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Officially Summer

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Today’s post and farm update comes from Ben.

It’s hardly fair that down here in our valley, it’s colder in the winter AND hotter in the summer. It’s not even noon on Thursday and it’s 89°. Plus, we don’t always get the breeze. What a cruel, cruel world.

I just took the back off the chicken coop and turned on their fan. Supposed to get baby chicks next week. They won’t hardly need a heat lamp. 

The corn is growing, soybeans are just coming out, and the oats is looking a little rough in a few spots, but it’s coming along. We think the cold and rain right after planting affected the oats. Oats doesn’t like wet ground, plus there may have been enough rain to wash out some nutrients. We’ll have to see how it does. The co-op is getting ready to spray for weeds in the corn, and to spray the oats with fungicides and to prevent broadleaf weeds.

 
I’m officially done working at the college for the summer, but considering I wasn’t there last week when I was supposed to be, I have to go back and at least haul out garbage and put some things away and sit in the dark theater for a few minutes and have my talk with the room and just feel the energy. Yeah. I do that. All the people and activities that have come through the theater in the last 12 months, it’s good to take time and reflect on them.

Our neighbors who rent our pasture have brought cattle out.

The cows were really interested in my cutting grass right next to them the other night. I just didn’t have a camera on me.


The next show I’m lighting, ‘Raisin in the Sun’, has gotten through the first few tech rehearsals and it should be getting easier now. My friend Paul has been working night and day on the set. Three doors, a window, full vintage kitchen with working sink. And what a lot of props in this show! (It was funny to watch the cast try to figure out the record player).

The directors are from the Twin Cities.

You probably all know the plot or have seen the movies and know it’s about a black family. Finding actors of color in Rochester is difficult; in the community theaters, there may be a few. At the college, we might have two or three. So to find eight for this show, plus understudies, took a lot of community engagement before-hand. And there’s a lot of new people! I know one actor, who was at the college 13 years ago. It’s a good group of actors, and they’re doing great, and it should be a good production.

I keep saying my life is slowing down. Next week. I’ve rescheduled a massage for the third time. I’ve rescheduled a fire alarm inspection twice, and the dentist once. 

I had to stop at the Farm Service Agency on Thursday and do my crop certification. I tell them what I planted where and when and how many acres. That information is used to determine cropping history and eligibility for payments in the event of natural disasters or other government payments.

Their map acres don’t match my map acres and they map out all the waterways and I end up with 55 fields on their maps. I only have about 19 fields on my maps. The staff there is always great and I hand them my maps with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is, and they figure it out. I come back later and sign it.

I started cleaning up machinery. Swept out the cab of the tractor and power washed the outside.

Started to wash the next tractor and the power washer made some terrible grinding sounds, and then it didn’t make any sounds anymore. Hmm.

I spent a few hours one day riding around in a big truck guiding the driver as he applied calcium chloride for dust control on the township gravel roads. It’s a fun way to spend a few hours.

Spotted 5 sandhill cranes a few different days. And we’re still hearing them call.

I got most of the soybean fields dragged to smooth them out. I’ve stopped now because the beans are too close to sprouting. It sure is dusty and dry, (see header photo) and every spring I’m reminded how much I rely on the ‘texture’ to find my path. It’s harder when it’s this dry and the ground didn’t work up well.

I also use a boating app that maps my route. That way I can at least tell if I skipped a spot somewhere. I use a free version, so I don’t get a map, I just get the path.

It is useful especially at night and trying to find where I left off in a field. I saw a drivers ed car: ‘St. Joseph Driving School’ with a Renaissance style image spread across the whole drivers side of St. Joseph. Considering ‘Catholic.org’ says Joseph is the patron saint of dying, maybe that’s not who I want for a driving instructor. But it seems like a great name, and it was a great image for the business!

Hauling my fertilizer wagon and some other small things to the auction in Plainview.

Next week, NEXT WEEK, I’ll start working on the shop!

DID YOU HAVE DRIVERS ED?

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR SPIRITUAL ENERGY?

40 thoughts on “Officially Summer”

  1. Yes. I already could handle a vehicle from driving a beater in the acreage behind the barn and driving tractor for a local farmer friend. We took behind-the-wheel training from the school principal Mr. Johnson, in the district’s car. One driver, two kids in the back and Johnson, co-pilot. Quite uneventful, as I recall.
    There was an eventful in-classroom experience. One test was formatted true or false answers. I and my best friend were the only ones to answer”false” to the question, “Alcohol decreases reaction time.” The answer, according to Minnesota, was true. We tried to fight for our reasoning to no avail. I have subsequently learned that the state improved the question to reflect the correct affect alcohol has on reaction time. “Increases” NOT “decreases.”

