Coop's Corner: Friday After The Overnight

Friday, October 16, 2020

Friday After The Overnight - 2020/10/09

Such a lovely day....the backpack off my back, the Honda 400 Auto pushed into the garage and I then snuck the VStar out past the still-tinkling Honda exhaust, getting just a bit too close. A good thing I was wearing my jeans and not my textile pants.

In only just a few minutes I was back out, no real plan but high hopes for a great ride and I wasn't disappointed.

One of the oldest homes in Old Frontenac, built and lived in by Civil War General Israel Garrard, overlooking Lake Pepin.

Along Cty C south of Ellsworth...Almost a year ago while doing the 2019 Swan Ride (first Sunday in November), I have footage of snowflakes flying in this very spot. My fingers were cold.

AJ's Cafe in Baldwin...the Fish Special was wonderful!

Oh my....a Gleaner 'M' combine, does that ever bring back memories! This one was brand new in 1973 and so was the one that I ran...talk about a major headache!! This old Gleaner is exactly where it should be, quietly resting in a quiet, restful valley.

I was going to Ag School and working for Room/Board plus a little $ in southern Minnesota. G.W. the farmer, who ran a very large operation for its time, ~2000 acres, was our leader. 3 full time employees plus my part time help during off-school hours. During harvest and planting seasons, there were a few weeks when school was suspended to get the field work completed.

"Dougie, we'll get the 2000 acres of corn done, you can get the 200 acres of beans done with that nice new Gleaner M..."

I was excited, having only spent really a few hours actually running a combine previously, most of the time my job was to haul the crops to the storage facilities by tractor, straight truck and for a couple of weeks, a semi. I was a Dougie after all.

Obviously, the corn was the focus of G's operation and I'm not sure what or why the beans were part of everything because storage, unloading, etc. were all naturally done on a much smaller scale...almost an afterthought. Weed control was absolutely part of that smaller scale...as in none if you ask me. Each and every small corner that made up 'my' 200 acres contained more Button Weed and Cocklebur than soybeans.

It felt like I was spending my life climbing down, underneath, lying on my back and up again pulling weeds from the cylinder, stopped more than going. Every once in awhile, stickers are still coming out of my fingers. I finally finished, managed to put a few bushels in an old grain bin and was extremely relieved to be back hauling corn and discing corn stalks. Old Albert did the plowing, he seemed to reign over that job exclusively though the boss helped out when in the mood.

EVERYthing else on the farm was Green, at least the farm equipment but not the trucks, they were mostly red. I enjoyed the 'Old L-190' the most, a cantankerous old thing that took half of a football pitch to turn around in. Two 5-speed transmissions tail-to-nose gave it 25 ratios, two big floor mounted shift levers to manage. If I wasn't in the L-190, I got the Chevy tag axle truck because it seemed I was the only one of the crew that could get through a wet cornfield without getting stuck. Working with the beans, I used the Corn Binder (smaller one on the right), freeing up the bigger capacity trucks for king corn.

The two International's that I used the most...don't have a photo of the blue Chevy w/tag axle or the semi's.

History lesson complete! Back to the regularly scheduled Posting....

Prairie Farm, Wisconsin high school parking lot. The Corolla's and Malibu's are just off to the left.

The '4 Corners', Reeve, Wisconsin

A fantastic day, lovely ride and temperatures perfect for a guy on a bike. This was a week ago...2020/10/09

Today...2020/10/16....Snow not that distant, hard frost this morning.

Next Post, the Himalayan out for another autumnal ride, some cooking too on Saturday, 2020/10/10.

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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)