UPS

Too bad DHL didn't stay in business in Clinton County.  I think they would have been OK in the US market.  I think UPS is overwhelmed.

DHL's move to Clinton County turned out to be disasterous.  I think it did more harm than good but I didn't work there 25 years like Les did so I would have to ask him.  It's hard to believe when I drive by that multi billion dollar world airport sitting nearly empty.  There are so many out of work but DHL had trouble finding enough dependable people.  It's all a sign of a sick society.  UPS seems to be a different story.  I wonder why?

We order lots of things online so their truck is here almost every day, sometimes more than once.  Today I felt sorry for a new kid handed a truck with 150 packages and a county road map.  He asked where Mad River Road is and I said 7 miles to the east and told him how to get there.  Then he asked where McK road was and I said spell it.  McKibben Road, well that is 3 miles west of me.  He said he was time limited and I told him I wish I had time to ride with him, we would knock his load out.  He laughed.

This morning neighbor Neil called to ask for the Newman's phone number.  He wanted them to see the sandhill cranes migrating our way if they were interested.  I need to introduce them to each other, its been years and time just creeps away.  We don't even know our own neighbors.

I work pretty hard at it but I fail, too.  I really wanted to get know Harry Ertel(this is LuAnn's picture of his old windmill where we were just standing so she could take a picture of the sandhill cranes) where the Newman's now live.  I was so busy getting this farm in order I looked across the street one day and the yard was full of cars.  Harry had passed away.  I think it was 04 or 05.  Now my aunt Jane has passed and I haven't seen her since her 90th birthday party nearly a year ago.  I guess I am no better but it doesn't seem like a year ago.

We will go to the city for her services tomorrow and start another busy week.  I don't know how much I can get done before we leave for New Zealand and Australia but there are things I must do!  I must put a check in the hands of a new trucker and lime spreader I haven't used and a check in the hands of a fertilizer vendor.  I can't farm without those materials.

Yesterday a Don Effren called me out of the blue to tell me about his new remote control heliocopter that flies over your field by GPS and takes 4 different kinds of pictures you download after the flight and look at your crop from pictures from visual to UV to NGIV.  It looks very promising to me.  I try to send the files that crept through the Frontier server and remind myself I must get on Road Runner cable.  It's lying outside our frontroom window.

I come up with this new idea of what it feels like in my corn field all season.  I name it Living In Your Fields and I envision camping in a tent with Liam and Corbin and taking temperatures of crop canopy, soil, BRIX readings, all kinds of informational things.  Smelling and touching and feeling and experiencing what a plant does though I am not a plant.  I am the steward of that plant.

Pretty crazy, isn't it?

Ed