Category Archives: animals

2021, animals, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

Always Three Eggs in a Nest

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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?

2021, animals, books, Fantasy, Mysteries, Nature, Science, Uncategorized

Down Down Down

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I like to think that I have a pretty good imagination.  After all, the fantasy genre is one of my favorites – give me a good dragon story any day.  So it wasn’t out of character that yesterday, when I stumbled upon a show called “Mythical Beasts”, I didn’t automatically change the channel.  I won’t go into the ethics of the Science Channel in airing this stuff, but suffice it to say the way they lay out these shows isn’t using exacting science.

It didn’t take long before I was down the rabbit hole.  I started looking for the iconic Loch Ness photo (which was debunked decades and decades ago).  This led me to the Lagarfljot Worm, an ice serpent in Iceland.  It’s supposedly been terrorizing the countryside for centuries, often cited as being responsible for harsh weather and crop failures.  This led me to Nahuelito, another lake-based monster in Argentina, similar to Nessie.  This led me to the Windigo, which I had heard of but didn’t know about.  Apparently it can influence people into greed, murder and cannibalism.  This led me to a book called “Abominable Science: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids” (yes, then I had to look up cryptids)!  Of course, I have requested the book from the library.  If I hadn’t decided to go downstairs for lunch, who knows how long I would have been trolling the internet for made-up beings.

If you had asked me last week if I would be looking up mythical beings this week I would have laughed out loud.  You can just never tell where my bring wants to go.

Any rabbit holes for you lately?

animals, Automotive, Family, Farming Update, Food, gardening, Kids, Nature, Technology, Uncategorized

Late June Farm Report

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Last week of June – The crops are looking better. Still need some rain, (all day rain on Saturday only gave us about 1/4 of an inch), so better than nothing, but keep it coming. I say that carefully.

Corn is finally tall enough and filling in enough I can’t see all the bald spots.

Soybeans are looking good and starting to get bushy and fill in.

Oats is all headed out – looks pretty good, looks like there will be a lot of grain out there. Knock on wood.

I changed some field boundaries this spring, so I’ve got one corn field that used to be two separate fields. This particular corn field was corn last year on half of it, and the other half was soybeans last year. (Normally crop rotation: soybeans last year means corn this year. Corn becomes oats, oats becomes soybeans. That helps with weeds, soil pests, and erosion.) But what’s really interesting is the corn on corn looks better and is taller than the corn on soybeans. And the only difference is the corn field was plowed up last fall, and the soybean field wasn’t. Is it soil compaction? Root structure? I will dig some up and investigate the roots. It’s very interesting; I need to ask more questions about why this looks so different.

I dug these up when the corn was about a month old. Notice the seed still down in the roots. And the other seed that just never sprouted. That was our spring. 

Been fixing stuff. Picked up parts. A bunch for the corn planter (new fertilizer disks and bearings) and some belts for the lawn mower, a new mower bearing, and other odds and ends. The lift bracket on the corn planter, the thing that actually raises and lowers the planter, was just wore out.

Replaced the pin and bracket, added some weld to the hole in the cylinder end so it’s more ‘round’ again. Then I ran into something and broke a big chunk out of the lawn mower hood so had to buy a new hood. I told Kelly I could just take the hood off and we could go ‘red-neck’. (And I did for a day while working on other parts) A friend put it best when he said, ‘You go redneck and pretty soon you’re judging yourself’. Yep. Good point. No trip for parts is complete without a stop at DQ.

Then the electric clutch that starts the mower wore out so replaced that. I’m also trying to get an older mower running again to use for around trees and to mow in the random areas. I’m mowing more area than I used too; behind barns, up in a grove, all in an effort to keep the weeds down.

I mentioned the barn swallows that have two nests by our front door. Here’s the kids’ double nest.

The parents’ condo is on the left side of the door. The kids took flight the day after this was taken.

My chicks are out in the world now. Of the 45 chicks we received on April 14, a few died as chicks and we let 36 out into the open. So far so good out in the world.

