|
Post by woodeye on Aug 14, 2022 3:27:42 GMT -6
Both of my big toes, are still numb from a job we had in Ponca City back in the 70's. Wish I'd had me a Texan handy back then to carry me south. Standing and working out there on ice and snow for weeks on end, frostbit them enough to cause permanent nerve damage...
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 14, 2022 12:42:20 GMT -6
I feel for ya. I remember days when my toes were so cold that my feet felt like they would shatter like glass when jumping down from the grade beams on the North side of the powerhouse before the slabs were even poured. Sometimes, the high for the day was down below zero, but we still worked. We were there doing ditch work for almost a full year before any of the steel went up. Sometimes, we had to use spade bits on 90 pound jackhammers to cut the ditches which were frozen mud.
Oftentimes, that was preferable as the alternative would be thawed out mud and wading half-frozen muck up to your shins all day. A crew of five of us ran 89,000' feet of 4" and 5" inch conduit and set all of the manholes in place before the earthwork and leveling was done. Those were some miserable working conditions for sure.
I think the Winter of '77-'78 was the worst I remember. The Winter of '83-'84 was a close second. Back then, Fort Gibson Lake froze solid enough to drive a truck on. We hauled brush piles out on the lakes that Winter and weighed them down with 55-gallon barrels full of gravel, waiting for the ice to melt, so we could go crappy fishing. We don't have Winters like that around here anymore.
What were you building up in Ponca City?
|
|
|
Post by woodeye on Aug 14, 2022 13:37:25 GMT -6
It was a major substation renovation at the old generation station. I bet it was '77 & '78, that sounds about right. That was the farthest north of any of the substation jobs I had, and I wasn't used to working anywhere that the snow and ice stayed frozen on the ground for weeks at a time. Like you, we had to get out in it too, whether it was 110°, or 10° below zero. I was on the OG&E substation crew for 9 years, I enjoyed most of it, but enjoyed hot summertime lots more than winter...
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 14, 2022 21:05:21 GMT -6
That's understandable. Those old powerhouse jobs are pretty bleak and cold in Winter, especially if your crew is still stationed outdoors when Winter hits. I spent a jaunt where we never had an inside job for a single day for two years while we worked that GRDA job up in Chouteau.
|
|
|
Post by hmoosek on Aug 14, 2022 22:22:51 GMT -6
heavyhitterokraRon, I remember well both of those winters. 77/78 was an ice storm for us. We were without electricity for several days. The 83/84 winter was cold for a long while. We had no heat inside the water plant and the thermometer read 5 degrees several mornings in a row. There were so many main breaks when we thawed out, it kept us busy for days on end! I worked round the clock only taking time to eat/necessities/warm up, etc for several days. I was exhausted/run down by the end that I took pneumonia. My doctor wanted me to stay in hospital, but I pleaded to stay home. Doc Made me promise to stay in bed till fever broke. My Uncle kept trying to get me to sip on some concoction he made with (old crow, honey, lemon and who knows what else.) I’d pretend to drink it and I poured it out when he’d leave. That was the nastiest tasting crap I’ve ever tried to drink! I would hurt like all get out when I coughed. Some nasty stuff that pneumonia!
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 15, 2022 11:03:51 GMT -6
I've had pneumonia twice in my life, that's some rough stuff!
I worked as a Plumber for about 4 or 5 years, when it would freeze down to zero and then warm up the next day, the ground would crawl and pull PVC pipe joints apart underground. We kept pretty busy in Winter digging ditches and putting pipes back together. We had an 8" inch water tower feed rupture one night in November because of that. It didn't freeze the pipe, the ground just moved and pulled the coupling apart. That thing blew a hole in the ground wide enough to walk through, then we had to come in during the night and shut the whole system down to get it back on line before everyone woke up to take their showers. That's the first and last time I ever used an 8" inch dresser coupling.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 15, 2022 17:00:58 GMT -6
Thanks, to all of you who helped me find mention of the herbicide contamination from using hay as mulch and from using cow manure as fertilizer.
seedsavingnetwork.proboards.com/thread/355/herbicides-insecticides
Our governing authorities seem to be blissfully unaware of this being a widespread problem. I've written everyone I can think of, from the Governor to the dog catcher, but no one is interested in picking up the ball.
