Category Archives: 2026

2026, Computers, crops, Farming Update, Nature, pets, Uncategorized, Weather

DIGGIN’ IN

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This week’s farming update from Ben

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY.

How about this weather! 

Way too warm for February. But the chickens sure enjoying having some grass and sunshine. The dogs, too. And if we can get rid of some of the ice between the house and shed, maybe Luna will chase the ball over that way instead of standing here watching it go. 

I’m thinking I’ll use the tractor loader and try to move some of the piles of snow and gravel from the grass back onto the the road. Although I’m pretty sure we’ll get some more snow this winter. I mean, it’s only February. We just never know anymore. 

At the college I had to create a new computer password. The muscle memory has not formed yet and it takes me four tries to log in.

At the local school district, their passwords have to be 15 characters plus all the special stuff. Seems like sometime last summer I couldn’t get logged into email and I kinda forgot about it. I don’t get that much email on that account so it didn’t really matter. Every now and then I’d try to log into a computer and get frustrated and just give up on it. Eventually I got around to trying to get the password reset. I can’t do that from home, it has to be on a district computer. So I tried that, and it still didn’t work. I talked to my boss who had me contact IT. That guy looked me up in the system and said “Huh!”. Hate it when people say that in regard to me… He said I wasn’t in the system and eventually sent me to HR. HR said I wasn’t assigned to a department and therefore, I ceased to exist. Well, I beg to differ! I use to exist. Yep, they knew that, but I don’t anymore. So it was a whole thing to start over and get back in the system. I got a new ID badge complete with a photo of my choosing from my phone, because the lady in HR readily admitted their camera takes lousy photos. So that was nice. 

Another guy in the room said he hadn’t seen an ID badge as old as mine in a long time. I was two versions behind. Huh!

A while ago.

So now I’m able to log in, using a password that’s a practically a short sentence. And no way to see it as you type (they’ve had some security issues in the past).  I check my email more often and I get a lot more emails too. Be careful what you wish for. 

This weekend is the 60th Annual National Farm Machinery show in Louisville KY. 

https://farmmachineryshow.org

It’s the largest indoor farm show in the world, with over 900 booths on “27 acres of interconnected indoor exhibit space”. Admission is free if you’d like to pop in. Expect to be overwhelmed. Many of the YouTube farmers I watch are there. Of course this has all the newest big shiny equipment on display. Oh, there’s a few older tractors for show, but this is the place to show off the latest and greatest. 

I spent a couple hours Friday in a meeting at the local Soil and Water Conservation office meeting with Angela and Jenna. After clearing all the tree’s and reshaping the waterway two years ago, I learned I really should have talked to them first. So last year Angela and I looked at a few areas of the farm and she put together a plan to stop the erosion and repair this gully in the pasture. 

Another project in the works

At the top, a small dam would be built, about 4 feet tall and 150 feet long. An upright pipe would be installed at the front with a drainage line running about 50’ downhill. That structure would collect the water funneling into this area, slow it down, and release it over several hours. That in turn, would prevent the erosion happening further downhill. At the bottom, the gully would be filled in, the area re-shaped, and a proper waterway built. There are some springs down there which would be directed into the new waterway once fully seeded and established. 

Because our farm is in the Zumbro Valley Watershed area, cost sharing would bring our actual cost down to about 10% of the total. Well that sounds like a plan! 

I also asked about a program called RCPP. Regional Conservation Partnership Program. I heard about this program last week at the soil health meeting. I have part of one field edge that has a pretty good slope too it, and every spring I get a small gully along the edge. The edge of a field where a person turns for the next pass, those areas are called headlands. I’ve tried to create a berm to keep the rainwater off the headland rows, but every spring I get a new gully. The RCPP program would do some cost sharing to create a permanent grass area there so rather than working up the ground of the headlands, I’d be turning on the grassy area. 

And since the office is having their annual tree and shrub sale, Kelly and I were discussing where we could plant some trees. One thing we thought was to plant a wind break where we put the snow fence. Guess what? Cost sharing for that too! It was a very good meeting! 

Check out the spurs on this rooster. 

You’ll poke your eye out with those things!

He is one of the roosters who’s kind of a bully to the hens. He’s pretty though. And isn’t that the way? All looks, no class. 

