You Can't Screech to a Halt... In the Mud...

More a slip slidin' along... until you stop moving...

Started raining 'bout midnite the night before last... and rained all day. Not Hard... just that constant, slow, soaking rain...

... just got the phone word that the "Beet Yard" is closed all weekend... It'll take that long for the fields to dry out enough for the farmers to get back to pulling beets.

It's not that they just need dry enough for the equipment to get through the fields, it's if they're too wet they compact. When you run equipment across wet fields, down deep the ground gets compacted hard as concrete. You won't know something is wrong until next year when you try to grow a crop... and little happens. The ground was compacted so hard the roots can't penetrate...

... so we wait...

There's only maybe five days of work left... if we can get to it. The weather man holds promise. Kind of hoping for wind today to help dry things up.

Then Monday morning we'll hit it hard and run for the finish. There are some piling stations that have been able to get in a few loads so the Tare Lab operated... a whole hour last night! Buuuuut... work an hour... get paid for four... can't grouse too hard.

I'm ready to roll south with our accounts a bit healthier than they were. It's some easier to go down the road knowing there's tire money in the bank if you shred one.

It's looking good for a few days with the kids in Denver... and doing some truck work while there... to get us south and through the winter...

Tires, and a growing starting issue... Batteries? A Mis-operating pre-heater? another alternator? something is intermittently taking amperage so I'll try to find that... Then in the southland this winter those house/solar batteries are aged... been gonna replace 'em for two years! :) this winter should see it done.

But first... we gotta roll through Colorado and get to Avondale for another week of work at PIR (Phoenix International Raceway)

With all those jobs out of the way I've got this winter marked down to a single minded focus on writing. I won't be doing much of anything else. I've got it in my mind to create the next two volumes THIS winter.

 One for the Jeb Taylor series, and the next to continue Ben Jensen's tribulations.

Those will be published if all goes well sometime around  March/April 2014.

I foolishly took it easy for too long and lost the momentum I'd gained with the first three books...  Now with #4, Shadow on the Mountain  just released, that activity is coming back.

So with that lesson well in mind this is to be a winter of words! ;) and that means Work son! Sit down, engage the brain pan and get the movie reel in my head spinning in high gear.

Both series seem to be gaining some momentum on Amazon and in Barnes & Noble's Nook store. They look to be gaining a bit of ground with their ranking dropping into far lower numbers with the two FREE books. That's juuuuust starting to carry through to the next two that are for sale. Sweet!

So... lots going on... lots yet to come...

I Just Need the Weather to Cooperate!
Brian

The Harvest is Flying Along

Nobody seems to have a solid idea of where we stand. Each has a different story. The weather has been mostly good until yesterday, then it was too good. Got shut down at 2 PM because it was TOO warm. 75 degrees or so. That makes it too warm to stack the beets and they'll rot in the pile...

So too bad they can't pick, to warm we can't stack...

Buuuut depending on who you listen to... we're somewhere between 30 and 50% so looking at heading south sometime around the 20th maybe... nobody knows...

Some days the weather shines...

 and some days not so much...

I've been ferrying 25' X 36" or so diameter pipe with a grapple equipped Bobcat from a stack several hundred yards away... dodging beet trucks... who don't apparently see ANYTHING in front of them... and the rough ground...

Hit a swoop at top speed in a laden bobcat and she'll get to buckin' like a sunshishing Bronc! HooYa! :)

Do that from 10 - 4... then we get a break for 'bout an hour and run over to the Tare Lab to do our night shift from 5:30 to whenever... usually 'bout ten...

Been running the last scale there... it's a deal where you stand and twist and push and poke and lift and swing and try to stay ahead of the flood of beet bins coming down the conveyor... Everything everyone else is working is aimed right at my scale... and I'm the one who can REALLY gum up the works if I disconnect a tub from its ticket! :)

Ever see Lucille Ball in the Candy Factory episode? ... like that... only with bins of beets, some as big as your head! :)

so far... no disconnects... and a few hours here and there of genuinely jumpin' some gullies at a dead run! I was moving so fast I got wind burn on my hands! HooYa!

Not so bad for a fella the army and va deemed a cripple a loooonnnnng time ago!

Screw that cripple crap... I can still stay ahead of the crowd... 18 or 80!

You know why? Attitude.

Those who can be beat... are.

Those who can't keep on running and the ones that would whup 'em fall away in the dust!

Cowboy Up and Ride People!
Brian

The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!

Been too long since the last rant...  and this'un is a lil' disjointed... 12 hour days in a cacophony of noise has my kaleidoscope buzzing!

Hmmmmmmm... It's curious.

The vaunted Federal Gov't came grinding to a halt amid the calls of looming disaster and agony from the highest office in the land... Oh... that's right, he's not especially known for pragmatic statements of reality... Mostly just hysteria and fear mongering.

I got up the next morning expecting to hear sirens and see the smoke of the conflagration of the world around me... all from the absence of that institution...

Buuuut... Hmmmmm... the cars in Montana are still rolling, along with the Beet trucks. The stores still opened their doors at the appointed time, and the time clock still clocked. People continue to go on about their daily chores, and ~ SHOCK!!! ~ They're doing it without Federal assistance!!! A-Freaking-Mazing!!!

Could it Be? Could the Truth and Reality BE... that the Feds need us... but we DON'T NEED THEM???

Personally, though it'd cost me my Army disability pension... I'd kinda like to give it a years trial. No U.S. Federal Government for the next year... see how well it works. The 20% or so increase in take home pay (from lack of Federal Extortion) would be kinda nice. ;) More than make up for the loss of my disability... I'm game...

... of course, somebody needs to go back to D.C. and cut off the paychecks to the Congress and Senate... since those despicable verminous, Demothugs and Republiduds... passed a law to make sure that THEY continue to get THEIR paychecks...buuut then, with no Feds, there's no IRS... so no income to pay the useless suckers! :)

... same kind of deal when they exempted THEMSELVES from the Obamination of Obamacare... You know, the THING that was supposed to save ever'body a whole pile of hard earned cash... and has resulted in the reduction of services AND a two digit increase in Insurance premiums every year since passage? The thing that was So BAD, we couldn't expect THE CONGRESS to endure it!

I'd bet the rest of the world would sure be happy to see the Feds back on a leash... Just think of all the Wars that WON'T get started... The numbers of Drones that WON"T come Screaming out of a clear blue sky at people we Suspect of wrongdoing...

Yup... the world would be a lot more peaceful place... with the Military/Industrial complex Eisenhower warned about fifty years or so ago... Back On A Chain.

No new war in Syria... no new war in Iran. All of which I don't understand... didn't mr. Obama... decry all the wars before him? and say there'd be a change? ... Oh... guess he just meant; "I'll change the wars to a new location..."

Yup... shut the sucker down... and LEAVE it shut down.

It's Time To Sink or Swim Girls
Brian