Getting Orientated

I wonder how many schoolteachers shuddered when reading that title. It is actually a pet peeve of mine. When people are going through orientation say that they are being orientated instead of saying they are going through orientation. But, after looking the word online, I am more confused than ever. Orientated is indeed a word! I am not exactly sure in which context it is to be used, but I am sure it is not to describe going through orientation. Do you have words or phrases that drive you crazy when you hear them?

What made me think of this word this week was when I was transplanting trees. Little pine trees as a matter of fact, from one part of our property to another. The neighbor cattle are about to move onto our property, and I saw two small trees that more than likely would not survive 100 head of cattle trampling them. So, I moved them. 

We have moved dozens of trees some successfully, some not so successful. But we learned something that increased our transplanting success dramatically. You have to orient the tree in the exact position that it originally was. Makes sense when you think about it. The branches and roots grow in such a manner to give them the best success to survive, so if you switch that up, it will for sure impact the success of the transplant. We have found that most of the roots of our trees go north, while the branches go south. In fact, many of our pine trees have no, or few branches on the north side at all. 

So, when I transplanted them, I oriented (or orientated?) them in the exact position they were in the ground originally. 

Speaking of being orientated, our son Forrest and his traveling family are now in Kingsport, Tennessee where Somer has taken a 13-week job at a local hospital. This is location #4 since they hit the road trying to find where they want to live next. Gold Beach OR, Greencastle, PA, Savannah GA and now Kingsport, TN. She went through orientation this week and will begin her regular shifts starting next week. 

Sunday, I woke up and got to thinking about our rancher neighbor John. We lease our property to him to run his cattle on after the newborn calves are all branded. If you recall this post from last year, planting season was so late that we got to help out at the branding. This year, I was going to miss it because I was at the farm. Or was I? I texted him and asked him if he branded yet. No response. 

A little while later I went outside and heard his cows a bellering. Today had to be the day! So off we went!

Yup, we got there, and he was just getting things set up. The calves were already separated from the cows, if you have not been around cows and calves when they are separated, this is what it sounds like. 

The cows were up first. We ran each of them through the chute each getting a shot in the neck and a dose of ivermectin on their backs. 

It is a process; everyone has a job. 5-6 people run the cattle through the alleyway a half a dozen at a time. They are then run through the chute one at a time. I was on the rear gate, opening and closing it as each cow entered the headlock area. Once they received their medication they were released, and I let the next one in. One by one each of them was run through the chute. Barb's job was very, very important. To have coffee and Kahlua with Amanda, the rancher's wife.  

Once those were all done, it was time to move onto the calves. If you recall last year's branding they used a table, this year they decided to wrangle each of them and hold them down for the branding, neutering and medication. 

It was pretty interesting to be a part of; two people on horses roping. 6 people holding them down, two people giving them shots, one neutering and one applying the ivermectin (that was me). Oh, and one kid that held the bucket the results of the neutering go in. Yup, they save them and have a feast at a later date!

Three hours later we were all done and headed to the shop where lunch was waiting for us. A true country tradition that we were happy to help out at and be a part of. 

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. It rained pretty much every day making it hard to get out and do anything. We did sneak out between showers and get a few things done, like move trees. Barb is pretty much done with her stairs, still looking for a couple stones to finish it off. Dan and Bonnie were over the other day admiring the stairs when Dan out of the blue says, "I have a big one". We all turned around and looked at him and I say, "We are happy for you Dan, but what does that have to do with the stairs?". He say's "A stone, I have a big stone that you can have", bringing clarity to the entire conversation. 

A couple days later Kevin delivered what is now known as "Dan's big one" in the back of his truck. And boy, is it a big one! Barb is going to reorientate (see what I did right there?) and put "Dan's Big One" in near the bottom.

We went out twice this week to celebrate Dan's birthday, once on his actual birthday and again on Wednesday when we all were able to get together. Barb, Dan, Bonnie and I went to the local VFW one evening to play pool and have a couple of celebratory drinks. At one point, Barb went to get another round. She came back with an entire tray of drinks. We were a little confused as to why she would be coming back with 12 drinks when there were only 4 of us. She explained that 4 were our regular beers, 4 were Dan's birthday shots (fireball of course), and 4 were mystery shots out of a brown paper bag that were "Only $1" as she excitedly explained. There is a reason they were only $1 each. The bartender would not tell us what was in the bag until after we took the shots. Who knew that Snoop Dog had his own line of gin. We now know why they are basically giving it away!

