As I was backing out of my parking space at Michaels yesterday afternoon, another car, two spots up starting backing out at the same time. I looked toward the driver to make sure that they had seen me and was startled to see NO ONE. No body in the driver’s seat, no body in the passenger seat.
You can imagine, I’m sure, that this completely freaked me out. It also caused me to doubt myself. I had just mis-seen that, right? The mystery car was behind me at this point so I drove very very slowly toward the exit lane. From my rear view mirror, it really didn’t look like there was anyone driving.
YA will tell you that I know nothing about cars, but I would have bet money that cars couldn’t drive themselves. Even Teslas have to have somebody IN the car, don’t they? And, of course, I can’t tell you what kind of car it was – I really am hopeless in this area.
As I pulled into the exit lane, I kept my speed slow – barely moving slow. I saw the mystery car pull over to the front of the Michaels and saw a man and a woman leave the store and jump in the car. At that point, I decided I couldn’t just sit there with them coming up behind me, so I headed home.
Here’s my real conundrum about this. This car was four parking spaces away from the store. And it was 13 degrees, not 13 below. Cars that you can warm up seem weird enough to me, but having a car that drives 4 parking spaces to pick you up doorside is just too too bizarre for me.
I think I’ve mentioned growing up on Cannon Lake and spending most of my free time swimming. I loved swimming, loved everything about the lake.
I don’t know where Mom got the idea, but one hot summer day, she took a large watermelon and spread Vaseline all over it. Then she tossed it in the lake and told us we had to bring it in so that we could have it for a snack later.
We spent most of the afternoon trying to “catch” that thing. It slipped away with every touch. There is nothing on a watermelon to grab hold of, and a greased one in the lake is a slippery challenge! No one was injured in this game, and everyone was exhausted. I don’t remember who, but someone was finally able to get hold of it.
When we got out of the lake, we were slick with petroleum product and water. We all had to shower before supper.
What unique games did you play as a child? What fun challenges did you give your own kids?
I mentioned the opera movie on Saturday. Kelly and I are going. Lots of video and looks like some fun scenery so I’ll enjoy that part. And having a date with Kelly. And popcorn. And I’ll get a nap during the rest of it. But the projections look cool!
Same old, same old here. More snow, more cold. It hasn’t been this cold in a few years. Anything above minus 20F doesn’t really count you know. Minus 20, OK, now we’re talking cold. It’s rather exhilarating isn’t it? It was -21F Friday morning.
I made sure the chickens had extra feed and I filled their water and they puff out their feathers like wild birds do and they’re fine. The two chickens living in the garage usually walk down to the crib during the day, but today everybody just stays inside.
You know, I can give them a bucket of fresh water and they’ll still drink out of the bucket of dirty water. The dogs do the same thing. Here’s a pail of fresh water and they’re over drinking out of a mud puddle.
Fresh water
dirty water has more flavor.
I was part of a zoom meeting this past week on cover crops, and in a few weeks is a meeting on food grade oats. A lot of continuing education happens in winter for farmers. Because, you know, we don’t have anything going on… (sarcasm!)
I thought I’d talk about the history of our farm.
My Great Grandparents came to the farm in 1898.
My grandfather was 4. They arrived from Germany in 1882 and had moved around this area a bit before ending up in our valley. Gustave and Ernestina Hain arrived in the US with 3 girls. Three more girls and my grandfather Carl were born here. My grandfather wrote an autobiography in 1973 and I’m getting some photos from that and some photos I have at home. He loved cutting the head off one picture and glueing it onto another. The original photoshop.
Grandpa and Grandma way back when.
Here is the oldest photo of the farm.
The dairy barn in the background was built in 1920. There’s a granary out of sight behind the house that was built in 1899. Can you see a child playing in the road in the foreground? One of my uncles, never been sure who that was.
This next photo was taken sometime in the 1950’s.
