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SCARS

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This week’s Farming Update from Ben

I sent a couple emails last week that I probably shouldn’t have. My brain was filled with too many other things and I was having trouble forming a coherent thought and missing details, which I have trouble with on a good day. One email I just said right up front “this is all a jumble and I’m sorry about that. See if it makes sense.” The other email I had to send a clarification follow up. 

It’s a crazy time. 

Like, when isn’t it. 

Been busy at both the college and home. It helps when spring isn’t so early. Course then I fuss it’s late. We open the college show next Thursday, so I’m in the final week of painting and tweaking things. Working on lighting and fixing all the little things I forgot I told the director I’d have. I’ve had Padawan coming in to help me. He needs something to do anyway and I can give him life advice while we’re at it. And then I go home and work in the shop for a while. I sure am glad I added the outside lights. I’ve used them a few times this week. 

Read an article today about increasing fertilizer prices. (due to the Iran … “Conflict”.)  USDA Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says farmers have pre-purchased 80% of their spring nutrient needs. The article I was reading did an informal survey and they got a 65% response to having pre-purchased. Thirty three percent have most of it purchased, and it’s just what’s needed for the final spring decisions. Only 2% said they haven’t purchased anything. All prices are up of course. I pre-purchased everything in December, and I’m sure the co-op has a lot of it on hand already. But jeepers. I’ll bet there’s gonna be fuel surcharges if nothing else. I mean how can you plan for these kinda jumps?? 

I’ve seen the sewage treatment plant trucks out applying / injecting waste …”sludge”? on fields. Did you ever think about that? You flush the toilet, it’s gone, right? But gone where? At our house, to the septic tank. And then the liquids go to the drain field and every few years we dig up the cover and have the solids pumped out of the tank. (I wrote about that last fall when we had a taller cover installed on the tank. See : https://trailbaboon.com/2025/08/16/what-mystery-is-this/ )

I’m not sure how the city plant works, I’ve never asked. I  know our township doesn’t allow for applying sludge. Well, technically it’s “allowed”, but you have to get a license and pay $10 / acre to apply it. So the farmers in our township don’t do it. Some of the township supervisors created that rule quite a few years ago because they didn’t know what risks might be associated with spreading the sludge. 

I took some time Monday afternoon and moved machinery around and took the stuff I put inside for winter, back outside. Like the scrap iron tote. I hooked the soil finisher to the big tractor. I got the flat trailer hooked to the truck and loaded up some scrap iron so I could get that hauled in because I needed the trailer to pick up seed and it had scrap on it from last winter. I worked in the shop until 10:00 PM. Got three of the new LED headlights on the 6410. There are three plastic clips on the old lights, that aren’t supposed to be removable. I managed. Cut my finger, again, with the grinder.  

A couple weeks ago I grazed the 8” bench grinder wheel with a knuckle. The next week I hit the wire wheel of the bench grinder with a different finger. Just took the skin off. And this time was my left index finger with the 4” hand grinder. They don’t hurt at the time it happens, it hurts for the next week. 

Scars, right? Yeah, some scar stories are better than others… 

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A burn on my thumb, a fresh cut on the finger, and the healed one you can’t hardly see anymore. Oh, there’s some red paint too.

Wednesday I hauled that scrap in and went to pick up seed oats. The guys at the seed house weren’t so sure about the guys who were out there planting oats before the blizzard. That made me feel a little better. Got 50 bags of oat seed. Worked at the college until 7PM, then home and got the seed wagon in the shop and got Kelly’s C tractor running. Unload the oats using the loader and pallet forks. Another late night and glad to have those outside lights. 

Last Saturday was a gala at the Rep theater announcing next seasons shows. I got to give a little welcome speech. That’s fun. I appreciate that I’m comfortable talking in front of people. 

Showing how I’m running lights through the phone remote.

The chicks are a week old now. We’ve lost some, it always happens. 

And this second chicken that’s moved into the garage and is nesting in this basket…

I have ordered Oat fertilizer to be applied, that should happen either late Friday or Saturday. If we get enough rain to soak it in that’s fine, and if it doesn’t rain and I can get out with the digger, that works too.

