The Surly Farmer – Page 6 – Marginalia, Trivialities & Suchlike

I Am Not Alone

November 28, 2018

This guy gets it.

“The cozy comfort of a crackling fire—and the very necessary warmth it generates—is a rhythm that feels to me more like a wave: either you catch it and ride it out through winter, or, if your timing is off, it crashes over you. […] Mounded up on the front lawn, the half cord looked like an impressive amount of wood. But when my neighbor Kevin came by the house a few days later, he asked if I had found firewood for the winter. Gesturing to the porch, where I had by then neatly stacked the logs, I told him about the locust. He assured me that he had seen the logs—he was worried that they wouldn’t be enough.”

For the Birds

November 27, 2018

For years I have braved the cold to put out birdseed and suet cakes for the wild birds, congratulating myself on my generous nature. Now I don’t know if you remember Dr. Evil’s insistence on obtaining a new brood of hens late last winter, but well, that happened. Throughout this process, I have employed my world-famous worrying skills about every aspect of this endeavor. After we lost one hen when she didn’t return after free-ranging, we decided to keep them contained in the coop and the (very generous) run, lest they be gobbled up by neighborhood foxes, hawks and coyotes. My consolation to them was awesome treats:squash, scratch, mealworms, lettuce, and since Thanksgiving: bacon grease, almonds and cranberries.

Since the end of Daylight Saving Time, their egg production has faltered. Apparently, hens want ~14 hours of light to lay eggs. We run about 9.5 hours of daylight right now, so egg production is down from about 4 eggs per day to, uh, 1-ish per day. Which, as Terry “The Toad” Fields would say is, “typical.” I mean who doesn’t want more eggs in August than in January?? Today was our first substantial cold/snow day, and the ladies declined to even emerge from their coop. I have a very lavish, secure new coop design in my head right now, but it probably won’t be started until the spring, so every day in between, I worry about our five girls. kind of like I used to worry about the cardinals and finches back in the day.

In summation, now I worry about the wild AND the domestic birds.

November 18, 2018

Kid Number Two has joined us for the Thanksgiving break. Just wait until she learns that the Real World (TM) does not recognize Thanksgiving as a weeklong process. Kid Number One has just stumbled upon this reality. KNO will be joining us for the main feasting day (MFD), as will the original hippies (OH) from across the boulevard.

But I’m not complaining, I’m happy to see everyone.

NoVa readers may remember The Greaseman’s scorn concerning the holidays: Basically, it was a rage against the pull of familial demands during the season between Halloween and President’s Day. I dig it. But man, I gotta say that I love Christmas. I’m not Christian, but I sure like a midwinter pause where we gather, eat, drink and embrace. Thanksgiving good, Christmas better.

Food is inextricably woven into the winter holidays, of course. Left unchecked, I would prepare feasts straight from The Hobbit. Unfortunately, as it stands, I need to consider delicate gullets and vegan and vegetarian supplicants, but dangit, we are going to feast during these darkest hours.

Baby Boom

November 17, 2018

1) I forgot how charming a film Baby Boom is.
2) Sam fucking Shepard.
3) Sam Shepard is gone, never to be replaced.
4) Dang.

The Votes Are In

November 10, 2018

A sobering fact for Ohio Democrats: Richard Cordray won more votes (2,020,128) than John Kasich did to win a 2-1 landslide in 2014 (1,922,436). Trump-era Ohio Republicans simply smashed through the model with rural voters.

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) November 7, 2018

That describes our situation here in ruby red Vinton County. Our farm is on the far edge of the county, and the adjoining county (Athens) is home to Ohio University, making the City of Athens a dark blue dot in solidly red southeastern Ohio. It’s not as screwed up as West Virginia, but then again, what is? (Perhaps you missed the West Virginia Supreme Court debacle?) Our votes were spit in the wind in all the very local races, and not much more meaningful in the statewide races, but Sherrod Brown was able to hold onto his seat, so that’s something. The day before the election, Dr. Evil asked me if I was nervous and I told her I wasn’t, because there was no way it could be as bad as November 2016. Ah, the pleasures of diminished expectations!

