The CDS (Cat Distribution System) is working its way in our family this month.
A couple of weeks ago our daughter in Washington State told us about this cat that suddenly appeared on the second floor deck of her apartment. She is on the top floor of her building. The cat had descended from the roof. It hung around on her deck for a while and then climbed back on the roof. Daughter put out a cushion for it to sleep on. She didn’t see it again, though.
The cat made another appearance outside the front door of her apartment a couple of days ago. The apartments are all accessable from the outside stairs. He was crying and wanting inside the apartment next door, but no one answered when Daughter knocked. She let the facility management know, and then put out water for him, which he drank. He let her a little nearer to him him and seemed to want love and pets. Her next goal is to get him into a carrier and have him checked by a vet for a microchip. He is a longer haired tortoiseshell.
Daughter already has two cats, but the way she talks about her visitor makes me think she will keep him if she can. Husband, Son, Daughter in law, and I were all on the texts about this cat, all of us hoping she could catch and keep him or else find his people. Almost all of our cats have been rescues from town or from Daughter’s best friend’s ranch in the ND Badlands. Son found our cat, Luna, under a deck in Brookings as an abandoned kitten nine years ago. Our first cat in ND just showed up at our front door one Halloween, and we took her in. Son considered getting a purebred Maine Coon as his next cat until he realized they cost a couple of thousand dollars. Cat rescue is best. Even better is when a cat chooses you!
What animals have you rescued? Favorite cat songs and art? How do you feel about cats as pets?
You know, it was so warm last week, it was so freaking muddy. It was terrible. And I know it’s gonna happen the next time it warms up again. But that’s next month’s problem!
I’ve always found it interesting the clumps of snow and ice that accumulate on the far side of railroad crossings. When a vehicle hits a bump like that and the ice chunks fall off and skid up the road a ways. Newton’s first law about an object in motion I think. It’s kinda cool to me.
Wednesday this week I went to an oat producers meeting. Got another really good free meal!
It was a very good meeting. Lots of good speakers and interesting topics. I did critique the font of one guy’s slides… I’m such a snob. The meeting started at 10:00, and people wandered in for another hour. And it reminded me how hard it was to get anywhere before about noon when milking cows and doing chores in the winter. Feed the beef cows, feed the dairy cows, milk, chase the beef out of the yard, let the dairy cows out of the barn, clean the barn, haul out the manure, throw down hay from the haymow, spread out straw bedding, spread out the hay, and put the cows back in when they’re done eating outside. It all took a while.
Excuse me, can you keep your heads down…
There were 159 farmers in attendance (because the host said now she knew how long it took to get 159 people through the line for lunch.)
One guy kinda looked like Robert Duvall.
I wore a peach colored shirt. I was the most colorful person there. A lot of plaid and dark colors. And a fair number of women at this meeting too.
It was mentioned that 26% of the farmers in Olmsted County planted cover crops last, involving 20,000 acres.
As one speaker went through his slides, he’d show a field of oats and call out ‘Eye candy!’
*He’s also the guy that said it was an ‘Oat-standing day’.
I saw them in concert back in 1984 just to impress a girl. I Broke up with her anyway.
Several of the speakers, and many of the farmers, are growing a few hundred acres of oats. They talk about their 40’ air seeders and stripper heads for oats and growing 140 bushel / acre oats and I sit there quietly with my 30 acres, and 40 bushels / acre and think ‘You don’t have any deer do you?’ I asked a question if anyone is dragging their oat fields. Crickets. One speaker finally said they do no-till planting. Oh. yeah meaning they don’t have bare dirt like I do. Several said that. One of the benefits of no-till, is being able to get out and plant in March without needing to wait for the ground to warm up and dry out to do tillage before planting, like I do.
Several of these farmers are responsible for the surge in oat growers. They’re the founders of the oat mafia.
One guy shared his spreadsheet for his crop input and expenses. If input costs are going to be high, and crop prices are going to be low, then we hope for high enough yields to make up the difference. One example was a 1400 acre farm. If he does 700 acres corn and 700 acres beans, expenses will be this much, income theoretically this much, and they’re losing money. However, if they do 466 acres corn, 467 acres bean, and 467 acres oats, they can make some money. Oats cost less than corn to produce. Remember, less yield or a thunderstorm or a lower price and it’s all out the window.
