I have lumbar scoliosis, along with years of cruddy posture. I even slump when I drive. I had physical therapy several years ago, which really helped my lower back pain. Like many, I stopped doing my exercises after the pain went away.
A few months ago I started to have chronic sciatica in both legs, and got a referral for more physical therapy. My new therapist assessed the situation and told me that she was surprised I could even walk, since all the muscles in my lower back and hips that ought to hold me upright weren’t doing their job, and the hip flexor muscles in the front of my body were doing it instead. Sitting at a desk all day in a bad chair only made things worse. (The ergo guy at work ordered a really good office chair with great lumbar support for me last month, so that problem is solved.)
I am currently in a lot of pain all over my back and legs since, as my physical therapist told, all my muscles are mad at me as we are doing exercises to get the back muscles to do their job and the front muscles to do their job. I am also being very mindful of my posture, even when I drive, and that has also stirred up some muscle pushback. All of this has reminded me of the Pushmepullyou from Dr. Doolittle.
My mother constantly harrased me about my posture. Ok mom, you were right! I should have listened! I don’t remember ever liking the Dr. Doolittle books much. I found the writing kind of stuffy, but the plot was fun. I appreciate the tug of war concept with the Pushmepullyou. My hips can relate.
What animals would you like to talk to? Ever had physical therapy? What did you parents tell you that you should have listened to but didn’t.
I was quite amused yesterday on my way to work to see our insurance agent presumably driving to his office. He was riding a motorcycle. HE WASN’T WEARING A HELMET!
It seems to me that being an insurance agent means you exemplify caution and careful living. I remember the conversation we had together with our son when he got his driver’s license, and our agent told him to never hesitate to phone him any time, night or day, if he had been drinking and needed a ride home. Well, I wonder what he says to young motorcycle drivers he insures about helmets?
Our agent goes to our church and has a lovely tenor voice and sings with us in the choir. I can hardly wait to tease him about this.
What do you like to tease people about? What irony have you noticed this week? Any stories about insurance agents or companies?
Husband and I spent four days last week in Fargo with our son and his family, joined for two days by our daughter. She was on a week long visit from Tacoma to friends in various parts of Minnesota. We picked her up in Alexandria on Friday. She hitched a ride back to the Minneapolis Airport on Sunday morning with her best friend who lives in Hopkins but who was in Moorhead visiting her sister. Her trip took a lot of planning!
Son booked an Airbnb with five bedrooms in the historic section of Fargo on 8th St. It is only the second time we stayed in such accommodations, our children far more accustomed to booking these lodgings. It really worked out well, especially since our 4 year old grandson was pretty happy not having to eat in restaurants and could run around and play and make more noise than he could in a hotel. We ordered out from our favorite Thai and East Indian restaurants, and son grilled lovely lamb kebobs on Saturday night. My only complaint was that our mattress was far too soft and gave me a backache.
Fargo was surprising, even after all these years of living in this State. We went to the downtown farmers market on Saturday. It was wonderful, and we scored some fresh, local sweetcorn. There are very few places in North Dakota where you would see many gay couples walking around in public holding hands, but there they were, happy as they could be among the produce stalls. It was also far more ethnically diverse than I remember it being in years past. It was so nice to see.
I imagine there are Airbnb nightmares, but ours worked out swell. We will more than likely do it again, but will have our children help us figure out how to choose them.
What are your Airbnb experiences? What cities have pleasantly surprised you? Where are your favorite places to visit?
They say July is corn month and August is Soybean month. Because July is the critical time in corn development, while it’s August for soybeans.
The corn has tasseled so it’s full height now, the silks are out, GDU’s, while down a bit this week with the cooler weather (which I love by the way) are 1714, 104 above normal.
I’m still mowing weeds, but I expect by the time you read this I will have finished. Or, if not exactly “finished”, given up and quit. The one area I’ve got left to mow is really rough and I will get tired of bouncing around in the cab.
All the crops are looking good, and while I was thinking I’d be cutting oats next Monday or Tuesday, looking at it Thursday shows a lot of green kernels yet so I may wait out next week yet.
The storms last Saturday knocked some oats down and in one field I saw some corn lodged on the edge of the field.
(“lodging” is basically stalk failure) Oats, As the plant is green and growing it has a lot of give. But as it matures, dries up, and turns golden, the stalk loses its flexibility, meaning it will break off in the wind. And it’s odd, how only certain parts of the fields will do that. Wind is very curious, as the songs from last week’s blog showed.
