Tuesday Husband and I took the dog to the groomer in a little town about 10 miles west of us. I drove, and on the way back I had to swerve to avoid running over a very long rattlesnake that was slithering across the highway. We estimated it to be about four feet long. We have Prairie Rattlesnakes out here. Their markings are unmistakable. We have seen them all lengths, from tiny ones no thicker than a pencil to the long one on Tuesday. The weather has been so warm here I suppose it was a good time for the snake to check out the available mice in the ditch. We have never seen any in town.
I had some clients years ago who had to move out of their rental home on the south side of town because there were dozens of garter snakes in the walls of the basement. The house was later condemned and torn down. We heard that the lot the house was built on was a noted breeding ground for garter snakes. No other structure has been built there.
The town of Narcisse in Manitoba interlake region is well known for the tens of thousands of garter snakes that emerge from their nests in the spring and return in the fall. I guess it is quite a tourist attraction. We never visited there when we lived there. Snakes aren’t my cup of tea. I have a second cousin who I love dearly who lives near St. Peter and who loves snakes. He has bred snakes for commercial sale in the past, and loves it when his cats find garter snakes in the basement and bring them upstairs.
What are your experiences with snakes? Do you have any friends or relatives with interests you find odd?
The other day our terrier came into the house with a large, green caterpillar in his mouth. We got it away from him before he could eat it but it was clearly dead.
Our deck off the back of the house has a pergola that is covered by layers of grape vines. It provides nice shade and also harbors birds who like to eat the grapes. A night or two ago I was sitting on the deck when the green wiggler in the header photo dropped to the floor right in front of me. I guess the vines also provide a nice environment for caterpillar development. The caterpillar was still alive, so I moved it into some bushes so the birds and dog would have difficulty finding it. I hope it gets a chance to form a cocoon.
One of my favorite memories from Grade 3 is finding a really big cocoon and bringing it to class. My teacher let me keep it in the classroom, and a couple of days later we came to school to find an enormous Cercropia moth flying around the room. I don’t know what kind of caterpillar our green one is, but I hope it doesn’t turn into a destructive moth.
Any idea what kind of caterpillar this is? Ever have an insect collection?
Kelly commented one day she didn’t know why the handle on the drawer holding the kitchen garbage can always had streaks of something on it. I knew immediately it was probably from the egg I crack every morning, but I didn’t offer that up at the time. She might read it here…
I was making daughters egg cup the other morning. The first egg cracked perfectly, opened perfectly, and I plopped the yoke right into the cup. Went to crack the second egg and the shell pretty much disintegrated, the contents splashed onto the counter and slid right off into the garbage. (Over that handle of course). At which point, as I flailed, I knocked the egg cup with the first egg onto the floor. The dogs were right there for clean up. With luck, Kelly won’t know about that either. Course it was kinda funny so I’ll probably tell her. … at some point…
A few weeks ago, I saw a postal truck dead on the side of the road. The next day I saw it being towed. A few days after that I saw another one being towed. Jeepers. Then there was the semi carrying mail that caught fire on Hwy 52 outside Rochester. I do have to say, mail service to our house seems to be getting better. We’re getting mail before noon, whereas it had been 7PM for a few years. And often now, they’ll bring the mail and a package right to the house. Those of you who’ve been to the farm know that’s not a light task; it’s a long drive out of the way to bring a parcel down to us.
And then just the other day I saw one of the new postal vehicles.
Uh… it’s…. something!
It’s called the ‘Next Generation Delivery Vehicle’. NGDV.
I did some internet searching on them. Here are various headlines and descriptions:
-U.S. POSTAL SERVICE’S UGLY DUCK MAIL TRUCK
-U.S. POSTAL SERVICE’S EV TRUCKS ARE STILL FUNNY-LOOKING, NOW HARDER TO KILL OFF
-The Postal Service’s new delivery vehicles aren’t going to win a beauty contest. They’re tall and ungainly. The windshields are vast. Their hoods resemble a duck bill. Their bumpers are enormous.
