Most years, our first foray to the zoo is during Farm Babies, which usually starts towards the end of April. The zoo opens up the Farm and there are usually some baby animals to pet. It’s not a big a celebration as it was in years’ past, but who can resist petting baby goats. Not us.
This year, YA broke tradition by waking up last weekend and suggesting we go to the zoo that day. I didn’t have any plans, so off we went.
Our normal routine is to start with the inside exhibits – first the Tropics and then the Minnesota Trail. We skipped the Bird Show as they re-jiggered the winter show last year and we didn’t care for it too much. Then we walked on the lake bridge to see the tigers, caribou and moose then around the Northern Trail – the Bactrian camels were all out sunning together – it looked like they were at a symposium:
The two takins that were out were having a great day, chasing each other around; we’ve never seen them that active. One of the snow leopards was also enjoying the sunshine (see the header photo). In fact, that did seem to be the theme of the day; many of the animals were enjoying the sunny day.
After winding back to the main building through the Grizzly Coast, we had our lunch, augmented with french fries. Had to hit the gift shop, although we almost never purchase anything. Then sea lions and weedy sea dragons and sharks before we headed home. A wonderful day.
How do you like your sunshine? Porch? Adirondack chairs? Chaise lounge? Hands and knees in the garden? Sun lamp?
It is still too early here for much yardwork, although things are starting to green up. Our weather has been volatile, with highs in the 80’s, then snow showers. People have been out mowing lawns.
We worked really hard last summer refurbishing our 20 year old strawberry patch. The plants had petered out and the soil was packed and hard. By last fall there were new plants and new runners coming along very nicely. We had to fence the whole thing due to rabbits eating the strawberry leaves. We had a whole herd of bunnies in the neighborhood. Our next door neighbor trapped and then released about 10 rabbits in the country. There were far fewer rabbits hopping around by the fall.
The fencing fell down over the winter. We planned to put it back up in a couple of weeks. Wouldn’t you know it, the minute the strawberry plants started to emerge and green up, there was a rabbit nibbling them. Husband was out last weekend in pelting sleet laying down a makeshift carpet of plastic fencing to foil the rabbits until we can put up a proper fence when the weather is better and we have more time.
How are your garden and yard plans coming along? Growing any fruits or vegetables this year?
Life is what you make out of it. It’s always an adventure.
Monday you’re bit by a dog, Tuesday daughter will run out in bare feet to greet you when you return home, and Wednesday she stands outside your door and says she hates you. Thursday there’s a tree on fire. Is it any wonder I can’t remember what day of the week it is?
Whoosh! Another week gone. Or maybe that was just the wind on Thursday.
Got the college show open and it is going well. The floor turned out OK and the wall patterns, well, I can’t decide if it looks like giant presents, or wall paper. The concept is still good, it’s just the execution that lost traction. There’s a lot of justification in this if you know the story and think about it long enough. Love, relationships, difficulties in both.
I got corn and oat seed picked up last Saturday,
Got the wagon top swapped on the running gear,
Had all four tractors out and running, and got 3 of them back inside the shed.
Got the shop stereo hooked up to one speaker, and the blu-tooth receiver connected to an old cell phone and streamed Radio Heartland as the inaugural music. Will be better when I get the second speaker mounted, but at least it works.
Monday I got bit by a stray dog I was trying to pick up for the township and spent a few hours in the Emergency Department. I was inspected and injected and injected some more. Two more rabies shots to go (four total) I got a Tetanus booster, and immuglobulin in the ED. Had a great RN and to my astonishment, the ER waiting room was empty when I arrived! Honestly, there are worse things in life, this was nothing. I joked, I’m going to go pick up all the rabid dogs now! The other township guys joked I will need to wear a rabies tag.
I got a call about running another 20 acres of ground in the neighborhood. I’m going to do it, but I also had to run some numbers first. It’s not the best soil, and there are just as many deer there as my place. And with input cost up, and crop prices down, I offered a low rental price. It was accepted for this year, and we’ll see how it does. “Experts” are predicting an increase in farm income, due to Government Rescue payments, and cattle prices are up, but…it’s still going to be a tough year financially.
