2024, animals, Farming Update, Theatre, Uncategorized, work

Life

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

It sure does get dark early. By the time I get home from work, change clothes, and talk with Kelly a bit, it’s dusk. And it’s only going to get worse for a while yet, and I’ll be OK with that once it’s cold and “winter”, but I got too much going on right now. The world goes round, and the seasons change, and it’s OK. Even the roadside vegetable stands have all closed and that’s kinda sad. It seems to happen so fast!

I really do love fall and wrapping up the seasons. The harvest and the fieldwork and completing that circle, it all just feels right. My friend Diane and I have always talked about how we get that urge to ‘pack up’ and suddenly we’re all about organizing. Cleaned off my home office desk one day, and then at the college, I took some pillows up the prop room and spent an hour packing up greenery and organizing.

Some of you have an ‘Arts and Crap’ room, I have props. It’s kind of a disaster. In theater lingo, a ‘prop’ is something the actor handles, versus the set or furniture. If you think about it, you can imagine all the stuff a theater might have for ‘props’. Anna or Catherine might have stories about props and props people. But here, I just tell the kids to try and get it somewhere near something else that looks like it. But they don’t care, and once you go down that road, you’re headed for disaster. I’ve had several people offer to clean it up. Maybe they chicken out once they look at it. ANYWAY, I cleaned up a corner and that’s a start. A few more corners to go. One day at a time.

At home, I was supposed to get the shop heater on Thursday, but it got postponed to Tuesday. And I need to move some stuff so they can work in there. Meaning once again, half the crap is moved to another place, and I was just getting so I could find it now. The pallet rack is the biggest deal. I’m taking half of it apart and maybe I can drag the other half out of the way.

I got a lot of other stuff done. Got new hydraulic hoses for the tractor loader, and since I replaced all the rest last summer, they are all new now and good for another 20 years unless I break one.

Got some hydraulic hoses off the chisel plow and took them to John Deere. They make all the hoses as needed. It was busy at the parts counter, so I told them I’d come back on Saturday to pick those up. There are two women at the parts counter now, Belinda (Or ‘B’ as I realized they call her). I don’t know the other woman; I haven’t worked with her much. But Belinda is fun.

I also got the 630 running again so I could move that. (Had pinched a wire going to the starter and created a ‘dead short’ and had smoke coming from under the dash. Accidently let out some magic black smoke but I was able to get it back in). it’s not running well, and it needs further investigation, but at least it’s running.

I took the carburator off the ‘4-wheeler’ and cleaned it and put it back on and it ran for 100 yards, and then I limped it back to the shed and pushed it out of the way. Will come back to that later. But I’m getting good at taking the carburator off.

Sounds like my neighbors will get my soybeans out this weekend. Good to have that done, and sure glad the weather has been holding.

I’ve been listening to Kris Kristofferson this week. He wrote so many songs you know, but you’re not used to him singing them. What a talent he was.

It’s fun to hear other versions of familiar songs. These are not by Kris, butTennessee Stud or Don’t think Twice, it’s alright are two that come to mind that have multiple covers.

On the duck front, we’re down to four. Went from 22 to 11 to 8 and now 4.

The world just keeps going around.

WHAT CYCLES DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR LIFE?

37 thoughts on “Life”

  2. I am amazed at how quickly the shorter days start affecting the quality of life. I guess the longest day of the year was back three months ago now so that means the days are 90 minutes shorter on each end and that’s kind of scary to think that we have another 90 to go, I looked up the other day one daylight savings time is gonna kick in and I think it was George Bush that moved it to after Halloween so we’re looking at 1 November actually I think it’s the third
    I got to drive out in the country yesterday and was amazed at how many of the fields have been harvested and are buzzed down to crew cut length very cool to see all that tan stubble still lots of corn standing but with the fall colors of the leaves and the fields coming down there is a closure to the seasons isn’t there?

