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BACK IN THE SWING OF THINGS

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This week’s farming update from Ben

The soybeans are turning yellow and dropping their leaves. Another week will make a huge difference.

We spent a week outside of Charleston SC visiting my niece and her husband and their two cute little girls, age five and two. Boy, that two year old: She never stops moving! Better them than us. And a wonderful dog, Maggie. A female Doberman. I’ve not had anything to do with Dobermans before, but she was a sweetheart. 

These people love their hot weather. I was hot for the whole week we were there. They made a fire one night in their fire pit. IT WAS 80 DEGREES! I kept moving my chair back. But, it was a lovely night and It was a great, much needed vacation. 

Our first night and I got to take the five year old to bed. I was pooped out.
Who doesn’t love chasing seagulls?
Daughter loved the beach.

While we were gone, our house sitters, G & E, did a fabulous job keeping our dogs occupied. They left the house cleaner than it was when we left. E does a lot of cooking, which was evident by the washed cookie sheets and bread loaf pan on the counter. We need to get them to leave some left overs. And G works at a local nursery and we always come home to fresh cut flowers and even some new plants on the front step. Great people. We’re not sure the dogs were glad to have us come back or not. 

Plus our other neighbor, B, collecting eggs and taking care of the chickens. She said she loved her the dogs protected her from the raccoons.

The tree branch that fell down on the deck just before we left got cut up and hauled away. We are so lucky it missed the gutters and missed the lights hanging off the gutters. It broke a leg off one plastic deck chair, and bent one tiki torch. Driving around the farm, there are trees down all over. Lots of trees in fields, which will make harvest difficult. It’s hard to clean them up without damaging more crops. Our neighbors took their cattle out as there was so many trees down on the fence it was easier to take them out than to fix the fences. At least for now. They’ll be fixed before next spring.

And we’ve had a bunch of weird electronic issues since the power was out with that storm. Course the router needed to be rebooted a few times, and the extenders, and the security cameras… got most of them back, but it’s been a process. 

The Soil and Water (SWCD) people, and contractor Clint built the new structure to stop erosion. 

The front side with a tile inlet.
The back side. The tile drains down in the tree’s to the left.

Clint also built a ‘low water crossing’ at one of our waterways. It tends to be wet in the spring, (that’s why it’s a ‘water way’). He excavated down, placed geo-textile fabric, large rock placed underneath, smaller rock on top, and that way the water can still pass through but the equipment has a place to cross without creating ruts in the soft spring soil. 

Bailey approved

I am very proud of the work we’ve done the last few year making the farm a better place for the future. 

Including pouring concrete.

Last week Kelly and I were compacting gravel for this pad. This concrete is in the main part of the shed, right inside the main door, and is where just about everything gets parked. I’m as excited about this concrete as I have been about all the rest. 

A pack of wire ties.
Wrap the wire around the rebar, hook the loops, and spin it five times to make it tight. Six twists will break the wire.
Rebar wired together and propped up with rocks, tin cans, empty bottles; Anything I found in the garbage that I thought would be useful. You can buy 2” plastic rebar chairs, but why would I wanna do that?

We had some good help leveling out the concrete. Our son came down with a couple of his buddies. I spent a little more money and ordered a conveyor truck to get the concrete in the shed, that way I could be in there helping and not in the tractor hauling concrete 1/2 a yard at a time in the loader bucket. I am supposedly, the ‘Brains’ of the outfit. I use the term loosely. Jokes on them!

I ordered 5000 psi concrete “garage mix” with fiber and air entrainment. See, sounds like I know what I’m talking about.

You want a bunch of help getting the cement truck dumped out and the concrete spread out. Then there’s a little more time to get it level and time for it to begin to harden before the finishing work begins. And that can be a one person job on a pad this small. It just takes several good people right at the start.

On top of the compacted gravel we get the rebar laid out and tied together using a homemade wire twister. I use fiberglass rebar. I buy wire ties with a loop on each end, then use a paint roller I’ve modified to twist them.

By the time we finished I was pooped out. Man, I am not 30 years old anymore.

The conveyor truck getting set up. We were all working so I didn’t get any pictures of it happening.
Kelly was in charge of the measuring stick and the laser level to get it level. 
Looks pretty good for some amateurs. Better than our first round last year.
Humphrey walk through it first. But I’m OK with that. I left his footprints.

