I’ve done the math before about how many cards I send out so I won ‘t bore you with the numbers again. The biggest category is birthday cards – that averages to about 14 cards per month.
For quite a few years, all birthday cards got the same postage stamp:
The post office also did a “Celebrate” stamp but I used those for anniversary cards and other momentous occasion cards. Then five years ago, the postal service broke my heart when they announced they were discontinuing both those stamps. Aarrgghhhh.
I had a nice supply on hand and I bought a bunch of the Happy Birthday before USPS ran out. A close friend of mine also gifted me with three sheets of them as well. I began to use them a little more sparingly. Six cards a month go to folks in one of my stamping groups – they got moved to the non-HB stamps right away. Then “outer-ring” folks stopped getting my special stash. Then the next ring in went to “regular” postage. I limped along like this for FIVE YEARS. I used the last one the first week in May.
So I was ripe for the on-line voting that USPS instituted last fall. They said they were going to bring back some older stamps and let the general public vote. The site did not have any limits about how many votes you got… .not even any limits on how many times a day you could vote; you gotta love a good loophole. I spent the entire month of September going online every morning and voting for the Happy Birthday option 20-30 times; it only took about 10 minutes a day.
My persistence paid off. They made the announcement the first of the year that my favorite stamp would be returning. They released it on April 18 although the pre-sale went up in March. The big surprise is that they did a completely new design – it’s in the header photo. I’m not sure why – it probably cost them more, first for the design itself and then for whatever it takes to produce a new stamp. Maybe after five years, the old design specs didn’t work anymore. Who knows. But no matter – the new design is fine by me. Technically I like the old look better but I’ll take what I can get.
We won’t talk about how many of them I’ve already purchased.
When was the last time you actually went to a post office?
Crafts shows are a favorite of mine. I love to see all the stuff that people make and it’s fascinating that other people buy all this stuff. The Arts & Crafts show at Canterbury is huge – not normally my favorite kind of craft event, but I’m fond one particular vendor so I wait in line, cough up my cash (I get two discounts – one for being old and one for getting a coupon ahead of time).
The lines are pretty intense so I get their pretty early. It’s good people-watching in line.
The vendor I like make quilted objects – I met the mother/daughter duo years ago at the State Fair. I ordered some oven mitts from them and the entry fee to the fair is cheaper than the shipping that’s why I went this year. I also wanted to check out their inventory of a couple of other items because they are closing their business at the end of the year. Marie is 84 and ready to retire! I got my mitts and some toilet tank toppers and a couple of table runners since it’s the last time I’ll be seeing them. They gave me the last two popcorn bags for free, since YA and I adore those.
Of course, as long as I’m there, I wander through and look at everything. This year I ended up getting a couple of dip mixes – they tasted good sampled w/ pretzels. I also stopped and got some fudge from a vendor I’ve purchased from before. The Turtle Sundae fudge is very good. Tried the baked cheese guys this year (won’t do that again). AND, I got a massive bag to popcorn… a combo of kettle corn and caramel corn. Normally I don’t get popcorn like that but from where I was standing in line (for almost an hour), the popcorn stand was directly in my line of sight and when they let us in, I was just pulled right to the stand. Took me six days to finish it.
Without Marie and Stanna, I won’t be going back to this Arts Fair. Not enough vendors that I’m that interested in. I’ll still do my Rubber Stamp event in July though and if they have a popcorn vendor, I’ll be all in!
Any arts/crafts events you’ve taken part in? Any vendors you gravitate to?
Just got through another Tech week. That final week of adding costumes and lighting and sound and dress rehearsals before the show opens. It’s always exhausting and long days and late nights. I only yelled once and that was just to get the cast to be quiet. It wasn’t at anyone directly. I’m pretty good at staying calm around the cast. I tell them that sometimes I yell but it’s not at anyone directly, it’s just to get their attention so they don’t hurt themselves or break something. I make a specific point of telling them we don’t want anyone to get hurt. “Don’t bleed on my set.” You know, showing them that I care.
