Standing in the canned vegetable aisle (wondering why nobody has turnips right now, either fresh or canned).
Woman #1: Just feeling blah all the time.
Woman #2: Are you drinking enough?
Woman #1: Water?
Woman #2: Liquor.
I couldn’t help myself; I laughed out loud. Then they laughed too.
Any good belly laughs lately?
Mid-July Farm Report from Ben
Dare I say it’s a quiet time around the farm. The Co-op is done spraying, I don’t have hay to put up, oats is coming but not quite there yet, and I’ve got weeds and brush mowed.
We almost had another hot air balloon landing in the fields. I was out doing my chicken chores and heard it and could see it through the trees and it looked pretty low. Kelly and I headed up there and met the chase vehicle coming down. The balloon was pretty high again at that point and still moving East. The driver said he had considered landing here and I guess they were coming to ask permission. I don’t know if they just didn’t get here in time or what, but the balloon moved on. It was a different balloon company so it wouldn’t have counted in my 3 landings = free ride anyway.
One of our favorite nieces, her husband, and 9 month old baby came to visit from South Carolina. Her mom and dad are still here, and the baby got to see Great Grandma Hain and we had a real nice visit with them.
Four generations here. As luck would have it, our son and his wife were able to come down too, so the cousins had a good visit. The Niece always talks about the wild black raspberries that grow out here and she remembers picking them when she was a kid visiting Grandma and Grandpa’s farm. There was a lot of berries this year and they lasted a long time. Just not quite long enough for their visit. I did get a few fresh berries for her. They sure are good.
I did get the waterways and pastures mowed with the rear mounted brush hog. I was down in one of the pastures cutting brush and clearing that darn buckthorn when one of the big spinny things underneath fell off. Oh. That’s a problem. I just unhooked it and walked away for the moment. The main shaft out of the gear box sheared off. I looked up parts online; $600 for the shaft. Plus, whatever bearings, seals or other bits might be needed… I was rather discouraged. I’ll fix it. Later.
I did get the new and improved loader bucket back from my nephew the welder. I don’t have the loader on the tractor right now; I took it off for mowing, and will leave it off for baling straw, then I’ll put it back on. I should give it a new coat of John Deere Green.
There were a few comments on the driveway in the last blog. From the main highway to our house is 1.3 miles. The first .4 miles though is technically a township road, and the snowplow will come in our road about a 100 yards to turn around in a cell phone tower driveway. It’s easier for them than trying to turn around where our driveway starts. The road forks right there and our lovely neighbors are on the right fork, we’re on the left fork. There’s a hill their driveway that’s given a lot of people trouble over the years. You think our driveway is bad, you should see theirs! Our road is longer, theirs is steeper. Both are beautiful drives, just scary in the winter. We both joke, you can always get home, and if you can get out, you can probably get wherever you’re goingI do have a 7’ blower that mounts on the back of the tractor, so I have to go backwards when blowing. The last few years I’ve been using a rear blade if it’s just a few inches of snow. Quicker, faster, and my neck doesn’t hurt when done. But that also makes a pile of snow on the edge of the road that will drift in sooner. So eventually I have to put the blower on and cut those down again.
It’s interesting when I collect eggs, the chickens seem to like the number 3. Often the nest boxes will have 3 eggs in them. There might be more or less, but more often than not, multiple boxes will have three eggs in them. It’s curious.
After 18 months of very little theater, I’m back in full force. I have two shows to open in three weeks. Afternoons this week is working at the Rochester Civic Theatre for a Rochester Repertory Theatre production of ‘Turn of the Screw’.
Then next week is tech for ‘The Addams Family’ down in Chatfield for Wit’s End Theater. Somewhere in here I’ll be cutting oats and baling straw too.
I talked about the helicopter spraying a couple weeks ago? A helicopter crashed about 20 miles East of here while spraying crops. They think he flew under an electric line and snagged one of the wires. The pilot was killed. A newspaper article says “accidents are not uncommon”. Don’t know if it was the same company or anything. It’s terribly sad.
Hot weather or Cold Weather? How many eggs did you eat today?
It’s fairly well documented that William Shakespeare coined a lot of words (sources go as high as 2000) that we use commonly today:
There are also scads of phrases that he was the first to use and that we still use today:
Unfortunately, having seemingly absorbed the rules of language and grammar in my youth, I am often (read “always”) torn when I come across a new word. Part of me wants to send these new words to the trash can and part of me wants to embrace new words wholeheartedly. After all, think how unimaginative English would be if we hadn’t embraced “gentlefolk” or “jaded” or “pendantical”?