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  3. Here’s how Kris Kristofferson got his start. He worked as a janitor in the recording studio and became a buddy of Johnny Cash’s but Roger Miller recording me and Bobby McGee is what made Kris Kristofferson some famous and made him all his money and set them off on the track as a songwriter, I love Kris Kristofferson and I love Roger Miller.

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    1. in listening to some more Kris Kristofferson stuff online, it turns out that he got to start after a stump that he pulled with Johnny Cash where he landed a helicopter on Johnny Cash‘s front yard to get his attention and talk to Johnny about playing some of the songs that he’d given him at the recording studio.
      Johnny went for it and recorded Sunday morning coming down and that was Kris Kristofferson first recorded song but Roger Miller playing and Bobby McGee was his first major hit
      But Janis Joplin’s version of me and Bobby McGee off of the pearl album is the one that runs through the back of your brain isn’t it?

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    3. Kris Kristofferson, when I asked him how people on the country music scene were reacting to his songs about the horrors the US was supporting in Central America:

      “I remember a woman come up to me and really complaining: ‘You just lost me when you start saying, “We’re killing babies in the name of freedom.”‘

      “I said, ‘Well, what pisses you off? Me singing about it or us doing it?'”

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  6. Each day of my week has a different routine, so each week feels like a cycle. I wake up and have to think, OK, which routine is it today? Mondays often have open spaces… Tuesday is reserved for health and hair appts., Wednesday is t’ai chi and some UU-related meeting at the coffee shop, Thursday is the DFL office shift for the moment, Friday is food deliveries followed by our respective lunch groups.

    Then there are monthly cycles, things to tuck into the weeks every so often. This is what happens when you stay in one place all the time, with no traveling. : )

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  7. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    There are always the predictable WP cycles of dysfunction/ barely function. As I read posts from yesterday it would seem dysfunction prevailed yesterday.

    I am back from my art retreat and trying to emerge from that safe and immersive experience. It is like entering a creative cocoon. Then leaving the cocoon to function in the real world is a shock.

    The last 3 years as my mother, aunt and uncle left this world I felt very aware of the cycle of life and death. Now with so many cultural icons dying (yes, Kris Kristofferson) it seems so pervasive. As my husband faces critical health conditions, it feels like a daily reminder that the cycle of life and death is just right there. That was emphasized at my retreat because one member, now age 85 years, is facing these issues with both herself and her son who is now diagnosed with a fatal disease. She will care for him. She loaded up her car with her art and craft materials and brought them to us to sort and pass on to others who might want to start working with polymer clay. That emphasized the cycle like nothing else.

    And as that happened we planned a trip to Ireland. That makes me smile.

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  8. Our garden cycle is turning from crop preservation to cleanup mode. We will finally have a big freeze tonight, and then we will dig carrots and start clearing all the vines and plants. We picked 25 butternuts yesterday. They are curing in the garage. Some of the vines had grown up in the red currant bushes, and I found three large butternuts hanging from the bushes.

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    1. I pulled the rest of our tomatoes yesterday and chopped up the plants. The bales really broke down well this year so I was able to use them as compost in the part of the yard where I chopped down the lilac bush!

      Can’t really think of any cycles in my life. I’m sure they’re there, but maybe just too laid-back to make themselves known.

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  10. My bicycle is a fairly important cycle in my life. I’ve always had one, and used it for basic transportation in HS and college, and recreationally as an adult on a casual but regular basis.

    I’m on the third bike of my life, and have had it for 20 years. Rode it occasionally early on, then had to stop for many years due to a nerve problem in my nether regions. I started up again in earnest during Covid because I got sick of walking so much.

    I regularly ride downtown (about a 5 mi round trip) or add a leg of the town bike trail and make it about 7 miles. We’ve ridden some trails around here–Sakatah out of Faribault, Root River, one over north of Rochester.