We had thunderstorms Thursday night, and over an inch of rain, which we really needed. As I came home from the college show, about 9:30 PM, I could see a light where there shouldn’t have been light. A tree was on fire.
I always thought if lightning struck a tree it exploded. Nope, this was just on fire 30 feet up. I called the non-emergency line for the fire department, because I wasn’t quite sure what to do about this. It rained enough after they put it out that there wasn’t a risk of re-igniting. At the time, I didn’t know how much rain we had gotten and I was concerned about the dry grass below it.
We got our new baby chicks on Tuesday. These 40 chicks are Black Australorp, and Barred Rock. Twenty of each.
I used a new hatchery this year due to supply issues with chicks at the hatchery I have been using, and these were the available breeds. We’ve been looking up guineas to order later this summer, and again, some places have NOTHING available for 2025. I’d sure like to do more ducks, but not if they’re only going to get eaten by something.
There’s a female Cardinal really stuck on watching herself in our car Windows.
I did a little fieldwork Thursday afternoon.
It was good to get out in the dirt. And now with the rain, I can take the time to check tires, and grease machinery and replace some parts.
So it’s been a busy week. With the show open and no more evening rehearsals, I hope to get some farming done now.
It always feel like I should have more time, and then suddenly the weather is nice, and the ground has dried up and, worst of all, I’ve seen some neighbors out working, and then I gotta get out there! Springtime is always hard. There’s always a college show to open, and then concerts, and commencement, and depending on how the winter was and how soon the snow melts, assuming we had any, it all affects what all I should be doing at the same time. And it will all get done. I still should cut down some trees hanging over the fields, and I still have branches to pick up in the waterway area. Plus getting the machinery greased and tires checked, and oil changed.
When I swapped the wagon top last weekend, I tightened up the rear wheel bearings and added grease to the bearings on the running gear. That’s not something I do often enough, but this was the perfect time to do it before I put the wagon on top.
We’ve got an Easter ham thawing and I’m looking forward to that.
I’ll promote a place we’ve been ordering meat from lately:
It was started by a couple guys who raise hogs down in Iowa. They have a Youtube channel and I watch them. They started marketing their own hogs, and it expanded into other farms with beef and chicken. Beef from Sonne Farms in South Dakota (and others). Sonne Farms also have a YouTube page I watch.
I have always loved the music of Sibelius, and was tickled to hear that he described the third movement of his violin concerto as “a polonaise for polar bears”. What a visual! It is a sort of lumbering piece. I also love the pieces he has done that are inspired by swans.
Carnival of the Animals and Peter and the Wolf are family favorites. Many composers were inspired by animals, like Delius On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring and Vaughan Williams Lark Ascending. Satie wrote about a dreamy fish, and Scarlatti wrote a keyboard sonata called the Cat Sonata. Vivaldi wrote about the goldfinch. Then, of course, there is Gershwin:
What are your favorite animal-inspired musical pieces or songs?
Yesterday was Kyrill’s grooming appointment. He gets groomed every 6 weeks or so. Cesky Terriers don’t shed. Their coats just gets thicker and longer. It is also curly and needs regular brushing out. This is him, exhausted, after his appointment yesterday.
As you can see from the photo, Cesky Terriers have a very distinctive grooming pattern for their faces. They have the traditional terrier beard along with a hank of hair that extends from the eyebrow to the nose. This is presumably to protect their eyes as they rout vermin out of their holes and chivy wild swine from their dens so hunters can shoot them. Kyrill can see very well through all that hair. I make a point of trimming the hair from the outside of his eye sockets so he has good peripheral vision.
My father and grandfathers never had beards. Neither Husband or son has a beard currently. Son will occasionally grow one for a special contest at the college where he works. Husband had a beard decades ago, but his hair is curly and his beard had the texture of a scrub brush, so he hasn’t had a beard for more than 40 years.
I don’t find the current trend of excessive human male facial hair particularly attractive. I suppose it is less expensive than shaving every day. We are traveling to Montreal next week, and Son wants us to get him some fancy shaving things at a store he likes there, at our expense, of course!
