This weeks farming update from Ben

This week’s country living update brought to you by dogs barking in the middle of the night. Three different times! In one night! Bailey barks at whatever, Luna barks, daughter yells, someone has to let Luna and Humphrey out, then let them back in later. It’s a whole big stupid thing that’s been going on for the last couple months. We suspect Bailey does it as her passive aggressive revenge on Luna. She doesn’t know it’s worse on us.

Last night I Iocked Bailey in the garage overnight. It was a very restful night.

Geese are moving. Leaves are falling. And Orion is back in the night sky. I don’t know why I have such an affinity for Orion, however, what sticks in my mind is a play that I did 40 years ago called The Young Mayo Brothers. Written by a local director and it was performed for several years. And there was a scene where the two young Mayo brothers were standing outside on a summer night and they commented on Orion. I said to the director Orion is a winter constellation and he didn’t care. And that really kind of put me off, and it made me very aware of the different ways directors may go about something. Just like reading a book, you have your protagonist and does he have a complete backstory? What got them to this point? And are they fully flushed out or just kind of slapped together?  No, the line didn’t make a difference in the play, but it made a difference to me (because what else is the playwright making up?) and I love to see Orion coming up now and I think to myself, “There you are.”.

It’s been a good week.

Got the soybeans harvested on Thursday and that’s always nice. Yield was up from previous years, and the price is $3 / bushel higher than last year. Yay! Normally I’m stressed over snow and the weather, and this year it was just another beautiful fall day.

I got the rye planted last weekend. The seed tender had a dead battery so I swapped out my lawnmower battery to make it work. Then put the old one back in when I took the seed tender back. I accidentally left my good battery sit on the machine for the 20 mile drive back to Potsdam. The dealer asked me the next day if I was missing a battery. I don’t know, am I? Man, I sure would have been scratching my head trying to figure out what I did with that battery if it had fallen off on the road.  

I took all the dogs to the vet. They got vaccines, and Bailey got antibiotics for a UTI (or possible kidney stone. We’ll follow up in 10 days and see if there’s a change on the ultrasound.) Humphrey needed a check up to stay on the aspirin he takes for his arthritis. They’re all healthy. Luna got her nails trimmed. She didn’t like it there any better than us doing it.

And then I picked up my tractor and drove it back home. Took 55 minutes on back roads. It seems to be all better now with a new radiator and cooling fan clutch. Still haven’t seen the bill. And that’s OK. I can wait. I did get Padawan to change the theater furnace filters in the morning, then we took the dogs to the vet, I bought him lunch, and he drove the dogs and the truck home. And he cut grass and did a few other things.

Next to my tractor was a new Fendt brand tractor. It was unlocked so I sat in that one.

One of these days I’ll hook up to the chisel plow and get it ready for fall. It needs new points before fall tillage.

Diesel fuel prices have started to come back down. A few places are $5.99 now. Like that’s a bargain!?? I finally drained the diesel tank. The gauge said it was empty a while ago yet I filled the smaller tractor, and got 50 gallons in the big one before the pump finally started to sputter and it did run dry. Shoot, I was hoping for a miracle tank. I’ll be good until the corn is harvested and I start chisel plowing. And hopefully the price of diesel will be down a few more pennies by then.

I’m always complaining about the deer. Check out this picture:

And that was just a FEW of them! I didn’t take a picture of the bunches further up the road… seriously, I lose hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to them every year.

ANY PASSIVE AGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR?

NICE WEATHER THIS WEEKEND. WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO WITH IT?