Saturday, May 8, 2021

You Know you Live in the Country When…..

As some of you may recall, I am the reigning employee of the year here at Finken Farms. Such an honor comes with a lot of perks that I am taking full advantage of. 

For example, every once in a while Bob will buy donuts for everyone and they will let me have 4th choice after Bob, Chris and Dylan! And sometimes they let me ride in the cab of the truck when we go out to the field! Well, that is if Dylan’s dog Nova is not already in the back seat. Yup, being reigning employee of the year certainly has its perks!

Farm life continues this week with lots of field work. Most of my week was spent rolling and moving trucks around. Rolling gives you a lot of time to look around, contemplate life and listen to the radio. With guidance turned on in the tractor I just need to set up a course, get the tractor up to speed and push the guidance button. I can then take my hands off the wheel until I get to the end of the field where I turn around and do it all over again, and again, and again, and again……If I had to guess, I would say about 16+ hours of rolling this week.


With all this time to look around I was able to make a few observations about living in the country compared to say, the city or even the suburbs. So I added to my ongoing list of items that…. You Know you Live in the Country When….
  • Many of the intersections are uncontrolled. Meaning they have no signs telling the driver to yield, stop or anything else. But no one seems to get in an accident or even confused when two cars meet at the intersection.
  • The radio station you are listening to (on AM of course) lists all the birthdays, anniversaries and obituaries for the day.
  • You don’t think twice when the same radio station has dead air for 5-10 minutes and don’t even change the station.
  • When someone actually drives the speed limit you wonder why they are in such a hurry!
  • You take your puppy to the vet for their second set of puppy shots and a nail trim and you walk out with change from $40.
  • The neighbor gets a “new” truck and it is still almost as old as you!
  • You just change lanes and don’t even slow down for a cow in the road (well, you were only going 30mph to begin with).

A lot of those actually happened this week. I just don’t know how people can live in the city. And city folk don’t know how we can live in the country. Thank goodness we are not all alike! In fact, Zoey (I actually started to write Daisy and had to backspace) had her puppy checkup, her second set of shots and a nail trim this week. Total cost: $38. Tell me you can find that in the city! She gained a little over 3#’s since we picked her up.

She and Dakota have totally bonded now and Dakota is even playing with her, not just dragging her around!

Zoey also met another friend this week when Cheryl brought over her Rottweiler puppy Liesl. Those two played and ran around the house like crazy!

On a totally different subject Barb and I have been looking at ways to save our blogs in a format that will ensure we have them should blogger ever disappear. I had started copying them and saving them as pdf’s but that is cumbersome and I really do not like the look of it. Plus, you still had to go onto the computer if you physically want to look them up. I like the idea of saving them for two reasons: one is it serves as memories and a journal for us to remember things and two in the hopes that someday our grandkids will read them and get a kick out of what the grand-folks did back in the day. Well, Barb stumbled on a service the other day call Blog2print and I was wondering if anyone else has tried it. It is a service that converts your blogs into a book format that can either be saved electronically or in an actual book (or both) with minimal work. We have played with it and think we are going to try it in the physical book form to see how we like it. Not to sell, or even give away, just one copy for ourselves to page through when we are old and gray(er). We are starting with one year to see how we like it and will pass on our thoughts.

We had some guests here at the farm this week! Bob and Sue (Chris’ parents) came up for a few days and Bob’s brother Dan and his wife Jeanie who have a place about an hour away stopped by for a visit as well. We took an afternoon off and cooked some burgers on the grill. We only get to see them a time or three a year so it was good to see everyone and visit.

Barb was busy herself back at home. We had carpet installed in the upstairs bedroom and loft area. It is nice to finally have some type of flooring in other than plywood and concrete!

She also got together with Kevin, Cheryl, Dan and Bonnie to celebrate Dan’s birthday! They of course went to the Pringle Bar where Dan had to get his picture taken with the tiara and scepter. Now everyone has had their turn this year with their birthdays at the Pringle Bar…although Barb’s was probably the funniest and we were not even there!

