400

The crop insurance adjusters left a few minutes ago. I must be so much trouble they sent me two. They asked where there was an elevator they could test the moisture on the sample. They pulled it from the grain bin in the one field that may have a legitimate claim. I had put in a claim against the all risk revenue assurance policy on every field. One field’s yield missed by only ten bushels. Some of the rest were way over the guaranteed bushels. That’s alright though, like I said a couple of years ago during the rampant drouth of 2112, “Insurance is there for the total loss, good management should get you through the shallow loss.”  It turns out these weren’t even shallow losses. They were more like barely break evens. Not all fields but maybe a third?

The truth is I never put a claim in on any of it. My agent, bless her soul knew we were running short on time and filed the claims for me before the deadline. Then I took all winter screwing around not proving my yields. I had this gut feeling there was going to be much ado about nothing so the fire under my arse was never lit. Had I not needed the information to buy another round of protection I wouldn’t be done with it now. That deadline was March 15. Beware the Ides of March. Et tu?? I’m not totally done but there’s nothing they need from me but a John Hancock so the ball’s squarely back in their court. And we’re back in the ring for another swing. Also, I’m able to rock n roll on trucking it back out of the bin. Now that the market is up a little…….

Speaking of up a little, I received the calf check in the mail. You member, the six bull calves that self sorted? Well all I can say about the ka-ching is how do I not load up the rest and really ring that cash register. Hands down the best property on the farm. Not counting the farm that is. They sold a couple of farms in the vicinity for north of twelve thousand an acre recently. I guess fools still got money. Somebody does anyhow. You’d think this dirt was in California or something. I know it’s getting dry enough to think it is. …..1936 here we come? Got Insurance?

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Winter Thaws

I had mentioned earlier how it’s been a long hard winter. By hard I mean cold. Then warm. Then colder. We’ve had our normal run of thaws, and maybe an extra one. The December thaw saw a lot of folks around here get finished up picking corn before Christmas. The snow melted off the fields nicely and I’m sure everybody was finished by the new year. The January thaw rid us of snow again and even melted down the blown snow in the road ditches.

Everywhere the soybeans were grown last year had the snow blow off into the surrounding areas. The fact that we lay a cutter bar directly on the ground to harvest the beans means there’s no upright stalks left in those fields to catch the snow like there is in the cornfields. At least the cornfields that weren’t tilled. Those tilled fields and the bean fields where anhydrous ammonia was applied had dirt, not just snow blowing off them. Brown looking snow. Until the sun shines and rapidly melts the snow portion.

The February Thaw (and any thaws snuck in between) meant that a lot of the winter we went snow free. We had cold though. Enough cold to drive the frost really deep. Maybe even deeper than the soil moisture. During one thaw I saw water running down a hill to a cow path, then along the path to a drouth crack in the ground. Then down into the crack it disappeared not to be seen again anywhere. I guess that beats having any water run clean off into a stream bed unused. Waste not , want not they say.

The March thaw is over and we’re back down in the cooler again. That is we are below normal. Which in reality only means we are below what is the average high temperature for the given day of the year. I’m in the middle of chopping wood. Not chopping really since I saw the logs with my Husky chain saw. What I’m in the middle of doing is splitting wood with a set of splitting wedges that are driven into the logs by a sledgehammer to size them down to what fits into the wood stove. I came into the house to cool down and let the sweat dry off. Wood heat, it heats you twice. Not bad exercise either.

This winter for the first time ever we have had a couple Bald Eagles hanging out here on the farm. I think it’s because the streams are all froze up and I have an old dead cow carcase lying on the side-hill I never got buried nor composted before winter set in. Add to that a couple old hags that never made it through winter and we’ve fed the eagles pretty well. Not to mention the ‘yotes, coons, and Red Tail Hawks that have been hovering around all winter. An honest to God old fashioned sky burial. And land burial. Skyland burial. I hope they return the favor if the day ever comes. The food part not the burial part. (Not that it matters all that much at that point) Friends like that could come in handy if they ever feel compelled to even the score.

UK Reign

Rock

Paper

Schism

The rock is Precious. The paper is Fiat. The schism is Artificial. Yet the oldest game on earth.

That game is Geo-brinksmanship. Living on the razor’s edge. Move too slow and it settles in. Deep. Move too fast and your sliced in two. The Goldilocks gait. Just right. Just in time solutions. To just installed conditions. Just in case you were wondering. Justice seldom arrives in time. In our time. It’s been said vengeance is The Lord’s and He is beyond time. He is beyond space. He is beyond explanation. He just IS. It takes a load off knowing.

We’ve nothing really to do in the grand schemes so I suppose we’re free to be protesters for a day. Or two. Or few. Prepaid partisans. Till the snipers come out. Then is it really worth the twenty five bucks it pays per day? Fifty? Not even if smokes are ten bucks a pack. Five billion don’t buy the loyalty it once did. Especially behind the old Red Curtain. It spreads out kind of thin. A little like the oil.

