2026, Automotive, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized

My Way

30 Comments

Sometimes I think maybe I should have gone back to school to get a PhD in family manipulation.  I got my Masters training from the master – my mother.  Even when I could feel her working her magic on me, I succumbed time and time again. 

The inheritance of this talent is a two-edged sword.  It certainly works wonders sometimes but then I occasionally feel guilty.  I should probably feel badly that I don’t feel THAT guilty.  Some things are a slam dunk… if I ask YA to clean in the bathroom directly, she might or might not.  But if I leave a wet wash cloth on the edge of the tub or some hair from my brush on the counter – voila!  Bathroom cleaned in no time.  In the dining room (where she works from home on Mondays and Fridays), if I spread all her stuff (bills, junk mail, computer mouse, keys, etc) all over the table, then she cleans it up lickety split.  If I just organize it into a pile myself, the pile will sit there forever.  I never ask her to come help me with yardwork but if I ask for one thing – like moving a bag of mulch from the back to the front, she almost always stays to work.  My latest discovery is that if I just rinse out the kitty fountain and mention that I’ve done it, she will take the fountain apart and do an extremely thorough cleaning.  The funniest thing about all this is that if you saw her room or the sink after she’s been working in the kitchen, you couldn’t imagine she would have any cleanliness streaks in her.

We had two weeks between my mom’s passing and when we went down to St. Louis to clean the condo and have her service.  During that time, YA had two trips, one long work trip to Cancun and another for-fun trip to Washington DC to see the cherry blossoms.  She had planned it a couple of months back and was scheduled to get home on Sunday night and we were leaving very early on Monday morning for St. Louis.

A few days before she left for Washington DC, she told me that I should get the car washed and vacuumed before our trip.  Luckily I was on my game at that moment so I said “well, I’ll try but I have a lot to do for the service and getting ready for the trip.”  Three hours later, I looked out the back window and found her vacuuming my car – see the header photo.  Heaven forbid she should have to travel to Missouri and back in what she considers to be a health hazard.  (Brekke is NOT a health hazard unless you compare her to YA’s car, which is clean enough that you could eat off the seats!)  After she was done, I volunteered to run the car through the little car wash down on 54th while she was in DC. 

Win/win, right?  What chores do you prefer to outsource?

2026, animals, Food, gardening, Nature, pets

Bird Food Nemeses

42 Comments

There are many down-sides to not having a dog.  No walking companion, no one to keep the kitchen floor “clean”, no big furry foot warmer on cold nights.

And then there are the squirrels.  They have absolutely figured out that there is no dog patrolling the territory any longer.  And they certainly don’t see me as a threat.  Yesterday I made a trip to get something from the car and the squirrel on the feeder and the squirrel sitting on the swing hardly even looked in my direction, much less fled in terror.

They’re also eating the hot seed cylinder that they’re not supposed to like.  I called Mr. Bird, the company in Texas who makes the cylinders to ask about the problem.  They said at this time of year, when squirrels are having their young, they are particularly ravenous and will deign to eat things that might not taste too good to them.  This phase will probably pass but in the meantime, they also make a hotter cylinder called “Disco Inferno” that I can try.  I looked it up and Gertens carries it.  Guess I’ll add that to the cart when we are there next week!

Hopefully there will be a dog to guard the sanctity of the yard some time this summer; until then we’ll just have to put up with the squirrels laughing at us!

Any critter activity at your place these days?

2026, crops, Farming Update, Kids, Nature, Seasons, Theatre, Uncategorized, Weather

The Larch

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This week’s Farming Update from Ben.

Man, I’m tired. Oh wait, that’s old news. 

Things really have been going well so far. Last Saturday we closed the spring college show, the last show for the director, Jerry. He’s retiring at the end of the academic year. He and I have worked together at the college for 25 years, (I was free-lance the first few years) and have known each other longer than that. 

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Notice the students in the background.

Did you make the connection? His name is Jerry. And we like ice cream.

Our buddy Brian, in a scene from the play. Brian has been around, like, forever. As a student he was the thorn in my side. A fun thorn, but one of those kids that pokes the bear right up to the edge. He’s one of our besties now.

Monday we got 0.65 inches of rain. I had concert rehearsals Monday and Tuesday with a final spring concert on Wednesday and we finished planting the windbreak bushes. The oats started poking out of the ground on Thursday. Got some more corn planted, too. Making progress. 