This week, I heard the word “bleisure” (combination of business and leisure travel) and I was a little appalled. If there is business, can there truly be leisure? Even my trip to Kenya and Tanzania, which was devoid of clients and official business, still felt like a business trip to me as I was surrounded by travel professionals from other companies. But I suppose there are plenty of people out there who can combine business and pleasure, making the word “bleisure” useful. I just can’t see myself ever using it.
Anything new bugging you this week?
The following link will take you to a fascinating photography event that happened just 90 miles east of us, in Bismarck. It involves a collaboration of many people to recreate, with some twists, a painting by Peter Breughel the Elder, and is influenced by the pandemic. A friend of ours, a costumer and retired drama coach and choir director, sewed a costume for the collaboration, and participated in the event. It involved using wet plate photography, something I don’t quite understand, but seems to be an old technique.
What painting would you like to recreate in real life? What would you like to set out to photograph? What are your favorite paintings?
I inherited a few nightmares when I purchased this house (hence the excellent price). The folks who lived here before me had a fairly “jerry-rig” attitude about things. Although I can completely get behind the path of least resistance, over the years I’ve had to fix and/or update a bunch of stupid stuff.
One of the biggies is the textured paint that they used in several places. I’ve managed to get rid of in most places, but the front porch is going to be the end of me. The porch is concrete and has been painted repeatedly; the first layer was a peach color, the second layer was a pale green and the final textured level was beige. Over the years, it was cracked and chipped and generally become an eyesore that is driving me crazy. Then several years back, I ripped out the ratty indoor/outdoor carpet that was stained and torn. I bought a bunch of stick down carpet squares from a neighbor who was moving and I thought, this is the time to re-finish the porch.
The paint was in such bad shape, I assumed (yeah, I know….) that we would be able to fairly easily scrap it off like we had in the other rooms. Surprise, surprise. Several authorities (hardware store, paint store) have basically said that we’re hosed unless we bring in professionals who can sand blast it. $$$$. So we are scraping by hand. This is very boring work and hurts my hands; the only way I can make myself stay with it is to keep each session down to 20 minutes. Otherwise I don’t go out there. All this hot weather hasn’t helped. Last summer YA tried some stripper, but it was nasty and messy and didn’t actually work all that well.
This project is in its third summer. YA started out strong but now that she’s working full time, her interest has dwindled significantly. I’d really like to get this done before the cold weather arrives, but I’m not holding my breath.
Any projects that took an embarrassing long time? That you’ll admit to?
Photo credit: Shutterstock
I’ve known about the Hopkins Raspberry Festival for years but have never attended. Usually when I think about it, it’s already happened or I have something else scheduled. This year Chris mentioned it the day before and I realized that this was the year.Having never been, I wasn’t sure what to expect. We headed for the Mainstreet Marketplace – booths, vendors, food! Part of Main Street is the parade route, so we passed a lot of saved spots as well as a lot of showy cars. It was definitely a convertible kind of day and I wondered if some of those cars would be in the parade later in the day.
We expected to see a lot of raspberry-themed booths and food options; in this we were surprised. Except for the Festival Committee doing small raspberries sundaes for $1 donation (which were quite yummy), we didn’t see any other raspberry stuff. Even in the Farmer’s Market side street, none of the vendors had raspberries for sale. A friend told me that there aren’t as many raspberry farms around Hopkins these days, property being snapped up for housing and shopping. I don’t know if this is true or not.
What we didn’t expect was how many dogs attended the Festival. Everywhere we turned, there were dogs. Big, small, on leashes, in baby strollers. YA and I are not capable of passing up a dog, so we met and talked with quite a few owners. One dog was wearing an “adopt me” vest and two other dogs were being fostered. One of my favorites was the Golden Retriever at the Airport Dog booth. If you’ve ever encountered “relaxation” dogs at the airport, dogs who are just there so you can pet them and de-stress a bit, this is one of those dogs. He was big and fluffy and so friendly. When I commented to the owner that YA might want to take him home with us, she replied that he would probably like that as well.
So lots of dogs, no raspberries. We had a good time anyway and we have a few of our first round of raspberries left in the fridge.
