All posts by reneeinnd

2023, animals, Farming Update, Uncategorized, work

A Little Bit of Everything 

94 Comments

Today’s Farm Update comes from Ben.

Sunday afternoon and evening, Monday night, and Tuesday night I was in Chatfield finishing lighting for ‘Hello Dolly’. Wednesday night Kelly and I sat on the deck and we each had a beer, and we ate re-heated cheese curds, and it was nice. Thursday night I raked straw until 9PM.  
 

I got a new iPhone last week. It sat in the box, unopened, for a few days as I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it. I finally got it activated and I’m still trying to get the Bluetooth synced to the tractor radios and there are random passwords that didn’t carry over and I didn’t write down. Plus, some text messages don’t give me a tone while others do. And this is why I don’t like change; it is just such a hassle.  
 

The week was filled with a lot of random activities.  

The teenage chicks were out of their fence more than they were in, so we just took the fence down and let them have at it. They are loving it.

A helicopter sprayed fungicide on our corn; he was fun to watch swooping around.

I smacked myself in the side of the jaw because of the ‘kick-back’ from a 5/8″ drill and the plastic side handle; it bled a bit. And hurt for a day or two. No photo of the blood trickling down my chin.  

I cleaned up more behind the shed; it had become an out of the way place to dump stuff and pretty soon the box elder trees were 30 feet tall. It didn’t start with me, Dad started it. I certainly contributed to it over the years, but it ends now. The plan is to get the stumps out and be able to mow back there. And eventually build a ‘lean-to’ in order to park some machinery back there under cover.  

I finished cutting oats last Saturday. Kelly took this photo.  

After the electrician buried the electric line and we got that inch of rain, the trench settled some, as expected. We used the tractor and ran the tires over the trench to pack it a bit more, and then the clay gave way, and it was stuck.

Notice the guineas inspecting the situation.  

It wasn’t stuck so bad at first, but I had to see if I could get it out. I should know better. They say when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. Using the other tractor pulled it right out mostly unharmed. Or, at least, nothing permanently harmed…The tire guy was out on Monday, and I was able to straighten the step, and all is right again.  

Between the machine shed and the home office where Kelly works, is a large maple tree. Conveniently, it blocks her view of the shop and machine shed and things I’m doing. As Brent Olson would say in his column ‘Independently Speaking’, I don’t always need a witness and I often look to see if she can see me before I do something questionable. And yes, that also means sometimes I need to call her to get me out of a situation. I am still working inside the shed. Started putting 2×4’s on the walls in order to attach the wall steel. The bills have started coming in so we’re done spending money on it for this year.  
 

I used the fancy grapple bucket and pulled all the loose straw out of the pole barn and I’ll re-bale it before heading out to the field with the baler. It’s kind of a lot of work for the 10 or 12 bales I get, but it needs to be done. (Mice get in the straw and, for some reason, 90% of the time, only chew through one string of a bale.)  

Speaking of the grapple bucket, technically it’s called a ‘rock bucket’ because it’s like a giant sieve- with a claw. I’ve used it for hauling trees and brush and straw, I’ve picked up junk machinery with it and just the other day realized I could actually pick up rocks with it! Scoop up a pile of dirt, let all the dirt sift out, and then dump the rocks somewhere else! How about that!?  

Half my oats were combined on Thursday. The test weight is OK at 38 lbs / bushel, but the yield is terrible. Once finished I’ll have an accurate number. Hopefully they can finish combining Friday as they’re talking rain this weekend. I was out Thursday evening raking the straw windrows double in preparation for baling on Friday. The oat plant was short this year, so there isn’t much of a windrow. That’s why I was raking two into one, to make better baling conditions and less trips around the field. 

I was using the old 630 tractor and rake. This used to be one of the main tractors on the farm and it was used every day for hauling manure, pulling wagons, cultivating corn, planting crops, picking corn; all sorts of farm jobs. You can see how open it is and the rear tires right next to me. It was a tractor similar to this that ran over my brother when his jacket got snagged by the tire and pulled him off.  

