2026, crops, Farming Update, Theatre

Corns UP!

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Corns Up! 

WE’re at 384 growing degree units. Two hundred over average and 600 predicted in the next 14 days. It takes 100-120 units for corn to emerge.

Remember GDU’s come from a formula using temps above 50°F and under 86°F. Divided by 2 and subtracting 50. And…I don’t know, my mind went blank when they put parenthesis in. 

The tree service was in on Tuesday with their remote controlled stump grinder and he ground out twenty-some stumps in about an hour. Pretty slick! 

Kelly and I watered the seedling’s a second time. Got a bigger tote and strapped it in the gator. Haven’t got the pump hooked up yet… maybe next week. 

The first part of this week was commencement set up. Monday I picked up the rental lights just outside of Rochester. Got them hung, cabled, and running on Monday. A few extra trips up the lift because something weird was happening. Tuesday they start adding decorations to the stage. I add some lights on the ground to uplight banners, and just some ‘eye candy’ for the crowd while waiting for 2 hours. Yep, Grandma and Grandpa / moms and dads arrive at 4-ish for a 6:00 ceremony. Gotta get a good seat, right? 

View from the stage
From the top in the lift
My station

I’m working on planting soybeans.

On Thursday another piece fell off the planter, and on Friday, after fixing, I got rained out.

Treated soybean seed

Kelly and I always enjoy taking a farm tour in the gator, but it’s been awhile since we have had time. We fit one last week. Saw a male and female pheasant. The next day, doing fieldwork, I saw 3 pairs. There are several males that don’t seem to be too afraid of me and the tractor– as long as I’m moving. If I stop to take a picture, they scatter. They are so pretty, and nice to hear. 

I heard a song on the ’40’s radio station last week, called ‘I never See Maggie Alone’ by Kenny Roberts. He’s a yodeling cowboy. We were just talking about that!

Here’s part of the chorus: 

One night while we were out walkin’
And she grew tired of talkin’
She invited me up to her home
I turned the lights down, they were too bright
Oh, what a night, but when I turned on the light
There was her father, her mother
Her sister and her brother
Oh, I never see Maggie alone

There are several verses, he never does get Maggie alone. I sure do enjoy the ’40’s music. They don’t write songs like that anymore.

As I plant, especially for corn, I need to think ahead and how the combine will be moving through the field. It needs room to turn around on the ends and it can’t make corners too sharp. 

Especially when planting over at the cemetery, because it’s so goofy shaped, there was a few times I apologized out loud for leaving a dead end row or doing something stupid. The nice thing is Craig, in the combine, is pretty good at just shifting over a row or, when done right, he can sort of cut sideways at least enough to make a path. But still, folloing along and suddenly the row ends?? What the heck, Ben. Yep. Sorry about that. 

Actual fields
Planting app final map
The boating app tracks

The guys who harvest my corn use a 16 row corn planter, and their corn head is 8 row. Everything fits nicely. I have a 6 row planter. The first pass through the field he has to take 8 rows. The six is no problem, row 7 and 8, it depends how well and straight I planted as to how well he can get those two. Once open though, and once he has a path, then he’ll leave two rows empty and just take the 6. And you never want to take the outside 6 rows first, because there may be a tree down or something on the edge you need to go around. So they take the second set of 6 on that first pass. Later on, once there’s room, they’ll come back for the outside rounds. And with the deer damage, there’s not always much there anyway. 

Soybeans and oats doesn’t matter so much because you don’t need to follow the rows. The different headers will cut across without issue. 

Podcast listening this week has been “Strike Force Five”, in honor of Stephen Colbert’s show ending. The Strike Force Five is Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and Jimmy Fallon, who started this podcast back in 2023 during a writers strike as a way to support their show staff. Now, with Stephen leaving, they’ve reunited. And they laugh a lot and tell stories and it’s fun to listen to them.

LATE NIGHT TALK SHOWS. FIRST ONE YOU REMEMBER?

2026, Kids, Music, Uncategorized

Low Alto

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When I was in high school I was fortunate to have wonderful music teachers and choir/ band directors. My favorite choir director, Mr. Phelps, was a Concordia College, Moorhead grad who eventually settled in the Twin Cities, where he was equally beloved by students there.

