The Cesky Terrier is a dog short in height but long in length. Our puppy is now five months old. She had gained three pounds since we brought her home. She is perhaps a couple of inches longer, but no taller. She can’t descend or ascend stairs yet. She is extremely fast and can keep up with our 4 year old male Cesky and can wrestle with him like a pro.
Our dogs love to be together, as close to one another as possible. They like to sleep cuddled up closely. Older dog can jump up on the sofa with ease. He likes to nap there. Young pup is just a couple of inches too short to jump up on her own. She hurls herself off the sofa with great abandon, though. I don’t mind the dogs on the furniture.
Mitzi comes to us multiple times a day imploring us to lift her up to be on the sofa with Kyrill. We say Up Up to teach her the command for jumping up for when she finally gets long enough to jump up on her own. She tries her hardest to jump up now, but to no avail. I don’t want to clutter up the living room with graduated step stools so she can ascend on her own right now. I predict predict in May she will Up Up on her own.
What is something you had to strive to accomplish that seemed impossible at first? How do you feel about pets on the furniture?
I sent a couple emails last week that I probably shouldn’t have. My brain was filled with too many other things and I was having trouble forming a coherent thought and missing details, which I have trouble with on a good day. One email I just said right up front “this is all a jumble and I’m sorry about that. See if it makes sense.” The other email I had to send a clarification follow up.
It’s a crazy time.
Like, when isn’t it.
Been busy at both the college and home. It helps when spring isn’t so early. Course then I fuss it’s late. We open the college show next Thursday, so I’m in the final week of painting and tweaking things. Working on lighting and fixing all the little things I forgot I told the director I’d have. I’ve had Padawan coming in to help me. He needs something to do anyway and I can give him life advice while we’re at it. And then I go home and work in the shop for a while. I sure am glad I added the outside lights. I’ve used them a few times this week.
Read an article today about increasing fertilizer prices. (due to the Iran … “Conflict”.) USDA Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says farmers have pre-purchased 80% of their spring nutrient needs. The article I was reading did an informal survey and they got a 65% response to having pre-purchased. Thirty three percent have most of it purchased, and it’s just what’s needed for the final spring decisions. Only 2% said they haven’t purchased anything. All prices are up of course. I pre-purchased everything in December, and I’m sure the co-op has a lot of it on hand already. But jeepers. I’ll bet there’s gonna be fuel surcharges if nothing else. I mean how can you plan for these kinda jumps??
I’ve seen the sewage treatment plant trucks out applying / injecting waste …”sludge”? on fields. Did you ever think about that? You flush the toilet, it’s gone, right? But gone where? At our house, to the septic tank. And then the liquids go to the drain field and every few years we dig up the cover and have the solids pumped out of the tank. (I wrote about that last fall when we had a taller cover installed on the tank. See : https://trailbaboon.com/2025/08/16/what-mystery-is-this/ )
I’m not sure how the city plant works, I’ve never asked. I know our township doesn’t allow for applying sludge. Well, technically it’s “allowed”, but you have to get a license and pay $10 / acre to apply it. So the farmers in our township don’t do it. Some of the township supervisors created that rule quite a few years ago because they didn’t know what risks might be associated with spreading the sludge.
I took some time Monday afternoon and moved machinery around and took the stuff I put inside for winter, back outside. Like the scrap iron tote. I hooked the soil finisher to the big tractor. I got the flat trailer hooked to the truck and loaded up some scrap iron so I could get that hauled in because I needed the trailer to pick up seed and it had scrap on it from last winter. I worked in the shop until 10:00 PM. Got three of the new LED headlights on the 6410. There are three plastic clips on the old lights, that aren’t supposed to be removable. I managed. Cut my finger, again, with the grinder.
A couple weeks ago I grazed the 8” bench grinder wheel with a knuckle. The next week I hit the wire wheel of the bench grinder with a different finger. Just took the skin off. And this time was my left index finger with the 4” hand grinder. They don’t hurt at the time it happens, it hurts for the next week.
Scars, right? Yeah, some scar stories are better than others…
A burn on my thumb, a fresh cut on the finger, and the healed one you can’t hardly see anymore. Oh, there’s some red paint too.
Wednesday I hauled that scrap in and went to pick up seed oats. The guys at the seed house weren’t so sure about the guys who were out there planting oats before the blizzard. That made me feel a little better. Got 50 bags of oat seed. Worked at the college until 7PM, then home and got the seed wagon in the shop and got Kelly’s C tractor running. Unload the oats using the loader and pallet forks. Another late night and glad to have those outside lights.
Last Saturday was a gala at the Rep theater announcing next seasons shows. I got to give a little welcome speech. That’s fun. I appreciate that I’m comfortable talking in front of people.
Showing how I’m running lights through the phone remote.
