When YA and I out together, I drive 99.9% of the time. She likes to keep her car pristine which means driving it as little as possible; I get nervous being in the passenger seat when she drives. So, me doing the driving is better for both of us.
Of course YA doesn’t think that being the passenger relieves her of the duty to backseat drive. She wants to me move to another lane is the traffic is too slow for her. She wants me to move back to the right lane sooner if our exit is coming up. She wants to make sure I’m going at least the speed limit at all times. She thinks I leave too much space between us and the car in front of us. For those of you who have met YA, you know she is not shy about sharing my “failings” with me. Ignoring her or “I am aware” are my usual modi operandi.
Parking is often an issue for her. She is forever instructing me to back into parking spots so we can pull straight out when we leave. Since I detest backing into parking spots (can’t even remember the last time I did), I always decline. I’m pretty sure that the time it takes for me to back in is longer than the time to back out into the parking lot. YA is adamant that it would save time. I told her once that I didn’t want to stress myself out to do something would only save a nano-second. She quickly replied that all those nano-seconds over a lifetime might add up. Pretty fast thinking on her part but how would I ever know if it had added up? I doubt on my deathbed and I’ll get a sign that I had 25 more minutes because of the times I backed in.
I was thinking of this last week when I was at the Dunkin drive-though very early. The only three cars in the lot were parked in the very farthest corner from the building and all were backed in. My first thought was that you must really be glad to be done with work if you need to roar out of your parking spot head-first at the end of your shift. Made me laugh a little. Second thought was that management “suggested” it to employees so that it would be clear that employees weren’t hogging the good customer spots. This was the case in a few malls that I’ve worked at over the years. Third thought was that it was a coincidence; you all know I’m not that great about coincidence. But I’m not going to ask.
What about you? Pull in or back in? Any good parking stories?
As always happens the first week of October, the email from the ND Board 0f Psychologist Examiners arrived reminding us that it is time to renew our licenses. Husband has been licensed since 1991. I have been licensed since 1994.
This year is different for us, since neither of us is renewing our licenses. We are retired. We no longer live in ND, and we haven’t accrued the 40 hours of continuing education over the past two years necessary to maintain our licenses., which formally expire January 1, 2027. We plan to email the Board office this week to let them know we aren’t renewing. Husband will also step down as the Board Investgator of ethical complaints against licensees on January 1.
I have mixed feelings about all this; happy to be retired and not having to pay for relicensure, wistful about letting go of a huge part of my identity. Husband notes with great irony that the Board is trying to enlist two licensees to do the complaint investigations that he did all by himself.
I was the Board president for 8 years, and I remember hearing from the Board office about people who initially decided to let their licenses expire when they retired, who then decided at the last minute to renew, and needed an extension from the Board to complete their continuing education hours. That will NOT happen for us. Done is done, but my, I will miss it.
Did your employment or some other aspect of your life form your identity? How has your identity changed over the years? Ever file a complaint against a licensed. service provider?
Husband and I read aloud to our children countess hours when they were little. We were both really good at expressive character voices.
I was a little disappointed realizing that our new church here in Luverne had a much reduced music ministry compared to our ND church. The choir sings only perhaps once every couple of months instead of every Sunday. We have found a new and fun niche, however, in being readers of the scriptures, Psalms, and prayers during services. The pastor reads the Gospel passages.
Our fellow church members really like the way we read. Husband says I speak very clearly and read expressively as though there are children listening (which there are). Some people who had my mother as a Grade 3 teacher or knew her well tell me my voice is just like hers. They seem to find it comforting. When Husband reads you can tell he understands everything he is reading and imparts that meaning. Last Sunday I had to read a selection from Isaiah in which the writer had God speak in a really pissed off voice. I used that sort of voice as I read. People were very appreciative and complimentary.
We have choir rehearsal twice in the next two weeks for the Reformation Day service later in October. We only read in church about once a month. Now if we can only figure out how to get more reading time in with our grandchildren.
How would describe your reading voice? What might you like to read aloud in public if you got the chance? Who read to you when you were a child and what were your favorite things to hear?
