For a guy who grew up on a farm, I’m eminently clueless about actual farm work and technology. The farm sections of Troll Valley involved a lot of research on my part, even to the point of (horrors!) asking people questions. Still, I moved the family to town as soon as I decently could.

I was on the farm but not of it as a boy. I don’t mean that in a superior sense; I’m deeply ashamed of my ignorance and inexperience. Due to a deal my parents cut with each other, my brothers and I were mostly left with the housework, while Dad continued to care for the animals and till the fields as he had since boyhood. On top of that, farm work just never engaged my interest. Dad would be fixing up a planter or a rake, and I would be thinking about Vikings or Abraham Lincoln.

But I learned something this weekend. It was actually a thing that went obsolete before my time. But God insisted on bringing it forcefully to my attention, so I figure I’d better write about it.

On our way to the family reunion on Sunday, as we drove between the cornfields on Highway 60 between Faribault and Kenyon, my uncle from Maryland started reminiscing about something called “check-row planting.” It was a way of planting corn back in the days before chemical herbicides. This system made it possible (if done right) to run the cultivator in both directions (north-south and east-west), better removing weeds between the stalks. It involved stringing wires, with knots at set intervals, across the fields. When the check-row planters were in use, the wires ran through them, the knots would trip the mechanism, and seeds would be deposited at precise points. The result was that each plant stood in the center of an exact square, with four other plants at each corner. “Dad said the trick was to set the tension on the wires exactly the same for every row,” my uncle said.

OK. A few hours later we’re at the reunion, standing around the tent and talking. Along comes cousin John from Iowa (who’s actually a descendant, not of my great-grandfather, but of my great-grandfather’s brother), and he starts telling me about this method of corn planting they used to have, called “check-row planting.”

Make of it what you will. I never heard of the practice in eighteen years living on the farm, and I heard about it twice on Sunday.

Nobody who drives the car I drive should spend as much time on the road as I have in the last couple days.

Yesterday I picked up my uncle and aunt, who’d flown in from Maryland, and took them down to Kenyon for the family reunion. They asked me to do this even after I explained the true condition of Mrs. Hermanson, my Chevy Tracker. I can only give them credit for a level of trust equal to that of the centurion of whom the Lord said, “Not even in Israel have I seen such faith.”

As it turned out, we made the trip without incident, except for one of those incidents specially planned by the professionals at our state Department of Transportation. Those dedicated public servants believe in doing a job right, so once they had closed off the most direct route to Kenyon (Highways 55 and 56 by way of Hampton), they finished off the job neatly by also closing the southbound lanes on I35, the second best route, sending us off into the wilds of Burnsville without a marked detour. This forced me to perform the Extreme Act of stopping at a gas station for directions.

The reunion was great. We’ve had nicer weather (it was overcast but didn’t actually rain on us), but the company was good, and I had a better time than at any reunion in some years. Especially nice to see Cousin Tom from Kansas. And of course the road time with my uncle and aunt was precious. They don’t get up this way much anymore.

Today I drove up to Fergus Falls (which is just short of Moorhead) for a meeting of the Georg Sverdrup Society Board. 2 1/2 hours each way. Mrs. Hermanson again made it there and back without a tantrum.

This weekend, back to Kenyon for my high school class reunion.

I think it’s best described as vehicular Russian roulette.

The Oseberg ship. Photo credit: Daderot.

Last night’s post was kind of a downer. Let’s flee to the past then, and delight in the Viking Age, which is a matter of set facts that cannot change.

Or can they?

The fact is that the field of Viking studies is almost as dynamic and fluid as modern society. Just the other day I learned a fact that shivered my timbers, so to speak. Another of the precious facts I’ve been telling people in lectures all these years turns out to be false.

I’ve written about the Oseberg Viking ship before. Along with the Gokstad ship, also housed in the Viking Ships Museum in Oslo, it’s one of the two most famous Viking ships in the world. Miraculously preserved through being sealed in clay when they were buried during the 9th Century, they were discovered around the turn of the 20th Century, and completely altered everybody’s thinking about the sophistication of Viking culture. Continue reading Ship shape →

Today, as I sat in my newly repainted light blue office, it occurred to me to wonder, “What happened to my calendar?”

I’d had a calendar over my desk, and I’d taken it down and set it on a table out in the library before the painting began. But I brought all that stuff back in on Monday. Where was the calendar? It wasn’t a small calendar. It wasn’t likely to be hidden under a pile of papers.

I turned things over, off and on, for a couple hours.

At last I looked up, and noted that I’d already pinned the calendar on the wall.

Sometimes you hear of geniuses like Einstein, who got so caught up in deep thinking that they just lost track of the world around them.

I hope I’m one of those. Because otherwise I need a keeper.

Today is my birthday. (By a strange coincidence, I had one on the same date last year.) So far it’s been pretty good, by the standard of my birthdays.

I consider it a birthday gift from God that three Norwegians came to the bookstore today. An elderly gentleman in the party engaged me in conversation, speaking VE-RY SLOW-LY so I could understand him. That was pleasant, and they even bought some things.

And the crew at work bought me a cake for afternoon break, and signed a card. Good cake, too. Tonight I treated myself to half a small Domino’s sausage pizza (they’re knocking half off the price of any pizza ordered online this week. Doubtless just for me).

I also got an e-mail from a guy in Russia, who claimed to be a fan and asked for an autographed book plate for his copy of Wolf Time, and a photo. I can’t figure out a way for this to be a scam, so I’ll be spreading the joy to the eastern hemisphere as well.

And to top off my indulgence, I’ll post my book trailer, because it’s my birthday and you have to humor me.