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POLISH THE SILVER

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This week’s Farming Update from Ben

Hang on tight, I feel like this blog is more ‘all over the place’ than most of them.

I’m so close! A couple more big days, and that will be it for spring work. I finished planting corn about 9:30 PM Thursday night. Just in time as I had to get back to ‘work’ work at the college. Commencement next week. Hung lights over where the stage will be, so the stage can be placed over the weekend.

Things have really moved fast this last week in the farming world. With the nice weather, THOUSANDS of acres have been planted.

I still don’t know which day is which yet.

Last Saturday I spent all day working an event at one of the high schools.

Sunday and Monday I think I farmed.

Over on the rented ground I run, it got fertilizer applied on Tuesday while I was out with the guys doing Township Road inspections. (The roads are all still there. Need a culvert replaced on one road, and some tree’s trimmed, and some ditches cleaned). Wednesday I dug up the fields again, to incorporate the fertilizer, and get it ready for planting. Hoped to have Padawan digging so I could plant, but he’s not a big fan of the tractor. And I don’t want him on the highway. I found him other work to do.
I mentioned he was all about cars. One day he said, again, “What should I do about my car?” I said, “Get a girlfriend?” He didn’t like that answer.

He spent 5 hours figuring out what was rolling around under my car. Eventually he found a golf ball had gotten under the seat somehow, and then under the frame. Well. Clearly I put the golf ball in the car at some point… one of those from the tractor and I must have put it in the car. Then forgot about it…

My collection of golf balls

I cut off the stumps of the dead Ash tree’s that were cut down earlier. Got a company coming in to grind them off on Tuesday, then will plant the Larch tree’s. …. pause for us all to say, “The Larch”.

 Kelly and I moved a couple of the windbreak shrubs, just to fill in some places we missed. And we rigged up a barrel and hose to water them. That worked but it was kinda slow. I have ordered a 12V pump but it won’t be here until Monday. And then I went up a hill and the barrel slid out the back and busted off the hose attachment. Oops. Should have put a strap behind that… Wonder why I didn’t think of that at the time. Woulda Coulda Shoulda.


I listen to podcasts in the tractor. Smarter than Me with Julia Louis Dreyfus is a favorite. Then The Moth. Or a lighting one called Light Talk, modeled after Car Talk. Smarter Than Me is really good; highly recommended.

I listened to Arturo Sandoval for a while. I knew a couple of his songs, then heard an interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Since I was a trumpet player, I listened to Maynard Ferguson, one of my musical heros. His birthday was May 4th. I believe I have a good embouchure and breath control from all those years of trumpet playing.

Wednesday late afternoon I got over to the last 35 acres and started planting. Got about 2 acres in when a gauge wheel fell off the planter. That’s an important part. It was 5:45PM. Called John Deere and they had the part. Drove the planter back home, drove to Plainview for the parts, (after hours, they leave parts in a metal locker out back) (and got sandwichs at the sub place in town), $130 for that part. had it fixed in about 10 minutes and called it a night.

Thursday Morning Padawan got a different car. Maybe that will calm down some of his talk. Maybe.

But Thursday I got all the corn planted! Friday the co-op applied fertilizer for soybeans and they will be next.

When we replaced some points on the digger last week, I used special, ‘Long-lasting’ points. Supposedly they’re extra hard. And I notice the steel looks different once shined up by the dirt:

Interesting pattern on the long lasting points.
Regular points
There goes the profit.
Oats is growing.
A flat tire filled with mud. Hmm…..that’s weird. I had to cut it open because it was so dang heavy we could barely lift it. Well that explains why.
Trying to follow the line.
Me and that guy.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms!

EVER HAD TO POLISH THE SILVER?

ANY STORIES OF A SAMOVAR?

40 thoughts on “POLISH THE SILVER”

  2. An all over the place post calls for an all over the place answer.

    First of all, despite the signage, I’m pretty sure that’s not Peggy Flanagan.

    You never explained where the golf balls in the tractor came from in the first place.

    There’s a technique for removing the tarnish from silver by putting it on a piece of aluminum foil in a cake pan or some other pan with sides and sprinkling it with baking soda, then pouring hot water over it. I don’t know the chemistry but it works.

    Where did samovar come from? From free association with Sandoval? I don’t have any samovar comments but I do have a copper hearth kettle that my Swedish grandfather presumably brought with him when he immigrated in 1916.
    Why, as a nineteen-year-old, he would have carried an artifact that was already obsolete is a mystery. I remember seeing it when I was a child in my parent’s attic. As I said, it’s copper and stands on three iron legs, one of which is damaged a little, probably from heat. It has a spout and a handle soldered to the main body. I wrote about this hearth kettle for an online history class, musing about how it was constructed, whether it was built from scratch or assembled from available components (like the iron legs) and what, if anything, it might have symbolized to my grandfather (who died when I was four).