The wind on Wednesday. Jeepers. This is why I’m glad we live in a valley. A few tree’s blew over in the fields. Always something. I’ll add it to my to-do list. 

WORST PAPER CUT YOU’VE HAD?

32 thoughts on “SCARS”

  1. How about the worst paper cutter cut? At one of my employments I was standing at a large paper cutter individually cutting a stack of mat boards. It had gotten into a kind of rhythm: slide the board in, bring down the blade to cut it off. As I was doing that, someone came up behind me and spoke. I turned my head but the rhythm remained. With my head turned away, somehow my thumb crept into the path of the blade. I cut through my thumbnail but thankfully stopped before the bone.

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  2. Ben – “…and got Kelly’s C tractor running”. You may have related this before, but… Kelly has her own tractor?

    I have vague memories of some paper cuts, but my hand injuries are most often from picking at cuticles, etc. I think I replaced nail-biting with just a nervous picking at any roughness I found around my fingernails. I now often put on a bandaid, either for a wound I’ve created by pulling on rough skin, or to prevent me from doing so!

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    1. Yes, the C is the tractor Kelly learned to drive on her farm. Her dad saved it for her when he sold off the rest of the equipment, and we had it bought here. It’s a nice little tractor.

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  4. Oh Barbara I thought I was the only person with too much attention to fingernails and area around them. I too have a bandaid right now. I have shortened my nails too much so they don’t protect the area around the nail. I’m hoping to stop this during warm weather as cold and dry weather makes it worse. I have to remember to wear gloves for dishwashing and for gardening. No nail polish or nail additions during gardening season!

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    2. I’m in the hangnail nibbling group too. I used to really chew off my fingernails – I really can’t tolerate long nails. Now I just keep them short and well-trimmed. It’s the cuticles when they dry and peel that bother me. I will peel them back with my fingers, then bite them off. I’ve done this all my life. It helps to find something that really softens them.

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  5. Babooners–a different topic. I attended a wonderful 88th birthday party for Vern Sutton. His son presented highlights of his life, including videos and audios. Janice Hardy was there. During the songs, I could see Vern lip sinking the words with perfect breath control that matched the videos. I realized how many times I have heard him- the Stagecoach, the Showboat, Center Opera which became MN Opera (the Tender Land!), and of course the Prairie Home Companion. Vern and Janice reminisced about how they often had to improvise during the show. When I heard the Teddy bear’s Picnic song it took me right back to the Morning Show.

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    2. I had a basic (Music 101?) music class from Vern at the U of M. I remember he had us listening to Madame Butterfly and also a couple of Beatles songs for structure.

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  8. What a question!?!?!

    I work with sharu tools too much to want to think about this one too much.

    Only put the sewing machine through my finger once and got myself with a rotary cutter once. Had to have a little lie down after that.

    No stitches except to have the s&h and I think they just stapled me together after that.

    Going to have a little lie down now.

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    1. I put a sewing machine needle (not the whole machine) through a finger once too. You wouldn’t think that would be possible but it is. It just takes a little extra effort.

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      2. I have done that. The event was quickly followed by a tetnus shot. The problem with “stop sewing” is that the self-control needed to let up on the pedal is gone due to the pain.

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  9. Traumatic subject, Ben!

    I’ve had lots of paper cuts. I don’t remember any outstanding ones. They really hurt.

    My sister-in-law sliced off the tip of her finger once while making her hot artichoke/crab dip which I love. She and my brother joked that they couldn’t find the tip in the artichoke dip. (I guess this also relates to the broken glass incident Renee wrote about!) I sliced my leg open just below the knee when I was 11 or 12. It was really, really deep. My dad said he could see the bone. It required a lot of stitches. I think there were around 30 stitches in the deep layers, then more than 20 across the top. I have a large scar there now and I’ve never been able to tolerate anything touching it. I think some nerves were cut and the sensation is terrible when something touches the scar.

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    1. When I hurt my leg, they cut off the nerve behind my right knee. Like you say, it was extra tender for many many years. If I caught a chair to the back of my knee, it sent “shocks” through my whole body. It’s finally dulled, but it took 40 years.