The chicks are a week old now. We’ve lost some, it always happens.
And this second chicken that’s moved into the garage and is nesting in this basket…
I have ordered Oat fertilizer to be applied, that should happen either late Friday or Saturday. If we get enough rain to soak it in that’s fine, and if it doesn’t rain and I can get out with the digger, that works too.
The wind on Wednesday. Jeepers. This is why I’m glad we live in a valley. A few tree’s blew over in the fields. Always something. I’ll add it to my to-do list.
It’s angry goose season at the College again. Caution tape and cones have been put up and emails have been sent out warning us of the danger. The first day as I passed the pair in the parking lot, the male goose just opened his mouth at me. Didn’t even hiss, but he was warning me off in no uncertain terms.
Last Friday Kelly and daughter and I drove to Alexandria. I went to pick up the Track Wacker for use this spring. We took Highway 14, stopped in Mankato for a bathroom break and filled the truck with diesel fuel. $132 later we headed for New Ulm where we stopped to see Hermann the German. I’m pretty sure I was there with my parents when I was a kid. Really didn’t remember anything about it, and on Friday it was 30° and windy and we didn’t linger very long. He’s closed for renovation anyway.
Two lane roads the rest of the way to Alexandria and a very nice drive. We got adjoining rooms at the hotel so daughter could have one room and Kelly and I could have the other. It was a pretty slick way to do it, and I would sure try it again in the future. I got up early the next morning, had a mediocre breakfast at the hotel with French toast sticks so tough I couldn’t chew through the crust on the bottom, but the sausage patties were good and I headed half an hour northwest to Millerville to pick up the Track Wacker. I knew it would fit in the back of the pickup. Then for good measure, I bought a fire ring as well.
I got back to the hotel just as the other two finished breakfast and we packed up and were back on the road. Drove to see Theater L’Homme Dieu where I spent a few days with a show back in 2010. Again, quiet two lane roads home, probably didn’t have any traffic for 20 or 30 miles. Saw some really long trains. I couldn’t get over how long some of them were. Being a sucker for a historic roadside marker I had looked up a few before leaving. A few miles outside of Grove City we stopped at the Acton State Monument. The battle of Acton, the Acton incident, and the Ness Cemetery. They mark the beginning of the U.S. – Dakota War of 1862. You know, it’s one thing to read about it in the books, it’s another to stand there and realize it happen RIGHT HERE.
And then to the Ness Cemetery and see the monument: one of Minnesota’s oldest monuments (Dedicated September 13, 1878) marking the burial of those first victims. It was a very deeply moving experience for us.
Twelve hours of driving and about 600 miles. We got home about six in the evening. A couple neighbors had come over to feed the dogs and collect eggs. They call the dogs their “dog grandchildren” and gave Bailey extra food “because we love her“. Sure is nice to have neighbors like that.
Sunday I unloaded the truck, took the rear blade off the tractor, hauled the snowblower out, I even got the lawnmower out and mowed down some grass and weeds before I put the snowblower in its summer parking spot. Daughter and I picked up driveway markers, (but I haven’t taken the snow fence down yet, I don’t wanna jump the gun too fast), and I got the four wheeler running and drove that around a while. Drove down in the pasture to check things out after winter.
I also picked up branches along the road and Kelly picked up branches in the yard. I think the spring mud is pretty much done. The fields are really drying out, or at least they were before it rained all day Thursday. It could be an early spring here doing fieldwork. If I was a little more prepared I might’ve been able to get out and do a little fieldwork in March. I remember one year doing some on March 31. That doesn’t happen very often.
I spent a few hours in the Shop one night putting a couple new LED lights on the back of the 8200 tractor. Took me an hour to do the first one and five minutes to do the second. Standing on a work platform and reaching over the outside dual tire was another instant of wishing I was 6 inches taller or my arms were 6 inches longer. But I managed. The 6410 tractor that I use for the majority of the work, I’ve replaced a bunch of lights with LED and I have four more to replace and two more to add on the back. It only has two rear work lights at the moment and really could use two additional. It was on my to-do list but apparently will be a summertime project.
Baby chicks arrived on Wednesday morning. I had gotten their pen ready so once they were delivered and we did the usual pictures and videos of them in the box, I could take them right down and dip their beaks in the water and get them all settled in. I ordered 50 this year for $260. Last year I ordered 40 and it was $170. Twenty of the Easter egg blue and green layers, 10 of the Silver Laced Wyandotte,, 10 Lavender Orpington, those gray ones like Mabel from a few weeks ago, and 10 of Hatchery choice. Could be anything.
So far so good on them.
