My company is still on “work from home” protocol. For another week and a half. You can work in the office if you want or you can work from home. Most of us have been given an additional big monitor so that we can have one at the office and one at home so working at home is a pretty sweet deal.
There are people going in but not many. I had to check on a mailing yesterday in Building 5 and it was quite deserted. Echo-y even. In cutting through the back hallway to get to the mailing center, I turned a corner and found a little nook with a printer on a table, a rug and five chairs. There are no offices nearby. And with hardly anyone in the building, the nook had an eerie, otherworldly feel. Kinda like a surreal set in a Man Ray movie.
I thought about this funny little scene all afternoon. Why a printer there? Why a rug? And for heaven sake, why all the chairs? Does someone really think there will be enough paper shooting out of this printer that there needs to be a waiting area?
Do you have a favorite chair? To snuggle up in to read? Or to watch tv?
I wrote this story 18 years ago when I sold the milk cows. Been a lot of changes since then. I don’t regret any of them. I notice I wrote my knees and shoulders hurt back then. Can’t imagine what they’d be like today if I was still milking. I just couldn’t; I’d have never physically been able to do it this long.
Nevermore
Today I’m not a dairy farmer anymore. Sold the milk cows. The cows were my friends and I was sad to see them loaded into the truck and leave… but it was just time. And I have to say that now that it’s over and done, I feel a million pounds lighter; a giant weight off my shoulders.
The cows were a big part of my life–and had been since, like, forever; I was always down in the barn growing up. Started helping Dad with milking when I was 10 years old. I was the fourth generation to be milking cows here. My Great Grandfather came to this farm in 1896. Built the old barn we call the granary in 1899. The first part of the dairy barn was built in 1924. Dad added onto it a couple times in the 1940’s and 50’s.
Mom and Dad built a silo in 1968, built another in 1976, built the pole barn, tore off part of the granary, built a couple machine sheds, and knocked down an old smaller silo. Mom and Dad also tore down the old house and built a new one.
You all know I gave my cows some rather… esoteric names… The auctioneer has a list of the cows coming in and sometimes he could read the ear tag and know who’s selling and other times I’m calling out names as they’re coming in: Erica, Louise, Lynnette, Kaylannii (auctioneer shakes his head), Comet, Antigone — which, of course he pronounced ‘Annti – gone’ and I had to say (phonetically here), “An-tig-o-knee; daughter of Oedipus from Greek mythology.”………. silence in the ring………. auctioneer says, “Ohh-kay…” Guy in front of me turns around and says “I don’t think they got that…” And Lynne Cow. The cow I named after Lynne Warfel-Holt, classical music host at Minnesota Public Radio. I told who she was named for and asked whoever bought her to please contact MPR and let Lynne know they were the new owner. They worked pretty hard at selling her. Kept saying she’s the only radio cow in there today. Ya know, I may not have had the best cows, but they sure had personality! And the auction people had more fun selling my cows then they did the rest of the cows!!
It was just time to do it. Kelly and I had been talking about selling, and weighing the pros and cons; definitely more pros to selling them than cons. (But the little voice way in the back of my head keeps saying “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”) Hey, supper at 6:00, vacations, maybe my knees will still function in a few years, doing more things with the kids, maybe my shoulders will feel better, VACATIONS, etc.
Primarily it was a financial decision. Milk prices have been in the toilet the last two years. I was low on cow numbers the last 6 months and the price of replacement heifers is — and has been for the last couple years — just insanely high and getting higher. Supply and demand principles for cattle I guess. I have bought some cows, and got some bargains, but there’s no guarantee that a $1700 heifer will milk any better than an $800 heifer. I bought 3 cows and 1 heifer last spring; paid between $600 and $825 for the cows, $1150 for the heifer. All three cows turned out to be duds and two were gone by fall. I still had one of the cows, but she had to have a C-section and would not be bred back. The fancy heifer I still had but she had been bred back 4 times and I don’t think she was pregnant yet. And in the milking world it all comes down to getting pregnant and producing milk. Last week was a new high price for heifers in Zumbrota; $2260.00 for one pregnant cow. The previous high price was set just the week before. [2004 pricing]
I went to Zumbrota last week to see how cows were selling and to let them know I was interested in selling mine this week. I met with the sales manager and he escorted me into the front office, shut the office door and took my information (how many, herd averages, stanchion cows (as opposed to parlor cows)) and then he made several comments about how this is what they were expecting now and my name wouldn’t be on any of the presale publicity lest we trigger any ‘radio bandits’; people that would try to buy them before the sale to avoid the sales barn commissions. I got the distinct impression that he was trying to emphasis how confidential all this was. I went out and talked with a trucker I know about bringing my cows in and he acted the same way. It was very surreal how he kept scanning the parking lot, talking very quietly; even surreptitiously gave me papers behind his back. … very strange.
