I’ve been in cookie production mode for a couple of days.
A dear friend of mine lost her husband in January; it was expected but still quite sad. Al loved my sugar cookies. For the last couple of years while he was in his decline, I made cookies for him every few weeks so that he could have cookies but my friend wouldn’t have to bake. I made different kinds but the frosted sugar were always his favorites. So for his Celebration of Life I am making them in his memory.
At the same time I am doing my spring bonnet sugar cookies for a shower this weekend as well. My oh my – everything always falls at the same time.
I figured I’d be safe with six batches of the dough. I made that, two batches at a time, on Wednesday. I laid everything out ahead of time so I could whip through – only took me about 25 minutes. The dough does need to chill for a while; that’s why I made it on Wednesday.
Then yesterday morning I rolled out all the dough, cut all the cookies and baked them. 206 fluted squares, 16 large bonnet bases, 16 bonnet cops and 20 llama/alpaca shapes (new cookie cutters that I just got a couple of weeks back). Took about 4 hours from set up to clean up. No burned batches and no dog sneaking cookies off the counter, although I did have to keep a close eye on YA every time she wandered into the kitchen.
This morning, while you are reading this, I’m doing the icing and sprinkles. All of Al’s cookies will have white icing but I’ll use a variety of sprinkles (I have plenty!). I’ll be setting up in the living room on the card table so I can sit and watch tv while I work. If I have time, I’ll do the llama/alpaca cookies and hopefully the bonnets. I used a flow icing on the bonnets so they’ll be last. If I run out of time I’ll finish the bonnets Saturday morning before the shower.
Lots of folks have asked me why I took the road trip by myself to see the eclipse in Indianapolis. Easy peasey – so I could do just what I wanted every single minute and not have to have anyone else’s agenda pushing up against mine. Same reason I go to Opening Day at the State Fair by myself.
So if that means I overestimate how many insane folks will want to park in the White River State Park ramp and go WAY too early to nab my spot, it’s OK. If I walk up and down the long row of food trucks (24 of them) twice before I decide what I want, it’s OK. And if I talk to strangers, it’s OK (this is something in particular that drives YA crazy.)
Here are just a few of the interesting folks I met on eclipse day:
A guy from Kentucky with a very cute corgi. He was sitting on a bench, apparently waiting for his wife – he wasn’t sure where she can gone off to. They had decided just a couple of weeks before to make the trip; they had managed to find a room but it was about an hour out of the city. He was also sporting an eclipse jacket and baseball cap. Like me, he got his online.
David was one of the first food truck owners to get his truck in place; he wanted a really good view of the river on each side of the bridge from his spot. He’s been running his food truck (assorted health food kinds of items including a vegetarian walking taco) for 20 years but he’s thinking about quitting because he want to focus more on his music and getting it published.
Two gals assembling a University of Indiana tent – turns out that the university has a new “global and local event planning” program and part of the semester was putting together the event in the park. When I told them I was a retired planner, we commiserated for a bit and laughed at what non-planners think is involved. Then one of the gals said “we’re not supposed to give this out until later, but I like you…” and gave me a cake pop with white and red icing (U of Indy colors). It was yummy.
Three cops on bikes. I’ve never seen police on bikes before and they were willing to take a few minutes to talk to me. The officers on bikes program has been around for almost 20 years now and has been called an unqualified success. The bikers patrol the downtown area (which includes White River Park) as well as a couple of suburbs that ring the downtown. The officers in the program like it a lot; they say they can get around more easily that in a car and have been able to establish better relations with the community. As the pedaled off, they all three went down a fairly long set of stairs – without a wobble!
Of course, I talked to many more people, especially folks with dogs. Since I parked early and set out my chair about six hours ahead of time, I had a lot of leisure to connect with others. Eclipse apparel was also a good discussion point and because of matching t-shirts I met a couple (their t-shirts matched mine) who had been in the same parking lot as me in St. Joseph, Missouri for the 2017 eclipse. Amazing how you can connect just by talking to people!
Do you talk to strangers when you’re out and about? Any favorite topics?
It’s been another crazy busy week and all the farmers have been pushing hard planting corn in the neighborhood, trying to stay ahead of the weather. Not me, but everybody else. I have finished planting oats and I picked up corn seed. Considering last week I hadn’t even gotten out in the fields yet, things picked up fast and went pretty well.
