And Then There Were 8

This is Boston Arthur. He is the latest Morrow born to our youngest this past week.

Mom is tired and beautiful, Dad is beaming and both are proud and should be. 

Boston will join Hudson and Cooper at home.

8#7oz   January 20th, 2011

 This is a picture of Boston holding hands with Grandpa.

Grandma and Grandpa are BREATHLESS once again.

Communication May Be Overrated

Last October during our soybean harvest, I ventured to town with my tractor-trailer with a load destined for our local elevator. It was windy, cold, and overcast and of all the things to worry about, flies or mosquitoes were down the list quite a ways.
But as I pulled to the back of the line, I could see a group of farmers swatting. They were swatting first their chests, then the sides of their vests, then their jeans in the front and then their jeans on the backside. If just one of them had been doing it I might have thought of the term the old timers used and called them teched (as in, he was teched in the head, meaning a bit unstable mentally) (I think they meant "touched").
What were these folks doing? It looked much like a training exercise for future major league third base coaches. ("Okay men, the steal sign will be 5 touches to the body, but only after I've first touched my hat.")
What could these folks be doing? I got out of the truck to investigate but on my arrival to the party, everything seemed normal. After a few minutes talking about the local farmers who had made some "public" mistakes during harvest - like who hit a tree with their unloading auger or how that truck on the county road had landed on its side while turning into the field or who had pulled the unload switch on the combine when they meant to hit the "auger swing out" switch instead and left 50 bushels of beans strung in a line, right by the side of the busiest blacktop in the county.
Well they weren't talking about me this time so I was feeling pretty smug when the swatting mystery was solved right before my eyes.
One person's cell phone rang and everyone started swatting at their bodies in search of their own phone. It looked like a group of TSA airport agents in training. It is indeed a problem for farmers because where their phone is, depends on how they are dressed and what job they've been doing. If they have on vests or sweaters or jackets or coveralls, the phone could be anywhere. And believe me, it could be hard to get to. No one recognizes their own phone when it rings because we all learned a long time ago that we can have a different ring for each person who calls us and so there could be someone whistling or my wife is calling. A band is playing a jazzy little tune on the radio or my buddy from Colorado is calling. A doorbell is ringing in this tractor cab or one of my sons from Lincoln is calling.
I've even been known to be driving down the road in my pickup while moving my hand around the dash trying to stop that incessant buzzing noise emanating from deep inside my gauge cluster, only to realize my phone is set on vibrate and is sitting in plain sight on my dash, and that my wife is calling wondering why I won't ever answer my phone. The short answer is that I couldn't hear it ringing. Because, well, technically it wasn't ringing.
Most meetings I go to have attendees seated at tables spread with note pads, calendars and their cell phones. If just one of those cell phones rings because it hadn't been put on the silent setting, everyone else picks up their own phone. It gives the appearance that they are doing the only polite thing and checking to make sure their own phone won't ring. In reality they've picked up their phone to check for text messages. I can only imagine how disconcerting it is to try to speak to a group preoccupied with their phones.
Old guys who have lost some of their hearing are particularly vulnerable to cell phone problems. More than once I've had someone interrupt a conversation we were having by saying, "Is that you." I answer, "You mean, am I me?" "I sure am." Next they ask, "Is that your phone that's ringing." I start swatting myself.
I'm not sure we're making upward progress in this technology arena, but at least we're busy. Give me a call sometime. I may answer but only after a quick pat search.

Changing Out an Insurance Company

I've had my boat insurance with Progressive, but had recently heard some very disturbing news about it's CEO and his philantropy's.
I looked up his bio and found that what I had read is true and have decided that the ACLU and George Soros do not need my help bringing this country to an end. They're both succeeding in that endeavor with out my money.
He'll need to look elsewhere for my couple of hundred dollars.
It was as much fun as I could have had without laughing.
...Okay, I did laugh.

