Category Archives: gardening

2021, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Uncategorized

CRP & Seed

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Our Farm Report is from Ben.

Mid May and the corn is struggling to emerge through the crust that was created on the soil from the quick heavy rain we got back in late April. Beans haven’t emerged yet. Oats is looking good. Haven’t gotten our garden going either yet.

Back in blogworld…

I have 11 acres of CRP, Conservation Reserve Program, ground planted to wildflowers. I have it burned about every 5 or 6 years. I hire a local prairie restoration company to do that. I was in town when they started. Kelly said it was pretty interesting to watch them get going; A lot of prep work and back burning first. There was one guy with small tractor and water tank, then 5 or 6 other guys with shovels and backpack sprayers.   I could see the smoke from a few miles away.

Last fall I mowed around the edges so that makes a good buffer for this and it went well. I had 3 fiberglass markers in the middle of one piece to designate a line. I wasn’t sure if I had to move them or not. I knew the fire really wouldn’t get that hot. The boss, Jon, came to tell me I lost one flag because he wasn’t willing to throw his body on it. He said it’s not the flames, but the residual heat that gets it. I expected to find an orange puddle of plastic, but nope, just 6” of the fiberglass pole melted, which, in fiberglass, just leaves “strings” and the rest of the pole laying there. I cut that part off and put it back in the ground. Good as new, just 3’ shorter. (The part underground and the melted part.)

I picked up soybean seed from my dealer, Meyers Seed. They were busy unloading a semi of seed. A pallet had tipped over inside and was leaning against the wall. Plus, it had punched a hole in the bottom of a bag. So, they had to strap the leaning tower of beans to the forklift, and carefully drag it out. The hole making a trail of soybeans… they said it’s not the first time that’s happen and it’s always a pain to deal with.

I get 60 bags of seed on two pallets. It’s 30 bags of ‘treated’ seed and 30 untreated. (more on treated seed in a later blog) The guys are a little concerned with how tall my stack is, I should have used a trailer; which comes with its own issues because my trailer has short railings on the sides, so they have to push them in from the back. And with the pickup, even a full bed, two pallets won’t fit end to end so they’re stacked. I didn’t really think of all this at the time. I got home with no issues and used the forks on my tractor loader to take the pallets off and stack on my seed wagon.

Meyers have not started planting yet, ground is too cold. I have seen a few people planting. Really, it’s early yet.

I have found 3 deer antlers this year. ‘Sheds’ they’re called when the male deer shed their antlers. These are three separate deer, not any matched. They can poke a hole in a tractor tire, so you don’t want to run over one. Many years I don’t find any so kind of unusual to find three this year.

Next up; we start planting corn.

What have you seen leaning? What mess have you cleaned up lately?

animals, Family, Fitness, gardening, Health, home, Nature, Uncategorized

Woodpecker Spa

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A few weeks ago, Husband decided to water the strawberry bed with a rotating sprinkler that watered the strawberries as well as a section of the lilac bushes. It was terribly dry then. The backyard birds got very excited and flitted in and out of the bushes through the water. One bird, a Hairy Woodpecker, just sat very still in the lilacs letting the water fall on it, luxuriating in the shower.

One other occasion many years ago in yet another drought we had a flock of Cedar Waxwings sit for a long time in the lilacs as an oscillating sprinkler went back and forth over them. I guess we have a bird spa in our backyard!

I have never been to a spa. I have never had a massage. I know lots of people do such things. I think I fear the intimacy of such experiences. I would rather watch the birds.

What are your spa experiences? How about massage? Any good bird stories?

2021, animals, Family, gardening, Nature, pets, Technology, Uncategorized, Weather

NEVER LOOK BACK

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This week’s farm update is from our Ben.

This week’s farm update comes to us from Ben.

Into May and corn is all planted and working on beans. Things are going well. Back in blog world I’ve finished oats and working on anhydrous nitrogen for corn.

How good are you at details? Do you pay attention to your surroundings? I think I’m pretty good at that. And yet… I miss the most obvious things sometimes. We still laugh about the truck parked on the driveway with the naked guy asleep inside. And somehow, I missed the naked women sleeping beside him. Huh. I was just so shocked by the man being naked I walked away at that point.

And my previous post about the fertilizer spreader PTO shaft breaking; how did I not notice that? I’m looking right there to be sure the apron is still moving and 12” away is the PTO shaft and I never noticed it break or wobble or whatever it was doing when it broke.

