Category Archives: Farming Update

2024, animals, Farming Update, Gatherings, Uncategorized

Corn Sweat

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben

We’ve certainly gained some Growing Degree Units lately. The Pioneer Seed website shows 2450 GDU’s to date for Rochester. 2288 would be normal. Not as hot as last summer, and higher than 2022.
Sure, blame it on corn sweat…

From an article in USA Today, they state: “During the growing season, an acre of corn sweats off about 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of water a day, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
In Iowa, corn pumps out “a staggering 49 to 56 billion gallons of water into the atmosphere each day” throughout the state, the National Weather Service said. That can add 5 to 10 degrees to the dew point, a measure of the humidity in the air, on a hot summer day.”
Farming always gets the rap.

This year’s crop is pretty much what it is now; outside of weather conditions, not much we can do to either kill it or improve it, but we still need to manage what’s there, and continue to hope for the best, and plan for next year’s crop.

The corn and soybeans honestly look pretty good, and some scouting shows a decent crop, knock-on-wood. Hail or an early frost can still put a kink in that. And the prices are the lowest they’ve been in several years. So the best we can hope for is quantity. Which, of course, makes a surplus and drives the price down.

I went to turn on the chickens fan last week, and it ran for 4 seconds and quit. I banged on it and jiggled all the cords and it wouldn’t go. Dragged out the old barn fan that I used to use, and it ran for 4 seconds and quit. A minute later it would run for 4 seconds and quit again and that’s how that went. Neither of those really was much help then. I found an old box fan under the seats at a theater the next day and hung that up for the chickens.

The last couple nights I’ve been out digging up the oat fields. I wanted it done before it rained again. (We got an inch of rain Thursday night.) The grasses have gotten ahead of me and it didn’t work up as well as it might have had I done this two weeks ago. Foxtail mostly, comes on fast and thick and it doesn’t flow through the digger too well.


Kelly came with me one night. This tractor has the ‘buddy seat’. Kelly was my buddy for a change.


Man, so many bugs! I hate turning the lights on…sure glad I’m inside the cab!


I put the alternator put back on the swather, got it running again, and mowed the weeds along the road and over at the edge of some fields. I’ve backed it into the shed and will worry about it next July I guess. I got the generator put back on the ‘C’, but haven’t got it started again yet.
One day I had to drive to St. Charles, about 20 miles East of Rochester. I had lunch at Del’s Café and sat at the counter and had soup and a cheeseburger.


From St. Charles, I was head to Plainview about 20 miles to the North. I didn’t want to take the old, boring route up to Plainview, so I went through Whitewater State Park to Elba, and then that great gravel road through Whitewater’s lowlands, to Hwy 30, and through Beaver to Plainview. I had the road to myself, and I sighed contentedly several times. It was a great drive.


Back when I was ‘only’ farming, this was a good time of the year to take some day trips. Oats and straw are done. We’d be between hay crops, the crops are growing, and we’d drive to Wanamingo and look through the machinery dealerships or something fun like that. (machinery dealership lots; the farmers friend) Then we’d find lunch in a diner someplace.
We attended another wedding on Saturday. Kelly’s cousin. Second wedding for each, and they’ve been together 13 years, with 6 kids between the two of them. From Junior in high school to finishing college. The kids have pretty much grown up together, and they’re such a fun family and all get along, and it was a happy, fun, beautiful wedding. Bride and Groom read vows to each other, the kids read vows to both of them, and they gave all the kids their own rings. Everyone cried. It was a great time.


Here’s a photo of Luna trying to encourage a rooster to play more. They did chase each other back and forth a few times before Bailey, the peacekeeper, would break them up.



I’ve been listening to jazz lately. I have a subscription to Jazzradio.com, and Modern Big Band is my go-to.
https://youtu.be/hNbsnBZOwqE?si=IiyHaWbD2oDMslRY

HOW QUICK ARE YOU WITH THE CAR HORN?

2024, animals, Automotive, Farming Update, Gatherings, Uncategorized, work

Alternating Tired and Startled And Stuff

36 Comments

Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben

There’s so much stuff going on, I don’t have time to get to the other stuff.

One day I met a friend in the grocery store, and he was carrying a bag of coleslaw mix. I’ve always liked coleslaw but never made my own. The friend told me how easy it is to make coleslaw and I started making my own and it is enjoyable and quite tasty. Last week I bought a fresh cabbage, and carrots, and this batch is even better than ever. Summertime goodness.