I have 25 Tamarack trees to plant yet. I didn’t realize they’re also known as a Larch. And when I heard that, my head immediately said, in that Monty Python voice, “The Larch”.

Saturday, at one of my other jobs, I’ll be working the Bernie Sanders visit to Rochester. As usual, I’ll be way in the back in the booth. His advance crew has been very nice and on our walk through with six Rochester Police officers, the high school kids were sure staring at us. I saw one young lady, whose mouth fell open at the sight of us, and I said, “You’re in trouble now.”

On Tuesday the township had a culvert replaced on the only road into our place. The neighbor and I just planned on staying home. As part of my township duties, I went up and was an official inspector. They had a shovel I could lean on.  

It was interesting to watch them start the project. Another contractor had a high-pressure water jet, and a giant vacuum, and they made a trench to expose the two telephone lines and the fiber optic line that bisected the culvert on the West side. That fiber line through the culvert is what started this whole thing. Turned out to be another phone line on the East side. The old culvert they could cut in pieces to get out. The new one, the contractor put all the way to the west, then slide it in under all the cables. Added the aprons on both ends, and add some rip-rap. Good for another 85 years. 

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Padawan is getting more experience every day. There are days I feel like I spend all my time explaining things and answering his phone calls. I try to remember he really doesn’t know anything about this stuff. And the more he learns, the more valuable / knowledgeable he becomes. The other day I had him move the tractor and digger on to the concrete, then I showed him how to replace digger points, and I went out and graded the road. He found a broken shank, which he learned how to replace one other day, although this one was a bit more difficult, and it took a few more phone calls but he got it. Two weeks ago he would not have know what a broken shank was or that it was important.

He cut grass. Until he ran it out of gas. I mentioned that it has a gauge. “That thing sucks!” he says. “Don’t blame the tools” I remind him. “That gauge was blinking way over there. I cut grass for another hour!” …so you had an hour’s warning to fill it?? He walked away from me. And got a gas can and refilled the mower.

He has a one-track mind and that track is cars. My goodness he talks about cars a lot. 

Friday morning a crew was out to burn the CRP ground. Conservation Reserve Program. They burn every five years as part of the regular maintenence.

I spent 6 hours chisel plowing the cemetery field I started running last year.  It was the last field to be harvested last fall, just before it snowed, so I didn’t get it worked up last year. After I got that worked up I spent an hour planting corn.

It’s been some real nice weather.

Sunset
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Moon rise

BEEN TO A BEN AND JERRY’S ICE CREAM STORE?

GOT A FAVORITE MONTY PYTHON OR FAWLTY TOWERS MOMENT?

2026, Family, Fantasy, Mysteries

The Box

35 Comments

Prologue.  Before YA and I went to St. Louis for my mom’s service and to clean out her condo, my middle sister mentioned that we should keep an eye out for Nonny’s wedding ring. She had stopped wearing it a few years back (due to her arthritis) and apparently it was now missing.  When we arrived and stopped at my sister’s house, she talked about it again.  Over the course of the next 24 hours, it was clear that she has also told everyone else in the family about the ring being missing. 

Everybody looked all over the “normal” places and one of the funnier parts of the week was all of us, one by one, discovering the plastic bag in the closet labeled “Wedding Ring”.  Unfortunately we all had our hopes dashed one at a time as it was discovered over and over again that it was an old quilt in the wedding ring pattern.  Shoot.

On Tuesday, in the back corner of a closet, we found “the box”.  It was a security box – a little surprising since it probably cost more than we figured Nonny would spend.  We were pretty sure we had all of Nonny’s important papers so were a little perplexed as to why she had a high-level security box.  It took us quite a while to find the keys as we had made quite a mess of her condo, emptying out drawers and closets to start sorting into piles of “toss, keep, donate”, and in that time, we had a whole lot of wild speculation going.  Were we all adopted and the papers were in there?  Witness protection proof?  Secret bank accounts?  All most all of us (there were ten of us in the condo at that point) were thinking we would find her wedding ring.

This is what we found when we opened the box:

As a non-believer, I was a little hesitant to unseal this envelope so my nephew pulled it out of the box.  He was a little wary as well.  There was one piece of paper in the envelope:

What?  Wars, Vaccumn (sic), David Surgery, Dorothy, Sunday School.  What?  Two hours of discussion.  The list was obviously made two and a half years ago.  That’s when David’s first surgery happened and was when Dorothy, her neighbor across the hall passed away; we think that wars, David and Dorothy were ideal candidates for God to keep an eye on.  But vacuum and the Sunday School class?  And why this single sheet in this single envelope labeled God and locked by itself in a very secure box?  I mean, Nonny was an inveterate list-maker.  We found several of them while we were cleaning but none of the others made the box.