A few years ago, I finished planting oats and was heading back home with the grain drill. Got home, turned to back it into the shed and I have no drill. Huh! Well, it must have come unhooked just up around the corner and…. Nope. Not there. It was ½ mile back up the road. Hitch pin had come out and, thankfully, it’s not a complicated machine so just two hydraulic hoses that pulled out and the hitch dropped and it just rolled to a stop. Thank Goodness it was level there and, on our driveway, and not up on the highway or something. How did I not notice that?? Still can’t believe it. However, I have started using locking hitch pins on everything since then.

My dad made a big point of looking behind and watching the machine to be sure it’s working properly. It was a bit easier on the open tractors and smaller machinery. Nowadays with cabs, monitors, and mirrors, it’s easier to pay attention to all those things and not turn around and look behind me so much. I do watch behind me! Honest! But I still miss something plugging up and suddenly I’ve made a full round and there’s a big trench behind me because I picked up a tree branch or something. Man… how did I miss that?

Sometimes I’m not good at details. Ask Kelly; she could have told you that. Maybe it’s just overload; I’m so busy watching that one thing, I miss the other.

We got a decent rain finally, .4 inches. Definitely too muddy to work in the field. Which is OK because I have straw to deliver to Northfield and made the straw and poo delivery to some of you in the Twin Cities.

Got 45 baby chicks delivered the next week. Was able to use my favorite line at the post office. “I’m here to pick up chicks.” I can hear them ‘cheep cheep cheep’-ing in the back room there. People always look and smile as I carry them out. Sometimes I crack the box open so they can look. 

Applying anhydrous nitrogen isn’t hard, but one has to be extra careful hooking up hoses and dealing with it. It’s nasty stuff so I take a lot of safety precautions and make sure I know what I’m doing. Too add to it, the coop where I get the tanks decided farmers have to pick up and return the tanks ourselves (rather than the coop delivering)  which means my truck has to have a DOT inspection, so that was an extra expense this year, plus the time it takes to go and pick up the tank. However, Kelly and I got a road trip date out of the deal. (Plus the dogs)

I always thought the tanks held 5000 lbs. Turns out it only had 3800 lbs in it, which messed up my math for how far one tank should go at the rate of 150 lbs / acre. Assumptions were made. I should know better.

Saw a pretty cool sunset too.

The sandhill crane pair that had been hanging around for a month finally moved on.

Next up: Burning CRP ground

What’s the most unusual thing you’ve ever gotten in the mail?

2021, Baboon Achievers, gardening, Gatherings, home, Kids, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Gardens Galore!

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(Sorry picture is fuzzy – I don’t have the original….)

In the past ten days our yard has gone from the scourge of the neighborhood to the envy of everyone.  I don’t chop too much down in the fall on the theory that the old stalks and leaves hold onto water and protect the spring buds.  (I don’t know if this is actually true, but I cling to it… especially since I have trouble getting motivated for autumn gardening.)  YA and I have gotten everything cleaned up, spread about a ton of mulch (well, it feels that way, anyway) and turned our eyesore into a lovely garden.  The fact that the daffodils and tulips are in bloom on the boulevard doesn’t hurt!

As we’ve been working, I been looking at some of the plants that I’ve been lucky to receive from baboons on the trail.  Lovely hostas in the backyard from PJ, raspberry canes from Linda, a massive hosta display on the front boulevard from our tim and, of course, my lovely Prairie Smoke from LJB.  It’s made me think that although our baboon troop was initially brought together by music, we’ve also bonded over gardening.  Helping out PJ with her garden after the accident, the great chainsaw gathering at Steve’s, filling in Anna’s spot with various plants, Ben bringing us bales and poo, Jim providing seeds and loads of gardening talk over the years. 

As always, I’m grateful for all the fabulous friendship over music, books and gardening!

Any gardening projects in store for you? 

2021, Automotive, Family, gardening, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Farm Update!

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Today’s post comes to us from Ben.

It’s the first part of May when this posts and I’ve got some corn planted and we had some rain finally. But in farming blogs, we are still back in early April and I’ve got one field of oats to plant yet.

I worked at the college, had some meetings and changed three house lights in the theater. Went out about 7 o’clock at night to work up the last field to be oats. The new LED headlights on the tractor are fantastic. Such a white color and so bright, they are awesome. Only problem is, it is so dry, there is so much dust behind me I can barely see. No breeze, so it all just hung with me.

The new LED interior light is really nice too. A nice orange to light up the controls, it’s very bright and really nice.

Rain predicted for the last two days has not amounted to anything. Sprinkles last night, about noon today it rained enough to make the cement wet. Still talking rain overnight and scattered showers the next two days. We did get .4”.

