following describes graphic... aw you get the picture.

During my first ride on a tractor, my host suddenly stopped, threw open the door, leaped into action, and hit the ground running. At first I had no idea what was happening since I couldn't hear what he said on his way to his destination then I saw it...

My host had a dance date with a Kangaroo Rat.

The dance included the obviously skilled aim of the hat that intersected the rodents trajectory mid-air! The dance continued with a hoppin' and a stommpin' that would look good on any dance floor with the right music. Of course the dance ended for my host's partner in a rather final manner, but watching it sure was entertaining.

After the rat's demise, my host described the damage they cause and thus the reason for his dance date. He mentioned how he has been chasing the little buggers down for years, but it isn't as easy as it used to be. Maybe he could use lighter dancing shoes?

Virginity Lost

I lost some of my virginity yesterday... I got my first tractor ride! Even my wife had been on a tractor before, but somehow I always missed my chance for the thrill and excitement of climbing up on one of the vibrating machines of rubber and steel. I never was in the right place at the right time for a tractor ride before, and frankly I loved it!

OK, so maybe a tractor doesn't carry a lot of romantic appeal for most folks, but I know there was a country song written about a gal that thought her man's tractor was sexy. The green machine I was in didn't have air conditioning, but it had a cab around the operator so dust wasn't an issue. The hydraulic system that raised and lowered the disk used to level and "weed" was smooth and quiet from my perspective.

I suppose much of my enjoyment of the ride is the fact that I love machines. I appreciate power and traction when applied to off road situations, and found that there is no substitute for a ride to experience the effect of pulling substantial resistance with what seemed like no effort at all. For an off roader that understands traction a bit differently than many people, I was impressed!

I'd had a discussion with my neighbor about farming on part of our property hoping it would be a win/win situation for both of us. I get the benefit of not needing to mow and maintain an area of ground and he gets whatever benefit the crops he plants provide. He was by to start preparing some of the ground when I begged a ride, and for a brief period of time, I almost felt like a real farmer on my farm...

I may sound weird, but I'm still grinning.

Gazette Customer Service

I found it interesting that the McCook Gazette was at one time delivered by air. For us...I think I'd get better service if it did come air mail. I might at least get a paper.

OK, so I'm ranting, but sometimes that's the only way to wake somebody up. Today is the 8th day we have not received our McCook Gazette newspaper. For starters, we don't live on a road that the Gazette gets delivered, so the US Postal Service is the method we get our paper every day... that is until a week ago Friday.

For different reasons according to Gazette staff, our paper is not being delivered, and there is no estimated time of resolution. It will get fixed is all that is known.(?) First it was that the "tower" got hit by lightning, then the internet was down, and now we're waiting on labels from someplace in Missouri.

I wish the Gazette offered a clue as to when the problem will be corrected... next week, next month, next year? It's really not a big deal. If I knew, I would buy a paper in town when there instead of finding out that the paper won't be showing up again AFTER I get home.

Half Year

Today is the start of our 7th month on the farm, and our enjoyment of country living just keeps getting better...with a few minor exceptions. Our war against weeds continues and even if it is a never ending summer battle, we're pleased with our results so far.

Mosquitoes and ticks are on my list of exceptions. We have been working to keep ticks off us and Casey (our Golden Retriever) since the first rain of the year. and the mosquitoes have shown their hungry side the last few days as well.

We're pleased at how well our road handles the wet weather, though if it keeps raining everyday, my opinion could change. After the last 1/3 inch rain yesterday, a walk up the road found me sinking into the gravel a lot more than I expected, and we've got another 1/4 to 1/2 inch forecast for today.

I love watching the local TV news. The news is seldom gloom and doom with the worst of society making the 6PM newscast. Good news is the norm with many local interest features sprinkled in. I do find the use of eating interesting when it comes to the weather forecast. It's breakfast, dinner and supper not morning, noon, and night when predicting the weather on my favorite channel's broadcast.

Our neighbors are the greatest! Everyone around us has been helpful and welcoming and we're thrilled with our choice of places to live. We have not experienced power failures, though I know one occurred while we were out of town a few weeks back. The weather has been nicer than I expected, but I'm not getting as much done around the place as I thought, too much time spent enjoying the peace and quiet and not enough spent doin' the hard work.