Last weekend I got the new shop exhaust fan wired up, and I put a new gasket under one toilet this week (a project I put off for two months because I’d never done it before and I had some concerns.) In the end, I spent more time cleaning off the old wax gasket and cleaning the floor around the toilet than the actual repair took. This weekend I’ll be changing the kitchen faucet spray wand and tubing. This is the fourth one I’ve ordered. The first three were wrong. Now we’re changing the hose as well. Kudo’s to Moen and their lifetime warranty for admitting their mistake and shipping parts to me no charge. 

WHAT WAS YOUR CHILDHOOD PHONE NUMBER?

WHAT WAS THE FIRST THING FOR WHICH YOU NEEDED A PASSWORD?

2026, Automotive, home, Medicine, Uncategorized

Just Like That!

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I continue to be amazed by the speed at which we can access goods and services here. Our town in ND was 20,000 people. Our current town is about 4,900 people. You would think it would be easier to get things done in a bigger town, but that has not been the case.

A couple of weeks ago I finally had it with the front right tire on my van losing air with sudden temperature changes. This has been going on for a couple of years. No one in ND had offered a solution. We randomly chose a tire shop here to deal with the matter. The nice young mechanic/owner explained how he would fix it, and then told us he could probably squeeze it in that afternoon. What? I didn’t have to bring it in the following week? Well, he fixed it in a couple of hours. There was a leaky pressure sensor that needed to be replaced. I then figured out from his last name that his grandmother and my mother had been members of the same sewing club, that his parents lived across the street from us, and that I graduated from high school with his aunt. The tire has behaved admirably ever since.

Wednesday I was feeling awful with a flare-up of diverticulitis. I phoned the medical clinic at 9:50 am. They said they had an appointment for me at 10:15. I took it. This was the actual clinic, not Urgent Care. There is no Urgent Care here. The clinic is a 3 minute drive from our home. By afternoon I was feeling better.

The wired-in smoke detectors on our new home were all a faded, aged yellow. They looked original to the home, which was built in 1998. They should be replaced every 10 years. When our son tried to brown the Thanksgiving turkey at 500°, the upstairs was filled with smoke yet none of the smoke detectors went off. Yesterday at 12:15 pm I phoned an electrician to get them replaced. He told me he could come over that afternoon. He was at the house by 12:40 pm, and by 1:10 pm all seven of them had been replaced. They are white, not yellowed.

What are the wait times for you to get goods and services? How are your smoke detectors? What is the longest you had to wait for a medical appointment?

2026, books, Family, holidays, Mysteries, TV, Uncategorized

BritBox vs. Libby

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For the holidays, YA gave me a marvelous (albeit completely unnecessary) gift:

Since the discovery that I could get Libby to work through my hearing aids, my reading has been up a bit and I was happy when I had hit 14 by January 31.  I was thinking that maybe it might be a banner year.

Another gift that I received this year was also an unnecessary bit of fun.  When I visited my friend Susan in Madison last year, one of our conversations was about television and all the shows we liked.  I mentioned that I loved a lot of the British shows that I could find and that I wished BritBox wasn’t so expensive; I’m just not willing to pay anymore for tv in our house than I already do.  When I opened the envelope from Susan, I expected a gift card; it turned out to be a coupon for two months of BritBox paperclipped to $22 cash.  I laughed and laughed.

I launched the two-month gift on February 1st.  I took the book counter photo yesterday morning.  Not one book added since January 31.  That’s because I am flippin’ LIVING on BritBox – part of my psyche says I should get as much seen as possible while I have this two-month gift.  Death in Paradise (Season 15), Vera (just a few shows…on the edge of too dark for me), Ludwig (the whole first season – can’t wait for Season 2 later this year), Hamish Macbeth (only a couple of these), Poirot – Death on the Nile.   I’ll stop here.  So far I haven’t wandered off the murder mystery path, but I’m sure I will eventually.  

It’s actually really enjoyable since I’m pretty good at skipping shows I don’t like.  Heaven knows there are enough available.  I turned off Riot Women 10 minutes in; ABC Murders lasted about that long as well.

Truly the only regret I have about having this two months is the hit it’s taking to my reading.  Truly, if it weren’t for cds and Libby when I’m doing errands in the car, I wouldn’t be reading at all!

Do any of your hobbies/past-times fight each other for your attention?

2026, Business, Food, Uncategorized

Product Reviews

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Husband and I quite regularly purchase specialty foods from a Spanish and an Italian importer, as well as things now and then from Amazon. We also order quite a bit from King Arthur Baking Company. I usually ignore the pleas from these entities for reviews of our purchases.