I took the generator off Kelly’s tractor, the C, and the alternator off the swather and took both of those to a local small business to be repaired. Once I get them back and reinstalled, I’ll be able to check them both off my To-Do list and hopefully both those things will stay charged and ready to start.

I feel like I spent so much time doing other “stuff”, I don’t get much crossed off my list.

Last week, coming back from Chatfield, my truck seemed to be making a thumping noise. I was trying to decide if it was the road, but no, got off the highway and it was still there. Then I was going through the dash gauges trying to find the tire pressures and there was a BANG and the tread came off a rear wheel. Bent both sides of the wheel well and ripped off a mud flap.

But the tire wasn’t flat, so I slowly drove the 10 miles home, took both rear wheels off, and took them to my tire place, Appel Service, in Millville. It was Monday so all the bars and restaurants were closed, but one place let me buy a bottle of pop. I walked around town and sat on a bench and enjoyed the weather while they put on new tires. Glad this happened close to home and not on the way to Minneapolis or something.

The coyotes have been back in the early mornings. One bark from Bailey, and Luna, sleeping in our bed, goes bezerk. That sure wakes us out of a sound sleep. And I stood outside trying to figure out what they’re barking at. And then I saw …‘something’…100 yards away down on the swamp road. And then it turned, and it was a coyote. Back in the house for the rifle and of course it was gone by then. I don’t think it got any breakfast that day. I fired one shot, just to warn it, and it hasn’t come back for a few days.

We got the barn painted. Here’s a before and after photo:

It looks real nice and I didn’t have to be involved. Well, except to write a check.

A former college student got married on the Rep Theater stage last week. It was really nice.

Cutting grass one night and the mower started running rough. That just about sucked all the wind out of me. “Can’t things just work??” And the next day I cleaned the spark plug, air filter, filled it with gas and thank goodness the lawn mower fairies must have been in because it worked fine. Then the belt came off the deck. Sigh.

The next day I went to John Deere and got both a new deck belt and a new drive belt and we’re back to cutting grass again. Until the next thing happens.

Classes start Monday at the college. I have one online class this fall, “Interpersonal communication”. I know the instructor and I asked him how communication could be online? He said this is about learning the “theory” of communication. He said I can still be a jerk if I want to be after class, but at least I would know HOW to communicate.

Watching the DNC convention and they had a huge balloon drop on the last night. Back in my stagehand days, I was part of an event that included a balloon drop. I remember whomever was in charge showing us what rope to pull. They were very specific about giving us a signal when it was time. Myself and another guy up in the catwalks waiting. We can’t find our guy, no one on the intercom, no idea what we’re supposed to be doing. But they’ve hit the climatic high point and it seems like this would be a good time, but again, they were very specific about telling us when. And yet there’s no sign of our guy. But once everyone started staring at the ceiling, we decided now’s the time and we released the balloons. You really do need a LOT of balloons to make it look like something. That group didn’t have that many.

I’m adding some 10’ tall, 6×6 posts next to some rotted posts in the pole barn.

Too many years of manure have rotted out the bases. The shed was built maybe in the 1970’s?

Dig a hole and bolt the new post to the old post. It takes 6 trips with the gator to get all the tools and bolts and drills, and back for a step ladder and sledgehammer, and another trip for the tractor and some gravel, and then another trip because a 5/8” bolt doesn’t fit in a ½” hole.

So it goes.

Mom used to say, “What your brain forgets your feet will remember”.

I’ve got three posts to fix and then I can check that off the list and move on to something else.

WHAT’S YOUR CLIMACTIC ENDING TO A BIG PARTY?

2024, animals, Farming Update, Uncategorized, work

SSSSStrawwwwwww

29 Comments

Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

I’m back at the college. Back at ‘Work’ work. Which, at the least, gives me a little more structure to my day, so I can comment on the blogs in the mornings.

I’ve told you about the oats getting cut, and then harvested, and now all that’s left is baling up the straw. I thought it looked good and I’d have the pole barn full and enough straw left in the fields to make some round bales. Jokes on me. You’d think I’d know not to count my bales before they’re made.

The pole barn where I store the straw was nearly empty, and what was left on the bottom row had mildew on the bottom edge, and many had broken strings (Someone tell me why the mice always only eat through one string?) so I used the tractor and loader and cleaned it all out.

Then I put some house wrap on the ground hoping maybe it will keep those bottom bales from getting mildew. Found a snake in the corner, but no raccoons.