The dairy barn in the lower portion has been expanded twice. My grandpa, uncle, and dad added to one end in the early 1940’s. Then in the 1950’s dad added the lean-to on the back. That allowed a second row of cows inside the barn.
The granary in the upper right corner was originally twice as big as I remember it. Grandpa writes that when the barn was finished, people wanted a dance. “I remember that nice floor, 24 x 48 of clear space. There was a big crowd, about four boys to each girl. Everybody was having a great time until a fight started. After the fight was stopped, Father was very angry. He said “You better all go home now.” and nobody stopped to ask questions. So you see even in the good old days, a few can always spoil a good time.”
Dad had torn off the front half by the time I was around. He said the back of the barn was so dark the calves would end up blind. There was part of a stone wall standing until I pushed it over last summer. I wanted to push it over 25 years ago and dad didn’t think that was a good idea. So I kept working around it. After I pushed it over, it was too dang big and heavy to move and I haven’t managed to break it apart yet, so I’m still working around it except now it’s lying flat and ten feet further into my way. The granary collapsed in 2013 with a heavy snow. We’ve salvaged some boards from it. The frame was built with wood pegs. Kind of a cool old barn.
In the left middle of the photo are two old buildings I don’t remember. Dad said there was a machine shed there, because after every rain I’d pick up nails in the road. So many tree’s around the house! And notice the one silo by the barn.
This photo is from 1969.
The new house was built in 1968, and in the bottom right corner is the outhouse we used while living in the machine shed. The old house was torn down and the new house built in the same place. I was only 4 at the time, so I don’t remember anything about the old house, and just a few tidbits of living in the machine shed. There’s a corn crib, which is now the chicken coop in the middle right. A new silo behind the barn, built in 1968. And you can sort of see the granary minus the front half.
My parents sold some land in 1967, i think that’s how they afforded a silo AND a new house in 1968.
My dad was one of 5 boys. The three oldest served in WWII. Dad, being the youngest, had to stay home and help on the farm. He always regretted that. He had a collection of rifle shells and bullets used in the war. I heard he had them mounted on a board. Apparently they were live shells. Mom never liked it, especially with kids in the house, and when the new corn crib was being built, she took the board down and threw it in the cement. Eventually Dad forgave her.
Notice all the tree’s behind the barn. They will be missing in the next few years. There’s a pole barn back there now and I haven’t figured out yet when that was built. The old silo in the front was torn down about 1975. We remember that because my brother and dad used a sledge hammer to knock out silo blocks and I sat on the hill with my brothers girlfriend and he met her in ’75. It is always fascinating that you need to knock out 3/4’s of the blocks before the silo will fall over. Dad hauled the refuse back behind the barn where the pole barn is.
1995
Quite a jump to his photo taken about 1995. We added an addition to the back of the house just before our daughter was born. The pile of trees in the field in the bottom was from that project. The second silo from 1976 is there, the pole barn is there.
With all the internet mapping these days, a photo of your house is no big deal. It used to be *quite* the deal when the airplay would fly over and a month later some guy would drive in with a photo of the farm. Farmers were suckers for those photos. And think about it; everything you worked for, all in one photo to show off. With any luck they took it from different directions over the years so you could see the background. It wasn’t cheap; it was a few hundred dollars it seems like. Less if you didn’t buy the frame.
Somewhere I have a photo with me standing in front of the barn. I heard that low flying airplane and walked out there and got into the picture.
This picture is grandma and grandpa and my four uncles. Taken before dad was born. He came around in 1925.
Grandpa didn’t write about this photo. Not sure I believe he was only 16 here.
Grandpa wrote, “When I was 17,18,19,20, and 21, I call them my fun years. The less said about them, the better. I wll say they passed by very quickly Oh yes, those were the days.”
I’d sure like to know what was up, that rascal. He and his fiancé eloped to Red Wing and got married in about 1918. Being the only boy, he also had to stay home and farm and missed WW1.
I’ve always said I have really deep roots. 128 years in one place.