–The Oshkosh Next Generation Delivery Vehicles might look like background traffic in a Pixar film
-You can tell that [the designers] didn’t have appearance in mind
-SO MUCH FOR LOOKING COOL WHILE YOU DELIVER THE MAIL*
-It looks like a robot Beluga whale—built by the East German government.*
-Our Grumman mail trucks [The old trucks] look like they were supplied by the government of East Germany and they sound like the tortured exhalations of a hungover water buffalo—hhhhggggggggmmmmmggghhhh. Honey, the mail’s here.*
-Odd appearance aside, the first handful of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles … are getting rave reviews from letter carriers
–The side cargo door allows for direct delivery onto the curb
The drivers really like them. They have AC (Can you believe the old ones didn’t?), airbags, back up camera’s, a 360° camera, collision warning, and most importantly, the tall box allows drivers to walk through without ducking. The current vehicles, made by Grumman, came into service in 1987 and was scheduled for 25 years. They outlived that predicted life. But they are failing. And they seem to catch fire fairly often. Prior to that vehicle was the Jeep DJ-5. The USPS used them during the 1970’s and ‘80’s. I bought a used one from my friend Thom, and he had bought it used from someone else. It was dark green. I drove it for a few years in the mid 1980’s. It was standard left side drive, and I used it when I was a field reporter for the Department of Agriculture. With the sliding door, it was great for holding a measuring wheel out the door and driving around a field. It was just 2-wheel drive, so that wasn’t an option for every field, but it was still kinda cool looking (well, ‘Different’ anyway). Even with the bungee strap holding the back door shut (because if you went over a bump, the back door would pop open) and the steering was so loose you didn’t dare drive over about 55 MPH, but it was fun to drive. Thom had mounted a stereo between the seats, and bolted speakers to the back wall. The metal dash was pretty rudimentary.
Not my jeep, just a representative photo. I wonder why I never took a picture of mine?
Not too much happening around the farm. I did get the 630 carburetor back on and had it running! It’s quiet enough I could actually hear myself think! It’s not done, I have a few more things to replace. Saving up for the next ‘Old Tractor Part’s Order’.
I got a township call from a sheriff deputy about some junk that had been dumped. Turned out to be two large commercial pizza ovens. Those things are heavy! I called a couple neighbors to help load them. It was all we could do to just tip it up and tip it onto the trailer.
Pizza ovens on the trailer
The next day was a sectional couch and mattress to pick up. Just more ditch clean up. Part of the job for a township supervisor. The couch and mattress I haul to county recycling. We know them on a first name basis there. We’re regulars. The pizza ovens I added to my scrap metal trailer.
I finally hauled in the old tires I had cut off those wagons. Took them to a local auto shop and paid ___ for disposal.
Got half an inch of rain Thursday night. More predicted.
Here’s a picture of a chicken because the green shades look so pretty.
From a distance, they look black. But they have more colors than you’d think, and they are really pretty.
My summer Padawan has been out working on his car a few times. I helped him for an hour one night and rolling around underneath looking up, down, left, and right acerbated some vertigo I was beginning to get. The next day I sat very still. He’s learning a lot—I hope. He’s certainly at a disadvantage because he’s being self-taught, which is good, but it can be frustrating and it all takes longer. And he’s not quite in the right mindset for that. He’s eighteen so he knows everything already. And he gets frustrated easily with the car. I tried to tell him it’s all part of the job and if he’s gonna get frustrated, he’s in the wrong job. Monday he starts as an employee at a REAL job. A 7AM to 3PM job. We’ll see how that goes. Cross your fingers for him. I give him about a 35% chance of sticking with it. He just has no idea. And it’s going to take a few tries, and I suspect he’s gonna be one of those kids who must hit bottom to figure it out.
You’d think that with all the tomato dishes we’ve had in the last few weeks that I would not be craving yet another tomato recipe. The last couple of days I’ve been thinking about pizza – specifically Boludo’s, which we haven’t had in a while. But the combination of my knee (had therapy yesterday morning and was quite sore) and all the tomatoes on the counter and all the pesto in the fridge overtook my desire to order in.
Pizza dough with olive oil, pesto and thinly sliced Romas (and I did NOT cut myself on the mandolin!!!) with some assorted shredded cheeses I found in the cheese drawer. Topped with some salt and pepper and then some more shredded parmesan that I had leftover from lunch a few days ago. Turned out rather well, if I do say so myself.
I read for a lot of reasons. One of them is to find new ideas or to be reminded of ideas I may have had in the past.
The book I just finished (not revealing the title as there would be spoilers otherwise) had a fairly absurd premise but then managed to present several trains of thought that were tantalizing. A huge asteroid is heading for Earth and scientists have determined that it will wipe out everyone and everything in two years, six weeks.
One character, who works in banking, came up with a scheme that basically defrauds people but will make the bank a ton of moolah. His theory is that by the time folks figure out they’ve been defrauded, the world will be ending. Sadly the other members of the board agreed with him.