The day after the rain I did plant part of the last field of oats. Well, I started and tried. We’ve gotten just enough rain the dirt is a little bit sticky. Dirt sticks to the press wheels of the drill and builds up. (There are blades which cut a track the seed drops into, and then the ‘press wheels’ cover it up.) It’s a problem when dirt builds up on them, because that affects the depth of the seed. I planted ¾ of the field before I ran out of seed, but I really shouldn’t have been planting in these conditions anyway. But they’re talking more rain so I’m trying to rush and that is rarely helpful. I swapped a press wheel that seems to be dragging. Left the crescent wrench lay on the drill and lost it in the field somewhere. Dang. It should be easy to find; it’s shiny and silver laying in black dirt. And it should have fallen off the back so not run over or anything, it should just be laying right there. I walked the field, I drove the field with the gator, and the 4 wheeler. Multiple times. I cannot find it.

Three weeks later I found a crescent wrench in the bottom of the tool box. Hmmm… was that wrench always down there? Did I somehow put the wrench from the drill down there? Or is this a different wrench? It’s a mystery, but since I still haven’t found one in the field, maybe…? 

Most every farmer carries some tool with him. As I grew up, the multi tools, like Leatherman or Gerber, weren’t popular, or maybe not even invented yet so Dad and I carried pliers. Dad wore the pants with a plier pocket built in. I didn’t like that; I wore a belt with a pouch for the pliers and a pouch for a swiss army knife. The pliers are on my left side, knife on my rear right, cell phone clipped to my right pocket. At the college, if I’m wearing my tool belt, all the tools, including the pliers, are on my right. I have to move the phone to my left pocket and my hammer hangs on my left side too. I’ve tried wearing the hammer at my back like the professional carpenters do… still working on that; it’s not natural yet.

It takes a day or two at each place to remember where my pliers are. I’ve tried swapping the pliers at home, but they’re heavy and they pull the belt out of the loops when undone and then the pliers fall out. So that doesn’t work.

Dad wore his belt buckle off to the side, like after the first belt loop. I never understood that. He just said it’s how he learned. Maybe because he was lefthanded.

How ambidextrous are you? What do you always carry?

Business, gardening, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

Drought and Hail

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Husband is outside getting ready to start watering our flower beds and strawberry patch. It is way too early to be watering, but we are in extreme drought here. I think we would welcome hail like the kind they got this week in Oklahoma as long as it came with several inches of rain.

We are supposedly famous for the high incidence of hail here, but we haven’t had more than one memorable hail storm in the 30 years we lived here. That took our shingles, and resulted in our insurance agent and the roofer almost getting in a fist fight on the roof over some procedural shingle replacement short cut our agent objected to.

What is your experience with insurance claims? Any memorable hail storms? Are you too insured or a risk taker?

2021, Family, Food, gardening, Kids, Uncategorized

The best laid plans

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Husband and I are planning a trip to Tacoma in early July to see our daughter. As is typical of our family, the topic quickly turned to food after we determined the dates of our trip.

One of our daughter’s favorite things to eat is a pasta sauce I make with our home grown tomatoes. I can’t take credit for the recipe. It is Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce III. I make it with a tomato puree that I can from our garden San Marzano tomatoes. It is simplicity and richness combined.

2 lbs. fresh ripe plum tomatoes

1 stick butter

1 medium onion, peeled and halved

1/4 t. sugar

Wash and cook tomatoes in saucepan until they are tender. Puree them through a food mill back into the saucepan. add the butter, onions, 1.5 t salt, and cook at slow simmer, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Discard the onion, and serve

In the late summer, I make jars of puree, the first step in this recipe, and can it. Daughter asked if I could bring a jar of puree with me in July so that I could make the sauce when we visit. I said of course I could, and I started to plan how I could wrap a quart jar of puree securely and transport it safely in a suitcase for our flight to Washington. Husband protested, however, and said that it was too risky and we could have tomato puree all over the place if the jar broke, there were perfectly fine tomatoes in Tacoma, and that since daughter had a food mill (a necessary piece of equipment for this sauce) I should just make it when we got out there.

I suppose that he is right, but the tomatoes last summer were extraordinary, and the puree is just terrific, and I have more puree than I need. I just hate it when common sense interrupts my schemes!

When have people interfered with your good ideas? What is your favorite tomato sauce?

2021, gardening, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, work

Farming Day 2

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Today’s post comes from Ben

When last we left the farm, it was dark and the fertilizer spreader PTO (Power take off shaft) was broken.

