Category Archives: animals

2024, animals, Farming Update, Nature, pets

Supplemental Farm Report

26 Comments

I went down to the farm two weeks ago; Ben needed some baboons to take some excess eggs off his hands.  This is always fine for me as not only do I get some quality time with my books on CD during the drive, I get to see the farm and I come home with fresh farm eggs.  This is a win/win/win in my book.

Ben gave me a tour of the shed – he’s made a lot of progress since I was there last summer.  I love the windows that look like eyes on the side of the building.  I asked if he has a timeline in mind for when he’d like to have it finished and he said we’ve already blown past that date.  Seems like the normal human condition.

It was a beautiful day and the chickens and roosters and guineas were all out.  Sadly none of the ducks survived last summer.  We did a little chicken math while we were enjoying the sunshine.  Based on how many chicks he orders every year, how long the average chicken lives and how many he guesstimates that he loses every year, I’m thinking he should have about 3,000 chickens.  Somebody’s math is off.

Luna is fabulous.  She wasn’t as big as I was expecting – she’s right between Humphrey and Bailey in size, so they have a great look when they are standing together.  We took a ride up the road on the gator.  The dogs all rode in back until we got up to the fork; they all got out and walked a bit.  Then Humphrey and Bailey got back in and Ben gave Luna the signal to go.  And go she did.  The photo above doesn’t really do justice to her run but at one point we were going 27 miles per hour on the gator and she was keeping just ahead of us.  If you look closely you can see that none of her feet are actually touching the ground. Amazing!

Since there wasn’t any snow cover, there was mud.  It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting (I had brought extra shoes and clothes just in case) but you know me.  I encouraged the dogs at every turn so I managed to get pretty muddy.  I did change my shoes but figured since I was going straight home, I didn’t need to change anything else.

Shower or tub when you get really dirty? Or the hose in the backyard?

2024, animals, Farming Update, home, Nature, Seasons

The Rabbits

48 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

The weather is warming, the chickens are back out in the grassy areas, I can work in the shop comfortably again, and I turned off the well house heater and unplugged the tractor block heater. Whew. It felt like January in Minnesota. For a week. And now it’s not dark yet at 5:00 PM, and we just need some sunshine. I don’t want to get too anxious or excited about all this, we still got February and March to get through, but there is hope on the horizon.  

When it’s so cold the chickens don’t come to eat the corn we put out down by the barn, there are deer, pheasants, and rabbits that still come around to clean it up. Plus, a variety of birds. I really hate the deer eating that corn, I feed them enough out in the fields, they don’t need to eat this corn, too. At least we haven’t had so many wild turkeys around the last few years.  

I’ve never been very good at identifying animal footprints. Yet again, an example of missing our Steve. We could use his help on this. It’s not hard to know the deer tracks, but Steve would know male from female tracks, and how old they were. He’d know what a pheasant track looked like, and probably know the difference between the tracks of a crow, robin, and mourning dove, as well as how many, what they had for breakfast, and where they were headed next. I can identify rabbit tracks, they’re not hard. No details mind you, just, you know, ‘wabbit twacks’*. And of course, if there’s rabbits, there’s rabbit pellets.  

When I was a kid, I had several different sling shots. Homemade ones that never lasted, simple wooden ones, and I think I had a couple different versions of the ‘Wrist Rocket’ sling shot. Those little rabbit pellets made good ammunition. They were all over the backyard. And they were perfect little balls for shooting! I didn’t know they were rabbit poop. Until my big brother told me. (Older siblings, they spoil everything.) When I see all those pellets down by the barn, I remember that. I googled ‘wrist rocket’ to see if they were still around. They are! My gosh, slingshot technology has advanced! Names like the “Laserhawk”, the “Daisy B52”, the “P51” (The B52 and P51 are well known airplanes). They have molded finger grips and can have multiple ‘launching’ bands! And magnets to hold steel pellets in the pouch! And mounted flashlights!! You can buy targets, or you can buy clay-based shot called “Clod Poppers”.  

The most expensive slingshot I could find was $99.99, the “Scout LT PRO”. According to their advertising, it comes with “additional thumb screws because they look awesome”. Well, there ya go. It looks awesome.  

There are Slingshot tournaments.   There’s a Slingshot Association International. 

Say it like Elmer Fudd

EVER HAD A SLING SHOT?  WHAT TOURNAMENT DO WE NEED?  

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

Almost There

72 Comments

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?

2023, animals, home, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

Brrr!

