2024, animals, Family, Farming Update, Uncategorized, work

Heatin’ Up

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

It’s that time of year that the butter in the kitchen is hard. I haven’t turned the heat on yet, even though we did have a hard frost earlier in the week. 21° at our house. I had pulled a few plants into the garage, unhooked the hoses, and I have the pressure washer in the feed room with a bucket over it, which is good enough for now. Starting to think about what needs to be picked up and moved before we take the next drastic turn into winter. But I’m not gonna talk about that. Yet.

Got the soybeans out on Saturday.

The yield was a little below average which is what most guys were saying. And the prices are down to so that’s not helpful. Remember, prices are all based on the Chicago Board Of trade (CBOT) and then the local elevator subtracts an amount called the “basis“ to cover their costs like shipping and operational expenses, which gives me the local price. Every morning at 6AM, I get an email from DTN (I don’t know what that stands for) and the subject line at least tells me if corn is up or down for the day. Most of the time that’s all I need to know because I don’t market my grain throughout the year, other than maybe a few thousand bushels that I might hold onto until March or June (depending on the yield, the price, and if I can pay all my fall bills)

I think all farmers are using operating loans of some sort for all the spring inputs, and some of those are due in December, so I just sell everything right away. Typically harvest time is when the price is lowest, but if I store grain at the elevator I have to pay for storage. I don’t have bins at home and if I did, I’d still have to dry it, keep it in condition, and ship it, so there are always expenses. The best local price is hauling it to the river. Around here a lot of guys deliver to Winona or ethanol plants but they’re talking of hundreds of thousands of bushels.  Even if the price went up a dollar, my 5000 bushels, that difference, isn’t gonna make or break me. It’s hard to justify storage and the time it takes to make a difference. And that’s why I sell everything in the fall.
Remember, every farm is different, and everybody does it their own way. Farmers may not have a lot of cash, but we have good credit ratings!

So- corn on Friday was $4.06 on the CBOT, and soybeans rallied $.20 to $9.88, they were down yesterday because it rained in Brazil. Remember it’s a global market.
At the local elevator, the basis on corn is $.43, the basis on soybeans is $.65, meaning the local price is about $3.65 for corn and $9.25 for soybeans. Soybeans in November 2025 are priced at $10.32. I could contract some soybeans for a year out and make a dollar more, however even this year I had less than 2000 bushels so it’s really not that much money. And If I don’t produce enough to cover what I contract, I have to make up the difference. I always say, a few more zeros on both sides of the equation and we’re talking real money! There is a lot more to marketing that I don’t know.

I have a heater in the shop! We had to do some redneck engineering to move a pallet rack, and Kelly and I had to coordinate hand signals for part of it. No one yelled, and we got it moved. Only once did she have to give me a hand signal of her own…


The thermostat isn’t hooked up so it’s kind of hotwired, and it’s powered by an extension cord hanging off the wall at this point, but I have a heater in the shop!

Still got the four ducks. And they can all fly!  

DO YOU TALK WITH YOUR HANDS?

GOT ANY HAND SIGNALS

26 thoughts on “Heatin’ Up”

  1. I likely emerged from the womb talking with my hands. It only got worse when I was in the Army running heavy road building equipment, which has someone on the ground communicating with the operator of the noisy equipment at distance, using hands. Once I communicated a long sentence to a guy on another machine about 40 yards away, and he got my meaning. We made beautiful music together.

    Flash forward, I became a preacher, and later a “teacher of preachers”. I once said to a chapel full of students, “Don’t learn from me, I use my hands WAY too much.” There was no danger, though. The students were not only Taiwanese, but also Presbyterians, so loved words and kept their hands immobile.

    I have no special gestures, though. But I recognize the one that you allude to having been used to convey a meaning in your direction while the pallet rack was moved.

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  2. I do talk with my hands, but I didn’t really realize it until pandemic. When we all started doing video calls and chats and zooms, and Google meets during which you’re looking at yourself in addition to looking at everyone else, that’s when I realized to talk with my hands more than most.

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  3. When YA was five or six, we had an ASL interpreter at church for several months. I never knew who the parishioner was who needed this, but it was fascinating. YA really wanted to learn ASL and so we had a couple of workbooks and worked on it a bit. I don’t remember most of it, but there were a few signals that we used between the two of us in situations where yelling or talking wasn’t appropriate. The most common one was “come here” and then another was “say thank you”.

