Hot, Hot, Hot!

 Howdy friends and neighbors.  Can you believe that they up and put summer in July this year???  It’s funny to hear everyone talk about it being hot.  Yeah, its summer time, it seems to do this every year.  I’ll bet money right now that in January folks will be talking about how cold it is!  Oh, its human nature and it’s something that everyone has in common. 

Wheat Harvest ‘09

  

Howdy friends and neighbors.  Wheat harvest ‘09 is in the bin!  We finished about mid week last week as did a lot of other folks in this part of the world.  Yields were off this year but at least there was some yield.

 

This year we at the Tucker farm continued on with a tradition that started back when my Granddad and Great Granddad Tucker were involved in a harvest crew that used a stationary thrashing machine.  It was the kind of machine that was powered by steam tractors, and then later gas or diesel tractors, that were connected by the long, flat belt.  The wheat was bundled in the field and then pitched into a wagon that hauled it from the field to the thrashing machine.  There the bundled wheat was pitched into the throat of the trashing machine where the grain was separated from the straw and chaff.  The grain was either sacked in 100 pound burlap sacks, lifted onto another wagon and hauled out or ran onto a wagon with short sides and hauled out.  They would either take the grain to town to sell it or back to the barn to store it for seed or to sell at a later time.  Either way it had to be scooped or lifted off the wagons into the barn.  From the stories I heard it was hot, dirty and long work.  A far cry from pressurized, air-conditioned cabs with finger tip controls, belly dumps, power lifts, and powered augers.  Yet the job was the same as it is today.  You still have to get the wheat from the field to town as quickly as you can.

Wheat

 Howdy friends and neighbors.  Missed ya last week.  Bill Gates and I had little disagreement but it seems he was right and I now realize that I’m a PC…. and it crashed.  Oh well, with the help of a local computer whiz, I’m up and running again, for now.

 

It’s going to be a short one this week as well.  We are smack dab in the middle of wheat harvest and I have to get my wheat cut before the idiots in the US congress decide that wheat dust is causing climate change and I’m forced to buy a hybrid combine.  I can see it now, a 4-foot header, a 40-foot solar panel and no air conditioner.  Duct tape, 900 amp batteries, and jumper cables will be outlawed as well due to the fact they might have been used by a terrorist who had planned to wipeout a major city.

 

Well I’m glad I’m not in DC trying to win arguments with idiots.  Instead I’m just trying to convert God given natural resources (soil, water, sun and wheat plants) into consumable products (flour, bread, pasta, etc.) while using natural resources that my neighbors produce (oil, fuel, and grease) using machines that other neighbors built (combines, pick-ups, trucks, augers, and bins) so they can buy my consumable goods.  And all this couldn’t be done without duct tape, high-temp grease, a nine-sixteenth wrench, brake fluid, and a water jug.   The difference between what I do and what Congress does is that at the end of the day, I can wash all the dirt and grime off.

 

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my hat covered with wheat dust and high-temp grease.

Windmills, Part 2

 Howdy friends and neighbors.  I ended my last written mess with a comment about explaining windmill leathers, and I did so jokingly.  But, I have received more response from folks all around that want me to continue my explanation of how windmills work.  One thing that keeps me here at the keyboard is the response I get from all of you out there that take the time to read this mess. Thanks.

 

I love to hear all your stories and how something that I wrote made you remember those past memories.  I have heard and read some funny windmill stories this past week and I’m going to try to include a few of them this week.  Well, I could write about another subject that goes in circles, squeaks constantly, has their heads stuck up in air, are extremely high maintenance, and really need a good whack or two from a shovel, but congress has just bored me to tears lately….

 

Windmill leathers: yep, there actually are little round disc like seals that are made from leather that make a windmill pump water.  Leathers make a watertight seal in-between the check valve that moves up and down and the working barrel that remains stationary inside the water well.  Another set of leathers seal the bottom check valve to the bottom of the working barrel.  If you have ever been around someone that is headed to “pull a windmill,” chances are that they are in route to a windmill in a remote location to physically and manually pull the sucker-rod along with the top check out of the well to replace these fifty cent leathers.  The ones in route usually are not in a humorous mood and you should avoid them unless you wish to volunteer your back to help pull the rod.  My advice is not to walk away, but run.  As one of my readers told my the other day, he loves looking at windmills, he loves listening to windmills, he just loves windmills, but he absolutely hates to work on them.