I’ll miss that big glass jar in the milkhouse called the receiver jar. It’s what the milk would come into from the pipes in the barn, before being pumped over to the bulk tank. When I was growing up and Dad and I would go to other farms, it was that glass jar that I was just fascinated with; watching the milk rush into that jar, I knew I had to be a dairy farmer so I could have that big glass jar. When we installed a different pipeline system about 12 years ago [1992] the dealer wanted me to put in a stainless steel can. I said no way; I want that glass jar! If you haven’t seen it, it’s a tempered glass globe about 18 inches in diameter. There are four glass inlets molded into it about 6 inches long; one at the bottom that the milk is pumped out through, the one at the top is the vacuum inlet and one on each side connects to the milk pipeline that runs into the barn. The deal is you don’t mess with the connections between the glass jar and the other pipe; don’t want to break that outlet off the glass jar. Dealers were supposed to have an extra jar, but I never wanted to find out. Bad enough when a motor would quite at milking time and you had to call the dealer to make a ‘barn call’. Like a plumber in the middle of the night; it wasn’t cheap.
The night the cows sold we all went to Olive Garden for supper; that in and of itself no big deal. But we went at 6:00PM; ate like normal people. Got home it was only 7:30 and the kids still had time to shower and do homework. I took the kids to daycare before school this morning. Then went to Barnes and Noble (closed until 9:00) so got license tabs for the car, went to the chiropractor who was very pleased to hear I had sold the cows, filled the car with gas, went to Best Buy (closed until 10:00).
Finishing up here with aphorism’s that seemed appropriate for the time:
—One door never closes without another opening.
From the Tom Petty song ‘Into the Great Wide Open’ these two phrases:
—The future is wide open. —The skies the limit.
3/23/2004
What were you fascinated by as a kid that influenced you in your adult years?
At Cub last week, in the wee hours, I decided to go through the regular check-out instead of the self-serve. I didn’t have a lot of items but I had several non-baggable items and those always make the self-checkout problematic. As I was unloading the last of my stuff onto the conveyor belt, a guy started a line behind me. He only had a couple of things including a big box of assorted donuts. I smiled (although he probably couldn’t see it since I was masked) and said “Oh, you’re the donut guy this morning!” He laughed and said yes. Then he said “You know, I tried that Kato diet (that’s how he pronounced it) and I just can’t take it anymore. I didn’t realize until now how much I love bread.” I laughed too because when I tried keto, I didn’t make it long either for exactly the same reason. I asked him if he wanted to go ahead of me since he just had two items and he answered no, since I already had all my items out of the cart. We both left Cub at the same time and he said “have a great day.” It was such a nice encounter in the pre-dawn hours.
Do you talk to strangers when you’re out and about?
On Wednesday, I pulled into the parking lot of Cub Foods at 5:50 a.m. I love doing errands early but this was early even by my standards – it was still dark. As I pulled into a parking spot, I noticed that there were shopping carts all over the lot. Not in their nice, neat corrals but stranded in various spots, one here, another couple there. It struck me as funny because you never see this during the day – most folks are pretty reliable about putting the carts where they belong. Are folks who shop in the very late and very early hours (when nobody is out shagging carts) lazier than daytime dwellers or not willing to spend more time in the dark in a parking lot than necessary? Or does somebody come between midnight and 5 a.m. and free the carts from the corrals?
I like to think of myself as a decent person – not a saint, just a person who likes to do what she thinks is the best thing to do in the moment.
A few years ago Dunkin’ Donuts opened a shop on the corner of 66th & Penn. This is smack in my stomping grounds – the area that encompasses my hardware store, the library, the post office, the gym, the drugstore, and on the rim of the perimeter, Target. This means I have way too many excuses to be driving by that intersection; I stop at DD at least once a week, sometimes two. Did I mention they have a drive-thru? Once this past winter, I still had my pajamas on when I picked up my two long johns and coffee.
Yesterday morning, just after I had placed my order through the speaker, I looked up to see the driver of the black SUV at the pick-up window drop their box of donuts onto the ground. The box flipped upside down but didn’t open. The driver’s door opened and I expected to see someone bend over to pick up the box. Nope. The door just stayed open and eventually the Dunkin’ Donuts employee passed out another box. The black SUV drove off, leaving the box of donuts on the ground.