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    2. There were several speakers at this event including Keith Ellison, Tina Smith, and Peggy Flanagan prior to Bernie.
      His pre-team spent HOURS fussing with the flags onstage. I joked I’d kill myself if I had to do that. He made the “camera square” with his fingers and said “this is what matters. People get mad if the flags are not right.”

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      1. It’s worth remarking that often when I see a flag, overlarge and ostentatiously displayed, it’s dragging on the ground or faded and frayed and out in all sorts of weather.

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  3. i got a job polishing silver at the banff springs hotel back in the day. the main attraction to the job was the foom and board that came with it. i had been in banff a week or two in the old vw van and it was time to move on. i got this job and the guy who was my friend there warned that i could get stuck there. it happened to him and lots of others. it scared me enough i went in a quit the job and too off for l.a to continue my mission on the road. so no… ive never polished silver.
    ive got a little turkish coffee pot ( think thermos sized with a wooden handle out the side) for making that special coffee but not the one you reference

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  4. Yes, I polished silver a few times a year for my mom – which is why I sold the silver when it was passed on to me. I didn’t know about the cake pan technique or I might have tried it. My mom is the reason for my mild OCD tendencies. I had to polish every little curlicue in the silver pattern. It took hours, while my tomboy heart was screaming to go outside.

    Samovar? Hmmm… I don’t think so.

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    1. Ditto. I was assigned this chore as well, and I loathed it. I remember throwing a fit of temper about this and polishing some crystal glassware, screaming and yelling, “This stuff is G-U-N-K junk!” I was the wrong child to assign this chore because I did not care one bit about such things. When I inherited one set of silver plate, I passed it on to my niece who wanted it. I love stainless steel flatware that tolerates a dishwasher!

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  5. No silver to polish except a couple of my mom’s silverplate spoons. I have a couple of silver polishing cloths that I use on a pair of copper earrings when they get really dull, shines ’em right up.

    And no samovars, but I did have one of those mini-espresso pots back in California days… https://www.target.com/p/bialetti-moka-6-cup-express-espresso-maker/-/A-14655160?store=1096&TCID=PDS-11189486397&gclid=91b25a2544e0112236c833da7ded706b&gclsrc=3p.ds&ds_rl=1246978&ds_rl=1247068&msclkid=91b25a2544e0112236c833da7ded706b

    Now watch, I’ll be getting adds for coffee makers for the next couple of weeks.

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  6. I have never had silverware. I have flatware. No fancy pants eating utensils for me! Heck, I don’t even practice segregation on them.

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  7. With my Russian tea drinking wife, I thought we should get an electric samovar and make tea from concentrate, go all I Russian so to speak. Sandra never bought into the idea. Would not go that well I suppose with Lipton decaf.

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  8. One of the fields of hay we cut on top of our hill had some golfers in the family. They would practice driving into the field. After we cut the hay, they would go looking for their golf balls. Some would be sliced by the mower. They were damaged balls to begin with. Every now and then a ball would make it through the process of being picked up by the rake and picked up by the hay loader. We would find it when we were feeding cattle, which would set my father off because he could not see why anyone would invest time in anything as nonproductive as golf.

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  9. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Ben, I saved the photo of you and Bernie to my photos. Did you enjoy meeting him? Also, the golf ball collection is impressive. Who knew? I am having an allergy morning, sneezing and coughing. McGee barks at me when I sneeze like this, then gets insecure. It seems intimidating to him but I can not help sneezing, so this morning he is clingy and wanting to “talk” to me a lot.

    No samovars here. However, water kettles are not surviving husband’s dementia. He puts them on the stove and forgets about it, and they melt. So now I hide the kettle and warn the aids that his ability to safely use the stove is really waning.

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    1. Have you thought about an electric kettle? We’ve been using them for several years. They shut off automatically once the water boils, so if your husband forgets, the kettle doesn’t continue boiling.

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    2. The photo with Bernie, was in a room full of groups who all got their moment for a photo. That was all; shook his hand, snapped the photo, on to the next group. But he did take a minute to chat with a little girl. He seemed genuinely nice.
      The Sanders pre-team was very nice; Tim and Katie.

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  11. My mother was a great fan of stainless steel. I wonder if having to polish bits of silver as a child made her that way.

