We had around 2 inches of rain on Sunday night in the space of 70 minutes. That is pretty unusual for us, and resulted in a lot of flash flooding in town. The photo below shows a flooded underpass. You can see the railroad bridge at the top of the photo. The street goes under the bridge, and the flood waters are about 12 feet deep.
Photo by DJ Miller
The following photo is of a main street in town that I drive on every day to work. I never really noticed the low spot where the yellow car is sitting. There are apparently lots of these low spots on the street, and they all flooded briefly. I have lived here for 35 years and I never noticed them. Now I notice lots of these low spots all over town.
Photo by DJ Miller
Someone from the fire department also took a photo of the underpass. The fire department is always called when the underpass floods, as it seems someone tries to drive through the underpass during a flood, and they like to have a rescue truck available.
Photo by Dickinson Fire Department
We had another .20 inches today, and it seemed like it soaked in much better than the downpour on Sunday night. It is interesting how less can be more when it comes to rain.
Have you ever been in a flood, flash or otherwise? When, in your experience, is less really more? What are some experiences when you have seen but not really noticed ?
YA and I are parade people. We’ve always liked parades. Blueberry Festival in Maine was a great parade and during the Cheesehead Parade in Little Chute, Wisconsin during the Great Wisconsin Cheese Festival, YA came away with more candy and loot than any parade before or since. We go to the State Fair parade every day we are on the fairgrounds. For me this means four or five times in 10 days.
When YA was younger, she was actually part of the Richfield Fourth of July Parade with her gymnastics team. I was part of this parade as well, as one of the accompanying adults. The only other parade I’ve taken part in was the year the Thespian Society had a float at our high school homecoming parade. (We had a stuffed horse (the opposing team’s mascot) in a football uniform with a cast on its leg. Break a leg? We thought it was clever but we didn’t win any prizes.)
Normally YA and I do two parades on the Fourth of July – the local Tangletown parade which is kids on their bikes and people walking their dogs, all following a big fire truck. Low key but charming. Then we head off to Richfield parade – a more typical Independence Day parade with floats, military displays, politicians and candy. Makes for a nice holiday for us.
So it was a little sad when we found out last week that Richfield isn’t having their parade this year; I was looking for the parade route (which isn’t always the same) online and found out that due to inflation, they can’t afford to do the parade this year. A bunch of other Fourth of July activities has likewise been cancelled. YA and I talked about it and decided that maybe we’d go to Edina; we’ve been to that one a few times in the past.
YA came home from an errand on Saturday to say that people were already claiming their spots for the parade; the parade route is actually pretty short. It seemed remarkable to me that folks would be putting chairs and towels out on the boulevard; what an invitation to vandalism. But then I drove by yesterday morning and it did my heart good to see that everybody’s stadium chairs and tarps and blankets all seemed too be in place. And there were A LOT of them in place. We talked about whether we should join the fray but since that parade conflicts with our local parade, we opted not to.
Of course if it is raining when you read this, no parades for us. Although we do like parades, not enough to sit in the rain for them.
Have you ever been in a parade? Do you have a favorite parade?
By the time you’re reading this, I’ll have gotten my gold spec implanted, and had back surgery to remove a cyst. Give me a couple more days and I’ll be up and around like I was back in April! Although the left knee still hurts; the one I was supposed to get replaced in June before I started down this other path. Got the knee on the schedule for December now. The Pessimist in me says, “By August I’ll be back to where I was in April!” The optimist says, “Look what you’ve learned and the people you’ve met and the time you’ve had and the new perspective on things!” Yeah, well. Stuff a sock in it Mr. Optimist. …some days I’m more pessimistic than others…
The agronomy news lately is about side dressing the corn with extra nitrogen. Recently saw this chart showing nitrogen uptake by the plants based on what stage of growth it’s in. Honestly, the more I learn about this stuff, the more fascinated I am. Many farmers have started doing split applications of nitrogen. Anhydrous or liquid nitrogen as starter to get the plant going, and then coming in about now and applying more when it needs the growth spurt and has higher nitrogen needs. I’d like to try it next year when, hopefully, fertilizer prices won’t be so ridiculously high.
We’re over 1000 GDU’s, about 80 about normal.
Kelly and I were driving around the other day, just checking out the neighborhood and seeing how the neighbor’s crops were doing, and we drove through the small town of Viola; home to the Viola Gopher Count. We saw Shea Stadium and the local chapter of this motorcycle club.
