Category Archives: Seasons

2022, animals, Farming Update, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

In The Mood

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Well, guess its winter; my 1940’s music station has been replaced by Christmas music. Bah. I changed that one to the Sinatra station. I like 90% of the 40’s music. I only like 53% of Sinatra’s music.

Orion is back in the night sky. I sure enjoy seeing him. I talk with him a lot.

Some of us have snow, many of us have cold, almost seasonal, temps. Some of you may have had a hurricane or two. It is November after all. I’m still fairly optimistic we’ll warm up again here in Minnesota. After all, I haven’t got the snow fence up, the corn out, or any fall tillage done. It *has* to warm up! Well, it would sure be *nice* if it would warm up. Yes, I’m pushing my luck on that one.

Corn crop is still out there. Feeding and hiding all the deer from the hunters.  I did hear the neighbors were hoping to get over here this week for their corn. And we didn’t have any severe weather as predicted the other day. Whew. Got a little rain, but really not enough to hurt anything.

Last year the corn was taken out on November 9th. Most years it’s mid-November. So, we’re still on target. Many years it’s the weekend of Thanksgiving that Kelly and I are putting the snow fence up. Usually we can find a nice weekend with calm winds and temps in the 40’s to do it. Only once have I actually had to kneel in the snow to do it. A few times I’ve been colder than others. I remain optimistic.

I put diesel fuel conditioner in the truck and the one tractor. This is the stuff to prevent diesel fuel gelling in cold temperatures. I added ‘Stabil’ to the lawn mower and put that away last week. Took off the outdoor faucet and picked up all the hoses. Closed the door to Rosie and Guildy’s pen; not sure if they’ve still been going in there at night, but they’ll have to find a new place in the evening. And I cleaned the chickens heated water bucket and moved that inside and filled with fresh water. (I haven’t plugged it in yet, but it’s there and ready, and will need to be plugged in soon). It probably holds about 6 gallons and as I carried it the 100 yards from where I scrubbed it to where the pen is, I thought to myself how far I’ve come since the shoulder surgery 10 months ago and I wasn’t carrying anything. And I thought to myself, in a few months I’ll get to celebrate doing this again, but for different reasons. (The knee replacement). I got the garage cleaned out so Kelly can park her car inside. I got the hay rake put away that I haven’t used since July. I’m not really sure why I let that sit outside all summer… wait, yes I do. Both small tractors that I would normally use to move that have been having issues all summer and I can’t get either started at the moment.

I took a wagon load of straw over to Firefly Berries so they could cover the strawberries. He said they lost a field of berries to grubs this year. Strawberries this year were probably the worst he’d seen. But the grapes were one of the best. So it goes.

I did get part of one of my summer ‘to-do’ jobs done this week. There’s an old shed where I park my car and the truck. It has old wood sliding doors but the tracks and wheels for the doors are shot and the wood sill plate is rotted out and it has all been falling off for a few years. But one corner of the doors sat in the dirt so it wasn’t really “going” anywhere. I finally got them off this week. Took all of about 5 minutes.

While I was out with the tractor and loader, I moved this piece of metal I dropped in the yard a few years ago. It was an old metal forage box, and when I pulled the front off, the roof and sides just collapsed onto themselves and I’ve been working around it. I hate it when I do that to myself. Put something down and then work around it. This is why I need to just put things away in the first place. It might be a thingy that goes to the basement, but I set it on the bench in the entry way and that’s where it sits for weeks. It might be the broken gear box from the old mower that I replaced and pushed it out of the way at the time. Yet it’s not in the scrap iron barrel, a year later and it’s still laying over there! I used a rubber mallet this summer as I fixed a window screen. Then it laid by the back door for two months. Then I moved it to the mudroom counter, and it laid there for a couple weeks. I finally remembered to take it to the shed this morning. Golly gee whiz I hate it when I do that.