When I pulled up, I said to the employee “Are those donuts in the box? Shall I pick it up?” The employee rushed to say I didn’t need to do that. But the idea of some employee having to put on a coat, walk out and around to pick up the box that the SUV driver have dropped really bugged me, so I opened my door, picked up the box and handed it through the window. Two employees thanked me profusely.
As I drove home I had several thoughts. Why didn’t the SUV driver pick up the box after it was dropped? Why didn’t they take THOSE donuts? (I know my donuts – I can’t envision any of the donuts were damaged in that short fall. Was it really such a big deal that I picked up the box – to have TWO employees thank me? Why didn’t I KEEP the box myself?
Who would have thought one quick trip to get two long johns (I had other stops, this wasn’t the only reason I left the house – I swear) could generate so many questions and considerations?
If you were going to get something free today, what would it be?
Our farm is in the “gently rolling hills” of SE MN. I have one field that is mostly flat and that’s on the low ground by Silver Creek and is in the Conservation Reserve program. The rest of the farm, the valleys, and the shape of our farm, is primarily the result of hundreds and thousands of years of water erosion. Its beginning was hundreds of millions of years ago and the seas that covered the area and created the limestone layers that eventually I played on as a kid. (Thank you Dr. John Tacinelli and the class MN Rocks and Waters for teaching me that). The topographical map in the header photo is part of our farm; the closer the lines, the steeper the slope. All those lines also mean our ground is considered highly erodible, which is why we use conservation tillage practices and crop rotation.
Also, when we get freezing rain, every step is treacherous. Everything seems to be downhill from wherever I am. Course then it’s all uphill back.
Those thousands of years of erosion are still happening… heavy rains or spring melt and there’s quite the stream coming down through our place. It’s impressive to think about the total area it might be draining; roughly 70 acres doing a quick Google Map distance check.
Last Saturday morning it was warm and the snow was melting and we’d had a little rain and I could hear the water rushing through the culvert under the field road down in the swamp.
Later in the day, the snow melt had grown in volume and was over the road.
The culvert is mostly frozen yet, so it didn’t take too much more to overload it. But since the ground was frozen it didn’t hurt anything. Later in the day the runoff slowed and it was back in place. When I was a kid there wasn’t a road here, we had to go off through the pastures to get to those fields. And my siblings talk about skating on the pond down there. I think I even caught a crawdad down there once. Then dad put in some old culverts and made the road, and when that washed out, I had a better culvert put in.
Sometime last week we lost two more poufy ducks. Then the next day one was back! Pretty beat up, moving slow, and all bloody, but back. We started calling him Lazarus. He’d be gone one day and back the next. We couldn’t get too close, but we could see he had something wrong with his bill. One day I went to get corn for the ducks and when I came out of the feed room, he was right there. I gave him some corn and got him some water. He seemed like he wanted our help. To leave the other ducks, go off by himself, and come that close to us… the ducks don’t normally do that. He drank some water; I used the hose and ran some water near him and sprayed a little on him. He seemed to appreciate that. Then he let me pick him up and I could see he had a chunk tore off his bottom beak. I didn’t want to try cutting it off yet. I put him in the feedroom with food and water so he could just rest. Kelly went down at noon and checked on him and talked with him, and I went down after work and he’d died. Shucks. I wonder if he came to us for help, or as animals do, was he looking to go off on his own because he knew he was dying? We hate to lose one, but it’s worse when we’ve been helping and we get attached to them.
Township elections and the Annual Meeting was last Tuesday. The second Tuesday in March is ‘Township Day’ and all 1780 townships in MN have elections and annual meetings that day. A township is the rural equivalent of the city council. Townships provide or coordinate road maintenance, fire protection, law enforcement, and whatever other issues may arise. It might be property boundary issues or animals at large. Usually, it’s a pretty low turn out and a pretty quiet meeting, which means we’re doing alright. When there’s a crowd, there’s usually a problem.
You’re up for election. What position did you win?
You’re a minion. You work for an evil warlord. For years you have cheated, stolen and even killed for him. He pays really well and the benefits package seems great.
One day the malevolent machinations of your boss are uncovered. He decides to blow up his solar energy plant to cover his tracks and he heads to the helicopter pad with the damsel in distress to head away from the mess he’s made. He closes the door of the helicopter, leaving you standing on the helipad. Right then, as your boss flies away from his bomb-ridden plant, one of the good guys shows up. You fight him and fight him, even though it’s just a few minutes to the big boom.