I mostly have better things to do, and I would hope my continued ordering would let them know we are happy with their products. I know the reviews are all in the aid of marketing.

The other day, though, the King Arthur Baking Company hooked me with an offer of a possible $100 if I reviewed our recent purchase of all-purpose flour. I really do like their flour. I told them it is the only all-purpose flour we use. It was impossible to submit the review, however, and I finally gave up in frustration.

What products do you order on-line? Ever submitted a review? What products would you like to honestly review?

2026, Family, home, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

Touch The Sky

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In 1986-1987 Husband and I and our son lived in far southern Indiana in a place nicknamed “The Athens of the Prairie”. We were only there for a year while Husband did his 12 month psychology internship, We were at 624 feet above sea level there.

I flew to Luverne with my son in the summer of 1987 to leave him with my mother while my dad and I drove to western ND to find a house to rent. Husband had just secured a full time job there. Luverne is 1463 feet above sea level. Winnipeg, where we moved from to Indiana is at 700 feet above sea level. Dickinson, ND, where we eventually moved, is 2460 feet above sea level. I remember being amazed at how different the sky looked in Indiana compared to Dickinson. It was as though I could pluck the clouds out of the sky in ND. We lived there from 1987 until 2025.

Husband and I are noticing differences between living in a tallgrass prairie in Luverne as opposed to a mixed grass prairie in Dickinson 1000 feet higher. The weather, humidity, and vegetation are much different. Jim Brandenburg, our local celebrity nature photographer dedicated about 1000 acres of tallgrass prairie just north of town as a nature preserve. It is named “Touch The Sky”. Look it up. It is wonderful. Much of the Twin Cities, by the way, seems to be in an oak savannah. Look that up.

Where are the highest and lowest places you went to. Ever read Giants In The Earth? Look up The Athens of The Prairie.

2026, animals, home, Nature, Uncategorized

Hawk!

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Husband has installed five bird feeders just adjacent to our deck. He tries to entice fiches, cardinals, juncos, and other smallish birds. Late last week he exchanged one feeder that seemed to be too squirrel friendly, since the backyard furry thieves were emptying it daily. The dog is disappointed since he loved chasing the squirrels off the deck.

Over the past couple of weeks we have seen the little birds suddenly take flight from the feeders en masse, and the silhouette of a much larger bird flying over or else perching on the new fence. I finally got a good look at it, and it seems to be this one:

It was blue-grey with a pink breast. We determined it was a Coopers Hawk. I finally got a closeup view as it was standing in the yard devouring a small bird. The little birds eventually all return, especially when it is sunny..

There are hawks and other large birds here we didn’t see often in ND. It has been fun to try to identify them. There is at least one Bald Eagle that flies over our neighborhood. We also saw some ravens. I also think we saw a snowy owl fly out of a ditch as we were coming back from Sioux Falls.

What is the rarest bird you ever saw in the Great Outdoors? What are your favorite wild birds?

2026, Baboon Achievers, home, Kids

Painting Heroics

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YA is my hero.

Backstory.  Two years ago, when we had the bathroom done, when it was time for our contractor to plaster in a few places, I convinced him to plaster a few spots in the upstairs hallway and the steps.  YA and I agreed on the new color we wanted and then did… nothing.  I look at this every day and hate it but not enough to actually do anything about it.  We talk about it every couple of months, but no changes.  And I certainly am not going to nag her about it when I’m not willing to put on my painting clothes.  I’ve even thought about hiring a painter.

Last week she decided she was ready.  We went to Home Depot and got a gallon of paint and a paintbrush and a roller and then she got to it.  Did a little sanding, wiped down all the walls, tape and more tape and even more tape.  She used up all the paint and sent me back to HD to get more.  No problem.   She asked me once if I wanted to paint.  I declined.

We talked about it further; while she is working on this project, I’ve stepped up in other areas.  Bringing up her laundry, doing all the dishes she leaves in the sink, not asking her to take out the recycling/trash.  It’s a good allocation of chores, because I suck at painting. I’m too impatient and I’m genetically unable to paint without making a mess.  YA has painted the whole hallway and halfway down the steps with her first gallon of paint.  There is NO paint on the floor anywhere.  And there has been NO paint on YA or her clothing.  I’m not sure how she manages this.  (I did a couple of cards using a stencil the day she was painting and I got blue ink on every single one of my finger tips.) 

