All posts by reneeinnd

2024, animals, Family, Farming Update, Nature, pets, Uncategorized, work

Progress

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

I took a few days to work at home this week.

I got a lot of work done on my shop wall. It’s basically all framed up. I need a few more boards and a lot of finishing bits, but it’s getting there. I’ve purchased insulation to install myself, the LP tank has been installed, waiting on the heater and the big garage door to be installed, and the steel siding has been ordered. Going for gray on this wall. Might make it before winter yet.

I sure do appreciate my friend at Red’s Electric letting me use his lift. This would have all been much MUCH harder without.

I sure have been dropping things and knocking things over with working on this. Good thing I’m working alone; I wouldn’t want to be around me the way it’s been going. And there’s barely room for me in the lift. Cause you know, I need all the tools.

Saturday will be adoption day for Luna. And back in 2007, it was about the same time of year we acquired Allie.


Last weekend I burned a brush pile. I need to dig the metal out of it and then I’ll have the ash pile buried after that.

It was time for a new ‘everyday-in-town’ hat. Not so dirty to be a farm hat, and cleaner than the farming hat, but dirtier than my ‘going-to-church’ hat. This is a hat I got for free at the theater conference USITT. It’s a seating company that I won’t be able to afford anyway.

I lost half the ducks last week. Friday afternoon I counted 22 ducks. Saturday morning I saw something white laying down by the barn. It was a dead duck. And there was another. And another. I picked up 6 carcasses. Four outside and two in their pen. And we have 11 ducks remaining. We’re pretty sure it was a weasel as there was a bite mark on the back of their heads. I have found some piles of feathers out in the fields. The dogs never reacted, and I never heard a fuss, so I’m not sure what happen. But it’s very discouraging.

The mallard ducks have discovered they can fly. And if you think about it, how would you know you COULD fly, if no one told you or showed you? You’d have to figure it out by accident. Maybe instinct, but again, no examples… so… what will they do?

I often listen to a 1940’s station and one of the things I enjoy are the songs you don’t hear anywhere else. I heard Hogie Carmichael singing ‘Huggin’ and Chalkin’. It’s considered a novelty song.

“I gotta gal who’s mighty sweet

With blue eyes and tiny feet

Her name is Rosabelle Magee

And she tips the scale at three o three

Oh gee, but ain’t it grand to have a girl so big and fat that when you go to hug her

You don’t know where you’re at

You have to take a piece of chalk in your hand

And hug a way and chalk a mark to see where you began”

….

….

One day I was a huggin’ and a chalkin’ and a beggin’ her to be my bride

When I met another fella with some chalk in his hand

A comin’ around the other side of the mountain

A comin’ around the other side

Oh my gosh.

HOW DID YOU LEARN TO LIGHT PAPER MATCHS?

WHO WAS RESPONSILE FOR TEACHING YOU BAD HABITS?

2024, education, Family, Kids, Music, Uncategorized

Happy Kids Music Day

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The National Day folks have determined that today is National Kids Music Day, to emphasize the importance of music education for children.

My first music teacher in school was Miss Roesetter, who studied music in Paris at the Sorbonne. How she ended up in a small, rural school in Minnesota I’ll never know. Our school was blessed with wonderful band directors, most who had been educated at Luther College. Husband played cello in his school orchestra. Son played trombone. Daughter played piano, French Horn, and violin. Grandson is to start piano in a year ago. He loves to toot on his great grandfather’s bugle.

Grandson loves our recording of Peter and the Wolf and The Carnival of the Animals, narrated by Hermione Gingold. He listens to it on a cd player in his bedroom. His parents value music education as much as we do. His mother was a vocal performance major, so perhaps he will have a voice, too. It fun to watch how much children benefit from music.

Daughter is currently on vacation in Maine with a former Suzuki violin student she studied with in Bismarck as a child. Last year they visited their violin teacher who had moved to New Mexico. How fun is that?

Tell about your experiences with music teachers and music lessons as a child. What was your favorite music as a child? As a teen? Any instruments in your home now?