Then sometimes on opening night I go down and tell them the campus inspector said the building was settling and I had to shift everything two feet to the left and reverse it. So, nothing has really changed for them, they just have to do it in reverse. They stare at me. Finally, one person will call me on it and I just walk away. I love messing with them. They’re so young. I told one girl we’d turn on the AC but it doesn’t have a thermostat so it turns into a meat locker. She looked at me with her big eyes and said, “Meat lockers are cold, right?” …….. She’s a really nice young lady.
And they’re always busy and talking and wiggling and just being young. All that energy wasted on the youth.
Last Friday Kelly took down the snow fence. On Saturday Padawan and I pulled out all the fence posts. I didn’t count, but 75 or 80 posts. There are various methods to removing old metal “T” fence posts: You can wiggle them back-and-forth side to side and front to back enough to make it loose and pull it out by hand. Sometimes you pull it out a couple inches, then wiggle it some more. Typically they’re in the ground about fourteen inches. The stubborn ones, we wrap a chain around it, hook the other end onto the tractor loader, and lift to pull it out. Some people use jacks or other means of mechanical leverage, it just depends. I had gotten maybe 30 loose by hand. Padawan got a good system going of wrapping the chain, pulling it taught, and I’d lift it out. He said he liked the work. I think he’s starting to see the feeling of accomplishment.
Pulling posts
Almost done!
I bought Padawan and me new shovels. Friday I picked up 100 seedlings. Next week I’ll pick up another 75. We are planting gray dogwood and Ninebark to create a natural wind break rather than the snow fence. Kelly is excited not to have to do snowfence anymore but there’s a lot of work that has to go into this before we get to that point. Using a string and a 100-foot tape measure and downward marking spray paint, we painted a dot every 6 feet apart in two rows 8 feet apart. Thankfully, the heavy rains did not wash off the dots. I also bought 500’ of plastic fencing and garden staples, and we’ll try to protect these tiny plants.
Laying it out
The show at the college is called ‘8 Minutes’ by E.B.Lee. It’s 9 different scenes of people with eight-minutes left until the world ends. It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s really several nice scenes. One is a person who is trying to get home to his dog- from the dogs perspective. One person is taking care of his mother with dementia. Two people are stuck in a car- she wanted to see the cherry blossoms, he has allergies, and now they’re stuck in traffic and why did they wait until NOW to go?
Or the couple with a shelter, but he’s lost the key. So, it’s got funny scenes and touching scenes. My scenic design turned into ‘connections’, some made, some missed.
I am using four, 2000 watt Fresnel fixtures. One wasn’t as bright as the others.
Hmmm, this doesn’t look right.
I love these huge lamps.
I got these light for free from Mankato State when they swapped everything out for LED a few years ago.
It’s not supposed to look like that.
A new one. Ah. Thats better
I’m using two lights called ‘Parcan’s as side light. They take a lamp that looks like an old car headlight. A sealed beam round light. 500 watts. It’s old technology from the hot and heavy days of Rock and Roll before the days of moving color changing lights. One light, one color. They make an oval beam of light, and you reach in the back and spin the bulb to get the oval the way you want it. It used to be a whole big thing. I felt a little nostalgic when I reached in the back and spun that lamp. My gosh I’m old.
Par 64
Reach in and spin that white thingy
ROCK AND ROLL! Back in the old days with 300 parcans.
Thursday this week I got my Twenty Year award from the college. An engraved marble pencil / flower / thingy holder. It’s nice!
At the farm, one recent day, I replaced shovel points on the digger, replaced a broken bolt, and found a broken bracket that supports the coil tines at the rear. Still haven’t gotten the bracket off. Started with a hammer, got a bigger hammer, got a torch, and a grinder. Back to the torch and grinder again the next day. Ordered new parts, went to John Deere and got them on Thursday. They’re still sitting in the shop. Between planting tree’s maybe I’ll work on that.
Fixing
New shovel vs old worn out shovel. Isn’t it interesting how abrasive dirt is??
