Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Day six of 365 days of the life on our farm

Welcome again to our blog, it is day six of 365 days of our
life on the farm and we are very glad you could join us today. 


For me it was another day of getting up earlier and going to
school and dealing with the daily problems that seem to plague my life.  I went in earlier to get the last book for
class, that was a piece of cake, thank goodness as it took me two weeks to get
it and it has traveled more than I have in the last two week, lol.   I also
tried to get my credits issue figured out and it basically cam e down to a
slate mate and I will be prorated to a lower scholarship level, because of a
computer glitch that no one seems to know what happened, but all involved have
told me that “it has never happened before”, Yes I know rolling my eyes…Oh well
lost this round, was one credit short of getting my full scholarships, so I am
a bit down about that as one might guess. This equates to a $500 loss.  Live
goes on (shaking my head).  I went to my
class which today is algebra and it was just a waste of time for me, but we are
graded on attendance as well as work, so what are you going to do.  The teacher spent over 25 minutes trying to
teach fractions, one person could just not get the whole idea of adding 1/3 to ¼.  Than he had to give a lengthy explanation on
Absolute numbers, I got in trouble for talking…so he thought he would shame me
into submission…lol  No way!  He said, pronouncing my name wrong , what is
an absolute number, I laughed and said , really, he exclaimed yes…so I told him…and
then went back to talking …lol  It is hard
to care when you are board to death.  I
went to the Tudor to find out how to do the class work he had assigned us,
where my Tudor and friend Rebecca explained to me it was ok to think they were
all nuts…lol  She is a good friend and a
good tutor, in less than 10 minutes she had explained what he could not in an
hour.  The teacher is a fine History
teacher, but a lousy math teacher.  I
need to pass so I will do what I have to. School is one of the most important things I can do right now as it
offers us the greatest hope for a future as the laws continue to change and
make farming for money harder and harder every day.  As an example of how bad things are for us, I
have gone through our papers form the farm and we have 90% less business this
year at this time, then we did last year at this same time.  It is very sad that things have gone this way
as it has always been our goal to be able to earn an income from this venture
and to be able to provide good quality healthy foods and fibers from this
farm.  In the end I guess we will end up
raising food only for ourselves. 


I cashed in some cans today and some iron bands off the wood
and shopped at the salvage yard (I love shopping there, he, he, he), asked if
he got any old copper screens in, none today. He did have a really nice brass lamp, but I did not need one, so I left
it.  I hope to get an axle for the little
trailer soon, from there, just need a day off.


I bought more feed today, the prices are still rising about
15 cents or more each time I walk through the door.  Nothing I can do about it.  Most of the corm in American that is not sent
to China is used in the making of bio-fuel. For those of you who do not know what bio-fuel is, it is a corn based ethanol
that is blended into gas to “help the planet”. In reality what it does it take away feed corn from American Farmers and
raise the price on most food across the board, it would frighten you to know
how much processed food contains some type of corn.   A good reason to do what we often do, and
make your own food whenever possible.  Anyway
back to what I was saying let me tell you a bit more about ethanol and its many
faces.  E10 fuel, which is the fuel hat
most stations carry, is not meant to be run in vehicles that take
gasoline.  It is made to be run in flex vehicles.
 It kills normal cars and trucks, burns
them up. It also produces less gas millage, than real gas.  Ethanol is a subsided product, we are not
saving the world using it, as the fields from the corn used to make it are fertilized
with petroleum products and plowed by tractors using diesel.  It is expensive to process and requires vast
amounts of clean water, which must be re-cleaned before it can used again.  Here are a few sites to check out and see for
yourself.  1000 gallons of water to
produce 1 gallon of ethanol.






















I learned so much about ethanol because I had three classic
cars succumb to its destructive forces. I run only real gas now, it cost us more to do so, but I get good fuel mileage
and it is less harmful to the planet as a whole.


Now back to other parts of farm life, we had homemade pizza
tonight, with turkey pepperoni and as always it was great.  Making it I think is half the fun, the kids
like to fight about who makes the best pizza. It is a cheap meal as well costing under 10 bucks to feed us all.


