Category Archives: Business

2025, Business, crops, Farming Update, Government, History, Music, Science, Technology, Theatre, Uncategorized, Weather

INTEREST-ING

December 13, 2025 xdfben 60 Comments

This week’s farming update from Ben

Brrrr. We are hardy Minnesotan’s but it’s still cold out. Hope you can stay inside and warm for the weekend.

Honestly, how did people do it 100 years ago? Or 500? Or 1000??

We have so much to be thankful for.

I got my corn check from the co-op last week and put it in the bank. And this week I paid off the loan I borrowed from a month ago to pay the bills. And the co-op emailed about setting up the loan and credit for 2026 crops. Easy come, easy go. Repeat. I spent some time this week comparing interest rates. It’s kinda hard to find out what the actual Prime rate is. Course it varies by bank and how much money you have. And it was kind of interesting how that works. One of the companies the co-op uses does Prime minus 0.5% until August, then Prime + 0.5% until Feb of 2027. Another company has different rates on some of the products and zero interest on some, but then Prime +2% on fertilizer. In the end, it doesn’t amount to that much money. It would be a different story if I was spending $450,000 at 7.5% interest. (That’s $33,750 @ 7.5% if you’re curious. Now we’re talking real money!) And the government is going to bail me out with the poor prices on soybeans. So they say. I don’t know what that’s going to amount too yet. It won’t be $33,000 I can tell you that. I’ll bet I can take off a couple zero’s there and be more like it. I always say the difference between me and the big farms is a couple zeros on the expenses and the income.

I’ll fill out the forms this weekend and figure out next years crops. Samantha, the agronomist I work with at the co-op sent out a rough worksheet of next year expenses for my planning purposes, and I’ll get things ordered and prices locked in by mid January for the best rate.

Yesterday on the blog we were talking about things from the past. I had a guy at the farm the other day who had a front wheel drive car and was almost stuck on the bare, but snow covered driveway. He clearly didn’t know how to drive on snow. His wheels were spinning and he blamed the posi-traction. I can still hear my dad’s voice “DON’T SPIN YOUR WHEELS!” Our mantra in winter back in the day of rear-wheel drive cars. “Sit heavy! Don’t spin your wheels.” And my family jokes that Dad would say, “NO TALKING! BE QUIET BACK THERE!” I don’t remember that, but I’m sure it was so Dad could hear the wheels not spinning. Shift to low, back up to the garage so you can get a run at it, and don’t spin your wheels. And the guy got out. Our driveway is long and starts right off with an uphill “U”. (So right, “get a run at it” but you’re making a corner at the same time. You learn a lot about friction doing that.) Then you’ve got a flat 75 yards to gain some speed before the next uphill corner to the left. Most people, if they get around the U, can make the next corner. Although there was some days I had to back up 50 yards and get a run at the second corner again. But a front wheel drive car? Dude. Learn to drive. I remember years ago, the guy who would come in to breed the cows. He had a little tiny car. Rear wheel drive. He couldn’t get out. And he turned around and went backwards really fast around both corners. I was very impressed. But he made it.

Last weekend Padawan called me about 10:00 at night to see if I would help pull a friend of his out of a ditch. So I went. Because we’ve said Padawan is our second son, so, that’s what you do for your kids. The friend had a new sporty little car. Still had the temporary plates. Skidded on the snow and slid into a ditch. Another kid who needs to learn how to drive. He was only a little stuck. Pulled him out with the truck.

Haven’t had much time to work in the shop this past week. Concerts at the college, homework, (had the last ‘in person’ class. I have a couple tests to take yet and some online lectures to watch. Last day of classes is next Friday) And I’ve been moving snow.

Our mailbox is out on the highway. It’s on a swinging post so the snow launching off the snowplow doesn’t damage it, the box just swings out of the way. Meaning it WHIPS the mail out into the ditch…More than once we’ve found the mail under that pine tree behind the mailboxes. Sometimes we may not find it until spring. Hopefully it wasn’t the check we’ve been waiting for. There are three mailboxes as there used to be three homes down our road. The third, unused mailbox our neighbor named “S. Lamb”. The sacrificial lamb. Our neighbors are very witty.

