Category Archives: Farming Update

2023, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, holidays, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Poof

25 Comments

Todays Farming Updates comes from Ben.

Just like that, another year gone. 414 dozen eggs sold in 2023. April was the highest with 63 dozen sold. September was lowest at 20 dozen. I’m thinking in 2024 I’m gonna try recording how many dozen I box up rather than sold.

2023

We lost some really good friends. We made some new ones. We got a new dog. We finally took a weekend trip after a few  years of hunkering at home. We saw some fantastic theater,  (I was even in a show), had a visit from my friend Keith for the first time in 25 years, and got so much stuff done at home! Most of it had to do with the shop remodeling, but still, it’s a wonder to look over the list and see how much got checked off! Just for fun, I put the list in a spreadsheet and there was 221 line items. Twenty of them aren’t done yet. There’s always next year.

I was grateful to not fight major health issues this year, and to revel in the simple joy of walking up a hill or carrying some feed. Or just to wander up the road from barn to shed!

We got some concrete poured and started work on the shop. The crop year wasn’t the best. And if you enjoy snow, the year didn’t end well for you. There was a lot of snow at the beginning of 2023, but it melted fairly quick.

I’ve been rebuilding the carburetor for the 630 tractor. (Line item #192) I had a good start on it early this week, but the last few days I’ve been busy elsewhere. But in my “New Heated Shop”*‘ (*sort of) I can keep working. I try not to think about how the tractor itself is out in the UNHEATED part of the shed. But that’s just 8 bolts and a couple fittings… right? Easy Peasy. Might be the first thing of 2024 to check off that list! I think I’m even gonna use most of the parts. I spent an hour on the phone with the oldest parts guy at my John Deere store, and another guy who restores antique tractors, to figure out one piece on my carburetor that’s not in the pictures. They figured it out. Surround yourself with good people. That might be my goal for 2024.

2024- I need to renew my private pesticide applicators license. I haven’t used it more than a few times in the 25+ years I’ve had it, but I’ll renew it again, simply because it’s one more link to farming I want to keep.

Monday, 1/1/2024 I’ll go round up the mileage and hours on all the vehicles and tractors and fill in my annual mileage spreadsheet. I always enjoy that. I’ll need to start finding numbers for our assets page. That too is pretty interesting. I had a young lady tell me how rich farmers are. She didn’t know we farm. I had to explain a few things to her. We have a lot of ASSETS, and we have good credit. We may or may not have a lot of cash in the bank. Sometimes were rich in daughters only*, or dirt. Just not cash. Every farm is different.

*Thank you, Greg Brown.

Looking ahead, I’ve ordered a textbook for next semester’s class on creative writing which begins on 1/8. An in-person class so that should be fun. Got crops planned, will be ordering seed and inputs soon.

12/31/23 – There’s a lot of numerology regarding that. It’s interesting to consider. https://www.almanac.com/123123-meaning-123123

PHOTOS

Take some time to ponder this weekend. Ponder 2023. Ponder 2024. Remember and imagine.

WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO SUROUND YOURSELF WITH?

2023, animals, education, Family, Farming Update, Gatherings, Uncategorized, work

Heat!

39 Comments

Today’s Farming Update post comes from Ben.

No snow this year. I’m kinda OK with that. I’m sure it’s coming yet…we got 2 or 3 months of winter to get through, so I’m hooking up the rear blade and I’ll keep watching the forecast and I’ll get the snow blower in the shed if I have too. We will need the moisture somehow, and the cold weather does help kill bugs, but these up and down temps are really hard on cattle. Pneumonia and respiratory issues are common with these temperature fluctuations.

The farm magazines are making predictions and they pretty much always say “stay the course”. Don’t make drastic changes in crop rotations or marketing plans. Yet. I’ve gotten pecuniary plans from the co-op for fertilizer and spraying for 2024 and things are actually down a little bit from 2023. A few thousand dollars here and a few thousand there and pretty soon I’m talking real money. But I’m not planning any more major projects for next year. Yet. I mean beyond getting the fourth wall in the shed. We may not do that next slab of concrete. Yet.

