The land we bought is signed up for CRP (Conservation Reserve Program). You know, the government paying farmers not to farm. It was signed up before we bought it and we can't get out of the contract until it expires. One will expire 2009 and one will expire 2010. We'll fence it in and use it for pasture as soon as it expires.

Checks come out in October. After we had signed all the papers to buy the place, DH had gone to the FSA office to change things and sign papers there. The guy there said that I didn't have to sign anything...only DH had to. That was a few months ago. Well, I called to see when those checks would come in. They said that there was a problem...I needed to sign some papers before they would cut my checks. ??? The guy had told DH that we didn't need to do anything else.

So, I drove in to town and signed a few papers. They then explained to me that there were three different contracts on the ground, so each of those have to be paid separately and because there are two of us on the contract each of us would be getting three checks. So, they wasted their time and our tax money to send us 6 checks instead of 1. And all in separate envelopes too!

I have been thinking awhile about opening a store on Cafe Press. That is a web site where you can upload sayings and images and they put them on t-shirts, hats, mugs, etc, and people can buy them. There is a base price and you can add a little (or a lot) to the price and that is how you make your money. For instance, the cheapest t-shirt is $8.99, and you can add a dollar or two to that price and if anyone buys that t-shirt you get that money.

I have 8 ideas right now, mostly just saying that I think are cute or funny. I made two of them and loaded them up to Cafe Press. You can have a "free" store, but you can only have one image on each item for that, or you can pay $7.00 a month and have any image on any number of items (for instance, for free, I can only have one type of $8.99 t-shirt, but if I have the $7.00 per month subscription, I can have any of them on the $8.99 t-shirt).

Has anyone made any money on cafe press? Do you think it is worth it to pay $7.00 a month?

We are cutting our soybeans today. Send good thoughts and prayers our way for high yield, no breakdowns, and a safe harvest!

I don't know...the election must be getting to me....

I read in the paper yesterday that the state of Kansas was thinking about changing the interstate speed limit from 70 mpg to 65 mph. This was the Kansas Energy Council that was proposing it, and they had other things they were pushing as well. They were having a public forum today from 9:00 to 12:00 to allow the public to comment on it.

The reason they wanted to change it is to reduce "greenhouse gases" and gas consumption. They also wanted to increase speeding fines by 50%, lower the "fudge factor" to 5 mph instead of 10 mph and be able to report to insurance companies speeding over 5 mph instead of having to wait for you to be 10 mph over for the same reasons.

I asked my boss if I could go on my lunch hour, and she said sure. I left around 11:00 and showed up by 11:15. It was already over! I had written up my little speech I was going to give, and so the lady there that was putting everything away said I could put my name and address on it and she would take it back, because if you didn't show up at the public forum you could send in your comments in writing.

When I left, there was a TV reporter outside interviewing someone. I didn't want to walk through the background, so I just waited for them to be done. When they were done, I kinda yelled out, "Hey, you can interview me too." She came over and asked if I was for it or against it. I said against it, and she said "I think we have enough coverage of people against it. There were a lot of people in there against it. The lieutenant governor pretty much said it wouldn't pass."

That's good news. But, just because I didn't get to have my say in front of a crowd, I'm going to post here what I was going to say:

My name is *** *** and I live in ***, KS. That is about 20 miles north of Interstate 70 between Salina and Hays. I work in IT at *** here in Wichita. My husband, ***, farms around ***, and so cannot move closer to Wichita. My company does not have a telecommuting policy, but they have allowed me to work 4 10 hour days, so every Monday morning, I drive 165 miles to work, stay here in the Wichita area for three nights so I can work my 4 10's and after work on Thursday I drive 165 miles back home.

I can make it to work, if my vehicle is gassed up the night before and there are no other stops along the way, in 2 hours and 15 minutes. The effect of decreasing the interstate speed limit from 70 to 65 would increase my drive time on Monday mornings and Thursday evenings about 30 minutes. My commute on those days would now be closer to 3 hours, with a 10 hour work day on top of that.

Instead of impacting my drive time and family time like this in order to cut down on gas usage across the state, I submit to you that it would be more effective to encourage businesses, for instance, with tax incentives, to come up with a telecommuting policy for their workers that are able to do their jobs in a home office setting. In normal circumstances, if an employer would allow their workers to work 1 day a week at home, that would be an automatic 20% savings in gas for those workers. If my employer, for instance, would allow me to work a week a month at home, I would save over 25 gallons of fuel, 25% of what I use during the month just for my commute. This amount of gas savings is not trivial, and actually would be more of a savings than dropping the speed limit by 5 miles per hour.

Thank you.