Category Archives: Uncategorized

2025, education, Farming Update, Food, Uncategorized

Maple-ing. The Work

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I spent a few days down at the farm of my godson last week; he invited me down to see his process for making maple syrup.  The past few years I’ve been the recipient of his syrup and have asked quite a few questions.   He thought I would like to see you it’s done – he was correct.

We started at 6:45 a.m. by getting the fire pit going.  He does his boiling out in the open – no hut or roof or anything.  You have to watch the weather forecast carefully when you do it this way.  The three pans fit right over the edges and we filled them about 2/3 full of sap.  With the 10 gallons that we harvested that day, we were working with 60 gallons total.

After about 5 hours, the farthest two pans started to darken as the water in the sap boiled off; the closest pan, due to being near the opening for adding wood, didn’t boil quite as vigorously.  We spent a far amount of time transferring from this pan into the darker pans.  That way we only added cold sap to the closest pan.  It takes quite some time to boil down 60 gallons of sap so we were still at it into the night.  The fire kept us warm as the temperature started to drop and it rained (lightly) for about 40 minutes.

When we had it all boiled down to about 3 gallons, we closed up shop and moved the syrup into the kitchen, where it sat overnight.  There was about an hour more of boiling on the stovetop the next morning.  There was quite a bit of fiddling with it, using a hydrometer to make sure it was the right density.  Not dense enough and the syrup can develop mold, too dense and the syrup crystallizes.  At that point we had about 2½ gallons and we filtered it through a very heavy duty filter that was hung from a camera tripod; why purchase something when the camera tripod works wonders?

Then all that was left was to get the syrup into bottles.  Although I had worked hard the day before, the bottling was the only thing I really helped with all morning.  It was really a one-person operation once it moved inside. 

Seems like a LOT of work (16 hours on Friday and 4 hours on Saturday) for the amount of syrup we got but I will say that the ½ cup that was left over after bottling, that we all ate with spoons was probably the best syrup I’ve had in my life.  See the bottle with the green cap in the photo above, that is a little larger than the other bottles?  That’s the one I claimed. 

What do you like to pour maple syrup on?

2025, Gatherings, Movies, Mysteries, Uncategorized

The Big Screen

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During my other book club yesterday, we got to talking about movies = what we like, what we don’t like, the benefit of seeing things on the big screen, etc.

I was mentioning that I had really enjoyed seeing Conclave on the big screen (although to be fair, I have watched it a couple of times since it came to my tv).  This led to the first movies we remember seeing “on the big screen”.

My family did drive-in movies when I was a kid; How the West Was Won may have been my first.  I barely remember it.  I clearly remember seeing Gone With the Wind when I was about 7.  For some reason I have a very clear memory of the last scene from the swing set that was on the playground right below that huge screen.

The first couple of movies that I saw in a movie theatre were Disney.  Bambi was traumatizing to me.  Losing his mother in that fire left me bereft; I’ve never seen it since.  The other was Fantasia.  I adore Fantasia and have seen it many times.  I love all the various bits, although the hippo ballerinas and the Arabian dance/fish from the Nutcracker rank right up there.  And I am very fond of Night on Bald Mountain that blends right into Ave Maria.  I have watched Fantasia 2000 a couple of times; Firebird is wonderful but I prefer the original Fantasia the best.  Even on the small screen!

Do you remember the earliest movies you viewed?

2025, animals, Family, Farming Update, home, Mysteries, Seasons, Uncategorized

What’s the Point?

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Another Wednesday, another blizzard warning and snow day.

For good measure, the three of us took Thursday off as a snow day as well. Wanted to make sure we gave the roads time to improve. And really, on the north side of Rochester we only had about 2 inches maybe, and most of our driveway didn’t have any snow on it. Credit to my dad for having the road built up like he did 50 years ago. I remember maybe 30 years ago there was a snow storm every Thursday for about a month. I would plow the driveway before milking in the morning, Kelly would take the kids in and go to work, and then before they came home, I’d clear the driveway and again wait for them out at the highway. Must’ve been before cell phones, and in one of those odd little memories that sticks with you, I remember sitting in the tractor with the door open while one of the sheriff deputies that we were friends with, stood outside and we talked for half an hour. I remember watching his ears get more and more red and thinking “I’m sure glad I’m in this tractor cab.“, and “why doesn’t he end this conversation and get back in the car already??” Maybe Kelly finally came home, I don’t remember. Maybe he wasn’t cold. Maybe I should have had him get in the cab out of the wind at least. Don’t know.

Daughter and I have the place to ourselves this weekend as Kelly flew out to Boston to staff a booth for some work-related event. Flew out Saturday, works Sunday, back on Monday. I don’t think you can even call that a working vacation. Sounds like just plain ‘work’ to me.

