Category Archives: Uncategorized

animals, Farming Update, Food, Nature, Uncategorized

Oats Done

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Today’s post comes from Ben

Weather warmed up this week, then to cooled off one day, then the humidity spiked again. Cooler next week. Jeepers, roller coaster of weather. They say if you don’t like the weather, to just wait a minute.

I did get the oats cut on Monday. I had to run into a local parts store and buy a new battery for it. The old one was just 2 years old, but it didn’t have any “oomph” for starting. Tried jumping it a couple different way and times and when that didn’t work, I gave up and got a new battery. I figured I don’t need the best battery in here; it only runs a couple days in the summer. Well, all the batteries were $179 plus the core deposit and refund, plus tax and I paid $195. Dang. But it started and I cut the oats. Had no issues, It seemed to cut pretty well, even the downed stuff. Whew! That old machine always makes me anxious. It’s almost as old as me and makes more noises than I do.

Got the oats harvested on Thursday. One neighbor, who usually takes a wagon load, wants it all this year. Which is fine, except having not worked all summer, that oat check is what gets me through the last hump before I start back at the college. And we probably won’t exchange cash here, we’ll just keep track of the total and figure the difference this fall after they harvest my beans and corn. The oats didn’t yield as well as I had hoped and test weight was lower than my usual too. It was planted a little later than usual, the weather was maybe too hot at the wrong times for it. Plus we had mix up with the fertilizer this spring so it’s hard to say why it didn’t do so well this year. There isn’t much oats grown anymore so it’s hard to find out how the neighbors oats did. (I don’t have any neighbors growing oats.)

Next up then is baling the straw. I’m only expecting about 2 loads. One load for the strawberry farm up the road, and one for my customers.

I added a camera to the baler so I can keep an eye on the knotters and strings as the one string gives me more trouble. Seems like something that should be fixable, but I haven’t been able to figure out what’s out of adjustment the last several years… so I added a camera so at least I can see a missing string sooner. Caught soon enough, I can add a piece of twine and tie the string back together. Otherwise I can’t see it until it’s coming out of the baler and then it’s too late to fix. So either I pull it out by hand, or if I miss it there, the thrower knocks it apart and that makes a mess. Expect photos of this next week. 

The corn is looking good. It’s way taller than Kelly now.

Interesting how many plants have 2 ears this year.

When there are plenty of resources and the plant can spare them, resources go into creating a second ear. Usually that also jeopardizes the main ear and you end up with two mediocre ears, rather than one really nice ear.  Notice the kernels are all in there, and the size of the ear was determined way back when the corn was only knee high! And then each leaf node starts to create an ear, then when it reaches tasseling, just the top ones emerge and take priority. So now it’s just getting those silks fertilized by the pollen from the tassel and getting all the kernels to fully develop. Man it’s so cool!

Kelly went out to feed the chickens the other day and they all followed her down there. They sure know the routine.

Baby ducklings are doing well too. Two escaped the other day; they found a little hole in the pen and got out, but I distracted them and Kelly captured them and reunited them with momma. All is well.

WHAT CEREAL DID YOU EAT AS A KID? WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST TODAY?

books, Family, Health, Nature, Uncategorized

Pushmepullyou

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I have lumbar scoliosis, along with years of cruddy posture. I even slump when I drive. I had physical therapy several years ago, which really helped my lower back pain. Like many, I stopped doing my exercises after the pain went away.

A few months ago I started to have chronic sciatica in both legs, and got a referral for more physical therapy. My new therapist assessed the situation and told me that she was surprised I could even walk, since all the muscles in my lower back and hips that ought to hold me upright weren’t doing their job, and the hip flexor muscles in the front of my body were doing it instead. Sitting at a desk all day in a bad chair only made things worse. (The ergo guy at work ordered a really good office chair with great lumbar support for me last month, so that problem is solved.)