You are part of a long-standing tradition. A truly loyal evil minion – you continue to plague good guys and fight until the bitter end, often for a boss who clearly kills off your peers rather than pay retirement and who always abandons you when the going gets tough.
Pants! I’m wearing pants. I can’t button pants with only one hand (I’m not sure anyone can) so it’s nice to have two (almost) working arms again and have pockets and I have my flashlight and micro Leatherman and all my accessories. It’s nice.
Not much happening here yet. We are into the first mud of the season. Every time the dogs go out, they come back with muddy feet that need to be cleaned off. Humphrey is pretty good: he waits on the step, “foot” means he gives me his left front paw, “other foot” is right paw. Bailey sure wants to be a people dog, she loves people. Every time I come home she will be on the step with a paw in the air so she can climb in my lap; a problem when she’s muddy. Front door or side door, she runs ahead of me and gets up on the edge to look into my eyes. That’s her in the header photo. We got her from an Amish family. Her mom is a Blue Healer, Dad was a Pomeranian. She’s just over 3 years old.
Allie, the Queen of them all, finally used her new pillow.
She’s all attitude for 15.
The chicken’s feet are muddy which means the eggs are muddy (unless I get them before they step on them to lay another). They are enjoying the warmer weather and taking dust baths in the pen.
The driveway is getting mushy, snow is melting fast, and that one room in the basement has got a little bit of water on the floor again. I put the extension on the gutter downspout for a few weeks while the snow is melting off the roof and the water in the basement goes away.
The duck pond is getting bigger every day as the ice melts, but it’s going to be a month yet before I can reset the drain outlet and regain the 6 inches of depth they’ve lost due to a leak. It’s just a homemade pond, made when the tile guy was replacing a drain tile, he just excavated a hole and dumped a little dirt at the end to make it pond up. Didn’t take much for the water to cut a trench and to that I added a piece of PVC pipe, but it’s still hard to keep it sealed up at the end. We’ve got good green clay, known as Decorah Edge for the outlet. It just needs an hour with a shovel.
The other morning, I went out to do chores and the ducks were not in their usual place at the pond. Then they weren’t in their second usual place with the chickens, nor their third usual place under the trailer. I found them in their fifth usual place out behind the pole barn. And a few hundred yards beyond them, coyotes are howling. Saw a coyote some 400 yards away and took a shot at it. He jumped and spun in circles about three times and then trotted off. The ducks came home, back to the usual spot without any casualties. I wish you would stay closer to home ducks.
Spring also means the yahoo’s are dumping ditch trash; the township guys have picked up 2 batchs of trash in the last week. First load was just plain junk and trash. Second load was two box springs, two different size mattresses and a door. Idiots.
Which body part would you like to be bionic and what features would you have?
Apparently this is big news and you can find it spun in several different directions. Personally the most interesting thing about this news item is that I don’t remember ever seeing a photo of her wearing it. I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me; for the past 5-6 years, I’ve really worked hard to stay away from the news. Too much coverage and drilling down was just making me anxious and miserable, so I quit. I look at CNN usually just once a day and the StarTribune every few. I do Facebook but not too much (I’ve actually only posted once) and no other social media platforms. It’s actually made me feel better.
So back to the hat. In all the photos I could find, she wore it so far down that you couldn’t see her face most of the time and I’m not sure how she could see either. But it is a very striking hat. I wouldn’t want to give up a hat like that although I’m not sure where I would wear it these days. It would be a little out of place at Target and Trader Joe’s.
Tell me about something of yours that you’d like to auction off.
For the third time in about 30 years, Husband had his favorite pair of brown Frye boots resoled and a new heel put on. He also had his new pair of black Frye boots streched in the toes, so now they fit perfectly. He admits he is both fussy and vain about his boots, and plans to wear them forever.
He is fortunate to live here, where it is easy to find a place for getting your boots fixed expeditiously, along with your saddle, harnesses, and any leather article associated with your horse. He only had to go without his boots for two days. I suppose the guy at Duke’s Saddlery is more of a harness maker than a cobbler. He is a Vietnam veteran and has been in business here for decades. He had a whole pile of cowboy boots to fix in his shop. Once you get a pair of boots to fit, you want to keep them as long as you can. They are essential work equipment out here. I don’t know where people get their lassos fixed. Husband thinks you have to go to Casper, WY for that sort of specialty work.
What are you fussy and vain about? Do you ever have footwear professionally repaired? What do your shoes say about you? What are some specialty shops that are only found in the region where you live?
Trail Baboon 