You can see from the pictures, only one part of the field went down, while the rest didn’t. And the green weeds still stand up. It’s all interesting.
We got nearly 2” of rain Saturday afternoon and then another .6” Saturday night. Kelly and I drove around in the gator checking on things after the afternoon storm. No trees down at least. And then we found a mama duck and 9 ducklings. Once again, Kelly is wrangling ducklings and I’m pointing and offering unsolicited advice.
Using a fishing net, she captured just about all the ducklings and I could get them in a box. But they’re tiny and a few escaped the net. She chased them down and we cleaned up a side pen for them. Now, just to catch mama. I remember one other year we did this; the mama could track the squeaking of the ducklings and we put up a ramp and eventually she got in there with them for a happy reunion. That wasn’t working this year and Kelly eventually captured her with the net too. Kelly and mama duck were in the pen and I was out in the gator. I heard some noises, and honking, and the doors wiggled a few times, and the mama got her head out the door once. But they’re all together now. We’ll keep them in here for a month or so. Until they’re big enough to survive outside… and we’ll see what happens.
A neighbor about ½ mile cross country from us said he saw two bear cubs playing on a log in his pond the other morning. Some neighbors have seen bears before, and we always assumed they were just passing through. But cubs… I don’t know, that seems like mama bear must be settled in here. Just what we need; another predator. I think it would be cool to see a bear. Long as it’s not eating the chickens. Do bears eat chickens??
CoCoRaHS – Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, And Snow network is an organization I heard about a few years ago. Cocorahs.org
Every day I report how much rain we’ve gotten. Some people report snow depth, and some people have full-fledged weather stations. I just report rain with some minor details like last Saturday’s amount in the afternoon and the evening. It is interesting to me to compare rain events in our area. There are about 14 reporting stations in the Rochester area, and three within a few miles of us. It’s interesting how the rain amounts can vary between us. I got a certificate for 250 reporting observations.
I’ve talked about the barn swallows outside our front door and the nest they’ve had for several years. Well, must be new residents this time around and they do not like us coming and going and they dive bomb us. Even at my car, 20’ from the nest they’re buzzing my head. We keep telling them “It’s us! You know us!”
ARE YOU A FALL RISK?ANY ISSUES WITH ANYTHING FALLING DOWN LATELY?
When we were working on Nonny’s library loan issue, YA discovered a shelf of jigsaw puzzles right next to the desk. The St. Louis Library system loans out puzzles! (I immediately chatted w/ someone at the Hennepin County Library to see if puzzles are in our system – sadly no.) I love the idea of borrowing puzzles from the library. I only like to do puzzles once so not only do I have to find another home for a finished puzzle, the cost starts to mount up. YA and I could easily do a puzzle a week (except for the occasional killer puzzle like the polar bear last year).
We looked through the puzzles and chose a tiger in repose in a jungle setting with lots of tropical flowers and a waterfall – and it was a glitter puzzle! Since it was a rainy afternoon, YA and Nonny and I dived right in when we got back to the condo.
I learned puzzle-doing at Nonny’s knee so we do puzzles the same: edge pieces first and then tackling the inner part. YA doesn’t care about getting the edges done first, so she just digs right in. I tend to look for shapes that fit; YA looks for color/design. Nonny and I worked on the border while YA started with the tropical flowers.
YA is intense when she is doing a puzzle. She does NOT like to stop; we did the glitter tiger in 4 hours. Nonny sat back and watched for awhile and when we got toward the end, I gave her one of the pieces so she could finish the puzzle. She resisted at first, but then gave in. A very satisfying afternoon.
Two of the friends that I usually swap puzzles with have moved so I think I need to start a new puzzle-sharing co-op or something!
The Nonny Reading Program has been going swimmingly. Using the suggestions from you all, I’ve been sending her books and she’s been gobbling them up.
There are only two problems. The first (and most important) is that she has a VERY small condo with almost no bookshelf space, so the books are starting to pile up. Secondly, she’s starting to complain about how much money I’m spending and wants to pay for the books (this is SO not happening).
I solved the first problem when I suggested she donate the books to her church; they have quite a robust food shelf/donations program and I said they should start a little free library. Her church-mates ate this up.
