It’s still January in Minnesota and temps are back to normal. I got the car washed a second time just as the cold temps hit and then I went to the gas station and the fuel door is a little bit frozen and I wished I had arms long enough to push the button on the dash and jiggle the fuel door at the same time. Almost wished for the days of regular screw in gas caps.
Last Friday afternoon I discovered a pinhole leak in a water valve in the well house on the pipe going to the barn. I thought there was a little more water on the floor than there should have been and this explains why. It’s always a little damp in there. I just turned off the valve, thanked goodness there wasn’t a barn full of cattle or anything so this isn’t an emergency and called a plumber for Tuesday. $200 later I have a new valve. I regret a little bit that I didn’t just fix this myself…but I hate plumbing and this looked corroded and I really didn’t want to get involved. Work smarter, not harder.
I learned about locks this week. One of the theaters got a new door last Summer, complete with new lock and key. It was decided now was a good time to change out the locks on the other doors to match. I did one lock last week and one lock this week. “Lukus” at the lock shop was very helpful! The first lock was pretty easy. The second one took me three trips to Lukus and I learned to ask more questions. Almost had to make a fourth trip but I found the tiny little set screw I dropped out on the cement. Locks are really interesting to the un-initiated.
We bought some bagels the other day. After the first day, I preferred my bagels toasted. We cut them in half horizontally so there’s a top and bottom. I asked Kelly which side she ate first? We both generally eat the bottom first, then the top. It’s like, do you want the good news first or the bad.
The poofy head ducks are having bad hair days in this cold weather.
Cold water and crazy hair doesn’t work too well.
“LUKUS”- What interesting spelling. Got a favorite or unusual name?
As you all know, I have an ancient house; it is not the easiest to heat. Ten years ago, when the Airport Commission replaced our upstairs windows, the house became harder to heat evenly7. The windows are not only great sound abatement but they hold the hot air in really effectively. This means that during really cold weather, the temperature difference between the downstairs and the upstairs is significant.
On Sunday morning, I lingered upstairs, reading longer than usual and I noticed that it was chillier than usual. Since it was well below zero outside, I didn’t think too much about it but as I descended the stairs for breakfast, it felt like I was entering a walk-in cooler. A quick look at the thermostat gave me a little shock… 56 degrees. We have one of those set-back thermostats and it is set quite cold during the night (since we’re in the warmer upstairs, asleep under covers) but the program has it set to start warming up at 6 a.m. At this point it was after 8 and it still hadn’t warmed up at all.
I started to panic – I always feel like I’m on the edge where house maintenance is concerned and I envisioned days of frozen fingers and toes. Then I remembered that I’d had someone out to do boiler maintenance at the end of the summer – so it didn’t seem likely that it was a boiler fail. And THEN I remembered that quite a few years back, someone coming out to check the heat had discovered that the batteries in my thermostat had died. Since I can’t remember any time (in years) that I’ve changed those batteries, I thought I would try that.
I spent a couple of hours checking and re-checking the temperature and the radiators, studiously NOT turning on the oven or the space heater so I could be sure any rise in temp was due to the boiler alone. It took about 2 ½ hours to get up to 65, at which point I finally breathed a sigh of relief. I congratulated myself on figuring out the problem on my own.
Monday morning was a splash of cold water in my face. When I went downstairs, it was 56 degrees again. After a few seconds of panic, I realized that it was only 6:15 – there hadn’t been enough time for it to warm up yet. This didn’t keep me from checking several times over the next hour until I was sure everything was fine. Phew!
When was the last time you got it right but didn’t trust that you got it right?
Husband and I left Brookings, SD yesterday to get back home to Southwest North Dakota. We typically go north from Brookings through Fargo, and then west on I-94, but there was a pesky snow storm in the James River Valley in Jamestown and Vally City that would have been distressing to drive through, so we chose a southern route on Highway 212 to Gettysburg, SD and then north to the Interstate just east of Bismarck.
Husband grew up in Wisconsin. He misses the Midwest with its small farms and rain. He spent our time through South Dakota gauging where the red barns ended and the terrain got flat. There, he declared, was close enough to the 100th Parrellel to say that is where the Great Plains begin, and his Midwest ended. I don’t know where the last of the red barns comes into this. I was just glad to be back home, no matter what colors the barns were.
For where do you yearn? Where do you think the Midwest is? What snowstorms have you driven through?