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  10. At a holiday party for the same employer where I got the paper cutter cut, I was assisting opening wine bottles when one shattered in my hand. The multiple cuts to the palm of my right hand required several sets of stitches. That was about 50 years ago. I can still faintly make out the scars.

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  11. A vinyl composition tile cutter looks and works very much like a paper cutter. While a workmate of mine was using one, I heard him yell,
    “Need a band-aid!”
    The top of his index finger at the first joint was lying on the floor.
    “You need more than a band-aid!”
    I took him and the severed digit to the emergency room. Re-attachment was not possible.

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    1. Oh dear. That story reminds me of my newest TV obsession. We have been watching “The Pitt,” an ER show that includes Noah Wylie and severed body parts (on HBO). I like everything about this show, except the severed body parts and precise enactments of procedures. The characters are complex and endearing; the portrayal of medical challenges, both interventions and insurance, are so accurate; and the scripts are worthy of Aaron Sorkin dialogue. But they bring in the severed body parts on ice from the ambulance and I spend that part of the show peaking through my fingers.

      And they have an ER Medical Social Worker who saves the day and it makes me ever-so-proud.

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      1. I had to charge my keyboard before I could reply today. I am not keeping up with life lately.

        I have had many paper cuts but none that are a distinct memory. However, one day about 10 years ago I came home to husband who had a bandaged forefinger. He had slipped with the knife while cutting a bagel. He drove himself to the ER where he had a few stitches by a Dr. telling him about all the bagel cuts he treats.

        All of my uncles, cousins, and grandfather had multiple scars scattered about their bodies from farm injuries. The most fascinating was Grandpa’s severed forefinger. He got it caught in the corn sheller.

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        1. My dad would rub his thumb and show how it smushy it was. He pinched it between some gears on something. Or at least that was his story.

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  12. i too have discovered the pitt. the body parts and surgery shots make me laugh at my discomfort. if it was family maybe id feel a little woozy but tv makes me applaud the response it invokes.
    10 years ago my right hand went numb while swing a maul splitting fire wood. i figured it would come back but after a year and a half it dawned on me i should look into fixing it before it became permanant. carpel tunnel… easy back to 75%. another year later i cut the tip off middle finger fixing thanksgiving. doc said yeah that makes it go dead again. carpel tunnel back to 70% and after another year i asked about getting the remaining 30% renewed. my symptoms pointed them at pinched nerves in the spine. back surgery got me back to 80% then 2 ½ years ago a cat bite got infected and ut my right hand out of commission and lots of therapy and exercise has me feeling like im on the right track. a concert violinist hand therapist at mayo has me in the proper road. when i first went in to hand therapy at mayo the therapist wanted to know. what happened to my hands. i said what do you mean? she saw. cuts and scratches and burns that make my hands look like case studies for tissue rejuvination.
    paper cuts sure but so much more. my friend the drywall taper and stucco guy taught me years ago to super glue it back if it wont stop bleeding. aloe helps the healing on cuts and burns super glue stops the blood quickly.
    thanks ben
    this is a busy time for you. enjoy the full days and celebrating getting it done again. happy spring 26. im ready

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  13. OK, you guys are really creeping me out this weekend. It does make me wonder however why your stuff creeps me out but my stuff doesn’t? The only bad hand cut I’ve ever gotten was when I got my ring finger sliced open by a dog. I don’t know which dog because I was stupidly trying to pry the two fighting dogs apart. They were fighting over tomato slice that had fallen onto the grass. No stitches because of where the cut was, but I did have my hand seriously bandaged up for a good couple of weeks.

    The only other big injury I had was in high school when I got knocked off of the stage by accident and when I came down, I came down on a board that had a nail sticking up. It went right through my foot. I was extremely lucky that it didn’t do any serious damage at all. It didn’t even hurt that much after I’ve been to the doctor and gotten it looked at. But it was gruesome looking when it happened. The friend who accidentally knocked me off the stage was way more traumatized than I was. I don’t even have a scar from this!

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  14. I had paper cuts at the flower shop quite often. All the orders were still printed on paper. None were especially severe, but they always seem to hurt disproportunately to the size and depth of the cut.

    Superglue-like products like New Skin Liquid Bandage can cover up the cut, but they sting like crrazy when you first apply them.

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