I’ve been to the Fair in all kinds of weather. Granted, no snow but light rain, heavy rain, serious winds, tornado watches and heat. Lots of heat. In fact, last year there were five days that were 90 degrees and higher. I was there for two of those days. The other three days were no slouches either, temperature wise.
So on Monday bringing in a forecast of 90, we weren’t too worried. We took our fans and headed out, getting on the first bus and arriving at the fair at 7:45 a.m. Got a cold bottle of water right away (along with a crepe and cookies….) before heading to the animal barns. We thought it would be a good strategy to get the barns done before the day got too crazy. This was a good strategy but after an hour or so petting cows, lambs, goats and horses in non-air conditioned barns, we were squirming. At that point it was only 80 degrees but the humidity was 85% and you could feel every percent of that. We were both dripping.
Walked up to the Pet Pavilion to find that the German Shorthair Pointers were not doing any of their demonstrations. We did pet the dogs that were there and wandered about looking at a few displays but it was brutal. I would have been willing to sit in the sun (with my fan and my baseball cap) to watch the dog dock diving, as it didn’t require any movement on my part, but YA didn’t want to. It was nasty enough that neither of us was too interested in food and we’d filled up the water bottle three times. YA didn’t even last through one level of the Grandstand, which she normally loves – if there was air in there, you couldn’t tell.
I wasn’t too happy either and I didn’t want to do anything in particular enough to try to coax YA into it. So for the first time EVER, we headed back to the bus at noon. Didn’t even pretend that we might come back so skipped getting our hands stamped on the way back. When the bus arrived, the folks getting off said “it’s freezing on the bus”. I said “great”.
When we got home we lounged in the backyard in the shade, filled up Guinevere’s little pool, soaked our feet and tried not to feel completely defeated.
I and my grandson are cooking up a storm while his parents are at work. Yesterday we made Marcella’s tomato sauce, another peach and blackberry crumble, banana bread, and lemon sorbet. Grandson sliced the onion, lemons, and peaches with his special, child friendly knives.
Son and DIL have a gas stove. My, do things cook fast and at much lower temperature settings on a gas stove! It makes rather alarming pops and snaps and clicks. Son and DIL don’t seem to be worried about reported health problems with such a stove. Son, who does most of the cooking in the family, loves his gas stove. I would have one if we were piped for gas. Perhaps in our new house in Luverne.
I remember that my mother was really anxious about the gas stove we had in our last house in Luverne before we moved to a new house in the country with an electric, glass topped stove. We plan to get a new stove and microwave in our current home in October. We have used and abused our current stove and microwave so that a new set will be a selling point.
Gas, electric, wood, or induction for you? Ever cooked with gas? Any good food burning stories?
Yesterday morning my 6 year old grandson asked his father if he could hear the cat song as we had breakfast. My son explained that somehow my grandson had heard Rossini’s Duetto buffo due gatti, and really liked it. Son played it from his phone onto a speaker, and Grandson started to imitate the singers. It was very fun.
I think this is such a fun song. Grandson has pretty good pitch, I am happy to say. His mother was a vocal major and has a beautiful soprano voice. Son is a very low bass and also sang in college. Our Daughter sang in college, too, and is a low alto.
I don’t remember when I heard my first classical singing or opera. I have never been able to listen to opera on the radio, but I remember my first real opera experience when I was 18 and saw Aida performed in some ruins in Rome. It was a wonderful experience. Daughter’s best friend was one of the leads in The Bartered Bride in grad school. I wish I had more opportunity to hear live opera, but there isn’t a lot in western ND. I hope we can find some more opera music for Grandson to listen to as I am here this week.
How are you and opera? Seen any good performances? What is your favorite opera?
There’s so much stuff going on, I don’t have time to get to the other stuff.
One day I met a friend in the grocery store, and he was carrying a bag of coleslaw mix. I’ve always liked coleslaw but never made my own. The friend told me how easy it is to make coleslaw and I started making my own and it is enjoyable and quite tasty. Last week I bought a fresh cabbage, and carrots, and this batch is even better than ever. Summertime goodness.
I took the generator off Kelly’s tractor, the C, and the alternator off the swather and took both of those to a local small business to be repaired. Once I get them back and reinstalled, I’ll be able to check them both off my To-Do list and hopefully both those things will stay charged and ready to start.
I feel like I spent so much time doing other “stuff”, I don’t get much crossed off my list.
