2023, animals, Farming Update, Uncategorized, work

A Little Bit of Everything 

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Today’s Farm Update comes from Ben.

Sunday afternoon and evening, Monday night, and Tuesday night I was in Chatfield finishing lighting for ‘Hello Dolly’. Wednesday night Kelly and I sat on the deck and we each had a beer, and we ate re-heated cheese curds, and it was nice. Thursday night I raked straw until 9PM.  
 

I got a new iPhone last week. It sat in the box, unopened, for a few days as I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it. I finally got it activated and I’m still trying to get the Bluetooth synced to the tractor radios and there are random passwords that didn’t carry over and I didn’t write down. Plus, some text messages don’t give me a tone while others do. And this is why I don’t like change; it is just such a hassle.  
 

The week was filled with a lot of random activities.  

The teenage chicks were out of their fence more than they were in, so we just took the fence down and let them have at it. They are loving it.

A helicopter sprayed fungicide on our corn; he was fun to watch swooping around.

I smacked myself in the side of the jaw because of the ‘kick-back’ from a 5/8″ drill and the plastic side handle; it bled a bit. And hurt for a day or two. No photo of the blood trickling down my chin.  

I cleaned up more behind the shed; it had become an out of the way place to dump stuff and pretty soon the box elder trees were 30 feet tall. It didn’t start with me, Dad started it. I certainly contributed to it over the years, but it ends now. The plan is to get the stumps out and be able to mow back there. And eventually build a ‘lean-to’ in order to park some machinery back there under cover.  

I finished cutting oats last Saturday. Kelly took this photo.  

After the electrician buried the electric line and we got that inch of rain, the trench settled some, as expected. We used the tractor and ran the tires over the trench to pack it a bit more, and then the clay gave way, and it was stuck.

Notice the guineas inspecting the situation.  

It wasn’t stuck so bad at first, but I had to see if I could get it out. I should know better. They say when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. Using the other tractor pulled it right out mostly unharmed. Or, at least, nothing permanently harmed…The tire guy was out on Monday, and I was able to straighten the step, and all is right again.  

Between the machine shed and the home office where Kelly works, is a large maple tree. Conveniently, it blocks her view of the shop and machine shed and things I’m doing. As Brent Olson would say in his column ‘Independently Speaking’, I don’t always need a witness and I often look to see if she can see me before I do something questionable. And yes, that also means sometimes I need to call her to get me out of a situation. I am still working inside the shed. Started putting 2×4’s on the walls in order to attach the wall steel. The bills have started coming in so we’re done spending money on it for this year.  
 

I used the fancy grapple bucket and pulled all the loose straw out of the pole barn and I’ll re-bale it before heading out to the field with the baler. It’s kind of a lot of work for the 10 or 12 bales I get, but it needs to be done. (Mice get in the straw and, for some reason, 90% of the time, only chew through one string of a bale.)  

Speaking of the grapple bucket, technically it’s called a ‘rock bucket’ because it’s like a giant sieve- with a claw. I’ve used it for hauling trees and brush and straw, I’ve picked up junk machinery with it and just the other day realized I could actually pick up rocks with it! Scoop up a pile of dirt, let all the dirt sift out, and then dump the rocks somewhere else! How about that!?  

Half my oats were combined on Thursday. The test weight is OK at 38 lbs / bushel, but the yield is terrible. Once finished I’ll have an accurate number. Hopefully they can finish combining Friday as they’re talking rain this weekend. I was out Thursday evening raking the straw windrows double in preparation for baling on Friday. The oat plant was short this year, so there isn’t much of a windrow. That’s why I was raking two into one, to make better baling conditions and less trips around the field. 

I was using the old 630 tractor and rake. This used to be one of the main tractors on the farm and it was used every day for hauling manure, pulling wagons, cultivating corn, planting crops, picking corn; all sorts of farm jobs. You can see how open it is and the rear tires right next to me. It was a tractor similar to this that ran over my brother when his jacket got snagged by the tire and pulled him off.  

