All posts by reneeinnd

2026, animals, dreams, Family, pets, Uncategorized

Words To Live By

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We continue to be charmed by, loved by, and exasperated by our Cesky Terrier, Kyrill. He is a dog who insists on routine, and who seems to have a canny sense of time and schedule. He likes thing to happen the same way everyday, and seems to have a set of internal expectations for himself and for us. After careful observation, I believe these are his words to live by:

1. If Mommy is in bed, I have to be with her, no matter what else is going on.

2. If I whine at Daddy long enough, he will always get me another treat. Whining doesn’t work with Mommy.

3. If my squeaky ball goes under the furniture, I have to lie down where it went under, and someone will get it for me.

4. I get roasted squash in my kibble two times a day. I get freeze dried beef sprinkles on ice cubes two times a day. It is ok if my kitty licks the ice. All my beef gullets and pork sticks are kept in the garage. I get two each day.

5. I need to sleep with my beef trachea and squeaky ball at night. Mommy’s feelings about having a trachea and a squeaky ball in her bed are not important. I only go outside if I have my squeaky ball with me. I always bring it back inside with me.

6. Any coffee cup left within my reach is fair game and I will drink it dry. Pens and socks should be chewed. They all belong to me, you know.

7. Stay with your pack. Don’t be a door darter.

8. It is tugging time after breakfast and morning coffee.

9. All squeakers in plush toys must be removed within 10 minutes of receiving them. Any plastic squeaky ball without a squeaker must be replaced immediately.

10. I must do the pre-rinse on all ice cream bowls before they go into the dishwasher.

What are your words to live by? How have animals controlled your life?

2026, home, Uncategorized, work

Handyman

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I am pretty good at fixing things around the house. Husband isn’t very handy, and repairs have usually been left to me. In the last few years, however, I have discovered that any repair involving a ladder is too much for me, as I have become increasingly scared of heights.

Yesterday we had a handyman service come to replace batteries in the garage door opener motor, program some new garage door opener remotes, and replace the closure in the garage ceiling that leads up to the attic. The old closure had fallen out and cracked. We also had them hang a large mirror in the livingroom. That involved heavier work than I was prepared for.

Everything went quickly and smoothly. Now that the mirror is up I think I can finally hang the pictures that have been stacked in the basement. I plan to have an electrician come to replace all the fairly aged wired-in smoke detectors in the bedrooms. I am thankful for all our helpers.

What repairs around the house do you leave for the experts? Post some working songs.

2026, History, Music, Uncategorized

Protest Songs

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I am sure it comes as no surprise that I have had this as an earworm all week.

This got me thinking about the history of protest songs, which I learned goes back centuries. It wasn’t until the 16th century and the invention of the printing press that protest songs were written down. They existed word of mouth before this. After Guttenberg, protest songs were often printed as broadsides and handed out in the streets. They were also sung in taverns and other meeting places. They were composed in response to religious and political upheaval as well as poor working conditions and economic inequality.

I found a recording of a very early German protest song from the 16th Century Peasant Revolt. It champions freedom of thoughts and ideas. It has been somewhat modernized, of course. It is amazing to see how many centuries-old protest songs are available to listen to on-line. One good source was the website for The First Amendment Museum, a museum located in Maine.

Yankee Doodle and A Mighty Fortress are protest songs. I imagine Baboons are most familiar with protest songs from the 1960’s and 1970’s. Husband recomnended this one:

I hope there are protest songs being written right now, and that we get to hear them. They are the earworms we need to have.

What protest songs you are you familiar with? Do some research and find older protest songs from other centuries.

2026, animals, Health, pets, Uncategorized

SAILing

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Well, I admit defeat. I am old. I am out of shape. I am stiff and sore. I need exercise.

I went to a SAIL class on Thursday at the American Reformed Church. (That is the less conservative Dutch Reformed Church in town, in contrast to the Christian Reformed Church, which is uber conservative.) SAIL stands for Stay Active and Independent for Life. It is operated by a community organization that provides services for senior citizens, and aims to prevent falls and keep older citizens in their homes.

I realized after my decision to attend that I had no work out clothes. I haven’t owned sneakers for 10 years. We made a trip to Sioux Falls earlier in the week to remedy that.

The class lasted an hour. We marched around, worked on balance, and stretched. They supplied hand weights. Some exercises were done standing. We worked on upper body and shoulder strength and thigh muscles. For some exercises we sat. I was the youngest person in the class. Some of the folks knew my parents.

It amazes me how woefully weak and stiff I have become. I will attend these free classes twice a week. We want to get a Cesky puppy in the spring, and I need to get into shape.

How often do you exercise? What defines “old” for you? Getting any new animal companions soon?

2025, animals, gardening, holidays, home, pets, Uncategorized

The New Year

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I can’t say I regret the end of 2025. This has been the most disturbing and disruptive year in my memory.

Moving and politics have taken their toll. We are very happy where we are in terms of location. I have hopes the political situation will improve.

Our goals are modest. We want to install raised vegetable beds in the back yard. We want to plant Boyne raspberries. Husband wants to improve his guitar skills. We are not traveling.

We plan to have best friend relocate here in the spring, and get a Cesky sibling for our pup. All these things are potentially exhausting, but change that is in our control is far more manageable than unexpected change.

What are your goals for the new year? Garden and travel plans?

2025, books, Family, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized, Weather

Forts

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DIL texted me on Sunday to report they had arrived safely in Brookings from Mankato the evening before and were spending the blustery day playing board games and reading books.

She said that 7 year old Grandson was reading his favorite DogMan books in a blanket fort made up of sofa pillows and his infant sister’s bouncy chair. Any fort in a storm!