I think I have finally finished farm bookwork and can get our taxes done now. The software I use generates a Year End report that will be 31 pages this year. About half of it being farm related expenses, and the other half being household expenses. There’s no profit on the farm this year and that’s primarily expenses related to the farm shop. I always enjoy looking at the final tally of these expenses. The dogs cost us $3000: Half is vet expenses, the other half are dog treats, joint medications, and frisbees. Pretty astounding how much we’ve spent on groceries.

I have finally, I think, finished all the construction in the shop. In fact, I moved the miter saw and table saw off to storage corners. I started moving bolts to the new bolt shelves and placed another order for more storage bins and dividers. I am throwing out a lot! A lot of not only old, rusty, bent, things, but just bolts that I’ll never use. For example, a box of nuts and bolts from my father-in-law when he had a grain bin taken down. There’s just not a chance I’m gonna use 1000 round headed, 1 inch bolts, that have a glob of tar on them. I also threw out a box of 3/8 inch flat headed plow bolts. Again, it’s just not something I’m gonna use. I use plow bolts, but they’re ½” diameter and 2 inches long.

I have two boxes of stuff I’m saving for my crafty sister. Just weird little odds and ends that she always appreciates. Although in this case, I’m not sure what she’s gonna do with all this metal stuff without a welder. Maybe I should buy her a tube of JB weld to go with this junk. I mean “these supplies”.  

One of the boxes of dad‘s odds and ends and bits of doo-dads, contained eight sets of ignition points and three condensers. I have no idea if they’re from tractors or cars and it sort of boggles my mind that if he replaced a set because it wasn’t running well, why did he not just throw it right away in the first place??

I saved those for my sister.
Some of you might know what those are. Electronic ignition and everything these days has eliminated the need for these things, but these were a pretty remarkable creation in the history of the automobile and kudos to whoever invented them.

(OK, I looked it up. According to Wikipedia, Charles Franklin Kettering, founder of Delco, and worked for GM, is credited with creating this ignition system. It was first used on the 1912 Cadilac. Huh!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delco_ignition_system

The online auction in Plainview finished on Tuesday. I had taken a small, 4 drawer toolbox that I got for free, a large 5 drawer ‘document’ cabinet that had large, shallow drawers, and the anhydrous applicator toolbar. There were two other, much nicer anhydrous applicators than mine on the auction. I got $200 for that item. A lot less than I paid for it ten or fifteen years ago. I also got $40 for the small free toolbox. So at least all that stuff is out of my hair.

I’ve got 1 chicken laying eggs in the garage.

I’ve chased her out of the garage a couple times recently, so I was keeping an eye out for eggs. Every now and then I get a chicken laying eggs in the garage for some reason. Once they were nesting up on a shelf behind a box of sidewalk chalk. This time she’s on the ground, behind a shovel. I figure that out one day when the shovel was tipped over. Chickens are so weird.

Hey- check out this ‘egg fetcher’ tool I use when the eggs are in the corner underneath the nest boxes:

WHAT IS THE MOST COMMON THING IN YOUR JUNK DRAWER?  DID YOU GO LOOK OR DID YOU JUST KNOW?  WHY DO YOU HAVE THAT MANY OF THAT THING?

2025, Family, Uncategorized, work

False Alarm

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On Tuesday, one of my coworkers posted on Facebook that her husband’s old, beat up pickup had been stolen from in front of their house. He works in the oil field and leaves for work every morning at 4:00 am. He is always picked up by someone driving a company truck, and a whole group of workers drives up together.

I didn’t see any updates after the initial post. My coworker’s husband has had a rough 6 months, getting jumped at the bowling alley and beat up in October by a couple of guys from Colorado. The pickup is real old and doesn’t have a tailgate. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would steal it.

Yesterday, I was at work and saw my colleague and she told me that for some reason, on Tuesday her husband decided to drive himself to work in his pickup but didn’t tell her. She gets up well after he leaves for work, and the first thing she assumed was that the truck had been stolen. He is out of phone service in the oil field, so she couldn’t contact him. It wasn’t until he got home that she realized she had jumped to conclusions. The police thought the whole incident was pretty amusing, and suggested that her husband communicate better with her. I suggested that perhaps she shouldn’t jump to conclusions. She agreed, but said the one time she didn’t call the police about something like this, it would turn out to be the real thing.

When have you jumped to conclusions? Ever had a vehicle stolen?

2025, animals, Art, Technology, Uncategorized

Ten Stars

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Today’s post comes to us from Linda.

I went to the post office to buy stamps. This happened awhile ago, so I was looking for stamps for Christmas cards.

I looked at the bulletin board that had the available stamps displayed. There was a design I liked, with a deer, a rabbit, a fox, and an owl in winter settings. Appropriate for Christmas or Solstice, or whatever.