I’ve spent a lot of time on this tractor bundled up in winter coat and gloves.  

But that was a pretty nice day to be out there. I wear hearing protection. Lots of farmers were deaf in their left ear, because they turned their heads to look over their right shoulder watching the machine behind them.  

Some people call these tractors ‘Johnny Poppers’ as their large diameter piston and two-cylinder engines make a distinctive popping sound.  

I’m back to work at the college on Monday. Classes start on the 21st. I’ve signed up for class 1118 Reading and Writing Critically II. It’s all online, which I still don’t like so well, but I know the teacher and she’s good.  

WHAT SOUND DO YOU MISS FROM THE PAST?  

94 thoughts on “A Little Bit of Everything ”

  1. Oats update: finished combining (harvesting) yesterday just as it started to rain. The yield was pretty bad, averaging maybe 30 bushels / acre. It should have been at least 70 to 100 bishels / acre. The test weigh was really good at 38 pounds / bushel. But with a total yield of only about 600 bushels, it wasn’t enough to send for food grade. My neighbors always buy some for their calf feed ration, and they wanted 500 bushels. So it wasn’t worth dealing with 100 bushels.

    I started baling straw- eventually got rained out with 90 bales off one field. That’s pretty low too; I expected double that.
    At least it’s done.

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  2. Trains. Where I grew up, there was a track maybe 10 blocks away and trains passed through daily. The sound of a train as I lay in bed is evocative of my childhood.

    Mourning doves. I still hear them once in a while but in my youth they were part of the sound landscape every summer morning.

    Cicadas. That sharp keening is like the aural equivalent of bright sunlight. We have the sunlight and heat but where are the cicadas?

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    1. We hear trains several times a day, every day. Tracks run east and west right through the middle of town, it’s the NPSF rail company. Lots of coal cars to and from Wyoming and Montana. We don’ t have many cicadas, but Mourning Doves nest in our front trees. They are being replaced by Collared Doves, who have a raucous cry.

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    2. Hmm, right, now that you mention it, I haven’t heard any cicadas this year either. They’re usually deafening at this time of year. We do have mourning doves here. They have a peaceful kind of call.

      I love the sound of the trains too, as long as it’s a mile or so away. We have trains coming through here frequently on the tracks that come from the south, up through Faribault, then Dundas, and Northfield. I like hearing them at night. There is often a train around 2 or 3 a.m. I enjoy hearing it when the weather is nice and the windows are open.

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      2. The 17-year cicadas are only in the eastern US. The cicadas around here have a 13-year life cycle, and they don’t all hatch out in the same year, so theoretically you should hear at least some every year. I remember hearing them last year, but I can’t say I’ve heard any this year. Maybe just an off year for a cicada hatch.

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        1. After looking into it a little further, it may not be an off year. The most common cicada in Minnesota is the Dog Day cicada, whose arrival coincides with the appearance of Sirius in the dawn sky, which happens in early August at our latitude. So if that’s true we should start hearing some soon.

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  3. There is a book, Lost Minnesota: Stories of Vanished Places by Jack El-Hai (boy, there’s an interesting looking author…) – may have been featured once on PBS or MPR? I’ll bet that would have some “lost sounds” in it.

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    1. Jack El-Hai used to teach at Augsburg College in addition to his writing. Maybe he still does. He’s another former Carleton College student.

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  5. Today we will hear the sound of drums. We are going to the Twin Buttes powwow to see friends and hang out. We have boarded the dog since the drums and singing scared him last year.

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  6. We are currently having the oddest rain sytem move through the region, with heavy rain showers interspersed with continuous light rain over several days. It is headed east, so get your hay made up, Ben! We are in a flood watch, and local streams and rivers are full and fast.