I got the old tractor, the 630 running. That’s the one I rebuilt the carburetor on last fall, and while it’s not perfect yet, it does run, and I used it to re-arrange machinery to get the grain drill out.
I started planting with 48, 50lb bags of oats
I can tell I’m getting older as my fingers are getting stiffer as I lift them up to dump in the drill.
Meyer Seeds, where I’ve been getting seed for years, and where my dad even got seed, didn’t have oat seed this year, so they got it from another local place. There are not many places selling seed oats around here. The Albert Lea Seed House is a good source, but they’re an hour away from me and much more expensive that Meyers. Meyers have done such a good job cleaning seed over the years, on the rare occasion they don’t have any, other seed is dirty and dusty, and I even found a shriveled up, desiccated mouse carcass in a bag this year. I mean, what the heck?? Do better other people.
I had planned to finish planting oats late Wednesday night, and wouldn’t you know I ran out of seed with about half an hour left at 9:30 PM. Every year I tell myself, “order extra seed”. It’s not a problem to return it and it’s better to have extra than to run out with half an hour left, and I don’t know, next year comes and I forget. Thursday morning I picked up 8 more bags of oat seed, and got the corn seed, too.
I use the “Boating” app to track myself in the fields. I helps to find that corner I need to get back too, especially at night.
Everything in yellow is what I planted on Wednesday. I covered 12.9 miles, averaging 4.5 mph, and was out just over 4 hours. The time also includes stops and refilling.
The closer photo show every pass. Compare that to the actual tracks in the field.
It has been fun to be back in the tractors again. My brother usually helps do fieldwork, but he’s on vacation this year. My young helper is still in school, and the other helper has become gainfully employed. I don’t mind doing it myself, it just takes a little longer. My left arm gets tired because I run all the controls with my right arm, so the left arm is constantly steering. Building up my endurance I guess. I have acquired a second tractor buddy.
We don’t all fit into the cab so well.
Luna doesn’t look happy to be left home and she doesn’t look happy to be in the tractor. I don’t know what she wants. Bailey just lays on the floor, rests her head on the door, and sleeps. Luna moves back-and-forth and is in the way of either the clutch or the brake. And if I stop in the field and we all get out, she barks and barks to get back in. I think it’s still anxiety about being left behind. I saw bald eagles, pheasants, turkey vultures, lots of deer, turkeys, and we’ve been hearing the sandhill cranes, I just haven’t seen them yet. Waiting on the first barn swallows. Should be a scout around any day now. They usually arrive about May 6.
Soil temperatures are in the 50s and GDU (Growing Degree Units) are at 177; 123 above normal at this point. The cereal rye that I planted as a cover crop last fall greened up but never got very tall. I had it sprayed this week to terminate it. It needed to be 12 inches high to get paid for planting it. However, because those fields are gonna be corn, having 12 inches of grass there was going to be a problem with residue, and I wanted it sprayed and terminated before it started to rain and I lost control of it. So it goes. It will still add organic matter to the soil.
Late next week I’ll start dealing with lighting for commencement on May 8th, so I’ll be busy with that for a few days. The experts says 100% of potential corn yield (in our area) comes from corn planted between April 22 and May 6th. I still got time!
Husband and I are pretty anxious right now to find out how our dog is doing at the vet. We had to take him there Thursday after three days of constant hurling after meals. The vet did x-rays and found him to be constipated and dehydrated. There is the possibility that he has an upper intestinal blockage of some sort, perhaps from the shards of an Icelandic lamb horn, or the Kong Wubba he chewed and destroyed over the weekend, or a mixture of both. He hasn’t had anything different to eat for the past couple of weeks. He has been drinking water like crazy, though. He typically doesn’t swallow what he destroys, so we can’t think what would have plugged him up.
It is hard to tell when a terrier is under the weather, as they typically don’t let you know they aren’t feeling well until they are half dead. Even before we took him to the vet he wanted to tug, steal things, and go for walks. They are giving him special IV’s to hydrate him and get his digestive system flowing, as it were. They will do surgery if that doesn’t work. I refuse to take as on omen that the flock of vultures on the local butte were circling our home as I wrote this.