We are just back from our family gathering in Colorado. We stayed at a hotel in the Highlands Ranch area of Denver, close to Littleton, where Husband’s stepmother lives. As we were getting out of our taxi when we arrived at the hotel I saw an older man in full Scots regalia in the parking lot, including a kilt and bagpipes.
The Colorado Highland Games were held September 26th -27th here, and our hotel was the center of activity for a meeting of the Clan Hay Society. There was a load of older guys in kilts walking around the hotel lobby and eating in the dining room. The dining room had to be closed early on Saturday as the cook became overwhelmed by all the Clan Hay members dining there. We had to order out. We also saw several women in long dresses, fancy bodices, and animal skins around their shoulders.
Sunday and Monday saw the kilted guys again. Many were eating breakfast or just socializing. We even saw Lord Larry Hay, son of the current Scottish chief the Earl of Erroll, in the lobby. He was dressed in a suit. Husband’s sister in law is a Campbell with grandparents who were born in Scotland, and she was quick to introduce herself to Clan Hay members. She acknowledges the Campbells were simply awful people, but none of the Clan Hay members shied away or denounced her as a traitor. (She once had a Scots store clerk in Portland do that. )
The Clan Society members all appeared to be in their 60’s and 70’s. Many had long hair in ponytails. They looked so proud in their kilts and I got the impression they wore those kilts as often as they could. I imagined them going through airport security in their kilts on their way home from the meeting, and wondered what the TSA agents would make of them.
If I were to dress in traditional ethnic costume I suppose it would be Dutch, with Klompen and a pointy lace cap, and full skirt with a close fitting top. I certainly wouldn’t want to walk around all day in the wooden shoes, though.
How did your ancestors dress? What ethnic costume would you wear in public? Ever had to wear a uniform?
Every rescue dog comes with its own set of baggage to sort through. Freya loves to chew – probably some from anxiety but more likely from being caged most of her life and now finding a whole new world of tactile sensations.
Even though I pick up the toys most nights, by 9 a.m. she has most of them out of the bin and every one is missing something – an ear, a fin, a flipper. Once she finds a way in, then she goes all in looking for the squeaker so the white toy stuffing goes all over. Our living room right now looks like a stuffy toy abattoir. Even the hard rubber toys are no match for her little shark teeth.
Unfortunately, it’s not just toys. We realized right away that pretty much anything is fair game. It took YA a bit longer to come to terms with this – she’s lost a shoe, a slipper and a pair of shorts. We’ve taken to limiting her smorgasbord a bit right now by putting up gates to keep her in a smaller area and by keeping a very close eye on her.
She is however quite stealthy and if your attention is elsewhere, she can get around you quite nicely. On Saturday I spent some time on the phone with one of my BFFs from Madison. I had been upstairs before the call and when I came down, I neglected to put up the gate at the bottom of the stairs. A few minutes into my call, I looked up and saw Freya chewing what looked like a big chunk of yellow foam. At first I figured she had gutted a stuffy but most toys these days are white fiber fill; I also didn’t see any stuffy carcasses nearby. When I took it from her and headed toward the trash, I noticed more yellow foam on the landing. I had reconfigured the dog bed situation upstairs so I thought that maybe Freya didn’t like my renovation.
When I got off the phone, I went to check it out. No trail of yellow foam to the landing. No cover to whatever the item had been. Both upstairs dog beds were intact. In fact, everything upstairs was intact. I even checked rooms with closed doors. I moved the gate to YA’s room and looked around in there. Bupkiss. I even did a slow-pan video of her room and sent it to her (she’s out of town for work) and she says it looks fine. We haven’t replaced bathroom rug yet. All my pillows are fine. Downstairs everything in order. Piano bench fine, dining room chairs fine, breakfast room dog kennel fine (I checked this twice). Not one bit of yellow foam anywhere else.
At this point I have given up looking for whatever it was in its past life. I’m figuring that in three months or so I’ll be looking for something, won’t be able to find it and a lightbulb will go off. Maybe.
