I don’t know if it is the increased humidity and cold and storms here, but Husband and I have been drinking much more tea than we did in ND. Husband is a great tea maker and we have nice teapots and infusers.
If all goes well, we will have an order of a variety of teas delivered today. I particularly like fruit teas like Rote Grutze, a North German tea with hibiscus and dried fruit. I also like East Friesien tea you must have with cream and rock sugar. The cream is poured in a specific way to make it look like eruptions. Husband prefers strong black teas like those from Scotland and Ireland.
I never had much tea before I went to England as a college junior, and had tea in a tea shop. I tried to sweeten my tea with what looked like sugar, but turned out to be coarse salt. My, did I get odd looks from the servers! I like lemon in my black tea, but the salt was really awful! They gave me a new pot of tea.
What is your favorite tea? Sweetened or lemon? Tea cakes?
It’s angry goose season at the College again. Caution tape and cones have been put up and emails have been sent out warning us of the danger. The first day as I passed the pair in the parking lot, the male goose just opened his mouth at me. Didn’t even hiss, but he was warning me off in no uncertain terms.
Last Friday Kelly and daughter and I drove to Alexandria. I went to pick up the Track Wacker for use this spring. We took Highway 14, stopped in Mankato for a bathroom break and filled the truck with diesel fuel. $132 later we headed for New Ulm where we stopped to see Hermann the German. I’m pretty sure I was there with my parents when I was a kid. Really didn’t remember anything about it, and on Friday it was 30° and windy and we didn’t linger very long. He’s closed for renovation anyway.
Two lane roads the rest of the way to Alexandria and a very nice drive. We got adjoining rooms at the hotel so daughter could have one room and Kelly and I could have the other. It was a pretty slick way to do it, and I would sure try it again in the future. I got up early the next morning, had a mediocre breakfast at the hotel with French toast sticks so tough I couldn’t chew through the crust on the bottom, but the sausage patties were good and I headed half an hour northwest to Millerville to pick up the Track Wacker. I knew it would fit in the back of the pickup. Then for good measure, I bought a fire ring as well.
I got back to the hotel just as the other two finished breakfast and we packed up and were back on the road. Drove to see Theater L’Homme Dieu where I spent a few days with a show back in 2010. Again, quiet two lane roads home, probably didn’t have any traffic for 20 or 30 miles. Saw some really long trains. I couldn’t get over how long some of them were. Being a sucker for a historic roadside marker I had looked up a few before leaving. A few miles outside of Grove City we stopped at the Acton State Monument. The battle of Acton, the Acton incident, and the Ness Cemetery. They mark the beginning of the U.S. – Dakota War of 1862. You know, it’s one thing to read about it in the books, it’s another to stand there and realize it happen RIGHT HERE.
And then to the Ness Cemetery and see the monument: one of Minnesota’s oldest monuments (Dedicated September 13, 1878) marking the burial of those first victims. It was a very deeply moving experience for us.
Twelve hours of driving and about 600 miles. We got home about six in the evening. A couple neighbors had come over to feed the dogs and collect eggs. They call the dogs their “dog grandchildren” and gave Bailey extra food “because we love her“. Sure is nice to have neighbors like that.
Sunday I unloaded the truck, took the rear blade off the tractor, hauled the snowblower out, I even got the lawnmower out and mowed down some grass and weeds before I put the snowblower in its summer parking spot. Daughter and I picked up driveway markers, (but I haven’t taken the snow fence down yet, I don’t wanna jump the gun too fast), and I got the four wheeler running and drove that around a while. Drove down in the pasture to check things out after winter.
I also picked up branches along the road and Kelly picked up branches in the yard. I think the spring mud is pretty much done. The fields are really drying out, or at least they were before it rained all day Thursday. It could be an early spring here doing fieldwork. If I was a little more prepared I might’ve been able to get out and do a little fieldwork in March. I remember one year doing some on March 31. That doesn’t happen very often.
I spent a few hours in the Shop one night putting a couple new LED lights on the back of the 8200 tractor. Took me an hour to do the first one and five minutes to do the second. Standing on a work platform and reaching over the outside dual tire was another instant of wishing I was 6 inches taller or my arms were 6 inches longer. But I managed. The 6410 tractor that I use for the majority of the work, I’ve replaced a bunch of lights with LED and I have four more to replace and two more to add on the back. It only has two rear work lights at the moment and really could use two additional. It was on my to-do list but apparently will be a summertime project.