The choir sounds really nice this year. It’s a new conductor and he’s doing a great job with the students. At rehearsal I heard him ask the kids, “Are you ready for the concerts Friday and Saturday?” And they responded, “Thursday and Friday!”

“Good. What time is the concert?”

“7:00”

“Good. What time are you going to be here?”

“6:00”

“Good. Saturday and Sunday concerts, It will be fun!”

“THURSDAY AND FRIDAY!”

“Good.”

Clearly, he’s worked with teenagers before.

HOW YOU GONNA STAY WARM THIS WEEKEND?

HOW DO YOU THINK YOU WOOD HAVE STAYED WARM 500 YEARS AGO?

2025, Business, crops, Farming Update, History, Nature, Science, Technology, The Future, Theatre, Weather

Straight Screens in Curved Holes

December 6, 2025 xdfben 47 Comments

This week’s farming update from Ben

Guess it’s winter on the farm. I even wore a T-shirt under my sleeveless shirt one day.

I don’t think the chickens have come out of the pen all week. They peer out the door, but none of them has much interest in actually going outside. I picked up one chicken that was still living out in the pole barn and carried her back with the rest. And the garage chicken has moved down with the rest. For body heat I presume. Found 4 of the 7 chicks. It’s unfortunate it worked out the way it did for them. I’d have liked them to get a little bigger, or the weather to stay a little warmer, or momma to take a little more care of them a little longer. Any of those options would have served them better.

I got the starter put back on my 630 tractor and it started right up. I can’t get over how quiet it is now. Evidently having a hole and crack in the exhaust manifold is like a hole in your muffler. It’s surprisingly loud. And repairing it was very educational and gave me a great feeling of accomplishment. My dad would be so pleased. That thing has been cracked and loud for as long as I can remember. For a tractor from 1959, it’s getting some much needed attention.

I’m still working on some cosmetic repairs. I have new screens for the front grill and I picked up a cheap spot welder to repair part of the hood. Welding class from 12th grade comes through again!

Dad must have run into something to dent it and break off all the welds on one side. And now I need to figure out how to fit this straight piece of corrugated screen into the slots and curves on the corners.

I know it bends, it is just a matter of fitting it all together.

I worked on it for a while one night and decided this was something to ponder and come back too. The dogs all run into the shop and get a drink, and I played ball with Luna while Bailey gets in my face. Humphrey likes having a warm place to lie down and he’s happy. But the others get bored after a bit and Bailey pee’s on the floor and out they go. Kelly lets them back into the house. Out in the shop is my happy place. Have I mentioned that? As I closed the toolbox and turned off the lights, I thought to myself, this has been 35 years in the making. We took over the farm when we got married, 35 and a half years ago. And I’ve been collecting or buying tools and gaining experience since then. If I had it sooner, I wouldn’t appreciate this so much. Or I’d want something bigger.

=====================

At the college I’m getting ready for Holiday Concerts next week. My friend Paul is designing again, so it’s fun to have him back in the shop.

I added a few more LED lights over the stage. Just some plain LED wash lights. They don’t move or wiggle, they just change colors. Over the stage are pipes called ‘battens’ and they’re all counter weighted so they’re balanced as they come up and down. Called “flying in or out”. Our stage has 19 battens. Three are for lighting (called ‘Electrics 1,2 and 3′ front to back). Several are curtains, and some are open to hang scenery. The counterweight is achieved using metal bricks that weigh about 15.5 pounds. We add or subtract them to balance whatever is hanging. When I added the lights to the 1^stElectric, I had to add 8 more bricks. This is the main lighting batten. I counted 58 bricks. 899 pounds. This batten is rated for 1000 lbs.

These are the counter weight bricks. The yellow brick is empty base weight.

img_5108-1 — The First Electric and it’s 23 various lights.

*********************************************

I read an article in a farm magazine recently about the next generation of autonomous farm equipment. The technology is out of testing and is available for sale.

