Category Archives: Uncategorized

2021, Family, home, Uncategorized

The Big Re-arrange

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Over the weekend, Husband saw that the last warm days were upon us, and cooler weather is ahead. He got the idea that he wanted to move his reading chair from beside the window to a more sheltered spot, in the dining room. And he was, with good reason, not fond of a temporary move I’d made while he was in rehab when I needed a desk for all kinds of medical paperwork – I had dragged little desk into the archway, partially blocking traffic flow.

Now, I’ve written before how I love to re-arrange the furniture. This was very unusual for Husband to initiate, and for me to follow, but it actually worked this time! If you’ve done this before, you know there is no way to move just one piece of furniture. We spent most of Sunday afternoon and eve pulling things out, dusting and cleaning, trying one position and giving it up for another. ALL KINDS OF FUN. We realized at one point that the TV, located near the computer, had to stay put if we wanted to continue watching via streaming. But when we were done, every other stick of furniture in the living and dining rooms had found a new home.

I wish I had a “Before” photo, complete with the renegade desk. But these “After” photos are the end result, with which we are well pleased.

What motivates you to make (any kind of) a change? If you live with others, who instigates a change in your surroundings? What would you most like to change about your dwelling space?

Family, Food, home, Uncategorized, Weather

Losing It

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We had three inches of rain in the past week, and Husband decided he could safely fire up his smoker/grill to smoke a couple of pork butts we had in the freezer. There has been a burn ban all summer due to extraordinary drought, so this was the first time since May he has been able to grill outside.

The butts smoked beautifully all day in pecan and hickory chips, and by dark they were done. Husband used a very large carving fork to remove them from the smoker. He brought the butts inside the kitchen. The fork disappeared somewhere between the grill area outside and the house. We have searched high and low in the garage, the smoker/grill, the garbage, and the shrubs surrounding the grill area, to no avail. Husband, who is part Scots and believes in ghosts, thinks there was Divine intervention and this was a joke played on us by the supernatural.

I reported earlier this year on the Trail that I thought I saw my late father’s ghost in the hallway one night. He loved playing jokes on people, and I could see him hiding the carving fork somewhere ridiculous for us to find later. I am pretty sure the fork will turn up one of these days and we will say “Oh yes, I forgot I went here after the pork was inside!” Until then I will scold my dad and tell him to reveal where the carving fork is.

What have you lost? Which of your ancestors would love to play a joke on you? What do you think they would do?

2021, Farming Update, Kids, Uncategorized

Fall Has Fallen

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Today’s post comes from Ben

Rainy and cool today… talking lows in the upper 30’s this week… might get a frost yet. Or a freeze in the valley’s.

Ducks are good.

As of Wednesday, I’m still waiting to get my soybeans out. There’re not too many soybeans out in the fields yet. People are surprised when I tell them mine aren’t done. The neighbors who will harvest mine are working in the neighborhood; they’ve got a field right across from one of my fields so with the nice weather predicted for this week I would expect by the time you read this, soybeans might be done. Fingers crossed and the creek don’t rise. It’s out of my control; they’ll get them when they get them.

Things are busy in my real job world and I’m almost stressing out over them. Got the college show to open on the 28th. Got an open house for the remodeling at another theater scheduled for the 6th of November and I need to get those bathroom stalls installed. Plus class. Plus “life”. It’s enough to push a man to drink.

Doing a local field trip come Monday in geology class. It’s hard to do field trips during Covid. Everyone drives themselves… Trying to fit 3 or 4 stops into 2 hours. I predict it will be like herding cats, but we’ll see. Just a 1/4 mile up the road from campus is an exposed hillside of St. Peter Sandstone. And a little bit further is some other rocks and then there’s a spot I specifically keep asking the teacher about because of the layers and colors in this exposed hillside. Isn’t it amazing to realize these rocks are a BILLION years old and that the layer of darker rock on the top was put there 60 MILLION YEARS AGO?? MAN!! That just blows me away. I know just enough from class now to be dangerous. I’m just beginning to understand that rocks can change and become other rocks. Pressure or erosion and now it’s a different rock. Huh! I just thought they were rocks. I’m far to old to remember all the terms, but it’s interesting.

Last week and we talked about finding things and that reminded me of some other stuff we’ve found in the woods or in the fields.

