All posts by reneeinnd

2023, animals, Family, Farming Update, Gatherings, History, Kids, Uncategorized, work

Dry

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben

Daughters program held their second annual prom on Friday. It was fun to see the participants dressed up and waving and dancing. Daughter came out blowing kisses. That’s been her thing from her cheerleading days. She loves the limelight. She does have a tendency to light up a room when she enters. I had to laugh, staff asked me if I could tie a tie and I did that for a couple of the gentlemen. Another lost skill that means I’m old. And I thanked my dad for teaching me how to tie a tie.

On Tuesday night, Kelly and I had dinner at the Mayo Clinic Foundation house. It is the former home of Dr. William J. Mayo and his wife Hattie Damon Mayo. We were there for the Pathology Residents Graduation, the program that Kelly works with. It was a full 5 course meal with 3 forks, 3 glasses, a charger plate

and food I couldn’t pronounce, and was held up in the third floor Balfour Hall. (The Mayo’s oldest daughter, Carrie, was married to Dr. Balfour) We had time to snoop around the house and see some Frederic Remington statues, Dr. Will’s study, and wonder at living in such a place as this. The gentleman who was the guide said he’s been there for 18 years.



I’m still working on the shop project. I don’t feel like I got much done on it this week; Been busy with ‘stuff’, just not that stuff. Last Friday they poured the outside slab of cement and I’ve started to back fill that. It needs about 10 days before I can start driving tractors on it. I picked up some windows for the shop and hope to get them in next week.

It’s not like I’ve been busy cutting grass…

The baby chicks are doing real well, just starting to get tail feathers. Of the eggs I put in the incubator, we only got the one early chick, and then we got five guineas. Kelly spent several hours on Saturday trying to convince one of our broody hens that they’d like to be the mom they think they’re already doing in their heads. But none of them wanted anything to do with an actual live chick. We tried getting them to sit on some actual eggs over in a side pen, but they didn’t want that either. You can lead a hen to eggs, but you can’t make her sit on them. The guineas are living in a cardboard box in our entryway.


Crops are still looking pretty rough. The oats is just starting to head out, (we call that the ‘boot stage’), and, according to the seed dealers, they haven’t seen any oat fields in our area that look good. It’s about knee high. It should be almost waist high. I expect there will still be an oats crop, it just won’t be that great. And with the shorter height, there won’t be as much straw either.


The corn is still doing all right, it’s about knee-high. It will be canopied soon. But it’s coming up on a point when it will be taking up massive amounts of nutrients and moisture. Moisture requirements are between .2 to.3”/day at its peak and this will also be when the length and girth of the ear are set. Stress then makes bad yields well before the ears even show up.

My Soybeans. Ugh. They still look terrible.

There are plants out there, but they’re small, and many haven’t emerged. I drove to Northfield on Wednesday, and it appears if you were able to plant soybeans early enough, and they got some of that moisture in the ground, they got off to a good start. A lot of beans were planted in dry ground and it just hasn’t rained. I’m wondering if it wasn’t also the fact I planted with the drill, and most are planted with a planter, and that gave them better seed to soil contact than I got. Seed to soil contact is important, and most years I haven’t had a problem, perhaps because it’s rained. So, this crop feels like it’s already 3 weeks behind, even though it was planted when it should have been. We’ll see.

I baled the roadsides on Thursday. Not much there. I cut some waterways too and got 50 bales total. Most years I have 70 bales just on the road. The camera I added last year to watch the twine strings, was super helpful!

I find it interesting how the tools change by the size of the tractor. Our oldest tractor, the little, two cylinder John Deere 630, has a plain wood handled hammer, a straight screwdriver, and an 8 inch adjustable wrench in the toolbox. Our next tractor, the 6410, the one I use for just about everything, has two 10 inch adjustable wrenches, two screwdrivers, a claw hammer with a fiberglass handle, and some various adapters. Then our big tractor, the 8200, has a 12 inch wrench, socket set, a 4 pound sledge hammer, and one large screwdriver / pry bar in the toolbox. The bigger the tractor, the bigger, the tools I guess. It seems like, when I was growing up, we fixed a lot more things out in the field. Every tractor had various nuts and bolts, and chain links in the toolbox. Add a piece of wire from a nearby fence and you could repair and keep going. These days I don’t hardly fix anything out in the field. It doesn’t seem like things break as much, or it’s something I have to go home to fix.

