Category Archives: Nature

2024, animals, Farming Update, home, Nature, Seasons

The Rabbits

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

The weather is warming, the chickens are back out in the grassy areas, I can work in the shop comfortably again, and I turned off the well house heater and unplugged the tractor block heater. Whew. It felt like January in Minnesota. For a week. And now it’s not dark yet at 5:00 PM, and we just need some sunshine. I don’t want to get too anxious or excited about all this, we still got February and March to get through, but there is hope on the horizon.  

When it’s so cold the chickens don’t come to eat the corn we put out down by the barn, there are deer, pheasants, and rabbits that still come around to clean it up. Plus, a variety of birds. I really hate the deer eating that corn, I feed them enough out in the fields, they don’t need to eat this corn, too. At least we haven’t had so many wild turkeys around the last few years.  

I’ve never been very good at identifying animal footprints. Yet again, an example of missing our Steve. We could use his help on this. It’s not hard to know the deer tracks, but Steve would know male from female tracks, and how old they were. He’d know what a pheasant track looked like, and probably know the difference between the tracks of a crow, robin, and mourning dove, as well as how many, what they had for breakfast, and where they were headed next. I can identify rabbit tracks, they’re not hard. No details mind you, just, you know, ‘wabbit twacks’*. And of course, if there’s rabbits, there’s rabbit pellets.  

When I was a kid, I had several different sling shots. Homemade ones that never lasted, simple wooden ones, and I think I had a couple different versions of the ‘Wrist Rocket’ sling shot. Those little rabbit pellets made good ammunition. They were all over the backyard. And they were perfect little balls for shooting! I didn’t know they were rabbit poop. Until my big brother told me. (Older siblings, they spoil everything.) When I see all those pellets down by the barn, I remember that. I googled ‘wrist rocket’ to see if they were still around. They are! My gosh, slingshot technology has advanced! Names like the “Laserhawk”, the “Daisy B52”, the “P51” (The B52 and P51 are well known airplanes). They have molded finger grips and can have multiple ‘launching’ bands! And magnets to hold steel pellets in the pouch! And mounted flashlights!! You can buy targets, or you can buy clay-based shot called “Clod Poppers”.  

The most expensive slingshot I could find was $99.99, the “Scout LT PRO”. According to their advertising, it comes with “additional thumb screws because they look awesome”. Well, there ya go. It looks awesome.  

There are Slingshot tournaments.   There’s a Slingshot Association International. 

Say it like Elmer Fudd

EVER HAD A SLING SHOT?  WHAT TOURNAMENT DO WE NEED?  

2024, Mysteries, Nature, Travel

Getting From Here to There

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It’s never a great sign when they close the plane doors, the walkway pulls back and then the plane just sits.  When I was headed to St. Louis it was pretty cold here.  Pilot came online to let us know that we had to get in line for de-icing.  I’m still not sure why we sat for an additional 45 minutes before we headed over to de-icing.  Then after de-icing, we also waited another 15 minutes before heading to the runway for take off. 

Not the end of the world… it was a direct flight so no anxiety about missing a connection and I had a good book.

On my return trip it was really cold and a lot of flights out of St. Louis were cancelled.  I’d checked all the flights to Minneapolis (my direct flight and all the connectors) and while most of the connectors were cancelled, my flight was still showing on time.  The plane wasn’t towed to the gate on time then a water hose was frozen.  They made us de-plane at that point for about an hour.  Then they put up back but we still sat.  Apparently hose was in running order but the computer had to be alerted that the maintenance was finished.  Then it turned out the plane had been put “out of service” and only somebody in Houston could correct that.   When we were finally all unlocked the pilot came online again to tell us that unfortunately due to the extremely cold weather, the drinks pod had sat outside too long and all the various pops and juices were frozen; they’d made the executive decision to forego beverage service so we wouldn’t have to delay longer.

There were audible groans heard throughout the plane at that point.  Me?  I laughed out loud. 

What do you consider a necessity when you travel?

2024, Family, home, Nature, Seasons, TV

Freak Out!

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I spent a week with Nonny in St. Louis the second week of January.  While I was there, they had some bad weather.  First there was “wintery mix” the night before I arrived which necessitated my brother-in-law picking me up from the airport instead of Nonny.  As far as I could tell, the wintery mix was a dusting of snow.  But a dusting of snow in St. Louis is a much bigger deal than it here.