County property tax adjuster was here this week. The permit for my shed remodeling project came in and he was following up. I know the guy from our township business with the county, and we talked for half an hour. Five minutes of that had to do with the shed remodeling.

Yesterday I got a 100 gallon propane tank placed so I can have temporary heat in the shed this winter. The deliver guy joked I was going to use a lot of propane trying to heat the whole shed. Yep. I better get the temp wall up. That’s my plan for these couple warm days. So far I’m not making much progress.

While I’m making plans for shed heat, back on Sunday night it was 8° and the well house thermometer was showing 35° and I am a gambling man and I hate to pay for electricity I don’t really need to use, but it’s also worth hedging your bets and I went out and turned on the well house heater. It was 18° the next morning but I slept soundly knowing I didn’t have to worry about that.
Myself, and I know other people, use that phrase: I may do something that seems extreme, but, “I will be able to sleep at night”.

Got my final dividend check from AMPI, the co-op to whom I sold milk. They are on a 20 year dividend payout and this was my last one. Whopping $2.19 cents. Twenty years since I milked a cow and did all those chores seems like a lifetime ago. Seems like a whole DIFFERENT life. And it really was. I wouldn’t of missed it for anything. I still miss the cows’ personalities, and the situations they gave me and the people I met as a result.

Our kids daycare having a barn and farm tour.


Our bulk tank was a “Zero” brand. Kind of an oddball as the company had a unique design that didn’t work the way most dairy pipelines did. It was the first pipeline we installed in 1983 replacing the Surge brand buckets. Surge buckets were revolutionary when they came out in the 1920’s. (See this website for a lot of interesting information. “Interesting” if you’re into that sort of thing. https://www.surgemilker.com/history.html

The zero pipeline had some really unique features, but it also had a couple pretty serious drawbacks that affected the cows health. Too complicated to get into here. I replaced the pipeline, (keeping the Zero tank) in the mid 1990s with a Delaval system; a much more traditional system that was easier to service and cheaper parts. I sold the bulk tank a few years after we sold the milk cows. I saw a video online the other day of the same brand of tank and it brought back some nostalgic memories.

This photo was the milk house. The bulk tank is on the left. 600 gallons. Note the step stool to reach the lid for cleaning or samples. The four milker units are hanging, for washing, on the right. Wow, looking at this photo myself gives me so many memories. So many things I fixed over the years and so much time spent in there. The milkhouse was remodeled when we did the pipeline in 1983, but before that it was still the milkhouse and I remember washing the old bulk tank and surge milkers in there and my folks would say, “How did you get so wet??”. Well, I was washing stuff. Shrug. My history.


This photo was the ‘receiver jar’. You can see the milk came into that, and when it was about 2/3rds full, it pumped over to the bulk tank. I really loved having that jar. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but that was my favorite part of dairy farming: watching the milk rush into that and pump out. I’d watch that jar for hours.


Everybody travel safe if you are.
Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays!

HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO DO SOMETHING SO YOU COULD SLEEP?  WHERE WERE YOU IN 2003?

2023, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, home, Nature, Theatre, Uncategorized

Wrapping Up

76 Comments

Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

Sunday we saw ‘Aladdin’ at the Orpheum. It was big and fun. Everything you would expect of a Disney musical. Bright costumes, lots and lots of colorful lights, and a lot of magic. I still haven’t figured out how the carpet flew. It must have been magic.

I had feed delivered to the farm Monday. I had cracked corn put in the bulk bin by the barn and I feed it to the chickens. It wasn’t empty yet, but I didn’t want the truck coming down when the road gets icy or snow covered. I was planning ahead. The bin holds maybe 6000 lbs. I usually order 100 bushels (remember, 56 lbs / bushel, so 5600 lbs) about every 8 months. Because the bin wasn’t empty, I was gonna order 50 bushels. But the elevator / coop, wanted at least 4000 lbs to deliver. As long as the weather forecast was decent, we postponed for two weeks, and the corn fit with a little room to spare. The corn is from the ‘grain bank’; Corn I have the elevator store specifically for use as feed. (It’s not MY specific corn, it’s just an amount of bushels, so when I need corn, I don’t have to purchase that. I pay for the hauling and the cracking. $30 to crack it, $100 to deliver it.