Have you lost anything lately that you think you might find… eventually? Any mysteries in your life this week?
The State of North Dakota gives out the Rough Rider Award annually to native North Dakotans who have been influenced by living there to achieve excellence in their respective fields or endeavors. It is the highest award the State endows.
The plaque is fairly small, with a 3-D bust of Teddy Roosevelt in the center. The recipients are given honorary rank of Colonal in the Theodore Roosevelt ND Rough Riders. They also gets their portraits painted and hung in the capitol building. Past recipients include Louise Erdrich, Bobby Vee, Peggy Lee, Louis L’ Amour, Roger Maris, and Eric Severeid.
The first recipient of the award was Lawrence Welk in 1961. I should remind Baboons that Lawrence Welk is a particular interest of mine since my paternal grandfather’s first cousin married Lawrence Welk’s daughter, Shirley.
Imagine the consternation in ND last week when it was reported that a ND couple traveling in Brittany, France went into a thrift store there and found Lawrence Welk’s Rough Rider Award Plaque. The woman in the couple stated she saw this 3-D silver image of Teddy Roosevelt on the plaque, and was astounded to see the inscription regarding Lawrence Welk below it. How on earth could this happen?
Why in France? Did Lawrence travel much in France in the 1960’s and 1970’s? Were the Welk’s so hard up after he died they sold all his memorabilia? Did the woman and her husband somehow get the plaque and bring it to France and claim they found it, thus to increase its value? It is a mystery. I hope we can find out what really happened.
What mysteries would you like solved? What award would you like to receive?What would you like your relatives to do with your things after you are gone?
When I was growing up, ironing was as art form. In my family, EVERYTHING got ironed, from my dad’s work shirts, to shirts and dresses, towels and sheets. I don’t remember underwear getting the once over, but I could just be suppressing that memory. My mother had me ironing pretty early – starting when I was in first grade – and she instructed me in the correct way to do every kind of garment/fabric. When my dad’s ship came in, Nonny’s first luxury was to send out the laundry to be ironed. She still washed and dried everything but then it went into a bag to get picked up by the ironing person twice a week. I can still see the ironed items (in garment bags) hanging in the front closet after they were returned in pristine shape.
I do have an iron, but it gets lonely in the closet. The only thing I’ve ironed in the last year was the quilt that I inherited from Nonny (well, inherited is probably the wrong word. “helped myself to” is more like it). And the only reason I ironed it was that I was adding sticky fabric tape to several places where the fabric had basically disintegrated over the years. YA probably uses the iron and ironing board maybe once a quarter.
When I went off to college, Nonny did send a little travel iron with me. Snort. The very first things that I quit ironing were my sheets. They stretch out on your bed and you sleep on them, for goodness sakes. Sheets were quickly followed by just about everything else. I never looked back.
With this in mind, I’m not sure what the heck I was looking at on YouTube a few days ago, but for some reason, a few posts came up about how to fold a fitted sheet. Then I made the fatal error of clicking on one. Now my feed is full of folks seriously showing me how to fold a fitted sheet — all of them basically the same method – sticking the two lower corners into the top upper corners, then folding into thirds or fourths and then folding again. It LOOKS easy, but I remember trying this years ago and it’s not that simple. And if you’re dealing with slippery sheets, of which I have several sets for the summer, the method doesn’t really work at all. I did find a YouTube of how I do it…
I don’t actually chuck it into the closet. After I’ve wadded it up, I then put the folded top sheet and the pillow cases on top and then gently slide the whole pile onto the shelf. I’m not a savage.
Toward the end of her life, I know for a fact that Nonny was still ironing some of her clothing, but she had abandoned ironing the sheets, thank goodness. Whenever I would visit and help her with laundry, she would have us do the two-person fold. I’m now sure what she was doing on her own. I hope she was wadding the fitted sheet into a ball, but somehow I doubt it!
Do you fold fitted sheets? What method do you use? Do you use a top sheet? Linen closet or drawers?
