I’ve been aware for some time that nothing I do online is really private. If I look at some clothing website on Tuesday, by Wednesday, I’m getting sidebar ads for that same clothing company. If I watch a Paws for Hope video on YouTube, suddenly lots of their videos pop to the top of my feed. Same with Facebook. Not too irritating although it makes me wonder if cyberspace is smart enough to know what I’m looking at, why isn’t it smart enough to know when I’ve made a purchase so they can stop showing me the ads for what I’ve bought?
I have a “color-by-number” app on my phone – it’s a mindless game that I often play if I have the tv on or am listening to a book on tape. It only takes up about ¼ of my brain (if that). It has a function that offers me “hints” if I watch the occasional ad. Most of the time I ignore that function, but occasionally the puzzles have little bits that are almost impossible to see, so I like to have a couple of hints available. About a month ago I noticed that the ads on this game were aligning with stuff that I was searching for online using my phone. Not 100% but close enough. So now my game is paying attention to what I’m up to when I’m not playing. I wasn’t sure if I should worry about this or not.
Then yesterday I had the tv on while I was working in my studio. One of the interminably long Cindy Crawford ads came on – the ones in which they talk about the special melons in the south of France. I flipped on mute and waited it out. While I was watching out of the corner of my eye for the commercial to end, I thought to myself “Well, at least they don’t run those Crepe Erase ads anymore.” I’m not sure why I don’t like these ads, but I don’t even like to say the words “crepe” and “erase” together. I have nothing against Jane Seymour, their spokeswoman, but I just don’t like the ads. So imagine my shock when about 20 minutes later, there was Jane Seymour hawking Crepe Erase! Honestly, I haven’t seen one of these ads for a couple of years at least. It’s clear they’re reading my mind – this crosses the line!
We’ve had some nice rainfall, and I’ve got the show open, and I’m trying to stay home and get ready to farm. Yet, every day seems to be interrupted by minutiae and farming has not become the priority it should be. Yet.
My brain cleared enough I found the three things I couldn’t find last week. Kelly pointed out to me the extra chicken waterers behind the house. Yep, that’s exactly where I put them last fall when that chicken hatched those eggs under the deck. And I found the rain gauge in the garage right where I thought it should have been last week. And it turns out the dog’s tick medication is good for 12 weeks, not four, so I had only bought one dose. And that’s why I couldn’t find more. There’s usually a rational explanation, isn’t there.
Over the weekend Kelly and I got 2/3 of the seed wagon cleaned off. (The “shed remodeling tool storage wagon”) so at least I have room for oats and corn seed and the oats will be gone before I pick up the soybean seed and then that can go on there. Daughter and all three dogs and I picked up oat seed on Monday. I also picked up another ton of the layer ration for the chickens. One ton, in 50 pound bags, equals 40 bags, so they are good for about eight months.
On Friday I got the tractor hooked to the soil finisher. If you park something in a field over winter, you need to put a board under the jackstand, otherwise it will sink into the dirt and the hitch of the implement will not line up with the tractor drawbar. I had a board under the jackstand when I unhooked it back in October, but the implement shifted and the jackstand slipped off the board. And then Friday it was 8” down in the dirt. I took a regular jack out to lift up the tongue to get it hooked to the tractor and that jack pushed down into the dirt as well. I had a board to put under the jack, but it was stuck under the hitch at first. Eventually I got that out and under the jack, and was able to raise it up, get the hydraulic lines hooked to the tractor, and attach the tractor and implement. See? I’m making progress!
I moved the chicks out of their first, smaller tank, and into the larger pen. They are about robin sized now.
The spring play at the college will close this Saturday afternoon and next week is a band and choir concert. We need to be out of the theater by about 5:30PM on Saturday, so we don’t have much time to dismantle the set. I hope to get things off the bookshelves on the set, and the small grand piano (it’s an electronic keyboard) off the stage. I’m hoping to get three or four strong young kids to carry it up the steps rather than tipping it on its side, taking off two legs, and trying to get it through a doorway sideways, like it came in. Goals.
I started delivering some straw this week.