What health issues have your pets had? How can you tell your pets or human companions aren’t feeling well?
I love house plants. Unfortunately so does Nimue. In the first few years after she joined the household, she has decimated ALL the plants. Nothing was safe from her. I can’t even start seedings.
As I realized she was laying waste to my house plants, I was able to train her to stay off the bookcase in my bedroom. YA’s fish, Sheldon has come to live in my room and I hoped that maybe a couple of plants could survive there. I pulled out all the books and them stacked them sideways at all different angles. When Nimue tried to climb up (as she had done many times before), her weight would shift the books and down they came, cat and all. it took about a month before she gave up; Sheldon and my two plants had found a safe haven.
Then about six years ago, I found an inexpensive coat rack at a garage sale. Just plain black metal but the arms stick out from the rack about 10 inches so it’s made a fabulous plant rack. I found some inexpensive macrame pot holders so they hang very prettily. Sheldon has since gone to that great fishbowl in the sky and a couple of succulents have taken his place on the bookshelf. In all these years since her catastrophic attempts to scale the books, Nimue has left the bookcase completely alone.
So when I saw class at Gertens for making a terrarium I thought that might make a nice addition to my small greenery collection. It was a Saturday morning – one of the only really cold mornings this year – and about 40 hardy souls had ventured out. They supplied everything: a little fish bowl, rocks, charcoal, soil, piece of screen and itty bitty plants. The two folks running the class walked us through the various layers and then let us loose to chose which plants we wanted, which rock, etc. I actually took notes – in case I wanted to make any more on my own. This turned out to be very helpful and most of the folks at stations around me took a peek at my notes while we were making our layers. The class was only about an hour but I really enjoyed it.
The gal doing most of the teaching also mentioned that if we wanted any little critters or fairies or gnomes, we should check out the fairy garden section of Gertens. I hope she got a commission as I think ALL of us stopped by there. I got little bunnies and a crystal sphere on a tree stump (it just spoke to me).
I don’t know if I’ll make more… I’ll have to research how to get the very small amounts of some of the layers (rocks, charcoal) without buying whole bags of the stuff. And, of course, I’ll have to find a spot where it will be safe from the Plant Ravager!
I went down to the farm two weeks ago; Ben needed some baboons to take some excess eggs off his hands. This is always fine for me as not only do I get some quality time with my books on CD during the drive, I get to see the farm and I come home with fresh farm eggs. This is a win/win/win in my book.
Ben gave me a tour of the shed – he’s made a lot of progress since I was there last summer. I love the windows that look like eyes on the side of the building. I asked if he has a timeline in mind for when he’d like to have it finished and he said we’ve already blown past that date. Seems like the normal human condition.
It was a beautiful day and the chickens and roosters and guineas were all out. Sadly none of the ducks survived last summer. We did a little chicken math while we were enjoying the sunshine. Based on how many chicks he orders every year, how long the average chicken lives and how many he guesstimates that he loses every year, I’m thinking he should have about 3,000 chickens. Somebody’s math is off.
Luna is fabulous. She wasn’t as big as I was expecting – she’s right between Humphrey and Bailey in size, so they have a great look when they are standing together. We took a ride up the road on the gator. The dogs all rode in back until we got up to the fork; they all got out and walked a bit. Then Humphrey and Bailey got back in and Ben gave Luna the signal to go. And go she did. The photo above doesn’t really do justice to her run but at one point we were going 27 miles per hour on the gator and she was keeping just ahead of us. If you look closely you can see that none of her feet are actually touching the ground. Amazing!
Since there wasn’t any snow cover, there was mud. It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting (I had brought extra shoes and clothes just in case) but you know me. I encouraged the dogs at every turn so I managed to get pretty muddy. I did change my shoes but figured since I was going straight home, I didn’t need to change anything else.
Shower or tub when you get really dirty? Or the hose in the backyard?
I shouldn’t be dealing with mud like this at the end of January or early February. I have to admit I do kind of like the warmer temperatures, and I don’t mind not having to deal with blizzards, and our electric bill is certainly cheaper, and I haven’t used as much diesel fuel moving snow, and all that kind of stuff. And, I still think the weather has to turn and we will probably get some more snow, and it’s gotta get cold again and that means I have to do mud all this over again in March. I dislike the mud more than anything.