I loved blanket forts as a child. The sofa cushions made great walls. My farming cousins and I tried to erect forts in trees in the groves, in the granary, anywhere we could find. It sure kept us busy. Perhaps this explains the allure of tents.

I was always so happy when we had snow days from school, as that was the only time my mom made waffles. We still call them Blizzard Waffles. Husband says he has sourdough discard and we can have waffles on New Year’s Day!

What were your favorite ways of making forts? How do you spend stormy days at home?

2025, Family, Uncategorized

Home Remedy

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Husband came down with a head cold late last week. He really suffers when he has a cold. His allergies seem to make cold symptoms worse than normal. He spent the weekend doing nasal irrigation and concocting soup to ease his symptoms. We had quite a bit of the turkey brodo I make from The Splendid Table cookbook, and he doctored it up with lemon juice, poached chicken, turmeric, hot peppers, and Penzey’s Bangkok seasoning. He said it helped, and he feels he is on the mend.

My mother never did much when we had colds. They were just things you suffered through without much fuss. A fever might warrent some aspirin, but there was rarely any Vapor Rub or other over the counter cold medication in the house. My father took a different approach. In the fall and winter he always had a bottle of peppermint schnapps in the freezer. If I had a particularly bad cold he would slip me a shot of the icy schnapps at bedtime. It was really aromatic and put me into a restful sleep

I still tend to ignore cold symptoms and don’t use cold medications. I don’t use schnapps, either, although a hot toddy can be nice at times when the symptoms are bad. I rarely get colds, though, having become immune to many cold strains through 30 years exposure to drippy-nosed preschoolers in the play therapy room.

How did your family deal with colds and flu? Got any good home remedies?

2025, holidays, Music, Uncategorized

St. Stephen’s Day Earworms

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Happy Boxing Day, Baboons! Today is also St Stephen’s Day. I have been thinking all week of this song from the Chieftains and Elvis Costello. We appreciated Boxing Day as a great day off when we lived in Winnipeg.

It has had good company with any number of earworms that have plagued me for a while.

O Canada seems to always be playing in my mind. I also have been hearing Ode to Joy and the hymn Earth and All Stars which has pretty wild lyrics and which I haven’t heard in church for a couple of years. I seem to hear these songs when I wake up in the middle of the night.

For some really strange reason I woke up earlier this week with this playing in my head:

I have no idea where this came from. Why on earth would I dredge this from my memory the week of Christmas?

How do you think we ought to celebrate Boxing Day as a holiday? Any earworms lately? What is your favorite production of Guys and Dolls?

2025, animals, holidays, home, Uncategorized

Christmas And Pets

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As you can see from the photos below, our cat has claimed the Christmas tree for her own. Ever since we put it up she has been sleeping under it and drinking the tasty water in the tree holder. She walks around it as though she owns it.

This is first Christmas tree we have had for about three years. Other years we were traveling to Brookings and didn’t want to have a fully decorated tree sitting around unattended for days. Luna the tabby has been known to to climb the tree and/or knock down and play with ornaments. She also chewed the straw beards off the Julebukke. I am happy to report that the dog has ignored the tree entirely. Our previous Welsh Terriers were famous for unwrapping presents and stealing ornaments.

We bought the current Frasier fir at the local farm store. It is fairly small. We put a string of lights on it, and plan to decorate it today. We shall see if Kyrill can resist plucking ornaments off the tree. This is a pretty low key holiday for us even with the tree. Best friend is coming down. This is the first Christmas in decades we aren’t doing any Christmas music in church. We will celebrate with our son and his family January 3rd. His cat and dog leave their tree alone. Luna will probably give us heck for taking down the tree after Christmas. It is her tree, after all.

How have your pets treated your Christmas tree, decorations, and presents? Do your pets have Christmas stockings?

2025, Food, History, Uncategorized

Old Mag Seasoning

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Husband and I made a trip to the Rock County Historical Society last week to look around and see what they had in the gift shop. I was delighted to find 8 oz bags of Old Mag Seasoning, an all purpose spice mixture for meat, eggs, and veggies developed by the rather rascally proprietor of the now defunct Magnolia Steak House and Bar in Magnolia, a little town about 6 miles east of Luverne. It was famous for decades as the place to go for the best steaks. I am really looking forward to putting it on our food at home. It smells wonderful. I have fond memories of the wonderful food I ate at the Magnolia Steak House when I was a kid.

AC Dispanet was ftom Estherville, IA, and opened the Steak House in 1938. He went by Ace or Claire. My dad grew up near Magnolia and graduated from High School there. For a while in the 1950’s he worked at the steak house as a bar tender. He got to know Claire pretty well. Claire worked for Al Capone in the 1920’s driving a beer truck on the North Shore. He quit and left the area after he had to phone Chicago to report one of the trucks was stolen and two guys he knew who had driven the truck were sumnarily executed by Capone. He started his own bootlegging business after that, and was arrested and put in Leavenworth Penitentiary for a few years. He lost his US citizenship due to that, and didn’t get it back until the 1950’s with the help of Hubert Humphrey.

My dad’s brother farmed near Magnolia and liked the clearly illegal high stakes poker games Claire allowed to operate after hours. My aunt got so mad at my uncle for spending so many nights away from home gambling that she threw a chair through a glass door at the bar when the door was locked and they wouldn’t open it to let her in. He stayed home more after that.

Claire’s wife was a very devout Roman Catholic. Claire was not. When he died in 1972 his wife had him buried in the Catholic Cemetery in Luverne as close to the grave of the former parish priest as she could arrange. My dad said she hoped Claire could grab onto the priests robes and get transported to heaven in the Resurrection.

In 2010 I wrote a post about the Steak House, so feel free to read that, too. I can’t believe it has been 15 years!

Tell about some noted rascals you knew or knew of. What are some of your favorite spice mixtures.