Male Baboons, do you have, or ever have had, a beard?Female Baboons, ever had a significant other with a beard? What are your favorite or least favorite dog grooming standards?
I was rather amused to read the account from March of the conviction of some British guys for the theft of an 18 carat gold toilet from Blenheim Palace.
The 6 million dollar toilet was part of an art installation titled America by an Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan poking fun at excessive wealth. The Guggenheim Museum, where the installation started out, had reportedly offered the work to 47 during his first term after he asked to borrow a painting by Van Gogh. The toilet has presumably been melted down and sold. The artist suggested, using the Clue game, that the chief suspects should have been the Butler, the Chef, or a family friend.
I am an Impressionist sort of art person, but I also like Renaissance art and Aboriginal art.
Ok. Help me understand modern art. I don’t understand Brillo boxes as art. What is your favorite art?
Ever since we got our dog three years ago, our cat, Luna, has chosen to stay in the basement during the day. She only comes up at night when I and the dog are safely ensconced in the guest room with the door closed. She sleeps with Husband in the master bedroom, and wanders freely around the house. In the morning she returns to the basement for the day. The dog has no access to the basement.
Kyrill is not an aggressive dog. He is just curious and wants to investigate the cat. She has always been timid around other of our pets, even the cats, and doesn’t like a long, terrier nose sniffing her all over. I didn’t want to force them to engage with each other out of respect for Luna’s discomfort. The header photo is of Luna before we got the dog. She liked using the hanging rug as her climbing wall.
Over the past several months I noticed Luna and Kyrill booping their noses together through the gate that keeps Kyrill from going in the basement. I was very surprised a few weeks ago when I came home from work and found her sleeping on the upstairs bed in the master bedroom. The dog roams freely around the upstairs all day and can hear a bug crawl across the floor, and would have heard her jump over the gate. Kyrill just ignored her and did not give chase. She spent hours on the bed. He is able to jump up on the bed, but didn’t.
Last weekend I went into our study upstairs to work on the computer, and Luna followed me in with the dog. I made Kyrill sit while I petted both of them. Both sat by my chair while I worked. When I got up to leave the room, Kyrill came with me and Luna stayed for a few minutes and then went back downstairs.
I have no idea what has brought about this new show of cat bravery. I can only hope that it continues and she can finally come upstairs and spend more time with us. I like our increasingly peaceable kingdom.
Who have been your bravest or most timid pets. What fears have you or your pets overcome?
I was listening to a jazz station the other day and a song came on that I remembered.
“Li’l Darlin’”, a 1958 song by Neil Hefti for the Count Basie Orchestra. And I recall hearing it late nights on MPR with Leigh Kamman and the Jazz Image. I went down an internet rabbit hole looking up Leigh and the Jazz Image. He has a Wikipedia page. He even has a website created by his daughter and others.
He was on MPR for 34 years, in radio for 65 years.
Born in Minnesota in1922, he grew up in central Minnesota, and spent time during WWII in the Armed Forces Radio. The last edition of The Jazz Image was September 29, 2007, and he passed away in Edina, MN, at age 92 on Friday October 17, 2014. From the look of things, his contribution to jazz music is severely understated.
He used music of Alice Babs as his ‘filler music’. But Li’l Darlin must have been in there somewhere, how else would I have known it? And that led me to Count Basie, and a recording by the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble, and down the hole I went. I had forgotten how poetic he was on the program. From a substack website by Tyler King called “From Astaire to Sun Ra: A Jazz Journey”, there’s are quotes from some of his broadcasts: “wrapped in honey and floating on a cloud” or “Here we are in pursuit of a timber wolf howling across Miller’s Bay, Leach Lake; and we are headed to Star Route, Walker, Minnesota zip code 56484.” Pretty good imagery!
And in the words of Duke Ellington, “If it sounds good, it is good.”
Thanks for the memories, Mr. Kamman.
It must be spring as the college put out the ‘Ornery Goose’ seasonal email.
The college has several nesting geese. This one has moved to a new spot in the parking lot this year.
At home, I picked up the driveway markers, and I took off the rear blade, but I haven’t taken down the snow fence yet.
