Product review photos

I am submitting a product review to Backwoods Home Magazine for a gizmo called a Haywire Klamper. The following photographs are for purposes of illustration so the editor can pick which ones she wants to use in the review.

Photo 1: Haywire Klamper kit

Photo 2: Broken handle of our hayfork

Photo 3: Sample loop of wire

Photo 4: Sample loop of wire

Photo 5: Measuring the wire

Photo 6: Wire loop

Photo 7: Looping wire around handle

Photo 8: Loop of wire around handle

Photo 9: Threading wire into Haywire Klamper

Photo 10: Notched foot of Haywire Klamper

Photo 11: Bracing notched foot against loop of wire

Photo 12: Turning handle to tighten the wire

Photo 13: Notched foot braced against loop of wire during tightening

Photo 14: Using pliers to snug loop wires closer

Photo 15

Photo 16: As the wire tightens, the crack in the handle disappears

Photo 17: Bending the wire to lie flat against the wood handle

Photo 18: Nipping off the extra wire ends

Photo 19: Gently tapping down wire ends to lie flat against wood handle

Photo 20: Completed wire repair

Photo 21: Long cracks require two single loops

Extraordinary photo

Here's an extraordinary photo: Earth, Venus, and Jupiter -- as seen from Mars.

Just look... and marvel.

Update: Looks like the pic is a fake. Well, it's still a pretty spiffy concept.

Got $300? Start a blog!

Here's a news headline that was so startling I gasped when I read it:

Want To Start A Blog in Philadelphia? You’ll Need A $300 License For That!

It seems in the City of Brotherly Love, you need to fork over $300 merely for the privilege of opening a FREE account on any FREE blogger platform to share your thoughts or photos or expertise. And if you make the mistake of signing up for Google ads or something and thus "profiting," Philadelphia wants $300... even though most bloggers make about $10/year from Google ads.

So any mommy blogger who wants to upload cute pix of her toddler, or anyone who wants to share their adventures last summer, or anyone who wants to demonstrate how they fixed their cherished 1949 Ford 8N tractor... well, if you live in Philadelphia, be prepared to fork over a wad of cash for the privilege.

Look, if your blog is a business then of course you must pay taxes. But that's not what Philadelphia is requiring. It's requiring anyone "conducting commercial activity" [as in, signing up for Google ads] to buy a business privilege license that costs $300 for a lifetime, or $50 per year. Businesses must also pay taxes on any profit they make.

It leaves me sputtering, it really does.

Cleaning the barn

We're getting low on hay.

This isn't surprising. Last summer we got a very very bad yield of grass hay from the 25-acre parcel across from us (the absentee owner lets us mow and bale the acreage each year). Yields have been declining for a long time, and last summer hit a new low: only eight tons total, or about 1/3 ton per acre. Good productive fields should yield about two tons per acre.

A fair fraction of those eight tons was pretty lousy stuff, too -- chock full of such inedibles as cheat grass, hawk weed, and St. John's wort (which dries to stick-like brittleness and is like chewing wire for the cattle).

Unsurprisingly we had to supplement by buying some better-quality grass hay to get our animals through the winter. However we didn't get enough, so we just ordered in another ten tons.

To get ready for this incoming shipment, we wanted to clean out not just the barn, but the open area in front of it. You know the saying: nature abhors a vacuum. So do vacant places on a farm.

Don doesn't need much of an excuse to use the tractor. We chained up and moved four tractor tires a neighbor brought for use in the tire garden...

...moved the bucket attachment of our old tractor...

...and moved some old rotting hay bales that had absorbed so much water they must have weighed 100 lbs. each. (We moved them into the pasture to burn later on.)

Then we tackled the inside of the barn.

We had accumulated a surprising amount of hay bale twine. This is highly useful stuff (we've toyed with naming our farm Baling Twine Ranch or something) but it can be overdone. We have thousands of strings of twine and don't need it all. So, in the interest of efficiency, we chucked it into the back of the pickup for a future date with the dump.

It made rather a pretty and colorful tableau once we moved the truck into the sunshine.

In fact, I found it very artistic. Don termed it psychedelic spaghetti.

He used the fork/tine attachment on the bucket of the tractor to scoop up the old hay on the barn floor. Normally the old hay wouldn't be a big issue, but since Shadow and Ninja have been in the barn for a couple of weeks, the floor had a fair bit of manure on it. Can't set hay bales on top of manure.

The tines lifted much of the old stuff in a sort of mat...

...and revealed the gravel flooring of the barn. After a bit of work, most of the barn floor was clean enough...

...and the pile in the field was quite sizable.

Shadow and Ninja watched the progress.