I am currently in a lot of pain all over my back and legs since, as my physical therapist told, all my muscles are mad at me as we are doing exercises to get the back muscles to do their job and the front muscles to do their job. I am also being very mindful of my posture, even when I drive, and that has also stirred up some muscle pushback. All of this has reminded me of the Pushmepullyou from Dr. Doolittle.

My mother constantly harrased me about my posture. Ok mom, you were right! I should have listened! I don’t remember ever liking the Dr. Doolittle books much. I found the writing kind of stuffy, but the plot was fun. I appreciate the tug of war concept with the Pushmepullyou. My hips can relate.

What animals would you like to talk to? Ever had physical therapy? What did you parents tell you that you should have listened to but didn’t.

2022, Business, Family, Health, Kids, Uncategorized

Irony

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I was quite amused yesterday on my way to work to see our insurance agent presumably driving to his office. He was riding a motorcycle. HE WASN’T WEARING A HELMET!

It seems to me that being an insurance agent means you exemplify caution and careful living. I remember the conversation we had together with our son when he got his driver’s license, and our agent told him to never hesitate to phone him any time, night or day, if he had been drinking and needed a ride home. Well, I wonder what he says to young motorcycle drivers he insures about helmets?

Our agent goes to our church and has a lovely tenor voice and sings with us in the choir. I can hardly wait to tease him about this.

What do you like to tease people about? What irony have you noticed this week? Any stories about insurance agents or companies?

2022, Family, Travel, Uncategorized

Airbnb

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Husband and I spent four days last week in Fargo with our son and his family, joined for two days by our daughter. She was on a week long visit from Tacoma to friends in various parts of Minnesota. We picked her up in Alexandria on Friday. She hitched a ride back to the Minneapolis Airport on Sunday morning with her best friend who lives in Hopkins but who was in Moorhead visiting her sister. Her trip took a lot of planning!

Son booked an Airbnb with five bedrooms in the historic section of Fargo on 8th St. It is only the second time we stayed in such accommodations, our children far more accustomed to booking these lodgings. It really worked out well, especially since our 4 year old grandson was pretty happy not having to eat in restaurants and could run around and play and make more noise than he could in a hotel. We ordered out from our favorite Thai and East Indian restaurants, and son grilled lovely lamb kebobs on Saturday night. My only complaint was that our mattress was far too soft and gave me a backache.

Fargo was surprising, even after all these years of living in this State. We went to the downtown farmers market on Saturday. It was wonderful, and we scored some fresh, local sweetcorn. There are very few places in North Dakota where you would see many gay couples walking around in public holding hands, but there they were, happy as they could be among the produce stalls. It was also far more ethnically diverse than I remember it being in years past. It was so nice to see.

I imagine there are Airbnb nightmares, but ours worked out swell. We will more than likely do it again, but will have our children help us figure out how to choose them.

What are your Airbnb experiences? What cities have pleasantly surprised you? Where are your favorite places to visit?

2022, Food, Uncategorized

Weird Food

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Over the past month, Husband and I cleaned out and reorganized our kitchen cupboards preparatory to ordering a fresh supply of the lentils, beans, and other kitchen staples we were getting low on. I am sorry to say there were things we found I had forgot about completely, and I have only vague ideas what I planned to do with some of them.

When we lived in Winnipeg, our Italian landlady would serve us preserved lupini beans whenever we came over to pay the rent. They were a real delicacy to her. This was a very formal occasion during which we would drink her and Emilio’s homemade red wine and eat the lupini beans she had done something to that made them savory and soft, sort of like olives. A couple of years ago I saw dried lupini beans on a website and ordered a pound, thinking that I could replicate those beans and those fond memories. I had no idea that lupini beans are toxic unless you soak, rinse, soak, rinse, soak rinse, ad nauseam. Well, they still are in the bag, unopened, as is the pound of fava beans that I ordered because I wasn’t quite sure if Angela used those or lupini beans. I didn’t figure it out until after they arrived and I actually looked at some recipes. Neither bean interests me now but I am too Dutch to toss them and I know no one around here who would use them.

