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Thinking Ahead

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This week’s Farm Update from Ben

I took a walk on Christmas morning. Me and the dogs, out through the fields. Saw a bunch of pheasants, tree’s I need to cut down, and lots of deer tracks. The header photo is from our walk. 


Weatherman Mark Seeley has a weather forecast and article on the back page of The Farmer magazine. In the last issue, he talked about January of 2006 being the warmest January in MN weather history. “January 2006 started a remarkable trend of warmth in Minnesota. Fifteen of the 19 Januarys since that time have brought warmer-than-normal temperatures to the state. Of further note, seven Januarys since that of 2006 also rank among the warmest 20 in state history.” — https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-life/january-2006-started-warm-and-never-wavered

There are many reasons to be appreciative of the deep-freeze cold we normally get in winter. It kills off harmful bugs, it helps breakdown the soil for better working conditions in the spring, helps break up compaction layers in the soil, it helps keep stored grain in condition, to name just a few benefits. The worst thing is repeated cycles of freezing and thawing. That’s hard on certain crops, like alfalfa. Ice sheeting, and the repeated freeze thaw or a lack of snow cause winter kill. I bet you master gardeners have examples of the problems repeated freezing and thawing can cause in the gardens. Not to mention how tough the warmer temperatures are on cattle that have a winter coat and are prepared for cold. Respiratory issues can really become rampant. 


We’ve had this one chicken living in the garage all winter. During the day she has taken to perching on the bottom rung of a sawhorse and looking at herself in a mirror. 

Mirror Mirror…

And then the other night, there were 5 chickens in the garage! OK, seriously, the poop from the one chicken is gonna be bad enough come spring, and at least she’s over in a corner. Having five of them: one in the rafters, two more on recycling containers, and one on the dogwash wall are too much. 

An unneeded bonus chicken in the garage

 The next day I kept the garage door closed. I figured they’d just go back down to the coop. Three spent the night around the corner perched on the bird seed containers. Why have they moved up here in the first place? I don’t know what their problem is. I’ve got several spending the night in the nest boxes where they lay their eggs. They’re not supposed to do that either. They’re not too crowded as some are in the right side space, some are in the left side space (and they all pile up on top of each other for some reason), some are up in the rafters, and the rest are in the main coop area. I did add another board in there if they need another place to perch. Is it too many roosters? I think we have 5 roosters these days. And maybe 55 hens? I don’t know exactly how many, they are too hard to count. Really 2 roosters would be a good number. There’s a couple that seem extra ornery to the chickens. How come they never get picked off by coyotes?

Christmas day late afternoon I forgot to shut the garage door in time and had to chase out 3 chickens. Yeah, even being Christmas, I chased them out. I had given them extra corn and layer ration in the morning. They’re fine. The one in the corner, she’s earned it, she can stay. 

Out in the shop, I added a metal top to the work bench. Dad built this work bench after the shed was built, so maybe in 1982 or 1983. When I started on the shop project two years ago, the guy doing the insulation wanted me to pull the bench off to redo the insulation behind it. I said no. Dad had put styrofoam and fiberglass insulation on that wall before he added the bench. I tore the top four feet off the wall as part of the shop project. The old insulation was pretty bad. Yeah, I probably should have redone the bottom four feet too, but I was already in over my head on this project and didn’t think I could handle any more. Hindsight you know. The bench is pretty well built, and the top is 2×8 boards with a gap between them. Stuff is always falling into that gap. Maybe it was Dad’s way of cleaning off the bench, to sweep the dirt and dust into the gap. Which then ended up in the bolt storage he had underneath. A couple weeks ago, I lost a screw down that gap and I decided that was it! I am covering this! I bought two sheets of 16 gauge steel (about 1/16th inch thick) 2′ x 4′ from a big box store. ($70 each! Jeepers!) Thanks Obama! (That’s a joke you know) And I rounded over the front edge. I need to get some different screws to hold it all in place, but it looks real professional. I’m glad I did that. 


Kelly helped me get the last screen back in the 630 grill and I have that all reassembled. 