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  8. The empty ore trains sort of wrapped around the hill on which I grew up. Because it took them awhile to get a full head of steam to pull uphill, they did it at dusk. When wind and atmosphere conditions were right, I could lie in my bed with my head at the window listening to the double mallet engines build up to full steam and then head up to the north.
    I loved the sound of the mower sickle blade working and the sound of the first several pulls of milk hitting the bottom of the empty pail. Clucking hens. Waves on superior shore. Winds through pines heard from inside a tent. Rivers, brooks, waterfalls. Drumming grouse. Beaver tail slaps.
    Stuck tractor: we used to get our ONE tractor buried to the axle. Then you chain a log across the tire, or both tires, resting on the ground right in front of the tire. Then with the engine you can crawl up and out of the rut. Works much better with steel tires on the back and center tires on the front. A necessary trick in North Shore red clay.
    I don’t like the sucking sound of pulling your boot up out wet red clay, but it’s better than no sound, meaning the clay has pulled the boot off your foot.
    Clyde

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    1. Clyde, I was hoping you’d respond as I knew you’d have some good memories. I’ve seen the log to the tire trick, but never had the urge to try it… sickle mower blades, I know what you mean, but it’s hard to hear over the tractor sound.
      I miss the old vacuum pump when we had the surge buckets, I recall, but not necessarily miss, the sounds of the silo unloaders and feed bunk.
      The chickens clucking we still have. The little cheeping sounds of the chicks is always nice.
      The barn cleaner had a rhythm to it. There’s a lot of things that have a rhythm, and when it gets off, you know there’s a problem.

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  9. I miss the sound of waves against a lakeshore. That’s a sound I’ve loved since I was very young. I love all the sounds of water and aquatic life. The scolding of red-winged blackbirds and the distinct calls of herons, the trilling of frogs, the splash of an amphibian jumping into the water, the trickling sound of a stream going through a hollow log – all are sounds I love, but the sounds of waves lapping at the shore is the most evocative of peace, safety, and home.

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  10. We lived 2 short blocks from the train tracks. When the long freight trains rolled through town during the night, our house would shake a bit and we could feel the vibrations in our beds. The Gopher and Badger stopped in our town on their trips between the Cities and Duluth – eventually they stopped in Cambridge (6 miles away) and just rolled through our town, blowing the whistle as they did.
    I haven’t heard cicadas yet this summer. I do remember hearing mourning doves a lot as a kid. Where I live now in the northern suburbs, I never hear them at all.
    I do love the sound of waves lapping at the shore, whether it is at a lake or the ocean. About the only time I hear those sounds are if I am on a vacation near water or at a lake cabin.I do kayak a bunch but almost always when the water is calm so there is very little noise.

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  11. If you troll slowly along a wooded shoreline with a small outboard at the right speed speed the engine echoes back in syncopation to the sound of the motor.
    Clyde

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  12. The old two-toned foghorn sound. The first sounds a cow makes to her new born calf. Popcorn popping. Ran on an uninsulated wood roof. Purring cat.

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      1. I am in stress and anxiety control therapy. This question layers on top of that. County says I have some bad news coming so thinking of pleasant sounds is a good technique for me today. I remember a day Dad and I rushed to get one last load of hay into an already full barn ahead of an approaching huge black thunderhead. We got it in and the big door shut right before it hit. In the process I got severe rope burns on my hands. Then we stood in the machine shed where the deluge made talking impossible. It was only then my father noticed my hands. But there was nothing we could do but make a place to sit and wait it out, which took a long time. This will sound odd, but that is a pleasant memory.

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        2. OMG, Clyde, whatever that stress and anxiety control therapy involves, keep doing it; it sounds like it’s working.