I’ve spent a lot of time on this tractor bundled up in winter coat and gloves.  

But that was a pretty nice day to be out there. I wear hearing protection. Lots of farmers were deaf in their left ear, because they turned their heads to look over their right shoulder watching the machine behind them.  

Some people call these tractors ‘Johnny Poppers’ as their large diameter piston and two-cylinder engines make a distinctive popping sound.  

I’m back to work at the college on Monday. Classes start on the 21st. I’ve signed up for class 1118 Reading and Writing Critically II. It’s all online, which I still don’t like so well, but I know the teacher and she’s good.  

WHAT SOUND DO YOU MISS FROM THE PAST?  

2023, Family, History, Kids, Uncategorized

Summertime Cousins

26 Comments

Our son and DIL and grandson were in Alabama last week for the baptism of our DIL’s niece. I was glad our grandson got to spend time with his only cousin. It was really hot there, though, and between the weather and the politics, Son said he could never live there. I wish our grandson had cousins who lived closer.

I remember summers as the best times to hang out with my cousins. We all lived within 30 miles of each other. As an only child, my cousins were the closest people I had to siblings, and I got to spend weeks in the summers at their various farms. They all lived on farms. They were mainly boys, and I learned how to set gopher traps and set off fire works and play rough and tumble football and baseball. We played and messed around and had a great time. When I was in Middle School and High School I spent summers with a married cousin and she taught me to sew for 4-H.

The other day, Son was filling up his car with gas in Pipestone, MN where many of my cousins lived, and saw a really tall, thin, older blond man filling up his car. He looked like one of my relatives, and after Son introduced himself, it turned out he was one of my cousins, who asked when I was moving back to Minnesota! He lives in Norfolk, NE, and he is going to move back, too, when he retires. I don’t think he still traps gophers.

Where in the US wouldn’t you want to live? If you had cousins, what did you like to do with them? What are some of your favorite summer memories from childhood?

2023, Technology, Uncategorized, work

Write On

20 Comments

I do a lot of note taking in my job. I administer tests of personality, intelligence, cognitive functioning, and adaptive functioning to people through the age span and I have to record their anwers verbatim, quickly. I conduct in-depth interviews and have to get the information jotted down. My favorite writing instrument is a 0.7 Pentel mechanical pencil. I have used them since grad school. I am spoiled at work since I am the only person there who uses mechanical pencils, but the Business office person manages to find a State approved procurement source for them.

Husband does exactly the same work I do. He prefers ink pens, preferably a Pentel Energel Needle Tip 0.7. He buys his own at a local office supply store. Our dog prefers either pen or mechanical pencil, since both are so delightfully crunchy when he steals them out of briefcases and off tables and chews them up.

A friend of mine with MS used to see a neuorologist who would dictate his progress notes for each session during each visit simultaneously while he interviewed her. She said it was rather disconcerting to talk to him while he was repeating everything he wanted in the note into a dictaphone. I am sure someone else transcribed the note. We used to dictate our evaluations using dictaphones, and then into voice recognition software when that became available, but at this point we type reports right into the computer into an evaluation template. No wonder Husband got carpal tunnel issues from all his years of typing. I have been lucky in that regard.

What is your favorite writing instrument? What is the first typewriter you ever used? How fast could type in your prime? Ever read your medical chart?

2023, Media, News, Uncategorized

What’s In The News?

22 Comments

I have lived in my current town since 1987. It is a fairly small community in an isolated area, and over the 36 year we have lived here, I have come to know lots of people in town and in the communities in the surrounding region. I can tell where many people live or grew up just by knowing their last names. I also know the family histories of many people here through my work as a mental health professional at a regional human service center. There are scads of large, Roman Catholic families out here, and everyone seems to be related to or connected with everyone else.

One of the first thing I do every day when I get to work is check out the on-line jail roster at the regional correctional center in town. It is updated daily. Our town and the small towns around us have a multicounty facility where anyone in our region who gets arrested is incarcerated. This is partly nosiness as well as important information to have if anyone I am currently working with or a member of their family has got into a spot of trouble with the law. They even have the mugshots and information about the arrests and charges. The facility holds about 50 people. I have recognized as many as six people at one time on the roster.

