Category Archives: Uncategorized

2022, animals, Automotive, Farming Update, Games, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

Could Be Worse

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

At least it’s not ‘Lake Effect’ snow.

I’m kinda grumpy about this weather. It feels like January and it’s only November.

I was feeding the ducks the other morning and while I was in the feed room getting another bucket of corn, I noticed a couple of them fly up to where I had spread the corn. Of our 10 ducks, only a couple are actual mallards that can fly, the black and white ones, (The Swedish breed) and the poufy one can’t fly. And then I saw Rosie, the new black duck fly in! I didn’t notice if Guildy can fly too, but Rosie sure did. And they do have a sleeker look than the other non-flying ducks. What interesting cross breeding is what I thought. And good for them! Can’t you just imagine their delight and surprise when they figured out they could fly too?? How cool.

Driving around town the other day I saw a car with a headlight out. And I thought to myself ‘PI-DIDLE!’ only I was alone and didn’t have anyone to kiss, so it had to wait until I got home. Are you familiar with the term ‘Pi-didle’? Meaning a car with one headlight? And then you kiss your date. Or that’s how I heard it. When I googled the term, I got a few other definitions, including some not suitable for this website. Most include touching the ceiling of your car and / or punching someone.

I thought that was only when you saw a ‘slug-bug’.

This (clean) site has some official rules for the pi-didle game:

https://www.angelfire.com/pa4/mjr300psu/pididle.html

Got any other local colloquialisms about cars?

They are just starting to harvest my corn as I write this on Friday. The corn would have been out earlier this week if the weather wasn’t so crappy. (Sweeping generalization on the weather) Because mine goes to the elevator and theirs they take home, they plan to do mine during the day when the elevator is open, then work on theirs in the evening. Couple days they’ll be done. When he and I spoke earlier this week I was optimistic I might yet be able to get some fieldwork done. With the temps the last few days, I’ve kinda given up on that. Although I just put a couple driveway markers in around the yard and the ground wasn’t frozen here. So…. Maybe?? I’ll give it a try tomorrow.

The corn kernels themselves are not sensitive to picking up moisture like soybeans or other crops are. But the snow on the leaves gets inside the combine harvester and makes everything wet and then things plug up and it just makes a mess. So we either need warmer weather to melt the snow off, or colder weather to reduce the moisture in the snow. I guess we opted for colder.

Normally I’d wait for the corn to be out, then mow the roadsides down so they’re clean and won’t catch snow, then we get the driveway markers installed. Always a fun day when daughter and I ride in the gator or 4-wheeler and she pounds the fiberglass markers in. Every time, as she readies the hammer, she quotes Homer Simpson, “Steady…. Steady…” You’ll have to google that if you’re not familiar with it. Anyway, all that is more fun when it’s 40°F than it is when it’s 20°F. I may be doing it myself at 20°.

There’s a local guy named ‘Machinery Pete’.  He’s been reporting on farm auctions since 1989 and he’s very well respected for that. His name is Greg Petersen and evidently he’s a pretty good golfer too.

https://www.machinerypete.com

On his facebook page, it seems this year every post starts with “New record high price” for that particular piece of machinery. Should we blame Covid for that too? Well, sort of. The usual material sourcing issues led to shortages on new equipment, which led to demand for good quality used equipment, which lead to higher prices. Plus crop prices are high, land values are high, so…everything is high. But I have to laugh that there’s always a new high price. “Fourth record high price on 1992 tractor!” Is fourth record high a thing?

I haven’t filled my diesel barrel yet. I order 500 gallons which will last a year for me. I read of a large dairy farm out in New York, he said they got 7000 gallons delivered on Sunday and that would last them 25 days. Yikes!

Today, I took the day off ‘work’ work to get a few things done here at home. I’m gonna go mow the roadsides. Maybe that will blow the snow off the road too. Or I’ll hook the blade up and scrape off this couple inches on the road. Time to get it in the shed I guess.

