Category Archives: 2024

2024, Gatherings, Travel, Uncategorized

Cowboy Chic

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I am attending a conference next week in Dallas, TX for psychology regulatory boards. I attend two of them a year, one in the spring and one in the fall. These conferences are rather dull, given the topics we deal with. The organization that sponsors these conferences always tries to spice up the week with a big party on the Friday night. There is always a theme for the party, and it is no big surprise that the theme for this party is Cowboy Chic.

We have been encouraged to come in costume, such as classic western wear, fringe and leather, dresses with western twist, clunky and chunky jewelry or outsized belt buckles, and sequined cowboy hats. I own neither a cowboy hat nor cowboy boots. I have very little jewelry, and hardly anything that is sequined. No gingham or leather or fringe, either. I have no intention of buying any of the above, either. I can hardly wait to see what the folks from the Canadian Maritimes wear!

The party is on November 1, which is also All Saints Day. I would prefer to dress up like my favorite saint or martyr than dress up in western wear. I suppose, living where I do with real cowboys, that Cowboy Chic isn’t that fun or alluring. Joseph Gabriel of the Rosary, also known as the Gaucho Priest, is the patron saint of cowboys, He had leprosy, so the makeup for that would be rather challenging. I may just show up in jeans and a sweatshirt.

We used to have costume parties when we were in graduate school in Winnipeg. The most memorable was when I dressed like a large strawberry for a Halloween party. I wore tights, and the two sided pink costume went down to my knees. I got a call in the middle of the party that one of my clients was in the ER with suicidal ideation and needed to see me ASAP. It was a little hard to get the ER staff to take me seriously in that getup. My client, despite their distress, though it was hilarious.

What would you wear for Cowboy Chic? What was the last costume party you went to?

2024, Family, gardening, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Leaving The Leaves

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Monday afternoon I saw our neighbor across the street mowing his perfectly manicured lawn and removing every single leaf that had landed on the grass. When he was finished, there wasn’t a single leaf on the lawn. He loaded the leaves into the back of his pickup and hauled them to the city bins. He can’t tolerate anything that takes away from the green.

Most of our front yard is a vegetable garden, so we don’t rake there or in the back yard. I swept the leaves that landed on the front stoep and sidewalk into the garden so we could go out in our socks and not get them full of dried leaves. During the night we had a very strong wind, and in the morning there were as many if not more leaves on the stoep and sidewalk. Neighbor’s lawn looked like it did on Monday afternoon before he had mowed. It was covered with leaves! He was out there again on Tuesday repeating what he did on Monday. There are still lots of leaves on the trees around his property and the neighborhood. He’s going to have a busy time until the leaves are all fallen.

I suppose our neighbor thinks our yard is a mess because we leave the leaves in the flower beds and garden, we leave the perennials uncut to promote pollinator hatching, and only cut back the peonies, daylilies, and irises. Sometimes our next door neighbor comes over and rakes in the flower beds on the north side of our property because she feels guilty that our flower beds are full of the leaves from her ash trees. We tell her that the leaves will decompose and insulate the garden, but she can’t let leaves lie, either.

Rakers in your neighborhood? Did you jump in leaf piles as a kid? How do you prepare your lawn or garden for winter?

2024, animals, Family, home, pets, Uncategorized

Who’s In Charge

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As psychologists, Husband and I are familiar with behavior modification. We are both pretty adept at changing the behaviors of others. It dawned on me yesterday, however, that we have met our match in our Cesky Terrier and the finesse with which he has modified our behaviors and what a creature of habit he is.