I am pretty good at fixing things around the house. Husband isn’t very handy, and repairs have usually been left to me. In the last few years, however, I have discovered that any repair involving a ladder is too much for me, as I have become increasingly scared of heights.
Yesterday we had a handyman service come to replace batteries in the garage door opener motor, program some new garage door opener remotes, and replace the closure in the garage ceiling that leads up to the attic. The old closure had fallen out and cracked. We also had them hang a large mirror in the livingroom. That involved heavier work than I was prepared for.
Everything went quickly and smoothly. Now that the mirror is up I think I can finally hang the pictures that have been stacked in the basement. I plan to have an electrician come to replace all the fairly aged wired-in smoke detectors in the bedrooms. I am thankful for all our helpers.
What repairs around the house do you leave for the experts? Post some working songs.
I didn’t have a big to-do list yesterday. Normally when this occurs, I fill in with other little tasks around the house or I plant myself in my studio but for some reason sitting on the sofa and watching tv. Three episodes of Perry Mason and then a handful of Columbo.
I’ve seen them all repeatedly. I know who the murderer is in every Perry Mason and, of course, you know who the murderer is on Columbo from the get-go. Since I don’t have to spend any mental energy on figuring out the mystery, I can while away the time looking at small details and wondering at how the world has changed.
Yesterday what stood out the most was that no matter where Perry or Columbo happen to be, somebody can always get ahold of them. Perry is interviewing a suspect; the phone rings and it’s for him. Columbo is at his dog’s obedience academy; the phone rings and it’s for him. It happened all the time.
Now Perry had Della to call him however the calls weren’t always from her and quite a bit of the time she was with him. Was there a whiteboard with all of Perry’s stops left in his outer office? For many years, there was Gertie who took calls. Maybe she was letting folks know where Perry was?
But Columbo? He was always portrayed as such a loose cannon – if there was some administrative assistant somewhere back at headquarters, it was a highly kept secret. Did he really leave the phone number of the dog obedience academy with someone somewhere?
It made me think about the scene in Woody Allen’s Play It Again Sam in which Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts are leaving Woody’s apartment:
Dick:
I’ll be at 362-9296 for a while; then I’ll be at 648-0024 for about fifteen minutes; then I’ll be at 752-0420; and then I’ll be home, at 621-4598. Yeah, right George, bye-bye.
Linda:
There’s a phone booth on the corner. You want me to run downstairs and get the number? You’ll be passing it.
Obviously these days detectives and lawyers are never without their cell phones, so the whiteboards with everyone’s every move and destination are not longer necessary. Of course, now that I think about it – they probably hadn’t been invented yet?
Do you have a whiteboard? Whiteboard equivalent? What do you use it for?
When I was in the bookstore, I was offered a “new” position in Store #1 (Southdale). My title was Associate Manager, a title that didn’t exist anywhere else in the bookstore world at that point. This fancy title meant that I had more responsibility, more work but no more power than any average employee. And certainly not a lot more money. But the one thing that I was promised was the doing this job would mean that when it came time for me to become a store manager, I would be able to skip the traditional small “starter” store, but would jump right away to a medium store.
If you live in the Twin Cities, if you ever visited the store over in Sun Ray Mall (not there any longer), you’ll know that they lied to me. There were only a few stores smaller than Sun Ray at the time. However, the Associate Manager job was such a pain in the patoot that I didn’t argue when they offered me the teeny store – off I went.
I’ve mentioned the teeniest because despite it’s small size, it had the largest Dr. Who section in the Twin Cities – seven full shelves in the corner so basically its own section. A couple of times a week, someone would come in the front door and ask “Dr. Who?”. We sold A LOT of the little mass market editions. Some of them were books based on episodes and many were other Dr. Who fiction. Written by many different authors.
That was over 30 years ago, only half way through what is now a 60-year legacy and still going strong. Even though we had cornered the Dr. Who market at the time, it didn’t interest me much. As time has passed, I’ve watched just a few episodes and a couple of years ago I did read the very first book.