Speaking of Straw, I was talking with a family friend about the hayrides that we used to do with 4-H or church groups. It used to be a very popular thing to take a tractor and wagon, make a pile of loose straw on the wagon, and then at night, in the dark, 15 or 20 kids would pile on the wagon and you’d go out in a field and drive around and push each other off, and by the time you got home again there was no straw left on the wagon. We don’t do that anymore. Can you imagine? What could go wrong?
I don’t know how come nobody got seriously hurt. My folks did it for the church youth groups for a lot of years. The only accident I remember is when one kid jumped off a wagon early and was going to cut across a corner of the driveway to catch a second wagon, and he ran into a barbwire fence. After that, the kids were told to stay on the wagon until they got to the field.
There is a story in my grandmother’s diaries of a 4-H hayride mid 1950’s, when the tractor slipped into a ditch. The wagon tipped over and several kids were hurt – none seriously by some miracle, but my uncle, who was driving the tractor, had several cracked ribs.
When our kids were young, the daycare would visit the farm and we used a hayrack with the tall sides, and they sat on bales, and we went in the daytime, and it was just a wagon ride. Not a hayride in my sense of the word.
I googled “hayride” to see if I could find examples of our type of hayride. Wikipedia says it’s a traditional activity consisting of a recreation ride which has been loaded with hay or straw for “comfortable seating”. They say it harkens back to farmhands or kids riding the load of hay back to the barn for unloading. And has since become a tourism gimmick to generate income for the farmer. I guess that’s one way to do it.
Husband and I are pretty anxious right now to find out how our dog is doing at the vet. We had to take him there Thursday after three days of constant hurling after meals. The vet did x-rays and found him to be constipated and dehydrated. There is the possibility that he has an upper intestinal blockage of some sort, perhaps from the shards of an Icelandic lamb horn, or the Kong Wubba he chewed and destroyed over the weekend, or a mixture of both. He hasn’t had anything different to eat for the past couple of weeks. He has been drinking water like crazy, though. He typically doesn’t swallow what he destroys, so we can’t think what would have plugged him up.
It is hard to tell when a terrier is under the weather, as they typically don’t let you know they aren’t feeling well until they are half dead. Even before we took him to the vet he wanted to tug, steal things, and go for walks. They are giving him special IV’s to hydrate him and get his digestive system flowing, as it were. They will do surgery if that doesn’t work. I refuse to take as on omen that the flock of vultures on the local butte were circling our home as I wrote this.
What health issues have your pets had? How can you tell your pets or human companions aren’t feeling well?
I like to think that I’m a fairly normal person but every now and then something comes up that makes me wonder if I’m just a few steps off the path.
When I was in the sixth grade, our school had a presentation by a troupe of presumably college students; they did some music and read some poetry – fairly classic late 60s kinds of stuff. After the show, the students hung around so we could meet them. I was with my two best friends that day – Linda and Kathleen – and we waited patiently for our turn. The student that we met was named David Shepardson and he was gorgeous-looking to three sixth-graders, longish brown hair, little goatee, tie-dye t-shirt, sandals. The full package. I happened to be wearing a beaded necklace that day and David admired it; he held his beaded necklace up so we could compare and…. our fingers touched. My girlfriends and I were all giddy. I didn’t wash my hand for a day and a half and both Linda and Kathleen checked in with me about it. They were both pea-green.
OK, so you’re saying to yourself, how is this unusual? Lots of pre-teen girls are a little wack-a-doodle. Here’s the difference. 56 years later I still have “David Shepardson Day” noted on my calendar on April 16.
And since, by coincidence, I met my BFF on April 16, 41 years ago, I do often celebrate a bit. This year I found a nice bunch of dark purplish flowers and took them up to her house, had tea and chatted for a bit. I usually send her a card as well to commemorate. During the visit on Wednesday, Sara and I realized that we’ve been celebrating David Shepardson Day a year longer than she and he husband have been married.
I often wonder how David Shepardson’s life turned out. Did he end up pursuing music or literature? Did he marry? Have kids? Travel? Does he have “Sherri Carter Day” listed on his calendar every April 16?