The kids are off doing school work and playing on the net,
the hubbie and I are sitting watching Babylon 5 on Netflix and the babies are
sound asleep.  So I will get off her and
do my school work, chat with a few friends, and get some sleep.





The answer to the question of everything is 72…  if you don’t get it email me and I will let
you in on it…lol


Ok on to Dah’veed post for the day…


The life and times of a
rapper/farmer


Today started slowly, with mom going
to school early, and a second call to shady records. I just need them to give
me permission to send them a demo, and then my life will be complete…or closer
anyway.


Apparently if you send them an
unsolicited demo, they will literally throw it in the trash…


I’ve written a verse and the hook to
“All my own”.
And fixed my desk chair =].


The Lockerz
general redemption is perpetually coming soon, with my hopes set on a pair of Beats by Dre. Headphones that my brother
is getting me, and a Mac-book pro
that I am getting myself.


IM RUNNING OUT OF OPTI-FREE FOR MY
CONTACTS!!!!


Thus I shall wear them less until I
can get more…problem solved XD. Oh by the way, I found out that if you stick
two flash/thumb drives in the same computer at once, they tend to switch Drive
letters, causing some of the programs and shortcuts to the programs to stop
working. This happened when I went to use my Camtasia studio, and it brought up
an install wizard window, so I assumed it was repairing or something. Bad
idea…never assume. I had my Mp3 player plugged in to charge, I unplugged it so
I could go outside with it. Then suddenly the install stopped, turns out, my
flash/thumb drive switched letters with my Mp3 player, so when I clicked the
shortcut it thought the program was lost, since it couldn’t find it on my Mp3
player, so it was going to help me out by reinstalling it…FAIL!


Oh and since mom made it such an
issue, today in chemistry I learned how translate F(arenheight) to C(elsius)
and C(elsius) to K(elvin)


Well that’s all for now…cya l8r


Now on to my husband’s post…


News From The Doghouse and how the patience of a fence
post will defeat any Zen master.





Got up before 7AM today,
before my usual alarm clock tickles my feet and wakes me up. Had some java and
relaxed before the day went downhill, then got out early, and bagged up the
smashed cans and steel bands for recycling. They were already bagged, just
double bagging them so they would not get the beautiful van dirty. It’s a good
looking vehicle, and I hope to keep it that way.





Did the usual bird
chores, and today is the long day because I give everybody fresh water, whether
they need it or not. Did the horses trough and forgot the water was on for
awhile, was busy grave digging, no need to mention I was distracted with
progress. I got a good 1/3 done and it’s going faster because I got elbow room
now, and got a tree root out of the way. Big rocks are nice when they come out,
loosens up things, not so nice when you hit them. I think I spent 6 hours
shoveling and swinging that pickax, only took 1 coffee break.





All I could think about
was the time could have been spent working on the houses, vehicles, cutting
wood, ect. But it is a job that must and needs to be done. On the brighter
side, thank G-D it is not summer time.





While I was out there, I
seen a flock of our ducks down at the big pond. You could see the white bands
on the roen ducks. I think there was some khaki in that particular "wild
bunch" and who can forget the mutt cross cayugas. We have some flocks that
are more like wood ducks(They are not wood ducks we swear), (The mom) in
habitat preference, and some have a cosmopolitan crowd with Muscovy’s, khakis,
white farm types, and Cayuga hybrids.


Hybrids sure are
tasty...





Well I have to go, have to watch "Fetch with Ruff" or
something like that, with the Bears. It’s a new one to me, so...what can I say,
even with our recording technology, a daddy's day is NEVER done. Maybe I can
paint eyeballs on my eyelids....heh-heh-heh


Be
blessed and be sure to write, we love you all…

2 comments:

  1. very interesting, thank you
    how many acres do you have?
    why do don't you spell out the whole word
    "God"?
    diana wiegand

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry Diana, just figured out how to do this today...lol
    6.32 but we are aquiring a bunch more soon.
    It is disrespectul to spell G-d compleatly,it is like calling some on over and than going never mind..lol


    Love you dear and than k you for the questions.
    Shekhinah

    ReplyDelete