Maine Reality TV --- The humble Farmer's TV show on YouTube.

+

In February, 2017, I paid ASCAP $200. or so for the right to run this radio show for you on the Internet. Although we are not starving, if you would show your appreciation by donating a small contribution to my PayPal account, you would earn an inedible spot on The humble Farmer's wall of fame.

+

Rants February 5, 2017 1. When I was out to the Wisconsin Apple Grower’s meeting I heard some things that you wouldn’t hear in Maine. Two old men talking. Real old men. Older than me. One said, “How come our minds don’t get older like our bodies? How come 19 year old girls still look good to 80 year old men? Tell me why 80 year old women don’t look good?” The other one said, “They do at mealtime.”

+

2. Did you know it is illegal to place manure on Maine fields between December 1 and March 15? Doesn’t this pretty well explain why, when you drive past a farm around Christmas time, the cows are always wearing such a pained expression?

+

3. The flapper in our toilet was not closing every time. It would close 19 out of 20 times, but after 19 times of seeing it work right, you got slack and did not check it before leaving the bathroom, and then it would mess up and stick and pump the water supply dry. It stuck again late last night. I left without checking to see if the flapper had closed. An hour later I was roused out of a sound sleep in bed by powerful people in our home who do not go to bed at 8 like I do. I was roused out because there was no water. I looked. Sure enough the flapper was stuck open. This is a new system. I put the whole new system in a month ago when the old flapper occasionally stuck open. But, yup, the new flapper wouldn't close every time either. Last night when I finally got to bed at around midnight it finally hit me. If I tied a nut on the flapper with a piece of wire it would give the flapper enough extra weight to force it down and keep it from sticking. This morning I Googled to see if there was a better solution. Use different kinds of acid. Check the chain. Buy a new unit. All kinds of advice that didn't seem to address our problem. But then, there it was. a better idea than mine of tying a nut to the flapper to give it extra weight. It said, "It needs more weight. Just slide a washer down the chain, big enough to help gravity out, so that it rests on top of the flapper valve." Hooray once again for Google. I slipped a half-inch or so washer over the chain and now the washer rests on top of the flapper. How much you want to be a quarter the weight of that washer has fixed it? As you know, I’m telling you about this in case it will help you someday. I know you have total recall and never forget good advice.

+

4. One morning we turned on the news to discover that the ocean had wiped out a few low lying neighborhoods along the Atlantic coast. Even though we read that the sea level is predicted to rise even more over the next 100 years, we were told that boardwalks and houses will quickly be rebuilt in the same place. Should houses that are being built on land that will soon once again be inundated and washed away by sea water be required to pay a higher premium for their insurance than those of us who live on high ground? Or should our premiums be raised to help pay for homes built on sand by the shore? In some parts of the world people are already perching their houses on top of 10-foot steel poles. If people build houses on land that is about to be washed over by sea water, should they get aid from the government as well as our best wishes for their health and happiness? Or should they be encouraged to move to higher ground right now? Luckily we don’t have to vote on it. The rising sea water is eventually going to make that decision for them.

+

5. Too bad. So sad. Were you aware that technology has destroyed a genre that was dear to the hearts of all Americans back when I was a boy? Remember the song, “The mailman goes by yi yi yi yi, no letter today.” My parents played and listened to classical music and would have stopped breathing before they’d listen to Ernest Tubb or Merle Travis. But there was always someone crying over a letter from an unfaithful sweetheart on the radio when I visited friends. You might remember one called “Won’t you put away the glass” which was sung by a woman who had a man who drank too much. Nobody sends letters anymore. You’d have to think an awful lot of a woman to spend 50 cents or so on a stamp when you could just whisk her out an email. When was the last time you heard a country and western song about unfriending someone after a DNA test proved that he wasn’t the father? Or when did you hear a song about sending someone an email for breaking your heart? Sing: “I sent her an email for breaking my heart.” I’m the humble farmer at gmail dot com. When you heard me sing that, didn’t you have to admit that something was lacking? Who ever heard of a dear John email?

+

6. How high would the price of gas have to be before you’d stop driving your car and walk, take a bus or ride a bike? I don’t know. But I do know that you and I are hooked. We have the automobile habit. Of course, someday we will all have electric cars that run on batteries that are charged by the sunlight. The batteries will be improved so you’ll get more than 100 miles between charges. You have probably read that Saudi Arabia plans to abandon fuel oil and be completely shifted over to solar power within the lifetime of the present ruler. He is 67. The Saudi’s plan to use solar energy themselves and sell every bit of oil they have left at the highest price they can get to the last sucker still addicted to gasoline engines and oil fired boilers. Guess who that will be? When the world finally runs out of oil it will be even more painful than the transition from the horse and buggy to the automobile. All of the people who produce and service oil fueled engines will be in the same position as the folks who once made buggy whips and wooden wagon wheels.

+

7. Google is a wonderful thing. How else would I have learned that some scientists have discovered how to make teeth fillings out of the same polyethylene fibers used in bullet proof vests? I’m so old I can remember when superman was the only person who could catch bullets in his teeth and spit them back at the bad guys. Now, with her enhanced technological prowess, your basic great-grandmother will be required to have her jaws licensed as a lethal weapon.

+

8. We read in the newspaper that a man is accused of shooting his wife in the head after she nagged him about the cost of a new muffler. He reportedly said that he simply couldn’t take it anymore. How many husbands do you know who will probably cut out that article and paste it on the refrigerator door?

+

9. My friend Rich says that some people who buy lottery tickets don’t have a firm grasp on what you can do with $30,000,000. Rich says some TV reporter interviewed a man who bought a lottery ticket. Of course the reporter asked him what he’d do if he won 30 million dollars. And the fellow said he’d pay off his house mortgage. Think about this. If it took 30 million dollars to pay off your house mortgage, would you be in that socio-economic class of people who buy lottery tickets at a gas station?

+

10. Addiction is a terrible thing. I have had no coffee for a week and I know this. Anyone who has to look at their email before their eyes are open in the morning also knows this. Even more insidious is Facebook, which I ignored until it completely overpowered me. Being an educator, one morning I posted a synopsis of An Enemy of The People on my Facebook page --- just in case a couple of my friends were unfamiliar with it. Reading things like An Enemy of the People is part of one’s education. Even if it doesn’t change the way one votes, it might activate some unused thought process that will enable one to finally understand the power of lots of money. And even better than the opportunity to pass along interesting things to one’s friends on Facebook, are the interesting messages that appear there from one’s friends. Wilder Oakes very astutely compares it with getting messages from a trance medium or an Ouija board.

+