40 Comments

Last Saturday we reached a milestone in our community of a record breaking windchill of -70° F. I can’t say I was glad to be a part of this. The cold interfered with a lot of things. The guy who is putting new carpet in our basement had to beg off from coming over as his diesel vehicle was completely frozen up and he couldn’t haul the things that he needed. We didn’t leave the house from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. We kept the curtains and blinds closed to keep the heat in and the cold out. I can’t imagine how hard it was for ranchers to keep their cattle safe out in the pastures.

The dog has suffered the most with the cold. He finally got a walk yesterday. Last Friday he went in the yard and got so cold that he couldn’t move and Husband had to rescue him. That was after only a minute or so outside. He wouldn’t be cooperative with booties, and the enforced inside stay has made him constantly begging for attention and doing zoomies around the house since it was too cold to go for walks.

Daughter tried to explain to her West Coast friends how cold it was here, but they just couldn’t relate. It is hard to explain that the cold interferes with the pressure in vehicle tires, and how hard it is to put air in tires when exposed skin will freeze in less than a few minutes. Warmer weather is predicted for next week. I think the dog will be relieved he can finally go for walks.

How do you cope with extreme cold? Any experiences with frost bite?

2024, animals, holidays, Mysteries, Travel

Risky Business

21 Comments

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?

animals, Art, Mysteries, Travel

Helping the Javelina

51 Comments

This is the last post about Nashville.  I swear.

When I did the blog last year about Henrietta (my stuffed javelina) going to Madison, it was kinda funny and I enjoyed it.  So I thought it would be fun to do it again on my trip to Nashville.  What I didn’t expect was that others would take on the cloak of silliness with me.

My friend Pat was absolutely obsessed with getting a photo of Henrietta wherever we went – zoo, Strawberry Café lunch, shopping, pizza place, the winery.  You’ve already seen the photos at the Goo Goo Cluster store and the Moonshine distillery and the breakfast place.  But she wasn’t the only one concerned that I get a good photo with Henrietta. 

A complete stranger at the zoo volunteered to take a photo of me and Henrietta with some flamingos that we out doing “meet & greet”.  Is demurred, not too sure how close I wanted to get to a huge (they are much bigger up close than you think) strange bird.

The woman working the bookstore at the Belmont Estate also noticed Henrietta in my bag and asked about her.  We were waiting for our tour to start so Pat was happy to go on and on about all the places that we had taken Henrietta over the past couple of days.  The woman got all excited and led us to a spot we would never have seen on our own… under a staircase on the second floor of the mansion.  There was a small statue of a pig, complete with a red bow.  This was a photo I couldn’t resist. 

Although it’s been fun, I’m not sure I need to keep it up.  I will probably take her to Tucson in March; it is after all her birthplace (my friend purchased her for me while I was there last year) but I’m not sure she will go to St. Louis with me this month.

Do you take selfies when you travel?

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

January

64 Comments

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, animals, Media, Music, Mysteries

More Baader-Meinhof

27 Comments

It’s been quite a while since I experienced the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon… when something you’ve just become aware of suddenly pops up seemingly everywhere.  It’s also called “frequency illusion” – even though you think you’ve discovered something for the first time, it’s just that you’ve noticed it for the first time.  Anyway, I’ve had a bunch lately:

Ljubljana, Slovenia.  Friends visited there this fall and wrote about it in their holiday newsletter.  First time I had heard of this city.  Then a couple of days letter, Ljubljana was mentioned in the National Geographic that I was reading. 

Tasmanian Tiger.  Also in National Geographic (although a different issue), there was a mention of the tiger.  Then the next day there was a sidebar in Scientific American.  I’d never heard of this dog-like “tiger” that went extinct in Tasmanian in the 1930s.  It’s been in the news because a paper came out in 2023 that they may have survived longer in the wild before the species died out.

Straight No Chaser.  While baking cookies right after Thanksgiving, I heard a funny carol on the radio – turned out to be a men’s acapella group called Straight No Chaser.  First time I heard of them (but I adore them already).  Then a week later, a friend of mind posted on Facebook that he was going to a Straight No Chaser concert that night. 

I do understand that the universe is not trying to send me coded messages but it’s hard to believe that the information is all around you and you’re just not registering it.  I do wonder why all three of these just popped up in the last month for me!

Any coincidences in your life lately? 

2024, animals, Farming Update, Mysteries

Time For a Change

44 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I have 4 analog wall clocks at the college that I reference often. All four are showing a different time. The one just off stage, that I knocked off the wall while changing a work light and it dropped 12 feet and bounce off the ladder, quit working. Go figure. I replaced the battery and reset the time and it went around to 12:10 and stopped there. That was about a month ago.

Another clock, back in the shop by the sign in sheet for the students, is running slow and it’s way off.

In my office is a clock with the Tasmanian Devil from Bugs Bunny on the face. It’s too much trouble to climb on the desk to change the time, so it’s accurate, but an hour off some of the year.

