Category Archives: Farming Update

2025, animals, Farming Update, Uncategorized

A DIZZYING … SOMETHING

September 27, 2025 xdfben 29 Comments

The weekend Farming Update from XDFBen

Not much happening at the farm this week. I got a case of vertigo about Thursday, and I worked half day, and felt like crap the rest of the day. The weekend was pretty much spent in bed. Several years ago Kelly had vertigo for a few weeks, the plain old BPPV, positional vertigo. We tried the head exercises to reset those crystals in my ears, and last Friday they seemed to work. Saturday, oh boy, that just made me feel absolutely terrible. I remember being at the clinic with my Dad when he was maybe 70+. He must have been having dizzy spells because the doc laid him down on the bench and had him turn his head and I can still picture and hear him groaning. Dad, not the doc. And it wasn’t a good Sound. And Dad didn’t want to do that again.

Monday I picked up some motion sickness pills and they’ve helped a lot. Wednesday I was at about 80%, now I think I’m back. I’ve got too much stuff going on to lay around. To quote my favorite movie, ‘All That Jazz’ and the doctor telling Joe Gideon he needs to rest, Joe responds “I GOT A SHOW TO PUT ON! WILL YOU TALK TO THESE PEOPLE?? THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING!”

Anyway, not much happening out in our countryside.

Most corn chopping has finished, and guys doing high moisture corn are working on that. Soybeans will be coming along soon. And from there it’s right into the fall rush.

Tuesday afternoon I did manage to hook the tractor onto the haybine and pull it out of the shed. I need to get the oat fields mowed off before the weeds take over. The last few years, I’d been digging them up after oats, to stop the weeds from sprouting. Then I would plant cereal rye as a cover crop. This year, crop prices and finances being what they are, I decided not to spend the money on rye seed. The cover crop wasn’t a direct cash benefit; it was one of those bigger picture concepts where a person has to realize they’re doing this for the greater good. And I know that, but still… it was another $600 in seed and my time, and fuel, and I just decided to skip it this year. And now I have to mow off the weeds. They’re too big to dig up at this point, and I want to keep the oats growing until winter. The other thing about rye, it had to be sprayed to kill it in the spring. So, there was another expense I decided to avoid.

We got 2” of rain. Rain is always welcome, almost always, but it’s getting late enough in the year, and with harvest approaching, most farmers would rather skip the mud. It’s a tough alternative, rain or no rain. Good thing the weather isn’t left up to farmers.

I hauled in all the old tires I cut off the machinery. Plus a few others I threw on from the shed. There was a corner of the old shed full of old tires. One never knew which tire might be the one we needed to fit whatever it was that went flat. Including a couple tires with such an odd rim, there wasn’t a chance it was gonna fit anything except the 1949 International Harvester baler it came from. The one dad sold in 1968. But we still had a tire for it because you never know. And there’s an old pick-up tire that fell out from under the truck as I was leaving one day, that’s still leaning against the wall in the shed. Why? Just because. I still keep spare tires in that corner, but it’s not such a huge pile anymore. I have 3 or 4 plain old wagon tires, size 9L15’s that fit every wagon and just about every implement on the farm. I should have run the old tires to my favorite tire place in Millville, but that is half hour away and I didn’t have half an hour, so I took them into Rochester and they charged me $6.35 each. Dang. I was sure they had said it was like $6 for a set when I called. At least they’re gone.

The guineas. Remember when they hatched, there was 3 parents taking care of the 13 chicks. And then it was 12 chicks for a while, then 10, 9 for a week, 8 for a week, and now 7. And the other two adults have disappeared. Not sure what’s become of them, or why or how they managed to hang around long enough to get the kids mostly grown up, but they haven’t been spotted in a few weeks now. We were hoping maybe one was sitting on a nest somewhere, but usually we’d have seen them by now. Out behind the barn, near the pole barn, I did find a teenage chick missing a head. Which means raccoons. Did some of them move to the pole barn and raccoons got them out there? I don’t know; haven’t found other carcasses yet. But dang.

The guinea mom, she is a real bully. She chases the chickens away from her kids. Even the roosters.

Working on a show, the Dolly Parton musical “9 to 5”, opens at the Rep theater next weekend. The vertigo kinda messed up my schedule finishing theater projects and working on that show. It will be fine. Que sera sera.

REMEMBER ROLLING DOWN HILLS AS A KID? EVER ROLL IN A TIRE?

2025, Automotive, Farming Update, Food, Nature, Technology, Weather, work

NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR TRUCK ON FIRE–

September 20, 2025 xdfben 49 Comments

THIS WEEKS FARM UPDATE FROM XDFBEN

Kelly commented one day she didn’t know why the handle on the drawer holding the kitchen garbage can always had streaks of something on it. I knew immediately it was probably from the egg I crack every morning, but I didn’t offer that up at the time. She might read it here…

I was making daughters egg cup the other morning. The first egg cracked perfectly, opened perfectly, and I plopped the yoke right into the cup. Went to crack the second egg and the shell pretty much disintegrated, the contents splashed onto the counter and slid right off into the garbage. (Over that handle of course). At which point, as I flailed, I knocked the egg cup with the first egg onto the floor. The dogs were right there for clean up. With luck, Kelly won’t know about that either. Course it was kinda funny so I’ll probably tell her. … at some point…

A few weeks ago, I saw a postal truck dead on the side of the road. The next day I saw it being towed. A few days after that I saw another one being towed. Jeepers. Then there was the semi carrying mail that caught fire on Hwy 52 outside Rochester. I do have to say, mail service to our house seems to be getting better. We’re getting mail before noon, whereas it had been 7PM for a few years. And often now, they’ll bring the mail and a package right to the house. Those of you who’ve been to the farm know that’s not a light task; it’s a long drive out of the way to bring a parcel down to us.

And then just the other day I saw one of the new postal vehicles.

Uh… it’s…. something!

It’s called the ‘Next Generation Delivery Vehicle’. NGDV.

