2025, Business, Farming Update, History, Music, Nature, Travel

THINGS ARE DROPPING

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This weeks farm report from Ben

I’ve noticed some soybean fields just starting to turn yellow. Kelly says the barn swallows are grouping up. And acorns are dropping. All that probably means something. 

Crop prices keep dropping, too. Due to predictions of good yields across the corn belt. Locally, corn is under $3.50 / bushel, and soybeans are under $10. That’s a tough place to be. My direct costs to grow and harvest corn is roughly $400 / acre, and for soybeans about $300 / acre. Not knowing how the fall will shape up, or what drying costs might be, we’re speculating on final yields and prices. Making conservative estimates of $3.00 / bu final price means I’d need 133 bu / acre to cover costs. And that should be doable. Optimistically I’d have 180 bu / acre. That would leave me $273/ acre to cover repair costs, fuel, interest, crop insurance, pay off the loans, make payments on long term debt, ect. Soybeans work out the same way, just different numbers. Neither is in the bin yet, so we’ll see. This is why I have a few other jobs. To support my farming hobby. (eye roll)

 Last weekend Padawan and I did a bunch of stuff. We packed the wheel bearings with grease and took the other wheel hub apart to replace those bearings. Both rear tires were wore out; one was on borrowed time. A few days later I went to Appel Service in Millville MN with the two wagon tires, a tire from the plow I had replace this spring, and another tire I found in the shop that I haven’t remember what it’s for yet. I’ve talked about Appels before; we’ve been taking tires to them for years and years. It’s about 25 minutes away. Great guys and a great drive. 

I forgot to buy the dust seals for the axel hubs, which I picked up on Monday, but I had padawan reinstall the hub, even without the dust seal, just so he could see how you tighten it up and put the cotter pin in it. He had no idea what a cotter pin was. If you don’t know, it’s a split pin, length varies:  length and the diameter as needed, and once through the hole, you bend the sides to prevent whatever you’re holding from coming off. I have some pins that are 1/4” diameter and 2” long and some tiny ones 1/2” long and 1/32″ diameter.

Then we drained the coolant and he replaced the radiator hose on the old John Deere 630. I had him pull the carburetor off. He is too young to know what a carburetor does.   We changed the oil, oil filter, and the air filters on the big tractor, the 8200. It has two air filters; The biggest is about the size of a 5 gallon bucket. He was really impressed with that. Then a smaller inner air cleaner. He went home and cleaned up, and came back out with his girlfriend, who chased down her pet chicken, and they stayed for pizza with us.  The kids, not the chicken. 

I have been working on the 630 exhaust manifold. Got the bolts out and the manifold off! Heated it with a torch, just like my friend Tim J. said. Would you believe there’s another Tim J?? He’s not too much like this tim j. but that one knows a lot about old tractors. The two bolts that were broken off, I welded nuts on the top (to make a bolt head again) and they came right out! I couldn’t believe it!

Heating the castings to break the rust
Nuts welded on the broken bolts
Uh, this looks broken…

Took me a while to find my welding stuff as I haven’t needed that in the new shop yet. the old welder on the bottom, newer welder on the top. That old welder, maybe from the 1950’s? has taught several of us how to weld. Dad taught me and some of my nephews. The oxy-acetelyne torch to the right, I’ve had since 1982. I learned how to use a gas welder in high school shop class and mom and dad bought me this one for my 18th birthday.

WELDERS

Friday morning I went to pick up a really nice long reach 5 ton hydraulic floor jack that I got at an auction.

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Then to Millville to pick up the 4 tires I had dropped off earlier in the week.  I took a random gravel road, 592ndstreet out of Millville, and had a great drive, all by myself, following the Zumbro river to the North. It was a great drive! I wasn’t sure where I was, and there was no cell signal down there along the hills, but eventually the road looped back to the south and I found my way home.

MEANDERING

The truck seemed to be riding rougher than it had earlier and the tread was separating on a front tire. Thankfully it got me home, and I jacked it up (using the new jack) and went back to Millville with the truck tires. Another great drive with no one else on the  road, Just the way I like it. It was about 4:15 on Friday when I got there and the shop was pretty quiet. Paul and Dan took the tires off, Jim got me two new ones, and they mounted and balanced them, and I was headed back home in about 20 minutes. I sure do like going to Millville. Good thing I’m employed again since I spent $1200 on tires Friday. 