My summer Padawan came to the college a couple of days and helped me paint the set. He tries to educate me on what’s hip these days. When I took him back home he showed me all the different kinds of cologne he has and told me in the winter you wear something warm and spicy and for example he wouldn’t wear this certain cologne at this time of year. I stared at him quizzically. Why not? And he stared back at me. Like, because everybody knows that. Well, you have to learn that somewhere I said. I mean did he read that in GQ magazine? (He doesn’t read magazines.) Well, just everybody knows that he said. I laughed. Well, I don’t.
HAVE YOU EVER ATTACKED A GOOSE?
WHAT IS THE PROPER NUMBER OF CONES TO PLACE AROUND SOME GEESE?
Our CeskyTerriers were initially bred to work together in a pack hunting vermin. They are much different than other terriers who tend to be independent operators. We had Welsh Terriers who would dart out the front door and be off exploring at any opportunity. Our Ceskys stay home because they are pack dogs, and we are members of their pack. Stay with your pack!
It has been fascinating watching Kyrill, our 4 year old Cesky adapt to having a Cesky puppy in the pack. Over the past three weeks he has become increasingly solicitous and protective of Mitzi. He allows her to chew on and tug at his beard. She allows him to roll her over and drag her around. They snuggle up together and snooze on the sofa. They are starting to share their chews and toys.
I am an only child. I have no idea what it would be like to have either younger or older siblings around all the time. I see interesting parallels between how Kyrill and Husband, also an oldest brother, take care of the puppy. Husband seems to worry about how she is doing far more than I do, although we are both attentive to her. It is fun to be a member of a pack.
Who is in your pack? How do you think birth order affected how you deal with people and family?
Guinevere, queen of her yard, her house, her peeps passed away on Sunday. Know as Gwen, Gwenner, Gwen Gwen, Gwenner Butt, Puppy Girl and Nana’s baby, she was anxious and afraid of almost everything: the robot vacuum, pillows, falling leaves, other dogs, cats, men, women, smoke alarms, the bathroom — yet not thunder or fireworks. A fussy eater, she would often decline a morsel of something every other dog on the planet would gobble up and she liked to have her kibble enhanced – cat food, Greek yogurt, maple syrup were just a few (but no wet dog food). She preferred her blankets smoothed out and she always curled up facing the closest door.
A fierce and feared defender of the yard, she would hunt squirrels, rabbits and mice with abandon. Even a possum once. Guinevere never ate a sock, never counter-surfed, never pushed open a partly shut door. She was quite smart, although sometimes she hid that light under a barrel – never did master the concept of bringing the ball back to you. She knew a good number of tricks; treats were appreciated and always taken politely and so so gently – an inborn trait – nothing we ever taught her. The aroma of cheese could attract her to the kitchen from any room in the house. She wasn’t crazy about dressing up, but would do so patiently, usually holding stock still while the obligatory photos were taken.
She passed calmly and quietly in YA’s arms. She was loved and will be missed.
This post title comes from tim, who commented that having one dog makes it your boon companion, but having one more dog means you have “two damn dogs”.
We picked up our second dog, a 12 week old female Cesky Terrier, from her breeder last week Thursday in Kansas City. Our 4 year old male Cesky is from the same breeder. He is located in Oklahoma City, but was at a dog show in KC, so we met him there. I had never been in Kansas City or at a dog show before. We met the breeder back in the grooming area where there were dogs of every size and breed. It was quite fun. He is a very responsible breeder, and the two top Ceskys at the Westminster dog show this year were his. He also breeds Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers.
We drove to KC on Wednesday and drove back to Luverne on Thursday. Mitzi, the new puppy, was a good traveller. We also transported a year old Cesky girl named Secret to Luverne to get her to a Manitoba woman who is a dog trainer and Junior Dog handler trainer. The woman had been at Mayo for hand surgery and met us in Luverne Friday morning. We picked up our Cesky boy, Kyrill, from the boarding kennel on Friday morning as well. Our main goal in getting another dog was to provide him with more socialization and activity. It has been working like a charm. He is 30 lbs and she is 3 lbs but they race, chase, and tumble. They love playing indoors and outdoors. They steal each other’s toys and chews. She is a sweet but spicy little thing who doesn’t seem to mind him running her over. She puts herself at a distance from him and then charges into him. He doesn’t seem to mind. They exhaust one another in the best way.
We are sort of crate training her. I mean “sort of” because she sleeps with me and Kyrill in the guest room so I can let her out in the night when she stirs to go potty every three hours or so. Wednesday night she made it six hours before I I had to take her outside. Kyrill isn’t too sure he likes her next to him in bed with us, but she snuggles by me out of his space. I predict in a month they will snuggle together.
Having a puppy in the house is like having a new baby in the house, and we are pretty tired. She is so sweet and is going to be as much of a soul mate as Kyrill is. I am really glad we have two dogs. We don’t just have two terriers. We are dog people now.
Ever been to Kansas City or at an animal show? Tell about your favorite/troublesome dogs.
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.
Trail Baboon 