Another character, an aging rock and roll star, was facing terminal cancer and decided to end his life so that his music royalties would go to his first ex-wife as soon as possible. He also made an extremely heartfelt apology to her for how he had treated her back in the day.
A third character, an anthropologist, was worried about the end of civilization before the end of the world. Why, he postulated, would be the incentive to keep working? Who would do the jobs that keep us all fed and clothed?
This last character’s questions have remained with me for days now. Whenever there is some news of an asteroid that’s coming close to the planet, I do muse about the end of days. But I have never considered what would happen if we KNEW it was end of days for sure. How could we keep civilization going? How would I personally get by until the end? Would I feel the need to atone for my “sins”? I’m not sure, but I think I would definitely make a trip to Alaska, the only state in the union I haven’t visited.
Anything on your bucket list you’d like to do if you knew the world was ending in two years and six weeks?
When I started the rough draft of this blog Thursday, I didn’t have much farm stuff to talk about. Now Friday afternoon and I’ve got a few farm related things.
I needed some straw bales for Friday. First of the 2025 crop to be used and climbing up into the straw pile and trying to hit the truck bed was a challenge.
Trying to aim under the rafter and get the bales in the truck bed.
We hosted daughters group, PossAbilities, and gave them a wagon ride through the fields. Kinda cold and windy, but they had blankets, Kelly made hot chocolate for them when they returned, and they enjoyed it.
I hauled in the scrap iron on Thursday. The wagons I pulled out of the trees and scrapped last week.
The net weight of the scrap was 3200 lbs.
The cranes are always fun to watch. My goodness, the amount of scrap is overwhelming. Juxtaposed with such a pretty blue sky!
I took secondary roads there, and I took gravel back roads most of the way home. I saw two Bald Eagles eating something that left a pretty good sized red spot in the field. I saw more of those ‘Bigfoot’ silhouettes. A few farmers are starting to chop some corn, and lots of guys are doing 3rd or 4th crop hay.
A couple months ago when our fridge died, we purged a lot, and moved a lot to the basement chest freezer and spare fridge downstairs. I still haven’t figured out why the new freezer section upstairs is so empty. What happened to all that stuff?? I thought we needed it? Isn’t that a story for our times…”But, I need that!” No, evidently, no you don’t.
One of the things missing from the upstairs freezer was the last loaf of chocolate chip Amish friendship bread I had made back in March. Most of us freeze and savor those summer time flavors in January. Here in September I’m remembering last winter. I didn’t think I’d have thrown it out as I know the chocolate is bad for dogs. The chickens would have loved it, but I just didn’t remember doing that. Took a month, but I found it in a bag in the chest freezer and I’ve been enjoying it. It’s not as dried out as I thought it might be, and I look forward to baking more this winter.
When I was researching how to remove those old tires last week, I saw one video where the guy talked about using diamond tipped cutting blades. The cheap abrasive cut-off blades I can buy at big box stores wear away quick. They’re about $3 each, but as the name implies, ‘abrasive cut off’, meaning they wear out as fast as they’re cutting. Cutting off the 16 tires I used 4 small, 4” wheels, and one 7” wheel. So I went shopping online for diamond tipped wheels. An “Indestructible” wheel comes in a 5 pack. Well, Huh. You see where I’m going with this? If… then why…?
I ordered a 3 pack of diamond tipped cut off wheels. We’ll see what happens when I get to the next set of old tires.
(There might be a photo here if I remember to go out to the shed and take a photo)
I REMEMBERED!
Abrasive disc on the top, diamond disc on the bottom
Kelly and I have a joke that I can’t find anything if you’re going to put it under my nose. This morning it was my cell phone. It was 6” away from where I was looking. No wonder I couldn’t find it. I had to borrow daughters phone to call mine and track it down. I was the kid with my mittens attached to my sleeves…Why is that getting worse instead of better?
We’ve talked before about that magic ten minutes in the morning. Every. Morning. It was later than usual one morning. Daughter and I got in the car to leave and she says “I was pretty fast this morning, wasn’t I.” Uh. Not really. But I don’t know why. Maybe it was petting the dogs longer than we should have. Which seems like a pretty good excuse. One night she was mad at me for not letting her do something. She begged and pleaded and then stormed off yelling “YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD!” I replied, “Actually, biology has nothing to do with this.” and then I got the giggles. She didn’t think it was so funny but a few minutes later we talked it over. She gets over stuff quick. I like that. 