HOW OFTEN DID YOU FALL ASLEEP YOURSELF TAKING THE KIDS TO BED?

ANY GOOD BEDTIME STORIES?

31 thoughts on “BACK IN THE SWING OF THINGS”

  1. Yes, at nap time – once in a while I’d lie down with Joel to get him quiet for a nap, and then I’d get a better nap than he did.

    When he was little, his bedtime story was sometimes “A Story about a Boy Named Joel”, and we recount what he’d done that day. I’ll try and remember some others…

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    1. I was a story guy with each of my children. With my daughter, I created an entire world of the “Monster busters”, a team of 16 scientists and 16 dogs who lived at the North Pole, and who would diagnose problems with monsters and retrain them to socially beneficial occupations. At the end of every story, everyone got to go to New Jersey!

      With my son, they were about Jack, who could be any age, size, race or whatever (though my son didn’t like it when Jack was Jackie, a girl). Before the story, one of us would think of a noun, and the other an adjective. Then… 3,2,1,we’d each blurt it out. I might end up telling a story about Jack and the purple carpet, or Jack and the riverine submarine. Who knows?

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        1. The monster busters started during a six month sojourn in New York. At that time, I was much enamored with New Jersey, and I taught my daughter that the statue of liberty, then on New York license plates, was really in New Jersey.

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      2. I was told I had to do a puppet show first. I may have been set up. But I made up a puppet show, after which the five yr old said “that was a long puppet show“. Ah. First clue.
        Then she had me read a book. I kept drifting off and talking about random stuff. she was looking at me sideways…

        Kelly got to take her to bed the next night. And then it was back to mom and dad. I’m still hoping we get another chance someday

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  3. Lots of great picture books in the early years, there are some really funny ones, like this book of poems: A Great Big Ugly Man Came Up and Tied His Boat to Me, and “Stand Back,” Said the Elephant, “I’m Going to Sneeze!” (ill. by Wallace Tripp)

    Then chapter books when he was older – the Pooh books, Chronicles of Narnia, I think the last thing we may have read aloud (all three of us by then) was the Hobbit, etc.

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  4. What a cool vacation! I love the photo of Amelia at the beach!

    Nice job on all the water drainage improvements. I’m sorry to hear about all the trees down, especially in the crops. Ugh!

    No stories or sleeping with kids for me. I know I’ve missed out, but I embrace my single, childless status.

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  5. Husband told stories about Flippy, Zippy, and Drippy, three perch who lived in one of the reservoirs just west of Bismarck. Their personalities are described by their names. Hevalso told stories about three bears who lived in the shelter belt at the NDSU Extension farm a few blocks from our house. Their names escape me now.

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  7. A couple of things came up this week, so I am going to miss Rock Bend this year. I believe the Divers were there today, and maybe Eric Koskinen…? It was a beautiful day – perfect weather for outdoor music.

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  9. I also took a nap when YA was napping as a baby. For the first six months after we got home from China, she would NOT go to sleep at night without being held. Usually took her about 15 minutes and I invariably feel asleep as well for a bit. It was a sweet time but when she hit about a year old, she started going to sleep on her own. And sadly, she quit napping during the day at about the same time. But when she did go to sleep at night, she slept HARD.

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  10. YA had so many books when she was little (that’s what happens when your mother not only loves to read but spent several years working in book stores). She was particularly fond of Jamberry by Bruce Degen and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

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    1. love it! hmm, is it the first or second l that is silent. I’m studying Italian now and usually BOTH consonants must be clearly pronounced or meaning is different!

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  14. slab looks great ben. fiberglass rebar really makes sense. nice to have pj back. i missed rock bend to head to ely with my son. great thursday and thursday night. friday was cloudy and had to start dinner at 4 to beat the rain. it was intense 530 to 8. delightfully over at 8 relit the fire, then at 10 it poured until 12 and soaked the tent contents
    i dont like missing rock bend but i know ill get back

    your question phrasing made me remember shortly after divorce laying down in the living room with 1&3 year old and falling asleep with with them only to wake up in a panic to find them gone .
    i hate it when that happens.

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