She says she is going to finish tomorrow since she has the day off.  How did I get so lucky?

How do you allocate chores/work? 

2026, Family, Gatherings, Uncategorized

High Church, Low Church

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Last month Husband and I became members of the ELCA Lutheran Church in our MN town. It is the church I grew up in, and the church we were married in. We had been members of the ELCA Lutheran Church in our ND town since 1987. Although they are both ELCA churches, they are quite different from one another. Both churches have women pastors, I should add.

Our MN church was founded by Norwegians. The ND church had German and German Russian roots. The ND church is quite formal, with a liturgy sung/chanted by the pastor. There is very little talking as people are being seated and wait for the service to begin. The congregation relies on the choir to lead the singing. The music is quite formal and traditional. It is definitely what I would consider “High Church”.

Our MN church currently has no full time choir since the 90+ year old choir director died and they haven’t found a replacement for her. There is a good organist. People talk and laugh and drink coffee as they sit in the pews and wait for the service to start. We were very much involved with the choir and handbell choir in our ND church, and it is different for us to be in the congregation and not in the choir loft. While the order of service is the same, the congregation is much more involved in the service, and sings very loudly. They also sing in tune, which is wonderful to hear. There is a worship music team that plays contemporary songs, although the old hymns are also sung. It is definitely what I would consider “Low Church”.

I admit I prefer a more formal service and music. One of my favorite memories is attending a very full Solemn Evensong service at King’s College, Cambridge and being seated in the choir loft right next to the baritone section. It was wonderful.

It is a comfort to be back in my childhood congregation. There will be choir that sings Palm Sunday and we will participate in that. There used to be a handbell choir but not enough players at the present time. and there was quite a lot of excitement expressed when I mentioned that Husband and I were ringers. It may be only a matter of time that we are church musicians again.

Even if you don’t believe or attend, are you High Church or Low Church in how you live your life?

2026, Art, Family, home, Uncategorized

Hanging It Up

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After three months in our new home we finally found enough energy to hang pictures.

Our “Boommate” will be moving in with us in a couple of months and we needed to get the pictures out of her space downstairs where they are all stacked against a wall. Our new home is bigger than our old home, but has less wall space for picture display since there are many more windows. Part of the hanging process involved deciding which ones we will continue to store in the furnace room. Husband decided he didn’t want any of his old family pictures hung. That made things a lot easier, as some of them are pretty big.

For some reason I make Husband anxious by my picture hanging method, which involves careful measuring and centering. He worries that the pictures will fall off the walls because the nails and/or fasteners will rip out of the drywall, and wondered why we didn’t secure them in the wall studs. I explained that the hangers pictured in the header photo are very secure and that none of our pictures is so heavy as to require securing in a stud. I think he believes me, but still is anxious about the whole process.

In a tribute to our famous local photographer Jim Brandenburg, we hung all his nature photos in the dining room A large John Coltrane poster graces the area with the piano and Husband’s guitar and cello. The house is really feeling like home.

What are your picture hanging methods? What makes your abode feel like home?

2026, Government, Uncategorized

Conflict Of Interest

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One of the more irritating things I had to do recently is register with the ND Secretary of State office to declare any possible conflicts of interest in my role on the ND Psychology Regulatory Board.

Even though I moved out of state in October, the Board’s attorney from the AG’s office said I would remain on the Board for six months, as that is how long it takes to establish residency after a person moves. I still find that hard to understand, but, oh well. We heard from the Secretary of State’s office in early January that we had to declare any financial or other conflicts of interest that could sway our votes on the Board by January 31. Anyone running for office, holding office, or appointed by the Governor to boards and commissions had to get this done by January 31 or face fines.

I understand why this is important, but I only have three more months on the Board. There are very few fiduciary conflicts for Psychology Board members that would sway our decisions regarding ethical complaints against the professionals we license. I think a greater conflict of interest is that there are so few of us psychologists in ND that we generally know all the licensees, and we might go softer or harder on folks depending if we do or don’t like them! In my 10 years on the Board I haven’t seen that happen, though.

Well, last week I printed off the 41 pages of instructions for filing my conflict of interest declarations on-line and got the deed finished. I had no conflicts to declare, of course. Between doing that and making sure any entity needing to send us tax documents had our change of address, I have been somewhat irritable and anxious. I shall be glad when May arrives, I am officially no longer on the Board, and all taxes are filed.

How comfortable are you doing business on-line? What’s irritated you lately?