2023, animals, Automotive, Family, Farming Update, home, Nature, Seasons, Weather

March!!

70 Comments

The weekend Farm Report is from Ben.

Last week was all about the snow,

We started off this week with rain on Monday. Rain on a snow packed gravel road just makes ice, so there was a lot of phone calls between the township officials. Most of the residents know the county, whom we contract for snow removal and road maintenance, is working on it, but they will sometimes send a note just to make sure we know a certain road is an ice rink. And a few roads are more trouble than others. We all managed and in a few hours they were better.

When I was moving snow last week, I forgot to make a path from the back door of the chicken coop over to the building with the feed. I did that in the rain Monday morning because the chickens needed more feed. And I then went up the driveway and tried to scrape off some ice. I sanded the corners and had to take a moment to be grateful, again, for the things I can do this year that I was not doing a year or six months ago. I picked up and threw a bag of feed on my shoulder and I carried buckets of corn. A year ago, I had the shoulder surgery and couldn’t do any of that. I walked through the snow and I spread out sand; six months ago I was barely able to walk or keep my balance and I certainly would not have been walking on an uneven surface. 

Chickens are doing really well, we’re getting somewhere between 18 and 24 eggs per day. Thanks to Tim, I was able to move a few dozen and someone at the college took a few dozen. I think I moved 16 dozen eggs one day.

We still have the two ducks. Plus, some wild ones that come in for corn.

It’s very interesting to us, the pheasants are not afraid of the vehicles; the tractor or the gator or a car and they will just stand there and watch us go by. But I step out of the house 75 yards away and they flee.

I’m not sure if you can consider an inch of snow being ‘March coming in like a lion’, it’s March, it’s going to do whatever it does. There are basketball tournaments and they used to say there was always a snowstorm during tournaments. That doesn’t prove so true anymore, so we’ll just see what it is. But the snow is melting. Even after that freezing rain on Monday, by Monday afternoon a lot of ice had melted on the road. We talk about our long driveway, but most of the time it’s just the first 300 yards from the house that’s a problem. Those are the two corners going uphill to get out of our yard. If you can get around those two corners you can probably make it. The rest of the road is still curvy and uphill, but it’s open and in the sun, and doesn’t usually drift too bad, knock-on wood, famous last words, your mileage may vary, certain weather conditions apply.

When I was a kid, I had a rail sled. Technically, I still have it, it’s hanging in the garage.

When I was a kid I used a rail sled. At some point when I was a kid dad re- did a lot of the driveway so it wouldn’t drift so bad. But prior to that, there was these two corners that had banks on the sides. I would take this rail sled up above the second corner and get a run at it and I could make both corners, come around below the house and ride that sled all the way down to the barn. It was like a luge run! That was the coolest thing ever. My brother talks about it too. But if the road got too slippery, well then we couldn’t get out with the car. (rear wheel drive you know back then) and dad spread manure on the road and that kind of messed up the luge run. Seriously, manure. Why buy salt, we have this and it’s free and it needs to be spread every day anyway. Once it started to melt in the spring mom complained a bit.

Manure spreader designs changed over the years. They used to have multiple beaters in the back and you got a nice even spread. Then they went to a single beater design, and you got a lot more clumps. Designs changed again to go to vertical beaters or side discharge and of course the whole way of farming has changed enough that it all had to change with it. Manure is a good fertilizer and there’s a lot of value to it and it’s taking very seriously nowadays.  There’s a lot of recordkeeping involved, and there are only certain conditions under which it can be applied. I’m not up on all the rules anymore, but I’m not sure I would be allowed to surface spread in the winter on a hillside. Runoff and erosion, you know, the farmers take that seriously too.

KTCA, Twin Cities Public Television, used to show “Matinee at the Bijou“ at noon on weekdays and sometimes at lunch when dad and I were in the house we’d watch the movie. I remember seeing a black and white Army movie, all I can remember is this bit: a man jumps out of the back of the army truck and lands in a puddle, and he says to the driver “You couldn’t find a dry spot?” and the driver says, “Man. This is a dry spot!” No idea what movie it was. I’ve tried looking for that quote without luck. Why do I remember that?? It had to be 40 years ago. Anyone know the movie? 

These blogs. Some days I just start typing and I don’t know when to stop.
Don’t ask me about stage lighting. I forget to breathe when you get me going on stage lighting.

FAVORITE MOVIE QUOTE YOU USE OFTEN?

70 thoughts on “March!!”

