This week’s Farming Update from Ben
You know, it was so warm last week, it was so freaking muddy. It was terrible. And I know it’s gonna happen the next time it warms up again. But that’s next month’s problem!
I’ve always found it interesting the clumps of snow and ice that accumulate on the far side of railroad crossings. When a vehicle hits a bump like that and the ice chunks fall off and skid up the road a ways. Newton’s first law about an object in motion I think. It’s kinda cool to me.
Wednesday this week I went to an oat producers meeting. Got another really good free meal!
It was a very good meeting. Lots of good speakers and interesting topics. I did critique the font of one guy’s slides… I’m such a snob. The meeting started at 10:00, and people wandered in for another hour. And it reminded me how hard it was to get anywhere before about noon when milking cows and doing chores in the winter. Feed the beef cows, feed the dairy cows, milk, chase the beef out of the yard, let the dairy cows out of the barn, clean the barn, haul out the manure, throw down hay from the haymow, spread out straw bedding, spread out the hay, and put the cows back in when they’re done eating outside. It all took a while.
There were 159 farmers in attendance (because the host said now she knew how long it took to get 159 people through the line for lunch.)
One guy kinda looked like Robert Duvall.
I wore a peach colored shirt. I was the most colorful person there. A lot of plaid and dark colors. And a fair number of women at this meeting too.
It was mentioned that 26% of the farmers in Olmsted County planted cover crops last, involving 20,000 acres.
As one speaker went through his slides, he’d show a field of oats and call out ‘Eye candy!’
*He’s also the guy that said it was an ‘Oat-standing day’.
Several of the speakers, and many of the farmers, are growing a few hundred acres of oats. They talk about their 40’ air seeders and stripper heads for oats and growing 140 bushel / acre oats and I sit there quietly with my 30 acres, and 40 bushels / acre and think ‘You don’t have any deer do you?’ I asked a question if anyone is dragging their oat fields. Crickets. One speaker finally said they do no-till planting. Oh. yeah meaning they don’t have bare dirt like I do. Several said that. One of the benefits of no-till, is being able to get out and plant in March without needing to wait for the ground to warm up and dry out to do tillage before planting, like I do.
Several of these farmers are responsible for the surge in oat growers. They’re the founders of the oat mafia.
One guy shared his spreadsheet for his crop input and expenses. If input costs are going to be high, and crop prices are going to be low, then we hope for high enough yields to make up the difference. One example was a 1400 acre farm. If he does 700 acres corn and 700 acres beans, expenses will be this much, income theoretically this much, and they’re losing money. However, if they do 466 acres corn, 467 acres bean, and 467 acres oats, they can make some money. Oats cost less than corn to produce. Remember, less yield or a thunderstorm or a lower price and it’s all out the window.
Jochum Wiersma, from the U of M is always a good speaker. He’s from the Netherlands, and he’s got a bit of an accent, and he is funny, and a very intelligent good speaker. He asked the group if we thought farming was more like NASCAR or a European Rally race? Obviously, a rally. “NASCAR is all left turns, you always know what’s coming.” If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. That’s why farming and raising oats is all about managing risk.
I took home several good lessons. My crop rotation has been soybeans, corn the next year, then oats the next. Repeat. I do it that way because soybeans add nitrogen to the soil meaning I spend less on nitrogen for the following corn crop. When our son was in high school, he did a report for some class, comparing corn after oats and corn after soybeans. Surprisingly, the corn after oats did better. and I don’t really recall when or why I changed up the rotation order, but it was said several times, DO NOT PLANT OATS AFTER CORN, it’s more susceptible to crown rust disease. And maybe that’s why my oat crop has been so lousy lately. So, we’ll try planting oats on the fields that were soybeans last year.
I cut down a bunch of dead Ash trees last Saturday. Thirty years ago, I planted two rows of ash trees and some arborvitae shrubs, hoping to create a windbreak in which I planned to put calf hutches on the south side. It turned out to be a pretty wet area. All the arborvitae died off a few years later. The ash trees got to be 40′ tall and were kind of a pain to mow around, now they’re all dead from Emerald Ash borer. There’s a few I’m waiting for a tree company to take down as they’re too close to the feed storage building for me to cut down. I left the stumps about two feet tall for the moment. I’ll trim them off at ground level this summer.
Using the tractor and loader I was pushing the trees into a pile, and that’s when a tree branch rolled around the inside of the rear tire rim and snapped off the valve stem. Have I mentioned the chloride fluid I have put in the rear wheels for additional weight and traction? It sprays out when you break off the valve stem. My friends at Appel Service and $650 fixed that on Monday. I put the grapple bucket on the loader and picked up the rest of the trees to move them.
That worked much better. Until I got the tractor I over a stump. Not really sure how I did that. Bent a shield underneath…
I parked the tractor in the shop and let it dry off and warm up for a couple days, then I rolled under with wrenches and removed the shield. Trying to bend the shield enough to reach the bolts and I remembered Newtons third law: me on a rolling creeper pushing against a larger tractor…doesn’t move the shield, it moves me. An equal and opposite reaction! SCIENCE!
I’ve had chickens living in the garage again. I chased three out of the rafters one evening. The chickens hop from one rafter to another, and the dogs got all riled up and daughter thought the whole thing was hysterical.
TALK ABOUT LEARNING TO RIDING A BIKE.
