Farm News 02-17-08
Sunday morning, after chores, 34°, After raining all night, 3” of heavy, wet, snow and still falling
Weight: 207 lbs., no progress
Barn News
Suzette Rabbit recently spent a night with Bucky, so we can expect bunnies sometime after the 5th of March. Suzette was her usual sweet self: she doesn't like me, she doesn't like Bucky, she doesn't like the rabbits in adjoining cages, she doesn't like the weather, and she dislikes everything else, too. Suzette is the grouchiest rabbit in the county, but she is generally a good mother.
Secondhand Smoke
It was cigarette smoking that got me fired. Almost everyone in the office smoked, including me, but I was the only one who rolled my own with Bull Durham. Every Monday morning we'd have a staff meeting in a small room with all the windows closed. Now, I smoked, but I lived outdoors (Paula and I were living in a tipi in a pasture), and I couldn't handle the air in the room where we met. The boss and her assistant were both chain smokers, often during the meeting lighting a new one from the butt of an old one. I complained, I asked if I could open a window, but none of it seemed to register with the two women at the head of the table. If I opened a window all the delicate city folks, who didn't have enough sense to wear long underwear in the winter, would start squeaking about freezing to death and demand that the window be closed.
It was winter, and I was hand milking three cows and five goats every morning before I went to work. When you hand milk a cow, especially in the winter, you get cow shit on you. Given any opportunity, a cow will lie down in mud and cow shit before going in for milking. Then, just as you get going, she will swing her tail around and smack the side of your face with a club of half frozen mud, shit, and cockleburrs. There is no way to avoid cow shit in the winter.
Each morning I would arise before sunrise, go to the barn, milk the cows, milk the goats, take the milk to the house where the farm owner lived, and five days a week I would then change clothes and leave for work, forty miles away in Kansas City. I was tired of the drive, tired of the two crazy women running the project, tired of Kansas City, and completely fed up with spending two hours every Monday morning slowly asphyxiating during a pointless meeting. Then I had a brilliant idea.
On Monday mornings, when we had the staff meeting first thing, I went as I was when I left the barn. I changed from boots to shoes for the drive, but then put my boots back on before going into the building. I wore my chore coat, which always had brown streaks and splotches on it, my bib overalls, which always had brown streaks and splotches, and my chore boots, which had many layers of brown streaks and splotches.
On the way to work I would turn on the heater in the car and revel in the waves of organic odor roiling through the car interior. I tried to arrive just in time for the staff meeting.
Five minutes into the meeting the air would be thick with both smoke and cow fragrance and everyone was wanting a window opened. After the window had been open for five minutes they would decide it was too cold and close the window. Five minutes later people would start complaining and want to open the window, and the cycle would continue for the entire two hours of the meeting.
This was the kind of organization where the boss decided we should have a two hour staff meeting every week, so we met for two hours, even though there was seldom anything to discuss. I thought that I had helped us take a step forward, because we were now spending two hours opening and closing windows, something much more productive than sitting around the table talking about nothing. The boss, though, thought that it was a problem, because opening and closing windows was not on the agenda, and, thus, was inappropriate for the staff meeting.
They solved the problem by firing me. I was quite happy, having saved enough money to live until spring, when I got a decent job outdoors and in the sunshine, building a bridge.
Target Practice
The government has announced that they are going to shoot down a malfunctioning satellite to protect us from possible hydrazine pollution. Nonsense. Hydrazine is nasty, but not that nasty. The press is speculating that it is to keep secret technology from falling into the wrong hands. Again, nonsense.
My explanation is that the malfunctioning satellite provides us with a chance to show China and India, and anyone else who is watching, that we can shoot down a satellite with a missile fired from a ship. If China should become irritable again and start threatening Taiwan, we might shoot down all the Chinese satellites. That makes more sense than spending a couple of million dollars to avoid a small release of hydrazine.
Right to Life
How is it that many people who loudly proclaim their support for the unborn do not support leaving them an environment in which they can live?
Books
If you hang around old women, they will find things for you to do. That is how I became Chief FOOL, I was the only male at a meeting of the FOOLs and the old women elected me Chief. Now one of them has decided that I should write a book review every month for the FOOLish News, the monthly newsletter, which you can receive every month by email for a $5 annual membership. A $50 check will get you a lifetime membership plus a certificate, suitable for framing, which proclaims you to be a Complete FOOL.