Let’s talk dogs. Favorites? Stories? (Apologies to the cat people today.)
I feel like a horse that has been let out of the barn after a long winter.
I had my first dinner party last night. Not really a dinner party but my bff and her husband came over to grill. (The small gathering that YA let me hold for her MBA graduation didn’t count as a real party since she placed so many restrictions on me.) For this dinner, all the stops were let out; even by my standards, I got a little carried away.
You’re asking – how could she get carried away with grilling? We had decided on Boca Burgers and corn. Then YA said she didn’t really like Boca Burgers, could I get her Grillers (another veggie burger)? And could we please have potato salad and coleslaw. Then at the last minute I decided I really wanted veggie brats. My girlfriend showed up with bread salad. As we sat down for dinner, this is what else we had on the table:
To say this was on the table is a little misleading. We actually pulled up the garden table for some of the overflow. We had dessert as well: blender lemon pie with blueberry compote and whipped cream.
It was wonderful but as we were cleaning up, we had A LOT of leftovers. I just couldn’t help myself – after 18 months of only cooking for YA and myself, I just couldn’t stop. I had actually thought about sauerkraut and Mexican corn as well, but ran out of time. And we had initially thought we would have chips and salsa as an appetizer, but as I was chopping and prepping I realized we didn’t need to fill up on chips before dinner with everything I was preparing. Just as well, as everybody was stuffed by the end of the evening!
What’s the last thing you’ve gone overboard with?
As I write this, the oats is looking good, quickly turning color, and I’m getting my hauler, Craig, (a neighbor with a semi) and Parm, the neighbor with the combine, lined up. We’re thinking it will be ready in 10 days or so. There are some pretty severe thunderstorms predicted this week, with high winds and heavy rain. And another round in the evening is possible with more high winds, large hail, tornadoes, and heavy rain again.
Sigh. I really don’t want the winds… or hail. Fingers crossed we just get some rain out of this.
I have crop insurance on the corn and soybeans, including hail coverage, but crop insurance isn’t available on oats.
Beans are setting flowers which equals pods. They’re only knee high, but they’re filling in and getting bushy, just not too tall yet.
The neighbor’s field of peas was harvested. Kelly collected a shirt full of left-over peas during her evening walk. And the next day, neighbor was planting soybeans in that field. He’s pushing it planting a crop this late. I talked to him about it and he said, “I’ll tell you this fall whether this was a good idea or not.”
July 1 is usually about the latest you should plant beans and expect a reduced crop. To plant on July 13… well, it just depends how the fall weather goes. An early frost and they won’t get anything. A normal year will give them a reduced yield. Planting this late automatically means a reduced yield, but if they get enough to cover their input costs then they win.
The coop comes out a few times during the year to scout crops. They have more knowledge and a better eye than me. Usually it’s the interns. I can’t imagine how far they walk in a day, just on my farm, the first time they’re here they start on one end and, not knowing the field roads or shortcuts, they may end up on the other end of the farm and the truck is a few miles over that way. Kelly gave one a ride back to the truck one day. Since then they’ve driven to this end of the farm.
Kelly is on jury duty for two weeks. She hasn’t had to report in yet.
Daughter started day camp. Her first group activity since March of 2020. She was nervous of course, but she knew some of the staff and some of the other clients and she gets to go swimming every day, which she loves. We’ve had to try and shift her schedule a bit to make this work. She knows everything so that hasn’t worked the way we’d like. Have I mentioned she’s a teenager? Stays up too late, sleeps too late, knows everything, thinks mom and dad are ruining her life. We hear about it every day when she goes to her room and talks out loud. Kelly and I challenge each other to see who gets talked about more. She did tell Kelly she’s enjoying camp and she’s glad she’s there. I’ve noticed I have to do more household chores myself since she’s at camp.
Last week I woke up to 3 dead chickens. Bailey had one at the front door, found another in the garage, and another outside. I’m not sure what happened. I don’t think Bailey killed them; she does get excited sometimes and will run through a group of chickens. And one day she kinda harassed one hen, but I’m not convinced she killed them.
Yet, if it was a coyote, and we’ve been hearing a lot of them lately, they wouldn’t just kill it; they’d grab it and run. And racoons kill it and eat the head off. So, it’s not that either. The chickens go into a building at night and I don’t always lock them up. It’s an unfortunate mystery. My chickens are all free range. But that comes with risks. I keep a puddle down by the barn so they always have water (besides the fresh water in buckets) The puddle gets kinda gross in the hot summer months so I make a fountain with the hose. The ducks swim in there too.