A little background: As with all technology, this has been coming for a few years. First it was the GPS mapping. Then row sensors so machinery could follow the rows by themselves. Then the machinery started to incorporate the equipment and technology to put all this together and the tractor could follow a line through the field. Then it was automated so that the tractor could raise and lower an implement, slow down at the ends, and all the driver had to do was make the corner, find the next line and hit ‘Go’. From there, multiple implements or tractors could talk to each other. The tractor could pull up next to the combine, and the combine would take control of the tractor and unload at a constant speed. So simply removing the driver really wasn’t that big of a leap, it was kind of the next logical step. That said, I’m not sure I’m ready for a driverless car yet.

This information is from an article in Successful Farming Magazine from November of 2025, called ‘How Farmers Are Using Autonomous Equipment to Do More with Less’. It cites labor shortages, changing weather conditions meaning smaller productivity windows, or maybe just not having enough time in the day to get it all done. Some of the jobs open to autonomy are planting, spreading fertilizer, tillage, or pulling grain carts.

Wanna know what it costs?

There are two big companies: John Deere and AGCO. John Deere doesn’t list prices.

AGCO:

Capabilities: grain cart duties and tillage; planned for 2026

Compatibility: AGCO and PTx’s OutRun system is compatible with 2014 or newer John Deere 8R tractors. Compatibility with Fendt tractors is to begin in 2026.

OutRun for tillage has a $54,000 one-time hardware cost and a $9,000 annual recurring payment; OutRun for grain cart has a $55,000 one-time hardware cost and a $15,000 annual recurring payment.

If using the same tractor and base OutRun Intelligence kit for both grain cart and tillage, it has a $65,900 one-time hardware cost and a $15,000 annual recurring payment.

Carbon Robotics:

Capabilities: tillage, mulching, mowing, and LaserWeeder

Compatibility: Carbon ATK is compatible with John Deere 6R, 8R, 8RT, and 8RX model tractors. Installation takes under a day, with no permanent modifications. Carbon ATK is a $60,000 one-time add-on kit that Carbon comes out and installs.

John Deere:

No price listed

Sabanto:

Capabilities: mowing and seeding

Compatibility: The Sabanto autonomous kit is compatible with 2015–2024 Kubota M5 Series tractors; 2015–2024 John Deere 5E, 5M, and 6E Series tractors; and Fendt 700 Vario tractors. The kit costs $70,000, and is available on cab and open-station models.

https://www.agriculture.com/how-farmers-are-using-autonomous-equipment-to-do-more-with-less-11838003

[Whistle]

First off, I don’t even have a tractor new enough to put this on. Second, [Looking at my bank account]… Nope, there is nothing to say here.

It is kinda cool! I can see the advantage for some farmers. Kelly suggested I could have the tractor doing fieldwork while I was at the college. Yep. Suppose Bailey would still get in the tractor without me? From the video’s of the systems I’ve seen, the operator is monitoring it from his phone or tablet. Inside the tractor you set the field and boundaries. Then once you’re out of the tractor, depending on which system you’re using, either you start it remotely and the tractor honks and the lights flash and it uses all the exterior cameras to make sure you’re not around, and off it goes.

If it “sees” something not right, it will stop and alert the operator, who can view the cameras and decide the best course of action.

Crazy stuff.

JOKE DAY! SHARE A JOKE:

Q: WE WERE SO POOR—

A: THAT FOR BREAKFAST WE HAD ORDINARY K.

2025, Business, Kids, Mysteries, sports

Chop Chop

November 21, 2025 verily sherrilee 22 Comments

There has been a karate school a few blocks from my house all the time I have lived here (think going on 3+ decades). I’ve really never paid attention to it at all.

Well, I got invited there to watch Marie (little girl who used to next door to me) take part in her karate class. If I had any assumptions before going, they were almost all wrong.

The karate school is woman-owned (not Japanese karate master-owned) with primarily women instructors (not Japanese karate masters). I saw a bit of three classes – the one before Marie’s, then Marie’s and then the very beginning of the class after. It was approximately 2/3 girls (not a bunch of Asian little boys). I actually only saw one Asian kid the whole night. So much for all my assumptions. To be fair, all I knew about karate before this was what I learned from watching James Bond movies.

Marie’s class is about 40 minutes long and the very first class was half instruction about when and when NOT to use their karate skills. Marie is the smallest in her class but pretty feisty. Another little girl had the karate yell down pat and one of the little boys could hardly wait for the instructor to give the go-ahead for the next move. They were all very cute.

