Category Archives: 2024

2024, Family, home, Nature, Seasons, TV

Freak Out!

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I spent a week with Nonny in St. Louis the second week of January.  While I was there, they had some bad weather.  First there was “wintery mix” the night before I arrived which necessitated my brother-in-law picking me up from the airport instead of Nonny.  As far as I could tell, the wintery mix was a dusting of snow.  But a dusting of snow in St. Louis is a much bigger deal than it here.

Then as we headed into the weekend, the forecast was for “bitterly cold” temperatures – in the single digits with some below zero wind chills.  Again, for St. Louis this is out of the ordinary and very alarming.  St. Louis was freaking out.  On Friday night, Nonny had the tv set to local news for about 90 minutes and at least 60 of those minutes were spent on the weather.  What the temperature had been, what temperatures were predicted, instructions to stay in, recommendations for how to be prepared if you need to go out. 

As a Minnesotan of 45 years standing, it struck me as funny although I kept my mouth shut.  If we’d had weather in the Twin Cities the last few days like Renee experienced last week, we’d be freaked out too.  It’s all about what you’re used to. 

My sister, who has appointed herself the arbiter of what Nonny should and shouldn’t be doing, made sure to give me advice about keeping Nonny inside and making sure Nonny had enough food “stocked up”.  This was even funnier; if you know Nonny then you’d know that even at the age of 91, nobody gets to be Nonny’s arbiter except Nonny.  In fact, when I did a quick run out to the hardware store for some magnetic catches (fixing her bathroom cabinet doors), she insisted on coming with me.  So then we went to the grocery store as well.  The roads were pretty well deserted, even at noon.  St. Louis was indeed staying inside!

Caroline sent me this picture that day – what a great laugh since I was actually in St. Louis.    Of course it’s photo-shopped.  While ice does form on the Arch (and is actually a danger as it sheets off – they sometimes close the area underneath the Arch because of this), it never looks like this.  Too bad, it’s pretty this way!

Anybody remember who said “if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…”?  How do you keep calm when everyone else is freaking out?

2024, Family, Games, Health, home, Mysteries

I Will Not Finish the Puzzle….

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I will not finish the puzzle today.  I will not finish the puzzle today.  I will not finish the puzzle today. 

I have an obsession problem when it comes to jigsaw puzzles.  I have trouble stopping once I sit down in front of a puzzle.  There have been times that I have not walked away for hours.  I’ve skipped meals, I’ve been late to work, I’ve lost sleep.  YA has inherited this from me.  During the pandemic holidays, we worked 8 hours on a puzzle, taking turns picking movies to watch on tv.  Sad (although we DID finish before bed).  Because of this, sometimes I shy away from starting a puzzle if I have things that need getting done.

Over the holidays I did an Advent jigsaw puzzle.  It was 24 little boxes of 42 pieces; one little puzzle a day that made one big puzzle at the end.  It was wonderful… it was a fun and relaxing start to my day throughout the season and the fact that each day was in its own box kept me from jumping ahead.  I will definitely do it again.

So when I started a new puzzle last Thursday I told myself that would have a two-hour limit.  I figured if I set a boundary, like the little boxes had been boundaries, then I could avoid sitting at the table for hours and hours on end.  I even wrote it down on my daily “to-do” list.  Thursday turned out fine; it took me right about two hours to sort out all the edge pieces and put them together.  I spent 2½ hours on Friday; aided and abetted by having my Zoom book club for close to three hours. 

On Saturday, I was making good progress and watching tv and I felt myself sliding down the slippery slope.  The two-hour mark came and went.  “I’ll just work until this tv show is over”.  Then the next show.  As the next show started, I began my mantra.  “I will not finish this puzzle” today, I will not finish this puzzle today”.  This worked; I stood up from table after a little over five hours.

You know how this is going to end.  I spent 5 hours yesterday and finished it as it was started to get dark.   And just what happened to the two hours yesterday?  I excused myself from the rule because I was feeling sorry for myself… still coughing a bit much to hang around with healthy folks.  I can  come up an excuse with the best of them!

Do you ever have to set limits on yourself?

(Thanks to Jacque for the puzzle!)

