Hello, Rural King, May I help you?

 (yes, it is an old photograph)

First thing Wednesday morning I was going to start the north irrigator. The seed corn is still pretty small and it isn't dry.  But with the weather forecast it might be by the time I get a circle made. So I jump on the Mule and go to the field.

I'm driving back to the pivot when I notice one wheel rim has gear lube on it.  Of course, and I don't have any.

Ring. Ring "Hey, could you bring me some gear lube?"

Aman brings me exactly what I asked for.  But I didn't specify the 2 1/2 gallon jug stuff.  He brought the John Deere GL-5 synthetic gear lube the corn head uses.  It comes in quart bottles ... for a reason. I think the last 2 bottles I bought were like $32 EACH.  So we go back and get the less outrageous stuff.

We fill the gear box up and flag it so we watch it closely.

Engine starts up, runs fine, and as I'm walking to the control panel on the pivot starts running rough.  OH ___.  I run back and turn the fuel valve on and it starts running better.  I go back to the pivot, push the go button .. and the voltage drops from 480 to 300 and the engine kind of pulls down. Shut everything down. Look ... look ... call Reinbold.  "Please leave a message.  ... This subscriber cannot accept messages at this time"  Try again, same thing.

Call Carlisle.  No answer at office.  Call Kyler's cell.  He's someplace on the east side of Indiana, but says try this and this.

Go home, get Ohm meter (remember, I was driving the Mule), come back, climb tower, check, climb next tower, check, climb next tower ... continuity to ground.  Not good.  Call Kyler again.  Yep, bad stator on motor.  (translation: the coil part is bad.  Don't replace whole motor, just case and coil) He'll see if someone can go to the shop and set one out.  I tell him to set out two.

Drive to Carlisle, get two boxes that probably cost twice what they should.  Put it on, it tests good. Start irrigator up, it walks, but safety shuts down.  Restart, back up so in line, restart, it works.   Go check out other irrigator, move it to make sure IT works, shut down, drain oil, check on north one again.  Working just like it should. Go to shop, do some stuff for an hour or so, come back past on way to meeting in Effingham.

It is shut down, has been long enough all the water drained out.  Probably quit about the time I crossed the creek going to the shop.

Start engine, run up to speed ... and fire starts coming out of cable from generator to pivot, a couple feet from the generator.

Yes, I did a quick shut down.  I look it over.  Cable is original.  I peel back the cover to see if I can shorten it up and get by.  Inner conductor insulation is cracked and whenever I flex it cracks worse.

I call Rural King.  "Hello, Rural King,This is ______.  May I help you?"  I get transferred to electrical. 2 1/2 minutes later (my phone has a timer) I hang up and redial.

"Hello, Rural King,This is ______.  May I help you?"

"Yes, I was waiting on someone from electrical and we were disconnected." (I didn't say HOW we were disconnected) I get put on hold for about a minute. Someone picks up the phone.

"I need some electrical cable to go from my generator to my irrigator pivot.  It has 4 10 gauge wires in a rubber cover."

"I don't have any 10 gauge.  I have 8 gauge."

"OK, I'll make it work.  When do you close?"

"6:00"

"I'm headed your way"

That is 50 minutes and it takes about 25 to get there. 6:00.  The only farm store in 50 miles and they close at 6:00 in farming season.

I get there, grab a cart, and go to electrical.  "I don't know who you talked to, but the only 4 conductor anything we have is this."  "This" is indoor 3 conductor 10 with what looks like a 14 gauge bare ground.

He does have some very good looking 3-10 heavy cover outdoor cord.  So I buy 30 ft of it and a 50 ft 10 gauge extension cord and a new plug.

Yes, I did.  And Yes, it does look odd.  And Yes, I do intend to fix it right.  But it is working.

I start it up, Everything looks good.  I install some end gun stops while it runs a bit.  I head down the drive about 15 minutes before sunset.

Wait a minute.  That tire looks low.  It is. And that tower has a flag on it to check the gearbox closely. On that wheel.

So I go back, shut it down, and decide to let the ground firm up overnight before messing with that.

And my wife says I am grouchy when I get home.

Went for a walk in the woods Saturday

Perhaps a walk in the woods is a poor description.  Here's the set up:

Authorities are looking for a missing hunter in northwestern Crawford County. Sheriff Todd Liston says 55-year-old Steven Moyes went hunting Friday morning and never came back. They found his vehicle, but no signs of Moyes.

Saturday the search went full scale. They called for manpower from area fire departments, search teams, etc.   The are we were searching was one of the largest wooded areas I know of in a couple counties that is not a park or reserve of some kind.  Here is the initial search area

Where the truck was found is probably a mile and half of the main road east of there, which is not even on this map! That is a lot of woods, hills, underbrush, creeks, etc. It included old home sites, an abandoned open well or two, oil wells, hills and hollers, a couple almost swamp areas.  It was an adventure.

We knew it could be difficult because of the terrain.  It would be compounded by the fact he was a turkey hunter.  Most likely he was in full camo and if setting might be in a very hard to see spot.

The group I was in was 12 people.  We swept an area, then went to another.  We met up with two other similar sized groups in a fairly clear spot out in the middle of the woods.  Here we are waiting for further instructions on where to go

That was one of the clear areas.  Especially on the southeast side there were spots so rank and overgrown they nearly impassable.   Areas were searched, then later searched again.

Turnout was amazing.  When they recalled us I took a couple photos on the way in

These photos don't nearly do justice to the people handling logistics.  Command center, food tent, porta-potties, trash,fuel, cooling tent, fans, communications, transportation, air search, tracking dogs..