TALK ABOUT BIRDS / THINGS YOU’VE SEEN PERCHED IN ODD PLACES
Trail Baboon 
About 3 years ago, I learned not to ride my bike again. I fell. The bottle of beer I was toting in the carry bag fell out and shattered all over the carport. I did not make it to the party down the lane.
This spring, I will give my bicycle to our helper.
In many ways, getting old sucks.
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That’s harsh.
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I remember my dad running along the side of my bike (on our lawn, to slow things down) when we finally got me a small size bike. I had been riding a full size one we got from my aunt, with guide wheels… Didn’t take too many tries.
Luckily, I am still able to bike to several places near here in the warm months.
In the Robbinsdale house, we were next to a nature park (one house between it and us), and all kind of things showed up in our yard. I will never forget the time we had a mallard on the peak of our roof.
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That really was a beautiful setting, especially from your back porch.
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Yes, the yard was huge because there was no alley, just a railroad track… : )
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We donated our bikes to a bike shop several years ago. The shop fixes them and gives them away.
I had a little red bike I loved to ride down a big hill near our house. You had to be careful at the bottom of the hill since there was a lot of sand there that would cause you to skid out.
Once I thoughtlessly left my bike in the driveway right behind my dad’s car. He didn’t see it and backed over it. He was really upset because he thought he had run me over.
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Rise and Shine, Baboons,
Twice now, we have had a wild turkey perching around our house: once under the deck which was really startling because wild turkeys are so large and once in the front Linden tree over the driveway. Again, it was very large. My brother is a turkey hunter and had been in all kinds of remote places hunting them. I invited up to our yard to blast away and sent him a picture. We also had a young eagle without the white head or tail just sitting in the back yard. It acted stupid in that baby animal kind of way in which the bird is not wary enough yet. It just sat there looking off into the neighbor’s yard. It was so big and very beautiful. Eagles often soar over the wind currents at the top of the bluff that is the back of our yard. It must have decided to rest there. We get a remarkable variety of birds here.
I learned to ride a bike at age five. It was a rusted, battered bike. I was able to learn it easily, then I savored the freedom it gave me to roam our little town.
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I have a Trek “comfort” bike. It has a step-through design, slightly raised handlebars, and a nice, comfortable seat. I will ride it more when Maggie can be left alone for an hour or two. There is a nice trail just to the east of me that goes to downtown Northfield on the west side of the Cannon River, then returns on the east side. It’s lovely and will become a segment of the Milltowns State Trail.
I also have a small, fun, electric scooter. I’m going to sell it this spring. It works great and it’s a lot of fun, but I don’t need it.
Birds in strange places, hmmm… I’ve seen so many. It’s hard to narrow it down. I guess I have to say it was the pair of ospreys who tried to build their (very large) nest on top of a power pole at the DNR fish hatchery in Waterville. The first nest fell off almost right away. I got the DNR Nongame Wildllife and Wildlife staff to build a nest platform. Minnesota Valley Electric Cooperative erected a nest pole. We worked together to erect the pole and place the nest platform. The Nongame Wildlife staff suggested “seeding” the platform with some largish sticks. It worked. The next year, the ospreys nested on the platform, and have nested there continually ever since. I still check the nest every year, even though I’m no longer in that area. The nest fledges from one to three young ospreys every year, returning an osprey population to an area of the state in which they had been absent for decades! It’s been a thrill for me, and I feel good about having been the coordinator of that project.
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Yay you!!
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Oh, my grandpa put training wheels on my bike. Later, when I was ready, he walked along beside me with his hand on the rack on the back of the bike. I pedaled away, and suddenly realized I was going on my own. I stopped and looked back at him. He was laughing at me!
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I’ve been busy the last couple of days. I have a signed purchase agreement on one of my two condos up north! Yay! I don’t need two. The little one has been on the market for almost a year, and I’m happy that it will be sold soon. I also got my taxes done and returned from the CPA. I like getting that out of the way. I attended a protest on Thursday in downtown Northfield, and I’m going to another one in Faribault this morning., I finished two MTI hats and I’m working on a MN Strong hat now.
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Where did you find red yarn? Everyone is sold out.
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I used some old Red Heart acrylic that I had laying around for many years for the first one. I gave that one to a young friend who has been active in the protests and marches. Then I bought a large skein of merino up at Yarn Harbor in Duluth. They had some LettLopi and other Lopi yarns in red the first day I went there, but I passed it by thinking I would come back in a few days and maybe get some then. Mistake. All of the Lopi yarn was gone three days later – it was a huge pile! They had some merino though, and it was nice yarn, so I bought a skein. Then, my teacher had a large skein of bulky one-ply merino which worked really nicely for my third hat. I have some of that Red Heart acrylic left that I would give away. There should be enough for one hat in that Super Saver skein. I don’t have enough of either merino to make another hat though, so I’m done making MTI hats. Rose Yarn in Lakeville (right by Penzey’s) has the Cascade 220 yarn for the MN Strong hat. The creator of the MN Strong hat pattern works there. That’s what is on my needles now.
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Is this a full time condo or a time share?
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It’s an interval condo. It’s a 1/8 share. It’s the first one I bought, a studio, in a peaceful setting.
I bought my second one, a larger one-bedroom, a year later. That’s the one I’m sticking with. It’s a little busier in the summer, but it’s right on the Lake, and it’s really comfortable and has a great view.
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Yeara ago my best friend found a Great Horned Owl sitting on the ground under an electric pole. One of its eyes was dilated far more than the other. She suspected a lightening strike. It allowed her to put it in a box, and she drove it to a raptor center in the Cities.
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