The childhood song has been going through my head. Husband is 72. Boommate and I are 68. Between the three of us, I think we have one functional body (but three functional brains).
Husband has arthritis and carpal tunnel issues in both hands. Boommate has had both knees replaced. She also had a shoulder repair after getting knocked over by a horse. I was doing pretty well until recently when I seem to have developed arthritis in both my shoulders that has greatly reduced my range of motion and caused a lot of pain. The sciatica issues for me are manageable and just intermittent. I have a broken toe that healed crooked and is totally numb.
It has been interesting seeing how we have managed to get gardening and moving chores done cooperatively. I am the only one who can crawl on my hands and knees. That means I can get down really low and weed and plant and plug things in. Boommate and Husband are taller than I am, so they can stretch and reach things that I can’t. Boommate and I have great manual dexterity to counter Husband’s hand problems. Husband is very strong and can carry stuff we can’t. It is all working out!
How are you joints and tendons these days? What chores are you doling out to others? What is the best team you ever worked with?
The iris is my favorite flower; I have always loved them. It’s probably an inherited trait; I’m pretty sure it was one of my mother’s favorites. To be honest, I don’t know for sure as my mom was never a flower planter. She did like to do yard maintenance but didn’t add shrubs or flowers in any of the homes we lived in. She did however take us kids to the Missouri Botanical Gardens every year, always during the time that the iris gardens there were in full bloom. That can’t be a coincidence.
Alice Hahn Goodman Iris Garden (photo credit: Heather Osborn)
I have iris planted all over my yard, front and back, and in a wide variety of colors. The iris in the header photo is the first to bloom this season – I don’t even know the name of it. It was supposed to be an orange variety but when it came up the following spring it was this startling white. Gertens actually credited me for them so not only are the gorgeous, but they were free. Two of my favorite things.
Of course this year these blooms are bringing my mother to mind so today I am remembering her and thanking her for infecting me with the love of iris!
Any blooms you’re remembering today (literal or metaphorical)?
In looking for my packing list on my pc last night, I found a Word file titled “From Books I Like”. It’s only a couple of pages long and I would not have remembered that I have this document if I hadn’t stumbled upon it. It has a few quotes from books that I’ve read; one of the quotes is that wonderful metaphor about the town from TheEgg&I by Betty MacDonald that I’ve written about before. Then there are two other quotes from Michael Perry’s OffMainStreet. One is another transfixing metaphor….
“Summer is a seducer. After bundling through another tight-lipped winter, after enduring the mounting frustration of spring’s titillating dance of veils, we gape as summer comes sliding down her blazing ecliptic like a woman down a banister. She laughs with her head thrown far back; she throws her hands high in the air, releasing fistfuls of butterflies. She belly dances through the cornfields until the dust rises like a charmed snake, hanging in fat curls, leaving you cotton-mouthed. She makes the fox pant, she drives the hawk to think air. Weaker creatures curtain themselves away to complain.”
Fairly appropriate as I’m enjoying the beginning of spring/summer this week. My major gardening push is done so now I can enjoy my yard without massive effort. Bird feeders are full, hummingbird feeders are out (although I haven’t seen any hummingbirds yet). YA and I have new Adirondacks in back as one of our old ones gave up the ghost a couple of weeks back. Windows open. No fans down from the attic yet although I have had my overhead fan going a couple of times in my bedroom. Did my twice-a-year laundering of my bedding and allergy covers. Swapped out my spring/summer wardrobe for my winter one. Aaaaahhhhhh.
Of course, unearthing these quotes on the pc makes me wonder if I have other files like this started and squirrelled away. Suppose I’ll have to take a look one of these days!
As of yesterday afternoon, the biggest part of my gardening year is over. Clean-up from the fall, spring weeding, mulching, flower baskets planted and veggies planted in the bales. Phew!
It took way longer this year than usual. Part of this was the weather. We had spectacular weekends but then I wasn’t following through because Monday – Friday was too cool. I do not like to garden when I’m cold and I certainly don’t want to wear a coat out there either! Then the mess from the fall was much bigger than usual. And all my fault. A triple whammy, in fact.
My gardening season came to an abrupt end the day after my birthday last August, when I blew out my first knee. Then right about the time I might have gotten to some fall clean up, the other knee went. That meant that apart from some watering (most of which YA took care of), I didn’t do ANY fall clean up. No dead-heading the late summer flowers, no cutting back peony stalks, no raking (although YA is a little bitty bit).
The second problem was last year’s mulch. For reasons that pass understanding, I chose big chunky wood chips last year. As we were spreading them about last spring, I was thinking I’d made a mistake, but it didn’t become clear how obnoxious these wood chips were until we were cleaning up this spring. They didn’t seem to have broken down at all and were a mess to work around/with.
Then there was the Creeping Charlie fail. Normally I do a great job of weeding the Creeping Charlie menace but last summer, I was busy in July, thinking I would just do a big push in August. But, then…. well, you know. My nemesis ground cover didn’t give a fig about my knees so there was way more weeding needed this year on that front before the mulch could go down.
