2026, crops, Farming Update, Theatre

Corns UP!

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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? 

View from the stage
From the top in the lift
My station

I’m working on planting soybeans.

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

Treated soybean seed

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. 

Actual fields
Planting app final map
The boating app tracks

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?

46 thoughts on “Corns UP!”

  1. So much to reply to! The “mathiness” of planting and harvest, cowboy yodelling – how did it get to the plains from the alps? or are they even related?

    Love Strike Force Five! Can’t wait to see what Stephen does next.

    First late night is the Great Carsoni, but I:m sure I didn’t see that live, wonder how I did- my parents were not great tv watchers.

    Have fun at graduation, I never did (so fraught!)

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    1. Wikipedia has and extensive entry on yodeling and its transition from alpine to cowboy. In summary, it began with touring alpine singers who set off a craze in the mid-1840s which spread to touring American groups like the Hutchinson family and other minstrel groups. It didn’t become associated with cowboys until the development of recorded music and later radio, with some lesser known singers like Riley Puckett and more famous ones like Gene Autry and Jimmie Rodgers.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodeling

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  2. I remember Steve Allen and Jack Paar and Dick Cavett.

    By the time Robin and I graduated from college we were already married and our attentions were elsewhere. We never attended graduation nor did we spring for the fancy diploma. Our diplomas are post card sized.

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    1. There were also the late evening shows—not talk but variety or comedy or something—like Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca’s Your Show of Shows and the Ernie Kovacs show.

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  4. My parents loved Steve Allen so I heard him ( from the top of the stairs as I peered thru railings to see the TV). I won a small color TV ( church raffle?) in my teens and first color was peacock and Johnny Carson.

    I am impressed with how you navigate your wonderfully shaped fields Ben! Suspect your experience with lighting and stage sets is helpful.(or vice versa).

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    1. Well, the first year I ran that field, it just pissed me off because it’s so random. I referred to google maps to see how the previous guy had planted it. Now I understand it more and kind of have a system.
      It’s one of those fields I spend more time turning around at the ends, than I do actually planting!

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  5. Nice colors on the graduation stage!

    I have no graduation stories, but I do remember of watching my mom graduate, after finishing out her senior year when I was in 4th grade. Storm Lake, IA has Buena Vista College (pronounced byoona vista)… I remember her walking across the stage of the bandshell down by the Lake to get her diploma.

    Jack Paar would be the first late night one I saw… I seem to remember him as a little thin-skinned, perhaps. Johnny was my favorite till Stephen Colbert, though we don’t regularly watch anything that late.

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    1. There don’t seem to be colleges anymore. Even little podunk schools have been magically inflated to universities.

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  6. I’m double whammied on the late night talk show question because I have never been a late night person so the idea of staying up until 1030 to watch people talk never did anything for me. I don’t even like to watch Talk shows during the daytime.

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    1. We often watch the monologues on YT the next day. Maybe a guest if they seem fun or interesting.

      I remember Carson. Not Jack Parr. We really enjoyed Craig Ferguson when he was on.

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  7. I graduated from the U in 1968. We were required to attend. In august, the smallest graduation of the year but the the graduates still filled more than a third of the main floor of the auditorium. The speaker was the great Dr. Owen Wangenstein from the med. school. He was great, even got a mention in MASH, tv show. He stood at the podium sort mumbling looking as bored as all of us.
    Clyde

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      1. Did not release your record of graduation. As you went across the stage, they gave you a card to mail in. People would hire someone to do it for them.

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        4. The university of Chicago required you to be able to swim and earn a certain number of p.e. Credits, which they made very clear when you applied and at orientation. Several students did not. A few sued them arguing a famously challenging academic university should not be bothering its students that way. The university wins every time. If you are handicapped, then you complete adaptive p.e.

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        5. But performance at their graduation ritual is/was not a stated requirement of degree acknowledgement. At that point you have paid their tuition and fulfilled all the requirements. If the ceremony is not meaningful to you, who is it for and what does it represent?

