Monthly Archives: August 2023

2023, animals, Family, Farming Update, Food, Gatherings, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Ready, Set, Go

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

We took a long weekend last week. Daughter has been saying we needed to take a vacation, and we fully agreed with her. But May through July is Kelly’s busiest time, and of course spring is bad for me, and, well, we can always come up with an excuse NOT to go somewhere. Spur of the moment, we decided, let’s just take a weekend. We asked daughter what she thought we should do; I mean are we renting a cabin on a lake or are we going to a hotel. Well, she wanted swimming, and rides at Mall of America. OK, sounds like we do the Embassy Suites, which has been a family favorite over the few years because they do complimentary breakfast really well. They set the standard for hotel breakfasts! Fruit, yogurt, Sausages, bacon, eggs (not as good as ours of course), hashbrowns, bagels, made to order omelets, cereal, drinks: milk, juice, coffee. 

We got there late evening Thursday and had supper at the hotel restaurant. Friday we all slept in and took naps and didn’t leave the room until 3:00 PM. Over to “THE” mall and had lunch, then walked around a bit and bought some ride tickets. We waited in line for an hour so we could all do the log flume ride. Because there was some bad weather in the area, the rides were going at half capacity, so the wait was longer than it should have been. Boy, if we didn’t get covid waiting in that line. Then daughter and I did a crazy spinning loop de loop roller coaster and I think I learned I might be too old for those rides. Woo boy. A couple times I had to just put my head back and close my eyes and I’d think, “DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES!” There was a young boy about 8 years old who was on the ride with us; he said he had two little sisters and mom had to stay with them. After the first spinning loop he said “That was unexpected!” Yep, sure was! When it was over, I told him I had no idea what had happened in the last 40 seconds.

Even daughter, who’s a daredevil, was a little shook up after that. We all went to the Ferris wheel from there. And then Daughter and I went on our favorite roller coaster from 10 years ago; the one that goes straight up, then straight down. And upside down and right side down and over this way and around and back upside that way. Aye aye aye. Whew. That was easier last time I did that. Kelly and daughter did the carousel and we decided that was enough. I saw a sign that read, ‘Barking Lot  stroller parking’, and I thought it said ‘Barfing lot’ which I thought was really appropriate. 

I bought the 30 point arm bands, but no one put them on our arms, so I’d just show them to the ride operator. The first ride scanned them all. The second person was talking and looking away and only scanned one, and the third ride just put us on without even scanning the tickets. We gave them to a young couple and told them to have fun. 

Daughter also wanted Red Robin for supper. We don’t have one of them in Rochester. At some point in her brief past, she had a shake at a Red Robin she really liked and wanted another. Supper was really good there and my vanilla malt was yummy. I don’t know about hers. 

Saturday, we got the swimming in and had the pool to ourselves for an hour. We saw the Barbie movie, (and got a free icy drink), and had supper at Giordano’s pizza with a hostess named Joy who was super helpful and sent us back to the hotel with plates, drinks, and plastic ware. 

Sunday, we stopped to see our son and daughter in law. When we got home, the dogs were glad to see us, (our neighbors took care of the dogs and chickens while we were gone) and Humphrey just had to stay outside for a couple nights. Once in the house, he had a big drink of soft water, and slept for several hours on his pillow. 

Everyone survived on the farm, and Monday morning, daughter said she wasn’t ready to go back to her program. None of us are kid, none of us are.

We called this our ‘practice vacation’ to remember what works and what doesn’t when travelling together.    

The soybeans are looking good, you know, for 6 weeks behind. They’ve finally started to canopy and, to add insult to injury, the weeds are coming too. A few buttonweed, lambsquarter, and ragweed are towering over the soybeans. Plus, a lot of volunteer corn. Which doesn’t really hurt anything, it just looks bad in a nice field of soybeans. 

I started working on the shop again and started getting 2×4’s put on the walls and removed from the work bench an old radial arm saw that I haven’t used in I-don’t-know-how-many years. Back on Amazon Prime day I ordered one of those 360 degree green laser levels. It is pretty cool!

Remember a few months ago I showed a bunch of eggs under the deck? Well, the chicken hatched out 13 baby chicks the other day. She’s a good momma and moved them down to the main pen and she’s keeping a good eye on them. Thirteen chicks?? Don’t hold your breath for all of them. The other chickens seem jealous: ‘How come YOU got chicks!??’

My brother came out and we unloaded the last load of straw into the barn. 600+ bales in there again. Coming up, planting winter rye as a cover crop! Deep roots good for the soil, but it will over winter so it will have to be killed off in the spring before planting corn.

And back at the college, all my computer stuff is working this week! Yay! 

College classes begin Monday.

WHAT WAS / IS YOUR FAVORITE AMUSEMENT PARK RIDE?

WHAT RIDE SHOULD THERE BE?

2023, Art, Food, Uncategorized

Decorative Arts

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This is a purely silly post for Friday. A friend posted this on Facebook yesterday, and I was entranced.

