Rain Delays & Radio Dreams
Notes from October's Edge
It’s day six of the American Crystal sugar beet harvest, and hardly anybody has dug a beet. Unseasonably mild temps prevented our sugar plucking all weekend, and now rains are holding up the show.
We had a productive soybean run until the October weather arrived. None of the beans have been quite ripe, but the green wasn’t enough to move the moisture needle into shutdown territory.
After things dry out from this three-day rain project and a projected frost hits this weekend, green beans will slide off the concern list, and we’ll once again roll.
All summer, we couldn’t buy a drizzle, not a drop of rain, and when the crop we have to unearth from the mud is ready to go, we get a three-day soaker.
As my Snapchat Bitmoji often says, it be like that sometimes.
Break Me Off a Piece of That Kit Kat Bar
Sheri (not to be confused with Saturday Night Live’s Sheri Oteri) and I have been fasting intermittently. Something called Melothy Robbins, son of Jimothy has been doing the same and recommended intermittent fasting on her podcast.
It works like this. You starve yourself, drinking only water or black coffee for 14,16,18 hours, whichever length you prefer. And for the remaining hours, you cram enough food down your gulliver to guarantee a mild gut ache.
Surprisingly, this program is rather refreshing. Since you don’t need to decide when and what to eat, it eliminates the paradox of choice.
And, since you reach for whatever food is nearby during the fed hours, there is hardly any decision-making there, either.
It’s a more straightforward way of living. Melothy and her guests said the cave dwellers did it, so it makes sense. I wasn’t aware that cavemen only ate their Kit Kats and Doritos between six and ten, but if it worked for them, I’m willing to give it a go.
I wonder if cave people had a system to limit social media use. I could use some help in that department as well.
Twins Win!
Speaking of droughts ending, your Minnesota Twins put a nineteen-year playoff losing streak to bed this week when they shut down the Toronto Blue Jays in the wild-card round of the MLB playoffs.
Nineteen years ago, we still paid attention to color-coded terror alerts on the teevee. Jimmy Fallon was still on Saturday Night Live, and my firstborn barely sipped Similac.
The old-timers couldn’t yet understand why we needed autosteer, and people still paid their bills with checks and brought them to something called the post office.
Times have changed. But the feeling of watching your team dominate in the playoffs never does.
Here’s to the Minnesota Twins not looking like a bunch of little-league buffoons and picking up the slack from the disappointing Vikings.
Best of luck to Rocco and the boys when they take on the Astros of Houston this weekend.
A Face For Radio
In other news, this past week, I recorded my first advertisement for local radio to promote my fifth child, the company that is Riopelle Seed.
I must tell you I adopted a newfound respect for those in the broadcasting business.
Rattling off a piece of copyright into a voice recorder is more challenging than making turducken with a homemade Bearnaise sauce and souffle for dessert.
After struggling with the recording for a spell, I decided to call it a night after the sixty-sixth take.
When the radio station rep sold the advertising, she told me I needed to smile while recording. I didn't understand why. However, the difference was clear after listening to the recordings with and without a smile.
As goofy as it makes you feel, the smiling part is necessary. There’s no way around it. It’s the difference between sounding like Morgan Freeman or Gilbert Gottfried.
We successfully recorded and scheduled the ad to air on Simmons Multimedia stations 105.1 and their affiliates in the borderland area this week, but not without a fistful of bloopers.
Here are a few outtakes from my radio debut for your amusement and my humiliation:
October Birthdays
Finally, I’ve got to bring up a topic that affects many in agriculture: October birthdays.
After a stressful day of wondering if we would finish combining early enough to take my daughter out to celebrate her birthday, I can't help but think about those who have to push their special day aside because it coincides with harvest season.
My sister often missed birthday celebrations with our dad due to farm work. As a spoiled June baby never starved of birthday attention, this was hard to watch.
Thinking back, it wasn’t fair. I’ve always been cranky on my birthday—a real Krusty Krab. I should’ve been the one to skip a birthday or two, not my sis.
Farming is a demanding occupation at times; having to deal with schizophrenic weather patterns and trying to make hay when the sun shines forces us to sacrifice, often at the expense of our families.
I still think of my sister’s birthday sadness when I’m trying to get away from the farm to celebrate my daughter’s birthday, and it pushes me that much harder to make it happen.
But, unfortunately, it still happens. Like many, I’ve missed my share of harvest birthdays. I’m not proud of that.
Fortunately, not this year. We ran into grass-green beans just in time to enjoy birthday biscuits and buttery seafood treats at the award-winning Red Lobster.
For that, I am eternally grateful.
As a father, I apologize to those who sacrificed their birthday harvest for the farm and promise to do my best to prevent it from happening again.
That concludes this week's edition of Farming Full-Time. Thank you so much for reading, and best of luck with your harvest. Stay safe, and we'll see you next week.