Mr. Phelps, aka Showboat Phelps to other local directors, really knew how to put on a show, be it musicals or difficult choral pieces. One Christmas we did The Messiah. It is a demanding piece with a very high First Tenor part. Mr. Phelps had no qualms about enlisting the Second Altos to sing First Tenor in the Messiah as well as on any other song the Tenors struggled with. I am a Second Alto, and to this day I still know the First Tenor part from The Messiah much better than the Alto part.

My speaking voice isn’t particularly low, but singing Tenor in high school as my voice was maturing kept my singing range really low. My voice breaks at the C above Middle C, and I am able to get down comfortably to the D below Middle C. That is pretty low.

Last week in church choir the Bass section was having a hard time with a couple of measures that had several accidentals. it was identical to the Alto part an octave higher. The director joked that it was too bad we couldn’t sing the part with the Bass section in their register. I told her I could, and I did. The Sopranos were astounded I could sing that low. I was the only one who could sing the measures correctly. Thanks, Mr. Phelps. It’s just too bad you didn’t have me sing along with the Sopranos as well as the Tenors. Think of what my vocal range would have been if you had!

What were your best/worst school music experiences? What is your vocal range?

2026, Family, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

YA Cave

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Claustrophobia, agoraphobia, hydrophobia, hemophobia, acrophobia, Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.  There are a LOT of phobias out there.  Luckily I’m only stuck with two that occasionally bug me. 

Acrophobia bugs me the most.  I don’t like to take the escalators at the Mall of America.  I don’t like to stand near the edge of anything and a couple of those tall tall buildings in London did throw me for a loop.  Three weeks ago, my next-door neighbors got a new roof and after a couple of hours, I had to take my book and move downstairs because watching them work out of my bedroom window was giving me the heebie jeebies.

My claustrophobia is milder and mostly manifests in my deep desire to not be underground or in a cave.  Oh, and I don’t care much for curtains – give me a good valance any time.  I’ve passed twice on the underground river at Xcaret in Mexico and doing the big cave on Gibraltar really got my heart going.  I even stopped reading the Anna Pigeon series after a book set in a cave.  Ish. 

YA doesn’t have a titch of claustrophobia and years ago hung curtains in her room in addition to window shades (I am NOT a window shade kind of gal).  Yesterday a package got delivered and she swooped on it immediately.  Curtains.  When I asked why she needed new curtains she said that her shades had started to curl on the edges and she decided black out curtains would be better.  Black out curtains.  I’m not making this up.   If she only pulled these curtains during the night, when we have a lot of ambient light from living on a county street, I could kind of understand, but like her previous curtains, these have been pulled shut 24/7.  It’s dark in there.

I’ve never wanted a cave of my own so it’s hard for me to get her desire for one, but it’s her room so if she feels the need to have a grotto of her own, so be it!

Any fears you’ll cop to?  Do you like serious darkness for sleeping?

2026, Art, Business, Gatherings, Uncategorized

A Crafty Friday

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Crafts shows are a favorite of mine.  I love to see all the stuff that people make and it’s fascinating that other people buy all this stuff.  The Arts & Crafts show at Canterbury is huge – not normally my favorite kind of craft event, but I’m fond one particular vendor so I wait in line, cough up my cash (I get two discounts – one for being old and one for getting a coupon ahead of time).   

The lines are pretty intense so I get their pretty early.  It’s good people-watching in line.

The vendor I like make quilted objects – I met the mother/daughter duo years ago at the State Fair.  I ordered some oven mitts from them and the entry fee to the fair is cheaper than the shipping that’s why I went this year.  I also wanted to check out their inventory of a couple of other items because they are closing their business at the end of the year.  Marie is 84 and ready to retire!  I got my mitts and some toilet tank toppers and a couple of table runners since it’s the last time I’ll be seeing them.  They gave me the last two popcorn bags for free, since YA and I adore those. 

Of course, as long as I’m there, I wander through and look at everything.  This year I ended up getting a couple of dip mixes – they tasted good sampled w/ pretzels.  I also stopped and got some fudge from a vendor I’ve purchased from before.  The Turtle Sundae fudge is very good.  Tried the baked cheese guys this year (won’t do that again).  AND, I got a massive bag to popcorn… a combo of kettle corn and caramel corn.  Normally I don’t get popcorn like that but from where I was standing in line (for almost an hour), the popcorn stand was directly in my line of sight and when they let us in, I was just pulled right to the stand.  Took me six days to finish it.