My shadow, Bailey, has to go everywhere I go. Humphrey just keeps an eye on me so he knows where I am but then he might go sleep at the house. I was laying on the floor of the shop, on my new cement, changing the drawbar length on the tractor and there’s Bailey, right in my face to help. I can appreciate that she wants to be my friend and she’s such a good dog and she makes me laugh, but does she have to be my friend from half an inch away? Can’t she be my friend from 6 inches away?

She also had a 12” piece of barb wire stuck in her coat and trailing behind her. Eventually I was able to snip off the part of her fur holding it tight.

EVER HAD ANYTHING SNAGGED IN YOUR HAIR?

2023, Family, Fantasy, gardening, home, The Future, Uncategorized

Best Buyers

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I was walking in our back yard the other day and I started thinking about all the things I want to tell the next people who buy our home about our plants and shrubs.

We have lived here since 1988 and have landscaped and put in all sorts of plants and shrubs that we care deeply about. I want whoever buys our home to know how to care for the plants in ways that work. I am imagining, of course, that they will keep all the plants we have and just add more.

Husband and I like to imagine that the ideal people to buy our home will be a retired couple, preferably a farm couple who like to garden and can, and who want enough bedrooms for family to visit. Nothing too fancy, but with a nice garden and not too much lawn to mow. We won’t be putting our house on the market for a couple of years yet, and we have lots to do yet to refurbish the interior. I hope whoever moves in after us will be as happy as we have been here.

What sort of people would you want to live in your home after you? What would they need to know about your house to be successful there.

2023, Family, Health, Medicine, Uncategorized

Carpal Trouble

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Husband is a sort of left-handed person who does everything he learned before the age of 5 with his left hand. Everything he learned thereafter he does with his right hand. He needs both his hands to function. He switches hands often. Although he writes left-handed, he is right-eye dominant.

He has spent decades typing/ keyboarding multitudes of psychological evaluations, and is a keyboard slammer, particularly with his right hand. It is no surprise that he has carpal tunnel issues in his right hand. It didn’t help that he fell on the ice this winter while walking the dog and sprained his right hand.

He is scheduled for carpal tunnel surgery June 30th. He is quite nervous as he has never had surgery before. I wish I could be more sympathetic. My first surgery, for an umbilical hernia, was at age 9 months, with several surgeries since. I just hope his fingers are no longer numb and he can button his own cuff buttons.

Have you or anyone you know had carpal tunnel surgery? Did it help? What are your surgical experiences?

2023, pets, Uncategorized

Bathtime

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Our low to the ground Cesky Terrier needed a bath last night. His furnishings and skirt are easier to comb through if he has just been bathed and conditioned, and he was a dirty, tangled mess. His breeder recommended Pantene shampoo and conditioner since it doesn’t dry the dog’s skin. My dog has nicer shampoo than I do!

Our dog loves his baths. We keep dog towels in the entryway closet, and when he sees me take them down he races to the bathroom, sits by the tub, and looks expectantly at me. I have never seen a dog who liked baths as much as our current terrier. Our previous Welsh and Fox Terriers hated their baths and tried to avoid them. I attributed it to their bring earth dogs and being uncomfortable in deeper water. They hated going to lakes. Our Cesky is as earthy as they come, but we have never had him to a lake to see how he would approach the water.

There were after-bath zoomies, of course, and then I brushed and combed out his tangles. He seemed pretty happy.

Any interesting pet bath stories? What is your philosophy on hair care products? What sort of bathtub would you like in your bathroom?

2023, Family, Food, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Coffee Time

64 Comments

We are incredibly spoiled, and order six pounds of coffee beans every six weeks or so from this coffee place in Brookings, SD. The beans are dark roasted. I place the order on-line, and they arrive, freshly roasted, sometimes the next day via Speedee Delivery. They are Carmen Pampas/San Ignacio blend beans from Bolivia/Peru, and for every pound we order the coffee place makes a donation to destitute schools in Bolivia. The coffee tastes heavenly. We like it strong. We only drink it in the morning. The box of beans is redolent of coffee aroma, even before we open it.

I really don’t know how the coffee place and Speedee Delivery manage to get the beans to us so quickly. It is 500 miles from there to here. We only drink coffee we brew at home, and never go to coffee places in town. I like my coffee with half and half and sugar. Husband needs heavy cream and sugar in his coffee. We use a Bodum French press pot to brew our coffee.

