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We're *farmers* now...

By The Armorer on July 18, 2007 | | Comments (17)

Major Arkay - this one's for you.

There *are* signs of progress at the new Castle. Evidence of occupancy are beginning to pop up, but this *is* the Castle...

While we may have minimalist taste in furnishings...

Furnishings by Office Depot

...there *is* a stack of firearms in the family room!

A very Armorer-like room... with a stand of arms, if somewhat sloppy.

And yesterday, while out checking the hilltop hayfield, I *did* find Werekitty's Pole.


We are now officially farmers. In a technical sense, anyway, I wouldn't make that claim to my neighbors, just the taxing authorities. Our neighbors would just look at us and go, "Yeah, right."

Our sea of grass (brome) has been cut and, less the keep-back for the horses, sold. And I sold a token cord of wood from our woods to my neighbor for $1.00 (he'll get it himself). I'll actually make wood available to friends and neighbors who want or need it - the last few years before he died, the previous owner didn't keep up his own wood-cutting, which has resulted in a build-up of deadfall and other fuel in my little mini-forest.

Besides, if we didn't do that, the county would class all the land as decorative/recreational and triple our taxes. We're going to get some angora goats (easy keepers and Beth can sell or use the wool) so that we justify the pond as a stock tank - else the county would call it recreational, too. And given that around here, house prices are falling, the county is going to be looking for ways to make up the property tax shortfall.

With the agricultural designation, we don't have to pay sales tax on the ATV and tractor, and can depreciate both as farm equipment. We can at least partially depreciate the new truck (which I'm using to move the hay with, among other things) and deduct the mileage for the trips to TSC and Orscheln's for fencing gear, critter feed, etc.

And, yes, I've engaged the services of an accountant - I didn't know all this stuff, and we don't intend to get creative... but we do intend to use the tax code to our advantage where we can.

I am very sore. And if I've lost any volume via weight loss, it's more than made up for from all the swelling due to straining muscles that haven't been doing anything approaching manual labor for a long while.

Speaking of which, mebbe we *are* farmers, just a tiny bit. Keen observers with access to satellite imagery last night would have seen SWWBO and myself, using the truck and trailer into the hours of darkness... hauling hay.

I haven't done that since the summer of '74. And I've got 90 bales to go, and have to get it in before it rains. My arms are vewy, vewy, tiwed. Because every bale gets handled twice... and there are 170 of 'em to deal with. It's good hay, though. The horses will be happy this winter to gnosh on it.

SWWBO and I have already decided how we're going to handle this next year.

Get a keg, have a shooting party. And if ya want beer and targets and permission to shoot (um, *not* in that order, thinking abouit it), yer gonna hafta schlep some hay.

We're not planning on tapping the oil here (there are producing wells on property all around us), nor are we going to jump on the ethanol bandwagon. That whole biofuels plan is simply stunningly wrongheaded in the impact that it's going to have on the economy - national and international. Food is going to get more expensive (all that livestock that feeds on... corn) which will hit the poor hardest. And since we're talking numbers that would essentially divert the entire export crop of the US to biofuel production - well, there will be a worldwide impact when you consider the US produces over half the corn in the world.

Heh. One of the changes that quadrupled US agricultural productivity came about with mechanization - prior to that, fully half our in-production arable land was used to feed the horses and mules and oxen that powered domestic agriculture and the retail transportation system - and with the biofuel plan, we might well find ourselves once again using half our agricultural production to fuel transportation, as well as taking marginal lands now forested and putting them back into low-productivity cropland.

I just don't get it.

We're not going to put any acreage into the Crop Reserve. I don't feel like giving the government any more power to tell me how to manage my dirt than they already have, though we're busy leveraging the extension service and USDA about forest management - so I can get rid of the built-up wildfire fuel in our woods without ruining habitat or causing erosion problems.

Heh again. Being a "gentleman farmer" has certainly changed some of my reading and research topics.

But we're starting to attract the hummingbirds to the deck, and when we get the other bird feeders going, we'll get the songbirds, too. And since we're in an open area away from the woods, I don't think I'm going to have the squirrel problem Dad does. Of course, we won't have their entertainment value, either.

But with at least two nesting pairs of hawks, the squirrels don't venture out into the open very much. The rabbits don't either. I saw an unlucky one get snagged by a diving hawk yesterday.

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17 Comments

By jim b on July 18, 2007 8:42 AM
Well just remember the Western Diamondback Rattlers are a protected species. In addition I believe you have to invite them to dinner once a month and provide medical care for them. They will probably want to set up a commune and elect officials to provide you with future health and comfort demands. And lastly always underinflate the tires incase you do run over one so that it won't hurt the lovable little critter.
 
By John of Argghhh! on July 18, 2007 8:46 AM
Could be, Jim - but if they're that lefty-oriented, they'll prolly avoid us like the plague!
 
By BloodSpite on July 18, 2007 8:56 AM
I forget how the joke goes precisely but someone once told me that snakes are non-political. The difference being the snake warns you before biting, the politician not. And they never bite lawyers, citing professional courtesy. That being said, Hay prices down here have skyrocketed. Some of the locals are importing hay from s far as Texas. Fortunately our tax system doesn't work like ya'll's or I'd be in a world of hurt. But if you need a hand mending fences, you know who to call ;)
 
By JimC on July 18, 2007 10:02 AM
I think the green empty beer bottle makes the weapons picture. Guns and alcohol together woo-hoo. BTW, green beer bottles means your an upscale or have upscale pretensions family. Green being the color of money, at least it was, beer companies going for the well heeled aim their advertising at the upscale discrimating drinker and use green bottles to attract them. At least that's the theory I heard.
 