Last week, coming back from Chatfield, my truck seemed to be making a thumping noise. I was trying to decide if it was the road, but no, got off the highway and it was still there. Then I was going through the dash gauges trying to find the tire pressures and there was a BANG and the tread came off a rear wheel. Bent both sides of the wheel well and ripped off a mud flap.
But the tire wasn’t flat, so I slowly drove the 10 miles home, took both rear wheels off, and took them to my tire place, Appel Service, in Millville. It was Monday so all the bars and restaurants were closed, but one place let me buy a bottle of pop. I walked around town and sat on a bench and enjoyed the weather while they put on new tires. Glad this happened close to home and not on the way to Minneapolis or something.
The coyotes have been back in the early mornings. One bark from Bailey, and Luna, sleeping in our bed, goes bezerk. That sure wakes us out of a sound sleep. And I stood outside trying to figure out what they’re barking at. And then I saw …‘something’…100 yards away down on the swamp road. And then it turned, and it was a coyote. Back in the house for the rifle and of course it was gone by then. I don’t think it got any breakfast that day. I fired one shot, just to warn it, and it hasn’t come back for a few days.
We got the barn painted. Here’s a before and after photo:
It looks real nice and I didn’t have to be involved. Well, except to write a check.
A former college student got married on the Rep Theater stage last week. It was really nice.
Cutting grass one night and the mower started running rough. That just about sucked all the wind out of me. “Can’t things just work??” And the next day I cleaned the spark plug, air filter, filled it with gas and thank goodness the lawn mower fairies must have been in because it worked fine. Then the belt came off the deck. Sigh.
The next day I went to John Deere and got both a new deck belt and a new drive belt and we’re back to cutting grass again. Until the next thing happens.
Classes start Monday at the college. I have one online class this fall, “Interpersonal communication”. I know the instructor and I asked him how communication could be online? He said this is about learning the “theory” of communication. He said I can still be a jerk if I want to be after class, but at least I would know HOW to communicate.
Watching the DNC convention and they had a huge balloon drop on the last night. Back in my stagehand days, I was part of an event that included a balloon drop. I remember whomever was in charge showing us what rope to pull. They were very specific about giving us a signal when it was time. Myself and another guy up in the catwalks waiting. We can’t find our guy, no one on the intercom, no idea what we’re supposed to be doing. But they’ve hit the climatic high point and it seems like this would be a good time, but again, they were very specific about telling us when. And yet there’s no sign of our guy. But once everyone started staring at the ceiling, we decided now’s the time and we released the balloons. You really do need a LOT of balloons to make it look like something. That group didn’t have that many.
I’m adding some 10’ tall, 6×6 posts next to some rotted posts in the pole barn.
Too many years of manure have rotted out the bases. The shed was built maybe in the 1970’s?
Dig a hole and bolt the new post to the old post. It takes 6 trips with the gator to get all the tools and bolts and drills, and back for a step ladder and sledgehammer, and another trip for the tractor and some gravel, and then another trip because a 5/8” bolt doesn’t fit in a ½” hole.
So it goes.
Mom used to say, “What your brain forgets your feet will remember”.
I’ve got three posts to fix and then I can check that off the list and move on to something else.
As you read this, I am on my way to South Dakota with several hundred children’s books, about a dozen Tintin comic books, pesto, home canned tomato puree, and a croquet set. The Tintin books are for my son. (Daughter will eventually get the Calvin and Hobbes three volume boxed set.) My son and daughter in law may view this as me just coming to babysit, but I see this as a way of clearing things out of the basement and garage as we get ready to move.
We played croquet about 10 years ago when our son and daughter in law were here for a visit. I think we had bought it new at that time. Grandson was not yet born. It was an impulse buy on Husband’s part. Prior to that visit, I don’t think I had played croquet for more than 40 years. I remember cutthroat games at my cousins’ farm in Magnolia, MN. There was always the possibility that Cousin Jack would club Cousin Jeff as part of their never ending conflicts and struggles for supremacy. I never got clubbed.
Our son and daughter in law have a huge back yard, so I think Grandson and I and his parents will have some croquet games during my visit. My memories of the rules and the setup of the wickets are foggy, so I will go on-line to figure out how to set up and play. I promise not to club anyone if I lose.
What outdoor games did you like to play? Any Tintin or Calvin and Hobbes fans? Any conflictual cousins?
I am driving to Brookings, SD tomorrow for a week to look after my grandson while his parents work and the elementary schools haven’t yet opened and his usual child care center is closed for the week. Husband is staying home to look after the garden and the dog. He will meet us in Detroit Lakes for Labor Day weekend at a lake cabin we have rented.