I did some internet searching on them. Here are various headlines and descriptions:

-U.S. POSTAL SERVICE’S UGLY DUCK MAIL TRUCK

-U.S. POSTAL SERVICE’S EV TRUCKS ARE STILL FUNNY-LOOKING, NOW HARDER TO KILL OFF

-The Postal Service’s new delivery vehicles aren’t going to win a beauty contest. They’re tall and ungainly. The windshields are vast. Their hoods resemble a duck bill. Their bumpers are enormous.

– The Oshkosh Next Generation Delivery Vehicles might look like background traffic in a Pixar film

-You can tell that [the designers] didn’t have appearance in mind

-SO MUCH FOR LOOKING COOL WHILE YOU DELIVER THE MAIL*

-It looks like a robot Beluga whale—built by the East German government.*

-Our Grumman mail trucks [The old trucks] look like they were supplied by the government of East Germany and they sound like the tortured exhalations of a hungover water buffalo—hhhhggggggggmmmmmggghhhh. Honey, the mail’s here.*

*https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a35617691/the-new-usps-trucks-so-much-for-looking-cool-while-you-deliver-the-mail/

-Odd appearance aside, the first handful of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles … are getting rave reviews from letter carriers

– The side cargo door allows for direct delivery onto the curb

The drivers really like them. They have AC (Can you believe the old ones didn’t?), airbags, back up camera’s, a 360° camera, collision warning, and most importantly, the tall box allows drivers to walk through without ducking. The current vehicles, made by Grumman, came into service in 1987 and was scheduled for 25 years. They outlived that predicted life. But they are failing. And they seem to catch fire fairly often. Prior to that vehicle was the Jeep DJ-5. The USPS used them during the 1970’s and ‘80’s. I bought a used one from my friend Thom, and he had bought it used from someone else. It was dark green. I drove it for a few years in the mid 1980’s. It was standard left side drive, and I used it when I was a field reporter for the Department of Agriculture. With the sliding door, it was great for holding a measuring wheel out the door and driving around a field. It was just 2-wheel drive, so that wasn’t an option for every field, but it was still kinda cool looking (well, ‘Different’ anyway). Even with the bungee strap holding the back door shut (because if you went over a bump, the back door would pop open) and the steering was so loose you didn’t dare drive over about 55 MPH, but it was fun to drive. Thom had mounted a stereo between the seats, and bolted speakers to the back wall. The metal dash was pretty rudimentary.

img_4674-1 — **Not my jeep, just a representative photo. I wonder why I never took a picture of mine?**

Not too much happening around the farm. I did get the 630 carburetor back on and had it running! It’s quiet enough I could actually hear myself think! It’s not done, I have a few more things to replace. Saving up for the next ‘Old Tractor Part’s Order’.

I got a township call from a sheriff deputy about some junk that had been dumped. Turned out to be two large commercial pizza ovens. Those things are heavy! I called a couple neighbors to help load them. It was all we could do to just tip it up and tip it onto the trailer.

The next day was a sectional couch and mattress to pick up. Just more ditch clean up. Part of the job for a township supervisor. The couch and mattress I haul to county recycling. We know them on a first name basis there. We’re regulars. The pizza ovens I added to my scrap metal trailer.

I finally hauled in the old tires I had cut off those wagons. Took them to a local auto shop and paid ___ for disposal.

Got half an inch of rain Thursday night. More predicted.

Here’s a picture of a chicken because the green shades look so pretty.

**From a distance, they look black. But they have more colors than you’d think, and they are really pretty.**

My summer Padawan has been out working on his car a few times. I helped him for an hour one night and rolling around underneath looking up, down, left, and right acerbated some vertigo I was beginning to get. The next day I sat very still. He’s learning a lot—I hope. He’s certainly at a disadvantage because he’s being self-taught, which is good, but it can be frustrating and it all takes longer. And he’s not quite in the right mindset for that. He’s eighteen so he knows everything already. And he gets frustrated easily with the car. I tried to tell him it’s all part of the job and if he’s gonna get frustrated, he’s in the wrong job. Monday he starts as an employee at a REAL job. A 7AM to 3PM job. We’ll see how that goes. Cross your fingers for him. I give him about a 35% chance of sticking with it. He just has no idea. And it’s going to take a few tries, and I suspect he’s gonna be one of those kids who must hit bottom to figure it out.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT ANY OF THIS?

WHATS THE UGLIEST VEHICLE YOU’VE SEEN?

2025, Family, Farming Update, Food, Gatherings, Seasons, Technology, Weather, work

SEWING PARTY

September 13, 2025 xdfben 64 Comments

This weeks farm update from XDFBen

Sure has been a good year for walnuts based on how many are falling onto our deck and deck table. We have to be careful walking out there or they will bonk us on the head. We have one Horse Chestnut tree back there, too. I planted it from a seed I picked up at our church when I was a kid. Mom says I dug it up every couple days to see if it was growing and it’s a wonder it ever grew. It has a lot of chestnuts on it this year. I like how smooth they are and the rich dark brown of the nuts. (I glued a bunch onto a chair to look like barnacles when we did ‘The Little Mermaid’ at the college).

The other day I picked up daughter and we went home. Two hours later I was going to take her back into town, so I didn’t want to get myself into too much trouble. Don’t get your clothes dirty, I told myself. I backed the hay rack into the shed in case it rained (which it didn’t) but If I had left it out, the 8 bales on it for the next PossAbilities hayride would have gotten rained on for sure.

And then I thought to myself, don’t go dig a hole for the new concrete because if it rains, you’ll have a hole full of water. And then I went and dug a hole. I didn’t mean to, I meant to just clean up the edges using the tractor loader but I kind of got carried away. I took the excavated dirt back behind the machine shed as I’m building up that area for the lean-to, which is next summer’s project. There was that tree branch hanging down in my way. Course it was coming from 20’ up in a box elder tree and the loader bucket only reaches up 18’. So, I pushed the whole tree over. That’s the thing about box elder trees, they don’t have much of a root to them, and when the ground is wet like this, it’s pretty easy to push one over. A smart person will pay attention to the top of the tree so it doesn’t fall back onto the tractor. I’m grateful I have a cab that is designed to protect the occupant, but I’ve broken a lot of headlights and mirrors pretending I’m in a bulldozer rather than a farm tractor. I pushed that tree over, which leaned onto another tree, so pushed that one over too. None of this was the reason I went outside, but I was in the tractor and didn’t get my clothes dirty.