Once the Dutch part of me got past how wasteful this is, I was entranced with his creativity. I would have so much fun doing something like this. I am not a cake decorator sort of person. I haven’t the patience. But this seems so satisfying. I wonder if the creation is edible, and how he might serve it.

What is your favorite kind of chocolate? If you could make a chocolate sculpture, what would it be? What is your decorative style?

2023, books, Family, Food, home, Media, Uncategorized

The Curator

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We find recipes from numerous internet sources, and are rarely purchasing cookbooks these days. I subscribe to the The New York Times Food app, and that has tons of great recipes as well. We like to have paper copies of the recipes, however, and a week doesn’t go by that we aren’t running recipes off on the printer.

Husband loves putting the recipes in plastic slip covers and filing them in their respective three ring binders. He has the binders labeled. There is one large binder devoted solely to rye breads and sourdoughs. I am not allowed to rearrange the binders. That is his role.

When a sufficient number of new recipes have accumulated on the buffet, Husband puts them in their binders, culling older recipes we either didn’t like or never made in the first place. There are fewer and fewer of those. His devotion to the recipes does not extend to our bank and tax papers, however, and it is my thankless task to organize those.

How do you store your recipes? What is your filing system for important papers? What kind of a librarian or museum curator would you have been?

2023, Gatherings, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Pickup Mystery

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My daily drive to work takes me past our local college. I noticed yesterday that the normally empty college parking lot on my route was completely filled with white pickups. So were the parking spaces going up to the main campus. They were pickups with special things on the back for various welding and other work activities. I also noticed a campus food service employee pushing a grill to the alumni house across the street from the parking lot.

School starts next week, and I couldn’t figure out why there were so many non-collegiate vehicles in the parking lot. I challenge the Baboons to come up with a hypothesis and story for this.

What do you think all these white pickups were doing here? Ever read the Red Headed League? Can you make any connections between the story and the book? What are your favorite mysteries?

2023, animals, Farming Update, Nature, Weather

Bet the Farm On It!

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WordPress, for all its various issues, is good about keeping track of statistics.  They send me emails every month which I usually just blow off.  Since the point of the Trail is not to increase traffic and make a big deal of ourselves, it doesn’t seem like we need to pay too much attention.

We are up to 13,524 subscribers.  This isn’t as exciting as it sounds… it just means that at some point in the past decade, 13K folks have hit the subscribe button.  It does not mean that 13K folks are reading the trail every day.   Far from it.  But we still have readers from all over the globe – in fact, we have had a “Like” from Mongolia in the past six months – that’s new.

The most fun news is that the Farm Reports are by far the most popular bits on the trail.  For the past six months, the most viewed, liked and commented post of each month belongs to our Ben!  I even got WordPress to cough up the most popular post of the last year.  You guessed it.  September 10, 2022 – Is It Fall Already? 

So kudos to Ben for livening up the trail every weekend and for giving us all a fabulous picture of farm life!

Your fantasy farm?  Tell me all about it!

2023, animals, News, Uncategorized

Goats In the News

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I saw this notice on our city police FB page.

We have had a proliferation of these rental electric scooters around town, and the police wanted to remind the public that there are certain ordinances to be followed when operating them. You have to be at least 14 to drive one. If under 18 you need to wear a helmet. You can’t drive on the sidewalk, and you have to ride on only 2-lane streets. DUI laws are applicable, and you have to ride as close to the curb as possible.

I never got into skateboards. I had roller skates that you attached to your shoes with a crank key. My main mode of transportation was my bicycle until I was old enough to drive. Husband rode a bicycle longer than I did, since he didn’t get his drivers license until he was 21.

What are your experiences on skate boards, roller skates, electric scooters, or electric bicycles? What was it like for you to get your first drivers license?

2023, animals, Farming Update, Nature, pets, Uncategorized, Weather, work

Top Of The Hill

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Today’s Farm Report comes from Ben.

Finished baling straw this week. Terrible yields there too. Got 320 small square bales total, and it should have been 1000 bales off 20 acres.

It is what it is. Everything worked well and it’s nice straw. Kelly and I unloaded one load, I’ve go the last 100 bales stacked in a wagon for the strawberry farm that buys it, and there’s one load in the shed yet that we’ll get unloaded next week.

I am going to plant a cover crop this year on the oat ground. With the hail we had, there should be plenty of oats there to germinate and re-seed, but rye actually produces deeper roots and is a good cool season crop, so there should be a good winter cover. the same program that was paying for oats this year (separate from the ‘food grade’ oats program) is paying for cover crops. It’s funded by the USDA.

Every time i take my boots off this year, I’m leaving a trail of oats or straw chaff in my wake. Occupational hazard, i guess. I’ve got a cordless Dewalt vacuum in the mudroom specifically for this reason.

Walking on stacked bales is a bit of a challenge. It’s better when they’re stacked proper and tight, but that doesn’t always happen and I was curious how it would go for me and my new knee. And it went pretty well!