So I picked up this mass of sheet metal and thought about where to move it, and caught myself, and said, ‘JUST PUT IT ON THE TRAILER! DON’T YOU DARE DUMP IT SOMEWHERE ELSE AGAIN!’. And I did! And added a few more things to the trailer. The plan was to get that hauled in this week. Or, Well, maybe next week. I have a large pile of things to haul in… scrap metal prices are pretty good. I need someone else to work my day job so I can stay home and do this job. I haven’t done any accounting in a few months either. Oh well.

Rosie and Guildy went in the pond this week! I happen to see them over there near it and the other ducks. And as I watched, they jumped into the water. Yay R&G!

Thanks to all the veterans for your service.

DO YOU PUT THINGS AWAY? WHY DON’T WE?

2022, Food, Nature, Seasons, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather

Carpe Vinum

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One of the days I was in Nashville, Pat and I drove out to Arrington Vineyard – a lovely place about 45 minutes from the city.  It was so beautiful that day and the winery is definitely set up and marketed to folks who want to come out and enjoy it.   Various dining venues including outdoor tables and umbrellas as well as picnic tables on the hill overlooking the vineyard.

Bringing your own picnic is definitely encouraged but if you need to add a little spice to your meal, there are pre-packaged olives, cheese/salami slices, crackers galore, pickled vegetables, and lots more.  Even desserts.  The stars of the show are, of course, the wines and you can purchase bottles or you can get flights of wine to go with your meal.  I’ve never actually purchased a flight of wine before so was a little surprised at first that you can’t just pick your own four wines (or six depending on what size flight you want).  I guess the winery figures they know better than you about which wines go together and which don’t.

The little gal who was working the register looked to be about 15.  Obviously she had to be old enough to sell liquor, but the older get, the younger they all seem!  I ordered the flight we wanted and the young gal asked me for identification.  The shock must have shown on my face; after all it’s been 40+ years since I have been underage.  She quickly told me that they are required by law to card everyone.  Seems like a lot of wasted breath to asked clearly geriatric folks for their ID.  But I did consider slipping her a big tip!

Do you remember the last time you got carded?

2022, animals, Farming Update, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather, work

Better Bring A Jacket

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Today’s post comes from Ben.

Had a freeze here this past week.

It was 28° on Wednesday morning. We lost the other creamy colored duck. And the next morning a coyote was howling just 100 feet below the house. At first, the yipping noise they make sounds a little bit surreal and I ran outside to see what was going on. Even the dogs came running back to the house looking at me like “Did you hear that? What the heck is that??“ I yelled and the dogs remembered they’re supposed to deal with stuff like coyotes and they took off after it. Kelly was out the other door slapping her ‘bird away’ boards together. There’s too many leaves on the trees yet, and the corn and beans still out there and too much coverage for things to hide in and it’s tough to see much. And that’s why, a few days later, I was out in my pajamas hunting a coyote. 

I was standing at the kitchen window filling the tea pot and I saw something moving out in the pasture. It was too far away to tell clearly what it was, and by the time I got my crocs on, and found the shells for the rifle, (which were behind the toothpaste box), and got out there to a better vantage point, there wasn’t anything to see. But as long as I was out there already, I fed the chickens and let Rosencrantz and Guildenstern out of their pen. Rosie and and Guildy are doing good.

I realized all the chickens spend a lot of time hiding, so it’s not just them. (See the first paragraph.) Course hiding under a bush seems more helpful for attacks from above than from coyotes.

Bringing pears in the house was the solution to eating them. They soften up and taste really good.

I have seen a couple guys combining soybeans around here. The freeze kills the stem and they harvest better that way. A few more days now and everyone will be going full force.

I still get some dairy magazines in the mail and I spent a bit of time wondering what I would have changed if I still had cows. My whole calf raising situation would have been the first thing to improve. I’d have needed to get them out of the dairy barn pen and into individual stalls somewhere.

Adding more cows and getting out of the stanchion barn would be important, but where and how I’m still not sure. We’re on low ground and it’s wet and I don’t know where I could have built, or how, or if I even would have wanted too.