The third group from PossAbilites had a much warmer day for a hayride. I took a longer route, up on the hills. One kid didn’t want to get out of the van, and that’s alright. A staff member stayed back with them.

Last Saturday we hosted a “Combo Welcome & Movie/Pizza on the Farm Night” for Kelly’s work people, the staff and trainee’s in the Pathology division. It rained during the day and it took some effort to get the bonfire started, and we decided to have the movie in the machine shed because it was darn chilly outside. It was a good group, they ate a lot of pizza and popcorn, and they made a good dent in the 8 gallon rootbeer keg. The movie was our favorite, ‘Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’.

You know, back when daughter graduated from high school we got a rootbeer keg. That was the first time I ever tapped a keg. My brother isn’t sure how we’re related if I had never tapped a keg before. So now I’ve tapped 2 kegs! Both rootbeer. My brother says I’ll be ready for actual beer next.

At the college I’ve been working on shirt sleeves. Swapped sleeves from some shirts to other shirts, and shortened them enough they still qualify as sleeves to keep admin happy, but not long enough to bug me. And this summer my nephew-in-law Justin gave me a Hawaiian shirt, with the sleeves cut off, because he had described me as “flowery”. In a good way! It didn’t have a pocket, but he dug one of the sleeves out of the garbage, and I added a pocket. All told, I swapped 4 sets of shirt sleeves. I’m not very good at sewing. I can manage, but it isn’t pretty. Good thing the seams are inside.

Sewing is sort of like construction. Just with other tools. When I was a kid, mom would let me fill the bobbin. I always loved threading the machine, and the bobbin on the little spindle that would “pop” over when full fascinated me for whatever mysterious reason. I didn’t bother changing thread on these sleeves. I picked a purple thread that matched some of the sleeves, and a teal colored bobbin thread and I just used them for everything because I like the colors. I tried using pins but I struggled more than one would expect with pins. It made me think of the strawberry pin cushion mom had. I wondered if I should get a pin cushion for the costume room, as opposed to the box of pins in there now. A magnetic one? Do I think it really matters?? I thought about thimbles too, and playing with them. And I had happy memories of mom. You never know do you; you let your kid do something, and 50 years later they’re swapping shirt sleeves.

Every mechanic knows you don’t tighten up all the bolts until everything is assembled and yet here I was struggling with getting the bolts lined up on the manifold for the 630. And there’s three gaskets in the middle of all of this and they shift and move while trying to get it all in place. There are six bolts that attach the intake and exhaust manifold to the tractor, and four bolt that hold the intake to the exhaust. I tightened the four bolts first, which is why I couldn’t get the other six all in place. I messed with it for an hour trying this that and some other things. Finally realized I had tightened those bolts. I loosened them, got all six bolts in place, THEN tightened everything up. Just like a professional.

Yeah, I should have put gloves on. Usually I do, this time I got ahead of my self. Between the black gasket maker goop, and the silver ‘Never-seez’ I put on the bolts, it took a while to clean my hands when I was done. all that fussing and I never got grumpy or mad about it. And that’s interesting. I have such a pleasant time working in the shop. Course working on the 630, part of that is, as I told Kelly, when I was milking cows usually I was fixing something because it was broke and I needed it and I didn’t have time to be messing around. I just needed the darn thing fixed ASAP to get on with whatever. But this is sort of a ‘just because’ repair so there’s no pressure– other than my mechanic for the carburetor asking me if I have the tractor running yet, so now I feel like he’s judging me. Other than that, no pressure. And I like that.

SEWING BY HAND AND THIMBLES AND PIN CUSHIONS. WHAT ABOUT THEM? WHAT PIN CUSHION SHOULD I GET?

2025, animals, Farming Update, Kids, Mysteries, Nature, Science, Seasons, Stories, Travel, Weather, work

THEN THIS HAPPENED

September 6, 2025 xdfben 56 Comments

This weeks Farming Update from Ben.

When I started the rough draft of this blog Thursday, I didn’t have much farm stuff to talk about. Now Friday afternoon and I’ve got a few farm related things.

I needed some straw bales for Friday. First of the 2025 crop to be used and climbing up into the straw pile and trying to hit the truck bed was a challenge.

**Trying to aim under the rafter and get the bales in the truck bed.**

We hosted daughters group, PossAbilities, and gave them a wagon ride through the fields. Kinda cold and windy, but they had blankets, Kelly made hot chocolate for them when they returned, and they enjoyed it.

I hauled in the scrap iron on Thursday. The wagons I pulled out of the trees and scrapped last week.

The net weight of the scrap was 3200 lbs.

The cranes are always fun to watch. My goodness, the amount of scrap is overwhelming. Juxtaposed with such a pretty blue sky!

I took secondary roads there, and I took gravel back roads most of the way home. I saw two Bald Eagles eating something that left a pretty good sized red spot in the field. I saw more of those ‘Bigfoot’ silhouettes. A few farmers are starting to chop some corn, and lots of guys are doing 3^rd or 4^th crop hay.

A couple months ago when our fridge died, we purged a lot, and moved a lot to the basement chest freezer and spare fridge downstairs. I still haven’t figured out why the new freezer section upstairs is so empty. What happened to all that stuff?? I thought we needed it? Isn’t that a story for our times…”But, I need that!” No, evidently, no you don’t.

One of the things missing from the upstairs freezer was the last loaf of chocolate chip Amish friendship bread I had made back in March. Most of us freeze and savor those summer time flavors in January. Here in September I’m remembering last winter. I didn’t think I’d have thrown it out as I know the chocolate is bad for dogs. The chickens would have loved it, but I just didn’t remember doing that. Took a month, but I found it in a bag in the chest freezer and I’ve been enjoying it. It’s not as dried out as I thought it might be, and I look forward to baking more this winter.