I fixed not one, but TWO lawnmowers! I finally figured out where the transmission oil was coming from on the big mower. Had to pull off the seating platform, and gas tank, and there was a seal leaking under the drive pulley. As long as I was in that far, I changed the drive belt too.
And then the lawnmower that came from Kelly’s farm, and has been sitting in the shop for 4 years because it quit moving, well, I discovered I had done something kinda stupid (that I’m not going to even tell you about) and it was an easy fix. I put the mower back on that and it runs too now. Whew!
It did require another trip to Plainview for parts. Kelly (and the dogs) and I had a parts date complete with Dairy Queen again.
The storms predicted didn’t amount to anything serious for us. There sure was a dark red cell that went over, and there was a little wind that blew a large cardboard box away from the shed and a tree broke off, but no oats down. Got .82” which is real nice.
I’m spending a few days mowing weeds along the edge of fields, waterways, and pastures. In the oat fields, it’s nice to have the waterways mowed because that makes it easier to cut the oats, and also I don’t have a pile of grass or weeds when baling the straw. ‘Waterways’ are a path through the field where water is intended to run. The low spots, or valleys in a field. Since we have hilly, rolling ground, I may have 4 waterways in one field. They’re kind of a pain; I feel like I spend more time lifting and lowering implements than I do actually in the ground. And 95% of the time they don’t seem to be doing anything. Then we get a hard, ‘gully washing’ kind of rain and without the waterway, the dirt runs. And that’s why they’re there.
What’s your favorite DQ or ice cream treat?
Ever dipped a toe in an Ocean?
Thursdays this summer are Craft Beer Days at my company. Supporting local breweries, craft beers are served on the patio (our outdoors party spot – and yes, we have an indoor party spot as well) at 4 p.m. So when YA’s team decided to go into the office for the first time, now that their building’s updating has been finished up, they chose Thursday. In preparation for this, YA has purchased a few things for her cube: pencil holder, markers, a frame with changeable letters.
On Wednesday afternoon we got an email encouraging us to wear our “Pride swag” on Thursday as well. I didn’t have to worry about this because I would be working from home, but YA was obviously pondering her choice. I laughed when she told me this and asked if she had any yoga pants that could be considered pride-worthy, since that is her primary outfit choice. She haughtily (actually VERY haughtily) told that she doesn’t own any yoga pants; she wears leggings or joggers, not yoga pants.
I was dumbfounded; if you had asked me, I would have said she had at least 25 pairs of yoga pants. Guess I’m wrong. I looked up leggings and joggers and yoga pants online. If there is a difference between these, I can’t tell. Once more, fashion has left me in the dust. I pulled out what I have always called my yoga pants and YA says they are not yoga pants, they are leggings. Of course, it doesn’t really matter, since I haven’t worn them since the pandemic started. It’s been mostly sweat pants and jersey shorts for months with an occasional pair of jeans or khaki shorts. I actually wore a sundress to Blevins on Sunday – it felt weird.
What fashion choices leave you scratching your head?
It’s Wednesday. This means that somewhere between 6:30 – 7 a.m., I will be standing at the counter of Sun Street Breads – a bakery about 8 blocks from my house. I won’t actually be ordering because the guy who waits on folks in the morning (David) starts my order as soon as he sees me.
Sun Street Breads is a little bakery/restaurant that’s been open ten years and I discovered it right away. They do artisan breads, a few very nice pastries and cookies; they also do soups, sandwiches and one night a week, they stay open a little later for pizza. Then about six years ago they started making glazed raised doughnuts. But only on Wednesdays. And only their initial batch. Once they run out, they are out. If you don’t get there before 9 a.m., you might not get one. I’m not sure how you make the best raised glazed doughnut on the planet, but they have clearly figured it out.
Back to Wednesdays. One raised glazed and one raspberry cream scone (also excellent). And don’t judge – two cans of Diet Coke. Sometimes I can’t wait and I eat the doughnut in the car. If I have a little more willpower, I drive straight home and eat there.
So now you know my dirty little Wednesday secret.
Do you have a habit that you just don’t want to give up?
Trail Baboon 