The second problem was a little stickier. A lot of people who know both my parents think that I got my stubborn streak from my dad; this is absolutely not true. When Nonny digs in her heels she is all but immovable. We talked about the library (the closest branch is quite close to her place) but she said that whenever she goes, she can’t find the books she wants.
I know that technology could help her but unfortunately Nonny and Technology are not friends. And they are not likely to become friends. Ever. I suggested that I request the books she wants via the computer and when they came available, I would get the email and I would let her know and she could go get them. She said this was fine but she never gave me her library card number so I could get everything set up, despite my asking her repeatedly. I was starting to think this was her passive/aggressive way to telling me she didn’t want to do this.
I tackled the dragon in her den when we were there last weekend. I asked her directly if she really wanted to do this. Turns out that the library card issue was just Nonny forgetting about it as soon as we got off the phone. We drove up to the library, I explained my plan to the librarian and within minutes it was all set up. I can access her account from here and let her know when the books come in. Easy peasy.
I’m all set now and will be requesting the first couple of books this week. No new suggestions needed right now but if this system works out, I may need some soon!
Have you ever lost or destroyed (accidentally of course) a library book?
I was thinking about Ben’s question about stepping up as I was doing errands yesterday morning. My mom is also giving up some of the responsibilities that she’s been shouldering (some a little unwillingly) for quite some time. It’s not going as easily as she would like.
When I drove back up into my driveway, the neighbor girls were eager to tell me that there was a cat out front. The grandparents were visiting as well and it was clear that between the two girls, the two parents and the two grandparents there wouldn’t be anyone who did anything except report the existence of this cat.
So YA and I ventured out the front door to deal with the cat. It was a big white cat w/ black and brown markings, very happy to come to me and get scritched and petted, purring quite loudly. It allowed me to pick it up and that’s when YA said she thought it belonged to one of the houses across the street. We took it over and talked to the owner through the door – apparently it’s an outdoor cat; there was food & water there on the front step. When I put the cat down, it went for the food immediately so we headed home.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been elected as official “animal wrangler” in the neighborhood. I’ve been called to deal with bats twice. Once an obviously pet rabbit was found in a yard and I got a call; signs up at the vet and around the neighborhood didn’t result in owners coming forward but luckily we found a good home pretty quickly. I’ve rescued four dogs who have been loose on the street (all four had tags so got home to their owners). And for several years there was an escape artist two doors down (Duffer) that everyone was afraid of except me, so I had to drag him home repeatedly.
I’m not sure why I somehow have been designated the animal problem solver but it seems my lot in life.
I feel like I’ve been busy lately. Nothing important, just… day to day living.
Crops are coming along. I talked with the co-op about spraying fungicide on the soybeans. I’ve never done it before, but I know some of the neighbors have and they report a good return. It will cost $33/acre to do it. $20 for the actual ground application and $13 for the chemical. Plus, some beans knocked down in the process. If beans are selling at $15 / bushel this fall, I will need the fungicide to increase yield by 2 or 3 bushels / acre to justify the cost. The neighbors have seen 10-15 bushel / acre increase over not treated so we’ll see how that goes. Curiously, aerial application is only $15/ acre! I’ve got too many trees, too many neighboring houses, and too small of fields to use that, but I was really surprised it’s cheaper. I supposed they can cover a greater area faster. It always comes back to efficiency doesn’t it?
My corn will be tasseling any day now. I’ve seen some of the neighbor’s corn already tasseling. Just depends on those GDU. (1559 to date. +110) Once the tassel is fully emerged, the plant is at full height. Silks will appear in a couple more days and then one or two weeks of pollination begins. There are so many critical things in any plant’s development but getting all that pollen from the tassels to the silks is a big one. The kernel won’t develop if the silk attached to it doesn’t get pollinated. Hard rains, hail, or storms can mess all that up.
And with the heat, some of the corn is curling up to protect it self. This is a rocky area, so the roots are shallow. Notice how the leaves have curled up?
And the oats is turning color, it just needs to keep standing, no wind storms, and hopefully this hot weather doesn’t boil all the milk out of the heads. It should be ready to cut in a couple weeks. Then get it harvested and the straw baled. I only planted 10 acres this year; less than half of normal because I was expecting the knee replacement this summer.
