2025, Automotive, Farming Update, Theatre, Uncategorized

Running Smoke

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

It was a busy week in the theater again. Shows the last two Saturday’s, but Spring Break next week, that will be a quiet week.

Not much happening on the farm. We survived the “blizzard” on Wednesday. Maybe two inches of snow, and I got a snow day meaning I had time to work in the shop and organize bolts.  I did pull some wagons out last week. See the header photo. The seed wagon has a good flatbed top that I built 25 or 30 years ago. But the wheels and frame under it, technically, that’s the “running gear” are pretty wore out. I have a much newer running gear, with better tires that I reclaimed after disposing of an old chopper box that was junk when dad bought it new in 1980.
So here’s a long boring story about that!

When he first bought the chopper, blower, and wagons, in order to fill the silo’s by ourselves, it was probably the mid 1970’s. My brother helped Dad at first. When I got older, the best job for me, at 15 years old, was to run the chopper, leaving it to Dad to run the smaller tractor and pull the wagons home to unload. You’ll just have to trust me on that. It was actually safer in the big tractor just going around and around the fields, than it was pulling them home, hooking up the power take off (the PTO), unloading by the blower (the machine that blows the crop up the pipe into the silo) and running back out to the field. So, I did that. Dad had two chopper boxes: one being filled in the field, and one home being unloaded. Or on the path somewhere in between.

One box was 14’ long and was a used ‘Kasten’ brand box. The other was 16’ long, and old John Deere box. But it sat taller, and it wobbled more. And I guess I was afraid it was going to tip over, so I’d slow down in the chopper, and then the shear pins would snap off because the machine plugged up. Shear pins are a safety thing to prevent overloading the chopper, but evidently you can break them by driving too slow. I’m sure dad yelled at me to speed up, but I was nervous. Finally, in the interest of his sanity, he traded off the 16’ JD box for a 14’ Papec box. Doing a little internet research, the Papec company started in 1900 and looks like it had a pretty good product at first. But the chopper box they made in 1975 was cheaply made crap. I feel like it was always broken. I bought another used Kasten box in the mid 90’s. And eventually junked the Papec box, and now I have this running gear that was under it.

Chopping was a tough time. Chopping hay needed to be done in a timely manner and the the pipe going up the silo would sometimes plug up (on the hottest, most humid day of summer) and I remember being very angry while trying to get it unplugged. I remember telling Kelly one day there was 18 tires that could go flat while trying to chop. Kelly suggested that might be the wrong attitude. But it was true.

Which brings us back to the seed wagon top, which should be moved to the better running gear, and it will all be a much better ‘wagon’.

I remember dad swapping boxes and running gear. You jack up the box, put a 55-gallon barrel under the corners, pull out one set of wheels, and slip the other set underneath. Nothing too it.

I’m thinking I can lift the back end with the loader and chains, some blocks under the front corners, and Bob’s your uncle! There are two brackets on the front axle, and two on the back that secure the top from sliding around. Typically, we don’t bolt it tight, because it needs to be able to flex a bit, so we wrap a chain around it leaving it a little slack. That way it can flex a bit but not fall off.

I’ve been working on a show, opened this past Friday, called ‘She Kills Monsters’ by Qui Nguyen. It’s a show about the relationship between two sisters. One sister played ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ and the other sister is learning about the game as a way to get closer to her sister. It’s been a lot of fun to work on. It’s a great director, a great cast, an amazing stage manager who can figure out my light cues, and I have lots of smoke and haze and wiggling lights. I think I ended up with 155 light cues. That’s a pretty good number of cues for a 2-hour show. This isn’t even a musical. Many straight shows end up with 40 – 60 cues.

That last photo was me trying to get the smoke machine level adjusted right. This is clearly too much smoke. But isn’t it fun to see all the light beams!!

The bathroom is finally finished!

Almost!

It’s working, just waiting on shower glass yet, but the rest is done. It looks really nice.

Next week I’ll post the pre and post photos.

REMEMBER ROLLING DOWN HILLS AS A KID? WHEN IS THE LAST TIME YOU ROLLED ANYWHERE?

36 thoughts on “Running Smoke”

  2. Do we count events like five months ago when for some reason, my knee just quit coming down the steps into the kitchen, and I rolled across the linoleum??

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  3. I tend to use a device with wheels any time I try rolling anywhere. I’ve been in the habit for years now, ever since I learned to ride a bike.

    Pippin was amused when I’d roll around on the floor with him. He thought that was great fun.

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  5. There is a hill on the playground of Grandson’s school which is good for rolling and sledding. There aren’t many hills in Brookings, although just to the north is the Buffalo Ridge (Coteau de Prairie) which would be wonderful for rolling and sledding.

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  6. We will hope there is no smoke here on Monday night when we will be in a fire weather watch due to drought conditions and extremely strong and gusty winds coming through in a short lived cold front.

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  7. I rolled across the shop floor the other day. Sitting on a shop stool, thankfully close to the ground, reached for something, it tipped, I grabbed a garbage can, which was empty and also tipped, and I sort of slid to the ground. Then I rolled to my knees and climbed back up.

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  8. I’ve told before about walking briskly on a sidewalk at Hennepin and 31st street, slipped somehow (not good tread on shoes?) and started to do down. Remembered Joel as a kid playing whatever, and just tucked and did a roll instead of falling! Got up, kept going… woman who passed me said “Nice roll!”

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  10. Better Late than Never, Baboons,

    Last night we attended Come From Away at the Ordway. It was a wonderful and inspiring show–with smoke representing 9/11. We were near the stage, so the smokey stuff got irritating to my eyes. I thought they used way too much. It lingered throughout the entire show. Ben, What is that stuff made of?

    When I was a very little girl I used to roll down the hill in the back yard with my dad. At the time that hill seemed very large, but it was small. I thought that was so much fun. We did it again and again. I never got tired of that.

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    3. That is such a great show! We saw it last year at the Orpheum. Love the music and lyrics. And the story is so touching.

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  18. This RL Burnside rendition of Rollin’ and Tumblin’ became my favorite after sharing his whiskey backstage at a Fargo Blues Festival.

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  20. there was a hill at a friends hose as a kid and we went to family dinner there and had a hill rolling session with all the kids. wed roll down and run back up. it was a steep hill so youd roll fast
    my little sister was probably 4 so she didnt roll real fast. i rolled over her because i went fast and she didnt. i broke her collar bone. i felt horrible. ive been rolling a lot for the last year. breaking a leg will make you roll into an upright posture when your leg is taken out of the equation. most recently last night after laying on the floor to pop my back into place before bed. im getting really good

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