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  2. Your map with “circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back” sounds awfully familiar, Ben. You weren’t busted for littering, were you?

    Yes, I had driver’s ed. I also had my dad and he was not a patient teacher. My mom took over and I finally learned how to drive a manual transmission in her Saab. When my driver’s test came, they sent me in our huge Oldsmobile family station wagon (1970s size). That’s how I repeatedly failed parallel parking. I don’t remember why they wouldn’t let me take the Saab after all that practice with the manual transmission.

    I think it’s cool that you go back into the theater and reflect on your past year, Ben. There are some places I can remember that I wish I would have had the foresight to do that.

    Solitude is where I get my spiritual energy, especially in the outdoors in some lonely lovely place. Especially on a certain beach north of Grand Marais in the off-season. I could spend a lifetime there just letting the sound of the lake fill my soul.

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  3. Rise and Shine,Baboons,

    In several minutes I am headed out to the MN Master Gardener’s Conference at theArboretum, so I will be silenced until late in the day.

    Yes, indeedy, I had Drivers’ Ed in the winter, which, if you are a North-dweller, adds a depth of experience with snow and ice that is necessary. My uncle was one of the teachers. He did not do my behind-the-wheel training, but later he taught me to drive a manual transmission which is a skill to have.

    These days, and in the summer, I do my spiritual connecting in the garden and from various artistic ventures. I was a church-goer for all of my life, until about10 years ago when things got ugly. And very probably wildly unethical. I faded away from that because the sense of community and the desire to make the world more livable had vanished. Those were the dynamics I had valued, despite the overt beliefs which I questioned years ago.

    Off I go! Field reporting late in the day.

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  4. My dad taught drivers ed. Oddly enough, I did not take the class, just had a drivers ed teacher teach me on the weekends… This meant that I did not view the grisly film that they showed in the class… And I recall parallel parking was a challenge.

    Love this: “sit in the dark theater for a few minutes and have my talk with the room and just feel the energy” – to me, that would be a part of where you experience some spiritual energy.
    I get a lot of energy (spiritual or otherwise?) from working together with others in a community of people. In a way, this blog is one of them.

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    3. When I got back my shoulders and arms and neck were hurting from the drive, 70 minutes each way, with 3 hours in between. My sister was there so we talked. Her husband is on memory care, hers for only four months so she is still adjusting.
      But I learned my eyes are not fit for road driving. My sunglasses make things too dark but I am sort of blinded and have a bad headache without them. My many floaters are in contrast against the sky with or without them. I am fine driving in town. First road driving in 3-4 years. My daughter is willing to drive me but she could not yesterday because she was putting on the party.
      Just got a call. Sandy’s shower chair collapsed as they were giving her a shower. She seems fine, but has a bump on her head. They have her on 24 hour watch. Going over soon. This may delay a procedure I do at home tomorrow.

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  7. I had Driver’s Ed in school, mostly remember the grisly films we were shown. I know I had behind the wheel training with a teacher but don’t remember any of it. Mom took me out a few times once I had my permit. There were two instructors who did the license test – everyone knew the big guy was tough but the smaller guy was much less intimidating. Guess who I got? I did pass by the skin of my teeth.

    OT – The trip to Ireland and Scotland was wonderful (and dry – we only had about 20 minutes of rain and that was while riding the bus). The trip home was hellish. The Edinburgh to Amsterdam leg was smooth but the Delta flight from Amsterdam to MSP was eventful. About 2 hours west of Ireland there was a medical emergency requiring us to land at the closest airport. Iceland was very close but the weather was too bad to land so the plane turned around and landed in Dublin. From Dublin, we had to land in Boston for a crew change. I was originally supposed to land at MSP at 2:45P but didn’t actually land until 11:30P. UGH! Delta is giving us 20,000 miles as part of an apology for the inconvenience. I must admit that the passengers were very calm about all of the delay. I am still tired from lack of sleep.

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    1. I’m glad you had a good trip. I’m going to Ireland next spring. We have started looking a flights and prices. I’m really nervous about flying.

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  8. Singing a beautiful song with other people can make me tear up, sometimes inexplicably – maybe the words aren’t particularly meaningful, but there’s something…
    And I consider some folk dances a spiritual experience, esp. when I’m dancing next to someone also paying attention in the same way – i.e., not talking as we dance. It’s hard to explain.

