Category Archives: gardening

2025, Business, Family, Farming Update, Food, gardening, Nature, Science, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather

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?

2025, Family, gardening, home, Music, Uncategorized

Bob

July 25, 2025 reneeinnd 30 Comments

I can’t remember a more rainy July than the one we are having this year. In addition to keeping the house interior spotless, we are intent on getting rid of garden weeds. The weeds have been horrendous because of the rain.

Weeding for us entails crawling through the garden beds on our hands and knees with dangerous looking implements to remove the weeds, and large buckets to put the removed weeds into. We rarely use herbacides. Husband is currently limping around with a walking stick due to a strained knee muscle from weeding. With apologies to Bob Dylan, this song keeps going through my head every time I pull weeds.

Buckets of weeds,

Buckets of shears.

Got all these buckets coming

Out of my ears.

Buckets of bind weeds in the yard.

Why does weeding always have to be so hard?

I have not seen the new Bob Dylan movie. Husband reminds me we saw him in concert at the Bismarck Civic Center about 30 years ago. He only had a bass player and a drummer with him. I don’t remember the concert very well. I never was a big Dylan fan, but some tunes just stay with you.

Did you ever see Bob Dylan live? What Dylan tunes stick with you? What is your weeding strategy? At what age is a person too old to weed?

2025, Family, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Swing Time

July 24, 2025 verily sherrilee 27 Comments

There has always been a vision in my mind for the backyard. Over the years we’ve added a patio, then a little bigger patio. A table and chairs for the patio. An umbrella for the table. A friend of mine gave YA a fire pit years ago. Another friend gave me a swing when they moved to an apartment. Of course, there are all the flowers and the bales. About 15 years ago I had enough credits at work to purchase a hammock, which I installed toward the back of the yard. Over the years I’ve had to replace the fabric several times as well as having to MacGyver the suspension a couple of times when the fabric wasn’t exactly the right size.

YA has always detested the hammock. First is that it is a collection spot for leaves and twigs that come off the trees. Then there is the issue of having to mow around it, requiring moving it about. YA thinks it makes the backyard look “cluttered”. When I suggested we get right of her Adirondack chairs and little table, she didn’t respond well. She has a point. We use the Adirondacks quite a bit and truth be told, I probably only lay in the hammock once or twice a summer. It’s not actually all that comfortable and I get impatient really fast.

As I’m pursuing my pre-downsizing project, I decided that I really needed to pay attention to the reality of the hammock instead of my emotional attachment to the idea of a hammock. To that end, YA and I carried it down to the boulevard. When we got down to the boulevard with it, YA had to shore up my determination. The miracle of my street worked as usual – within an hour someone was taking it apart to shove in their truck.

I thought I might be unhappy in the first few days after the hammock was gone but that hasn’t happened. That says to me that I made the right decision.

Tell me about something you have an emotional attachment to.

2025, Farming Update, gardening, Medicine, Nature, Science, Theatre, Weather

NAILING THE WEEDS

July 19, 2025 xdfben 51 Comments

Nailing the Weeds

The weekend Farm report from Ben

I finished mowing weeds this week. Last year the mower was being repaired so I wasn’t able to mow much at all. $2600 later it’s back and better than ever. I mow the edges of the road next to the fields to keep the weeds down, (and the crops always look better when the weeds are cut). Lots of wild parsnip, and thistles. Sometimes when it’s just grass I’ll leave it standing and I think to myself ‘What is the point of mowing all this?’ What is the point of mowing if it’s not noxious weeds? The waterways that go through the oat fields, I mow them off because it’s easier to harvest the oats and bale the straw without the weeds and grass in there. But it really does look nice when it is mowed down. I don’t worry too much about cover for wildlife, there’s plenty of cover yet.

I practice my side hill acrobatics too. It helps to remind myself how low the actual center of balance is on the tractor.

All the weight is under my feet. There is a bit of a ‘pucker factor’ but I’ve done this before so I know it’s OK. I worried more about these hillsides when I was a kid. Dad always told me it was OK. And I only ever tipped over one wagon and that was due to a badger hole.

Down in the pasture there is a lot of parsnip. Back when we had cattle, they kept the weeds and buckthorn down. Or maybe buckthorn hadn’t taken over 30 years ago.

While down in the pasture I found some wild flowers growing. At risk of stirring up the flower debate again, I present them here. I used the ‘Plant Net’ app to identify them. Wild bergamot, Giant St. John’s wort, American blue vervain (which we had bought some seedlings from a friend selling native plants, and I didn’t realize we have this), mullein, and lots of Goldenrod coming. I try to save most of that. Again, majority rules, so I’ll mow some off to get the parsnip.

And Kelly took this picture of milkweed in the yard.

We learned about ‘Beggars Lice’ too. For years, the dogs would get these little stickers in their fur and I didn’t know what they were or where they came from. Ah. It’s this plant.