Every morning, Kyrill wakes up when Husband’s alarm goes off. He then jumps on me to make sure I know that the alarm went off, and then he waits on the bed in great anticipation for Husband to get dressed and take him for his morning stroll. I stay in bed. When they return, he jumps back into bed with me and won’t get out of bed until I get up. He barks at me if I stay in bed too long and he wants his breakfast. After our breakfast, Husband and I sit in the livingroom and read aloud some short devotionals and drink our coffee. That is the cue for Kyrill to have vicious and vigorous tugs with his Wubbas. He accompanies me anytime I go into the bathroom, and brings the same pink ball with him every time. He tosses it at my feet and expects me to try to grab it no matter what I am doing. I am never fast enough to grab it. Certain whines mean different things. One means he wants a share of the ice in Husband’s glass. Another means he has lost his pink ball, and to please help him find it. Whenever I step out of the bathroom in the morning, ready for the day, I get a glance from him, while he waits in anticipation for me to say “Go outside”, after which he runs to the back door to be let outside.

We go along with all of these and countless other expectations that our dog seems to have for us. Whenever I sit on the sofa he insists he has to sit in my lap. He expects to do the pre-rinse on our ice cream bowls and sits at our feet while we eat. He whines if he thinks we take too long to finish. We don’t cater to his expectation that all socks are his to steal and chew up, however.

Who modifies your behavior? How have animals changed the way you do things and live your life?

2024, Art, Family, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized

Bah! Humbug!

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Continuing with a Halloween theme today. I notice that the people around town who are really into Halloween have their yards decorated, their inflatables inflated, and their pumpkins carved. Then there are the houses like ours that sport no pumpkins or decorations of any kind, We typically don’t do much for Halloween. In any event, I will be away in Dallas on the 31st, Husband will be home with the dog, and we have decided that he will close the blinds, leave the lights off, and not hand out any candy. It would be too hard with only one person at home to hand out candy and manage a hysterical terrier whenever someone came to the door. We will be Halloween Scrooges. This weekend I plan to bake frosted pumpkin cookies and brown-butter maple muffins for the children next door. They always come over to trick or treat, and we will give them the goodies on Sunday.

Last weekend we saw the most gruesome, yet remarkable Halloween decoration in the parking lot at the grocery store. A really rugged looking guy drove up in a red pickup with an enormous skeleton taking up the whole bed of the vehicle. The skeleton was seated, and yet its head and shoulders towered at least five feet over the roof of the truck. The feet stuck out over the back gate of the pickup bed, and there were dog skeletons lying across the main figure’s ankles, looking as though they were leaping. A smaller, human skeleton lay draped over the big skeleton’s arms. The whole tableau was held in place by thick orange straps. The guy was driving all around town with this. It could have been a float in a parade, if there was a Halloween parade in town. I would love to know what prompted him to do this.

What sorts of Halloween decorations are you seeing? Do you decorate for Halloween? What kind of tableau would you imagine constructing in the back of a pickup?

2024, Food, holidays, Kids, Seasons, Uncategorized

To Corn or Not to Corn

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It’s another time of year for polarization.  Candy corn or no candy corn!  Hamlet said it best:

To corn, or not to corn, that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of autumn candy treasure,

Or to take arms against a sea of sugar

And by opposing end them. To gorge—to sleep,

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand sugar shocks

That taste buds are heir to: ’tis a corn consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d.

I’ve always loved candy corn.  I know that many folks do not – in fact really really do not.  It took me a few years after I became a vegetarian to realize that my fall favorite is not a vegetarian product; the Brachs autumn staple is made with gelatin.  So sadly at about the age of 22 I gave up candy corn.  

About 15 years ago I discovered a few smaller companies who make candy corn (and also the little pumpkins) with no gelatin.  You kinda had to hunt for it.  For the last five years I’ve been able to find it at Hy-Vee but this is dangerous.  I drive all the way to Hy-Vee and then can’t seem to just get the candy and go; I always spend way to much at Hy-Vee.

This year Target is carrying a non-gelatin brand of both the plain candy corn as well as the pumpkin mix.  Woo-hoo.  I got a container of each (and didn’t end up spending a small fortune on other items).

When I got home YA gave me grief about buying candy corn and disparaged candy corn in general.  But I’ve seen her dip her hand into the candy bowl more than once since then.  Guess she’s on team candy corn whether she admits it or not!

Do you have something you just can’t stand? (Besides VS hi-jacking Shakespeare to validate her yearning for candy.)