          For what it’s worth, after college, no employer ever asked me about my schooling.

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    2. Totally agree, Bill. Why they soon stopped it. For teaching they check on your license which is evidence of accredited graduation. About 10 years later they hired a woman; in the process the two offices each thought the other was checking credentials. 2-3 months into the year they discovered she had no degree.

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  8. I remember catching glimpses of Johnny Carson when I was a kid if I happened to get up for a trip to the bathroom, but I don’t think my parents watched him much past the early 1960s. Later, they became fans of Dick Cavett, but I don’t recall watching him myself. By the time I was old enough to stay up late, I didn’t have much interest in late night talk shows. I liked David Letterman but didn’t watch regularly. I have never watched any of the current shows. With work and kids, staying up that late wasn’t appealing.

    I didn’t attend the ceremony when I graduated from the U of M, so my only graduation experiences were kindergarten and high school. My son did the ceremony when he graduated from the U of M; Dessa gave the commencement address and was very good. Daughter didn’t bother with the ceremony.

    However, we did get to attend Grandson’s graduation from preschool yesterday. The kids were supposed to sing, but several of them (including Grandson), were not enthusiastic participants. He did accept his “diploma” with a big smile and switched the tassel on his graduation cap from right to left when the ceremony was over.

    Husband’s mother worked for Dr. Wangensteen in the U of M labs.

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  9. Steve Allen was my first late night talk show host. A few good people got their starts acting in his skits. Then Jack Parr. Not my favorite. Then Carson, who had a rocky start.
    Clyde

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  10. When I was a preschooler my mother kept me up late to spend time together since she taught all day. I remember Jack Paar and Johnny Carson. Mom and I would snuggle up on the sofa and eat ice cream. We would watch the whole show.

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  11. I went to my college graduation. I was the valedictorian and I had to give the speech. I suppose I could’ve said no, but it never even occurred to me.

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  12. my first late night show was steve allen. im sure i saw jack paar but dont remember it. carson was the favorite. didnt like joey bishop.

    loved the yodeling cowboys. this tune just had that little yip on the end of a phrase. cute.

    glad the growing season is off to a good start. thought of you the other day when the super high winds were blowing the fields away. lucky youre down in that hole.

    so now you have coffee all summer and watch it grow?

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    1. Yep, got the rest of the summer off.

      I finished planting soybeans last night. We’ve gotten a little rain and that really helped the soil work up nice. .10 and .33, then just sprinkles last night. Perhaps more today.
      I want to go over the soybeans with the harrow, just to help smooth out the ridges. makes harvesting a little easier. That’s today’s project.

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  13. Johnny Carson was the first late night show I remember. I watched Dick Cavett, but I think by the time I was old enough to stay up late he had moved to an earlier time slot. On PBS, if I recall.

    I watch clips from the late night shows on youTube.

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  15. My parents watched Johnny Carson, so that’s the first one that I remember. I’ve never been very interested in watching late night tv. I’m usually done watching by 10, if I watch at all.

    Planting the corn in that irregularly shaped field would be tricky indeed. Do you rotate beans or alfalfa into that field for some years?

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    1. I’m planning beans over there next year. Soybeans have not done well in that area. And there just as many deer there as at my place so that doesn’t help.

      I might plant it all to oats in two years. We shall see.

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  16. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Yesterday we were on the road early, traveling to Decorah, Iowa for a 50th wedding anniversary celebration in husband’s family. It was a gorgeous day for a drive. We went through Rochester where I thought of Ben. In the surrounding countryside, the corn was emerging and the fields had a tint of green hovering over the soil.

    No one in my family ever watched late night TV. Everyone was in bed. That said, during those years, Johnny Carson was king of the late night TV hours and I would hear stories of what had occurred there in school the next day. I dimly remember hearing about Jack Paar and Steve Allen, but they were not ever part of our lives in the same way that Lassie or Walt Disney occupied our attention.

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