2024, animals, Farming Update, Nature, Theatre, Uncategorized

And Then???

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Got the corn out on Thursday and I got to ride around in the combine for an hour. It was fun and satisfying and a weight off my shoulders and a bright spot in the day.

The dogs and I observed them finishing a field, then they moved up along the road, and that’s when I got in. I watched them unloading on the go, and it was good to see there wasn’t many ears on the ground. A nice surprise for this year. 

Their combine is only a few years old, so it has a lot of bells and whistles. Like a back up camera when he shifts to reverse, and a warning screen and tone when the grain tank is ¾ full, and another when it’s ‘full’, but they can still go for a while after that. The grain tank is right behind the cab, (keeping it in the center of gravity) and there’s a window behind the operators head that is about the middle of the tank (and it’s always so dirty you can barely see through it) however there is so much corn that can be held above the window, and most guys have tank extensions, so you really can’t see how full it is until it runs over the front and hits the top of the cab, and then you get ‘Cab Corn’. That’s a thing the guys try to avoid. Evidently it’s a rather tongue-in-cheek sign of failure. “Ope! Bop got cab corn!” Hence, the sensors that tell you the tank is full. There’s also a ‘low fuel’ warning and it went off several times before they sent one guy back to get the fuel trailer. Here they are refilling with fuel and DEF. (Diesel Exhaut Fluid – an emissions product).

I’ve mentioned a few times before how much fuel these big machines hold. The combine might hold 300+ gallons. Same with the tractors. And that’s why they pull a fuel trailer to the field rather than running the machine back home or hauling in 5 gallons cans.

They corn yielded better than I predicted. Roughly 180 bushels / acre, which is REALLY impressive for our farm. Imagine what it would have done without all the deer and raccoons out there! I got a little over 7000 bushels. Test weight was good, and moisture was between 16 and 17%. It needs to be dried to 15% for storage, and that will cost a bit, but not as much as drying it from 22%, which has happen as well.

This photo from the coop website showing each load, total bushels, moisture, and testweight. From this total, I had a couple thousand bushels put into storage to sell in a few months. I’m being optimistic the price will come up. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But I can always use the money.

Many nights when daughter and dogs are walking, the dogs pick a fight with a raccoon out in the corn. I expected to find 20’ diameter circles of flat corn from their fights.

I hadn’t seen the ducks in a week and I was hoping maybe they had flown south, vs being eaten. I was very excited to see them out in the yard Thursday afternoon.

I was able to spend a few nights working on the shop.

Course Tuesday was elections so that was a full day.

And now I’m hoping to spend a couple days doing fall tillage and I’m excited about spending time in the tractor.

************************************************************************

We had the last school show on Friday morning. After the show while the kids are waiting to get out, I have a moving light slowly sweeping around the stage and audience. I figured the kids would enjoy that. This audience loved it even more than I had hoped. Every time it hit them they cheered. I was standing by some kids who were getting restless so I was talking to them and telling them about that light. One asked if I could make it purple. I pulled out my phone and showed them how I could control it through my phone. Well. Game on. “Make it red!” “Make it yellow!” and I changed patterns and the kids shrieked with delight. It was a wonderful moment and it filled me with joy.

Our dog Bailey, she suckers Luna into something so often, I can’t believe Luna falls for it every time. Bailey will bark at nothing, but it gets Luna all excited. She’s pawing at the doors and climbing the walls to get out. It might be 3AM, but she’s ready to go. And she runs out barking, not even sure which direction she should be going. And Bailey comes to the door and gets petted and she’s happy. Eventually Luna will come back. Sometimes Bailey can get both Luna and Humphrey out, and they’re all barking different directions. Ya know, it would help if we all knew what we were barking about, don’t ya think? Life lesson there.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE A WARNING LIGHT FOR? BE WHIMSICAL!

(I Need a warning light telling me I’ve walked away from my water bottle again. )

47 thoughts on “And Then???”

  2. Warning: you are about to leave home without a charger for one of your devices! You will not be able to use this device for a week due to low battery!

    Warning: you are about to leave home without your specific crochet hook or knitting needles! Your project will remain untouched for a week!

    Warning: you’re not in good enough physical shape to attempt to go down that narrow, rocky trail in the semi-darkness. You may fall and… ow…

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    2. I got nailed on that one the other day I had to call an Uber to take me over to pick up my car and I had just put apples and butter in a pan to turn them into applesauce. I got a call 15 minutes later from my son, asking me how long ago I had left the house because he walked in to smoke detectors in the house full of smoke and couldn’t tell what the charge remains were in the pan.