Without Marie and Stanna, I won’t be going back to this Arts Fair.  Not enough vendors that I’m that interested in.  I’ll still do my Rubber Stamp event in July though and if they have a popcorn vendor, I’ll be all in!

Any arts/crafts events you’ve taken part in?  Any vendors you gravitate to?

2026, Family, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Weather

Spring Yard Disaster

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As of yesterday afternoon, the biggest part of my gardening year is over.  Clean-up from the fall, spring weeding, mulching, flower baskets planted and veggies planted in the bales.  Phew!  

It took way longer this year than usual.  Part of this was the weather.  We had spectacular weekends but then I wasn’t following through because Monday – Friday was too cool.  I do not like to garden when I’m cold and I certainly don’t want to wear a coat out there either!  Then the mess from the fall was much bigger than usual.  And all my fault.  A triple whammy, in fact.

My gardening season came to an abrupt end the day after my birthday last August, when I blew out my first knee.  Then right about the time I might have gotten to some fall clean up, the other knee went.  That meant that apart from some watering (most of which YA took care of), I didn’t do ANY fall clean up.  No dead-heading the late summer flowers, no cutting back peony stalks, no raking (although YA is a little bitty bit).

The second problem was last year’s mulch.  For reasons that pass understanding, I chose big chunky wood chips last year.  As we were spreading them about last spring, I was thinking I’d made a mistake, but it didn’t become clear how obnoxious these wood chips were until we were cleaning up this spring.  They didn’t seem to have broken down at all and were a mess to work around/with.

Then there was the Creeping Charlie fail.  Normally I do a great job of weeding the Creeping Charlie menace but last summer, I was busy in July, thinking I would just do a big push in August.  But, then…. well, you know.  My nemesis ground cover didn’t give a fig about my knees so there was way more weeding needed this year on that front before the mulch could go down.

I’m feeling quite relieved… there will, of course, be plenty of gardening going forward, but not the three/four hours a day grind we’ve been going through.  Time to enjoy!

When was the last time you “shot yourself in the foot”?

2026, Family, home, Mysteries, TV, Uncategorized

Power Washing Premonition

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For quite some time, I avoided Hudson & Rex, a Canadian tv show about a cop and his partner, a beautiful German Shepherd Dog.  But I’ve gotten hooked; it shows on a couple of different cable stations so when I find it showing, I’m all in.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that one of those two stations plays a few ads A LOT.  One of those is about a power washer.  You know the kind where some guy says “after using this, I threw out my old power washer”.  Blah blah blah.  I mute it a fair amount.

Imagine my surprise when a box was delivered yesterday and I came downstairs to find YA assembling a little power washer.  It isn’t the power washer from tv (thank goodness); she bought it with award credits from the merchandise side of her company’s business.  No money actually changed hands.

She had it out yesterday afternoon, doing the side of the garage and the driveway where we had all the mulch piled up for the last couple of weeks.  I guess it works pretty well; she informed me of a couple of other projects she is thinking about. 

I’m glad she likes to take on these kinds of projects because it would never have occurred to me but I am a little spooked that the tv seemed to predict the power washer entering our lives.

Any cleaning projects lately?

2026, animals, Automotive, crops, Farming Update, Music, Science, Theatre, Uncategorized, Weather

POLISH THE SILVER

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This week’s Farming Update from Ben

Hang on tight, I feel like this blog is more ‘all over the place’ than most of them.

I’m so close! A couple more big days, and that will be it for spring work. I finished planting corn about 9:30 PM Thursday night. Just in time as I had to get back to ‘work’ work at the college. Commencement next week. Hung lights over where the stage will be, so the stage can be placed over the weekend.

Things have really moved fast this last week in the farming world. With the nice weather, THOUSANDS of acres have been planted.

I still don’t know which day is which yet.

Last Saturday I spent all day working an event at one of the high schools.

Sunday and Monday I think I farmed.