Then as we headed into the weekend, the forecast was for “bitterly cold” temperatures – in the single digits with some below zero wind chills.  Again, for St. Louis this is out of the ordinary and very alarming.  St. Louis was freaking out.  On Friday night, Nonny had the tv set to local news for about 90 minutes and at least 60 of those minutes were spent on the weather.  What the temperature had been, what temperatures were predicted, instructions to stay in, recommendations for how to be prepared if you need to go out. 

As a Minnesotan of 45 years standing, it struck me as funny although I kept my mouth shut.  If we’d had weather in the Twin Cities the last few days like Renee experienced last week, we’d be freaked out too.  It’s all about what you’re used to. 

My sister, who has appointed herself the arbiter of what Nonny should and shouldn’t be doing, made sure to give me advice about keeping Nonny inside and making sure Nonny had enough food “stocked up”.  This was even funnier; if you know Nonny then you’d know that even at the age of 91, nobody gets to be Nonny’s arbiter except Nonny.  In fact, when I did a quick run out to the hardware store for some magnetic catches (fixing her bathroom cabinet doors), she insisted on coming with me.  So then we went to the grocery store as well.  The roads were pretty well deserted, even at noon.  St. Louis was indeed staying inside!

Caroline sent me this picture that day – what a great laugh since I was actually in St. Louis.    Of course it’s photo-shopped.  While ice does form on the Arch (and is actually a danger as it sheets off – they sometimes close the area underneath the Arch because of this), it never looks like this.  Too bad, it’s pretty this way!

Anybody remember who said “if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…”?  How do you keep calm when everyone else is freaking out?

2024, animals, Family, Farming Update, Nature, pets, Seasons, Weather

Almost There

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

The chickens and us survived January’s cold spell and the only casualties were my truck batteries and the electric bill. The truck, being a diesel, takes two batteries. I’ll replace them next week when it’s in positive temperature digits. Last Friday, as the storm was winding down, Kelly and I took the truck up the road just to see how bad it was. (It was only bad in spots) Then Tuesday when I needed the truck, it cranked pretty slow, but I ran it for a few hours and figured it would be fine on Wednesday. Nope. Just the dreaded click. Changed my plans and took the dog to the vet in the back of the car. (Humphrey tore a toenail and needed that trimmed off).

The chickens did fine hanging out inside and waiting for me to bring them more food and water. They didn’t seem to mind either way. Egg production went down a bit; 18 eggs per day rather than 24.

From this photo, you’ll see many of them seem to prefer this one nest box. They still like their groups of 3 and I often find nest boxes with three eggs in them. And nine is a variant of three, so it still works I guess. Production will recover as it warms up. I was taking corn to them by their pen as they didn’t venture outside very far. Above zero and a nice calm, sunny day and they do pretty good. Below zero and they just stand peeking out the door.

Kelly saw five male pheasants down by the barn and it’s always so fun to see them. There should be about 10 or 11 or, at least, there was last year. I assume the rest will find the corn eventually as word spreads in the pheasant community.

The deer community has come together in this cold weather. Here’s a picture of a herd spotted in our fields this week.

And a little further down the road, another group this large. I’m telling you, we have too many deer. Stupid deer.

This fall I put a smaller tank heater in the water tank down by the barn. It works fine when it’s above about 10 degree’s. It isn’t worth diddly in temps below that. When I put a frozen water bucket in the tank, I have to chip it out of the ice again in the morning, but the bottom will be thawed and I can knock the ice out and refill for the chickens.

I think by Monday I’ll be able to turn off the wellhouse heater. (see electric meter) I put 25 bales of straw around it last Thursday before it snowed.

Doesn’t seem to help hold the temp above freezing when it’s less than about 10 degree’s outside. Which makes me wonder: I’d think with the cement floor, the ground inside should be warmer, so am I losing that much heat out the roof? Should I put bales on the roof too? I rebuilt three of the four walls in 2013. The fourth wall is against a tree so it was too much trouble to rebuild.

I am lucky I didn’t need any tractors this week, but I kept the one plugged in just in case. (again, see electric meter). Kudo’s to all the people working in this weather and doing what needs to be done.

Next week I’m going to wash the car!

WHAT WILL YOU DO NEXT WEEK?

2023, animals, home, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

Brrr!

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Last Saturday we reached a milestone in our community of a record breaking windchill of -70° F. I can’t say I was glad to be a part of this. The cold interfered with a lot of things. The guy who is putting new carpet in our basement had to beg off from coming over as his diesel vehicle was completely frozen up and he couldn’t haul the things that he needed. We didn’t leave the house from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. We kept the curtains and blinds closed to keep the heat in and the cold out. I can’t imagine how hard it was for ranchers to keep their cattle safe out in the pastures.

