Category Archives: Family

2024, Family, Food, home, Poems, Uncategorized

Hiawatha’s Pork Roast Smoking

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I really can’t explain how the idea for this post came together. All I can tell you is that I was sitting at my desk at work on Wednesday when The Song of Hiawatha, Lewis Carroll’s parody Hiawatha’s Photographing, and Husband’s plan to smoke a pork shoulder on the 4th all converged in my brain.

Husband has planned to get his smoker going for weeks, and he has been fussing about the fuels he needs, the type of rub and mop he would use, and the pork shoulder he intended to smoke. I guess that might have reminded me of Carroll’s parody of the photographer fussing to set up the camera and get the photo subjects to cooperate. My Uncle Harvey’s farm in Pipestone. MN bordered the National Monument where The Song of Hiawatha pageant was performed (my tall, blonde, cousins were often extras in the production), and my parents took me to see it several times.

I have never been a fan of Longfellow’s poetry. I also have a hard time reading epic poems like The Kalevela that have been translated into a sing-song cadence. It dawned on me that if I could write a parody of Longfellow, anyone could. Here goes:

Husband Chris got out the smoker,

Like an iron lung, the smoker

Filled it up with logs and wood chips

Double checked that it was perfect

Set the contents all on fire

Waited for the embers glowing

Then he made the pork roast spice rub

Covered all the roast with spice rub

Closed the lid and smoked the shoulder

Sat for hours by the smoker

Feeding logs and chips as needed

Doused the roast with special mop sauce

Drank some beer to pass the hours

I had to stop there. The eight syllable pattern was getting tedious. It could go on and on, just like Longfellow.

What are your favorite/least favorite epic poems? What activities turn you into a fuss pot?

2024, Family, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized

Amusement Park Blues

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Our daughter phoned the other day to tell me that her friends are shocked and appalled that we never took her to an amusement park when she was little. To make up for this neglect, Daughter and three friends are planning a trip to Disney World next April for Daughter’s birthday.

We live rather a long way from any amusement parks. Even the Cities was kind of far to go just for that. When we traveled, we visited family, and they lived in Minnesota and Wisconsin. There aren’t that many amusement parks in those locations. Summer was for work, summer activities, and gardening. We just weren’t that family that has big summer vacations. Husband remembers being unutterably bored on his family vacations, usually taken by car. My parents drove to Florida when I was about 12, but there was no Disney World then.

Two of the friends going on the April trip did college internships at Disney World, and they are devising elaborate spread sheets for daily schedules and activities. We agreed to atone for our neglect by contributing to lodging expenses, so it is shaping up to be a pretty fun trip.

What kind of vacations did your family go on? Any vacations with friends?

2024, Family, Kids, Music, Uncategorized

Bugle Boy

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Yesterday morning I received the following text from our son:

Your grandson just woke me up with a bugle. I hope you are proud.

I told him I was very proud! Son said he was in the middle of a pleasant dream in which he was eating gelato when the bugle went off .

In March of 2023 our then 4 year old grandson was stranded at our house for three weeks due to weather. While he was here we let him play my father’s bugle. He got a pretty good buzz on the horn. My dad was a bugler in the Army Air Corps. Of course, the bugle went back to South Dakota with him. I hadn’t heard that he was doing much with it until yesterday. I am delighted he woke up his dad with the bugle. That just made my day!

My first instrument was the clarinet. I quickly switched to the bass clarinet and played it all through high school and college. Piano lessons started at age 8. Son was a trombonist. Daughter played piano, French Horn, and violin. Husband has his cello and also had piano lessons as a child. I don’t know what grandson will play, but at least he has a bugle to make great noises with for now.

What were some mischievous things you did as a child? Did you learn to play an instrument?

2024, Family, home, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

33-1/3

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Today marks the anniversary of the introduction of the 33-1/3 LP album in 1948 by Columbia Records. It was so popular that 78 rpm records soon were out of production.

My parents had scads of 33’s, many of which I still have. We have loads of CD’s, but as you can see there are some 33’s that Husband and I will never want to part with. It means that we will need an actual turn table for the rest of our lives. At this point, we have three of them.

As I contemplate moving in the next year or so, I groan at the thought of moving those record albums. They will have to be moved in our minivan since it will be too hot in a moving van and we don’t want them to warp in the heat. Many of these albums have moved with me from Moorhead to Winnipeg to Columbus, Indiana to western North Dakota. We have reduced the number of LP’s by about three quarters, so we will have far fewer to pack and move. The photo shows the bulk of them. There are a few more, plus some really old 78’s, in the basement.

I don’t remember what LP album I bought first, but I imagine it was one by the Monkees or some other late 1960’s music group. I remember reading the MPR Building a Classical Record Library and getting lots of the suggested recordings. Husband has lots of classic jazz recordings that are still wonderful to listen to.

I believe there are Baboons with hundreds of albums, far more than we have. We are a musical bunch, even if our musical medium is pretty old.