Kelly asks me sometimes if I ever wanted to be one of those big farmers with thousands of acres? Well, the machinery and toys are fun, but it also turns into more management and less actual work at some point. So I don’t know.

As I’ve always said, just add more zero’s to the bills and income.


Done anything stupid in your pajamas?

2022, Family, Kids, Mysteries, Nature, Seasons

Astonishing

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As you all know, one of our family traditions is apple-picking each fall.  It’s just one of many places that YA and I enjoy going and things we enjoy doing together.  Zoos, petting farms, state fair, museums, apple picking, tree selection, shopping, gardening. 

You’d think that I’d be overloaded with photos considering all the things we do but you’d be surprised.  YA is very resistant to posing for photos.  If I’m lucky, I can get one photo per “out and about”, but that’s not a guarantee.  I plead, I wheedle and sometimes I bribe; these attempts don’t always work.  I don’t know why she resists.  

Yesterday we headed out to the orchard and after we’d filled our first bag (Sweet Tangos), she asked me to take her picture with an apple tree behind her.  I was surprised but took a few photos.  Then she wanted photos in front of a different tree.  THEN she wanted photos in front of the corn maze.  Now I was practically in shock.  When I asked why, she said she wanted to have pictures to show she had been on “an outing”.  At first I thought this was some feature of Instagram or Tik Tok or even the activity app she has through work but it turns out it’s nothing official.  She just wants photos in case she decides she wants to post somewhere. 

Lots more photo sessions ensued including the big adirondack chairs they have in the orchard and the most surprising of all, next to the dinosaur sculptures up near the barn.  I would have bet money she would refuse those but she happily posed.  All these photos were taken on my phone and she spent the miles back home looking through them and sending many of them to herself.  I was a little concerned she might delete them off my phone when she was done, but she left them.  I’m still in shock.

Anything extraordinary or atypical in your world lately?

2022, animals, Family, Farming Update, Nature, pets, Seasons, Weather

September

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Our two ducklings are doing well. Kelly has named them Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Rosie and Guildy for short. They seem to be afraid of everything. Mostly they spend the day hiding. But considering they’ve lost seven of their siblings, and the whole animal ‘fight or flight’ mentality, maybe they’re the smart ones and that’s why they’ve survived this long. And they just learned to walk up the board ramp to go in at night on their own, so that’s pretty smart of them! No more trying to wrangle them in at night. Now we’re trying to see if they’ll come out on their own in the morning so we don’t have to chase them out.

The other morning I watched a hawk swoop right down over the pen and then sit in a nearby tree. R & G weren’t out yet, but that might explain why some of their siblings disappeared. A few minutes later, when I was in the shed letting them out, a brown chicken hopped down out of the rafters right in front of me. Scared the bejezzus out of me. (By the way, when I dictated “bejezzus“ into my phone, it translated as “big Jesus” and I thought well, that works too). It scared the big Jesus out of me.

Still not much happening on the farm, beans are turning yellow, corn is drying up. I’m keeping busy with more summer projects at one theater and working on our fall show at the college. Sure has felt good to put on my toolbelt  again. Man, am I out of practice. Doesn’t take much to wear me out. Course I haven’t really done much this whole calendar year. Building up my endurance. I did haul a 50 lb bag of chicken feed over to the chickens and dump it in the wall feeder. And put two bags of water softener salt in. Progress! 

I’ve spent a lot of time sitting on the garage steps just watching our little corner of the world. It’s nice.

Our apples and pear trees are overloaded this year. In fact they are so overloaded they broke a few branches on the apple tree. Yeah, it needs to be pruned. I think they’re Harrelson‘s. They sure are good anyway.

Who knows anything about Minnesota pears? I think they were called golden? They’re small, and green and only get to be slightly larger than a ping-pong ball, and really hard and they do not taste good. Do they ever get better? What do I need to be doing with them?