During our talks, we came up with more wild ideas about why, why, why.  I won’t go into all of them here but I’ll tell you mine, simply because it got the most laughs.

Sometime in the future, 10 people (all strangers) will be staying at a fancy spa on a little island in the Caribbean.  Beginning the first night of their stay, two of these folks have envelopes delivered to their room.  In each envelope is a notecard with the word “wars”.  At breakfast, they all scratch their heads about it, but then later in the day, both folks are found murdered.  And of course, the only boat has been disabled and no one’s phones can get a connection off the island.  Too far to swim to the nearest island.  One the second night, two more folks get an envelope with a card waying “vacuum”.  You guessed it… both those folks are found dead during the next day.  The remaining six folks have one day to figure out the clues before the next deaths….

Any better thoughts?  Do you have a lock-box?  Will it be a mystery to your heirs?

2026, home, pets, Uncategorized

The Big Chews

33 Comments

Our puppy is 5 months old and at the peak of teething. I am happy to report that she isn’t a chewer of furniture, although like most terriers she loves to steal socks and tries to haul off shoes that get left out.

We get her collagen chewing sticks of various lengths. She loves to gnaw on those. Rawhide is now deemed very unhealthy for dogs. She also loves to chew on her brother when they wrestle and chase. He reciprocates by stealing her favorite collagen chew whenever he can. Here she is with her longest chew. There are chews of various lengths all over the house.

Mitzi may not chew on furniture, but she has set herself a bigger goal of devouring our deck floor. We have a very large deck. It is perfect for the dogs to run and chase and tumble and wrestle

It even extends beyond the vertical boards you see, which is where the previous homeowners had their hot tub.

We knew the deck floor wasn’t in the best shape when we bought the house, and we plan to replace it one of these years with some indestructible modern composite like Trex. Mitzi decided about a month or so ago to speed up the replacement process by finding vulnerable sections in the flooring and chewing them up.

We didn’t catch on to what she was doing right away. After we realized what was happening we bought some inexpensive welcome mats to put on the vulnerable floor sections and we watch her very carefully when she is outside. The Vet and her breeder assure us that she will be over the Big Chews in a couple of weeks.

Any stories of destruction by your pets? When have you bitten off more than you could chew?

Family, home, Music, Uncategorized

Interconnected

27 Comments

Yesterday was very busy for us. I had a Dorcas Circle bible study meeting at 7:00 AM ( I still can’t get over what a funny name that is), and then we had a tree service arrive to do some trimming at 8:30. At 10:15 we left for Sioux Falls to get both dogs groomed. While we waited we made a trip to Costco and HyVee grocery. We don’t plan to revisit Sioux Falls for 6 weeks or so.

At my bible study, a woman who I had not met before wanted to know who I was. I explained we had moved here from North Dakota. The other women interjected that I had grown up here. I explained that I was a Boomgaarden. She looked very closely at me and said “Of course you are! You look just like your mother!” More conversation revealed we had the same Grade 3 teacher, but in different years.

Husband wrote a cheque to the tree trimmers when they finished at 10:00. The service is owned by a husband/wife team who both do the trimming. When the wife saw my name on the cheque she asked if I had any relatives in Hawarden, Iowa. (That is a small town south of us in northwest Iowa. My father’s family is from northwest Iowa.) She said that she grew up in Hawarden, and as a little girl would take May baskets to an elderly woman named Dorothy Boomgaarden, who would always yodel for her. My grandfather had 11 brothers and sisters, and anyone around this area with that name is probably a relative. Sure enough, when I looked up Dorothy’s obituary she turned out to be the wife of one of my father’s numerous first cousins. In her obituary it stated that her passion for yodeling couldn’t be forgotten.

I continue to revel in the interconnectedness I feel here. I wish I knew the story behind the yodeling. What a great thing to put in her obituary.

What funny things would you like in your obituary? Ever tried to yodel? What interesting things could your relatives do?