And down in the dressing room is another clock that’s off. If you plan your day and route accordingly, you can make all these work in your favor.

I got a lot of work done in the farm shop the last week. Threat of colder weather and snow prompted me. I got the carburetor installed on the 630 tractor and had it running last week. Cross that off the list! Yay! Here’s a short video just so you can hear the sound. It needs some adjustment yet, but at least it runs!

Or it did. The next time I went to start it, the starter shorted out and wouldn’t stop running and I had to disconnect the ground cable to make it stop. Sigh. Hang my head. Add that to the list. I used another tractor and pulled the 630 out of the way so I could get on with the rest of the projects. Pulling a tractor by yourself isn’t the smartest idea I’ve ever had; thank goodness the ground was level. The tractor not running kinda messes up my parking plans for the machinery. I think if I crawl under and disconnect the wire from the starter, I can put the ground wire back on, pull start the tractor to get it started, and then drive it to get it tucked away. We will worry about getting it out next spring. Always something.

While working on the shed, and talking out loud to myself, at one point I said, “Well, that’s not right.” And I thought to myself, ‘there’s a lot that’s not right in the world’. Later on, finagling three sheets of 14-foot pole barn steel, I said out loud, “This is not going at all like how I thought it was gonna go.” That’s about when I figured out I could do 2 sheets, but not three. Fourteen feet being taller than my center of balance, and all, created some issues. Anyway, I got the NE corner done and started moving stuff in.

It was just really nice to be home, and have the time, and do these projects. It just felt so good to “be of use”.

WHY CAN’T THINGS BE EASY?

2023, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, holidays, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Poof

25 Comments

Todays Farming Updates comes from Ben.

Just like that, another year gone. 414 dozen eggs sold in 2023. April was the highest with 63 dozen sold. September was lowest at 20 dozen. I’m thinking in 2024 I’m gonna try recording how many dozen I box up rather than sold.

2023

We lost some really good friends. We made some new ones. We got a new dog. We finally took a weekend trip after a few  years of hunkering at home. We saw some fantastic theater,  (I was even in a show), had a visit from my friend Keith for the first time in 25 years, and got so much stuff done at home! Most of it had to do with the shop remodeling, but still, it’s a wonder to look over the list and see how much got checked off! Just for fun, I put the list in a spreadsheet and there was 221 line items. Twenty of them aren’t done yet. There’s always next year.

I was grateful to not fight major health issues this year, and to revel in the simple joy of walking up a hill or carrying some feed. Or just to wander up the road from barn to shed!

We got some concrete poured and started work on the shop. The crop year wasn’t the best. And if you enjoy snow, the year didn’t end well for you. There was a lot of snow at the beginning of 2023, but it melted fairly quick.

I’ve been rebuilding the carburetor for the 630 tractor. (Line item #192) I had a good start on it early this week, but the last few days I’ve been busy elsewhere. But in my “New Heated Shop”*‘ (*sort of) I can keep working. I try not to think about how the tractor itself is out in the UNHEATED part of the shed. But that’s just 8 bolts and a couple fittings… right? Easy Peasy. Might be the first thing of 2024 to check off that list! I think I’m even gonna use most of the parts. I spent an hour on the phone with the oldest parts guy at my John Deere store, and another guy who restores antique tractors, to figure out one piece on my carburetor that’s not in the pictures. They figured it out. Surround yourself with good people. That might be my goal for 2024.

2024- I need to renew my private pesticide applicators license. I haven’t used it more than a few times in the 25+ years I’ve had it, but I’ll renew it again, simply because it’s one more link to farming I want to keep.

Monday, 1/1/2024 I’ll go round up the mileage and hours on all the vehicles and tractors and fill in my annual mileage spreadsheet. I always enjoy that. I’ll need to start finding numbers for our assets page. That too is pretty interesting. I had a young lady tell me how rich farmers are. She didn’t know we farm. I had to explain a few things to her. We have a lot of ASSETS, and we have good credit. We may or may not have a lot of cash in the bank. Sometimes were rich in daughters only*, or dirt. Just not cash. Every farm is different.

*Thank you, Greg Brown.

Looking ahead, I’ve ordered a textbook for next semester’s class on creative writing which begins on 1/8. An in-person class so that should be fun. Got crops planned, will be ordering seed and inputs soon.

12/31/23 – There’s a lot of numerology regarding that. It’s interesting to consider. https://www.almanac.com/123123-meaning-123123

PHOTOS

Take some time to ponder this weekend. Ponder 2023. Ponder 2024. Remember and imagine.

WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO SUROUND YOURSELF WITH?