Baby chicks arrived on Wednesday morning. I had gotten their pen ready so once they were delivered and we did the usual pictures and videos of them in the box, I could take them right down and dip their beaks in the water and get them all settled in. I ordered 50 this year for $260. Last year I ordered 40 and it was $170. Twenty of the Easter egg blue and green layers, 10 of the Silver Laced Wyandotte,, 10 Lavender Orpington, those gray ones like Mabel from a few weeks ago, and 10 of Hatchery choice. Could be anything.
So far so good on them.
My summer Padawan came to the college a couple of days and helped me paint the set. He tries to educate me on what’s hip these days. When I took him back home he showed me all the different kinds of cologne he has and told me in the winter you wear something warm and spicy and for example he wouldn’t wear this certain cologne at this time of year. I stared at him quizzically. Why not? And he stared back at me. Like, because everybody knows that. Well, you have to learn that somewhere I said. I mean did he read that in GQ magazine? (He doesn’t read magazines.) Well, just everybody knows that he said. I laughed. Well, I don’t.
HAVE YOU EVER ATTACKED A GOOSE?
WHAT IS THE PROPER NUMBER OF CONES TO PLACE AROUND SOME GEESE?
If the weather improves by Sunday, best friend/boommate will come for Easter dinner. She had been coming down from near Hutchinson almost weekly preparatory to moving in with us in May, bringing things she doesn’t need the moving company to transport.
Friend is a quilter. She has tons of fabric and sewing equipment the movers will load up and put in the very large and sunny room in our basement that will be her quilting headquarters. She has lots of projects underway, including a new quilt for our bed that we commissioned last year. She does really nice work.
I was making one of the beds yesterday and stopped to examine the quilt that I am using on it for warmth under the bedspread. You can see it in the header photo. It was made by my mother and her paternal aunts in the late 1930’s. It was made from any fabric they had on hand as well as worn clothing pieces. There was both machine and hand stitching on them . I wish I knew whose hand stitching it was, my mom’s or either Lena’s , Meta’s, Bertha”s, or Greta’s.
My mother had about four of these quilts and kept them in her cedar chest and never used them. She let me finally start using them about 30 years ago. We have two left. Friend has the opinion that quilts should be used, not stored, and if they wear out, you just make a new one. I agree with her, but it is pretty wonderful to have this 90 year old quilt to still use.
Know any quilters? What special quilts and textiles have you seen? What were your great aunts’ names?
Husband’s hearing aids are the sort that are battery operated. At least once a week he has to replace the batteries, those tiny round ones that come in a round plastic case and that are impossible to remove from their packaging. Husband has very poor fine motor skills at this point, and it has become increasingly difficult to change the batteries. I am always worried he will drop one and a dog will swallow it.
We decided it was time to move up to rechargeable hearing aids. We visited an audiologist last week and ordered these high tech, state of the art hearing aids. They come in a nice red color that are easy to see when not in his ears. They are somehow hooked up to an AI program that causes them to mainly pick up sound from the dominant environmental sound source. They sound so wonderful I almost want to give them names and have a welcome home party. They also cost a bundle, so Husband better not lose them.
I find the emerging AI presence in our world disturbing, but I can see the benefit if used for things like hearing aids. We pick them up next week in Sioux Falls. I hope they live up to their hype.
I am giggling. On Monday afternoon, Husband was in the driveway seasoning his new automatic charcoal smoker/grill, when the neighbor across the street came over to talk. She is a couple of years older than I am, and I was a high school classmate of her younger sister. Our mothers were in the same sewing club. Her family owned the Old Norwegian Boarding House in Luverne in the early years of the 20th century. Her son recently fixed our tires.
Mary asked Husband anxiously how I was doing, as another neighbor, someone we only met once, told her he heard that I had been diagnosed with dementia.
Well, this was quite a surprise! Husband had me come out to reassure Mary that I was fine, and in possession of all my faculties. She gave me an enormous hug, and said she would go have a little talk with the neighbor to let him know he was wrong, and that he had probably mixed me up with another close neighbor who actually has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. We walk our dogs with that woman, whose name is Jeanette. Her husband is a Vietnam Vet with MS and Agent Orange issues.
