Category Archives: Family

2025, crops, education, Family, Farming Update, Kids, Nature, Technology, Uncategorized, Weather

Concrete Herring! or What Color is Your Herring?

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This weeks farming update from Ben

My schedule has been a little crazy lately. Next week will be better.  🙂

I hear there are places in the country where the weather on the evening news doesn’t take ten minutes. I don’t need the full ten minutes, I just want to know the 12-48 hour forecast, and the 7 or 10 day forecast, Which I know is just a guideline. Especially this time of year, when the forecast has some pretty drastic changes coming.

No, the corn still isn’t out and I don’t want to talk about it. The grain elevators are closed on the weekends now, because 99.8% of the harvest is complete. So I don’t expect anything this weekend unless they finish everything at their place and they just come in and fill up the trucks on Sunday. 

I wrote a long story about the thermostat in my shop and I threw all that away and tried to make this a shorter story. A red herring was involved and suffice it to say human error played a part. Because of course it did.  

I use a wifi thermostat so I can monitor it from the house. It worked last year. This year, it worked while I’m out there, but it didn’t work when I came to the house. 

One day it died completely so I bought a new one.  Installing that and I blew a fuse up in the heater itself. Another trip to town for an ‘E’ fuse. An E fuse? Never heard of an E fuse. Oh, it’s a ‘3’ not an ‘E’. Thank goodness I figured that out on my own and didn’t say that to the guy at the auto parts store. Then of course there was a new app and all of that rigamarole. And that night in the house and it wouldn’t connect again. 

The day we poured the concrete, including the slab outside the front door, I used a side door, and a different light switch. Turns out, the outlet I have the heater plugged in to is tied into the 3 way switch for the lights. And I hooked that up myself, this wasn’t the electricians fault. Other than they didn’t know I wanted an outlet for the heater, which is why I did it myself. But how come it worked last year?? Because the heater was plugged into a wall outlet and because the electricians weren’t here until March, and I didn’t get the heater outlet installed until April.  So now, when I come into the shop and turn the lights on, the thermostat works. When I leave and turn off the lights, the thermostat turns off. Well, don’t I feel like a dunce. How could I tell the thermostat was off once I left the shop?? I thought the problem was the wifi. Nope, that was the red herring. The problem was the thermostat wasn’t even ON.

I have it plugged into a regular outlet again and I can tell you, by the app, it’s 46 degree’s out there at 56% humidity. 

We did get the concrete done on Tuesday. Yay! Check that off the list! A big job, and I had the easy job in the tractor hauling the cement from the truck outside, to the pad inside. 

(Two reasons; the truck wouldn’t fit inside the shed, and I didn’t want him backing onto the existing concrete slab). When they poured the inside slab a couple years ago, they used a little “buggy” to haul the concrete. This was the same thing, only different.) The truck driver was great! Randy. 65 yrs old, been driving a concrete truck for 38 years. We joked before he got there, would he know we were amateurs? I told him right up front, feel to offer advice. He just picked up the bull float and got right in there helping. 

Took about 2 hours to get it all dumped and leveled. I was a little bit short of product and left a bit of a gap on one end of the walkway pad. I expect to finish that with 10 bags of concrete mix I picked up.  

About 6:00 PM I was able to start smoothing off the concrete with the hand trowels. (I Learned the difference between magnesium floats and steel floats. You use magnesium when you’re first leveling, and steel to do the final finish.) 

It was about 8PM when I was trying to finish the big slab and smooth around the drain. The concrete was getting too firm by that point and it was a little too late to be working it. All in all, it’s not bad for the first time for a bunch of newbies. It will look better when it gets some dirt on it to cover the imperfections.

I spread out tarps and covered the outside ones with straw. 

A few days later I pulled off the tarp and moved the dumpster over there. This right here was the original point of all this. 

I wonder how much snow will blow in here?
My brother using the bull float on the first piece.
Working on the big slab inside the shed.

Our son helped, my brother helped, Padawan’s girlfriend helped, (Padawan was at work) and Kelly helped. They all admitted this was harder work than they imagined.  And we all learned a lot. Next summer’s plan is to do another slab inside. My brother isn’t sure he’ll help again next summer. Son says he will find more younger helpers.

I’m just glad it’s done. I had a beer that night. I’ve been waiting to finish the concrete to have that beer. 

We thought for sure we’d have a dog footprints in it somewhere. Or Luna was gonna drop a ball into it. We locked them in the shop at one point.

Inside slab done. Won’t drive on it for a week yet, and will get it backfilled shortly.
You haven’t seen the chickens lately. Here’s the chickens eating some left overs.