When I was researching how to remove those old tires last week, I saw one video where the guy talked about using diamond tipped cutting blades. The cheap abrasive cut-off blades I can buy at big box stores wear away quick. They’re about $3 each, but as the name implies, ‘abrasive cut off’, meaning they wear out as fast as they’re cutting. Cutting off the 16 tires I used 4 small, 4” wheels, and one 7” wheel. So I went shopping online for diamond tipped wheels. An “Indestructible” wheel comes in a 5 pack. Well, Huh. You see where I’m going with this? If… then why…?

I ordered a 3 pack of diamond tipped cut off wheels. We’ll see what happens when I get to the next set of old tires.

(There might be a photo here if I remember to go out to the shed and take a photo)

I REMEMBERED!

**Abrasive disc on the top, diamond disc on the bottom**

Kelly and I have a joke that I can’t find anything if you’re going to put it under my nose. This morning it was my cell phone. It was 6” away from where I was looking. No wonder I couldn’t find it. I had to borrow daughters phone to call mine and track it down. I was the kid with my mittens attached to my sleeves…Why is that getting worse instead of better?

We’ve talked before about that magic ten minutes in the morning. Every. Morning. It was later than usual one morning. Daughter and I got in the car to leave and she says “I was pretty fast this morning, wasn’t I.” Uh. Not really. But I don’t know why. Maybe it was petting the dogs longer than we should have. Which seems like a pretty good excuse. One night she was mad at me for not letting her do something. She begged and pleaded and then stormed off yelling “YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD!” I replied, “Actually, biology has nothing to do with this.” and then I got the giggles. She didn’t think it was so funny but a few minutes later we talked it over. She gets over stuff quick. I like that.

Last weekend Kelly and I attended a wedding in St. Paul. It was at a relatively new wedding venue called Le VENERÉ. A pretty nice place. Newly remodeled. The Groom told me when they toured it in February it was full of scaffolding. It is an old building with a really cool stone foundation. They had a 1920’s ‘Speakeasy’ theme and encouraged people to dress the part. I wore sleeves. And after looking up 1920’s styles, just decided to order a cheap 1970’s style ruffled shirt like I had in high school. It came with a bow tie that wouldn’t fit around my fat neck, so I just wore it on my sleeve. Kelly and I drove up Friday and had a weekend vacation. We had a great time at the wedding with friends.

**The groom and I. He is a former college student.**

OXYMORONS?

2025, animals, Automotive, Business, education, Farming Update, gardening, History, Mysteries, Nature, pets, Technology, Weather, work

TIRED

August 30, 2025 xdfben 59 Comments

This week’s farm report from XDFBen

Going to work early one morning and there was the football team, under the stadium lights, all in uniform, having practice. Whew, I think early morning practices would be tough. Like getting up to exercise.

We saw a “V” of geese flying over one day.

Later I listened to about 2 dozen barn swallows gathered on an electric line chittering and chattering and having quite the discussion about when and where to go. Although the ‘where’ is pretty well defined, at least in general. South. Everybody. Just head south.

Kelly got one of those hotel sales calls that would take us someplace south if we just listened to a sales pitch. We don’t like to make hasty decisions, and I didn’t realize the salesperson was on hold while Kelly and I talked a few times. Then the salesperson’s manager came on and tried to shame Kelly for keeping the person on the phone for so long and not immediately just saying ‘Yes’. Snort. Give her attitude, will you? Click.

We will not be going south.

I had my first day of class. Forensic Chemistry. It’s a hybrid class, meaning a lot of it is done online, then we meet Wednesdays for lab. My friend Paul is taking a writing class. Here’s our first day of class photo.

I got the front end off the wagon where the wheels went wonky.

It’s not supposed to look like this. I have a nephew, Matt, who is a welder. He’ll be coming to look at it and see if it’s salvageable. A lot of cracks and old welds where the axle attaches to the frame. Old welds must be mine, but I don’t remember fixing this.

Mid-September there will be another online auction in Plainview. Last week when I dragged all the old machinery out of the trees, I pulled out a pretty nice disc. I had used it for several years until I got something bigger and better. I cleaned the disc up, greased it, and towed it to the auction.

It is 20’ wide so I took up most of the road and part of the shoulder. I try to take the back roads when I do this sort of thing, but I have to get to the back roads first. Most traffic was pretty respectful. I had the SMV sign on the back, and I bought two magnetic flashing lights, one for the front corner, and one for the back corner. I travelled about 25 MPH. When able, I’d pull over and let traffic pass me.

Then I got to the road where they were painting new lines on the road. And putting cones down. I knocked over the first two cones before I figured out how far I needed to move over. And I scared a couple garbage cans. But I got it there in one piece.

The next day I took in a 24’ bale elevator, but that was on a trailer and wasn’t any big deal.

Several times, Kelly and I would go outside planning to do “this” and we’d go off and do “that” instead. And we’d laugh, “This isn’t what I came out to do…” Yep, but it needed doing anyway.

I picked an ear of corn.

It’s filled to the tip, which means it had ideal growing conditions. Any stress and the plant aborts the kernels at the top. This one was 40 kernels long, and 16 around. (It’s always an even number around). So 40 x16 = 640 kernels x 30,000 (plants / acre) = 19,200,00 kernels in an acre / 90,000 (kernels in a bushel) = 213 bushel / acre. Never in my life have I had a crop that good. This won’t be either. Factor in the deer, the raccoons, the clay or rocky spots, the trees on the edges… and I might actually make 180 bu / acre. We shall remain cautiously optimistic.

The soybeans are looking great.

Notice these extra leaves and pods on the top? Again, terrific growing season. The deer just haven’t found this plant yet… that’s what they’re eating off is all the tender bonus growth on the top.

One evening I burned a brush pile. Later, Kelly and I sat in the gator and enjoyed the fire.

I removed the tires from the rims on the old junk wagons. I watched some YouTube videos how to do this quick and easy. They were using car tires that didn’t have innertubes, and they hadn’t been sitting in the trees for 30 years. But I figured it out. Cut it open with a Sawzall, then use a grinder to cut the bead cable. Removed 16 tires.

