New Life Sprang all Weak-like.

Sunday was a day of burning all the skin off my back while spider harrowing the two corn fields. I going to not give you a picture of a spider harrow in this space just so you can imagine it. Skittering across the field on it’s hairy legs, eyes aglow.
Memorial day was supposed to be a repeat of Sunday excepting that I was to be planting the corn while burning my skin. By two I had one field done. By two thirty I had broken the planter. I broke her hard. When the machine is lowered to the ground, the two wheels engage a series of chains not unlike on a bike. The gears engaged feed the soil it’s breakfast of seed from each of the four planter boxes. A single hydraulic control picks the marker arms: (really, they’re wings. planters like to fly to Florida in the off season.) left right left right left. Simple simple simple.
I didna see the zerks on the clutch (mechanical device that sit on the wheel driven shaft to engage and disengage the planting action) assembly in my preplanting greasing. [As they tell it, the squeaky wheel gets all that cool delicious lubricating oil. They’re wrong. the squeaky wheel gets ignored and explodes. I’ve seen it happen. Take notice you whiners.] The clutch assembly on John Deere planters is hands down the most difficult part to replace.
John Deere engineers planter clutch assembly - F
John Deere engineers front loader removal - A+
Day one. Locate a replacement clutch. Loosen all chains, gears, clutches, sprockets and bearing collars from the shaft. Cut off unyielding bearing with torch. Call it a day.

I have never been a motivated individual. I’ve only ever daydreamed about having my priorities set straight. But here, things need done. Corn needs planted by a certain date (yesterday, actually). Hay needs started by a certain date (soon). Cows need to not run out of food. I have found some priorities now only because, unlike ever before, there exist things which I simply can not fail to do.
When asked what farming is like, I usually tell people it’s confining. Probably not unlike having a child.

Witches In Nature's Colors.

Them were some vicious storms that night. Rain sideways. Lightening so often you could almost take a picture of it. Jesus was born dead the same night God mistook our Quonset hut for an accordion.

before

afters

Mr. Mike Sends Warning.

Cow abductions are a serious problem. Like genital herpes.

Her name was Jesus.

It’s been a strange couple of days. Let’s all recover by singing a little Christian campfire song. It goes.

Father Abraham, had many sons;
and many sons, had Father Abraham.

Cows walking on slick, wet, manure coated concrete have a tendency to slip and bruise and strain their appendages. So when a particular young calf came up with a limp, I paid her no mind. At first. But then I saw she didn’t just have a swollen knee, she had A GIANT OPEN WOUND on the back of her leg. And, naturally, the chances of a GIANT OPEN WOUND becoming infected are gently increased when you soak it in a poultice of stagnant urine and poop.
The vet advised drugs. Who am I kidding, the vet always advises drugs. But, seeing as this one was gonna die without, I might as well. She learned me good. Now I know that giving a calf a shot is the absolute worst job on the farm. *shudder* I didn’t really believe she’d make it, so I named her Father Abraham, as a sort of good luck charm every time you’d say her name.

Fast forward three months to last Thursday. When I look back at the pastures I can see a calf off by itself, away from the herd. Sometimes they get stuck on the wrong side of the fence. It happens. Evening rolls around and I rouse myself to move the calves to the next paddock before the rains come. When I get back to the field I see the separate calf sprawled on the ground with what looks from a distance suspiciously like a calf dangling from her rear. But that’s unpossible! All my boys, uh, aren’t boys anymore. All my girls only live for their first three to five months near anything with working testicles. Which makes them a mite on the small side. So I decide that can’t be it.
But, it is. It is in fact Father Abraham lying on the ground with her fully developed and newly dead daughter stuck halfway out. But. But. But. Try as I might, I can’t argue reality with the facts. The facts clearly lose. I do the math. Nine months gestation. Father is about a year and a month old. Holy crap!

Rusty and my Aunt help me to pull the baby. And try to keep Father Abraham from falling into the creek. We fail at the creek bit. After 45 minutes trying to get her out of the creek, I give up and hope she doesn’t drown. Yesterday morning she’s up and out, but she’s suffered some nerve damage. And rightly so, for things that large simply cannot come out of things that small without breaking, well, something. So once again, Father Abraham is separate from the herd and starting a regime of shots. She’s putting into action her plan to take over Dingo’s mantle as the most unkillable animal on the farm. She’s still got a ways to go, but she appears fully up to the task.

Use the word Jesus (n.) in a sentence:
I got nettles dragging dead baby Jesus back into the woods.