There was some discussion among the locals when the club moved in, but you know the old adage, ‘Don’t mess where you sleep’ and this place hasn’t caused any issues. Viola is a town of maybe 25 people. Three streets, two avenues, some gravel, some blacktop. A church (next to the club) and a park with a beer hall (available for rent! But mostly used for Gopher Count) and a townhall.
My brother and I have both played 4H softball at Shea Stadium.
Made the final payment on one of my tractors this week. That’s a good feeling.
Got the roadsides cut last week. Then it rained.
Got it raked and baled on Monday. Thank goodness it was mostly grass and that dries thin and quick. Got 70 bales total.
Oats started heading out on Sunday, June 26th.
Every year, I report what I plant for crops to the local FSA (Farm Service Agency). Any government payments I get come from there. FSA is the agency responsible for keeping track of all that stuff. I’ve written before about government payments, and how that works. In typical government fashion, it’s not always easy. They provide maps and they have measured the fields (by satellite imagery) so they tell me the acres. I may or may not completely agree with there acres, but it’s hard to get them to change their minds. Again, I’m a small farm. I have about 20 fields, and some they have measured individually so I can just say, for example, field 4 is 4.5 acres. But sometimes they lump 5 fields together and give me one total acreage and then I have to break it out by field. Again, not a problem. The fields are measured to the 100th of an acre. But the report they want back only goes to tenths. Just round up or down. Yet it still has to all match. And generally, the fields stay the same from year to year, but some change a bit. (For example, the two corners I put into CRP this year have to be deducted from the rest of the field). And corn ground is ‘worth’ more on the reports than oats. So, round up on the corn, and down on the oats. Play the game.
Way back mid 1980’s I worked for this office when it was called the ASCS office. (Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service). Everyone I worked with there has retired.
When we got the gator in the fall of 2020, it came with a yellow flashing beacon on the top. We didn’t order that, but this one happen to come with it. Last week I broke it off. By accident. I was backing into the garage to pick up garbage and just as I’m about to go through the door I thought to myself, “There’s no reason this won’t fit, right?” And that’s when the beacon hit the garage frame. Crap. Broke off the amber globe. There is a bolt, and if it was loose enough, it would have bent out of the way rather than breaking. Well, a year and a half it lasted. Longer than I expected. We have too many trees and low branches and something sticking up or out doesn’t usually last long around here.
In most summers, we would be at the height of flower and fruit production. The roses and peonies would be at their best, the veggies in the garden would be thriving, and we would have an abundance of strawberries and rhubarb . Well, this summer is different.
Our garden beans are finally setting out new leaves after the hail storm last week. The rhubarb was shredded by the hail, and it has been pulled and cut back. The strawberries that we just planted in May survived the hail, and are in their first year of setting out runners. We are clipping the flowers off to stimulate runner production, and there will be no fruit until next year.
Depending on where the flowers and shrubs were planted, they either were shredded or are in full bloom. Prior to the hail, Grover Cleveland, our earliest and most lovely peony, was in bloom.
I love his very deep red color, which is rare in peonies. Grover was hailed out. We also have some Japanese peonies in the front yard, which are spare and ascetic and a contrast with more traditional peonies. They were protected from the hail by the house.
We planted more traditional peonies in the church garden a couple of years ago, and they were protected from the hail by some Siberian elms.
I am happy that our raspberry bed was protected from the hail, and we anticipate a stunning raspberry harvest in a month or so. They are only a few feet from the rhubarb, but they were protected by the hail by our neighbors’ awful ash trees. How ironic!
What are your favorite summer flowers? If you were to redo your yard, what would you plant or change? Any good raspberry recipes?
At about 4:30 yesterday afternoon a huge thunderstorm roared through town. Husband and I were at work. The wind was well over 60 MPH, and the rain was torrential. For a while it was impossible to see anything out of the office windows due to the rain and wind.
Driving home was difficult, what with the flash flooding. The water was halfway up the tires of our van in some intersections. I never saw rain like this in our 35 years here.
We arrived to this when we got home. That is our front yard veggie garden.
There was no hail in the part of town our office building is in, but our home neighborhood got nailed. The hail was about 1/2 inch in diameter. I think much of the garden is lost.
The rhubarb didn’t fare too well, either
This is disappointing, to say the least. We still have some cabbage plants and cantaloupes to put out, and I think the chard, kohlrabi, and peas are ok. Tomatoes, peppers, and pole beans may be lost. It is too early to say. We never had a hail storm like this, either, so I don’t know how plants recover after something like this.