I bought a crate of peaches yesterday to bring along. The local fruit man had some lovely looking freestone peaches from Utah, of all places, He usually has Washington peaches this time of year, but the orchard he goes to was busy with the apple harvest. Grandson loves to cook so we will make peach pie fillings to freeze and maybe make peach sorbet or ice cream. His parents have requested peach crisp. I am also bringing pesto and home canned tomato puree. We shall eat well.
In a continuing effort to declutter our home I am bringing all the children’s books we have to our grandson. These are books that our son and daughter had as children. Grandson and I can sort through and keep the ones he likes and discard the others. I also expect I will do leggo construction and we will visit the public library and the wonderful local children’s museum. It will be a nice break for me. I will even have a terrier to care for since Son and DIL have a Westie.
I have very fond memories of the times I spent with my grandparents on their farms, and I want my grandson to have some fond memories of us, too. I am glad Husband can meet us at the lake next week.
What activities would you plan for a week with a 6 year old boy and a terrier? What are some favorite memories of your grandparents or older relatives? Ever had peaches from Utah?
Our city has a Walmart, a Menards, a Runnings, and a Tractor Supply. We also have two grocery stores. For the fancier shopping experiences at places like Target, Sam’s Club, and Costco we have to drive 100 miles to Bismarck. Macy’s is 300 miles away in Fargo.
For some reason, our Walmart store has done a complete redo of their building, with aisles in places where there were none and super polished floors. There are different, somewhat more “upscale” products, and more self checkouts. They also moved things from where we were accustomed to find them to new and strange places. The pet supplies are where the infant section was, just across from the frozen food. Shampoos and toiletries are where the pet supplies used to be. Office supplies are where the craft section was. Even in aisles that still have the same products, the products have been rearranged differently, so if we go to, say, where the distilled water used to be, we find it has been moved to the other end of the aisle from where it had been.
It has become a community joke that shopping at Walmart now takes twice as long because people can’t find what they need since it has all been moved. People laugh as they pass each other for the third or fourth time unsuccessfully finding what they are looking for. One problem is that the signs telling what are in the aisles haven’t been changed yet and the old signs are still there.
We don’t go to Walmart all that much. I go more often than Husband. He can’t stand the store as the noise is hard for him to take because of his hearing aids. I had seen some of the renovations, so when we both went to Walmart yesterday, I was somewhat prepared for the changes. Husband wasn’t at all prepared, and was bewildered by the rearrangement of items. We laughed and waved at people as we passed them multiple times as we searched. Husband says he will never go there without me, as he is afraid he will get lost and we will have to send a search party to find him.
Any bewildering changes in your big box stores? Where do you like to shop and where do you loathe to shop?
I have worked in my present job for 25 years. They have been very good years on the whole. I am now getting ready retire from full time work to a part-time position in January. I will only work about 20 hours a week after I retire. Husband does this, having retired from the State about 10 years ago and working part-time ever since.
The bulk of my work has been doing psychological evaluations and individual/family therapy. I always schedule two evaluations a week and therapy clients wherever I can fit them in. The writing of reports takes up a good bit of my time, too. There is never any shortage of evaluations to do, and I will continue to do two a week even after I retire. Because my part-time job will only involve doing evaluations, I am in the process of finishing up with current therapy clients. I am not taking on any new ones. It would not be ethical to start with new therapy clients, only to transfer them to someone else after a couple of months. This has left me, for the first time, with the ability to get way ahead finishing my evaluation reports, with large spans of time during the day when I have nothing to do. In the old days, I was always finishing evaluation reports at the last minute due to not having enough free time during the work day to write.
I don’t like being bored. The next few months will only get more boring, I am afraid. I could plead ill health and just go home, but I think people would get suspicious if I took too much sick leave. (I have about 700 hours accrued.) I don’t want to retire before January 1, as I want to work full time for financial reasons.
I have been surreptitiously doing crosswords and other puzzles. I have more time to write blog posts at work than at home! My colleagues are all super busy, so I feel guilty looking idle. I don’t want to shut my office door, either. I just keep my desk covered with papers and try to look productive.
How do you handle being bored? What is the longest job you ever had? Any ideas how I can pass the time as I sit here?
I’m back at the college. Back at ‘Work’ work. Which, at the least, gives me a little more structure to my day, so I can comment on the blogs in the mornings.