Ninja was fascinated by the tractor, thus proving that a boy's interest in mechanical stuff crosses the species divide.

A few days later, a local farmer brought in the first load.

Beautiful leafy stuff, second-cutting.

Compare it to what we have in the barn at present.

The chickens wasted no time in exploring.

And Shadow wasted no time in munching.

The bales were huge -- on average about 1100 lbs each -- and lay like gigantic play blocks. The nooks and crannies proved irresistible to both chickens...

...and calves alike.

Don tried to load those massive bales into the barn, but they proved too heavy for our tractor. A neighbor (with a beefier tractor) is coming over the weekend to move them for us.

Now we're set for hay until summer!

One in a zillion photo

Have you seen this yet? It's been making the rounds of the internet:

It's exactly what it looks like: a weasel on the back of a flying woodpecker. And no, by all accounts it's not photoshopped.

The caption I've seen is as follows:

A remarkable photo has captured a weasel on a woodpecker's back as the bird flies through the air. The photographer, Martin Le-May from Essex, said he "feared the worst" for the green bird after hearing "distressed squawking" during its struggle with the mammal at Hornchurch Country Park. After Le-May managed to capture the incredible image -- which has become a hit on Twitter since it was taken -- the creature managed to escape with its life. Picture: Martin Le-May

Kudos, Mr. Le-May. That was a one-in-a-zillion shot.

High-tech agriculture

Here's a fascinating article I stumbled upon regarding the nightmare of high-tech farm equipment.

I know it comes as a shock to some people, but most farmers no longer use a horse-drawn plow.

Let's face it, these time-tested methods might work to support a family farm, but it is literally impossible to support American agriculture with old methods.

So many professional farmers have gone high-tech. In fact, the technology (and price) of new professional-grade tractors is staggering beyond belief.

Some of these specialized machines can cost upward of a million dollars.

But when is technology TOO much?

The article discusses how computerized malfunctions in these technological marvels can strand a farmer for days during the critical window of plowing, seeding, fertilizing, or harvesting.

The article states, "[The farmer] just wanted a better way to fix a minor hydraulic sensor. Every time the sensor blew, the onboard computer would shut the tractor down. It takes a technician at least two days to order the part, get out to the farm, and swap out the sensor. So for two days, Dave’s tractor lies fallow. And so do his fields."

(Say what you will about a horse-drawn plow...)

"Of course, the world is changing, and that’s especially true in the world of agriculture," says the article. "Most mechanical problems can’t be solved with duct tape and baling wire anymore. Regulations are stricter, agribusiness is more consolidated, resources are more scarce, and equipment is infinitely more complicated and proprietary. Small family farmers like Dave face challenges that even the most industrious Maker would find hard to 'hack.'

"What used to be done by hand is now managed at scale by giant machine. And that equipment is expensive -- equivalent to the price of a small house (Dave’s mid-ranged tractor is worth over $100,000). New, elaborate computer systems afford the kind of precision and predictability that farmers 20 years ago couldn’t have even imagined. But they’ve also introduced new problems."

Let's face it, farmers need force multipliers. In the old days, horses, oxen, or other livestock provided that force. Today, those who are the hands-on agricultural producers are become more and more scarce, yet are called upon to feed greater and greater numbers of people. About 2% of Americans feed 98% of the populace. They simply can't do it with horse-and-plow any longer.

We live on the edge of the vast Palouse, a region of hills and swales that are heavily cultivated with a number of dryland crops (around here, mostly wheat). To drive through mile after mile after mile of these hills makes you realize how massive a job it is to cultivate it all.

Tractors are no longer big mechanized horses. They're computer-programmed to the nth degree to guide the farmer toward precision adjustment of soil types, moisture, fertility, and endless other variables.

In theory this allows the farmer to save both time and money when it comes to applying seed, fertilizer, and pesticides. In reality, though, the farmer often goes into debt for a $100,000 machine that, when it malfunctions, is a $100,000 piece of useless junk until such time as an expert can be called to the scene to revive it.

There are endless urban stereotypes of the dumb hick farmer, but I'm here to tell you most farmers are sharp, adaptable, creative, and resourceful. Most are also pretty decent mechanics. But they're not computer programmers, nor should they have to be. Their minds and attention should be focused on the proper cultivation, maintenance, and harvesting of crops -- not getting a degree in computer programming simply to run their tractor.

As the article notes, these kinds of tractors are increasingly a liability, not an asset. "There’s an increasing number of farmers placing greater value on acquiring older simpler machines that don’t require a computer to fix."

I'm the first to admit I'm a Luddite, but maybe it's time to tone down the high tech. Just because something CAN be "technologized" doesn't necessarily mean it SHOULD. Just sayin'.