By John of Argghhh! on July 18, 2007 10:15 AM
Heh, I dunno. SWWBO, the brewer's daughter, bought the beer.
 
By Cricket on July 18, 2007 10:20 AM
Well, there are lawyers that are snakes, and lawyers that are land sharks that walk upright. *gathers up tomatoes to compost and uses the good ones for marinara* I prefer the land sharks. Snakes are bottom feeders. That said, congratulations on the digs. The wool of angora goats? If she makes contact with a local spinner's or weaver's guild, she will never have to worry about keeping the cash flow steady. Feed em right to keep the hair soft and lustrous and you will command a good price. Don't get into the intensity of processing them beyond shearing or combing. Let the 'end user' do that. They will skirt the fleece or pick through the combings...helk, you might even get a few to comb your property for the hair they shed in the spring! Fiber people are...interesting. Of course, I should know...I have been buying Spin Off magazine for over ten years now...
 
By NevadaDailySteve on July 18, 2007 10:36 AM
Cricket, We have a fiber person in our Lions Club. She is "hair" brained. An aging hippie (her own description of herself) she not only raises the goats and shears them she processes the wool, dyes it, spins it then knits afghans, wool socks and the like from it. Gee, I just wander down the aisle at Wal-Mart and pick me up a pair of socks whenever my toes start showing through my old ones. The thing that gets me is how she gets time to do all this. She takes frequent trips. Last year alone she went to Thailand, Germany and a cruise to Alaska, not to mention the many trips to fiber festivals all over the lower 48. I get jet lag just thinking about it.
 
By fdcol63 on July 18, 2007 10:45 AM
John, I see plenty of opportunity for some more flooring work! LOL
 
By Barb on July 18, 2007 10:46 AM
John - your idea for a combined shooting/hay hauling party sounds like fun. Just make sure to schedule the hauling before the shooting, etc. :-)
 
By Cricket on July 18, 2007 10:56 AM
LOL. Yep. I don't go to many fiber festivals, but I do have spindles and a spinning wheel and love to prep the fleece and spin it. I knit socks and sweaters and well, after you have worn a pair of socks hand made for your tootsies with all natural fiber, you will never go back to mass produced. It reduces the price, but there is something intensely satisfying to me to be able to carry on a tradition as well as knowing the nuts and bolts of how textiles used to be made. Sort of like John knowing how the barrels of guns are rifled and the metal content and all the fiddly bits in the Whatsis challenge. And the trade off is that she most likely knits on long flights as well as gives up other things to do this.
 
By MAJ Arkay on July 18, 2007 11:25 AM
Thanks. Great photos. Y'all have a truly beautiful farm there. One minor point: "biofuel" isn't just ethanol. It also refers to all kinds of fats and stuff which diesel engines can burn. For instance, some folks go down to Micky D's, dip out the french fry oil from the grease dump, take it home and filter it, then put it in their diesel engines (some work without added diesel, some need diesel) and do their thing. 'Course, when they drive by, everyone gets hungry... All kinds of technological possibilities there, without interfering with the animal and human food chains. Unfortunately, our guvmint has chosen the one really stupid one -- ethanol.
 
By Brad on July 18, 2007 12:59 PM
So that looks like a Mauser or Ariska, an SKS, an AK Variant, but whats the one on the far right that sorta looks like a Sten?
 
By KCSteve on July 18, 2007 1:04 PM
John, Some clever folks up in South Dakota (If I recall correctly) have come up with a slight twist on the ethanol business. Their process works with the 'waste' from the corn (cobs, stalks, pretty much anything from a plant). If their system works out you could see an increase in corn production. Of course the Gov't being what it is I'm sure they'll get singled out in the funding race - to make sure they don't get any.
 
By Heartless Libertarian on July 18, 2007 1:54 PM
The gun on the far right is a suppressed M3 'greasegun,' or at least a mockup of one. Is that one of the Valkyrie Arms (made right here in Thurston County, WA) jobs with the mocked up suppressor/barrel extension (so as not to be an SBR) John?
 
By John of Argghhh! on July 18, 2007 1:59 PM
Heartless - yes, it is, and danged fun to shoot, too! Not quite as good as the grease gun I schlepped on active duty, but fun nonetheless. Brad - the rifles, from left to right are: Brit .22 trainer, Yugo SKS, SMLE converted to a .22 trainer, a ROMAK, and the M3-clone, as already noted.
 
By Were-Kitten on July 18, 2007 10:56 PM
WHHOOO HOOOOO! I've got a POLE! And a very nice one too, with plenty of swingin' branches.
 
By homebru on July 19, 2007 6:38 AM
Reading this blog keeps getting more interesting. As I passed the phrase "fencing supplies", there was a momentary tilt while I considered the possibilities; foils, epees, sabres, or barbed-wire. Back in college, a girl I knew complained that her parents wanted her to take a fencing class. When I asked if she thought it would take her a full semester to learn how to get the wire tight, she hit me.