We spent yesterday anxiously watching the weather and spending our last day with our grandson. Daughter in law made Spritz cookie dough, and grandson and I sprinkled them with colored sugars. We only had pastels, and no Christmas colors, but he certainly didn’t mind. The dog hung out under our stools and gobbled up what ever we dropped. A good time was had by all.
Grandson likes doing things with us. He is a champion builder and train operator, shaping his wooden train tracks into interesting shapes and making up stories about the train trip with himself as the conductor. Many books were read, especially “We’re going on a Bear Hunt” by Helen Oxenbury. It was read multiple times, and was a sure bet for getting him all revved up.
I had good experiences with both sets of my grandparents, and I feel very fortunate to have had them around into my adult years. I am grateful that our grandson isn’t allowed to watch much TV or videos, and is always eager to do things with us instead of sitting around, exhausting as it may be.
What do you remember about your grandparents or older adults in your life? What did you like to do with them? What do you like to do with small children? What are your favorite holiday cookies?
Last week this time we were preparing for a blizzard, and this week we had record high temperatures and tornadoes and extreme winds. If you’re smart enough to pay attention to the weather extremes going on you would call it global warming. Or you could just shake your head and say, well that’s different. Oh, it was different all right. I’d rather not have to go through that again.
I was glad the snow melted, I really just wanted the banks to melt down on the sides of the road. Guess I should be more specific about what I wish for. White Christmas or brown Christmas won’t bother me.
From the winds, we have a lot of branches down. We have an old maple tree in the front yard. A branch falls off if you look at it funny so it lost several in the winds. I have some trees down around the fields, some minor damage to some of the buildings, and most of the snowfence is gone. None of that is serious. I spent a few hours out with the Townboard guys clearing trees off township roads. I saw a couple trampolines folded in half, I saw metal roofing of a house peeled up over the top. You know if it’s windy down in our valley, it’s really windy out in the open.
I was supposed to have a choir concert at the college last Friday night. We postponed it to Monday. It was a very nice concert. The photo up top is my view from the booth with the Lighting Console as I programmed. It was nice of Santa to stop in at the concert on Monday.
End of the financial year here so I am settling up with the neighbors. I mentioned a week or two ago about pre-paying some fertilizer and doing tax planning for next year. My neighbors that do the combining and hauling of my crops sent their bill. Combining soybeans is $38 per acre. Corn is $39 per acre. And it’s eight cents per bushel to haul. They also made some round bales of straw at $13 per bale and I sold them 200 bushels of oats at $3.58 per bushel. I’ll be writing them a check for $7310. It’s a lot of money, but it’s cheaper than owning my own equipment and having the time to do it. And the neighbors with the cattle here, they pay rent on the pasture, I pay them to combine the oats, and they will buy the round bales of straw. I did some work for them and we pretty much balance out at the end of the year.
The chickens appreciate the snow melting. You can see them here gathered in a bare spot last week.
They don’t like the snow, they’ll walk over a little, but nothing deep. Except one white chicken. Evidently her feet don’t get cold. There were a few days last week when she was the only one out. Maybe she just doesn’t get along well with the others. She is kind of ornery, biting Kelly twice when she tried to collect eggs. Bad move chicken, bad move.
The MRI on my shoulder last week showed massive tears. Still waiting on the surgery consultation. Some days it hurts more than others. If I’m going to have surgery done, I’d really like it sooner than later. In the meantime, I wait. I remember reading in a John Irving book a phrase something like, “Does anyone in love ever want to ‘wait and see?’ “
How do you feel about waiting? How many other heteronyms do you know?
Sure been a nice week weather-wise. Temps In the 50’s the last few days. Ten-day forecast has the temps in the mid 30’s and no snow. I’m OK with that. My apologies to anyone waiting for snow.
Kelly and I got snowfence up the other day so there’s another thing checked off my list. Glad to have that done.
There was a little wind to contend with and the cowpies were mostly dry.
Daughter and I did driveway markers. It was colder than I expected that day and she’s not a fan of the wind. Nice that Bailey could keep her company.
They kept me company inside the gator, too.
I was feeding the ducks one morning and that chicken came running from the pole barn, so she’s still back there laying eggs. .Way in the back, down in a corner. I’m still hoping she gets tired of this as the weather gets colder.
Last weekend I redid a few things in the chicken coop. I put the back wall back in place. (I take it off for more ventilation in the summer) and I changed their perches and got the water buckets and heated pad situated for winter.
