2022, animals, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Weather

Corn is Up!

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Corn is up! The first stuff was planted Saturday the 14th, saw it poking out of the ground Wednesday, the 25th.

I planted it 2.5” deep. I’ve heard a lot of guys saying they only went about 1 ¾” deep because it’s late. Valid point, however, there’s a lot of summer and fall to go yet before we know what the crop will amount to. You don’t want it too shallow or it won’t develop the brace roots later on.

Remember, corn grows out of the seed and the growing point on the corn is still down in the seed and will be for several weeks yet.

A soybean pushes the seed up out of the ground as it grows.

Been cool and rainy the last few days. A wet chicken is a pathetic looking creature. Especially the roosters with their tail feathers all flopped over. Missed the photo, but trust me. They look terrible.  With the hot weather predicted, everything will take off. 

I need about one day yet to finish planting soybeans, whenever it dries up. I had the co-op spread fertilizer for the soybeans and it was incorporated with pre-emergence herbicide. That’s the best way to do soybeans; a pre-emerge spray for grasses, then a later application for broadleaves and whatever else is growing. Never used this method before so I hope it works.

Most guys, after planting soybeans, they go over the field with a big roller to press the rocks down into the dirt, and firm up the seed bed, and just level out the field so that you can cut closer to the ground when harvesting this fall. I don’t have a roller, but last year I used a drag and went over the field to kind of do the same thing, or at least, level it off. This year, I was just trying to get everything planted first and then was going to go over it. Now that there’s about two weeks between the first field and the last field, the first field might already be growing and I don’t want to hit that with the drag as it would rip all the plants out. So that may not get done this year. 

Using my ag cameras system again to monitor the beans in the drill. It’s pretty slick. 

We got the baby chicks outside on Friday. Kelly built an awesome fence and I sat in the gator and offered unsolicited advice.

The lilacs are lovely this year.

We’ve lost one of the black ducks and that’s a bummer, we really like them. 

I’m leasing straw bales to a friend to use for seating at his daughters wedding. We really hope the weather is nice, both for getting the bales picked up here, lying on the ground there, and picking them up again after the wedding and returning to me. We don’t want them rained on. 

It’s been pretty quiet here this week with all the rain. Not much to report. 

Kelly’s Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bill used to have a big picnic and all the families were there. We tried to keep it up after they passed but people get busy and, well, it doesn’t happen anymore. 

Enjoy the weekend!

Talk about a memorable Memorial weekend.

56 thoughts on “Corn is Up!”

  1. “Mad as a wet hen.” One of mother Adeline’s repeated cliches.
    Yesterday I finally got Sandy out on their nice patio. She chattered for 90 minutes about what was in front of her. The birds she analyzed for morality making some evil, just a random process showing the richness of her emotional processes. Three 20 foot spruces stood in front of us 10 feet away, trees she sees out her window. The birds sang from them, which she reveled in. She assigned rather detailed personalities to each. This was all real to her, at least I think so. This was a memorable Memorial Day weekend for me, not her.
    Clyde

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  2. Using a drag, now that drags out memories. We rolled our oats. You have heard off rolled oats. A joke Adeline made every year.
    I was sometimes the remote camera for when my father seeded. I stood on the board on the back and kept the seeds even in their tanks, oats in the larger containers and in the too small container clover for the undercrop, next years hayfield. The clover seeds needed constant leveling and refilling. Without me there he had to keep stopping to check.
    Today I plant. Only 6 pots on the patio on which I sit. Used to have 12-14 for Sandra to see from her lift chair. Glad I cutback. Big jump in prices.

