The Farm Report comes to us from Ben.
I saw a sticker in a YouTube video: “Life is -f**king- relentless”. Boy, they got that right.
Tuesday morning, I was a little overwhelmed. The college shop was a mess with stuff from the play, and from the concert, AND from commencement. Plus, I had to build the set for the show opening the 24th, not to mention farming. By Tuesday afternoon I had gotten a lot done and I didn’t feel so bad.
About noon on Tuesday, there was a crane placing the heat and AC unit on the roof at the Rep Theater, that was fun to watch.
On Thursday, as the heat and AC guys did final measurements for the ductwork, they inadvertently dumped about 30 gallons of rainwater that was trapped inside a temporary roof opening, into the theater. I was there just to unlock some doors, but I heard the gush of water and I kind of knew what it was, but why was there THAT MUCH?! Of course, it ran along the steel joists and dripped over a 20-foot area on the first and second floor. So that was fun. And unexpected. And not what I meant to be doing. It didn’t really hurt anything.
Kelly and I had supper at a Middle Eastern restaurant to celebrate our anniversary. A new place for us. There was only one other couple in there. The food was great! The owner / host didn’t speak English and there was a lot of pointing at pictures in the menu, and I didn’t get the appetizer I thought I was ordering, (I didn’t get any appetizer) but the entre was good. And I even tried the coffee!
Sundays, Kelly and I take the gator around the farm and check out what’s happening. It’s a pleasant Sunday drive.
With all the rain, it’s a little wet in some of the fields.
Mom celebrated her 97th birthday with ice cream with friends.
Her birthday was really Friday, but they celebrated Thursday. Mom gets very anxious and had called to be sure someone was coming. When she plays music on her Alexa device, she turns the volume down. Then when she calls someone, she can’t hear us. It’s rather comical. There’s a lot of shouting and interrupting each other. Kelly and daughter plug their ears when I talk to mom.
The family reunion was really nice. Got to see nieces and nephews I hadn’t seen in a while. A couple of them came to the farm to relive memories, and I made friends with a grandniece who wasn’t too sure about me until we got on the tractors.
Taking a gator ride, we found blue bells, wild leeks, and they showed me jack-in-the-pulpit’s that I didn’t know about.
Thursday I finally went back to planting corn. Finished one field and was doing a food plot for a neighbor when the tractor got hard to steer. I had blown a hydraulic hose and lost all the hydraulic oil. Course it was after regular business hours. The other day we talked about good customer service: The parts guys are willing to come in after hours if you need. When I called, the guy was half hour away from the store. I’m half hour away too, but I also wasn’t sure they could make a new hose or it’s something they need to order. I decided it could wait until morning.
Since I was a few miles from home with a broken tractor and the planter in the ground, Kelly came over with the gator to pick me up. I took the other tractor with the soil finisher and went out doing field work. After one round, I found one of the shovels of the digger laying in the field. The big bar it attaches to, called a ‘Standard’, had broken off. Well, there’s 30 other ones on the machine, so missing this one isn’t the end of the world. I worked until about 9PM, went home and backed it up to the shed and used lots of new tools. I used the 4 foot ‘under hood’ cordless LED work light that Kelly gave me as a gift, I used my new cordless grinder that I bought myself as a gift, I use some pry bars that I got recently, and I use the air hammer, which I don’t get a chance to use very often. Considering there was only two bolts to get out to remove the standard, I’m surprised it took that many tools.
All the parts manuals are online and they take a little digging sometimes, but it sure is convenient. I placed a parts order online about 11PM, to pick up the next morning. Hydraulic hose, bolts, standard, ect.
Kelly and I burned the pile of winter sticks one night and had a nice time being outside.
The first corn that I planted on whatever day it was, it’s already out of the ground. I picked up soybean seed this week, so I’ve got all the seed now.
We found some guinea eggs in the chicken’s coop one day so we put them in an incubator. We’ll ‘candle’ them next week and see what we got. We put 8 chicken eggs in there too just because.
Guinea eggs are kind of pointed. They’re the ones on the bottom of the photo. The cradles they’re sitting in ‘rock’ them gently; in effect, turning them like a momma hen would do.
There was a male duck hanging around here one day. And over in the field where I was planting corn, a male and female duck were hanging around. They weren’t bothered by the tractor so I suspect they’re one of my pairs.
The chickens, while down a bit on egg production, are doing well.
Still got coyotes coming around most every morning, but Kelly and the dogs are keeping a good handle on them.
A bear has been spotted on some security camera’s in the neighborhood.
One day at a time. Life goes on.
Who’s your newest friend?
What’s the last present you bought yourself?
Trail Baboon 
A beaver, Franklin. It’s new to the trail I walk. Early last week, I watched Franklin swimming in the Miami river but lost sight because of trees. On the return trip, she/he came out of the woods about six feet from me and crossed the path back toward the river. Now, I look forward to seeing Franklin each morning at the same spot. There is evidence of a beaver cafe in the heavy bushes. Someone has put out corn kernels but I seriously doubt beaver eat corn. Maybe lettuce.
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David Sedaris also names his animal friends in the wild. And the household spiders. I find that so entertaining. Cheers Franklin.
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What do they serve at the beaver café?