I did a little searching on the internet and the history/etymology of karate is WAY too extensive for me to even try to parse it. You’ll thank me for that!

Have you ever learned any karate / judo / taekwondo / sumo??

2025, Business, Family, Mysteries, Uncategorized

A Penny for Your Thoughts?

November 18, 2025 verily sherrilee 27 Comments

I’ve heard folks rail about pennies for years but really didn’t pay much attention to them. It surprised me in reading the news of the last pennies being minted this week, that it actually costs 4 cents to make a penny. It’s shocking to me that we’ve been minting these coins for awhile at a 300% markup. Why didn’t we quit this silliness earlier?

When I was growing up, my dad kept a jar on the dresser and every night all the coins in his pocket went in. My mother used to fish out any quarters, dimes and nickels that she found but she left the pennies until the jar was full, then she took them to the bank. Occasionally a few pennies would be meted out to me and my sister, but not too often.

I discovered last January when I visited, that my mother is still putting coins into a jar in her chiffarobe. Apparently she doesn’t do this on a regular basis, just when she thinks her wallet is getting too heavy. Quarters go in a separate jar for the washer and dryer in her condo building. I also discovered that banks are no longer very interested in helping the public deal with their coins. And those coin machines you occasionally see at grocery stores? A pretty hefty fee and the grocery store near my mom’s would only give you store credit. A little calling around and I did find a bank about 15 minutes away that had a sorting machine, but you had to deal with it yourself. Not too awful but you could only put in one kind of coin at a time so it was laborious. Luckily it was a branch of my mom’s bank, so I could just deposit the money into her account.

No coin jars at my house and if there had been, that experience with my mom’s coins would have cured me. The news is that people are worried that every business will eventually start rounding up the price of your purchases. Personally I can see that happening with cash purchases, but with so many purchases being credit card/cyber transactions, I’m not too worried.

Was there a coin jar in your house growing up? What about now?

2025, Business, Media, Movies, Technology

I Robot

November 13, 2025 verily sherrilee 28 Comments

A wave of nostalgia hit me yesterday when I went to get a gift card for YA’s stocking. When I was a kid, my folks would drop me off in front of the movie theater, I’d meet up with my friends, plunk down my buck, get the popcorn, find a seat, see the movie. No checking a website for availability, no buying the tickets ahead of time, no assigned seats.

When I walked into the Southdale AMC, it looked very similar to the photo in the header. Just a bank of screens but no bodies whatsoever. For years I’ve left movie arrangements to YA, so I had to idea that people had become quite so irrelevant to the process. These days you can still buy a ticket from one of the automated kiosks but apparently most people buy the tickets online, choose their assigned seat and just go straight to the “ticket taker”.

If there was a way to get a gift card at a kiosk, I couldn’t figure it out, so I asked the ticket taker. Apparently you do still need a person to get a gift card; he took care of it for me. I thought about it as I went back to the car; nobody lets customers sell themselves giftcards at the self-checkout. I suppose that there are just a few too many ways that the sale can go catty-whompus. This was proved correct about 15 minutes later at Trader Joes. I’m not sure what happened but even the cashier couldn’t make the cards scan properly. The supervisor who got called over couldn’t figure it out either. Eventually they did total out my groceries and then do a whole new transaction for the gift cards.

I’m pretty sure that eventually they’ll figure out a way to automate giftcards and then there probably won’t even be a ticket taker when you go to the movies. They’ll most likely AI the popcorn and pretzels one of these days!

What’s something that’s been automated these days that surprised you?

2025, Business, Family, Food, Gatherings

Super Mercado!

November 3, 2025 verily sherrilee 44 Comments

I’m pretty sure that not too many people see grocery-shopping as an exciting activity. Well, count YA and I as the outliers. For some reason over the years, we have cultivated grocery-shopping as an activity we like to do together.

Our favorite is Trader Joes. We especially like to go every couple of months when the new round of items hits the stores. We go through the Fearless Flyer that TJs sends out and highlight stuff that looks good. Sometimes, if I just want a couple of things, I don’t tell YA that I’m going to Trader Joes; if she comes along, it will triple the bill at the register.