I’ve ordered 30 ducklings of mixed breeds. Be here July 27. I really do enjoy having the ducks around, but my goodness are they messy for the first month or so. Water and muck everywhere. I have a bulk bin down by the barn where I store cracked shell corn for the chickens and ducks. I toss some on the ground and I have some in feeders. They prefer it off the ground, I think. Course that also attracts squirrels, rabbits, birds, and, in winter, the deer and turkeys. 

When I was milking cows I had protein supplement stored in this bin. It feeds from an auger into a box inside the feedroom and I fill buckets from that box. It holds maybe a week’s worth of corn in the box. A few weeks ago, when it was so hot, I just got corn from the box and I didn’t run the auger at all. Never really thought about it. And then when I did turn on the auger, no corn came out. Well, sometimes that happens as the bin gets low; cracked corn doesn’t always ‘flow’ very well and sometimes I get a hollow spot. I climb up on top and I have a long stick that I use to knock the corn loose. (I do not get inside).

And what came out was this brown, liquid, sludge! Ewww! I don’t know what that was!! EEEEWWWWW!! It was really gross. There was a fair amount of it, like maybe a couple gallons. Here’s what I think happen: Sometimes when I get corn delivered, the previous load may have had liquid molasses added to the feed. I used to do that when I had calf feed made. And I’m wondering if maybe there was some of that old feed / old molasses down in the bottom, and it go so hot, the molasses all melted and sank to the bottom. Could that be a thing?? Because I’ve never seen it happen before and this stuff didn’t stink like anything rotten… Once that slug was out, it was back to corn and it hasn’t been a problem since. But I run the auger every few days too, now.

Weird.

Wild black raspberries are out; they’re early this year. But just as yummy especially early morning when they’re still cool.

A former college student has been coming out to help on the farm lately. I enjoy the company and It helps me focus and get some jobs done. He’s also applied for a new job and the hours won’t be compatible to here. Such is life.

Got some big summer plans? Making any progress on them?

animals, Food, gardening, home, Nature, Seasons, Travel, Uncategorized

Committing Thuricide, or, a GARDENer’s Anxiety

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Husband and I are traveling to Tacoma, WA on Monday to see our Daughter. We will be gone for a week. This week we are prepping our gardens for our absence, watering like crazy and taking care of any garden pest and disease issues.

Due to the lack of humidity and the isolation on the Northern Great Plains, we have a comforting lack of pests and diseases in our gardens. We rarely need to combat anything, but there are a few persistent garden problems that require action.

We somehow have blight problems in our tomatoes and roses that require an application of fungicide. I sprayed with Daconil last night. Last year, we had flea beetles in our kohlrabies that required insecticide. I applied some Sevin to some chewed up kohlrabi plants last night. The potted tomatoes and peppers in the church garden need something called Rot Stop to combat Blossom End Rot. (Calcium uptake in a pot is difficult at times.) We also have cabbages that need help with cabbage worms with Thuricide, or Bacillus Thuringiensis, which is an organic worm deterrent. No worms in our Savoy cabbages!

How do you deal with life’s pests, garden or otherwise?

animals, home, Seasons, Theatre, Uncategorized

6 rms, rIv vu

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We have two, 50 ft. tall spruce trees in our front yard that are full of birds and their nests. The Collared Doves begin the nesting season, followed by robins, then sparrows, finches, and Warbling Vireos. Chickadees and wrens make their presence known. We feed the birds sunflower seeds in the back yard, but not in summer. Still, our trees are full of birds all year. I wonder how they choose our trees and yard? There are tall trees all around, yet we have lots of birds. I suppose the grapes, hazelnuts, raspberries, strawberries, and currants in the yard are a draw.

I was in a rather fanciful mood the other day and imagined a bird real estate agent trying to sell bird condos in our trees. What would they say?

High rise living with ample food supply in the cold weather. Luxury summer garden worms. Indoor cat brushed outside, leaving fur for nesting. All the comforts of home. Good opportunities for subletting. No squirrels allowed.

The blog title, by the way, is from a Broadway play from the 1970’s. I have no idea why it came to mind.

How would a bird real estate agent list your yard? What are your experiences buying property?

animals, Family, home, Kids, Nature, pets, Stories, Uncategorized

Timmy, The Brawler

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Today’s post comes from Steve.