When YA was four, we had a nice day at the zoo. As we went through the Minnesota Trail, there was a beautiful lynx right in the middle of its habitat. YA was mesmerized; she stood right in from of the glass and stared at the lynx. The lynx stared back; they literally had locked eyes. The two of them stood still like that for a good five minutes. YA broke eye contact to look to me and at that point, the lynx bolted for another part of the habitat. I probably should have realized at that moment that YA had some animal whisperer talent. Maybe it started that day – the lynx has always been one of her favorite animals.
We get emails from the zoo so we were aware that there were two lynx kittens born at the zoo in late spring. The email announcing that the kittens were out for viewing came a couple of weeks back; YA has been on me ever since to get to the zoo.
Yesterday, since I had Blevins in the afternoon, we zipped down to Apple Valley at opening time, 9 a.m. The plan was to go see the lynx first, then see other stuff, then circle back to the lynx before heading home.
Going in the cool morning was great! All the animals were up and about (except the beavers). We even got to see the two martins, who are NEVER awake normally. The wolves, who are usually all sacked out in the back of their area were up, rolling around and even coming right up to the windows!
Saw the red pandas, the sloth (who is usually sleeping when we’re there), all the otters, the caribou, the big moose. Even the prairie dogs were all up and working on their breakfast.
We did go back to the lynx – the kittens had found a way to climb up to the top of their habitat and were looking down at all of us. Even though we could hardly see them and they weren’t doing much, YA had us stand there almost 10 minutes.
All in all, it was a glorious day at the zoo. I think we’ll probably head out early and get there at opening from now on!
You know those colds going around? Kelly, daughter, and I all took sick days this week. Just colds, but foggy head, stuffy nose, and Kelly has a low grade temp. Naps are good.
Last weekend one of our neighbors had their annual barn dance. Music was provided by a funk band from the twin cities, ‘Tyte Phitt’. They were a lot of fun! When contacted to play here, they were interested because they’d never played a barn dance before. And the hosts said they wanted to see how a bunch of farmers would like a funk band. It was loud, but it sure was good!
Last Saturday Kelly and I mixed up 17 bags of concrete to add a little berm to the new concrete and fill in a low spot
Just enough at the door to keep the water out. Kelly learned a lot about mixing and working concrete. She says it was interesting. And it bugged her that I can smooth better than her. I’ve just had more practice is all. Someday I’d like to put an overhead door here. We’ll see.
And then Tuesday morning we had another Thunderstorm with a lot of lightning and about 6AM the electric co-op calls and tells me our power is out. I’m barely awake. It is?? (And isn’t that something; they’re telling ME it’s out.) He says there was a lot of lightning and they’ve had some meters fail. I was up with the dogs at 4AM and we had power then. Wasn’t long before a truck shows up and tells me there’s actually a tree down in the pasture, it tore down the line and broke off a pole. Yep, that would do it. One of the guys and I drive back there with the gator. Glad the neighbors took their cattle out after the previous storm because then we don’t have to worry about fences. And I had to take down part of the temporary fence we put up this spring. Then hooked up the tractor and generator and went to work. It was about 2 PM when they had everything fixed and back online.
That’s not supposed to be there…
This should be vertical
Nice oak tree. Daughter and I talked about counting rings on trees.
You can see an old manure spreader to the right of the tree. Dad used to park old worn out machinery along this tree line. Some has rotted away, some has been hauled out. I wonder why he did that? I remember a few places there used to be junk parked. Probably saving for possible parts.
I’ve mentioned before that my dad would talk about he and his brother pulling the electric lines through the pasture with horses. Then WWII put a hold on it. If I remember correctly, the farm got electricity in 1946. Mom and Dad were married in 1948, and first daughter, Ellen, was born in 1949. Mom had told Dad she didn’t want to be pregnant and using an outhouse. He finished the bathroom in 1949…before the baby, but I think it was further into the pregnancy than mom wanted.
