I fought the tree and the tree won

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You know those safety messages that flood the media during the spring planting and fall harvest seasons? Farmers get in a hurry to put the crop in the ground after the snow melts and then get the crop in the bins before the snow flies again. They sometimes forget that cutting corners can lead to injury.

Well, the same can be said for clearing away tree limbs and cleaning up branches after that awful ice storm left tree debris on farm fields, across field driveways and on top of pasture fences.

I spent much of the day Saturday pulling downed limbs with the four-wheeler at the family farm. By the end of the day it looked like we’d made very little progress —the big picture is still a bit too overwhelming.

A more telling picture of the work accomplished might be better shown by looking at my arms. They look like I’ve been in a fight with a sharp-clawed farm cat.

I was poked and scraped and practically mauled by tree limbs, and the glorious sunshine left me with something worse than a farmer’s tan — a farmer’s tan that ends just above the wrists because of the fashionable brown Jersey gloves protecting my hands. Oh well, the sunburn has already started to fade, making the lines much less noticeable; and my injuries could have been much worse.

Still, I took my share of dares with the trees.

At one point, I’d positioned the four-wheeler underneath and slightly west of a dangling tree limb on the back side of the grove. I took the ATV out of gear (good safety habit), stood up and yanked on a branch in a game not unlike tug-of-war. I pulled, the tree cracked, I pulled some more and the tree cracked some more … and then it went boom. It didn’t put any cracks in the plastic fender of the four-wheeler, but one of those pesky branches put a not-so-nice black-and-blue mark on my arm. It’s still a bit tender to the touch.

That’s the only mark I can accurately source. The other cuts and scrapes weren’t even noticed until I’d cleaned up for the night.

I probably shouldn’t mention the hit made to my farm girl pride — courtesy of an ever-watching dad who said I “wasn’t doing it right.” The “it” in this case was hauling branches. (I’d been holding onto a branch and dragging it behind the four-wheeler.) Once he showed me how to work the log chain, I could move three or four large branches at a time. Somewhere in there you can envision a father saying “I told you so.”

On a positive note, I did learn how to use a log chain, and it worked quite well. I also learned how to use a chainsaw because, for the first time in 42 years, my dad thought I was finally old enough to be trusted with a dangerous power tool.

Liberating? I’m not sure. As far as I can tell, my newly acquired skills just mean I can do more work on the farm.

The calm after the ice storm

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There were all sorts of blogs I wanted to write — things I wanted to say, people I wanted to recognize and little “did you see this” tidbits I wanted to share in the days immediately following the ice storm of a week ago. I just didn’t have time.

If you have ever heard the phrase, “You’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off!”, you will have a descent mental picture of how I felt last week, doing my part to ensure our newspaper had broad coverage of the spring ice storm.

Reporters scattered to cover so many different angles, and our rolling blackouts here at the newspaper office allowed us precious opportunities to regroup.

 As devastating as the ice was to our trees, to our beautiful surroundings here in southwest Minnesota and northwest Iowa, at least we had our buildings — our homes, our work spaces and our garages to protect our vehicles from falling icicles. Nearly everyone I interviewed in the last week said it could have been much worse. A tornado would have wiped out more than just the power. An ice storm in the middle of January would have made farm life even more miserable.

Still, Wednesday makes it Day 8 for some of our rural residents without power, my parents included. When you reach Day 8, it’s not fun anymore. Actually, it wasn’t any fun on Day 1, but by Day 8 it’s a long haul. My folks, though, are hanging in there, refusing to come and stay with me in town despite the offers. There’s no place like home, no matter how rough it gets.

My folks finally bought a generator on Friday — it’s operating their freezers and refrigerator, and occasionally the toaster when they decide they want toast for breakfast.

They call it a night by 9 p.m. or earlier because it’s dark in the house and they’re tired of the candlelight. The days of sunshine have helped take the chill from the house, but dressing in extra layers and covering up with blankets is a necessity.

I drove out to the farm on Sunday and it didn’t take long for me to gather a couple of blankets to cover up with. After less than three hours, however, there I sat with a cold nose and hands I couldn’t wash after scratching my puppy’s belly. As a chronic hand-washer, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was ready to go back home to hot running water and an operating furnace.