          I know and love some of the sounds you mention above. For me the images they evoke in my mind’s eye are also closely connected to smells. For instance “Winds through pines heard from inside a tent. Rivers, brooks, waterfalls. Drumming grouse. Beaver tail slaps.” all evoke memories of camping with its attendant smells of cooking over an open fire. I can see several different scenarios of sitting on tree logs around an open fire, the warmth and glow of the fire bouncing off the fronts of friends. Off in the distance a loon is calling. I love the smell of pine trees.

          Our senses are so powerful that they can transport us instantly to just about anyplace. Hans may be at the Homestead in Ely, dangling his feet in the water from the deck of his floating cabin, but I’m relishing the memories of that without the being bothered by bugs.

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        3. I’m glad you’re getting help for the stress and anxiety, Clyde. Being a caregiver, especially alone, is really stressful and it can also be a painful and lonely experience. You deserve all the support you can find. You’re no good to Sandy when you’re exhausted and stressed out so taking care of yourself is also taking care of her! It’s so nice to hear your voice here. Please do jump in whenever you feel you can.

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  13. – my dad’s push lawnmower.
    – my mom playing the piano, even part of a piece she was practicing over and over… or practicing opera.
    – crunching the leaves on the way to school in October – no wait, I can still do that!
    – to borrow from above, the fog horns when I lived in El Granada (coastal California)
    –

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  15. The first house that I bought had a pond out and back in a swamp next door between me and the golf course I moved in in December and was surprised and enchanted in April. When the frogs started chirping at night, it turned into my favorite sound.

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  17. The sidewalk in front of Trader Joe’s in St. Louis Park has a pattern in the concrete that when you run over it with the wheels as you’re walking back to your car makes a really cool rythumic sound , as you’re walking along
    bottle da bottle da bottle da boo

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  18. I couldn’t figure out if the sounds outside our bedroom window last night were frogs or crickets. We had so much rain the last 4 days, and there.were no chirps before the rain. I sort of hope they were frogs.

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  20. My sister and I used to share one of those little stereos that folded up into a carrying case with a handle. It was a typical record changer – you could stack three or four albums on it, and when it finshed playing one, the tone arm would lift up and retract, then it would make a small motion and clicking sound accompaniment that would drop the next record. Then the needle would nestle down onto the beginning of the groove.

    Each motion had a distinct mechanical sound – the tone arm lift, retract, nudge, then the clatter of the second record dropping onto the first one. Then the tone arm making the shorter trip back to the starting point and sinking down, and the scratchiness which was proportionate to the fondness for the record that was about to play.

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    1. OH! We had one of those, just a record player, and I don’t remember much about actually playing records, but I loved the way it folded up; that part just fascinated me. The speakers on the side, and the record player opened up. I’ve always liked the mechanical aspect of things.

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    2. I don’t know if you will be able to see this photo but we had a stereo console and receiver in about 1963 or so that could “stack” the albums and function as you described to drop the next one when the first one was finished. Ours looked like the one in this picture but I’m sure I don’t remember exactly because I was quite young. I do remember the sliding doors on the top. The record player was on the right and there were records stored on the left. The speakers were on the front. I thought ours was perhaps a Magnavox.

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        2. I’m not sure. I googled images of hifi stereo consoles from the mid-1960s and chose a couple likely candidates from the images. I copied both. One showed up as a photo. The other as a link. 🤷‍♀️

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      4. The one in that picture was probably a Zenith, because it looks a lot like the one my parents had in the living room. Especially the radio dial on the left. And there’s another sound you don’t hear anymore – the sound of a dial tuner moving over frequencies as you twisted the dial…..

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  25. It’s diverting to think of the sounds that we could identify blindfolded but might mystify younger auditors. Sounds like that of a telephone being dialed or, even in the case of the very young, the sound of a modem making a connection over the phone line.

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    2. I have a rotary phone in my kitchen, so I can still hear the phone sounds. I also have a touch tone phone in the house, but the ring on that one is turned off, because I like to hear the old style ring without the newfangled one sounding at the same time.