This is a small town. I am curious if any other residents have heard I have dementia, and how I should address it. Start reciting facts and figures? Wear a sign that says “I am cognitively intact”? Maybe I can act outrageously in public and everyone will forgive me!
How would you manage a situation like this? Ever been the subject of a rumour?
The chances are pretty good that while you are reading this, YA and I are in my car, headed to my mom’s service and to get her condo cleaned up. I am in charge of the service and also the cleaning up/organizing/donating. My middle sister has taken over most of the paperwork and financial stuff.
Initially we had planned to take the dog with us. With her anxiety/lashing out, there weren’t any boarding places that would take her. YA had purchased a new collapsible kennel for the trip and we were acclimatizing Guinevere to it. The neighbors were going to watch the house and come over a couple of times a day to feed the kitty and take down the garbage – all that good neighbor stuff.
After a couple of days of ruminating on it, both YA and I have decided we want to take the cat with us. She’s a little discombobulated by the dog not being here so leaving her in an empty house seems cruel. In addition, after both my mom and the dog going so very quickly, we’re just not emotionally ready to not have the cat with us.
So… purchased a new cat carrier as her old one is pretty small (only used for the 2-block trip to the vet every year). Found a harness that fits her in the “pet drawer” (we have everything from every pet ever in that drawer). All the travel-with-cats websites say make sure she’s micro-chipped. Check. When I was at Petsmart getting a top-off of cat food, I decided to get her a new kitty bed. She has two on the radiator in my bedroom but one is so horribly scruffy and dirty – it would be too awful to take that with us. Yes, I know I could probably toss it in the washer but I think the shed kitty fur is the only thing holding it together.
The list now includes new carrier, new bed, littler box w/ litter, little litter bags, harness, kitty dish & kitty food, kitty treats. Hopefully we haven’t forgotten anything!
*A working title that was as good as anything else.
This week’s farming update from BEN
Spring is coming. The female cardinal is fighting with her reflection in our car mirrors. She did that last year too. (Remember when having that right side mirror was a big deal? They were not standard.)
The maple trees are getting buds on them. Crocuses are coming up. The chives are coming up. And the snow fence is falling over, so it must be time to be done with that. Fingers crossed. I saw a turkey vulture Friday morning and Kelly heard a killdeer.
Last weekend Kelly traveled to San Antonio for a work thing. Spent 12 hours in airports on Saturday. Had two layovers, three flights, and every flight was late for one reason or another. Left RST at noon, got to SAN at midnight. And then couldn’t get to the gate because there was some sort of medical emergency inside.
At least her luggage showed up! She had time to walk around Sunday afternoon. Saw the Alamo and did the river walk downtown.
Did her work thing, had supper with a co-worker, went back to the airport at 3AM, no trouble getting through TSA at that point, and was back in Rochester with no issues at 11AM Monday. She slept the rest of the day.
Man, air travel… I’m gonna ask you about that at the end so give it some thought.
Really haven’t done much on the farm this week. I’ve seen several posts from the Oat Mafia group on FB of guys out planting oats. One guy did it before the blizzard. Another guy remarked when he got to the field at 2:00AM it was 31degrees and a little wet. By 3:30AM and 27 degrees it was perfect. I read that and I think to myself, honestly, I am just playing at this farming thing… Yeah, they got 1400 acres total, and 300 acres oats, while I got 25 acres of oats, So, it doesn’t compare, but still… it’s hard not to compete. My equipment doesn’t do what their equipment does. I have to do tillage before I can plant. They’re doing no-till. I looked up some no-till drills. A brand new one, six feet wide, lists for $17,000. My current drill is 15’ wide. Ok, here’s a used no-till 15’ drill, 1996 model. $35,900. Whistle. That’s a lot of oats to make that pay. Plus having the field ready to plant last fall in order to plant this spring.
Last week I mentioned jumping through hoops at the local Farm Service Agency. Somehow, after 10 years, they decided the Hain Trust and me were not the same people. I had to get a lawyer to draw up some paperwork to show I am indeed part of the Hain Trust. And that made FSA happy and this week I got a nice deposit from them. Evidently, it’s tied into that Big … Bill the orange president created. Yeah, more bail out money since he screwed up all the markets. And this is how we’re saving money, right?