Work at the theater went well. I won the ‘Power Actuated Nail Gun’ on the auction, and made good use of that. It was fun to use. I nailed 2×4’s and foam to the north wall for some insulation. We are attaching plywood to the 2×4’s. Nailing 2×4’s to concrete with a .22 blank! Awesome!

Crops are still looking good. Corn has nearly doubled in height since July 4^th.

Beans are filling in and getting blossoms on them. The oats should be ready for harvest in another week or so.

I put a new fanbelt on the 630 tractor and I replaced the throttle plate so the throttle lever will hold its position. One of the padawans and I changed the oil in Kelly’s C tractor.

A little bit of everything this past week.

Next week I’m working on ‘Shrek’, the musical, down in Chatfield.

FAVORITE SOUR FOOD THAT MAKES YOU PUCKER?

OR QUESTIONS OF YOUR CHOICE BECAUSE I GOT NOTHING!

2025, gardening, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Surprise!

July 8, 2025 reneeinnd 21 Comments

Not long after we moved to our current house 37 years ago, Husband and I planted some roses. At that time, hybrid tea roses were advertised as only hardy as far north as Zone 4. We knew we were pushing it a little given how close we were to Zone 3, but we put in about four hybrid tea roses on the south side of the house.

We did all the things that you are supposed to do regarding tea roses, putting cones on them in the fall to protect them from the cold, pruning appropriately, etc. They flourished. One in particular was our favorite, named Taboo.

We loved its intense color. About 20 years ago we even stopped putting cones on in the fall, and yet those roses on the south side of the house returned year after year. Within the last 5 years, though, most of them seemed to age out and die, but Taboo kept going until last summer, when all there were in its spot were dead branches.

Imagine my delight this weekend when I encountered some new rose shoots just a few inches away from the dead Taboo stems while I was weeding the south flowerbed. They look healthy. I hope we can have one last Taboo blossom before we move. Hybrid tea roses are now advertised as only hardy through Zone 5, and I don’t know how we did it, but what a lovely surprise!

Any pleasant surprises for you this last month, gardening or otherwise? What have you succeeded doing even when the odds were againt you?

2025, Family, gardening, home, Nature, Uncategorized, work

Pavers & Bricks

July 4, 2025 verily sherrilee 37 Comments

Yesterday YA had the day off so we decided to tackle a couple of outdoor projects first thing in the morning before the heat took over the day.

I started with putting some paving stones on the south side of the house under the water spigot. The pavers were left over from when we expanded the little patio two summers ago so I thought I’d put them to better use than just being stacked up in the garage. Unfortunately the ants didn’t think this was a grand project and it took a bit for them to give it up and I did get a couple of good bites out of it before they moved their party elsewhere.

By the time I was done, YA had made a good start on edging our northern “garden” with bricks that we inherited from our neighbor who just moved. She asked which of the jobs I wanted – digging or placing the bricks. While placing the bricks seemed like the easier of the two jobs, I know my daughter well. If I placed the bricks, she would eventually come behind me and “fix” what I had done. I admit freely that she is more patient with a lot of home projects and therefore does an overall better job. This made it an easy choice – I dug and let her place the bricks. It was a great decision. As I dug I watched her running her hands along the bricks to make sure they were even and using her finger as a measurement tool to make sure they were all the same depth. I would not have thought to do either of these steps.

We didn’t finish yesterday. It got a bit too steamy so we knocked off about half way through and vowed to finish in a couple days when it’s a bit cooler. Looks good so far.

Any projects for you over the holiday weekend?

2025, gardening, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Rewarded!

June 26, 2025 verily sherrilee 14 Comments

We rolled the stump down to the boulevard. I didn’t think that anybody driving along would see it and think “hey, we could use a big stump for something, couldn’t we?” and take it. I was hoping however that it was small enough that the yard waste folks would take it. Nope. Turns out that they’re fairly strict about that kind of thing and my Plan B of rolling it into my trash can was quashed when I saw in the garbage/recycling website that it is actually illegal to put “substantial” yardwaste into your garbage can.

YA was not tricked into thinking that chopping up the stump was a fun way to spend her time so I finally decided to tackle it myself. If I chopped it into small chunks, I could put them in my yard wastebags with my run-of-the-mill weeds. In order to make myself do this, I had to say “just 20 minutes”. It helps that our little chainsaw has a fairly short battery life so 20 minutes is about all I can do at one shot. At the rate it was taking, I figured this would be a 10 or 12 day project.

While I was working on this, I noticed a woman working on the yard kitty corner to me. She didn’t look familiar and there was a name emblazoned on her pick-up that indicated she had been hired, as opposed to living there. As I continued on other yard projects, I noticed she was coming across the street. Turns out she is the mother of the gal who apparently has just bought the place. She asked about what kind of bags the city requires and I pointed out my paper bags. I asked her if she needed a couple and I gave her two and when she asked, I gave her directions to Menards which is about as cheap as you can find the bags these days. We talked about what you could and couldn’t put out; I told her about leaving bigger branches/small logs out for people to take. I then mentioned that the city wouldn’t take my stump which was why she had seen me cutting bits off. To my surprise she immediately said she could take the stump in her truck; her home is on 30 acres in Wisconsin and she has a perfect place to dump it. I was stunned. And grateful. I almost offered her more bags.