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  26. Our first phone had a hand crank you turned to call the operator or anyone on your line. The sound of it and when our phone rang was not that different than when we got our first dial phone.
    Clyde

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  27. The house we lived in, in the suburbs when I was in high school had a small creek ( although saying creek is actually being generous) between our house and the next-door neighbors. When the weather first got warm after we moved in, I hear the frogs singing. But being the city girl that I am, I didn’t know what it was and it took a few days before it quit freaking me out once I realized it was frogs. My room was closest to the creek of any room in the house, and so on a summer night I could lay in bed and listen to the frogs and it was mesmerizing.

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  28. Falling asleep I was thinking of how different things sounded in very cold weather in the woods. Flatter or more hollow. The thud of the axe into wood in particular. The bird calls. The horse snorting or stomping his feet. Trees dropping. And sound carried more if it was calm. We could sometimes hear voices in the valley if we were higher on our land above most of the trees.
    My sound memories are so different than most. All the sounds of the ore docks, which we heard in the top floor of the schools.
    I have a keyboard that says it sounds like a typewriter which it does not, but it does make a satisfying sound.
    My sister has many old gadgets in her kitchen in part to remind her of their sounds, even a pressure cooker.
    Random ones: pop of acetalyne torch igniting, chatter of a chipmunk colony, like Ben said a donkey engine, slamming screen door and creak of the spring, the silence of being alone in the little church, daughter practicing flute (when she got proficient), teenage children inviting friends to house to play games.

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  29. I got the Merlin app for my phone and sometimes take what I think of as Merlin walks. The first day I used it I walked all around the neighborhood and down to the river, and it picked up 27 different bird species. I found it rather comforting that despite the decline of birds over the last few decades, there is still a lot of diversity in the population here.

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  30. My mother smoked when I was growing up, and used matches rather than lighters, so the sound of a match scratching across the striking strip was a daily sound then. I still have matches to light candles and pilot lights and such, but I use them pretty rarely, and few people I know smoke these days.

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  31. One sound from my childhood that I can still conjure in my mind is the slow, soothing tick-tock of a wall clock. This was long before incessant background noise from radio or TV became the soundtrack for a lot of people.

    My parents had one, and I clearly remember where it hung both in Stubbekøbing and in Lyngby. My sister inherited it, and it still hangs in her small apartment. I wonder if she still winds it?

    My friend, Philip, had one such clock, but with fancier chimes than my parents’, and it was one of his most beloved possessions. Only Juli or Laura were entrusted to wind it once a week under his watchful eyes. It hung right above his bed. It chimed every fifteen minutes, with a major “tune” on the hour. I have no idea how he could sleep with that thing right above his bed during the last two years of his life, but he did.

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  32. Yesterday I was away for the day. We travelled to Rochester’s Goose Poop Park (SilverCreek I believe) to a gathering with Lou’s cousins and sibs. It was a gorgeous day for such a thing–not too hot, not too cold. We took Phoebe who encountered her first Canada goose. She was enthralled by a very friendly goose who had obviously been fed and tamed by park patrons. It sauntered right up to about 10feet of our gathering. Phoebe then kept it at bay, feeling quite proud and purposeful in her protective role. Finally an In Law slowly approached it and herded the goose away. It was otherwise a congenial group–the religious zealots did not participate–that allowed me to hear the lovely conversation and laughter of a family gathering. That took me way back, especially to my Dad’s side who were so congenial.

    Sounds: I would love to experience silence again. After the last case of COVID (late August, 2022) I developed Long COVID, including tinnitus which is especially loud in my right ear. If that would only go away and I could experience silence.

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      1. With a bigger tractor. 🙂
        First we tried with no one in the stuck tractor, but it wouldn’t budge. (Many guys use heavy poly ropes now rather than chains, because the rope has kinetic energy while the chain will suddenly snap and people have been hurt by the whipping chain end)
        Kelly slowly pulled in the big tractor and I drove the stuck and it came right out.

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