See You Next Fall.

Had a nice trip. Minneapolis is still there. I needed to get away from the farm. Not because it’s been too tough. But because I forget.
And because starting sometime in the very near future comes the time of year in which the farm and I become a bit too intimate. If farms had fathers, Wotokahan’s would not be happy with the things we do to each other.
End of May, start of June. Most farmers have had their corn planted for weeks. And sprayed with chemicals so they don’t have to drive tractors over their fields to keep the weeds manageable. On Wotokahan we plant our corn late. Sometimes very very late. We don’t need to keep up with the Farmer Joneses. Our corn doesn’t produce any corn. Just stalk. For the last month I’ve been plowing and discing the to-be-corn fields. Right before I plant I need to harrow them. Then plant them. And then rotary hoe them. Again. And then cultivate them. Again. Again.
Oh, and also during this same exact stretch of time, I will be doing the first (heaviest) cutting of hay. You remember, mow, ted, ted, rake, bale. On the other eight fields that aren’t corn.
Have fun in Cali.

I took my camera on my little trip. But I never even took it out of my bag. Ever since Up With People, I’ve had this incurable distaste for taking pictures with other people watching me. Partly it’s the feeling like a tourist that rubs me wrong. …I joined Carla and Ian on their Hefty shoot. And it was only twelve-ish people in a rather large and airy rooms, but I was uncomfortable with having to deal at all with that many people. “I don’t like people.” I used to say that all the time, growing up on the farm. You may be more anonymous in a larger city environment, but, shit, the people are still there. Sitting on a tractor has been described as lonely. But it’s also just away from people.

New links on the sidebar. Todd. 1001. 1001. 1001.

WTF Volume One.

Wotokahan Things Found. Wherein I find something on the farm and post a picture of it. You, guess as to what it could possibly be/do.

the WTF in question here are the red bits

Pretend Hipster.

Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago. When people with blogs go away to other places they seem to often advise (warn?) their readers that upon their return, pictures will forth come. There will be no pictures posted here to show you what a swell time was had by me. You are welcome.

In the while, buy this shirt. <via>

Poppa's Got A Brand New Rake.

The last old one looks like this. It has three notable failures. It’s missing most of its wheels. It rakes one row at a time. It’s older than Dingo.
The one that today became the most recent old one look like this. Minus the drowning in, sea of grass. It has two notable failures. The design was based upon the best designed V rakes of the day. Which means it was mortally flawed by having the swinging hinge in the center of the row of wheels. The other failure of this rake is me. I’m not weld-ability enough to keep it from falling to pieces. It will break. I canna fix it.
Aaaaand, this is my [dad’s] spiffy! shiny! much gooderly designed (four wheel)! hydraulically controlled! fully adjustable! factory built! Hesston 8 wheel V rake!! The guy who showed me how to operate it tells me that it will teach me how to rake if I let it. I’m looking forward to that machine-man conversation. Shaping up to be a good one. It too has a notable failure. It cost a friggin’ boatload of cash. Sixty-two hundred. It's just eight spinner wheels on bearings on spring controlled arms, four on a side hinged at the rear expandable under hydraulic control mounted on a frame. With a hitch. That better be one crazy amazing hitch, bub.

What Is A Rake? a tutorial.
Hay is grass. It grows in my fields. I hook my tractor up to a mower (flail, scythe, cutditioner, whathaveyou). Mow 9’ swaths all across the field. The top of the hay dries. I flip the hay over with a tedder. The top of the hay dries. Repeat till it’s all dry. I rake the hay with a rake. Pull it from scattered all over the field into windrows. Over these windrows I will drive the baler.

This Is Gross, Don't Look.

There was once a parable that my mother cross-stitched and hung on our walls for years. It went like this.

IF YOU ARE UNHAPPY

Once upon a time, there was a non-conforming sparrow that decided not to fly south for the winter.
However, soon the weather turned so cold that he reluctantly started to fly south. In a short time, ice began to form on his wings and he fell to earth in a barnyard, almost frozen. A cow passed by and crapped on the little sparrow. The sparrow thought it was the end, but the manure warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy, able to breathe, he started to sing. Just then a cat came by, and hearing the chirping, investigated the sounds.
The cat cleared away the manure, found the chirping bird, and promptly ate him.

The moral of the story:
1. Everyone who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy.
2. Everyone who gets you out of the shit is not necessarily your friend.
3. And, if you're warm and happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut.

