Category Archives: animals

2025, animals, crops, Farming Update, pets, Theatre

IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS

October 4, 2025 xdfben 52 Comments

This weeks farming update from Ben

The squirrels are tormenting the dogs. They start with Bailey, since she’s outside. Then Bailey gets Luna and Humphrey going in the house and they’re at the door whining and barking until we let them out. You’d think they’d have learned it’s just a squirrel. Bailey has this shrill, piercing bark, it makes your ears bleed. We think sometimes the squirrels choose to off themselves because they can’t take her barking anymore. I watched a squirrel about 10’ up the electric pole, head down, dancing around the pole, just tormenting the dogs. (If Luna’s toenails were a little longer she’d be up that pole.) Then the squirrel leapt from the pole, cleared the dogs by a good 15 feet and made it to another tree before the dogs could turn around.

I got out last Sunday and cut some weeds in the oat fields. And I did more Thursday evening. One field left will take an hour. I’m using the haybine instead of the brush mower. Six of one, half dozen of another. The brush mower is 10’ wide, the haybine is 9’. But I can go faster with the haybine. That machine cuts, crimps, and puts the material in a narrow row for baling. I used it for cutting alfalfa when I was milking cows, and I still use it to mow the roadsides. The brush mower is more like a big lawn mower, and it just cuts and shreds the material all up. I’m not saving the weeds or oats to bale, and by opening the rear guides, and putting a baffle inside, it lays the weeds out in a path about 6’ wide. I also don’t want to smother anything growing underneath, and I want it disintegrated enough by spring that it’s not a problem then. I’m hoping we get enough rain or snow or warm or cold temperatures to do whatever it needs to do to break down by April. I’ll bet you didn’t know I could make a whole paragraph on cutting weeds, did you?

Another online auction finished in Plainview on Tuesday. I won some good stuff cheap! Two grinding wheels for concrete sold for $12. They’re about $60 each online. And I bought 5 sheets of 5/8” plywood for $78. They’re $35 each at big box stores. Finally, I bought three doors, brand new, for $36. I needed one of them for a new dressing room we built at the Rochester Rep Theater. It was the right size, the right style, and had hinges on the proper side. I picked it all up Wednesday and installed the door. I told the men using that dressing room, if they had a good rehearsal Wednesday night, I’d get them a doorknob on Thursday. They did and I did.

I’ve been busy with theater most of the past week.

One night during rehearsal I noticed the cue labels on the lightboard made a nice, slanted pattern. It wasn’t intentional, but I appreciated it.

I like the symmetry in things. Also, my OCD kicks in a little bit and that nice slant appeals to me. Like when shopping at the big stores and taking the cart to the stall and they’re all mess up; that bothers me when they’re all cockeyed. I spend more time than a person probably should lining them up and making the stacked line of carts. I would hate having that job of returning carts to the store. You can never finish! I’d hate it. How frustrating.

The neighbors are planning on taking their cattle out this weekend. The cows ran over to see me as I drove past them.

Most of the soybeans have lost their leaves. Lots of guys cutting beans around here. The guys I hire will get to mine when they get to them…

MOST MEANINGLESS JOB YOU’VE HAD?

HAVE YOU KNOWN ANYONE WITH AN UNUSUAL VOICE?

2025, animals, Family, Nature, Uncategorized

Hiss!

October 2, 2025 reneeinnd 21 Comments

Tuesday Husband and I took the dog to the groomer in a little town about 10 miles west of us. I drove, and on the way back I had to swerve to avoid running over a very long rattlesnake that was slithering across the highway. We estimated it to be about four feet long. We have Prairie Rattlesnakes out here. Their markings are unmistakable. We have seen them all lengths, from tiny ones no thicker than a pencil to the long one on Tuesday. The weather has been so warm here I suppose it was a good time for the snake to check out the available mice in the ditch. We have never seen any in town.

I had some clients years ago who had to move out of their rental home on the south side of town because there were dozens of garter snakes in the walls of the basement. The house was later condemned and torn down. We heard that the lot the house was built on was a noted breeding ground for garter snakes. No other structure has been built there.

