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ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER

August 9, 2025 xdfben 21 Comments

The weekend farm report from XDFBen

ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER

Wow, Man, what a week again. Thursday night I hit a gumption trap so hard, I had a rootbeer float and popcorn for supper…

We have baby guineas! I had seen one sitting on a nest behind the machine shed a few weeks ago, and we talked about getting the eggs into an incubator but never got too it. Next time I looked the nest was empty and there were broken eggs. Momma was nowhere to be found, and we feared the worst. A week later I saw her and a bunch of chicks heading into a corn field. Typically, guineas are not the best moms. But this group seems to ‘community parent’ and they’re doing surprisingly well.

As you can image, the real world is a tough place for a little chick. They could fall into a hole, they could get eaten or lost. It’s a tough place. But yeah, they’re doing well and getting big enough they might just make it. They’re not quite pigeon sized, and they hop and flutter and there’s always that one that’s six feet away and running to catch up.

I cut down a bunch of box elder tree’s growing over a fence down around the barn yard. Treated all the stumps. Then tore out the old feed bunk augers and cement bunks. Don’t need them anymore and it will help open up the yard.

Dad built the first silo in 1968 and installed these augers. When the second silo was built in 1976, the whole feed bunk was turned 90 degrees and the cement bunks installed. Then it was 1978 when I stuck my leg into this.

The augers I stuck my leg in. Hard to visualize from this picture how it was set up when working. I’m just really lucky.

As I tore it out, I thought about that. I don’t harbor any resentment. These bunks fed a LOT of cattle over the years and provided for two families. They served their purpose well.

I put the forklift extensions on and used the loader forks to lift the old bunks out. I expected animals to be living under them, but nope, nothing. I’ve been asked why I’m doing this, and to what end? Just to clean up. There is no end goal. It would never be used again, why save it?

The oats got harvested Friday and Saturday. Yield wasn’t very good, the oats didn’t even fill a semi. Ended up at 735 bushels, meaning about 31 bu / acre. According to the oat people on FB, oats has been all over the place this year. At least the test weight was 34.6 meaning the elevator would take it. Wasn’t heavy enough to be food grade, nor was it enough bushels to mess around with.

Lots of straw! I ended up with 900 small square bales. Put 700 in the barn.

The hole in the middle is where the elevator was.

I had the three teenage boys helping and I couldn’t have done it without them. They were great. The one doing the most work, number 3, (and treated as the odd wheel out by the first two for some reason), had a broken toe (dropped a barbell weight on his foot). Ah, the teenage mentality.

I baled 3 loads of straw on Monday, the boys came out Tuesday and we unloaded the first two, just throwing them into the empty barn. Then we put the elevator up and unloaded the third. I baled three more loads Tuesday afternoon.

Wednesday, I started back at the college. You know what that means. Sleeves.

The boys came out at 5PM and we unloaded those three loads. 700 in the barn. Full enough. Haven’t had it this full in a few years. The boys rode in the wagon and we went to the field to bale up another load. And to stack this one as it will sit for a few months until the neighborhood berry farm is ready for it. I’d put one kid in the tractor with me, and the other two stacked on the wagon. I only hit one kid with a bale. He moved! I was aiming to the side and as the bale kicked, he stepped to that side. Oops. He was OK. Straw is light.

I’d have them rotate positions so they all got to ride in the tractor (and the AC) and they all thought it was pretty neat in there too.

Number 2 and 3 Padawan’s stacking in wagon. Number 1 is in the tractor with me.

Pretty proud of themselves. I couldn’t have done it without them.

I noticed on Friday, one of the rear wheel bearings on a wagon is gone. So that wagon is out of service until I can get new bearings. Hopefully it hasn’t damaged the wheel hub or axle.

And then Wednesday night, backing the stacked wagon into the shed, and the front wheels are not aligned. What the heck?? Tie rods are bend. Jeepers. Not sure when or how that happened. And I moved it a bit more to back it in and one wheel goes completely sideways. Well heck.

So, I pulled that wagon in backward to at least get it under cover and out of the way. More repairs. Add it to the list.

AND THEN- Thursday evening and I’m taking down the bale elevator and the lift cable snapped and it all fell to the ground. Words were said. It didn’t break anything. It was about 8’ up and I was lowing it to transport height of about 6’ when it dropped. I dragged it to the shop and Kelly and I worked on it for an hour. Gumption traps were hit several times until I blocked it up with an old pallet and we called it a night. So that’s three things. I should be done now for a while. Right?

