The orthopedic folks thought that an MRI would be a good idea after my knee injury. Was expecting to have to wait longer but they do this stuff on the weekends these days, so I was able to score an early Sunday morning appointment.
I had an MRI years ago so knew a little bit of what to expect. The last time I was given anti-anxiety meds as I was a bit worried about claustrophobia. I also made the decision to run through one of my favorite movies in my head, scene by scene; I got almost to the end. But it kept my brain occupied so I figured I’d do that same this time, although I skipped the meds since it was my knee.
The technician gave me headphones and they were quite loud and I was surprised to realize that when I play the movie in my head, the soundtrack is a big part of that. I had to consciously block out the headphone music. I even thought about asking her to remove them but I didn’t want to stop the process or have to start over.
Luckily it was all done in about 15 minutes. I hardly got through the first part of the movie in my mind – Danielle had just dropped John Robie off at the beach club at Cannes! Sometimes I worry about how many times I’ve watched “To Catch a Thief” but it sure comes in handy every now and then.
Do you have a favorite Cary Grant movie? Grace Kelly?
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.
The cow yard, before.
The cow yard after.
Tree’s before
No more tree’s. Looks better.
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.
Tractor view
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.
Huh!
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?
HUH!!
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.
I’ve been thinking about this term for a long time. What exactly is a lifetime? How good is any guarantee? And do I own any thing (product, device, appliance, clothing, etc.) that has been sold to me that came with a lifetime guarantee?
After all, a lifetime for a human can be less than a day to more than 120 years. Mosquitoes and many insects have lifetimes measured in days. Tortoises can outlive humans by a factor of 2, if the experts are to be believed. And Redwood and Sequoia trees live for four centuries or longer.
But let’s focus on human lifetime. Mine in particular. We bought the bathroom scale shown in the title photo from Brookstone at Southdale most likely, wayyyy back in the 1980s. It is battery operated, and I use it nearly every day to weigh myself. I’m weird that way. I think monitoring my weight daily helps me cut back on calories or exercise more to keep my weight roughly the same over the years. Not for everyone, but it works for me.
Lately, after easily 40 years of usage, the battery is showing signs of dying. I’m not positive, but I see larger than normal daily fluctuations in my weight. Normal is 1-2 pounds. Lately, I’ve seen several 3-5 lb. jumps or drops. I eat and exercise about the same amount every day other than an occasional restaurant or dessert pigout. So maybe the battery is at the end of its useful life.
I don’t even think Brookstone is around anymore, but if they were, and the battery died, would they honor their lifetime guarantee on this scale? Or did I miss the fine print in the sales literature saying something like “Lifetime guarantee or 40 years max, whichever comes first”?
No matter, the scale has been reliable and troublefree for decades, so if it dies, I’ll get a new scale that might be relatively cheaper because I won’t have to worry about getting a “long-term” lifetime guarantee. 20-30 years is about the best I can hope for.
MY QUESTION: Tell us about any products you’ve bought that came with a lifetime guarantee and have actually lasted far longer than you ever would have expected.
In weird news this week, it’s been reported in the South China Morning Post that a 64-year old man has undergone surgery to remove a toothbrush from his stomach. The kicker is that he swallowed the toothbrush when he was 12. Apparently he was afraid to tell his parents and figured that it would just dissolve. Turns out even stomach acid is no match for hard plastic – his stomach started to bother him last year.
It took the surgery team 80 minutes to remove the 7-inch toothbrush – it was stuck in “a crook of the intestine” where it had been living happily for decades. Yikes.
I’m not sure how you can swallow a toothbrush but as Hamlet said “more things in heaven and earth”. Maybe he is one of those folks who brushes their tongue with their toothbrush and got a little carried away? Maybe the dog surprised him in the bathroom while he was brushing? Maybe he was practicing to become a sword swallower?
What kind of toothbrush do you use? Toothpaste? Floss?
I have often written about Husband’s frets and worries, but if I am completely honest, his anxiety doesn’t hold a candle to mine.
This has been a sleep deprived week for me due to progress we made toward moving to Minnesota. A local realtor is coming to the house today to give us the lowdown on what we can sell this place for, and I got some financial stuff done so that we can contact a realtor in Luverne next week to start looking for a place for us there. We plan to buy in Luverne before we list this place in Dickinson. I even found a Dickinson moving company that will move us.
My anxiety comes from getting too far ahead of myself. I woke up at 1:00 am on Wednesday worrying how my best friend, who is moving in with us, would get a Real ID driver’s license if none of the utility bills in Luverne are in her name. This is completely irrational, and it shouldn’t be a problem, but that is how far ahead of myself I am getting. I keep telling myself “One step at time!” to slow myself down. The progress we made toward moving is good, but it also makes real all the unknowns about what is going to actually happen. I hate not being in control!
Do worries wake you up at night? Who have been memorable control freaks in your life?