Last weekend Kelly and I attended a wedding in St. Paul. It was at a relatively new wedding venue called Le VENERÉ. A pretty nice place. Newly remodeled. The Groom told me when they toured it in February it was full of scaffolding. It is an old building with a really cool stone foundation. They had a 1920’s ‘Speakeasy’ theme and encouraged people to dress the part. I wore sleeves. And after looking up 1920’s styles, just decided to order a cheap 1970’s style ruffled shirt like I had in high school. It came with a bow tie that wouldn’t fit around my fat neck, so I just wore it on my sleeve. Kelly and I drove up Friday and had a weekend vacation. We had a great time at the wedding with friends.
My bales look sorry this summer. Saggy and disintegrating looking. Ben explained to me how this can happen – kinda made sense.
But saggy and disintegrating doesn’t seem to be a problem for my veggies. We’re having a bumper crop of everything. Basil, chives, rosemary, cilantro, poblano peppers, hot macho peppers, mint and 4 kinds of tomatoes. Romas, some heirloom, sweet 100 cherry and in a summer surprise, I’ve actually gotten a couple of Santa tomatoes from the plant that I grew from a seed. I’m sure there’s more out there but I haven’t harvested for a couple of days.
Santa Tomatoes
I used up all the cilantro already. Four jars of pesto so far, an ice cube tray of chopped mint with lime juice, another ice cube tray of chopped basil with olive oil. Eight containers of tomato sauce. Gifts of tomatoes to neighbors and friends.
And lots and lots of tomato recipes. (This was all going on while I had a MASSIVE zucchini to deal with as well.) I’ve made my favorite pasta with cherry tomatoes a couple of times. Made tomato butter that was terrific on the zucchini corn bread. This weekend I’m making panzanella, tomato basil soup and some tomato rice. Probably time to consign some of the tomatoes to the freezer as well. Whole tomatoes right into freezer bags for use this winter.
Gosh – I feel like Renee and Chris with all this produce and cooking!
Going to work early one morning and there was the football team, under the stadium lights, all in uniform, having practice. Whew, I think early morning practices would be tough. Like getting up to exercise.
We saw a “V” of geese flying over one day.
Later I listened to about 2 dozen barn swallows gathered on an electric line chittering and chattering and having quite the discussion about when and where to go. Although the ‘where’ is pretty well defined, at least in general. South. Everybody. Just head south.
Kelly got one of those hotel sales calls that would take us someplace south if we just listened to a sales pitch. We don’t like to make hasty decisions, and I didn’t realize the salesperson was on hold while Kelly and I talked a few times. Then the salesperson’s manager came on and tried to shame Kelly for keeping the person on the phone for so long and not immediately just saying ‘Yes’. Snort. Give her attitude, will you? Click.
We will not be going south.
I had my first day of class. Forensic Chemistry. It’s a hybrid class, meaning a lot of it is done online, then we meet Wednesdays for lab. My friend Paul is taking a writing class. Here’s our first day of class photo.
FIRST DAY OF CLASS
I got the front end off the wagon where the wheels went wonky.
It’s not supposed to look like this. I have a nephew, Matt, who is a welder. He’ll be coming to look at it and see if it’s salvageable. A lot of cracks and old welds where the axle attaches to the frame. Old welds must be mine, but I don’t remember fixing this.
Mid-September there will be another online auction in Plainview. Last week when I dragged all the old machinery out of the trees, I pulled out a pretty nice disc. I had used it for several years until I got something bigger and better. I cleaned the disc up, greased it, and towed it to the auction.
WIDE LOAD COMING THROUGH
It is 20’ wide so I took up most of the road and part of the shoulder. I try to take the back roads when I do this sort of thing, but I have to get to the back roads first. Most traffic was pretty respectful. I had the SMV sign on the back, and I bought two magnetic flashing lights, one for the front corner, and one for the back corner. I travelled about 25 MPH. When able, I’d pull over and let traffic pass me.
Then I got to the road where they were painting new lines on the road. And putting cones down. I knocked over the first two cones before I figured out how far I needed to move over. And I scared a couple garbage cans. But I got it there in one piece.
The next day I took in a 24’ bale elevator, but that was on a trailer and wasn’t any big deal.
Several times, Kelly and I would go outside planning to do “this” and we’d go off and do “that” instead. And we’d laugh, “This isn’t what I came out to do…” Yep, but it needed doing anyway.
I picked an ear of corn.
