Some Days Are Strange ........
You get up with a plan to do certain things and the whole day drives you in a different direction.
That direction can be good or bad. Today? Pretty good.
Good Queen Buffness hauled ass early this morning to go see her Sister for the Holiday. That left me with the Dogs to mess around here all day.
Needing feed for the Chickens, I headed off to town. On the way I spied an old Ford 9N Tractor for sale just down the rode a ways. I don't really have the cash for a Tractor right now, but I do have the need for one.
The big lawn machine I bought several years ago is just that. A lawn machine. It's a beast when it comes to cutting that stuff. The big problem is that I have a lot more rough stuff than lawn.
I'm beating the hell out it. A small tractor with a Bush Hog would be better for a lot of what I've got here. So I stopped. Looked pretty good. I felt the motor and it was cold, so when the owner cranked her up and it started on about the second turn I was impressed. He went on about all the stuff he'd done on it and it conformed with what I'd already eyeballed. I told him I was only kicking tires as I didn't have any cash and we drifted off to other subjects.
One of which was chickens. Seems he'd bought a bunch of pullets and wanted to get rid of some. Three bucks a pop. I told him I'd be back.
I went by the bank and got a few bucks cash while I was doing my needed work in town.
Now, I'd forgotten that the other day, the air conditioner guy had offered me a trellis setup that he had taken down recently. Driving by his place I spotted it and remembered that. Shit. I already had a bunch of shit in the the back of The Little Blue Truck and didn't have room for all of the Trellis.
Went home and unloaded all of the Chicken feed, dog food, etc and made another trip to town. The owner had taken all the pieces apart during the time I'd been going home.
Cool.
I loaded up all the, already marked pieces and drove back toward home.
Stopped and bought 4, Barred Rock Pullets from the Tractor owner & put them in the cage I'd already thrown in the back and continued toward home.
This Trellis had been used to hang up those upside down Tomato buckets last year. It'll be perfect for a Grape Arbor. The guy was nice enough to mark all the pieces so even a Dumbass like me can get it all back together again. More cool.
On the way home from town - the first time- I saw a garage sale that looked good, so I stopped on the way home from the 2nd trip. (With the Chickens in the back of the truck)
Got a 4 way lug wrench, 100 foot of heavy nylon 5/8" rope, a nice Brooder lamp and a cool old, Black Dial Type Telephone for a total of $3 Bucks.
The lug wrench or the rope was worth that alone. Good score.
So far so good, right?
There's a big field across the road from me. 60-80 acres. They started taking the Wheat out yesterday evening, getting about a quarter of it.
The Boy was running the Combine and his Dad came in with the Baler to bale the straw around 2-3 this afternoon. He only made a short pass and stopped. I caught him as he headed back to his truck and asked him about the price of Straw in the field.
We talked for a few minutes and when he realized that I wanted the straw for garden mulch and Chicken bedding, he told me that they have a shitlaod of straw that they can't sell that I can have for free. As in, take all you want.
It shames me to say that I've been out here at this place for close to 10 years and have never met these guys. They live less than a quarter mile away. I've met several of the family members, but not this guy or his son.
My bad in a big way.
I'm gonna have to have, Good Queen Buffness make them some cookies or a pie or something when I do take him up on his very kind offer.
I'm a friendly guy, but I don't go out of my way to introduce myself to strangers. I wave whenever anyone goes by and I will stop and help anyone who looks like they need it, but I just never have gone to the trouble of reaching out to the people who live close around me.
That's a serious shortcoming on my part that needs to be addressed.
Not at all like I planned, but the day turned out good. And I learned about a problem that I need to correct, too. That's ok.
It's an area that I need to work on.
OK. Enough for today.
Gratuitous Picture for a Friday Evening-
Remember yesterday when I mentioned the "Tomatoes that ate my HoopHouse? Here's what I mean.
As a comparison. Here's a picture from a few Weeks ago -
