Category Archives: animals

2025, animals, Farming Update, home, pets, Uncategorized

Comb Over

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Today’s Farming Update is from Ben.

Two blogs in a row about Chickens! Who’d a thunk?

Get your long johns out for this coming week. Better yet, just stay inside until next Saturday. Nature is trying to kill you this week.

No further progress on the bathroom this week, still waiting on the countertops. We heard the electrician was on vacation last week, and when I pestered the boss electrician yesterday, he said two guys were on vacation and he’d get them out when back. Huh. Are they still on vacation or is he bluffing me? Could be either one.

Good thing our neighbors went on vacation again so we could do some more laundry.

The guys put heavy paper down on the floor when they started remodeling, and that’s still there, so we stopped the Roomba at the first of the year. Thank goodness for cordless vacuums, am I right?? So Much Dog Hair! My goodness…

Out in the shop I’ve finally figured out what I want to do for bolt storage. I cleaned out under the shop work bench, (That’s Luna helping me in the header photo) which hasn’t been cleaned out in 30 years, and I bought some good heavy duty storage bins to replace the old anti-freeze jugs we’ve been using since dad cut the sides out of them 40 years ago. I lined up a few bins that I’ve used over the years to see the progression in storage:

I’m not sure where the metal cans came from. They were up in the old shed ‘attic’. Dad made the yellow antifreeze jugs, I went to the small red bins, and now I’m doing the clear ones.

When these wear out it will be someone else’s problem.

A month ago, as egg prices were increasing, I thought I better look into getting chicks ordered in case they’re months out like they were a few years ago. To my surprise, nothing seemed to be delayed. I put 40 or 50 chicks in the cart, but didn’t want to order yet.

And then the company sent an email saying they’ve been overwhelmed, the website is down, and they’re not taking any more orders for this year. Well heck. I thought it seemed too good to be true. I started looking up other hatcheries. All seemed to be months out on orders. I know the local Fleet Farm will have chicks this spring, which is new for them. And the local Tractor Supply always has chicks, but again, this year, better get there as they’re coming off the truck to get any. And I saw even some of the local grain elevator will have chicks, but they’re also saying, ‘First come, First served’. Way back in the OLD old days, Rochester had two full-fledged chick hatcheries, and one of the buildings is still there, subdivided into multiple small businesses.

I haven’t seen the local elevators have live chicks in many years.

I found a small hatchery out in Willmar, MN that could get me chicks in April, and I got my order in. I did ponder just hatching my own. Guess I still could. I hope the new place is able to follow through.

I mentioned to daughter that we’re giving her Monday off because it’s Presidents Day and the college is closed. Kelly still has work, but daughter and I can take the day off. Then I proceeded to tell her about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, asking what she remembered about them. I suspect sometimes she claims no knowledge because it’s easier than telling me what she does know. I told her about General George Washington, being the first President, and the dollar bill, and then started on Abraham Lincoln and the civil war, and his assassination, which led me to question the difference between murder and assassination (yep, politics, that’s what I thought) — and then I got a phone call which took a few minutes. When I got off the phone, daughter said, “What about having Monday off?” and I got the giggles. All of this information and she focused on what I said ten minutes ago?? I guess I should have known her priorities. And then, two hours later, she texted me a paragraph on Abraham Lincoln. Hmm! Maybe she was listening after all? Now I’m really curious: did she look that up herself or did they talk about it at her program? The kid never stops fascinating me.

This rooster was waiting for me to put corn out. 2 PHOTOS

Notice his comb? Not the traditional one you pictured in your head, is it.

And this rooster:

He got frostbite on his comb. He’ll be OK.

Did you know, there are 9 different types of rooster combs.

Credit: https://bitchinchickens.com/2020/06/01/chicken-combs-wattles/

Chickens always look pissed off.

My current batch of chickens is really not cold weather hardy. Last week I was getting 12 – 16 dozen eggs / day. Then the weather got cold again and I’m down to 4-8 eggs / day. Some varieties are more winter hardy than others. The fancier the breed, the more ‘delicate’ they are. I’m sticking with tried and true this spring: Black Australorp and Barred Rock.

WHAT ELSE IS THERE ABOUT CHICKENS SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT?

WHAT HAVE YOU LOOKED UP THIS WEEK?

2025, animals, Family, Food, Government, Uncategorized

Cooking To Cope

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I apologize for two food related posts in a row, but the current obscenely cold weather and the even more obscene political news have caused me and Husband to stay home, insulate ourselves, and cook.