New Year: New Rules

This might be my last column here. I just got an email from someone in Egypt, Ahcmed, who will send me $2 million and all I have to do is keep it and write a check back to him for half of it when he gets to the United States. If I'm a millionaire in the making I won't need to mess with this writing thing. Oh yeah, plus I also need to buy a ticket for him to get here but that's nothing for a rich guy like me. I'll not go into the awful thing that happened to his camel herd.
In case this doesn't work out, I've decided that I need to tidy up my act for 2011 with a form of resolutions list for this farmer.
When I was a kid, we got to stay up until midnight on New Years Eve. We looked forward to it. Nothing could be better. Then as a young adult, I did stay up until the clock struck 12. As I began to age I couldn't stay awake that long. As time progressed, midnight seemed quite the insurmountable objective. Perhaps a useless goal. Now, midnight is about the time we begin thinking about getting up. As nearly as I can tell, in a few years, a celebration beginning at midnight will be easy once again. Only then we'll be frying eggs and bacon for the party.
Now for some things that need changing…
I'll try to never ever again buy a bin floor, attachment or assembly of any kind that uses the words "sometimes it might be necessary," "some field cutting will be required," or my favorite, "If for any reason you have trouble with this product do not return it to the store where you purchased it." They always fail to add the words "You're on your own, baby." They instead want you to deal with their factory, which just happens to be in China.
I will no longer purchase products with instructions that will require approximately two days of leaning against my pickup and staring at papers trying to figure out where slot B and hole hh are and what country the dude was from who wrote these words.
I resolve to not be surprised by the first snow fall. After 60 years on this earth you'd think I would learn that it snows in the winter around these parts, so get ready for it.
I also resolve to never again try to run a heavy duty five-gallon can of gasoline through my snow blower. Let's just say I was lucky.
I resolve to quit reading labels on products like shampoo and body lotion. I've found that volumizing shampoo doesn't (I suppose there's little to be done with just a few strands of hair.) and why use a body lotion that promises to "relax my skin." Isn't that the problem to start with? We need skin that's at least just a little tense. Mine's kicked back in a "skin recliner" mode.
I resolve to find a machinery dealer whose shop manager hasn't looked up the credit balance left on my Farm Plan account and then tried to find enough work on my combine to somehow use it all up.
I hereby resolve to not pay $500 for a bag of seed corn. At least not yet.
I will fight the urge to put a $30,000 automatic steering system on my $15,000 tractor. But I could use the sleep. I'm worried though about the Missouri River that is at the end of one of my fields and not waking up to turn the rig around in time.
A Happy New Year to one and all. May your next year always be better than the last. And lastly, I think it best to align yourself with the man who said he had resolved many years ago never to make New Years Resolutions. He said that so far, that was the one resolution he'd been able to keep.

Contrast

The word "contrast" is defined as "the degree to which light and dark areas of an image differ in brightness." It can also be explained as "to set in opposition in order to show or emphasize differences."
Contrast is why some of us farm and enjoy rural America so very much. We indeed have mundane jobs at times, even in farming. Just like a factory or desk job, running a tillage machine or a combine for the third week in a row begins to wear on the nerves.
But without a doubt, there is hope. We eventually finish what we've been doing and go on to the next job. Book work leads to taxes which lead to the planting season, certainly a nice contrast which leads to tending crops and on and on. It is the contrast that makes it all worthwhile.
Maybe it's the "grass is always greener" aspect of human nature, but it always seems that what we're about to do is much more interesting than what we're doing right now. The weather is going to be better next season. We love spring but it leads to summer which makes us yearn for fall and then here we are on the edge of winter and we've already begun to dream of getting the planter out of the shed.
It's all of this anticipation that makes life exciting but it can also ruin your very existence. We get so tied up with looking ahead that we fail to see the blessings we should be thankful for every day. We plan to get involved in Christmas programs, parties, shopping and when the time comes we say "Okay, we sing at 10 a.m., but we can't hang around after the program because we have to load up and get over to Sarah's for dinner "but Dear, you'll need to leave Sarah's early to drive little Bobbie over to the neighbors." … and so it goes.
I read this week that we need to be careful of everyone's feelings because each of us is carrying an unseen burden. The part about all of us having burdens is for sure true and with that in mind I decided to try an experiment a few days ago. I was walking through a crowded store in a neighboring town and being in a holiday mood I decided to watch folks carefully and see if I could get a smile out of them.
With the exception of one woman with three young children in tow, no one looked at me. She smiled but almost everyone I looked at just stared at the aisle ahead of them, or the floor or for the most part their husband or wife who were walking along side. They almost all had a look of disdain on their face. I didn't find many happy people except for the workers in the store who were being paid to smile. It was part of their job.
What have we come to? These folks need some contrast in their lives.
I think it's a benefit of age that we eventually figure out that money or what we have has nothing at all to do with being happy. We get around finally to learning how to be happy with what we have and who we are and what we can help others become.
For your contrast this season try taking a deep breath, think of your family and friends and think of them as the gifts to you that they are. Handle all with love. Keep your finances and emotions in check, slow the pace down and decide to be happy.
Getting back to that store. They were decorated all the way to the ceiling fans in red and green and trees and toys but yet the word Christmas was missing. Not to be found anywhere. How is it you can try to make a significant portion of your yearly income by selling Christmas presents, yet you're afraid to use the word Christmas. I think they're afraid of the contrast. That being the dark world lit up so brightly by a star over a small city a couple of thousand years ago.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL!

