WordPress, for all its various issues, is good about keeping track of statistics. They send me emails every month which I usually just blow off. Since the point of the Trail is not to increase traffic and make a big deal of ourselves, it doesn’t seem like we need to pay too much attention.
We are up to 13,524 subscribers. This isn’t as exciting as it sounds… it just means that at some point in the past decade, 13K folks have hit the subscribe button. It does not mean that 13K folks are reading the trail every day. Far from it. But we still have readers from all over the globe – in fact, we have had a “Like” from Mongolia in the past six months – that’s new.
The most fun news is that the Farm Reports are by far the most popular bits on the trail. For the past six months, the most viewed, liked and commented post of each month belongs to our Ben! I even got WordPress to cough up the most popular post of the last year. You guessed it. September 10, 2022 – Is It Fall Already?
So kudos to Ben for livening up the trail every weekend and for giving us all a fabulous picture of farm life!
We have had a proliferation of these rental electric scooters around town, and the police wanted to remind the public that there are certain ordinances to be followed when operating them. You have to be at least 14 to drive one. If under 18 you need to wear a helmet. You can’t drive on the sidewalk, and you have to ride on only 2-lane streets. DUI laws are applicable, and you have to ride as close to the curb as possible.
I never got into skateboards. I had roller skates that you attached to your shoes with a crank key. My main mode of transportation was my bicycle until I was old enough to drive. Husband rode a bicycle longer than I did, since he didn’t get his drivers license until he was 21.
What are your experiences on skate boards, roller skates, electric scooters, or electric bicycles? What was it like for you to get your first drivers license?
Finished baling straw this week. Terrible yields there too. Got 320 small square bales total, and it should have been 1000 bales off 20 acres.
It is what it is. Everything worked well and it’s nice straw. Kelly and I unloaded one load, I’ve go the last 100 bales stacked in a wagon for the strawberry farm that buys it, and there’s one load in the shed yet that we’ll get unloaded next week.
I am going to plant a cover crop this year on the oat ground. With the hail we had, there should be plenty of oats there to germinate and re-seed, but rye actually produces deeper roots and is a good cool season crop, so there should be a good winter cover. the same program that was paying for oats this year (separate from the ‘food grade’ oats program) is paying for cover crops. It’s funded by the USDA.
Every time i take my boots off this year, I’m leaving a trail of oats or straw chaff in my wake. Occupational hazard, i guess. I’ve got a cordless Dewalt vacuum in the mudroom specifically for this reason.
Walking on stacked bales is a bit of a challenge. It’s better when they’re stacked proper and tight, but that doesn’t always happen and I was curious how it would go for me and my new knee. And it went pretty well!
I was probably 16 or 17 when Dad announced his sore feet wouldn’t allow him to walk on the bales anymore and I was given the important job of stacking hay bales in the barn. Anyone can unload the bales and put them on the elevator, but stacking, that’s special and takes some skill. Right Clyde? (Or did you only handle loose hay?)
Basically, when stacking, you alternate the direction of the row, and you get the bale in place, then give it a good shove with your knees. Repeat several hundred times. Course, maybe you’re working 3 or 4 rows high in a corner and depending how much room there is as the bales come off the elevator into the hay loft, depends how fast you need to keep moving. All this to say, it was a big deal when Dad had me take over stacking. Just as big of deal it was last year when I wasn’t able to stack myself and my brother did it. The bales got in there, but walking over them the rest of the fall, winter, and this summer reminded me of the skills he missed out on over the years.
The one day last week, just as they finished combining oats, and it rained pretty hard and I had run up the road with the gator to open the truck tarp so the combine could dump the last of the oats. The dogs came running up with me and neither one of them likes the rain. They scrambled into the gator, and they sat in there for 20 minutes after we got home while I was out doing other stuff.
The young guineas are out and learning their ways. Festus, the guinea with the bad leg seems to have disappeared. We knew he’d have a tough time of it and we don’t know what became of him.
Here was a big ragweed plant growing out of the side of the silo, about 8’ in the air. ‘Was’ because I plucked it right after taking this photo.
The first few days at the college have been rough this year. Something about a ‘licensing issue’ means I don’t have access to Outlook, Word, Excel, or any of those Microsoft programs. Plus it seems like my computer – heck, none of the computers, want much to do with me. It’s been a rough few days.
MOTIVATIONAL POSTERS. DO THEY WORK FOR YOU? SEEN ANY GOOD ONES?
Medora, ND is a tourist town about 40 miles west of us that capitalizes on its connection to Theodore Roosevelt, who lived on a ranch near there in his younger days. It is on the border of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The town has an Old West feel, with a homespun outdoor musical every night in the summer, stores that sell Western memorabilia, and trail rides. They also have people dressed as important figures from the town’s history, including Teddy Roosevelt and the Marquis de Mores, a French beef packing scoundrel. Every night at the musical, a local cowboy on an actual horse reenacts Teddy’s charge up San Juan Hill. The commercialization of Medora was the brain child of a wealthy North Dakota businessman, Harald Schafer, who owned the company that manufactured Mr. Bubble bath soap. He wasn’t that well liked in town, though, for some reason. His son became governor.
