All posts by reneeinnd

2025, Food, home, Uncategorized

Pasta

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Being the efficient person that I am, I have been packing up any nonessentials as I have had time to do. Husband mentioned Tuesday that he wanted Fettucine Alfredo for supper. We had cream and everything else for it except fettuccine, since I had packed up all the dry pasta weeks ago. We settled for some nice fresh fettuccine from the grocery store.

I love to make my own fresh pasta and I look forward to being able to make it more often after we move. I have made tortellini, homemade lasagna, ravioli, and taggliatelle. Spaghetti is hard to make with our crank pasta maker. Grandson says that buttered noodles, which includes actual noodles as well as any kind of pasta, are his favorite things to eat. When I was his age it was a treat to have Chef Boyardee canned spaghetti. I don’t think I had spaghetti out of a box until I was in college.

I was lucky to have as a landlady in Winnipeg a woman who had immigrated to Canada from Calabria, and she helped me choose a crank pasta maker from the local Italian grocery store and taught me how to use and care for it. I remember her husband, also from Calabria, lamenting how awful the spaghetti was at a spaghetti dinner sponsored by their very English Catholic church (They had left the Italian Catholic church in Winnipeg due to a conflict with the priest). The spaghetti was really gluey and overcooked.

What are your earliest memories of spaghetti? What are your favorite pasta dishes?

2025, education, Family, Gatherings, sports, Uncategorized

Bowl

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I see that today in 1520 is the anniversary of Henry VIII ordering that a bowling alley be installed in his palace at Whitehall. I imagine it was an outdoor lane for lawn bowling, but even so it reminded me of my bowling experiences.

I noticed last week as we were driving around Luverne that the bowling alley was still a going concern, although it is only open Thursday through Saturday these days. I never belonged to a youth bowling league, but the bowling alley was a place to go to have fun when I was in high school. I don’t remember it serving anything but snacks and simple beverages. My mother belonged to a bowling league, and I remember how heavy her bowling ball seemed to me when I was a child when I would take it out of its bag in her closet.

The bowling alley in Dickinson is a really busy place that doubles as a bar and restaurant. There are very active bowling leagues for adults and children. It also is the stop for the buses that run east and west across the state. The police have their hands full there. A work colleague’s husband was attacked and robbed in the parking lot by a couple of Montana guys recently who he met bat the bar and had a couple of drinks with.

One of my high school classmates had a dad who was a professional bowler who seemed to earn a living bowling competitively. I remember seeing him on TV in bowling matches. I don’t think that is a thing anymore. What a way to make a living!

When I started as a freshman at Concordia College in Moorhead. MN, we had to take two semesters of physical education. I opted for bowling for my first gym class. It was taught by Sonny Gullsvig, the college basketball coach, at a local bowling alley. I will never forget Coach Gullsvig instructing us in his coaching voice as though he was in the Concordia gym ” FIRST YOU TAKE THE BALL AND TOSS IT DOWN THE ALLEY….” I skipped class a lot and ended up with a “C,” in the class.

What are your bowing memories? Ever hang out at a bowling alley?

2025, Family, Gatherings, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized

Old Town, New Bottle

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It has been interesting being in Luverne this weekend as I get to know the place again. When I grew up here I never bothered to associate street names with places or landmarks, so when I am told that City Hall is on Luverne St., it means nothing, but when I am told City Hall is in the old hospital, then I can find it no problem.

There are more coffee shops now, as well as a Mexican grocery store. I ran into a couple of people who knew who I was after I introduced myself, although their memories of my dad are fresher than their memories of me. I recognize familiar faces but don’t have names for them yet.

Two people stopped by the new house when they saw we were parked in the driveway. One was a neighbor who I knew from high school, and the other was the former owner. Both told us they had been keeping an eye on the place until we moved in. The former owner was able to tell us the garage door code and said her husband would come over to help navigate the very complex sound and video system set up throughout the house. We feel very welcome.

Last evening we ate at a very fine Italian restaurant in Sioux Falls with our daughter, son, grandson, and daughter-in-law. It was at the hotel we are staying at this weekend. We struck up a conversation with the waitress, a young woman in her late 20’s. She grew up in Luverne, knew my dad, and went to high school prom with my Cousin Jack’s son. She was going to drive to Luverne after work to visit her parents. She said she visits there a lot and would see us around town. I feel connected with new and old.

What are positive and negative changes over the years in your community? When have you experienced old wine in new bottles?

2025, animals, Business, Uncategorized

Junkyard Cats

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We have made several trips to our local landfill lately disposing of lots of stuff. Our landfill is set up so that you drive onto a scale, they weigh your truck, you empty your stuff in the appropriate bin, then you drive back onto the scale and get weighed again. It costs $3.00 for every 100 pounds.

The people who weigh the truck and calculate the cost are in a sunny office where we frequently see at least one of the three cats who live at the landfill. They have soft beds and full food dishes in the office. Sometimes they sleep beneath a sunny window on the workers desk. One cat has only three legs, and that is the cat we most often see running around, prowling , and sometimes taking a nap in a sunny space. They are very well loved cats and they make going to the landfill a more pleasant experience.

What are your landfill experiences? Where have you unexpectedly run into resident animals at businesses?

2025, animals, Family, home, Travel, Uncategorized

Traveling Kitty

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Today as you read this, Husband and I are making the first of two trips to Luverne over the next two weeks. The main purpose of this trip is to go to our 2 month old granddaughter’s baptism in Brookings on Sunday. The other reason for the trip is to bring to the new house as much food from our freezers and liquids the moving company won’t transport.