I wish I had taken a picture of the truck unloading. Nothing has gotten smaller in the last 30 years…The driver said they have 5 bin trucks, and 7 bin trucks. This was a 7.  

The chickens are doing well. So well they’re doubling up on box space.

Maybe this is where the double yolkers come from!

One of our summer chickens turned into a rooster. So far, he hangs out with the hens and keeps to himself and hasn’t caused any trouble.

I’m not sure the other roosters even pay him any attention yet. Funny to think ‘They don’t know he’s around’, but maybe.

I stepped out one morning and everyone came to see what I had for them. The usual table scraps.

Crop insurance payment came in. It was enough I bought myself a new ladder. And I went for the heavy-duty fiberglass. I often see aluminum extension ladders on auctions, but not fiberglass.

I got a call from Samantha, my agronomist talking about 2024 crops. Input costs are down a bit from 2023, thank goodness. I expect Nate, my seed dealer to call soon. Early orders get discounts. Can I please just not have debt for a few weeks before taking out next year’s loan?

College semester is over. I finished the class with 94%. Whew. Creative Writing begins January 8th, and that will be an in-person class with a teacher I know well. Need about 22 credits yet and I’ll have a degree!

I baked the first batch of Amish Friendship Bread on Wednesday night. I had a bottle of Grape pop, I had my headphones on and I was listening to the first album of Chicago, when they were “Chicago Transit Authority”. It turned out OK.

WHAT WAS YOUR MUSIC THIS WEEK?

2023, animals, Family, Farming Update, Health, home, pets, Uncategorized, work

Pause

33 Comments

Today’s Farm Update is from Ben.

Felt like a rather quiet week on the farm.

I did get snow fence installed, and driveway markers are in.

Hauled in the last of the scrap Iron I wanted to do for this year. I’ll be curious to see what my total was for scrap iron this year. Several thousand lbs. This last load was 3500 lbs and was an old disc, a bit of the old elevator frame, and some misc pieces. Price was still $100 / ton so it paid for the gas anyway.

I did an (almost) final cleaned up behind the shed one day just scraping all the brush into a pile; I wish I had done a before photo but there’s the after.

Just image it full of trees and junk and crap collected over 40 years. I’d love to put an overhang back here to shelter some machinery like the rear blade, the snow blower, the brush mower, etc. Got a pile of cement blocks to move yet.

Met our banker one day and made a plan. I’ve got most of the big bills paid. Signed the last of the papers for crop insurance, but don’t know what that’s going to pay yet.

Had two nights of Holiday Concerts at the college this past week. The choir sounds really very nice. The band is small but growing, and they’ll be really good in another year or two. The one photo is the designer, Paul, with Santa.

We’ve had a little issue with Luna and Bailey lately. They really got into a fight the day I was working on snow fence. Like a ‘to the death’ type fight. I had to separate them three times, finally putting Bailey in the gator.

We can tell Bailey seems jealous, yet she’s picking fights she doesn’t want to be in. They’re equal size and weight. It almost seems like Luna is trying to find her place in the order. Bailey is spayed, we don’t think Luna is yet. We’ve had Luna for 2 months now. She’s really settling in. Which might be what’s putting Bailey off. Any thoughts on 2 female dogs getting along would be appreciated.

Need to get the final paper submitted for class this coming week and the semester is over on the 15th.

The Rep Theater has the next phase of heating and AC going on so that will take some of my time. They have a lot of old photos out as part of the 40 year anniversary. This was me at about 20 years old at the Rep. PHOTO

I should get going on 2023 bookwork one of these days… I’ve been really lazy on that this year.

HAVE YOU GOT THINGS WRAPPED UP?

2023, Automotive, Family, Farming Update, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Brevity? None Here!

70 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I hope everyone was able to have the kind of Thanksgiving they wanted.

My friend Jia, teaching English over in South Korea, didn’t get a Thanksgiving this year and she missed it a lot.

Someday I need to learn brevity. But not today!