I don’t think I have anything new to add to the dumpster fire that is the Trump administration, but rest assured, I’m watching. It’s killing me, but I’m watching.

What I would like to talk about is the growing propensity of politicians to ignore their constituents. I’ll have to use West Virginia as my example, because I’m still learning about Ohio. In West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District (basically the southern coalfields) was left without representation when its congresscritter resigned mid-session to take a seat on the West Virginia Supreme Court (see above). This left the race between a car dealership dutchess (Carol Miller) and a rough-hewn retired Army officer (Richard Ojeda). Ojeda mounted an aggressive shoe leather campaign, and managed to shift WV3 some 37 points from Trump’s resounding success in 2016. Miller refused to conduct open town halls, refused to debate Ojeda, and agreed to only one televised interview, and then only with an incredibly friendly outlet. The same was the case in WV2; the incumbent refused to debate his challenger, and he still needs to ask for directions for any place south of Harper’s Ferry. And In WV1? You guessed it. It’s not unique to the Republicans, of course, nominally Democratic Senator Joe Manchin had several women arrested when they refused to leave his Charleston office in the lead-up to the Kavanaugh vote (which will require its own Surly Farmer piece, if not a series).”Civility!” cry the politicians and their lackeys. Ya know what? You might get harassed less while out dining if you would actually listen to your constituents. All of them.

Autumn Has Arrived

November 9, 2018

It felt as if summer would never end here in Appalachia. Columbus Day was sweltering, but eleven days later we had our first frost, and that was that. I think I have enough firewood laid in, but I have no real estimation of how much we will burn in a season. We arrived here well into the heating season, but I’m not comfortable using last year as a model, because we were so busy unpacking and settling that we relied on the heat pumps mostly. I have an innate fear of scarcity, and it’s not like you can just run down to Kroger and buy more seasoned firewood should you run out. In the end, I know we won’t be cold, and I’m thankful for that assurance.

Speaking of heat pumps . . . Dr. Evil’s folks opted for geothermal HVAC in their new home, and they had various issues with it during the cold months, mostly due to installation errors and the installer’s unfamiliarity with the technology. I’ve long been interested in geothermal, and with things having settled down with their system, toward the end of summer, I asked how their electric bill had run during the cooling months, “Terrible!” came the answer, “It’s about what our old one was.” We discussed how this could possibly be the case, resulting in a low grade squabble which was fortunately extinguished by the arrival of the waiter with our food. Boy, was it dumb of me to have asked. It turns out the electric company never switched the billing over properly when the in-laws left this house and established a new account for the new crib. Yes, friends, they’d been paying our bill and us theirs. Sorting this out with the utility was exactly the cluster you would imagine. Although I would not want them paying our way, I do have to laugh at my uncanny ability to step on rakes.

I never got our fields cut this year, but I don’t really see a big difference from how they appeared last winter. I don’t think it would be wise to let them go another summer without mowing, but it’s good to know I didn’t screw the pooch through inaction. Maybe I’ll start a GoFundMe for a tractor. It seems to be how everyone else is trying to solve their money woes. That or a Patreon for Surly Farmer. I’d estimate I could make a good dollar-dollar fiddy. It’s a start.

For those keeping track, the mystery cat is doing very well. We ran through a half dozen antibiotics getting his gut straightened out, only for him to develop a tenacious respiratory infection that required three more varieties. He apologizes for using up all the medicine. He is also fully litter box trained, and doesn’t have to sleep in his box at all any longer. Weight: 7lbs. Energy: High, very high.

I’ll be back soon with some thoughts on politics. Promise? Threat? Maybe both.

Politics, politics, politics

September 28, 2018

Ya know, I’m just a dumb old (ex) cop, but if I had ever testified half as untethered as Brett Kavanaugh did yesterday, prosecutors would never put me on the stand again. This is not judicial temperament.