Reassembled 630. Runs and sounds Great!

Needs an oil change yet and it will be ready for next summer’s work and projects. Next summer’s project I think will be rebuilding the belt pulley assembly. Clyde probably knows what a belt pulley is. You’ve seen pictures of back in earlier days, a long canvas belt ran between the tractor and an implement to provide power before the advent of power-take-off on the rear of a machine. That’s the belt pulley.

Not my photo. Courtesy of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmpuWNcqF2s

On the 630, that belt pulley is also the hand clutch assembly. And it rattles like some of the plates inside there are broken. I remember Dad adjusting it once in a while, but I don’t recall him ever pulling it all apart. The tractor also hasn’t had a working tachometer / speedometer / hourmeter for as long as I can remember. A few hundred dollars will get me a new gauge, new cable, and I don’t know yet if I’ll need a new gear inside the governor assembly or not. It’s all only money. 

I’ve done my crop rotation maps for next year and got the acres figured out. Talked with Nate at Meyer’s Seeds and I’ve got until January 16th to lock in the early order discount pricing on oats, corn and soybean seed. I was approved for $43,000 in loans for chemicals and fertilizer from the Co-op. That doesn’t include the loan for seed. I’m really hoping I don’t need all of that loan as the crop prices aren’t that good. The first few years I farmed I stressed out a bit more about the crop loans. Of course 35 years ago I probably spent $10,000 on everything and it was still big money. Now days it’s just part of the deal. I don’t stress over it so much.

I thought for sure Kelly and I were gonna win the lottery the other night. And what would we do with all that money? As the old joke goes, keep farming until it is gone!

EVER BEEN THROWN OUT? TOLD TO LEAVE? EVER THROWN SOMEONE OUT?

I know tim will have a story….

53 thoughts on “Thinking Ahead”

  2. I’ve told this story here before, but after all these years it’s inevitable that we repeat ourselves sometimes.

    In 1990, Robin and I went to Scotland. We flew into Prestwick, near Glasgow, rented a car, and started up the coast and inland. It was just before Easter, after which many of the castles open for the tourist season.

    On the second day we were in Inverary, site of Inverary Castle and seat of Clan Campbell. The castle wasn’t open to the public but we decided to explore the extensive grounds. We parked our little car in the capacious parking lot and ventured out.

    After about an hour of exploring, we were back near the car when a Range Rover drove up and this man in what looked like groundskeeper attire got out and requested, in what seemed a dismissive manner, that we remove our car from the parking lot. He said he needed to launch his hot air balloon from there. So we left.

    Afterward, we reflected on his haughty dismissive manner.
    “ Who did he think he was, the Duke of Argyll?”

    I happened to have in my luggage a book about Scotland. In it there was a photo of the Duke of Argyll. It was the same guy.

    So the next day I sent a postcard to my workmates back home. In it I reported, “We have been in the country two days and already the nobility has asked us to leave.”

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  3. Rise and Get the Heck Out, Baboons,

    I do not remember ever being thrown out of anything overtly. However, in the spirit of the passive aggressive Midwest tradition of shaming, there are plenty of experiences in which I became aware I was “unwelcome here.” Husband’s mother had difficulty accepting his divorce from the first wife. She applied intense pressure for us to marry and have another child (I declined that one) so she could have an even dozen grandchildren. She then spent the time after we did marry in 1993 making sure I knew I wasn’t doing it right. This culminated in her telling husband’s ex that no one liked me and they all missed her. They told me the opposite story. I finally refused to interact at all which she also did not like. Husband confronted her and asked her to apologize. She would not. There was just no way to exist in that family without judgement. My mother was not any better. To be fair, though, Husband’s aunt and his cousins from her family have been warm and welcoming, and are just a pleasure to know.

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  4. Can’t remember being asked directly to leave physically from a place, but about 5 years ago, someone I thought was a close friend chose to end the friendship, rather than try and work out a disagreement. I was deeply painful, and I still wonder what I should have done differently.