2024, animals, Family, Farming Update, Uncategorized, work

Heatin’ Up

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

It’s that time of year that the butter in the kitchen is hard. I haven’t turned the heat on yet, even though we did have a hard frost earlier in the week. 21° at our house. I had pulled a few plants into the garage, unhooked the hoses, and I have the pressure washer in the feed room with a bucket over it, which is good enough for now. Starting to think about what needs to be picked up and moved before we take the next drastic turn into winter. But I’m not gonna talk about that. Yet.

Got the soybeans out on Saturday.

The yield was a little below average which is what most guys were saying. And the prices are down to so that’s not helpful. Remember, prices are all based on the Chicago Board Of trade (CBOT) and then the local elevator subtracts an amount called the “basis“ to cover their costs like shipping and operational expenses, which gives me the local price. Every morning at 6AM, I get an email from DTN (I don’t know what that stands for) and the subject line at least tells me if corn is up or down for the day. Most of the time that’s all I need to know because I don’t market my grain throughout the year, other than maybe a few thousand bushels that I might hold onto until March or June (depending on the yield, the price, and if I can pay all my fall bills)

I think all farmers are using operating loans of some sort for all the spring inputs, and some of those are due in December, so I just sell everything right away. Typically harvest time is when the price is lowest, but if I store grain at the elevator I have to pay for storage. I don’t have bins at home and if I did, I’d still have to dry it, keep it in condition, and ship it, so there are always expenses. The best local price is hauling it to the river. Around here a lot of guys deliver to Winona or ethanol plants but they’re talking of hundreds of thousands of bushels.  Even if the price went up a dollar, my 5000 bushels, that difference, isn’t gonna make or break me. It’s hard to justify storage and the time it takes to make a difference. And that’s why I sell everything in the fall.
Remember, every farm is different, and everybody does it their own way. Farmers may not have a lot of cash, but we have good credit ratings!

So- corn on Friday was $4.06 on the CBOT, and soybeans rallied $.20 to $9.88, they were down yesterday because it rained in Brazil. Remember it’s a global market.
At the local elevator, the basis on corn is $.43, the basis on soybeans is $.65, meaning the local price is about $3.65 for corn and $9.25 for soybeans. Soybeans in November 2025 are priced at $10.32. I could contract some soybeans for a year out and make a dollar more, however even this year I had less than 2000 bushels so it’s really not that much money. And If I don’t produce enough to cover what I contract, I have to make up the difference. I always say, a few more zeros on both sides of the equation and we’re talking real money! There is a lot more to marketing that I don’t know.

I have a heater in the shop! We had to do some redneck engineering to move a pallet rack, and Kelly and I had to coordinate hand signals for part of it. No one yelled, and we got it moved. Only once did she have to give me a hand signal of her own…


The thermostat isn’t hooked up so it’s kind of hotwired, and it’s powered by an extension cord hanging off the wall at this point, but I have a heater in the shop!

Still got the four ducks. And they can all fly!  

DO YOU TALK WITH YOUR HANDS?

GOT ANY HAND SIGNALS

2024, Family, Stories, Uncategorized

Surprise

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I received news from Ancestry this week that I am sure has made my father and his father turn in their graves. Ancestry did an updated genetic analysis using new data techniques. Despite that fact that my last name is Dutch (Boomgaarden), and that the family immigrated from Ostfriesland, just across the River Ems from Holland, there has been a long standing legend in the family that the Boomgaarden’s are really French, and are the descendants of Huguenots who fled to Ostfriesland in the 16th century due to religious persecution. They could sometimes begrudgingly admit that they were probably a little German, but certainly not Dutch. They had a lot of animosity for the Dutch Reformed Church and the way they were treated by the Dutch authorities when they lived in Ostfriesland because they were Anabaptists and followers of Menno Simons. That animosity continued even when they settled in Northwest Iowa in the 1800’s and lived amongst hordes of Dutch immigrants.