I stopped at one of the local theaters today to check on some things. Someone used an orange extension cord to plug in an artificial tree onstage. It’s an unwritten rule that you only use black or dark green cords onstage. Orange cords on the stage drive me bonkers. Why doesn’t everyone know this!!?? How many times do I have to tell you this??

I know what I’ll be doing Saturday. Fieldwork.

WHAT WILL YOU DO THIS WEEKEND?

2022, home, Uncategorized, work

Making Progress

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Although not everyone might think so, the following photos suggest to me that great progress is being made with our bathroom remodals.

Things have been stalled for a couple of weeks due to weather and getting the plumbers to finally show up, which they did on Tuesday. For the upstairs bathroom they had to move the pipes for the toilet over about 3 feet to make room for a larger vanity and sink. They also had to set up new pipes for the shower, and cap pipes for the old shower. They had to do some work in the attic and in the basement for running the pipes.

The downstairs bathroom didn’t need any new plumbing. The tub there just gets a liner and new surround.

The carpenters are coming next week to finish the drywall. After that, the main contractor can come to install the new flooring and fixtures. This is taking longer than I anticipated, but seeing the progress this week has given me hope that our home will soon be back in order. I am not a patient person, and the uproar that this remodel has caused has been hard to deal with.

Would you rather be a plumber, an electrician, or a carpenter? What is giving you hope these days? What are some satisfying projects you have seen to their conclusions?

2022, Baboon Achievers, home, Uncategorized, work

The Rockets Red Glare!

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Hallelujah!!!  Joy of joys – let the heavens part and rain down the praise of angels!!!

Yes, it’s really me.  All the painting is done – the breakfast room, the kitchen and the windows on the front porch.

As if this isn’t momentous enough, I cleaned up and organized the tool room in the basement before putting all the various tools away that have been cluttering up the porch and the dining room and the breakfast room for weeks.  I hadn’t planned on the clean up/organization.  In fact, my initial plan was to dump everything into the tool room and then ignore it until after the holidays.  Then at the very last minute, I changed my mind.  Assuming it would take a lot longer than it actually did, I was thinking I would do the clean up on day and then sort out all the tools the next day.  But it went swimmingly and once I got going, I just kept going. 

One big black garbage bag got filled with junk as I emptied every cabinet and drawer so I could clean them.  It’s amazing what you find when you do this.  We have 8 of those paint keys that they give you when you purchase paint.  We have 12 scrappers.  We have six handles for scrubbing pads.  We have four bags of steel wool, each with a different amount in it.  But the most amazing was the tape.

It seems like I am always buying tape and now I know why… we keep taking it to the basement when we’re done with a project.  The photo only shows the tape that survived – several rolls were too dirty or dried out to keep.  I brought all the tape up so that it’s in the dining room chest of drawers; hopefully this will keep us from buying more the next time we have a project!

What do you have too much of?

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

In The Mood

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks to all the veterans for your service.

DO YOU PUT THINGS AWAY? WHY DON’T WE?

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

Carpe Vinum

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

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

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

Do you remember the last time you got carded?

2022, animals, Art, Business, Fantasy, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Resume Refresh

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Photo credit:  Markus Spiske

There’s been a lot of resume talk at our house as YA has recently moved to another job at her company.  She hasn’t actually shown me her current resume but I know she updates it regularly so that it’s up to date all the time. So it’s ready at a moment’s notice, if the need should arise!

Last week when we talked about sheets, K-Two said

“I got really good at making up mattresses for isolettes, bassinets, and cribs during my career – a skill no longer needed. And if really pushed, I could probably still change the sheets of an occupied bed.”

This got me to thinking how imminently practical (and refreshing) it would be to see solid skills like bed-making show up on a resume, instead of the boring vanilla stuff that you see on most resumes these days.

I started to think about the very practical skills that I could list on a resume.

    1. Can organize errands based on opening times and order efficiency
    2. Can coax almost any grumpy person into a smile
    3. Can get a pill down even the most recalcitrant kitty
    4. Can make 15 pies in one day

Any good skills for your resume this week?