The town of Narcisse in Manitoba interlake region is well known for the tens of thousands of garter snakes that emerge from their nests in the spring and return in the fall. I guess it is quite a tourist attraction. We never visited there when we lived there. Snakes aren’t my cup of tea. I have a second cousin who I love dearly who lives near St. Peter and who loves snakes. He has bred snakes for commercial sale in the past, and loves it when his cats find garter snakes in the basement and bring them upstairs.

What are your experiences with snakes? Do you have any friends or relatives with interests you find odd?

2025, animals, Farming Update, Uncategorized

A DIZZYING … SOMETHING

September 27, 2025 xdfben 29 Comments

The weekend Farming Update from XDFBen

Not much happening at the farm this week. I got a case of vertigo about Thursday, and I worked half day, and felt like crap the rest of the day. The weekend was pretty much spent in bed. Several years ago Kelly had vertigo for a few weeks, the plain old BPPV, positional vertigo. We tried the head exercises to reset those crystals in my ears, and last Friday they seemed to work. Saturday, oh boy, that just made me feel absolutely terrible. I remember being at the clinic with my Dad when he was maybe 70+. He must have been having dizzy spells because the doc laid him down on the bench and had him turn his head and I can still picture and hear him groaning. Dad, not the doc. And it wasn’t a good Sound. And Dad didn’t want to do that again.

Monday I picked up some motion sickness pills and they’ve helped a lot. Wednesday I was at about 80%, now I think I’m back. I’ve got too much stuff going on to lay around. To quote my favorite movie, ‘All That Jazz’ and the doctor telling Joe Gideon he needs to rest, Joe responds “I GOT A SHOW TO PUT ON! WILL YOU TALK TO THESE PEOPLE?? THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING!”

Anyway, not much happening out in our countryside.

Most corn chopping has finished, and guys doing high moisture corn are working on that. Soybeans will be coming along soon. And from there it’s right into the fall rush.

Tuesday afternoon I did manage to hook the tractor onto the haybine and pull it out of the shed. I need to get the oat fields mowed off before the weeds take over. The last few years, I’d been digging them up after oats, to stop the weeds from sprouting. Then I would plant cereal rye as a cover crop. This year, crop prices and finances being what they are, I decided not to spend the money on rye seed. The cover crop wasn’t a direct cash benefit; it was one of those bigger picture concepts where a person has to realize they’re doing this for the greater good. And I know that, but still… it was another $600 in seed and my time, and fuel, and I just decided to skip it this year. And now I have to mow off the weeds. They’re too big to dig up at this point, and I want to keep the oats growing until winter. The other thing about rye, it had to be sprayed to kill it in the spring. So, there was another expense I decided to avoid.

We got 2” of rain. Rain is always welcome, almost always, but it’s getting late enough in the year, and with harvest approaching, most farmers would rather skip the mud. It’s a tough alternative, rain or no rain. Good thing the weather isn’t left up to farmers.

I hauled in all the old tires I cut off the machinery. Plus a few others I threw on from the shed. There was a corner of the old shed full of old tires. One never knew which tire might be the one we needed to fit whatever it was that went flat. Including a couple tires with such an odd rim, there wasn’t a chance it was gonna fit anything except the 1949 International Harvester baler it came from. The one dad sold in 1968. But we still had a tire for it because you never know. And there’s an old pick-up tire that fell out from under the truck as I was leaving one day, that’s still leaning against the wall in the shed. Why? Just because. I still keep spare tires in that corner, but it’s not such a huge pile anymore. I have 3 or 4 plain old wagon tires, size 9L15’s that fit every wagon and just about every implement on the farm. I should have run the old tires to my favorite tire place in Millville, but that is half hour away and I didn’t have half an hour, so I took them into Rochester and they charged me $6.35 each. Dang. I was sure they had said it was like $6 for a set when I called. At least they’re gone.