Who were the big winners for the night? Well, Barb and Bonnie of course, when they picked up a couple of trophies off the window ledge and declared themselves the winners!

On a sad note, we got an email this week that Blog2Print is going out of business. They have 60% off right now with just a few days left in business. Barb got our latest book done (2023) so we are as far as we can get right now. If anyone knows of a good replacement, please let us know. 

The nice thing about being gone for so long, is coming home. Everyone was happy to see me, and I was happy to see everyone. Zoey was especially happy to have her favorite comforter back. 

You Know You Are a Farmer When....

Wednesday May 1st was May Day. which could be taken in a couple different ways. Like May Day, May Day! Someone please come rescue me from this farm which is my prison. 

Or it could be May Day, the first day of May signaling the start of summer in some areas. 

Which I am referring to in this post? Both! So, if someone wants to come and save me, show up at 2am tonight and honk 3 times. I will come a runn'in with my pillowcase full of belongings!

Does anyone celebrate May Day anymore? I remember as a kid of probably 8-10 years old, making a basket and sneaking over to my neighbor's house, hanging it on their door handle, ringing the doorbell and running. I had a crush on the neighbor girl who was probably in high school at the time. I wonder whatever happened to her. I do remember her dad went to prison for some white-collared crime. Embezzlement I believe. Good times. Actually, one of these questions was answered for me when I went down to see Holly and found out she had indeed received a couple of May Day baskets. I like the idea that people still do that. 

Now, for this week's edition of "You Know You're a Farmer When.....". I actually had several instances this week. The inspiration for this blog title actually came to me with this first one: 

1.You Know You Are a Farmer When...you do laundry and find peas in the back of the dryer when        you remove all your clothes. And again, find more in the dryer!

2. Then there are the truck tires. Going down the road the truck starts to shimmy and shake over   50mph. A normal person would think. "I need to get the tires balanced" But a farmer thinks "Time         to clean the mud off the rims" Which he never does because it eventually falls off by itself. 

3. Then there is this: you have multiple pairs of pants on the ground outside your house because they were too dirty to wear and change.

4. You pray for rain and as soon as it starts, you pray for it to stop.

5. You walk into a cow or horse barn, take a deep breath and relish in the smell. 

We didn't get as much actual farming done as we hoped to this week because of #4. This area of North Dakota is relatively dry, but certainly not this year. We got a good soaker last week and again Tuesday of this week and more again on Friday morning keeping us out of the fields three days as it was way too wet to even venture out there. 

Instead, we worked on inside projects like cutting/welding rebar and building forms for an upcoming scale project. They are putting in a scale to weigh trucks in and out as they pick up seed. It will also be handy when they take their own trucks to the elevator as well. 

As you can see, they have the forms strategically placed in front of my camper so I cannot escape in the middle of the night. 

The hope was to get the site prepped, forms in and concrete poured later in the week. 

We emptied a couple of bins this week and had to clean them. A dirty, but not horrible, job. Unless the bin happened to have oats in it. Oats are my nemesis. I don't feel it immediately, but after a few minutes in an oat bin my eyes start to water, and I get very congested. Luckily, I did not have climb into an oat bin this week. Just urea and peas. 

This is how it works...... You are loading a truck and all of a sudden, the bin becomes so empty that it will not gravity feed into the auger. If you are loading from a hopper bin, you are done and move onto the next bin. If it is a flat bottom bin, there is a lot more to get out. Some of the bins here have a permanent sweep auger, others you have to climb in and install the portable sweep auger. 

The sweep auger has a motor and is on wheels which drive the auger around the bin sweeping the rest of the grain from the floor into the primary auger that transfers it to the conveyor. 

Here is a short video of how it all comes together:

You certainly want to keep your feet and fingers away from those augers and belts! You sweep and shovel behind it until all the grain is gone. You then remove the portable auger and sweep/vacuum the floor and walls to get rid of any remaining grain that might be hiding in the cracks and crevices.