2022, animals, Fantasy, History, Mysteries, Travel, Uncategorized

And Your Father Smells of Elderberries

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I know you’re thinking it’s not possible for me to talk about Nashville any more than I have.  Wrong.  With the exception of three trips to St. Louis to see Nonny (two of them medical issues), I haven’t traveled anywhere since before pandemic.  For someone who worked in the travel industry for 30+ years, 3 years is a long time between trips so Nashville was actually pretty special.  And have I mentioned that I had a great time with my friend Pat?

On my first morning in the city, we went downtown to see the Frist Museum; there was a display for Japanese textiles that we wanted to see.  It’s not a large museum and all they do is special shows – no permanent galleries.  The day we were there just happened to be the very last day of a special display of armor from the middle ages – so lucky!

I’m not a fan of military strategy or warfare in general but the lengths that we humans will go to is just amazing.  Having never seen any kind of armor up close, I was amazed that so much of it was covered in remarkable artistry, carvings in silver and gold adorning a lot of pieces.  Trying to figure out how a knight would be able to see took quite a bit of doing and I don’t even want to think about what happens when you’re all suited up and nature comes a’ calling!

Despite having seen Camelot several times as well as Ivanhoe and Robin Hood, I hadn’t really paid much attention to the armor that horses wore.  A full suit of armor for a horse is called a bard or barding but the piece that amazes me the most is the chanfron – the face mask.  I’m thinking that there was probably an industry for training horses to wear face masks.  I doubt you could just stroll into the stall and have a horse accept this easily.

The other amazing thing to me is the naming of armor pieces.  Every single little piece has a name, even the part that covers the armpit – the besagew.  Many of the names come from the French – guessing that armor trends started in that part of Europe and spread?  Here’s another suit that I found interesting – not sure why we needed to be reminded of the anatomical features of the wearer.

Another friend of mind who lives in St. Paul knows an enormous amount about medieval warfare and I can’t wait to see her next and show her my pictures.  I’m guessing she already knows all the names of the pieces.  Maybe I’ll quiz her.

Did you ever want to be a knight in shining armor when you were a kid?

2022, Business, Food, Travel, Uncategorized

Pastry Fusion

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When I was in Nashville, my friend Pat and I had a list a mile long of things we wanted to see and do.  Pat is not a Tennessee native, so she was as eager to explore as I was.  Last  year I saw some cooking show that featured a bakery in Nashville that looked splendid.  Unfortunately I didn’t write down the name so we ended up googling wildly to try to find something that rang a bell.  Nothing.

We did find Five Daughters Bakery which came up over and over again in searches for the best bakeries; they have three stores in Nashville so we decided they would be our bakery of choice. 

Turns out that they make a version of cronut which they call the “100-Layer Donut”.  I’ve never had a cronut before, although I have heard of them.  They were “invented” in 2013 by a French baker, Dominique Ansel at his bakery in New York; made with croissant dough and pastry cream, cronuts LOOK like doughnuts but are similar to croissants in texture.  They are bigger than most doughnuts and considerably more expensive; we cut them in half and saved the second half for the next morning.   I remember these pastries making a big splash at the time with people standing around the block for ages to get a crack at them and now I know why!

I haven’t done a thorough search but so far I haven’t found anyone making a cross between a doughnut and a croissants!

Do you have any favorite mash-ups?

2022, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Urban Agriculture

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Ben wrote this weekend of how expensive things were getting. One thing that hasn’t seen a price increase is the composted manure at Stockmen’s, our local stockyards. The stockyards folks have neat piles of manure in various stages of decomposition, and are happy to supply urban gardeners with very affordable fertilizer.

Husband and I drove to the stockyards last Friday with his pickup, paid $22, listened to a lot of mooing, and watched as his pickup bed was filled up with some really nice manure. It was a great deal. It would have been really great had it been sheep manure, but our stockyard deals mainly in cattle.