November 1st one year, I was going in to do some plowing and down one of the field roads was a car. Tires were gone, stereo ripped out, one of those “key Keeper” things the car dealers used to have on the rear window was in the back seat. I called the deputies. Seems like if you find a car before it’s reported stolen, they don’t know what to do with it. They contacted the owner. He had consigned it to a dealership to sell and it had been stolen off the lot. But it was still his problem at this point. So now it was considered ‘abandoned’ and the owner had to hire a tow truck to come and pick it up.

One time a friend was leaving and a few minutes later was back to say there was a car tipped over in the woods but there was no one around. I drove up there to see it and it appeared from the tire tracks they had been fishtailing up the road, lost control, hit a bank and tipped the car over. There was just a little bit of blood on the door frame from pulling themselves out, but no one around. This was way before airbags or cell phones. I waited, Kelly went back and called deputies. I saw a car come in, see me, and back away again. I don’t recall what all became of that. There’s been several situations of me chasing people out of the fields. Twenty years ago, before we put the gates on the end of our driveway, it was worse. With the gates, they didn’t have a place to hide and trouble moved on.

Just yesterday I noticed someone over at a rented field, vehicle tracks off the road, made a loop through the soybean field, and back on to the road. Sigh. Could be worse; could have made a lot more tracks through the field. This will only amount to a few bushels. Dad always told the story of kids driving through the hayfield. Except they lost the license plate in the field. Deputies were able to track them down. Somehow dad arranged that their punishment was for them to come out one Saturday morning and help clean calf barns using a pitch fork. He said they were good kids, and they were just screwing around. But stay out of the fields next time.

We got to know some of the sheriff deputies pretty well. One night Kelly saw several cars come down in the yard, turn around and go back out. Well, that pretty much means ‘Party’ so she called deputies. I was coming home and from the highway I was seeing this line of car headlights coming out of our driveway. What the heck?? Eventually I could get in and there were 3 deputies. There was a party down a field road, out of sight, and the kids had just tapped the keg when the deputies showed up. Officer Kirby was pretty excited about breaking up the party. Of course, the kids took off running and the officers told them, ‘We got your cars, you may as well come back.’ I think everyone got a warning that night. And I found plastic cups all over the corn field that fall.

TALK ABOUT BEING PUNISHED. As a kid, As an employee? Or punishment given as a parent or employer.

2021, Family, Kids, Media, TV, Uncategorized

TV Time

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While Husband and I were toiling away in Brookings laat weekend helping our son and daughter-in-law settle into their new home, our daughter and a friend were having an adventure in Hollywood.

In August, our daughter won two tickets to the filming of a Dr. Phil show. Airfare from Tacoma to Burbank was pretty cheap, both young women are single, both are social workers who think Dr. Phil is just awful, so what could be more fun than to go to California to the filming?

Daughter and I have been too busy this week for her to give me a full account of the trip. All I know is that the filming of the show took six hours, Dr. Phil doesn’t take a trauma informed approach to his interventions, and they got to meet a member of Motley Cru. She still thinks Dr. Phil is awful.

What TV show would you want to see filmed? What talk shows did like or not like growing up? What goofy adventures did you have as a young adult?

Family, Health, History, Kids, Uncategorized

Thanks, Mom and Dad!

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Our daughter was lamenting the other day what a raw deal she and her brother got in the DNA department. Both children have their father’s flat feet and bad ankles. Both have my tendency for anxiety. Both have their father’s attention deficits.

I reminded her that we owe our lives to flat feet, and that there are flat foots on my side of the family, too. My maternal grandfather immigrated to the US in about 1908. In the spring of 1914, he went back to his village in Northern Germany to attend his oldest brother’s wedding. He was promptly drafted into the German army. His very flat feet made it hard for him to march as smartly as the officers wanted him to, and he was given a medical discharge after a few weeks. He hightailed it to Bremerhaven and sailed back to the US just before the First World War broke out. Daughter wasn’t impressed. Her bad feet and ankles are quite problematic for her lately, but she is taking measures to resolve the issues with physical therapy.

I, on the other hand, inherited my father’s perfect little Dutch feet, mechanical aptitude, and musical ability. I also inherited his temper and lack of patience. I like to think I inherited a penchant for cooking from a great grandmother who was a professional cook in Hamburg in the early 1900’s.

We can learn new things on our own. We can manage our tempers. Who is to say we haven’t learned a lot of problematic behaviors and attitudes, not inherited them? You can’t argue the heritability of flat feet, though.

What good or not so good things do you think you inherited in your DNA? Who do you look like?