2024, animals, Family, Farming Update, Nature, pets, Seasons, Weather

Almost There

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

The chickens and us survived January’s cold spell and the only casualties were my truck batteries and the electric bill. The truck, being a diesel, takes two batteries. I’ll replace them next week when it’s in positive temperature digits. Last Friday, as the storm was winding down, Kelly and I took the truck up the road just to see how bad it was. (It was only bad in spots) Then Tuesday when I needed the truck, it cranked pretty slow, but I ran it for a few hours and figured it would be fine on Wednesday. Nope. Just the dreaded click. Changed my plans and took the dog to the vet in the back of the car. (Humphrey tore a toenail and needed that trimmed off).

The chickens did fine hanging out inside and waiting for me to bring them more food and water. They didn’t seem to mind either way. Egg production went down a bit; 18 eggs per day rather than 24.

From this photo, you’ll see many of them seem to prefer this one nest box. They still like their groups of 3 and I often find nest boxes with three eggs in them. And nine is a variant of three, so it still works I guess. Production will recover as it warms up. I was taking corn to them by their pen as they didn’t venture outside very far. Above zero and a nice calm, sunny day and they do pretty good. Below zero and they just stand peeking out the door.

Kelly saw five male pheasants down by the barn and it’s always so fun to see them. There should be about 10 or 11 or, at least, there was last year. I assume the rest will find the corn eventually as word spreads in the pheasant community.

The deer community has come together in this cold weather. Here’s a picture of a herd spotted in our fields this week.

And a little further down the road, another group this large. I’m telling you, we have too many deer. Stupid deer.

This fall I put a smaller tank heater in the water tank down by the barn. It works fine when it’s above about 10 degree’s. It isn’t worth diddly in temps below that. When I put a frozen water bucket in the tank, I have to chip it out of the ice again in the morning, but the bottom will be thawed and I can knock the ice out and refill for the chickens.

I think by Monday I’ll be able to turn off the wellhouse heater. (see electric meter) I put 25 bales of straw around it last Thursday before it snowed.

Doesn’t seem to help hold the temp above freezing when it’s less than about 10 degree’s outside. Which makes me wonder: I’d think with the cement floor, the ground inside should be warmer, so am I losing that much heat out the roof? Should I put bales on the roof too? I rebuilt three of the four walls in 2013. The fourth wall is against a tree so it was too much trouble to rebuild.

I am lucky I didn’t need any tractors this week, but I kept the one plugged in just in case. (again, see electric meter). Kudo’s to all the people working in this weather and doing what needs to be done.

Next week I’m going to wash the car!

WHAT WILL YOU DO NEXT WEEK?

2024, Business, home, TV

No Purchase Necessary

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Now that I have a little more leisure after the holidays, I’ve had more time in my studio which also means more time with the tv on.  It’s astonishing to see what some actors are willing to do in commercials these days.  I will admit to a bit of snobbery about seeing quite famous folks doing commercials but even so….

Drew Barrymore and Sarah Jessica Parker are both hawking gaming apps right now.  (I’m not sure I want to know where these apps are getting the money to make/run these commercials.)   SJP’s commercial isn’t too silly but I’ve seen three DB adds so far and she acts like a moron in all of them. 

Ty Pennington, who used to do those makeover shows is also doing ads for a casino app.  Luckily I’ve only seen one – he is hanging upside down in a chimney wearing a Santa hat.  Idiotic.

John Travolta is selling something by wearing a Santa suit and doing disco, although his age is really showing as he dances.  It’s probably problematic that I’ve seen the commercial a couple of times in the last week but can’t remember the product. 

I’m not the target audience but I do wonder how much money these folks are getting paid to act stupid on national/international tv.  Part of me thinks they couldn’t pay me enough to do this but part of me thinks that if some product wanted to cough up a TON of cash, I might weigh the pros and cons.  I think “well, it would only run so long” but then I remember some of the old commercials we’ve dredged up here on the trail (“it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature”)… maybe my ad would go viral and I’d become famous and then where would I be?  But an infusion of cash wouldn’t be so bad either. I suppose it’s a good thing that I’ll never have to make this decision in my lifetime!

Any particularly heinous ads bugging you these days?

2024, Family, Food, Mysteries

Much Ado About the Birthday

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Today is YA’s birthday.  A whooping 29 years old today!!