Jochum Wiersma, from the U of M is always a good speaker. He’s from the Netherlands, and he’s got a bit of an accent, and he is funny, and a very intelligent good speaker. He asked the group if we thought farming was more like NASCAR or a European Rally race? Obviously, a rally. “NASCAR is all left turns, you always know what’s coming.” If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. That’s why farming and raising oats is all about managing risk.
I took home several good lessons. My crop rotation has been soybeans, corn the next year, then oats the next. Repeat. I do it that way because soybeans add nitrogen to the soil meaning I spend less on nitrogen for the following corn crop. When our son was in high school, he did a report for some class, comparing corn after oats and corn after soybeans. Surprisingly, the corn after oats did better. and I don’t really recall when or why I changed up the rotation order, but it was said several times, DO NOT PLANT OATS AFTER CORN, it’s more susceptible to crown rust disease. And maybe that’s why my oat crop has been so lousy lately. So, we’ll try planting oats on the fields that were soybeans last year.
I cut down a bunch of dead Ash trees last Saturday. Thirty years ago, I planted two rows of ash trees and some arborvitae shrubs, hoping to create a windbreak in which I planned to put calf hutches on the south side. It turned out to be a pretty wet area. All the arborvitae died off a few years later. The ash trees got to be 40′ tall and were kind of a pain to mow around, now they’re all dead from Emerald Ash borer. There’s a few I’m waiting for a tree company to take down as they’re too close to the feed storage building for me to cut down. I left the stumps about two feet tall for the moment. I’ll trim them off at ground level this summer.
Using the tractor and loader I was pushing the trees into a pile, and that’s when a tree branch rolled around the inside of the rear tire rim and snapped off the valve stem. Have I mentioned the chloride fluid I have put in the rear wheels for additional weight and traction? It sprays out when you break off the valve stem. My friends at Appel Service and $650 fixed that on Monday. I put the grapple bucket on the loader and picked up the rest of the trees to move them.
I need to remember, a tractor is not a bulldozer.
That worked much better. Until I got the tractor I over a stump. Not really sure how I did that. Bent a shield underneath…
I parked the tractor in the shop and let it dry off and warm up for a couple days, then I rolled under with wrenches and removed the shield. Trying to bend the shield enough to reach the bolts and I remembered Newtons third law: me on a rolling creeper pushing against a larger tractor…doesn’t move the shield, it moves me. An equal and opposite reaction! SCIENCE!
I’ve had chickens living in the garage again. I chased three out of the rafters one evening. The chickens hop from one rafter to another, and the dogs got all riled up and daughter thought the whole thing was hysterical.
Chicken!
TALK ABOUT LEARNING TO RIDING A BIKE.
TALK ABOUT BIRDS / THINGS YOU’VE SEEN PERCHED IN ODD PLACES
Way too warm for February. But the chickens sure enjoying having some grass and sunshine. The dogs, too. And if we can get rid of some of the ice between the house and shed, maybe Luna will chase the ball over that way instead of standing here watching it go.
I’m thinking I’ll use the tractor loader and try to move some of the piles of snow and gravel from the grass back onto the the road. Although I’m pretty sure we’ll get some more snow this winter. I mean, it’s only February. We just never know anymore.
At the college I had to create a new computer password. The muscle memory has not formed yet and it takes me four tries to log in.
At the local school district, their passwords have to be 15 characters plus all the special stuff. Seems like sometime last summer I couldn’t get logged into email and I kinda forgot about it. I don’t get that much email on that account so it didn’t really matter. Every now and then I’d try to log into a computer and get frustrated and just give up on it. Eventually I got around to trying to get the password reset. I can’t do that from home, it has to be on a district computer. So I tried that, and it still didn’t work. I talked to my boss who had me contact IT. That guy looked me up in the system and said “Huh!”. Hate it when people say that in regard to me… He said I wasn’t in the system and eventually sent me to HR. HR said I wasn’t assigned to a department and therefore, I ceased to exist. Well, I beg to differ! I use to exist. Yep, they knew that, but I don’t anymore. So it was a whole thing to start over and get back in the system. I got a new ID badge complete with a photo of my choosing from my phone, because the lady in HR readily admitted their camera takes lousy photos. So that was nice.