2021, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

Goodbye, Paddy

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Sad news yesterday with the death of Paddy Moloney, the founder of The Chieftains. He was 83.

I was woefully ignorant of traditional music until I moved to Winnipeg in 1980 and went to the Winnipeg Folk Festival for the first time. I never saw the Chieftans live, but their influence on folk and traditional music is immense.

One of my favorite Chieftains albums is one they did with Nancy Griffith and Roger Daltrey. The following is a video of the whole live performance at the Belfast Opera House in 1992. Do watch it all. It is magical. My favorite part is at the very end with Nancy singing “Ford Econoline”.

I remember hearing the story about Derrick Bell, the harpist, who was criticized by some classical musician colleagues for going off and joining “some tatty folk group” when he joined the Chieftains. So glad he did! We need more “tatty folk groups” like the Chieftains.

Ok, Baboons, let’s hear some of your favorite traditional music of Ireland and the British Isles. Why is it so appealing? Have you ever played the pipes?

2021, Family, Nature, space, Travel, Uncategorized

Fresh Air

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Our son and his family just moved to a town four miles outside Brookings, SD. Brookings is a university town with a population of 22,000 people. The town to which they moved has around 800. They commute to their jobs in Brookings.

Brookings is in the middle of the prairie. It is not industrialized. The nearest larger towns are 50 miles away. Both are pretty modest in size. We are talking sparsely populated. Son and Dil insist that the air in their new little town is noticeably cleaner than in Brookings. They adore the quiet. They love looking outside and seeing the stars. There is very little light pollution. Unless they fence their yard, any gardens they plant will be eaten by deer and raccoons.

We are so happy for them in their new digs. I think their assessment of the air quality may be a little bit exaggerated, but it is nice to see them enjoying their life. They are so proud of their new home. I grew up in a small town downwind from beef and pork processing plant, so I know how important air quality can be to life satisfaction.

What are your favorite indoor and outdoor smells? What are the most polluted and cleanest places you have lived? What constellations and stars can you identify? When are you most likely to kvell?

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2021, animals, Fantasy, Mysteries, Nature, Poems, Uncategorized, Weather

Little Cat Feet

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Now that the dark is hanging around a bit more in the morning, I don’t really notice the outside work until I step onto the back porch.  Last week, I left the house early, about 6:15 a.m. and as I pulled out of the driveway realized that there are a lot of fog.  Living in the city as I do, this is an unusual occurrence and combined with the dark and traffic-less streets, was quite eerie.

As I was driving along (pretty slowly), it made me think about how often I’ve seen fog described in poetry.  Of course, the most famous is probably Carl Sandberg:

Fog
The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

And I also remember a couple of different fog poems by Sara Teasdale that I like:

Gray Fog
A FOG drifts in, the heavy laden
Cold white ghost of the sea—
One by one the hills go out,
The road and the pepper-tree.
I watch the fog float in at the window

With the whole world gone blind,
Everything, even my longing, drowses,
Even the thoughts in my mind.
I put my head on my hands before me,

There is nothing left to be done or said,
There is nothing to hope for, I am tired,
And heavy as the dead.

White Fog
Heaven-invading hills are drowned
In wide moving waves of mist,
Phlox before my door are wound
In dripping wreaths of amethyst.

Ten feet away the solid earth
Changes into melting cloud,
There is a hush of pain and mirth,
No bird has heart to speak aloud.
Here in a world without a sky,
Without the ground, without the sea,
The one unchanging thing is I,
Myself remains to comfort me.

A quick search on the internet turns up tons of fog poems.  I haven’t done any research whatsoever but I wonder if there are more fog poems than thunderstorm poems or sunshine poems?

Then as I kept driving, I realized that I don’t know one darn SONG about fog.

Anybody?

 

Farming Update, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Nice October Weather

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Today’s post comes from Ben.

Sure has been a beautiful fall so far.

GDU’s, Growing Degree Unit’s are 529 above average for the Rochester area. Average is 2702 GDU to date giving us 3231 this year. In 2020 we had 2914 GDU and 2019 was 2800 GDU’s to date.

A little unusual we haven’t had that killing frost yet. Lilacs are blooming again. Weird.

