2023, animals, Business, Farming Update, Seasons, Uncategorized

Ten Pounds in a Five Pound Bag

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

This week has been a little nuts.

Sigh.

Really,  the last few weeks have been a little nuts. I’m burning the candle at both ends, and I need more hours in a day.

CROPS ARE OUT!

And I had a few hours alone in a tractor, with hopefully more to come.

Big Sigh.

Nice.

Kelly and I spent some time on the roof of the machine shed caulking trim pieces and looking for loose nails and trying to figure out why I have water dripping in my new insulated shop area when it rains.   Remember, earlier this summer, when I couldn’t get up on the roof? I bought these new ladder extensions, which give me a hand hold 3 feet above the ladder, and they were worth the money. But it also led to a discussion about ladders. I have an old 24-foot aluminum extension ladder that I’m pretty sure dad got used, and it is better than the old wooden ladder we had been using. I bought a really nice 24-foot fiberglass ladder, but of course, that’s at a theater and used for lighting. It has my name painted on the side, meaning I’ll get it back at some point, but it’s more important to have it at the theater now.

I feel like I should replace this aluminum ladder. It’s got a slight twist on one leg. And it doesn’t have a top step where most ladders have a step now days. As good as fiberglass ladders are, they’re really heavy. And because I don’t expect to get any stronger as I get older, I will probably buy a new aluminum ladder. 

It seems fitting that by the time you shouldn’t be climbing on the roof, you’ve also reached the point where you can’t pick up the ladder to get on the roof anymore.

The corn went surprisingly well, averaging 120 bushels per acre, 16 or 17% moisture and 57 or 58 pound test weight.

Remember, corn has to be at least 56 pound testweight to not get docked by the elevator. And it needs to be dried down to 15% moisture to store long term, anything above that incurs a drying cost. I know a couple of my fields were only doing about 55 bushels per acre, and some fields were doing amazingly well to get 120 bushels average. That is pretty good this year. Last year I had about 150 bushels per acre.

Soybeans were terrible, but I knew that. 55 pound testweight, soybeans need to be 60 pounds. And typically, moisture is not a problem, they need to be not over 13% and mine were 11%. They averaged about 20 bushels per acre. Again, considering some years I get 50 bushels/acre, and some places can get close to 100b/A, this growing year is good to have over. We will see what Crop Insurance does with all this.

Pictures tell a thousand words, so here’s a bunch of pictures. (Click on each photo to see the best view.)

Rooftop
Ladder
Tractor Time
Harvesting
Harvesting
Harvesting
Machinery
Losing the Light
Tractor at Night
Night Equipment
Corn
Soybeans

ANY CORRELATING CIRCUMSTANCES IN YOUR LIFE LATELY?

51 thoughts on “Ten Pounds in a Five Pound Bag”

  1. Well, on one level, everything is related to everything else, and I can’t think of anything for “correlating circumstances” till others chime in – which usually jogs some memory.

    This seems like a bit of wisdom: “It seems fitting that by the time you shouldn’t be climbing on the roof, you’ve also reached the point where you can’t pick up the ladder to get on the roof anymore.”

    And I love the photo gallery, Ben!

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  3. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Yesterday I received some encouraging health news: the pain in my left hip is not arthritic degeneration, it is bursitis. No hip replacement needed, but instead, Physical Therapy. Phew. BUT, I also have had an extended bout of bursitis in my right heel. My podiatrist prescribed a powerful NSAID for this and it is working, while as a side effect treating the hip, too. I feel pretty good.

    So, to answer the question with yet another question, are the two episodes of bursitis in two separate body parts correlated? I suspect so. It has been a rough year all around combining a lot of demands on me with a terrible allergy response in both AZ and Minnesota. That seemed to kick off the heel problem. I hope my body continues to calm down. We were invited to my brother’s home in Iowa for Tgiving, but I passed on this. There has been too much travel, too much disruption, too much too much this year and I am staying home. Having a puppy has been part of the demands, yet this puppy has been such a source of delight and joy in an otherwise very sad period.

    And there is no surgery scheduled for my future. Yipee!

