This week’s farming update from Ben
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY.
How about this weather!
Way too warm for February. But the chickens sure enjoying having some grass and sunshine. The dogs, too. And if we can get rid of some of the ice between the house and shed, maybe Luna will chase the ball over that way instead of standing here watching it go.
I’m thinking I’ll use the tractor loader and try to move some of the piles of snow and gravel from the grass back onto the the road. Although I’m pretty sure we’ll get some more snow this winter. I mean, it’s only February. We just never know anymore.
At the college I had to create a new computer password. The muscle memory has not formed yet and it takes me four tries to log in.
At the local school district, their passwords have to be 15 characters plus all the special stuff. Seems like sometime last summer I couldn’t get logged into email and I kinda forgot about it. I don’t get that much email on that account so it didn’t really matter. Every now and then I’d try to log into a computer and get frustrated and just give up on it. Eventually I got around to trying to get the password reset. I can’t do that from home, it has to be on a district computer. So I tried that, and it still didn’t work. I talked to my boss who had me contact IT. That guy looked me up in the system and said “Huh!”. Hate it when people say that in regard to me… He said I wasn’t in the system and eventually sent me to HR. HR said I wasn’t assigned to a department and therefore, I ceased to exist. Well, I beg to differ! I use to exist. Yep, they knew that, but I don’t anymore. So it was a whole thing to start over and get back in the system. I got a new ID badge complete with a photo of my choosing from my phone, because the lady in HR readily admitted their camera takes lousy photos. So that was nice.
Another guy in the room said he hadn’t seen an ID badge as old as mine in a long time. I was two versions behind. Huh!
So now I’m able to log in, using a password that’s a practically a short sentence. And no way to see it as you type (they’ve had some security issues in the past). I check my email more often and I get a lot more emails too. Be careful what you wish for.
This weekend is the 60th Annual National Farm Machinery show in Louisville KY.
It’s the largest indoor farm show in the world, with over 900 booths on “27 acres of interconnected indoor exhibit space”. Admission is free if you’d like to pop in. Expect to be overwhelmed. Many of the YouTube farmers I watch are there. Of course this has all the newest big shiny equipment on display. Oh, there’s a few older tractors for show, but this is the place to show off the latest and greatest.
I spent a couple hours Friday in a meeting at the local Soil and Water Conservation office meeting with Angela and Jenna. After clearing all the tree’s and reshaping the waterway two years ago, I learned I really should have talked to them first. So last year Angela and I looked at a few areas of the farm and she put together a plan to stop the erosion and repair this gully in the pasture.
At the top, a small dam would be built, about 4 feet tall and 150 feet long. An upright pipe would be installed at the front with a drainage line running about 50’ downhill. That structure would collect the water funneling into this area, slow it down, and release it over several hours. That in turn, would prevent the erosion happening further downhill. At the bottom, the gully would be filled in, the area re-shaped, and a proper waterway built. There are some springs down there which would be directed into the new waterway once fully seeded and established.
Because our farm is in the Zumbro Valley Watershed area, cost sharing would bring our actual cost down to about 10% of the total. Well that sounds like a plan!
I also asked about a program called RCPP. Regional Conservation Partnership Program. I heard about this program last week at the soil health meeting. I have part of one field edge that has a pretty good slope too it, and every spring I get a small gully along the edge. The edge of a field where a person turns for the next pass, those areas are called headlands. I’ve tried to create a berm to keep the rainwater off the headland rows, but every spring I get a new gully. The RCPP program would do some cost sharing to create a permanent grass area there so rather than working up the ground of the headlands, I’d be turning on the grassy area.
And since the office is having their annual tree and shrub sale, Kelly and I were discussing where we could plant some trees. One thing we thought was to plant a wind break where we put the snow fence. Guess what? Cost sharing for that too! It was a very good meeting!
Check out the spurs on this rooster.
He is one of the roosters who’s kind of a bully to the hens. He’s pretty though. And isn’t that the way? All looks, no class.
Last weekend I got the new shop exhaust fan wired up, and I put a new gasket under one toilet this week (a project I put off for two months because I’d never done it before and I had some concerns.) In the end, I spent more time cleaning off the old wax gasket and cleaning the floor around the toilet than the actual repair took. This weekend I’ll be changing the kitchen faucet spray wand and tubing. This is the fourth one I’ve ordered. The first three were wrong. Now we’re changing the hose as well. Kudo’s to Moen and their lifetime warranty for admitting their mistake and shipping parts to me no charge.
WHAT WAS YOUR CHILDHOOD PHONE NUMBER?
WHAT WAS THE FIRST THING FOR WHICH YOU NEEDED A PASSWORD?
Trail Baboon 