More recently I bought a pound of red Italian rice, which seems to be different than Asian red rice, and is reportedly quite hard to digest if you eat too much at one sitting. I have looked for recipes but they are few and far between. I bought the rice because I was buying other things from the company and thought “why not” when I ran across it. I am determined that the rice will actually get used up. Maybe it goes well either lupini and fava beans . Husband wants to make salad out of it.

What weird foods lurk in your kitchen? What would you do with fava’s, lupini beans, and red Italian rice? Any good landlord stories?

2022, Uncategorized, Weather

A Perfect Storm

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Last Monday around suppertime we had a perfect Northern Plains storm. Usually our storms come after it is dark, and the wind blows things over and you hope it doesn’t hail.

This storm was perfect. There was very little wind. The sky clouded up, the clouds billowing, and you could see the lightening strikes and hear the thunder approach miles away from the west. The thunder became gradually louder as it neared town. It took a good 30 minutes to get to us, and then there were loud booms and lightening all around and over us, but still no wind. Then the rain started, and we got .20.

The storm left town just as it came, traveling east with gradually diminishing flashes and booms. Then it was silent. It was perfect. We appreciated the rain.

When have you been in a perfect storm? Use any meaning of the phrase you would like.

2022, Mysteries, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized

Experiencing TSA

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Last week when we were coming back from St. Louis, we got shuffled into a TSA line where they are apparently testing new equipment.  No taking off our shoes, no pulling out our little baggies of liquid, no requests to dump water bottles. 

At first I thought this would be great but was very shortly disabused of that idea.  After your bags went through the scanner, anything that looked funny got shoved off to the side for additional scrutiny.  In the regular line this happens as well but since our line had been specifically told NOT to pull out anything including liquids or toss water bottles, it meant that more than half of the bags going through got held up.  Water bottles were opened and examined with some kind of test strips, bags were opened and rifled through; it was not a quick check. 

Neither YA nor I had anything unusual but we were behind a few people who did.  So we stood back and waited while watching everyone else’s problems pan out.  The family who went through right before we did were a hot mess.  Three kids, all under the age of five and already hot and tired after waiting in line.  Four adults – it was hard to tell who belong to whom but they were clearly all together.  Because they were told not to take things out of baggage, there was a plethora of sippy cups and water bottles.  Every bag was opened and pawed through (sorry, my bias is showing here).  Every sippy cup and bottle was opened and tested. 

As the kids started to melt down, one of the adults started to melt down as well.  She was angry – about everything.  When her anger did nothing to make the situation better, she got angrier.  Her voice got quite loud, she got in one TSA agent’s face.  The folks with her tried to calm her down, but she was having none of it.

I’ve never seen anything like this in person but it was amazing how fast other TSA agents were in coming to their co-worker’s defense.  And how MANY TSA agents came over.  I was extremely glad right then that TSA agents do not carry firearms or any other weapons but there were enough of them that could have taken this woman down with ease.  They did end up asking her and one of the other adults into a side hallway (six TSA agents for the two adults).  When they came back a few minutes later, the distraught woman seemed a little calmer and she didn’t say one more word.  I can only imagine what they said to her. 

I asked one of the agents who was standing behind us how long this new process/equipment had been in place.  He sighed and said “one week”.  I wished him luck.  Then our bags came through.  All they did was confirm our little baggies of liquid/cream which was easy because we both had them in side pockets of our bags; off we went, plenty of time to get to our gate despite the delay.

Have you ever been a test case for anything?

2022, animals, Art, Family, Uncategorized

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

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When we were working on Nonny’s library loan issue, YA discovered a shelf of jigsaw puzzles right next to the desk.  The St. Louis Library system loans out puzzles!  (I immediately chatted w/ someone at the Hennepin County Library to see if puzzles are in our system – sadly no.)  I love the idea of borrowing puzzles from the library.  I only like to do puzzles once so not only do I have to find another home for a finished puzzle, the cost starts to mount up.  YA and I could easily do a puzzle a week (except for the occasional killer puzzle like the polar bear last year). 