The other day Husband and I made a quick trip to Bismarck-Mandan to Costco. We also went to a favorite butcher shop in Mandan. Down the street from the butcher shop is the office for the National Day company. They are the ones who post all the “National Day” declarations. I assume that they make it all up, It was fun to see where it actually takes place. It is a pretty unassuming building right there on the Mandan “strip”, the main drag in town.
I noted that today is National Haiku Poetry Day, and that yesterday was National Wear Your Pajamas To Work Day. That is interesting, as our clinical director declared that anyone who wants to wear pajamas all day this Friday can do so, as long as they pay $5.00 to the social committee. This is my pajama day haiku:
If I pay five bucks
Friday I will work in PJ’s
I will wear my sweats
I don’t have any clients on Friday, just meetings, so I won’t feel too unprofessional in my sweats.
What did you consider “professional attire” at work? Make up a haiku about your clothes. What kind of pajamas do you prefer?
The title of this post is a statement that is in the job description of all State employees just in case something comes up that needs to be done that isn’t in our formal job descriptions.
In January, the clinical director asked me if I would smudge our building. I somehow let her know I had done it at our old building, and she thought it would be a good idea to do it again. So did our regional director, so at noon on a Friday in January, the clinical director gave me the go ahead. None of the three of us imagined just how much smoke I was going to produce from my smudging shell, and a couple of employees had to go home as their asthma and allergies acted up. Clients were really confused. None of the smoke detectors went off, thank goodness.
I didn’t think there would be a repeat performance, but last week the clinical director asked me to smudge again, with the regional director insisting that I wait until 4:55pm on Friday to avoid making people ill. It went just fine, and I smoked the whole place up. It had been a particularly stressful week and I loaded the shell up with sage, bear root, tobacco, and sweet grass. Husband followed me and silently recited the Prayer of St. Francis, just to keep all our bases covered. It never occurred to me that “clearing the building of bad juju” would ever be a part of my job description, but there it is.
What is the strangest thing you ever had to do in a job? What would you have liked to see added to your job description? Do you ever smudge?
Husband tried to make a hoe cake recipe the other day, and it was a disaster. Hoe cakes are traditional cornmeal pancakes. Husband’s family is from Eastern Ohio and West Virginia, and love all things with cornmeal. They even like cornmeal mush. I am really not a fan, I am afraid. I like my corn on the cob with butter dripping off it.
Husband decided that the problem with his hoe cakes was the cornmeal. Ours was too coarse. I found a Southern mill in Alabama that had extra fine ground white corn meal and ordered it. I was delighted to read that the company motto for the cornmeal was To God Alone Belongs All Glory. Well! That really appeals to the Lutheran in me. My college motto was Soli Deo Gloria. JS Bach initialed SDG at the bottom of many of his compositions. I may not like cornmeal or hoe cakes, but the company seems great! I love yeast raised pancakes and waffles.
What are your favorite kinds of pancakes? What company slogans do you like? Favorite Bach compositions?
Got the latest show open at RCTC. The Curious Savage. It’s a nice group of kids.
The paint was even dry. I finished the set, oh… tens of minutes before the doors opened.
There are always last-minute things to do, and I even added some set dressing bits after I finished the last of my set notes. I used the ‘rollerwall’ painting stencil to make wallpaper. It takes some practice, but it’s pretty cool.
“Rollerwall.com” – there are hundreds of patterns available. I also used two different rollers to make a pattern on the carpet. (There are plot points in the script regarding following a pattern on the carpet. “If people walked around the outside of the carpet… it would save wearing out the middle.”)
I’m Behind on a weeks’ worth of newspapers and evening news, which isn’t really such a problem to be honest.
The grass is turning green, we’ve gotten some nice rain, the temps are warming up, and it really does look like spring is here. Should be a really nice weekend here in Minnesota. I’m starting to think it might be OK to take the snowblade off the tractor and hook up some tillage equipment.
Last Sunday Kelly and I went to Tractor Supply and picked up another dozen chicks. Supposed to be girls. Pullets. The sign said “pullets”, but when we went to check out, 8 of the 12 were marked ‘straight run’, meaning boys and girls. Time will tell. All the chicks are doing really well. Sixty of them sure do eat a lot.