    Living in farm country (sort of like Ben. Owatonna’s a decent size but the farm fields are only blocks away), I’m much more into to and aware of the growing cycle. I appreciate the seasons that much more knowing that each is vital for plant growth of any sort, but especially for the food we grow. I find myself worrying about drought, deluges, planting season, harvest season, and soil moisture over the winter. Not that I can do anything about it. But I feel for the farmers when the weather adversely affects them.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. Haha, Yeah, that is just the plant corner. It’s a second level in the shop. I haven’t measured it, but it’s probably 40′ long, and 20′ deep. Multiple shelves.

      The plant corner, the soft goods shelf (pillows, blankets, sheets, curtains, tablecloths, etc, one shelf for photos / paintings, one shelf for books, a hole between shelves is rugs and blinds. One shelf is dishes / cups, glasses, kitchenware. One is fake foods, TV’s, computers, misc electronic gadgets one might need for who knows what, then there is the old folding wood cot, random decor, kids toys, wall hangings, two parking meters security gave to me, multiple styles of telephones, wood or fake barrels of misc size, old wall hanging maps I salvaged from the dumpster, a halloween skeleton I just hung over the railing. A yard windmill I bought for a show and have attached to the railing… it’s a whole big thing.

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      2. I always like to go to the local Whole Foods this time of year. They have a skeleton that they dress in a Whole Foods apron and prop up in one of the register aisles. I believe the skeleton has a nametag, but I can’t remember the name. I’ll have to go look.

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    2. Haha, Yeah, that is just the plant corner. It’s a second level in the shop. I haven’t measured it, but it’s probably 40′ long, and 20′ deep. Multiple shelves.

      The plant corner, the soft goods shelf (pillows, blankets, sheets, curtains, tablecloths, etc, one shelf for photos / paintings, one shelf for books, a hole between shelves is rugs and blinds. One shelf is dishes / cups, glasses, kitchenware. One is fake foods, TV’s, computers, misc electronic gadgets one might need for who knows what, then there is the old folding wood cot, random decor, kids toys, wall hangings, two parking meters security gave to me, multiple styles of telephones, wood or fake barrels of misc size, old wall hanging maps I salvaged from the dumpster, a halloween skeleton I just hung over the railing. A yard windmill I bought for a show and have attached to the railing… it’s a whole big thing.

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  12. Haha, Yeah, that is just the plant corner. It’s a second level in the shop. I haven’t measured it, but it’s probably 40′ long, and 20′ deep. Multiple shelves.

    The plant corner, the soft goods shelf (pillows, blankets, sheets, curtains, tablecloths, etc, one shelf for photos / paintings, one shelf for books, a hole between shelves is rugs and blinds. One shelf is dishes / cups, glasses, kitchenware. One is fake foods, TV’s, computers, misc electronic gadgets one might need for who knows what, then there is the old folding wood cot, random decor, kids toys, wall hangings, two parking meters security gave to me, multiple styles of telephones, wood or fake barrels of misc size, old wall hanging maps I salvaged from the dumpster, a halloween skeleton I just hung over the railing. A yard windmill I bought for a show and have attached to the railing… it’s a whole big thing.

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  13. It’s easy
    when you put the garden to bed
    on a cold winter day
    to focus on
    the bare branches
    fallen in the wind,
    the number of green tomatoes
    — such a loss of potential —
    the blackened buds,
    what a waste, what a waste.

    What’s harder is to relish
    the sunlight on my face,
    the crisp crunch
    of the leaves underfoot,
    the hidden treasure
    of winter carrots.

    But when I pause,
    see past the gloom
    of cantaloupes
    that didn’t fruit,
    of slugs that
    rasp at the cabbages
    in the long dark,
    I look up
    and find
    against a bright blue sky
    a little bit of beauty,
    a gentle reminder
    that we survive
    that this is an ending
    but not only that.
    That spring will come
    again,
    with light
    and hope.

    – Julie Artz

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