So that is this week’s update from the country where the living seems so much more enjoyable and simpler. Unless, they put in a roundabout…. Then all hell breaks loose! Our friend Greg shared this on Facebook and I just had to share it!


Oh wait, one last late addition, I got word late today that they could not plant anymore until they get some moisture which does not show up in the 10 day forecast, so this farm boy is headed south tomorrow morning! Thanks Bob, DeAnne, Chris, Holly and Dylan for everything, see you in the fall!

36 comments:

  1. Those roundabout drivers must be from the UK! Those things are at almost every intersection over there and they are always clockwise. Love the new truck reference. Some folks are WAY out in the boonies, as their new tractors are older than me!

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    1. Sadly, that video was from Kentucky but maybe those Kentuckians had UK heritage!

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  2. I've used to use Blog2Print ... the books they make are really REALLY nice. My problem was that I just write too much. The cost of printing got to be expensive for me when they required not one, but THREE books just for one year. You can edit them, taking out pictures and even entire blogs if you wish. Definitely a good investment if you have grandkids.

    Life on the farm certainly was different in the "old" days. What do you mean you set up the guidance? We just lined up on that tree or fence post at the end of the row. There was heck to pay if you didn't make a straight line!! Congrats on Employee of the Year! I mean really ... donuts??? How cool is that!!

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    1. Our book is going to be about $100 but we only post about once a week or so, if we were to post every day or even a couple times a week it could get really spendy!

      The guidance takes control of the tractor steering. You set up the direction i.e. 90°, set up your implement width, in the case of the roller it is 51' with a 1' overlap, push the button and take your hands off the wheel. It will then take the tractor 90° (east) until you disengage it so you better not fall asleep or you will go though every fence in the county!

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  3. A wise man once told me that you live in a good place if you can pee off your front porch and no one cares or can see you. Love the country life

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    1. Except for the squirrels who seem to laugh at me. Really? If a squirrel is laughing at me .... never mind....

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  4. Glad you made it through another planting season. Those are some long days with lots to get done in a short amount of time. Confused about one thing with Zoey. What does 3hastags mean?

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    1. A lot of people use "#" as an abbreviation for pounds but historically, in different parts of the world, at different points in time, and for different applications, the pound (or its translation) has referred to broadly similar but not identical standards of mass or force.
      The libra (Latin for "scales / balance") is an ancient Roman unit of mass that was equivalent to approximately 328.9 grams. It was divided into 12 unciae (singular: uncia), or ounces. The libra is the origin of the abbreviation for pound, "lb".

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    2. That does clear things up a bit. Do you work as a fact checker? I would also like to add the symbol for the British currency but my computer won't let me. They refer to their dollars as pounds. Just more confusion in a confusing world.

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    3. You have to be technologically savvy in order to put the British sign for currency in a comment.

      The pound sign (£ or ₤) is the symbol for the pound sterling—the currency of the United Kingdom (UK). The same symbol is (or was) used for similarly named currencies in some other countries and territories,

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  5. The blog to book thing looks neat. Looks like more birthday fun and puppy fun! Carpet must feel good on the toes. Hey, how’s you get videos to work on your blog again? Mine won’t show up.

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    1. The hardest part for me is saving an existing Facebook video. After Googling it I found the best method is to replace the "www" with "mbasic" and hit enter. You can then right click and save it. As far as putting the video on the blog I just use the video icon right next to the picture icon and then select it and it appears.

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  6. We certainly love living in our small town. Life is quieter. I have always hated driving in the cities. Leaving Vancouver Island on the ferry to the "Big Smoke" to visit family always gave me a headache! With Covid we have not been over there for almost a year, and although we miss seeing our family we sure don't miss going. lol Glad to hear Dakota and Zoey are best friends now, so cute.

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    1. I hear you there! We drove an hour out of our way to avoid Chicago (and the nearly $100 in tolls) on our way to Pennsylvania.