The guineas. Remember when they hatched, there was 3 parents taking care of the 13 chicks. And then it was 12 chicks for a while, then 10, 9 for a week, 8 for a week, and now 7. And the other two adults have disappeared. Not sure what’s become of them, or why or how they managed to hang around long enough to get the kids mostly grown up, but they haven’t been spotted in a few weeks now. We were hoping maybe one was sitting on a nest somewhere, but usually we’d have seen them by now. Out behind the barn, near the pole barn, I did find a teenage chick missing a head. Which means raccoons. Did some of them move to the pole barn and raccoons got them out there? I don’t know; haven’t found other carcasses yet. But dang.

The guinea mom, she is a real bully. She chases the chickens away from her kids. Even the roosters.

Working on a show, the Dolly Parton musical “9 to 5”, opens at the Rep theater next weekend. The vertigo kinda messed up my schedule finishing theater projects and working on that show. It will be fine. Que sera sera.

REMEMBER ROLLING DOWN HILLS AS A KID? EVER ROLL IN A TIRE?

2025, animals, Art, Fantasy, History

Old Modern Art

September 15, 2025 verily sherrilee 33 Comments

Eighty-five years ago last week, four teenagers accidentally changed not only the trajectories of their lives, but history as well. While hiking near Montignac, France, the four boys stumbled upon caves with a collection of cave paintings unlike anything ever seen. The paintings, known as the Lascaux cave paintings have been dated from 15,000 to 17,000 years back and turned the art world on its ear, proving that Stone Age peoples were artists and biographers.

The four boys ended up on different paths. Two of the boys were Jewish and shortly after the discovery, one boy was sent to Buchenwald with his family and the second boy ended up being hidden by a Jewish Children’s aid organization. The other two boys, who were from Montignac, guarded the cave over the first winter and eventually became tour guides of the famous caves and paintings. In fact, it was the two of them that noticed the condensation in the caves causing algae and mold growth. It was at this point that France closed the caves to the public to protect them from as much outside environment as possible. The cave paintings have been meticulously copied and can be viewed in a replica of the caves – Lascaux IV – part of the Lascaux historical center.

The two Jewish boys survived WWII and Buchenwald; all four lived into old age and were re-united in 1986. The last to pass was Simon Coencas, who died in 2020 at the age of 93.

The paintings were obviously modern art at the time they were created, but at 15,000 years of age, I doubt they qualify any longer. I have a few pieces of modern art but I also lean toward more classical representational art. Impressionism is a favorite and I am fond of a lot of sculpture. I particularly love this one that resides here in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts:

If you could go back in time and discover something, what would it be?

2025, animals, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Dishwasher Mystery

September 11, 2025 reneeinnd 36 Comments

On Saturday we had our plumber over to fix a couple of leaky faucets preparatory to our home inspection. He did a good job, as usual, and then I had him look at the dishwasher.

I noticed about a couple of months ago that I could pull the dishwasher forward and back almost 3 inches. This was a new development. It never moved like that before. Daryl the plumber took a look and noticed that the four screws that secured the dishwasher to the sides of the cabinets had all been pulled out. He also showed me how short they were. He got four much longer screws and secured the dishwasher back in place. He was at a loss to explain how the short screws could have been pulled out like that.

On Sunday I was loading the dishwasher with the usual assistance of Kyrill the Cesky Terrier. He likes to do the pre-rinse on the dishes on the bottom rack and lick any delectables off the open dishwasher door. He has done this since we got him. Kyrill is a short dog of great length who can only get to the farthest dishes and door surface by standing with his front paws on the door. Sometimes he even jumps up so his whole body is on the open door. Did I mention he now weighs 30 lbs? Bingo. Mystery solved. I believe Kyrill, in his selfless attempts to help us as much as he can, stripped the dishwasher screws by putting his weight on the door. I am afraid he isn’t allowed to help us with the dishes anymore.

What repairs have you had to make due to animals? Any mysteries in your life lately? How are you at setting limits with pets?

2025, animals, Farming Update, Kids, Mysteries, Nature, Science, Seasons, Stories, Travel, Weather, work

THEN THIS HAPPENED

September 6, 2025 xdfben 56 Comments

This weeks Farming Update from Ben.

When I started the rough draft of this blog Thursday, I didn’t have much farm stuff to talk about. Now Friday afternoon and I’ve got a few farm related things.