If you thought, “birds aren’t dumb enough to be made parabally example of,” you have funny trains in your thoughts. And you are wrong. I was walking through the barn and saw a feathery grey bundle where the wasn’t one before.
I looked closer and saw that a bird had gotten its bird-brain filled head neatly fitted into the space between some old loose siding and some cabling. And there it would stay. Something with funny eating habits denuded the head of its feathers. But by then the bird shouldn’t have minded too much. Some things are just literally too stupid to live.

Well Written.

I’ve seen one good movie (hard candy) SIBH. I’ve seen one good show (the loyal divide) SIBH. I’ve seen no good theater SIBH. I have, however, read a few good books SIBH. I’d tell you about them, but instead did this:

I made a book list a couple of years ago at the askance of a couple of friends. I do not consider myself well read. I consider JowLew well read. And maybe the Belligerent Intellectual. Kent is on his way towards well read. I’m more pink in the middle, maybe medium red. But, dammit, this is none of their blog, so here are my new (and very poorly entitled) categories filled with their respectively remarkable books.

book list

books of the highly recommended variety (top three in a top five type way, but in no particular order)

executioners song - norman mailer

I stayed up to finish this book. I closed it at 6am. I had cried for an hour straight. But Adrienne read it better.

decline and fall of the roman empire - Edward gibbons

History at it’s absolute finest. He wrote this at the same time the constitution was written for crissakes! But it’s erudite, funny and true.

house of leaves - mark z danielewski

Meta. Dark. Pretty.

not quite as splendericious, but really, quite on the higher end of scales that rate the goodness of books

sound and the fury - William Faulkner
lolita - Vladimir nabokov
demian -hermann hesse
the tesseract - alex garland
the ginger man - j p donleavy
Middlesex - jeffery eugenides
my loose thread - dennis cooper
if on a winter’s night a traveler - italo calvino
lord of the barnyard - tristan egolf
crime and punnishment - fyodor dostoevsky

same thing as books under the last headers, but science fiction so you can write them off all at the same time

dune - frank Herbert
chasm city - Alistair Reynolds
neuromancer - William gibson
ender’s game - orson scott card

other books, seventy percent classic, twenty five percent unheard of, recommendable but only moderately terrific

in cold blood - truman capote
the fountainhead - ayn rand
we the living - ayn rand
watership down - Richard adams
something wicked this way comes - ray Bradbury
catch 22 - joseph heller
a short history of nearly everything - bill Bryson
hyperion - dan simmons
Eunoia - christian bok
period - dennis cooper
johnny got his gun - Dalton trumbo
the great Gatsby - f scott Fitzgerald
starship troopers - robert heinlein
beneath the wheel - hermann hesse
heart of darkness - joseph conrad
american psycho - brett Easton ellis
main street - Sinclair lewis
coma - alex garland
the beach - alex garland
jarhead - Anthony swofford
red mars - kim Stanley robinson
cryptomnicon - neal Stevenson
a brief history of time - steven hawkins
welcome to the monkey house - kurt vonnegut jr
sophie’s world - jostein gaarder
pilgrim at tinker creek - annie dillard
the redneck manifesto - jim goad
where the suckers moon - randall rothenburg
invisible cities- italo calvino
kornwolf - tristan egolf
paul - a n Wilson
crying of lot 49 - Thomas pychon

critically acclaimed, crap

a heartbreaking work of staggering genius - dave eggers
confederacy of dunces- john kennedy toole
catcher in the rye - j d salinger
the plague - albert camus
siddhartha - hermann hesse
naked lunch - William s burroughs
on the road - jack kerouac
bonfire of the vanities - tom wolfe

books that will hopefully soon be read by me if the mount Vernon library can figure out how amazon works

the long ships - frans gunnar bengtsson
this organic life - joan dye gussow
sexual behavior in the human male - Alfred Kinsey
sexual behavior in the human female - Alfred kinsey
the naked and the dead - norman mailer
hell’s angels - hunter s Thompson
rules of attraction - brett Easton ellis
the closing of the american mind- allan bloom
the nimrod flip-out - etgar keret
foolishness of god - siegbert w becker
satanic verses - slaman rushdie

clouds

SIBH - since I've been home
RTFM - read the fucking manual

Alphabetic interruptions.

The local chucklehead signmaker seems to have problems with the letter N. And kerning. And straight lines. But mostly, N.

