Corns Up! 

WE’re at 384 growing degree units. Two hundred over average and 600 predicted in the next 14 days. It takes 100-120 units for corn to emerge.

Remember GDU’s come from a formula using temps above 50°F and under 86°F. Divided by 2 and subtracting 50. And…I don’t know, my mind went blank when they put parenthesis in. 

The tree service was in on Tuesday with their remote controlled stump grinder and he ground out twenty-some stumps in about an hour. Pretty slick! 

Kelly and I watered the seedling’s a second time. Got a bigger tote and strapped it in the gator. Haven’t got the pump hooked up yet… maybe next week. 

The first part of this week was commencement set up. Monday I picked up the rental lights just outside of Rochester. Got them hung, cabled, and running on Monday. A few extra trips up the lift because something weird was happening. Tuesday they start adding decorations to the stage. I add some lights on the ground to uplight banners, and just some ‘eye candy’ for the crowd while waiting for 2 hours. Yep, Grandma and Grandpa / moms and dads arrive at 4-ish for a 6:00 ceremony. Gotta get a good seat, right? 

I’m working on planting soybeans.

On Thursday another piece fell off the planter, and on Friday, after fixing, I got rained out.

Kelly and I always enjoy taking a farm tour in the gator, but it’s been awhile since we have had time. We fit one last week. Saw a male and female pheasant. The next day, doing fieldwork, I saw 3 pairs. There are several males that don’t seem to be too afraid of me and the tractor– as long as I’m moving. If I stop to take a picture, they scatter. They are so pretty, and nice to hear. 

I heard a song on the ’40’s radio station last week, called ‘I never See Maggie Alone’ by Kenny Roberts. He’s a yodeling cowboy. We were just talking about that!

Here’s part of the chorus: 

One night while we were out walkin’
And she grew tired of talkin’
She invited me up to her home
I turned the lights down, they were too bright
Oh, what a night, but when I turned on the light
There was her father, her mother
Her sister and her brother
Oh, I never see Maggie alone

There are several verses, he never does get Maggie alone. I sure do enjoy the ’40’s music. They don’t write songs like that anymore.

As I plant, especially for corn, I need to think ahead and how the combine will be moving through the field. It needs room to turn around on the ends and it can’t make corners too sharp. 

Especially when planting over at the cemetery, because it’s so goofy shaped, there was a few times I apologized out loud for leaving a dead end row or doing something stupid. The nice thing is Craig, in the combine, is pretty good at just shifting over a row or, when done right, he can sort of cut sideways at least enough to make a path. But still, folloing along and suddenly the row ends?? What the heck, Ben. Yep. Sorry about that. 

The guys who harvest my corn use a 16 row corn planter, and their corn head is 8 row. Everything fits nicely. I have a 6 row planter. The first pass through the field he has to take 8 rows. The six is no problem, row 7 and 8, it depends how well and straight I planted as to how well he can get those two. Once open though, and once he has a path, then he’ll leave two rows empty and just take the 6. And you never want to take the outside 6 rows first, because there may be a tree down or something on the edge you need to go around. So they take the second set of 6 on that first pass. Later on, once there’s room, they’ll come back for the outside rounds. And with the deer damage, there’s not always much there anyway. 

Soybeans and oats doesn’t matter so much because you don’t need to follow the rows. The different headers will cut across without issue. 

Podcast listening this week has been “Strike Force Five”, in honor of Stephen Colbert’s show ending. The Strike Force Five is Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and Jimmy Fallon, who started this podcast back in 2023 during a writers strike as a way to support their show staff. Now, with Stephen leaving, they’ve reunited. And they laugh a lot and tell stories and it’s fun to listen to them.

LATE NIGHT TALK SHOWS. FIRST ONE YOU REMEMBER?