Coop's Corner: November 2021

Saturday, November 27, 2021

Holiday Stroll Red Wing Minnesota - 2021/11/26

After not attending last year's event it was great to be back for the 20th Anniversary of the Thanksgiving weekend community event. Sponsored by local businesses, it's an event spanning a few days with most of the activities happening on Friday after Thanksgiving. The weather was actually quite nice; the winds finally calmer, no precipitation liquid or solid, the temperature right at the freezing mark. I arrived right at 5 PM and stayed until the end of the fireworks just after 8 PM.

I very comfortably put my steps in....with much praise that my numbers were up, even trending higher this year!! There's a parallel with some other numbers soon to be made public so don't spoil the surprise.

The video is here....

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

2 Wheelin' Is Done For '21 - 2021/11/24

But there may still be glee with 3. The pie slices are coming soon, it's simply too early, not even December yet. I have seen a Preview, the news will shock you!

Today an almost mild afternoon....but change is definitely in the air for tomorrow.

STILL no ice!!!

I hope and trust that you all will have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Saturday, November 20, 2021

No Ice!! - 2021/11/20

We looked and looked but what did we expect with these balmy temperatures!?!

It wasn't a long ride but the quest for water kept it in striking distance. No matter where we stopped, only liquid.

At the launch...

There were a few 'cubes in the cup....as close as we got to solid water.

These days shall return.....

The grade out here slight....

Friday, November 12, 2021

A Wonderful Surprise - 2021/11/12

I've been out on a mix of machines, looking for autumn colors and harvest operations in progress since the middle of October. I'll have a Harvest Compilation ready soon but in the meantime, check this one out, filmed Sunday 2021/11/07 near Diamond Bluff, Wisconsin.

The Video

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Greenhouse Is Complete - 2021/11/10

I bet you thought it would never happen.

I was honestly wondering if it was ever going to happen.

Ol' Coop was a younger man when it arrived Memorial Day weekend. The Chicken Coop had only just been completed, both structures dropped off out on the road by 18 wheelers timid about our driveway. The packed chicken coop was unloaded at the end of the driveway into sub-sections and delivered on the motorcycle trailer to a spot next to the garage. By the time the greenhouse was delivered (both kit buildings very late due to delivery issues) our tractor had been delivered and luckily, the brandie new 3 point Carry-All worked to lift and carry the heavy load in to the place.

Here it rests before it was moved to its next resting location.

There were a couple of reasons that we didn't get started on it right away. One, its location was still being determined and a reason for that, we were still planning and not ready to get the garden fence up....the fence and greenhouse needed to work together.

Where it spent the summer.....

After bringing over the leftover load of driveway gravel and leveling a foundation pad, I opened up the crate and staged all of the wall sections last week.

As it went when we built the house, I was lucky. My building partner wasn't asleep during her 3rd level Physics class....I might have missed a class or two.

We had help....off and sometimes on.

Solar panel and ventilation fans installed.....

Temperature/Humidity Controller on the Right side wall.

The buried power is close...that needs to be finished, the building wired for AC. Some shelving, a bit of door/vent hardware and I believe that we'll be ready to start seedlings next Spring. Now I'll get the garden fence tapes put back on the posts and we'll take the portable solar electric chicken fence down. Either it worked or the deer don't like blueberries or asparagus.

I have to say these kits go together very well, are engineered well, all hardware included and instructions obvious to follow. We're impressed and would recommend.

(Jeff, Mark....I told you guys, Peg says NO motorcycles! Your ethanol will go bad just that much quicker in there)

Monday, November 8, 2021

Magical Monday November Afternoon - 2021/11/08

It just doesn't get any more Novembery than this....

I don't think so....

P.S. - Guess who I met on a big Indian today??

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)