Kelly and I froze some sweetcorn last weekend. Only four dozen; daughter helped me husk it, and then I cut it off the cobs and Kelly bagged. I remember doing that with my parents, and for a few years my sister would come out to help me and Kelly. It’s a fond memory I have with mom and dad.

WHAT DO YOU WEAR TO FEEL GOOD?

2022, animals, Business, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Weather

Is It Fall Already?

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

The days are clearly getting shorter. It’s a little discouraging it’s already dark by 8PM. The barn swallows have moved on and the hummingbirds seem to be gone. Maybe the RedWing Blackbirds too. I do enjoy fall. I really like the change of seasons and fall and spring are my favorites. I enjoy the fieldwork and planting crops in the spring, and then fall and the harvest and doing that fieldwork and completing the cycle for another year. Not everyone in the house appreciates the earlier darkness and cooler temps. It’s all good.

Healthwise I’m improving. After feeling like I plateaued a few weeks ago, I can tell a difference again. Got the kidney stone removed a couple weeks ago. Got the stent they placed after that removed the other day (Lots of new experiences!) I can stand on one foot for a few seconds. Left knee will hurt until I get it replaced, but I’m walking better and driving and even climbed up on a box to reach something the other day. I even went to the car with both hands full one morning! AND I stepped over the dog in the kitchen! Getting there!

The sandhill cranes were out in the pasture this past Thursday. It was really nice to see them. Thanks to Steve for sending them our way…

Header photo is neighbor Dave’s cows. Kelly took a walk one night and was talking to them.

Chickens and big ducks are doing well. I went out to do chores and they came running.

We’re having a tough time with the ducklings. Down to two.

The one with the bad leg didn’t make it. And one day I let three out, and an hour later, one of them was dead. I don’t know. Fingers crossed for these two.

Crops are looking good. Corn stalks are starting to dry out and the kernels are dented. There’s still milk in the kernels, but it is coming along.

Multiply the rows around (16) and kernels in the length (36) = 576 kernels on this ear. Then we count the number of ears in 17.5’ (remember we counted the plants this spring. That’s 1/1000th of an acre) and it will vary, but roughly 30 ears per 17.5’, x 1000 = 30,000 x 576 = 17,280,000 kernels / acre divided by 80,000 kernels / bushel and that gives us 216 bushels / acre. Which is way too high for my farm on average. Factor in the deer damage, corn on the edges that the trees impact, ears that aren’t so good, hope for a late freeze, and well, we’ll see at harvest. But it does look like a decent crop this year.

Who were your neighbors when you were growing up?

2022, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Seasons

July is Corn Month

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

They say July is corn month and August is Soybean month. Because July is the critical time in corn development, while it’s August for soybeans.

The corn has tasseled so it’s full height now, the silks are out, GDU’s, while down a bit this week with the cooler weather (which I love by the way) are 1714, 104 above normal.

I’m still mowing weeds, but I expect by the time you read this I will have finished. Or, if not exactly “finished”, given up and quit. The one area I’ve got left to mow is really rough and I will get tired of bouncing around in the cab.

All the crops are looking good, and while I was thinking I’d be cutting oats next Monday or Tuesday, looking at it Thursday shows a lot of green kernels yet so I may wait out next week yet.

The storms last Saturday knocked some oats down and in one field I saw some corn lodged on the edge of the field.

 (“lodging” is basically stalk failure) Oats, As the plant is green and growing it has a lot of give. But as it matures, dries up, and turns golden, the stalk loses its flexibility, meaning it will break off in the wind. And it’s odd, how only certain parts of the fields will do that. Wind is very curious, as the songs from last week’s blog showed. 

You can see from the pictures, only one part of the field went down, while the rest didn’t. And the green weeds still stand up. It’s all interesting.

We got nearly 2” of rain Saturday afternoon and then another .6” Saturday night. Kelly and I drove around in the gator checking on things after the afternoon storm. No trees down at least. And then we found a mama duck and 9 ducklings. Once again, Kelly is wrangling ducklings and I’m pointing and offering unsolicited advice.