2026, Family, home, Music, Uncategorized

Irritating Music

32 Comments

Yesterday Husband and I heard Ravel’s Bolero on MPR. Husband commented, somewhat in jest “Friends don’t make friends listen to Bolero“. I understand that many people find the piece irritating. I recently learned that Ravel was inspired to write the piece after hearing the weaving machines in one of his father’s factories. His father was an engineer and manufacturer, and I can hear the rhythym of the machines in the music. I find that interesting, and the piece has become far more pleasant for me to listen to.

I played bass clarinet one season in the Fargo Moorhead Symphony when I was in college, and we played Bolero. Our music was rented from a national music rental company that rented music to orchestras all over the country. There are interminable sections of rests in the piece, and written into my score in pencil on about the third page of the piece were the words “Nudge Walt”. I asked the clarinet player next to me about it, and he said it was probably in reference to a bassoon player in the Philadelphia Orchestra for the bass clarinet player to alert him that his part was starting. I guess that many orchestra players have written into their contracts that they don’t have to perform Bolero.

I find most classical music wonderful, except perhaps that of Anton Bruckner, who I find ponderous and boring, and Phillip Glass, who I don’t understand at all. I also find I appreciate music the more I know about the composer. My favorite composers right now are Bartok, Sibelius, and Janacek.

Who are your favorite and least favorite composers? What kind of music do you listen to the most?

2026, Family, Food, home, Uncategorized

Fun!

47 Comments

Our lives since moving to Minnesota have been pretty noneventful aside from our trip to Kansas City in March. We have spent our time getting to know the community and getting our home to our liking. Not much has been unpleasant, but nothing has been that exciting either. The weather hasn’t been very conducive for outdoor activities.

A couple of weeks ago I ordered three Savoy cabbages through Melissa’s Produce. We grew Savoys in our ND garden. They are lovely cabbage but not available in our local grocery stores.

The ones I ordered were very nice when they arrived, and we refrigerated them right away. This made for an interesting challenge, though, of using up three cabbages in short order.

We cook most everything from scratch as a rule, so cooking a lot of cabbage wasn’t that unusual. I noticed, though, that the recipes we had chosen were really fun to make. Not just pleasant, but fun. I made a huge pot of minestrone. I made a central European pasta dish with cabbage and bratwurst. I made a cabbage, potato, asparagus. and fennel bulb hash. Husband made cabbage and mushrooms, (as well as oatcake biscuits). I love to cook, but I recognized how much fun I was having putting these dishes together, even more fun than usual!

I don’t plan to buy any more Savoy cabbage in the near future. I am kind of cabbaged-out. It reinforced for me, though, the pleasure one can derive from even the most simple activities if you pay attention. Yesterday I made Cuban black beans. Later this week I am making Danish meatloaf (it is made from veal and pork and wrapped in bacon). I expect to have a fun week despite all the rain and staying home. A simple life can be a good life.

What fun activities have you done lately? What are the most fun and least fun things for you to cook? Thoughts about cabbage?

2026, chickens, crops, Family, Farming Update, Music, Theatre, Uncategorized

FARMING – amongst other things

23 Comments

It was a year ago on the 25th that mom died. Here’s to mom.

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This weeks Farming Update from Ben:

It was April of 2021 I started writing these farm updates.

This week I learned if I use the diesel pump for semi’s at the gas station, they pump fast. Like really REALLY fast! Twenty two gallons in about a minute! It’s awesome. I’m gonna make a habit of filling the truck with them when available.

I thought Padawan should have his own set of chainsaw chaps. (We have big plans for summer! He may not know this part of them yet…) I have pretty good chaps from Stihl, a very reputable name. When Kelly bought them for me – I think it was a Fathers Day Present- she said if I was going to have some, they better be good ones. Yep. I’d agree. And now I’m looking at them for P and I’m not sure how much we’ll really need them and good ones are $150+, so I look at cheaper ones and then I think, I’m going to skimp on something that could save his life?? I pictured myself at the ER. “Well, Doc, I thought they’d be good enough.”

I bought him a good Stihl pair.

It’s a little crazy around the farm. I went from late nights in rehearsal to late nights in the tractor. Life is still relentless! Daughter asks me why I’m out in the field. Well, because. Work to be done! I just keep thinking, what if I was still milking cows?? Add another four  hours into my day. 