I baled the first field of 5 acres, and I got 96 bales; three quarters of a load. Well, shoot. I expected 250 bales off that field. But the next field did better. I got three loads, about 400 bales from there.

And then the last 2 fields were thin and I didn’t get much off them. But I expected that. They didn’t look very good before harvest. I finished with 615 bales total. 488 were put in the barn, with 127 stacked on a wagon for the neighboring strawberry farm this fall. The bales are more brown than usual due to the rain and rust fungus.

Baling went well, not too many issues.

The twine holding the bales together, comes in ‘bales’. Because of course.  It’s sisal twine, typically from Brazil (I don’t know why, it’s just what the bag says). Two spools of twine in each bag, because my baler uses two strings on each bale. There are some balers that use three strings per bale, making a little larger bale, but still considered a ‘small square bale’. The large square bales typically have 6 strings on them. Big square or round bales use a different twine.  

The twine is usually brown, but green isn’t unheard of. I have used plastic baler twine for the straw, but the mice would still just chew one string, and the plastic would get wrapped up on stuff and, of course, it never goes away. The sisal will eventually degrade.

You can see my baler holds four spools; the one being used and a spare spool. One spool feeds each side of the bale. Some balers might hold eight spools (more extra’s). And the larger square balers hold up to 15 spools. The twine comes out of the spool, through some guides, through the ‘needles’, which come up through the hay or straw and into the knotters, bringing the twine with them, in order to encircle the bale with twine. The knotters make a simple overhand knot, and cut off the string after the knot, while holding onto the next string to make the next bale. It’s pretty fascinating to watch and understand. And maddening when it isn’t working right.

A spool makes about 500 bales. And I don’t know why, but the spools never run out together. Which doesn’t make any sense. The needles always move together, the strings SHOULD be the same length, and I have started the bales together. But they never run out the same. Must be the spool itself.

Ninety nine percent of the time when a twine spool runs out and the next spool starts, for whatever reason, that straw or hay bale will not tie right. I haven’t figured out yet if it’s my knot that comes apart, or what happens. The next bale will work fine. But that bale with the splice, blows apart in mid-air. I was pleasantly pleased when it changed spools and the bale DIDN’T break once!

I had my two padawan’s help unload. Because the barn was empty and we only had the three loads, we could just throw them out of the wagon by hand, we didn’t need the elevator. I only had three rows on the ground, and I was stacking up three more rows.

The boys were trying to throw a bale over the top of the wagon. They got close, but never quite over. Next year I’ll bet they will be able to. I was just pleased I have ‘old man strength’ and I could still keep up with them.

The ducks are still doing well, and they come running when I call them and throw out corn.

Next week, everything else that’s been happening.

WHAT DO YOU HAVE NOW YOU DIDN’T HAVE WHEN YOUNGER? (POSITIVE ANSWERS ONLY)

2024, Business, Farming Update, Uncategorized, work

Part 2: Oats Continued

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

Last week I talked about getting the oats out.

This week we get to combining, or harvesting the oats. This hot humid weather did not aid drying the oat stems or mixed in grass. Other guys were saying the moisture was high on their oats, but usually they’re cutting it while it’s standing. That only works if you don’t have too much grass standing with the oats. . Swathing it allows the stems to dry out and then combine better.

Parm stated to combine on Wednesday afternoon. I ran a sample up to Elgin to have it tested for moisture and test weight. Moisture was 10.8%, almost too low, and TW was 30. For food grade, they want it 36-40 pounds. And the local elevators won’t even take it if it’s not at at least 34. Remember the test weight is what a standard bushel of a particular crop should weigh. So a bushel of oats should weigh 32 pounds and lighter than tat you get docked on the price.

Other years I’ve not had a problem with test weight. Inside the combine harvester, there are fans to blow out the chaff, bits of cob, or lighter crop material. Typically, buy turning the fan up, it allows you to blow out the lighter oats and keep the heavier stuff. Course, if it’s all light, lie it seems to be this year, either it blows all the crop out, or the test weight is light. For whatever reason, the experts say that letting it sit for a day will increase the test weight. And moving the oats through a grain cart and into the semi will gain a point. But I am not sure I can gain 5 points.

Yield wasn’t too great either, For all the grain that looked like was in the field, well, I mean that the deer didn’t eat and what hadn’t broken off, I’ve only got 25 bushels /acre. this year was too wet, I guess, and the rusts fungus must have been more of a problems than I expected. An d last year I complained it was too dry. I am never happy.