Husband will be in Bismarck today, and is going to Lowes to check for tomato and pepper plants. There aren’t many bedding plants left in our greenhouses here.
Got any hail stories? How do you handle disappointments?
I drove home yesterday from Howard Lake, MN in seven hours. Google tells me it is 496 miles. The speed limit varied between 55-60 MPH on Highway 12 between Howard Lake and I-94 at Sauk Center, to 75 MPH once I got out of Fargo.
I tend to drive 5 MPH higher than the speed limit if I can. It isn’t so high that a Highway Patrol would care about me, but fast enough that I can make good time. I admit my MPH got up to 90 as I passed some slow coaches here and there, I haven’t had a speeding ticket in 30 years.
I was probably too tired to drive safely once I made it to Bismarck, but my, was I ready to get home. The temperature dropped to 62° as I entered western ND in early afternoon. I understand it is a little warmer in MN!
How many speeding tickets have you had? What is the fastest you have driven? How do you keep cool in heat waves?
Corn is up! The first stuff was planted Saturday the 14th, saw it poking out of the ground Wednesday, the 25th.
I planted it 2.5” deep. I’ve heard a lot of guys saying they only went about 1 ¾” deep because it’s late. Valid point, however, there’s a lot of summer and fall to go yet before we know what the crop will amount to. You don’t want it too shallow or it won’t develop the brace roots later on.
Remember, corn grows out of the seed and the growing point on the corn is still down in the seed and will be for several weeks yet.
A soybean pushes the seed up out of the ground as it grows.
Been cool and rainy the last few days. A wet chicken is a pathetic looking creature. Especially the roosters with their tail feathers all flopped over. Missed the photo, but trust me. They look terrible. With the hot weather predicted, everything will take off.
I need about one day yet to finish planting soybeans, whenever it dries up. I had the co-op spread fertilizer for the soybeans and it was incorporated with pre-emergence herbicide. That’s the best way to do soybeans; a pre-emerge spray for grasses, then a later application for broadleaves and whatever else is growing. Never used this method before so I hope it works.
Most guys, after planting soybeans, they go over the field with a big roller to press the rocks down into the dirt, and firm up the seed bed, and just level out the field so that you can cut closer to the ground when harvesting this fall. I don’t have a roller, but last year I used a drag and went over the field to kind of do the same thing, or at least, level it off. This year, I was just trying to get everything planted first and then was going to go over it. Now that there’s about two weeks between the first field and the last field, the first field might already be growing and I don’t want to hit that with the drag as it would rip all the plants out. So that may not get done this year.
Using my ag cameras system again to monitor the beans in the drill. It’s pretty slick.
We got the baby chicks outside on Friday. Kelly built an awesome fence and I sat in the gator and offered unsolicited advice.
The lilacs are lovely this year.
We’ve lost one of the black ducks and that’s a bummer, we really like them.
I’m leasing straw bales to a friend to use for seating at his daughters wedding. We really hope the weather is nice, both for getting the bales picked up here, lying on the ground there, and picking them up again after the wedding and returning to me. We don’t want them rained on.
It’s been pretty quiet here this week with all the rain. Not much to report.
Kelly’s Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bill used to have a big picnic and all the families were there. We tried to keep it up after they passed but people get busy and, well, it doesn’t happen anymore.
Well, as I write this, we’ve had one nice sunny day. Finally got some ground worked up. It does dry faster once you open it up, but it’s pretty sticky yet. It is always interesting to me how different soil conditions can be in the same field. I took the ‘First Day of Spring Work’ selfie, packed my tractor snacks, and had my tractor buddy.
I did plant one field of oats; it wasn’t perfect but at least it’s in the ground. Hopefully the weather stays sunny and nice as predicted, and I will finish oats. The co-op called me and we’re coordinating corn fertilizer. Things are moving! Doing some tweaks on the new camera system inside the drill, but I think it’s going to be pretty neat. The photos show the empty tank, and then with seed getting low.
I have one neighbor whose fields are adjacent to mine. Met them along the fence line so we talked for a few minutes. Not any drier on his side of the fence.
Baby chicks are looking good. They’re about Robin sized. We moved them to a bigger pen and I got them a bigger feeder. All they do is eat and drink.
