The Guardian for this meeting was Yakuzza Lethecus. The comments are by Yakuzza Lethecus.

Yakuzza Lethecus: hej bruce
Bruce Mowbray: heya, Yaku!
Yakuzza Lethecus: how are you doing today ?
Bruce Mowbray: excellent! thank you. and how are you?
Yakuzza Lethecus: it´s ok, middling :)
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: my typist's farmers are here today cleaning up everything in getting ready for planting.
Yakuzza Lethecus: so a lot to watch, new machines ?
Bruce Mowbray: yes much to watch....
Bruce Mowbray: the really big planting machines have not yet been brought in,
Bruce Mowbray: but they have a dump truck and a backhoe and some other stuff
Yakuzza Lethecus: do farmers generally share machines or are there bigger farms so that everyone has everything on his own ?
Bruce Mowbray: it varies.
Bruce Mowbray: my farmers actually take care of almost 3000 acres,
Bruce Mowbray: so they have all of their own machinery.
Bruce Mowbray: they do, however, have to swap ( take turns - help each other out) with the Labour.
Bruce Mowbray: labor.
Bruce Mowbray: if we have a really wet spring, then planting gets squeezed into a narrow time framework,
Bruce Mowbray: and the farmers know that they need to help each other out in order to get a crop in.
Bruce Mowbray: I hope this is not one of those years,
Bruce Mowbray: but so far it's been very wet.
Yakuzza Lethecus: last year or was it the year before with the recordheat ?
Bruce Mowbray: I think every year is actually setting records.
Bruce Mowbray: http://hermitdog.com/planting2013/planting_2013.html
Bruce Mowbray: that's a webpage I made last year of Robbie planting with the thirty-six role planter/
Bruce Mowbray: he planted 250 acres in one day.
Bruce Mowbray: phenomenal!
Bruce Mowbray: that is our farm.
Bruce Mowbray: well, I should have said, " that is my typist's farm."
Bruce Mowbray: ha ha
Bruce Mowbray: actually it's not my typist's farm. it is owned by my typist, his sister, and his nephew.
Bruce Mowbray: that plant is an amazing machine, huh?
Bruce Mowbray: planter*
Yakuzza Lethecus: here or where i used to live such dimensions of machinery is impossible to use
Bruce Mowbray: yes I understand.
--BELL--
Yakuzza Lethecus: there isn´t that much flat land and even if it is in small chunks
Yakuzza Lethecus: wol went offline again
Bruce Mowbray: oh dear.
Bruce Mowbray: http://hermitdog.com/planting2013/Planting2013_17.JPG
Bruce Mowbray: I've been trying to find a photo that will show you how flat the land is.
Bruce Mowbray: it's pretty flat.
Bruce Mowbray: but within only a a few miles, as one drives south, one enters the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and things become very hilly, very quickly.
Bruce Mowbray: this land was flattened by glaciers, and they pushed those foothills up the way a bulldozer pushes rocks. leaving behind them land that is flat.
Yakuzza Lethecus: in europe there are lots of subsidies for farms, that makes it possible to survive with fairly small farms
Bruce Mowbray: yes I know!
Bruce Mowbray: the farmers in America are very jealous of you!
Yakuzza Lethecus: a few years back there was a public database how much, but farmesrs protested
Bruce Mowbray: it becomes very complicated. frankly I don't understand much about the economics of farming.
Bruce Mowbray: my typist is simply manager of the farm: that means he's in charge of the taxes, the records, and making a few decisions here and there.
Bruce Mowbray: fortunately he has nothing to do with the farming itself.
Yakuzza Lethecus: yes, it also showed some strange things, even the biggest airline in germany recieved a couple of hundret thousand for ecological food on board
Bruce Mowbray: I am no enemy of public subsidies -- so long as they promote general good that could not otherwise happen without those subsidies.
Bruce Mowbray: or, sometimes, when they give a boost to some industries that might otherwise be crippled by monopolies.
Yakuzza Lethecus: it´s tricky, especially when it´s intransparent
Bruce Mowbray: in America, some of the things that are subsidised - like airlines - actually need support in order to stay in operation..... and the public depends on their service.
Bruce Mowbray: yes it is tricky indeed.
Bruce Mowbray: I'm glad I don't have anything to do with it!
Yakuzza Lethecus: me neither, but it´s interesting to think of what should be disclosed information and what should be publicly visible information
Bruce Mowbray: yes it is.
Bruce Mowbray: I wonder sometimes how some pharmaceuticals get through - with very high price tags.... and only one company are allowed to produce them . . .
Bruce Mowbray: that's when transparency becomes important.
Bruce Mowbray: unfortunately, in America, we usually learn about these things too late.
Yakuzza Lethecus: or they repatent just with a different mix of the same substances
Bruce Mowbray: exactly!
Bruce Mowbray: over here, I think a patent can last for seventeen years (?????) --- before another pharmaceutical company can make a generic equivalent of the same medication.
Bruce Mowbray: I ran into this exact problem with one of the drugs that I ( my typist) takes: Plavix.
Bruce Mowbray: the brand name cost $200 per month . . .
Bruce Mowbray: once it turned generic, it went down to less than one fifth of that.
--BELL--
Bruce Mowbray: Clopidogril, I think it's called.
Bruce Mowbray: I'll check.
Bruce Mowbray: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clopidogrel
Bruce Mowbray: it is a blood thinner.
Bruce Mowbray: so, we've gone from planting, to subsidies, to medications . . . let's talk about you!

we went into pm for a while

Bruce Mowbray: bye for now
Yakuzza Lethecus: bye for the log :)