Russ

We received some horrible news here at the farm this week. Chris's uncle (my friend Bob's brother) passed away last weekend at the age of 59. Russ is the youngest of the 4 Sobieck brothers that I used to hang around with in my high school days.  In fact, I would venture to say that I spent more time at their house then mine back then. My heart goes out to all the Sobieck family. I am still in denial/shock/disbelief. I cannot imagine what Russ's wife, kids, mother and brothers are going through. One of the hardest things to wrap my head around is how life goes on after such a tragic event. The birds still sing, and millions of people go on about their daily business without a care in the world. While for others, the world has stopped completely.

Bob was slated to come up here on Sunday until he received that news. Obviously, that has been delayed.

Workwise, the first few days of my week consisted of finishing the forms for that bin site. We got all the rebar set and tied. 

Setting all that rebar did not help my back at all. Not necessarily hard work, but repetitive and exhausting. Each stick of rebar weighs a little over 20 pounds and I would pick them up from a stack, carry them two at a time from there to where they were to be placed, bend over set one in place, move 18" and set the other one down. Back and forth for hours. Considering there were over 200 sticks of rebar, that is a lot of bending over and picking up.

Ty Cutting rebar                                           All set and ready for concrete!

We finally got in the field this week! Chris started with peas as they can stand the cold and moisture of this time of year better than other crops. By then end of Day 1 he got 280 acres in the ground on Monday and another 115 on Saturday.  Less than 10% of the total, but it is a start!

Tuesday (and Wednesday) was a rain day. I actually got up into Minot to do some shopping. Besides food, I picked up some clothing to wear to Russ's funeral. That was one set of clothes that I did not expect to need up here. 

What a muddy mess. Especially when the frost is coming out of the ground at the same time. More than once we had to pull trucks here for seed orders out of the mud. 

Here are the cast for characters that will get used this spring. First is the 620. It will do the bulk of the planting with a huge Bourgault seeder. 

Next up is the 550. It is the workhorse of the farm and the one I use most often. This spring it too will be planting, and I will use it to roll the peas. It is in the field right now, so I did not get a good picture of it. It is the tractor in the middle of this picture. 

Then there is the 440, the oldest tractor on the farm. A once proud and powerful tractor, it hardly leaves the yard and is relegated to grain cart, spending its day loading and unloading grain from bin to truck and truck to bin. 

440 and cart

Throughout the day the 440 gets called into duty when Chris or Dylan will say something like "Pull 750 bushel of oats from bin 10 and load it in the cart." I will then say; "How many pounds is that?". I can never keep track of how many pounds are in a bushel are in each variety of grain. Oats for example 32lbs/bushel, flax is 56lbs, most everything else is 60lbs.  

Loading oats from the bin to the cart

Dumping oats from cart into a customer's truck

Unloading fertilizer from elevator truck into one of our trucks

Putting wheat seed into one of the seeder hoppers

Loading inoculant into the Bourgault

Chris, Holly and I left the farm late in the afternoon on Thursday making the 7-hour trek to Rogers Minnesota, arriving about midnight, where we spent the night at his parents' house. The next morning, I was able to have breakfast with a good friend of mine. Tom and I met while working together in 1981 and have been good friends ever since. Although we only talk to each other every other month or so, and see each other even less, he is a great friend and always will be. We spent a little over an hour catching up on each other's lives before I had to head back to meet Bob, Chris and family and head over to Woodbury for Russ's celebration of life. 

Talk about an emotional event. I saw friends and family I have not seen in years. My brother Bob and his wife Greta are also part of the Sobieck extended family. We reminisced about some great Russ stories, lots of laughs, tears and hugs. What is it about emotional events, I can work all day and not get tired, but spend one afternoon laughing and crying and I am totally wiped. After the event, we drove back up to the farm arrive about 1:00am. 

Barb would have like to have come as well, but she stayed in South Dakota, still recovering from the crud. She is better, maybe 85%, but still not ready to get back out in public.

Saturday we were back at it hard. Multiple seed orders had to be filled. Getting the seeders ready for the field and picking up chemical, dropping semis off in various fields and fixing things that are constantly breaking. 

Late in the day I had to go pick up Ty and Farmer Bob in two different fields. I brought my camera and was able to capture a few shots just as the sun was hitting the horizon. My favorite time of day to get out with the camera. Each of these were taken just driving down the road, out the window of the truck. Of the couple of dozen I took, these handful I deemed as blogworthy.....

A roller coaster of a week, experiencing both the highs and lows of what life has to offer. Here's to Russ, gone, but never forgotten. 

We Didn't See It

 I was driving to North Dakota, Barb was at home in the house. Both our skies were filled with cloud cover. Oh well, we will catch the next one. Leading up to the big event, I was so glad that every news station in the country was warning us not to look directly at the sun because that is exactly what I would have done. Seriously? We need to be told not to look at the sun? Apparently so, as after the eclipse, Google searches of "My eyes hurt" skyrocketed. 