My brother came out and we took 100 bales of straw off the wagon with the broken front end, and put them on another wagon. Then I put 20 bales in the truck for delivery on Saturday, and the last 52 bales on a trailer. Perhaps Saturday I’ll get the front wheels off and see what’s really broken on there. Right after I put the two new tires back on the other wagon. 

And I pulled out a disk I’m not using anymore to take to an auction next week. I pulled a bunch of junk out of the trees last week. Two old flare boxes, an old elevator, an old digger, and a 24’ bale elevator that I will also take to the auction.  There wasn’t trees growing through them when I parked them there… that’s how long some of it has been there. Time to go.

Music this week is Nina Simone. I recently heard ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” 

WHAT MUSIC IS GIVING YOU A LIFT THIS WEEK?

MOST COMMON FRIEND NAME IN YOUR PHONE?

64 thoughts on “THINGS ARE DROPPING”

  3. The mention of Nina Simone puts me in mind of the Yamatoya Jazz Spot in Kyoto. When we visited in October of last year, the temperature there averaged in the 80s and we were walking as much as eleven miles a day. The Yamatoya Jazz Club was a place Robin had discovered in her research before our trip. It was a little more than a mile from our hotel.
    It wasn’t easy to find but thanks to GPS we were able to make our way there.
    The couple that owns the place are both in their eighties. He serves as bartender and she serves. The first time we visited, there were only a couple of patrons, sitting at the bar and quietly conversing with the bartender. The light was subdued and mellow jazz was playing on the high-end stereo equipment. One wall of the club was solidly packed with jazz LPs. A Nina Simone album was playing. Robin liked it so much she ordered a CD copy of the album later that night when we returned to the hotel.
    There was something magical about the place—so much so we returned twice more during our stay there.

    https://en.japantravel.com/kyoto/jazz-spot-yamatoya/15482

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  4. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    John and Linda win the Contacts List, especially John.

    The thing that lifted my spirits this week was not in music, but in communications. Gavin Newsom absolutely ruled it and made me laugh, as well as caused some hope to bloom. His trolling tweets were magnificent.

    There was one musical lift, as well, also in the world of politics. Husband’s Cousin’s son is running for governor of Iowa. Everyday he posts videos of Townhall meetings he is running. One of the videos has a crowd singing “America, the beautiful”. He is opening every meeting with this. Such a simple thing, to get a crowd to unify in singing. Garrison Keillor used to do this. Churches increase community feeling by singing hymns. It lifted my spirit to see it. Maybe someone can use a simple tradition to get beyond the insanity.

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  5. Well, WP keeps logging me out. It ate one post already. Fortunately it wasn’t a long one.

    I think the name Pam must be the most common in my phone. I know a few Pams, including one of my oldest and best friends, so I use that name quite a bit.

    I’ve been listening to such a variety of music lately. Neil Young songs seem to be on replay in my head, a Neil Young earworm. I guess he’s not the most uplifting musician, but his music is a thread through my own life and many others of my generation. Maybe WP will let me share a video, maybe it won’t.

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  8. I have 21 people in my phone who are not there for business reasons. If I include the 8 names there for business reasons, I have no duplicates.

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  9. Spring wheat is in full harvest here, now that it is cooler and less humid. Sunflower fields are in full flower. They grow corn out here for the ethanol plant. It isn’t at all equal to the field corn in MN and IA.

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  10. Winter wheat is already harvested, and will be planted again soon to grow briefly, get frozen and snowed on, then come back up again really early in the spring.

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  11. I just checked my phone and there’s no clear winner as to most popular name, but there are a bunch of doubles. There’s an Ann and an Anne, two Lindas, a Sara and a Sarah, a Laurie and a Lori, two Johns and a Jon, two Pauls, two Bobs, and two Jims.

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    1. I have seven Craig’s. Seven Dan’s, a Dana, and a Daniel.
      Multiple Amy’s, Andy’s, lots of Bill’s and Brian’s. Don’s, Donald’s, and Donnie’s. Eleven Joe’s and eleven Jim’s!

      I do have a lot of contacts in my phone, I swear the phone automatically adds contacts when I’m not looking. And some of these I don’t need anymore. But every now and then I am surprised at how many of the same names I have.

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    1. It’s getting tougher to find ‘an old guy’ who does know about carburetors…
      Sometimes when I call a parts store, I’ll just ask first, “Do you know what a ‘Slant Six’ is? If they know that engine, they’re old enough I can talk to them. 🙂 Or at least they know their stuff.