One didn’t have a tube! Just about every farm tire has an innertube in it. And most of the tubes had patches on them. It made me smile, and feel a little nostalgic. Dad or I had these tires apart before and patched a hole. If you don’t know, getting a tire off the rim is difficult if you don’t have the fancy tire machines. The bead, that inner ring of the tire, has a steel cable in it, and that’s what holds the tire on the rim. And it seals tight and it’s a pain to get off with hand tools. Dad took off a lot of tires, patched the tube, and put the tire back on. You have to get the bead to seal. I have done a lot of tires, too. But now days, with the tire goop stuff you can just pour inside, I don’t take so many apart; I’m not subjecting the wagons and tires to the wear I did when milking cows and making hay. And, like I mentioned last week, I’ll often just go get a new tire before replacing the tube. Working smarter, not harder.

Some of the junk was two old flare boxes. Wagons we used for hauling ear corn or oats. I haven’t used them in a lot of years. The floors are rotted out and frames are too small and lightweight to be reused. It’s just scrap.

WHAT IS THE FURTHEST SOUTH YOU’VE BEEN?

STORIES ON CHANGING TIRES?

2025, Business, Farming Update, History, Music, Nature, Travel

THINGS ARE DROPPING

August 23, 2025 xdfben 64 Comments

This weeks farm report from Ben

I’ve noticed some soybean fields just starting to turn yellow. Kelly says the barn swallows are grouping up. And acorns are dropping. All that probably means something.

Crop prices keep dropping, too. Due to predictions of good yields across the corn belt. Locally, corn is under $3.50 / bushel, and soybeans are under $10. That’s a tough place to be. My direct costs to grow and harvest corn is roughly $400 / acre, and for soybeans about $300 / acre. Not knowing how the fall will shape up, or what drying costs might be, we’re speculating on final yields and prices. Making conservative estimates of $3.00 / bu final price means I’d need 133 bu / acre to cover costs. And that should be doable. Optimistically I’d have 180 bu / acre. That would leave me $273/ acre to cover repair costs, fuel, interest, crop insurance, pay off the loans, make payments on long term debt, ect. Soybeans work out the same way, just different numbers. Neither is in the bin yet, so we’ll see. This is why I have a few other jobs. To support my farming hobby. (eye roll)

Last weekend Padawan and I did a bunch of stuff. We packed the wheel bearings with grease and took the other wheel hub apart to replace those bearings. Both rear tires were wore out; one was on borrowed time. A few days later I went to Appel Service in Millville MN with the two wagon tires, a tire from the plow I had replace this spring, and another tire I found in the shop that I haven’t remember what it’s for yet. I’ve talked about Appels before; we’ve been taking tires to them for years and years. It’s about 25 minutes away. Great guys and a great drive.

I forgot to buy the dust seals for the axel hubs, which I picked up on Monday, but I had padawan reinstall the hub, even without the dust seal, just so he could see how you tighten it up and put the cotter pin in it. He had no idea what a cotter pin was. If you don’t know, it’s a split pin, length varies: length and the diameter as needed, and once through the hole, you bend the sides to prevent whatever you’re holding from coming off. I have some pins that are 1/4” diameter and 2” long and some tiny ones 1/2” long and 1/32″ diameter.

Then we drained the coolant and he replaced the radiator hose on the old John Deere 630. I had him pull the carburetor off. He is too young to know what a carburetor does. We changed the oil, oil filter, and the air filters on the big tractor, the 8200. It has two air filters; The biggest is about the size of a 5 gallon bucket. He was really impressed with that. Then a smaller inner air cleaner. He went home and cleaned up, and came back out with his girlfriend, who chased down her pet chicken, and they stayed for pizza with us. The kids, not the chicken.

I have been working on the 630 exhaust manifold. Got the bolts out and the manifold off! Heated it with a torch, just like my friend Tim J. said. Would you believe there’s another Tim J?? He’s not too much like this tim j. but that one knows a lot about old tractors. The two bolts that were broken off, I welded nuts on the top (to make a bolt head again) and they came right out! I couldn’t believe it!

**Heating the castings to break the rust**

Took me a while to find my welding stuff as I haven’t needed that in the new shop yet. the old welder on the bottom, newer welder on the top. That old welder, maybe from the 1950’s? has taught several of us how to weld. Dad taught me and some of my nephews. The oxy-acetelyne torch to the right, I’ve had since 1982. I learned how to use a gas welder in high school shop class and mom and dad bought me this one for my 18th birthday.

Friday morning I went to pick up a really nice long reach 5 ton hydraulic floor jack that I got at an auction.

Then to Millville to pick up the 4 tires I had dropped off earlier in the week. I took a random gravel road, 592^ndstreet out of Millville, and had a great drive, all by myself, following the Zumbro river to the North. It was a great drive! I wasn’t sure where I was, and there was no cell signal down there along the hills, but eventually the road looped back to the south and I found my way home.

The truck seemed to be riding rougher than it had earlier and the tread was separating on a front tire. Thankfully it got me home, and I jacked it up (using the new jack) and went back to Millville with the truck tires. Another great drive with no one else on the road, Just the way I like it. It was about 4:15 on Friday when I got there and the shop was pretty quiet. Paul and Dan took the tires off, Jim got me two new ones, and they mounted and balanced them, and I was headed back home in about 20 minutes. I sure do like going to Millville. Good thing I’m employed again since I spent $1200 on tires Friday.

My brother came out and we took 100 bales of straw off the wagon with the broken front end, and put them on another wagon. Then I put 20 bales in the truck for delivery on Saturday, and the last 52 bales on a trailer. Perhaps Saturday I’ll get the front wheels off and see what’s really broken on there. Right after I put the two new tires back on the other wagon.

And I pulled out a disk I’m not using anymore to take to an auction next week. I pulled a bunch of junk out of the trees last week. Two old flare boxes, an old elevator, an old digger, and a 24’ bale elevator that I will also take to the auction. There wasn’t trees growing through them when I parked them there… that’s how long some of it has been there. Time to go.

Music this week is Nina Simone. I recently heard ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”

WHAT MUSIC IS GIVING YOU A LIFT THIS WEEK?