Corn and soybeans look great! We have reached the point we cannot make any more management decisions to help the crop. The last thing done was aerial application of fungicide. Now the crop just has to finish out the season. One neighbor called me upset about aerial application too close to his house. I understand that and will take steps in the future to create a buffer zone. However, by the time it gets from me to the agronomist to the company to the pilot, I’m not sure what will actually happen. Not an excuse, just warning him a lot is out of my control.

DID SOMEONE HAVE THEIR EYE ON YOU AS A CHILD?

WHAT WOULD YOU TELL YOUR TEENAGE SELF?

2025, Business, Health, Science, Technology, Uncategorized

Lifetime Guarantee

Image August 5, 2025 Chris Norbury 36 Comments

I’ve been thinking about this term for a long time. What exactly is a lifetime? How good is any guarantee? And do I own any thing (product, device, appliance, clothing, etc.) that has been sold to me that came with a lifetime guarantee?

After all, a lifetime for a human can be less than a day to more than 120 years. Mosquitoes and many insects have lifetimes measured in days. Tortoises can outlive humans by a factor of 2, if the experts are to be believed. And Redwood and Sequoia trees live for four centuries or longer.

But let’s focus on human lifetime. Mine in particular. We bought the bathroom scale shown in the title photo from Brookstone at Southdale most likely, wayyyy back in the 1980s. It is battery operated, and I use it nearly every day to weigh myself. I’m weird that way. I think monitoring my weight daily helps me cut back on calories or exercise more to keep my weight roughly the same over the years. Not for everyone, but it works for me.

Lately, after easily 40 years of usage, the battery is showing signs of dying. I’m not positive, but I see larger than normal daily fluctuations in my weight. Normal is 1-2 pounds. Lately, I’ve seen several 3-5 lb. jumps or drops. I eat and exercise about the same amount every day other than an occasional restaurant or dessert pigout. So maybe the battery is at the end of its useful life.

I don’t even think Brookstone is around anymore, but if they were, and the battery died, would they honor their lifetime guarantee on this scale? Or did I miss the fine print in the sales literature saying something like “Lifetime guarantee or 40 years max, whichever comes first”?

No matter, the scale has been reliable and troublefree for decades, so if it dies, I’ll get a new scale that might be relatively cheaper because I won’t have to worry about getting a “long-term” lifetime guarantee. 20-30 years is about the best I can hope for.

MY QUESTION:
Tell us about any products you’ve bought that came with a lifetime guarantee and have actually lasted far longer than you ever would have expected.

2025, Business, Family, Farming Update, Food, gardening, Nature, Science, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS FARMER BEN?

August 2, 2025 xdfben 23 Comments

This weeks farm report from Ben.

I finished lighting the show in Chatfield last week, in time to fly out on Saturday with Kelly and our daughter. Kelly had a work conference and we got to travel along and amuse ourselves for a few days.
I was under the impression that taxi drivers were always better than Uber / Lyft because they are more professional and know the roads better. But that plan falls apart if they’re all independent taxi’s and they all seem to need to enter the address in their phones anyway. And they tell me they’ve lived here multiple years, so it makes me wonder why they don’t know their way around yet? But whatever. Our first driver was crazy; drove like a maniac and told me he liked American women and big boobs! Second taxi was a nicer driver, but his car broke down and when daughter and I came out of the Butterfly Pavilion he was sitting right where he had left us. He called a friend of his to take us back to town. And the taxi back to the airport was a nice guy with sheet metal screws holding his car door together. Resourcefulness!

Daughter and I had a good time walking around downtown and there was lots to see. I took lots of photos of old buildings. The day we saw the butterflies, that only took an hour. We never got going too early in the day, because we were on vacation after all. I was surprised that I could out-walk daughter. It was as hot there as it was back in MN, but less humidity, so that was nice. I didn’t expect it to be that hot. I found it interesting so many restaurants and bars had wide open windows or garage doors and yet there was very few bugs. One bartender told us they really spray the place down at night, but she said there was less flies this year than usual.

On Wednesday Kelly gave a presentation on Laughter Yoga. I snuck in the back and watched. It was well received, the group liked it, and she had several good loud laughers, so that got the rest of the group going.

