Life goes on - Summer 2018

Jan it surprised me when I read it. But then I checked the old freezer in the basement and it is just barely below -10F. It explained some of the things other people have told me about stuff going bad on them.
Well on a different note I have to go figure out if my hay is salvageable. It was half dry before we got two gray damp days with a little rain thrown in. I forgot it was a holiday weekend for tourists to go look at leaves and didn’t factor that into the optimist weather forecast. I suspect I can salvage the hay for the cows but lost my best second crop for sales.
I also noticed my 2005 Chevy Duramax has a serious case of cancer the rocker panels are gone and the bottom of the doors not far behind. I think come December it will be getting farm plates. I am sure there is nothing bad enough to stop it from going down the road on those plates. I guess I can’t complain 13 years is about right for this area we put way too much salt on the roads.

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Haha, another brilliant expression :smile:

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We have 3 categories I could register that truck here in NH. Just a regular plate it has one of those now legal in all 50 states and Canada probably Mexico as well. Agricultural plants and Farm plates. One of the two lower categories is limited to 150 miles from you farm the other is limited to something like 6 miles. I can never remember which but the 150 mile limit would be fine on that truck. We had a truck which didn’t even have a drivers door when I was a kid ran it for years like that.
Funny farmers can literally drive anything at all on an operators licence here to doesn’t matter how big so long as it is registered to the farm. I alway thought that was a funny exception I mean some farmers are not the most safety oriented.
Not that I am complaining I just find it ironic.

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Oh, I thought farm plates was a funny way of saying not registered at all.

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I just looked then up. AG has a 20 mile limit Farm are state wide and probably as far into Maine as I dare… lol

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Don’t get me started on Farm “tags” and farm equipment on the road. In the US, states are divided into counties and counties are divided, in our case, into “Towns” or Town ships. The Towns can have smaller governments which can be a “Village” or a “City” depending on the population. Farming has changed where the farmers are hauling produce from the field in Sim-tractor& trailers, and manure in Semi- tankers, and equipment that is so wide it has to run with one set of tires on the birm of the road. Operating this equipment does not require any special license as it does for any other business. The Towns “gas tax allowance” isn’t enough to build road that will hold up to 80,000 lb trucks - plus farm trucks have no weight limit when going between the farm and the field.
Anyway that is one story, and now the Towns are trying to accommodate the tourist business and they are allowing “golf carts”, “all terrain vehicles” and a new thing for tourists “side by sides” or “utility vehicles” ( a two seater off the road vehicle, with four wheel drive and they are small enough to fit in the bed of a pick up truck. Maximum speed of about 35 mph.) on Town roads and are petitioning the county to allow them on County roads with-in the Town. Can you see two farm semi’s, with drivers who are not trained to drive semi’s, coming towards each other on a narrow Town road and all of a sudden one of these off road vehicles come in view between. Poking along at 35 mph. I talked to a police officer and he knows it it dangerous, but admits they don’t have the personal to enforce the normal road laws and mostly investigate accidents, and pick up a few drunk drivers-- which is another story. Freedom in American can kill you TomC

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Well around here the farm trucks still have to follow the same weight restrictions for the vehicles class only difference is the inspection is limited to a real safety check breaks and lights basically a little rust is ok. But as to the licence yes no special training but most farmers around here still grew up on the farm and where driving in the fields before they could see over the steering wheel with pillows and the idle set high enough to make the truck putter between bales. It is rare to see a semi on the farm here the fields just are not big enough to support that type of big enough you would get to the far end and have to leave it there for lack of space to turn it around in my fields… around here 100 hp tractors from the 70s are still about as big as you see. Once I a while someone will get something bigger but not often.

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Don’tget me started on Farm “tags” and farm equipment on the road.
It sounds like it did. Ha, ha. Same here in Washington State.
Bob

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Dan,
What you said about kids driving massive farm equipment while sitting on pillows is true! Everything around here is in thousands. Thousands of acres per farmer. Thousands of horsepower working the fields. Thousands of hogs moved in across the road from me a couple years ago. Thousands of gallons of piggy-poo. Thousands of dollars, millions in cash flow. I don’t know how they do it. @TomC :smile: The ATV / UTV set drives by at more like 50-60 miles per hour!

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Mike your talking about agro business. Big business farming is a danger to our society like everything else farming has become a pure profit big business and I find those big operations tend to lack respect for the animals and the land. Not all of them but too many. There was a story on the radio this morning about a chemical pesticides which has been banned in some state but farmers are still using it and the wind is carrying to their neighbors soy crops. One of the farmers who got caught spraying it was asked why he did it knowing it was banned state wide. His comment was the $1000 fine is just a cost of doing business. I saved far more by using it. That is the additude you get with agro business. It just isn’t the same as the farms from half a century ago.

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A lot of these guys are just the last of their farming families and bought up the local small farms a few acres at a time. What you said is right though. Even the good-guys make financially expedient decisions, not the best for others health and happiness. (hence the giant 8000 hog farm across the road from me).

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Hello all.

Finished rolling the hay for this year and got it all hauled home . Also most of the equipment hauled in.

IMG_0608

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Well your ahead of me. I got 330 bales out of the field last night parked the truck in the barn at 11pm with the last of it. It was raining good by 5am and will rain again Sunday so I think the rest of the field will probably be mulch. I only got about 1/3 of what I mowed because the weather just wasn’t there for it. I got tricked with the tourist weather report. I am debating just tedding it back out and calling it good if the flood doesn’t take it the snow will pack it down and it will go away as green mulch.
I think it is time to move on to equptiment repairs wood for the winter and sawing that pile of logs to rebuild the barn…

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The poor people visited by hurricane Micheal. Sigh.

You know of all of the most dedicated Do-It-Yourself home power makers the most serious I have corresponded with were in Florida. Followed up by those in the Carolina’s.

We annual cold/wet/frozen-down folks Plan for ours. Expect it. Complain, if missing out on our annual endurance tests.

You folks in the maybe-this-year, maybe-next-year, must be some kind of special.
Would drive me nuts your maybe’s, gonna’happens, go’es-with-the-territory hurricaines and tornadoes…
Huh? That why I’ve been seeing N.C., S.C. plated vehicles here now too? We green, and treed here too. With “only” a maybe 60 years destructive winds cycle. An earthquake every 15 years or so. M-a-y-b-e a volcano event every 300-500 years.

I do believe I can hear the home electrical generators running clear up here.
tree farmer Steve Unruh

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I like reading about WW2, I was just on a blog and happened upon an old photo from April 30, 1945 showing the German Embassy in Sweden flying the Swastika at half mast in recognition of Hitlers death - this was the day he shot himself.

Check out the two cars to the left.

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Nice, but look closer, the white car is wood powered too!

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Reading the daily news, following all these storms hitting peoples homes in the USA and elsewhere…

It really seems to get worse every year…

Our prayers to all involved.

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which blog were you reading?

Hey Dave, it was “History of Sorts”:

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Ha! I noticed that later after I had posted the pic - wood burners galore! :grin:

Probably the only time (and place?) in history when a random photograph could catch 3 wood powered cars!

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