I figured out how to get 10 pounds in a 5 pound bag (from last week), you just get rid of 5 pounds. That happen when my truck had a dead battery. Or two. (because it’s a diesel, it uses two batteries to start) so the whole trip to Northfield and then John Deere got postponed and instead, I went out and finished chisel plowing.

This picture is the last bit of ground to be worked up. And that was a ‘mic drop’ moment. Whew. If you notice the line on the hood of the tractor, I scrubbed the left side to remove the grime, but not the right side. It DOES look nicer, and make a difference and I’d like to get the rest scrubbed off. Depends on the weather. I used the hose and washed off the chisel plow and some of the tractor, since the pressure washer is already tucked away for winter and too much trouble to get back out. (Boy, next year, with my new heated shop, it won’t be such an issue! Maybe!)

A highlight for this last day of fieldwork was adding a steering wheel spinner. Dad had them on all the tractors. Back in the 1990’s, my hand would cramp up (already had carpel tunnel, evidently) and I took them all off. Now, making all the turns on the ends of the fields, with my fingers tucked around a steering wheel spoke, makes my fingers sore. And since I had carpel tunnel surgery several years ago, I put spinners back on. It worked well.

When you look at this photo, you’ll see two fields planted to rye:

on the left and right of the tractor. It’s hard to tell how much of that is oats regrowing or the rye I planted late. The oats will not over-winter; it will die off. The rye will survive and grow again. Meaning come spring, and these fields will be planted to corn, I’ll need to have the rye “terminated”. Plowing it up won’t stop it. And if it’s a warm wet spring and it’s late spraying, it will be really tall, meaning there ends up being a lot of trash (plant material) to move through the equipment and it makes a tough seed bed. So, we’ll see. I look at this photo and I see a potentially difficult spring, and a leaking hydraulic hose on the chisel plow, and how I should replace all the hydraulic hoses on it, and the chisel shovels I need to replace. But the sky is pretty.

Doing the fieldwork really is meditative. I had my tractor buddy with me and I saw bald eagles. Boy, there was a lot of ears of corn on the ground this year, in some fields more than others. Damn deer, they tear off a lot of ears and nibble on it a bit. And it was a mixed bag this year because of the drought. The stalks were shorter than normal, and more brittle than normal, and then because the stalks and corn dried out sooner, it was easy for the deer to reach them, easier to pull off, easier for all the kernels to pop off the ear.

Driving around, I would see ‘combine loss’ in the fields, kernels that didn’t get into the combine. Kernels on the ground is not helpful and it means money lost. There are a lot of extra attachments to help corn or soybeans get into the combine. Air systems to blow kernels in, brushes to help feed the kernels in, extra brushes so they don’t pop out. But I don’t own the combine, so… not much I can do about that. Kernels might pop off because the soybean pods are so dry, they split open just from being ‘jostled’ before the combine header gets to them. Or the corn ear might break off the stalk, hit the header, and fall on the ground, or hit hard enough the kernels fly off. Harvesting is kind of a cataclysmic process, yet it needs to be somewhat gentle not to damage the kernel. There’s a lot happening in the moment in the combine, and it’s not surprising to see kernels on the ground. But there was a lot this year, and it means money lost and it’s kinda frustrating because there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll try calling it the angels share.

We got some mail order pork delivered In a box with dry ice. I got some hot water and we had some fun.

You wouldn’t think the most dangerous part of farming would be trying to adjust the right-hand mirror on the tractor. It’s 8 feet up, out in the middle of nothing. When at home, I use a step ladder to adjust it. Then out in the field, I hit a tree branch and it gets knocked out of place. And there I am climbing up over the three-point hitch and onto the tire trying to get this back out in place and focused right. And trying to get back down, I think about all the hard, sharp edges, and pointy things I can snag myself on, or fall on to, and sometimes I leave the mirror where it is. Newer tractors have steps to reach allow cleaning the windows and reaching the mirror. And the ‘delux’ cab, has remote mirrors. Someday.

Next week, did we make any money?

ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT ANY OF THIS?  YOUR LAST ‘MIC DROP’ MOMENT?