While I was waiting in line, my thought was that I would ask for the stamps with the woodland creatures. It’s a design theme that’s been trending in recent years.

As my turn was approaching, the postal worker behind the desk turned and called out to the back room, “Hey, Judy – can you bring me some more of the critters?”

I felt inordinately delighted by this. When it was my turn, I asked, “Could I get a book of critters, please?” and it made me happy for reasons I can’t quite put words to.

My post office receipt had a QR code that took me to a survey, and I gave my postal worker top scores.

Would you recommend this blog post to friends and family?

If you’ve appreciated this blog post, please consider filling out this survey for Linda!

https://form.jotform.com/250767936576171

2025, Family, Food, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Chopsticks

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I looked up at the television yesterday to see a bit of a cooking show in which famous folks (mostly chefs) weigh in on their favorites.  This particular dish was some kind of dumpling and there was a close up shot of somebody’s hand using chopsticks to pick up the dumpling.   I know enough about this kind of stuff to know that the chances that it was the hand of the particular chef were nil.  Most likely a hand model.  Yes, there are such things although I’m wondering if there is a subgenre of the hand modeling subgenre for chopsticks use.

When I was in college, my freshman year roommate was from Japan – Yoshiko.  We had a pretty good year.  She bought a wonderful stereo half way through and she also taught me to use chopsticks and food that you eat with chopsticks.  There was no Chinese/Korean/Thai/Japanese food in my house growing up.  In fact, the first time I had any Chinse food in my life was that year in college.

These days, we have a ton of chopsticks at our house.  For many years, every time I found chopsticks on sale or that were interesting, I’d pick them up.  At last count, there are about 70.  And the sad thing is that I’m the only one who uses them.  When YA was little, I bought a set of cheater chopsticks but she wasn’t very interested and as she got older, she absolutely refused.  Occasionally if I serve Chinese, a guest may attempt them but usually they eventually fall back onto forks and spoons.

I’m not sure why I like chopsticks so much – I use them sometimes even if it’s a food you wouldn’t associate with them. 

Do you own chopsticks?  Do you have a favorite dish to go with them?

2025, Food, Gatherings, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Potluck Pi ??

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Most people probably don’t feel this way, but all the prep going into a big party is actually a gift to myself.  The confluence of making lists, organizing, cooking and then being with the people of my life makes a big party a perfect experience for me. I’m pretty sure that if there was such a thing as a glow-meter, I’d be off the scales during my gatherings.

I often get asked what guests should bring to one of my parties.  If you’ve done this, you’ve gotten my standard answers.  “Bring yourself.”  “Bring your appetite.”  Occasionally I will tell someone if they have a particular beverage that they can’t live without, they might bring that. 

It’s a testament to how our society has changed that everyone goes under the assumption that every party is potluck and you have to pony up.  A friend who has never been able to come to my Pi Day festivities (but has always stopped by the next day for tea and leftovers) showed up with a strawberry rhubarb pie.  She was a little worried and left it sitting on the dining room buffet but it was just fine and I put it out.  But it is a bit like bringing coals to Newcastle when you bring pie to my Pi Day.  LOL.

Folks brought flowers (all of which are doing nicely and safe from the cat) and, of course, wine.  My people do seem to be wine people.  Lots of empties into the recycling after the party was over! 

And for those who aren’t local or couldn’t make it, here is a list of this year’s pies:  Blueberry, Dutch Apple, Peaches & Cream, Macadamia Coconut Caramel, Crack, Chocolate Chip/PB Whoopies, Banofi, Pear Croustade, Key Lime and Butterfinger Cream.  Oh, and let’s not forget the Strawberry Rhubarb!

Do you have a go-to dish that you take to potlucks? 

2025, Family, Farming Update, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

First False Spring?

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I feel like I’ve been really busy the past week. I don’t know why exactly, I don’t know what exactly I’ve been doing, I just feel like I’ve been running from one thing to the next.

However I know spring is coming, I heard a kill deer! And the Sandhill Cranes! And I got out the pot with the chives in it. There’s still some ice on the north side of the house and I saw a small snowbank in a patch of grass, but we’re getting there. As I write this on Friday, they’re predicting thunderstorms for Friday evening. ” They” say, the first frost will be six months after the first thunderstorm. Which gets us into mid-September which, while not ideal, wouldn’t be unheard of either. There was a large halo around the moon Wednesday night. Google says spiritually, some traditions see a lunar halo as a positive omen, indicating a time of good fortune, spiritual alignment, and harmony. Good, let’s run with that one.