I needed some straw bales for Friday. First of the 2025 crop to be used and climbing up into the straw pile and trying to hit the truck bed was a challenge.

**Trying to aim under the rafter and get the bales in the truck bed.**

We hosted daughters group, PossAbilities, and gave them a wagon ride through the fields. Kinda cold and windy, but they had blankets, Kelly made hot chocolate for them when they returned, and they enjoyed it.

I hauled in the scrap iron on Thursday. The wagons I pulled out of the trees and scrapped last week.

The net weight of the scrap was 3200 lbs.

The cranes are always fun to watch. My goodness, the amount of scrap is overwhelming. Juxtaposed with such a pretty blue sky!

I took secondary roads there, and I took gravel back roads most of the way home. I saw two Bald Eagles eating something that left a pretty good sized red spot in the field. I saw more of those ‘Bigfoot’ silhouettes. A few farmers are starting to chop some corn, and lots of guys are doing 3^rd or 4^th crop hay.

A couple months ago when our fridge died, we purged a lot, and moved a lot to the basement chest freezer and spare fridge downstairs. I still haven’t figured out why the new freezer section upstairs is so empty. What happened to all that stuff?? I thought we needed it? Isn’t that a story for our times…”But, I need that!” No, evidently, no you don’t.

One of the things missing from the upstairs freezer was the last loaf of chocolate chip Amish friendship bread I had made back in March. Most of us freeze and savor those summer time flavors in January. Here in September I’m remembering last winter. I didn’t think I’d have thrown it out as I know the chocolate is bad for dogs. The chickens would have loved it, but I just didn’t remember doing that. Took a month, but I found it in a bag in the chest freezer and I’ve been enjoying it. It’s not as dried out as I thought it might be, and I look forward to baking more this winter.

When I was researching how to remove those old tires last week, I saw one video where the guy talked about using diamond tipped cutting blades. The cheap abrasive cut-off blades I can buy at big box stores wear away quick. They’re about $3 each, but as the name implies, ‘abrasive cut off’, meaning they wear out as fast as they’re cutting. Cutting off the 16 tires I used 4 small, 4” wheels, and one 7” wheel. So I went shopping online for diamond tipped wheels. An “Indestructible” wheel comes in a 5 pack. Well, Huh. You see where I’m going with this? If… then why…?

I ordered a 3 pack of diamond tipped cut off wheels. We’ll see what happens when I get to the next set of old tires.

(There might be a photo here if I remember to go out to the shed and take a photo)

I REMEMBERED!

**Abrasive disc on the top, diamond disc on the bottom**

Kelly and I have a joke that I can’t find anything if you’re going to put it under my nose. This morning it was my cell phone. It was 6” away from where I was looking. No wonder I couldn’t find it. I had to borrow daughters phone to call mine and track it down. I was the kid with my mittens attached to my sleeves…Why is that getting worse instead of better?

We’ve talked before about that magic ten minutes in the morning. Every. Morning. It was later than usual one morning. Daughter and I got in the car to leave and she says “I was pretty fast this morning, wasn’t I.” Uh. Not really. But I don’t know why. Maybe it was petting the dogs longer than we should have. Which seems like a pretty good excuse. One night she was mad at me for not letting her do something. She begged and pleaded and then stormed off yelling “YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD!” I replied, “Actually, biology has nothing to do with this.” and then I got the giggles. She didn’t think it was so funny but a few minutes later we talked it over. She gets over stuff quick. I like that.

Last weekend Kelly and I attended a wedding in St. Paul. It was at a relatively new wedding venue called Le VENERÉ. A pretty nice place. Newly remodeled. The Groom told me when they toured it in February it was full of scaffolding. It is an old building with a really cool stone foundation. They had a 1920’s ‘Speakeasy’ theme and encouraged people to dress the part. I wore sleeves. And after looking up 1920’s styles, just decided to order a cheap 1970’s style ruffled shirt like I had in high school. It came with a bow tie that wouldn’t fit around my fat neck, so I just wore it on my sleeve. Kelly and I drove up Friday and had a weekend vacation. We had a great time at the wedding with friends.