2023, animals, Business, Farming Update, Seasons, Uncategorized

Ten Pounds in a Five Pound Bag

51 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

This week has been a little nuts.

Sigh.

Really,  the last few weeks have been a little nuts. I’m burning the candle at both ends, and I need more hours in a day.

CROPS ARE OUT!

And I had a few hours alone in a tractor, with hopefully more to come.

Big Sigh.

Nice.

Kelly and I spent some time on the roof of the machine shed caulking trim pieces and looking for loose nails and trying to figure out why I have water dripping in my new insulated shop area when it rains.   Remember, earlier this summer, when I couldn’t get up on the roof? I bought these new ladder extensions, which give me a hand hold 3 feet above the ladder, and they were worth the money. But it also led to a discussion about ladders. I have an old 24-foot aluminum extension ladder that I’m pretty sure dad got used, and it is better than the old wooden ladder we had been using. I bought a really nice 24-foot fiberglass ladder, but of course, that’s at a theater and used for lighting. It has my name painted on the side, meaning I’ll get it back at some point, but it’s more important to have it at the theater now.

I feel like I should replace this aluminum ladder. It’s got a slight twist on one leg. And it doesn’t have a top step where most ladders have a step now days. As good as fiberglass ladders are, they’re really heavy. And because I don’t expect to get any stronger as I get older, I will probably buy a new aluminum ladder. 

It seems fitting that by the time you shouldn’t be climbing on the roof, you’ve also reached the point where you can’t pick up the ladder to get on the roof anymore.

The corn went surprisingly well, averaging 120 bushels per acre, 16 or 17% moisture and 57 or 58 pound test weight.

Remember, corn has to be at least 56 pound testweight to not get docked by the elevator. And it needs to be dried down to 15% moisture to store long term, anything above that incurs a drying cost. I know a couple of my fields were only doing about 55 bushels per acre, and some fields were doing amazingly well to get 120 bushels average. That is pretty good this year. Last year I had about 150 bushels per acre.

Soybeans were terrible, but I knew that. 55 pound testweight, soybeans need to be 60 pounds. And typically, moisture is not a problem, they need to be not over 13% and mine were 11%. They averaged about 20 bushels per acre. Again, considering some years I get 50 bushels/acre, and some places can get close to 100b/A, this growing year is good to have over. We will see what Crop Insurance does with all this.

Pictures tell a thousand words, so here’s a bunch of pictures. (Click on each photo to see the best view.)

Rooftop
Ladder
Tractor Time
Harvesting
Harvesting
Harvesting
Machinery
Losing the Light
Tractor at Night
Night Equipment
Corn
Soybeans

ANY CORRELATING CIRCUMSTANCES IN YOUR LIFE LATELY?

2023, animals, Farming Update, Food, Kids, Nature, pets

Knock Knock

51 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I used to have dad stories, and I am disappointed in myself that I don’t remember as many of them as there really are.

These days I have mom stories. Mom is 97 1/2 years old and in pretty good health, and while not diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she’s 97 1/2 years old, and she forgets things, and she’s blind, and she gets anxious. I cut her some slack when she calls me for the sixth time to ask if she should get out of bed yet. Might be 9 AM, might be 10 PM, might be 2 AM.  I’m also very lucky there’s five kids; four of which live around here (one of whom was a geriatric nurse practitioner) and we all share daily texts on how mom is doing. Mom’s Alexa has been a lifesaver; it’s what allows her to make those phone calls. But mom mumbles and Alexa hears all sorts of random things. And she turns the music up and down, up and down, up and down, and then it’s so quiet she can’t hear it when she calls us. Mom started using it a few years ago when she was still in her apartment, so it kind of got ingrained. Social workers and nursing staff have complimented us on how helpful Alexa is to her. And my mom, true to form, has become a bit of a trendsetter because other residents in her senior place have gotten Alexa’s of their own. Attaway Mom! Makes me think of one of my favorite jokes. “Mom says, ‘If everybody else was jumping off a bridge, would you jump too?’ ‘Mom, you taught me to be a leader, not a follower.’ ” 

Typically I do a rough draft of the blog on Thursday, then proof-read (which clearly doesn’t always work) and clean it up on Friday. My computer ate Thursday’s draft, but the second draft is always better anyway. As I was writing Thursday night, daughter was making a couple of fried eggs. Time management is not her strong suit. She will set the burner to low medium heat, put a couple eggs in, and then go back to her room. I was writing, I got distracted, at some point 20+ minutes later, I said, “have you checked your eggs“. (She says she likes them crunchy)  And I hear her door, and hear her in the kitchen, from where she will yell, “I got it, Dad“ Yep, she’s always got it.

