It Was 15 Years Ago Today.......

Our Wedding Day!

     Back when I had color in my hair. and I could get down on one knee without falling over in pain and didn't need help getting up afterwards, I made a brilliant decision. I asked Yvette to marry me. Oddly enough she said yes!
    We haven't had a perfect marriage. I'm sure of that. I'm not sure any marriage is ever perfect. But we were perfect for each other. We're still perfect for each other. I love her. She loves me.
     I know there were people who thought our marriage would never last. I know this because there were a few who told me so. And if you looked at it logically, it shouldn't have. A woman who grew up in the city married a guy who had grown up in the country. She had 3 adopted children. I liked children "if they were cooked right". 15 years ago, 4 children ago. 
     And finally, after 15 years, we are going to have a honeymoon. 5 days and 4 nights with NO children. 4 nights with no children. Guess what we're going to do?

  That's right.

 Uh huh.

SLEEP! 

     No one crawling into the bed waking us up. Nobody waking us up to let us know they are home. No one waking us up to let us know there is squash in their room that needs to be killed. (Any flying bug in our house Jeremiah calls a squash, cause that's what Daddy does to them) No one waking us up to let us know they killed a squash.
     We're going to go on a cruise.
      And I'll leave you with this thought.

          I've been listening to this song almost everyday since I first heard it. And it's right. 

A Little Bit of Love, A Little Bit of Faith, A Little Bit of Hope.

     It makes for a cool song.

It makes for a dang good marriage!

 
And 15 years later, I'd do it all over again.

Can I Trouble You For a Second?

  I need prayers.  

Could you pray for me? 

Prayers Needed!

     If you have very many friends on Facebook, you probably see one of those phrases every day. Possibly even several times a day. To me it's pretty simple. I can either ignore their plea, or I can take a few seconds and ask God to help them through their problem. I may click on like, or I may not. Sometimes I might even comment that prayers have been sent.

       I grew up in church. I hadn't accepted Jesus then, but I knew who he was. I knew about praying too. We would have 3 or 4 every church service. Short and Simple Prayers. Long Involved Prayers. Loud Prayers. Whispered Prayers. (I hated the whispered prayers. You were never sure when they finished. And everybody was looking around to see if the persons lips were still moving)

     The idea of asking someone to pray for you, that was kind of unheard of when I was a child. I'm not sure how old I was the first time I was in a church service and the pastor asked for prayer requests. 

     But now. Oh, now, with Facebook and text messages and Twitter. It's easy to ask the world for prayer requests. And like I said, I'll probably pray for you. I don't care if you're Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or anything else. You want prayer, you got it. You ask for positive thoughts, you're probably gonna get a prayer said for you. I'm not going to judge whether you're worthy of my prayers. That man I'm praying to, I'll let him be the judge.

     And I hope you don't judge whether I'm worthy to be praying for you. Again, Somebody already has that job. 

     But if I ask for prayers, just know this. I don't care WHO you're praying to. If you pray to God, He will hear your prayers. If you are praying to Allah for me, God will hear your prayers. If you're praying to the left field wall in Wrigley Field for me, God will hear your prayers. 

     Omniscient. It means All Knowing. That's what God is. He knows your needs. He knows my needs. And I'll let him decide whether my prayers are worthy. Cause that's His job. It's not mine, it's not yours. It's His.

     And if you think the left field wall of Wrigley Field is God, I'll be praying for you.

If You're Easily Offended, Don't Read This!

Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs

This was one of my favorite signs for years, I always thought if you READ the top part,

Is the bottom part really necessary? 

I mean really, 

IS THIS NECESSARY?

Then a couple of years ago, I ran across this sign and the voices started running through my head. Like the final leg of a mile race. Flat out, full bore running.

Then I went a long time without seeing any signs that affected me.

Then Monday.

  

     I saw this sign and drove by it, then realized I may have missed something important so I turned around and drove by it again. And took a picture.

My first thought was that somebody had tampered with the sign.

Then those thoughts started running again.

Does that mean the sausage is shaped like a penis?

Is the sausage made of penis?

    I'm almost serious about that. I live in the county where the President of the NCBA is from. MAYBE this is a test market for a new National Cattlemans Beef Association product?

     But I really thought it was just somebody vandalizing a sign. But I shared it with a few people. And I got a response from one person, that well. It made me wonder. 

     What's Pizzle?

     A grocery store in Austin has been named in a civil suit. They sold Beef Pizzle as human food. Adulterated, non-inspected pizzle. Sold for human consumption. The outrage. The tragedy. 

     I'm not sure exactly how it happened. And I'm not sure if it was raw pizzle or something else. My mind is kinda drawn towards thinking they took the dog chew toys and sliced them up and labeled them as Smoked Boneless Turkey Necks. Which is sort of what a beef pizzle looks like. A turkey neck. 