I think the Chinese received a better deal. But then don’t they always. Spring is here if only barely now. There’s jobs out on the farms. Well, work anyway. Put down the placard and hop in the Packard. Head for the hills. Hard currency takes hard cargoes. China won’t take them all. Thank God! The country has bills to pay. Grain can spread the wealth. And health.

April showers bring mayflowers. Mayflowers full of pill grims. How many a day? Cloudy and cold. Seek professional help before attempting a dosage reduction. That boat sailed a long time ago. That boat has hit the doc. And run him clean over. Reeducation. A task on the farm perhaps. Livestock sector? Same drugs different mugs. Wash your hands before returning to work. Or better yet, take a shower. Ukulele.

All Time High

Sounds like a personal problem.

Familiarity has it’s advantages. My old blog, CoCreator’s Blog, was dashboarded here at WordPress. Cocreator’s New Blog is made 100% road ready as a unit here at WordPress. Free and turnkey on. I simply settled in and started typing like the old days. Ah the old days. These are those before we know it. The list of things to do becomes two lists. The list of things done and the list of things that may never get done. How did old Froadie used to say that before he called it a day? “Don’t do today what you can put off until tomorrow, ’cause if you die tonight you won’t have to do it tomorrow.” Then we’d go have a beer. Guilt free.

I thought of old Froad today as I was hauling six bull calves off to the sale barn. He got a much undeserved ass chewing and was run clean off the farm of a brother of mine as we were sorting cattle. Actually before those cattle were even in the catch pen. All he did was tell my brother to calm down after the herd had done an end run around Froad and me. I don’t know if he ever made it right with Froad, or if one ever really could but me an’ Froad became com-padres that day and I look forward to having a beer with him in heaven some day. Without the “boss”. Calves are at an all time high so I guess I’ll be buying.

The great thing was I have learned a thing or two since that time so long ago. These six calves I was marketing today were self sorters. That is they separated themselves from the herd. I had a heifer in heat and all the bulls were dogging her for a chance to mate. She was looking for anywhere to get away from them. When I opened the gate on the catch pen she was very easy to steer (no pun intended) into it. A trailer load of the bulls eagerly bulldozed their way into it right after. (Again no pun intended) When I offered her a quick trip round the pen and right back out the bulls were so busy fighting, jockeying for the best position behind her they never even noticed she was gone until this morning I think. I had quickly fed them some shelled corn and some supremo hay on the ground inside the catch pen. Also known as something else to fight over.

To add the cherries to the top of this whole sundae (or was it Thursday? Wednesday? Both?) I flipped a coin (figuratively speaking) as to where they would be sold. I have three major sale barns about an equidistant trip from my farm gate. All of them have their regular sale on a different day of the week. I had decided that the one I was going to was the one that had the soonest sale. Which I had thought was Saturday. That would give me a few days to try to “sort” some more. As it turned out when I came wheeling up to the sale barn it was surrounded by pickups with stock trailers and nearly full of calves to sell at one of their special feeder calf sales. When fortune’s on your side you kind of have to run with it. One load is enough if that’s the case. There were no more bulls “riding” when I got home from the sale barn anyway.

Did I mention feeder cattle are at an all time high?

The Deluge !

New post. Long time no post. No fence. Nothing but open range. Now two posts in one day, we must be nearing civilization. That can’t be good.

You’d think it would have been liberating. That open range. Free from obligations of continuity. Moving on as before with nothing dragging me back. At first maybe. Then came harvest. I found myself trying to keep track of the minutia of the corn and bean runs on a simple wall calendar. Effective even if primitive yet I found the reread not nearly as revealing as the old blog post were the two seasons I used that medium. No embellishments just the facts. Mam. Only thirty five spaces. If you don’t mind writing over the other stuff already printed there by the calender manufacturer. Three dimensional printing in it’s original usage.

I made it work. That is I never lost the calender. Yet. Next Monday the all risk crop insurance adjuster stops by and we’ll need that calender to prove yields. I wrote all the pertinent information down on that calender as to what number of loads went out on what days. Those facts can be cross referenced with weigh tickets and unload dates from the various elevators around that had room for the “record” harvest.

Eventually I came to the realization open range presents it’s own obligations of continuity. Captivated by it’s freedom and swept up into it’s possible perpetuity, too soon stockholmed into diligent guard against any horizon that dare draw near. Cursing the blinding light of dawn as the sun climbs up out of it’s grave. The very thing so recently prayed for to aid in the never ending watch. Oh fickle fleer of fright. Nightmares becoming mirages drawing you in. Though never nearing enough to quench this thirst in it’s deep dark pools . Until ……….

The deluge !

Thank you very much.

Psunonimusly Yours Indisguito

Cocreator Ten