Burning Gas-Northern IL Corn Harvest

Posted on 26/10/2025 by Grumpa Joe

Today, I shocked Lovely by asking if she wanted to take a ride. “Yes,” she replied instantly; “where?”

What Lovely Expected to See.

“It’ll be a surprise.” She left to get into her touring clothes, and I went to put on a pair of shoes. I didn’t have a plan, but she suggested that we sit at home too much and that we should go to a park for some fresh air. Her favorite place in Illinois is Starved Rock State Park. Her deceased son, Freddie, often took her there. In the back of my mind, I thought Starved Rock would be a good destination.

I fired up the Death Star, and she said we must go to Walmart to return some clothing I bought that doesn’t fit, and then to PetSmart to get kitty litter for Jerry’s cat. “That’s not a ride,” I said, “it’s a shopping trip.”

“Oh,” she replied in a tone that suggested dissatisfaction. “Okay, okay, I’ll take you to PetSmart.”

“And Walmart too.” I put it in gear and left town by the back door to get her into a different mood. “Isn’t Walmart on Lincoln Highway?” she asked. My ploy to get her mind off of kitty litter didn’t work for a single second. We continued along my path. “I promise we will get kitty litter.” She lectured me on how, when she promises somebody something, it is the first thing she does. My intention was to check out the countryside while we had a sunny bright day and to then kill the remainder of time shopping before we returned.

We finally got onto Interstate 80 at Joliet and sped onward to Morris. I needed gas, so I pulled into a truck stop and filled up with the lowest-cost gas I have used in the past four years, $2.89/gal; that same gallon costs $3.29/ gal in Frankfort. Back on the highway, I enjoyed seeing that the farmers had harvested at least 90% of the corn and soybean crop. The small irregular fields still left with corn were probably left for last because it is a big pain in the ass to break down and set up so often for the little output. It is Sunday and not many fields were being worked. I did see one old combine chugging along taking down about ten rows of corn. The machine was so old, all the paint was worn off and I couldn’t tell what color it was. The predominant color of Illinois tractors, combines, trailers, conveyers is John Deere Green.

Back in the day when I was still in college and not yet certified as a Mechanical Engineer I worked during summers at International Harvester as a Gofer. The only color farm equipment in all of Illinois was red. Thanks to the same UAW union that nearly bankrupted the car companies, IH, combined with its poor management, went out of business. They sold off profitable products to competing farm equipment manufacturers, so there is still a smattering of red left in the agricultural world.

What Lovely Saw.

I enjoyed the ride, inspecting the harvest status, while Lovely mumbled about not seeing any trees. She expected a fall color tour.

Eventually, I made left turns at two junctions, and we were pointed back toward home. We exited I-80 at New Lenox and pulled into the mall to shop PetSmart and Walmart. From there, I stopped at the Rising Sun Chinese restaurant and ordered takeout to polish off the day.

Filed under: Biography, Food | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Eating Cats and Dogs

Posted on 13/09/2024 by Grumpa Joe

For whatever reason, I awoke at 5:00 a.m. today and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Usually, I’ll visit the toilet and return to a deep slumber for another three hours. Today, I could not, but right now, I think I could. Instead, I’m trying to write a post that might make some sense.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/voters-react-harris-trump-presidential-005217525.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall

It seems that the Trump-Harris debate has turned into a draw for us old people and a giant win for Kamala if you are too young to vote. To me, she never really answered any questions. The easiest one she avoided like it was the plague. The very first question: Are you better off today than you were four years ago? Evidently, if you are as rich as she is, it doesn’t matter that a run-of-the-mill small house costs over a half million dollars, or that a loaf of bread is over five dollars, or that eggs are 4.79 a dozen. Most voting age people already own homes and like me and I won’t be buying one soon, so let them cost a million dollars, I don’t care. My next home will most likely be a nursing home. What I do care about is the price of things like food, and gas. They are the only things I am buying these days. My fixed income however doesn’t rise along with the prices so I am falling behind quickly. It won’t be long before I’m using credit cards to survive. Her policies, at least the few she admits to, will all make inflation rise even higher, and that will put a huge dent into a senior’s ability to enjoy life.

I felt that Trump was holding back and as a result he seemed to lack vigor. His message is not new. We have heard it so often at his rallies that it seemed stale. I would liked him to have attacked her with some nasty salvos on her desire to communize the country. I’m sure his handlers threatened him with death if he left his game plan and began ad libbing amusing cheap shots at Kamala. Somehow he has to get her away from her sob-story-life and bring her down to earth. If she isn’t in tears at the next debate from his misogynist slurs I will be disappointed.

I’d like to know how they would do if they debated the way Lincoln and Douglas did. They spent hours at each other’s throats. She would turn her arguments into word salads. A better match would be putting JD Vance against Kamala. His command of language and argument is superior to hers and even Trump’s. I believe JD would stick the dagger into her chest so smoothly that she wouldn’t even know she was being slain.

What Kamala needs is some experience with real work. As she said, she has always worked for the people, implying that in her role as a lawyer and prosecutor, she was on our side. When I say work, I mean as a waitress or a clerk in a corporation where a boss looks over your shoulder expecting you to perform. Or maybe she should take a spin as a nurse in the ER where she would have to think on her feet and perform miracles quickly. Based on her performance as the border czar she has not shown any ability to solve problems but she does know how to create them. By expanding the populations of small towns she has literally forced people into taking desperate measures to find food. Being resourceful, hungry people will look upon household pets as a protein source, and there are reports they have already eaten cats and dogs. There are countries in the far east that offer cats, dogs, snakes, and large birds on the menus. I personally witnessed these items while on a business trip to Malaysia. Many eating places in the far East keep live fish and animals in cages so the customer can pick his meal on the spot. The people insist on eating only freshly killed and cooked items. The only exotic animal I could stomach was fried alligator, or a carp pulled out of the fish tank as we watched.