Over on the rented ground I run, it got fertilizer applied on Tuesday while I was out with the guys doing Township Road inspections. (The roads are all still there. Need a culvert replaced on one road, and some tree’s trimmed, and some ditches cleaned). Wednesday I dug up the fields again, to incorporate the fertilizer, and get it ready for planting. Hoped to have Padawan digging so I could plant, but he’s not a big fan of the tractor. And I don’t want him on the highway. I found him other work to do.
I mentioned he was all about cars. One day he said, again, “What should I do about my car?” I said, “Get a girlfriend?” He didn’t like that answer.

He spent 5 hours figuring out what was rolling around under my car. Eventually he found a golf ball had gotten under the seat somehow, and then under the frame. Well. Clearly I put the golf ball in the car at some point… one of those from the tractor and I must have put it in the car. Then forgot about it…

My collection of golf balls

I cut off the stumps of the dead Ash tree’s that were cut down earlier. Got a company coming in to grind them off on Tuesday, then will plant the Larch tree’s. …. pause for us all to say, “The Larch”.

 Kelly and I moved a couple of the windbreak shrubs, just to fill in some places we missed. And we rigged up a barrel and hose to water them. That worked but it was kinda slow. I have ordered a 12V pump but it won’t be here until Monday. And then I went up a hill and the barrel slid out the back and busted off the hose attachment. Oops. Should have put a strap behind that… Wonder why I didn’t think of that at the time. Woulda Coulda Shoulda.


I listen to podcasts in the tractor. Smarter than Me with Julia Louis Dreyfus is a favorite. Then The Moth. Or a lighting one called Light Talk, modeled after Car Talk. Smarter Than Me is really good; highly recommended.

I listened to Arturo Sandoval for a while. I knew a couple of his songs, then heard an interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Since I was a trumpet player, I listened to Maynard Ferguson, one of my musical heros. His birthday was May 4th. I believe I have a good embouchure and breath control from all those years of trumpet playing.

Wednesday late afternoon I got over to the last 35 acres and started planting. Got about 2 acres in when a gauge wheel fell off the planter. That’s an important part. It was 5:45PM. Called John Deere and they had the part. Drove the planter back home, drove to Plainview for the parts, (after hours, they leave parts in a metal locker out back) (and got sandwichs at the sub place in town), $130 for that part. had it fixed in about 10 minutes and called it a night.

Thursday Morning Padawan got a different car. Maybe that will calm down some of his talk. Maybe.

But Thursday I got all the corn planted! Friday the co-op applied fertilizer for soybeans and they will be next.

When we replaced some points on the digger last week, I used special, ‘Long-lasting’ points. Supposedly they’re extra hard. And I notice the steel looks different once shined up by the dirt:

Interesting pattern on the long lasting points.
Regular points
There goes the profit.
Oats is growing.
A flat tire filled with mud. Hmm…..that’s weird. I had to cut it open because it was so dang heavy we could barely lift it. Well that explains why.
Trying to follow the line.
Me and that guy.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms!

EVER HAD TO POLISH THE SILVER?

ANY STORIES OF A SAMOVAR?

2026, Food, home, Uncategorized

All Is Revealed

31 Comments

Our kitchen is very long and runs east and west. The living room is at the east end, and an open area where we keep the piano, media cabinet, and musical instruments is at the west end. There is a window on the far west wall. The photo below shows the west window by the media cabinet, and was shot ftom the livingroom.

Our kitchen cupboards are stained a dark walnut brown. They usually don’t show much dirt or spills. We try to keep things pretty neat and clean when we cook, but spills do happen and we wipe them up, of course.

I generally feel pretty good about the cleanliness of our kitchen, and a casual glance most times of day would support that assessment. However, when the sun shines through the far west window, it illuminates every spill, smudge, smear, and dust particle on the cupboard doors that makes it look as though we have been flinging food all over the place and leaving it to it drip down and dry. That is a lot of cupboard front to wash regularly, but the revealing afternoon sun keeps me on my alert. It is one of my least favorite cleaning chores. I suppose I could just shut the blinds to block the sun, but the Dutch in me couldn’t live with the knowledge that the cupboard fronts need cleaning.

What housecleaning tasks do you dislike the most? What do you like or dislike about your kitchen cupboards.