What were some of your favorite 33’s growing up? How many albums do you still have and what are your plans for them? Any favorite cover art?

2024, Family, Food, Games, Mysteries, Nature, Uncategorized

Strawberry Patch Games

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Friday was my strawberry day.  I got to the fields just a bit after 6 a.m. and was a little surprised to see a mother/father/daughter combo in the strip next to me.  6 a.m. is normally not a kid-friendly time; I know I would never have dragged Child at that time of day.  (Of course, after she turned seven or eight, I never dragged her berry-picking again.)

The young kid in the next row was adamant that her dad (not her mom, just her dad) get every single good strawberry on their side.  She let him know, in a fairly loud voice, when he had missed one.  She would then pick it and show it to him before putting it into their flat.  The rate at which she was finding good berries led me to think that Dad was doing it on purpose.  Basically keeping her busy and allowing her to think she was “winning”.

When YA was young, I did occasionally let her win at some games.  Yahtzee, Cribbage, Aggravation – all those were fairly easy to lose.  Monopoly was a little harder because she could spot if I was doing something stupid.  Same with Checkers and Risk.  It wasn’t constant – just every now and then so she wouldn’t lose interest.  My dad NEVER let us win; in fact he sometimes went to extraordinary lengths to keep us from winning.  He thought it was a good lesson for us to learn how to lose – that classic “character-building” thing. 

Eventually I didn’t need to let her win anymore and it was about that time that she came home from daycare wanting the game “Mancala”.  It looked interesting so I got her a set and then lost every single game we ever played.  It took me forever to even figure out the rules and I never did really master it.  I think we will have it downstairs but it hasn’t been out of the box in years!

Have you ever purposely lost?

2024, Family, Travel, Uncategorized

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and . . . Campers?

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“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.”—Robert Burns.

Sandra and I recently went on an eight-day camping trip to explore several of the state parks in southwest Minnesota. We paid extra to rent an Airstream trailer—Bun Bun, according to the owner—to see if Airstreams are superior to other, cheaper trailer brands. FWIW, the Airstream wasn’t worth twice the rental price of other similarly sized trailers.

As we started the trip, we imagined bright sunny days and moderate spring temperatures. The plan was to enjoy new hiking trails and explore the historical significance of parks like Ft. Ridgely, Blue Mounds, and Pipestone National Monument. What we got didn’t quite match “the dream.”

I won’t bore you with the details. I started this post with that in mind, but decided the post would be far too long. So here’s the plan in a nutshell compared to what actually happened.

  1. THE PLAN: Beautiful spring weather in MN. REALITY: Six days with rain out of eight total.
  2. THE PLAN: No illness, injury, or other issue to hamper our “fun.” REALITY: I got bitten by a wood tick during my first hike of the trip. Fortunately, Sandra noticed the nasty little bloodsucker as I prepared for bed. After she performed “emergency surgery,” we wasted two-plus hours the next day finding a clinic and having the bite checked for Lyme Disease. So far, I’m fine.
  3. THE PLAN: No mechanical issues with the trailer. REALITY: The electric cord that connects the SUV lights to the trailer lights came loose on an annoyingly bumpy section of highway and dragged on the pavement for at least an hour. We didn’t notice until we stopped at a rest area. Luckily we got it fixed within two hours (in the rain! At 5:30 pm on a Friday!) by the owner (and his employee) of a fantastic small business, Eric of Riverside Trailers in Rock Rapids, IA. The other downside of that was neither the travel insurance I bought, nor AAA covered that expense, so I paid the bill, plus gave generous tips to the men who did the work. Told them to have a few beers on us.
  4. THE PLAN: Minimal bug issues and lots of eating around the campfire or at the picnic table. REALITY: Horrendous bugs at Ft. Ripley State Park. Head nets required. Three days lost of enjoying the outdoors. Blue Mounds was better. The rain fell early or overnight, so we enjoyed four campfires on our last four nights.
  5. THE PLAN: Visit and at least do one hike in each of eight state parks—Ft. Ridgely, Lac Qui Parle, Upper Sioux Agency, Camden, Blue Mounds, Split Rock Creek, Lake Shetek, Kilen Woods. REALITY: Rain washed us out at Lac Qui Parle, USA was closed (given back to the tribe), didn’t go to Camden. But we compensated with a rain-soaked visit to the Jeffers Petroglyphs and a tour of the Rock County Historical Society (home of the 6000+ nutcrackers reneeinnd mentioned.

Mound Lake Dam, Blue Mounds State Park

Interpretive Center sign featuring author Frederick Manfred, Blue Mounds State Park

Jeffers Petroglyphs

Nutcrackers at Rock County Historical Society Museum

Quarry at Pipestone National Monument

Author at the falls at the Pipestone National Monument

Overall, we still had a successful trip, just with lots of memories we would have preferred not to remember, along with some pleasant ones as well. Sandra loved the nutcrackers, and a few of the hikes were excellent. Pipestone National Monument and the Jeffers Petroglyphs are pretty cool too.

