2023, Art, Farming Update, home, Theatre, Uncategorized, work

Don’t Forget Your Jacket

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

This week has all been about the theater. Well, Covid and Theatre, I guess. Wait, Covid was last week. It’s all a blur. I’m over the symptoms, but still testing positive. Good thing I work alone most of the time. And by now I shouldn’t be contagious anymore.

It’s rained a lot lately. And now it’s getting cold. We’ve had more than six inches of rain since the end of September. Oh well.

We open a show Saturday, and then next week will be two shows a day for all five days. Kids are bused in from the local area elementary schools. This kid show has always been a big hit for us, and of course we haven’t been able to do one since 2019. We were afraid we had lost a lot of the contacts at the schools and weren’t really sure what kind of reception we’d get this year. We feel really lucky to have an audience for all 10 shows, including three that are sold out. The play is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth night’ called “Lions in Illyria” by Robert Kauzlaric. Very cartoony and big and goofy and the kids should enjoy it. And short at 65 minutes. The three days I missed with Covid would have been helpful about now. I’m sure the paint will be dry by Saturday afternoon. Things will be ‘good enough’. I did take a few shortcuts, I called in some favors. The show must go on. As long as we can keep cast healthy.

I have a can full of stir sticks at the college. I’m pretty sure some of them were here when I started the job 17 years ago. I do know that I threw out a bunch a few years ago and for this show I decided to put all the ones that I’ve used a different container, because I feel like the sticks at the back of the first can were being neglected. Kelly was in to help paint one day and her goal was to use up all the stir sticks. She made a good dent in it. The can on the left is the unused sticks for the show, and the can on the right are the ones that I have used.


I learned how to paint marble for the show. The white and pink one I painted using a ripped T-shirt. My friend Paul came in and painted the green one. He makes it look so easy. And he enjoyed having an easy project like this.


I’ve talked with Crop Insurance about my soybeans. We started some preliminary claims just so the paperwork is out there. I’ve got until December 10 to get them harvested. After that we just write it off and let them go to insurance. This week of 20° temps at night will certainly freeze everything, but honestly, I’m not sure if the beans will ever dry down enough to harvest. We would need a good week of clear sunny, warmish temperatures and that’s really pushing it this time of the year. But with these weather patterns, who knows. I get home about 10:00 PM these nights (after rehearsal) and I was out picking up hoses and taking the outside faucet off the wellhouse. I need to pick up the pressure washer and hand sprayer yet.

Luna has moved right in and made herself at home. Our bed is her favorite place to be now. She loves to play catch and Tug-O-War. She’s shredded a few toys. And we’ve left her home alone and she’s just fine. Doesn’t like it, but at least she’s not chewing up the furniture.

THINGS THAT NEVER WEAR OUT?

41 thoughts on “Don’t Forget Your Jacket”

    1. Do you like the comic aspects of the series? I love watching the early episodes of this series, before there was any budget at all, and seeing the actors falling around the navigation room very obviously portraying turbulence or enemy encounters with no special effects. Makes me laugh.

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      1. There’s so much to enjoy. Pluto TV has a devoted channel that shows episodes as they were initially broadcast. Today I’m up to season 1 episode 5, The Enemy Within. “I’m Captain Kirk! I’m Captain Kirk!”

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        1. The thing about the original series that is easy to forget is it was pretty ahead of its time. This was before CGI, before Star Wars, before Battlestar Galactica, before Alien. While certainly wasn’t the only science-fiction show around it really had an arc that others didn’t. So yes, it’s very funny looking back on it but to me at the time it was magical.

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        2. Before CGI, before Star Wars, before Battlestar Galactica, before Star Trek (more than a decade before) there was Science Fiction Theater, hosted by Truman Bradley. Bradley would introduce each episode standing amongst paraphernalia that represented advance science at the time. Each story was based on some scientific idea or principle that he would demonstrate. You can see some of the episodes on youtube.

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  2. “MY” corn is still standing, except qite a bit of it is close to lying on the ground. I am sure there is a crop there. Not sure why he is not harvesting it.
    COVID update for Sandy: still only three cases in Sandy’s unit, she is not one of them. Next week she has a medical appointment and I have three. Hope we stay well.
    I have six pair of pants that are much too large for me but 1) they don’t wear out and 2) I cannot find pants in my size.

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      1. 38-40 waist and 28-29 inseam. I have to be able to try them on. I cannot order them. There are now only three places that sell casual slacks in my range in Mankato. Penny’s has many, not in that combination. To have them shortened gets the cost up there. Plus every single pair I looked at in Panny’s said “Fits just below the waist.” They have the best selection in town. The trivails of being old.