It’s odd, they barely use that rear nest box for eggs, often preferring the front unit. One hen must be molting. She looks really rough right now.
I don’t know if her feathers are going to come in a different color than she was? She used to look like the chicken in the front. Boy, hang in there, girl. Egg production is a little down; the old ones are starting to taper off and the new hens are just getting started.
End of the year finances: I’ve paid off our production loans from this years inputs and prepaid some expenses for next year. It’s funny; we have a good year and actually make some money, but it’s tough to save much because taxes will take a big chunk. I know taxes are important and provide a lot of services, but golly. It feels like throwing money in a hole in the ground. I went to the co-op and paid $900 for the grid soil sampling.
Paid $2800 for the lime and applications on half the farm. Prepaid for 4 tons of fertilizer for next year $3400 (again, maybe half of what I’ll need). They don’t have anhydrous nitrogen prices yet and they figure chemicals prices will hold steady so I didn’t pay on them. Easy come, easy go. Sometime before the end of the year I’ll get seed ordered for next year. That also becomes a deduction on this years taxes. Don’t have to pay for it yet, just get it ordered.
Remember getting your first check book? What was the first thing you bought? I bought a Timex Watch and you had to push the button so the time would show up in Red.
It sure has been windy the last few days. No matter what the temperature is, a wind like this makes it colder. I’m lucky we haven’t had trees down over our road or any of the township roads… knocking on wood.
Ducks and chicken numbers are status quo. But I’ve noticed the black and white ducks are getting a green tint on their heads.
A little research shows they’re “Black Swedish” breed. Back this summer I ordered ‘Mixed Ducklings’ so really didn’t have any idea what I was getting. The cream colored ones are “Saxony” and the ones with the pouf are “White Crested” of course. And the ones that look like mallards but are a little heavier and don’t fly are “Rouen”. It seems odd to me they don’t lay nearly as many eggs as the chickens. Just seems like they should be laying more than they do… usually come spring I might get one or two ducks that lay eggs for a while. Usually out in the middle of the yard. Then it depends if me or Bailey finds them first.
And now that the weather is cooling the turkeys have started grouping up. It won’t be unusual to see a group of 30 or 40. Saw this bunch in the fields yesterday
Dumb turkeys… Once there is snow cover, they’ll be down in the yard eating under the bird feeders in the backyard and trying to get the corn I put out for the ducks and chickens. The dogs love chasing them away, but those stupid turkeys are smart too. They know Humphrey is in the house and Bailey is sleeping out front, so they sneak in the back. And when we do chase them away, they’re back in a few minutes… rotten turkeys. I haven’t even mentioned the herds of deer.
I think most of the redwing black birds have moved on now. Caught a cool picture of them on a trailcam the other day.
I get pretty excited when the birds return in the spring. The Red Wing Blackbirds, the Killdeer, and, of course, our favorite, the barn swallows. Even the turkey vultures returning is another sign of spring.
The Co-op called; they finished the grid sampling and said I could go ahead and chisel plow now. My plan is to spend much of Saturday out doing that. Due to crop rotation, every other year will be more soybean acres than corn acres and soybean ground doesn’t need to be plowed up in the fall. This was a soybean heavy year, which means I don’t have all that many acres to work up. In the old days (the “old days”) it was done with the moldboard plow and it made the ground all black because it turned over ALL the residue and buried it. That black surface is great come spring because it allows the soil to warm up sooner and that’s still important. Then we started doing ‘Conservation tillage’ and leaving more residue on the surface, which is important to prevent wind and water erosion plus it conserves moisture underneath. But too much trash on the surface keeps the soil cooler and wetter come spring. Conservation tillage doesn’t use the moldboard plow, it uses a 4” wide twisted ‘Shovel’ to throw up some dirt, but not necessarily bury it completely. The Chisel plow I use is like that. The last few years the hot new term is ‘Vertical Tillage’. I’m still not sure exactly what it is. But there’s a whole new line of shiny equipment to help me do it!
Photo credit: TractorHouse
It’s more about cutting up the residue and burying it a little bit to help decomposition over winter, but again, not turning the surface black. And again, we do want at least a strip of black soil to warm up and dry out for earlier planting in the spring. So there are ‘strip till’ machines that can make a strip a few inches wide while doing the tillage. And then in the spring the idea is to plant into that same strip. You’ll really want GPS and auto guidance to make that work reliably.