She picked up some swag for me with the catch phrase: “Wicked Smaht Pathologists” and a link to their group. It makes me laugh. If you need a pathologist, you’re gonna want one that’s Wicked Smaht.

We had a young lady staying at the house to deal with dogs overnight while we were gone, and some other friends that would take care of chickens and eggs and amuse the dogs during the day. They said, “Bailey and Humphrey make us want dogs. Luna reminds why we don’t have a dog.”

And on the way home, in the MSP airport, the gate agent was a girl I went to high school with and hadn’t seen in 40 years. We had a little reunion right there at the gate for 15 seconds. It was nice to see her again.

Last week as I was headed to Chatfield one night, I saw, walking on the side of the road, three nuns in full black habits with the veil and headpiece. I had to double take, and double take again. This was out in the country. A few days later, Facebook, of course, provided the answer. There is an old order Catholic Church in the area and they have been seen coming from there. Well that explains it. Sure did make me wonder though. And then, ten days later, I saw two more nuns in full habits. But that was outside a Catholic Church, and they were selling baked goods at a street fair. Although when I saw them, they were packing up. I saw them pulling the totes with the collapsible tents up the street. I hadn’t seen a nun in full habit for years and now here was twice!

You all had that big storm come through on Monday night with high winds… the oats got beat up. Yep, sure did. Maybe 50% of it down. We didn’t get any hail so nothing threshed out on the ground, it’s just broken off and lying down and it makes it more difficult to pick up for harvest.

The plan is to start harvesting Friday. Going to try taking it straight- meaning I don’t swath it and lay it in windrows first. A lot of guys do take it straight. When we have tried it in the past it didn’t work so well… we shall see. I have the swather ready just in case.

The soybeans are waist tall and looking good. At least some of them. They don’t all look this good, but some of them.

There’s a guy on YouTube goes by ‘Bushel Billy’, from the Ohio area and he was talking about a corn issue with a certain variety, in extreme weather conditions, having “tassel wrap” meaning the last leaf doesn’t unwrap from the tassel. So of course if the tassel can’t open up to shed pollen, it’s going to be tough to get all the kernels (silks) pollinated. It takes 90,000 kernels to make a bushel. Hence 90K pollen grains to 90K silks are needed. He pointed out how after pollination the silks turn brown and detach from the kernel after pollination. I didn’t know that and I had to check it out myself.

Notice how many silks are loose. Just a few on the tip still stuck.

HUH!
Sweet corn would be so much easier if the silks would detach.

Random Robot?

July 28, 2025 verily sherrilee 36 Comments

Imagine my surprise as I was heading out to run some errands and discovered the little robot vacuum at the back porch door.

As I carried it back into the house and hit the “dock” button so it would return home, I felt a little bad. Was I keeping it from its freedom? Had it been trying to escape from the onerous duty of trying to keep the fur and dust at bay in our house? Did it hear the clarion call of others of its kind? Was it a quashed robot uprising?

What do you think? Should I have given it its freedom?

2025, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Government, Nature, News, Science, Seasons, Technology

CORN SWEAT SEASON AGAIN

July 26, 2025 xdfben 37 Comments

This weeks farming update.

Sure, blame the corn for the humidity.

According to the weather channel email I received on Thursday, an acre of corn releases 3000 gallons of water into the air every day. It’s “evapotranspiration”. A quick google search shows multiple newspaper articles blaming corn for the humid weather. I am tempted to call it misleading. I mean I don’t like the humidity either, but is it really all the corn’s fault? Data from the Ohio State University Extension office in 2024 says corn sweat is not contributing MEANINGFUL levels of humidity. More humidity is brought in by weather systems with southerly winds and bringing humidity from the Gulf of Mexico. The greatest amount of water usage by a corn plant is during tasseling and flowering, which is where we are at in SE MN. My corn just started tasseling this week. (And again, I am so amazed at how it all works! The silks emerge at the same time!) After tasseling, water usage in the corn decreases. All plants have some form of transpiration and evaporation. Don’t blame it all on the farmer and my corn.

The header photo by Kelly is soybean flowers. Soybeans are looking good and coming along.

