Lawyers Guns and Money

I'll be the first to say that I really don't understand gun politics here in the United States. Both sides seem so radically rabid and heavily politicized toward their respective stances that it seems there is no room for any reasonable discourse or middle ground. Every time we have another tragedy involving guns both sides ramp up the rhetoric even more. I find many of the comments on both sides to be equally distasteful. Unfortunately somewhere in the middle is exactly where I stand on the matter which means that whenever I open my mouth on the topic I seem to offend everyone. I like sport shooting at targets and given the number of varmints that inhabit farm country I feel the need to be modestly proficient with most small arms, rifles and shotguns. I currently own seven guns in various calibres and barrel combinations including several rifles, a shotgun and a couple handguns. I'm currently looking at purchasing some sort of tactical 223 to use as a small calibre varmint rifle mostly because tactical actions tend to be more trouble free than some of the lower end non-tactical weaponry. Unfortunately there are none of those to be had right now at any sane price.

I'm going to state for the record that wherever you personally stand on Second Amendment rights is fine with me as long as you can state your position in a respectful manner. America is a big place and everyone is entitled to and encouraged to have an opinion about stuff like this. I have friends who's views range all over the spectrum on this topic and I'm completely okay with that.

I understand that we can't ignore the Second Amendment and in that spirit it will probably surprise you to learn that I'm against banning the ownership of any particular make or model of gun. In fact I question whether gun control is very effective. Farmers like me use and view guns as tools. Having the right tool to do the job makes the work easier, quicker and safer. As most of you know it's hard to dig a fence post hole with a square mouth shovel. Similarly, but for very different reasons it's hard to kill a coyote or a rabid raccoon with a rimfire .22 or a handgun.  Lots of my Canadian friends own lots of  weapons that the government probably knows nothing about and I don't think there'd be any reduction in threat to public safety even if the government did know about them. The truth is that I and people like me could own entire rooms full of automatic tactical weapons, handguns or whatever you want with exactly no increased threat toward public safety. It's my belief that the key here isn't so much which weapons people get to own as it is policing which people get to own them. In my opinion there is a significant fraction of society that isn't mentally stable enough to consistently handle the level of power that accrues to those who own guns. Poor decisions far too often lead to unenviable consequences when guns are involved. In my opinion we'd do well to identify as many of these people as possible and make it as difficult as possible for them to get hold of guns and ammunition. We're never going to win them all but that's still no excuse for doing nothing in my opinion.

Frankly there are a lot of things that worry me a whole bunch more than gun politics anyway. First on that list is a government that spends nearly twice what it takes in every single year while patting us all on the head and telling us it's going to be all right. If I did that in my business every year I promise it wouldn't be all right. My creditors would get nervous and pretty soon the jacked up interest I was paying on my borrowed notes to appease my creditor's nervousness would force me to shut down. The financial crisis in Europe tells me that countries that are heavily in debt face the same situation.  It also scares me to death to learn that less than half the people in this country contribute a single dollar towards federal income taxes. Is it any wonder our economy is in poor shape ? How could it be otherwise ?

That's the end of my diatribe on guns and money. Unfortunately my brain is too tired to introduce lawyers at this point so I guess it'll have to wait for next time.

Update

I apologize to (both) my faithful blog readers out there on my lack of posts lately. As some of you know Melissa and I have had our share of illnesses, family emergencies and other challenges this fall and winter and of course there is Carter to think about these days too. That said, being a dad is by far the best job I've ever had.

One of my cousins who lives in Toronto now mentioned that everyone he knew was complaining about the relatively deep snow that had blanketed the city over the past several days. He mentioned that he had wet pant legs and feet too but instead of making him angry it made him remember some of the good times he'd had growing up in the little village my family has called home for a very long time. As you may imagine this got me feeling nostalgic too. Relative to Toronto, my little home town gets quite a lot of winter as you might guess from viewing the photo below. Wet boots could and did very easily turn into wet pants and even sometimes wet shirts as we slogged through what seemed like feet of snow for months on end. When I review some of the photos we took, and particularly those taken back in the 1970's we DID slog through many feet of snow for months on end, at least relative to today.