So within 5 minutes, we had rolled the stump into her wheelbarrow, pushed the wheelbarrow across the street and gotten the little monster into the back of her pickup. After three weeks of it sitting on the boulevard, miraculously and suddenly it’s gone!

I don’t think I’ve ever had a good deed of mine reward me so quickly and so wonderfully.

Can you think of a time a good deed has paid dividends?

2025, animals, books, Family, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Too Much Of A Good Thing

June 16, 2025 reneeinnd 23 Comments

About three years ago, Husband and I planted a climbing rose along the railing of the stoep. The rose did very well. It is a winter hardy Morden Rose from Manitoba. Two years ago we planted two more of the same variety along side it. I had no idea they would take off the way they did. You can see them in the header photo and below. There are hundreds of blooms and buds on them. The only problem is that the railing isn’t high enough to support them, so I have to tie them to the railing with twine. I have tried to wind the stems and branches in the railing, as well. We often underestimate how well our plants and shrubs are going to do. It really is too much rose for the area, but I love them.

Our raspberry patch has exploded with new growth this spring, and I anticipate having one of our largest crops ever.

Our neighbor trimmed a tree that had been shading them, and we got lots of rain. I am sure we will be giving lots away, since there is no point in freezing them since we are moving.

We also have far too many books. The shelves in the next photo were full of books until yesterday, when Husband culled some and packed the remainder into 15 banker boxes, the boxes all labeled as to genre and topic. The books will stay in the boxes until after we move to Luverne.

We had to do this so that the painter can paint the wall behind the shelves. The culled books are in the back of his pickup and are going to the landfill on Tuesday. Our next chore is to move the remaining bookcases away from the wall so that she can paint behind them.

We will just empty the bookcases and put the books and record albums somewhere temporarily until the paint is dry, then put them back in the bookcases. We won’t box them up until we actually move. Many of them are our cookbooks, so we will need access to them.

It is hard to decide if I would rather have too many roses, too many raspberries, or too many books. I suppose there are worse things to have in excess, like a friend of ours who has 17 house cats.

What do you have too much of? What are your favorite roses? Any favorite raspberry recipes?

2025, Family, gardening, home, Nature, work

I Think I Can, I Think I Can

June 6, 2025 verily sherrilee 29 Comments

If you noticed that I didn’t have a presence on the Trail on Saturday, it’s because it was stump removal day. The tree itself had all been cut down by Friday evening so Saturday was all about the stump.

We had a couple of offers to help us yank the stump out with a truck (thank you, tim and my neighbor Don) but with my front yard garden flourishing this year and some of the perennials starting to bloom, YA and I didn’t want to risk trashing those; hence the decision to utilize the “dig to China” method of stump removal.

You ever have one of those times when you’ve taken something on and as you’re working on it you start to question your sanity? The first couple of hours went fine – the beginning of the work and you’re still full of optimism and energy. By lunchtime, we were lagging a bit so we took a break and ate sandwiches on the front steps. I will admit that I did google “stump removal” before we got back to business.

By 2 p.m., I was seriously thinking about having myself committed. We’d been digging down around the stump for hours, cutting roots whenever we came upon them and even with both of us with our backs to the house and pushing vigorously, the stump wasn’t moving at all. At this point, my mantra was “We can do this because we’ve done it before” – a little like Harry Potter in Prisoner of Azkaban – since I had been part of the stump removal team when my wasband and I took down a tree when we first bought the house. See:

The Chainsaw Massacre | Trail Baboon

So YA and I just kept digging; by this point we were more excavating than digging as we were trying to get under as much of the root system as possible. I really did say to myself “we’ve done this before” repeatedly.

Suddenly at 3:15, when we shoved it, it moved. So we shoved a little harder, then there was a good sized “cracking” sound. At this point I shoved and YA got underneath with the chainsaw and finished off the last root holding it and voila! At 3:20 the stump was out. It was a little stunning since it seemed like we’d be digging forever and then suddenly we were done. We rolled the stump down to the boulevard and since we are both good at cleaning as we go, we only had to put all the various tools back on the porch. You can’t really tell from the photo but I was just about the dirtiest I’ve ever been from a yardwork project – maybe even dirtier than when tim and I sandblasted to porch. I had to take a scrub brush and the hose to myself in the backyard before I could even go in the house. Then it was a shower with another scrub brush and a LOT of body wash.

We finished up the work on Sunday – digging up the area and leveling it out. We did find the black edging that I put down decades ago as well as the various layers of black tarp that truly did not do anything about weeds. Now we have two pretty little Dwarf Globe Blue Spruce planted that will not grow above the window level and should fill the space nicely. To make it look a little prettier for now, we also put in a few hostas as a minimal border. I told YA as we were inspecting our handiwork yesterday that I was never, ever going to do that job again.

Ever.

Do you have any mantras that have been useful in your life?

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