Image

Tools

     I’m always looking for new tools.  Not wrenches, sockets and pliers.  I’ve got plenty of those kind of things and I don’t like to use them.  Just tools to make my life easier.  Presently, I am dealing with a pile of new tools.  We had to get a new computer.  Kela talked me into getting a Mac instead of a PC.  Right now, I don’t like the keyboard.  We will see if I learn to like it and the backward ass screen controls.  As much as I despise computers, they are a must have tool.  How good of a tool are they?  When Helms can market goats on facebook and Pfieffer can market goats via online sales, they are obviously valuable & profitable tool.  Now, I just want to see somebody sell Ralph Shafer a website.   

      I’ve been pricing MIG welders.  I like to weld and I am not bad at it.  I have the shop space and welding is one of the main things that I miss about teaching.  Plus, Duke is acting interested in it.  Couple all of this with the fact that I have been pricing panels, kidding pens, etc.  Jeeminy, I can buy a new MIG, the tubing and panels and build the stuff myself and be way ahead.  

     Once we moved to the new Kelln Kompound, our polaris 4 wheeler crapped the bed.  I took it to a “mechanic” to get fixed.  It was going to be a while.  It was August and a 113 degrees.  Duke was running goats on foot.  I felt sorry for him, so I brought a gator home for him to use.  I mean, I wouldn’t run a goat on foot if it was nice outside much less Hades hot.  I hadn’t wanted to own, strike that, pay for a gator.  Heck, for that price I could buy a heckuva good used 4wd pickup.  Well, you know what?  A pickup CAN’T do the things that a gator can.  Especially, when it comes to working on fence and dealing with sacked feed.  So we bought a gator.  Good decision.  

     Several months later, I find myself running out of daylight.  It is dark before 6 p.m.  It is hard to check animals in the dark.  I have been looking for some different lights to use to solve my problems.  I found one and it just happened to be in our store.  It is a spotlight that plugs into a cigarettle lighter.  It is remote contol and spins about 320 degrees. It has a magnetic mount or suction cup mount.  It also has a handle.  I can park the gator and walk out amongst these BEASTS.  Between the spotlight being operated remotely (cool) and a flashlight, I am able to check breeding marks and all of the other exciting crap that goes along with does.  I have already knocked the light off of the top of the gator and drug it down a well road for about thirty yards (my fault).  It still works.  It also works great on the cab of a pickup.  Although, I don’t know if I recommend heading down a paved road with it mounted on the pickup while Duke is in the backseat running the remote control with oncoming traffic. (not sure about the legalities, but it was fun and we probably won’t do it again) 

     Now, the women in my life are trying to talk me into upgrading iPhones.  This might not happen.  Even though I would consider an iPhone a tool, I would almost put that device into the same category as a doe.  Sometimes I just don’t like those things.  I wish I still had a bag phone.  Those things got some reception, you only had to talk on it when you wanted to and you weren’t married to the thing.  Now, that was a good tool.

Leave a Reply