I haven’t talked about the chickens lately. They are just hanging in there. Egg production is down a bit, which is to be expected this time of year. These layer hens were born in April 2022, so they are past peak production. This year’s chicks, which I got in June 2023, may start laying about January or so, and will hit peak production along about March or April. 

Crops are still standing, ten-day forecast looks good, so I’m trying not to stress about that either. I did get the outside of the shop windows trimmed and sealed. Then I walked into the shed and saw the box with the foam sealer strips that I bought specifically for that project.

Sigh.

I did some more work on the inside getting two by fours on the wall so I can finish the interior steel.

Took the carburetor off my old 630 tractor, I’ve watched a few videos of how to rebuild it and I’ve ordered the overhaul kit. (Got a hat for $0.99!) Fixing that carburetor has been on my list all summer, so I look forward to getting that checked off.

I’ve dragged up some scrap iron. I need to get some of that cut up so it fits on the trailer, and while it isn’t the end of the scrap, (because do we ever really get an end?), it is the last of the piles right around the shed that I wanted to get done. I will be able to cross that off my list shortly. 

Luna the dog really has settled in. She and Humphrey have a good time wrestling and playing tug-of-war.

Friday afternoon, we took all the dogs out for a run/walk/ride,

way out in the East pasture where we don’t often go. So many new smells for Luna! And that’s when we lost her. Thankfully she had gone home, but we drove a long way looking for her, calling her, and met some neighbors, and saw a lot of pasture (header photo by Kelly) looking for her. And Kelly and I were both stressing. I don’t know if we got out of her sight, or earshot, or what. But thank Goodness she knew enough to go home.

Sigh.

ANY DEVICES LISTENING TO YOU AT YOUR HOUSE?

2023, animals, Family, Farming Update, Kids, Theatre

See My House

77 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I can see my house from here! *

Not much happening on the crop front this week, other than it was 17° one morning, and the weeds are finally dead. Still a few Boxelder bugs around.

I got everything put away that shouldn’t be frozen. Except for one hose that was kind of in an out-of-the-way location, and when I pulled it down the hill to let it drain,  I had a flashback to how many times I did that when I was feeding and watering calves. Depending how much water they needed, sometimes I would just use 5-gallon buckets, and sometimes I would use the hose. When finished, I would pull the hose down this hill so it could drain as I coiled it back up and hung it on the inside door of the feed room. The door closed into the dairy barn and it was always warm in there in the winter time. In fact, we needed exhaust fans because it would get too humid from the cow’s breath. But we didn’t need heaters. I have mentioned before what a cozy place the barn could be on a winter night.

All that from draining a hose.

The college kids put on 12 performances of our play this week, two per day for elementary school kids plus two Saturday shows. 

It was fun to have that energy back in the theater, fun to see the kids and hear their reactions: everything from being impressed with the stairway up to the second floor, the candy machines in the hallway, to the art departments drawings of bodies.

Wasn’t anything lewd, but they sure did gawk. I took to standing right there just ahead of the drawings, talking to the kids, and trying to keep them moving. As long as the line ahead of them didn’t get bogged down, it wasn’t a problem. Thursday morning, I noticed the art teacher changing the display. Just a routine change, not complaints or anything. 😊

I finally got back to working on my shed. I got some of the steel on the east wall, 10-foot-tall pieces below a beam. I hope to have a balcony on that end so there will be more steel above the beam. I cut a bunch of sheets at 5 foot and them on the north wall, Then I put a 2 x 6 on the wall above them so I have a place to hang tools if want, and then will have more steel above that. I also need the outside of my windows trimmed. I thought I had a guy that was going to do it,  but he stopped returning my phone calls, so I’m doing it myself. I have a plan for some of it, and the rest I’m making it up as I go.