**The groom and I. He is a former college student.**

OXYMORONS?

2025, animals, Automotive, Business, education, Farming Update, gardening, History, Mysteries, Nature, pets, Technology, Weather, work

TIRED

August 30, 2025 xdfben 59 Comments

This week’s farm report from XDFBen

Going to work early one morning and there was the football team, under the stadium lights, all in uniform, having practice. Whew, I think early morning practices would be tough. Like getting up to exercise.

We saw a “V” of geese flying over one day.

Later I listened to about 2 dozen barn swallows gathered on an electric line chittering and chattering and having quite the discussion about when and where to go. Although the ‘where’ is pretty well defined, at least in general. South. Everybody. Just head south.

Kelly got one of those hotel sales calls that would take us someplace south if we just listened to a sales pitch. We don’t like to make hasty decisions, and I didn’t realize the salesperson was on hold while Kelly and I talked a few times. Then the salesperson’s manager came on and tried to shame Kelly for keeping the person on the phone for so long and not immediately just saying ‘Yes’. Snort. Give her attitude, will you? Click.

We will not be going south.

I had my first day of class. Forensic Chemistry. It’s a hybrid class, meaning a lot of it is done online, then we meet Wednesdays for lab. My friend Paul is taking a writing class. Here’s our first day of class photo.

I got the front end off the wagon where the wheels went wonky.

It’s not supposed to look like this. I have a nephew, Matt, who is a welder. He’ll be coming to look at it and see if it’s salvageable. A lot of cracks and old welds where the axle attaches to the frame. Old welds must be mine, but I don’t remember fixing this.

Mid-September there will be another online auction in Plainview. Last week when I dragged all the old machinery out of the trees, I pulled out a pretty nice disc. I had used it for several years until I got something bigger and better. I cleaned the disc up, greased it, and towed it to the auction.

It is 20’ wide so I took up most of the road and part of the shoulder. I try to take the back roads when I do this sort of thing, but I have to get to the back roads first. Most traffic was pretty respectful. I had the SMV sign on the back, and I bought two magnetic flashing lights, one for the front corner, and one for the back corner. I travelled about 25 MPH. When able, I’d pull over and let traffic pass me.

Then I got to the road where they were painting new lines on the road. And putting cones down. I knocked over the first two cones before I figured out how far I needed to move over. And I scared a couple garbage cans. But I got it there in one piece.

The next day I took in a 24’ bale elevator, but that was on a trailer and wasn’t any big deal.

Several times, Kelly and I would go outside planning to do “this” and we’d go off and do “that” instead. And we’d laugh, “This isn’t what I came out to do…” Yep, but it needed doing anyway.

I picked an ear of corn.

It’s filled to the tip, which means it had ideal growing conditions. Any stress and the plant aborts the kernels at the top. This one was 40 kernels long, and 16 around. (It’s always an even number around). So 40 x16 = 640 kernels x 30,000 (plants / acre) = 19,200,00 kernels in an acre / 90,000 (kernels in a bushel) = 213 bushel / acre. Never in my life have I had a crop that good. This won’t be either. Factor in the deer, the raccoons, the clay or rocky spots, the trees on the edges… and I might actually make 180 bu / acre. We shall remain cautiously optimistic.

The soybeans are looking great.

Notice these extra leaves and pods on the top? Again, terrific growing season. The deer just haven’t found this plant yet… that’s what they’re eating off is all the tender bonus growth on the top.

One evening I burned a brush pile. Later, Kelly and I sat in the gator and enjoyed the fire.

I removed the tires from the rims on the old junk wagons. I watched some YouTube videos how to do this quick and easy. They were using car tires that didn’t have innertubes, and they hadn’t been sitting in the trees for 30 years. But I figured it out. Cut it open with a Sawzall, then use a grinder to cut the bead cable. Removed 16 tires.