The spot where Rainbow Foods used to be in the Hub Shopping Center near our house has been empty for seven years. A couple of times there were signs for temporary spots, like a Halloween store, but they never materialized. When construction started to happen almost a year ago, we were both excited to see what was happening there and then doubly excited when we found out it was going to be a Mexican market, bakery and taqueria. Unfortunately, it took WAY too long to open, so I had put my excitement on the back burner. Finally, about a month ago, it was clear from the trucks in the parking lot that progress was finally happening.

The grand opening was this past Saturday. Prizes, giveaway, samples, a bouncy house, mariachis and native dancers made it a big party. And it was CROWDED. The opening was at noon and we arrived at 1. Thank goodness for my bad knees and temporary handicap parking placard; we would have had to have parked in Iowa otherwise. And forget getting a shopping cart. Luckily YA and I didn’t have any big shopping plans so we just used a big bag that we had in the car.

Lots of nice-looking produce, a massive dairy/cheese aisle and two bakery sections, one with cakes, pies and then the self-serve bakery aisle …. I don’t even have the words

There were plenty of mainstream items alongside the Latino foodstuffs you would expect to find. A big endcap of Mary statuettes and a long row of Mary and other religious paintings above the front windows. They even have a Currency Exchange office. The taqueria was doing a bang-up business, as well as the deli. The tortillaria, where they will make fresh corn and flour tortillas is still in the works and should be open in a couple of weeks. You could see that area and the machines waiting to get set up. Since I’ve quit making my own tortillas, I can’t wait.

Anyway, YA and I had a fun time. We picked up a few items that I needed for a soup I wanted to make but didn’t partake of any on-site food – just too crowded, even for us. But my guess is that in the next few weeks, as the hoopla dies down, this will be another grocery shopping venue that YA and I will add to our events catalog!

If a tomato is a fruit, does that make ketchup a smoothie? Any good grocery shopping stories?

2025, animals, Business, dreams, Farming Update, pets, Seasons, Theatre

PICK AX BLUES*

October 25, 2025 xdfben 56 Comments

This weeks Farming Update from BEN

*I used artificial intelligence to give me title suggestions because I had nothing. I didn’t like its ideas, but it spurred me to this one.

Summer padawan and his girlfriend found a hen with baby chicks. Don’t know where she’d been hiding them. That’s the header photo. Kelly and the kids rounded them up and got them in a side pen.

It was a little chilly this week. We had 27 degree’s on Friday AM. I did finally turned on the heat in the house- meaning I turned on the circuit breakers, I haven’t turned UP the heat yet. (Well, we turned on one baseboard heater to burn off the dust and that set off the smoke alarms, much to daughter and Luna’s dismay…) I unhooked the hose on the house faucet. And Bailey even slept in her sink with the blankets. I don’t know, it’s just something she’s always done.

Honestly, she’s not as pitiful as she looks here.

It’s cold in my theater shop; But that just means I have to work harder. Glad I’m wearing sleeves a few mornings.

I didn’t get much of anything done this week at the theater or the farm because it felt like I had a lot of meetings every day. I became chairman of another board, but that’s just a nominating committee and it’ll be quick and easy.

I got the three broken bolts drilled out and re-tapped for the muffler on the 630.

Drilled out the old bolts, and cut new threads using this tap.

Now I’m just waiting for the stud bolts that I had to order. And I got a new bolt for the tongue on the wagon that I fixed. The replacement bolt was a little bit different and I needed to drill a hole in it to put in a cotter pin so that the nut doesn’t work loose and come out causing the tongue to fall off, which would be a whole big deal.

Marks on the head of the bolt tell you the hardness of the bolt. If it’s plain it’s soft steel, grade 3. And this is all different for metric, I’m just talking American bolts, SAE. (Society of Automotive Engineers also called US Standard or imperial). Three marks mean it’s a grade 5 and six marks mean it’s a grade 8. A grade three bolt will bend whereas the five and eight will snap and break. There again, information you didn’t know you needed to know.