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  6. I’ve never been asked to leave, but I’ve felt the discomfort of that passive-aggressive silence Jacque mentioned, and left on my own.

    I did get someone thrown out, in a sense. My nightmare experiences with my supervisor in Waterville resulted in him being fired in 2010. Later, in 2019 or 2020, 45’s stepped-up immigration enforcement in his first term resulted in that same individual being forcibly removed from the US, and told that he may never return. I’m in favor of immigration. Immigrants bring lots of skills, training, willingness to contribute, and great food, however I felt elated to hear about this particular deportment. It was told to me well after the fact, by someone who knew how much joy it would bring me!

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  9. One time I dominated the urban jukebox with old Motown and Staks using Touchtones and was asked to stop or leave. My black excop girlfriend suggested we leave. She recognized a person wearing an ankle tracing bracelet as someone she had arrested. The lady always kept me from danger.

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  10. If you include in being asked to leave, getting let go from a job, I remember when J M Typographic couldn’t afford me anymore. I was hired (1975) as an extra runner, carrying packages of finished type to our clients in Manhattan, which is how I learned to navigate the subways. About 6 months of this and they had to cut back…
    Remember how things were before the Internet?

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  11. Belt pulley. Our Farmall had brackets along the frame for holding something. Using spruce 6x 6’s my father built a frame to mount in those brackets that held a 3 foot diameter saw off the front of the tractor driven by a belt from the pulley to the mandrill that held the saw. We used this to saw up the logs we brought up to make firewood. With help from valley friends who he would help, we sawed up about 15 cord of firewood in one day. It took my father and two helpers. As I reached age 13-14 I was one of the men pulling logs out of the pile and holding them and feeding them into the saw. My father was on the other side, also feeding the logs into the saw, catching the pieces, and throwing them onto a pile. It took 4-5 hours to do. We also used it to drive the threshing machine to harvest oats.
    Clyde

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    1. And, Ben, the header photo evokes memories. Could be our oats in early winter.
      Getting thrown out. Our church secretary twice threw me out of the office and the whole church. I suspect I know what she had against me but not sure. Since Sandra’s funeral (she is also our amazing organist), she is my warm buddy. I suspect I know what changed her.
      A former friend once took me to a party in which I did not fit. Everyone froze me out. I was 17. I walked 5 miles home at 10 at night.
      I know there have been other times, but I cannot quite recall. My eyes are shutting down.
      Clyde

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      1. Indeed. No guards. And the snow would get turned to ice, especially under my father. We would shovel sawdust under our feet. And we did keep backing the tractor up to align with the pile as we worked through. We all had to make sure the logs, not big heavy ones as you might imagine when I say logs, stayed at right angle to the saw. My father would resharpen the blade every time we backed up. Robert Frost has a poem about an accident with a crosscut saw.

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    3. was the blade exposed and you somehow fed the logs in so they spit out the other side without your fingers being sucked in shredded or otherwise mangled and also avoiding hitting the other side with flying chunks ?

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  12. I’ve never been thrown out, but warned away, both times by neighbors when I was a kid. First one was when we lived up on the Iron Range at the end of a long dirt road. One of our “neighbors” was an old guy who didn’t like us taking a shortcut around the lake, which required crossing part of his property. Like most men up there (except my dad), he owned a rifle/shotgun and we were afraid of him.

    The second time was after we moved down to the cities (Robbinsdale) when I was about 11. There was a woman on our block who would yell at kids walking down the sidewalk in front of her house. You could never see her, just hear her voice coming from inside the darkened house. Once when I was walking the family dog, he stopped to sniff in front of her house and she yelled at me to keep the dog away from her house (he hadn’t violated her yard, but I guess that didn’t matter). I hurried down the block, dragging Bruno behind me.

    I’ve never thrown anyone out, though I’m sure there have been times that I’ve wanted to.

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  13. We used to have a lot more trouble with kids parking along our road or driving through the fields.
    And I had more of a temper back then.
    If I caught them I know I used my big voice more than once telling them to get out. And don’t come back.