When have your best laid plans “gang aft a -gley?”

2024, Family, Health, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Good Gadgets

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Husband and I have noticed over the past year that we are no longer as strong or flexible as we used to be. That has made gardening and housework a lot harder. We just can’t so things as fast as we used to.

When I was in Brookings in early May, I discovered that my daughter in law had neck problems that made it really hard for her to vacuum or do heavy housework. She damaged her neck vertebra last summer. They are both busy enough with their jobs and their son, so I suggested we get them a Roomba or something equivalent to help with the housework. We got a Shark Roomba knockoff, and it works great. They named it Clean Elizabeth. She does a great job keeping their floors clean.

We live where it is really dusty. Husband has allergies to dust. The prospect of moving the mattresses to vacuum under the beds was daunting, so I suggested to Husband that we get our own Clean Elizabeth to clean under the beds and the living room furniture and the dining room buffet. We named her Good Clean Bess. The dog is surprisingly standoffish, allowing Bess to go back and forth and suck up the crud. I was appalled at the dust that came up from under our bed. My only question is when did I get old?

What are your newest or favorite gadgets? How old do you feel these days? What would you want a robot to help you with?

2024, Family, home, Kids, Uncategorized, Words

What’s That ?

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Last Monday I announced to my coworkers on the Youth and Family Team that Husband and I had worked like navvies all weekend getting the garden planted. They had no idea what I meant.

We picked up some handy words and phrases when we lived in Canada that most people here find odd or quaint. Our whole family calls Mail Carriers “Posties”. We phone one another instead of call one another. The sofa is sometimes a chesterfield. People we are annoyed with are jam tarts. Those trying hard to get ahead are keeners.

Just in our family, Spaghetti with olive oil and garlic will forever be called Pasta with Invisible Sauce. A massage at bedtime was always called a backrub scratchrub by our children. A bedtime breakfast was a bowl of cereal before bed.

l grew up with some odd family words for things. My maternal grandmother said that a bottle of soda that had lost its fizz was ausgespielt (all talked out). My mother said that someone who had too much to drink was a little gemutlich. Farts were “little noises from behind”, according to my mother.

What phrases or word usages are specific to your family or place? What words or phrases would you like to introduce into everyday speech or see back into everyday speech?

2024, Family, Food, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Spoiled

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I have no problem admitting that Husband, I, and the dog are spoiled when it comes to food. I started to subscribe to Goumet and Bon Appetit when I was in Middle School. That has certainly skewed my expectations for meals in my home ever since.

The dog is spoiled because he will only eat his kibble if we put a spoonful or so of homemade broth on it. This week it is goat broth. He is a happy boy.

Winnipeg is a foodies paradise, with every sort of ethnic restaurant and grocery store you can imagine. Six years there left me unprepared for spartan western North Dakota and only two chain grocery stores. Fargo, the nearest food mecca is 300 miles away.

We have taken to ordering on-line to obtain harder to find cooking ingredients. This Christmas, Husband found a source for all sorts of food from Spain, including wonderful serrano ham, Portuguese linguica, cheeses, chorizo, smoked beef, olives, and Galician sourdough bread partially baked in Galicia and frozen, shipped to the US, then shipped frozen to us. It is lovely bread that we tried, but failed, to reproduce at home. We also order 10 lb hunks of parmesan, olives, and pasta from an Italian importer (the parm lasts for a year and costs less than buying smaller packages in the grocery store) and beans from Rancho Gordo. I also order celeriac by the case from Oregon because we can’t grow it well here and I like to cook with it in soup stock. Daughter just visited the Rogue River Creamery in Southern Oregon and decided we needed 4 lbs of their award winning cheddar and blue cheeses. It will arrive on Wednesday. She and son have similar food attitudes as we have.

I justify all this by noting we don’t travel much, have little to no debt, rarely eat in restaurants, and don’t own a boat, camper, or a lake home. We shall see if living near to Sioux Falls after we retire allows more access to these foods, or if we will still order from afar.

If you lived in the middle of nowhere, and cost was not an issue, what would you order on-line to eat and cook with. Where do you like to find recipes?

2024, animals, Family, home, Kids, Nature, Uncategorized

Fledglings

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For the past several weeks Husband and I didn’t go out of our front door. Some enterprising robins built a nest atop the light that illuminated the stoep, hatched four eggs, and were busily feeding their chicks. We didn’t want to disturb them by going in and out the front door. You can see the nest in the header photo.

We could see the chicks getting bigger, and by Saturday, the last of the chicks was perched on the bench below the nest.

I like the baby tufts on his head. He sat there for a day, then flew off. I hope he has a nice adulthood.

I was always pretty independent and left the nest pretty easily, although with lots of anxiety. So did Husband and our children. I have known a few families in town where the children never manage to leave. In Winnipeg, it was typical for young people to buy their first home on the same block as their parents. That would have been pretty weird, I think, but typical for Canadian society.

What kind of a fledgling were you? Got any good bird stories?

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