The next thing I do is to check the websites of the two funeral homes in town to see who died. This is pure nosiness, but in a small community it is important information to know what families are grieving and/or if I have to go to a funeral soon. World affairs often take a back seat to local news in my day to day life. I am considering subscribing on-line to the New York Times just to broaden my news horizons. I already subscribe to their cooking app, so I think I get a discount on the news sections. We have the Rock County Star Herald (Luverne, MN’s paper) and the Bismarck Tribune delivered to the house.

Where do you go to for news? Subscribe to any news sources? Do you have a paper delivered to your house or apartment?

2023, Gatherings, History, Nature, Uncategorized

Refuge

27 Comments

A couple of weeks ago Husband and I went to a barbeque in the Killdeer Mountains. The Killdeer Mountains are about 45 miles north of our town. They are really two mesas formed by wind, and river and lake erosion. The highest point is only 975 feet. There are lots of trees there. It was a sacred place for our native tribes. There also are badlands on three sides. One of the last battles of the Civil War was fought there in 1864, when General Sully fought some Sioux who who the government wanted removed from the Upper Missouri area to protect communication lines to the gold fields in Montana and Idaho. It was also part of punishing any natives for the Dakota War of 1862 whether they had participated in it or not. You can see the remoteness of the area, despite oil drilling activity.

You can see a mesa from the plains that surround it.

A nurse friend of mine and her brother inherited 4000 acres of land in the Killdeer mountains, part of a ranch owned by their great grandfather. We had the barbeque at a lovely, old hunting cabin there, where my nurse friend goes for rest and relaxation. She doesn’t hunt. A neighbor runs cattle on part of the land. The bulk of the 4000 acres has been turned into a nature preserve by my friend and her brother with the help of the Nature Conservancy. There is a mountain lion there as well as elk in the tall spruce and pine trees that grow all over the place. It is peaceful and quiet. We didn’t see the mountain lion, but it was fun to know it was in the area. Some friends brought their bird dogs to the gathering, who had a blast running around and looking for the wildlife. Other friends brought their children, who did the same thing.

Where would you like to have a rustic cabin? What sort of animals would you want in your nature preserve?

2023, animals, Fantasy, home, Medicine, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Mysteries

28 Comments

There have been some strange happenings here in usually dull ND that could be the basis of some interesting mytery or science fiction stories.

The first event was in Fargo. A couple of weeks ago there was a story in the Fargo Forum about a spat between a local hospital system and a medical waste disposal company It seems that a human torso showed up in a bin at the medical waste company, and the company blamed the hospital and the hospital blamed the medical waste company.

https://apnews.com/article/human-remains-medical-waste-fargo-9d5434b46441ec5e03275186a3de2887

No one has indicated the identity of the body, or where the rest of the body is. Hmm.

The second mystery is closer to home, in our driveway. About two weeks ago, Husband found the decapitated, eviscerated corpse of a small cottontail rabbit. The head was lying right by the body. All the entrails were gone. Our dog is never in the front yard. We have no roaming cats or dogs in the neighborhood. Who (or what) could have done this? We live in the middle of town. Hmm.

Come up with some hypotheses for these strange events. Could they be linked?

2023, gardening, home, Uncategorized, Weather

Good Pea Weather

29 Comments

It is often a real crap shoot if we will get a good crop of peas in our garden. Peas and spinach are hard to grow out here because the ground isn’t ready for planting until late May or early June, and then it gets too hot and dry by the end of June for good growth, This year has been really different, as June and July have been cool and wet. Our peas are flourishing. It is weird for things to work out like this for us.

We planted six trenches of peas, one on either side of three pea fences we constructed a couple of years ago with the help of the neighbor children. We water with soaker hoses to reduce powdery mildew. This last week, every time I look at the peas it seems that new pods have grown overnight.