And then we got 2 inches of rain Wednesday night. Surprisingly, Parm was able to come out Saturday and get the rest combined. I took a sample out the the grain cart up to my local Seed dealer because I knew I could get the grain gossip from him. this time my test was only 27 pounds but the moisture was up. He said everybody was struggling to make the test weight and even our local oat champion, who is the one pushing the food grade stuff, said he was struggling to get the 34 test weight.

By the time Parm finished combining, all 25 acres I had was less then a semi load. Thankfully, I have this one neighbor that always buys some oats to mix with his calf feed and was willing to take the whole thing. I called the co-op to ask how much dockage would be on this low test weight. With a base price of $3.05 per bushel, their chart only goes down to 28 and it’s $.52 dockage at that point. 30 test weight would be $.32 dockage. Well fudge.

I like having Oats in the crop rotation, and honestly, I have made money on other years, so I remain optimistic. Maybe next hear will be better. I mean it pretty much has to be.

WHAT WAS YOUR WEIGHT IN HIGH SCHOOL? CAN YOU STILL FIT INTO YOUR UNIFORM / WEDDING DRESS / LETTER JACKET?

2024, animals, Family, Farming Update, Theatre, Uncategorized

What A Ride

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

What a week it’s been. So much going on and I pretty much hit the wall on Wednesday, but I powered through until Thursday when, after Wednesday night’s rain (2.06 then another .2″) I could stay home and have a lazy day. I may have drifted off a couple times. 

We are REALLY excited about the hot and cold water faucets installed in our garage.

No more cold water dog baths! It’s kinda dumb how excited we are about this! 

Plus got ‘SpongeBob, the Musical’ ready to open and that became a really fun, silly show with more witty one liners and dialogue than I realized. (When lighting a show, I’m not fully listening for the first few rehearsals; my mind is in other places. Yeah, I’m supposed to read the script first, but you, it’s only ‘Spongebob’…) The show opened last night. 

Last week, I did finally finish cutting oats. I started Thursday, the swather ran for an hour and a half and died. An hour later it ran for half an hour and died. The next morning it ran for 45 minutes and died. (The generator isn’t working either, so I’d drive the gator up there and take the battery jump pack along and jump start it every time). I made some phone calls and googled symptoms for a while. This thing has a Chyrsler Slant 6 engine in it. If you know anything about cars, you know about the Slant 6. It was ubiquitous in Chrysler cars for quite a few years in the 1960’s and ’70’s. It might be the fuel pump, might be the ignition coil, hard to say. John Deere doesn’t stock any of those parts anymore, but I called a local auto parts place. The young man there– key words being ‘young man’, I knew he was too young. And when he said to me, “Is the coil that round cylinder thing?” I knew I had the wrong guy. 

I called NAPA and I asked first, “Do you know what a Slant 6 is?” The guy scoffed. “Do I know what a slant 6 is!” OK, good. I can talk to this guy. He told me when he first started working for NAPA he was in a small farming town, and being a city boy, he didn’t know what a ‘swather’ was. He learned fast. THIS was the right guy to talk with. I replaced the ignition coil and a resistor, and it ran for 45 minutes and quit. But an hour later, it ran for 3 hours. And I was THIS CLOSE to finishing all the oats. It was 9:15 at night and dark and while there are two headlights on the swather, they don’t really light enough to see anything. And then, feeling optimistic and picturing being done, like the MN Vikings, it let me down. (Sorry for the dig. Courtesy of my brother in law, on Friday Kelly got to spend some time at the Vikings Training Camp with our daughter in law, Michelle.) The next morning, I finished cutting the last of the oats in about 15 minutes and drove it home. I guess I’ll replace the points, condenser, and fuel pump, and get the generator repaired, and maybe next year it will run better.  

In places, it looks like the deer wrapped their tongues around the plant and stripped the grain right off; it was just stalks. In places it was broken off or down. And in some places it looked OK. 

I’ll talk more about the harvest next week. But it wasn’t good. 

I couldn’t find the ducks one morning. They have found the pond. They will do a good job cleaning up the algae. And we lost one. There was a carcass down there one morning. Shucks. 

We’ve decided to have the barn painted. And I don’t want to do it, nor do I want to be climbing the ladder to the peak, nor should I be climbing up there. Twenty some years ago when I painted it last, I put the extension ladder in the loader bucket and put that up on the roof of this lean-to. And I still couldn’t reach the peak. I’ve done some dumb stuff, but not usually the same thing twice. 