  2. • Let me explain. … No, there is too much. Let me sum up. (Princess Bride)
    • Money is too expensive to be earned that way. (Hopscotch)
    • But on the side. (When Harry Met Sally)
    • It’s much less fun if you don’t get to be old. (People Will Talk)
    • What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate. (Cool Hand Luke)
    • We got bubkes. (Sneakers)

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

      1. Well, they are quotes that I use a lot. Aboksu gets more credit than I do because remember that I saw the question last night when I put the post up to be published.

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

  3. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    *Go Ahead. Make my day. Sudden Impact (Clint Eastwood)

    *Money, Money, Money, Money, Money . Cabaret (Joel Gray
    and Liza Minelli)

    *I’ll have what she’s having. (When Harry Met Sally–Norah
    Ephron wrote great lines)

    *So your Dad just has bad taste? He loves everyone? Ordinary People (psychiatrist Dr. Berger)

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. I read somewhere that the line “I’ll have what she’s having” was actually an ad lib from Rob Reiner’s mother who played the older woman who uttered it. But I agree, Nora Ephron did write great lines, just not that one.

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

      2. I was aware the woman was Rob Reiner’s mother, but I did not remember that she ad libbed it. But no matter who thought that up had a great sense of timing, as well as humor.

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

      4. I just heard a Rob Reiner interview the other day and he said that was a Billy Crystal Ln., Danville he came up with on the spot and gave to Rob Reiner’s mom

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

    1. Saw a bit of that today at my moms place. Having never read the book or seen the movie before, I thought Scarlett was the victim. Clearly she wasn’t.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  7. “Now back to Rome for a quick wedding and some slow executions!” – A Funny Thing Happen on the way to the Forum

    “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!” Paraphrase from ‘Treasure of the Sierra Madre’

    “37 seconds, well used, is a lifetime”
    “Oh well. He’ll figure it out.” **
    “Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.”
    “Light bulbs die, my sweet. I will depart.”
    “We must face tomorrow, whatever it may hold, with determination, joy and bravery.”
    -All from ‘Mr Magoriums Wonder Emporium’. ** We use this all the time for just about everything.

    “It’s Showtime Folks!”
    “Schedules, Goldie, Always schedules”
    -All that Jazz

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  8. Maybe not real often, bur these make me laugh:

    “Are you suggesting coconuts migrate? ” – Monty Python…Holy Grail

    “Funnier than you is even Stuart Schlossman, who is my friend, and is eleven, and puts walnuts in his mouth and makes noises. ” – A Thousand Clowns

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  9. “I do not think this means what you think it means…” (Princess Bride)

    “Old man, you give those dogs another piece of my food and I’m gonna kick you ’til your dead.” (Moonstruck – though usually only the last part of that about the kicking… also, “that’s too bad” after “oh ma, I love him awful” or similar context)

    “This is the start of a beautiful friendship.” (Casablanca)

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

        2. Two other Moonstruck favorites:

          In time you’ll drop dead and I’ll come to your funeral in a red dress!

          I was surprised… You know, I didn’t really think she was gonna die. I knew she was sick. (She had TB.) I know! I mean, she was coughing her brains out, and still she had to keep singing!

          Liked by 5 people

    1. Yay! We love Fawlty Towers!
      We can certainly open this up to TV quotes as well.
      I know far too many Seinfeld quotes.
      “It. Out.”
      “Giddy-up”
      “Neuman!” (Or other name as necessary)

      But Fawlty Towers:
      There are many good quotes from that show.
      “Sssss- P- oooonnnnsss!”
      “Remember when we were first ‘manacled’ together?”
      “Oh, I knowww.”
      “I read it in a book”
      “Any sign of the duck?”

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  12. A scene, not one line, from “The Jerk”. Steve Martin wants to withdraw money from his retirement fund. The teller says, “There is a substantial penalty for early withdrawal.” then the teller takes out a gun and shoots him. I think that line when ever I withdraw money. I thought there would be a clip of this, but I could not find one.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  13. Ranchers here are calving now. It is typical to have snowstorms in calving season. Some ranchers put hats on their calves to protect their ears from frostbite.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

        2. The timing in this scene is so perfect. Cloris Leachman asks each question and turns slowly around to look at Gene Wilder. The way he waits till she turns completely before each answer is sheer brilliance.

          Liked by 3 people

      1. No, we were out, but I wish I had!

        On the other hand, we were at a concert at out little Arts Center – Twin Cities group – Gentlemen’s Anti-Temperance League (two guitars, fiddle, and stand-up bass). They’re really good and a lot of fun… catch them some time if you can.

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

  20. Ben, we had a rail sled like that (didn’t know they were called that); my dad had painted it bright yellow and red… bet we have it in some home movie.

    Like the photo of the eggs in their cubbies. (what is the proper term?)

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  23. Pingback: March!! – DAILY GRUMPS AD

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.