MOST COMMON FRIEND NAME IN YOUR PHONE?

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What Mystery is this?

August 16, 2025 xdfben 46 Comments

The weekend farm report from Ben

Welcome to the sick house. We all have colds. You should buy stock in tissues. My head is all fogged up so who knows what may come out in this…course that hasn’t stopped me running heavy machinery.

After last week and breaking things, I made some progress on repairing things this week. And I don’t think I’ve broken any more. Yet. (Never say never). I replaced the lift cable on the bale elevator and got that repaired. On the hay wagon I got the remaining pieces of the wheel bearings out of the hub, meaning I got both the inner and outer bearing race removed, which, thankfully, had identification numbers on them, and a local place could use that to find the correct bearings. We double checked dimensions and I got four bearings; a set for both back wheels and the plan is to have one of my padawans help me install on Saturday. It will be a good experience for him to ‘pack’ grease into a bearing. It’s not hard, but there is a process, and it is messy.
It’s supposed to be hot on Saturday, so I’m planning a shop day. We’ll put the old John Deere 2 cylinder tractor, the 630, in the shop, drain the coolant and replace a radiator hose, take off the carburetor (for one of my friends to deep clean) and we’ll see what else we can get into. I’d like to replace the exhaust manifold, and those bolts will be difficult to remove as I’m not sure they’ve been out in 50 or 60 years, and through innumerable heating and cooling cycles. I’m told to heat the area red hot, let it cool for a few hours, then smack it with a hammer. That may work on some of the bolts, but on two of them, the heads are broken off, meaning the usual method is to weld a nut to the broken off bit. I’ve never tried that. I’ve seen it done successfully, just never tried it. We shall see.

Looks like we’ve lost 1 baby guinea. Still got 11.

Some of the baby guineas. They’re pigeon sized.

And they sure get around. Often when I leave in the morning, the three mom’s and them are half a mile up the road, hanging out on the edge of a corn field. By evening they’re all back home. Weird. And there’s been one pheasant hanging out around the barn.
Now that the oats is out and straw baled, I’ve been mowing the edges of those fields. Cutting down weeds I couldn’t get to while the crop was growing. And I mowed the new waterway. The barn swallows sure loved me doing that. It was fun watching a couple dozen of them flirting around.

You can kinda see the barn swallows fliting around.

On Wednesday this week I drove to the twin cities to pick up some lighting stuff for the college. I have mentioned before that my favorite Bob Dylan song is ‘Tangled up in Blue’. I don’t often listen to song words or meanings, but that one appeals to me. I love a good story, and one of love lost tugs at my heartstrings. I was aware of two versions of the song, Dylan’s and Joan Osborn’s. Then I heard of this guitar player who was recently in the cities by the name of Billy Strings, and he does a cover. So I started looking for his version. It’s on YouTube, but not Apple music yet. However I found several other versions.

I spent half the trip up, and the entire trip back listening to these different versions of the same song. The differences were really interesting to me. I really like the rhythm of the song, the tempo, the structure, and, depending on the version, the instrumentation or harmonies. A group called Grain Thief has a bluegrass version. The Indigo Girls have a section that drops into a solid blues verse. KT Tunstall’s gritty, throaty voice gives it a different vibe. Then there’s Mary Lee’s Corvette, who I hadn’t heard of before this, and she’s got a good rocking version. Jerry Garcia’s Band has a version complete with guitar jam. Bob Malone does a ROCKING bluesy version that I really liked (And a solo piano version available on YouTube). Robyn Hitchcock is just guitar and piano with a very folk / blues sound. A few are simply guitar, one starts as piano before adding the full band (and I really like a song that grows like that.) There was one version that seemed to be punk rock or something. I only got 20 seconds into it before deleting. Overall, the different guitar sounds, the slightly changed lyrics, the interpretation of each artist was fascinating to me and I still am not tired of this song after listening to it 58 times.

We have these fuel barrels for the farm: a 300 gallon barrel of gasoline that’s up on a stand so it’s gravity fed. And a 500 gallon for diesel fuel that’s electric and has a pump. The automatic nozzles like you use at the gas station don’t work on gravity feed, the only work with a pump, so it was a big deal when, however many years ago I got a used barrel from a neighbor and went from gravity to a pump on the diesel barrel. I rented a trencher and ran an electric line across the driveway from the shop to the barrel and then could buy one of those automatic shut off nozzles. When I needed to refill the tractor the other day, I started the fuel flowing, went to the house to grab a snack, and got back to the tractor two seconds before the fuel stopped. I remember a few times with the gravity system and we used a big square nut to hold the lever up and then I would go to the shop and get distracted and I spilled a few gallons… I appreciate not having to worry about that anymore.

The header photo and that hole in the ground? I dug up the cover of the septic tank. Bailey helped.

We got the tank pumped out. It’s been on my ‘to-do’ list for a couple years. Also got a riser installed so the cover isn’t 2 feet underground anymore. Digging it up on Thursday I was thinking that is going to be a really good thing.

SIMPLE CONVIENCES YOU APPRECIATE?

AND MUSIC-

FAVORITE COVER SONG?

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ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER

August 9, 2025 xdfben 21 Comments

The weekend farm report from XDFBen

ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER

Wow, Man, what a week again. Thursday night I hit a gumption trap so hard, I had a rootbeer float and popcorn for supper…

We have baby guineas! I had seen one sitting on a nest behind the machine shed a few weeks ago, and we talked about getting the eggs into an incubator but never got too it. Next time I looked the nest was empty and there were broken eggs. Momma was nowhere to be found, and we feared the worst. A week later I saw her and a bunch of chicks heading into a corn field. Typically, guineas are not the best moms. But this group seems to ‘community parent’ and they’re doing surprisingly well.

As you can image, the real world is a tough place for a little chick. They could fall into a hole, they could get eaten or lost. It’s a tough place. But yeah, they’re doing well and getting big enough they might just make it. They’re not quite pigeon sized, and they hop and flutter and there’s always that one that’s six feet away and running to catch up.