Neighborhood reports are that soybean stems are still green and making it hard to combine, but the beans themselves are almost too dry at 9% or 11% which leads to them shelling out of the pods too easily and that means ‘header loss’, meaning they pop out before they even go into the head of the combine. Can’t cash them in if they’re on the ground. A lot of time is spent adjusting the combine settings to capture as much of the crop, as cleanly as possible. (Mind you, I only partially know what I’m talking about here; I don’t have a combine) The rotor and separator are where the crop is separated from the cob or pod. It’s adjustable of course; bigger for corn, smaller for oats or beans. Large fans blow the chaff and debris out the back of the combine. It’s *quite* the deal. There are all sorts of YouTube videos out there. Google it if you’re interested. Most guys are done with beans and working on corn. Corn has reached ‘physical maturity’ or ‘black layer’. Meaning all the milk has dried out in the kernel and there’s actually a black line that moves down the kernel and now there’s a black spot down at the tip. That doesn’t mean it’s dry enough to store without drying, just that it’s done growing. Again, no freeze and this warm weather is helping it dry further. All good things. My beans are still out there. They’ll get to them when they get to them.

I don’t see many fields between our house and the college unless I take the long way around. A trip to Plainview for parts gives me a chance to see what the neighbors are doing. And that works all year round.

A while ago I removed that broken gearbox off the brush mower and took it to John Deere. I was up there for other parts last week and the shop foreman showed me a bad spot in the gear box meaning it wasn’t worth repairing and I should probably order a new one. Sigh. I had ordered the shaft already for $750. Labor on replacing it was going to be at least that same amount. And now I’ve got a 10 yr old rebuilt gearbox. So, for another $800 I could get a new one. It’s only money… I ordered a new one. Haven’t gotten it yet… any day now.

I spent some time working on the grain drill one day. Got several things put back together and a few more things apart. “One day” I hope to have time to work on it again.

The ducks are expanding their area and this morning were up around the house. They are getting calmer when I throw corn out to them. They don’t panic and run away so much; they’re figuring out I provide food I guess. There’s a hose that I leave out to fill buckets and a large puddle for the ducks. Over near the water hydrant, the hose has a pin hole in it, and I get a little cold water shower as I take corn out. Some mornings that thrill is a little more exciting than other days. I could walk around it, I could patch it, I could just turn the hose over… but sometimes that little thrill is a good way to start the day, you know?

The last two weeks I have been busy with theater. I’ve lit ‘Evil Dead – the Musical’. It’s a total spoof on the horror movie genre. “Five College kids at an abandoned cabin for the weekend. What could go wrong?” It’s pretty fun. I don’t like horror movies and I’ve never seen this one. But the spoof is fun. And it’s a musical! Between that and the remodeling at another theater, it’s taking up my time. Plus, construction at the college for our show here. “Women” by Chiara Atik– a spoof on ‘Little Women’. Keeping me busy.

Kelly and I had a ditch date the other day. That’s what we call it when she helps me pick up garbage from the township ditches. Took the dogs along too. This was a couch and at least it wasn’t a sleeper. I stopped at the townhall to pick up some stuff in the building to take to the recycling center and there was one of those 55 gallon cardboard barrels we wanted to get rid off. Empty other than some newspapers from 1977. It seemed too good to throw out so I left it on the side of the road by the townhall. You people in town have it so easy with the boulevard exchange thing. This morning the barrel was still there. I think I need to put a $5 sign on it. Or maybe people are afraid to see if there might be something inside it.

I’ve gotten some good stuff off the boulevard. Or out of the ditch. Like my winter ‘ditch jacket’ and an air compressor, and a large wicker chair down in the theater furniture storage area.

They say to scare yourself every day. What are your daily thrills? Talk about things you’ve found on the roadside.

animals, Family, pets, Uncategorized

Made You Look!

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If you came to our house and took a look around our livingroom, you would notice a long, offset spatula with pride of place on an end table.

Our cat has some favorite new toys. She loves to bat about small, round, felt floor protectors that attach to the bottom of chairs and furniture legs so they don’t scratch the floors. She tosses and chases them, carries them in her mouth and leaps for them when I toss them in the air. I just had some in a container, thought she would like them, and there we are.

The only problem with these toys is that they slide very easily under the furniture, the grandfather clock, the stereo speakers, and closet doors, out of her reach. When that happens, she sits in front of wherever the beloved object has disappeared, and implores us with body language and meows that she is distressed and that we need to retrieve her toys. It is getting very tiresome to retrieve these things, hence the spatula, which can reach under everything and flip out the discs. Sometimes, I think she delights in making us get up to search for her, making us look for things at her bidding.

Who have been the greatest helpers in your life? When did you need the most help? How easy is it for you to ask for help?