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Alternating Tired and Startled And Stuff

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben

There’s so much stuff going on, I don’t have time to get to the other stuff.

One day I met a friend in the grocery store, and he was carrying a bag of coleslaw mix. I’ve always liked coleslaw but never made my own. The friend told me how easy it is to make coleslaw and I started making my own and it is enjoyable and quite tasty. Last week I bought a fresh cabbage, and carrots, and this batch is even better than ever. Summertime goodness.

I took the generator off Kelly’s tractor, the C, and the alternator off the swather and took both of those to a local small business to be repaired. Once I get them back and reinstalled, I’ll be able to check them both off my To-Do list and hopefully both those things will stay charged and ready to start.

I feel like I spent so much time doing other “stuff”, I don’t get much crossed off my list.

Last week, coming back from Chatfield, my truck seemed to be making a thumping noise. I was trying to decide if it was the road, but no, got off the highway and it was still there. Then I was going through the dash gauges trying to find the tire pressures and there was a BANG and the tread came off a rear wheel. Bent both sides of the wheel well and ripped off a mud flap.

But the tire wasn’t flat, so I slowly drove the 10 miles home, took both rear wheels off, and took them to my tire place, Appel Service, in Millville. It was Monday so all the bars and restaurants were closed, but one place let me buy a bottle of pop. I walked around town and sat on a bench and enjoyed the weather while they put on new tires. Glad this happened close to home and not on the way to Minneapolis or something.

The coyotes have been back in the early mornings. One bark from Bailey, and Luna, sleeping in our bed, goes bezerk. That sure wakes us out of a sound sleep. And I stood outside trying to figure out what they’re barking at. And then I saw …‘something’…100 yards away down on the swamp road. And then it turned, and it was a coyote. Back in the house for the rifle and of course it was gone by then. I don’t think it got any breakfast that day. I fired one shot, just to warn it, and it hasn’t come back for a few days.

We got the barn painted. Here’s a before and after photo:

It looks real nice and I didn’t have to be involved. Well, except to write a check.

A former college student got married on the Rep Theater stage last week. It was really nice.

Cutting grass one night and the mower started running rough. That just about sucked all the wind out of me. “Can’t things just work??” And the next day I cleaned the spark plug, air filter, filled it with gas and thank goodness the lawn mower fairies must have been in because it worked fine. Then the belt came off the deck. Sigh.

The next day I went to John Deere and got both a new deck belt and a new drive belt and we’re back to cutting grass again. Until the next thing happens.

Classes start Monday at the college. I have one online class this fall, “Interpersonal communication”. I know the instructor and I asked him how communication could be online? He said this is about learning the “theory” of communication. He said I can still be a jerk if I want to be after class, but at least I would know HOW to communicate.

Watching the DNC convention and they had a huge balloon drop on the last night. Back in my stagehand days, I was part of an event that included a balloon drop. I remember whomever was in charge showing us what rope to pull. They were very specific about giving us a signal when it was time. Myself and another guy up in the catwalks waiting. We can’t find our guy, no one on the intercom, no idea what we’re supposed to be doing. But they’ve hit the climatic high point and it seems like this would be a good time, but again, they were very specific about telling us when. And yet there’s no sign of our guy. But once everyone started staring at the ceiling, we decided now’s the time and we released the balloons. You really do need a LOT of balloons to make it look like something. That group didn’t have that many.

I’m adding some 10’ tall, 6×6 posts next to some rotted posts in the pole barn.

Too many years of manure have rotted out the bases. The shed was built maybe in the 1970’s?

Dig a hole and bolt the new post to the old post. It takes 6 trips with the gator to get all the tools and bolts and drills, and back for a step ladder and sledgehammer, and another trip for the tractor and some gravel, and then another trip because a 5/8” bolt doesn’t fit in a ½” hole.

So it goes.

Mom used to say, “What your brain forgets your feet will remember”.

I’ve got three posts to fix and then I can check that off the list and move on to something else.

WHAT’S YOUR CLIMACTIC ENDING TO A BIG PARTY?

36 thoughts on “Alternating Tired and Startled And Stuff”

  1. First a question for you, Ben. Did you have to go out and buy a shirt with sleeves for the wedding or do you keep one in the closet for these special occasions? Tee hee!!

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    2. Thanks for noticing! 🙂
      I got a couple dress shirts. If you look close, you’ll notice the sleeves are off a different shirt. Cut them off and put them on this one. And I have the mate at home, too.

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        1. No, this was a few years ago I did that. Just for fun. If I was really fancy, I’d be changing the collars too. 🙂
          Think Cam’s shirts from ‘Modern Family’.

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  2. So the instructor told you that after the class you can STILL be a jerk, implying you are currently one? Touchy, isn’t he?

    I can’t remember ever being at a big party. I guess the climatic ending would be when everyone goes home.