Padawan is going to be able to go full time for me this summer. That will be huge. I was listening to a podcast in the tractor the other night and they talked about jobs and how people have ‘soft skills’ and ‘hard skills’. The hard skills can be taught. It’s the soft skills he needs help with. That can be our goal this summer. He’s got some of them, he’s a really nice young man, but he’s 19 and they’re not his focus right now. Just gotta bring them back to the surface. 

I had him doing fieldwork. A hard skill.

Get off the phone… a soft skill…

Sold some more straw to the Fire Department. They add it to their practice fires to make smoke. They tell me it’s the least toxic way to make smoke.

The oats is all planted.

Used the new Track Wacker! Or ‘Track Eraser’ as I learned the company calls this machine. It took a little finagling to get it adjusted and folding properly, but it worked great!

Folded and ready to go.
In field position.
Whacking a tire track!

After the first 100 yards I stopped to check and be sure everything was working on the grain drill. That’s when I made a terrible mistake. I backed up with the drill in the ground. The drill uses two disc’s, in a V shape, to get the seed into the ground. The front is the point and makes the seed trench. The back is open. And when I backed up, I filled that open V with dirt. I knew it felt wrong as I backed up and it took driving ahead another 20 yards before I saw it plugging up and knew what I had done. Crap. It’s tough cleaning them out. I had to go back home and get a long screw driver and vice grips and I got all but one cleaned out. The last one I had to take one disc off to get it cleaned. NOTE TO SELF: Don’t do that again. 

Wednesday I hooked up the new drag — the new to me drag– and went over all the oat fields. It worked pretty slick! 

Got the corn planter out and greased and ready to go. Paddie did that and hauled out deck furniture while I was using the drag. I gotta get a list of jobs for him when I’m doing something else. He needs more self motivation. Is that a hard or soft skill?

I headed out to the corn fields Thursday afternoon. With my buddy.

The chicks and chickens are doing well and they love a field of freshly tilled dirt.

Fresh Dirt!
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I thought, what should I listen to as I begin? I chose a ‘favorites’ playlist on shuffle mode and the first song was Mingo Saldivar playing ‘Rueda De Fuego’. 

Tex-Mex Ring of fire. Haha- perfect! 

Got a good start; enough to check seed depth, placement, and be sure everything was working on the corn planter. Then it rained a bit and I had time to go home and take a nap before coming back for another college show. 

Friday was a road trip (me and the dogs) to Byron for a 275 gallon water tote to water the trees. Then to Plainview for parts, then to Wabasha for another 100 trees. Back through Plainview, picked up stump killer for Kelly in her pursuit of buckthorn, and finally home. It was a nice drive. 

I planted another 40 tree’s. 60 to go! And it was Arbor Day to boot!

So farm so good! 

HARD SKILL OR SOFT SKILLS?

2026, Family, home, Uncategorized

Some Like It Hot

31 Comments

I have balked at turning on the air conditioning during our recent hot weather, and we have coped well using the ceiling fans in the living room and bedrooms.

We ran the fans a lot yesterday. About 8:00 last night, Husband went to our room to turn in, and came out rather concerned about a definite burning smell in the bedroom. He turned off the fan, which had been running all day. Best Friend is visiting, and said it smelled like burning wood. I dithered for a bit, then called 911.

The fire department showed up in full force with three trucks and a sheriff’s deputy. The fire chief said it definitely smelled like burning, and thought it was the motor for the ceiling fan/light. They checked the temperature of the ceiling and fan and nothing was unusually hot. They thought that the motor was just burning out. As a precaution they decided to go up into the attic to make sure nothing was burning up there. I should add that once the fan was turned off, the smoke detector I’m the bedroom went off and the smoke seemed to increase.

Just as they were about to ascend to the attic, a young firefighter in the bedroom exclaimed “Wow, that is hot!” in reference to a folding halogen reading light (installed by the previous owners) attached to the wall above the bed. It is very flexible. Husband had turned it on about 30 minutes before he started getting ready for bed. He didn’t see that the light had flipped right onto the cherry wood headboard. It scorched a 3×4 patch on it. Of course it smelled like burning wood! It wasn’t the fan at all! It was charring cherry! We had been so concerned about the ceiling fan we hadn’t looked for other possible causes of the smoke. By 10:30 pm the smoke had dissipated but it still smelled like burnt wood.

What a dumb thing to have happen. I am sure it is the talk of the neighborhood. We are having those lights replaced as soon as possible.

When have you had to phone the fire department? What are your favorite Tony Curtis or Jack Lemmon movies?