I cut down a bunch of box elder tree’s growing over a fence down around the barn yard. Treated all the stumps. Then tore out the old feed bunk augers and cement bunks. Don’t need them anymore and it will help open up the yard.

Dad built the first silo in 1968 and installed these augers. When the second silo was built in 1976, the whole feed bunk was turned 90 degrees and the cement bunks installed. Then it was 1978 when I stuck my leg into this.

The augers I stuck my leg in. Hard to visualize from this picture how it was set up when working. I’m just really lucky.

As I tore it out, I thought about that. I don’t harbor any resentment. These bunks fed a LOT of cattle over the years and provided for two families. They served their purpose well.

I put the forklift extensions on and used the loader forks to lift the old bunks out. I expected animals to be living under them, but nope, nothing. I’ve been asked why I’m doing this, and to what end? Just to clean up. There is no end goal. It would never be used again, why save it?

The oats got harvested Friday and Saturday. Yield wasn’t very good, the oats didn’t even fill a semi. Ended up at 735 bushels, meaning about 31 bu / acre. According to the oat people on FB, oats has been all over the place this year. At least the test weight was 34.6 meaning the elevator would take it. Wasn’t heavy enough to be food grade, nor was it enough bushels to mess around with.

Lots of straw! I ended up with 900 small square bales. Put 700 in the barn.

The hole in the middle is where the elevator was.

I had the three teenage boys helping and I couldn’t have done it without them. They were great. The one doing the most work, number 3, (and treated as the odd wheel out by the first two for some reason), had a broken toe (dropped a barbell weight on his foot). Ah, the teenage mentality.

I baled 3 loads of straw on Monday, the boys came out Tuesday and we unloaded the first two, just throwing them into the empty barn. Then we put the elevator up and unloaded the third. I baled three more loads Tuesday afternoon.

Wednesday, I started back at the college. You know what that means. Sleeves.

The boys came out at 5PM and we unloaded those three loads. 700 in the barn. Full enough. Haven’t had it this full in a few years. The boys rode in the wagon and we went to the field to bale up another load. And to stack this one as it will sit for a few months until the neighborhood berry farm is ready for it. I’d put one kid in the tractor with me, and the other two stacked on the wagon. I only hit one kid with a bale. He moved! I was aiming to the side and as the bale kicked, he stepped to that side. Oops. He was OK. Straw is light.

I’d have them rotate positions so they all got to ride in the tractor (and the AC) and they all thought it was pretty neat in there too.

Number 2 and 3 Padawan’s stacking in wagon. Number 1 is in the tractor with me.

Pretty proud of themselves. I couldn’t have done it without them.

I noticed on Friday, one of the rear wheel bearings on a wagon is gone. So that wagon is out of service until I can get new bearings. Hopefully it hasn’t damaged the wheel hub or axle.

And then Wednesday night, backing the stacked wagon into the shed, and the front wheels are not aligned. What the heck?? Tie rods are bend. Jeepers. Not sure when or how that happened. And I moved it a bit more to back it in and one wheel goes completely sideways. Well heck.

So, I pulled that wagon in backward to at least get it under cover and out of the way. More repairs. Add it to the list.

AND THEN- Thursday evening and I’m taking down the bale elevator and the lift cable snapped and it all fell to the ground. Words were said. It didn’t break anything. It was about 8’ up and I was lowing it to transport height of about 6’ when it dropped. I dragged it to the shop and Kelly and I worked on it for an hour. Gumption traps were hit several times until I blocked it up with an old pallet and we called it a night. So that’s three things. I should be done now for a while. Right?

Corn and soybeans look great! We have reached the point we cannot make any more management decisions to help the crop. The last thing done was aerial application of fungicide. Now the crop just has to finish out the season. One neighbor called me upset about aerial application too close to his house. I understand that and will take steps in the future to create a buffer zone. However, by the time it gets from me to the agronomist to the company to the pilot, I’m not sure what will actually happen. Not an excuse, just warning him a lot is out of my control.

DID SOMEONE HAVE THEIR EYE ON YOU AS A CHILD?

WHAT WOULD YOU TELL YOUR TEENAGE SELF?

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WHERE IN THE WORLD IS FARMER BEN?

August 2, 2025 xdfben 23 Comments

This weeks farm report from Ben.

I finished lighting the show in Chatfield last week, in time to fly out on Saturday with Kelly and our daughter. Kelly had a work conference and we got to travel along and amuse ourselves for a few days.
I was under the impression that taxi drivers were always better than Uber / Lyft because they are more professional and know the roads better. But that plan falls apart if they’re all independent taxi’s and they all seem to need to enter the address in their phones anyway. And they tell me they’ve lived here multiple years, so it makes me wonder why they don’t know their way around yet? But whatever. Our first driver was crazy; drove like a maniac and told me he liked American women and big boobs! Second taxi was a nicer driver, but his car broke down and when daughter and I came out of the Butterfly Pavilion he was sitting right where he had left us. He called a friend of his to take us back to town. And the taxi back to the airport was a nice guy with sheet metal screws holding his car door together. Resourcefulness!

Daughter and I had a good time walking around downtown and there was lots to see. I took lots of photos of old buildings. The day we saw the butterflies, that only took an hour. We never got going too early in the day, because we were on vacation after all. I was surprised that I could out-walk daughter. It was as hot there as it was back in MN, but less humidity, so that was nice. I didn’t expect it to be that hot. I found it interesting so many restaurants and bars had wide open windows or garage doors and yet there was very few bugs. One bartender told us they really spray the place down at night, but she said there was less flies this year than usual.

On Wednesday Kelly gave a presentation on Laughter Yoga. I snuck in the back and watched. It was well received, the group liked it, and she had several good loud laughers, so that got the rest of the group going.

She picked up some swag for me with the catch phrase: “Wicked Smaht Pathologists” and a link to their group. It makes me laugh. If you need a pathologist, you’re gonna want one that’s Wicked Smaht.

We had a young lady staying at the house to deal with dogs overnight while we were gone, and some other friends that would take care of chickens and eggs and amuse the dogs during the day. They said, “Bailey and Humphrey make us want dogs. Luna reminds why we don’t have a dog.”