I’ve told you about the oats getting cut, and then harvested, and now all that’s left is baling up the straw. I thought it looked good and I’d have the pole barn full and enough straw left in the fields to make some round bales. Jokes on me. You’d think I’d know not to count my bales before they’re made.
The pole barn where I store the straw was nearly empty, and what was left on the bottom row had mildew on the bottom edge, and many had broken strings (Someone tell me why the mice always only eat through one string?) so I used the tractor and loader and cleaned it all out.
Then I put some house wrap on the ground hoping maybe it will keep those bottom bales from getting mildew. Found a snake in the corner, but no raccoons.
I baled the first field of 5 acres, and I got 96 bales; three quarters of a load. Well, shoot. I expected 250 bales off that field. But the next field did better. I got three loads, about 400 bales from there.
And then the last 2 fields were thin and I didn’t get much off them. But I expected that. They didn’t look very good before harvest. I finished with 615 bales total. 488 were put in the barn, with 127 stacked on a wagon for the neighboring strawberry farm this fall. The bales are more brown than usual due to the rain and rust fungus.
Baling went well, not too many issues.
The twine holding the bales together, comes in ‘bales’. Because of course. It’s sisal twine, typically from Brazil (I don’t know why, it’s just what the bag says). Two spools of twine in each bag, because my baler uses two strings on each bale. There are some balers that use three strings per bale, making a little larger bale, but still considered a ‘small square bale’. The large square bales typically have 6 strings on them. Big square or round bales use a different twine.
The twine is usually brown, but green isn’t unheard of. I have used plastic baler twine for the straw, but the mice would still just chew one string, and the plastic would get wrapped up on stuff and, of course, it never goes away. The sisal will eventually degrade.
You can see my baler holds four spools; the one being used and a spare spool. One spool feeds each side of the bale. Some balers might hold eight spools (more extra’s). And the larger square balers hold up to 15 spools. The twine comes out of the spool, through some guides, through the ‘needles’, which come up through the hay or straw and into the knotters, bringing the twine with them, in order to encircle the bale with twine. The knotters make a simple overhand knot, and cut off the string after the knot, while holding onto the next string to make the next bale. It’s pretty fascinating to watch and understand. And maddening when it isn’t working right.
A spool makes about 500 bales. And I don’t know why, but the spools never run out together. Which doesn’t make any sense. The needles always move together, the strings SHOULD be the same length, and I have started the bales together. But they never run out the same. Must be the spool itself.
Ninety nine percent of the time when a twine spool runs out and the next spool starts, for whatever reason, that straw or hay bale will not tie right. I haven’t figured out yet if it’s my knot that comes apart, or what happens. The next bale will work fine. But that bale with the splice, blows apart in mid-air. I was pleasantly pleased when it changed spools and the bale DIDN’T break once!
I had my two padawan’s help unload. Because the barn was empty and we only had the three loads, we could just throw them out of the wagon by hand, we didn’t need the elevator. I only had three rows on the ground, and I was stacking up three more rows.
The boys were trying to throw a bale over the top of the wagon. They got close, but never quite over. Next year I’ll bet they will be able to. I was just pleased I have ‘old man strength’ and I could still keep up with them.
The ducks are still doing well, and they come running when I call them and throw out corn.
Next week, everything else that’s been happening.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE NOW YOU DIDN’T HAVE WHEN YOUNGER? (POSITIVE ANSWERS ONLY)
I find it ironic that today is both National Relaxation Day and National Rollercoaster Day. Neither of those things go together!
The last time I was on a rollercoaster or similar ride was almost 41 years ago on our honeymoon. We spent a week in Minneapolis-St. Paul after the wedding, which coincided with the Minnesota State Fair. Husband was insistent that we go on a ride on the midway. He chose a rather adventurous one, and, wanting to please, I agreed reluctantly to go on the ride. I hated it, I refused to scream like the others, and was pale and almost ill when the ride ended. He has never insisted that we go on any more rides together. I think the only other rides he went on were with our children.
I don’t know when I stopped liking carnival rides. I loved them as a child. I was 25 when I married, so it sure didn’t last long. As for relaxation, I am a constant worrier and pretty anxious most of the time. I can teach other people to relax, as I have done that for a living for almost as long as I have been married. People seem to like deep breathing exercises. In a pinch, holding a bag of frozen veggies also works for intense anxiety. My children both frequently thank me for passing down the Generalized Anxiety Disorder gene to them. I just smile and grab a bag of frozen corn.
What was the last carnival ride you went on? How do you relax? Who is the least anxious person you know?
Trail Baboon 