Timothy Gruncheon Grooms, born in a barn in Iowa, was adopted into my family in 1946. He was officially my sister’s cat and always seemed to understand that. Although she did things to him that were beneath the dignity of any cat, he slept each night in the crook of her arm.

Timmy was a fighter. My parents had never heard of a cat being confined, and they would have been appalled at the suggestion pets should be neutered. So Timmy was a free-range tomcat who roamed the neighborhood fighting with other cats and filling the world with orange and white tabby kittens. All the fighting he did caused Timmy to have a fat face because so much scar tissue built up on his cheeks. His ears were riddled with cuts and holes. I did witness one epic encounter in our backyard, Timmy relentlessly chasing another cat, and I was shocked by the violence of it all.

Timmy obviously lost some fights. Once he came home with a chunk of tissue the diameter of a nickel missing from his left cheek. Our vet gave us a spray to keep the wound clean, but our dog had a better idea. Danny, a sweet golden retriever, began following Timmy, licking that wound. Danny and Timmy never had physical contact before or after that incident, but Danny licked Timmy’s wounded cheek until fresh skin formed over the hole.

My sister bonded with Timmy as if he were her child. As I recently wrote, she dressed him in doll clothes, including a bonnet. She plopped him on his back in a baby stroller and went about the neighborhood with him that way. The set of Timmy’s ears were a clue to how he felt about this, but he accepted it all. When Nancy’s fascination with medical issues led her to subject Timmy to some treatments, including an enema administered by eyedropper, he put up with that, too.

Timmy was the most remarkable athlete I’ve ever known. Two stories established his legendary status.

Once our family was in the dining room watching television (eating Swanson’s TV dinners on our TV trays). A bat entered our home and began flying from room to room. Timmy was sitting on a braided rug in the middle of the dining room. As the bat wobbled through the dining room a second time, Timmy shot off the floor like a jack-in-the-box, snatching the bat midair. To my eye, Timmy’s leap took him five feet into the air, and it could have been higher. With the bat in his mouth, Timmy went to the back door and asked to be let out.

In our last home in Ames my mother kept her precious chinaware in a cabinet by the front door. Timmy’s way of letting us know he wanted to be let out was jumping to the top of that cabinet. One afternoon he did that, just as he had countless times before. Timmy, from the floor, could not see that my mother had filled the cabinet’s top with stacks of china. My mother screamed in terror when Timmy walked to the cabinet and launched his leap. Once he was in the air, Timmy saw the china and performed a desperate midair gymnastic maneuver. He managed to land with his four paws in the tiny openings between the stacks of teacups and plates. Standing there, Timmy was unable to move, and he let out a dismayed yowl so we could rush to his rescue.

By 1964 our family, Timmy included, was living in Wayzata, Minnesota. He acquired one annoying habit late in life, crawling around inside the family Christmas tree in the middle of the night, eating tinsel and knocking glass ornaments to the floor. Timmy still lived much of his life out of our sight, and he still got in fights. His health declined. My sister, who was then a student at the University of Minnesota, fell in love with a young man, and they soon got married.

In 1965 Timmy disappeared for four days. We feared we would never see our 19-year-old cat again, but at long last he dragged himself home in terrible shape. He clearly had lost a big fight. Stroking his scarred old head, my mother had a heart-to-heart talk with him. “Timmy, old guy, you have been Nancy’s baby all these years. She is now married and will soon have a baby of her own. You look like you’re at the end of the line, but I’m asking one last thing of you. Can you keep it together a few more months? Can you keep alive until Nancy’s new baby arrives?”

Nancy’s baby arrived in August. A few days later, Timmy died.

Timmy was a vivid character in our family life for nearly two decades. Have you ever had a pet with a distinctive personality?

animals, Family, home, Kids, pets, Travel, Uncategorized

Adventures in Pet sitting

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We took care of our son’s West Highland Terrier while he and his family took a trip to Alabama to see his wife’s new niece. There was too much kennel cough in the doggy motels in Brookings, so little Baxter had to stay with us in ND.