Another guy in the room said he hadn’t seen an ID badge as old as mine in a long time. I was two versions behind. Huh!
A while ago.
So now I’m able to log in, using a password that’s a practically a short sentence. And no way to see it as you type (they’ve had some security issues in the past). I check my email more often and I get a lot more emails too. Be careful what you wish for.
This weekend is the 60th Annual National Farm Machinery show in Louisville KY.
It’s the largest indoor farm show in the world, with over 900 booths on “27 acres of interconnected indoor exhibit space”. Admission is free if you’d like to pop in. Expect to be overwhelmed. Many of the YouTube farmers I watch are there. Of course this has all the newest big shiny equipment on display. Oh, there’s a few older tractors for show, but this is the place to show off the latest and greatest.
I spent a couple hours Friday in a meeting at the local Soil and Water Conservation office meeting with Angela and Jenna. After clearing all the tree’s and reshaping the waterway two years ago, I learned I really should have talked to them first. So last year Angela and I looked at a few areas of the farm and she put together a plan to stop the erosion and repair this gully in the pasture.
Another project in the works
At the top, a small dam would be built, about 4 feet tall and 150 feet long. An upright pipe would be installed at the front with a drainage line running about 50’ downhill. That structure would collect the water funneling into this area, slow it down, and release it over several hours. That in turn, would prevent the erosion happening further downhill. At the bottom, the gully would be filled in, the area re-shaped, and a proper waterway built. There are some springs down there which would be directed into the new waterway once fully seeded and established.
Because our farm is in the Zumbro Valley Watershed area, cost sharing would bring our actual cost down to about 10% of the total. Well that sounds like a plan!
I also asked about a program called RCPP. Regional Conservation Partnership Program. I heard about this program last week at the soil health meeting. I have part of one field edge that has a pretty good slope too it, and every spring I get a small gully along the edge. The edge of a field where a person turns for the next pass, those areas are called headlands. I’ve tried to create a berm to keep the rainwater off the headland rows, but every spring I get a new gully. The RCPP program would do some cost sharing to create a permanent grass area there so rather than working up the ground of the headlands, I’d be turning on the grassy area.
And since the office is having their annual tree and shrub sale, Kelly and I were discussing where we could plant some trees. One thing we thought was to plant a wind break where we put the snow fence. Guess what? Cost sharing for that too! It was a very good meeting!
Check out the spurs on this rooster.
You’ll poke your eye out with those things!
He is one of the roosters who’s kind of a bully to the hens. He’s pretty though. And isn’t that the way? All looks, no class.
Last weekend I got the new shop exhaust fan wired up, and I put a new gasket under one toilet this week (a project I put off for two months because I’d never done it before and I had some concerns.) In the end, I spent more time cleaning off the old wax gasket and cleaning the floor around the toilet than the actual repair took. This weekend I’ll be changing the kitchen faucet spray wand and tubing. This is the fourth one I’ve ordered. The first three were wrong. Now we’re changing the hose as well. Kudo’s to Moen and their lifetime warranty for admitting their mistake and shipping parts to me no charge.
WHAT WAS YOUR CHILDHOOD PHONE NUMBER?
WHAT WAS THE FIRST THING FOR WHICH YOU NEEDED A PASSWORD?
Everyone has survived the cold spell. The chickens have even started laying some green eggs again. Maybe the worst thing coming out of this cold spell is how stir crazy our dog Luna has gotten.
We do go out and play fetch for a while, and she is so excited she can’t wait for me to get my coat on. Isn’t if funny the clues dogs / pets will pick up on? Just like Renee wrote yesterday. They figure us out fast.
At night, if Luna hears the click of my pill box, she’s there and ready to go outside. Well, really she’s there to get her nighttime treat, but she knows we go outside before the treat. I can get up off the couch twice and she won’t move, but the pill box and she’s there.