The power outages I remember as a kid growing up on the farm never lasted this long, although, I always thought it kind of exciting when the power went out. We’d get to light candles after dark, and in the daylight, we brought out board games and puzzles. Mom has already put two puzzles together, and probably has another one going right now.

Fortunately, my folks don’t have any livestock to tend to. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if this happened when I was raising goats and sheep on the farm. We likely would have attempted to crank the old pump in hopes of getting water, but with the ongoing drought, I’m not sure we’d get so much as a drop out of that spigot.

My folks, like many of the farmers I talked to on Monday, are certain their home will be one of the last to get power. That way of thinking isn’t all bad, I suppose. At least the end is in sight, and if our farmers get power before Friday, well, they will be extremely happy.

Thanks to all of the line crews who are working so hard day and night, through all of the weather conditions we’ve faced, to get power restored across rural Nobles County. Thanks also to the community groups and organizations who have come together to prepare food for the linemen. It’s wonderful to hear that through such adversity, people can still muster up some Minnesota Nice.

When the wind blows

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I was sitting near a window, eating lunch on Wednesday, when I noticed a large piece of cardboard skipping through the parking lot, going completely airborne every once in a while thanks to our lovely southwest Minnesota wind.

Not long before that, I was driving down Humiston Avenue and one of those annoying plastic bags was flying through the air at just the right height to land on my windshield. Thankfully, the wind was moving faster than my car, because by the time I reached that block, the bag was swiftly moving across someone’s front yard.

I suspect that when I get home from work, I’ll find all sorts of garbage that has blown into my yard and been trapped there by the chain-link fence. It seems to catch just about everything that gets carried by the wind.

I don’t mind the wind most days, except for when it makes my yard look like a garbage dump.

My fence has stopped everything from coffee cups and pop cans to fast-food containers, plastic bags and cardboard boxes. Just the other day, I found a grocery receipt that got my attention as I picked it up. The receipt showed some of the items were paid for with SNAP credit — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps) — and when I looked at the list of groceries purchased, I saw nothing but junk food. Potato chips, candy and pop were on the list, but nothing you would think of as real food — fruits or vegetables, meat, bread or dairy products.

Needless to say, I am as disappointed in how people use SNAP credit as I am in the wind that blows garbage into my yard. I don’t know that I can do much about either, but I’d sure appreciate it if people wouldn’t toss their garbage on the sidewalk or just beyond the garbage receptacles in the neighborhood park.

This goes for country folks, too.

During the Nobles County Board meeting on Tuesday, Commissioner Marv Zylstra mentioned the garbage he sees in the road ditches now that the little bit of snow we had has melted. He encouraged community service groups — or anyone who wants to see a cleaner county — to help out by not just picking up the trash, but also by not littering in the first place.

Like Zylstra said, it doesn’t take much effort to keep that fast-food bag in your car until you get home and can throw it in your garbage.

From one scoop to another

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Happy National Agriculture Week! I realize the week is half over, but agriculture production, innovation, research and processing happens every day, everywhere around us.

We shouldn’t be celebrating agriculture just one week out of the year; we should be celebrating agriculture every day.

From the cotton fields of North Carolina to the California vineyards, and from the cattle ranches of Texas to the corn rows of Minnesota — from the food on our plates to the britches on our behinds, agriculture is at the forefront of our everyday lives.

Agriculture touches so much around us that we tend to forget it is there — kind of like the air we breathe.

As I was trying to think of a farm tale to share with you, I kept thinking of my own family. My parents were part-time farmers with full-time jobs. Mom worked at Campbell’s Soup, pulling chicken meat off of wing bones; my Dad worked on the kill floor and eventually in packaging for Iowa Beef Processors. My three brothers and I were blue-collar kids spending our summers picking rock, walking beans, gathering eggs and feeding livestock.

Personally, I’d say it was the best childhood anyone could ask for, except for those dreaded tasks of baling hay and scooping manure.

That latter part — scooping manure — was a job I ended up doing more often than any of my three brothers, combined. The goat and the sheep herds were mine, and scooping their poop was just part of my job as a farmer. There was no such thing as a skid-loader on our farm back then. It was pure dirty, smelly, manual farm labor and it always seemed to take forever to get the pens clean.