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    2. I’m glad for your good health news. I really think PT is helpful for these things. Many people don’t like it because it requires time and effort, then you have a bunch of exercises to bring home and those take up more time. I understand but I think if you stick with it, you’re better off for it. And you only get one body. I’m glad you’re feeling better. It’s the beginning of the season of rest.

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  5. The 25% rent increase I’ll be paying come January 1, 2024 and COVID December 12, 2019.
    Or is that causation rather than correlation? Economics and disease. So many elements to consider.

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  6. Oh, I love spurious correlations, like the positive correlation between US cheese consumption and the number of people who died by being strangled in their bedsheets.There is a whole website devoted to these correlations

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  7. Every heroin abuser was a milk drinker.
    One of the basic rules of statistics: correlation does not prove cause and effect. A detail news reporters, bigots, and fundamentalists never learned.
    A bliffle is 10 lbs manure, shall I say, in a five pound bag.
    Clyde

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  10. I think there must be a correlation between the growing number of books on my reading list and the lack of free time on my calendar. It seems I have been so busy this fall and I’m struggling to get books read before they’re due.

    I wanted to find time for grilling outside but now my grill has been banned. I might hide it in the garage and grill in there with the door open a little on the bottom. Is that terribly dangerous?

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        1. Have you actually measured fifteen feet from the house? If it were me, I think I’d just roll the grill down to wherever was the minimum distance.

          If the rule had come from the association I’d say go ahead and push back but since it’s a city ordinance, the consequences might be more serious. The ordinance has serious intent, after all. Have you looked into the penalty for violation?

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        2. Just because it’s a rule, doesn’t mean there is enforcement to follow up. Do it after ‘business hours’ and, unless the police come, deny everything.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. For now, I have stored the grill in the garage with the propane tank disconnected and closed. I haven’t grilled anything but it will be tempting. The little “driveway” I have has quite a slope down to the lane I’m on, so I’d have to be all the way down into the lane to comply with the ordinance. So far, no one else has even moved their grill off their deck. The HOA president got an electric one and some of the other board members will be moving theirs but everyone else is ignoring the new rule completely.

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  12. This is an old meme, but a classic of sorts….

    Research on bread indicates that:

    1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.

    2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.

    3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.

    4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.

    5. Bread is made from a substance called “dough.” It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!

    6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, and osteoporosis.

    7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given nothing but water begged for bread after as little as two days.

    8. Bread is often a “gateway” food item, leading the user to “harder” items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.

    9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.

    10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.

    11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.

    12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

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  13. my lack of sleep and my general tiredness seem to be related
    i keep thinking i’ll acclimate but no soap so far
    i got up early this morning have a concert that’s glisten to run from 8-1130 then early again tomorrow
    this test i’m doing is easy to do but the data on my body adjusting is just not doing anything but correlate
    i have to change the test criteria and see if i can get the results to change

    i’m not able to get my new start ups running with this forced attention on my test data

    maybe i should stop testing

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  14. listed to run from 8-1130

    ben check out the telescoping ladders. you schlep them like a suitcase then raise them one rung at a time. i am pretty sure they make tall ones rather than just 12 &16 footers

    i keep wondering why solar water pumps that do soaker hoses instead of those giant tika tika things on a wheel that burn so much water to keep moisture up during dry times
    nutrients could be piped in to maximize yields and pay for it i would bet

    are you gonna try food grade oats again or did you get discouraged?

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    1. Tim, I’m not about to risk my life on ‘fake’ ladders.
      why would anyone think a TELESCOPING ladder was a good idea?? 20′ in the air isn’t the time to find out I should have gotten the ‘Heavy Duty’ ladder, not the lightweight one. Besides, I’m fat. And I don’t like articulated ladders either. I’ve been climbing ladders for 50 years. I just want a traditional extension ladder. Electrical work code requires fiberglass. Firefighting requires aluminum.

      Tim, ever done the math on how many gallons of water it takes to get 1″ of rain over 1 acre? 10 Acres? 100 acres? It’s a lot, A LOT of water. Not to mention laying out pipes or hoses. It is not practical for crop farming. People are always saying ‘Why don’t you just irrigate?’ They have no idea.

      Yeah, I’ll keep doing oats. Next year will be better! But I may never get to food grade just because I don’t grow enough acres. I’m at the point, I’m wondering how many years of growing crops I have left…

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