Luna and Humphrey have both gotten baths because they get so muddy outside during their runs and playing. Luna does OK with the bath. When Humphrey gets out of the tub halfway through, it’s a bigger adventure. And why don’t people put a hot water faucet outside their house? There have been multiple times when I have thought hot water outside would sure be useful. Maybe that’s a thing now, I don’t know, but I think someday I would like to have hot water available. All that to say Humphrey could have a bath out in the garage instead of in the bathroom.
There’s a meme going around lately that says we should say “I get to…” instead of “I need to….”. “I GET TO walk through the mud and get everyone’s feet dirty and track it into the shop and the tractors and the house.” Nope, still not working for me.
I looked up the translation of mud. I found it interesting so many countries have “blato” “bláto” “boue” “bloto” “bahno”. Or “Mudder” “modder” “muda” “muta”. German is “dreck”.
Speaking of running the dogs…Luna is so young; she needs to run off energy and I’ve mentioned before about running her on the driveway and how she leaves a trail of dust in her wake. However lately, she doesn’t like to get too far from home. We’ll take all three dogs out for a walk / run, and she won’t go far before turning around and going back home. I end up with all three dogs in the gator and we go to the end of the road, and she races for home again. Do you suppose she really loves to run? Or is she running for home and safety? We need a dog psychic.
The chickens and us survived January’s cold spell and the only casualties were my truck batteries and the electric bill. The truck, being a diesel, takes two batteries. I’ll replace them next week when it’s in positive temperature digits. Last Friday, as the storm was winding down, Kelly and I took the truck up the road just to see how bad it was. (It was only bad in spots) Then Tuesday when I needed the truck, it cranked pretty slow, but I ran it for a few hours and figured it would be fine on Wednesday. Nope. Just the dreaded click. Changed my plans and took the dog to the vet in the back of the car. (Humphrey tore a toenail and needed that trimmed off).
The chickens did fine hanging out inside and waiting for me to bring them more food and water. They didn’t seem to mind either way. Egg production went down a bit; 18 eggs per day rather than 24.
From this photo, you’ll see many of them seem to prefer this one nest box. They still like their groups of 3 and I often find nest boxes with three eggs in them. And nine is a variant of three, so it still works I guess. Production will recover as it warms up. I was taking corn to them by their pen as they didn’t venture outside very far. Above zero and a nice calm, sunny day and they do pretty good. Below zero and they just stand peeking out the door.
Kelly saw five male pheasants down by the barn and it’s always so fun to see them. There should be about 10 or 11 or, at least, there was last year. I assume the rest will find the corn eventually as word spreads in the pheasant community.
The deer community has come together in this cold weather. Here’s a picture of a herd spotted in our fields this week.
And a little further down the road, another group this large. I’m telling you, we have too many deer. Stupid deer.
This fall I put a smaller tank heater in the water tank down by the barn. It works fine when it’s above about 10 degree’s. It isn’t worth diddly in temps below that. When I put a frozen water bucket in the tank, I have to chip it out of the ice again in the morning, but the bottom will be thawed and I can knock the ice out and refill for the chickens.
I think by Monday I’ll be able to turn off the wellhouse heater. (see electric meter) I put 25 bales of straw around it last Thursday before it snowed.
Doesn’t seem to help hold the temp above freezing when it’s less than about 10 degree’s outside. Which makes me wonder: I’d think with the cement floor, the ground inside should be warmer, so am I losing that much heat out the roof? Should I put bales on the roof too? I rebuilt three of the four walls in 2013. The fourth wall is against a tree so it was too much trouble to rebuild.
I am lucky I didn’t need any tractors this week, but I kept the one plugged in just in case. (again, see electric meter). Kudo’s to all the people working in this weather and doing what needs to be done.
Just like that, another year gone. 414 dozen eggs sold in 2023. April was the highest with 63 dozen sold. September was lowest at 20 dozen. I’m thinking in 2024 I’m gonna try recording how many dozen I box up rather than sold.