I have started picking up sticks, branches, and roots from the dirt work done last fall. It’s a little too muddy in places yet, especially with the rain and snow we’ve been getting lately, but there’s a lot to pick up and we’ll get them eventually.
And before it snowed and rained last week, I cleared a downed tree off the edge of a field and pushed brush back into the trees along the edge. Trying to keep nature at bay. Or least in its place. It’s a yearly battle.
The weather was so nice Friday evening, Kelly and I and the dogs sat out on the veranda for an hour. We didn’t have wine or even chairs; we just sat on the steps and talked and watched the chickens and the clouds and the world go round.
I’ve had three electricians working in the shop this week. One journeyman and two apprentices. There is so much planning and forethought required in this, it is one of those situations where I’m paying for his 20 years of practice, in addition to the 3 days of work. Look at the skill it takes to create concentric 90-degree bends. Plus, all the code requirements, and the cleanest way to get all the wires where they need to be with the least amount of conduit.
Part of me wonders why I hired this out and didn’t do it myself? All the aforementioned is why. Plus, he has a scissor lift.
I did pick up the lift early and mount the lights to the ceiling, and I’ll install the ceiling fans myself, but they’re doing the hard work.
It will be nice to have the large garage door opener hooked up, and outside lights when needed, and better inside lighting, and outlets all over, and a dedicated outlet for the air compressor, and two welder outlets! One inside, one outside!
Can’t wait. It’s gonna be SO COOL! And then really, I’m gonna stop spending money. On this.
I moved some tractors on Tuesday. I was going to hook up the big tractor to the soil finisher, my main spring implement, but decided it wasn’t quite time for that yet.
Moved the scrap metal tote outside so I can get to the grain drill. And it will be time to pick up seed shortly.
It’s interesting the chives growing wild are greening up, but the chives in the pot are not yet. The ground stays warmer than the cold air surrounding the pot I suppose is the reason.
The robins have been snowed on twice now. Once more and we should be good to go. I see the turkey vultures have returned, we’ve seen and heard sandhill cranes, I’ve heard there’s rhubarb coming up, and we’re starting to see hints of green in the lawn and in the rye that I planted as a cover crop. Spring is coming. Oh, and nettles are growing. Why do the weeds always get the upper hand?
One day last week I found both the lost pen and pencil from two days before, and a water bottle from about three weeks ago. The water bottle was in the office at our Townhall. I remember stopping there to look through some files, would not have remembered that I had a water bottle with me, I just knew that there used to be two in the refrigerator and now there was only one. And I was pretty sure I had put the pen and pencil in my pocket one morning, but that afternoon they were gone. Three days later I found them in a box I had bent over to pick up. There’s always, usually, almost always, a rational explanation for missing things.
Last Saturday, Governor Walz held a Townhall meeting in Rochester at the largest high school auditorium we have in town. Three days before, I got an email asking if I would be free on Saturday to work lights and sound for this event. Details were still being ironed out, and on Thursday I found out they were asking about various locations at the college, as well as various high schools in Rochester. Buried in an email someone said they were not expecting a very big crowd. I had to laugh at that. I don’t know why anyone would’ve thought that. A few years ago, yeah, small crowds, not these days.
One of my jobs is doing technical support for community education events, or anything that’s not school related, in the public school auditoriums. So it’s pretty basic lighting and sound. We don’t do anything fancy, I don’t do video, but I can get him a microphone and turn on the stage lights.
I train in college kids to do this job and then ideally they can cover many of these events, most of which are dance recitals or various meetings. I keep the interesting things for myself. Like governors. But I did bring along a college student to train.
The large high school was finally selected and we did a walk-through there Friday afternoon with security and the governor’s staff. Saturday morning we were there at 7:30 AM and I observed this meeting of security personnel out in the hallway:
It sounded like this crew was searching purses and bags. I hope the big guy got to do more than search bags. I know the local police department was around, and I’m sure there was other security person that went unnoticed by me. From my position up in the balcony I really couldn’t see much.
I worked an event for Governor Walz several years ago at the college and it was much more low-key than this one. As we finished up and were leaving, we saw the black SUVs with the tinted windows.