    Try not to think of that the next time you are getting ready to eat your Thanksgiving Dinner.

 

Perspective

     I was thinking the other day, "Gee, I SHOULD write something on my blog". But what could I write about? I hadn't seen anything to make me want to write. At least nothing that made me want to write more than a paragraph or two on Facebook.
     Until Monday. Monday, I saw a story about a rancher in Nevada whose cattle were being rounded up by the BLM. They were seizing his cattle illegally (according to the article).
    The federal government (MY federal government) trampling on the rights of some poor citizen. I was horrified. But then I realized I had heard of this guy before. There had been something I had read with that name. 
     So I did a Google search. And I found it. Where I had seen the name before.
     Seems this rancher decided back in 1993 he shouldn't pay grazing lease fees to the BLM. Evidently he had been paying grazing fees before that. But for some reason he decided he shouldn't do that anymore.
     His decision for whatever his reasons, and there were evidently many, has led to lawsuits, court cases, news stories. 
     A couple of the reasons given: 
He should be paying the fees to state agencies, not the federal government
His ancestors were farming the land since the 1800's, long before there was a BLM.
     I wouldn't be real quick to use that second one as a defense if I were him, might lead to some other peoples then wanting to get some restitution from him. And I'm not sure he can use the first as a defense if he paid the grazing permit fees prior to 1993.
     But then in 1998, the desert tortoise managed to be found on the land he was grazing his cattle on. I don't know much about them but evidently they are considered a vulnerable species and need protection. Which means cattle were no longer allowed to graze on their habitat, whether the grazing fees are being paid or not. 16 years ago. SIXTEEN YEARS.
     If I read some of the news reports earlier correctly, this poor rancher had 1000 head of cattle grazing the contested land. According to that same story the rancher valued his cattle at $1000 each. 1000 head of cattle at $1000 each. That's $1000000 worth of cattle, if that story is correct.
     I'd like to say I'm on the side of the rancher. He's being forced out of his livelihood. 
     But then I look at it from a different perspective.
     A millionaire had been using this property rent free for 21 years. And is finally being evicted. 
     Same story, different perspective.
I'm editing this. After I read it I realized I had left out some things. There are 67 cowboys being contracted to round up the cattle. Evidently several federal law enforcement officials are out there to protect the cowboys doing the rounding up.
     I personally think this has made such big news because news reporters are doing there best to make it a big story. So they can convince their bosses that they need to be sent to cover this story. In Nevada. Clark County Nevada. Las Vegas is in Clark County Nevada. Coincidence?
     

WHAT Happened There?

     I have been thinking about how I could use this picture. I knew I wanted to use it in a post, but I wasn't sure HOW to use it. And as I sit here writing, I'm still not sure. So I guess I'll start writing and see where my mind takes me. :-) .
    So, what happened here? Was there a herbicide failure? Did someone forget to turn on the sprayer? Did it rain too soon after application? Or was this deliberate?
     Deliberate? Why would someone do this deliberately?
     Open your mind.
     Follow me to an alternate reality.
     Enter Nelson 's world.
     Why? WHY?
     Testing. Trying to figure out something. Is that last application of herbicide worth it? How do you decide something like that? The only way you can find out is to conduct a field trial.
     Yeah. THAT'S what it is. A field trial.
     But wait, do you know what a field trial is? If you're a farmer, or you are familiar with farming you probably know. But for those of you who aren't, you may not. So I'm going to give you a little idea.
     This idea of mine about it being a field trial may be right, it may be wrong. I don't know. I don't know the farmer who works that field.
     But let's just imagine. Farmer Brown wonders if that last application of herbicide is worth it. How COULD you figure that out?
     Well here's how you could do it. You take a field that is all the same crop. Planted the same day. All of the field has been treated the same all year long. Until it comes to that last herbicide application. And you just don't spray part of the field.
     Then, when you harvest the field you keep the grain harvested separate. When you take it to the grain elevator/terminal they test it. They weigh your load, test for moisture content, and check for foreign material (weed seed). If the grain is too wet or too much weed seed is present (foreign matter) you get docked.
     There is a constant moisture that grain elevators adjust grain to. The level of moisture that is considered 'dry'.  For grain sorghum, that level is 14%. The higher the moisture, the more it costs the elevator to dry it and the less they will pay the farmer. 16% moisture results in 2% shrink and a 4¢ per bushel drying charge. 20% moisture would result in 6.7% shrink and a 28¢ per bushel drying charge. I didn't know the precise numbers so I called a local grain elevator to find out. Thanks to Brett who answered the phone and answered my questions. I really appreciated it and it just reminded me of how much I miss being IN farming. He took the time to answer my questions when he didn't know me from Adam.
    But back to my idea. If you know how large an area you harvested and how much grain you produced from that area, you can determine what your yield was per acre. Knowing the yield per acre and knowing the cost per acre of production let's a farmer make production decisions.
     Weed competition can result in reduced yields, moisture dock can result in lower income. They may have been trying to determine if skipping a herbicide application would affect their bottom line. Like I said, I don't know the farmer, I don't know what happened.
      But I do know this. When I was growing up, if a farmer had a field that looked like that and it was visible from the road, he would have needed a good answer for WHY it looked like that. He wouldn't have been able to go into the farm supply, or the feed store, or the coffee shop, or the sale barn, or the grocery store, or the post office, or even church without someone asking him about it. And some churches, well he might have been the subject of a sermon, or at least put on a prayer list.
      But in all sincerity, I wonder what the difference in yield was between the 'clean' area and the 'messy' area. Or if there was a difference. For all the talk about sustainability, if a farmer doesn't make a profit, he's not going to be able to sustain his farming effort.

