Retirement

I have some serious catching up to do. I retired September 1st. I'm 66 and eligible for SocSec but more importantly, I'm worn out. My joints are worn, I've got a hernia to get patched and I'm not getting my farm work done. The job was mostly physical when there was a job at all. I'd sit in the shop in the winter and not see another person for weeks . I started to think of it as my trip to Mars. The last year, I kept a pepper plant by my bench so I would have something to talk to. That was a significant improvement over the year before when I not only talked to myself but was arguing with myself and loosing.Definitely time to go. In October, I had a retirement party to celebrate. If you didn't get invited, I'm sorry but the guest list got out of hand. True, not as many people showed up as were invited but it was a hell of a party. It was Toussaint style with everyone bringing there favorite firearms. I put up a backstop in the back and Jacob Waino brought his portable shooting range. We had shotgun lanes for skeet shooting and rifle and handgun shooting. At the end, we had a couple of Mad Minutes on a dead flat screen tv. The Mad Minute comes from the military. Basically, you fire everything you have until you've used most of your ammo and try to sneak away in the confusion. At the end, there were about 35 people smiling from ear to ear. I haven't felt that good in a long time. There's considerable encouragement from the attendees to do this again. If we do, the attendees will be bringing the food. I checked back in the blog and realized I didn't cover the radiation treatment. The cancer wasn't quite dead so I had to get zapped. In addition, the doc shot me up with a drug that was to destroy my testosterone. That's supposed to make the cancer more fragile and easier to kill. I was able to keep working while doing it but wasn't worth much after work. We didn't get chickens or ducks because of it and limited the sheep numbers as well. I think I'm pretty well recovered now. I've had to negative PSA tests since so we're hopeful. I hope to get some farming done in the coming year. I have a new to me tractor, a Ford 4000 with Select O Speed transmission. The Transmission is universally reviled by every farmer I've met. I think it's the best setup I've ever seen. There's no clutch. The pedal that would be a clutch is a hydraulic bypass valve. Other than that, there's a lever. Want to go faster? Move the lever. More power? Move the lever. You change speeds on the fly without having to stop. This differs from hydro-static drives in that the transmission is hydraulically shifted to individual gears instead of being continuously variable. I'm sure modern tractors have something similar but I've never had one. I acquired a 3 bottom semi mounted plow for it and have fixed up an old disk to go with it. This won't make me any better farmer but it gives me a chance. I've got to stop now. The sun is starting to wash out the screen. Next time, our trip to Europe.