2024, Food, gardening, Uncategorized, Weather

Freeze Warning

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The temperature was predicted to get down to possibly 29 last night. We were in a Freeze Warning, the third in the past week. I didn’t cover the garden during the the last two warnings, but I decided I didn’t want to risk it last night. Covering the garden with blankets has never really worked well for us, given how windy it can get here. It also leaves you with tons of laundry to do.

I spent late Wednesday afternoon bringing in all the produce that still had the potential to ripen. There are tomatoes and eggplants in boxes in the garage. For some reason, you aren’t supposed to can tomatoes that have been through a hard freeze.

The Swiss chard is in buckets keeping hydrated until I can clean it, wilt the leaves, and freeze them.

Husband wants to make more pepper jelly from the red serranos, and will freeze the green ones.

The carrots will be better after a freeze, and our cold hardy spinach is good down to the low 20’s. Those can all stay in for a while.

The end of the garden is bittersweet but also a relief. Now comes all the work of taking up hoses, taking down bunny fences, removing spent raspberry canes, and trimming things up for winter. November through February are our least busy months, even with the holidays, as there isn’t any gardening to do except dream of next year.

What are your busiest and least busiest months? What would you use to cover your garden from frost? What are your fall yard tasks?

2024, Family, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Big Wind

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Monday we drove to Bismarck to meet with the State Retirement people. That went well. My official last day of work is 01/31/2025. I had lots of questions answered and was very relieved when we left the office.

The day was utterly stressful and overwhelming, however, because of the wind. I drove. We travelled east to Bismarck with a full tank of gas and a steady 36 mph northwest wind with 49 mph gusts at our back. We used very little gas on the 90 miles to Bismarck. The indicator was still on full when we arrived. We ran several errands after the Retirement appointment, always making sure the wind didn’t take the vehicle doors and rip them off, and struggling in and out of stores. The air was full of dust that was being blown around. It was a cold wind. Sunday the temperature was 95. Monday it barely reached 61. When those big temperature swings happen, the wind always starts up.

The drive back home was the worst. Passing on the interstate was really tricky because the northwest wind blew vehicles toward me in the passing lane as I tried to get around them. There seemed to be a large contingent of rackety campers and motor homes, all high profile vehicles, traveling west, all going way too slow and needing to be passed, all swerving into the passing lane. The wind was so loud we couldn’t hear the radio playing, I was so tense when I got home I could hardly move. We used half a tank of gas going west into the wind. I know there is wind in Minnesota, but I don’t think it ever gets as bad as we had here on Monday.

What is your favorite music, poems, or literature about the wind? Favorite wind band music? What is the worst wind you have had to travel in? Ever had to drive a “High Profile” vehicle in the wind?

2024, Gatherings, Uncategorized, Words

Edits

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A couple of months ago I was the assisting minister at our Lutheran Sunday service. Part of that job is reading, with the presiding pastor, the prayers she wrote for the service. I read through the prayers and found some grammatical errors which I corrected. I explained to the pastor what I had done, and she was grateful. Our senior pastor overheard me and got really excited and asked me if I liked editing. I told her I did. She asked me if I would be willing to edit a book she was writing, and I said I would.

She has written and published a book already. The current book is a series of twenty four devotions for Advent. The basic premise of the book is that our families of origin hand down all sorts of unhealthy expectations to us that make the Christmas holidays onerous. She is using many of the theories of one of my favorite family therapists, Murray Bowen, in the book. What could be more fun?

I have edited the first five devotions, and she plans to get the next installment to me next week. I am a devotee of the Oxford comma, and I like active verb usage. She writes well and it will be nice to see the final product when it is printed.

What kind of a manuscript editor would you be? Name some authors whose styles you like and dislike.

2024, education, Family, Uncategorized, work

Continuing Education

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In order for me and Husband to maintain our licenses to practice psychology in ND, we need to complete 40 hours of approved continuing education every two years. At least twenty of the hours must be from live presentations (which can be accessed either in-person or on-line). At least three must be on ethics. This is pretty standard for most licensed mental health professions.

We needed to have our 40 hours completed by this October 31. I started out September with only 12 hours, so I had to scramble to get the rest completed. It wouldn’t look too good if the president of the licensing board didn’t have her hours done on time. I spent time doing some on-line trainings, and spent most of last week in Bismarck at a conference that got me to a whopping 51 hours for the biennium. Husband was ahead of me in terms of hours, and completed his final three hours in an ethics workshop last week.