THAT is a nice ear of corn
It’s filled to the tip, which means it had ideal growing conditions. Any stress and the plant aborts the kernels at the top. This one was 40 kernels long, and 16 around. (It’s always an even number around). So 40 x16 = 640 kernels x 30,000 (plants / acre) = 19,200,00 kernels in an acre / 90,000 (kernels in a bushel) = 213 bushel / acre. Never in my life have I had a crop that good. This won’t be either. Factor in the deer, the raccoons, the clay or rocky spots, the trees on the edges… and I might actually make 180 bu / acre. We shall remain cautiously optimistic.
The soybeans are looking great.
BELLY BUTTON HIGH!
TOP EXTRA TENDER LEAVES
Notice these extra leaves and pods on the top? Again, terrific growing season. The deer just haven’t found this plant yet… that’s what they’re eating off is all the tender bonus growth on the top.
One evening I burned a brush pile. Later, Kelly and I sat in the gator and enjoyed the fire.
BON FIRE DATE!
I removed the tires from the rims on the old junk wagons. I watched some YouTube videos how to do this quick and easy. They were using car tires that didn’t have innertubes, and they hadn’t been sitting in the trees for 30 years. But I figured it out. Cut it open with a Sawzall, then use a grinder to cut the bead cable. Removed 16 tires.
One didn’t have a tube! Just about every farm tire has an innertube in it. And most of the tubes had patches on them. It made me smile, and feel a little nostalgic. Dad or I had these tires apart before and patched a hole. If you don’t know, getting a tire off the rim is difficult if you don’t have the fancy tire machines. The bead, that inner ring of the tire, has a steel cable in it, and that’s what holds the tire on the rim. And it seals tight and it’s a pain to get off with hand tools. Dad took off a lot of tires, patched the tube, and put the tire back on. You have to get the bead to seal. I have done a lot of tires, too. But now days, with the tire goop stuff you can just pour inside, I don’t take so many apart; I’m not subjecting the wagons and tires to the wear I did when milking cows and making hay. And, like I mentioned last week, I’ll often just go get a new tire before replacing the tube. Working smarter, not harder.
Some of the junk was two old flare boxes. Wagons we used for hauling ear corn or oats. I haven’t used them in a lot of years. The floors are rotted out and frames are too small and lightweight to be reused. It’s just scrap.
Mothers’ warnings and bits of advice run through my head. I’m assuming (hoping?) I’m not the only one.
Don’t run with scissors. You sound like a cow chewing her cud (usually with gum). You two girls quit fighting – you sound like fishwives. Close the door – were you raised in a barn? Money doesn’t grow on trees. If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you? Your face with freeze that way. All of these were heard during my childhood.
You’d think that with all these tropes running through my head, that I would be more careful.
Between YA being out of the country and me having blown my knee out, the grass got out of control. YA was eager to get to it last Friday and I was happy she wanted to work on it. Since my knee was tender from going to State Fair the day before, I did the knee-friendly stuff. Moved the aidirondack chairs and little table, wound up the hose and then the exciting poop patrol. I headed out in my shorts and zorries. Easy peasy.
Since it had been so long between mowings, the grass has overgrown the sidewalk so I decided that I would do some trimming. No knee bending for this. You’d think that getting an electric edger out of the garage would set off some of my mom’s advice in my head, but…. Nope. While YA was still mowing, I started on a few edges along the flower gardens. Almost immediately a piece of cedar mulch whipped up and took a chunk out of my ankle. I decided to move to the sidewalk at that point. After I did the sidewalk, I tackled the little patio. It was then that I twisted a bit and in reacting to the knee objecting to this move, I ran the edger over my toe. Ouch was an understatement. Luckily no nearby little children were out in their yards to hear me swearing. The cut wasn’t deep but was about two inches long, going from the tip of my big toe, diagonally down the length of the whole toe.
I have two pairs of gardening shoes that live on the back porch. If a smart person were living at my house, they would have grabbed a pair of those shoes before plugging in the weed whacker. And if my mother had been around she also would have admonished me to put on a pair of those shoes. But once again, no Nonny and no smart person either! I liberally applied antibiotic cream and bandages for the first day or so and both injuries are healing up nicely. But I feel a little sheepish admitting this.
Done anything silly/stupid lately that you should have know better about?
I’ve noticed some soybean fields just starting to turn yellow. Kelly says the barn swallows are grouping up. And acorns are dropping. All that probably means something.