Using a fishing net, she captured just about all the ducklings and I could get them in a box. But they’re tiny and a few escaped the net. She chased them down and we cleaned up a side pen for them. Now, just to catch mama. I remember one other year we did this; the mama could track the squeaking of the ducklings and we put up a ramp and eventually she got in there with them for a happy reunion. That wasn’t working this year and Kelly eventually captured her with the net too. Kelly and mama duck were in the pen and I was out in the gator. I heard some noises, and honking, and the doors wiggled a few times, and the mama got her head out the door once. But they’re all together now. We’ll keep them in here for a month or so. Until they’re big enough to survive outside… and we’ll see what happens.

A neighbor about ½ mile cross country from us said he saw two bear cubs playing on a log in his pond the other morning. Some neighbors have seen bears before, and we always assumed they were just passing through. But cubs… I don’t know, that seems like mama bear must be settled in here. Just what we need; another predator. I think it would be cool to see a bear. Long as it’s not eating the chickens. Do bears eat chickens??

CoCoRaHS – Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, And Snow network is an organization I heard about a few years ago. Cocorahs.org

Every day I report how much rain we’ve gotten. Some people report snow depth, and some people have full-fledged weather stations. I just report rain with some minor details like last Saturday’s amount in the afternoon and the evening. It is interesting to me to compare rain events in our area. There are about 14 reporting stations in the Rochester area, and three within a few miles of us. It’s interesting how the rain amounts can vary between us. I got a certificate for 250 reporting observations.

I’ve talked about the barn swallows outside our front door and the nest they’ve had for several years. Well, must be new residents this time around and they do not like us coming and going and they dive bomb us. Even at my car, 20’ from the nest they’re buzzing my head. We keep telling them “It’s us! You know us!”

ARE YOU A FALL RISK? ANY ISSUES WITH ANYTHING FALLING DOWN LATELY?

2022, gardening, home, Mysteries, Nature, Seasons, Weather

Mystery of the Week

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I can’t remember a summer when so much of my psychic energy is spent thinking about rain, or the lack of rain.  Usually my “flowers not grass” protocol does just fine without much H2O intervention on my part but not this summer.  I’m trying to use as little as possible but it’s been an issue. 

So why is it, that the ONLY day of any precipitation in recent memory was also the one out of two days a year that a case of toilet paper is delivered and left on the steps.

Any ways that Murphy’s law is messing with you this week?

2022, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Weather

Progressing

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I feel like I’ve been busy lately. Nothing important, just… day to day living.

Crops are coming along. I talked with the co-op about spraying fungicide on the soybeans.  I’ve never done it before, but I know some of the neighbors have and they report a good return. It will cost $33/acre to do it. $20 for the actual ground application and $13 for the chemical. Plus, some beans knocked down in the process. If beans are selling at $15 / bushel this fall, I will need the fungicide to increase yield by 2 or 3 bushels / acre to justify the cost. The neighbors have seen 10-15 bushel / acre increase over not treated so we’ll see how that goes. Curiously, aerial application is only $15/ acre! I’ve got too many trees, too many neighboring houses, and too small of fields to use that, but I was really surprised it’s cheaper. I supposed they can cover a greater area faster. It always comes back to efficiency doesn’t it?

My corn will be tasseling any day now. I’ve seen some of the neighbor’s corn already tasseling. Just depends on those GDU. (1559 to date. +110)  Once the tassel is fully emerged, the plant is at full height. Silks will appear in a couple more days and then one or two weeks of pollination begins. There are so many critical things in any plant’s development but getting all that pollen from the tassels to the silks is a big one. The kernel won’t develop if the silk attached to it doesn’t get pollinated. Hard rains, hail, or storms can mess all that up.

And with the heat, some of the corn is curling up to protect it self. This is a rocky area, so the roots are shallow. Notice how the leaves have curled up?