I ordered myself an “indestructible pen”. I always carry a pen in my pocket, and often doing farm work I break them by leaning over things. Typical plastic pens don’t last long. I found this one. It comes with a titanium tip to break glass. Never in my life have I had to break out a window. Except for fun. Or as part of a show. And being how this tip is so sharp, after I gouge my palm on it a few more times, I’ll be grinding that off.
Glass breaking tip on the left.
(Preliminary question: got any good stories about breaking glass?)
I picked up 55 bushels of rye seed on Wednesday. The dealer let me borrow a seed tender, so it’s in bulk, not in bags, and I was really excited to play with that. It has a scale too! And then we got .4” rain Wednesday night and Thursday was cloudy and misty. Heck, Thursday was supposed to be nice, before it rains for a week they say. It’s all still in the shed. The point of using a seed tender, is to avoid all the bags plus it’s quicker and easier. There’s a conveyor that can be used both to add seed to the cart, then turned around and unload the cart into the grain drill. Maybe next week I can get pictures of that.
A seed tender
I spent Thursday and Friday in the office instead. I meant to do bookwork. By 2:30 in the afternoon I still hadn’t quite gotten to that. Several times I moved the keyboard and moved papers, then saw a bill or two to pay. Did that. Remembered a few more emails to do, remembered some theater stuff to do. Started a draft of this blog, moved the keyboard again to start bookwork and got an email about certifying the oat crop for an extra payment for water quality. Spent an hour doing that on my phone (Because they said it would be easier on the phone. Well maybe if you don’t have fat fingers like I do!) Had to call for help once. Had to quit and start over twice. I managed. It was worth it for the $1600 bonus payment planting oats provides for water quality grants from the SWCD. Maybe I’ll order a couple gallons of diesel fuel with that…
CAN YOU HOLD PENS / PENCILS IN YOUR HAIR? BEHIND YOUR EAR?
HOW DO YOU CARRY YOUR CELL PHONE?
(I’ve seen women walk around with them under their arm or stuck in their bra. I don’t like them in my pockets; again, I’ll break it)
A cool wet morning yesterday was perfect for some time in the kitchen. Especially since my tomato plants are still going gangbusters.
Normally I look for easy recipes but for some reason I was drawn to a complicated Macaroni & Cheese with Roasted Tomatoes and Chilis that I found in my Tomato cookbook. It had several steps that needed to be combined at the end, which always spooks me. I’m usually fairly casual about cooking so having to get everything to come together at one point isn’t my favorite modus operandi. But with nothing else on my to-do list, I thought I could handle it.
Part of the recipe was a layer of roasted tomatoes; the recipe called for big tomatoes but I have tons of cherry tomatoes, so I looked up an alternative recipe. I made this first and as the tomatoes were roasting, I laid out all the other ingredients on the counter. It felt like I was doing a cooking show! Then the poblanos got roasted over the gas flame; it’s so much fun to hear the peppers popping and sizzling! Added the peppers to the tomatoes with a couple large cloves of garlic.
Next up was the cheese sauce; it’s been quite a while since I made a roux and then a cheese sauce from scratch. SO much cheese – sharp cheddar, fontina and parmesan. And so much stirring! Managed to get the pasta cooked so that it was done right when the cheese sauce was ready. (leaf-shaped pasta that YA and I found at Trader Joe’s last weekend.)
Laid the tomato/poblano mix in the bottom of my 8” square cast iron, then layered the mac and cheese over that. Then came the breadcrumb topping – breadcrumbs and melted butter – and finally popped the whole thing in the oven for 25 minutes.
Looking at this description, it doesn’t seem as complicated as it felt at the time. The whole dish, including roasting the tomatoes and peppers, took about an hour and a half. I had thought it would take longer. I managed to clean as I went, so there wasn’t a massive mess when I was done.
It smelled heavenly and tasted heavenly as well. YA liked it as well, which isn’t always guaranteed. I guess this means I’ll have to keep this recipe in our roster for another cool rainy day!
Any foods you’re trying to eat up (or put up) this fall?
PS: The left-hand photo is before it went into the oven and the right-hand is the finished product.