    I don’t remember ever being told to leave or being thrown out. Although I can sure imagine as a loud obnoxious high school student I must have been with a group of other annoying students in restaurant’s and just being too loud.

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  14. Once a group of work colleagues and I were asked to leave the Black Forest Inn over on Nicolet. There was a lot of alcohol involved.

    When YA was about four, my entire family was up here and we went to the Embers that used to be in Edina. There were five children who were ages 3 to 4 and several adults (who were not getting along to the best of their ability). After my folks paid the bill, I went and tipped the waitstaff extra, and as I was going out the door the manager very politely asked if we could not return. It was this trip that resulted in me making my famous “who can visit me and for how long” list.

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    1. Oh, groan. Glad to know it is not just my family. I often feel “family” is over rated, especially family with no limits on behavior. Later today I have to write a thank you to my step son for Christmas gifts, then set some limits on his verbally abusive wife who cannot come here.

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  16. The only thing that comes to mind is when I was with a group in downtown St. Paul, board member for a little nonprofit, and we sat down in the First National Bank Building skyway, in a seating area where they has some comfy chairs grouped around coffee tables. We were doing some planning for an event. A bored-looking security guard ambled over and told us we had to move along. Apparently the seating areas were just for show, not for people to actually sit there.

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    1. When I first started at the college almost 20 years ago, there were several student lounges. But then someone would get upset that students were actually using them and having ‘too much fun’ evidently, and they’d take all the chairs out and move them somewhere else.
      Fuddy duddies.

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      1. Glad you like it, Barb. It’s a very calming and soothing selection of songs, most of which I’m familiar with, but which I don’t hear much anymore. Mahaliah Jackson at the very end is wonderful, though not very traditional Scandinavian.

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  18. Amazing how little birds can manage to fly very well in these strong winds, winds which swirl in the alley between this three storey building and the tall trees.
    Clyde

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  19. I hope all the MN Baboons are hunkered down out of the storm. Son and DIL were in Mankato visiting her family and wisely left late yesterday afternoon to drive back to Brookings instead of waiting until today.

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  21. mrs hoffman was a terrible 3rd grade teacher. she threw shoes and locked me in the broom closet, one time she told me to go to the coat closet wher everyone hung their coats and put their lunches and hats on the shelves above the coats, it was 6 or 8 big 4’ wide doors that opened to allow students to hang the coats and stash lunch’s book bags etc. when i got put in there it was dark and although crowded it was possible to maneuver from one end to the other. as it was before noon the lunches were all there. i knew who had fritos snd i searched and found and enjoyed a bag then moved down the line and found a second. at lunch before we got let out to recess. one of the frito girls realized her frito’s were missing and proclaimed out loud this was the case. this caused the second victim to chime in snd as it was quickly deduced what had taken place i was giving my comeuppance i think the teacher hesitated a bit realizing she would have to own up to locking me in the closet. i was sent to the principles office and parents called to come get me
    similar story when i showed up on st pattys day in green instead of catholic uniform blue dad called and he came to get me in the green shirt green bow tie and green hat he liked to sport on st pattys
    in germany they have what they call b joints where girls come up and rub on you and ask you to buy them a drink. i said yes as did my cohort and when the bill came for $800 i told them to take a flying leap. i talked to my buddy and told him we were gonna skup byt when we hit the door he got out and i got collared. the cops laughed and asked what i thoghr was going on . was i really that stupid . i said i was and they should take me to jail. the cops negotiated $100 and never come back. and i didnt .
    we were at a friends bachelor party and went to a strip joint in st paul about the same time the susan b anthony dollars were introduced we discovered they had a slot sawed into the stage where you could put the susan b dollars and entice the dancer to perform in front of you. i went to the bartender and got a roll of quarters and when my friens saw how well those quaters were received they got some too. well some squealer told the girls and they hit the roof hitting and kicking and calling us names. the bouncers laughed us all the way to the door snd told us to move on down the line and so we did
    thats my contribution to this weekend topic and by the way ben how did you guess. these are my presentable stories

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