We are typically very busy in the kitchen, but since December we have gone pretty wild. Two weekends ago we made a number entrees including Hungarian pot roast, baked salmon, sheet pan gnocchi with peppers and sausages, a baked risotto, and red beans and rice. The latter recipe came from a New Orleans native with the wonderful name of Pableaux Johnson. None of it has gone to waste, I should add.

We usually cook most things from scratch, and now that includes beans. I have ordered a number of dried beans from Rancho Gordo. Husband notes he is feeling better since we started with the beans, and misses it when we don’t have beans on the menu. We have also dived deep into traditional foods of northern Spain. Supper last night was leftover Fabada, a Spanish white bean stew with chorizo, ham hock, and blood sausage. It is delicious.

I realize that we turn to cooking like this to feel safe and to have some sense of control. I find the extreme cold to be terribly frightening. A couple of nights ago the wind chill was -43. Kyrill our terrier ran off the deck in pursuit of a bunny and didn’t come right back as he usually does. Husband went out to get him, and found him paralyzed with cold in the snow on the side of the house. He had only been out a minute or less. He got some left over pot roast in his kibble that night.

How are you coping with the weather and the political mess we are in? What are some of your favorite world cuisines? Thoughts on dried beans?

2025, animals, home, Nature, Uncategorized

Close Encounters

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Husband has been keeping the bird feeder in the back yard full this winter. Once he fills it, the sentinel chickadee who sits in the lilac hedge and watches him sounds the news, and pretty soon the feeder and the ground below are full of birds. They swoop into the feeder area in groups, and others wait their turn in the lilac hedge and the grapevines on our deck.

We have two very tall spruce trees in the front yard, and many birds hang out there, especially the Eurasian Collared Doves. They also visit the feeder and eat the seed that falls onto the ground. They nest in the spruces and we hear hungry baby doves all summer.

One day last week I was backing out of the driveway when I spotted an American Kestrel sitting on the ground in one of our flower beds right by the sidewalk. It was devouring a dove. The kestrel didn’t seem to mind me at all. It was intent on the fat dove. It always amazes me how small kestrels are. I love the bluish grey on the head and the checkerboard pattern on its underside and legs. It finally flew off with the dove in its claws.

This is not the first kestrel we have had. I have seen them swoop into the spruce trees on one side and emerge seconds later on the other side carrying off a squawking dove. It gets pretty exciting here sometimes!

Any close encounters for you this past couple of weeks? What is your favorite raptor?

2025, animals, education, pets, Theatre, Travel, Uncategorized

Home Away From Home

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Last year our local college terminated the Theatre, Music, and English departments. There is a rather fine auditorium at the college that has remained pretty silent and unused for the last while. It is in the main building on campus and is surrounded by the library and classrooms. There are multiple ways of accessing the other rooms and hallways from the auditorium.

The Badlands Opera Company is putting on Into The Woods in a couple of months. They often use our church sanctuary for their productions, but this time they are using the college auditorium. Last week the Opera Company folks paid a visit to the auditorium to scope out the place and see what they would need to do to get it up and running. There is a loft above the stage that was used for costumes and props. It was left in incredible disarray by the theatre faculty as a sort of “screw you” to the college administration. Much to the Opera Company folks surprise, they noticed a cat sticking its head from out of the loft ceiling. They also noticed a litter box and the personal effects of someone who had been squatting in the loft.

They phoned the police and campus security, who secured the auditorium and found another cat. Both cats were taken to the city animal shelter. They also figured out who had been living in the loft and had him get his stuff out. I don’t know how long the guy had been living there. The college is upping its security. The Opera Company folks decided that they would only go to the auditorium in groups of three from now on. It was interesting that public comment indicated more concern about the welfare of the cats than the fact that someone had been living in the theatre loft. I hope they are comfortable in their new digs at the animal shelter.

What is the most memorable hotel you ever stayed at? What hotel would you like to stay in if you got the chance.?

2025, animals, Family, pets, Theatre

Broken, But Still Good

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Luna managed to rip a chunk out of her frisbee on Thursday. And that put me in mind of the quote “broken, but still good.”

Last Sunday we saw the musical ‘Parade’ at the Orpheum. Oh. My. Goodness. It’s a musical about the 1913 trial – and subsequent imprisonment and lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish American from New York, living in Georgia. A musical? Yes. One of those stories that needs to be told. That you probably never heard of. The entire production was fantastic. Look him up.

It was a beautiful week on the farm. I took Tuesday and Thursday off to prune fruit trees and do some outside stuff. My day went off the rails about 10AM, but it was still so nice to be home and outside. The chickens are loving it, I guess. We got 13 eggs on Thursday! Evidently, this batch is not so ‘winter hardy’.