The other day, as I took daughter into town, we heard the song “Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas. I mentioned the band Boston, and wondered how many other band names there are based on places. Other than the Ozark Mountain Daredevils and Chicago, I didn’t come up with any. The next day she mentioned a song called “The Final Countdown” by the band Europe. I was impressed with her! She’s perfecting her sense of sarcasm too. We couldn’t be more proud.  

The dogs are doing really well together. Luna doesn’t seem to like the snow or cold. Kelly sent me this picture with the caption, “Luna watching and waiting for the snow to melt”.

*Header photo from Gonda 14 at Mayo Clinic. On the horizon are two towers. They’re along our driveway.

BANDS  NAMED FOR PLACES?
Whatta ya got?

2023, Art, Farming Update, home, Theatre, Uncategorized, work

Don’t Forget Your Jacket

41 Comments

Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

This week has all been about the theater. Well, Covid and Theatre, I guess. Wait, Covid was last week. It’s all a blur. I’m over the symptoms, but still testing positive. Good thing I work alone most of the time. And by now I shouldn’t be contagious anymore.

It’s rained a lot lately. And now it’s getting cold. We’ve had more than six inches of rain since the end of September. Oh well.

We open a show Saturday, and then next week will be two shows a day for all five days. Kids are bused in from the local area elementary schools. This kid show has always been a big hit for us, and of course we haven’t been able to do one since 2019. We were afraid we had lost a lot of the contacts at the schools and weren’t really sure what kind of reception we’d get this year. We feel really lucky to have an audience for all 10 shows, including three that are sold out. The play is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth night’ called “Lions in Illyria” by Robert Kauzlaric. Very cartoony and big and goofy and the kids should enjoy it. And short at 65 minutes. The three days I missed with Covid would have been helpful about now. I’m sure the paint will be dry by Saturday afternoon. Things will be ‘good enough’. I did take a few shortcuts, I called in some favors. The show must go on. As long as we can keep cast healthy.

I have a can full of stir sticks at the college. I’m pretty sure some of them were here when I started the job 17 years ago. I do know that I threw out a bunch a few years ago and for this show I decided to put all the ones that I’ve used a different container, because I feel like the sticks at the back of the first can were being neglected. Kelly was in to help paint one day and her goal was to use up all the stir sticks. She made a good dent in it. The can on the left is the unused sticks for the show, and the can on the right are the ones that I have used.


I learned how to paint marble for the show. The white and pink one I painted using a ripped T-shirt. My friend Paul came in and painted the green one. He makes it look so easy. And he enjoyed having an easy project like this.


I’ve talked with Crop Insurance about my soybeans. We started some preliminary claims just so the paperwork is out there. I’ve got until December 10 to get them harvested. After that we just write it off and let them go to insurance. This week of 20° temps at night will certainly freeze everything, but honestly, I’m not sure if the beans will ever dry down enough to harvest. We would need a good week of clear sunny, warmish temperatures and that’s really pushing it this time of the year. But with these weather patterns, who knows. I get home about 10:00 PM these nights (after rehearsal) and I was out picking up hoses and taking the outside faucet off the wellhouse. I need to pick up the pressure washer and hand sprayer yet.

Luna has moved right in and made herself at home. Our bed is her favorite place to be now. She loves to play catch and Tug-O-War. She’s shredded a few toys. And we’ve left her home alone and she’s just fine. Doesn’t like it, but at least she’s not chewing up the furniture.

THINGS THAT NEVER WEAR OUT?

2023, animals, Family, Farming Update, Health, home, pets, Uncategorized

Appreciate it

58 Comments

Today’s Farming Update is from Ben

It’s been a rough week.

My mom was diagnosed with Covid Sunday. Nothing serious, (well, for a 97 yr old, anything is serious) but she just had cold symptoms. I visited her Sunday afternoon to help with supper and see how she was doing. I used extra precautions. And by Thursday she was pretty much back to her normal.