    I’ve inherited her “waterless”cookware” which is still immaculate. I confess, I am fond of my good old cast iron and pyrex. Very little silver polishing experience here.

    The gleaming points on the digger are very impressive!

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  12. We have a chest of silver-plated flatware that we got for our wedding. We’ve used it maybe ten times over the past 45+ years. It probably needs polishing but I don’t know when I’ll get around to it.

    I like Bill’s method, though, and will try it on a braided bangle made of sterling silver. I love to wear it, but it gets tarnished and doesn’t look as pretty.

    No samovars, but my husband has one of those Italian moka pots to make his coffee. And I have our trusty electric kettle to boil water for tea.

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  14. Ben, nice night-time photo up top. And the mud-filled tirewas kind of interesting,… has that happened before?

    I also forgot you’ve been a trombone player.. is Arturo Sandoval perhaps what made you think of samovar??

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  15. Northfield has a “Buy Nothing” fb page. If you have something you’d like to give to someone else, you post one photo of the item, use the word “Give:” then post a short description of the item. I’ve given quite a few things away.

    Yesterday I saw an old enamel coffee pot – the kind you put on a wood-burning cookstove but smaller – posted on the Buy Nothing page. It’s in excellent condition for its age. It’s an eye-popping red with black trim and white inside. It’s just adorable. I posted that I was interested. Only two others were interested in it. My name was drawn. It’s not a samovar, but it’s as close as I can come. It’s clean, but I’m going to use a little vinegar and baking soda in the bottom to try to remove some old coffee stain. Then I’ll display it on the top of my kitchen cupboards with my other tea pots! Love it!

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  16. Of course I have a samovar story! I apologize for the length of this story, but you did ask, and I trust you know how to scroll on by.

    During my teens my mom worked in a small, family run place that purchased – among other junk – what was left over from estate sales after people died. It was a treasure trove of all kinds of weird stuff; everything from a taxidermied African antelope head to brass candelabras, and, you guessed it, a Russian brass samovar.

    Mom would come home with these treasures, shine them up, and display them a place of honor in our house. Add to that the odd collection of ornately carved cabinets and camphor-lined chests from Thailand, colorful leather ottomans from Morocco, and giant “Ming” dynasty vases from China dad would regularly bring home from his sailing adventures, and our house was an interior decorator’s nightmare.

    My sister and I spent many hours regularly polishing those brass candelabras and that damn samovar which were prominently displayed in our dining room.

    None of these items were mine, so naturally I didn’t bring any of them with me to the US in 1965. Need I tell you, I wouldn’t have even if they were mine?

    Fast forward to 1979. Mom and dad were coming to the US for their first – and only – visit to the US, to attend my wedding to current husband, my first marriage having collapsed five year earlier. (They never met wasband.)

    For a wedding present mom brought the samovar. Ever since my sister and I left home the samovar had not been polished regularly, and she saw the opportunity to pass it on to someone else. I guess she figured I was the most likely candidate to appreciate it since I had worked a year in the Soviet Union. To make transporting it easier, she (or more likely, dad) had removed all the working parts of its interior and the heavy metal base that made it stable when it was standing on a horizontal surface.

    That samovar lived in our basement until about fifteen years ago when I managed to hand it off to a small Russian congregation in St. Paul that wanted to restore it.

    The taxidermied African antelope head and the giant “Ming” vase have been living in my sister’s living room since my parent’s died in 1992. When I asked my sister why she had kept the antelope head, she told me it was a family heirloom. She had no recollection of where it came from, and had believed mom’s story that one of her brothers had shot it on a safari to Africa.

    My mom was quite the story teller!

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      1. It was just the shell that lived in our basement. I had no interest in restoring its functionality since I drink only a few cups of tea per day.

        This samovar had a size equivalent to one of those church basement, aluminum coffee makers. I’m hoping that this small congregation of Russian orthodox believers have been able to restore it and put it back into good use.

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  17. My dad‘s youngest years were very impoverished, but my grandmother had held onto the family silverware, and they used that every day. And that became important to my father so as I was growing up, we always had actual silverware (not plated) for everyday meals. I thought it was kind of silly, but now that my third of what that silver was worth is going to buy me a new computer, I’m not complaining.

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  18. I’m assuming that I’ve probably been in rooms with a samovar before (or museums)? I’m thinking places like the James J Hill house or other period homes that have been restored, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it either.

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  19. There is a samovar in props at the college. I didn’t know what this big silver thing was, I had to ask the prior tech director who knew what it is who had donated it.
    I have not seen it used onstage. Haven’t done a show that needed one. Yet.

    It got put into the blog because it’s a big silver thing that could use a polish.

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