2 7 3 - J 1 2

That was our phone number when I was a kid here on the farm. The phone at that time was a black wall mount with a receiver and a button on the side and nothing else. The last of the hand crank phones were being phased out of service on the farms and the new technology was upon us.
The button on our phone was so you could pick up the receiver and listen to see if anyone else was using the phone. It was a party line so if the line wasn’t busy, you could simply push the button and you’d get a lady who sounded as if she had a clothespin on her nose saying “Operator” and then you’d simply say the number you wanted. “273-J12 please.” The neighbors couldn’t hear you ‘pick up’ so you didn’t disturb them if you listened for a moment and then hung up and waited for a while. No one I ever talked to had ever listened in on the neighbors phone calls, that was a no-no in those days, but on the other hand everyone was also convinced that the neighbors were involved in some kind of covert action and listening to every word.
We couldn’t use the phone on Monday mornings. That was when the neighbor lady called everyone in the township for news for the newspaper. She was paid by the word so we had some trouble getting the line. When she called here, Mom had news for her. Dad never, ever, had any news for her. He didn’t like seeing his name in the paper. “Nope, we haven’t had any company, bye,” and click the conversation was over. When Mom had to be gone on news day, she would return and immediately ask if we had talked to anyone on the phone. She was fearful that we might have spilled the beans about someone coming to visit as a ‘Saturday evening dinner guest’ when it was not their turn to be here. She didn’t want to offend any of her friends. She would say “Oh no, you didn’t tell her that did you?” to which we replied, “Mom, I told her we didn’t have any news but she asked about last Saturday night, she said she had seen Blanche and Harold’s car go right by her house on the way down to ours.”
The J 1 2 on the end of our number, was meant to inform the operator that it was the J side of the line and she should ring us by one long and two shorts or RING-ding-ding. One neighbor was J 1 which was one ring and the other neighbors were J 2, or two quick dings. There was an R side to the line but we didn’t hear them ring. But we were all trying to use just the one line.
My sister was an operator and so we didn’t get by with many shenanigans. If we called too late in the evening to give her a number, she would ask “Are Mom and Dad gone?” and then she’d say “you should be in bed.”
The operator was the original 911 call center in our town. We had a flashing red light mounted on the lumber yard on the east side of main street in the middle of town where a bank is now located, and if someone needed the police the telephone operator would turn the light on and when the constable finally saw the light he would drive to the pay phone by the Octagon Restaurant and use the town’s only pay phone to call the operator to find out where the emergency was.
I remember another time when a severe thunderstorm marched through town on the evening of the 4th of July and everyone called the operator to see if the fireworks had been rained out.
They had been.
Long distant call start and stop times were written down by the operator. Believe it or not, we would call ‘person to person’ meaning if the party you wanted to talk to wasn’t at the location you were calling; then you didn’t have to pay for the call. Those calls however, if connected, were charged at a higher rate than station to station.
As circuitry capabilities advanced, they eventually ruined all of the communication technology by going with some new fangled rotary dial phones that effectively put the operators out of business. It was pretty neat stuff though, once we got used to it, no more operators telling us when it was time to go to bed or that we might get in trouble if we called her that late again.
To top it all off, along with the new phones, the phone companies had the nerve to require all of us to get a new phone number with, (wait for it) another number added. That meant everyone now had to learn a 7 digit phone number. Then of concern was how big the phone books might get with all of these new numbers, after all, ours was already as big as a church bulletin with 20 pages. These were all big changes but we were assured that the new number, even though incredibly long, would probably be the last number we would ever need to learn.