We looked through the puzzles and chose a tiger in repose in a jungle setting with lots of tropical flowers and a waterfall – and it was a glitter puzzle!  Since it was a rainy afternoon, YA and Nonny and I dived right in when we got back to the condo.

I learned puzzle-doing at Nonny’s knee so we do puzzles the same: edge pieces first and then tackling the inner part.  YA doesn’t care about getting the edges done first, so she just digs right in.  I tend to look for shapes that fit; YA looks for color/design.  Nonny and I worked on the border while YA started with the tropical flowers.

YA is intense when she is doing a puzzle.  She does NOT like to stop; we did the glitter tiger in 4 hours.  Nonny sat back and watched for awhile and when we got toward the end, I gave her one of the pieces so she could finish the puzzle.  She resisted at first, but then gave in.  A very satisfying afternoon.

Two of the friends that I usually swap puzzles with have moved so I think I need to start a new puzzle-sharing co-op or something!

Do you have a favorite tiger song or poem?

2022, books, Family, Technology, Uncategorized

Nonny & the Library

40 Comments

The Nonny Reading Program has been going swimmingly.  Using the suggestions from you all, I’ve been sending her books and she’s been gobbling them up.

There are only two problems.  The first (and most important) is that she has a VERY small condo with almost no bookshelf space, so the books are starting to pile up.  Secondly, she’s starting to complain about how much money I’m spending and wants to pay for the books (this is SO not happening).

I solved the first problem when I suggested she donate the books to her church; they have quite a robust food shelf/donations program and I said they should start a little free library.  Her church-mates ate this up.

The second problem was a little stickier.  A lot of people who know both my parents think that I got my stubborn streak from my dad; this is absolutely not true.  When Nonny digs in her heels she is all but immovable.   We talked about the library (the closest branch is quite close to her place) but she said that whenever she goes, she can’t find the books she wants.

I know that technology could help her but unfortunately Nonny and Technology are not friends.  And they are not likely to become friends.  Ever.  I suggested that I request the books she wants via the computer and when they came available, I would get the email and I would let her know and she could go get them.  She said this was fine but she never gave me her library card number so I could get everything set up, despite my asking her repeatedly.  I was starting to think this was her passive/aggressive way to telling me she didn’t want to do this.

I tackled the dragon in her den when we were there last weekend.  I asked her directly if she really wanted to do this.  Turns out that the library card issue was just Nonny forgetting about it as soon as we got off the phone.  We drove up to the library, I explained my plan to the librarian and within minutes it was all set up.  I can access her account from here and let her know when the books come in.  Easy peasy. 

I’m all set now and will be requesting the first couple of books this week.   No new suggestions needed right now but if this system works out, I may need some soon!

Have you ever lost or destroyed (accidentally of course) a library book?

2022, Family, gardening, Music, Poems, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

They Call The Wind. . . .Annoying

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We just can’t get a break with the weather. Our home garden got planted late due to freezing temperatures in May, and then we had a hail storm in June that took out the tomatoes and peppers and shredded the beans and peas.

Our church vegetable garden is planted in six, waist-high raised beds. We planted bush squash, peas, beans, and savoy cabbages there. We planted the squash and cabbages in raised mounds just to give them ample depth for roots. That garden didn’t get the hail we did at our house several blocks away. Last Sunday the bush squash and cabbages at church were looking spectacular. Then, on Tuesday, the wind hit.

I never realized how shallow squash roots are. The wind gusted up to 50 mph, and almost entirely uprooted the squash. Husband frantically placed cedar shakes around the squash and cabbage mounds to block the wind, and piled more dirt over the exposed roots. Many of the squash stems were bent and the leaves broken off and wilted. By yesterday they looked a little better, but, again, this sets back possible harvest.

Our home garden wasn’t affected by the wind since the plants are at ground level, not in waist-high raised beds. I think we will have ample cabbages and squash to take to the food pantry if the church garden doesn’t produce.

Let’s have some weather inspired songs and poems today.