2024, Family, Farming Update, holidays, Uncategorized, Weather

Don’t Do It

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Today’s farming update comes from Ben.

Well, we finally got measurable snow. Maybe 5” for us on Thursday. One benefit to it being so cold before it snowed is that the ground is frozen hard and I’m not ripping up quite as much sod as I generally do. Oh, I can still rip some up if I do it right, but certainly not as much as I would if it the ground wasn’t frozen before it snowed.

Bailey, my tractor buddy and I, spent an hour re-learning how to blade snow off the road and clear the yard.


I realized I forgot to put markers at the corners of the shop concrete, and I haven’t gotten the snowblower in the shed yet, but really, I don’t know where I’d put it anyway. I still gotta get the four wheeler in the shed, and the trailer for the lift I’m borrowing (and that I also don’t know quite where to put). Once the shop project is fully finished, I’ll have a bit more room; right now I’ve still got 14’ sheets of pole barn steel laying in the way. And once I get the tools and extra crap sorted out, then I can rearrange better for next winter. Heck, maybe by next winter I’ll have the lean too done on the back side and some of this stuff can go in there.

As I write this on Friday, my car is getting an oil change and tire rotation and I’m watching the snow melt and drip off. What a yucky job for the techs. Everybody has to start somewhere and presumably that’s doing the sloppy messy jobs.

We’ll be having the longest night, and shortest day this weekend. The days get longer from here on out and there’s light at the end of the tunnel!

The other morning as daughter and I were headed into town during the snow, we saw a box truck struggling and I commented that those kinda vehicles have terrible traction and don’t do well in this kind of weather. I was about to launch into a chronicle of rear wheel drive vs front wheel drive, and wheel base length, and how those things impact winter driving, but I stopped myself, and I asked, “Do you want me to keep talking about this or should I stop?” She gave it some serious thought and finally said “Naw”.

I’ve always appreciated her brutal honesty.

Do you all have that magic ten minutes in the morning? As we’re trying to get going in the mornings, I think we’re just about to leave and suddenly it’s ten minutes later and she doesn’t have her shoes on yet. I don’t get it. Where does that ten minutes go? This has been a thing since the kids were small. We’re almost ready to go and then it’s ten minutes later and now we’re late. It’s a magic ‘time hole’.

I hope you all have magical Christmas’ or Solstice events. Remember to spend a little time being grateful for what you have one way or another. Take some time to ponder.

DO YOU KNOW ENOUGH TO STOP TALKING?

WHERE DO YOU LOSE TIME?

35 thoughts on “Don’t Do It”

  1. What is ripping, exactly? (I could probably look it up…)

    Yes about the mysterious, magical ten minutes, Ben! Even without kids, I try to get us out the door in what seems the right timing, and one of us has to go back for something, and then we finally get in the car and I look at the clock and we’re several minutes behind! Almost. Every. Single. Time.

    SOMEtimes I know when to stop talking, but ask Husband – it’s not often enough.

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  2. I’m learning to keep my mouth shut. It’s hard sometimes. Say no more.

    I lose time in the mornings too. It just seems like I’m in one kind of speed zone while the rest of the world, and the clock, are in another. I get up, do a few things, sit down for a mug of coffee or tea, and suddenly it’s 10 a.m.

    It sure is a pretty morning out there! Happy Winter’s Solstice, Baboons!

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  3. As a therapist, one gets accustomed to sitting in uncomfortable silence with clients. We also have to follow rules for disclosure of health information, even in court. One of my favorite lines is “Federal law prohibits me from disclosing that information without a release of information or unless I am ordered to by the judge”.

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  4. Rise and Shut UP, Baboons,

    I often know when to stop talking, but there are notable exceptions when I forget or get too swept up in whatever it is. That is often not pretty. Ben, your girl is very wise in her honesty and that is pretty funny. “Naaaaw.”

    I can lose time when working with clay, especially if it is in the group of friends that gathers to do this together. But that 10 minutes in the morning disappears at my house, too. It has been interesting to watch husband lose time completely. He no longer has any sense of minutes or days passing. What a strange thing to watch in someone who used to organize himself and an entire department, including deadlines.

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  7. For me, the challenge is knowing when to not START talking. Thinking twice before firing off that witty reply or commenting on something that’s better left alone. I’m getting better at it but I still slip up.

    I have a magical disappearing chunk of time as well, usually on days when I work in the office. Seems I can never get out of the door at the desired time; those 10-20 minutes just mysteriously disappear.

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  11. I do not have that magic time loss. I am generally very good at getting myself out the door exactly when I think I should be getting myself out the door. I don’t know how I’ve managed to have this trait. Unfortunately, I live with a person who does have the magic time lapse. So I am often standing in my coat “, in the kitchen with the keys in my hand and YA is not down the steps yet.

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      1. It’s not very clear exactly how this was patched together. The audio is from the Scorcese film The Last Waltz. The first part of the video is too, although it doesn’t reliably line up with the audio. About a minute and a half in, the video switches to something somebody filmed of the same concert. Maybe with a halndheld videocam. It’s from 1976.

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  16. there are a bunch of rules to be a salesman, and there are also a bunch of rules when it comes to being in power situations and meetings where corporate stuff matters and the one that comes to mind is when you are having a discussion and you’re making your point you need to finish making your point and then shut up if you don’t get the correct response, the tendency is to start jabbering on some more and trying to say more to build up your case for the point that you’re trying to make and the punchline is that it’s not a good idea to do that. The proper thing to do is to simply shut up, and it comes down to such a strong point that the comment has been made that the first guy who speaks loses if he responds, you’re able to respond to his response and take care of it that way if he doesn’t respond and it’s left with you making your point that’s the end of the story as well

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    1. I’ve been watching a series of deep dive analysis of Columbo episodes. The detective’s regular ploy is to get the suspect to talk too much instead of just saying “I don’t know.”

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