Let Me Explain

     Have you ever looked at a package of corn seed? Most of them I have ever seen have a statement on them something to this effect:

Since Corn is wind pollinated, it's better to plant 4 or more short, side-by-side rows than 1 or 2 long rows. This will help pollination and ear development.

     I planted my Glass Gem corn in 3 rows. about 15 inches apart. and planted the seeds 12 inches apart. I originally planted 2 rows of 17 seeds and 1 row of 10 seeds. 

X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X

                                   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X

X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X

     But then I had a little problem with some snail damage after the plants had been up about a week and it wiped out the red X's. I had 7 seeds left so I planted them to try to keep the big gap from being left. I put  some organic snail bait out to try to keep the snails off the corn.

     It didn't work as well as I had hoped it would and I wound up losing some more corn plants. It kinda left my corn looking like this:

                    X   X   X        X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X

                         X      X     X   X   X   X   X   X        X   X

X                                 X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X 

     The 5 purple X's were 2 weeks behind in maturing and are where the "Pearl" kernels came from. And that one blue X was kinda left all by it's lonesome. it matured when the black X's did. But it was over there by itself. 7 feet away from the other stalks that were maturing when it did. And it affected it. It made some beautiful seeds, but that whole ear development thing didn't work out too well. 

     The top ear. That's the one from the plant by itself. Pretty kernels. Pitiful ear fill. The plant by itself didn't have much chance for any of the other plants to pollinate it. Those other plants were in the middle of a big pollination party. While that one was over by itself. Playing solitaire with a deck of 51 cards.

              

Glass Gems and Pearls

     I posted about growing corn a few weeks ago. But I didn't post all the pictures I should have. So to provide some pictures of the process, I planted some more. The picture on the right is glass gem corn 15 days after it was planted. I decided to plant some and see if it could make a second crop. OH NO! I just realized I must be one of those big-ag monoculture farmers cause I planted it in the same spot I planted the other Glass Gem corn.
     No-Till Glass Gem corn, planted by sticking my finger into the ground, putting the seed in the hole, then filling it with compost. 

This is Glass Gem corn 29 days after it was planted. I actually used a shovel and disturbed the ground here a bit before I planted the seeds. It's growing pretty good, but I'm not sure it's going to ever make anything. Mainly because here in South Texas it gets HOT. How hot?

     2 days before I took the picture above, I took the picture to the right -->
If you can make it out, the leaves of the plant are really curled up. It's a corn plants self defense system to protect it from hot dry weather. curling up reduces moisture loss from the plant. (or so I was told once upon a lifetime ago)
     Anyway I hope to get some more pictures. and hopefully I will get a few more ears of corn. The older plants were planted from seeds I got off of these ears. These are definitely what I had hoped for when I planted those seeds in the first place. But I did have a few ears that were behind those. 2 weeks behind them, in fact.

     These ears are what I called the pearls. I don't know if you can make out how beautiful they are. But I photographed them against a dark background. You know how you always see pearl necklaces and earrings and such shown agains black velvet backgrounds? Well, I didn't have black velvet, just a dark colored towel. 
     I have some seeds that I didn't plant. And I am thinking I might sell them. I'm not looking to sell them at the price I saw them on Amazon, where the person was offering 8 seeds for $2. Nor am I looking to sell them at the price I saw on ebay (and they may still be there at that price) at almost $1 per kernel. 
     No, I'm thinking that I will sell them in one of 3 sizes. 25 seeds for $3.75. 50 seeds for $5.00. 100 seeds for $7.50. PLUS shipping and handling.
     So if you would like to try growing some of this beautiful corn, let me know how many seeds you want. Whether you want to Glass Gem or Pearls.

Make An Offer   
     Have a Great Day! God Bless You!