Wedged in the back of our van, surrounded by coolers filled with frozen food, boxes of home canned tomatoes, cans of olive oil, and jars of fancy vinegars will be our cat, Luna, in the dog crate. We decided to move her on this trip since it seemed rather too stressful to move both the cat and the dog at once.

The last time Luna made this trip was nine years ago when she was a kitten and had been rescued by our son and daughter-in-law from underneath a deck in Brookings. Our daughter was visiting them at the time and drove the cat to Dickinson after staying with Daughter and her college roommates in Moorhead a few weeks. Her only trips since then have been excursions to the local vet. It is a 550 mile trip to Luverne. Once we get her there she will be boarded at the Rock County Vet Clinic until we are moved into the new house on the 22nd.

We are going to try to make her as comfortable as possible with a litter box, soft blankets, and a small water bowl in the dog crate. I am not optimistic about her being happy at all with this trip and then being subsequently boarded. I will let you all know how it is going as the day progresses.

What are your experiences traveling with pets? Any advice for us today?

2025, Family, Food, Uncategorized

Fermentation

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Sunday night I received a cryptic message from our daughter that said “Breaking News: I love sauerkraut”.

She had an out of town friend visiting a week or so ago, and the friend just whipped up some sauerkraut and left it to ferment. I like the taste but not the texture of sauerkraut, but I never had it homemade. Maybe it is crisper than the store bought variety. Husband sneaks a jar into the fridge every so often. I think that this is perhaps the only time Daughter may have eaten sauerkraut.

I stopped making pickles quite a while ago, since we always ended up with too many to eat in a year. My favorites now are cornichons from France. They come in a small jar so you aren’t left with too many. Husband occasionally teases about home brewing beer. He never has fermented anything on purpose. I wonder if Daughter’s discovery means she is going to start making her own kraut.

What are your favorite pickles? Ever done any fermentation?

2025, Gatherings, Uncategorized

Quilts

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Last Sunday, we sang in the choir at the 9:30 service, and were acknowledge for 38 years of musical service to the church in both the choir and bell choir. They even had a God’s Speed blessing for us, which I had no idea they were going to do. After that, we were expected to sing a choir anthem all about leaving and journeying. It is awfully hard to sing when you are choked up.

We have committed quilters in our various musical groups, and they gifted us with a queen size quilt with musical motifs. It is gorgeous, and you can see it in the header photo. As soon as I took the photo, our dog jumped on the quilt and snuggled in, claiming it for his own.

What motifs would be on a quilt someone made for you to commerate your work and life? How do you keep yourself from crying?

2025, Family, Food, Kids, Uncategorized

Tradition!

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I wrote on Wednesday about getting moose meat from our next door neighbor, a moose his brother-in-law had shot last year. The reason for the gift of moose was to make room in their freezer for the venison from a deer that Neighbor’s 12 year old daughter shot over the weekend.

Neighbor comes from an extended family for whom hunting is really important. Last Saturday he and his daughter drove to the sparsely inhabited grasslands south southwest of us, and she got her deer. It wasn’t a clean shot, and they had to chase it. It took a while for the deer to expire. They gutted it out, and loaded it in the truck. On the way back, the girl told her dad she didn’t want to go hunting anymore.

Neighbor spoke proudly of how courageous his daughter was for telling him how she felt about an activity so important in their family, and how he was supportive of her decision. He said they had great conversations on the way there and back about all sorts of things like boys, her plans for the future, etc. He is a good dad, an educator, who spent are least one summer in San Francicso coaching swimming for Stanford. His daughter is a lucky girl.

What family traditions have you kept or dropped? What qualities do you think make for a good father?

2025, animals, Family, Nature, Uncategorized

Hiss!

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Tuesday Husband and I took the dog to the groomer in a little town about 10 miles west of us. I drove, and on the way back I had to swerve to avoid running over a very long rattlesnake that was slithering across the highway. We estimated it to be about four feet long. We have Prairie Rattlesnakes out here. Their markings are unmistakable. We have seen them all lengths, from tiny ones no thicker than a pencil to the long one on Tuesday. The weather has been so warm here I suppose it was a good time for the snake to check out the available mice in the ditch. We have never seen any in town.

I had some clients years ago who had to move out of their rental home on the south side of town because there were dozens of garter snakes in the walls of the basement. The house was later condemned and torn down. We heard that the lot the house was built on was a noted breeding ground for garter snakes. No other structure has been built there.

The town of Narcisse in Manitoba interlake region is well known for the tens of thousands of garter snakes that emerge from their nests in the spring and return in the fall. I guess it is quite a tourist attraction. We never visited there when we lived there. Snakes aren’t my cup of tea. I have a second cousin who I love dearly who lives near St. Peter and who loves snakes. He has bred snakes for commercial sale in the past, and loves it when his cats find garter snakes in the basement and bring them upstairs.

What are your experiences with snakes? Do you have any friends or relatives with interests you find odd?

2025, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Fingers Crossed

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A month before we closed on our house in Minnesota, the realtor phoned me to let me know the hot tub had sprung a leak, and the current owners were told it wasn’t worth fixing. Did we want them to replace it or remove it? I told her to remove it.

Now that we are three weeks from our move, and four weeks from closing on our North Dakota house, I have become very watchful and worried for anything going wrong here and needing to be fixed or replaced. I had a scare Sunday when I noticed that the dishwasher wasn’t draining, but a quick application of a plunger cleared whatever was plugging it up.

I have to calm myself and tell myself to stop when I start worrying about one of our vehicles breaking down, the plumbing exploding and ruining the drywall, or one of us getting injured or dropping dead. It is stressful enough to move, but we sure don’t need a last minute disaster.

What last minute disasters have you experienced? How do you get yourself to knock it off and stop fretting?