The old analysis suggested that the family was mainly German with some Swedish and Norwegian thrown in. Those Vikings got around, you know, and invaded northern Germany and the Netherlands. The new analysis indicates that my father’s genetic make up is 68% Dutch, 7% Danish, 1% Baltic (Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian), 1% Central and Eastern Europe, with the rest German. Not one bit of French ancestry to be found! It makes the most sense of any of the previous analyses.

I don’t know the science behind these Ancestry analyses, but I can hardly wait for the science to become more and more precise. Perhaps it will eventually turnup some French DNA, but I am not going to hold my breath.

Ever had a DNA analysis? Any unsupported legends in your family? Was there ethnic animosity where you grew up?

2024, Family, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Found!

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The other night Husband was preparing to use his Neti pot after cleaning his CPAP hose. There were any number of things and implements and Q-tips involved in the processes, and when he was all done, he couldn’t find his hearing aids, which he had purposely taken out. I guess you can’t wear hearing aids when doing what he was doing.

We looked all over, in every room and drawer. I had him retrace his steps as best he could as he had got all the things he had needed for his tasks. He mentioned that he had gone into the bathroom I typically use when he got the Q-tips. I didn’t see them anywhere on the counter, but something caught my eye when I glanced in the bathroom waste basket. Sure enough, there they were!

Husband has lots of numbness in his fingers from carpal tunnel. He must have gathered the hearing aids up with the rest of the cleaning supplies and inadvertently tossed them, too. I felt like I imagine a detective feels after a successful solution to a mystery. I should add that despite his health issues, Husband is a busy and active guy.

When have you felt like a detective? Lost anything recently? Read or watched any good mysteries lately?

2024, Uncategorized, work

Don’t Be So Bossy!

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Today is Bosses Day. I have been quite lucky in my work having, for the most part, good bosses who did their best to protect us and make our psychology department as functional as it could be. That isn’t an easy thing to do in State government. Over the years we had some upper level administrators and directors who weren’t so great, and who were eventually walked out of the building in the middle of the day by State HR people from Bismarck and told not to return. That was sure something to see! I also always have got along better with male rather than female bosses. I am not certain why that is. (Probably something to do with my relationship with my somewhat overcontrolling mother!!)

I don’t remember an official boss when I worked as a corn detasseler for Dekalb when I was in high school, just middle aged women who detasseled with us and yelled at us if we worked too slowly. My first real psychology job was at the local hospital. My immediate supervisor was a great guy, but the CEO of the hospital was a heavy drinker who liked to party with the nurses in local bars. That wasn’t exactly the image that the board of directors wanted for a Catholic Hospital. He was eventually replaced.

There used to be six psychologists in our department. Now I am the only one left. I am supervised by the psychology supervisor at the Human Service Center in Bismarck. We only meet via the internet once a month. I never wanted to be a boss or a supervisor. I just do my own thing here and try to keep up my productivity and follow the rules without having anyone looking over my shoulder.

Who were your best and worst bosses? Were you ever a boss? Who was the bossiest person you ever knew?

2024, Family, Food, History, Kids, Uncategorized

Nostalgia

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I returned home from South Dakota last week to find our refrigerator filled with some odd foods. There was a huge coil of liverwurst, a new bag of cornmeal, and fluffy biscuits. These are all things I dislike. I asked Husband what was up.

It seems that while I was gone he had a sudden longing for the foods of his childhood, particularly the foods of his family from Eastern Ohio and West Virginia. Their foodways were quite Appalachian, with a great love of cornmeal mush. His Ohio forebears were also butchers and made lots of sausages, hence the liverwurst. He insists he got the liverwurst because he wanted to make sure he had an adequate red blood count. Sure, sweetie.

I don’t get particularly nostalgic over food, unless I consider my Aunt Norma’s chicken. That was always a treat, and I have learned to master it so it tastes just like hers. Daughter is nostalgic over my pasta sauce, which she thought for years was my own creation until she saw the recipe online realized it was by Marcella Hazan.

I don’t know if I should consider it a compliment that, if Husband couldn’t have my company, he found solace in cornmeal mush. Oh well, there are worse things, I suppose.

What foods, activities, or things do you get nostalgic for?