It would be hard to separate the village's history from that of my family because they are basically one and the same. My aunt took the photo above from the driveway of my cousin's home. Prior to his tenancy my grandparents lived in the house when they retired from the farm and prior to that my grandfather's aunt or great aunt resided there. The stone building on the right was my great-grandfather's blacksmith shop. My grandmother was born in the house that comes with the shop and my aunt....the one who took the picture above....lives there now. And so it goes with nearly every house along the half mile main (and only) street. In addition to knowing the current inhabitants and the history of the house in question the chances remain good that I'm related in some way to to a current or former inhabitant. To this day the place retains a very high concentration of families who have roots that they can trace...often without the need to leave their house...for a century or more.

I speak from experience when I say that it's hard to leave a place like that but it's eye opening too and it's not all bad by a long shot. This will not be a surprise to most of you but I learned that most of the rest of the world does NOT work in ways similar to my home town. Some of the ideas that I grew up with and that still seem normal to everyone who lives there are honestly quite strange now that I view them as a (partial) outsider.  I've also learned that success at integrating into a new place is primarily based on one's own attitude. If you expect things to be the same as they were in the place where you left I promise you will be disappointed.

As I mentioned earlier all the talk of snow, sledding parties and skating has me feeling nostalgic for the best parts of my boyhood and the wintry part is pretty hard to replicate when I'm staring out the window at green grass and blooming flowers. But of course green grass and blooming plants mean spring and spring very much is my favourite time of year and always has been. Must run now to check the price of grass seed at our local farm supply store. When today's warm rain settles the ground and it dries out it will be time to start re-sowing the pastures. Hope both my readers are well !

Why I Farm



No comment from me could explain why it's important to me to do what I do half as eloquently as these pictures above. Both were taken earlier this week at our Lynnville farm. Enough said.

Health Insurance and Medical Bills

I had a fairly urgent outpatient surgery done on me a few weeks ago. A quick trip to my GP verified that I needed the procedure and he scheduled a meeting with the surgeon for the next afternoon. A week later I showed up at the hospital shortly before seven in the morning and I was sitting in this chair typing on my blog and eating an early lunch by 11:30. No complications and knock on wood so far it's been a very easy recovery which I am now half way through. My care was very good and all the services rendered were timely and professional.

Melissa, Carter and I have a fairly comprehensive medical policy through Blue Cross. Being self employed, we pay the whole shot...no break for us We have pretty high deductibles and the deductible is 3X higher for our "family" than it is for either of us, but I'm not going to complain about that right now. We walked into our health insurance policy with our eyes wide open and there are legions of cheaper if less comprehensive options out there.

What I *AM* going to complain about is the tiered billing system that seems to be normative in American health care. We got our hospital portion of the bill today.  Combine that with my surgeon's bill and the anasthesia bill and my little surgery looks mind bogglingly expensive. And so it would be if I was uninsured and had to pay for it out of my pocket which is why I have health insurance in the first place. But what I would have to pay if I didn't have insurance isn't anything like what my insurance company actually pays and thanks to the explanation of benefits they are required to provide I get to see this. Think 20-25 % of the actual "bill" between my deductible and the insurance company's portion and you'd be in the ballpark.