And the check from the corn I sold so I had a really nice bank balance.
Then I paid the first half of rent on two fields, $2000. And paid the diesel fuel and gasoline bill. $2300. And Farm insurance $1200 quarterly. And the monthly electric bill, and, and, and… easy come easy go! But hey, at least I could make those payments.
Working on a show at the college. We open in about 3 weeks and I am busy building stuff. I clean up as I’m working because I hate walking through sawdust and tracking it all over the rest of the shop. And that’s why I vacuumed up the remote for the dust collector on the table saw. And because I have a bag in the shop vac, I had to sift it to the top and fish it back out the hole. I knew it was in there because I turned it on while fishing it out, haha. I’m gonna add a board to it so I don’t do that again. This was the second or third time I’ve done that.
I took a walk along our creek last Sunday. Me and the dogs.
Bailey…
Silver Creek
I heard some sandhill cranes calling. A flock/siege/construction/swoop of 12 or 14 of them made a loop and head off south. I hope a few spend more time in our area. I thought of our Steve.
I had a lot of township business this week. Lots of phone calls and fact-finding. Relinquished my chair of the town board and don’t have to chair that board again for 4 years. And Thursday night was the annual meeting of the People’s Electric Cooperative. Supper was provided and it was… food. I wore sleeves and a jacket.
As chair of the nominating committee I presented the election results and read the oath to the winners. And that’s over for another year. Shedding projects left and right!
Our CeskyTerriers were initially bred to work together in a pack hunting vermin. They are much different than other terriers who tend to be independent operators. We had Welsh Terriers who would dart out the front door and be off exploring at any opportunity. Our Ceskys stay home because they are pack dogs, and we are members of their pack. Stay with your pack!
It has been fascinating watching Kyrill, our 4 year old Cesky adapt to having a Cesky puppy in the pack. Over the past three weeks he has become increasingly solicitous and protective of Mitzi. He allows her to chew on and tug at his beard. She allows him to roll her over and drag her around. They snuggle up together and snooze on the sofa. They are starting to share their chews and toys.
I am an only child. I have no idea what it would be like to have either younger or older siblings around all the time. I see interesting parallels between how Kyrill and Husband, also an oldest brother, take care of the puppy. Husband seems to worry about how she is doing far more than I do, although we are both attentive to her. It is fun to be a member of a pack.
Who is in your pack? How do you think birth order affected how you deal with people and family?
Last Saturday I re-created a dish that I had seen on the internet (love Webspoon – if that’s not the definition of food porn, I don’t know what is). The first step is to whisk 3 eggs with salt and pepper. When I cracked the second egg into the bowl – double yolks! I’m not sure but I think the last time I came up with a double yolk was before YA was born. The internet says the odds are 1 in a 1000. I don’t understand statistics that well, because we go through eggs at a pretty good rate; I would think I would come across them more often.
Of course, when I’m writing this, I’m not feeling particularly lucky but last Saturday it felt like a good thing. It was a pretty day. I made a nice dish using up the last of the tortillas and a jar of my homemade tomato sauce from the freezer – you all know how much I like using up stuff. And I had a concert on Saturday night (Cantus at Westminster downtown) that was spectacular.
Wish the good luck from those yolks could have lasted longer, but I’ll take any good day I can get!
Tortilla Omelette
3 eggs, whisked together with salt & pepper
Add 4 tortillas, rolled up and cut into strips
Add 2 vegetarian brats, chopped up (Webspoon used ham, rolled up and cut into strips)
Add a cup or so of shredded cheese (I used some mozzarella & some Mexican shred)
Pat is all down in a springform pan
Add a cup or so of tomato sauce and spread evenly over top
Add a bit more cheese if you so desire
25 minutes in a 350° oven.
Let it sit for at least 15 minutes to firm up before cutting.
Yum-O
What makes a lucky day for you? Any double yolks recently?
Yesterday about 9:46AM… the vernal equinox. The sun crossed over the equator. i stood outside and watched it.
No. Not really.
Not indicative of any actual person. This was an AI generated cartoon image.