I’m feeling quite relieved… there will, of course, be plenty of gardening going forward, but not the three/four hours a day grind we’ve been going through. Time to enjoy!
When was the last time you “shot yourself in the foot”?
There are many down-sides to not having a dog. No walking companion, no one to keep the kitchen floor “clean”, no big furry foot warmer on cold nights.
And then there are the squirrels. They have absolutely figured out that there is no dog patrolling the territory any longer. And they certainly don’t see me as a threat. Yesterday I made a trip to get something from the car and the squirrel on the feeder and the squirrel sitting on the swing hardly even looked in my direction, much less fled in terror.
They’re also eating the hot seed cylinder that they’re not supposed to like. I called Mr. Bird, the company in Texas who makes the cylinders to ask about the problem. They said at this time of year, when squirrels are having their young, they are particularly ravenous and will deign to eat things that might not taste too good to them. This phase will probably pass but in the meantime, they also make a hotter cylinder called “Disco Inferno” that I can try. I looked it up and Gertens carries it. Guess I’ll add that to the cart when we are there next week!
Hopefully there will be a dog to guard the sanctity of the yard some time this summer; until then we’ll just have to put up with the squirrels laughing at us!
Yesterday we had 120 bags of organic raised bed soil delivered to our driveway. You can see them in the header photo. A retired guy who was the head of the city solid waste department picked them up from Bomgaars and brought them to the house. He has a forklift for just such loads. He knew my dad. The raised beds will ship this week. We have enlisted the help of a young man to move the bags of soil into the back yard. The gate on our fence is too narrow for a tractor, so he will move the bags with a big wheelbarrow. He is a cement worker for his day job and used to date one of the daughters of the former owner of our house. Everyone seems interconnected here!
Best friend is excited to plant chard, heirloom tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. The raised beds are 32 inches high and will be good for plants that need deeper roots. I am planting a late crop of spinach and lots of basil for pesto. We will have herbs in separate pots on the deck. We saw two large deer roaming our neighborhood a few nights ago and I am glad our yard is fenced.
I want to get some Canadian roses to plant around the house, as well as some hydrangeas. We thought about putting in a raspberry bed but it would be too complicated due to underground wires and such. We also have a Birch tree badly in need of pruning, but we will leave that for the fall, as well as planting spring bulbs.
How are your garden plans coming along? What are your experiences with raised beds?
This is a hard time of year for me. I grew up in a place where spring is already sprung at this point. Grass is poking up, flowering trees are beginning their glorious bloom and folks are out starting to clean up their yards and gardens. I’ve been in this part of the world for decades so I know that this current warm weather is just a tease. But there are no other signs; it’s just too early to be dreaming of the garden just yet. I know this in my head but my heart is so ready to get out there.
Then yesterday I saw my first SunSetter Retractable Awning commercial on TV. How is this not one of the first signs of spring???
How do you survive the “not quite winter anymore but not quite spring yet either” time?
Laugh. Snort. Guffaw. Giggle. Hoot. Chortle. Snigger. Cackle. Titter. OK, out of synonyms.
I got an email yesterday that says my work has been noticed and inviting me to apply for the 2026 Who’s Who in America. Now I’m pretty good at some things and I was very good at my job before I retired but nothing that I think merits inclusion on any published list.
If I were to be remembered for anything it would be for my parties, my Ukrainian eggs, my gardens, my cards. Pretty sure that Who’s Who doesn’t give a rip about any of that.
If I’m publishing a Baboon Who’s Who – what would you like listed under your name?
I can’t say I regret the end of 2025. This has been the most disturbing and disruptive year in my memory.
Moving and politics have taken their toll. We are very happy where we are in terms of location. I have hopes the political situation will improve.
Our goals are modest. We want to install raised vegetable beds in the back yard. We want to plant Boyne raspberries. Husband wants to improve his guitar skills. We are not traveling.
We plan to have best friend relocate here in the spring, and get a Cesky sibling for our pup. All these things are potentially exhausting, but change that is in our control is far more manageable than unexpected change.
What are your goals for the new year? Garden and travel plans?
I took a walk on Christmas morning. Me and the dogs, out through the fields. Saw a bunch of pheasants, tree’s I need to cut down, and lots of deer tracks. The header photo is from our walk.