The dog has suffered the most with the cold. He finally got a walk yesterday. Last Friday he went in the yard and got so cold that he couldn’t move and Husband had to rescue him. That was after only a minute or so outside. He wouldn’t be cooperative with booties, and the enforced inside stay has made him constantly begging for attention and doing zoomies around the house since it was too cold to go for walks.

Daughter tried to explain to her West Coast friends how cold it was here, but they just couldn’t relate. It is hard to explain that the cold interferes with the pressure in vehicle tires, and how hard it is to put air in tires when exposed skin will freeze in less than a few minutes. Warmer weather is predicted for next week. I think the dog will be relieved he can finally go for walks.

How do you cope with extreme cold? Any experiences with frost bite?

Family, Food, holidays, home, Nature

Maple Syrup

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The son of my BFF is what we used to call “a gentleman farmer”.  He and his family live in the big farmhouse and they have goats and chickens, a massive garden and maple trees.  Every fall he taps the trees and boils down the sap to make syrup.  He also has black walnut trees which are harvested.  I don’t understand the science behind any of it but the output of the maples and the black walnuts varies greatly from year to year.  I try never to get my expectations up about whether I will see the syrup and about whether any of the syrup will be “maple black walnut”.

This year the maples did fine but not the black walnuts our holiday gift was maple alone.  This is not a problem for me and I was looking forward to a couple of months of fresh from the farm syrup.  (This is particularly good when paired with Ben’s fresh from the farm eggs!)  YA tends to shy away from foods that are “different”; this means that farm eggs and fresh maple syrup are usually left completely to me.  Last years black walnut syrup was all mine.  Delicious.

For some reason YA decided to taste this year’s syrup.  Then she decided to make pancakes that night.  She’s now made pancakes four more times since Christmas – she even went out and purchased a new box of Bisquick after she used up the box in the cabinet.  I’m thinking I’d better make some pancakes of my own pretty darn quickly or I won’t even get to TASTE this year’s syrup!

How do you like your pancakes?  Is there a place that makes particularly good pancakes?

2023, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, holidays, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Poof

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Todays Farming Updates comes from Ben.

Just like that, another year gone. 414 dozen eggs sold in 2023. April was the highest with 63 dozen sold. September was lowest at 20 dozen. I’m thinking in 2024 I’m gonna try recording how many dozen I box up rather than sold.

2023

We lost some really good friends. We made some new ones. We got a new dog. We finally took a weekend trip after a few  years of hunkering at home. We saw some fantastic theater,  (I was even in a show), had a visit from my friend Keith for the first time in 25 years, and got so much stuff done at home! Most of it had to do with the shop remodeling, but still, it’s a wonder to look over the list and see how much got checked off! Just for fun, I put the list in a spreadsheet and there was 221 line items. Twenty of them aren’t done yet. There’s always next year.

I was grateful to not fight major health issues this year, and to revel in the simple joy of walking up a hill or carrying some feed. Or just to wander up the road from barn to shed!

We got some concrete poured and started work on the shop. The crop year wasn’t the best. And if you enjoy snow, the year didn’t end well for you. There was a lot of snow at the beginning of 2023, but it melted fairly quick.

I’ve been rebuilding the carburetor for the 630 tractor. (Line item #192) I had a good start on it early this week, but the last few days I’ve been busy elsewhere. But in my “New Heated Shop”*‘ (*sort of) I can keep working. I try not to think about how the tractor itself is out in the UNHEATED part of the shed. But that’s just 8 bolts and a couple fittings… right? Easy Peasy. Might be the first thing of 2024 to check off that list! I think I’m even gonna use most of the parts. I spent an hour on the phone with the oldest parts guy at my John Deere store, and another guy who restores antique tractors, to figure out one piece on my carburetor that’s not in the pictures. They figured it out. Surround yourself with good people. That might be my goal for 2024.

2024- I need to renew my private pesticide applicators license. I haven’t used it more than a few times in the 25+ years I’ve had it, but I’ll renew it again, simply because it’s one more link to farming I want to keep.

Monday, 1/1/2024 I’ll go round up the mileage and hours on all the vehicles and tractors and fill in my annual mileage spreadsheet. I always enjoy that. I’ll need to start finding numbers for our assets page. That too is pretty interesting. I had a young lady tell me how rich farmers are. She didn’t know we farm. I had to explain a few things to her. We have a lot of ASSETS, and we have good credit. We may or may not have a lot of cash in the bank. Sometimes were rich in daughters only*, or dirt. Just not cash. Every farm is different.