Cow Bio - Spike

spike in his blue period

So my cousin's cousin is a middle school teacher in Chicago. Hates it. Likes to sail. She decided that her best option for spring break was to come visit her Aunt and Uncle at the farm. Thems my Aunts and Uncle too, but they were hers first.
One of her stated goals was to see a calf born. And barring that, she wanted to pet one. Petting newborn baby Angus calves is a very difficult thing to do. The mother cows protection instincts make them as dangerous as bulls. This was explained to her before she was let loose on the herd.
She calls me one afternoon from the pasture to tell me that she had been sitting and petting a calf for over half an hour. She says she's worried that it has no mother because no one had come over to bother her.
I rolled my eyes (through the phone, special trick) and assured her that the mother was just off being entertained by a bale of hay. Three quarters of an hour later and I've finally made it out to where she is.
The calf is still lounging about. Doesn't seem to care much for moving anything other than it's big brown eyes. Because she's concerned, I am very unconcerned. I shall show her my masterful farmer touch with the bovine line. I scare it to its feet and it scampers towards the herd. Ha ha, Farmer Drew is farmerly!
We watch it run to the nearest cow. She kicks it. It runs to the next cow. She bowls it over with her head. It runs to the next cow. She kicks it down and swings her head around to snort at it. After 20 minutes of watching the thing get rejected from every udder it tries, I admit we have a problem. She gives him a name. Spike. Then I shrug my shoulders and climb back into my car.
Every couple of hours I go back up and make sure he's alive. I try to pick a mother for him out of the crowd, but my choices don't fare any better than his own. Chad and Rusty join me on one such venture. We walk back. We find Spike sitting alone. We watch him sit there. Chad asks me what exactly we're back in the field to do. I shrug. Don't know. Never had a mother not bond with it's child. Rusty posits the only theory I've heard that makes any sense. Twins. One the mother accepted, one not so much.
I never did find Spike a mother. I don't know where he finds sustenance actually. I guess he steals his drinks from the more forgiving cows. Skipping from teat to teat, trying all the flavors the milk bags have to offer. Have to hand it to him, he's a smart one, that Spike. He came real close to dying around the time he was noticed. Now he's just as active as any other. Though he probably won't grow as fast having missed out on the cholostrum days.

She never did get to see a calf born. Pity that.

SOLO II

When I say ‘car racing,’ do you picture Dale Earnhardt, Tide logos, and perpetual left turns? If yes, I personally apologize for the damage NASCAR has done to America. But even NASCAR was born of stock car racing. Stock car racing was equalizing, democratic, plebian. It was cheap, it was everyman. Today that has been bought up and sold back to us complete with multi-million dollar cars and even more expensive egos.
But then again, I don’t think I’d ever actually utter the words ‘car racing.’ That’s a far too clunky way to word what we do. Most of my local friends are fans of car go fast. But not so much fans of the watching of other people driving, because, what’s the point? There is a school of thought that says driving cars fast is a right of all true Americans and that it wasn’t ever taken away from us. That school is SCCA.

For us amateur beginner younglings, this means autocross. Take a parking lot, an airport landing strip, any reasonably flat strip of asphalt, and set upon it a course marked with pylons. Drive through said course. Next time, try and do it faster. This is autocross. The land of Miatas and Minis. FDs and Z06s. Karts and dirt-track racers.
Sunday was the first event of the season. Chris and Allie came to drive his Miata. Rusty and I showed up in his 8 hour old Z. Chad and his Maxima didn’t make the drive. (I would have brought my Nissan [which would be a middling to good car to drive autocross] for my first time autocrossing if I hadn’t taken a culvert too fast and lost oil pressure and spun a bearing and effectively toasted the engine two weeks ago.) As I was, I just rode along.
Autocross separates drivers first, cars second. There is usually a wide range of cars at an event, from daily drivers to go-carts to trailered-in race only vehicles. The skill with which you set a line, shift, brake, and recover from mistakes sets your time far more than the horsepower to can put to pavement. This is no quarter mile drag. For most cars 2nd gear is used almost exclusively. No one will go above 40mph. Which sounds incredibly boring, I know. It took some cajoling to get me to go to my first. But one ride in a well driven car will convince you otherwise. You experience Gs that you can only find legally on roller coasters. But the car you’re in isn’t riding along a predetermined path at premeditated speed. How fast, how in control, how smooth a ride will be entirely up to the driver.
We left before the event was over, but up till then, the fastest car through the course wasn’t one of the heavily modded Mustangs, wasn’t a Z06 Vette, wasn’t any of the Acuras, Audis, or Minis. It was this old Honda civic.

An extra link for you gear heads. The Real Acme, by that blathering idiot, Iowahawk. Old old drag car mods from NASA.