2026, crops, Farming Update, Kids, Technology, Uncategorized

JULY

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This week’s farming update from Ben

Happy 4th of July!  Sparklers for everyone! 

It’s been hot. Got the fan on in the chicken coop. At the moment, daughter just came back from her walk and the dogs are panting. She was smart enough to cut the walk short. Wednesday when it was so SO hot, I convince her to just make her laps in the shop, the only place we have AC. How funny is that? The shop has AC, the house does not. Well, just how it goes. Don’t want the tools to rust you know. 

The boys and I found work in the shop this week. Sure glad I’m not milking cows in this weather. I’d have been grumpy and ornery. And hot and sweaty. 

Man, life is just relentless. I went back to read last week’s farming update so I’d remember what I’ve already told you. Padawan 1 quit another job and he’s back with me. Which is OK, but I’ve still got P2 around. I can’t really afford both. And together…well, you know, two nineteen year olds… It’s more work for me to keep them both working independently. And they still chatter and make noises. Such nice young men… can’t wait to see how they are in about five years. 

We’ve gotten 2.5” of rain the last few days. The latest drought monitor map has us as “abnormally dry” back on June 30, so presumably we’re in a little better shape now. We don’t need two inches in two days, but an inch over a day, every week would be nice. Down around Grand Meadow, they got 8″ of rain. My goodness…crazy stuff.

One day in the shop I had P1 in the cab of the tractor trying to figure out why the blinkers would only work randomly. I had him start in the fuse box. It has a diagram on the cover so you know which fuse is what. Somehow he still managed to read it backwards. Considering this is all kinda new to him I wouldn’t be so concerned. However as he’s rebuilding the engine in his car, I wish I had more confidence in his skills… Eventually he deduced the switch was bad. He removed the steering wheel and got the cover off so we could see the multi function switch. High and low beams, horn, and blinkers. I called John Deere. $665 for a new switch. Well. Blinkers are overrated. He squirted some circuit cleaner in there and reassembled. It took a few tries and he had to take the steering wheel back off to bend up some tabs to keep the nut holding the steering wheel tight. Again, should I be concerned about the lack of attention to detail? Well, it’s not my car engine he’s taking apart.

I took the boys on a road trip. We picked up a part in Plainview and then to my tire place, Appel Tire in Millville. Dropped off four tires: The one that was packed full of mud this spring which I cut apart to get the mud out of, a tire off the generator meaning I just needed a used tire to hold the air INSIDE, and I replaced two tires on the haybine. We went to lunch at the only place in town, Whiskey Dicks. Brat burgers were the special and they were really good. The boys spent an hour talking like hillbillies, which kind of annoyed me. Then we picked up the tires ($476.52) and came back home. 

P1 mounted the tires back on to the haybine. (Funny how all the  machinery I bought in the 1990’s or 2000’s needs new tires these days. The haybine, wagons, the corn planter, the grain drill. Like I should only expect 25 or 30 years out of a set. It’s not the tread, it’s the sidewalls that crack and wear out.) On a car, there are the studs, or bolts that stick out and you fit the wheel over them and add nuts. On farm machinery there’s a bolt that goes through the wheel and threads into a hub. So a little fussier getting things lined up. And it gave him trouble and he got mad and didn’t want to listen and I just had to walk away. It took him an hour but he got the two new tires on. It doesn’t help when I point out he’s letting a couple tires make him mad.  There’s that lack of a soft skill again.  It’s such a shame when you get in your own way, you know? 

P2 has more soft skills. He was mounting a couple new LED work lights to the rear of the cab. I thought we’d have to run new wires up to the top lights and splice them in. But that’s when I noticed connectors tucked under the fender as part of the blinkers. Often, the entire wiring harness is installed and then only some of it is used. The lights that we added would have been part of a ‘premium’ lighting package. Up in the cab, I ordered a new switch for those lights ($67), and it came with a couple wires that simply plugged into a connector and BOOM! More lights. Can’t wait to need them. Looking forward to it. 

img_6635-1
Just add a couple wires
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Bottom right, new switch!