When I went to bed Monday night, after uploading yesterday’s post, I was doing a mental run-through of things to get done on Tuesday.
The biggie was the tree so I was thinking about what I would need to bring up to my bedroom: extension cord for the trimmer, the trimmer, a rake to shake loose any bits that get stuck.
Then, because it was dark and I was very tired, my brain went a little sideways. I thought maybe I should be sure to wear shorts with pockets so I could have my phone on me, in case I somehow fell off the roof. If my phone were in my pocket I could call for help right away, rather than try to drag my broken body into the house.
As if that weren’t enough then I started thinking about the chewed up tree that I would be falling onto. If I skewered myself, the phone probably wouldn’t do much good. Or what if I hit my head on the way down and bled out while unconscious. All my neighbors work during the day, so they couldn’t come to my aid either.
It was at this point, around 11 p.m., that I made the decision to forego climbing out on the roof to trim the tree from above. Sleep, which had been eluding me while I imagined my gruesome end, came fast at that point. My decision was solidified when it rained at 5:30 a.m. and then again around noon, and the roof was wet. If only Mother Nature had informed me sooner I would have had a better night’s sleep!
Life is what you make out of it. It’s always an adventure.
Monday you’re bit by a dog, Tuesday daughter will run out in bare feet to greet you when you return home, and Wednesday she stands outside your door and says she hates you. Thursday there’s a tree on fire. Is it any wonder I can’t remember what day of the week it is?
Whoosh! Another week gone. Or maybe that was just the wind on Thursday.
Got the college show open and it is going well. The floor turned out OK and the wall patterns, well, I can’t decide if it looks like giant presents, or wall paper. The concept is still good, it’s just the execution that lost traction. There’s a lot of justification in this if you know the story and think about it long enough. Love, relationships, difficulties in both.
I got corn and oat seed picked up last Saturday,
Got the wagon top swapped on the running gear,
Had all four tractors out and running, and got 3 of them back inside the shed.
Got the shop stereo hooked up to one speaker, and the blu-tooth receiver connected to an old cell phone and streamed Radio Heartland as the inaugural music. Will be better when I get the second speaker mounted, but at least it works.
Monday I got bit by a stray dog I was trying to pick up for the township and spent a few hours in the Emergency Department. I was inspected and injected and injected some more. Two more rabies shots to go (four total) I got a Tetanus booster, and immuglobulin in the ED. Had a great RN and to my astonishment, the ER waiting room was empty when I arrived! Honestly, there are worse things in life, this was nothing. I joked, I’m going to go pick up all the rabid dogs now! The other township guys joked I will need to wear a rabies tag.
I got a call about running another 20 acres of ground in the neighborhood. I’m going to do it, but I also had to run some numbers first. It’s not the best soil, and there are just as many deer there as my place. And with input cost up, and crop prices down, I offered a low rental price. It was accepted for this year, and we’ll see how it does. “Experts” are predicting an increase in farm income, due to Government Rescue payments, and cattle prices are up, but…it’s still going to be a tough year financially.
We had thunderstorms Thursday night, and over an inch of rain, which we really needed. As I came home from the college show, about 9:30 PM, I could see a light where there shouldn’t have been light. A tree was on fire.
I always thought if lightning struck a tree it exploded. Nope, this was just on fire 30 feet up. I called the non-emergency line for the fire department, because I wasn’t quite sure what to do about this. It rained enough after they put it out that there wasn’t a risk of re-igniting. At the time, I didn’t know how much rain we had gotten and I was concerned about the dry grass below it.
We got our new baby chicks on Tuesday. These 40 chicks are Black Australorp, and Barred Rock. Twenty of each.
I used a new hatchery this year due to supply issues with chicks at the hatchery I have been using, and these were the available breeds. We’ve been looking up guineas to order later this summer, and again, some places have NOTHING available for 2025. I’d sure like to do more ducks, but not if they’re only going to get eaten by something.
There’s a female Cardinal really stuck on watching herself in our car Windows.
I did a little fieldwork Thursday afternoon.
It was good to get out in the dirt. And now with the rain, I can take the time to check tires, and grease machinery and replace some parts.
So it’s been a busy week. With the show open and no more evening rehearsals, I hope to get some farming done now.
It always feel like I should have more time, and then suddenly the weather is nice, and the ground has dried up and, worst of all, I’ve seen some neighbors out working, and then I gotta get out there! Springtime is always hard. There’s always a college show to open, and then concerts, and commencement, and depending on how the winter was and how soon the snow melts, assuming we had any, it all affects what all I should be doing at the same time. And it will all get done. I still should cut down some trees hanging over the fields, and I still have branches to pick up in the waterway area. Plus getting the machinery greased and tires checked, and oil changed.
When I swapped the wagon top last weekend, I tightened up the rear wheel bearings and added grease to the bearings on the running gear. That’s not something I do often enough, but this was the perfect time to do it before I put the wagon on top.
