Category Archives: Seasons

Family, History, home, Seasons, Uncategorized

Long Range Planning

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Today’s post comes from Ben.

I’ve been doing some long-range planning on building a shop. Or maybe it’s just a ‘garage’. Basically, I want a warm place to work on machinery. And things like grease guns and cans of liquid wrench or chain lube work better if they’re not 20 degrees. Even cordless tools are more fun to use when they’re not cold.

What do I think I want to work on? Does it need to be big enough to get my current biggest tractor in there? (Yes!) Or does it need to be big enough to get a combine in there? If I don’t actually build it for another 10 years, how much will I actually be farming? I don’t own a combine and I don’t expect to own one. My biggest implement (at the moment) opens up to about 26’ wide. Do I need / want enough room to pull that in attached to the tractor, AND unfold it to work on it? I have machine sheds now. But machinery is stored in there. There isn’t room to actually unfold an implement. Heck, sometimes there’s isn’t room to get the tractor and implement all in the shed.

Course during winter I put more stuff in the shed. This fall I spent a couple days moving stuff around so that I could get out either door with the tractor and snow blower. And still get to the rear blade if I needed that.

What started all this, aside from the deep seated, but dormant desire for a nice warm shop, is my grain drill. It’s 15’ wide. I bought it used a couple years ago and It needed a lot of work. Over the summer and early Spring I got it ready to plant. The next summer I fixed a few more things. But it needs one more thing and fixing that won’t be hard, it will just require taking a fair amount of stuff off to get that ‘cup’ out and a new one installed. Every summer I think I’m going to work on that.  But every summer other stuff happens, and I don’t get too it. Sort of like any of my home remodeling projects; ‘We can do it this summer!’ Famous last words. (And I’m still working on hardwood flooring and baseboard trim and closet doors).

Ok, so if I just want a shop big enough to work on the drill, I could get away with a two car garage. But then it doesn’t take too many things along the wall and pretty soon you have a one car garage.

watch some YouTube channels of other farmers; these big guys have the wonderful huge shops and sheds. All heated and well lit. I don’t need that.

Just the other day I got an email a farm magazine called ‘Successful Farming’ and their ‘top shops’ issue. Maybe I need a wash bay? What about a separate welding area? A lube rack?? Painting booth! And what about heating options?? Tool storage?? Water? OFFICE! Sleeping quarters!! ??

I’m still thinking.

And of course, WHERE will it go? Kelly asked me the other day what I was thinking about that. I have some ideas… still thinking.

And also nagging at the back of my mind is the question of ‘When do you really think you’ll have time to use this??’ I mean I can’t get my home remodeling projects done now. So, when do I think I’m going to have time to putter about in my nice warm shop…?

When I retire! But then… do I need to fit the big tractor in there then??

So many questions.

Anything nagging at your thoughts? What are your long range plans?

 

 

 

Family, holidays, Kids, Seasons, Stories, Uncategorized

Anticipation

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Walking to my car after running an errand, I passed a woman who was putting a huge stuffed unicorn toy into the back of her van. I asked her where in the house she could hide that so prying eyes wouldn’t see it.  She laughed and said that she hid all the gifts at this time of year at her next-door neighbors.   This triggered a memory so I told her about occasionally hiding gifts meant for my dad at our next-door neighbor’s home.

My dad could ferret out gifts for him practically anywhere. In my high school house there weren’t any locks on any of the bedrooms doors, so that was out.  He found things in the basement; he found things in the garage; he even found things hidden in the living room fireplace, which we never used.

When I was little I had inherited this trait. I dug into closets, under beds, any place I thought I might find a stash.  One year at the holidays, when I was about 8, I knew every single gift that I had received before I even opened it.  That was the last year I went looking.  It was no fun at all to open gifts that I already knew about and then having to feign surprise.

Ever since then I wait, letting the anticipation build. Sometimes this backfires. Once my folks brought me a gift from their travels in Russia, instructing me to wait until my birthday, a full 3 weeks away.  The gift sat on the piano bench for those 3 weeks and when I excitedly opened it, it was one of those big fur hats that are popular in Russia.  I can’t do fur, even if it’s a wonderful thought from someone who loves you, so I called my folks to tell them I couldn’t keep it.  Even though this time it turned out badly, I’m still committed to waiting until the right moment!

How do you keep from snooping? Or do you just go ahead and peek?

Family, Food, holidays, Seasons, Uncategorized

Disaster Averted

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I got a family recipe from the wife of my German cousin Wilhelm. It is a traditional Christmas bread called Bremer Klaben. Petra speaks wonderful English, but her written recipe is, well, interesting.  It is ok that the ingredients like raisins and candied peel and flour are measured in grams. I have a scale that will do that for me. I really like cooking by weight, not volume.

The recipe calls for 60 grams of yeast.  I always assume a reference to yeast means granulated yeast. 60 grams of granulated yeast is about 1/3  of a cup. This only makes one medium-sized loaf of  bread, so I surmised that she was referring to cake yeast, not granulated yeast. The granulated equivalent of cake yeast is 4 1/2 teaspoons. Can you imagine what would have happened had I not made the proper conversion?  Disaster averted!

Tell about disasters you have averted (or not).

 

Family, Food, holidays, Seasons, Uncategorized

Rich Beyond Measure

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I made broth last weekend.  It is the Brodo recipe from The Splendid Table with 9 lbs of turkey wings and 3 lbs of beef bones.  It simmers for 14 hours. It produces a couple of gallons of golden brown goodness. We use it all the time, so we try to always have some on hand.  We  consider ourselves rich as we put the broth containers in the freeze “This is wealth”, we say.  Who needs more things when you have broth?

