THIS WEEKS FARMING UPDATE FROM BEN

*Header photo by Kelly

Did you notice? 

Yesterday about 9:46AM… the vernal equinox. The sun crossed over the equator. i stood outside and watched it. 

No. Not really. 

(I started this at work (( Don’t tell!)) and the college uses ‘Co-pilot’ as their AI tool. It won’t use political figures to create an AI image. But it would make a cartoon! Great. Have at it! )

The equinox happened at 9:46 AM for us here in the central time zone. From my daily Weather channel email, I learned an “upright stick in the ground (called a “gnomon,” from the Greek word meaning “to know”) on the equinox, the shadow from an upright stick will mark a straight line East to West.” I marked a shadow and compared it to the compass app on my phone. Hmmm. Is science wrong? I got a shadow about 60° off of North. Hmmm.

You hear about the astroid in Ohio? Also from my daily Weather email: 

We now know more about the asteroid that fell from space and shook northeast Ohio on Tuesday morning with a loud boom that grabbed the attention of many residents of Cleveland and beyond.

According to NASA, the asteroid was 6 feet in size, and weighed roughly 7 tons. As it fell, it was seen by eyewitnesses from at least 10 states, plus the District of Columbia and the Canadian province of Ontario, and when it broke apart, it unleashed energy equivalent to 250 tons of TNT.

And all we had was a lousy blizzard. Last weekend during the blizzard, I made steaks. Got them out of the freezer earlier in the week. Since grilling was out of the question, I said to Kelly I’d fry them. She’s not a fan of frying foods due to the smoke and grease splatters. I said we grew up with our moms frying meat: I can still picture mom smacking them with a knife to tenderize them. (It wasn’t the best cut of meat in the first place being that it was usually some old milk cow that was butchered and it was mostly made into hamburger), so I grew up not liking steak because I had to smother it with ketchup and it was tough as shoe leather.) 

I got the potatoes going, frozen sweet corn going, and poured some olive oil in the hot pan. Oops. The house, like, immediately filled with smoke. All the new smoke alarms, conveniently wired together, start going off upstairs and downstairs. Daughter downstairs was upset, Luna the dog was upset and cowering in a corner. I was trying to get the pan in the sink and rinsed off and cool it off. I opened some doors and windows. Kelly opened windows and was fanning the smoke detectors. 

About then I looked at her and said ‘What was it you were saying about smoking up the house?’ And we got the giggles. 

I do remember reading something about using a high temp oil. But heck, I don’t have any frame of reference to that; maybe it should have said “Don’t use olive oil, Ben.” Anyway, now I know and they were good and I’ve got left overs for the week. 

Daughter still got her walk in during the blizzard. It was a struggle just to get to the shop. And then I had to go out and clear the snow to get the door shut again.

Yep, there was a lot of snow. My family was texting on Monday about cleaning up and digging out. My brother, the keeper of the family history and all the old photos, provided this photo of Dad:

This was taken in the 1970’s. He’s on the upper half of our driveway. I had never seen this photo before and I’m more interested in who trekked out there to take the photo.

I knew of this one: 

Man, those guys back then were so much tougher than me. 

Here was me dealing with the snowstorm: 

Yeah, it was a lot of snow. What that means is it took me an extra hour in the tractor with Bailey and my coat unzipped and the radio on. Oh, woe is me. 

The Red Wing Blackbirds are back. 

The dogs are enjoying the sunshine.

The chickens are out and about. And it’s muddy all over. Again.

Pretty much got my farm bookwork done for 2025 and need to get that to the accountant.

I got re-elected in the township elections last week and will serve another 3 year term. That will get me 30 years on the board. It’s a good group and I still enjoy doing the work.

One night I couldn’t sleep. My brain was very busy. And the next night I slept hard and had a long-involved dream about being in a tractor with several implements hooked behind me. Some kind of tillage tool, then a wagon, and then a tank of something behind that. I was in a big four-wheel drive tractor. John Deere of course. Headed to a field, driving in Rochester and decided not to go down Broadway, even though I’d seen another tractor there recently. (in the dream). And then took a short cut through someone’s garage. About halfway through realized I was just a little too tall for everything to clear. Backed up (and backing up several things is nearly impossible, but in the dream I did it). Got back out, started to pull away and wasn’t hooked up to the first implement anymore. Got that hooked back up, started to move and the next thing was unhooked. Got that hooked back up. And then the third thing was unhooked and I couldn’t’ understand it; I know it had been hooked up before. It went on from there. Perhaps it was my brain thinking about all the stuff I need to be working on in preparation for the spring play, for planting, for general spring work, or who knows. 

Thursday night I spent a few hours in the shop disassembling a massage unit that was getting wonky. It was really interesting and there was some creative and ingenious engineering. Plus I saved all the copper.  

WHO WAS / IS THE TOUGHEST PERSON YOU KNEW / KNOW?

ANY GOOD DREAMS?