Eve

No, not Adam and Eve. New Year's Eve!

The picture shows where we were a year ago today, in the woods of Highland County riding four wheelers.

Are you ready for 2011? Two big checks written today should put us in pretty decent shape for 2010 taxes but probably all we did was just defer taxes to 2011. Most of our crop needs will be paid for.

I prefer a simple cash system but farming isn't simple. Farm management and record keeping isn't simple. The tax system is bad enough for the individual but it is crazy for a business. It creates many jobs for accountants.

Are you getting door to door salesmen? They are pretty well gone here but a few still crop up.

They can make a new subject for blogging. This kid(young man) roars into the driveway in a pickup that looked like my old 98 model and runs to the door.

Now I really like to help people, especially young people and will buy some products I need at a time when I don't really need them. It's their ability to sell themselves and I have become more cynical the older I get.

Our eyes meet then Sable runs up to him and he says Oh My God. I said yep, she is an oh my god kind of dog and try to get her from not jumping all over hm which is in his favor but he doesn't know it because he is still in shock. Her bark is worse than her bite so far.

He feebly said Hi I am from US Beef and I can't go home until this freezer full of beef is sold.

I said I am a US Farmer and I want to know where my beef is produced. My parents and my brother and brother in law are cattlemen.

He ran back to his truck and roared down to the bridge. Are we the trolls of the Martinsville bridge?

No wonder I hated missing the Trans Siberian Orchestra. I read this piece about Paul O'Neill, no wonder I wanted to go see them.

"Paul O'Neill has managed and produced rock bands including Aerosmith, Humble Pie, AC/DC, Joan Jett, and the Scorpions, later producing and co-writing albums by the progressive metal band Savatage, where he began working with Jon Oliva and Robert Kinkel. O'Neill took his first steps into rock music in the 1970s when he started the progressive rock band Slowburn, for whom he was the lyricist and co-composer. What was intended to be the band's debut album was recorded at Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios and engineered by Dave Wittman. However, despite the fact that Dave Wittman's engineering was capturing the exact sound O'Neill was hearing in his head, O'Neill was having trouble with it due to the fact that many of his melodies were between two to three octaves. Rather than releasing an album that he was not happy with, he shelved the project, but continued working in the industry at Contemporary Communications Corporation, the biggest arena rock management company at the time.

Over the years, O'Neill continued to work as a writer, producer, manager, and concert promoter. In 1993, when Atlantic Records approached him with an offer to start his own band, he jumped at the chance. Building on the foundation created by the marriage of classical and rock music and the artists he idolized (Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Queen, Yes, The Who, and Pink Floyd, as well as hard rock bands such as Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin and the multiple lead vocalists of the R&B groups the Temptations and the Four Tops), he brought in Oliva, Kinkel, and Al Pitrelli to form the project.

I used to listen to all that music. Becky said Liam loved the lights and the guitars but I bet that music would stick in your head for awhile!

Thanks for reading this blog. It's been TWO years since I started thanks to a challenge from my wife, LuAnn.

It has broadened my knowledge and perspective and given me a chance to share my stories of life.

I always wanted to write a book, this is my book.

Happy New Year!

Ed Winkle