YA is one of those folks who likes a little fuss but doesn’t like to admit they want a fuss.  This is hard for me because #1: I love making a fuss and #2: when you don’t want to admit to wanting fuss, then you don’t admit to what you actually want.  I have to figure what she MIGHT like and not go beyond that!

The first thing we have is a banner that says “Happy Birthday” that I made a few years ago; I hang it up across the arch between the dining room and living room.  I added two big balloons, one on each end of the arch.  A “2” and a “9”.  (YA’s dog Guinevere is twenty years younger than YA so we will keep the “9” for the end of the month!).  That’s it for décor.

Goodies are harder.  Most of the time YA is not a cookies/cake/cupcake kind of person. Most of the time.  But you can’t count on her birthday being a day that she’s in the mood.  She does however like brownies most of the time – as long as they don’t have frosting… so I can make those.  I have two big candles (again a “2” and “9”).  I did get a can of cream cheese frosting so I can write “Happy Birthday” on the brownies.  That will be OK with her. 

For a gift, she’s saving up for a new laptop so there is a giftcard for her.  Not exactly original but it’s what she really wants.  She is fairly particular about what she wears, so I would never buy her clothing. I can never guess what she might like to read so no books.  Between us we got four jigsaw puzzles for the holidays so that’s out.  Giftcard it will be.

All this fuss will be set up during the day while YA is at work so she’ll come home to the fun.  Hopefully I will have gotten the fuss to non-fuss ration correct!

What kind of birthday fuss to you like?

2024, animals, holidays, Mysteries, Travel

Risky Business

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A 22-year old from Taiwan was apprehended at the Bangkok airport before Christmas after he was found to be carrying two Asian small-clawed otters and a prairie dog.  The man has the critters in socks, taped inside his boxer shorts; security officers were suspicious of the big bulge below the man’s waistband.

If I were a man, I’m not sure I’d put anything with claws and teeth (much less three of them) in my shorts.

I noticed this because I was just thinking about taking a small bag of spices with me to St. Louis last week.  I needed to recreate my sister’s mac and cheese recipe while I was at Nonny’s and was pretty sure that Nonny might not have all these spices.  I didn’t want to buy whole jars of them in St. Louis.  Putting spices in a ziplock made me think about another time I had spices in my suitcase.

About twenty years ago, my bag was the very last one to arrive on the luggage belt after I had come home from Thailand.  The sniffer dog did not alert on my bag but the fact that I had stood there so long waiting brought me to the attention of the sniffer dog’s handler.  Of course this was the one time I ever had something a little suspicious in my bag.  I had purchased some spices at a road-side stand while in Thailand… just baggies of powder with no labels.  Luckily none of them were white and one of them was filled with whole nutmegs, so it was easily explainable.  I was very glad I had the nutmegs and had not purchased anything even remotely white!           

Have you ever transported something you probably shouldn’t have?

2024, animals, Farming Update, home, Seasons, Technology

January

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Well, now it looks and feels like January in Minnesota. Snow and cold and we haven’t seen the sun in weeks. 

Days like this, I don’t miss the cow chores. Taking care of the chickens fills me with a sense of satisfaction like I used to get from the cows, without nearly the amount of work. With the cold weather predicted I’ll need to pay more attention to keeping the chickens water bucket filled. They drink a surprising amount in a day. It’s fun to watch them drink; they take “sips”, then tip their head back to swallow. Repeat. Just now I googled “how do chickens drink” and it says they don’t have an epiglottis, and their tongue isn’t helpful in this regard, so,… gravity. Google also says chickens drink about a pint or more per day. That means my 45 chickens are going through 5.6 gallons / day. Which seems about right. And with them staying inside more with the snow and cold, it’s a good thing we have a heated bucket. And I’ll need to collect eggs more often before they freeze. 

I’ve ordered seed, fertilizer, and chemicals for spring, so that’s encouraging and exciting and a sign this snow and cold will end. Prices, jeepers. Corn seed is about $300 / bag and plants about 2.5 acres. Soybeans are $60 / bag and does about 1 acre. Oats is $13/ bag and does less than an acre. I don’t even want to tell you how much the fertilizer and spraying totals. It’s over $26,000.  Sigh. And I’m a small farmer! It’s crazy. 

Last week talking about clocks and I should have included this one. I inherited this clock at the college. It was in a cabinet, so it came with the place. 