I felt like I spent all day in the tractor, which is what the big farmers talk about. I didn’t really, I did spend several hours in the tractor, but not continuously. 

I called the co-op about the shaft. They’re busy and don’t have anyone to come replace the shaft, but they have a spare one and they’ll leave it out for me. Another road trip with the dogs. It was tough getting the shaft off. The bolt came right out, but the yoke wouldn’t budge on the shaft. Hammers and punches and even the air hammer didn’t budge it. I had to get the torch and heat up the yoke, and then the air hammer finally started to move it. Heating something is an old trick because when you heat it, it expands and will break a rust connection. 

I go back out in the field I was on last night. Turns out about ½ way through the field is when the shaft actually broke and it quit spreading. How did I not notice that?? I was watching to be sure the apron was still moving; I just don’t know how I missed the shaft right there… I guess technically the outer shield was spinning but not the shaft. What this means is, the fertilizer coming out the back just dropped in a 10” band rather than spreading 40’. Shoot. This summer, the oats in that band will be 5’ tall. Everywhere else it will be 3’ tall. I tried to work up the field going across the bands to help spread them out a bit. I’m not expecting much.

Anyway, no trouble finishing the fertilizer after that.

Then I went out with the tractor and soil finisher and worked up the oat fields getting them ready for planting. I got the drill ready to go, and it was 5:30 when I went out to plant oats.


It’s a new variety of oats that I have not used before, it’s called ‘MN Pearl’. Oats doesn’t get the research dollars and notoriety that corn and soybeans do because it doesn’t have the big market. I had been planting a variety called ‘Deon’ for a lot of years. But Meyers Seed quit growing Deon and went to Pearl two years ago. The kernels look kind of small, so they feed out of the drill different, so I have to figure out the right setting again. I want to apply three bushels per acre, which is about 90 pounds. When planting oats, the biggest thing I watch to be sure the chains are moving and oats is actually coming out; I can see it through the gaps in this photo. If one is working, they’re all working. Unless it goes empty over that hole… I try not to let that happen.

And remember that drill tire I replaced? I’m following that line in the field. No auto steer yet.

Didn’t finish, but got a good chunk done.

I had just parked the tractor in the shed at 9:20 PM and was closing the doors when I heard sprinkles on the shed roof. Always a nice feeling to just beat the rain like that. Although the ‘rain’ turned out to be 15 drops and that was it.

I have to be at the college – “work” work, the next few days. Hopefully it won’t rain as much as predicted so I can finish this last field. Be nice to have all the oats planted within a day or two and not spread out over two weeks. But it is what it is and it will work out in any event.

Planting oats on April 6th? That might be a new record for me.

What details are you watching lately? Anything half finished?

2021, animals, Business, gardening, History, Nature, Seasons, Technology, Uncategorized

Farming Day 1 Part 2

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Todays post comes from Ben.

Things from the farm; Continuing that first day of fieldwork.

I Put the tires back on the drill and the four-wheeler. I put the pallet forks on the tractor loader to unload the pallet of oat seed (54 bags at 1.5 bushels / bag = 81 bushels x 32lbs / bushel = 2592lbs. This is way easier than unloading by hand. Working smarter, not harder!). I checked the tires and greased a few things on the tractor and soil finisher, and then out in the field. First thing I had to do was level out a couple cornfields that were chisel plowed last fall. Oats is the first crop that I plant in the spring and some will be on fields that were soybeans last year and some will be on corn ground. The bean ground doesn’t get worked up in the fall so that only needs to get dug up once before planting. First field, first pass, stop at the end to check things and found my first “field treasure”.

Not sure what this is. Still thinking about it. I also smoothed a field that came out of the conservation reserve program last fall; it had been planted to wildflowers for 10 years, but this particular field just never took off. Never had as many flowers and was getting some shrubs and saplings growing in one part. Trying to plow up a field of grass is tough; too much root structure. Have you heard the story about John Deere and his steel plow and that’s what made him famous? The root structure and grass would never survive a wooden plow. I have an old John Deere 4 bottom moldboard plow just for this purpose and I only use it every few years. 150 years after Mr. Deere himself. It worked out pretty good. It’s nice black soil over there.

Across the fence, in the neighbors pasture, next to the creek, I saw the two sandhill cranes that we’ve been hearing.

I called to order oat fertilizer and they said there was a waiting list on the spreaders so I really didn’t expect it for a few days. I was surprised when they deliver that about 5 o’clock. And that means I better get it spread right away so the next person can get it. Think of a really big version of your plain old lawn spreader.