I reviewed my list of new year resolutions recently and discovered I better get to work or I'll be working on part of part of the list next year too.

Migrant Farm Workers

Migrant - A person that moves from one country or location to another

We seem to get quite a few visitors to the farm(stead), and since my mother is visiting from Washington state, a cousin and his wife from Lincoln decided to come visit for a couple days. Mom hasn't been back to Nebraska much since we moved to Colorado way back when. I know she enjoying seeing the area, as well as visiting with relatives she doesn't often see.

OK, so I'm stretching here calling my family migrant farm workers, but it sure got a chuckle out of them when I called them that as I was snapping the picture. Between Mom, Don, Melissa, Travis and the two Marge's, painting the old chicken coops barn red went really fast.

Now I'm not too sure how I managed it, but I escaped swinging a paint brush on both coops! I did get involved by stirring paint, providing brushes and paint buckets, and a couple small buildings that badly needed a fresh coat of paint. Once the painters decided to start, I had to complete some "deferred maintenance" as I like to call repair projects now around the farm before the painters got to that side of the building, and I did the bucket and brush cleanup after work was done. All in all, it was an easy job as far as I was concerned!

So I just want to say thanks again to our migrant farm workers for helping accomplish some work that the farms owners were not all that crazy about doing in the first place. It would have gotten done without your help eventually, but likely not this year.

Notes from the weed war zone...

With drier weather, the enemy seems to be withering under the constant pressure of the light assault vehicles (riding mower) scheduled attacks. Manual and motorized personal attack devices (weed whacker and dandelion digger) have done an outstanding job holding back advancing troops as well. Chemical warfare munitions (Roundup) have been expended on attacking troops in the gravel drive with mixed results.

I fear the next rain will invigorate the enemy and bring on renewed attacks.

China

When I was a kid, I recall trying to dig my way to China. My first experience with digging a deep hole taught me the dirt keeps going and going and going...

This spring when I turned on the water to our yard water hydrants, one of them leaked, and when a hose was added to the hydrant, I quickly discovered that the riser pipe for the frost less hydrant had frozen and had split with the resulting fountain that shot out a good 10 feet. Now I like fountains as much as the next guy, just not here!

So off to Lord's in Indianola to procure a new hydrant for replacement. I quickly located the needed parts as I'd noticed them in the plumbing area the last time I was in that department. Now these things come in various lengths and the one we needed was 8 feet long. Thank goodness for fold down rear seats in the Fusion. One of Lord's staff held the door open for me and as I passed he excitedly says "OH...digging!".

OH... how right he was! I thought of my childhood as I followed the bad pipe down with my shovel. How deep is a 6 foot hole big enough to replace one of these broken devices? Maybe to some of you, it's not big at all, but hand digging that hole big enough for me to climb into safely made it seem like I should have arrived in China by the time it was done. The first digging just discovered that I needed a bigger hole. The hole expanded and still needed to be larger.

A back hoe would have made short work of this project, but I guess I prefer doing things the hard way. The weather was accommodating, and I put a treated post next to the hydrant to hold my rain gage and a hose hanger.

Danny Glover in the movie Lethal Weapon said several times "I'm too old for this S#!t", and sometimes I wonder about our ability too with the projects we're taking on around the place now and then. We'll just keep plodding along, but I sure hope I don't need to try and dig to China again anytime soon.

Great Neighbors & Trusting Business

We've got great neighbors. Yesterday one of them showed up with his tractor and the biggest box spreader I've seen and made short work of a fair sized pile of gravel we had yet to spread. Our original plan was to use a wheelbarrow and move the pile slowly but surely, but Mike offered to do the job when he got a chance, and yesterday was the day.

This isn't the first neighbor to come to our assistance without being asked either. Another farming neighbor was over and leveled some rough spots that required heavy equipment. To both of these fine folks, all I can say is thanks, and if there is anything I can ever do to help out, I'm available.

We also had a new experience with one of the local car dealers. I had been into Faw Motors here in Cambridge inquiring about trading in our Jeep for a used pickup several weeks ago. They didn't have what I wanted at that time, but I got a letter in the mail with information about a truck, so down to the store I went. It turned out that the pickup was in Arapahoe, but Matt said he'd get the truck in Cambridge in a day or two and give me a call.