 Just amazing.

Yes, there were some glitches.  Some things could be improved, there always are.  You learn every time you do something like this.  The out pouring from the community was amazing as well.  I had the blue mule there to assist in transporting.  Most vehicles were parked a the road and people were transported a mile or so to the staging area, then another half mile or more to the search areas. I took someone to the parking area and as I was turning around a Deputy asked if I could haul some supplies back/  Turns out someone has bought 3 cases of bottled water and a cooler.  She said her name and number were on the cooler (a very nice one, too) and if she got it back fine, and if not no problem.  It was only a cooler.   I am confident in saying there were 20-30 cases of water setting in the food tent that were donated.

Crawford Rescue has said there were 150 searchers at one point, but that doesn't include support people or others who had helped but left.


If anyone wants to have a reason to choose to live in southeast Illinois, times like this are one of them.


WTHI News story
Crawford County Rescue
Rescue 300
(turn the speakers up)
Facebook friends of Prairie Licking VFD
Facebook Hutsonville Fire Dept
Facebook United Life Care

You see things on a farm you don't see everyplace else

I need to go through my photo collection. Over the years I have taken several photos of things I figure most folks just don't get the chance to see.  For example, seeing a sunset is nothing unusual ... to me.  I remember visiting with some kids raised in the mountains who considered it a treat.  And when I worked in a "town job" I realized one night I hadn't seen a sunset for a few days. 

Something I have tried taking a picture of for years are spiderwebs. At certain times of the year there are jillions (I'm sure that is a real number) of them you can see when looking across a field into the sun just right.  I tried taking this at Mom's recently.

You just barely can make out a few across the top of the grass.  And we in the country become complacent about things like deer and turkeys

  and wildflowers

OK, the next one wasn't in the woods, it was in Gramp's back yard

Ever see a Buckeye bloom?

And of course there is machinery and places

this is my backyard.

People like to come out in the country and take pictures of barns and things.  That's OK.  But they sometimes miss the little things we who live here take for granted.

A couple more photos

Neal came visiting and brought his parents

It was nice of him to allow them to come along.

Everybody smile...

Adam and David hunted Easter Eggs as well

Oh,  and David is getting better at communicating.  He wanted to watch the DVD Cars 2.  My understanding is his Mom said no.  So he wrote it on the chalkboard

PaPaw was impressed.

But the answer was still no.

I wrote a letter to someone I don't know

I wrote a letter this evening to someone I don't know.   Actually I probably do know him on sight, I just have never put a name with the face.  He is a firefighter on a neighboring department. He responded to a bad accident last night where my understanding is all he could do was hold the hand of a high school girl until the end.

He isn't taking it very well.

He posted on Facebook "after tonight take my radio my pager firedept im done!!"

I've pondered on that all day.  This evening I wrote him.  I decided to share it here on the off chance someone else might stumble across it that needs to hear this:

I wasn't at the wreck and I don't know all the details.  But I saw your comment on Facebook.  Let me ask you a couple questions you have probably been asking yourself:

Why did you become a firefighter?  If you can't save everyone why go through it all?

I don't know why you started.  But I can tell you why you should stay.  Because you are making a difference.  It may not seem like it, especially after a run like this where despite doing all you can do it seems you lose. But you did everything you could do at the time.

You can't, absolutely cannot, win every time.  But if what you do lets us win one time it is worth it. So we train and we practice and we gain skills in the hope that one time we can make a difference.

Even this time you made a difference.  It may not seem like it now, but trust me, you made a difference.

I went through First Responder this winter.  My first time I was first on scene at an incident where the victim was probably gone before he hit the ground.   I couldn't do a thing for the victim.  But I did something for his family.  I let them know someone cared enough to drop what they were doing to respond to their need.   That everything possible was done.

You are making a difference and you will probably never know what it is. Perhaps it is causing someone else to do something.  Perhaps it is inspiring someone else to make the first step toward Firefighter or First Responder or Paramedic.   I don't know and neither will you.

But I am convinced despite the heartache and pain and frustration that you are making a difference now and are going to make a difference in the future.

Your community needs you.  And despite it all, you need to continue for yourself.  So when the worst happens you can look yourself in the mirror the next day and say "I did everything I could do."

This isn't like being on a ball team. There is no tournament.  Doing what we do, if we can win one time, just once, we win it all.

Keep fighting.

It's March ... "It's ONLY March" ... "It's MARCH already!"

I keep telling myself "It's March"  Sometimes that is "It's ONLY March" and other times it is "It's MARCH already!"  Just in case you have been cooped up in an underground missile silo someplace the weather has been just incredible.  Warm (hot at times), sunshine, really nice.  Really early. Actually kind of scary.  And very, VERY tempting to a farmer to go plant corn. But we have mowed all the yards already. Not necessarily grass, mostly chickweed, but they have been mowed once in March.

I need to get out and take a few flower photos.  I'll borrow some my friend David Schwartzkopf took recently.

  There has been some corn planted for about a week in the area.  In fact the new neighbor across the road blew in yesterday and planted 60 acres or so.  I keep telling myself we need to wait until .. . well, we're up to what this year is Easter weekend.  Dad never planted corn much before the 25th of April.  Ivan didn't want us planting corn until May 10.

The different emphasis on "It is March" depends on perspective.  As I told someone we started the year out two weeks behind and have progressed to being 4 weeks behind ... and Spring is a month early.