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      1. I agree; I love hearing your stories Clyde.
        Since I don’t grow alfalfa or hay anymore, I don’t need the small boxes on the drill. This drill doesn’t have them, but all my previous drills did. Some were in the back, so you just had to watch the chain to be sure it was working. Some were in the front so you could see it better. Yes, little tiny seeds. (You drop this seed on top of the ground, and cover it by using the drag. Kinda like grass seed. It doesn’t have enough ‘oomph’ to grow through very much dirt)

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  3. I have no idea if these long weekends were actually Memorial Day weekend or not, but several times Husband’s fairly extensive family got to spend time at a cabin on Sweet Lake in NW Wisconsin – headwaters of the Upper St. Croix River. Pristine little lake that didn’t allow large motors on it (with a channel to a larger lake that did). We’d kike, swim and play water volleyball, go out in the pontoon boat, there was a mini-sailboat the kids could try out, canoe. I remember being out in early morning, seeing the loons. Each family was in charge of organizing one meal. Good memories.

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  4. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    Lou and I got married over Memorial weekend 29 years ago tomorrow. That was a big weekend. We had a very small wedding with our immediate family only, then 3 months later we had a big party with Lou’s Dixie Land band playing. I decided then that this is the only way to have a wedding. Much less stressful than my first traditional wedding featuring the Husband Who Never Grew Up.

    No one has brought up the faded old tradition of the small town Memorial Day Parade with drunken Old Soldiers marching in too tight armed forces uniforms, carrying rifles, weaving down Main Street. Then in my town, there was a Community Band Concert (in which I played) with the American Flags flapping all around us. Next trumpet players played taps.

    I usually travel to the Nevada, Iowa cemetery and decorate the family graves which heavily populate that city facility. I am not yet free to travel this year, so I will go pay my respects later this summer.

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  5. If memory serves about Memorial Day, in my childhood it was recognized on the 31st whenever it fell. I have less experience with this, but I think people reserved it for war dead and not all dead.
    It was a day when I was home from school, so my father came home from the docks, if he was working, and slept 2-3 hours, then he and I did work on haying machinery, or we cleaned out the chicken coop. Memorial Day was the target for having all the wood chopped and in the wood shed. Sometimes we finished that up.
    It was the target date for my mother to set out all the plants she had growing on windowsills. Remember this was on the North Shore. But I never helped with that. It was her joy and hers alone.
    Perhaps if their graves were not 200 miles away, we might have visited graves of my father’s mother and my mother’s father. What Two Harbors did in recognition, I do not know. We were not active in the town.

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    1. Your farm reports are such a breath of fresh air, Ben, thank you. I love to see the pouffy duck prominently featured in the header photo, but sad to read that you lost a black one.

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    2. Rochester used to have a parade and one of the high schools would March in it. Because it was so close to the end of the school year, they took turns marching: three schools, 10-12 grade, so everyone had the chance to do it once.
      Beyond that, I don’t recall attending many ceremonies. We would make a visit to the cemeteries.

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    3. Actually it was always on the 31st until they decided it had to be a Monday holiday. I remember this because my middle sister‘s birthday is on the 31st and she was really irritated when they turned it to a Monday holiday because now Her birthday isn’t always a holiday any longer.

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        1. Yeah, this is a Sherrilee typing too fast. Now my sister’s probably mad at me for getting her birthday wrong.

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        2. you didn’t have to learn her birthdays date
          it was memorial day

          lincoln’s birthday is the 12th of feb and washington the 22nd
          i know this because every other year we got a holiday on one presidents birthday then the next year on the other
          i loved the year we got the holiday the day before my birthday

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        4. No, I’m sure she doesn’t read the blog. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it to her. We’re not close and one of the reasons is that she would be horrified by the people I am hanging out with online. Cause she’s already horrified with me.

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  6. I think this will be my most memorable Memorial weekend. One of my nieces is getting married this afternoon. Our extended immediate family is in town and we had a delicious and fun rehearsal dinner last evening. What makes it even more memorable is that my niece mis-stepped yesterday and managed to sprain both feet – She went to urgent care to make sure there was no fracture. I was called on for my nursing skills. Prior to going to urgent care, I compression wrapped the worst foot, made sure she had enough Ibuprofen on board, and was using enough ice. She can walk unaided but crutches make it easier. So her mom (my sister) is decorating the crutches with white satin. She will walk down the aisle without them but they will come in handy both before and after the ceremony. Years from now this will be a funny story but it sure wasn’t amusing yesterday. Tomorrow my sister and bro-in-law will host a brunch for both families and the wedding party. We have enough food to feed an army. We’re hoping Mother Nature will cooperate tomorrow but it doesn’t look too hopeful for a dry day.