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  7. Always nice to be appreciated when doing a good job.
    We prefer living in the country as well but there's limited housing out here.
    Looks like Zoey is enjoying her new lifestyle.
    Be Safe and Enjoy!

    It's about time.

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    1. It is possible to be country even in a bigger town, you just have to be more creative!

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  8. Totally agree on the small town feel over the big city. Here in the village of Logan Lake there are only a few stop signs.

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    1. Stop signs and no stop lights sounds like our kind of town. Better yet is if they have more bars than stop signs!

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  9. Back in late 90's I was going to visit Boston and was 'warned' about these 'Round-abouts'. Then I heard on the Click-n-Clack automotive repair show the following: "The car that has the right away in a round-about is the biggest, oldest car in the round-about at that moment." Bostonian's hated outsiders who would come into town and ruin their round-abouts.

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    1. Ha! That is funny but appropriate. I certainly would not want to piss off a Bostonian!

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  10. You guys are the yin to our yang. Polar opposites on so many things, but I think we'd get along famously over a couple beers. That is the nice thing about everyone being different, but finding their common ground too. We will always love cities and be most comfortable in them, but your $38 for puppy care argument does sound pretty convincing. Still... I like that in a city, I can get that puppy care, or people care, or emergency pizza, or anything else I need at 2:00 a.m. It's all about what you're used to, I think. Anyway, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the blog book. I'd like to do something like that as well.

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    1. If we are ever near each other we will have to meet in a medium sized town at a brewery then!

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  11. I print my blogs on the blog 2print and love having the hard copy. Yes it isn’t cheap....but it documents our travels.

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    1. We are about to hit the "order" button on our first book, we will let you know what we think!

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  12. you guys are living life! Jan and I love our country life but the city and chaos gets closer to us every year. We really like our off season travels. Staying in campgrounds by ourselves, walking beautiful beaches or trails without the crowds. Life is good. It was funny listening to older friends stories when the round-a-bouts started going in by us and what they would do to avoid them!!!

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    1. We have had some of our greatest adventures while visiting areas in the off season; Zion, The Outer Banks.... although some things may be closed the lack of crowds outweighed that.

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  13. We, too, look forward to your experiences in having your blog put into print form. I looked into it awhile ago and it looked like a lot of work. Sounds like things may have changed! Keep us in the loop?

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    1. I did not do it but Barb said it was not too bad. She selected at the date range, a couple other items and created the book. We tweaked it a few times but think we finally have it where we want it.

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  14. That roundabout clip was hilarious but I bet things like that happen more often than we think. Its good that Liesl and Zoey got to play together now rather when they are both mature Liesl's size might be a bit intimidating for Zoey. Looking forward to your review of the blog book.

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    1. Liesl will outweigh Zoey by probably 120ibs soon so you are right, it is good they are meeting now!

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  15. Your blog book will be interesting. We have ten years of many many blogs so much too expensive. I know that you will let us know your thoughts. Great deal on the vet bill. We paid $78.50CAD for the vet check and puppy vaccine for the second vaccine and the third vaccine for each dog. So $314.00 For two pups. Fortunately the breeder hefted the bill for the first puppy check and vaccine at six weeks.

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    1. Well, our next set of shots will be in Oregon so I am guessing the bills will be quite different!

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  16. Have not looked into printing the blog to a book but have considered converting it to a PDF. Then maybe go to the PDF to edit a few things. Could have the PDF printed and bound at Office Depo.

    I'm with you on not living in the city although I can see why some would want the convenience of a city. I like a home where you can have a ton of windows, never turn on a light switch during the day but still have privacy.

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    1. You are right, there are days that it would be nice to have the conveniences of the city, even a city as small as Custer but not enough to have us wish we would have built there!

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  17. I'll be interested to hear how you like the book of your blog, I've wanted to do something similar. 2 of 3 of our houses were in the country, we like government parks which are usually in the country. Every time we're in a city we look forward to getting out.

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