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  14. Listening to music, really listening, is a favorite thing I do. And introducing favorite singers to friends is right up there with introducing someone to a loved poem or a good book.

    During Hans’s recent trip to Ely, my good friend Helen stayed with me. We share musical tastes, though she’s more apt to be familiar with more mainstream artists that have achieved a fair amount of fame. She listened to WCCO when the denizens of the trail listened to The Morning Show.

    A recent topic of the trail was favorite covers, and when I told her about it, she asked what my choice had been. When I shared Shawn Colvin’s cover of Killing the Blues she wanted more, she loved it, and was not familiar with her work at all. She asked if I’d compile a list of other favorite artists that she might not be familiar with, so I’ve been digging into my memory bank for music to share with her.
    Today is her 79th birthday, and I sent her a link to this:

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  15. Four Davids, four Marys, for Lindas. But I have the most trouble with my two Rita’s. For some reason when I am texting, there’s a 50% chance that I might be texting the wrong one. Not sure why I can’t keep track of this more easily.

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    1. I get very few texts, but chances are good when I get one that I won’t see it for a day or two. When I reply to it, there’s an equally good chance that the next text they’ll get from me is a shopping list I had intended to send to Hans. I’m obviously not someone who spends a lot of time monkeying around with the phone. I much prefer my laptop for staying in touch with people.

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  17. Husband and I went on a road trip to see Mary Chapin Carpenter in concert at Wolf Trap last week and are still on a high from the energy of the crowd and the music. Her rendition of Stones in the Road with lyrics updated to reflect the current political situation brought the audience to their feet (Wolf Trap is in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.).

    Not many duplicates in my contacts, just three Sarah/Sara.

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    1. A friend of mine recently attended an outdoor concert somewhere in Maine where Don McLean was the main performer. At some point during his performance McLean stated that he was “110%” behind the current administration, and admonished the audience to get behind the president’s agenda of returning this country to greatness. It was a message that didn’t resonate well with his audience. I’m guessing that he lost some fans that day.

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        1. Actually, there have been reports for.years that he’s an abusive asshole. According to his ex-wife, daughter, and artists who have traveled with him as opening acts to his performance, he’s a rather unpleasant person to be around.

          I still love lots of his older work (have no idea of anything current, and will not make an effort to find out), but it has made me think about the conundrum that many of us are faced with: the realization that an artist whose talent and work we admire may very well be a deeply flawed person we’d not want to associate with. There are any number of great artist that I can think of that fall in this category.

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      2. too bad
        one of those things you cant unremember

        ive begun playing vincent ( the other don mclean hit) now i will know this each time i think about playing it
        always knew his brain was different . he has never sllowed american pie to be used in any way. he has it locked up. bet his family has plans on what to do with it latee

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    2. I have never seen Mary Chapin Carpenter perform live, but I really enjoyed the mini concerts she gave from her house during the pandemic. I bet she’s terrific in front of a live audience.

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  19. I’ve had two real lifts from music this week, both in person and local. Thursday was a back-yard concert featuring an a cappella quartet called Johnson Street Underground, four guys I know from church who started a barbershop-style quartet, and they ended with a moving rendition of Billy Joel’s And So It Goes. This with the King’s Singers is as close as I can find:

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  20. The second was a traveling outdoor opera offering (that doesn’t take itself too seriously!), the Pick-up Truck Opera, put on by Mixed Precipitation. It was Mozart music that they had set to something called “The Return of Idomeneo”. Unfortunately it was cool and blustery, but still a lot of fun.

    Some of you may have seen them (as we did) in/around the Twin Cities – it used to be called the Picnic Operetta, I think. They are such a hoot! but extremely talented singers… If I find time, I would do a blog post about it.

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  25. I can’t do my contact list because half of them are last name rather than first name. I tried going through it and I can’t keep track. I have a couple thousand names in my phonebook.

    I go through different phases of who cranks me up sometimes it’s Dylan. Sometimes it’s Miles Davis sometimes it’s someone else. ive noticed im a lot more emotional lately. i get teared up multiple times a week with radio, podcast, tv, stuff i see in every day encounters. i think im cranked up most of the time. just tweak me to see me go off the deep end

    creativity is everywhere. we are being bombarded with stuff to love. if youre not immersed, change something

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