I read recently that there are about 60 people in the US who are Teddy Roosevelt reenactors. This summer, three of them were in Medora. One lives there all year long. They all work simultaneously in the summer. At least one is a young Teddy. The other two portray him when he is older. They walk around town and talk to people and get their pictures taken and seem to have a great time.
If you were to be a reenactor, who would you want to portray? What is your favorite bubble bath?
The other day we got a call on our landline from a neighbor on the next block letting us know that the Postie delivered our Bismarck Tribune to her house instead of our house. We walked down to get the paper, and realized that neither of us remembered exactly what house the neighbor lived in. Husband asked someone in the yard next to the place we thought was the correct house if that was where she lived. The person indicated it was and then said “Oh, you are the people with the wild garden”.
I suppose our garden does look pretty wild in comparison with the tame and typical lawns and flower beds in the rest of the neighborhood. It looks particularly wild these days now that the butternut squash and cantaloupes are running amok. The butternuts are taking over the flower bed on the north side of the driveway.
If you look closely toward the back of the last photo, you can see cantaloupe vines growing up the red rose close to the house
This is the view from the street looking south and west.
The pole beans look sort of wild, I think.
My last name, Boomgaarden, conjures up visions of exploding vegetables and flowers, although the name is just the Dutch word for apple orchard. I suppose there are worse things to be know for than having a wild garden.
What are you known for in your neighborhood? How has your mail delivery been lately? Any garden updates?
Daughter came up with an interesting proposal for a winter family gathering this year. She thinks that we should go to Hawaii with her, her brother, and his wife, and all take a class being offered there in November to become Certified Barbeque Competition Judges. I don’t know how much call there is for Barbecue Judges, or how rigorous the one day training is. I suppose we could fine other things to do as long as were there. I would rather go to Paris and work with a master baguette maker.
Ever since I lived in Canada I giggle whenever I hear that something or someone is certified, as it has a different meaning in Canada and England than it does in the States. Those who we call Certified Public Accountants are called Chartered Public Accountants in Canada, as being “certified” there can mean that you have been declared seriously mentally ill, and may have been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. Perhaps one would have to be a little crazy, though, to become a barbeque judge.
What would you like to become certified as? What are your experiences with judges or being a judge?
I know I’ve talked about this topic before, but it’s fascinating when I see glimpses of myself in YA. She is in Dublin for two+ weeks for work and the morning of her flight, I found the clipboard (in the photo above) sitting on the counter downstairs. In an interesting twist on the apple-not-falling-far-from-the-tree, I note that she has used three colors of highlighters. I am a one-highlighter gal when it comes to my lists; it looks like the yellow highlighter is for her backpack but I’m not sure about the fuchsia or even the dots.
My list-making has evolved in the past couple of months. My weekly spreadsheet went by the wayside around the holidays last year; it was a gradual decline but I realized it wasn’t doing it for me any longer. I actually went “list-less” for several months with the occasional list of errands on a post-it or groceries on my phone’s note app.
Then a few weeks ago, after I re-retired, I wrote out a list of things for the next day. Just on a pad of paper I had laying around and only a few items, nothing that is part of my regular routine. It felt nice to take a highlighter to the list at the end of the day so I did another list for the next day. Again – just written by hand and just a few items. It’s become my new routine — for the most part. There have been a few days with no list and I survived!
YA doesn’t do daily lists (that I ever see anyway) but it’s nice to have evidence that every now and then she’s takes a page from my playbook.
Would you rather have a pet dragon or a pet unicorn?
Husband and I attended the Twin Buttes Community powwow on Saturday. It was truly a celebration, as the community had just finished a new powwow grounds. Powwows are held in circular structures called arbors. The new arbor is rain proof, yet open, with bleachers and space for the drum circle groups and lawn chairs for observers. The new arbor has astroturf for the dancers. There is also a new rodeo grounds/ race track.
Twin Buttes has mainly Arikara and Mandan natives. It is a progressive community planning a new medical clinic, assisted living facility, and Native run boarding school. Our Native friends are so proud of the accomplishments.
There are protocols to follow at powwows, especially those involving the photographing of dancers. You must get permission from the individual dancers to take their photos. Husband was scolded for walking the wrong way around a drum circle in the arbor, as it was considered disrespectful to the drum. He apologized profusely.
I am so happy to share with Baboons actual videos taken at the powwow and posted on Facebook by our dear Natve friend. I have always refrained from filming at powwows. I figure if he posts it on Facebook for all and sundry to see and share, it is ok for me to share with all of you. You will see Men’s Grass dance. Women’s Jingle dance, and Men’s Fancy dance.
Sunday afternoon and evening, Monday night, and Tuesday night I was in Chatfield finishing lighting for ‘Hello Dolly’. Wednesday night Kelly and I sat on the deck and we each had a beer, and we ate re-heated cheese curds, and it was nice. Thursday night I raked straw until 9PM.
I got a new iPhone last week. It sat in the box, unopened, for a few days as I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it. I finally got it activated and I’m still trying to get the Bluetooth synced to the tractor radios and there are random passwords that didn’t carry over and I didn’t write down. Plus, some text messages don’t give me a tone while others do. And this is why I don’t like change; it is just such a hassle.