We have much to be thankful for besides homemade broth.  We feel especially rich in good friends,  good coworkers,  and in our community as a whole.  In this season of rampant consumerism, I think it is good to consider all the things that contribute richness to our lives.

What makes your life a richer, more satisfying one?

 

Family, Fifty Words, holidays, home, Kids, pets, Seasons, sports, Stories, The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

Happy Thanksgiving!

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This is a straight up-homage to the day. Not the turkey and football filled day, not the sweet potatoes and pilgrim hat day.  For those of us who don’t practice thankfulness as often as we should (including me), today is a day to help us do just that – practice thankfulness.

You’ve heard it before – what are you grateful for?

 

Family, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, work

Leaf Vortex Conspiracy

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YA and her boyfriend raked the leaves yesterday. If you live in the Twin Cities you’ll be saying to yourself at this point “the last yard waste pick up was two weeks ago – why did she wait so long”.  Well, I’ll tell you why.  I live next door to the tree that waits until every other tree in Southwest Minneapolis has dropped its leaves to start shedding its own foliage.  Every. Single. Year.

In addition, we live in a leaf vortex, right in the middle of the block. My neighbors to the south routinely have 5-6 bags of leaves, my neighbors to the north 4-5 bags.  My house this year – 20 bags.  I really think that my neighbors have figured out a way to get their leaves to blow into my yard at this time of year.

It doesn’t help that I detest leaf raking. Actually that’s not quite true.  I don’t mind the raking part.  It’s the bagging part I don’t like, especially now that we have to use paper bags; the paper bags are so unwieldy and hard to fill.  This is kinda how I feel about yardwork… I don’t mind the work, I just hate the clean up.  A perfect gardening day is when YA follows me about and bags up all the weeds and detritus from my work!

Anything you’re sure of, even if it doesn’t make sense?

 

100 Words, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

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Sometime yesterday between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. I lost my winter attitude! It was exactly the same temperature when I went to work as when I exited my building at the end of the day.  I had on the same clothes, wore the same jacket.  But on the way home and doing errands I was COLD.  I turned up the heater in the car, rubbed my hands together and even sat on my hands at one stoplight.  I’m afraid it’s going to be a long winter for me this year.

What’s your favorite way to keep warm?

Art, Family, holidays, home, Kids, pets, Seasons, Uncategorized

Haunted House

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My mother is extremely pragmatic. When I was growing up, some of this manifested itself in not having many decorations around the house for holidays.  It was a waste of money and time to put stuff up just to have to take it down in a short while.  We did have a tree and stockings at Christmas but the rest of the holidays came and went without any seasonal knick-knacks or gewgaws.

I went the opposite direction – I have boxes and boxes of holiday décor in the attic: Spring/Easter, Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo, Fourth of July – you name it. But not as much comes out these days, since we got a naughty tabby.  Nimue is a terror on décor.  Nothing glass can go out.  Easter grass is a no-no.  Plastic Easter eggs hit the floor and then become dog toys.  So over the last 8 years I have put out less and less.  And now I find myself becoming my mother.  Seems like a lot of fuss when I have to guard it from the cat and then just put it away in a couple of weeks.

I did put out a few things last night for trick-or-treaters – a large ceramic pumpkin with our name carved out as the teeth, some tin can luminaries that I made years ago when YA was a toddler and the big orange candy bowl. I do have some pumpkins and corn stalk on the front porch as well.  Not quite the over the top haunted house that I used to have for Halloween, but it will have to do.

Here is one of my favorite haunted house poems:

Haunted Houses

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What makes a good haunted house in your mind?

books, Media, Movies, Music, Nature, Poems, Seasons, Songs, Stories, Theatre, Uncategorized, Weather

Hunter’s Moon

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There was a beautiful full moon last night-The Hunter’s Moon. It is the second full moon of autumn, and was named by the Algonquin tribes as the moon for the time to go hunting and prepare for winter. The sky was quite clear and the moon was huge as I drove home from work at 7:00.  It had an orange tint.  The night before last it was almost full, and there were wavy wisps of clouds in front of the moon, making it look like the perfect backdrop for a a witch on a broom.

Tell about all the books, plays, stories, poems, and music you know of that are concerned with the moon. What are your own moon stories? Why is the moon so inspiring?

 

Family, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

As the Seasons Turn

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My father’s extended family hails from the north woods, so even though I grew up in St. Louis, I experienced the Minnesota/Wisconsin climate from an early age. When it was time to look at colleges I announced to my parents that I would only go to a college in Minnesota or Wisconsin.  When college/grad school was over for me and wasband, we hightailed it to the Twin Cities.  I’ve been here every since.

This morning, I noticed it was snowing at about 8 a.m. and my mood jumped up a couple of notches just seeing it. I love snow and cold.  Spring, summer and autumn are nice but winter is my season of choice.  I love visiting tropical locales but I don’t think I would happy in a place that didn’t have winter.

I took pictures all morning and even though I knew that snow in mid-October wouldn’t last, I was a little wistful when it stopped around noon.

Of course, this is seriously early for snow, so I didn’t start pulling out big sweaters and coats just yet. And I still wore my zorries to the gym and the grocery store!

What is your favorite seasonal transition? Have you transitioned to your winter clothes yet?