Our bathroom is getting there. Floor tile installed and they’re working on the wall tiles. Monday they’ll set cabinets.

Our dog Luna. Boy she loves life. She’s an early bird, and really does not want to be touched after about 11 PM. That’s her sleep time.

But any time after 5 AM, she is excited to go. Wherever we’re going, whatever we’re doing, she’s going with. I call her my white shadow.
This week we’re back to the frisbee. As winter began, I had taken all the frisbees into the machine shed so they wouldn’t get lost in the snow, and that’s why we had moved onto sticks outside. For the time being, we’re back to frisbees. She gets a better workout because she must chase the frisbee further than I can throw a stick.


She doesn’t seem to have vertical observation. I’m not sure if she can’t, or she just doesn’t, and she’s lost the frisbee more than once because she’s looking the other direction when it comes back down. I’m guessing she’s only watching about 10 feet in elevation.
It was a pretty big deal on Thursday this week when she actually caught the frisbee at her head height. Twice! She’s come close a few times before and it may have been the combination of a lucky throw and timing on her part, but you could tell she was pretty excited about it.

These are heavy duty frisbees; they are very thick and the knobs around the outer edges give her a good place to grip, and they will hurt my fingers trying to get it back. We’re still working on the release part. Also Thursday morning she finally managed to tear out an entire chunk. And that’s how I got to the phrase from the movie ‘Lilo and stitch’, referring to family, “It’s little, and broken, but still good”.

It seems to fly just as well, even with a chunk missing.


If you haven’t seen the movie ‘Lilo and stitch’, I would highly recommend it. It originally came out in 2002, our son was ten, our daughter seven, and it is the story of an older sister trying to raise her younger sister. It provided us with many wonderful quotes and fits of laughter. We recognize the stubbornness on both their parts, and the older daughter screaming into a pillow in frustration, while the little girl also screamed into a pillow just about put Kelly and I on the floor in laughter.
The social worker, Mr. Cobra Bubbles (Once worked for the CIA. Convinced an alien race that mosquitoes were an endangered species. He had hair then.) He tells the older sister “Thus far, you have been adrift in the sheltered harbor of my patience. “
I love that line.

Reading the quotes on the IMDb website filled in so many lines that you don’t always hear in the movie. There are many very funny background lines that are almost throwaway lines. Sometimes it’s the tone of voice that’s used.
David Ogden Stiers plays an alien named Jumba. Partnered with a nerdy scientist alien Pleakley, the two of them are the comic relief.

JUMBA: “WHAT? After all you put me through, you expect me to help you just like that? JUST LIKE THAT?”

STITCH: [Alien language] “ih”

JUMBA: “Fine!”

PLEAKLEY: “Fine? You’re doing what he says??”

JUMBA: “He’s very persuasive”

PLEAKLEY: “Oh good! I was hoping to add theft, endangerment, and INSANITY to my list of things I did today!“

JUMBA: ”Haha You too?”

Lilo: “Oh good, my dog found the chainsaw.”

Of course the quote, ‘damaged but not broken’ can be a metaphor for so many things. There’s several books with the title of ‘damaged but not broken’ and it could be a battle of cancer, or it could be your relationship with God. One can make it even simpler and just apply it to everyday life.

SHARE EXAMPLES OF BROKEN BUT STILL GOOD. OR “CAN’T vs. WON’T”?

2025, animals, Family, Food, Gatherings, holidays

Happy Chinese New Year!

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YA and I celebrate the lunar new year, although not as robustly as we used to.  When she was younger, we did a big house cleaning running up to the new year, put up a lot of decorations and had folks over for a nice dinner of Chinese.  I used to cook all that food on my own but over the years, we moved to getting takeaway from our favorite Chinese restaurant. Since the pandemic, we’ve scaled way back on some of this.

It turns out that this coming year is not just Year of the Snake but Year of the Wood Snake.  Apparently every 60 years or so, the Year of the Snake aligns with a Yisi year – which corresponds to heavenly stems and branches.  Hence Wood Snake.

Folks born during a snake year (1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001,2013 and 2025) are associated with intelligence and resilience.  Additional characteristics for a Wood Snake (1905, 1965 and 2025) are wisdom, intuition and renewal.  I’ve seen a couple of headlines this week saying that a snake year for shedding negative energy.  A good image for a snake, especially as the wood snake is linked with renewal.

