Skip to main content

A plow and two one-eyed mules

So today was interesting. I hung out all day at the grain elevator in Carleton, NE, it was a bit unnerving to have a huge Union Pacific train pass by about every hour. No one else seemed to notice but me, then there were all of the trucks coming in to drop off their bushels, it is a busy time of year.

The room right next to where we met had the scale info and this really nice lady Renee would dump some of the corn through this machine that would determine the weight of the corn based upon how much moisture it had in it and then she would dump it in a bucket, over and over and over.

Learned a lot and met many new people, the farmers love to come into the FSG (Farm Service Group) and shoot the breeze which we all know I am not too bad at either, so it was fun. I met this little old guy named Dale who asked me if I was a single lady and why in the world would I ever want to live in Minnesota when Nebraska is right here in front of me.

He also told me a lllooonnnngggg story about a hunter who visited "back in the '70s" who brought him some moonshine in exchange for letting him shoot some pheasants. Evidently the moonshine is in the machine shed, probably along side the plow he began farming with "more years ago than I would care to know"which he used to pull with two one-eyed mules.

Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings - I get to go out with one of the farm marketers visiting farmers and talking about corn and collecting contracts.

Comments

carey said…
love the stories, city mouse. keep 'em comin!
11:26 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I am usually an open book...

however have made the decision to have The Schmidt House be invite only, you are the ones that I want to share our lives with - if there is someone that I have omitted by mistake, please let me know. Think that there are some family members that I do not have email addresses for, so will need to track those down. I have found that I have been a little blog "stuck" for the last few months knowing that there were a lot of people who read my site and I became a little self conscious about what I was writing as to not offend anyone - not like I go out of my way to offend, but after awhile you realize that there are some pretty sensitive folks out there. I know it takes all kinds for the world to go around, however I don't want to have to worry about it when I am here. So now I feel a little more free to speak my mind which you all know has never been a problem, but now I feel I am among friends. Thanks for sharing this little adventure with the Schmidts...
5 comments
Read more

Hiatus no more

I don't know what it is about January, but 'round about January 15th I go into a complete and utter funk - hence no blogging. It is as if I need to cocoon for a bit, metamorphosize, and re-enter the world in February. This year has been especially bad due to our chaotic schedules with the kids, plus I have been working almost 60 hours per week as it is budget time and we are determining what exactly does "hunkering down" look like. Don't worry, work is still fun, challenging might be a better word. I truly love my new job, actually it was a promotion - didn't officially know until this week, so that jump starts the old engine as well. Other than that I have also realized in the last week my body is really, really mad at me. Things are just not working as they should and finally made the decision to go see the doctor who helped with the torn ligament a few years ago. Bottom line, just haven't been taking care of myself and he cracked me around a bit so can ...
6 comments
Read more

Canola, help desk hell and hanging with Mike and Larry

Work so far is going well. I cannot believe how large the Cargill corporate office is - I seriously got lost going to and from the bathroom. I got all messed up when I left our "pod" because I didn't look to see what the sign hanging from the ceiling said. I knew I sit in "Grain I/T", however when I got back from the restroom all I saw was a sign for "Canola". Go figure - guess Canola and Grain sit together. I am in the middle of IT land with programmers abound. I get to share a "bullpen" (four desks in a common area with a table in the middle - the table is the home to 2 monitors, a bunch of cables and is surrounded by boxes full of more techie stuff) with Mike and Larry - both are rather interesting. Larry likes the NY Jets and Mike evidently likes Amish furniture. Those are the only things the two have talked about. Haven't quite figured out why Mike carries around a 1% milk jug full of water wherever he goes - haven't seen him dr...
5 comments
Read more