C’mon Ben!!
And if I’m getting ready to go outside, she’s watching, soon as I put on my hat, her excitement is ramping up. And I reach for my coat and she just can’t help herself. I know I should probably work on her training but she’s just so dang excited! Bouncing on her back legs and jumping up and down and bouncing off the walls. She just can’t wait! And it’s hard to contain that much enthusiasm! Once outside, and I have the ‘chuckit’ ball and stick and she is just full run getting the ball back. Unless she misses the throw. I’ve never seen a dog so bad at finding the ball. It’s a bright orange ball. In the white snow. She’ll walk right by it. She’s sniffing for it. Takes her a while to find it again.
I lost the ball Ben!
Which led me down a rabbit hole of how dogs see.
And this scene from the movie ‘UP’:
Research shows dogs have bi-chromatic eyesight, while humans have tri-chromatic eyesight. Meaning we can see three colors (and combinations) but dogs mainly only see two colors.
And after the first couple throws, she doesn’t like going over towards the machine shed to get it, because there’s a little ice over there. And I don’t blame her for that. Thursday morning after a few throws, the ball went over there. She trotted over there a bit, slowed down, and came back, like ‘What else you got?’. Thursday afternoon we went and got the ball. She grabbed it, and took off across the field to follow Bailey sniffing out some deer tracks. She left the ball lay in the snow again. I get more exercise going after the balls than I get from throwing them.
Still doing farm bookwork. Finally started a 2026 set as I don’t want to let that pile get too far ahead of me.
I had a crew come to the farm shop one day and install a large bathroom fan. I need to get electrical to it yet, but the fan is installed. They said they were looking for inside work this week. Glad to be of help.
At the college we got a new computer in the sound booth. Trying to hook that up and all the connections have changed. And the jumble of wires under the sound board finally got to me. Over the years, things have been changed, and new wires added and no one ever pulled out the old. I asked one of the managers come offer advice. Are we ever going to back to this video connection that is old and outdated? Do I Have your permission to cut it off? Yes. Cut it off, no, we’re not going back. But some of the wires go through the wall and up into the catwalk where the projector is. They said just cut them off close to the wall and this summer, that crew will pull up what they can.
I didn’t think to take a before picture, but here’s after.
Before was all these cables, but half on the floor.
There’s one area of my shop that’s a dark corner. Looking for something one day finally upset me enough I ordered an outlet with a remote switch. Found an LED light bulb with a mogul base (looks like a regular household lightbulb base, but bigger) and a socket to fit that and put that back there.
Let there be light!
And after we talked about plumbing the other day, wouldn’t you know I was doing some plumbing at another theater. It’s an old sink with two faucets. One faucet is for washing paint brushes, the other one I have a hose on it for filling the mop bucket. Then I added a gizmo for washing out paint rollers. I have one at the college and I love it! It need some modifications here.
We continue to be charmed by, loved by, and exasperated by our Cesky Terrier, Kyrill. He is a dog who insists on routine, and who seems to have a canny sense of time and schedule. He likes thing to happen the same way everyday, and seems to have a set of internal expectations for himself and for us. After careful observation, I believe these are his words to live by:
1. If Mommy is in bed, I have to be with her, no matter what else is going on.
2. If I whine at Daddy long enough, he will always get me another treat. Whining doesn’t work with Mommy.
3. If my squeaky ball goes under the furniture, I have to lie down where it went under, and someone will get it for me.
4. I get roasted squash in my kibble two times a day. I get freeze dried beef sprinkles on ice cubes two times a day. It is ok if my kitty licks the ice. All my beef gullets and pork sticks are kept in the garage. I get two each day.
5. I need to sleep with my beef trachea and squeaky ball at night. Mommy’s feelings about having a trachea and a squeaky ball in her bed are not important. I only go outside if I have my squeaky ball with me. I always bring it back inside with me.
6. Any coffee cup left within my reach is fair game and I will drink it dry. Pens and socks should be chewed. They all belong to me, you know.
7. Stay with your pack. Don’t be a door darter.
8. It is tugging time after breakfast and morning coffee.
9. All squeakers in plush toys must be removed within 10 minutes of receiving them. Any plastic squeaky ball without a squeaker must be replaced immediately.