I found a nest behind a building. It’s a mix of duck eggs and chicken eggs. I’m not quite sure what I’m gonna do about that yet. If I want them to have the best chance at hatching and surviving, I need to collect them all and put them in an incubator. I’ve already got a pen of baby chicks, so I’d have to find another pen for this batch. I can try to let the mama hatch them, and then moving them somewhere safe, but that means keeping an eye on her and the nest and trying to catch them some morning when they’re all on the loose (before the dogs catch them).
Happy Birthday on the 6th to my wife. Happy Mothers day, too!
Chomping at the bit. I think this is a horse reference, right? I’m not a horse person but I’ve heard this phrase my whole life; I can see a horse chomping at a bit in my mind’s eye and I can certainly understand the feeling. Something between your teeth that is driving you nuts and you can’t do anything about it. I’m right there.
Although we’ve had a couple of superb days, the wait for days warm enough for gardening has been tough. It’s been too cold (and/or rainy) to get out and do anything. A few mornings last week as I was fertilizing and watering my bales, I felt like an idiot out there. One of the mornings, it wasn’t even above freezing and it seemed like a fool’s errand to be preparing bales when I was sure it would be at LEAST 2 weeks until I could plant (I almost always plant on Mother’s Day).
YA and I did hit Bachman’s on Sunday, but all the flowers and veggies are in their little pots, sitting on the front porch in those cardboard boxes that Bachman’s uses. They’ll have to be watered a couple of times before we get to planting.
I’ve been busy enough at work that I couldn’t take any days off this week and both of my upcoming weekend days have an engagement right in the middle of the day! So I either go out and get dirty, get cleaned up, then go out later and get dirty again or I only get work done in the yard in the morning or the afternoon. Maddening.
What spring routines are you chomping at the bit to get to?
After last week’s blog title, “April, Not Farming Yet”, I got to thinking, I really am “farming” every day. I could say I’m not “planting” yet or not “doing field work” yet, but it’s a bit of a misnomer to say I’m not “farming”. And this week, I’m still not out in the field and I still haven’t planted anything. The co-op spread oat fertilizer Thursday afternoon and while the fields weren’t very dry, I was going to try Friday morning to get them worked up and then plant Friday afternoon. Then we got an inch of rain Thursday night. Again. I don’t wanna complain about it raining, but I would like to get something planted.
I have been getting things greased up and ready to go: checked tires, pulled the drill from the shed to the barn and back again to be sure all the chains were moving and it appears to be working.
I pulled a muscle in my lower back while clambering under the soil finisher checking tires. Every year that job gets harder. Kneeling on the gravel is no fun either. And trying not to use the one shoulder too much. And the one knee hurts anyway. It was kinda funny all the noises I made under there.
Got the camera’s working in the drill box, just need to finish securing cables. It sure is something to think it takes a week for a letter to go across town, but I can order rubber grommets from Amazon and get them from Louisiana the next day. Or the extension cable from Ohio the next day.
I took the new rear blade out to grade our driveway. There is a real skill and art involved in maintaining gravel roads and my hats off to the grader operators who can do it well. I can’t. I know how you’re supposed to do it and I understand the principle of the thing…but I sure can make a mess of it.
OK, the first grading of the spring is never good anyway. Some of that is my fault, some is just the way it is. This first grading, even on our township roads, one of the things is to cut down the edge, so rain water will run off the sides and not down the road. Plus, that pulls back in some of the gravel that got moved off the road by the snow plow. However this also brings a lot of dirt and grass onto the road. Typically, the good grader guys will leave this mess off to one side, and in a couple weeks it will have broken down and it can all be graded back into the road.
I got this new rear blade that can offset, angle, and tilt up and down. All by hydraulics. Three functions! I only have two hydraulics. (I’m hoping to add a third hydraulic to this tractor.) Plus it’s much heavier and cuts much better than my old blade. It sure did cut the edges down! And drag it into the middle of the road. And raising the right edge angled this way, is backwards when angled the other way and watching the left edge. I had my hands full. And it’s all behind me. And I sure made a mess of the road.
It will be better when I grade it again in a couple weeks. Fingers crossed. Kudos to Parm, our township grader operator.
New chicks are doing well. Growing and eating a lot. Duck numbers are holding. Had a concert at the college and prepping for commencement in two weeks.
This photo is the ‘patch’ for the lighting we’ll be using for commencement.
This right here is about the most important information I will use all week. It tells me everything about the lights and how to hook them up and make them work.
Made a mess of anything lately? What’s the most important thing in your life this week?
Trail Baboon 