I have a farm visit from our County Extension Agent scheduled at 8:30 am tomorrow morning to dig some soil samples and to take some plant samples to OSU. Maybe, this will get the ball rolling on some kind of an awareness program that might eventually lead to action being taken in the field of herbicide usage in the cattle industry.
We can't have one branch of agriculture causing this much widespread, catastrophic, damage to other branches of agriculture. Our food system depends on it.
These plants ought to be 4' feet tall, 4' feet wide and prospering, but because they were amended with an organic substance as simple as aged cow manure, they are barely hanging on to life.
This is the future of our food system if we don't take action to put a stop to it.
If you think smoking cigarettes is dangerous to your health, wait until vegetables from plants like these hit the market. (And they most certainly will) because of a nationwide fertilizer shortage that has caused many farmers to resort to spreading cow manure on their commercial crops this year.
If eating vegetables affected by this is bad, just think of how much worse it will be to eat the beef that produced the manure that contaminated these vegetables!
Do you want the cells in your body to look like the cells in this plant? Not I.
Oh, by the way, these are okra plants, just in case you were not able to identify them because of the deformities brought on by broadleaf herbicide contamination of the soil they are planted in, which was amended with you guessed it, (PLAIN OLD, AGED COW MANURE).
|
|
|
Post by woodeye on Aug 15, 2022 17:15:01 GMT -6
Good luck, heavyhitterokra. It's gonna be a long battle I imagine, but it has to start somewhere. This has the potential of creating problems for all of us. Thanks for bringing it to the attention of people that should be able to do something about it...
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 15, 2022 20:04:47 GMT -6
I hope the testing shows some results that will get the attention of the folks at OSU. It makes me so sad to see the pictures of your okra, and I’m so glad that you still have the 4 and 1/2 good rows that didn’t get contaminated.
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 16, 2022 7:35:47 GMT -6
It’s about 8:30 now, so I figure you’re in your fields chatting with the OSU representative. I’ve been praying that the Lord would give that person eyes to see the problem while at your place and a heart to do something about it.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 17, 2022 11:27:52 GMT -6
I've got the ball rolling on this now. Our County OSU Extension Agent was here taking samples yesterday. Someone from the ODAFF was scheduled to be here today to take a soil sample, but he got rained out. Maybe, tomorrow? I don't think he wanted a 'mud' sample.
|
|
|
Post by woodeye on Aug 17, 2022 12:09:55 GMT -6
Outstanding! It'll dry out soon I imagine, this is very good news...
|
|
|
Post by hmoosek on Aug 17, 2022 12:30:36 GMT -6
That’s great news heavyhitterokra! I’m glad someone is willing to help. Please keep us up to date!
|
|
|
Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 17, 2022 13:15:19 GMT -6
I've got the ball rolling on this now. Our County OSU Extension Agent was here taking samples yesterday. Someone from the ODAFF was scheduled to be here today to take a soil sample, but he got rained out. Maybe, tomorrow? I don't think he wanted a 'mud' sample. I bet your healthy okra is loving that rain, though, even if it meant a delay in soil samples. Even when it rains heavily here we don’t really get mud. Actually, once when it rained about 30 inches over the course of six weeks, we found one spot on our property that kept dripping for a while. It’s sort of a natural terrace, and it seemed to have some white clay mud there, but it’s the exception rather than the rule. I well remember the red clay mud from Virginia, though. The difference here is still kind of shocking to me.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 18, 2022 20:48:59 GMT -6
That Agriculture Field Inspector from the State Department of Agriculture made it out here after all. We took soil samples in the rain. He took manure samples, and plant samples too. We also got a GPS data point and filed a report with Consumer Protection Services. He'll get back with me as soon as he gets the test results back from OKC.
I'm not looking to prosecute anyone, I just want to get the word out that cow manure is no longer safe under any circumstance unless you own the cow and it eats hay from your own (untreated hayfield).
|
|