The straw delivery trip to the boonies of Winona last week was a great drive. 119 miles, took a few hours, saw lots of countryside with very little traffic, met a woman named Sunshine, had lunch in a bar in Witoka where my chicken sandwich was actually two chicken strips placed inside the bun. And there was enough lettuce on it to choke a horse and more fries than two of us could possibly eat. We even found the back way into Farmers Park: A minimum maintenance road that was pretty awesome and I’m glad we had the truck. It was washed out and rough with not one, but TWO single lane bridges.
I mentioned taking two hens to a friend. The next day I had a record 22 eggs! We wondered if the other chickens felt threatened and that they better step up production?? But no, couple days later there was only 8 eggs, then back to the usual 15 or 16. Production varies like that.
The little chicks are blending right in. Here’s some chicken photos including Rooster 3 minus a tail. Not sure what happen there.
That duck in the brush pile ran down to get something to eat one night and that was the opportunity we needed. The pile was burned. The duck was very put out for a couple hours. Sorry. It’s just the way it is.
My brother helped me get the brush mower hooked up and I’ve been mowing weeds in pastures and waterways. Of course I always have my tractor buddy with me. The corn is a tall as the tractor.
If it’s just grass, I’ll leave it standing, no reason to cut it. But there are a lot of thistles, wild parsnip, ragweed, stinging nettles, burdocks, and stuff that needs to be controlled. I’ll spend a few days yet mowing.
My nephew just retired after 25 years in the Air Force. He had the rank of Colonel and was a Base Commander in the St. Louis area. He had a big ceremony last week and some of the family went down. He’s a big nerd and they celebrated that by having several Star Wars characters there in costume. Unfortunately, Covid hit the gathering too.
Read an article about Ukraine; they are big producers of wheat and corn. But with the war, shipping has been an issue so their storage facilities (the ones that haven’t been damaged) are still full of last year’s crops and there’s no room to store this years crop. So they can sell it at a loss just to move it and get the storage facilities empty, but then they don’t have the income to support the families and communities either. Not to mention a shortage of food coming up. And as the war moved on from some of these areas, they needed ‘sappers’ to clear mines and other munitions from the fields, then they had to drag rockets and war detritus from their fields. Not something I have ever imagined doing, thankfully.
Padawan has been trimming weeds, and mowing grass, and he learned the basics on using a chainsaw.
EVER FELT PRESSURE TO STEP UP? WHAT ARE YOU SPIFFING UP LATELY?
We just can’t get a break with the weather. Our home garden got planted late due to freezing temperatures in May, and then we had a hail storm in June that took out the tomatoes and peppers and shredded the beans and peas.
Our church vegetable garden is planted in six, waist-high raised beds. We planted bush squash, peas, beans, and savoy cabbages there. We planted the squash and cabbages in raised mounds just to give them ample depth for roots. That garden didn’t get the hail we did at our house several blocks away. Last Sunday the bush squash and cabbages at church were looking spectacular. Then, on Tuesday, the wind hit.
I never realized how shallow squash roots are. The wind gusted up to 50 mph, and almost entirely uprooted the squash. Husband frantically placed cedar shakes around the squash and cabbage mounds to block the wind, and piled more dirt over the exposed roots. Many of the squash stems were bent and the leaves broken off and wilted. By yesterday they looked a little better, but, again, this sets back possible harvest.
Our home garden wasn’t affected by the wind since the plants are at ground level, not in waist-high raised beds. I think we will have ample cabbages and squash to take to the food pantry if the church garden doesn’t produce.
Let’s have some weather inspired songs and poems today.
There is a strip mall near Nonny’s place that we visited more than once (Panera, post office, UPS store, Walgreens and Starbucks – we had a lot of errands to run). It is very poorly designed, with parking spaces laid out every which way and with some one-way arrows that everybody ignores.
YA’s game of choice on her iPad this weekend was Parking Jam – in which you have to get all the cars out of a parking lot without jumping any berms to crashing into other vehicles.
Then when I ran out to get a few things this morning before work, I drove by the backside of the Hub parking lot. If you have ever seen the backside of the Hub parking lot, you’ll know that it is just wasted real estate. All the entrances to the mall are on the other side and no one parks in the back – not even employees. But this morning I noticed that in the last week they have re-painted all the parking lines back there. What a complete waste of paint and time!
I mentioned to YA when I got home that clearly parking lot design must be a completely neglected part of architecture school – they can’t teach this and have so many folks be so bad at it? Or can they?
Trail Baboon 