P2 also figured out how to get my shop garage door to talk to my phone again. It used to work, then I think I hit ‘factory reset’ or something. I gave him the manual and my phone, and eventually using his phone, it all works again and I can open the shop door from your house. He told me never to get the book out again. He did it all by asking AI how to make it work. Crazy stuff. And that’s why I gave that job to him. 

Crops are looking good. The beans are starting to fill in, the corn is well over knee high; it’s at least waist high if not chest high in some fields. The oats is starting to turn color. I picked up two bales of twine last week, because we’ll be doing straw before you know it. 

Oats
Soybeans

Half way through 2026 already.

WHAT DID YOU DO FOR THE BICENTENIAL?

WHERE WERE YOU IN 1976?

65 thoughts on “JULY”

  1. Morning all!

    I actually don’t remember anything specific that I was doing on the bicentennial. I know I was home in between my sophomore and junior years. I know I was glad that my father had survived his heart attack, but otherwise was fairly miserable at that point in my life.

    1976 was actually a watershed year for me. In addition to the shock of my dad having a heart attack, I was desperately unhappy at Carleton, not enjoying most of the work and flailing around with what the heck I was going to do with this very expensive degree when I graduated. In fact, it was toward the end of 1976 that I made the decision, which made my parents very unhappy, to drop out of Carleton, find an apartment in Northfield, and get a job.

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      1. Started anthropology, moved to English… both at Carleton. Ended up getting a BA in “Liberal Studies” with a minor in Asian History at Metro State… back when it was still a hippy college where you could build your own degree!

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        2. I didn’t remember on my own so I looked it up. With all the taxes, fees, room, board it was $4,600 in 1976. That didn’t count books or incidentals. Yowee. These days with my grades I would have had some serious financial assistance, but back then my folks coughed up the full load.

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  2. I was in Philadelphia with America’s Youth In Concert, a concert band made up of high school students from all over the US, getting ready to fly to Europe for a concert tour. I had to audition for it. I played bass clarinet. We toured in England, France, Italy, Austria, and Germsny.

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    2. I had just graduated high school and was getting ready to attend Concordia in Moorhead. I played Bass Clarinet in the concert band there for 4 years.

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  3. I was doing out homemade pie at Central Park for an extended weekend as a church fundraiser. I had also made a blue gingham bicentennial dress from a Simplicity pattern.

    Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine what life would be like 50 years later.

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  4. We had a new baby, our first, and had just moved into our first house earlier that year so I expect we were staying close to home.
    I don’t remember anything specific to the bicentennial.

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      1. No. The house near your Robbinsdale house was our second. The first was in south Minneapolis, not far from our current one. It’s on the same street in fact but about seven blocks further north.

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  5. I remember all the hype, but don’t remember doing anything special for the bi-entennial.

    I was pretty miserable, in an apartment with Wasband in Brooklyn, and in the fall I would be leaving that situation and moving back to the Midwest.

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  7. Come to my house. Every night about 10pm this week the bad neighbor to the south lets his boys fire off a few. The dog climbs into my lap and just stares at me. “Make It Stop!” He says into my brain.

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    1. Bad neighbor lit fireworks from 10 30pm-12 midnight last night. It was loud and smoky. The other neighbors stopped at 10pm. He also had a display of flags (during June he had the old MN flag up, then built a flag pole and ran up the USA flag which he leaves up in the rain). Next year I will invite all my friends over for 6am breakfast and we will throw lit firecrackers over the fence under his bedroom window.

      This is a nightmare for dogs and military veterans.

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      1. I got up at 1 to take the dog out and there were still plenty of fireworks going off. I”m surrounded by all the Hennepin County events… Stone Arch, Edina, Eden Prairie, RIchfield and St. Louis Park. Of course, this doesn’t include all the individual folks messing about.

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  8. That was the summer before my senior year in high school. I was probably trying out various ways of getting into trouble, but I don’t remember clearly. Maybe that’s because I was trying out various ways of getting into trouble!

    It was a rough time in my family. My dad was drinking heavily and his dental practice and our family life were both feeling the impact. I was at a crossroads too. I knew I was going to St. Olaf, but I didn’t feel supported in that decision.