What If?

A few Sundays ago we were in Church.  We, meaning Marilyn and I and our daughter Juli and her two kids were there too. Juli plays the piano and organ for our church and did, that day.  After services we planned to go home, eat lunch and travel to Blair to watch Colton play the first of a few of the play off games his team participated in.
We had been in the house a few minutes and a neighbor called to say Juli had rolled her pickup and had been thrown out as it rolled over.  We don't really know how many times it rolled but think it was two complete rolls. It landed on it's wheels and she was found walking in a daze in the cornfield by her truck.  It was a Ford F-250, the doors still shut and top crushed down to the top of the seats. She was walking around the corn field looking for her kids but she didn't realize one was at the farm where we were and she had just dropped Colton off at the neighbors house so he could get to the game early for warm ups.
We got there as fast as we could and the EMT's and the squad arrived shortly after we did. They transported her and she was eventually released after a  c t scan.  A concussion was the result and some pretty sore core muscles. She still has a hand that bothers her when she plays the piano for the school system but she thinks time might eventually cure that. (soft tissue and tendon tear)
The culprit in the accident was the left rear wheel. It came off while she was still on the gravel road and it pulled her into the ditch. I guess the What If factor is what has gotten to us. What if she hadn't survived...which looking closely at the truck, it's easy to say she shouldn't have. What if she had been belted in? In that case she certainly wouldn't have survived. Also, how did she get out?
It would have ended life as we know it and that's for certain. I don't know how we could have carried on... or even why.
But the good news is that we don't believe in luck.  She's with us still, obviously for a purpose. We had a good Thanksgiving and now you know why.
The truck was here on the farm for a while. People who saw it were stunned, very quiet, and then found Juli to give her a hug. But none of them have been as big as the hug  God gave her that day.

How Long Does It Take You To Harvest?

That question pops up from time to time. Of course farmers wouldn't ask that. We know the question is akin to asking how much rain do you usually get or how big are the fish you catch. Harvest depends on stuff like weather and the amount of bushels you have to harvest.

Now, at the end of 2010, I have the answer.  We finished in record time on October 22. Exactly 3 weeks and 2 days after we started. We didn't have a day off because of the weather. That's a first at least on this farm as far as memory serves the harvest crew I work with. And my harvest crew consists of two brothers, Ed and Francis, who go back as far as the family has been on this farm (1948) and I go back to 1950, the year I was born. 

I've mentioned I use this blog sometimes for my own reference or diary if you will and so I wanted to remember a few things.

1. A wetter than normal planting season and we didn't get everything planted because of the Missouri River.

2. A REALLY wet summer that included 17 inches of rain in June, July, and August. It was the second year in a row that we never even started one of our 6 irrigation wells.

3. The fall weather was so great it was almost unbelievable. No rain, cool bright days, chilly nights, not much wind. Deep breaths of the morning air has been almost intoxicating to this farmer. I loved it.

4. The yields where there was a little altitude, were good but the low spots were zero. We had whole farm averages of corn go from 227/A on corn down to 33/A on another farm where the drainage was poor and down to zero where it never even got planted. (good thing too as it was still under River water at harvest time.