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  3. Our 2008 Prius is really doing well, knock on wood. May it continue…

    And my mom’s ironing board, which is being enlisted as the extra table for our 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles at the stand-up station…
    https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=5iW7M%2fbu&id=6EE5B98C3AD17CF0730BF8E3F315C057192D800A&thid=OIP.5iW7M_buJdW0b5FqZWFuGAHaFj&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fa.1stdibscdn.com%2farchivesE%2fupload%2f8487%2f51_13%2fironingboard_2%2fIroningBoard_2_l.jpg&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.e625bb33f6ee25d5b46f916a65616e18%3frik%3dCoAtGVfAFfPj%252bA%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=576&expw=768&q=ironing+board+1940s&simid=608001682753804142&FORM=IRPRST&ck=F7E4A86BC12AA6D5929E84637BE5E2E8&selectedIndex=61&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0

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    1. We used an ironing board like that for a show this past summer. Had to replace one of the cross braces at the end (these were wood), but it’s going strong.

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  4. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    The tomatoes I grew this year will never wear out. There are five of them setting on my counter in various stages of ripening after we took down the garden this week, just in time for our cold snap. What a crop it was. Phoebe, who was spayed this week, is back in fine fettle and gives no sign of wearing out after the first day. This morning she had the zoomies, which is not in the guidelines of “Helping Your Pet Recover” sheet that the vet provided. The cone of shame slows her down a bit, but not much. The only way to keep her quiet, as directed, is to kennel her which we cannot do at all times. This morning she took a saliva-sodden toy into the bed where Lou was sleeping and dropped it on his face/CPAP mask, insisting he play with her.

    I am on a streak of people/dogs/careers wearing out and leaving. This is the opposite of your question, Ben, but it is the reality of life right now. Lou attended two funerals last week, his aunt, age 96 and his friend. Yesterday with the weather change I had a migraine and a lot of physical aches and pains. That made me crabby and morose, then the news that my uncle died arrived.

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    3. The first dog I had on my own as a young adult was Scarlet the Irish setter. We took her in for her spay when she was about seven months old, and when I picked her up in the vet said “try to keep her quiet”… I just broke out laughing. Sometimes you just gotta hope that if the dog does too much, pain will tell them to knock it off.

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  5. I have a pair of leather Teva sandals that I bought in 1996 before a trip to Australia/New Zealand. They have trotted the globe with me and are still in decent shape, even still have some tread on the soles. In fact, they are more comfortable now than when I first purchased them.

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    1. I thought my original Birkenstocks were going to last forever. They did last a really long time and I did have new solrs put on them twice but after about 30 years they were just done. The new pair isn’t quite broken in yet and with the dip in the temperatures, they may not be broken in until next spring.

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      1. I have a pair from 1987. I bought them at a shoe store in the West Bank neighborhood – Cedar Riverside, just east of the Riverside Cafe (when it was there). I wore them for almost 20 years until the cork simply fell apart. I don’t think they are that well made anymore. I still have them. I can’t bear to throw them away. They were the 3-strap style with real leather, not the synthetic stuff they use now. I think they were the best pair of shoes I’ve ever owned in my life.

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  9. i’m hard on stuff so my birkies last a couple of years only because i have 5 pairs
    i gat a new pair this year and they’re toast
    soles and footbeds done

    honda and toyota last 300,000
    last honda 350 + but honda has terrible management
    won’t do another
    added to chrysler my choices are less and less
    my toyota has 266 and is slowing but i drive it hard
    skippy and lipton are bulletproof brands
    looking forward to electric cars
    nothing to go bad
    tires and breaks
    we’ll see

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    1. I agree about Honda. I used to be devoted to them. I had my Miler, a 1992 Civic that I drove for 17 years. It had 247,000 on it when I sold it to a guy in Mankato who fixed it up and made it into a street rod kind of car. I wonder how many more miles he got out of it.

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      1. I adore my Honda Insight…. YA has given me the sad news that the newer Insights aren’t hatchbacks any longer. If I’m still driving when my current Honda goes belly up, I’ll have to find another car company as the hatchback is a top priority for me! Boo hoo.

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        1. I like the hatchback style too. The Toyota C-HR is a great style and I’m interested in it but it doesn’t have all-wheel drive and I like that too. If I replace my Rav, I want something more fuel efficient but I’d also like all-wheel drive.

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  12. In 1982, newly arrived in Taiwan and staying with a Taiwanese family before getting our own place, we went for a walk with our host and visited a department store. At one point, he gestured towards a display of sport shirts on sale. Though I didn’t need anything, I went ahead and bought one. By the way, he was only gesturing “those are shirts”, not “buy one”. Anyway, that shirt, no matter how much I wore it or how many times it was washed, neither faded nor wore through. We began to refer to it as my “plastic shirt”. I’ve no idea where it might be now… Probably in a landfill somewhere over there, but still, no doubt, looking new.

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