We are grateful that things seem to have worked out just right for a good pea harvest. Once the peas are done we will pull them up and plant spinach. I hope the stars align for a cool and long fall for a banner spinach harvest.

When have things unexpectedly worked out just right for you? What has this summer’s weather been like for you and your garden and yard?

2023, Art, education, Family, Uncategorized

Silk Purses

47 Comments

I have no artistic ability whatsoever, and I am amazed by those who do. Husband can draw quite well, and his mother painted landscapes. Our daughter also has some nice artistic abilities.

I don’t think Daughter really liked art projects very much in the early grades, but seemed to really like an art class she took as an elective in High School. One of her projects was to weave a basket. It seemed to start out ok, but just didn’t work out as she wanted it to, and thought she had failed the project. The art teacher, however, saw something more in her failed basket.

He noticed that instead of a basket she had created a lovely Flamenco dancer. You can see her head thrown back, with her orange hair, and the outlines of her body under her dress. Daughter was surprised I still had the dancer. It reminds me that lovely things can come out of what we think are failures.

What kind of art are you best at? What kind of art do you like to have around you and look at? When have you made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?

2023, Family, home, Uncategorized

Division Of Labor

28 Comments

I have always considered myself fortunate to have a partner who believes that household chores and childcare are the responsibility of both adults in a relationship. I wash and dry the clothes. He folds it and puts it away. We both vacuum. I dust. He mows the lawn and runs the snow blower. I do household repairs. He walks the dog three times a day. I make the bed and change the sheets. We both cook and clean the kitchen. He unloads the dishwasher and I reload it. We do grocery shopping together. We both work in the garden and pull weeds. I clean up outside after the dog. He cleans the cat litter. We clean our own respective bathrooms.

I noticed just how much he does around the house since he had carpal tunnel surgery last Friday. He still has been able to walk the dog and unload the dishwasher, but he can only do most other things one handed until next week. He can do some kitchen tasks and cooking, but not as much as he wants. He feels as though he isn’t pulling his weight as he should. This makes him anxious and irritable. I try to reassure him that I don’t mind having to fold the laundry and clean the cat litter for a while. I sure don’t want him to do too much with his right hand until it is healed.

How did your parents divide up the labor at home? Have you had roommates or partners who didn’t do their fair share of tasks?

2023, gardening, home, Nature, Science, Uncategorized

Scientific Method II: Weeds And Pests

34 Comments

Our gardening goal this past week was to weed the veggie gardens and flower beds. After today’s carpal tunnel surgery, Husband will be somewhat out of commission for outdoor work.

Many people we know use the good old hoe to weed. That system has never really worked for us, as the weeds grow back so fast, so we are down on the ground puller-uppers and digger-outers. It is more labor intensive, but works much better. We also put down wet newspapers between the veggie rows and cover them with top soil. That method keeps weeds down all summer, and the newspaper disintegrates and can be tilled into the soil and improves the soil texture. It is a lot of work, though.

We don’t use herbicides at all, and only spray a fungicide called Daconil on tomatoes, roses, peas, peonies, and monarda to prevent powdery mildew and black spot. We use bacillus thuringiensis, an organic pesticide for cabbage worms. When the flea beetles attack the brassica veggies I will use Sevin, but most other insects are free to live in the garden unharmed. Bunnies just are kept out with fences. Our next door neighbor has threatened to get his shotgun and dispatch the rabbits in his yard. I would never go that far. We have never had problems with moles or voles.

Flea beetles are horrible, with hundreds of the tiny creatures showing up overnight devouring every thing in the cabbage family they can find. The flea beetles are often used as an organic solution to an invasive plant around here called leafy spurge. It is poisonous to cattle. People somehow catch a bunch of flea beetles and take them out to patches of spurge, and the flea beetles, who have a great love of spurge, eat it up. I think that is really cool! I just wish they would stay in the pastures and not come to town.

Would you consider yourself a scientific gardener? What are your preferred methods for weed and pest control? What are the worst insects, pests, and weeds you have encountered?