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    1. I’m glad she’ll be able to hobble down the aisle without the crutches. It does remind me when YA sprained both her ankles and broke a bone in her foot three years ago. Of course she couldn’t walk anywhere at all. Luckily we had the rolling chair of death upstairs and she could get from her room to the bathroom in it

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  7. when i was 10 or 11 my family went up to leech to enjoy the weekend at my uncles cabin
    he was frugal and the cabin was probably 600 sq ft so when you took the bedroom and bathroom out you basically had a hotel room sized kitchen living room dining room which is good for a lake cabin where outdoor activities consume the entire day but that year memorial weekend was 45 and rainy
    4 kids and a standard poodle who hadn’t packed for cold rainy weekend activities
    we got home and my parents ordered an in ground pool and decided to summer in the backyard
    loved having a pool
    didn’t love my moms family at leech so it was a good thing to get it done with

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  8. For twenty years or more, Memorial Day weekend meant The Eddies’ Annual Pot-luck Get-together on Harriet Island. It was a leisurely, casual affair, hosted by five West Side men who enjoyed singing and making music together. They invited friends, neighbors, family and “anyone who didn’t have no stinkin’ cabin up north” to go to that weekend, and they attracted an interesting and eclectic crowd of all ages. It grew from an initial gathering of about twenty or so, to a crowd of up to 200 people when the weather was good. Old folks, little kids, teens with multi-colored hair, and middle-aged hippies mellowed by age, all enjoying eachothers’ company, the food, and the singing.

    These gatherings were all fun, but a couple stand out for different reasons.

    There was the year that several baboons attended, and where our peaceful gathering was interrupted and disbanded by the police. Harriet Island is a regional park, and for a fee you can reserve space there for special events. At that point, this annual gathering had been going on for years, and there had never been a conflict with other users, so the Eddies’ routinely had skipped the formality (and fee) of reserving the place. On that particular day, some random “official” from the City had apparently discovered this crowd of scofflaws making merry for free, and summoned the police. The cops were pretty nice about it, but it did result in a shortened celebration, and put a bit of a damper on the festivities. For a couple of years following that incident, the picnic was held at Cherokee Park before we felt comfortable going back to Harriet Island.

    The other Eddies’ Memorial Day celebration that stands out in my memory was the year husband’s oldest brother and his wife were visiting from Denmark. Peter and Bodil are financially successful and well respected in their hometown of Aalborg. They travel in well-heeled circles, and tend to judge people on their apparent wealth. They had been less than impressed by the random sampling of our friends they had met. They, no doubt, felt like fish out of water at the Eddies’ picnic when, half-way through the singing, there was a torrential downpour. It was one of those extreme weather events that looked like it might just blow over, but no, we were soaked to the bones, and by the time it was over we were in ankle deep water on the lawn. Since there was no escaping it, we all decided to lean into it. Talk about singing in the rain!

    I’m sure Peter and Bodil left the US convinced that husband and I and most of our friends were all nuts. Sometimes I think they might be right. Nuts is good!

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        3. Oh no, there was no cause for alarm. The cops were very discreet. They intervened because they had to, but obviously we were a pretty harmless crowd even if we were breaking a few rules.

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  9. We are in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, ND. Our grandson has seen lots of bison, the Cesky Terrier is sound asleep in my Lao, while the Westie is strolling with Husband’s and the rest of the family is on a small hike. There is a Cowboy Poetry Event today and tomorrow in Medora.

