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kansasfarmer's blog

December 2007 - Posts

  • Merry Christmas!

    By the time I get up in the morning most of you will be close to eating your Christmas dinner.  My family did most of our celebrating on Christmas Eve day as my brother wanted to get his family back to Nebraska due to expected bad weather tomorrow.  We are having a white Christmas, indeed so far this December I have found global warming to be "bloody disappointing". 

    In spite of dire predictions by many that the church would cave in, my wife managed to get me to Christmas Eve service tonight, I even belted out hymns with a fair amount of enthusiasm.  The moon is full and bright, and the reflection off of the snow on this still Christmas eve would allow you to drive without lights if it were legal. 

    After church we returned home and watched "A Christmas Story" on TV, it is on a 24 hour marathon and is a must each Christmas.  If you can rent it in the UK I definitely would encourage you to watch it if you haven't ever seen it, it is about a boy in the 1950s who wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas and his trials and tribulations in getting it, it is a classic movie in my opinion, and says alot about our culture here.

    Merry Christmas to all of you, as Peter says, in a strange way we are all friends, well, it doesn't seem that strange to me, we share a common enthusiasm for the land and growing things.  Once again, Merry Christmas!!

  • Yet another bad weather forecast

    My predictions for bad weather(actually I just pass on what the forecast says) have generally been unfounded since getting on the forum.  Hopefully this will go the same way.  We are forecast to get one inch of ice starting tonight into tomorrow.  You can bet on losing the power if that happens, lost it for 5 and a half days last time, playing pioneer stopped being fun at the end of the first day.  I am going to cross my fingers and hope for the best.  I cannot figure out since the lines are carrying electricity why no one ever thought of putting some sort of deicing wire around the lines that would power up at the throw of a switch and heat the line like heat tape, I presume it is too costly an idea, but all the new poles and wire, plus triple time for linemen can't be cheap either.

  • Much to write about

    The last 10 days have been very eventful on my Kansas farm.  I have now replaced the items lost in my recent robbery, a distant neighbor was robbed as well, among the items stolen from him were 24 sacks of cow mineral.  The perps were caught in that case, and the Sheriff had been hopeful they had stolen from me as well.  If they did, they are not going to admit to it apparently.  Amazingly, the mineral was stolen from the thieves a day after they had stolen it themselves, so they claim.  It seems a far fetched story to me.  The Sheriff made them buy replacement mineral for the fellow they stole it from and also made them guarantee the check under penalty of jail if it doesn't clear.  There is now consideration being given to adding some volunteer police to the force,it seems the only way we are going to be able to get a handle on this crime wave.

    Our weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow is a wild one.  Freezing rain tonight, followed by 60F and thunderstorms tomorrow.  We need the moisture, but not in the form of freezing rain.  The last several days have been very windy and tomorrow looks to be quite windy as well, gusts up to 35mph. 

    I moved fall pairs onto the triticale and turnips this week.  At my home farm I have the grazing divided into 3 patches I will gradually rotate, I am hoping to get by for at least a month with 70 pairs grazing with little if any additional feed.  The bulls are now in with the fall calving cows.

     Sold cull hogs Wednesday, such a joke.  Heavy sows(above 500 pounds) at 26 cents a pound, lights at 19 cents and boars at 10 cents.  The hog market here is truly in the tank as we say, who knows when it will recover. 

    Got my property tax statements in the mail the Friday after Thanksgiving(one week ago) and was shocked to find the tax had doubled on my home farm.  There is a protest process I am going to go through, I have no idea how much good it will do. 

    Lived through the first 3 days of the 10 day rifle deer season.  The countryside is crawling with people carrying high powered rifles, I can only hope they are good shots, and know the difference between a deer and a cow(or a farmer). 

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