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False Fall

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben. 

First false fall, I believe that’s what we’re in. 
I’ve seen a few soybeans turning color, the leaves are starting to drop, and it sure is getting dark sooner. The temperature has been very nice the last week. I don’t know if the barn swallows have all moved on, or if it’s just because I’m at work and I don’t see them so much. I did notice a couple flying around the other day.  

The deer are really doing a number on the soybeans. It’s surprising how many leaves and beans a herd of deer can eat overnight. Most of my beans are over my knees, but that one field I rent, the beans are barely to my knees there, and the top of the entire field has been nibbled by the deer. It’s a lot of dollars they’re eating.   

I spent a few hours in the tractor Thursday night going over the oat ground a second time. The second time, I worked the field perpendicular to the way I worked it the first time. All an effort to work it up better. And I used the boating app to find my way again.  

I’m hoping to have started planting winter rye by the time you read this. I use it as a cover crop to keep some roots in the ground over winter, and to hopefully provide a little extra nitrogen come spring. 
Daughter and Bailey joined me in the tractor as my tractor buddies for a while. That gave us some nice time to talk about her day and I shared random tidbits about the crescent moon.  

 I’m sure I’ve mentioned before how I have the entire audio recording of the movie All That Jazz in my music library. I hadn’t listened to it for a while and I had it on the tractor that night. I can recite it line for line and every time I hear it I pick up something different. It’s loosely based on the life of actor, dancer, choreographer, director Bob Fosse. He wasn’t a real nice man, but he was a very talented man. In the tractor, and later, wearing earbuds, I could hear subtle background noises I hadn’t detected before. It makes me appreciate him more as a director for the details he added.  

Sometimes while driving down I35 or Highway 52, I wonder how many of my fields a highway like that would take up.  It makes me a little sad, to think about how quickly a bulldozer can change the landscape and erase any memories of a farmstead that may have lasted years and raised generations. It should still be called progress that it doesn’t take as many small farms to produce the food we need, but the lost memories still make me sad.  

* * * * * * *
 
I feel fortunate that I’ve made some pretty good business connections over the years and I’m lucky that one businessman has let me borrow his scissor lift for a few days. Kelly and I used it to paint the front of the theater last Saturday.  

A year ago we did this with an extension ladder on a day it was about 90°F And the whole thing was just hot and miserable. This second time around we were much more prepared and it was almost fun. My nephew let me borrow his paint sprayer and we knew how to tape off things a little better (or at all)  and it went pretty well.  I’m also using the lift to swap some lighting in the theater. The Rep Theater was fortunate to receive large grant to purchase a new Lighting Console and some LED lighting. I’ve been having a good time getting that set up, and when I got the lights to turn color the first time I let out a big “YEAH BABY!”.  

At one point I knocked over a riser section and wedged it under part of the scissor lift. I swear, there are days I should not be left alone.  

At home I am rarely left alone thanks to my white shadow. 

Unless she’s on a walk with daughter, she’s not far from me, hoping I’ll be doing something interesting soon.  

DO YOU SWEAT THE DETAILS? I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT THEY’RE NOT IMPORTANT.  

40 thoughts on “False Fall”

  1. Who decides what’s a detail and what’s essential? Sometimes the details are what distinguishes an endeavor. Sometimes eschewing the details is just an excuse for sloppiness.

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    1. They eat a lot of stuff. I think I already wrote this, but I am still not over my gardening grief. A deer bellied up to my raised bed and ate Every.Last.Beet in there. And it was a gorgeous crop of beets. HMPH.

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  3. I wasn’t always detail-oriented, but being a nurse brought it out of me. It became a learned skill – focusing on details prevents errors and it’s crucial.

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    1. I worked in the NICU for 27 years. Details are crucial and the best NICU nurses are very detailed oriented. That skill spilled over into my non-work life and continues to this day. It’s not so much that I sweat the details to the point of anxiety but I am very organized.

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    2. Oh yes, there’s a lot of jobs that I’m glad somebody’s paying attention to the details. And sometimes I do, but many times I don’t. And more than once Kelly has said to me “details matter Ben“ usually with a role of her eyes as she fixes whatever I wasn’t paying attention to.