 

One of my favorite stories about a windmill, other than fixing one with a shovel, is the one about an old cowboy that had a windmill down.  (Down means broke, tore-up, leathers out, or just plain not pumping water.)  Anyway he thought he would climb the tower and have a look see as to what the problem could be.  He had seen others do it that had less cowboying skills than he, so what could be so hard about it? As he made his way almost to the top of the twenty-foot or so tall tower he quit looking down and looked up through the fan of the non-functioning mill.  It was a pretty day, a few clouds in the sky and a nice light breeze.  As his eyes began to focus on the fan, it started to turn.  The clouds were moving as well and the novice windmill man was convinced that the tower wasn’t going to support his weight like the buckskin gelding that he rode up on.  With the fan turning just right and with the illusion of the clouds passing overhead, he was truly convinced he and the windmill were toppling over.  The cowboy grit his teeth, rode it halfway to the ground and jumped off.  After he came too and caught his breath, the windmill was still perpendicular to the earth but he wasn’t.  Even the buckskin had a confused look on his face as the cowboy looked around to make sure no one else saw what he had done.

 

I’ll leave this week with a poem that a good friend wrote several years back and sent to me. 

Windmill

If you had an old windmill,
Just outside your windowsill,
A breezy summer night,
A racket it would make,
You would toss and turn from the noise,
Keeping you awake.

Now you are older,
And thinking of that windmill,
And the steady rhythm it would keep,
Wishing you had one right outside,
Lulling you to sleep.

Burton Harmon

 

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my, yyaaawwwnnnnnn, hat.

Windmills

 Howdy friends and neighbors.  On to the lighter side of things, the other day I was talking about the need to pour oil into some windmill heads and the guys with me gave me a blank stare like they had no clue what I was talking about.  Then it me like a 20 pound pipe dog, there are lots of folks out there that have no experience or knowledge of how windmills work. 

“Everything that lives and moves will be food for you.”

Howdy friends and neighbors.  It’s been a while since I wrote a red hot one, so you better grab your leather gloves to read this one!  No wait, leather wouldn’t be right because some poor animal was exploited to provide the leather.  So, grab your cotton gloves and…  no wait, a by-product of cotton is cottonseed and that is used for animal feed that fed the animal that could have been used for the leather.  So, grab your synthetic PVC gloves… no wait, petroleum products make synthetic material and millions of years ago some poor animal lost it’s life in a tar pit caused by global cooling because man wasn’t burning enough dinosaur chips to create a greenhouse effect.  Petroleum products are made from dead animals so I guess you should hold this article with your bare hands and let them burn!

 

The other evening I was making the rounds though my new mama cow pasture when I discovered a recently converted heifer who was learning to be a cow had gotten herself on the wrong side of a hot wire fence and her baby had not figured out how to get over there with her.  The poor calf was badly de-hydrated and it wasn’t the calf’s fault or the mama cow’s fault.  It was my fault because I hadn’t been doing my job of making sure my animals were cared for in the proper manner.  Anyhow, no need playing a blame game, the situation I had at the time was a sick calf and a worried new mama cow.  The calf was to the point it could not stand on it’s own and nurse the cow that was licking it and trying to encourage it to stand.

 

To the Tucker Cattle Co. hospital we went.  Tan (my now famous feed truck) was instantly converted to an animal ambulance complete with siren and a flashing yellow clearance light.  (I’m going to tighten that alternator belt and fix that electrical grounding issue one of these days.)  I took the weak, dehydrated calf out of the front seat and proceeded to my makeshift emergency room.  “Get me the tuber S.T.A.T!” I hollered to the red headed nurse (my wife) and we got some fluids down this little heifer’s throat as quickly as we could.