    I remember the summer, the hype, and many of the people from that time, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what I was doing.

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  9. The loud fire crackers are everywhere. It’s really hard to avoid it if you, someone in your home, or your pets can’t tolerate it. The City of Northfield decided not to have fireworks this year. They decided to save the $1.4 million dollars due to budget shortfall. People are angry. (They want fireworks, not bike trails.)

    The Northfield Arts Guild and the City are doing a little block party downtown from 5 PM until 11:30. The NAG will project a light show on the backs of the buildings along the Riverwalk. The light show will be images of local artists’ works. There will be live music, arts, and food. I might go for a while.

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  10. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I am headed into the yard to mow. It has been hot or rainy here for 2 weeks and today is cool and dry.

    Back later. Happy Fourth to you all.

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    1. This morning I bagged up all the stuff that YA chopped down yesterday, pulled a few weeds, watered my bales and readied the backyard for YA to mow. Delivered some 4th of July treats to my “kids”. We’re going to the Richfield parade at 4. Other than that… quiet day.

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  11. I don’t recall anything specifically but I do remember my turning from disco to country music. A number one song, Disco Duck, sealed the swap.

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  12. As I think back, I vaguely remember a warm, still night out on French Lake near Faribault, where the Rice County Water Patrol sheriffs’ deputies were on a pontoon out in the lake shooting off fireworks. I think that may have been the night when one of the fireworks went off wrong, soared up, then straight back down into the other fireworks, causing an abrupt end to the event. All the sheriffs deputies on the pontoon dove off into the water as things began to ignite. One of them, our neighbor on Cannon Lake, was seriously injured (in the buttocks) and was hospitalized. That might have been ‘76, but I’m not sure.

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    2. The front lawn is done, as are the side yards, so now the easier back yard awaits me. I am taking a break and re-hydrating while the mower battery charges.

      I think I might have returned to my home town for the Bi-Centennial because i have scattered memories of my uncle’s long beard, grown for the occasion, and a big art fair in Foster Park. I also remember the Bicentennial minutes on TV, which I really liked as a history nerd. At the time I lived in Boone Iowa. I think earlier that year there was a powerful double tornado that came through. We went out and helped the farmer clean up a corn field that was a 100% loss. His barn was hit and we picked up pieces of it out of the mud.

      I had a job developing a Work Activity Center in Boone for &7K/year. Later that year wasband and I made our first trip to Northern Minnesota where we moved in April, 1977, never to return to Iowa. Leaving Iowa and leaving the wasband were both excellent decisions.

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  13. In the summer of 1976, I had just graduated from high school and was getting ready to start my freshman year at the University of Minnesota. I was working as a sales clerk at Donaldson’s department store. Later that year, in the fall, I met Husband.

    I don’t remember doing anything special for the Bicentennial. My family usually spent the Fourth of July either at my uncle’s cabin in Wisconsin or having a family cookout at my aunt’s house in St. Paul. We lived in Robbinsdale, and there wasn’t any special celebration for the holiday (I think Whiz Bang Days came a bit later in the month, but we never went to the parade or festivities).

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  14. A lot of towns do their fireworks during their local summer festival, including Winona. So particularly here on the East End, individuals take up the slack – lots of fireworks from yards near here last night (even some that woke me at 3:00, etc.). Tonight we’d be able to park a chair in down the street and watch if we want to.

    I hope to get to our outdoor Peter’s Biergarten this eve for some live music from a Balkan Trio…
    https://www.facebook.com/events/2061755354688877/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A%5B%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22attachment%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22newsfeed%22%7D%5D%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D

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  15. After a backpacking trip near Yosemite we drove with friends across the Golden Gate Bridge. We came back as the bicentennial fireworks started. Problem was that people started parking on the bridge to watch. So We were stopped, stuck behind some hills so we heard the booms but couldn’t see the fireworks!

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  18. My Boomgaarden cousins and I would have firecracker fights with one another out on their farm. My dad bought lots of fireworks that we set off, and once we ran out of punks and my dad gave me his cigar to use instead.