Weatherman Mark Seeley has a weather forecast and article on the back page of The Farmer magazine. In the last issue, he talked about January of 2006 being the warmest January in MN weather history. “January 2006 started a remarkable trend of warmth in Minnesota. Fifteen of the 19 Januarys since that time have brought warmer-than-normal temperatures to the state. Of further note, seven Januarys since that of 2006 also rank among the warmest 20 in state history.” — https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-life/january-2006-started-warm-and-never-wavered
There are many reasons to be appreciative of the deep-freeze cold we normally get in winter. It kills off harmful bugs, it helps breakdown the soil for better working conditions in the spring, helps break up compaction layers in the soil, it helps keep stored grain in condition, to name just a few benefits. The worst thing is repeated cycles of freezing and thawing. That’s hard on certain crops, like alfalfa. Ice sheeting, and the repeated freeze thaw or a lack of snow cause winter kill. I bet you master gardeners have examples of the problems repeated freezing and thawing can cause in the gardens. Not to mention how tough the warmer temperatures are on cattle that have a winter coat and are prepared for cold. Respiratory issues can really become rampant.
We’ve had this one chicken living in the garage all winter. During the day she has taken to perching on the bottom rung of a sawhorse and looking at herself in a mirror.
Mirror Mirror…
And then the other night, there were 5 chickens in the garage! OK, seriously, the poop from the one chicken is gonna be bad enough come spring, and at least she’s over in a corner. Having five of them: one in the rafters, two more on recycling containers, and one on the dogwash wall are too much.
An unneeded bonus chicken in the garage
The next day I kept the garage door closed. I figured they’d just go back down to the coop. Three spent the night around the corner perched on the bird seed containers. Why have they moved up here in the first place? I don’t know what their problem is. I’ve got several spending the night in the nest boxes where they lay their eggs. They’re not supposed to do that either. They’re not too crowded as some are in the right side space, some are in the left side space (and they all pile up on top of each other for some reason), some are up in the rafters, and the rest are in the main coop area. I did add another board in there if they need another place to perch. Is it too many roosters? I think we have 5 roosters these days. And maybe 55 hens? I don’t know exactly how many, they are too hard to count. Really 2 roosters would be a good number. There’s a couple that seem extra ornery to the chickens. How come they never get picked off by coyotes?
Christmas day late afternoon I forgot to shut the garage door in time and had to chase out 3 chickens. Yeah, even being Christmas, I chased them out. I had given them extra corn and layer ration in the morning. They’re fine. The one in the corner, she’s earned it, she can stay.
Out in the shop, I added a metal top to the work bench. Dad built this work bench after the shed was built, so maybe in 1982 or 1983. When I started on the shop project two years ago, the guy doing the insulation wanted me to pull the bench off to redo the insulation behind it. I said no. Dad had put styrofoam and fiberglass insulation on that wall before he added the bench. I tore the top four feet off the wall as part of the shop project. The old insulation was pretty bad. Yeah, I probably should have redone the bottom four feet too, but I was already in over my head on this project and didn’t think I could handle any more. Hindsight you know. The bench is pretty well built, and the top is 2×8 boards with a gap between them. Stuff is always falling into that gap. Maybe it was Dad’s way of cleaning off the bench, to sweep the dirt and dust into the gap. Which then ended up in the bolt storage he had underneath. A couple weeks ago, I lost a screw down that gap and I decided that was it! I am covering this! I bought two sheets of 16 gauge steel (about 1/16th inch thick) 2′ x 4′ from a big box store. ($70 each! Jeepers!) Thanks Obama! (That’s a joke you know) And I rounded over the front edge. I need to get some different screws to hold it all in place, but it looks real professional. I’m glad I did that.
Kelly helped me get the last screen back in the 630 grill and I have that all reassembled.
Reassembled 630. Runs and sounds Great!
Needs an oil change yet and it will be ready for next summer’s work and projects. Next summer’s project I think will be rebuilding the belt pulley assembly. Clyde probably knows what a belt pulley is. You’ve seen pictures of back in earlier days, a long canvas belt ran between the tractor and an implement to provide power before the advent of power-take-off on the rear of a machine. That’s the belt pulley.
On the 630, that belt pulley is also the hand clutch assembly. And it rattles like some of the plates inside there are broken. I remember Dad adjusting it once in a while, but I don’t recall him ever pulling it all apart. The tractor also hasn’t had a working tachometer / speedometer / hourmeter for as long as I can remember. A few hundred dollars will get me a new gauge, new cable, and I don’t know yet if I’ll need a new gear inside the governor assembly or not. It’s all only money.
I’ve done my crop rotation maps for next year and got the acres figured out. Talked with Nate at Meyer’s Seeds and I’ve got until January 16th to lock in the early order discount pricing on oats, corn and soybean seed. I was approved for $43,000 in loans for chemicals and fertilizer from the Co-op. That doesn’t include the loan for seed. I’m really hoping I don’t need all of that loan as the crop prices aren’t that good. The first few years I farmed I stressed out a bit more about the crop loans. Of course 35 years ago I probably spent $10,000 on everything and it was still big money. Now days it’s just part of the deal. I don’t stress over it so much.
I thought for sure Kelly and I were gonna win the lottery the other night. And what would we do with all that money? As the old joke goes, keep farming until it is gone!
EVER BEEN THROWN OUT? TOLD TO LEAVE? EVER THROWN SOMEONE OUT?
Trail Baboon 