It is very well rotted and crumbly, and mixed with good clean dirt (no weeds or seeds). We spent Saturday morning shoveling it onto our vegetable garden. It had to be done this fall, as it is such a rich mixture it needs a winter to “cool”, as it were, or it will burn young plants. We do this every other year. We had enough to add a 3 inch layer of it to our garden. I will till it under in the spring. The only downside was that it was a lot of work climbing in and out of the pickup bed, raking and shoveling it, filling up the wheelbarrow, etc. We eventually backed the pickup into the garden and unloaded the manure right off the tail gate. We were both really stiff and sore by the time all the manure was unloaded. I think we used every arm, leg, and shoulder muscles we possess getting this done. I look forward to really big veggies next summer. I am glad I don’t have to do this for another two years.

What is the most physically exerting activity you have done in the last while? How do you treat sore muscles? What fall tasks do you dislike the most?

2022, animals, Business, Farming Update, Mysteries, Nature, Uncategorized

It’s November!

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben!

Have you noticed the price of dogfood lately?? Hokey Smokes. I’m sorry dogs, you’re not getting the fancy stuff you used to get. Partially because it’s not even available, and partially because I’m not paying $60/ bag for dog food. Jeepers. I was shopping and the dogs end up with more treats than we get.

Egg production is coming up! The new ladies are laying eggs. The eggs are a little small yet, but that will improve in the next month or so. And the girls don’t seem to have figured out *where* to lay eggs. Some on the ground in this corner, some over there in that corner. A few in these nest boxes, a few in those nest boxes, and three more back in that corner. At least they’re laying.

I put the back wall on the pen the other day. I take it off for air circulation in the summer. Back on to stop the drafts in winter.

The weather has sure been good for harvesting and making corn stalk bales (for bedding. See header photo.) Haven’t gotten my corn out yet; I read a report that said about 85% of corn is harvested in SE MN. Yeah, driving around, there’s not much standing out there yet. And not much I can do about it. Corn isn’t so sensitive to moisture and weather changes (barring 60mph winds or hail) but snow on the ground is OK. So, the neighbors will get it when they get it. They have a bunch to get on the farm next to ours too and once I see them there, that will take 2 or 3 days, then they’ll get mine in a day or two. If the weather is still holding, I’ll have the co-op spread more lime on the fields that need it and if the weather is STILL holding, I’ll get some chisel plowing done.

A lot of corn got hit with a fungus called ‘Tar Spot’ this year.

You can see it as the black spots on the leaves. From what I’ve read, excessive moisture this summer caused the corn plant to become infected with crown and stalk rots, which then made it susceptible to tar spot. The tar spot affects photosynthesis, and the plant dies before the kernels reach maturity. There are fungicide sprays for it, which I may have to use next year, but that’s another expense, too. And I’ve been saying my corn ears look pretty good this year, so until it gets harvested and I can see what the yield / acre is, I’m not sure how much damage it caused.

When I had the beans harvested, I asked the co-op to mail the check to me. Took 2 weeks to go 25 miles! They told me it went in the mail on October 11th. I didn’t receive it until the 27th. And it was postmarked the 11th, and it didn’t show up in my ‘USPS Informed Delivery’ email. So where was it for 2 weeks?? You can believe I won’t ask them to mail the corn check. I got approved for a loan for next years crop inputs. I haven’t even paid off this year’s yet and I’m ordering stuff for next year. That’s how it goes. We’re not rich, we just have good credit.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have begun to mingle!

They were out drinking water when I went to do chores and when they saw me, they went back in the pen (I thought). I was gonna chase them back out and force them to be mingling, but they weren’t in the pen. And I found them out back on their own! And they sort of crossed paths with the older ducks but didn’t actually interact. The next day they almost seemed eager to get out of their pen and they were hanging out with the big boys. Atta way kids!

One of the new guineas spent a night in the coop with the chickens.

The chickens and guineas spend most of the daytime over in the lilac bushes.

I don’t know where the ducks go at night. We used to have a bunch that laid right behind the house. That was OK as there was shelter and you’d think protection from varmints. But this batch hasn’t done that.

Remember the time changes Sunday!

What have you stopped buying? Why? Which item do you miss the most?