One didn’t have a tube! Just about every farm tire has an innertube in it. And most of the tubes had patches on them. It made me smile, and feel a little nostalgic. Dad or I had these tires apart before and patched a hole. If you don’t know, getting a tire off the rim is difficult if you don’t have the fancy tire machines. The bead, that inner ring of the tire, has a steel cable in it, and that’s what holds the tire on the rim. And it seals tight and it’s a pain to get off with hand tools. Dad took off a lot of tires, patched the tube, and put the tire back on. You have to get the bead to seal. I have done a lot of tires, too. But now days, with the tire goop stuff you can just pour inside, I don’t take so many apart; I’m not subjecting the wagons and tires to the wear I did when milking cows and making hay. And, like I mentioned last week, I’ll often just go get a new tire before replacing the tube. Working smarter, not harder.

Some of the junk was two old flare boxes. Wagons we used for hauling ear corn or oats. I haven’t used them in a lot of years. The floors are rotted out and frames are too small and lightweight to be reused. It’s just scrap.

WHAT IS THE FURTHEST SOUTH YOU’VE BEEN?

STORIES ON CHANGING TIRES?

2025, animals, Family, History, pets, Uncategorized

Allergic

August 29, 2025 reneeinnd 41 Comments

Husband is allergic to most things airborne. Pollen in the Spring, grasses all Summer, deciduous and conifer trees, molds, dust, and cats. He has had shots, devours Sudafed multiple times daily, and uses nasal irrigation every day. Nothing really helps. He snots, drips, and gags. It is hard for me to hear. The only thing I am allergic to is oral contraceptives..

It has been particularly bad this last month as the Spring wheat harvest is in full swing and there is harvesting going on all around our community. Lots of dust and pollen are wafting around us.

Despite his cat allergies, Husband adores cats, and at one time we had four cats. He just ups his antihistamine doses and we vacuum the bedspread and brush the cat with the furminator brush. Due to his need for a cpap machine and his REM sleep disorder, I sleep in the guest room with the dog. The cat happily snuggles up with Husband.

I tell him it will be worse in Southern Minnesota, due to the increased humidity, but he is open to try living there. My best friend who will live with us has four cats, so we will have some challenges

What would you do if you found you were allergic to something you adored?I If you have allergies, how do you manage them?

2025, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Music, Nature, pets, Science, Songs, Technology, Uncategorized, Weather

What Mystery is this?

August 16, 2025 xdfben 47 Comments

The weekend farm report from Ben

Welcome to the sick house. We all have colds. You should buy stock in tissues. My head is all fogged up so who knows what may come out in this…course that hasn’t stopped me running heavy machinery.

After last week and breaking things, I made some progress on repairing things this week. And I don’t think I’ve broken any more. Yet. (Never say never). I replaced the lift cable on the bale elevator and got that repaired. On the hay wagon I got the remaining pieces of the wheel bearings out of the hub, meaning I got both the inner and outer bearing race removed, which, thankfully, had identification numbers on them, and a local place could use that to find the correct bearings. We double checked dimensions and I got four bearings; a set for both back wheels and the plan is to have one of my padawans help me install on Saturday. It will be a good experience for him to ‘pack’ grease into a bearing. It’s not hard, but there is a process, and it is messy.
It’s supposed to be hot on Saturday, so I’m planning a shop day. We’ll put the old John Deere 2 cylinder tractor, the 630, in the shop, drain the coolant and replace a radiator hose, take off the carburetor (for one of my friends to deep clean) and we’ll see what else we can get into. I’d like to replace the exhaust manifold, and those bolts will be difficult to remove as I’m not sure they’ve been out in 50 or 60 years, and through innumerable heating and cooling cycles. I’m told to heat the area red hot, let it cool for a few hours, then smack it with a hammer. That may work on some of the bolts, but on two of them, the heads are broken off, meaning the usual method is to weld a nut to the broken off bit. I’ve never tried that. I’ve seen it done successfully, just never tried it. We shall see.

Looks like we’ve lost 1 baby guinea. Still got 11.

Some of the baby guineas. They’re pigeon sized.

And they sure get around. Often when I leave in the morning, the three mom’s and them are half a mile up the road, hanging out on the edge of a corn field. By evening they’re all back home. Weird. And there’s been one pheasant hanging out around the barn.
Now that the oats is out and straw baled, I’ve been mowing the edges of those fields. Cutting down weeds I couldn’t get to while the crop was growing. And I mowed the new waterway. The barn swallows sure loved me doing that. It was fun watching a couple dozen of them flirting around.