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    2. one of my favorite campgrounds is the one on the creek in teddy roosevelt
      used to be a yearly stop

      we’d leave minneapolis about 5 pm drive across north dakota to reach teddy roosevelt the next morning after visiting the world largest cow and then head to yellowstone via red lodge and the beartooth pass

      medora was the start of the enjoyable part of the trip and because we often got there about 10 am we got the choice camping spots right along the water

      then we’d hike the badlands finding hydroglyphs and wonderful climbing challenges for little kids
      i’ve stayed there in the winter
      i’ve stayed at the hotel when camping wasn’t possible have seen or semi slept through the teddy roosevelt one man show many many times and really like the whole mellow vibe of the park

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  10. Memorial Day weekend (and the days leading up to it) is when a big regional bridge tournament happens every year. Husband and his bridge partner (they started playing long before he and I met) would sometimes play starting on Tuesday and play every day until the last Swiss Teams event on Sunday. Daughter was born on a tournament week and I had to convince Husband that he should still go play – I wound up with extra days of hospital time, where I was waited on hand and foot, so he may as well go play cards if all I was doing was napping and feeding our kiddo (and working on walking “all the way down the hall and back” – a hurdle I needed to clear before I could go home). His bridge friends still remember Daughter’s birthday because of that timing – especially his bridge partner, who texted this week when he headed off to the tournament. Memorial Day became our “girls weekend” because Husband was off doing something he loved – he so rarely took time for himself and this truly was a favorite event. I don’t play bridge, beyond very basic social bridge, so won’t be heading out to attempt to pick up where he left off – I just told his partner of something like three decades to go off and find someone good to bicker with about what was lead and how the bidding fell out. 🙂

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    1. I remember one Memorial Day sitting in a friend’s house and watching huge snowflakes coming down hard. I think it was 1989 or 1990.

      Many other Memorial Day weekends were spent at an annual three day hippy party at a friend’s historic home in Faribault, along the Straight River. Grateful Dead music blared from huge speakers while people played volleyball in the sand court. Others, including me, played guitars and mandolins and even a washtub bass around a campfire that burned for three days. There was lots of food and the grill cooked constantly. People camped in the yard or slept in their cars or out under the stars. I had a big group of good friends in those days and those are some really good memories. Quite a few of those people have moved away, too many have passed away, and there are only a few of us left now. *Sigh* Good memories.

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        1. I think you might know the guy who used to own that old stone house. He’s around your age and went to Bloomington Jefferson HS. Tim Totten.

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  11. Death rate on young squirrels must be high from their brazen stupidity. Young squirrels are ranging wider and come right under my feet. Hardly react when shoo them off my patio.

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      1. I happen to know they also like M&M’s, though that’s probably not good for them. But it is a hoot to watch a squirrel decimate an M&M held in its front paws, with chocolate all over his face. Don’t ask me how I know this.

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        2. Squirrels, perhaps, have the same susceptibility to chocolate that dogs have. Some friends of ours had, in the past a bakery and they had a contract with one of the airlines to produce brownies for the in-flight meals. Since the portions needed to be identical, the brownies were trimmed to uniformity, which left scraps of trimmings—a lot of trimmings, considering the quantities they were producing. It had been their habit to put those trimmings out for the wildlife until they started to notice an inordinate number of dead squirrels in their vicinity…

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        4. I agree, you most definitely don’t want to give them chocolate on a regular basis. This one had a serving of three, and he was fine. He liked Spaghetti O’s too.

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  12. my great grandfather was part of the twin cities movers and shakers society during the 20’s and my guess is he bought his family plot at that time at the cemetery on 24th and chicago

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    1. my mom used to go down there to find his wife ankle the overgrown grass off her gravestone in memorial day then as time marched on my great grandfather died in 73 or 74 them my grandfather in 76 my grandmother in 90 and it became a tradition my mom taught to my children
      to go pull the weeds off and remember with stories and relived events vignettes about lives of people she wanted to be remembered

      yesterday was the 10th anniversary of my dad passing and i do a bit of a playback myself although i was not with family to remember him together my oldest daughter called earlier in the week to give me the heads up that it was coming
      i had it marked on my calendar but i miss stuff on my calendar in this new weird non schedule based life i’m living
      i already had it down but appreciated the thought

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