Capture Minnesota

Yesterday being a beautiful fall day, and the day before hurricane force winds were predicted, I went on a photo safari looking for fall color.

I headed out with no particular destination in mind but ended up going to a farm we rent on the river road out of Pine Island.  Because it is rolling hills, there are fantastic views of the valleys around it.  I tried my hand at some interpretive type photography as well and was pleased with what I got.

From there, I went through Pine Island out toward Mazeppa but ended up detouring back toward Oronoco.  I’ve found that gravel roads are the best places to find photo ops.  Plus, it’s easier to stop in the middle of a gravel road than in the middle of a highway!  

I was at the Oronoco Park when Captain called to say he needed me to go to town and get him a new socket.  I was only about five miles away, so I got there in quick order and discovered my mom was riding in the combine with Captain!  Captain invited her because it is land that her dad bought back in the 1940s when their family moved back here from Illinois.  Mom must have enjoyed herself because she stayed in the cab with Captain for three hours!  She even got to drive one pass across the field.  I’ve never been brave enough to do that even though Captain keeps telling me I could do it no problem.  No thank you; that’s too expensive of a machine to put in my hands!

When they got to the end of the field where I was, Captain jumped out and explained what he needed.  “I need a socket with this size drive (see photo) that will turn a screw this size (see photo).”  With the last parts run debacle in the back of my mind, I asked him if I could take the old socket and the screw right with me to the hardware store.  Sure, go for it.  I asked Mom if she wanted to come with me, but heck no, she wanted to stay and ride with Captain!

Drove to Hardware Hank in Pine Island.  My lucky day, Troy was working.  I have found that I can show Troy almost anything, and he will have what I need.  While he was finding what would work, I perused the wall decor and had to fight the urge to buy a couple of things.  As expected, Troy had what I needed, and I headed back to the field.  It sort of worked, but not really.  Good enough to get back to picking beans, though.  Mom hopped back in the cab with Captain, and I headed home.  

Captain called later in the evening that they were done in that field, and his crew (Blaine and Chelsie) would help him move everything to McGee’s, just a couple miles down the road from home.  I went back to watching Netflix and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Dark fell, and I was starting to get nervous with all sorts of bad thoughts about breakdowns in my head, but then I heard the convoy coming into the yard.  

I went out to say hi and give Chelsie a blanket I had made.  Blaine hopped out of the truck and handed me a piece of paper and said, “What the hell?”  Here it was a traffic violation ticket.  Blaine has a CDL license and has driven semi for us for seven years now and never been stopped, so I was surprised.  Turns out he got pulled over on his way into town for part of the Click It or Ticket saturation this weekend for not wearing a shoulder belt.  Ummm...Mr. State Trooper...this is a 1986 Peterbilt semi and not only wasn’t manufactured with a shoulder belt, there is no way to retrofit one in!  Didn’t matter, Blaine got a lecture and a warning ticket that really amount to nothing except a headache.  The kicker is that he also got pulled over by the county deputy on his way out of town, but mostly that was for the deputy to tell Blaine that he couldn’t be expected to have a shoulder belt in a semi that old.  

Then they proceeded to tell me that on the way home, the convoy came to a screeching halt in the middle of McGee’s hill.  That’s a steep hill with a curve at the top and at the bottom.  Captain was in front with the combine, Chelsie was behind him with the pickup and the header trailer, and Blaine was in the back with the semi.  Captain got halfway up the hill and the hydro-something-something fritzed out.  This caused the machine to put itself into neutral apparently.  Chelsie and Blaine both stopped quick.  Captain had his foot hard on the brakes, but they weren’t going to hold very long, and unless they blocked the wheels of the combine, it was going to start rolling backwards.  Scramble, scramble, scramble for some very tense seconds, but they got it blocked and then cooled down or whatever, and Captain was back on his way.  

The next problem became that Chelsie couldn’t get Captain’s pickup out of park because of the weight of the header trailer pulling downhill.  Blaine tried to apply counter pressure with the semi (a dicey proposition in the dark on a hill), but they ended up blocking the back tires of the trailer, unhitching it, getting the pickup out of park and into reverse/drive and rehitching the trailer.  

As they were telling me this, I looked at Chelsie and said, “I hope you know that if that combine had started rolling back that what we would want you to do is bail out of the pickup and get the hell out of the way.  We can replace vehicles and equipment, but we can’t replace people!”  Yep, she knew that.  

At the end of the day, everyone went home safe and sound which is just the way we like it.  

Anyway, back to the photography thing.  I do pretty good in the photography department, although my camera probably does a whole lot more than I use it for...I’m just not quite smart enough to figure it out.  I should take a class...

Anyway, when I want to look at amazing photos for, literally, hours on end, I go to the Capture Minnesota website (www.captureminnesota.com).  You should check it out!  I found out about this website on a public TV station (yes, I am a nerd and watch public TV) a few years ago.  It is photographs only of Minnesota and all its glory.  It’s kind of like Instagram but just for Minnesota.  You can follow certain members, and you can vote for photos that you like.  Anyone can post photos on the website with a free membership; it isn’t just for professional photographers.  

Some of the stunning photographs on this website are by Glenda Mueller, who is a friend of a friend of mine.  She has won some awards with her photography, and if you search her name within the Capture Minnesota website, you will see what I mean.  I am awed by what Glenda captures with her camera lens, such as these two.  

It was absolutely aces to get out and enjoy the last days of a Minnesota fall today.  Getting some nice photo ops along the way was just a bonus.  Knowing that Old Man Winter is just around the corner makes me want to soak up all the sun I can right now, but I know that during those long winter days, I will be spending a lot of time looking through the Capture Minnesota website to pass the time.  Join me!