You can kinda see the barn swallows fliting around.

On Wednesday this week I drove to the twin cities to pick up some lighting stuff for the college. I have mentioned before that my favorite Bob Dylan song is ‘Tangled up in Blue’. I don’t often listen to song words or meanings, but that one appeals to me. I love a good story, and one of love lost tugs at my heartstrings. I was aware of two versions of the song, Dylan’s and Joan Osborn’s. Then I heard of this guitar player who was recently in the cities by the name of Billy Strings, and he does a cover. So I started looking for his version. It’s on YouTube, but not Apple music yet. However I found several other versions.

I spent half the trip up, and the entire trip back listening to these different versions of the same song. The differences were really interesting to me. I really like the rhythm of the song, the tempo, the structure, and, depending on the version, the instrumentation or harmonies. A group called Grain Thief has a bluegrass version. The Indigo Girls have a section that drops into a solid blues verse. KT Tunstall’s gritty, throaty voice gives it a different vibe. Then there’s Mary Lee’s Corvette, who I hadn’t heard of before this, and she’s got a good rocking version. Jerry Garcia’s Band has a version complete with guitar jam. Bob Malone does a ROCKING bluesy version that I really liked (And a solo piano version available on YouTube). Robyn Hitchcock is just guitar and piano with a very folk / blues sound. A few are simply guitar, one starts as piano before adding the full band (and I really like a song that grows like that.) There was one version that seemed to be punk rock or something. I only got 20 seconds into it before deleting. Overall, the different guitar sounds, the slightly changed lyrics, the interpretation of each artist was fascinating to me and I still am not tired of this song after listening to it 58 times.

We have these fuel barrels for the farm: a 300 gallon barrel of gasoline that’s up on a stand so it’s gravity fed. And a 500 gallon for diesel fuel that’s electric and has a pump. The automatic nozzles like you use at the gas station don’t work on gravity feed, the only work with a pump, so it was a big deal when, however many years ago I got a used barrel from a neighbor and went from gravity to a pump on the diesel barrel. I rented a trencher and ran an electric line across the driveway from the shop to the barrel and then could buy one of those automatic shut off nozzles. When I needed to refill the tractor the other day, I started the fuel flowing, went to the house to grab a snack, and got back to the tractor two seconds before the fuel stopped. I remember a few times with the gravity system and we used a big square nut to hold the lever up and then I would go to the shop and get distracted and I spilled a few gallons… I appreciate not having to worry about that anymore.

The header photo and that hole in the ground? I dug up the cover of the septic tank. Bailey helped.

We got the tank pumped out. It’s been on my ‘to-do’ list for a couple years. Also got a riser installed so the cover isn’t 2 feet underground anymore. Digging it up on Thursday I was thinking that is going to be a really good thing.

SIMPLE CONVIENCES YOU APPRECIATE?

AND MUSIC-

FAVORITE COVER SONG?

2025, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Health, Kids, Nature, pets, Science, Seasons, Stories, Technology, Weather

ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER

August 9, 2025 xdfben 21 Comments

The weekend farm report from XDFBen

ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER

Wow, Man, what a week again. Thursday night I hit a gumption trap so hard, I had a rootbeer float and popcorn for supper…

We have baby guineas! I had seen one sitting on a nest behind the machine shed a few weeks ago, and we talked about getting the eggs into an incubator but never got too it. Next time I looked the nest was empty and there were broken eggs. Momma was nowhere to be found, and we feared the worst. A week later I saw her and a bunch of chicks heading into a corn field. Typically, guineas are not the best moms. But this group seems to ‘community parent’ and they’re doing surprisingly well.

As you can image, the real world is a tough place for a little chick. They could fall into a hole, they could get eaten or lost. It’s a tough place. But yeah, they’re doing well and getting big enough they might just make it. They’re not quite pigeon sized, and they hop and flutter and there’s always that one that’s six feet away and running to catch up.