According to a feng shui master who has been giving interviews, “The Snake — with a strong fire element, along with some metal and earth elements — is a zodiac sign that can cause significant clashes and conflicts. We need to be mindful of accidents as we approach the Snake Year. The overall atmosphere in the world will become slightly more chaotic.”  Personally I don’t think you need a lunar new year prediction to come up with that….

Do you know your Chinese zodiac sign?  Any favorite Chinese food this week?

2025, animals, Family, Farming Update, home, Kids, Nature, Weather

I Spy

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Every time I went outside this past week I’d say “Hooo Doggie!” like Jed Clampet. It was kinda brisk.

No one was very interested in going outside.   

The chickens were very happy to just hang out in the coop.

The guys working on the tower didn’t come back until Wednesday morning, and then Thursday they had a crane helping them.

Taking daughter into town one morning and I was telling her about a dream I had. (I have a lot of theater and lighting dreams). I was expounding on dream interpretation, when she said, “Okay Dad”. Ah. Point taken. I stopped talking. And I thought she was hanging on my every word.

The bathroom remodeling is in the dusty ‘sanding drywall’ phase. The guys are doing a pretty good job putting up plastic and sealing things, but that dust…it gets everywhere. Kelly taped baffles over the gap at the bottom of the doors, and even that didn’t help. I picked up my computer mouse and there was a dusty outline of that. And that was at the far end of a room with the door closed. Sigh. Part of the deal. This too shall pass. That’s Humphrey peeking through the plastic in the header photo, he’s just wondering when this will finish. Kinda like daughter. The guys know it’s not personal when she comes out of her room and yells, “WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO BE DONE!??” It’s just messing up her routine.

I’m making progress organizing the shop. Construction is basically done, other than adding shelving or cabinets, and I do have to finish installing some screws on the ground row (because I hate getting down on the ground unless I must, I put off installing those screws) and a couple other places I realized I forgot to install screws. I’ve mounted an air hose reel inside, and finished the wall outside, and moved some toolboxes. There’s a couple things I’m not sure I should mount until the electricians are finished. I’ve ordered some fancy dancy lights: A bunch for inside, a couple big ones outside the shop doors, a small one over the walk-in door, and two over the work bench.

Luna the dog. Short for ‘Luna-tic’. When we go outside, she’s so excited to be out doing something, she spends most of the time hopping on her back legs chewing on my hand. We learned a new trick where she bites a big stick, and I can spin her in circles. Well, I myself can’t spin too many circles before I fall over, but she loves it.

Bailey hates to be left out.

And all three dogs love eating the corn I throw out for the chickens. Luna will eat right out of the bucket while I’m dumping it out.

They’re all so weird.

Last week I got seed ordered for spring. This week all the necessary fertilizer and chemicals was confirmed. My goodness, nothing is getting cheaper. $30,000 this week. It’s only money!

Saturday is the Met in HD opera movie. ‘Aida’. It’s a long opera, 3 hour 15 minutes. I’ll be getting the large popcorn. And taking a nap. During the movie I mean. I can’t stand the music, but I enjoy the “production” of it all. 

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD TO EAT RIGHT OUT OF THE CONTAINER?

2025, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

Free Hat!

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I took a couple days off work at the end of the week with the warmer temperatures to finish a couple of outside things in the machine shed. Replaced a tire on one of the trailers and finished the last corner of the shop wall, with the exception of the last piece of steel that the electrician told me to hold off installing until they run conduit.

On Wednesday I went to Meyer’s Seed in Potsdam and ordered seed for this year.Trying a different variety of oats called Rushmore. Oat seed is $16 a bushel, and I got a bit of a discount for ordering early. I ordered 80 bags. Retail price on a bag of corn seed is $360. Again there was several discounts so I am not paying nearly that much, and thankfully I only needed 20 bags. Soybean seed, depending on whether it’s treated or not, is somewhere between $50 and $60 per bag. 

I don’t need to get into all the different weights of the seed bags, and seeding rates, I’ve talked about that every year. When I left Meyers, I turned left on 70th Ave. and took that gravel road for 10 miles straight south until I came to County Road nine, took a right there which brought me right to the college. We had a commencement planning meeting. Couple of months the school year will be over and we’ll be dealing with commencement. Five miles down that 10 mile road, I parked in the middle of an intersection to take these photos. Probably could’ve parked there for an hour and not bothered anybody.

I got a free hat when I ordered seed! 

Although with these cold temperatures I think he’s gonna want the stocking cap back.