I happen to see a guy painting the building where daughter attends, and we’ve hired them to paint the barn. They’re out power washing the old paint off this week. 

I had some good volunteers helping with theater stuff again.

One teenage padawan, Max, is back, so he and a volunteer met me at Menards and they loaded up 35 sheets of 1/4″ plywood (we call it ‘lauan’ which is kind of a general term) while I paid for it, and then I met them outside to load it. 

The three of us carried it into the theater. Then two more helpers arrived and the lumber yard truck showed up with two guys and the 7 of us hauled 25 sheets of 3/4″ plywood inside. It was too dang hot to work much harder than that. Plus the sprinkler repair guys were there and they moved a sprinkler pipe that was in a sightline from the booth. 

And that’s why I drifted off on Thursday. 

DESCRIBE A GOOD NAP. 

2024, animals, Art, Farming Update, Mysteries, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

John Barleycorn Must Die

57 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I struggled with the question of “why” this week. Since I broke the brush mower last week, (did I mention I broke it? I talked about it rattling, and the bolts coming loose, and then… I don’t know what happened, but it started to shake itself apart. I couldn’t see anything obviously wrong, and I just parked it and walked away. I gotta deal with other stuff for a while and then I’ll come back to it.)

Consequently I was mowing weeds with the lawnmower and was asking myself why I felt the need to mow these weeds. There are some places I can justify, like in the oat fields the waterways are full of tall grass and weeds and they make it a problem for swathing, they’re a problem for combining, and they are a problem for baling, so it makes sense to mow them. But then I get off in the pastures or field roads and yeah, there’s some weeds that it’s good to take down like thistles, buttonweeds, (velvet leaf), ragweed, and wild parsnip, but if it’s just grass, why am I mowing it?

The larger question of “why“ can be applied to illness, sicknesses, the political party of your choice, or any host of things. 

So that’s what’s been on my mind.

Daughter and I also talked about making decisions and why that’s so hard sometimes. It’s a learned skill, isn’t it? 

Earlier this week, I was a bit anxious because I should have already been cutting oats. I was anxious about how the swather was going to run, I was anxious about the weather, I was anxious about how the Oats would do, and how to get it hauled to the place in Iowa. 

And let’s face it, I was scared. Scared the swather would break down, scared I wouldn’t be able to fix it, scared of just the whole thing. But eventually I put on my big boy pants, and started cutting oats. And yep, it quits after an hour and a half. It’s like it got a vapor lock or something. An hour later I can start it again and cut some more. And I’m working on a trucker, so we still just wait to see on the weather and how the oats does and it will all be OK, won’t it? 

 A few of the ducks were out one morning and having a good time in the taller grass, so the next morning we opened the fence and let them all out. Generally, that’s kind of how it works; They get out themselves and then we decide it’s OK to let them go.   And they are having a really good time in the deep grass and finding bugs and they look very very happy. I know I counted 26 ducks one day and then there only seemed to be 24, and the next day I counted 26 again. I don’t know how that works.

The dogs cornered a raccoon up in a tree for the third time in about two weeks. They appear to be fairly small raccoons so they must be young. I suppose along the same lines of me wondering where the ducks go when they get freedom, some raccoon mother somewhere is wondering what becomes of her children when they venture out on their own someplace.

The show in Chatfield that I’m lighting is “SpongeBob SquarePants The Musical”.

You’re probably not familiar with SpongeBob, we are all too old to have seen it as kids, you might be aware of it from Mall of America, or grandchildren, or neighbors, and it’s just silly fun. I haven’t looked too hard for a message in this musical. (turns out there are some!) I’m just making big bright colors. The woman who is designing some of the scenery, Vicky, did some really cool things with pool noodles and expandable spray foam. The guys who built the structure run a welding and machine shop and they can build just about anything. (They can fix my brush mower too!) It’s not done the way I would do it as a “theater professional” but it is certainly good enough for a show.

Driving to Chatfield gives me 20 miles of country roads to see how the crops are doing. There are a couple different ways I take to get there but generally, I take the straight shot back home on Hwy 52. Especially when it’s dark.

I started working in Chatfield’s Potter Auditorium in 1987 and I built the sets there for about three years, then took a break for a long time before coming back to light a few more shows. I feel a deep connection to this place. The people are great to work with. It is a true community theater in every sense of the word. There will be a big potluck lunch on Sunday before we have our first dress rehearsal.

WHAT MESSAGE OR STORY FROM A SONG HAS ALWAYS STAYED WITH YOU?  