It Looks Like We’re Keeping HIm

September 24, 2018

Yeah, I know Washington is a burning swamp, and the Koch boys have their beady eyes one re-writing the US Constitution, and the GOP wants to turn the Supreme Court into a frat house, but I’m not here for that today. Today, I am here to tell you that since the end of July, that skinny Siamese cat that wandering onto our property has more than doubled his body weight. We have gone through just about every antibiotic known to veterinary science and finally seem to have beat back all the critters squatting in his gut. (Seriously, if the last one hadn’t worked, we were headed towards “compounding.” I’ll bet that’s cheap, right?) He is a very pleasant little guy. He is still sleeping in his box, because he can’t be completely trusted to always use his box, but he’s getting better every day.

I pestered Dr. Evil for weeks, just repeating one question: So, are you keeping him? Until she finally relented and squeaked out a tiny “Yes.” We said we were going to go petless for a while and see what that felt like, but ya know, sometimes the pet chooses you.

Siamese Dreams

July 21, 2018

You’ll remember that poor Zoë died last Wednesday, and we’ve been adjusting to her absence ever since. It’s strange how many times through the day you’ll expect to see a lost pet. For example, coming from upstairs to down, if Zoë wasn’t with us on the bed, it was a given she’d be found sitting on the edge of the dining room rug, awaiting her next feeding. And when I arrived to find her there, I’d always say, “Hello, Zoë” in the manner of Jerry Seinfeld saying, “Hello, Newman.” It was just a thing. Anyway, you really start to count these instances up. Sad. Happy. Sad. Wistful. Etc . . .

Then came Monday. It was spitting rain all morning, so I delayed my start and brewed a second pot of coffee and just took in the day. Around 10 o’clock, I wandered out to the front door and looked out into the yard to find . . . a Siamese cat out there. I kid you not. I went out and tried to coax him over, but he wouldn’t cover the last fifteen feet or so between us. I went back in to get a dish of food for him, but when I came back he’d gone and the rain had returned. I told Dr. Evil about it, but she hadn’t see him. I thought I might be going a little loco. What are the odds of a Siamese cat wandering across our property in the middle of nowhere? Slim, I think. I left the food dish out and found that it had been emptied a while later. But we often feed Napoleon (the cat, not the emperor), so that wasn’t unexpected. Later in the afternoon I was able to point out the little guy to Dr. Evil, just before he disappeared into the brush. As is my wont, I worried about the guy and kept an eye out for him all of Tuesday, but never saw him again.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up remembering a dream I’d had just prior to waking up, and I told Dr. Evil all about it, because who isn’t fascinated by someone else’s dream? The short version is that the wayward Siamese came to us, and I was able to somehow divine his name: T49. I then left for Charleston (oh, the exciting life I lead!), and about halfway there received a text from Dr. Evil featuring a photo of the littlest Siamese. He came back, and she was able to coax him into eating. He was still sticking around when I returned home, and seemed fearless of me, even in my big boots. He ate and ate, and napped and napped, and with evening coming on, I opened the door to see if he’d be bold enough to come into the house. He was so brave. And here’s where it gets spooky again: he went directly to the spot where Zoë died, and curled into a cat doughnut and fell asleep.

The extra spooky detail? Just before I woke on the morning Zoë died, I dreamt that she did, and very much as she did.

We’ve continued to feed this little kitten, and on Friday I took him to the vet to get checked out. Guess what. Not a kitten. By the looks of his teeth, the vet estimated his age at around seven years. He weighed in that morning at a hair over three pounds. He’s on a whole mess of medicines now and appears to be putting on weight. My read is that someone dumped him on our country road. I hate people. Except you, readers, except you.

We’ve decided that we probably won’t be keeping the nameless cat, but we are going to get him healthy. It’s the least we can do, and it feels like we’ve been chosen somehow.

Amazon’s Apparently Amorous

July 20, 2018

I was looking at chain harrows on Amazon, mostly just to get a sense of the price range and I noticed this midway through the page:

Well now, Amazon. Either that algorithm is all kindsa confused, or there’s a very different way of harrowing a field.

I’ll be back soon with information on the stray cat, right now, Imma go look for harrow videos on Youtube.

Stay frosty.