2026, animals, Automotive, Family, pets, Travel

Kitty Craze

26 Comments

Our initial plan for heading to St. Louis after Nonny’s passing was to take the dog and leave the cat at home with our fabulous neighbors coming over to feed her and take care of her box.  Then the dog passed and I knew immediately that I simply could not leave the cat at home.  I have a very bad history of pets passing while I’m gone (it’s happened twice).  We did think about boarding Nimue but even that was giving me anxiety. 

I bought a brand-new kitty carrier – bigger than the one we use for the block-and-a-half transport to the vet – and a new harness.  The plan was to let her out every 100 miles or so and I even brought an aluminum cake pan for a litter box and put some litter in it for traveling.  All of this turned out to be pointless.  Nimue had no interest in how comfortable we were trying to make her.  She didn’t make any noise, but the getting out of the carrier on a harness was not on her list of things to get done that day.  The first time we took her out, she sniffed around a bit, but more puffed up than we’ve ever seen her.  She wouldn’t eat a treat, wouldn’t drink any water, certainly didn’t do any business.  Crickets. 

We tried two more times with the same result.  After that we quit trying.  When we arrived at Nonny’s condo, she headed straight underneath Nonny’s bed.  I was pretty sure it would be time to go home before she came out.  For the next three days, we had to keep Nimue in her carrier for most of the day – with people coming in and out, boxing up stuff, tossing stuff – there was no way to keep her safe except in her carrier.  And when we were gone from the condo, we also kept her in the carrier.  Both my sisters, my niece and nephew all had keys and I didn’t want to run the risk that they might stop by for some reason and accidently let her out. 

All of this made me feel terribly guilty – after all, we were torturing her because of my anxiety.  She would probably have been happier at The Cat’s Meow than with us.  So, it was with a bit of joy that I came into Nonny’s bathroom late on Wednesday afternoon to find Nimue ensconced in the sink looking like butter would melt in her mouth.

On Friday, when we headed home, we put Nimue in the kitty carrier with a few treats, put her on the backseat and drove off.  We talked to her quite a bit during the day but never attempted to take her out – 9+ hours.   Within minutes of getting home, she had eaten, done some business and settled down on her kitty bed in my room.  Like nothing had ever happened.  Apparently no kitty ptsd here!

What do cats call mice on a skateboard?

2026, Automotive, Business, Food, Mysteries, Travel

Backwards

46 Comments

On the way home from St. Louis, YA were debating about what we should pick up for lunch and she told me that she had noticed a sign (when we were still in St. Louis) that Steak `n Shake was offering an Orange Dreamsicle Freeze.  I don’t know if I’ve whined about S`nS dumping their original Orange Freeze – but they let go of it at the same time they dropped the grilled cheese.  I haven’t been there since then – about 6 years.

But the new offering sounded good so we decided that fries and a freeze would be an ok lunch.  YA found the closest S`nS and we let GPS get us there.  As we were waiting in the drive-thru line, we noticed several posters in the windows of the eatery touting their all new beef-tallow.  These are their exact words “return to tallow is part of a broader trend to revive traditional cooking methods and highlight authentic flavors.”  Snort.  I asked the person taking the order if it were true that the fries were now being fried in beef tallow.  When he said yes, we cancelled the fries and just got the Freezes. 

When I became a vegetarian in the early 70s, it was the end of French fries for me as all the fast-food places used animal fats for frying.  Burger King was the first to switch over; for many years I got a whooper with no meat (yes, that’s just a glorified cheese sandwich) and fries.  Then Wendys switched, then S`nS, and eventually even McDonalds gave it up and moved to vegetable oils.  So this move back to beef tallow doesn’t make much sense to me.  I don’t know the science about the health benefits (although RFK touting beef tallow makes me wonder…) but from a planetary point of view, I don’t think we need more cows eating way more grains than it takes to feed humans.  My cynical side says S`nS is grasping at straws trying to deal with their currently financial struggles and think this might be a way to differentiate themselves from the pack.

Regardless, YA and I ended up at Subway for our lunch to go with our Orange Dreamsicle Freezes, which unfortunately weren’t all that great.  I can’t imagine I’ll ever go back to a Steak `n Shake again.

Fries?  Shoestring, curly, seasoned, sweet potato?  Or just pass the tater tots?