 

Then we put the new mama cow into the squeeze chute so we could relieve the pressure off her swollen bag.  We hand milked her in the headlights of the ambulance (Tan), we caught the mother’s milk in the tuber bag so we could give it to the calf.  Sweat poured off of me as I tried everything to save my calf.  And what do I hear on the radio?  Carrie anti-animal agriculture Underwood singing some crap about ripping some guys leather seats and carving her name in his paint job on his four-wheel drive pick-up truck!  It’s close to ten o’clock at night, I’m bent over hand milking a new cow while trying to keep her heifer calf alert and going and my local radio station is playing a song from a bunny hugging, Humane Society of the United States contributing, air head!  I apologized to the cow and the calf for submitting them to the torture of her singing and I quit what I was doing and un-plugged that stinking radio!

 

It hit me at that point that all the hundreds of millions of dollars that the anti-animal agriculture groups have weren’t going to help this one little calf at all.  HSUS has a budget of over 160 million dollars that pays lobbyists, politicians, and supports anti-animal agriculture legislation.  Many of you reading this may not even realize that little if any of that huge budget goes to fund local animal shelters.  Their marketing campaigns trick you into thinking that the donations they receive go to help little Fido that lost his home and has found himself in the local shelter.  In reality, they do nothing for the actual care of animals; their purpose is to end animal agriculture, hunting and meat eating in general.

 

Here is the truth!  Yes, I am trying to save this heifer calf in the dark on a Saturday night during a holiday weekend because it is the difference between profit and loss for me!  The sole purpose of this animal is to convert God given natural resources (grass and grain) into consumable protein products for human consumption at the same time providing my family with a profit.  PETA, Farm Sanctuary or HSUS are no better than me.  We all use animals for profit! At least I’m trying to tell you the truth and all I have is a $200 computer!

 

My friend Trent Loos says that death with a purpose gives meaning to life.  If that little heifer dies tonight, she is going to die without purpose.  Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton, or even Rush Limbaugh who support these anti-private property, anti-agriculture, and anti-meat eating groups know absolutely nothing about what I do!

 

Another truth comes from Genesis 9:1-3, “Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the Earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all beasts of the Earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea: they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.”

 

It’s my job to take care of the animals in my care!  Not singers, actors, politicians, or lobbyists.  It’s my job!  I thank the good Lord daily that I’m blessed with a task of caring for animals and I ask Him daily to provide ME with the wisdom to do the best I can!

And yes, I even said a prayer for that little heifer calf.

 

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my COWBOY hat!

Seniors

 Howdy friends and neighbors.  Look out!!!!  High School seniors are being turned loose!  It’s graduation season around here.  Tassels, gowns, ties, and flip-flops are in style.  These ot niner’s are planning to take over the world. Well, I’m about ready to just give it to them!

Marshall

Howdy friends and neighbors.  Well, Sunny Point, OK is living up to its name.  I would sure trade anyone out there who has gotten too much rain some of my sunny and dry weather for about a week of the good wet stuff.  It seems that we have a chance of rain about every day this week.  I hope we who need it can hoard it all up so some of you folks hip deep in it can dry out a little.

Farm Show

 Howdy friends and neighbors.  I just returned last week from the big farm show in Oklahoma City and there were miles of neat stuff that I would like to have.  Not sure if I need it, but it would be fun to have.  Of course there were even folks there selling big barns that I could put all that stuff in.  I enjoy a good farm show.  I get to walk around like I’ve got money and bug and question exhibitors.  It’s lots of fun.

Wind

 

 

         Howdy friends and neighbors.  There is just nothing like the smell of rain.  The clean, crisp, damp air enters your nose and tickles your toes.  It is amazing how this country I live in can go from miserable and mean to absolutely beautiful overnight.  We finally caught a little rain this past week, but we could always use a little more.

 

I’m ready for the wind to slow down a few knots now.  Sunday, the wind was doing what wind is supposed to do, blowing, and as we started to get out of the pickup to go into church, instinct took over and it was automatic that I wait until my wife got out and shut her door before I opened mine.