Watching the news afterwards, I again shook my head as they interviewed person after person crying saying that it was a life-changing event. I mean, it was cool, but life-changing?

In other TV news, we did watch parts of the NCAA women's final. Something I would have bet money that I would never do. Not because it is women's basketball, we just do not care for basketball. But the storyline on this game was pretty amazing. 

My Monday morning drive to North Dakota was brutal. The first two hours at least. Saturday and Sunday at home consisted of much needed rain. We were thankful it was rain and not show. What I did not realize was that just a few miles away, it was snow. 

I was not surprised to see snow in the higher hills. 

Leaving Custer, I saw a little more snow, but no big deal. 

The stretch between Hill City and Deadwood was brutal!

Luckily, we have a 4WD truck, but there were still a few white-knuckle moments. This stretch has lots of ups, downs and curves. When driving in slippery conditions like this, the key is to go slow and keep your foot off the brake which can cause the vehicle to start sliding. And once a slide starts....good luck, especially if you are going downhill! 

At one point I was going down an incline at 35 mph when by truck downshifted. Next thing I knew the truck is sliding sideways down the hill. Luckily, I was able to correct it fairly quickly and got all the wheels pointed in the right direction and I made it into Deadwood itself which was still snowed in. 

Finally making it to Interstate 90 I thought I was in the clear. Nope, interstate's is where all the idiots drive and there was car after car in the ditch. 

The roads slowly got better until I was out of the snow and into rain. 

8 hours later, I was finally pulling into my destination for the next few weeks!

Upon arrival, Farmer Bob and I jumped into the truck and headed to town for a celebratory supper. It is good to see him and the entire gang up here. In addition to the regular crew, Chris's dad (and my good friend) Bob is up here, and they hired a new employee; Ty, Ty is a nephew of DeAnne and Farmer and used to live just down the road. He is back now and is starting his career in farming.  

The Sunday before I left Barb and I spent the day at home together, packing and getting things ready in the camper. The afternoon, we just spent on the couch watching TV. When happy hours arrived (which is really any time Sunday) Barb made me an Old Fashioned. 

I would think most of you know what is in an Old Fashioned, but if you do not here is the perfect short video to get you on the right track. Credit to my neighbor Jim for showing us the video. The only difference between the guy making one on the video Barb is that Barb made it with whiskey, so she must be from Illi-noise.

Up here at the farm, we have yet to get a seed in the ground. Still a little early. as the soil temps are not quite where they want them. There are a couple of crops they can put in the ground when it is still cold (peas/wheat), but there is plenty to do while waiting for things to warm up. 

Concrete for one. Actually, concrete for 2 and 3 as well, as that took the majority of my time this week. They are putting in a concrete pad for 10 more bins. Two pads; one 18'x10' and the other 18'x178'. That's right, 178'!

First, the dirt work. The first pad was pretty easy and only took an hour or two. The second pad took days and multiple truckloads of gravel to get the base all set.

We've poured the small pad, (left above and below) I did not take any action shots of the pour, but it went well, and we are happy with the results. The bigger pad needs a lot more prep work. We have the grade set and have started the form boards. Here is the thing about pad for grain bins; they are not your standard 4" slab, these slabs are 14"! As a result, you need lot taller form boards and a lot of bracing as you can see the start of on the right side, below. 

While I was busy with that, Chris, Dylan and Farmer Bob were busy doing other things. Chris and Dylan were cleaning seed for both themselves and customers. Cleaning the seed, takes out the impurities (rocks, weed seeds, broken seeds) so, what they are left with is just clean, plantable seeds. 

Although the picture above looks like a convoluted mess, there is definitely a method to their madness. Starting in the upper right, you see the red grain cart. The blue conveyor takes the seed from the cart and dumps it into the first cleaner which takes out the other weed seeds and anything else that might have been scooped up during harvest. The impurities go into the semitruck in the back left side, the good seed then go into another conveyor and dumped into another cleaner which sorts the seed by width, straining out any undesirable seed and dumping them into the smaller truck dead center. The final product goes into the semitruck closest to you and is either planted here on the farm or sold to another farmer. All the rejects either go to the elevator or sold to locals for chicken feed. 

Confused by that picture? Me too!

Meanwhile, Farmer Bob was busy scraping off the topsoil for a new driveway for their next project. (After the grain bins) This scraper is pretty dang cool, it is laser operated so you are scraping of just what you want leaving a perfectly level driveway, or banking it, if so desired. 

Barb and the girls are doing okay. I talked to her multiple times a day to see how her days are going. She has been down a few days with a cold and actually said she was glad I was not there as she is so miserable. I told her that if I was there, I would take care of her. She said, "That is exactly why I am glad you are not here". I am not sure how to take that, but I think what she is saying is that she does not want to spread her miserableness to me. 

That is it for this week! The next few days will more than likely be more of the same. Getting the seeders ready for the field, prepping more concrete and generally going to bed with a aching, sore body.

A Beautiful Week in the Hills!