The other day I was able to greet the Speedee Delivery guy when he delivered our coffee order. He told me he couldn’t stand the smell of coffee, and it was really hard when he had to go into coffee shops and got all these boxes of coffee beans to deliver. I sure hope he didn’t have to drive 500 miles to deliver ours! Poor guy!

How do you take your coffee? What cooking smells can’t you abide? What comestibles are you fussy about?

2023, animals, Farming Update, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Baby Kangaroo What?

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Today’s Farm Report comes from Ben

I got a farm magazine the other day and one of the headlines is: “Baby kangaroo poop may hold the key to reducing cows’ methane emissions”. Huh. I googled ‘baby Kangaroo poop’ because I was curious about how many hits there would be on that and how much research has been done on baby kangaroo poop. 2,070,000 hits. I didn’t venture past page 1, and most of the sites are what it’s like inside a kangaroo pouch and how to they stay clean? Which is a good question that I hadn’t thought about before. (The mama ‘roo licks it out to keep it clean. Plus, she produces antimicrobial substances which helps it all stay OK in there.) The things you learn.

And in regard to cows’ methane emissions, “… previous studies had already shown that instead of producing methane, the kangaroo microbes produce acetic acid. Further research revealed that the bacteria only occurs in baby kangaroos, not adults.” *

And the acetic acid prevents methane from producing. It’s been tested in the lab. The next step is testing in live cattle. And the hope is to add it to the diet of cattle. Hmm.

When does a dog start to shed? What triggers that? Bailey still has her thick winter coat and she’s not shedding yet. We’ve been brushing her, and she hasn’t lost much yet. I know other years, it was hot and well into summer before she started to shed. We should just take her to a groomer and get her a haircut.

The crops need a rain. We’re at 770 GDU’s; +245 over normal.

Oats is shorter than we’d like considering it was planted April 14. Corn is doing OK yet. And the soybeans… well, they need a rain to get going. If a seed is sitting in dry dirt, it won’t sprout. It’s hard to believe just a few weeks ago I had wet fields, but the top 3 inches are dry now and the fields are rough looking.

They always say to get seed in the ground ASAP. Beans that were planted two week before mine had the moisture and look good.

This year, just for the heck of it, when planting soybeans with the drill, I left two rows open, plugged one, left two open. That makes 2 rows 7.5” apart, then a 15” gap, then 2 more 7.5”.  Why not try it I figured.

We had a baby chick hatch in the incubator last Sunday evening. (S)he was a week early! I wasn’t expecting any until next Monday, the 12th! It’s usually 28 or 29 days to hatch baby chicks or guineas. Guess the mom had been sitting on this one a few days already.

Well, s/he did fine and it’s in the pen with the mail order chicks which arrived on Tuesday. Everyone is doing well so far.

 

I took some video our the new chicks and put it on YouTube. Here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tK2w-K4lzkE

Other projects at home this past week, I got the corn planter and drill cleaned out and put away, outside for now. The concrete guys are here working on my outside slab. I am VERY excited for this outside slab!

I’ve also got the new pump for the pressure washer, I’m rebuilding the fuel sediment bowl on the old 630 tractor, I’ve cut grass, I’ve ordered lumber and picked up some ‘re-stock’ windows for the shed project. I returned my extra seed, and I hauled that fertilizer wagon to the auction site. Normally, you can’t really exceed about 25 mph when towing a wagon. They don’t trail very well and will sway left and right. I could do 26 mph with the fertilizer wagon and only have a little sway. Any faster than that and it swayed crazily. Get that sway bad enough and it will flip the wagon over on it’s side and mess up your day.   

I was 15 miles from home with 5 miles to go and in the mirror, I saw a mouse climbing up the wagon frame. Wow! I thought, 1) Where did he come from; where had he been hiding?? And 2) he’s going to be so confused when we get there! But about then he lost his grip and fell to the road. He failed to scamper away for the few seconds I could still see him. Yeah, some trip. 

We had one guinea chick hatch on Wednesday, I could hear it cheeping before s/he even got out of the shell. Number one, he’s a crazy chick! Kelly calls him ‘Speedy’. I think s/he, the chick, really just want’s a friend.! Thursday another started to hatch, but s/he didn’t get out very fast, and that membrane dries up and gets hard and I finally cut him out. He took a long time to come around, but he’s doing real well now. And Friday morning we had 2 more. They’re all crazy!

And at the theater, we finally have working AC in the theater! It took 10 months from when we first moved the seats and painted ductwork.