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  10. My driving instructor was Russell Van Loon who was also a math teacher at the high school. He did a good job—I passed the driving test first time. My Dad taught me to drive stick. That came in handy when we were in the U K.

    To tell you the truth, I don’t think I know exactly what spiritual energy is.

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    2. I wanted to separate it from ‘physical’ energy.
      So any energy that keeps your mind going I guess.
      Again, Bill, you’re too literal sometimes. Just roll with me here. 🙂

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        1. Well, maybe. If I am to answer a question I like to understand what is being asked. It’s not uncommon to hear people claim that though they are not religious they are spiritual. They think that means something. I’m not so sure.

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  11. These beautiful summer days are killing our participation. I enjoyed my conference at the Arboretum. The conference was good, with the keynote speaker being an Iowan wrote a book on Building natural landscapes. The pictures of his landscape designs were beautiful. Shortly after the conference started I got a text from VS asking if I was there—she was touring it today and was off on the tram. The peonies and irises were in full bloom. So beautiful.

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  12. I don’t remember watching a grisly movie in drivers ed. Our drivers ed classes were taught by the HS teachers. In my case, I think it was a social studies teacher.

    At work we had annual Defensive Driver training. It used to be in a classroom but became a two-hour video and a test. That video did get grisly. It was made by the Department of Public Safety and MN-DOT. It showed examples of how human bodies fly around in a car when it’s in an accident and they are not wearing their seat belts. The example I remember involved four teenagers. They also showed actual vehicles that had been destroyed in an accident, and explained what happened. I understand they take these vehicles to high schools now.

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  13. Never had a driver’s ed class. Wasband, who was a patient and encouraging teacher, taught me how to drive in his 1963 VW, so I learned in a stick shift. This was in Cheyenne, so not a lot of big city traffic to contend with. I was pretty nervous about it, and studied the laws, signs, etc. diligently. Driving on the narrow and mostly deserted country roads, I wanted to pull over whenever I could see a car approaching in the distance. Tony assured me there was plenty of room to pass. Passed my test on first try.

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  14. I had learned how to drive on the farm of course. And a clutch too following dad around the fields.
    But drivers ed was in 10th grade high school, one semester, and it rotated between the ‘in car’, the ‘simulator’, and the classroom.
    Half of the student parking lot was taken over by the drivers Ed course. Tune the car radio to something, and the teacher could talk to all of us by the number affected to the top of the car. It’s a wonder car dealers would loan or rent cars out for brand new drivers. They weren’t anything fancy. This was 1980, so whatever was just plain cars back then.

    The simulator was a trailer with two rows of stations, like a car. Screen in the front and you had to follow the path. If you were to back up, you looked into a mirror over your shoulder, and the image on the front screen showed what was behind you. That trailer moved between high schools, so it depended when my school had it as to when drivers ed was offered.
    The teachers were also phy-ed teachers I think. Mr. Ballard, Mr. Knipshield, an I think there was a third…

    The day I got the learners permit we had about 3″ of snow, and mom made me drive home. Kudo’s to her!

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      1. Back when we had cows and I’d wash the milkers or bulk tank and mom or dad would always say to me, “How’d you get so wet??” I always said I threw myself into my work. Still do. No point staying clean… the clothes will wash. 🙂

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  15. I actually took driver’s ed after I already had my license. With a late summer birthday, I couldn’t get into the drivers ed class before the end of the school year prior. The funniest thing about how my drivers ed was done is that the driving part was only a couple of weeks but for the classroom part , you had to go every morning about 20 minutes for a semester before school started and sit in the theater to get all the classroom stuff at once (with everyone who is taking it that semester.) This, of course, led to flagrant violations because you could pay someone to sit in your seat; when they took attendance, they were only counting whether there was a body in your assigned seat. I only availed myself of that a couple of times – both times when it had been rumored that we were going to have the most horrible of the films.

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  16. I was a white knuckle driver in driver’s ed – we had to drive on those narrow two-lane roads with a speed limit of 55 or so, and I tended to drive onto the shoulder whenever a car approached from the opposite direction. It took awhile to get a sense of where the center line was and whether the car was actually fully on the right side of it. I didn’t get my license till I was 20, when I had a boyfriend who let me drive his car. I passed the test on the first try.

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    1. Took me two tries. First try it was easier than I expected and I relaxed too much; took my hand off the wheel, and would have passed except I drove through “in” the “out” gate at the end of the exam.
      Next test I got 95 so it was better anyway.

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