The week was filled with a lot of random activities.
The teenage chicks were out of their fence more than they were in, so we just took the fence down and let them have at it. They are loving it.
A helicopter sprayed fungicide on our corn; he was fun to watch swooping around.
I smacked myself in the side of the jaw because of the ‘kick-back’ from a 5/8″ drill and the plastic side handle; it bled a bit. And hurt for a day or two. No photo of the blood trickling down my chin.
I cleaned up more behind the shed; it had become an out of the way place to dump stuff and pretty soon the box elder trees were 30 feet tall. It didn’t start with me, Dad started it. I certainly contributed to it over the years, but it ends now. The plan is to get the stumps out and be able to mow back there. And eventually build a ‘lean-to’ in order to park some machinery back there under cover.
I finished cutting oats last Saturday. Kelly took this photo.
After the electrician buried the electric line and we got that inch of rain, the trench settled some, as expected. We used the tractor and ran the tires over the trench to pack it a bit more, and then the clay gave way, and it was stuck.
Notice the guineas inspecting the situation.
It wasn’t stuck so bad at first, but I had to see if I could get it out. I should know better. They say when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. Using the other tractor pulled it right out mostly unharmed. Or, at least, nothing permanently harmed…The tire guy was out on Monday, and I was able to straighten the step, and all is right again.
Between the machine shed and the home office where Kelly works, is a large maple tree. Conveniently, it blocks her view of the shop and machine shed and things I’m doing. As Brent Olson would say in his column ‘Independently Speaking’, I don’t always need a witness and I often look to see if she can see me before I do something questionable. And yes, that also means sometimes I need to call her to get me out of a situation. I am still working inside the shed. Started putting 2×4’s on the walls in order to attach the wall steel. The bills have started coming in so we’re done spending money on it for this year.
I used the fancy grapple bucket and pulled all the loose straw out of the pole barn and I’ll re-bale it before heading out to the field with the baler. It’s kind of a lot of work for the 10 or 12 bales I get, but it needs to be done. (Mice get in the straw and, for some reason, 90% of the time, only chew through one string of a bale.)
Speaking of the grapple bucket, technically it’s called a ‘rock bucket’ because it’s like a giant sieve- with a claw. I’ve used it for hauling trees and brush and straw, I’ve picked up junk machinery with it and just the other day realized I could actually pick up rocks with it! Scoop up a pile of dirt, let all the dirt sift out, and then dump the rocks somewhere else! How about that!?
Half my oats were combined on Thursday. The test weight is OK at 38 lbs / bushel, but the yield is terrible. Once finished I’ll have an accurate number. Hopefully they can finish combining Friday as they’re talking rain this weekend. I was out Thursday evening raking the straw windrows double in preparation for baling on Friday. The oat plant was short this year, so there isn’t much of a windrow. That’s why I was raking two into one, to make better baling conditions and less trips around the field.
I was using the old 630 tractor and rake. This used to be one of the main tractors on the farm and it was used every day for hauling manure, pulling wagons, cultivating corn, planting crops, picking corn; all sorts of farm jobs. You can see how open it is and the rear tires right next to me. It was a tractor similar to this that ran over my brother when his jacket got snagged by the tire and pulled him off.
I’ve spent a lot of time on this tractor bundled up in winter coat and gloves.
But that was a pretty nice day to be out there. I wear hearing protection. Lots of farmers were deaf in their left ear, because they turned their heads to look over their right shoulder watching the machine behind them.
Some people call these tractors ‘Johnny Poppers’ as their large diameter piston and two-cylinder engines make a distinctive popping sound.
I’m back to work at the college on Monday. Classes start on the 21st. I’ve signed up for class 1118 Reading and Writing Critically II. It’s all online, which I still don’t like so well, but I know the teacher and she’s good.
Our son and DIL and grandson were in Alabama last week for the baptism of our DIL’s niece. I was glad our grandson got to spend time with his only cousin. It was really hot there, though, and between the weather and the politics, Son said he could never live there. I wish our grandson had cousins who lived closer.
I remember summers as the best times to hang out with my cousins. We all lived within 30 miles of each other. As an only child, my cousins were the closest people I had to siblings, and I got to spend weeks in the summers at their various farms. They all lived on farms. They were mainly boys, and I learned how to set gopher traps and set off fire works and play rough and tumble football and baseball. We played and messed around and had a great time. When I was in Middle School and High School I spent summers with a married cousin and she taught me to sew for 4-H.
The other day, Son was filling up his car with gas in Pipestone, MN where many of my cousins lived, and saw a really tall, thin, older blond man filling up his car. He looked like one of my relatives, and after Son introduced himself, it turned out he was one of my cousins, who asked when I was moving back to Minnesota! He lives in Norfolk, NE, and he is going to move back, too, when he retires. I don’t think he still traps gophers.
Where in the US wouldn’t you want to live? If you had cousins, what did you like to do with them? What are some of your favorite summer memories from childhood?
Trail Baboon