This is probably the last time we need to complete the continuing education requirements for licensure, since we plan to be fully retired two years from now, and have no intention of remaining licensed after we move to Minnesota. Husband commented that now we can do whatever trainings we want, whether in psychology or other topics, and this made me wonder what I want to continue to learn about. I want to learn to speak German. i want to delve more into my family history and the history of Ostfriesland. This could be really fun. I might want to learn more about the history of psychology, but we will see about that.

What are you learning about now? Did you have to attend required trainings for your job? If so, what were the best and the worst?

2024, Food, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized

Big Moon and Travel Food

21 Comments

I spent Monday-Thursday in Bismarck attending a behavioral health conference. Husband stayed home, so I was on my own for meals and entertainment.

The business office at my agency arranged for and paid for me to stay at a quite adequate Bismarck hotel, nothing fancy. It had the typical “free” breakfast that was pretty awful, so I grabbed coffee and a pastry at a coffee shop on the way to the conference site. The conference provided quite fatty and sugary snacks at breaks. I walked to a noodle shop near the conference for lunch, and ate grocery store salads, hummus, naan bites, cheese, and fruit in the evenings in my room. Entertainment was just watching Forensic Files until I was ready to fall asleep.

I don’t like to eat in restaurants by myself, and I know that I am pretty spoiled regarding the food I eat at home. I know that in other parts of the country the options for food on the fly are better than in Bismarck. I was so glad to get home on Thursday afternoon and start planning the menu for the weekend. We are having white beans with clams and Spanish chorizo.

I was also in Bismarck during the the recent super moon and eclipse. A friend of ours who lives on the Fort Berthold Reservation was at a sports event in Mandan and took the following photo.

I couldn’t see the moon from my hotel room in Bismarck. I am not much of a star gazer, but I sure wish I could have got a glimpse of this in real life.

What foods do you opt for in food deserts or places like Bismarck? What would you like to view with a telescope? What is the best travel food you ever had?

2024, animals, home, Nature, Uncategorized

Amazing!

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Monday night, Husband and I were sitting on the stoep after work, when we noticed a very populous flock of birds flying southwest over our neighborhood. They were pretty high flyers, but appeared to be blackbirds of some sort.

it soon became apparent that there were tremendous numbers of birds overhead. The line of flyers went on and on for almost 20 minutes, and we estimated that there must have been at least a thousand birds in the flock. I can’t imagine why so many of them were travelling together like that. I don’t think it was coincidence that only a few hours after they flew over, we started to get smoke from northern and western fires.

I can’t imagine where such a large number of birds would land to get water and food. They would need a huge forest of trees to roost in. I am not sure where blackbirds go for the winter, but I hope there is room for them all.

What are some of the more amazing natural phenomena you have witnessed? Seeing many migratory birds now?

2024, Family, holidays, Uncategorized

Lake Life

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I grew up in Rock County, MN, one of four MN counties with no lakes. We have gravel pits that have been stocked with fish. Luverne has renamed a gravel pit in town as “The Lake” and is developing it as a city park.

My father loved to fish, and “going to the lake” meant a trip to Lake of the Woods where we stayed with my Great Uncle Albert and Great Aunt Ella in their rackety farm house near Baudette. It smelled of decay and mice. There were raspberries growing wild, and I helped Aunt Ella catch her cow and milk it right there in the pasture. Uncle Albert left southern Minnesota in the 1920’s after he and his brother Herman got into an argument over money and Herman shot at him. He didn’t live on the water but was close enough to lakes as well as the Rainy River for my dad to have great fishing.

Husband and I and our son and his family spent Labor Day Weekend in an Airbnb on the northern shore of Ottertail Lake, near Fergus Falls. It was lovely, and the first time I ever experienced “Lake Life”. Grandson caught and released eight bluegills off the dock. It was quiet and peaceful. It was fun to hear people in the stores compare the kinds of fish they caught and the bait and lures they used. People had pontoons, kayaks, speed boats, and paddleboards all over the lake.