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Kind of like the beaver cafe image…
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I went to the hardware store years ago to get some new stuff to kill Boxelder bugs that were entering all the cracks in my house and the guy at the hardware store said they’re all out because everybody has Boxelder bug but he can’t understand why people want to kill Boxelder bugs seeing if they don’t do any damage they don’t do any harm. All they do is eat Dustin die and so I started making them pets, and when my kids will see them, I would always be able to tell them what the name of the Boxelder bugs were, and they were fascinated to learn that I was on a personal basis with so many different Boxelder bugs
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I’ve been calling my porch possum Polly.
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If you count stamps and dies and stencils and paper that I use in my studio, then I am gifting myself practically every week!!
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Baboons are playing in the sunshine!
I went to the Master Gardener Plant Sale this am. We arrived at 9am to find a line many blocks long, stretching on and on. It was a mass of people. Surely they made a lot of money.
I recently gave myself a retirement puppy! But I know you know that. She is a gregarious little girl who will love meeting new friends. My newest set of friends are the Master Gardener community in Hennepin Co. And they are interesting, fun folks. Not a “coyote” among them.
Ben, even if that 30 gallons of water did not hurt anything, what a mess? Was is all shop vac-ed out? That would make my heart sink.
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Some was mopped up, some got soaked up by curtains (just backstage ‘masking’ curtains. Just hung out to dry), some soaked into the wood flooring (think ‘attic’ flooring, nothing serious), and some ran under stuff and will just have to evaporate. But yeah, it was a mess…
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That’s a lot in one week, Ben. Love the photo of the creek with the “leanin’ tree”, and the one with the fire and the feet…
A lovely woman who helped with our book sale last weekend – she and I see each other in several activities, and I’ve just realized I’d like to know her better.
Thinking about last present…
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Probably a kind of pricey lunch at the Blue Heron on Friday…
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Husband’s most recent gift to himself is Walter Kaufmann’s translation of Goethe’s Faust. It was scheduled to arrive this week, and Husband wanted delivery updates. I eventually told him that Faust was sitting on the front steps, and that I hoped he didn’t cause any trouble. Husband commented he would rather have Faust than Goethe waiting there, since Goethe would probably be very demanding and yell a lot in German.
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Faust was recently referenced in a show and I was thinking I’d like to try reading it. Are some versions better than others?
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This version has the original German along with the English translation.
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I plan to order some new summer Chinos from Talbots in a week or so.
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newest friend is kyle from my warehouse downsizing but my guitar group and card playing group has gotten real tight too
latest gift was new glasses and perscription sunglasses after i rolled over on mine in bed
the guy who says when he gets down to planting he works hard is a johnny one note
he just plants
you’re the rennesance farmer ben
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…and tell us about the picture up top…
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I went to the hardware store years ago to get some new stuff to kill Boxelder bugs that were entering all the cracks in my house and the guy at the hardware store said they’re all out because everybody has Boxelder bug but he can’t understand why people want to kill Boxelder bugs seeing if they don’t do any damage they don’t do any harm. All they do is eat Dustin die and so I started making them pets, and when my kids will see them, I would always be able to tell them what the name of the Boxelder bugs were, and they were fascinated to learn that I was on a personal basis with so many different Boxelder bugs
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jimmin it
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it’s a schematic of the tractor accessory tool that the hydrolic hose broke on i bet
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Matter of fact, I was going to talk about that. It is the parts diagram from the section of the hydraulics on my tractor. The hose at the top is the part that I needed. John Deere was able to make it. And it was a pretty quick repair. I had a good day Friday planting corn and my brother doing fieldwork. And today I worked a dance recital from 8 AM to 4 PM and then did fieldwork until 9 PM. If everything goes well, I will finish planting corn tomorrow. Except for a couple acres that are too wet.
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How would you like to be the person who draws these things??
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It’s a job like any other. It requires an attention span but it’s not grueling.
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That’s what I thought about running sound for the dance show Saturday. I need to pay attention, but it wasn’t hard.
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The last thing I bought for myself was a used Toyota Highlander hybrid.
I really just wanted a cheap used car, but there are no cheap used cars anymore, at least ones that actually run, so I went for an older model hybrid, figuring if I was going to overpay for the car at least I woul save on gas.
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I made another new friend yesterday, Merlin. He’s from Cornell University. I hold him up on my phone (he’s an app!) while walking the trail and he records all the bird species within a hundred yards of my location. He’s helped me identify without seeing it a Blue-gray Gnat-catcher. I think I’ll call the bird Natty.
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I’ve heard several people talking about this recently…
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t’s a great app. We were down in the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge and our Merlin app recorded Summer Tanager, Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Yellow Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Song Sparrow, Cardinal, Red Wing Blackbird, Gray Catbird, Great Crested Flycatcher, American Redstart, Tennessee Warbler, Goldfinch, Crows and Robins. We also saw and heard Great Blue Herons, Cormorants, Trumpeter Swans and Sandhill Cranes.
It was a lively morning.
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I wonder what those birds were all talking about
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They were talking to their lawyers about suing Bill for recording them without permission.
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They were in a public space.
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Cleaver
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That’s such a great place to go birding. What an extraordinary sampling of bird calls.
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We are often one of the few people there without cameras with gigantic lenses.
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Wow!
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“Why birds and their songs are good for your mental health”
https://apple.news/A8m2qdO9uThaM4mAng-fimg
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https://birdsarentreal.com/
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Hmmmm.
The drones exhibit such realistic behaviors that some will actually repeatedly fly into windows when they see their own reflection.
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