*Thank you, Greg Brown.

Looking ahead, I’ve ordered a textbook for next semester’s class on creative writing which begins on 1/8. An in-person class so that should be fun. Got crops planned, will be ordering seed and inputs soon.

12/31/23 – There’s a lot of numerology regarding that. It’s interesting to consider. https://www.almanac.com/123123-meaning-123123

PHOTOS

Take some time to ponder this weekend. Ponder 2023. Ponder 2024. Remember and imagine.

WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO SUROUND YOURSELF WITH?

2023, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, home, Nature, Theatre, Uncategorized

Wrapping Up

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

Sunday we saw ‘Aladdin’ at the Orpheum. It was big and fun. Everything you would expect of a Disney musical. Bright costumes, lots and lots of colorful lights, and a lot of magic. I still haven’t figured out how the carpet flew. It must have been magic.

I had feed delivered to the farm Monday. I had cracked corn put in the bulk bin by the barn and I feed it to the chickens. It wasn’t empty yet, but I didn’t want the truck coming down when the road gets icy or snow covered. I was planning ahead. The bin holds maybe 6000 lbs. I usually order 100 bushels (remember, 56 lbs / bushel, so 5600 lbs) about every 8 months. Because the bin wasn’t empty, I was gonna order 50 bushels. But the elevator / coop, wanted at least 4000 lbs to deliver. As long as the weather forecast was decent, we postponed for two weeks, and the corn fit with a little room to spare. The corn is from the ‘grain bank’; Corn I have the elevator store specifically for use as feed. (It’s not MY specific corn, it’s just an amount of bushels, so when I need corn, I don’t have to purchase that. I pay for the hauling and the cracking. $30 to crack it, $100 to deliver it.

I wish I had taken a picture of the truck unloading. Nothing has gotten smaller in the last 30 years…The driver said they have 5 bin trucks, and 7 bin trucks. This was a 7.  

The chickens are doing well. So well they’re doubling up on box space.

Maybe this is where the double yolkers come from!

One of our summer chickens turned into a rooster. So far, he hangs out with the hens and keeps to himself and hasn’t caused any trouble.

I’m not sure the other roosters even pay him any attention yet. Funny to think ‘They don’t know he’s around’, but maybe.

I stepped out one morning and everyone came to see what I had for them. The usual table scraps.

Crop insurance payment came in. It was enough I bought myself a new ladder. And I went for the heavy-duty fiberglass. I often see aluminum extension ladders on auctions, but not fiberglass.

I got a call from Samantha, my agronomist talking about 2024 crops. Input costs are down a bit from 2023, thank goodness. I expect Nate, my seed dealer to call soon. Early orders get discounts. Can I please just not have debt for a few weeks before taking out next year’s loan?

College semester is over. I finished the class with 94%. Whew. Creative Writing begins January 8th, and that will be an in-person class with a teacher I know well. Need about 22 credits yet and I’ll have a degree!

I baked the first batch of Amish Friendship Bread on Wednesday night. I had a bottle of Grape pop, I had my headphones on and I was listening to the first album of Chicago, when they were “Chicago Transit Authority”. It turned out OK.

WHAT WAS YOUR MUSIC THIS WEEK?

2023, Food, Nature, Travel

Henrietta Makes a Pig of Herself

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I love bakeries – you all know this.  Luckily most of my close friends are also bakery fiends, so I never have to worry about any bakery withdrawal when I travel.

Long before I visited Pat in Nashville last month, she had emailed me a link from a bakery that she wanted to try with me.  Most mornings we made breakfast at her house but one morning we did save for The Franklin Bakehouse.

Franklin is a small community about a half hour from Pat’s home in Nashville.  I expect that the folks in Franklin would bristle at being labeled an outer-ring suburb, but as Nashville has grown, that’s exactly what it has become.  It is the epitome of a small town – lots of little shops, wide sidewalks, picturesque streets.  It didn’t hurt that it was a beautiful fall day in Tennessee, making the drive very pleasant.  There were huge pots of chrysanthemums at every corner of the “downtown” – just gorgeous.

The aroma inside The Bakehouse was amazing and the array of pastries and sweets made it really hard to choose.  I ended up getting a massive cinnamon roll and a beautiful blueberry tart, knowing I couldn’t possibly eat it all (I asked for the to-go container right away).  Pat had the dutch apple pie/bread pudding.  It’s in the picture above and was almost as big as her head.  She also ended up taking some home.  We also ordered coffee and sat at a window table and watched the world go by.  It was a fabulous was to spend an hour that morning.