Volunteers painted that in August and it got hung up, got beams on the roof in January, the rooftop unit arrived in May, and then it was just finishing the ductwork connections. And I’ll tell ya, that was far more complicated than I expected! It was really interesting observing the guys doing it.

But now it’s so cold in the theater, I may need sleeves!

*https://newatlas.com/environment/baby-kangaroo-bacteria-cows-methane-emissions/

 

EVER TAKEN A BOXING CLASS?

ARE YOU USUALLY EARLY OR LATE?

WHAT ABOUT KANGAROOS?

2023, gardening, Uncategorized

Trust

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Wednesday I was at work sitting at my computer on a Teams meeting (it is like Zoom) when a call came up on my work phone. I could see from the caller ID it was from a 60+ year old friend of ours who lives with her very elderly mother. Her mother has declined in health significantly but expects our friend to maintain a huge yard and vegetable garden without the benefit of ever teaching her how to garden. She has never phoned me at work before, and I was worried something calamitous had happened to her mother.

It was very hot here Wednesday. Our friend had a simple question. Could she water the vegetable garden with the oscillating sprinkler? We had steered her away from sprinklers and encouraged her to get soaker hoses to avoid the fungus and waste of water that comes from aerial sprinklers. This she has done, but her garden is so large she was afraid parts would suffer with the slow pace of soaker hoses. I told her of course, use the sprinkler, but not on the tomatoes or the peas, as they are so prone to fungus and mildew. I get calls from her like this all the time.

Our friend trusts us implicitly regarding her garden, even when our advice is contrary to the somewhat goofy ways her mother has gardened in the past. I guess what we advise makes sense, because the questions keep coming. Sometimes I am amazed how absurd my life is.

What can people trust you to do or help them with? Who do you trust implicitly?

2023, Fantasy, Theatre, Uncategorized

What’s Your Role?

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One of my reasons for moving back to Luverne, MN, after I retire is the town theater. I have posted about it before. It is an old but well preserved vaudeville theater that is still the center of town activity. Current movies are shown regularly, as well as live concerts. and there is an active local theater group that puts on plays and musicals.

I want to act. I want to be in a play even if I am the maid. I haven’t participated in theatre activities here because I work full time and I have too many odd relationships here to feel I could really let go and act as the character I was given.

I know there aren’t many roles for women my age, but I am hopeful I could find someone to portray.

What role would you want in a play or musical? Who did you pretend to be when you were a child? What roles have you had?

2023, animals, Family, pets, Uncategorized

Forbidden Fruit

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Oh. terriers!! Ever since we got our Cesky Terrier in May, 2022, we have kept the basement door shut to keep him from going into the basement to chase the cat and do indiscriminate marking to claim the territory as his own. This rather isolated the cat, but we tried to give her as much attention as we could.

Being a terrier, Kyrill turned getting to the basement into a game and a challenge. He would wait for any opportunity to get down there, lurking to see if we forgot to shut the basement door, then racing down the stairs, chasing the cat, and eating her food.

We picked him up from the boarding kennel yesterday, and I decided to change strategies regarding the basement. Before we picked him up I put a gate in front of the basement room where the litter box and cat food resides so the cat could get in but Kyrill couldn’t. He was so excited to see us when we got him home that he didn’t even notice the basement door was open. Once he noticed, he immediately ran downstairs, but, because we didn’t chase him and because he wanted to be with us he came right back upstairs. He ran up and down rapidly a couple more times, but eventually settled on the sofa with me. The cat walked into the livingroom several times and he ignored her.

I could kick myself for not doing this earlier. Now I have a much happier cat who can wander upstairs as she wishes, and a dog who is probably waiting for an opportunity to make some other activity into a game.

Why is it we want what we can’t have? What have you wanted and then regretted once you got it?

2023, Automotive, Family, Travel, Uncategorized

Wheels

32 Comments

We are back from our trip to South Dakota, happy but weary. I noticed as we drove our Honda van East out of Bismarck on Thursday that the odometer passed 153,000 miles. It wasn’t too long ago we were thrilled to get a vehicle past 100,000 miles. What happened?

We have two vehicles- a 2011 Honda van and a 2014 Toyota Tacoma pickup. I am unsure how many miles I should expect to get on the Honda, I really don’t want to think about getting a new vehicle just yet. I need to rethink the need for a van if we have a pickup. They are all so expensive, and I come from a father who never in his life bought a used vehicle. It was unthinkable in his opinion.

What vehicle did you get the most miles on? If you got a different vehicle, would it be new or used? What is your most memorable means of transportation?