 Saturday, April 6th was my dad's birthday. He would have been 98. Gone now 24 years. My mom, gone 19 years, would have been 96. Barb's parents, whose mom and dad would have both been 86, gone 47 years and 12 years respectively.

They have been gone so long that it is hard to wrap our heads around the fact that in a perfectly healthy world all of them could still be around. What would that have been like? How different would our lives be if they were still alive? A lot, to be honest. 

Although Barb and I had great jobs, it was inheritance from my dad that pushed us over the edge that allowed us to retire early and live on the road all those years. The inheritance from Barb's dad helped us build this house. 

That led me to the question; how long do you want to live? For me, the answer is easy. I want to live as long as I can with Barb as long as I am happy and healthy. I do not want to live a day without Barb, nor do I want her to live a day without me. Nor do we want to be a burden on our children. Early to mid 80's would be a great run, although I have a feeling, the older I get the more that number is likely to change. 

These are the random thoughts that went through my head this week as I mentally wished my dad a happy birthday. 

This week was a pretty slow and quiet week for us. We started out the week (actually ended last week) by driving up to our niece and nephew-in-law Alana and Ryan's, house up in Spearfish to celebrate Easter. We brought the girls so they could have a play date. More for Zoey than Dakota, as Dakota hates going to other people's houses where she is not comfortable with their floors. As Ryan put it; "Our floors are lava to Dakota". He was nice enough to put down a blanket for Dakota to lay on, but she opted for Loki's kennel as her "safe space" during the visit. 

The other three dogs had a chaotic day. Have you ever tried to take pictures of three dogs that would not stop moving? Impossible, I tell you! Loki had recently had surgery and had a cast on her leg, but it did not slow her down at all!

After an hour or two, they tuckered out and I was able to get a few pictures of the girls while they were resting. 

We had stopped the dollar store on our way up there where Barb picked up 4 rabbit ears in the hopes of getting the elusive 4-dog Easter picture! Once the dogs had settled down a bit, we attempted the picture. What a sh#tshow! As soon as we started putting rabbit ears on dogs were shaking their heads to get them off. Then Loki would attack the ears trying to destroy them. After several attempts it became apparent that this was not going to happen. So, while Ryan held Loki, Barb and Alana held their respective Frenchies and finally got a picture! As you can see, Dakota only had one ear left by the time we got the picture taken!

It snowed that night and most of the next day, resulting in 5-6" of fresh snow. The nice thing about April in South Dakota, is even though it might snow, it is short-lived. The following day was 50 and the snow started melting. Melt days are hard for Dakota as the snow slides off the roof, hitting the ground in a thundering fashion, even shaking the ground in some cases. Dakota does not like this at all and hid in the bedroom. Barb went out and knocked down some of the overhanging snow alleviating a little anxiety for Dakota. This low stuff is not as big deal of a deal Dakota, it is the stuff that drops from 16' that she really does not like. 

We got out twice on two shed hunts. The first adventure we stayed in the lowlands. An open grassy area, a game production area where we know the elk hang out. A pretty area, but the only thing of interest we found was this cow elk carcass. A beautiful day, a great hike, but no antlers. Our goal is just to find one elk shed a year, sometimes that is achievable, other years, not so much. 

Getting skunked down low, we decided to hit the hills for our next adventure. When we drove up to the parking spot. I pointed to the top of the mountain and told Barb, "We are going up there". Her reaction was "Yeah, right". Little did she know, I was serious!

Starting on an overgrown logging road, away we went! Elk sign was sparce down low as we worked out way up, but the higher we got the more elk sign we saw. 

Here is the thing about shed hunting, you should not walk next to your partner, you should be at least 30 yards apart, so you are covering different ground. We kept in sight of each other for the most part and whistled to each other every minute or so when we were out of sight of each other. 

We left the logging road and started billygoating our way to the top. At over 5,000' you can feel it when you start exerting yourself. There were several points where I would pick out a tree about 10 -20 yards up hill from me and set that as a goal before I rested again. Sometimes I made it to my goal, other times not quite. The bright side of stopping to catch your breath is that you can admire the views!

We made it to the top at different places at different times and eventually met up at the highest point which was 5,555'. These pictures just do not do it justice. As beautiful as these pictures are, in person, it is twice as beautiful. 

In the end, it was another antler-less day and probably our year as time is running short to get back out. Oh well, we found two last year, so I guess things averaged out. 

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, Somer has finished her latest travel job in Savanah, so Forrest packed up the camper and headed back up north to spend a few more weeks with Jessica, Shane and the kids. Baby K (Kendall), turned 10 this week! I suppose we are getting to the point where I have to stop calling her Baby K. 

It is so good to see Lily (left) hanging out with Kendall (right) and Dylan, they are all they have for cousins. 

We got together with Dan, Bonnie, Kevin and Cheryl three times during the week. Once for supper at Kevin and Cheryl's, and twice at the Pringle Bar for supper. The last night was more or less a goodbye party for me. No, I am not dying yet, but I am headed north for a few weeks. It is planting time in North Dakota!