Still trying to get that bolt out.
A late Friday update: Padawan and I planted 50 tree’s before we got rained out Friday afternoon. It went well. We had a good rhythm going. The tornado sirens were going off and we just kept working. It all looked fine out there. There was some small hail. We took the dogs and the gator and went up to the highest point on the road and everything looked fine. Then my neighbor texted and asked if we were OK and said, “I saw the trees!”. Uh… what trees?? Oh, you mean the 6 tree’s across the township road? And a few evergreens that tipped over across the road. Power was out, power poles leaning, broken, a couple sheds blown over. Just a narrow swath in our area, maybe some straight line winds. Once again, Thankful for our sheltered little valley. We had several people helping cut up and clean up and a few neighbors stop to check if we needed help.
A good community is invaluable.
As of 11:45PM, power still out and the generator still running.
There is always something going on at The Palace, the restored Vaudeville theatre here in town. They schedule movies every week. This week there were kids’ movies. This weekend there is a murder mystery play put on by The Green Earth Players, our local community theatre group. A TR Roosevelt reenactor from Medora, ND is coming on the 16th, and a concert pianist is coming at the end of the month.
One of my former psychology colleagues from ND is obsessed with the Titanic disaster and has put together a one woman show of a Titanic survivor, complete with an authentic period costume. I plan to connect her and The Palace organization so perhaps she can perform here. She is a perfect fit for the venue. I also plan, in the fall, to avail myself to The Green Earth players as a volunteer and perhaps an actor. We shall see what I end up doing. I should really love to act.
You live in a small community that needs actors and tech help for its theatre company. How could you help? What roles would you play if you had to be on stage? Why are they called The Green Earth Players?
*A working title that was as good as anything else.
This week’s farming update from BEN
Spring is coming. The female cardinal is fighting with her reflection in our car mirrors. She did that last year too. (Remember when having that right side mirror was a big deal? They were not standard.)
The maple trees are getting buds on them. Crocuses are coming up. The chives are coming up. And the snow fence is falling over, so it must be time to be done with that. Fingers crossed. I saw a turkey vulture Friday morning and Kelly heard a killdeer.
Last weekend Kelly traveled to San Antonio for a work thing. Spent 12 hours in airports on Saturday. Had two layovers, three flights, and every flight was late for one reason or another. Left RST at noon, got to SAN at midnight. And then couldn’t get to the gate because there was some sort of medical emergency inside.
At least her luggage showed up! She had time to walk around Sunday afternoon. Saw the Alamo and did the river walk downtown.
Did her work thing, had supper with a co-worker, went back to the airport at 3AM, no trouble getting through TSA at that point, and was back in Rochester with no issues at 11AM Monday. She slept the rest of the day.
Man, air travel… I’m gonna ask you about that at the end so give it some thought.
Really haven’t done much on the farm this week. I’ve seen several posts from the Oat Mafia group on FB of guys out planting oats. One guy did it before the blizzard. Another guy remarked when he got to the field at 2:00AM it was 31degrees and a little wet. By 3:30AM and 27 degrees it was perfect. I read that and I think to myself, honestly, I am just playing at this farming thing… Yeah, they got 1400 acres total, and 300 acres oats, while I got 25 acres of oats, So, it doesn’t compare, but still… it’s hard not to compete. My equipment doesn’t do what their equipment does. I have to do tillage before I can plant. They’re doing no-till. I looked up some no-till drills. A brand new one, six feet wide, lists for $17,000. My current drill is 15’ wide. Ok, here’s a used no-till 15’ drill, 1996 model. $35,900. Whistle. That’s a lot of oats to make that pay. Plus having the field ready to plant last fall in order to plant this spring.
Last week I mentioned jumping through hoops at the local Farm Service Agency. Somehow, after 10 years, they decided the Hain Trust and me were not the same people. I had to get a lawyer to draw up some paperwork to show I am indeed part of the Hain Trust. And that made FSA happy and this week I got a nice deposit from them. Evidently, it’s tied into that Big … Bill the orange president created. Yeah, more bail out money since he screwed up all the markets. And this is how we’re saving money, right?