I went to Fleet Farm and picked up two new feeders, plus another small waterer for the chicks, and a large 7-gallon unit for outside once they get a little bigger.
I know I have / had more waterers around. Evidently, I’ve put them somewhere. They’re the same place I’ve put the dogs tick meds, and some other things from home I can’t find lately. Maybe next week my head will be clearer, and I’ll find them. Especially now that I’ve purchased replacements.
I bought a flat trailer at an online auction this week. This trailer has open sides so it’s easy to load and unload pallets.
This was a construction equipment auction, and it was astounding to see the prices some of the equipment brought.
The dogs had to come along on the drive to pick up the trailer. It’s Luna and Humphrey in the header photo. Luna is an anxious traveler. Bailey was in the passenger seat with her nose on my hand.
This trailer is one of those things not critical to daily operation, but it helps at certain times, to make life easier. And I’ve been thinking about that lately. I watch a YouTube channel of a young lady that works on a dairy farm in Maine. https://youtube.com/@tayfarms?si=lFN-zT3XcZzWxrM9
They run some older equipment, and it doesn’t appear they have a lot of money. This spring they were having trouble with the barn cleaner chain. That’s the mechanism that takes the manure out of the gutters and, in their case, pumps it too a lagoon. One morning she said the chain had come off 3 times. And they’re always fixing something with the pump, and it just makes me sad. Life is too short to spend so much time fighting with stuff like this. And yet, replacing costs money too, and it’s a tough situation when you don’t have the money for some needed repair or upgrade.
We’ve probably all been there. I certainly remember being young and newly married and trying to get ahead. But at what cost?
Dad was proud to leave me with decent equipment when he retired. He always said his dad had left him junk and he spent more time fixing than farming. And I guess he instilled that in me. I’ve kept up his habit of having decent equipment and not ‘junk’.
WHAT HAVE YOU PURCHASED THAT YOU REALLY COULDN’T AFFORD?
Next weekend our hand bell choir is performing at a ND State PEO convention in town. One of our ringers is a PEO member, and felt that they would appreciate our music. Instead of our usual sacred selections we are playing My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music, Ashokan Farewell, the Hawaiian version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow, and Puff The Magic Dragon, just the sort of selections retired teachers would appreciate.
A couple of years ago our bell choir director volunteered us for a State Eastern Star convention in Jamestown. She is a leading light in the Eastern Star. That was a pretty weird experience. It was also a 400 mile round trip hauling all our bells and equipment. At least the PEO convention is in town.
My father belonged to the Masonic Lodge. My paternal grandfather was an Oddfellow as well as a Shriner. I have little patience with these groups and their rules and secret handshakes. I know the PEO and service organizations have good intentions. The PEO supports women’s education. I was the recipient of a PEO scholarship as an undergraduate. It just amazes me that these groups can continue.
What fraternal or service organizations have you or your relatives belonged to? Propose some new groups that you might find interesting.
I was happy to read in the Luverne paper this week that construction has started on a 7.5 million dollar child care center in town.
A couple of years ago, residents expressed concern about dwindling child care options, and the city responded by securing funding for a municipal child care center to serve over 100 children ages birth to 12. The city just had to secure a $1,000,000 city match from community members. Well, that took only six months, and they exceeded the goal.
In Dickinson, child care is getting harder and harder to find, especially for infants. We recenly lost a terrific mental health tech because she had no daycare for her infant daughter. It is so good to hear the progress in Luverne, and I only wish Dickinson would follow suit.
What progressive things are happening in your community? Did you ever have babysitters, either when you were a child or for your own children ?
I read with amusement and disgust the effort by the current president of Chechnya to regulate the speed of music in that country.
The only music that is allowed for singing, instrumental performance, or dance must be between 80-116 beats per minute. The president thinks those tempos correspond to the brains and culture of Chechnyans. Anything else is contrary to Chechnyan values and culture. To give you a sense of what is allowed, Imagine by John Lennon would be too slow, and Here Comes The Sun would be too fast.
Well, good luck enforcing this. I suppose that any orchestra could regulate the speed during performances of classical music. What a loss for the populace, though!
What are your favorite slow and fast music pieces? What laws do you think have been unenforceable?
Trail Baboon 