We’ve got an Easter ham thawing and I’m looking forward to that.
I’ll promote a place we’ve been ordering meat from lately:
It was started by a couple guys who raise hogs down in Iowa. They have a Youtube channel and I watch them. They started marketing their own hogs, and it expanded into other farms with beef and chicken. Beef from Sonne Farms in South Dakota (and others). Sonne Farms also have a YouTube page I watch.
For the past two months I have been inundated with the question “How are you enjoying your retirement?” I usually smile and say that it is nice, but, if truth be told, I would tell people that it hasn’t been the greatest experience.
To begin with, my body has let me know it is unhappy with me by having increased aches, pains, sciatica, a week long low grade fever, and a nasty bout of diverticulitis. I seem to be over most of those ailments now.
I also have been beset by corporate stupidity that has left me exhausted and anxious. I don’t know why these things seem more exhausting and overwhelming than they used to. For example, for years we have dealt with a computer virus protection company we previously utilized that keeps thinking we still want their services, and keep trying to charge an expired credit card to renew our account. I was getting several emails a week saying “Hmm, your card was declined”. Monday it seemed that they had somehow managed to actually get the card to work, so I spent an hour on the phone with their customer service explaining repeatedly we didn’t want their products, we didn’t need their products, and to please leave us alone. The customer service person kept insisting we really needed their products. After repeatedly telling her we wanted this all finished, she finally relented. I think I finally got it taken care of. It was exhausting. Of course yesterday I got an email asking to rate my experience with customer service. Arrrgh!
In January I heard from our auto insurance company that the insurance for our 2011 van was being transferred to a subsidiary company for the same but less expensive coverage, and that I would receive all the particulars in a couple of weeks. Yesterday it dawned on me that I hadn’t received any such information, and the coverage for the van expired tomorrow. Our long term agent retired, and it seemed that the new agent lived in Watford City, about 70 miles away. We finally figured out that she had moved her office to Dickinson, contacted her, and she printed off our new proof of coverage. That took a whole morning to accomplish. They had just forgot to send me the renewal cards. Arrrgh!
Retirement has been an adjustment for mind, body, and spirit. I thought the months leading up to my retirement were stressful. I just hope I can tolerate the change now that it has begun.
What corporate stupidity have you encountered lately? What are some big adjustments you have had to make?
Over the years I’ve tried a lot of different food plans. Whenever I hear of someone talking about how good they feel on some particular diet, I get curious. I’ve even tried raw a couple of times; the second time I lasted the longest – four days. Tried the zone for a bit. The Mediterranean is pretty close to our regular habit, although as vegetarians, we pass on the occasional fish/meat.
The keto diet was the one that I toyed with for quite some time before giving it a shot. I have two good friends who swear by it. I loaded up on a few keto carb substitutes and I made it three weeks. But I didn’t feel better. In fact if you factor in how much I was thinking about carbs, dreaming about carbs, crying about carbs, I was much worse.
So it probably won’t surprise anybody that every now and then I let my delight in carbs get the better of me. Every month or so YA asks if Great Harvest is making Derby Cookies; they are her favorites. She is also very fond of the various cheese breads that Great Harvest makes. When she looked at the March newsletter, she was happy that the Derby cookies were on the docket as well as the gouda garlic bread. Since she was traveling and I was in party prep, I made the bakery run on Saturday (that’s when they do the gouda bread). I thought that ordering ahead would help, but it didn’t. In addition to YA’s bread and cookies, I left the bakery with a White Cinnamon Chip loaf and an Apple Caramel loaf (mostly apple, not much caramel – a perfect ration for me).
This is a lot of bread, even for me. YA will take care of the gouda and probably most of the cookies. Guess I’ll just have to suffer through my two loaves. Sigh.
Anything that occasionally just makes you lose control?
Aside from a mild bout of diverticulitis when we were in Brookings, I felt pretty good during the visit. Everyone else seemed to feel pretty good, too.
Grandson went home from school on Wednesday with a fever that had spiked to 102° by yesterday afternoon. Daughter-in-Law was also home with a fever, and Son was at home taking care of both of them.
Yesterday Husband started feeling puny, as the say out here, with fatigue and a a low grade fever, so he took a nap and decided to not go into the office in the afternoon. He chose not to take any Tylenol so as to give his immune system time to heat up and fight off whatever was plaguing him. By evening he felt better.
Thus far I have not started to feel “puny”, but I plan to engage in my self care, which is to stay at home, cook, sleep late, and not leave the house until Sunday morning when we sing at the 9:00 church service and play bells at 3:00 at the local If Music Be The Food Of Love concert at our church to raise money and donations to the food pantry.
What is your self care when you start to feel “puny”. What are your euphemisms for illness? What major childhood illnesses did you have?
Trail Baboon 