I can’t imagine the amount of work and money it would take for upkeep of such a place and a boat or watercraft. After we move back to Rock County, grandson can catch bluegills in the gravel pits.

What are your Lake Life experiences? What is the first fish you ever caught?

2024, animals, Farming Update, Gatherings, Uncategorized

Corn Sweat

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben

We’ve certainly gained some Growing Degree Units lately. The Pioneer Seed website shows 2450 GDU’s to date for Rochester. 2288 would be normal. Not as hot as last summer, and higher than 2022.
Sure, blame it on corn sweat…

From an article in USA Today, they state: “During the growing season, an acre of corn sweats off about 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of water a day, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
In Iowa, corn pumps out “a staggering 49 to 56 billion gallons of water into the atmosphere each day” throughout the state, the National Weather Service said. That can add 5 to 10 degrees to the dew point, a measure of the humidity in the air, on a hot summer day.”
Farming always gets the rap.

This year’s crop is pretty much what it is now; outside of weather conditions, not much we can do to either kill it or improve it, but we still need to manage what’s there, and continue to hope for the best, and plan for next year’s crop.

The corn and soybeans honestly look pretty good, and some scouting shows a decent crop, knock-on-wood. Hail or an early frost can still put a kink in that. And the prices are the lowest they’ve been in several years. So the best we can hope for is quantity. Which, of course, makes a surplus and drives the price down.

I went to turn on the chickens fan last week, and it ran for 4 seconds and quit. I banged on it and jiggled all the cords and it wouldn’t go. Dragged out the old barn fan that I used to use, and it ran for 4 seconds and quit. A minute later it would run for 4 seconds and quit again and that’s how that went. Neither of those really was much help then. I found an old box fan under the seats at a theater the next day and hung that up for the chickens.

The last couple nights I’ve been out digging up the oat fields. I wanted it done before it rained again. (We got an inch of rain Thursday night.) The grasses have gotten ahead of me and it didn’t work up as well as it might have had I done this two weeks ago. Foxtail mostly, comes on fast and thick and it doesn’t flow through the digger too well.


Kelly came with me one night. This tractor has the ‘buddy seat’. Kelly was my buddy for a change.


Man, so many bugs! I hate turning the lights on…sure glad I’m inside the cab!


I put the alternator put back on the swather, got it running again, and mowed the weeds along the road and over at the edge of some fields. I’ve backed it into the shed and will worry about it next July I guess. I got the generator put back on the ‘C’, but haven’t got it started again yet.
One day I had to drive to St. Charles, about 20 miles East of Rochester. I had lunch at Del’s Café and sat at the counter and had soup and a cheeseburger.


From St. Charles, I was head to Plainview about 20 miles to the North. I didn’t want to take the old, boring route up to Plainview, so I went through Whitewater State Park to Elba, and then that great gravel road through Whitewater’s lowlands, to Hwy 30, and through Beaver to Plainview. I had the road to myself, and I sighed contentedly several times. It was a great drive.


Back when I was ‘only’ farming, this was a good time of the year to take some day trips. Oats and straw are done. We’d be between hay crops, the crops are growing, and we’d drive to Wanamingo and look through the machinery dealerships or something fun like that. (machinery dealership lots; the farmers friend) Then we’d find lunch in a diner someplace.
We attended another wedding on Saturday. Kelly’s cousin. Second wedding for each, and they’ve been together 13 years, with 6 kids between the two of them. From Junior in high school to finishing college. The kids have pretty much grown up together, and they’re such a fun family and all get along, and it was a happy, fun, beautiful wedding. Bride and Groom read vows to each other, the kids read vows to both of them, and they gave all the kids their own rings. Everyone cried. It was a great time.


Here’s a photo of Luna trying to encourage a rooster to play more. They did chase each other back and forth a few times before Bailey, the peacekeeper, would break them up.



I’ve been listening to jazz lately. I have a subscription to Jazzradio.com, and Modern Big Band is my go-to.
https://youtu.be/hNbsnBZOwqE?si=IiyHaWbD2oDMslRY

HOW QUICK ARE YOU WITH THE CAR HORN?