And the oats is turning color, it just needs to keep standing, no wind storms, and hopefully this hot weather doesn’t boil all the milk out of the heads. It should be ready to cut in a couple weeks. Then get it harvested and the straw baled. I only planted 10 acres this year; less than half of normal because I was expecting the knee replacement this summer.

The straw delivery trip to the boonies of Winona last week was a great drive. 119 miles, took a few hours, saw lots of countryside with very little traffic, met a woman named Sunshine, had lunch in a bar in Witoka where my chicken sandwich was actually two chicken strips placed inside the bun. And there was enough lettuce on it to choke a horse and more fries than two of us could possibly eat. We even found the back way into Farmers Park: A minimum maintenance road that was pretty awesome and I’m glad we had the truck. It was washed out and rough with not one, but TWO single lane bridges.

I mentioned taking two hens to a friend. The next day I had a record 22 eggs! We wondered if the other chickens felt threatened and that they better step up production?? But no, couple days later there was only 8 eggs, then back to the usual 15 or 16. Production varies like that.

The little chicks are blending right in.  Here’s some chicken photos including Rooster 3 minus a tail. Not sure what happen there.

That duck in the brush pile ran down to get something to eat one night and that was the opportunity we needed. The pile was burned. The duck was very put out for a couple hours. Sorry. It’s just the way it is.

My brother helped me get the brush mower hooked up and I’ve been mowing weeds in pastures and waterways. Of course I always have my tractor buddy with me. The corn is a tall as the tractor.

If it’s just grass, I’ll leave it standing, no reason to cut it. But there are a lot of thistles, wild parsnip, ragweed, stinging nettles, burdocks, and stuff that needs to be controlled. I’ll spend a few days yet mowing.

My nephew just retired after 25 years in the Air Force. He had the rank of Colonel and was a Base Commander in the St. Louis area. He had a big ceremony last week and some of the family went down. He’s a big nerd and they celebrated that by having several Star Wars characters there in costume. Unfortunately, Covid hit the gathering too.

Read an article about Ukraine; they are big producers of wheat and corn. But with the war, shipping has been an issue so their storage facilities (the ones that haven’t been damaged) are still full of last year’s crops and there’s no room to store this years crop. So they can sell it at a loss just to move it and get the storage facilities empty, but then they don’t have the income to support the families and communities either. Not to mention a shortage of food coming up. And as the war moved on from some of these areas, they needed ‘sappers’ to clear mines and other munitions from the fields, then they had to drag rockets and war detritus from their fields. Not something I have ever imagined doing, thankfully.

Padawan has been trimming weeds, and mowing grass, and he learned the basics on using a chainsaw.

EVER FELT PRESSURE TO STEP UP? WHAT ARE YOU SPIFFING UP LATELY?

2022, Family, gardening, Music, Poems, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

They Call The Wind. . . .Annoying

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We just can’t get a break with the weather. Our home garden got planted late due to freezing temperatures in May, and then we had a hail storm in June that took out the tomatoes and peppers and shredded the beans and peas.

Our church vegetable garden is planted in six, waist-high raised beds. We planted bush squash, peas, beans, and savoy cabbages there. We planted the squash and cabbages in raised mounds just to give them ample depth for roots. That garden didn’t get the hail we did at our house several blocks away. Last Sunday the bush squash and cabbages at church were looking spectacular. Then, on Tuesday, the wind hit.

I never realized how shallow squash roots are. The wind gusted up to 50 mph, and almost entirely uprooted the squash. Husband frantically placed cedar shakes around the squash and cabbage mounds to block the wind, and piled more dirt over the exposed roots. Many of the squash stems were bent and the leaves broken off and wilted. By yesterday they looked a little better, but, again, this sets back possible harvest.

Our home garden wasn’t affected by the wind since the plants are at ground level, not in waist-high raised beds. I think we will have ample cabbages and squash to take to the food pantry if the church garden doesn’t produce.

Let’s have some weather inspired songs and poems today.