Dwindling value of home owner's insurance continues

Insurance Companies Dropping Dry Rot Coverage

It is common knowledge that most private home insurers do not offer homeowners flood insurance, relegating them to expensive Federal insurance programs. However, my wife and I were notified today by State Farm that starting this month they and many other insurance companies are no longer insuring homes for dry rot. This will cause an increased demand for building inspectors, as they are in limited supply already.

Homeowners will no longer be able to rest on their laurels and would be well advised to pay for a home dry rot inspection every 3 years to prevent very expensive home repairs. I can see the mortgage industry already wrapping that cost of regular inspections into the annualized cost of the of the mortgage, much like they due property taxes to assure continued value.

Home inspection services will be a very busy industry in coming years, not so much because of impending home sales but of that of personal assurances that structural status of any home will not cause financial nightmare.

The Tasmanian dancer

Prior to the era of corporate farms and recreational ranches, rural communities would get together for many different functions. There were fund-raising dinners, local theatrical performances, potluck socials, sporting events, and who knows what else. Our community would have an annual dance at the fire hall.

As a youngster, I was always excited to go to the dance. I was not a dancer, but I loved to visit with my friends, plus laugh at some of the dances those old farmers and ranchers would do. My favorite passage was: “Better to sit, watch, and be presumed an idiot then go out, dance, and remove all doubt.”

I can remember my mother and two sisters being very nervous on the day of the dance. Their greatest fear was that Bullet would ask them to dance. Bullet was a man who believed in doing things as quickly as possible. His style of western swing dancing most closely resembled the cartoon character The Tasmanian Devil.

Community involvement was very high at these functions, so the women in my family found peace with safety in numbers. If Bullet asked each girl to dance once, the burden would not be hard to bear.

As a musician, I am forced to use tempo as the basis for each dance step. I assume that is the rule for dancing. With Bullet, the song tempo doesn't matter. He has one speed; Lightning.

It became apparent that one day I would have to learn to dance. My sideline spectating was not resulting in dates with the girls. Finding a dance that came naturally would be the key for not looking like the idiot on the dance floor. As in poker, if you can't spot the moron on the dance floor in the first five minutes, you are the moron.

While shoveling a grain bin, I noticed many repetitive motions that could be incorporated into a dance move. During the bin cleaning process, you have to put your left foot on the sweep auger while shoveling from your left to your right.

With your left foot out, move your arms from left to right with the rhythm of the music. This dance is called the “Bin Cleaner”. To spice up the dance, you can add the “Combine Cleaner” at various intervals.

To do the Combine Cleaner, just pretend a pile of chaff just went down the back of your neck. This forces your head to come up with a sudden forward thrust from your shoulders, while gritting your teeth for effect. Make sure your arms are down at your sides, or you will bear a slight resemblance to a chicken.

The “Hay Baler” is the next move every farmer can use in his dance arsenal. With the understanding that all balers will expectedly break down with two hours to go and rain clouds imminent, simply practice the motion of kicking the side of the baler with your outside foot. This dance can be used with the Combine Cleaner also.

I would go through the Rock Picker, the Electrical Glitch, the Tractor Stretcher, and the Panicking Wheat Marketer, but those dances have to remain as my own trademark dance moves. Bullet is still alive and well and I don't want him learning my secrets.

Having a large assortment of dances to choose from is a great way to make every community gathering a memorable and enjoyable one. I'm sure there are a few teenagers who would love to learn to dance like me. I can almost guarantee them success with the opposite sex if they will just watch my moves carefully.

If I can manage to get this community together, which is made up of three farmers, two ranchers, four retired couples, a few self-employed entrepreneurs, and fifteen recreational home owners, perhaps I can show them I am really not the moron on the dance floor, despite what the all the rumors say.

Kevin Duling is a wheat farmer from Maupin, Ore. His stories will be posted on the Capital Press blog every Friday. Comments are welcomed at kevinddul@aol.com.

Copyright, November 2007, Kevin Duling.

Flying Christmas trees

Steve Brown of the Capital Press has posted a video story about Christmas tree harvest using helicopters on a tree farm in Turner, Ore. The video will also be available soon on the Capital Press website, but for now the Blogriculture site and YouTube are the only ways to find it.

High-tech school report on farm chemicals

I came across a video today that was done as part of a high school project at High Tech High School charter school in San Diego. Given it's title, "Earth Watch — Agriculture Chemicals," I expected it to contain a pro-environment (i.e. anti-agriculture) message. But I was impressed that the student(s) who produced the video report put together a video that recognizes there are benefits to using agriculture chemical, like fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, as well as dangers if they are misused.

The information contained in the report may not contain information unknown to people working day-to-day in the ag industry, but I thought it was worth sharing anyway. If nothing else, is shows how the process of doing a school report has changed. Apparently writing a report isn't enough anymore and school reports have gone multimedia, at least at this Souther California charter school. Note the long list of credits at the end of the report (although I challenge anyone to actually read them and decipher what they say in this YouTube format).