And on the way home, in the MSP airport, the gate agent was a girl I went to high school with and hadn’t seen in 40 years. We had a little reunion right there at the gate for 15 seconds. It was nice to see her again.

Last week as I was headed to Chatfield one night, I saw, walking on the side of the road, three nuns in full black habits with the veil and headpiece. I had to double take, and double take again. This was out in the country. A few days later, Facebook, of course, provided the answer. There is an old order Catholic Church in the area and they have been seen coming from there. Well that explains it. Sure did make me wonder though. And then, ten days later, I saw two more nuns in full habits. But that was outside a Catholic Church, and they were selling baked goods at a street fair. Although when I saw them, they were packing up. I saw them pulling the totes with the collapsible tents up the street. I hadn’t seen a nun in full habit for years and now here was twice!

You all had that big storm come through on Monday night with high winds… the oats got beat up. Yep, sure did. Maybe 50% of it down. We didn’t get any hail so nothing threshed out on the ground, it’s just broken off and lying down and it makes it more difficult to pick up for harvest.

The plan is to start harvesting Friday. Going to try taking it straight- meaning I don’t swath it and lay it in windrows first. A lot of guys do take it straight. When we have tried it in the past it didn’t work so well… we shall see. I have the swather ready just in case.

The soybeans are waist tall and looking good. At least some of them. They don’t all look this good, but some of them.

There’s a guy on YouTube goes by ‘Bushel Billy’, from the Ohio area and he was talking about a corn issue with a certain variety, in extreme weather conditions, having “tassel wrap” meaning the last leaf doesn’t unwrap from the tassel. So of course if the tassel can’t open up to shed pollen, it’s going to be tough to get all the kernels (silks) pollinated. It takes 90,000 kernels to make a bushel. Hence 90K pollen grains to 90K silks are needed. He pointed out how after pollination the silks turn brown and detach from the kernel after pollination. I didn’t know that and I had to check it out myself.

Notice how many silks are loose. Just a few on the tip still stuck.

HUH!
Sweet corn would be so much easier if the silks would detach.

CORN SWEAT SEASON AGAIN

July 26, 2025 xdfben 37 Comments

This weeks farming update.

Sure, blame the corn for the humidity.

According to the weather channel email I received on Thursday, an acre of corn releases 3000 gallons of water into the air every day. It’s “evapotranspiration”. A quick google search shows multiple newspaper articles blaming corn for the humid weather. I am tempted to call it misleading. I mean I don’t like the humidity either, but is it really all the corn’s fault? Data from the Ohio State University Extension office in 2024 says corn sweat is not contributing MEANINGFUL levels of humidity. More humidity is brought in by weather systems with southerly winds and bringing humidity from the Gulf of Mexico. The greatest amount of water usage by a corn plant is during tasseling and flowering, which is where we are at in SE MN. My corn just started tasseling this week. (And again, I am so amazed at how it all works! The silks emerge at the same time!) After tasseling, water usage in the corn decreases. All plants have some form of transpiration and evaporation. Don’t blame it all on the farmer and my corn.

The header photo by Kelly is soybean flowers. Soybeans are looking good and coming along.

This week I have been either finishing the projects at the Rep, or down in Chatfield lighting ‘Shrek’, the musical for Wits End Theater. Lots of road time. And with the main route to Chatfield, Highway 52 South closed at I90, I’ve been taking other routes. Sometimes Highway 7 through Eyota to 52, sometimes Highway 10 through Dover to the East side of Chatfield. Usually County Rd 19 through Marion to 52, or my favorite, County Road 1 through Simpson, past the Root River County Park, down in the valley over the North branch of the Root River and Fugles Mill, through Pleasant Grove, and into the west side of Chatfield. I try not to take the same road home as there.

I still haven’t gotten the oats harvested. It got mostly ripe but still had some green in it and that’s where it’s been sitting for 2 weeks. Rain and thunderstorms the last few days have caused more of it to go down. A lot of oats has been taken out. The Oat Mafia FB page says a lot of guys are finding it wetter than preferred. And there are some photos that show a stark reminder of the benefits of applying the fungicides. Fields without are broken and flat, while the fields with it are standing well.

img_4137-1 — **No fungicide on left, fungicIde on right.** PHOTO COUTESY OF THE OAT MAFIA FB PAGE

Oh, then our refrigerator died on Wednesday. I had noticed the freezer temp was 33 degree’s in the morning, and I thought maybe it was just defrosting. That afternoon it was at 39. We took everything to the basement chest freezer and I put a thermometer in the fridge. I laid on the floor and vacuumed off the coils and used the long narrow cleaning brush to dig out as much dust and gunk as I could. A repair guy was consulted and it was not given much hope. By that night, Kelly emptied the fridge, taking it to the downstairs smaller fridge. That little basement fridge was originally purchased as the “egg fridge”, but it has since become the pop fridge. Thanks goodness we have it. It’s a little no-name fridge that just keeps chugging along. Daughter is very put out that we don’t have the regular fridge upstairs. She insists it is still working and I’ve had to rescue her food and take it to the basement fridge a couple times. Thursday morning I went fridge scouting. The salesguy, Randy, his first question was counter depth or regular? “Uh….” Then he asked me what color? “Uh….” Did we want ice and water in the door? “Uh….” I didn’t have any of that information. My only question to him was ‘”Which ones have the better interior lighting like our old one?” That local store is where we’ve purchased appliances since we got married. They had a delivery slot open for Friday afternoon. I’ll take that one! And I sent Kelly some photos. We met there in the afternoon and agreed on a fridge for Friday.

Priorities, you know? When I checked with Kelly, her only priority was double doors. Yep, that was all I looked at. And freezer at the bottom. And good lighting. Beyond that, I didn’t know.

I hate having too many choices, so thankfully that only left us three choices, and if you remove the $12,000 model, well, I sent Kelly photos of those two.

By Friday evening daughter should be back in her happy place and we’ll have a new fridge with nice interior lighting.

IS YOUR REFRIGERATOR RUNNING?

WHAT ARE YOUR APPLIANCE PRIORITIES?

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