Baxter is 5 years old, and just getting out of his puppy stage. Terriers are puppies for a long time. He is a very well trained (for a terrier) and on a very regular schedule for eating and eliminating. He loves to play fetch and tug. He is accustomed to being in a crate at night. He is a good traveler.

The visit went well. He didn’t bite the neighbor children. He didn’t get into fights with other dogs. He didn’t get loose or lost. He didn’t chew anything up. We spoiled him by leaving him out of his crate when we weren’t at home, and let him sleep under our bed sometimes.

With a terrier there are untold calamities that can occur. None occurred. We find ourselves missing his tearing around the house and demanding walks and to play with his chew toys.

Tell about your experiences with pet sitting or baby sitting. Any calamities?

animals, home, Kids, pets, TV, Uncategorized

Lamb Chop Chomped

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I think I watched television as a kid about the same as others.  Captain Kangaroo, Romper Room.  Too old for Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers, but just the right age for Shari Lewis and her puppets, especially Lamb Chop. I knew it was Shari doing the voices but I was fascinated by hearing Lamb Chop speak without seeing Shari’s lips moving.

So imagine my dismay when YA came home today with a Lamb Chop chew toy for the dog!  And as if that’s not bad enough, it has a main squeaker along with a squeaker in each foot for a total of five!  The din is awful and it gives me a sick feeling in my stomach seeing Lamb Chop getting chomped.

Do you have a favorite character from your childhood that you would hate to see turned into a dog toy?

animals, Art, holidays, home, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Luna’s Great Leap

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I have written before about our cat’s fascination with my Julbocken, the Scandinavian straw goats popular at Christmas. She loves to chew on the wheat berries at the end of the straw sprigs that make up the beards. Last Christmas I left them out in the living room instead of putting them back in the closet in January. I had repaired the beard of the largest Julbock and festooned him with a lovely beard and wanted to show him off.

I had three Julbocken and an Austrian straw girl on top of a curio cabinet that I thought was out of the cat’s range for leaping. The figures were at an awkward angle to jump to from the love seat (or so I thought). I thought the angle and the narrowness of the surfaces would dissuade her from leaping. I would sometimes see Luna, the cat, stare intently up at the figures from the floor, as if calculating what she needed to do to get up there. The other evening I heard a strange yowling, and I entered the living room to see her on top of the curio cabinet feasting on the repaired beard of the largest julbock. I got Luna down and put the goats back in the closet. I left the girl, since she had no berries to chew on.

A few days later I took this photo, that I think captures Luna calculating how to make another leap.

She hasn’t, to my knowledge, leapt again to the top of the curio cabinet. The girl has been left undisturbed. Luna isn’t a very active cat, but she is far more calculating than I would have imagined.

When have you taken a calculated risk? Did it work out for you? Who are the most successful risk takers you know?

animals, Family, Kids, Media, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

Intro to the Classics

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We had a lovely time last weekend with our son and his family. We were busy with cooking and eating and visiting and all the things you do when there is a three year old in the house. Grandson loves to dance and has a pretty good sense of melody and pitch, so I thought it would be fun to introduce him to some classical music.

We have a CD of Peter and the Wolf and The Carnival of the Animals performed by the Vienna Philharmonic and duo pianists Alfons and Aloys Kontarsky, with Karl Bohm conducting. Both are narrated by Hermione Gingold. I love her voice and expressiveness. She sounds so plummy, except when she drops into Cockney when she gets to the part where the wolf eats the duck “And he swallowed her rye tup!” The Carnival text was some cheesy poems by Oden Nash, but even that was ok with her narrating.

Grandson loved the stories. We acted out the motions of the animals with the music. He thought being the wolf was the best, even better than being Peter. It is so much fun to howl and roar, you see, even when you are being taken to the zoo. He especially liked marching to the lion’s music and roaring, jumping like the kangaroos, and waltzing like the elephants. I told him to imagine that the finale of Carnival was music for the monkeys in the zoo.

As we were saying our goodbyes on Monday, Grandson rather spontaneously called out from his car seat “Thank you for the lions and the wolfs, and the elephants, Oma”. I was pretty touched, and thought we had a pretty good intro to some good music.

What was your first introduction to classical music? What are your favorite classical compositions? How would you introduce them to a three year old?