Monday morning, we learned of the death of one of Kelly’s coworkers. A woman who was the party planner and team cheerleader at work, and usually Kelly’s confidant and meeting co-giggler and chief conspirator. “DD” had become a good friend of the family and she was the first to bring cookies and lemonade when I had shoulder surgery and back surgery. She’d been fighting cancer for 8 years and nothing was working. She started some last-ditch efforts this fall, while being told all the side effects, and the possibility of having about 6 months left. Her son is in 11th grade, and her plan was to be here through his graduation. And then, well, the plan changed. She’d been in the hospital for a few weeks and breathing had become an issue. Then she was diagnosed with Leukemia. She never could get a break. Kelly and I always said she just needed a ‘do over’. Her son is the young padawan who worked with me over the summers. There’s a lot of support and family around and we all hope he realizes that and overcomes all the forthcoming obstacles. Mom and son had talked about this possibility and things are set up well for him.

Tuesday evening, I tested positive for Covid. Made it through 3 years! Just cold symptoms; stuffy nose, a bit of a cough. Tired, with some body aches Wednesday. Right after I told Kelly I shouldn’t be running heavy machinery, I went out and used the tractor and loader and ripped out some stumps and moved some junk, leveled some gravel, and hauled more in, and scraped up some dirt and filled in a hole in the yard that had been there since July. Sometimes we just need to do it, right?  It didn’t involve physical labor, and I needed a nap afterward. By Friday I’m feeling pretty good, still testing positive, and I can tell I have covid brain.

Wednesday, I got word of another death. A fellow theater technician in Rochester. Janet was a lighting designer and technical director at the civic theater for years. She had told me her cancer was back and she had started treatments. She said it was terminal, but she might last 10 years, and she laughed. Two weeks later, she had died. I don’t know details, but it’s another reminder we need to be grateful for each day.

Do the thing! Say I Love You! Make the call! Get past the bitterness!

DD and Janet were just such great people. And it sucks so much they’ve left us too early.

——————————————————————————————-

Nothing harvested yet. I’ve said the soybeans should be OK. “There will at least be a crop there” is what I said last week. That’s still true, but they need to actually be harvested and sold before I can count them. Mine still have some green in them. While we had 27 degrees last week, that was only in the low spots and many plants and weeds are still green. And with the damp, cool weather we’re having, harvest of soybeans isn’t happening. According to the USDA production report and statistics, as of 10/15, 76% of soybeans had been harvested. About average. Soybeans are very susceptible to moisture, so these cool days makes them hard to get dry enough to combine, and the more we get into November, the more cool days we get. So, we keep our fingers crossed.  The corn won’t be an issue getting harvested. Barring windstorms knock-on-wood. I’d like it before the ground freezes so I can do tillage work.

The puppy. We’ve named her Luna. She’s pretty much decided to stay here.

She’s very food oriented and will do anything we want if there’s a treat offered.

The last few days we haven’t had her on a leash. Humphrey has decided she’s not much of a threat. They don’t interact a lot, and he’s got his pillows, which she doesn’t use, and he just kind of accepts this is what it is now. We give him a lot of extra attention. Bailey and Luna play a lot together. I think Bailey is more annoyed that even Luna gets to go in the house! Luna doesn’t pay much attention to the chickens. She can run 25 MPH! We’re in the gator timing her. She’s crazy fast!

I’ve been working out in the shop the last few days getting the door put on the gator. It’s getting colder out, and we want doors. Our first gator had doors, but it was a lemon. This gator showed up without hard doors; it had the net half doors. I ordered the door kit, which showed up in a box 4’ wide and 6’ long on a pallet just as big. While I worked on them, the dogs either hung out inside with me or outside where Luna chewed up a bunch of sticks.

The gator turned over 100 miles. And at 17.7 hours, that’s only 5.6 MPH, which seems kinda slow. With Luna, I’m sure the average will creep up.

I’ve said before how I take the dogs outside before bed and I spend a few minutes out there watching the stars. My buddy Orion is back if I stay up late enough. Jupiter has been a bright light all year. I am grateful.

HOW ARE YOU DOING ON YOUR BUCKET LIST?