2023
We lost some really good friends. We made some new ones. We got a new dog. We finally took a weekend trip after a few years of hunkering at home. We saw some fantastic theater, (I was even in a show), had a visit from my friend Keith for the first time in 25 years, and got so much stuff done at home! Most of it had to do with the shop remodeling, but still, it’s a wonder to look over the list and see how much got checked off! Just for fun, I put the list in a spreadsheet and there was 221 line items. Twenty of them aren’t done yet. There’s always next year.
I was grateful to not fight major health issues this year, and to revel in the simple joy of walking up a hill or carrying some feed. Or just to wander up the road from barn to shed!
We got some concrete poured and started work on the shop. The crop year wasn’t the best. And if you enjoy snow, the year didn’t end well for you. There was a lot of snow at the beginning of 2023, but it melted fairly quick.
I’ve been rebuilding the carburetor for the 630 tractor. (Line item #192) I had a good start on it early this week, but the last few days I’ve been busy elsewhere. But in my “New Heated Shop”*‘ (*sort of) I can keep working. I try not to think about how the tractor itself is out in the UNHEATED part of the shed. But that’s just 8 bolts and a couple fittings… right? Easy Peasy. Might be the first thing of 2024 to check off that list! I think I’m even gonna use most of the parts. I spent an hour on the phone with the oldest parts guy at my John Deere store, and another guy who restores antique tractors, to figure out one piece on my carburetor that’s not in the pictures. They figured it out. Surround yourself with good people. That might be my goal for 2024.
2024- I need to renew my private pesticide applicators license. I haven’t used it more than a few times in the 25+ years I’ve had it, but I’ll renew it again, simply because it’s one more link to farming I want to keep.
Monday, 1/1/2024 I’ll go round up the mileage and hours on all the vehicles and tractors and fill in my annual mileage spreadsheet. I always enjoy that. I’ll need to start finding numbers for our assets page. That too is pretty interesting. I had a young lady tell me how rich farmers are. She didn’t know we farm. I had to explain a few things to her. We have a lot of ASSETS, and we have good credit. We may or may not have a lot of cash in the bank. Sometimes were rich in daughters only*, or dirt. Just not cash. Every farm is different.
*Thank you, Greg Brown.
Looking ahead, I’ve ordered a textbook for next semester’s class on creative writing which begins on 1/8. An in-person class so that should be fun. Got crops planned, will be ordering seed and inputs soon.
I did get snow fence installed, and driveway markers are in.
Hauled in the last of the scrap Iron I wanted to do for this year. I’ll be curious to see what my total was for scrap iron this year. Several thousand lbs. This last load was 3500 lbs and was an old disc, a bit of the old elevator frame, and some misc pieces. Price was still $100 / ton so it paid for the gas anyway.
I did an (almost) final cleaned up behind the shed one day just scraping all the brush into a pile; I wish I had done a before photo but there’s the after.
Just image it full of trees and junk and crap collected over 40 years. I’d love to put an overhang back here to shelter some machinery like the rear blade, the snow blower, the brush mower, etc. Got a pile of cement blocks to move yet.
Met our banker one day and made a plan. I’ve got most of the big bills paid. Signed the last of the papers for crop insurance, but don’t know what that’s going to pay yet.
Had two nights of Holiday Concerts at the college this past week. The choir sounds really very nice. The band is small but growing, and they’ll be really good in another year or two. The one photo is the designer, Paul, with Santa.
We’ve had a little issue with Luna and Bailey lately. They really got into a fight the day I was working on snow fence. Like a ‘to the death’ type fight. I had to separate them three times, finally putting Bailey in the gator.
We can tell Bailey seems jealous, yet she’s picking fights she doesn’t want to be in. They’re equal size and weight. It almost seems like Luna is trying to find her place in the order. Bailey is spayed, we don’t think Luna is yet. We’ve had Luna for 2 months now. She’s really settling in. Which might be what’s putting Bailey off. Any thoughts on 2 female dogs getting along would be appreciated.
Need to get the final paper submitted for class this coming week and the semester is over on the 15th.
The Rep Theater has the next phase of heating and AC going on so that will take some of my time. They have a lot of old photos out as part of the 40 year anniversary. This was me at about 20 years old at the Rep. PHOTO
I should get going on 2023 bookwork one of these days… I’ve been really lazy on that this year.
Trail Baboon 