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  4. Rise and Tend to the Small Stuff, Baboons,

    I am a Big Picture Girl. Details drive me nuts. As the British say, “It’s too fiddly.” On top of my personality characteristics, I have a learning disability in which I cannot transfer written details from one place to another. I also have difficulty picking out visual details in a crowded visual field, so reading music is extremely difficult for me. I was an excellent clarinet player, but I had to memorize music which my teachers never realized. Had highlighting markers been invented when I was actively playing it would have changed everything. I could not pick up repeats, CODAs, and key changes because I just could not see them. A highlighter and a copy machine would have really helped. (You copy the original and highlight the copy only).

    When I had my business, then finally caught on to what the details were that required tending–say estimated quarterly taxes–I hired people who could see details accurately. Medical and Mental Health billing is particularly detailed (GRRRRR–policy needs changing in this area) and I cannot accurately complete a form, so I hired all of that to be done or I would have never gotten paid.

    But I can remember my high school friends’ birthdays and phone numbers. Go figure.

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  5. Jacque – it has always been easy for me to read music. But as my eyes get older I have resorted to occasionally using highlighters to mark repeats, DS al codas, and codas. It does help immensely.

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  7. Either God or the Devil is in the details, as the saying goes. With my ADD I either blow off details or really focus on them, almost OCD. As a teacher I strove to be on top of details but always be driven by the big picture, letting details go when they got in the way of what really mattered. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
    While I sit in the middle of several sleeping residents,I watch two aides. One sits in the corner ignoring tasks that should be done. The other is corralling an over busy resident, sweeping the floor, and folding laundry.
    Clyde

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    1. Yes, I would want you paying attention to the details. I’m just trying to get stuff done. Don’t bother me with details, I just gotta get it done.

      Yesterday for example, trying to get these lights working. Lighting comes down to numbers and it’s all about the numbers. And the lights didn’t work on universe two, and that’s because I plugged them into universe three. And when I remembered that bit of detail and patched them into universe three they popped right on and that’s when I said “yeah baby!”

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      1. It dawned on me just now, working with people who pay attention to the details frustrates me. It’s like working with an engineer. They are reading the directions and making plans and looking at all the details and I am like, “can we just do this thing?”
        But you know, bridges or airplanes, yeah somebody else have that figured out ahead of time and just tell me what to do.

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        2. My daughter is ADD like me or moreso, and married to a man with a degree in engineering, which he has never used. He drives her nuts. She is big picture, has a very quick male mind, my mind in fact. Can focus on details when she has to. You cannot believe the picky number reports pastors have to fill out. But he plods along reading the directions, explaining everything.
          Clyde

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        3. I’m naturally more like you, and a big picture person like Jacque. I can often “see” the results, and I want to get there quick. If I had responded that way in my job, I would have made major errors. I’ve heard of people making the mistake of not reading a label or not paying attention while setting up medications. There can be a huge difference between a mg and a mL. You do not want to make that mistake.

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  11. While attempting to teach husband how to cook, I’ve become aware of how much detail I intuitively attend to. Essentially, I’m a big picture person, and I typically don’t sweat the small stuff, but I know that some details will definitely make a difference in how things turn out. Sometimes there’s a big difference between perfect and good enough, other times it really makes no difference. I guess it’s a matter of what your priorities are.

    What lovely day for Rock Bend. We’re off to celebrate Ann’s 90th birthday at 3 PM. Perfect day for a porch party.

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  12. Sorry about the deer, Ben. Bunnies have been taste testing our savoy cabbage. They get in the garden despite the fence, so we got a roll of bird netting today to cover the cabbages. Hah!!

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  13. I will can the first tomatoes tomorrow. We harvested 6 eggplants thus far, and two cabbages. Two of the eggplants went to an East Indian coworker. We are making 2 kinds of minestrone and an eggplant/lentil dish with turmeric tahini.

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    1. I’ve been pulling all tomatoes the very second they start to turn and ripening them in paper bags. Bunnies are still getting a few here and there but I’m not willing to let them just make a smorgasbord out of my bales!

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  16. I am a detail person who identifies as a do-er. It was a major revelation to me when I was in my early thirties that I was not a big picture person as well. It was after this ephiphany that I got off the co-op board, got out of three committees at church that I had been roped into. And it’s why, despite getting occasional pressure, I never wanted a management role at work. Very freeing.

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