Here's the thing about getting in and out of these bins; they have bars across the opening which make it challenging to get in and out. Dylan approaches it backwards and pulls himself in with his arms. 

I, on the other hand, take a totally different approach. I prefer the sea lion method where I approach the opening and more or less throw my body through the hole while making sea lion noises. Well, actually, it is me grunting, but it I am sure all the sea lions within miles raised their heads and looked my direction every time entered and exited the bin. 

Oh wait, we did get in the field on one of those down days when Chris said "Let's go for a ride" to his dad and me. Little did we know, he was taking us out to pick rocks. 

Kinda like hunting. You drive around the field shouting "There's one", "there's one". There were not enough to warrant the rock picker going out, but they were big enough you did not want them caught up in the combine come fall. 

Speaking of things found in the field. Chris and Farmer are constantly digging up things from the past. Mostly these harness rings from old horse drawn equipment. Really makes you wonder about the history of the land, and how the previous owners toiled over putting in and harvesting crops. These little rings get caught on their shanks as they go through the field. 

And, we got the first deer blind substantially done and started another one. This second one is being built on a trailer, so it is portable. I called dibs on being the first hunter to be in it while Dylan pulls me through the countryside in search of deer. For you nonhunters out there, I a kidding, this would be highly illegal, but it would make for a funny video titled "You Know You Are a Redneck When....."

Leroy, Farmer Bob's brother-in-law, was nice enough to detail the truck and camper so it is nice and pretty when I bring it home to Barb. The inside of the camper is another story all together. After staying in it for a month, it is a disaster. I will clean it before I head home, but no matter how well I clean it, Barb is going to give it a deep cleaning before we leave for Alaska.

On our last "rain day" we set forms and poured concrete.  5 trucks worth. It was not actually raining, but too wet in the fields to get out. Although it took all day, it was actually pretty easy work as these pads were only 4'x11'. BUT they were 8' deep! They hired an excavator to dig the holes.

 The scale they are putting in has to be super accurate and cannot be affected by the frost which can get down as far as 6' hereabouts. That, plus the fact that the scale has to hold upwards of 200,000lbs, it has to be heavy duty! There is a series of 5 of these piers that the scale sits on. This picture shows the truck at the 4th one.

We would have gotten done a lot sooner had the trucks shown up on time. We had to wait an hour between trucks for most of them. Luckily, one of the guys had a concrete vibrator that keeps it from setting up. You turn it on, stick the probe in the concrete and you can feel the ground shaking from several feet away. This thing was a life saver, otherwise it would have start setting up before the next truck came!

That night found us gathering around a table in the office at 9pm. Usually my bedtime. Little did I know that I would not see bed for 5 more hours. We try to have a poker night one time while we are all together in the spring and fall. Texas Hold'em $5 buy in, winner take all. If you lost all your chips, you could buy back in for another $5, but you had to take a shot as well. 

By the end of the night, I had bought in three times, Ty 4 times, Dylan, Chris and Seth once. Bob S was the big winner never buying back in at all and taking home all the cash. Lots of laughs and good-natured ribbing. 6:30am came very quickly the next morning!

I got two pictures from Barb this week. (Who is feeling much better) Apparently this deer was a curious about the little pointy ear creature in the window as Zoey was of the big animal infringing on her domain. 

The gang (r-l Dan, Bonnie, Cheryl, Kevin, and of course Barbie) is continuing their Wednesday burger nights without me. At least they are not having a good time in my absence!

Speaking of animals, apparently, I lost both of my chairs....

And the two girls figured out I am a softy when it comes to giving them treats. 

Farmer must have been a little bored this week as he decided to take an old tractor out of the tractor graveyard and try to resurrect it. The old White back been discarded years ago for an upgraded model and was parked in the boneyard where it was destined to spend the rest of her days. 

That was until Bob had the bright idea of trying to resurrect her. A day and a half later, he had her running and parked in front of the shop. I cannot begin to describe to you what the inside of a tractor smells like after having mice and God knows what else living in it for almost a decade. 