Peter Max design. Ebay shows them at $600. That’s the thing about Ebay; just because they list that amount doesn’t mean anyone has PAID that amount. 

This cleaver (knife) has been hanging in the machine shed for years.  

I recently found it hanging on a nail in a back corner. And considering it’s been there a long time, it’s in really good shape. What’s the best way to ‘preserve’ it or save it? Oil the wooden handle? Remove the rust on the blade? I don’t know what I would ever do with it besides hang it on a wall, and I’m not up on my antiques. The only printing on it says “Genuine Warranty” and below that a numeral 8. Eight inch blade. I suggested to my family that it’s the actual knife dad dropped on his head when he was 4 years old that he said his mother poured Absorbine Jr. on his head and wrapped it with brown paper, see the scar?? My siblings were dubious and pointed out it was a hatchet, not a knife that he says he split his head with. Spoil sports. 

Tell a story about being groovy. Or a knife story. 

2024, Kids, Mysteries, News, Uncategorized

Alarming Trends

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I have noticed over the past year or so a really alarming trend for people to back into parking paces in parking lots. At the grocery store, it means that if you have a van or you put your groceries in the trunk that it is hard to access the rear of your vehicle. I guess people do this so that they have better visibility when they leave their parking space. I think it is really dumb. It takes longer to park, makes it harder to park, and also makes it quicker for someone to steal your vehicle since they can just drive off instead of having to take time to back out.

People at my agency also noticed over the past year a trend for Middle School and High School female students to try to convince us that they have Dissociative Identity Disorder aka Multiple Personality Disorder, and watch TikTok videos to practice the symptoms and the shifting into the other personalities. They are so disappointed when we dismiss the symptoms.

If you haven’t noticed, I wrote this when I was really crabby. That is usually not a trend for me, but this has been an annoying week. I will be alarmed if my crabby trend continues.

What has made you crabby this week? What were the passing fads when you were in Middle School and High School.

2024, Family, Gatherings, Mysteries

Dressed to Impress

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YA and were invited to a nice party over the weekend – a surprise 70th birthday party for a friend.  The invite didn’t mention any particular dress code but the party was held in a big lovely home up in Kenwood and it seemed like dressing up would be the right way to go. 

Dressing up is not something that I’ve ever been good at.  Pandemic, furlough and retirement has not helped.  I do have a pair of black palazzo pants so I started there but was struggling with a top to go with the pants.  Static didn’t help.  At one point YA came in and said “why don’t you just wear a dress?”  

Well, because I no longer own a dress.  I decided to look in the attic to make sure I wasn’t forgetting about any dresses but no, nothing.  I don’t even remember the last dress I owned or when it left the house, presumably in a goodwill/value village bag. 

I did find a top to go with the palazzo pants and the party was great but I kept thinking the rest of the weekend, “should I invest in a dress”?  Probably not a good use of income since I also can’t remember the last time the thought of wearing a dress even crossed my mind. 

When was the last time you dressed up?

2024, Art, Gatherings, Kids, Movies

Blinding Lights

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YA came home from work yesterday asking if I had watched the Golden Globe ceremonies.  When I looked at her blankly she asked if I had “heard” about them.

I actually don’t really know what the Golden Globes are.  I mean, I know it’s yet another way for the over-paid and over-glamorized folks in Hollywood to pump up their egos, but other than that I don’t know what differentiates it from the Oscars.

One of my friends always makes a point of seeing all the movies that are up for the best picture Oscar.  I’m pretty much 0 for 5 every year for the past 10 years.  I did see Shape of Water on Christmas Day 2018 – I didn’t know anything about it at the time, just that it was showing at a good time for us.  I didn’t actually like it very much so was surprised to find out a few weeks later than it was an Oscar contender.

Apparently the Oscar nominations are due out on January 25 although there are lots of websites trying to predict who will be on the leaderboard.  Since the only movie I’ve been to in the last year is “Migration” (an animated film), I’m pretty sure I’m continuing my streak.

I’m fairly certain that none of my favorite movies have ever even been nominated for a big award, much less won one:  To Catch a Thief, Moonstruck, Princess Bride, People Will Talk, Sneakers, Murder on the Orient Express (1974 version only), American Dreamer, Dial M for Murder…. 

Do you follow the Globes/Oscars/Sundances/Cannes, etc???   Do you have a favorite movie?