A couple of weeks ago I read something on FB that commented that Dr. #5 (Peter Davison) is the father-in-law of Dr. #10 (David Tennant). Not sure why but that seems like a funny happenstance. So I decided I might learn a bit more about the whole Dr. Who universe. I’ve started with a series that was made about 10 years ago. There is one DVD per doctor with a 30-minute overview and interviews covering the doctor, the companions and what made them special and different. Then there is one episode, sometimes the first of that particular doctor, sometimes one of the most iconic.
There have been 14 different Dr. Who actors, although some folks count 15 because David Tennant came back. However clocking in with a whooping 892 episodes filmed so far, this is not a rabbit hole I’m going to jump down. I’ll watch the rest of the series. Maybe in the future I’ll watch a few more here and there – particularly David Tennant and Peter Davison, both of whom I already liked from other roles. I don’t think I’ll need a spreadsheet!
Is there any science fiction you like? A Dr. Who fan? Star Wars? Star Trek? Firefly? Avengers?
My car (Honda Insight) is 12 years old. She has held up remarkably well but I wasn’t overly surprised when a couple of weeks ago, I had to push my key fob repeatedly to open the car. But it only happened twice, so then I forgot about it.
Then three days ago, the key fob quit locking. It would unlock but not lock. I tried the old key fob – that one was deader than dead. A quick trip to the hardware store and two new batteries didn’t fix the problem; the internet search listed about 10 possible causes, only one of which was something I could fix on my own. And that fix didn’t work. *&#^^%@$.
With YA coming home Sunday night, I was worried that if I messed around too much, locking the car the old fashioned way, that I might not then be able to open it. Since I needed the car to pick up YA and also needed the car to take a friend downtown yesterday morning, I didn’t want an issue.
Then I made my big mistake; I texted YA about the situation. What I really wanted to know was where her keys were, in case I needed to use her car to pick her up.
What I got was:
Directions on how to change to batteries in the fob. (Thanks, did that on my own already)
You know you have the old fob in the drawer? (Yep, been there, done that)
Why don’t you leave it until I get home. (Really, you don’t trust me to drive your car to the airport and back?)
You know, you can lock the car with your key. There’s a key hole on the door. (I am not making this up).
Fortunately, the fob is now working intermittently so the short-term issue is on hold although I’m sure I’m going to have to deal with this in the coming month. Not sure how to let YA know that back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the ONLY way to lock a car was with the key in the door!
Did you know how to drive a stick-shift? Did you learn on it or teach yourself later?
I haven’t been anywhere the last couple of days. No errands of any import, no lunches, no appointments, just a quiet few days. The one downside to this is that I’m listening to a CD in the car that I have been missing. The Woman Who Walked in the Sunshine by Alexander McCall Smith; it’s part of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.
A need arose for something from the hardware store yesterday so I hopped in the car and immediately turned on the CD player. Mma Ramotswe is having a holiday and is enjoying an afternoon tea with some ladies at President Hotel in town. As the other women are gossiping away (just as I was getting to the hardware store) this passage came up on the CD:
Mma Ramotswe lowered her eyes. She was not enjoying this conversation, but she had to say something. “There are many shocking things that happen,” she said. “I see them in my work.”
One of the ladies exhaled loudly. “You must tell us about these things some time, Mma,” she said. “You must tell us about some of these shocking things.”
“Yes,” said another. “We are very keen to disapprove.”
I had just taken a big swig of coffee and it was all I could do to keep from snorting it up my nose when I laughed out loud. “Disapprove” was not the ending to the sentence that I expected but it was a better ending than anything I could have thought up on my own.
Has anything made you laugh recently? (Book, film, kid, meme…..)
Man, it feels like it was a tough week. The emotions are all over the place. We know a person who is a Sergeant in the Minneapolis police force. That person cares so much for the men under their watch; making sure they get rest, and standing up for them when admin says they’re not responding to 911 calls fast enough. Thankfully things didn’t get too crazy for them, shifts returned to normal after a few days, and everyone got some time off. Still, it stresses us out and I have a hard time staying focused and we find ourselves grumpy all day.