2024, animals, Farming Update, Nature, Uncategorized

Round & Round

40 Comments

The weekend Farm Update comes to us from Ben.

I’ve got the brush mower on and I’ve started mowing weeds. We have a good crop of thistles. They’re taller than the tractor!

I went around the mullen’s.

As always though, majority rules.

Mowing waterways is a good opportunity to go down the middle of the field and see the crops. The corn is taller than me and the tractor in places.

Soybeans are not quite up to my knees yet, but they’ve got blossoms on them. The oats are up to my waist, but the quackgrass is quickly taking over. My neighbor who combines the oats, will be out of town this weekend and next. The oats aren’t quite ready to swath, yet it’s starting to go down (from the rust fungus weakening the stalk) plus the grass taking over, so I hate to wait too much longer. I’m thinking by the end of next week I’ll want to be cutting it. It will need to lay and dry for a few days before it will be ready for combining.

I had an email this week from the oat growers who market it for food grade vs animal food. The price at the food grade plant is $4.30 / bushel. At the local elevator, it’s $3 / bushel. That’s pretty hard to pass up the higher price. Yet I need to get it hauled down to the plant in Iowa, and the grain needs to be heavy enough for them to accept it. All things that are harder for a small operator like me to coordinate. Not impossible, but harder. And, of course, it costs money to haul it to Iowa, too. So there’s always a trade off. I’m still working out details.

The ducks are doing well. We bought them a kiddie pool last week and they’re big enough to get in, but not big enough to get out, so there’s a big rock in the pool.  They’ve figured out how to go into their pen on their own at night. They’re fun, when I go out there and call to them, they all call back to me. It isn’t quite a ‘quack’ yet, still more of a ‘peep’. I call out “Hello ducks! Hey Kids!” and they’re all “peep, peep, peep”. They know I’m bringing food. They don’t want to be picked up or anything, but they come over closer too me. This sure is an interesting looking bunch. I can’t wait to see what they look like when grown up. Notice the black spots on the feet of some of them.

I spent most of the week working on the Rep Theater stage again. I’ve had good help from my buddy Paul, and Chris, Michael, Doug, Max, and Noah. Max and Noah are the teenage boys helping me this summer. Max hasn’t done anything like this construction before. He’s learned and used a lot of new tools (and found the chalk line really fascinating- although he doesn’t come out and say that). He’s a good kid, a hard worker, smart, and good to have around.

The majority of the work is done, the main stage is done and has one layer on it. Next up will be the second layer of 3/4″ plywood and a top layer of 1/8″ plywood. We call it ‘lauan’, but the lumber yards don’t know it by that name. And it used to be $10 / sheet. Double that now. Jeepers. And 3/4″ plywood is $40. And that’s not even the fancy sanded stuff.

I did get a little bit done in the shed at home and replaced the windshield washer pump and one nozzle on my truck. Cut some grass one night.

A couple years ago, four of the bolts holding a gear box on the brush mower got loose. My brother and I tightened them up. They came loose again. This summer we replaced the bolts and put ‘lock-tite’ on them. After mowing for a day, they’re loose AGAIN. I need another helper to tighten them up again, but I’m afraid this might turn into a bigger repair job requiring a piece of steel welded underneath or something. I dread adding it to my list again.

It’s finally drying up around the barn and yard a bit, so that’s good.

Ever had a pedicure? What color would you paint your toenails tonight?

2024, Family, Farming Update, Nature, Seasons

Summer Heat

53 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

The weather is changing. The rain has stopped and the temps and humidity are up. I’ve turned on the chickens fan, and got the ducks in their outside pen.  The ducks are at that awkward stage where a gallon of water last them half a day, everything‘s wet, and they chewed off the string on the bottom of a brand new sack of feed so then I had an open tube that used to have 50 pounds of feed in it. It was time to get them outside.

This was a mixed assortment of ducklings so I don’t really know what I’ve got yet, although six of them are all black, a couple are twice the size of a couple others, and like most teenagers, we just gotta get through this phase. 

It takes a while for the ducks to learn how to get back in again at night, which means for now, Kelly and I have to wrangle them back inside. Everything is still wet down there, and it is stinky mud, and they’re not the smartest animal on the farm, so it’s kind of a whole big thing, but this too shall pass. Eventually. 