About 10 years ago we bought a new washer and dryer. It has an automatic soap dispenser, so every couple of months we fill the reservoir with soap and don’t have to think about it. A few years ago when my mom was still in independent living, we were doing laundry for her and at one point in time one of my siblings made some comment about the detergent and if the rest of us were using the liquid or the powder. Gee, I kind of forgot about detergent, I hadn’t been adding any. I remembered that story this week as I did two loads of laundry at our neighbors house while they’re on vacation and our laundry room is still torn up. Kelly came with me as I swapped the second load from the washer to the dryer and I showed her the detergent I was using. She pointed out it was fabric softener. Well, now that you mention it, it was blue. It sure did smell nice. What I noticed was a big jug on top of the washing machine with a little cup and spout just like the red detergent container has. Once again, the best of intentions tripped up by my lack of attention to details.
Remodeling update: On Friday, the guys started installing sheetrock. The electricians spent three days here, we got three new fans, code requires hardwired smoke detectors in all the bedrooms now, (not just in the hallway outside) so got four new ones to replace two battery ones we had. We also had them run two Cat 6 ethernet lines from the utility room to the TV and office. And a coax (antenna cable), to the TV. That way I can replace the line that’s been running over the roof, down the front of the house, and in our front window for 40 years. Kelly is almost as excited about getting rid of that wire as she is about the new bathtub. 
I’ve been watching some guys working on a cell phone tower along our driveway the last few days. 

I sure hope they finish before it gets any colder.  

IF YOU WERE GOING TO WORK OUTSIDE, IN THE WINTER, AT THIS HEIGHT, WHAT WOULD YOU NEED TO GET FOR FREE? 

2025, animals, Family, Fantasy, holidays, Movies

Our Holiday Movie

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All autumn I was dreading “the Christmas movie”. On Christmas morning, YA and I have almost always opened stockings and then gone to the movies. We did skip a couple of years due to COVID and one year we just couldn’t find anything at theatres that we liked so we streamed a movie and watched it from the comfort of the sofa.

I knew from YA comments that she wanted to see Wicked. And you all know from my rant last summer that I was not that interested. The thought of seeing a 2½ hour movie (that is just Part I) of a musical that I’m not crazy about just didn’t seem like a fun way to spend a morning, much less a holiday morning. So when I saw a poster at Southdale for Red One, I thought we might find a compromise.

Two weeks before Christmas we went to see Wicked at the Riverview. I always like the Riverview, even if I’m not that wild about what’s showing and that’s exactly how it turned out. We had a nice enough time, I didn’t have to close my eyes over anything gory. Since I’ve gone on and on about Wicked already, I won’t get into it here – suffice it to say it was a good decision not to see this as our Christmas Day movie.

Red One turned out to be at the end of it’s run before Christmas Day (how does this make sense that a Christmas movie stops showing a couple of days before Christmas?) so we decided to see our holiday movie on Solstice this year.

The movie lived up to my expectations. Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans are the main stars. Johnson can’t act his way out of a paper bag but his charm is that he knows this and doesn’t try. A bit refreshing actually. I only know Chris Evans as Captain America, but he gave a creditable performance as the guy who gets transformed by Christmas spirit.

It’s almost impossible to do spoilers for a movie like this… if you don’t know where it’s going, then you’ve never seen a Christmas movie. Here are a few things I thought were particularly fun:

  • • The reindeer are all female.
    • Johnson is the commander of E.L.F., the groups that “guards” Santa. He explains this to Evans at one point saying that as far as Evans is concerned, it stands for Extremely Large and Formidable.
    • Toy stores are the portals to the North Pole transit system, which reaches all over the world.
    • Santa is a smallish, muscular guy who works out a lot and loves cookies, except for macaroons.
  • And, of course, there is a massive polar bear named Garcia on the E.L.F. team.

By the time we got home from the theatre, YA had discovered that Red One is already out on Prime Video. I’ve watched it twice more since then!

Do you have a favorite holiday movie?

2025, animals, books, Food, work

Not a Chance

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In a conversation yesterday afternoon, YA was telling about some woman online who has quit her job to be an influencer.  Apparently this woman is garnering a lot of negative attention right now and shedding followers like a Samoyed in summer.  She then went on to suggest that I could become an influencer.  When I stopped laughing (quite a bit later), I asked her what I could possibly influence.  She said baking or book reviews. 

While I do think my baking is usually top notch, I am not meticulous.  A co-worker way back in the day said once that “done is better than perfect” and if I have a motto in life, this is it.  I also do not think that I am a discerning enough reader to do book reviews.  I like what I like and would be the first to admit that I’m probably not consistent in how I allot my praise or criticism.

My comment to YA was that I’d be ashamed to leave the house if my job title were “social influencer”. 

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?