And the check from the corn I sold so I had a really nice bank balance.
Then I paid the first half of rent on two fields, $2000. And paid the diesel fuel and gasoline bill. $2300. And Farm insurance $1200 quarterly. And the monthly electric bill, and, and, and… easy come easy go! But hey, at least I could make those payments.
Working on a show at the college. We open in about 3 weeks and I am busy building stuff. I clean up as I’m working because I hate walking through sawdust and tracking it all over the rest of the shop. And that’s why I vacuumed up the remote for the dust collector on the table saw. And because I have a bag in the shop vac, I had to sift it to the top and fish it back out the hole. I knew it was in there because I turned it on while fishing it out, haha. I’m gonna add a board to it so I don’t do that again. This was the second or third time I’ve done that.
I took a walk along our creek last Sunday. Me and the dogs.
Bailey…
Silver Creek
I heard some sandhill cranes calling. A flock/siege/construction/swoop of 12 or 14 of them made a loop and head off south. I hope a few spend more time in our area. I thought of our Steve.
I had a lot of township business this week. Lots of phone calls and fact-finding. Relinquished my chair of the town board and don’t have to chair that board again for 4 years. And Thursday night was the annual meeting of the People’s Electric Cooperative. Supper was provided and it was… food. I wore sleeves and a jacket.
As chair of the nominating committee I presented the election results and read the oath to the winners. And that’s over for another year. Shedding projects left and right!
A few weeks ago, here in Winona, there was an event at the Two Fathoms Brewing, a bar-and-grill downtown, on the river. Here’s the press release:
Silent Auction & Benefit Show for Winona Sheltering Network
Sunday 2:00 – 5:00 Free Event, All Ages
[Music by:] Ironstill; Mike Munson; Sheep for Wheat
When I got there around 3:00, the place was packed – standing room only. I got a lucky seat when a person sitting beside my friend Cherie left for the other room, where the Silent Auction was taking place. I eventually stood in a long line for a Cold Milk Stout (really a delicious thing – look it up). It had been a year or more since I’d been to Two Fathoms – it hosts weekly Beer Bingo, weekly Trivia Night, live music on weekends, and a monthly Karaoke, et al. Best, though, are the monthly Jazz Jams on a Sunday afternoon – with the local H3O Jazz Trio and an open mic; each month a portion of the proceeds go to a different local cause. Here’s a photo to give you the “flavor” of the place…
I enjoyed some of the changes that had been made in my absence – they’d relocated the bar, which left more central space for the stage. But since the noise level made conversation close to impossible, we just listened to the music and WATCHED people – best people-watching I’ve done in ages:
– people seeing each other and hugging, or just being delighted to reunite
– lots of little kids, some in tutus and other fancy dresses
– a guy in the corner talking to his friend, holding his mug and a baby
– so many different ages of people, and everyone seemed in a good mood
– a singer pauses to announce that there’s a pizza looking for a home – can anyone please claim this pizza???
– and the pizza smelled SO good..
– felt good to be among these people; everyone there was in support of the Sheltering Network
– there were great silent auction items – “knocked it out of the park”, someone said – and they raised around $12,000 for the WSN
When was the last time you were in a bar? Or attended a fundraiser? Was it enjoyable?
Thursday night I went to see my little friend Minnie in Mary Poppins at the Wayzata Community Church. I’ve been to several of her performances in plays the past couple of years but this was the first one at this venue. Apparently they’ve been doing productions for 25 years. Who knew?
It was a quite a production with a cast of close to 40 with a huge stage (in the sanctuary) and a nice-sized band. (So, in addition to Minnie in the play, I got to enjoy her father playing the trombone as well!)
It was a little overblown (in my opinion). Every now and then the band’s background music drowned out the dialog but the biggest problem was really the size of the cast. Every big number had almost the entire cast on stage with all the “main stars” in the front; normally not a problem but a lot of the not-main cast were the younger actors/actresses so you really couldn’t see them easily. It was just kind of a mass of bodies. For those of us there to see a friend or family member (probably most of us in the sanctuary), it was difficult.