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  4. Warning: TV/Radio show is about to air a clip of #45/47 opening his fat yap and spewing lies, nonsense, and hateful rhetoric. LEAVE THE ROOM AT ONCE WITH YOUR EARS COVERED AND YELLING “LALALALALA!” AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!

    Seriously, I have vowed not to intentionally listen to that man’s voice for the next four years, two months and one/two weeks. He is toxic, depressing, annoying, aggravating, angering, and just plain batcrap crazy. I’m too old for that sh*t in my life every day.

    I may accidentally hear him while channel surfing or on a TV/radio news clip, but I’ll turn it off or ignore it as quickly as possible.

    All media would be doing the world a huge favor if they never aired him speaking, or even printed photos of him in papers or online. Just use the Doonesbury caricature if you need some art. And only quote what he said with your voices, not his.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    4. The most wonderful thing about have Joe Biden in the White House for the last four years has been not having to listen to DT on the news as often. I will have a trigger finger on the mute for the forseeable future.

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      1. What you all said. I’m not even going to start using 45/47 instead of 45. I don’t want to waste extra key strokes. My reading list has a tab with all the presidents and it skips from 44 to 46. Now it will skip to 48.

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  7. I needed a warning light to remind me to include golden raisins in my Nuts.com order. I forgot, and had to put in a second order. I needed citron, glazed lemon peel, and glazed cherries. Stocking up for Christmas baking, you see. I ordered some lovely lard from my source in Pennsylvania, and will make lefse next weekend. Lefse should be made before Christ The King Sunday, which is the weekend after next. After that, Christmas baking will commence.

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      1. (Imagine that I am saying this in a Norwegian accent) “Well, you need to get that lefse fried early so you don’t have that mess in the kitchen over Christmas!”

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    2. Yesterday I started making lists for holiday cookies and party. When I asked YA for her input, she had plenty of opinions about the party food but was singularly uninterested in cookie choices. “Whooppie” I thought to myself… I can just make what I want. My glee lasted three hours. Never underestimate YA’s ability to circle back with her opinions!!

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  8. We seem to be coping with the recent political stress by filling up the pantry with spices from Penzey’s, beans from Rancho Gordo, and baking supplies from King Arthur and Nuts.com.. Hunkering down for the duration, I guess.

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    1. Daughter’s best friend since childhood comes from a very conservative Republican family. This Christmas she is being a subversive by getting family members Penzey’s spice boxes as gifts.

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  9. Rise and Shine, BAboons,

    I need a migraine warning light. I used to get auras or visual distortions but that went away a few years ago. So now I need a warning light. I woke up with a migraine, then went back to bed to sleep it off this morning. Ugh.

    Everything everyone else said is also true–cords, needles. I am still in my self-imposed news desert, listening to music a lot. That helps. Yesterday I was outside in a beautiful afternoon, working with my son to dis-assemble my vegetable garden. It was so nice to be outside. I will move my veggies up to the deck and card in containers. Our garden needed to be rebuilt if I continued to use it, and I found I just wanted to cut it back. So now the back of that garden will have flowers against a fence. Lou’s cousin will come get the dirt and the wood from the raised beds in the spring.

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  10. I need multiple warning lights about the multiple healthcare insurance and healthcare remedy ads. Which to reject?
    Medicare.
    Medicare supplements
    TrumpCare (I put that in for fun as there is no such thing )
    Neuropathy
    Cholesterol
    Blood pressure
    Itchy skin
    Mole tags
    Insomnia
    Tinnitus
    Floaters
    Erectile Dysfunction (fergeraboutit)
    Arthritis
    All it took was one little Google search and here I am!
    What to believe?! Who to believe?!
    Since Robert Kennedy Jr will be in charge of everything medical for the next four years and beyond, I’m going with…”eat, drink and be merry.”

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    3. Thanks for the organ recital, Wes. Just wait till you can add incontinence and worse to your litany of struggles. If you lose. your sense of humor, you’re truly a goner.

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  14. My car warns me about a lot of things – you’ve got a tire that’s low. You’re trying to lock the door and your keys are still in the car. You left the parking brake on….idiot. There’s something obstructing the gate from closing.

    I hope it can warn me if, as was the case with my Jetta wagon, I am pulling into an intersection where I have the right of way and the car to my right is not going to yield. That would be useful.

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