I went out with the tractor and loader and moved the downed trees off the edge of the fields. The soybeans were sprayed with fungicide and broadleaf preventer on Thursday. I wanted the tree in the bean field out of the way for that. I’ll be mowing weeds in a week or two, and oats will be ready in 3 weeks or so. I moved two trees out of the oats field.  I saw the neighbors cornfield just starting to tassel Friday afternoon 

I’ve been spending a lot of time rebuilding the stage at the Rochester Repertory Theater. The old stage had been there since we moved there in 2007, and it was built of used lumber then, so it was squeaky and kinda wonky and wore out. Last year’s ‘Give to the Max’ campaign raised money for this new stage. I had a good group of volunteers come in to cut up and haul out the old one. We loaded it on a trailer and I hauled it to the recycling center. I didn’t expect it to cost $450 for disposal. Ouch. There went my budget. 

 Of course, what’s a project without a few extra items thrown into the mix? We are creating a tool room out of the former elevator room, we are insulating some windows, and we are making the control booth window larger too. All good stuff! 

Except that I’m not getting much done on my machine shed shop project. I get a little done, it’s just slow going.  I got steel wrap and the window trim done on one window, so I can get back to the steel siding. I did change the windshield washer pump on my truck and I need to replace one nozzle. And I cut off a tree root and reset some rocks interferring with the wellhouse door. And I got to use a pickax and a grub hoe. 

I’m just not getting the shop work done. 

Thursday, Kelly and I took a road trip to Golden Valley to ‘Monkey Wrench Productions’ and picked up some lighting stuff.

A new lighting console for the Rep theater (thanks to a very nice grant from the Carl and Verna Schmidt Foundation) and with all the construction on Hwy 52 that we ran into, we decided to take a different way home. Came back through Hastings, and had lunch at the ‘Lock and Dam Eatery’. Walked down to the river, and had a nice talk with a photographer. 

A few days ago we took the four wheeler down through the woods. There’s a trail that a neighbor keeps mowed and I had been on part of it, but not all of it before. Although there were places I remembered checking fence 35 years ago when I still had beef cows down there. Like this gate; people would open it in the winter and if not closed again, cows ended up in their yards and they didn’t like that. Guess they never learned the rule to leave the gate like you found it. But that only works for the first person. 

You gotta take your adventures where you can get them. 

What’s the most money you’ve paid to get rid of something?

2024, Farming Update, gardening, Technology, Weather

Survey Says

109 Comments

Man, it just keeps raining. Thursday afternoon, we were headed to my sister’s house a few miles away, and it rained so hard we could barely see to drive. We had gotten .2″ of rain in the morning, came home to see we gained another 1.6″ which came hard and fast. I could see where it overflowed some culverts, and backed up behind others. We had some washouts on a couple township roads, and I was out Friday putting warning signs up to alert drivers until we can get them graded on Monday. And I said it was wet LAST week. This latest rain came with some wind too and the oats are a little ruffled. Once it starts to turn color and the stalks are dying and turning yellow, it becomes more brittle, and the oats are more likely to shell out. It may rebound a little bit at this point. About a month to go yet before the oats are ready to harvest.

The corn is nearly as high as an elephant’s eye, to quote Oscar Hammerstein.

The soybeans are looking good, but that one low spot has been wet long enough, and a couple acres are turning yellow. There is water standing in a lot of fields now. It’s just plain wet enough, for now.

I finally finished that fence. Glad to have it done.

Building that brought back a lot of memories. One of the things I bought in preparation of making this fence, was 3 pairs of leather gloves. Good cowhide leather gloves. Deer skin is too soft for working with barb wire. As are plain cotton and canvas gloves. I bought extra pairs in smaller sizes for my helpers. (Photo credit to Kelly)

To attach the wire to the steel ‘T’ post, I use wire clips.

They used to be included with each 5-pack of posts. Now they cost extra, of course, and are not nearly so well made. I found it curious, the previous batch wasn’t made as well as the batch before them, either. I can see the companies cutting costs with each manifestation!

The clip should hook on the fence like the previous photo, then I use my pliers to bend the end around the wire.

The new ones are lighter wire, and they don’t snap on like the old ones. Cheap, cheap, cheap.

Course, we didn’t always have the clips. In that case, we would cut a piece of wire about 20″ long, separate the strands of wire, (barb wire is two strands twisted together: one with barbs, and one without) wrap one end on the wire, go twice around the post and over the fence wire, and attach to the wire again on the other side of the post. Doing that on a post this week, I heard my dad’s voice teaching me how to do it. The old fence ends up in a heap and will go to scrap metal.