I was probably 16 or 17 when Dad announced his sore feet wouldn’t allow him to walk on the bales anymore and I was given the important job of stacking hay bales in the barn. Anyone can unload the bales and put them on the elevator, but stacking, that’s special and takes some skill. Right Clyde? (Or did you only handle loose hay?)

Basically, when stacking, you alternate the direction of the row, and you get the bale in place, then give it a good shove with your knees. Repeat several hundred times. Course, maybe you’re working 3 or 4 rows high in a corner and depending how much room there is as the bales come off the elevator into the hay loft, depends how fast you need to keep moving. All this to say, it was a big deal when Dad had me take over stacking. Just as big of deal it was last year when I wasn’t able to stack myself and my brother did it. The bales got in there, but walking over them the rest of the fall, winter, and this summer reminded me of the skills he missed out on over the years.

The one day last week, just as they finished combining oats, and it rained pretty hard and I had run up the road with the gator to open the truck tarp so the combine could dump the last of the oats. The dogs came running up with me and neither one of them likes the rain. They scrambled into the gator, and they sat in there for 20 minutes after we got home while I was out doing other stuff.

The young guineas are out and learning their ways. Festus, the guinea with the bad leg seems to have disappeared. We knew he’d have a tough time of it and we don’t know what became of him.

Here was a big ragweed plant growing out of the side of the silo, about 8’ in the air. ‘Was’ because I plucked it right after taking this photo.

The first few days at the college have been rough this year. Something about a ‘licensing issue’ means I don’t have access to Outlook, Word, Excel, or any of those Microsoft programs. Plus it seems like my computer – heck, none of the computers, want much to do with me. It’s been a rough few days.

MOTIVATIONAL POSTERS. DO THEY WORK FOR YOU? SEEN ANY GOOD ONES?

2023, Fantasy, Gatherings, History, Theatre, Uncategorized

Being Teddy

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Medora, ND is a tourist town about 40 miles west of us that capitalizes on its connection to Theodore Roosevelt, who lived on a ranch near there in his younger days. It is on the border of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The town has an Old West feel, with a homespun outdoor musical every night in the summer, stores that sell Western memorabilia, and trail rides. They also have people dressed as important figures from the town’s history, including Teddy Roosevelt and the Marquis de Mores, a French beef packing scoundrel. Every night at the musical, a local cowboy on an actual horse reenacts Teddy’s charge up San Juan Hill. The commercialization of Medora was the brain child of a wealthy North Dakota businessman, Harald Schafer, who owned the company that manufactured Mr. Bubble bath soap. He wasn’t that well liked in town, though, for some reason. His son became governor.

I read recently that there are about 60 people in the US who are Teddy Roosevelt reenactors. This summer, three of them were in Medora. One lives there all year long. They all work simultaneously in the summer. At least one is a young Teddy. The other two portray him when he is older. They walk around town and talk to people and get their pictures taken and seem to have a great time.

If you were to be a reenactor, who would you want to portray? What is your favorite bubble bath?

2023, Family, gardening, Uncategorized

The Wild Garden

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The other day we got a call on our landline from a neighbor on the next block letting us know that the Postie delivered our Bismarck Tribune to her house instead of our house. We walked down to get the paper, and realized that neither of us remembered exactly what house the neighbor lived in. Husband asked someone in the yard next to the place we thought was the correct house if that was where she lived. The person indicated it was and then said “Oh, you are the people with the wild garden”.

I suppose our garden does look pretty wild in comparison with the tame and typical lawns and flower beds in the rest of the neighborhood. It looks particularly wild these days now that the butternut squash and cantaloupes are running amok. The butternuts are taking over the flower bed on the north side of the driveway.

If you look closely toward the back of the last photo, you can see cantaloupe vines growing up the red rose close to the house

This is the view from the street looking south and west.

The pole beans look sort of wild, I think.

My last name, Boomgaarden, conjures up visions of exploding vegetables and flowers, although the name is just the Dutch word for apple orchard. I suppose there are worse things to be know for than having a wild garden.

What are you known for in your neighborhood? How has your mail delivery been lately? Any garden updates?

2023, education, Family, Food, Gatherings, Travel, Uncategorized

Certified

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Daughter came up with an interesting proposal for a winter family gathering this year. She thinks that we should go to Hawaii with her, her brother, and his wife, and all take a class being offered there in November to become Certified Barbeque Competition Judges. I don’t know how much call there is for Barbecue Judges, or how rigorous the one day training is. I suppose we could fine other things to do as long as were there. I would rather go to Paris and work with a master baguette maker.

Ever since I lived in Canada I giggle whenever I hear that something or someone is certified, as it has a different meaning in Canada and England than it does in the States. Those who we call Certified Public Accountants are called Chartered Public Accountants in Canada, as being “certified” there can mean that you have been declared seriously mentally ill, and may have been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. Perhaps one would have to be a little crazy, though, to become a barbeque judge.

What would you like to become certified as? What are your experiences with judges or being a judge?