Can you name another service where the difference between the negotiated price for a large entity and the price for a guy off the street who wants to pay in cash is a 75 to 80 %  reduction in favour of the large entity? If I walked in to a feed store or a fertilizer depot and asked for a 75 % discount  I would get laughed out of the store and our customers would be up in arms if we tried it with them...rightly so. In my opinion whatever the price of my surgery is it ought to be pretty well the same regardless of who pays the bill. I understand that a portion of society won't or can't pay their bill and I understand that collecting the money or writing it off needs to be built into the cost. That's standard business procedure. But charging an individual four times what an insurance company pays is not standard business procedure in any other industry I can think of. If what the insurance company pays is actually reflective of the charge then the public is getting hosed in a very, very large way. Frankly if I knew I could pay what the insurance company pays I would probably change my policy from comprehensive to catastrophic and pay the difference out of my pocket. In this writer's opinion addressing this issue would go a very long way to making health care and health insurance a whole lot more affordable for everyone, insured or not.

Getting off my soapbox now. :)

His Name is X

[ I wrote this post nearly a year ago, just before our first trip to Russia to meet our son. He's asleep in his room as I write this addendum and we couldn't be prouder or more pleased with how our story has turned out. ]

His name is "X", and we don't know very much about him at all. We don't even know what he currently looks like which is odd given that in a few weeks we're going to Russia to begin the process of making him our son. I can't speak for Melissa but I have the butterflies a hundred times worse than I've ever had them before in my life. And I've got questions running through my mind all day every day. Will he like us when we meet him ? Will he like his life here with us ? What does his life look like now ? Am I fit to be a parent ? What is Russia like ? What's being an orphan like ? Each day that goes by, the questions intensify. Those of you who are or were first time parents get the idea, I'm sure.

Right now, child X remains one of 750,000 unclaimed and abandoned Russian orphans. He's lucky compared to some because he hangs his hat and bib in a relatively well endowed Moscow baby home. In spite of his current circumstances I think it's fair to say that he'd have no chance if he wasn't adopted. Most children aren't adopted because most Russians view orphan kids as broken and unfixable. The system ensures this perception remains accurate because the kids are kicked out of the orphanage system when they are sixteen and statistics say that forty percent will die or be in prison within two years. How sad is that ? How bad must your own circumstances as a parent be that you would voluntarily give up your child to an institution to raise knowing the probable outcome and thinking that they would still do a better job than you will ?

For me, the worst part of this process is that although this is one of the biggest moments of my life I can't share it with anyone because it's not a sure thing yet. There is still some niggling chance that a Russian family could claim this child ahead of us. I know some of you reading this are saying to yourselves, well if not him then you're going to bring home another, so what's the fuss ? I guess that's right to a degree, but if it's possible to love someone you have never met then child X is already loved. And claimed. And wanted, too, very much so, as every child should be. We have thought about him and talked about him every day since we got our referral.

As much as we can make it so, this child's life here ought to be a good one. We've built our farm and our business around the idea of raising a family in a nurturing, safe and supportive environment with his mom and dad both available to him at a moment's notice and with at least one set of grandparents close by. We debated adoption for a long while. In the end, I wonder why we debated the concept for so long when every critter in our large menagerie is adopted. What could be better than sharing the wholesome farming life we've created with a needy, unwanted and unloved child ? At this point, I can't wait to find out.

I Hate Farm Equipment

I have a publication called Amazing Farm Inventions lying open before me on my kitchen table right now. The theme of this month's magazine is, " Made it Myself; Ideas Born in Farm Shops". Some of the ideas are pretty off the wall and some are pretty impressive. Clearly the folks who did this obviously like working on equipment  in their shops AND they have enough spare time and brain power to think their way through some seriously complex projects. 

I find both of these things extremely impressive because I operate at a much more fundamental level than this when it comes to farm equipment. When I jump on a tractor seat early in the morning what I really, really want it to do is start and run for as long as necessary with no problems or interruptions along the way. Then I want to shut it off, go to the house and forget about it  until I need to use it again. When my baler isn't tying properly or the middle row unit on my corn planter inexplicably seizes up and refuses to drop seed or I manage to put a rock through the feeder house and sieves on my combine I tend to get angry and frustrated rather than creative. The same thing happens when tires go flat, batteries go dead, pto shafts fly apart or any of the other maladies that plague farm equipment occur on a somewhat regular basis. It's not that I can't fix most of the stuff when it breaks. It's that I get no joy whatever out of the process, especially when everything here is serviced on time and put away ready to go.

