How'd it go today?

Had a guitar player come over and ham for a couple hours tonight...nice songs, pretty good voice...He was happy w/my Bass playing and we will do a Trio gig with a lead player on the 24th. One 30min set...should be fun!
 
It's much easier to play as a hired gun than run the show. :P

I like the idea of showing up, doing my job, take pay and done. Let someone else do all the leg work :/:
 
I did that for many years, but it was as a climber!
 

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That's just about all I'm doing in tree work now also. I have tired of the business end of things the last few years. I'm finding a little more balance lately.
 
Got an inch and a half of rain the last couple of days. I think that means I can break up my CRP with a cultivator and sweeps, rather than use spikes or a disc. Should save a bunch of time and money.

I am going to break it up to raise some organic spring wheat. Even with the economy down, people still buy organic. Amazing to me, I dont really believe in organic farming. But, my conventional wheat is 4 dollars a bushel, and organic is 20! Make some money! Its only 450 acres, but takes some time to get it ready.

I think I am going to have to get a seeing eye dog, for my dog. She is terribly blind and confused. More so these last couple of rainy days.

In reality, I am trying to come to terms with putting her down. She does not have enough left to tolerate a Montana winter, and pee all over the carpet is not going to work, especially with a new baby coming. 17 years.
 
I would like to see some pictures of soil prep and planting if you can. Sorry to hear about your dog. Tough decision to make...even tougher when you have to do the deed.
 
Sorry Jim, always tough get toward the end of our four legged friends lives. 17 years is a long time. My first dog lasted to 18, present one is 13 now and might be my last.
 
I feel with you about the dog, Jim.

How can you swap to organic just like that?
Here it takes 4 years of organic farming ( No fertilizer except for manure and no pesticides) before the ground is cleansed of the remains of the last insidious capitalist farmer and the produce grown on it can be labelled "organic"
 
CRP is land that hasn't been farmed in quite awhile (I believe). Natural grass kind of land.

Jim can add more...


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It was my Swiss wife's birthday today.
I gave her ½ a cubic meter of gravel for a present, so don't say I'm not romantically inclined.
Then we went to visit the old brewery stables at the original Carlsberg brewery and had a nice walk on a beach ( Always a hit with the swiss)
Ran into an old beer wagon driver who was still driving a beer wagon with 2 Jutland horses for something to do in his retirement.
Interesting fella to talk to and an excellent horseman.

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Stig, you big softie! Did you give her the gravel in little heart shaped candy boxes?

I will get some pics of the breaking Gary, that is if I get permission from the landlord and the state to break it out.

CRP is short for the Conservation Reserve Land program Stig. It was basically designed to pay farmers not to farm. The upside was an increase in habitat for game animals. A lot of the land put in was marginal farm ground, and the farmers were going broke. At least up here that was the case. We received a payment for each acre, but you had to leave the land alone.

The payment was cut after the last sign up, usually every 10 years. The Govt wanted cheap grain again so a lot of acres came out. Because the land was idle for years, 16 in our case, it is able to be certified as organic right away. Conventional farm ground takes 3 years of organic practices to be certified.

Interestingly, most CRP acres were broke out and farmed conventionally, even with the huge price difference. Farming the old way takes a lot more time on a tractor.

Labor costs had to be weighed against profit. CRP was a good program, we just headed in a different direction with cattle and used the land for grazing and hay.
 
That makes sense, Jim.
I didn't know what the CRP part meant.

The gravel was for an area by the stable, where she has recently put in some sort of plastic ground armour, so the horsies can go out in winter without sinking into the mud.

I once saw a bumper sticker that said: "I thought I was rich, then my wife bought a horse!"

Yep!
 
I wonder how something like that ground armor would work to prevent compaction for where people want to park on their tree roots and grass.
 
It is used for making parking places on grass here, Sean.
You end up having something that looks like a lawn, but it firm enough to park on, even in wet season.
They are interlocking, so the whole area is like one unit.
"E pluribus, unum" kinda like!

As for the horses, I had one hell of a nice ride in the fog this morning with my best friend.
Going through the State forest and riding into my best mushroom spots to hunt for Boletes.
Didn't find any, it is a lousy mushroom year, this one.
Still, a lovely soft morning, with dew pearls on every leaf and needle, especially the young larch trees were fine, covered in spiderwebs and dew drops that sparkled when the sun broke through and hit them. Even saw a couple of the elk that have recently been showing up in these parts.
Then we let the horses out in the lower pasture and had a cup of coffee, a danish pastry and a long political discussion ( We are best buddies since we were kids, but about as far apart politically as me and the Jimster).

Somehow, after that, the maintenance cost of horses doesn't bother me much:)
 
My son's fire department had "Family Day" yesterday...FF's and families all got together. The new Chief and Asst. Chief cooked burgers and hot dogs for all, there were some games inside the bay for the kids (bean-bag horseshoes...they pulled the engines out and made a big open area...lots of running and screaming kids!!), some of the FF's put on a demo dissecting a car so folks can understand what they do and how they do it...and the kids got to do what we all want to do...run a fire hose!

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