This week I have been either finishing the projects at the Rep, or down in Chatfield lighting ‘Shrek’, the musical for Wits End Theater. Lots of road time. And with the main route to Chatfield, Highway 52 South closed at I90, I’ve been taking other routes. Sometimes Highway 7 through Eyota to 52, sometimes Highway 10 through Dover to the East side of Chatfield. Usually County Rd 19 through Marion to 52, or my favorite, County Road 1 through Simpson, past the Root River County Park, down in the valley over the North branch of the Root River and Fugles Mill, through Pleasant Grove, and into the west side of Chatfield. I try not to take the same road home as there.

I still haven’t gotten the oats harvested. It got mostly ripe but still had some green in it and that’s where it’s been sitting for 2 weeks. Rain and thunderstorms the last few days have caused more of it to go down. A lot of oats has been taken out. The Oat Mafia FB page says a lot of guys are finding it wetter than preferred. And there are some photos that show a stark reminder of the benefits of applying the fungicides. Fields without are broken and flat, while the fields with it are standing well.

img_4137-1 — **No fungicide on left, fungicIde on right.** PHOTO COUTESY OF THE OAT MAFIA FB PAGE

Oh, then our refrigerator died on Wednesday. I had noticed the freezer temp was 33 degree’s in the morning, and I thought maybe it was just defrosting. That afternoon it was at 39. We took everything to the basement chest freezer and I put a thermometer in the fridge. I laid on the floor and vacuumed off the coils and used the long narrow cleaning brush to dig out as much dust and gunk as I could. A repair guy was consulted and it was not given much hope. By that night, Kelly emptied the fridge, taking it to the downstairs smaller fridge. That little basement fridge was originally purchased as the “egg fridge”, but it has since become the pop fridge. Thanks goodness we have it. It’s a little no-name fridge that just keeps chugging along. Daughter is very put out that we don’t have the regular fridge upstairs. She insists it is still working and I’ve had to rescue her food and take it to the basement fridge a couple times. Thursday morning I went fridge scouting. The salesguy, Randy, his first question was counter depth or regular? “Uh….” Then he asked me what color? “Uh….” Did we want ice and water in the door? “Uh….” I didn’t have any of that information. My only question to him was ‘”Which ones have the better interior lighting like our old one?” That local store is where we’ve purchased appliances since we got married. They had a delivery slot open for Friday afternoon. I’ll take that one! And I sent Kelly some photos. We met there in the afternoon and agreed on a fridge for Friday.

Priorities, you know? When I checked with Kelly, her only priority was double doors. Yep, that was all I looked at. And freezer at the bottom. And good lighting. Beyond that, I didn’t know.

I hate having too many choices, so thankfully that only left us three choices, and if you remove the $12,000 model, well, I sent Kelly photos of those two.

By Friday evening daughter should be back in her happy place and we’ll have a new fridge with nice interior lighting.

IS YOUR REFRIGERATOR RUNNING?

WHAT ARE YOUR APPLIANCE PRIORITIES?

2025, Food, Mysteries, Technology, Weather

Donut Joy

July 21, 2025 verily sherrilee 22 Comments

I had a fun surprise yesterday morning. As I stood in my kitchen, thinking about breakfast, I got a text from one of my donut haunts, telling me that I had a reward coming – a free donut or a free coffee. So much more exciting than eggs and toast. Since I was going out for a couple of errands anyway, I decided to go the donut route for breakfast.

In order access this reward, I had to use my phone but since I didn’t have a younger person with me, I sat in my car until I got onto the right screen, or so I thought. The young man waiting on me was very patient when holding the phone to the “register” didn’t seem to work. He said he’s do it the “long way” and put my phone number in. He then said I had a $5 off, free donut or 5% discount. Which did I want? And then he said “or all three?” You all know what I said. He started punching in stuff; on my side, the screen was showing 3₵. I kept waiting for it to get to a higher number and it never did. When he confirmed the 3₵, I told him I’d have to go to the car to get a quarter since I didn’t have any cash on me. He smiled and said “let’s take it out of the penny jar” which was on the counter.

So I had my donuts and diet pop for free. And it was a gorgeous morning to boot. What could be better?

Any unexpected joys over the weekend?

2025, books, Media, Mysteries, Technology

Browsing

June 19, 2025 verily sherrilee 42 Comments

When I read Scientific American, it’s not usually a deep dive; I admit that a lot of the detail is over my head. I would also say that most of the ideas, while interesting, don’t usually seem too personal to my life.