Which leads me to my last You Know You Are a Farmer When.... you pressure spray the inside of a tractor to get rid of the smell of mouse urine in a full rain suit and face shield. I am sure those clothes did not get into the house without being left on the stoop first!

Saturday morning found me waking up in my own bed in South Dakota. What?!?! Some did rescue me! It was actually Mother Nature when the rain returned with a vengeance. When I woke up Friday morning it was raining. With the forecast showing rain on and off for the next 5 days Chris said I may as well go home as they were not going to get back into the field prior to my scheduled departure date. They are only about 50% done with planting, I wish I could have stayed to get it all in, but it just was not to be.

Having been away from home 2 days short of a month, I was anxious to get home and see my girls. As I was pulling out of the farm what song should come on the radio? Quittin' Time by Morgan Wallen I think it was a message from the radio Gods.

8 hours later as I was passing through Custer, I was greeted with this:

I left in the snow; it only seems appropriate that I return to find snow. Well, not really "appropriate" but it is what I returned to. I also returned to 3 very happy girls who were excited to see me. They jumped all over me, licking my face and smelling me wondering where I had been, and that included Barb! 

It is so good to be home!

Donuts!

The name of the game this week was planting, planting and more planting. Chris was out in the field every day this week except Friday and Saturday which ended up being rain days. They have 2,180 acres in the ground so far. 42% done! That is amazing considering we did not get in the fields until May 1st last year. This year we were a full 10 days earlier. 

Farmer Bob got in on the action as well, planting a little over 300 acres in a field that the big seeder cannot make it into. 

A typical day starts at 6-6:30 with breakfast and a Mountain Dew. I know, I know, but I have never been a coffee drinker, so I get my caffeine from a can. The main course for breakfast consisted of donuts! Nothing like shocking the system awake with that combination!

Actually, only two days started with donuts as Farmer was nice enough to buy a dozen for us boys. 

Once breakfast is done and my body thoroughly shocked awake it is time to work. Usually getting things ready for Chris to hit the field. Fueling the tractors, loading semis with seed and fertilizer out of a bin which are then loaded into the seeder.  We'll load him 2-3 times in the field throughout the day and then drop off another truck around 10pm which he fills by himself sometime in the middle of the night while we are all sleeping. Chris is a beast seeding for 20 hours most days, he did 33 hours straight with only an hour of sleep just before it started to rain. When the weather cooperates, you need to get the seed in the ground!

Loading Chris

Loading Bob

Prior to season, they develop a crop plan for the year detailing what is going into each of their fields. And when making a crop plan, you cannot just throw whatever into any field. The crop in each field is determined by what was in that field the year before as each crop takes and leaves certain nutrients and bacteria in the soil so the next crop must compliment the previous one. For example, you never put peas in one year and again the next year as they will almost certainly be prone to a disease. In fact, some people will wait 4 years before putting peas back into a field again. 

Each of their fields are outlined in yellow on this map. To give you an idea of size, each of one the squares on the map is a section, which is a square mile, 640 acres. As you can see, their property is not all continuous. Rather it is scattered 14 miles east to west and 9 miles north to south. And not all land is considered equal. A section with a lot of potholes or sloughs is worth a lot less to a farmer than property that consists of all tillable acres. 

So far, we have planted just peas and wheat, as those are the two hardiest varieties when it comes to the cooler, unpredictable spring weather. When it comes to wheat, two other things go into the ground beside the seed; urea and S10 fertilizer. The urea we use is a granular, which provide nitrogen to the plant through the soil and the S10 (or starter) is a phosphate fertilizer that provides sulfur to the plant throughout the growing season. 

S10 in the foreground, urea in the back hopper

Peas get just inoculant. Inoculant is actually a living microorganism which creates an infection in the plant creating nodes on the root that in turn ingests nitrogen from the air and provide it to the plant.  The science that goes into planting is incredible. 

Before each field is planted, they calculate how much seed they will need. There are several ways to do this such as pounds per acre. But you have to take into consideration the size, weight and seed count. There are other variables as well such as if it is drier or wetter than the previous year, as the slough sizes vary. Some years you can seed right through some wet spots, other years you have to go around them. Most of the time they hit is just right. Other times we need to run more seed out to finish the field. Bob was close on his calculations, but did call and say, "Bring me 3 buckets of seed". Here I am loading one of those buckets into his seeder. 