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  3. hey, a trick, my sister taught me….
    when you are digging a hole for those post holes instead of filling it with when you are done, phillip was P gravel which will allow the rain that gets down in there to move away two or 3 inches and thus stopping the wood from setting in moist dirt instead it sits in gravel that sheds the water

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  4. your to do list is pretty substantial ben good thing you found a guy to paint the barn. Getting those belts changed is a pain in the ass, but having to go to the store to do it is more thing isn’t it? At least you got to enjoy the pop sitting on the bench and hopefully a beautiful morning, is that tire or retread? I don’t think I’ve ever had the tread come off a tire that way for me.
    I’ve always really liked coyotes and I know that they’re problematic and if they’re eating chickens and ducks, obviously they need to go, but they have kind of a cool spirit and makes me sad that they need to be eliminated. Kind of like wolves used to be in all of a sudden, we realized that we like wolves and unless you’re a cattle farmer living near Yellowstone or something like that.

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  5. I quit drinking 10 years ago now and it makes me realize that I was missing things while I was getting on towards the end of the evening my first response to the climactic end of a good party was said if it was a good party I probably didn’t make it to the climactic end

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  6. The tasks we have the tasks we do the days are short the nights are too. We have a job jar, work it down and fill it back until we drown in tasks that pile up and tasks that wait and tasks that can’t they just get done late

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    1. Voice recognition gets your words, tim, but doesn’t make it into the poem it is. Hope this is ok, but I’ll take the liberty of showing the poet version:
      “The tasks we have
      the tasks we do
      the days are short
      the nights are too.
      We have a job jar,
      work it down
      and fill it back
      until we drown
      in tasks that pile up
      and tasks that wait
      and tasks that can’t
      they just get done late”

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  7. You are the Tim Walz of your theatre students, Ben. They will never forget you.

    You also work harder than most people I have ever known. I really enjoy reading your posts. You make me feel very lazy though.

    When I had my two horses I boarded them at a small family farm across the road from us. Mr. Christie had a few sows, usually five young steers to grow out all summer (then mysteriously – to me – leave one day in early fall), and a small flock of chickens. Two of my friends also boarded their horses there, but they left in the fall and I took care of all four horses in the cooler seasons until the summer people came back. Mr. Christie was in his mid 70s; he was very lonely after his wife died, hard-working, and patient. He taught me a lot. I got to watch the sows give birth to large litters of piglets, and the calves eagerly sucked on my fingers. I learned to muck out stalls, and give out grain and clean straw and hay. Mr. Christie would go over to the corn crib with two bushel baskets. He’d fill them with corn and pull one up onto one shoulder, then pull the other up onto the other shoulder, then walk back across the yard with the bushels of corn on his shoulders and the little flock of chickens following him. I was amazed at his strength. I remember looking at his skinny little ankles and feeling astonished that he could lift those full bushel baskets onto his shoulders and carry them like that. He was hard-working too, but I wouldn’t wish his loneliness on anyone. I sat and watched Hogan’s Heroes with him just so he’d have some company for awhile.

    I would have to know how to have a big party to know how to have a big climactic ending. Parties just aren’t really my thing. I enjoyed watching parts of the convention and all the hype. I was really emotionally exhausted after Tim Walz though, and barely had enough energy left for Kamala’s.

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      2. … and Rock Bend doesn’t have a very climactic ending either. Sundays are usually quieter than Saturdays; the music is folkier and more mellow. It’s pretty much over by early evening. Ron or Kris will get up and thank the few people who are left for coming, and say, ‘See you next year!’ So not too exciting. Saturday is a much bigger day, and they’ll get a headliner band that plays until 10:30 or 11, and has everybody dancing.

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  8. Thanks for the before and after on the Painted Barn!

    I hope those guys got reprimanded who didn’t give you the signal for the balloon drop – that’s the kind of thing that drives me crazy…

    I guess it depends on how you define Big Party. I rarely stay to the end of a party at this point – so we’re talking about past parties… In college we would just some times wake up and the party had never really ended. (I’m a little embarrassed about some of my college antics.)

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    2. There is a small side door on the barn. I had to rebuild it once and I painted a red heart and “K+B” inside it. It faded over time and eventually got painted over.

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  11. Rise and Go Out with a Bang, Baboons,

    I cannot think of much for parties. However, when a friend of Lou’s died 5 years ago, his wife hosted a large lovely reception afterwards featuring a Dixie Land Band. Lou and this friend had been in a Dixie Land Band together for years, so this choice was so apt. They played and played and gave Ralph a wonderful send off. It was a fun funeral. As funerals go, anyway.

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  12. In 1964 I was at a huge party, the Beaux Arts Ball in Chicago with thousands of people: it was one of the first indications I could not be places with too much sensory input. I was only there for a few minutes. I wonder how it did end
    Clyde

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  14. I don’t know if my parties count as big parties. I think of them that way,. And for me the climax probably seems to everyone else like an anti-climax. After everybody’s gone, and we’ve gotten everything cleaned up, falling into bed is fabulous!

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  16. I’ve been thinking about this question too. We’ve had a few parties, and yeah, there is no climactic ending. People just wander off. (Except that one party where one family — friends of friends — stayed WAY past everyone else going home. We had picked up the food, turned off the lights, gone inside, and they were STILL out there around the bonfire. I mean what the heck people??)

    At the college commencements, I have lighting and when they announce the graduates, I want to do some fun lighting. But also, they still have things to say, and it’s not quite over, and it’s all rather anti-climactic too.
    Weird.

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