The pattern with broadcasting fertilizer is about the same width as the headlights. I’ve been putting better lights on the tractors the last few years.

As long as I can keep the tire tracks from the previous pass at the edge of the field of light, I am doing pretty good. I got two fields done and stopped just to walk around for a minute. While standing outside I looked at the power take off shaft that drives the fertilizer spreader and I thought, “that angle doesn’t look right”. And it wasn’t. The shaft is severed and the only thing holding it together is a tiny little bit of the plastic shield. Shoot. Guess I’m done for the night. I still can’t understand though, if it was still running when I finished the field and I turned everything off and drove over to here, when did it break and how did it keep working? I don’t know if I did something wrong: did I turn too sharp, is the hitch the wrong height, did the three point hitch bracket on the back of the tractor get in the way? Or maybe it just broke. I’ll call the co-op in the morning and somebody will come and replace the shaft. Even if I have done something stupid, they won’t give me too much grief about it. Parked it all in the shed and close the doors. If it’s raining in the morning there’s no hurry on calling to get it fixed.

9:00 PM. Supper time.

What do you find digging in your gardens? Ever found a buried treasure?

2021, animals, Automotive, Business, Food, gardening, home, Nature, pets, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

Farming Day 1 Part 1

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Today’s post comes from Ben.

Well not exactly day one. But the first day in the field doing spring work so it’s day one from that point of view. 

Spent the morning doing my usual stuff on the computer: emails, newspaper, moms banking, our banking. A few phone calls, etc. before I’m finally out the door mid-morning. 

I needed to take a couple of tires to get fixed and the one on the grain drill I already had loose. Also had a tire on the four wheeler with a slow leak and that’s easy to put a floor jack under the back end and use the impact wrench and four nuts and that comes right off.

Got both tires in the back of the truck, loaded up all three dogs, and headed for Millville Minnesota. We’ve been taking tires to Appel service in Millville for as long as I can remember. It’s about half an hour away and you won’t find a nicer, family owned business, anywhere. Millville is a town of about 180 people and so far down in the valley you can’t get any cell phone reception. There are a couple of bars, couple of restaurants, one Church, a cemetery where I have several relatives, a gun shop, and in a better year I would’ve dropped off the tires and then gone to get lunch at the Lucky Seven Café. 

When I got to Appels, most of the crew was at lunch so I said I’d come back. They are really good at fixing your tires while you wait but I may as well keep moving. Back up the road a few miles to pick up my Oat seed. It was such a nice day, pretty amazing weather for this time of the year, and we worry that it’s so dry; all the farmers are going hard. mostly applying anhydrous ammonia- Those white tanks you see in the fields. I probably saw a dozen farmers doing that. There was a couple guys ahead of me at Meyer’s Seeds and we stood outside and talked while Meyer’s rounded up seed and bring it out on the forklift. I petted some cats (The camera snap on the phone scared them away) and I got a nice metal ‘stick’ used for checking seed depth. Always wanted one of those.


After I got my 54 bags of oats, I strapped that down in the truck, and then back to Millville. As I pulled up, they were just taking the four-wheeler tire in and the drill tire was done. There’s something pretty interesting about watching a guy change tires. The machinery involved and just the whole process is really pretty fascinating. The guy ahead of me was watching his tires get fixed, I watched them fix my tire, while at the same time trying not to get in the way or look TOO interested. (It’s kinda loud and hard to talk or ask questions).

Just a tube needed in the four-wheeler tire. The grain drill tire is kind of special. It’s about 3 feet tall, and completely smooth except it has two heavy ridges on each edge. That way, going through the field, it makes a real clear mark that’s easy to follow on the next round of the field. I had ordered two tires: they had one in stock, the second hasn’t shown up yet. And that’s OK, this one was worse than the other. $262 for the tire. $13 labor to mount both. The only thing missing was the bottle of grape pop from the café. 

The dogs love riding in the truck. And they don’t miss a chance if they can help it. Although Humphrey lays in the back and looks completely uninterested but he does spend a little time looking out the windows. Bailey bounces back-and-forth between the front seat and the backseat and she spends half the trip with her nose in my face. Allie, the queen of them all will eventually setting in some place where the others don’t walk all over her at least for the moment.

Once we are back on our driveway, I let them all out to run home. About halfway down the driveway there was a squirrel about 75 yards away from the trees and making a beeline back to the trees. The dogs were a good 200 yards away. Missed it by “that“ much. 

Do you like car rides?

Got any stories about tires?