Gramps used to say that machines didn't break when they were parked in the shed. I agree but I will take that a step farther and say that machines don't break if you don't own them at all, either. If I could figure out a way to cost effectively custom hire every bit of machinery work done on my place I would happily do so. I'm not one of these guys who farms because I have an iron fetish.  Given that a lot of my full time farming neighbours are hiring more and more of their time sensitive machine work done I don't think I'm alone in thinking this way, either.

Don't even get me started on equipment that is so poorly engineered that it's difficult or impossible to service, adjust or fix without dismantling it. If folks like me who buy equipment have to contort ourselves into pretzel-like shapes to change a fuel filter or check the oil it probably isn't going to become one of our favourite tasks. When it comes time to replace it, we will probably be looking at a different brand. Speaking of fuel filters, why is it that none of the tractors I own have an easily accessible fuel shut off valve located on the line somewhere above the filter ? It's easier to soak my arm in diesel fuel every time I change a fuel filter than it is to find and turn the fuel shut off valves on both tractors at this farm. But I digress.

Truthfully, I can't really imagine what it would be like to farm with no equipment whatsoever. Four wheel drive tractors, front end loaders, round balers, bush hogs, manure spreaders, air compressors and innumerable other pieces of equipment make my life tremendously easier than it would be without them, especially when they run right. And when they don't believe me when I say I can turn the air blue with the best of them.

Resuming...

When I was in my fourth year of high school I served as the President of the Student's Council. One day I was sitting at our kitchen table preparing a speech to give to the student body at an assembly the following day. I always stood and read my speeches out loud before I gave them and my audience that night was, as usual my mom and dad.  When I got done I asked what they thought. Mom hemmed and hawed but dad cut right to the chase. He pulled me aside after mom left and said, " Son your speech was good in terms of grammar and syntax, but you're not smart enough yet to be that long winded." Although it took the wind out of my sails a bit at the time he was exactly right back then and twenty odd years later he is still right. When compared to giving speeches the great thing about blogging is that you don't have to be very smart to offer up long winded posts on topics you really have no business writing about. You just have to keep at it. After a long pause to deal with all that life was throwing at me it looks like I'm back, at least for the moment.

As all of you who read our Paradigm Farms blog already know, we lost Melissa's dad to cancer early last week. Melissa did an excellent and unimproveable job of writing a very moving tribute to her dad and I probably ought to let that topic rest. However, before I do I have one story I'd like to share with you here.

For a whole variety of reasons, we decided it would be best to send Melissa and her mother to Moscow on our third and final trip to bring home our new son Carter. During the week they were away her dad and I spent a lot of time together and he became more and more restless as the week wore on. Melissa, her mother and Carter were due on a late evening flight from New York the day they were to arrive home so I was somewhat surprised to find Tom sitting wide awake outside in his chair with every light in the house and garage on at 4:32 am when I left to start morning chores. He waved at me on the way by to let me know everything was okay....well, more or less okay anyway. I got through with my work and came home about four and a half hours before their flight was due. I stepped out of the shower and much to my surprise I found Tom waiting in my driveway ready to go get supper and get on to the airport. Supper took about fifteen minutes and the drive to the airport killed another three quarters of an hour. Tom spent much of the remaining time pacing the large mostly empty waiting area with a half full cup of cold coffee and telling everyone in the room that he was waiting with me for his daughter, wife and new grandson to get off the plane. When the plane finally landed and folks started appearing at the gate he was so worked up that the TSA agent working the control point had to ask him to back up several times. He was instantly smitten with Carter, but in truth he was no more smitten than he was with any of the rest of his grandkids. It just felt that way. I lost my dad more than fifteen years ago and in a lot of ways Tom became something of a surrogate parent to me. I will miss his presence very, very much.