Some of you know Governor Walz would stay and take questions all morning if he could. He was only scheduled to speak for an hour, and they had started to make some indications they needed to wrap up. Shortly after the one hour mark, his wife Gwen, who had been sitting on stage, approached him and placed her hand on his shoulder. Governor Walz finished his thought and quipped, “You can see who holds the real power around here.“ and gave her the microphone. She spoke, she got the crowd up and on their feet and cheering and they both waved and exited. What a perfect way to wrap this up. The governor never had to say he had to go, no one had to cut them off, nobody plays the bad guy. Just smile and wave. Smile and wave. Well done.
I make a show file on the lightboard for these events, and I have a ‘general’ file, which I then created a sub folder, ‘Walz’. Hence, GENERAL WALZ, which sort of made me giggle.
On the farm front, I didn’t get much accomplished this week on the farm. I hope to clear a down tree off the field on Friday, before it rains and gets muddy again. And I’m hoping to get some straw spread where I had the dirt work done last winter so that I don’t get any more erosion from the snow melting and spring rains. Still sorting bolts, but I am just about done with that, they don’t quite fit back where they were so I’m still figuring it out as I go.
Electricians should be there on Monday to get the electrical done in the shop. I picked up the electricians scissor lift and will get the lights mounted on the ceiling prior to their arrival.
I’m looking forward to having a door opener installed, plus some exterior lights and more outlets in the shed.
And then I really need to stop spending money on this place.
The chickens followed me to the barn one day, eager for corn. And they got a drink while they were there. The ones with their head up are swallowing.
Although I probably won’t go down again to boil sap, I truly enjoyed the experience. Part of it was learning all about the process, but a lot was also the ambiance. Not in any particular order…
The weather was just about perfect. It started about bright and sunny (I put on sunscreen) and even when it clouded up in the afternoon, the temperature seemed just right for boiling. Not cold enough that you really felt it but not warm enough that the work made us sweat. There was a short rain shower after dark, but when it cleared up, the stars in the night sky were amazing. As a city gal, I never see stars like that.
Before dinner we had tea but instead of plain old boiling water, we used the boiling sap. Very sweet tea but wonderful drinking it outside.
There was good company while we were working. Astrid is a big dog with a big deep bark but a big softie; after dark we heard coyotes and while Astrid worked hard to convince us that she was a guard dog, she didn’t move more than 20 feet from us. Whiskey looks like a cat, but he is really a dog. He comes when he is called, hangs around most of the day for petting and doesn’t seem to think the rain matters at all.
My godson doesn’t actually “farm” but is embracing country lifestyle. He was happy to tell me about all the classes he has taken at the local folk school (bee keeping, chain saw safety, how to “manage” chickens, syrup making and to show me all the improvements he’s made to the house and outbuildings. He has some animals: chickens and a mean rooster (I have bruises to prove it) and also a small herd of goats. He has just acquired a male, so perhaps there will be kids and milk in the future. I shared with him the wonderful soaps that Barb made when she had goats.
He is also a terrific cook and by the time he went in to make dinner, I had a handle on the boiling so didn’t need to panic. Several of the borscht ingredients come from their garden and it was delicious. Just soup and toasted baguettes. Yummy.
Children. He has three kids – 7, 5 and 3. I got to play Legos with the youngest. Lots of racing “vehicles” and crashing. The 5-year old was obsessed with arithmetic so we did a ton of “what is ten plus ten” and other combinations. He hasn’t worked on subtraction yet, so we did some “what is three minus two”, using fingers. There was a very lively conversation after the 7-year old got home from school concerning the weight of the earth and how you would weigh it. He’s got a lot on the ball for seven and there was gravity walls/barriers and gravity robot discussion. My godson brought up the planet-building spheres from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, to which I replied that the weight of the earth is clearly 42. The 7-year old didn’t get this joke but god son did!
It was just a wonderful trip, even if you don’t count the maple syrup (and a bonus small bottle of their black walnut syrup which I’ve had before and it fabulous). I can’t imagine how it could have been better!
When was the last time you just really enjoyed something?
Trail Baboon 