All those morning aches and pains are just joyful reminders of the fun we had in our 20s.

Crab bait !

I can believe that Beav !!

Probably a couple of dozen along the Willamette river shoals you could find with a medal detector during summer flow. I never got down to cabling them to the traps so lost 'em all eventually.

I actually find 3/8ths rebar cut into 24-30" lengths far better in the kinds of places I trap and it doesn't matter much if I lose a few during the season.

I thought in Alaska they just left you on an ice drift and called it good.

Why do some trap and put up $2 coon?

Look them up and watch some videos of them talking. They are a cool bird . Mostly becuse my daughter wants to and thats good enough for me.

My friend with the grizzlys told me he was paying him to use his bears to look like it was in the wild.

I'm 59
Some days I feel way older than I am
I know that all of the aftermarket hardware I have in my body doesn't work as well as factory equipment that's in good shape does. But that's how life goes. I am still able to get out and do most of the fun things I love doing. I just do them much slower and in smaller quantities. And sometimes it's not a pretty sight watching me do them. Especially when it comes to trapping. But I'm not letting it keep me from doing it. I'm going to plug along at my own pace and do what I can do. I know the day will come when I can no longer do any of the things I love..
But until then I'm enjoying all that I can

Hang in there, Dave. Things will get better.

Dave,
I am 7 weeks out from my full knee replacement. Everyone says I am doing great but the problem is they do not live in my body. Soon familiar?

Plus it would solve the issue of wolves bending the dogs up on the 850

The hey day of dairy price supports






A Legacy of Government Intervention
The MAMGB proposal follows a long history of interventions, starting with the first significant federal effort to address milk surpluses in 1984-1985 with the USDA-Administered Milk Diversion Program. Responding to a surge in surplus dairy product purchases that cost USDA $2.7 billion in 1983, Congress enacted a temporary program. Farmers were paid $10 per cwt. to reduce their milk marketings by 5% to 30%, funded by a farmer assessment.

While $955 million was paid out and milk production was reduced by an estimated 3.74 to 4.11 billion pounds in 1984, the program suffered from “adverse selection” and “moral hazard” issues. Many participants had already reduced production, and non-participants expanded, leading to no measurable impact on national average milk price or overall production trends. Milk supply quickly rebounded, prompting further intervention.

This led to the more drastic 1986-1987 Milk Buyout Program (Dairy Termination Program - DTP), part of the 1985 farm bill. The goal was ambitious: Reduce U.S. milk production by 12 billion pounds annually by paying farmers to permanently exit production. Approximately 15,000 farmers accepted bids, removing about 1.55 million cows at a cost of $1.8 billion. However, like its predecessor, the DTP faced “free-rider” problems; non-participating farms increased their output, offsetting the intended reduction. While growth remained flat, national milk production did not decline as significantly as intended.

“The Dairy Termination Program, or Whole Herd Buyout, legislated in the 1985 farm bill, was a response to the now discontinued dairy price support program that had ratcheted milk prices to a level that was generating very costly surpluses of government dairy product purchases under the program,” says Peter Vitaliano, long-time chief economist of the National Milk Producers Federation. “Our analysis suggests that DTP and support price reductions during 1986-90 have proven to be a cost-effective means of reducing the quantity and expense of government purchases under the price support program.”


This is how my Father in law got his family out of the dairy business,