When I watch such things, I always wonder what my dad's reaction to it would be. My father owns an agriculture aviation operation that applies agriculture fertilizers and chemicals by air. I'm sure he would have field day with the part of the report where the narrator is talking about pesticides over video images of an airplane using a spreader to apply some sort of granular material, which I'm assuming is fertilizer. Maybe it's a good thing Dad isn't part of the YouTube generation.

Hunters and gatherers

By Kevin Duling

Back in college, my crop science teacher spent many days of class telling us how we need to approach society and relationships using the “hunter and gatherer” mentality we were born with. He added that women were usually the gatherer type while men preferred to go out and kill something, drag it home, and show their women how great they were at the hunt.

I have witnessed both the hunting and gathering instinct at work in society, like a woman urging her husband to stop at the clothing or fabric store so she can browse through the aisles, hoping to find a great deal. Most men, unhappy because there is nothing to hunt and drag home, fall asleep in the car, dreaming of the day when their newly trained bird dog will make its first successful point.

There is one very important exception to the rule that men are hunters and women are gatherers. That would be the day after Thanksgiving. A typical Thanksgiving for my extended family is to rent a large house on the Oregon coast and spend the week playing cards and arguing over whose turn it is to do the dishes. The day after Thanksgiving usually involves the men going for a long hike while the women run to the outlet mall at 5 a.m. to begin to gather.

I remember one Thanksgiving when I caved in to the urging of the women and agreed to accompany them on this annual Friday shopping ritual. I figured it would be good to get a head start on the Christmas shopping and I would surely find some good deals. The older men in our house warned me about what was in store for me, with a couple of them using an evil giggle I hadn’t heard before.

At 4:30 a.m., the day after Thanksgiving, I was rudely awakened by a pack of giddy ladies all discussing which stores they would go to first. Not wanting to make them late, I skipped taking a shower and just jumped into the vehicle. Typically, these women always wanted me to drive, but not today. I sat back and watched as eight ladies who were all known for their kindness transformed into aggressively mean, scowling monsters letting nothing get in their way.

I hunched down in the back of the suburban when the driver crashed through a large mud puddle, completely soaking a couple unfortunate pedestrians on the sidewalk. The driver, whom I no longer recognized, laughed out loud as the lady in the passenger seat yelled “Go! Go! Go!” with her fist pointing onward.

At 4:50 a.m. we arrived on scene of the outlet mall. I was shocked to see the parking lot was nearly full with lines beginning to form at the entrances to some of the stores. There was no turning back now, so I grabbed my Christmas list and tried to find a store that was not so popular.

At 6 a.m. I had managed to pick a few things off the list and I felt it was time for a doughnut and a nap. I struggled through the crowd, being pushed and shoved like a pinball as these monsters, oh, I mean ladies, glared at me with their red, glowing eyes. Finally, I found the driver of our vehicle, who used to be my sister, and asked for the keys so I could take a nap.

At roughly 8 a.m. I was getting restless, so I managed to get back out into the chaos to see if I could pick some more things off my list. Entering a large department store, I grabbed a cart, hoping it would give me support and balance just in case the monsters should attack again.

I found a few really good deals. I made it to the sock section and there were three pairs of socks left for an incredible price. I grabbed all three! Meandering through the aisles I witnessed a man at the end of the aisle being scolded by a couple of monsters. Apparently he was trying to get into the express lane with 10 items when the limit was 9. People say a picture is worth a thousand words and when his eyes caught mine, well, let’s just say that there was an understanding between us.

As I was bent over looking at some items I noticed a lady with a cart moving very fast away from me. She glanced over her shoulder and her glowing eyes looked right at me. Fear then turned to rage inside me. “Did she just swipe something out of my cart?” I asked myself. “She did; she stole my three pair of socks!” It wasn’t worth the chase as I watched that five foot tall, 100 pound creature roar around the corner.

At 8:50 a.m., with the sale ending in 10 minutes, there was pushing and shoving. One lady was in tears behind me knowing that she wouldn’t make the checkout counter by 9 sharp. Through all the chaos, the manager yelled through the intercom: “Please ladies and the one gentleman, everyone in line at 9 a.m. will get the sale prices!”

While attending Thanksgiving this year at a friend’s house for a change of pace, a woman I have known for years to be one of the most kind, soft-hearted ladies around was planning her shopping trip for Friday. I remember her saying, “It’s time for me to put my nasty hat on, Kevin; we are pulling out the nasty hat!”

There is one day per year where gatherers turn into hunters and the typical hunter needs to disappear, or he will indeed be hunted.

Kevin Duling is a wheat farmer from Maupin, Ore. His stories will be posted on the Capital Press blog every Friday. Comments are welcomed at kevinddul@aol.com
Copyright, November 2007, Kevin Duling

Bay spill shuts down oyster farm

Capital Press reporter Elizabeth Larson visited an oyster farm that's been shut down temporarily by an oil spill in California's Bay Area. This video accompanies a story she will have in the Nov. 23 California edition of Capital Press.