I had to re-sharpen the drill bit a couple of times to get this hole drilled through this grade 8 bolt.

This is what it looks like when finished.

Took the dogs to the vet. Humphrey, being 10 years old and having a sore leg, has been on aspirin for a year and he needed a checkup before they’d give him more aspirin. And all three needed all the shots. And then I took the trailer to save more big money, and bought thirty, 20’ lengths of rebar for the concrete. They make fiberglass rebar now, it’s cheaper and lighter.

In preparation for the concrete, I have finished excavating dirt so that I can put the gravel down as the base. I was able to use the tractor loader to excavate most of the dirt. Then shoveled along the wall and existing concrete. I did have to get the pick out for a couple spots. I bought this at an auction a few years ago. Glad to have it, and it worked great.

There was rain in the forecast for next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (Which turned into Tuesday, Wednesday and is now just Tuesday) depending on who you listen to. I am planning concrete Tuesday. The biggest portion would be inside so that’s not an issue but the whole reason I started this was the two outside slabs and too much rain is an issue for them. I’m trying to decide if I can somehow put a tarp over this or I should just reschedule for another day. And I don’t want to do that. I’m stressed about this and I have help lined up for that day, so I just need to get it done.

Although maybe by the time you read this the forecast will have changed, that’s what I’m counting on.

I’ve rented a plate compactor for the weekend to get the gravel base compacted prior to the concrete. I’m excited and scared about all this. Trying to think of all the little things I’ve seen done when they pour concrete. The biggest slab, inside the shed, is 19’ x 21’. The concrete truck won’t be able to back in there, so I’ll dump it in the loader bucket and drive that into the shed to dump it in place. And I’m adding a trench drain in there just to complicate it and make it more funner.

I’ll be glad when this is done. And smarterish.

Every now and then I have dreams about water. They say water dreams represent your emotions and it’s the depth and clarity that matter in the dream. Clear or shallow mean you’re peaceful. I’ve had dreams of a hose running clear water across the floor. Nice. Last night I was driving through a flooded street which I didn’t realize was flooding until I was pushing a wave in front of the car’s grill. Not sure of the clarity of it… yeah. I need to get this done and get this show open.

This time next week it will all be better.

ARE THERE SONGS ABOUT CONCRETE? OR PREP WORK, OR DIGGING? *

*I tried asking AI for questions, involving all this stuff but its questions were just dumb.

2025, animals, Business, Uncategorized

Junkyard Cats

October 10, 2025 reneeinnd 16 Comments

We have made several trips to our local landfill lately disposing of lots of stuff. Our landfill is set up so that you drive onto a scale, they weigh your truck, you empty your stuff in the appropriate bin, then you drive back onto the scale and get weighed again. It costs $3.00 for every 100 pounds.

The people who weigh the truck and calculate the cost are in a sunny office where we frequently see at least one of the three cats who live at the landfill. They have soft beds and full food dishes in the office. Sometimes they sleep beneath a sunny window on the workers desk. One cat has only three legs, and that is the cat we most often see running around, prowling , and sometimes taking a nap in a sunny space. They are very well loved cats and they make going to the landfill a more pleasant experience.

What are your landfill experiences? Where have you unexpectedly run into resident animals at businesses?

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, Business, Farming Update, History, Music, Nature, Travel

THINGS ARE DROPPING

August 23, 2025 xdfben 64 Comments

This weeks farm report from Ben

I’ve noticed some soybean fields just starting to turn yellow. Kelly says the barn swallows are grouping up. And acorns are dropping. All that probably means something.

Crop prices keep dropping, too. Due to predictions of good yields across the corn belt. Locally, corn is under $3.50 / bushel, and soybeans are under $10. That’s a tough place to be. My direct costs to grow and harvest corn is roughly $400 / acre, and for soybeans about $300 / acre. Not knowing how the fall will shape up, or what drying costs might be, we’re speculating on final yields and prices. Making conservative estimates of $3.00 / bu final price means I’d need 133 bu / acre to cover costs. And that should be doable. Optimistically I’d have 180 bu / acre. That would leave me $273/ acre to cover repair costs, fuel, interest, crop insurance, pay off the loans, make payments on long term debt, ect. Soybeans work out the same way, just different numbers. Neither is in the bin yet, so we’ll see. This is why I have a few other jobs. To support my farming hobby. (eye roll)