As has been said, this is supposed to be our escape, our safe place, our happy place.
So here’s some chicken pictures!
This is a Phoenix chicken we got from a friend several years ago. They’re really nice chickens.
This is Marge. I just made up that name. Go ahead and suggest names for her.
Hello girls. And boy.
I asked the computer to generate two chickens in a photographic style. They sure look grumpy. Next time I’ll ask for happier chickens.
I asked the computer to generate a cartoon chicken..
I’ve been doing a lot of bookwork. And I got a new desk lamp that’s really nice. I have been using a farming specific software called ‘PCMars’ since getting our first computer in 1994. Getting it all entered in the computer is one thing. The other half of the job, after I pile the receipts on top of the second desk drawer, (and throwing away anything not farm / business related) is sorting them out and putting them in the tote that I’ll put downstairs for the next 23 years. I couldn’t get the drawer shut anymore, so I sorted out what I had. Then I can enter some more into the computer. I don’t save as many receipts as I used to, because so much is available online.
I haven’t decided if it’s easier or harder having electronic receipts. Those receipts I move to a file that’s either farm or home related. Then I go through them and enter them into the program. And some still need to be saved, so they go to another E-file. We talked about paper checks on here one day. Kelly wrote four checks out of her home checkbook in 2025. And three were for the bathroom remodeling.
Which, by the way, we’ve finally signed a contract and written another check, to redo the basement bathroom from 1968. So long pink wallpaper.
I know this will be an affront to Renee and some of you, but I picked up two cans of Chef Boyardee Beef Ravoli. Haven’t had it since I was a kid. When I’m out shopping, saving big money, I’m tending to buy more and more groceries there. I bought soup, Spam, and the ravioli. I made soup for supper that night and Kelly asked me how my discount soup was. It was brand name chicken and dumpling, but, it wasn’t that great. Too many carrots and not enough dumplings. The broth was good. With the cold weather predicted this weekend, I may have to make a can of ravioli as comfort food.
One day out in the shop, I made a storage place for my really large sockets. These are 3/4” drive sockets. I got tired of them being all in a jumble in the drawer. Sockets can be 1/4” drive, 3/8”, 1/2”, 3/4” or even 1” drive. I use 3/8” and 1/2” most often. The 3/4” drive stuff is for the big serious stuff. The square hole of these is the 3/4″ I was referring too, and the related ratchet or handles have a corrresponding drive on them. The largest I have are 1&7/8” and 46mm. I have a whole set of standard and metric 1/2″ drive sockets in a different tool box.
I need better labels than the sharpie that was going dry.
Monday is a holiday for some of us. The college is closed. I wonder what I can find to get into.
I am sure it comes as no surprise that I have had this as an earworm all week.
This got me thinking about the history of protest songs, which I learned goes back centuries. It wasn’t until the 16th century and the invention of the printing press that protest songs were written down. They existed word of mouth before this. After Guttenberg, protest songs were often printed as broadsides and handed out in the streets. They were also sung in taverns and other meeting places. They were composed in response to religious and political upheaval as well as poor working conditions and economic inequality.
I found a recording of a very early German protest song from the 16th Century Peasant Revolt. It champions freedom of thoughts and ideas. It has been somewhat modernized, of course. It is amazing to see how many centuries-old protest songs are available to listen to on-line. One good source was the website for The First Amendment Museum, a museum located in Maine.
Yankee Doodle and A Mighty Fortress are protest songs. I imagine Baboons are most familiar with protest songs from the 1960’s and 1970’s. Husband recomnended this one:
I hope there are protest songs being written right now, and that we get to hear them. They are the earworms we need to have.
What protest songs you are you familiar with? Do some research and find older protest songs from other centuries.
Trail Baboon 