10. I must do the pre-rinse on all ice cream bowls before they go into the dishwasher.
What are your words to live by? How have animals controlled your life?
I mentioned the opera movie on Saturday. Kelly and I are going. Lots of video and looks like some fun scenery so I’ll enjoy that part. And having a date with Kelly. And popcorn. And I’ll get a nap during the rest of it. But the projections look cool!
Same old, same old here. More snow, more cold. It hasn’t been this cold in a few years. Anything above minus 20F doesn’t really count you know. Minus 20, OK, now we’re talking cold. It’s rather exhilarating isn’t it? It was -21F Friday morning.
I made sure the chickens had extra feed and I filled their water and they puff out their feathers like wild birds do and they’re fine. The two chickens living in the garage usually walk down to the crib during the day, but today everybody just stays inside.
You know, I can give them a bucket of fresh water and they’ll still drink out of the bucket of dirty water. The dogs do the same thing. Here’s a pail of fresh water and they’re over drinking out of a mud puddle.
Fresh water
dirty water has more flavor.
I was part of a zoom meeting this past week on cover crops, and in a few weeks is a meeting on food grade oats. A lot of continuing education happens in winter for farmers. Because, you know, we don’t have anything going on… (sarcasm!)
I thought I’d talk about the history of our farm.
My Great Grandparents came to the farm in 1898.
My grandfather was 4. They arrived from Germany in 1882 and had moved around this area a bit before ending up in our valley. Gustave and Ernestina Hain arrived in the US with 3 girls. Three more girls and my grandfather Carl were born here. My grandfather wrote an autobiography in 1973 and I’m getting some photos from that and some photos I have at home. He loved cutting the head off one picture and glueing it onto another. The original photoshop.
Grandpa and Grandma way back when.
Here is the oldest photo of the farm.
The dairy barn in the background was built in 1920. There’s a granary out of sight behind the house that was built in 1899. Can you see a child playing in the road in the foreground? One of my uncles, never been sure who that was.
This next photo was taken sometime in the 1950’s.
The dairy barn in the lower portion has been expanded twice. My grandpa, uncle, and dad added to one end in the early 1940’s. Then in the 1950’s dad added the lean-to on the back. That allowed a second row of cows inside the barn.
The granary in the upper right corner was originally twice as big as I remember it. Grandpa writes that when the barn was finished, people wanted a dance. “I remember that nice floor, 24 x 48 of clear space. There was a big crowd, about four boys to each girl. Everybody was having a great time until a fight started. After the fight was stopped, Father was very angry. He said “You better all go home now.” and nobody stopped to ask questions. So you see even in the good old days, a few can always spoil a good time.”
Dad had torn off the front half by the time I was around. He said the back of the barn was so dark the calves would end up blind. There was part of a stone wall standing until I pushed it over last summer. I wanted to push it over 25 years ago and dad didn’t think that was a good idea. So I kept working around it. After I pushed it over, it was too dang big and heavy to move and I haven’t managed to break it apart yet, so I’m still working around it except now it’s lying flat and ten feet further into my way. The granary collapsed in 2013 with a heavy snow. We’ve salvaged some boards from it. The frame was built with wood pegs. Kind of a cool old barn.
In the left middle of the photo are two old buildings I don’t remember. Dad said there was a machine shed there, because after every rain I’d pick up nails in the road. So many tree’s around the house! And notice the one silo by the barn.
This photo is from 1969.
The new house was built in 1968, and in the bottom right corner is the outhouse we used while living in the machine shed. The old house was torn down and the new house built in the same place. I was only 4 at the time, so I don’t remember anything about the old house, and just a few tidbits of living in the machine shed. There’s a corn crib, which is now the chicken coop in the middle right. A new silo behind the barn, built in 1968. And you can sort of see the granary minus the front half.
My parents sold some land in 1967, i think that’s how they afforded a silo AND a new house in 1968.