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    1. One of the therapists who worked with me in Highland Park was an ASL interpreter, as well as a lip reader. She informed us that the F-U phrase looked the same to a lip reader as “Vacuum.” So we would often say “vacuum” to each other, just for some extra emphasis.

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    2. I’ve never actually seen this video before. I know the song because I’ve seen Shrek more times than a person needs to see Shrek. I love this.

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  5. The shop is looking very impressive, and I love “redneck engineering”. Glad to see the remaining ducks…

    I use my hands frequently, esp. when trying to describe something.

    I’m trying to get used to a thumbs up for “AOK” in stead of the older “OK” signal – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_gesture
    which can be problematic in cultures besides ours:

    “The OK hand gesture doesn’t have a universal meaning. In Brazil, Greece, Spain, and some Middle Eastern countries, the OK gesture can be seen as obscene. In France, the gesture can mean ‘worthless.’ ” (This from the Anti-Defamation League)

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  7. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Last night I watched the Lynx Basketball game which was accompanied by all kinds of hand motions and full body communications on my part. They won by 2 points. It was a thrilling game. Ben, your shop looks great. What a labor of love for you. Please define Red Neck Engineering. I think I know what you mean, but I need to know exactly!

    We have company over the weekend (husband’s daughter) so I don’t have much time to reply.

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    1. Red neck engineering: to me it was the jack and 6 boards piled on it to lift it enough to get the creeper and board under it.
      I’d define it as shortcuts, things that I know in my heart are dumb (but we’re not talking life threatening. Usually). Could be accompanied by a beer or four. (Not in my case).

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  8. shops coming along
    whats the end vision, a thermostat?
    will you keep it above freezing all winter or only when its in use?
    my wife the childcare person teaches hand signals for certain stuff (i want to eat, more, i love you etc…}
    j was somewhere recently and 3 women were talking. i asked one if she was italian. he looks surprised and wondered how I knew. I told her watching her hand. Movements gave me the clue. She laughed and continued talking much of it with her hands.
    i’m curious Ben on your contract stuff obviously you’re betting that the price your contracting for is going to be good enough and the guy who’s giving you that price is betting that he’s gonna be getting a heck of a deal at that how does it work out for you most of the time as opposed to if you just sold at market price when harvest came
    my pallet rack conversations are mostly done with a 20lb maul. mine are taller and assembled solo for the most part
    while im driving hands are my primary means of communicating
    the world is full of people i quietly communicate with by hans signal.
    i constantly remind myself how lucky i am. i only have to deal with them for 30 seconds, some poor soul has them around all rhe time. id scream

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      1. in the process of delivering i am sirrounded by humanity and need to remind myself some are old as my mom tring their best , some are like my daughter with multiple diatractions like children some are having a hard day and some just deal with life in a way that would make me want to keep my distance… i show anger, fristration, relief to be done with them , greetings to attentive happy interactive folks sharing a good day. im not real good at sitting motionless or quietly
        yesterday at the bean in downtown chicago a woman made it a point to holler from 30 feet away that she really liked my beard. i turned and thanked her and told her its the easiest thing i do. i looked at her botfriend and told him “ its easy, jst do nothing” he responded in a jerk voice saying “ why? so i could be like you? “ i told him only if he wanted to. i shook my head and wondered why people like that have to be downers? i mean you dont have to spread joy. he had a girlfrind to handle that for him but why atrive to be a jerk?
        my head shaking shoulder shrugging italian hand bobbing ti say whats a matter with you? were obvious to anyone who witnessed it but in reality probably went unnoticed

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  10. I guess I do talk with my hands. I know enough ASL to either help someone or get into big trouble.

    A couple of days ago I was driving north on 35E to St. Paul for my voice therapy. I was in the right lane on the freeway, where Pilot Knob or Yankee Doodle (can’t remember which one) merges with 35E northbound. There was lots of traffic. A SUV was merging onto the freeway on my right, but I couldn’t switch lanes because there were other vehicles near me. The driver merged and then just kept coming over and almost ran his SUV right into me. He realized I was there with inches to spare. Needless to say, I was upset. I didn’t use the hand signal that you might be thinking of, but I used the ASL sign for “look” or “see”. The second and third fingers of my right hand pointed directly at my eyes. Then I just trembled the rest of the way up there. I really don’t like driving in the Cities.

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  12. It’s gotten down to about 34 degrees here. Still have plants on the porch. At this point it’s hard to know how long it will be safe for them out there.

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