I read an article the other day that The Honeyford grain elevator, North Dakota’s oldest cooperative elevator, is the first elevator south of the U.S.-Canadian border to load an 8,500-foot, 1.6 miles-long train. I only cross one set of railroad tracks between the college and my house. About 9:45 PM there’s a train that occasionally keeps me waiting. Some seem long, but not 1.6 miles I guess. It was interesting to read about the elevator and the train. Imagine the parking lot needed to handle that sheer number of cars let alone getting them filled! It just reminds me there are so many things that I don’t know I don’t know. It does say Honeyford Elevator is in the middle of the prairie and the nearest town is 3.5 miles away. Here’s the article: https://tinyurl.com/uys4s7rx
What’s the longest straight road you’ve been on or know of? I know one that’s 13.6 miles.
Weather has taken a definite turn toward fall. We got 1.72” Wednesday night into Thursday morning. Been seeing geese formation flying South. Rochester used to be famous for the thousands of Canada Geese. Then a few years ago goose poop got a bad rap, and the power plant closed so Silver Lake froze over, and they planted the shorelines to weeds, I mean “Native Vegetation” (some call it weeds) and the gathering of geese is discouraged. So there’s a handful that hang around, but not the thousands there used to be.
I had other stuff to do all week (work), but I took time off Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning so I could work on putting the new gearbox on the brush mower.
I got it installed, pounded out a dent and welded a crack in the ‘big round thing’ (the stump jumper) that goes underneath, added oil to the gearbox, pulled it outside, and had it idle for 20 seconds and then there was a CLUNK and the whole thing started to wobble. I was out of time; I parked it back in the shed and walked away.
The next day neighbor Dave needed to use the tractor so before I unhooked the mower, I crawled underneath it once more and I think I just got the washers on the wrong side of the bolts holding the blades, so they aren’t loose enough to swing. Therefore, one blade is stuck ‘in’ and one ‘out’ and it’s out of balance and it’s all wobbling. At least I hope that’s the issue. It looks like that’s really the only obvious issue.
As luck would have it, neighbors Craig and Darryl got our corn harvested Wednesday afternoon. I was busy all day and never got home to see them doing it. But that doesn’t matter; it’s done! The local co-op, where I have it taken, recently merged with another co-op and their website, which was pretty good, is even better! I can get information on the loads, minutes after they’re delivered! Other years I had to wait until it was all delivered, then call up there and have them look it up and give me all the details. Now I can see each load as it’s delivered and get all the details.
This photo shows the details of one load; Gross weight is the truck and corn, Tare is the weight of the truck, Net weight then is the actual corn. Converted to bushels (based on Test Weight) gives us gross units, then after taking into account moisture, damage, and foreign material gives us Net Units and that’s what we get paid for. Test weight is 60, which is really good because the standard for corn is 56. They need the moisture to be 15% to store long term and I pay drying costs for anything over that. The fact it’s 15.5% is really amazing! Most years it’s anywhere from 18% – 25% coming out of the field. The wetter, the more it costs to dry. This cost me $0.025 / bushel. And one load was even 14% so no drying costs. Plus price is really pretty good this year! Somewhere around $5 / bushel. It’s been $3 / the last several years. And the corn was wet so I was lucky to get $2.50 / bushel to take home.
Considering the low stand population this spring, the hot weather, the dry weather, and I really didn’t expect much of a yield. Turns out it was about average. Which is really surprising all things considered. And raises some interesting questions: was it the lack of competition of plants that allowed me to get an average yield? If that’s the case, shouldn’t I plant at a lower population every year? What if this year had better weather? I should try it next year I suppose, but given the changes in the weather year to year it’s still hard to compare. But it sure is interesting! I even put some corn in storage at the elevator to sell next spring. Maybe price will be better? Course I’ll be paying about $0.30 / bushel / month for the co-op to store it so will the price go up enough to cover that? Either way it’s just some extra money in March.
It was starting to sprinkle Wednesday afternoon about 2:30. I got home about 4:30 and it was raining pretty steady. But that didn’t stop me getting the tractor out and hooking up the chisel plow and I got a couple fields worked up.