Anyway, back to book reviews. I don't write book reviews. I write book reports, just like the ones for which I always received an 'F' in the sixth grade. Some years ago my wife, who is the Library Director, (used to be Librarian, but they changed the title), talked me into keeping a record of each book I wrote. I did for several years, but looking at it was depressing. So many books, so little time. For some reason I quit keeping a record, but I've decided to start again and use it both as my monthly submission to FOOLish News and space filler for Farm News.
Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett
Saichong Jitpleecheep is a Bangkok homicide detective and devout Buddhist. His mother and his boss are co-owners of a bar called The Old Man's Club, specializing in providing recreational sex for aging American hippies. Chanya, whom Saichong loves deeply, one of the girls working in the club, is discovered to have a dead CIA agent in her room. What follows is an account of the path traced by Saichong as he tries to avoid accumulating bad karma while producing a believable account of the events that led to the death of the CIA agent, weaving his way through the official corruption and unofficial sex trade of Bangkok.
This book is not about the Buddhism of sitting around in incense filled temples, it is about the ethical dilemmas faced by a devout Buddhist trying to live in the modern world. Good stuff and highly recommended. Burdett has also written Bangkok 8, which I haven't yet read, but is now on my list.
The March by E. L. Doctorow
Doctorow has written a fictional account of some of the human detritus swept up in Sherman's march across Georgia in the Civil War. I had some trouble keeping all the characters straight and found the descriptions of an army moving through mud tiresome after the first 200 pages. The horror of the Civil War stands out in almost every page. His portrayals of Sherman and his staff help the reader understand the emotions behind the cruelty.
Doctorow has an interesting style. He is very conservative with punctuation, seldom using quotation marks, and I don't recall any colons or semicolons. He has a lot of sentences that take some time to decipher. All in all, though, it was an interesting book.
Dark of the Moon by John Sandford
Generally, I like Sandford's books, but this one, although readable, needed more careful editing. He had a crescent moon rising at an impossible time, which always irritates me. The big trap that was set for the killer was set for different times in adjacent paragraphs. Still, I enjoyed it. It's set in western Minnesota and he shows an appreciation for the high plains and the butts of young women in tight blue jeans.
Weight: 207 lbs., no progress
Barn News
Suzette Rabbit recently spent a night with Bucky, so we can expect bunnies sometime after the 5th of March. Suzette was her usual sweet self: she doesn't like me, she doesn't like Bucky, she doesn't like the rabbits in adjoining cages, she doesn't like the weather, and she dislikes everything else, too. Suzette is the grouchiest rabbit in the county, but she is generally a good mother.
Secondhand Smoke
It was cigarette smoking that got me fired. Almost everyone in the office smoked, including me, but I was the only one who rolled my own with Bull Durham. Every Monday morning we'd have a staff meeting in a small room with all the windows closed. Now, I smoked, but I lived outdoors (Paula and I were living in a tipi in a pasture), and I couldn't handle the air in the room where we met. The boss and her assistant were both chain smokers, often during the meeting lighting a new one from the butt of an old one. I complained, I asked if I could open a window, but none of it seemed to register with the two women at the head of the table. If I opened a window all the delicate city folks, who didn't have enough sense to wear long underwear in the winter, would start squeaking about freezing to death and demand that the window be closed.
It was winter, and I was hand milking three cows and five goats every morning before I went to work. When you hand milk a cow, especially in the winter, you get cow shit on you. Given any opportunity, a cow will lie down in mud and cow shit before going in for milking. Then, just as you get going, she will swing her tail around and smack the side of your face with a club of half frozen mud, shit, and cockleburrs. There is no way to avoid cow shit in the winter.
Each morning I would arise before sunrise, go to the barn, milk the cows, milk the goats, take the milk to the house where the farm owner lived, and five days a week I would then change clothes and leave for work, forty miles away in Kansas City. I was tired of the drive, tired of the two crazy women running the project, tired of Kansas City, and completely fed up with spending two hours every Monday morning slowly asphyxiating during a pointless meeting. Then I had a brilliant idea.
On Monday mornings, when we had the staff meeting first thing, I went as I was when I left the barn. I changed from boots to shoes for the drive, but then put my boots back on before going into the building. I wore my chore coat, which always had brown streaks and splotches on it, my bib overalls, which always had brown streaks and splotches, and my chore boots, which had many layers of brown streaks and splotches.