To my surprise, the next day a guy shows up and drops the truck off and says "Go ahead and test it out. Bring it back when you're ready in a few days". Well, to shorten the story a bit, we test drove it, and returned it the next day. The truck was fine, I'm just going to try and do better by selling the Jeep to an enthusiast that understands the value of the modifications for extreme off road use.

Notes from the weed war zone...

Weather is playing an important role helping the enemy. Large amounts of precipitation and warm temperatures have helped spur enemy attacks. The battlefield continues to pose problems too. The mechanized assault vehicle (riding mower) has been damaged by previously hidden foreign objects.

Reserve troops have arrived, but are available for only a limited time. My mother seems to love to dig dandelions, but she will be returning to Washington state in a couple weeks.

Deer Roping

I received the following email and hope you enjoy it too...

Subject: Roping a Deer


Roping A Deer
(Names have been removed to protect the stupid!)

Actual Letter from someone who writes, and farms.
________________________________________________________

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it.

The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope.

The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it.

After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up -- 3 of them. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me.

I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation.

I took a step towards it...it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education.

The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.

That deer EXPLODED.

The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity.

A deer-- no chance.

That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined.

The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals.

A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope.

I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slowly and painfully somewhere.

At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that
moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual.
Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to have it suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like a squeeze chute.

I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope
back.

Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist.

Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head --almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.

The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective.

It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it
was likely only several seconds.

I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it.

While I kept it busy tearing the bejesus out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.

Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp.

I learned a long time ago that, when an animal -- like a horse --strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.

This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy.

I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run.

The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head.

Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.

Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are lying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.

I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away.

So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope so that they can be somewhat equal to the Prey.

Weather Radio

Now that we've moved to Nebraska and obtained a programmable weather radio, I wonder why anyone would not have one. The last couple days have been big weather makers, and I'm sure the little radios can be lifesavers.

My weather radio is fully programmable so I can add or delete counties that are under the gun weather wise. We live almost on the county line with two other counties, and have those counties programmed to alert us when storms are in those areas as well as our own county, but the storm activity in those counties reported has always been well away from our place, and the alerts for our home county have been spot on and timely.

Now I appreciate knowing where a storm is coming from, but between the number of thunderstorm, flood, and tornado watches and warnings, we seem to be alerted more than I anticipated, and I'm considering dropping the alerts for the two nearby counties and see if we get killed.

What do you do?

Green Grass, High Tides, And Flatness

We've been on a road trip the last couple weeks to pick pick up my mother and bring her to the farm for the first time. Mom is getting up there a bit in years, but she is a real trooper when it comes to travel. We put in some long days in the car and she hung in there better than I did I think.

As we pulled into the drive, the first thing I noticed was the yard was out of control. The green grass could only mean that we'd had rain while we were out of town, and attacking with the light assault vehicle (riding mower) was going to be a very high priority. Even though I had mowed very close before we left, two weeks away combined with over 3 inches of rain here made for some quick growing.

As soon as I got out of the car, I could see high tide ripples. High tide water marks are visible in the lawn in several locations where water had to be running fast. It's obvious too that the wind had been howling around as the door to a shed was blown off it's hinges, as well as some other obvious wind caused "changes" around the place.Other than needing a mowing, the place appears to have survived the severe weather in the area.

After opening up the house, I headed for the light assault vehicle and was greeted by the sight of a smoothed out field that when we left had numerous depressions and a couple large piles of dirt and broken concrete. My farming neighbor obviously was by and hauled off the broken concrete and leveled the area! What was a real problem area as far as I was concerned is now as nice and flat as can be. What a guy!

Notes from the weed war zone...

A treaty was forged with the enemy two weeks ago and a cease of hostilities went into effect. Unfortunately, the green devil's have broken the agreement, and the war is back on. Assault began, but only after clearing the battlefield of tree limbs blown down and probably strategically placed by the enemy.

During the cease fire, I believe the enemy sabotaged the light assault vehicle as the battery was dead, and even after jump starting, the battery will not hold a charge. The assault to recover lost ground has started, but is not complete.