The people of the USA will have to get used to eating anything that moves as inflation increases. The positive side of eating fresh kill is that the foods won’t be overly processed as commercial foods are today. Follow this link to an interesting news article about eating dogs

https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/22/world/asia/china-yulin-dog-meat-festival/index.html

Filed under: Conservative, Election, family, Food | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Being Thankful

Posted on 23/11/2023 by Grumpa Joe

One would think that with the wars going on in the world and the bitter fighting between political parties, we have nothing to be thankful for. The opposite is true. If we woke up this morning, and all of our friends and relatives woke up, we have them to be thankful for. If we had a meal on the table, and a place to sleep we are grateful. The sunshine is also a gift, as is the lack of sleet and snow. We are thankful if we have gas in our cars and places to go. Most of all, I am grateful I can write this ode and wish my internet friends happy Thanksgiving Holiday.

These two tom turkeys are looking for attention from the hens of the flock.

Turkey joke: Female turkey to her partner,

“Is that your meat thermometer, or are you glad to see me?”

Filed under: Biography, Cooking, Food, Humor | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

Mind Wandering

Posted on 21/11/2023 by Grumpa Joe

As I gaze out my office window, I see seven sparrows lined up on the decorative Juniper tree growing there. The birds all stare at an empty bird feeder, reminding me that the time to begin feeding the tiny critters has arrived. In the past five days, I have spotted a Slate Junco and two woodpeckers in the yard. Clearly, this is a sign that winter is arriving.

Bird watching is one of my favorite hobbies, and I have decided to keep a log of birds spotted in my yard. Logging birds has been one of my pastimes, but I have fallen out of it in the last twenty years. My previous log was kept for over ten years, and I logged seventy species of birds visiting the yard. My binoculars and bird book are always handy during those times.

When the feeding of birds begins, other creatures appear in numbers, like squirrels, rabbits, opossums, and raccoons. When these creatures arrive, I also spot an occasional coyote passing through. Living near open farmland, trees, and wetlands is a benefit. My lot borders the wetland, and a row of very tall cottonwoods grows on the wetland’s edge. Another 500 feet away is a linear forest where an abandoned rail bed has been converted into a bicycle trail. This trail stretches for twenty miles, cutting through the towns of Frankfort, Mokena, and New Lenox. Over the last twenty-five years, the land on either side of the trail has been left to its own and has grown into a thick cover of trees, shrubs, and wildflowers. The trail also provides a highway for meandering wildlife through the connecting thickets of trees and even some woods.

Over the past forty years of living in this area, we have been graced with the presence of deer on a few occasions. In the fall and winter, I welcome them into the yard, but during the summer months, I chase them away because they love to eat everything I plant.

On our drive to Indiana in quest of the Sandhill cranes, we saw several dead deer on the highways. This is a sure sign the deer are in rut. Driving during the sunrise and sunset hours can be dangerous because deer dart across a road without looking both ways and often occupy the same space as a driver. The moment that happens usually means death to the deer, and depending upon the car’s age, it can mean the same for it.

As we passed through the vast open farm fields, I thought about living alone when the nearest neighbor might be a mile away, and his house is invisible to you. In most cases, the nearest town maybe ten or twenty miles away, so if you need something from the store, you must consider the cost. Also, getting healthcare in towns of five or six hundred people is difficult, if not impossible. Country living is not my cup of tea, but living in a town of five thousand people could be fun.

When I first moved to Frankfort, the population was about four thousand. All of our neighboring towns were the same. Since then, Frankfort has grown to twenty thousand souls, and I do not like it. The traffic and congestion are heavy, the amount of open space between towns is small, and the distinction between towns has become the same as Chicago with all its neighborhoods. All that is different is that each town has its government, police force, fire department, sewage treatment, water department, library district, park district, and the costs associated with maintaining them. Suddenly, the idea of living in the desolation of farmland becomes appealing again.

Filed under: Biography, Food | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Nature’s Trick or Treat

Posted on 01/11/2023 by Grumpa Joe

Mother Nature has the Halloween mantra backward: It is Trick or Treat, not Treat or Trick. Last week the weather in Illinois was perfect. Temperatures ranged between 70 to 80 degrees F., at a time when they should have been in the fifties. Today, we have a more normal day for the end of October, it is 31 degrees and snowing. Most likely this may put a damper on kids trick or treating, but I am prepared.

Lovely’s girlfriend just stopped by to give her a couple of cabbages. I am stunned by these things. Two of them filled and strained a shopping bag. They are larger than basketballs. I have heard of giant cabbages grown in Alaska but never in Wisconsin, where these came from. In Alaska, the daylight during summer never quits, and the growth never stops. The farm must have them on steroids. I just ran a tape measure around one, and it measures 32 inches.

I’m hoping Lovely doesn’t get the idea of making stuffed cabbage rolls from them; they will be the size of a chicken. That is the treat we got from her farmer friend on Halloween Day 2023.

This post has been delayed by one day. Today is All Saints Day, not Halloween. The snow and cold definitely put a damper on the number of kids who were tough enough to come out and beg for candy. I counted 41 kids who came by between 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

The 24 hour delay in the posting has something to do with running out of data on my phone at the end of the month. Yesterday, I couldn’t send a photo, but this morning they were here.

Filed under: Biography, Food, Garden | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

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