(I started this at work (( Don’t tell!)) and the college uses ‘Co-pilot’ as their AI tool. It won’t use political figures to create an AI image. But it would make a cartoon! Great. Have at it! )
The equinox happened at 9:46 AM for us here in the central time zone. From my daily Weather channel email, I learned an “upright stick in the ground (called a “gnomon,” from the Greek word meaning “to know”) on the equinox, the shadow from an upright stick will mark a straight line East to West.” I marked a shadow and compared it to the compass app on my phone. Hmmm. Is science wrong? I got a shadow about 60° off of North. Hmmm.
You hear about the astroid in Ohio? Also from my daily Weather email:
We now know more about the asteroid that fell from space and shook northeast Ohio on Tuesday morning with a loud boom that grabbed the attention of many residents of Cleveland and beyond.
According to NASA, the asteroid was 6 feet in size, and weighed roughly 7 tons. As it fell, it was seen by eyewitnesses from at least 10 states, plus the District of Columbia and the Canadian province of Ontario, and when it broke apart, it unleashed energy equivalent to 250 tons of TNT.
And all we had was a lousy blizzard. Last weekend during the blizzard, I made steaks. Got them out of the freezer earlier in the week. Since grilling was out of the question, I said to Kelly I’d fry them. She’s not a fan of frying foods due to the smoke and grease splatters. I said we grew up with our moms frying meat: I can still picture mom smacking them with a knife to tenderize them. (It wasn’t the best cut of meat in the first place being that it was usually some old milk cow that was butchered and it was mostly made into hamburger), so I grew up not liking steak because I had to smother it with ketchup and it was tough as shoe leather.)
I got the potatoes going, frozen sweet corn going, and poured some olive oil in the hot pan. Oops. The house, like, immediately filled with smoke. All the new smoke alarms, conveniently wired together, start going off upstairs and downstairs. Daughter downstairs was upset, Luna the dog was upset and cowering in a corner. I was trying to get the pan in the sink and rinsed off and cool it off. I opened some doors and windows. Kelly opened windows and was fanning the smoke detectors.
About then I looked at her and said ‘What was it you were saying about smoking up the house?’ And we got the giggles.
I do remember reading something about using a high temp oil. But heck, I don’t have any frame of reference to that; maybe it should have said “Don’t use olive oil, Ben.” Anyway, now I know and they were good and I’ve got left overs for the week.
Daughter still got her walk in during the blizzard. It was a struggle just to get to the shop. And then I had to go out and clear the snow to get the door shut again.
Yep, there was a lot of snow. My family was texting on Monday about cleaning up and digging out. My brother, the keeper of the family history and all the old photos, provided this photo of Dad:
This was taken in the 1970’s. He’s on the upper half of our driveway. I had never seen this photo before and I’m more interested in who trekked out there to take the photo.
I knew of this one:
Man, those guys back then were so much tougher than me.
Here was me dealing with the snowstorm:
Yeah, it was a lot of snow. What that means is it took me an extra hour in the tractor with Bailey and my coat unzipped and the radio on. Oh, woe is me.
The Red Wing Blackbirds are back.
The dogs are enjoying the sunshine.
The chickens are out and about. And it’s muddy all over. Again.
Pretty much got my farm bookwork done for 2025 and need to get that to the accountant.
I got re-elected in the township elections last week and will serve another 3 year term. That will get me 30 years on the board. It’s a good group and I still enjoy doing the work.
One night I couldn’t sleep. My brain was very busy. And the next night I slept hard and had a long-involved dream about being in a tractor with several implements hooked behind me. Some kind of tillage tool, then a wagon, and then a tank of something behind that. I was in a big four-wheel drive tractor. John Deere of course. Headed to a field, driving in Rochester and decided not to go down Broadway, even though I’d seen another tractor there recently. (in the dream). And then took a short cut through someone’s garage. About halfway through realized I was just a little too tall for everything to clear. Backed up (and backing up several things is nearly impossible, but in the dream I did it). Got back out, started to pull away and wasn’t hooked up to the first implement anymore. Got that hooked back up, started to move and the next thing was unhooked. Got that hooked back up. And then the third thing was unhooked and I couldn’t’ understand it; I know it had been hooked up before. It went on from there. Perhaps it was my brain thinking about all the stuff I need to be working on in preparation for the spring play, for planting, for general spring work, or who knows.
Thursday night I spent a few hours in the shop disassembling a massage unit that was getting wonky. It was really interesting and there was some creative and ingenious engineering. Plus I saved all the copper.