I spent Thursday at a meeting on nitrogen management in Southeast Minnesota. A continuing education course of sorts. Focus on the southeast Minnesota region is relevant because of the karst geography and sink holes and how rapidly ground water can enter drinking water. Please know, farmers care a great deal about their farms and the water we are drinking, and our soils as well. Putting on more fertilizer or chemicals than a crop can use is a waste of money. There were a lot of charts, and graphs, and a lot of data presented. If you notice from this picture, commercial fertilizer started being available shortly after World War II and greatly accelerated in the 1960s.

Soybeans came into play in the 1940s.

It’s interesting to think how much of our farm practices are not really that old.

One of the comments made was that we could do a lot better with our fertilizer practices if we could more accurately predict the weather. A lot of fertilizer and nitrogen is applied in the spring as pre-planting or at planting. And yet the following picture shows the plants greatest need for Nitrogen is tasseling through ear development.

While the greatest amount of precipitation and the greatest chance to lose nitrogen happens in the spring.

So why do we apply it in the spring?

Well, that’s kinda just how it works. Corn does need some starter fertilizer to get going from seed. And we do soil testing to know how much nitrogen is already in the soil, and it’s just easiest to do it before anything is planted. I have done some ‘side-dressing’, which is injecting anhydrous nitrogen between the rows when the plant is 18-24” tall, but there’s also more damage to the standing corn when turning at the ends, or not driving straight. And some guys, with the right equipment, can apply liquid nitrogen when the plant is 6’ tall just before it tassels, but that takes tall sprayers, and again, there is crop loss. In my small fields, I’d damage so much turning around on the ends that it would defeat any gains.

 I’m greatly simplifying a lot of this, it’s too much to get into here, but it was all really very interesting.

And much of the data presented yesterday really didn’t show much difference between spring applications and later applications. We just have to know that we are going to have less available for the crop. It was also noted, we see so many new products claiming to save money and time. But if the cost of the new ideas ultimately don’t create much of an improved crop yield, ($$$), then they fall out of favor.

The bathroom! Here is a before photo-

And finally, minus the shower glass yet, the after photo-

It looks really nice. It IS really nice. Kelly has already enjoyed the bathtub several times. I really like the rich color of the cabinets in the laundry room.

The heated floor is nice.

It was hard finding room for towel bars and grab bars, and we probably gave up some storage that we hope we don’t come to regret. But it sure is an improvement.

We had a bidet in the old bathroom, one of those simple ones from Costco that you simply add to the toilet seat. This time around, we ordered an actual bidet seat. It’s quite the deal. Or at least so I’m told. I haven’t used it yet. I haven’t used that function yet.
When you approach the toilet, the lid opens on its own and a nightlight comes on. For us gentlemen, there’s even a light inside, I guess so we can tell what we’re aiming at. Our contractor said he’d seen a lot of toilets, but he didn’t think he’d seen one that fancy before. Lest you think otherwise, it is not gold plated.

Later this summer we’ll start on the downstairs pink bathroom remodel. I do not expect a bidet in that one.

WHAT WOULD YOU ADD TO YOUR BATHROOM? WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN AT NIGHT LATELY?

2025, Government, home, News, Uncategorized

Annexation

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I was much alarmed recently to see that some strange State legislator from Iowa was proposing to annex all the bottom southern counties in Minnesota, including my beloved Rock County, and make them part of Iowa. I haven’t seen much in the MN press about this, so I am hoping that it is being viewed as a political stunt and nothing to take seriously.

I lived within 15 miles of Iowa my whole life and lived in south central Iowa for a year, and I sure wouldn’t want to become an Iowan. Too conservative for my tastes. I also lived for a year in southern Indiana, and my, was that strange after living in Manitoba for six years. North Dakota is conservative, too, but I have managed to tolerate it for 37 years. People here are quirky enough to make life fun and interesting despite the influence of big oil and conservation politics.

We still plan to move to Minnesota in the next year, but if the Iowa annexation actually happens, it sure won’t be to Luverne!

What states or countries have you lived in? Where would you consider or not consider living?

2025, Family, Food, Travel, Uncategorized

Seriously Early Dinner?

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With YA out of town, I’m in my “eat what’s here and don’t shop” mode.  I actually enjoy this part of YA traveling.  (Not as crazy about being in charge of Guinevere’s early morning and late night trips outside, but I’ll live.)

This week there have been quite a few leftovers in the fridge – more than usual.  Since I also worry about food going bad, I decided that I would have dinner for breakfast.  I’ve done breakfast for dinner many times in my life but except for a handful of cold pizza starts to a day, I’ve never actually heated up what I think of as dinner food and had it as the first meal in the morning.

I heated up some rice with carrots and parsnips and had it alongside some brie and applesauce.  It was very nice and now I’m thinking I should switch things up more often.  The only  hitch was the feeling that I needed dessert afterwards!

Do you have any foods that you wouldn’t normally eat for breakfast?