A new roll of barb wire is 1320′ long. I used two full rolls and was about 150′ short. Good thing I had an old roll left in the shed. I think it was from Kelly’s Dad. I had to use that to make the gate, and to finish one narrow end of the fence.

1320′ is 80 rods. 80 rods is a quarter mile. One rod is 16.5 feet. Dad used the term ‘rods’ when describing the size of fields, but I don’t think anyone uses the term anymore, maybe not even surveyors.

When I was measuring fields for the ASCS office, I had an actual metal wire that was 66′ long- a “chain”. And a rod is a 1/4 of a chain. And I had a belt pack with 10 metal hooks in which to pass the wire through as I walked a field. I only used it a few times because it would snag and slip out of the loops and it was a huge pain in the tuckus. Mostly we used a measuring wheel that counted in chains. The wheel itself was maybe 2 1/2′ feet in diameter, so I don’t know how it figured out the distance, but it was the official tool for measuring fields.

Curiously, most township roads have a 66′ right of way. Thirty Three feet from the center of the road including the ditch. 33′ is two rods. Coincidence??

The ducks are doing well and enjoying their new pen.

Wild black raspberries are turning ripe. Yummy on vanilla ice cream. 

Any unusual units of measurement you use?

2024, animals, Farming Update, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

Rusty Summer

38 Comments

Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben


As I started writing this on Thursday I wrote, “Well, it hasn’t rained yet this week, oh wait, it’s sprinkling now.” And now late Friday afternoon, we’ve gotten another inch. I think it sprinkled Monday, it sprinkled Tuesday, sprinkled Thursday. Never amounted to much but it’s just kinda
damp everywhere. I’ve got springs down by the barn, got springs around back, got a wet spot in front of the duck pen, got a big lake in the neighbor’s field with several ducks in there. Nothing we haven’t had before, it’s just been a few years.

I did notice the rust on the Oats really came out earlier this week. It’s a fungus that overwinters on Buckhorn, (yet another reason to hate Buckhorn), and then it’s moved by wind, and loves high humidity and moisture. Although I’ve never seen it turn a field brown like it has in a couple of spots. The end of one field seems worse than others, and that could be because it’s sheltered by trees, so maybe it doesn’t get much sunshine, plus some different soils. It was a little stressed in the first place. Of my 25 acres of oats, this is just a few acres in that field.


The rest of it is waist high, and there could be a lot of grain out there. Not gonna count the bushels before they’re in the truck or weighed at the elevator, but it’s looking good right now.


Corn is waist tall as well.


The ducklings are growing fast, and as expected, everything’s wet in their pen too. This weekend, I will probably get them out of their starter tank and into a larger pen. More room to spill water and find dry spots.

We made good progress on the fence this week. Last summer‘s Padawan came back to help this summer’s Padawan. I forgot what two teenage boys are like together. (snicker, eye roll, fart noises). As of this writing, the fence is about 80% done. I have to set four or five wood posts yet, and grass, and the whole thing is just a pain. Not to mention I’m a lot older than I was the last time I made a fence. It’s been strangely fun using the old rope wire stretcher (to pull the wire tight before attaching it to the posts). My brother was skeptical that it is still the original rope. And I used the new , longer handles on the post hole digger!


Back to some theater projects for a while. Tuesday, myself and ten volunteers tore out the old stage at THE REP. New stage will be roughly the same size, just a few inches taller, and built so it doesn’t squeak. The biggest change is backstage: tearing down a bunch of shelves, and
platforming the whole thing from end to end and wall to wall. Also insulating some walls, and blocking off some tall windows that are kind of a problem.


After the fence, after the stage, then, THEN I’m gonna start working on my machine shed shop again. Honestly, one of these days. And in a month, I’ll be down in Chatfield working on a show there, “SpongeBob SquarePants, the musical”. Friday afternoon, myself and another guy were out cutting up another township tree blocking a
road. In the rain.



It wasn’t too bad. We cut it up and I called a neighbor who used his skidloader to push it off the road. A tree company will be out Monday to pick it up. I was going to have them take this tree down anyway as it was leaning over the road. Guess I can cross that one off the list. I’ve got at least 4 trees down in the fields. At this point, I’d knock down more crop trying to clear up the tree than if we just harvest around it. So probably leave them until this fall.


Here’s some chickens:


Here’s a butterfly on a flower:


WHICH NEIGHBOR, LIVING OR DEAD, ARE YOU CALLING FOR HELP?