Crop prices keep dropping, too. Due to predictions of good yields across the corn belt. Locally, corn is under $3.50 / bushel, and soybeans are under $10. That’s a tough place to be. My direct costs to grow and harvest corn is roughly $400 / acre, and for soybeans about $300 / acre. Not knowing how the fall will shape up, or what drying costs might be, we’re speculating on final yields and prices. Making conservative estimates of $3.00 / bu final price means I’d need 133 bu / acre to cover costs. And that should be doable. Optimistically I’d have 180 bu / acre. That would leave me $273/ acre to cover repair costs, fuel, interest, crop insurance, pay off the loans, make payments on long term debt, ect. Soybeans work out the same way, just different numbers. Neither is in the bin yet, so we’ll see. This is why I have a few other jobs. To support my farming hobby. (eye roll)
Last weekend Padawan and I did a bunch of stuff. We packed the wheel bearings with grease and took the other wheel hub apart to replace those bearings. Both rear tires were wore out; one was on borrowed time. A few days later I went to Appel Service in Millville MN with the two wagon tires, a tire from the plow I had replace this spring, and another tire I found in the shop that I haven’t remember what it’s for yet. I’ve talked about Appels before; we’ve been taking tires to them for years and years. It’s about 25 minutes away. Great guys and a great drive.
I forgot to buy the dust seals for the axel hubs, which I picked up on Monday, but I had padawan reinstall the hub, even without the dust seal, just so he could see how you tighten it up and put the cotter pin in it. He had no idea what a cotter pin was. If you don’t know, it’s a split pin, length varies: length and the diameter as needed, and once through the hole, you bend the sides to prevent whatever you’re holding from coming off. I have some pins that are 1/4” diameter and 2” long and some tiny ones 1/2” long and 1/32″ diameter.
Then we drained the coolant and he replaced the radiator hose on the old John Deere 630. I had him pull the carburetor off. He is too young to know what a carburetor does. We changed the oil, oil filter, and the air filters on the big tractor, the 8200. It has two air filters; The biggest is about the size of a 5 gallon bucket. He was really impressed with that. Then a smaller inner air cleaner. He went home and cleaned up, and came back out with his girlfriend, who chased down her pet chicken, and they stayed for pizza with us. The kids, not the chicken.
I have been working on the 630 exhaust manifold. Got the bolts out and the manifold off! Heated it with a torch, just like my friend Tim J. said. Would you believe there’s another Tim J?? He’s not too much like this tim j. but that one knows a lot about old tractors. The two bolts that were broken off, I welded nuts on the top (to make a bolt head again) and they came right out! I couldn’t believe it!
Heating the castings to break the rust
Nuts welded on the broken boltsUh, this looks broken…
Took me a while to find my welding stuff as I haven’t needed that in the new shop yet. the old welder on the bottom, newer welder on the top. That old welder, maybe from the 1950’s? has taught several of us how to weld. Dad taught me and some of my nephews. The oxy-acetelyne torch to the right, I’ve had since 1982. I learned how to use a gas welder in high school shop class and mom and dad bought me this one for my 18th birthday.
WELDERS
Friday morning I went to pick up a really nice long reach 5 ton hydraulic floor jack that I got at an auction.
Then to Millville to pick up the 4 tires I had dropped off earlier in the week. I took a random gravel road, 592ndstreet out of Millville, and had a great drive, all by myself, following the Zumbro river to the North. It was a great drive! I wasn’t sure where I was, and there was no cell signal down there along the hills, but eventually the road looped back to the south and I found my way home.
MEANDERING
The truck seemed to be riding rougher than it had earlier and the tread was separating on a front tire. Thankfully it got me home, and I jacked it up (using the new jack) and went back to Millville with the truck tires. Another great drive with no one else on the road, Just the way I like it. It was about 4:15 on Friday when I got there and the shop was pretty quiet. Paul and Dan took the tires off, Jim got me two new ones, and they mounted and balanced them, and I was headed back home in about 20 minutes. I sure do like going to Millville. Good thing I’m employed again since I spent $1200 on tires Friday.
My brother came out and we took 100 bales of straw off the wagon with the broken front end, and put them on another wagon. Then I put 20 bales in the truck for delivery on Saturday, and the last 52 bales on a trailer. Perhaps Saturday I’ll get the front wheels off and see what’s really broken on there. Right after I put the two new tires back on the other wagon.
And I pulled out a disk I’m not using anymore to take to an auction next week. I pulled a bunch of junk out of the trees last week. Two old flare boxes, an old elevator, an old digger, and a 24’ bale elevator that I will also take to the auction. There wasn’t trees growing through them when I parked them there… that’s how long some of it has been there. Time to go.
Music this week is Nina Simone. I recently heard ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”
Trail Baboon 