On the way to work I would turn on the heater in the car and revel in the waves of organic odor roiling through the car interior. I tried to arrive just in time for the staff meeting.
Five minutes into the meeting the air would be thick with both smoke and cow fragrance and everyone was wanting a window opened. After the window had been open for five minutes they would decide it was too cold and close the window. Five minutes later people would start complaining and want to open the window, and the cycle would continue for the entire two hours of the meeting.
This was the kind of organization where the boss decided we should have a two hour staff meeting every week, so we met for two hours, even though there was seldom anything to discuss. I thought that I had helped us take a step forward, because we were now spending two hours opening and closing windows, something much more productive than sitting around the table talking about nothing. The boss, though, thought that it was a problem, because opening and closing windows was not on the agenda, and, thus, was inappropriate for the staff meeting.
They solved the problem by firing me. I was quite happy, having saved enough money to live until spring, when I got a decent job outdoors and in the sunshine, building a bridge.
Target Practice
The government has announced that they are going to shoot down a malfunctioning satellite to protect us from possible hydrazine pollution. Nonsense. Hydrazine is nasty, but not that nasty. The press is speculating that it is to keep secret technology from falling into the wrong hands. Again, nonsense.
My explanation is that the malfunctioning satellite provides us with a chance to show China and India, and anyone else who is watching, that we can shoot down a satellite with a missile fired from a ship. If China should become irritable again and start threatening Taiwan, we might shoot down all the Chinese satellites. That makes more sense than spending a couple of million dollars to avoid a small release of hydrazine.
Right to Life
How is it that many people who loudly proclaim their support for the unborn do not support leaving them an environment in which they can live?
Books
If you hang around old women, they will find things for you to do. That is how I became Chief FOOL, I was the only male at a meeting of the FOOLs and the old women elected me Chief. Now one of them has decided that I should write a book review every month for the FOOLish News, the monthly newsletter, which you can receive every month by email for a $5 annual membership. A $50 check will get you a lifetime membership plus a certificate, suitable for framing, which proclaims you to be a Complete FOOL.
Anyway, back to book reviews. I don't write book reviews. I write book reports, just like the ones for which I always received an 'F' in the sixth grade. Some years ago my wife, who is the Library Director, (used to be Librarian, but they changed the title), talked me into keeping a record of each book I wrote. I did for several years, but looking at it was depressing. So many books, so little time. For some reason I quit keeping a record, but I've decided to start again and use it both as my monthly submission to FOOLish News and space filler for Farm News.
Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett
Saichong Jitpleecheep is a Bangkok homicide detective and devout Buddhist. His mother and his boss are co-owners of a bar called The Old Man's Club, specializing in providing recreational sex for aging American hippies. Chanya, whom Saichong loves deeply, one of the girls working in the club, is discovered to have a dead CIA agent in her room. What follows is an account of the path traced by Saichong as he tries to avoid accumulating bad karma while producing a believable account of the events that led to the death of the CIA agent, weaving his way through the official corruption and unofficial sex trade of Bangkok.
This book is not about the Buddhism of sitting around in incense filled temples, it is about the ethical dilemmas faced by a devout Buddhist trying to live in the modern world. Good stuff and highly recommended. Burdett has also written Bangkok 8, which I haven't yet read, but is now on my list.
The March by E. L. Doctorow
Doctorow has written a fictional account of some of the human detritus swept up in Sherman's march across Georgia in the Civil War. I had some trouble keeping all the characters straight and found the descriptions of an army moving through mud tiresome after the first 200 pages. The horror of the Civil War stands out in almost every page. His portrayals of Sherman and his staff help the reader understand the emotions behind the cruelty.
Doctorow has an interesting style. He is very conservative with punctuation, seldom using quotation marks, and I don't recall any colons or semicolons. He has a lot of sentences that take some time to decipher. All in all, though, it was an interesting book.
Dark of the Moon by John Sandford
Generally, I like Sandford's books, but this one, although readable, needed more careful editing. He had a crescent moon rising at an impossible time, which always irritates me. The big trap that was set for the killer was set for different times in adjacent paragraphs. Still, I enjoyed it. It's set in western Minnesota and he shows an appreciation for the high plains and the butts of young women in tight blue jeans.
posted by The Geezer at 3:34 PM
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