While they were seeding, Ty, Dylan and I spent two days moving peas from one bin to another. We had 8 truckloads of peas to move at about one hour per truck. Why move peas from one bin to another? We needed to get them from a standalone bin to a bin that is attached to the automated treating facility. 

The truck/tractor in the background is loading seed into bin#2
while the truck in the foreground is a customer picking up seed

Same scene, different angle

Chris's dad, Bob, arrived this week, needing hard work and a distraction from losing his brother Russ last week. He rolled for several days this week, spending hours upon hours in the tractor no doubt thinking about his brother and reflecting on life. 

If you recall from previous year's posts, you need to roll the peas to push any rocks in the field down, so they do not get caught up in the combine come harvest season. Most other crops do not need to be rolled as they are not cut as close to the ground. 

The big job of the week was Tuesday when we poured that concrete slab. 12 trucks, 120 yards of concrete. It actually was not that bad. We had 10 guys, and everyone had a job. Mine was edging and running the power screeder which was a new one for me.  Here is a short video of some of the action.

We also had a pump truck which made life a lot easier, dumping it through the shoot. Well worth the extra $2,000 in expense. The concrete trucks pulls up to the back of the pump truck and dumps into a hopper. The pump truck operator them moves the boom around as needed.

The guy at the end of the hose really gets a workout and this guy did it the entire time. Oh, to be young again. The pump truck set up right in the middle and was able to reach both ends without moving. 

Once it was starting to set up, we had three guys on the bull floats and two guys on edging while 5 other guys continued pouring. We started at 8am and by 1pm, we were done and having a lunch that Holly prepared and brought up to us in the back of a truck. 

For those of you who know a little bit about concrete, the days of $100/yard concrete are long behind us. It is now double that!

So glad to have that job done! In a couple of months, they will have another row of 10 bins identical to the ones next to them with an automated system that brings the seed into the treater building. 

Now for the animals. Some of you may remember Nellie from last year. She is the one that got hit by a truck and had to have major surgery. This is what she looked like last September. 

Seven months later, she looks like this.....

Living her best life, running and swimming in the sloughs. What a muddy mess!

Speaking of lab lives, this is what Remy was up to this week.....

Someone was a bad dog!

Then there is Me-aui. Named by the kids as she meows all the time and the fact that they went to Maui this year, so she got a combo name. She is usually sitting on my chair outside the camper or actually my camper steps. Then she meows and meows and meows. One night I had to put her outside as she was sooooo annoying. 

On the photography front. I got some more waterfowl shots. The teal moved in this week. It was funny, one day there were none, the next dozens of little teal dotting the ponds. The other birds featured this week is the scaup, canvasback, teal, coot and fluffy little bufflehead. As you can see, it was windier than heck that day. So much so that you had to hang on to the rail on the seeders when you filled it for fear of getting blown off by a gust. 

Scaup and bufflehead

This shot almost went into the recycle bin, as the photo of the flying canvasback (center top) just did not turn out like I had hoped. But it was the background that made me include it. The background really tells a story in itself. Look at all that equipment back there discarded over.... I would say 70-80 years? Their original owners long passed on these relics are just a reminder of yesteryear. Those old cars have to be from the 50's, the thresher directly in from of the canvasback is probably from the 1930's.

The blue and yellow augers are more recent from just a decade or so ago. 50 years from now they will still be sitting there after we are all gone leaving someone else to wonder of their history.  

Drake Can and a female Scaup

Pair of Ruddy Ducks

Coot and Blue-winged teal

It rained pretty much all day yesterday (Friday) which means we will not get back into the field until at least Monday when things dry up.  So, Bob S and I set out to build a couple of new deer blinds for deer season. They will be hunting in comfort this fall!

Back home, Barb is still not 100%, but she is close. She had all these projects planned for while I was gone but the past two weeks just has not had the energy to tackle them. 

Last, but not least, there is little Chase, the middle child. He loves to ride with his dad in the seeder. Here is a picture of them inside one of the wheels while we were loading.