Last weekend Padawan and I did a bunch of stuff. We packed the wheel bearings with grease and took the other wheel hub apart to replace those bearings. Both rear tires were wore out; one was on borrowed time. A few days later I went to Appel Service in Millville MN with the two wagon tires, a tire from the plow I had replace this spring, and another tire I found in the shop that I haven’t remember what it’s for yet. I’ve talked about Appels before; we’ve been taking tires to them for years and years. It’s about 25 minutes away. Great guys and a great drive.

I forgot to buy the dust seals for the axel hubs, which I picked up on Monday, but I had padawan reinstall the hub, even without the dust seal, just so he could see how you tighten it up and put the cotter pin in it. He had no idea what a cotter pin was. If you don’t know, it’s a split pin, length varies: length and the diameter as needed, and once through the hole, you bend the sides to prevent whatever you’re holding from coming off. I have some pins that are 1/4” diameter and 2” long and some tiny ones 1/2” long and 1/32″ diameter.

Then we drained the coolant and he replaced the radiator hose on the old John Deere 630. I had him pull the carburetor off. He is too young to know what a carburetor does. We changed the oil, oil filter, and the air filters on the big tractor, the 8200. It has two air filters; The biggest is about the size of a 5 gallon bucket. He was really impressed with that. Then a smaller inner air cleaner. He went home and cleaned up, and came back out with his girlfriend, who chased down her pet chicken, and they stayed for pizza with us. The kids, not the chicken.

I have been working on the 630 exhaust manifold. Got the bolts out and the manifold off! Heated it with a torch, just like my friend Tim J. said. Would you believe there’s another Tim J?? He’s not too much like this tim j. but that one knows a lot about old tractors. The two bolts that were broken off, I welded nuts on the top (to make a bolt head again) and they came right out! I couldn’t believe it!

**Heating the castings to break the rust**

Took me a while to find my welding stuff as I haven’t needed that in the new shop yet. the old welder on the bottom, newer welder on the top. That old welder, maybe from the 1950’s? has taught several of us how to weld. Dad taught me and some of my nephews. The oxy-acetelyne torch to the right, I’ve had since 1982. I learned how to use a gas welder in high school shop class and mom and dad bought me this one for my 18th birthday.

Friday morning I went to pick up a really nice long reach 5 ton hydraulic floor jack that I got at an auction.

Then to Millville to pick up the 4 tires I had dropped off earlier in the week. I took a random gravel road, 592^ndstreet out of Millville, and had a great drive, all by myself, following the Zumbro river to the North. It was a great drive! I wasn’t sure where I was, and there was no cell signal down there along the hills, but eventually the road looped back to the south and I found my way home.

The truck seemed to be riding rougher than it had earlier and the tread was separating on a front tire. Thankfully it got me home, and I jacked it up (using the new jack) and went back to Millville with the truck tires. Another great drive with no one else on the road, Just the way I like it. It was about 4:15 on Friday when I got there and the shop was pretty quiet. Paul and Dan took the tires off, Jim got me two new ones, and they mounted and balanced them, and I was headed back home in about 20 minutes. I sure do like going to Millville. Good thing I’m employed again since I spent $1200 on tires Friday.

My brother came out and we took 100 bales of straw off the wagon with the broken front end, and put them on another wagon. Then I put 20 bales in the truck for delivery on Saturday, and the last 52 bales on a trailer. Perhaps Saturday I’ll get the front wheels off and see what’s really broken on there. Right after I put the two new tires back on the other wagon.

And I pulled out a disk I’m not using anymore to take to an auction next week. I pulled a bunch of junk out of the trees last week. Two old flare boxes, an old elevator, an old digger, and a 24’ bale elevator that I will also take to the auction. There wasn’t trees growing through them when I parked them there… that’s how long some of it has been there. Time to go.

Music this week is Nina Simone. I recently heard ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”

WHAT MUSIC IS GIVING YOU A LIFT THIS WEEK?

MOST COMMON FRIEND NAME IN YOUR PHONE?

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