Bailey and I had some quality tractor time. You can see the rain in the headlights. There’s a lot of mud on the steps and frame. It’s not really that muddy on the tires because the cornstalks make so much surface trash it gives me traction. But it was getting pretty soft by the time I quit. Actually, I was surprised it went as well as it did. I hope I have time to get things washed up before it really gets cold. Last week I mentioned waiting for the co-op to do soil samples and apply lime. Still waiting on that and they didn’t want me to plow until that was done. Too bad, so sad. I will just wait to lime this ground until next year. I wanted these fields plowed up this fall because it’s low ground, because it could be wet come spring, and because conditions may not be suitable to plow this in the spring, I always like to get this worked up in the fall. The new LED lights I put on the tractor are awesome! I only switched half of them, I should do the other half next spring. When plowing cornstalks with a minimum till implement, we go diagonal to the rows. My Dad and Clyde could just follow the row with the moldboard plow, but with minimum till, we go about 30° across the rows.
Neighbors Dave and Parm hauled out their beef cows Thursday.
Yesterday Dave hauled in a bunch of fence panels and left a load of silage in the cow yard and got all the cows and calves locked in the yard Wednesday afternoon. Then Thursday it was pretty easy for the guys to get them locked over in one section, back the trailer in, and haul them out. Took four trips to get them all. See the chicken in this photo? She’s been laying eggs out in the pole barn. But this morning she wasn’t sure if she could get there. I went out later and found her spot in the bales in the back corner and collected 2 eggs. As the weather gets colder, one of us will get tired of making the trek out there.
I spent some time looking up custom farm rates. I’ll be settling up with the neighbors at the end of the year so I’m trying to find rates for baling small square bales and the price of round bales of oat straw. And rates for combining corn and soybeans and hauling. Generally those rates come from the Iowa Extension service. Maybe they’ll be helpful for some of you. tim.
My annual wine advent calendar adventure was Wednesday morning. The experience was very similar to last year although I was #4 in line this year – one spot up from last year! All of us in the first ten were in festive moods, there were multiple conversations about the advent calendars, where we were all from and there was also shared chocolate!
I had only shared with one co-worker what I was up to on my day off but she clearly blabbed because yesterday, when I was in the office, quite a few people asked me about my adventure and wanted to see pictures. However curious they all were, everybody shook their heads and made comments on the unbelievable-ness/silliness of my endeavor. There was one lone gal who said it sounded fun and maybe she could join me next year. All others think I’m nuts.
Clearly there are plenty of folks who don’t think it’s too silly to sit out for 3 hours to get a wine advent calendar (the above photo was taken at 8:20 a.m.) but my co-workers aren’t among them.
I learned frugality at my mother’s knee so sometimes it’s hard for me to part with my hard-earned cash. I have a good friend who sometimes gives me grief about this. Her view of life is all about CPU… cost per use. If she purchases something and then uses it a lot, the CPU gets smaller and smaller. She taught this life view to YA early on, so I am exposed to the theory on a fairly regular basis.
The one place I have been good at applying CPU is with the Minnesota Zoo. I have an annual membership so when YA and I go to the zoo, we don’t have to pay anything. It’s obviously not free but it feels free at the time. We go enough that the annual membership is less than the full price and parking we would have to pay.
I have another friend who has been a supporter of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum for many years and have always urged me to get a membership. But at $60 I knew I’d have to go at least 4 times a year to justify the CPU. This past spring, this friend called me to tell me that the Arb was having a membership sale. Just $30 for the annual membership. Right up my alley.
Now that I don’t have to pay every time I go, I’ve been to the Arb a few times. Twice this summer I even parked myself in one or another garden with a good book. In October they had their annual Scarecrow exhibit so last weekend, I made some space in my Saturday and headed out. I strolled about, checking out how things are changing now that the big blooms of spring and summer are over. (I even got a gardening tip; I noticed that in the Peony garden, they have chopped the peonies back. This is not something I have ever done but the afternoon after my visit, I chopped all my own back!)
The scarecrows were a lot of fun. Most of them were up on the hill and it was almost like a fall festival – lots of kids and lovely autumn displays – not to mention a gorgeous sunny day. I normally take the tram ride but since it’s done for the season, I drove slowly along the Three Mile Drive myself with Enya playing on my phone. I’m sure it’s the lowest my blood pressure has been for years! They were starting to put up the lights for the Winter Lights Walk so as soon as I got home, I ordered tickets for that. The CPU will be seriously low this year.
I was thinking as I enjoyed my day that even if they raise the price of membership on me next year, I’ll probably renew anyway.
Trail Baboon 