5. It's now November 16th, our field work is completely done and the equipment has been bathed and put away. I have mounted the snow blower on one of the tractors and now will begin work on certain pieces of equipment for next season. I'm waiting for bad weather but hoping we won't get snow this winter. Yeah, right.

For this farmer this year has been historic in many ways. Some cell phone pictures follow.

The biggest event of the year was the miraculous survival of our daughter during her pickup crash. I'll cover that on the next post.

Loading a bin, using our old truck for a gravity box.

Brother Fran bringing in a load of soybeans he got from the combine. This picture is squished up and I don't know why. 

I was loading a bin with the fan running on the bin. We got into a 'white cob' vairety and this was the resulting chaff blowing out of the bin. This usually happens but it's easier to see white.

I opened the combine door one afternoon while I was waiting for the grain cart to come back so as to enjoy the view, and that more of that great fall air.

Tuesday November 2nd

I predict this will be a GREAT day.

Cap Waving and Other Signals

"What happened to you?" I asked my brother, "You look like you've been Ultimate Fighting and took a kick to the side of the head." "It's quite a story," he replied, and so he began.
I've mentioned here that the Missouri River in these parts has been running bank full most of the summer. The brother in question lives on the banks of said river from the time his spray plane hits the air in the spring until he finishes running my combine in the fall, and then they high tail it for the Gulf Coast.
After heavy rains upstream, there will be assorted pieces of trees floating past their river cabin. A few weeks ago one such event washed a large cottonwood tree, top first, part way up his boat ramp. A gentle push from his little acreage tractor would be all that was needed to break the tree loose from its mooring.
Yes, his tractor is small, but it does have a loader, a rollover protection top and front wheel assist. Fearing nothing, he guided the tractor down the ramp to the point where he met the top of the tree and began to push. His front wheels came off the ground a bit but he didn't want to stop since the operation was working so well. As the tree set sail, his front wheels settled into what he thought would be about 2 inches of mud on the ramp.
The only problem was the shallow mud wasn't shallow. It came all the way up to the frame of the tractor. And there he sat, up to the motor in mud on the banks of the Muddy Mo. The mud was so deep that he couldn't even use the loader bucket to ratchet himself out.
Right here is the point when any farmer who has been paying attention will avoid going to the house to ask for help. Why, you ask? Because if you get another man to help you, he'll be willing to forget whatever stupid statement you might come up with while pulling the tractor out of the mud. Women on the other hand realize that there will be a "transfer of blame" just because they participated. It will become their fault that you got your tractor stuck. This makes it so the man must ask nicely when he's so mad at himself, he could chew nails.
"Honey, do you have a second to come help me? Please?"
Which in turn will bring a response which refers to the last time she helped pull you out of the mud some eight years ago and that sounds like this, "Is it something you think I can do right this time?"
And so it went. He got his nice 4-wheel-drive F-150 backed down the ramp, hooked a chain from drawbar to drawbar and then gave very explicit instructions. "Get in the truck, tighten the chain, and after I get on the tractor and am ready to go, I'll wave my cap and that will be your signal to go."
He again waded through the mud, started the motor, pushed the clutch in, found reverse and waved his cap with his right hand. It was right then that he noticed the approximately two dozen paper wasps that he had dislodged with his waving cap. They had a nest up under his sunshade. He now began waving his hat with a vengeance in an attempt to kill the wasps that had already landed a couple of punches (stings) to the side of his head.
Meanwhile in the truck, his better half has made the decision that crazy hat waving can only mean one thing: go faster. And so she did. The more he waved the hat in what she thought was his disgust with her slow pace, the faster she went. After the stings began, he quickly decided that his cap waving now needed to mean, STOP! I WANT TO GET OFF THIS TRACTOR!
He told me later that he thought about bailing off of the tractor, but he didn't think he could have survived it. He'd never gone that fast on a tractor before, especially in reverse.
Thinking back, he said, this was at least as exciting as the time the cam shaft broke on his spray plane and the propeller quit turning.
Doing some research I've found that paper wasps aren't considered "aggressive" unless you do something to aggravate them, like for instance waving your cap at them.
I guess in that respect, they're similar to women.