My dad was one of 5 boys. The three oldest served in WWII. Dad, being the youngest, had to stay home and help on the farm. He always regretted that. He had a collection of rifle shells and bullets used in the war. I heard he had them mounted on a board. Apparently they were live shells. Mom never liked it, especially with kids in the house, and when the new corn crib was being built, she took the board down and threw it in the cement. Eventually Dad forgave her.
Notice all the tree’s behind the barn. They will be missing in the next few years. There’s a pole barn back there now and I haven’t figured out yet when that was built. The old silo in the front was torn down about 1975. We remember that because my brother and dad used a sledge hammer to knock out silo blocks and I sat on the hill with my brothers girlfriend and he met her in ’75. It is always fascinating that you need to knock out 3/4’s of the blocks before the silo will fall over. Dad hauled the refuse back behind the barn where the pole barn is.
1995
Quite a jump to his photo taken about 1995. We added an addition to the back of the house just before our daughter was born. The pile of trees in the field in the bottom was from that project. The second silo from 1976 is there, the pole barn is there.
With all the internet mapping these days, a photo of your house is no big deal. It used to be *quite* the deal when the airplay would fly over and a month later some guy would drive in with a photo of the farm. Farmers were suckers for those photos. And think about it; everything you worked for, all in one photo to show off. With any luck they took it from different directions over the years so you could see the background. It wasn’t cheap; it was a few hundred dollars it seems like. Less if you didn’t buy the frame.
Somewhere I have a photo with me standing in front of the barn. I heard that low flying airplane and walked out there and got into the picture.
This picture is grandma and grandpa and my four uncles. Taken before dad was born. He came around in 1925.
Grandpa didn’t write about this photo. Not sure I believe he was only 16 here.
Grandpa wrote, “When I was 17,18,19,20, and 21, I call them my fun years. The less said about them, the better. I wll say they passed by very quickly Oh yes, those were the days.”
I’d sure like to know what was up, that rascal. He and his fiancé eloped to Red Wing and got married in about 1918. Being the only boy, he also had to stay home and farm and missed WW1.
I’ve always said I have really deep roots. 128 years in one place.
Man, it feels like it was a tough week. The emotions are all over the place. We know a person who is a Sergeant in the Minneapolis police force. That person cares so much for the men under their watch; making sure they get rest, and standing up for them when admin says they’re not responding to 911 calls fast enough. Thankfully things didn’t get too crazy for them, shifts returned to normal after a few days, and everyone got some time off. Still, it stresses us out and I have a hard time staying focused and we find ourselves grumpy all day.
As has been said, this is supposed to be our escape, our safe place, our happy place.
So here’s some chicken pictures!
This is a Phoenix chicken we got from a friend several years ago. They’re really nice chickens.
This is Marge. I just made up that name. Go ahead and suggest names for her.
Hello girls. And boy.
I asked the computer to generate two chickens in a photographic style. They sure look grumpy. Next time I’ll ask for happier chickens.
I asked the computer to generate a cartoon chicken..
I’ve been doing a lot of bookwork. And I got a new desk lamp that’s really nice. I have been using a farming specific software called ‘PCMars’ since getting our first computer in 1994. Getting it all entered in the computer is one thing. The other half of the job, after I pile the receipts on top of the second desk drawer, (and throwing away anything not farm / business related) is sorting them out and putting them in the tote that I’ll put downstairs for the next 23 years. I couldn’t get the drawer shut anymore, so I sorted out what I had. Then I can enter some more into the computer. I don’t save as many receipts as I used to, because so much is available online.
I haven’t decided if it’s easier or harder having electronic receipts. Those receipts I move to a file that’s either farm or home related. Then I go through them and enter them into the program. And some still need to be saved, so they go to another E-file. We talked about paper checks on here one day. Kelly wrote four checks out of her home checkbook in 2025. And three were for the bathroom remodeling.
Which, by the way, we’ve finally signed a contract and written another check, to redo the basement bathroom from 1968. So long pink wallpaper.