 Pipes — bulging arm muscles — are never a good look for a girl, but I was a big-boned, German-rooted farm girl, and those pipes I built up in my teen years were the direct result of carrying five-gallon buckets of feed and shoveling soiled straw.

I wouldn’t say those pipes are sagging yet, but they sure haven’t been used like they were back then.

Trading in one scoop for another does that, I suppose.

Yes, I went from scooping manure in my teen years to searching for the scoop as a newspaper reporter and career woman. Agriculture is one of my beats, and I tend to travel with a pair of boots in the back of my car — waiting for my next on-the-farm interview.

Agriculture is still very much a part of who I am; it always will be. And, while production agriculture appears much different today from my growing-up years, it’s still the same. There are still farmers who tend to their animals and their crops. They put their heart and soul into the work they do, and that will never change.

So, thanks farmers — whether you’re retired or just plain tired — your work doesn’t go unnoticed.

Don’t say ‘I told you so!’

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While most of the blogs I write these days also appear in the Daily Globe newspaper, this isn’t one of them you’ll be seeing in print.

Why?

I don’t want my dad to read it. Actually, I don’t want him to read it and then say, “I told you so!”

(I’m sure you all can relate to that phrase!)

I drove out to the farm after work last night to find the four-wheeler beckoning. Well, alright, it didn’t say, “Come on, let’s go tear around on the snow and ice,” but it tempted me none-the-less.

I hopped on with my thin jacket, sans scarf, hat, mittens — those things a father tells his daughter (and sons and grandkids) that one shouldn’t be caught without during a Minnesota winter.

The ride wasn’t really that bad — at least not until I drove out beyond the grove and ran smack into the westerly winds.

I’d crossed the hay field before having fleeting thoughts of turning around, but gee, I’d come so far. (Truthfully, I wasn’t even to the half-way point of my destination, but that’s beside the point.)

Peterson Slough, as seen from the pasture on the Buntjer family farm.

Thinking that if I pressed my thumb a little harder on the gas lever, I’d endure the pain of the biting air for a shorter duration didn’t work either. It just made me colder, faster.

Finally, I reached the top of the pasture overlooking Peterson Slough.

This is one of my favorite places to be, regardless of the season.

I pulled the camera out of my pocket and snapped some pictures — proof the badly needed moisture that finally arrived over the weekend has brought water to our creeks, sloughs and lakes.

The breeze atop the hill was minimal. In fact, it felt quite balmy compared to the freezing winds I encountered on the drive.

Still, I didn’t stay in my favorite spot for longer than a couple of minutes. I turned the ATV around, traversed the slippery slope of ice as I steered toward the waterway and punched the gas lever to get me back home.

At one point, I looked down at my thumb to make sure it was still there. I couldn’t move it — I couldn’t feel it. (My other hand had long been stuffed into a pocket by then, but I needed my right hand on the handlebar and my right thumb on the gas lever if I intended to get back to the farm house.)

I stepped into the house and heard Mom say, “Cold?”

My answer was a rather meek “Yeeeaaah,” as I put my right hand to my face and tried to thaw it out with puffs of warm air.

I knew my answer wasn’t loud enough for Dad to hear from the living room, but he had a response for me, none-the-less — something about “You’re going to catch a good cold going out there without a hat on!”

Water has reached the Lake Bella well field.

I hid in the bathroom, running warm water over my hands. The redness extended from the tips of my fingers to almost midway up the palm of my right hand. The warm water felt good — and so did the towel I wrapped around it.

My fingers hadn’t yet had a chance to thaw completely when my dog, Molly, and I got in the car and went for a little drive down to the Bella well fields. I figured if there was water in Peterson Slough, and water in the Ocheyedan Creek that runs behind our farm, through the land in front of our farm and into Lake Bella, there must be some water in Bella.

There was, and I took pictures of the wonderful sight.

These eight deer were some of the more than 40 deer I counted on a hillside between Lake Ocheda and Lake Bella Monday evening.

I also snapped a photo of the eight deer that had crossed onto the neighbor’s farm, although my apologies for it being a little blurry. I can’t do much without my right hand, and since it was still in the process of thawing out, my guess is I didn’t hold the camera quite steady enough.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures and laugh at the story behind them if you must. Next time, I’ll be sure to wear my mittens!