Minnie really shone in “Step in Time”, the number done by all the chimney sweeps. She was the youngest of the sweeps but she held her own. She knew the steps and kept up with the older/bigger dancers. She clearly knew all the words and she has a great smile.
Another great piece of the evening was sitting with Marie, Minnie’s little sister. Marie had a fabulous Mary Poppins dress and shoes, along with her Mary Poppins doll and umbrella. She looked so cute.
So it was a fun night. I get to see Marie in a “showcase” next week. I love being the neighborhood grandma!
What do you wear when you’re out for the evening?? Favorite musical?
My neighbor Don once asked me about how I keep up with supplies for my paper crafts. I think I snorted. I’m pretty certain that if I didn’t buy anything else ever (except for tape, which I go through at a prodigious rate), I could keep making cards until I’m 105.
You’d think that with stacks of paper, I wouldn’t be so stingy with it. I keep almost every scrap, unless it’s thinner than 1/2”. There are two plastic bins in my studio with paper scraps – one is for solid-colored cardstock and the other is for patterned paper. Both these bins are full and I spend a bit of time sifting through to see if there is something I can use rather than cut into a new piece of stock/paper. I try to keep it organized, but many days when I’m straightening up after I’ve crafted, I just toss the scraps into the bin willy nilly.
That means that a couple of times a year, it’s time to sort out the scraps. I go through each bins separately; solids get divided up into colors (blues, greens, purples, etc.) and patterns get laid out by pattern type and/or season (stripes, dots, floral, Halloween, etc.) At this point I usually jettison a lot of the smaller pieces, especially the patterned stuff. The header photo is what it looks like (this is the solids).
This whole process takes about an hour. It’s not hard by any means and I can’t say that I actually enjoy it but it does feel quite good when it’s done. And I don’t have to think about it for another six months or so!
Last Thursday night, YA and I headed over to the Minnesota Historical Center to see the Julia Child exhibit. It’s been there for a bit but we just got around to it… plus the free Thursday aren’t EVERY Thursday, so it does require a little pre-planning.
I’ve seen Julia Child’s actual kitchen at the Smithsonian, but this traveling exhibit if much more extensive, covering details of her childhood, how she met her husband Paul, their life in France and, of course, her culinary journey. There are quite a few fun bits in the exhibit:
Pots w/ smells. There were a few pots next to copies of her most famous recipes. When you lifted the lid, that recipe’s aroma wafted out of the pot. Ingenious. There was a mock-tv studio and if you stood in certain parts of the room, your image was filmed and showed up on three different screens. Another fabulous part of the exhibit was a 12-foot high copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking; the inside of the book was projected from two different screens and every minute or so, the “page” would turn, taking your to another recipe in the book. What a marvelous idea.
I guess I know more about Julia Child than I thought (couple of biographies); the exhibit didn’t have anything that was a surprise about her life but it was enjoyable nonetheless.
I had been surprised that YA had wanted to come along but she seemed to enjoy it. We then went on to see a couple of the other exhibits that are showing right now but she didn’t want to stay for the free concert that was going on that night. Oh well, I take what I can get!
What’s the last museum you’ve visited? Any good biographies lately?
The coyotes start howling at 4AM. That gets Bailey barking which gets Luna barking ad running around inside the house. Soon as we step outside Bailey runs over to us, like ‘The coyotes are out there!’ It sure does disturb our sleep.
I’m not gonna talk about the fact it’s almost March. I have had so much stuff going on lately I can’t remember when I get out if I’ve turned the car off. One day I restarted the car when I opened the door. The next day I got out while the car was still running.
Last Friday was a student potluck at the college for my boss, Jerry, who will be retiring in May. There were students from the last 20 years and it was really good to talk with them and see them again.
One traveled from New York, and one came in from South Korea.
She who traveled furthest.