I know this will be an affront to Renee and some of you, but I picked up two cans of Chef Boyardee Beef Ravoli. Haven’t had it since I was a kid. When I’m out shopping, saving big money, I’m tending to buy more and more groceries there. I bought soup, Spam, and the ravioli. I made soup for supper that night and Kelly asked me how my discount soup was. It was brand name chicken and dumpling, but, it wasn’t that great. Too many carrots and not enough dumplings. The broth was good. With the cold weather predicted this weekend, I may have to make a can of ravioli as comfort food.
One day out in the shop, I made a storage place for my really large sockets. These are 3/4” drive sockets. I got tired of them being all in a jumble in the drawer. Sockets can be 1/4” drive, 3/8”, 1/2”, 3/4” or even 1” drive. I use 3/8” and 1/2” most often. The 3/4” drive stuff is for the big serious stuff. The square hole of these is the 3/4″ I was referring too, and the related ratchet or handles have a corrresponding drive on them. The largest I have are 1&7/8” and 46mm. I have a whole set of standard and metric 1/2″ drive sockets in a different tool box.
I need better labels than the sharpie that was going dry.
Monday is a holiday for some of us. The college is closed. I wonder what I can find to get into.
Well, I admit defeat. I am old. I am out of shape. I am stiff and sore. I need exercise.
I went to a SAIL class on Thursday at the American Reformed Church. (That is the less conservative Dutch Reformed Church in town, in contrast to the Christian Reformed Church, which is uber conservative.) SAIL stands for Stay Active and Independent for Life. It is operated by a community organization that provides services for senior citizens, and aims to prevent falls and keep older citizens in their homes.
I realized after my decision to attend that I had no work out clothes. I haven’t owned sneakers for 10 years. We made a trip to Sioux Falls earlier in the week to remedy that.
The class lasted an hour. We marched around, worked on balance, and stretched. They supplied hand weights. Some exercises were done standing. We worked on upper body and shoulder strength and thigh muscles. For some exercises we sat. I was the youngest person in the class. Some of the folks knew my parents.
It amazes me how woefully weak and stiff I have become. I will attend these free classes twice a week. We want to get a Cesky puppy in the spring, and I need to get into shape.
How often do you exercise? What defines “old” for you? Getting any new animal companions soon?
I can’t say I regret the end of 2025. This has been the most disturbing and disruptive year in my memory.
Moving and politics have taken their toll. We are very happy where we are in terms of location. I have hopes the political situation will improve.
Our goals are modest. We want to install raised vegetable beds in the back yard. We want to plant Boyne raspberries. Husband wants to improve his guitar skills. We are not traveling.
We plan to have best friend relocate here in the spring, and get a Cesky sibling for our pup. All these things are potentially exhausting, but change that is in our control is far more manageable than unexpected change.
What are your goals for the new year? Garden and travel plans?
I took a walk on Christmas morning. Me and the dogs, out through the fields. Saw a bunch of pheasants, tree’s I need to cut down, and lots of deer tracks. The header photo is from our walk.
Weatherman Mark Seeley has a weather forecast and article on the back page of The Farmer magazine. In the last issue, he talked about January of 2006 being the warmest January in MN weather history. “January 2006 started a remarkable trend of warmth in Minnesota. Fifteen of the 19 Januarys since that time have brought warmer-than-normal temperatures to the state. Of further note, seven Januarys since that of 2006 also rank among the warmest 20 in state history.” — https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-life/january-2006-started-warm-and-never-wavered
There are many reasons to be appreciative of the deep-freeze cold we normally get in winter. It kills off harmful bugs, it helps breakdown the soil for better working conditions in the spring, helps break up compaction layers in the soil, it helps keep stored grain in condition, to name just a few benefits. The worst thing is repeated cycles of freezing and thawing. That’s hard on certain crops, like alfalfa. Ice sheeting, and the repeated freeze thaw or a lack of snow cause winter kill. I bet you master gardeners have examples of the problems repeated freezing and thawing can cause in the gardens. Not to mention how tough the warmer temperatures are on cattle that have a winter coat and are prepared for cold. Respiratory issues can really become rampant.
We’ve had this one chicken living in the garage all winter. During the day she has taken to perching on the bottom rung of a sawhorse and looking at herself in a mirror.