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  19. In 1976 I was finally getting back into the swing of things after my divorce. I had just returned from my first visit to Denmark since moving to the US, and had consciously made a decision to stay in the US, at least for the time being. It was an emotional but hopeful time for me.

    On the evening of the 4th of July I attended a concert at Orchestra Hall with a friend. The program featured Aaron Copland conducting a couple of his own works as well as works by Bernstein, and Ives. The final piece performed was Copland’s Fanfare For the Common Man. Rousing! I recall feeling genuine moved by both the music and the occasion.

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  20. I lived in Hudson then, and had recently turned 18 when the 4th of July rolled around. There was an annual carnival in town, and it was the first year I could legally drink during the festivities. Hudson was just over the border from Minnesota, which had a drinking age of 21, so there was an active bar scene around that time. As my sister once said, if you were a teenage girl in Hudson in the 70’s, you never had to buy your own drinks.

    Nothing really memorable happened, but I imagine we took a couple of spins on the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Scrambler.

    The thing I most associate with the bicentennial was actually the Johnny Cash performance at the State Fair that year. I remember a lot of red, white, and blue. And fireworks. It was September, but it was quite patriotic.

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  21. We had a downpour in St. Paul between about 8 and 9 PM. It then cleared up, and fireworks seem to have gone on as scheduled. I’ve been hearing them for what seems like an hour, though it’s probably been less than that. I developed my attention span for fireworks in the era when a typical fireworks show was about 20 minutes. When they go on longer than that, I just get bored. Wrap it up, already.

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      1. I set my alarm for 1 AM to take the dog out (because she would not go out in the rain and the fireworks earlier). It was still quite a bit going on!

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  23. 76 tuition was 564 dollars at u of m.
    i was learning to be a sales guy by selling and loving it. 4th of july was getting ready to head to chicago for the first of my two yearly trade shows that each lasted a week long and were fun for a 21 year old who felt rich with commisioned sales when making lots and lots of calls paid lots and lots of money. at that time i just kept adding to my list of stuff i could add to my list. sex drugs and rock and roll filled my free time and the bicentennial felt like an occurrence that was coming whether i acknowledged it or not.
    nixon out carter beats ford. my 73 buick riveria was a magic carpet ride. just bought my first house. blew a couple of relationships i shouldnt have but i thought that was part of the deal.
    i thought a hundred times about how i wish i knew then what ive learned since. it wouldnt have been as much fun but 50 year old memories do make you stop and think for a minute
    21 was an age to put an x on. and i did.

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  24. In Rochester, the fireworks were moved up 1/2 an hour due to impending weather. Sounds like they only lasted a few minutes, then were cancelled due to “technical issues”. Many people were just arriving, so only saw a few fireworks, then got caught in a downpour trying to leave. There’s a lot of complaints online as you can imagine.

    We took the gator up to the high point of the driveway, and got thunder and lighting, and fireworks in every direction. Watched for half an hour and came home just as it was starting to sprinkle. Ended up with 1/2 an inch.

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  25. The neighborhood fireworks started around 9. Then a storm swept in around 9:30. We got an inch of rain, which is nice since the storms have been missing us or drying up just as they get here. Between the bottle rockets and the thunder and lightning, Maggie became a little nervous. She wasn’t nearly as nervous as Pippin used to get. He used to try to hide in the bathtub. I’m glad she wasn’t too scared. I got her out around 9:30, just before the storm hit. After the storm passed, people started blowing up fireworks all around us again,but Maggie was tired and went to sleep! I’m impressed with her relatively calm response. The fireworks in my neighborhood carried on until almost midnight.

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  26. The barrage of neighborhood fireworks in every conceivable form has been ongoing for well over an hour. Last night it didn’t stop until well past midnight. It no sooner stops in one direction before it picks up in another. The amount of money squandered on this is mind blowing and incomprehensible to me. Who are these people?

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    2. These people are NOT immigrants or undocumented aliens, these people are NOT the poor, the disabled, the oppressed. These people are LIKELY those whose participation in the economic system and feelings of security and superiority enable them to act outrageously.

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