Last Saturday I took a friend to Red Wing. I thought it was just gonna be a quick drop off and home again. Not so much. Too much to get into, but it took the whole day.
Sunday…I don’t even know what was Sunday. I guess I did some stuff.
Monday we had a touring show come through the college. A quick easy one woman show called ‘The Gun Show’. It was written in 2007 by E.M. Lewis and presented both sides of the gun debate. The character in the show grew up in Oregon, everybody hunted, her brothers were in the military. Then Her husband shot himself and the one line that sticks out, she says “I don’t want to take all your guns away. But I sure wish I would’ve taken his gun away.” Gut punch.
Tuesday morning the Rochester Symphony had two concerts at one of the local high schools. Fourth graders from all around the area attended. It was a great way to get the kids interested in classical music and they learned how different instruments work. Then the superintendent of the Rochester Schools narrated Peter and the Wolf. It was a nice event to work.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned a meeting that I had with Soil & Water and all the projects we were planning for the farm. Three of the technicians came out to the farm on Wednesday with their GPS survey stick and we looked at five different areas. The main project that started all this; filling in a gully in the pasture, involves a spring that tends to run all winter, and I wanted to make sure they had the right idea for that. And it was good to look at it because we changed it a few things. It was decided we need to add a tile for the springs to control that water while not holding back water that might come from further uphill as part of a different project.
We talked about adding grass headlands in two spots, filling in another gully that I hadn’t even thought about, and we talked about what shrubs to plant for a wind break. The dogs got a lot of exercise running all over the farm. Poor Humphrey was pooped out. He was ready to go home, and our last stop was only about 100 yards from the house and I figured they would go home. But of course, that’s when daughter left for her walk and the dogs all have FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out, so off they went. Eventually I went and picked them up on the road and brought them all home.
I offered daughter a ride but she insisted she was fine. Later, after she did get home, she was kind of wishing she had taken a ride. The wind was a bit cool.
A tree company was out on Wednesday and cut down the last of those dead ash trees.
It sure looks different down there.
Thursday night I had an event at the college for what’s called the P-Tech program. It’s for the public school kids in grade 8-12 to attend classes at the college. A cooperative program between public and private, IBM and Mayo Clinic also contribute. The classes focus on IT or healthcare. It gives the kids a good headstart on college.
Saturday this week is technical rehearsal for a show at the Rochester Repertory Theatre called “Perfect Arrangement“ by Topher Payne.
Set in the 1950s during the red scare, this is the lavender scare. I read the script several months ago and it’s so frustrating to think they thought none of this would matter in 20 years and here we are 70 years later still fighting about it.
It’s a good cast, and the director has a good handle on it. It’s staged like an old TV show from the ‘50s. Bright expressions and brightly lit and one character turns to the audience and says ‘I used Foster’s Furiture Creme. There’s no waxy residue!”. I expect to see a sparkle flash and hear a ‘TING’ as she says that. That show opens on March 5.
There’s an online auction of farm machinery starting on February 28 in Plainview. I saved a handful of items to watch. I’m sure I won’t be able to afford any of it and it’s always fun to window shop.
There’s a big parts sale at John Deere on March 4 and 5th. Certain things like digger shovels and tractor filters might be on sale throughout the whole month, but then everything else is on sale those two days.
I have a list for shopping.
Speaking of old TV, I heard on the 1940’s radio station, Count Basie’s version of the song, ‘Open the Door Richard’. Course, my first knowledge of that phrase is the Bugs Bunny cartoon with Bugs and Yosemite Sam on a high diving board. Bugs has a door up there and Sam pounds on it yelling “OPEN THAT DOOR!” then turns to the camera and says, “You notice I didn’t say, ‘Richard’?” (I just learned, Sam’s mouth moved from inside his beard to under his beard for easier animation).
I remember in the 1980’s and VCRs were just coming out and I’d stand up on the second floor of Dayton’s in Rochester and watch old cartoons on a TV / VCR with a bunch of little kids. I was 18.
Trail Baboon 