Mirror Mirror…
And then the other night, there were 5 chickens in the garage! OK, seriously, the poop from the one chicken is gonna be bad enough come spring, and at least she’s over in a corner. Having five of them: one in the rafters, two more on recycling containers, and one on the dogwash wall are too much.
An unneeded bonus chicken in the garage
The next day I kept the garage door closed. I figured they’d just go back down to the coop. Three spent the night around the corner perched on the bird seed containers. Why have they moved up here in the first place? I don’t know what their problem is. I’ve got several spending the night in the nest boxes where they lay their eggs. They’re not supposed to do that either. They’re not too crowded as some are in the right side space, some are in the left side space (and they all pile up on top of each other for some reason), some are up in the rafters, and the rest are in the main coop area. I did add another board in there if they need another place to perch. Is it too many roosters? I think we have 5 roosters these days. And maybe 55 hens? I don’t know exactly how many, they are too hard to count. Really 2 roosters would be a good number. There’s a couple that seem extra ornery to the chickens. How come they never get picked off by coyotes?
Christmas day late afternoon I forgot to shut the garage door in time and had to chase out 3 chickens. Yeah, even being Christmas, I chased them out. I had given them extra corn and layer ration in the morning. They’re fine. The one in the corner, she’s earned it, she can stay.
Out in the shop, I added a metal top to the work bench. Dad built this work bench after the shed was built, so maybe in 1982 or 1983. When I started on the shop project two years ago, the guy doing the insulation wanted me to pull the bench off to redo the insulation behind it. I said no. Dad had put styrofoam and fiberglass insulation on that wall before he added the bench. I tore the top four feet off the wall as part of the shop project. The old insulation was pretty bad. Yeah, I probably should have redone the bottom four feet too, but I was already in over my head on this project and didn’t think I could handle any more. Hindsight you know. The bench is pretty well built, and the top is 2×8 boards with a gap between them. Stuff is always falling into that gap. Maybe it was Dad’s way of cleaning off the bench, to sweep the dirt and dust into the gap. Which then ended up in the bolt storage he had underneath. A couple weeks ago, I lost a screw down that gap and I decided that was it! I am covering this! I bought two sheets of 16 gauge steel (about 1/16th inch thick) 2′ x 4′ from a big box store. ($70 each! Jeepers!) Thanks Obama! (That’s a joke you know) And I rounded over the front edge. I need to get some different screws to hold it all in place, but it looks real professional. I’m glad I did that.
Kelly helped me get the last screen back in the 630 grill and I have that all reassembled.
Reassembled 630. Runs and sounds Great!
Needs an oil change yet and it will be ready for next summer’s work and projects. Next summer’s project I think will be rebuilding the belt pulley assembly. Clyde probably knows what a belt pulley is. You’ve seen pictures of back in earlier days, a long canvas belt ran between the tractor and an implement to provide power before the advent of power-take-off on the rear of a machine. That’s the belt pulley.
On the 630, that belt pulley is also the hand clutch assembly. And it rattles like some of the plates inside there are broken. I remember Dad adjusting it once in a while, but I don’t recall him ever pulling it all apart. The tractor also hasn’t had a working tachometer / speedometer / hourmeter for as long as I can remember. A few hundred dollars will get me a new gauge, new cable, and I don’t know yet if I’ll need a new gear inside the governor assembly or not. It’s all only money.
I’ve done my crop rotation maps for next year and got the acres figured out. Talked with Nate at Meyer’s Seeds and I’ve got until January 16th to lock in the early order discount pricing on oats, corn and soybean seed. I was approved for $43,000 in loans for chemicals and fertilizer from the Co-op. That doesn’t include the loan for seed. I’m really hoping I don’t need all of that loan as the crop prices aren’t that good. The first few years I farmed I stressed out a bit more about the crop loans. Of course 35 years ago I probably spent $10,000 on everything and it was still big money. Now days it’s just part of the deal. I don’t stress over it so much.
I thought for sure Kelly and I were gonna win the lottery the other night. And what would we do with all that money? As the old joke goes, keep farming until it is gone!
EVER BEEN THROWN OUT? TOLD TO LEAVE? EVER THROWN SOMEONE OUT?
Trail Baboon 