I cut down a bunch of box elder tree’s growing over a fence down around the barn yard. Treated all the stumps. Then tore out the old feed bunk augers and cement bunks. Don’t need them anymore and it will help open up the yard.

Dad built the first silo in 1968 and installed these augers. When the second silo was built in 1976, the whole feed bunk was turned 90 degrees and the cement bunks installed. Then it was 1978 when I stuck my leg into this.

The augers I stuck my leg in. Hard to visualize from this picture how it was set up when working. I’m just really lucky.

As I tore it out, I thought about that. I don’t harbor any resentment. These bunks fed a LOT of cattle over the years and provided for two families. They served their purpose well.

I put the forklift extensions on and used the loader forks to lift the old bunks out. I expected animals to be living under them, but nope, nothing. I’ve been asked why I’m doing this, and to what end? Just to clean up. There is no end goal. It would never be used again, why save it?

The oats got harvested Friday and Saturday. Yield wasn’t very good, the oats didn’t even fill a semi. Ended up at 735 bushels, meaning about 31 bu / acre. According to the oat people on FB, oats has been all over the place this year. At least the test weight was 34.6 meaning the elevator would take it. Wasn’t heavy enough to be food grade, nor was it enough bushels to mess around with.

Lots of straw! I ended up with 900 small square bales. Put 700 in the barn.

The hole in the middle is where the elevator was.

I had the three teenage boys helping and I couldn’t have done it without them. They were great. The one doing the most work, number 3, (and treated as the odd wheel out by the first two for some reason), had a broken toe (dropped a barbell weight on his foot). Ah, the teenage mentality.

I baled 3 loads of straw on Monday, the boys came out Tuesday and we unloaded the first two, just throwing them into the empty barn. Then we put the elevator up and unloaded the third. I baled three more loads Tuesday afternoon.

Wednesday, I started back at the college. You know what that means. Sleeves.

The boys came out at 5PM and we unloaded those three loads. 700 in the barn. Full enough. Haven’t had it this full in a few years. The boys rode in the wagon and we went to the field to bale up another load. And to stack this one as it will sit for a few months until the neighborhood berry farm is ready for it. I’d put one kid in the tractor with me, and the other two stacked on the wagon. I only hit one kid with a bale. He moved! I was aiming to the side and as the bale kicked, he stepped to that side. Oops. He was OK. Straw is light.

I’d have them rotate positions so they all got to ride in the tractor (and the AC) and they all thought it was pretty neat in there too.

Number 2 and 3 Padawan’s stacking in wagon. Number 1 is in the tractor with me.

Pretty proud of themselves. I couldn’t have done it without them.

I noticed on Friday, one of the rear wheel bearings on a wagon is gone. So that wagon is out of service until I can get new bearings. Hopefully it hasn’t damaged the wheel hub or axle.

And then Wednesday night, backing the stacked wagon into the shed, and the front wheels are not aligned. What the heck?? Tie rods are bend. Jeepers. Not sure when or how that happened. And I moved it a bit more to back it in and one wheel goes completely sideways. Well heck.

So, I pulled that wagon in backward to at least get it under cover and out of the way. More repairs. Add it to the list.

AND THEN- Thursday evening and I’m taking down the bale elevator and the lift cable snapped and it all fell to the ground. Words were said. It didn’t break anything. It was about 8’ up and I was lowing it to transport height of about 6’ when it dropped. I dragged it to the shop and Kelly and I worked on it for an hour. Gumption traps were hit several times until I blocked it up with an old pallet and we called it a night. So that’s three things. I should be done now for a while. Right?

Corn and soybeans look great! We have reached the point we cannot make any more management decisions to help the crop. The last thing done was aerial application of fungicide. Now the crop just has to finish out the season. One neighbor called me upset about aerial application too close to his house. I understand that and will take steps in the future to create a buffer zone. However, by the time it gets from me to the agronomist to the company to the pilot, I’m not sure what will actually happen. Not an excuse, just warning him a lot is out of my control.

DID SOMEONE HAVE THEIR EYE ON YOU AS A CHILD?

WHAT WOULD YOU TELL YOUR TEENAGE SELF?

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