Henrietta didn’t really make a pig of herself; she actually bristles at the idea as she is a peccary, not a pig!

When was the last time you were able to really relax over a nice meal?

2023, Automotive, Family, Farming Update, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Brevity? None Here!

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I hope everyone was able to have the kind of Thanksgiving they wanted.

My friend Jia, teaching English over in South Korea, didn’t get a Thanksgiving this year and she missed it a lot.

Someday I need to learn brevity. But not today!

I figured out how to get 10 pounds in a 5 pound bag (from last week), you just get rid of 5 pounds. That happen when my truck had a dead battery. Or two. (because it’s a diesel, it uses two batteries to start) so the whole trip to Northfield and then John Deere got postponed and instead, I went out and finished chisel plowing.

This picture is the last bit of ground to be worked up. And that was a ‘mic drop’ moment. Whew. If you notice the line on the hood of the tractor, I scrubbed the left side to remove the grime, but not the right side. It DOES look nicer, and make a difference and I’d like to get the rest scrubbed off. Depends on the weather. I used the hose and washed off the chisel plow and some of the tractor, since the pressure washer is already tucked away for winter and too much trouble to get back out. (Boy, next year, with my new heated shop, it won’t be such an issue! Maybe!)

A highlight for this last day of fieldwork was adding a steering wheel spinner. Dad had them on all the tractors. Back in the 1990’s, my hand would cramp up (already had carpel tunnel, evidently) and I took them all off. Now, making all the turns on the ends of the fields, with my fingers tucked around a steering wheel spoke, makes my fingers sore. And since I had carpel tunnel surgery several years ago, I put spinners back on. It worked well.

When you look at this photo, you’ll see two fields planted to rye:

on the left and right of the tractor. It’s hard to tell how much of that is oats regrowing or the rye I planted late. The oats will not over-winter; it will die off. The rye will survive and grow again. Meaning come spring, and these fields will be planted to corn, I’ll need to have the rye “terminated”. Plowing it up won’t stop it. And if it’s a warm wet spring and it’s late spraying, it will be really tall, meaning there ends up being a lot of trash (plant material) to move through the equipment and it makes a tough seed bed. So, we’ll see. I look at this photo and I see a potentially difficult spring, and a leaking hydraulic hose on the chisel plow, and how I should replace all the hydraulic hoses on it, and the chisel shovels I need to replace. But the sky is pretty.

Doing the fieldwork really is meditative. I had my tractor buddy with me and I saw bald eagles. Boy, there was a lot of ears of corn on the ground this year, in some fields more than others. Damn deer, they tear off a lot of ears and nibble on it a bit. And it was a mixed bag this year because of the drought. The stalks were shorter than normal, and more brittle than normal, and then because the stalks and corn dried out sooner, it was easy for the deer to reach them, easier to pull off, easier for all the kernels to pop off the ear.

Driving around, I would see ‘combine loss’ in the fields, kernels that didn’t get into the combine. Kernels on the ground is not helpful and it means money lost. There are a lot of extra attachments to help corn or soybeans get into the combine. Air systems to blow kernels in, brushes to help feed the kernels in, extra brushes so they don’t pop out. But I don’t own the combine, so… not much I can do about that. Kernels might pop off because the soybean pods are so dry, they split open just from being ‘jostled’ before the combine header gets to them. Or the corn ear might break off the stalk, hit the header, and fall on the ground, or hit hard enough the kernels fly off. Harvesting is kind of a cataclysmic process, yet it needs to be somewhat gentle not to damage the kernel. There’s a lot happening in the moment in the combine, and it’s not surprising to see kernels on the ground. But there was a lot this year, and it means money lost and it’s kinda frustrating because there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll try calling it the angels share.

We got some mail order pork delivered In a box with dry ice. I got some hot water and we had some fun.

You wouldn’t think the most dangerous part of farming would be trying to adjust the right-hand mirror on the tractor. It’s 8 feet up, out in the middle of nothing. When at home, I use a step ladder to adjust it. Then out in the field, I hit a tree branch and it gets knocked out of place. And there I am climbing up over the three-point hitch and onto the tire trying to get this back out in place and focused right. And trying to get back down, I think about all the hard, sharp edges, and pointy things I can snag myself on, or fall on to, and sometimes I leave the mirror where it is. Newer tractors have steps to reach allow cleaning the windows and reaching the mirror. And the ‘delux’ cab, has remote mirrors. Someday.

Next week, did we make any money?

ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT ANY OF THIS?  YOUR LAST ‘MIC DROP’ MOMENT?