Until now. Turned the page and found “Wiki-Curious” which described research about how people reign in (or don’t) their curiosity when they are online. Apparently there are three different types of rabbit hole styles: busybody, hunter and dancer.

A busybody is someone who is all over the board, often going from topic to topic – not always topics that are closely related. They found that in countries with higher education levels and greater gender equality, more folks browse like busybodies.

A hunter is a person has a more intense focus, circling around a fairly small number of related articles. Hunters are more numerous where there is less higher education and lower gender equality.

A dancer “links together highly disparate topics to try to synthesize new ideas”. Don’t ask me to explain this. This is the smallest group type.

I am normally a busybody until I hit on a topic that sends me down a rabbit hole, then I can be a lot more focused. The one thing that is different for me is that once I go down a rabbit hole, it doesn’t take very long before my browsing leads me to books and then the browsing is over.

I’m currently on two book treks that started online. Watching a show online by Lucy Worsley (a British historian) about the British love of murder mysteries has led me to several books about early female detective in literature. Susan Hopeley, Loveday Brooke, Lady Molly, Miss Gladden – some of the earliest women detectives in print. In addition of these, I have a couple more books coming from the library. Fascinating.

The second rabbit hole started when I was reading an interview by Michael Perry about why he wrote “Forty Acres Deep”. This was right before the Rivers/Ridges Book Festival and that was when I decided that I wanted to read all of Michael Perry’s stuff, in order. I’ve read four so far and number five is on its way via InterLibrary Loan.

Who knows where the next rabbit hole with lead but I’m sure it will lead to books.

Are you a busybody, a hunter or a dancer? Any interesting browsing lately?

2025, History, Mysteries, Technology, Uncategorized

Flying High

May 21, 2025 verily sherrilee 28 Comments

Today is an aviation milestone day. In 1927 Charles Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis plane in Paris after his 33½ hour solo flight across the Atlantic. Then five years later on this day, Amelia Earhart landed near Londonderry, Northern Ireland after the first trans-Atlantic solo flight by a woman. The combination of a little shorter route and five years of advancing technology, it only took her 17 hours.

My first thought when I saw these two feats on the same day was that it was a concidence, but it was only a fleeting thought. I’d bet money that Amelia planned her flight very carefully to arrive in Europe on May 21.

It does make me think about explorers and adventurers who put their lives on the line because I don’t care how talented Lindbergh and Earhart were, they were absolutely taking their lives in their hands when they took off. Aviation was still a relatively young science, machines broke down at an alarming rate and then there’s the whole “across the ocean” thing.

Personally I’m not a daredevil. The scariest things I’ve ever done were hot-air ballooning in Africa and zip lining in Costa Rica. The balloon experience came available on a Fam trip (which is a trip that hotels/suppliers pay for in the hopes that travel industry folks will then sell their products); I just had a feeling that this would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing and I should get over my fears and do it. It was fabulous. The zipline was another matter. It was done with a client, more or less under duress and I was terrified the whole time. When we got to the part of the course where you didn’t zip, but swung on a rope from one platform to the next, the two guides had to come back for me and basically force me to swing by reminding me that there was no other way to get down than to finish the course. Bungee jumping is not on my list, nor is sky-diving. I simply cannot imagine myself stepping out into nothing. Nope.

So congratulations today to the memories of Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart for heading out across the Atlantic and taking that big step for aeronautics!

What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done? And did you do it on purpose?

2025, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, Seasons, Technology, Theatre, Uncategorized

To Park or Not to Park

May 17, 2025 verily sherrilee 19 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Wrapped up another academic year by celebrating commencement this past Wednesday. I will be employed at the college until June 2 as I have some rentals coming through. I’ll be going to half time to allow myself a little more time farming while I still finish up odds and ends at the college before starting back this fall.

The oats are up! And I see the neighbor’s corn is coming up. Mine will be coming out any day now.

We’re at 452 GDU’s – ‘Growing Degree Units’ for our area for 2025. About double what normal is considered. I did get some corn planted last weekend and the co-op spread the last of the corn fertilizer and I’ve gotten all the fields dug up at least once. Mechanical tillage helps with weed control, and I was afraid if we got too much rain the next few days the weed population would explode. There was a few late nights with me and Bailey in the tractor.

I planted oats and grass in the waterway that was built last fall. A little rain would be nice and helpful, and it would be especially helpful if we didn’t get any heavy rain for, well really, the whole summer, but at least the next couple of months until it is established and gets some good root structure down. Before I could get the waterway planted there was a couple of logs out there that needed to be picked up. I had told Kelly “We’re only doing the ones as big as my head and 4 feet long.“ But, of course then it’s hard to pass up the ones as big as my arm and 2 feet long. And if you’re gonna pick up those, you may as well pick up the ones as big as my wrist and a foot-long.

Kelly picked up a lot more sticks than I did just because I was in the tractor dealing with other stuff. She did several loads like this.

Kelly and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary on Monday. It was a pretty low-key celebration as I spent the day at the college getting ready for commencement and she was working. Back in 1999 I wrote a card for her, wrote on the front not to open until 2025 and tucked it in my dresser. I kind of forgot about it over the years and every now and then I’d find it again. I know I looked at it just a few months ago, and then I put it… “somewhere safe”. It took me a good half an hour to find it on Monday. Life was sure different for us 25 years ago. I kind of wish I had written more about just what was going on in our lives. I’ve wondered if I should do the same thing again? Do I dare do I make it for another 25 years? I realize no one is guaranteed tomorrow, and as we are both in our 60’s now, 25 years might be pushing our luck.

I planted corn Saturday and Sunday.

The load in for commencement was pretty uneventful this year, both for me and the IT guys hanging a large projector, screen, and setting up multiple cameras, and the sound system. Monday was the biggest part of that job for me as I picked up the rental lights, got them hung and cabled, and set up the laptop and lightboard to control them.

It kind of turns into a free-for-all on Monday and as I parked, I thought ‘Well if this doesn’t completely sum me up”:

Tuesday was stage decorations, curtains, banners, flowers, my floor lighting for all those things, and finalizing cues, and making sure everything worked. Wednesday morning was a walk-through, a nurse pinning ceremony, the main event at 6 PM, and it all came back down and packed up in about two hours and I was home by 10 PM

The obligatory ‘Head in the clouds’ photo:

I’ve got a lot of stuff to put away back at the theater, and I’m still checking my budgets and verifying expenses the Business office has compared to my Excel spreadsheets and catching up on things that I’ve let slide the last couple weeks. Depending on the weather, I may get out and do some more fieldwork this weekend. I might be able to finish planting corn if everything goes smoothly.

Chicks are growing and doing well.

Found a couple deer antlers while doing fieldwork.

And that one field that always ALWAYS grows big rocks came through yet again. Kelly and I dragged it home behind the gator. It took a long bar, two shovels, a chain, a 20’ long ratchet strap, and Kelly’s ingenuity, but we got it home and added it to her collection. “What are you going to do with it?” asks my one sister. We’re gonna admire it! …what a question… like everything needs to be practical.

You can tell it was a busy week because I needed a pen, pencil, red sharpie, and chrome ‘dress’ sharpie.

SIGNS WITH RED AROUND THEM ARE OPTIONAL. TRUE OR FALSE?

2025, Family, home, Mysteries, Seasons, Technology

Mystery Theme

May 16, 2025 verily sherrilee 35 Comments

In the past Renee has mentioned that she has post-it notes stuck around with ideas for the Trail. This doesn’t work for me because if I’m out and about, by the time I get home to the post-it notes (of which I have many….), I’ve forgotten what I wanted to note. Yep – seriously sad. I remember that I thought of something but for the life of me, I can’t conjure it up when it’s time to write.

To make up for this I use a post-it note app on my phone. I have a bunch of separate notes and one of them is my Trail note. You’d think this would solve my problem but….

Looked at the app three days ago and one of the entries is “first fire”. That’s it. Nothing else. It took me the last three days to figure out it must have to do with YA making the first fire of the season in our fire pit last week. Of course, it doesn’t explain WHY I put this note in the app. There really wasn’t anything different about this fire except that it was the first one this year. YA is still in charge of the fire. She has a stash of newspaper and different piles of wood in the back corners of the yard – one for kindling sticks, one for larger sticks and one for logs. She makes the fire, feeds the fire, pokes the fire with her special fire-poking stick.

I’ve searched my memory and I can’t think of one single reason why you all have to read about our first fire. So maybe it was something else? A metaphor for our current world situation?

What do you think I should be writing about with the theme of “first fire”? How do you remind yourself of stuff?

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