I have a new appreciation for the people doing concrete work and making it look easy.

HAVE YOU STOPPED MISLEADING PEOPLE?

2025, Family, Food, home, Uncategorized, Words

Cooking With Gas

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One major adjustment to living in our new house is relearning how to cook with a gas stove. My parents had a gas stove until I was about 18 when we moved to a new house and they had a glass topped stove installed.

My mother instilled in me a fear of gas stoves. In her mind they were just bombs waiting to explode. I know there are lots of safety features in these stoves now, but I still am anxious. With a glass stove top, spilling liquids or having drips from lids that are slightly askew is no big deal. On one of my first forays into using the new stove last week I spilled a very small amount of water near a burner and it wouldn’t ignite, just clicked with no flame until a few minutes had passed and the water evaporated. We are being much more careful as we cook so we don’t spill on the stove top.

It is hard for Husband to hear the igniting clicks if he doesn’t have his hearing aids in, so I find myself surreptitiously monitoring his stove use. I hope I can relax as we get more experience with this stove. It cooks things really well and we seem to have more control as we cook and bake. The phrase “Now you’re cooking with gas!” was a marketing slogan to encourage people to switch from wood or coal burning stoves to gas stoves in the 1930’s. It then became a general idiom to indicate the someone was doing really well. I hope we can “cook with gas” as we learn to cook with gas.

What are your experiences with gas stoves? Any favorite idioms or sayings?

2025, Business, Family, Mysteries, Uncategorized

A Penny for Your Thoughts?

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I’ve heard folks rail about pennies for years but really didn’t pay much attention to them.  It surprised me in reading the news of the last pennies being minted this week, that it actually costs 4 cents to make a penny.  It’s shocking to me that we’ve been minting these coins for awhile at a 300% markup.  Why didn’t we quit this silliness earlier?

When I was growing up, my dad kept a jar on the dresser and every night all the coins in his pocket went in.  My mother used to fish out any quarters, dimes and nickels that she found but she left the pennies until the jar was full, then she took them to the bank.  Occasionally a few pennies would be meted out to me and my sister, but not too often. 

I discovered last January when I visited, that my mother is still putting coins into a jar in her chiffarobe.  Apparently she doesn’t do this on a regular basis, just when she thinks her wallet is getting too heavy.  Quarters go in a separate jar for the washer and dryer in her condo building.  I also discovered that banks are no longer very interested in helping the public deal with their coins.  And those coin machines you occasionally see at grocery stores?  A pretty hefty fee and the grocery store near my mom’s would only give you store credit.  A little calling around and I did find a bank about 15 minutes away that had a sorting machine, but you had to deal with it yourself.  Not too awful but you could only put in one kind of coin at a time so it was laborious.  Luckily it was a branch of my mom’s bank, so I could just deposit the money into her account.

No coin jars at my house and if there had been, that experience with my mom’s coins would have cured me.  The news is that people are worried that every business will eventually start rounding up the price of your purchases.  Personally I can see that happening with cash purchases, but with so many purchases being credit card/cyber transactions, I’m not too worried.  

Was there a coin jar in your house growing up?  What about now?

2025, Family, Gatherings

Marry Girl Cake

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My next-door neighbors’ son is getting married right after Christmas.  He met his fiancée when he was stationed in Taiwan a few years ago (Marine).  They moved here early last year after he retired; yes, that’s right, you get to retire from the Marines when you’re 30 if you join up right after high school.  He’s attending the Carlson School of Business for his MBA and she’s working in financial planning. 

Zander and Nina will be getting married in Taiwan, where her family still lives.  Apparently there are quite a few “traditions” that weddings incorporate in Taiwan, even in this day and age.  This is from their wedding website:

The wedding ceremony then will begin with a “bride pick-up” ceremony (迎娶), where the groom arrives at the bride’s home with music, groomsmen, and playful games. After the groom complete the “mission,” they travel together to the groom’s house. A tea ceremony follows, where the couple serves tea to elders in exchange for blessings and red envelopes.  The evening ends with a lively banquet, sometimes held outdoors as a traditional 流水席 (Liúshuǐxí), filled with delicious dishes, toasts, and laughter. Of course, mostly seafood in Taiwan.

Another tradition that wasn’t listed on the website was the sending out of engagement cakes – see the photo above.   YA and I are not invited – obviously it’s a small number of folks heading to Taiwan from the US the day after Christmas for this wedding.  This doesn’t bother me – I would have been shocked to be included and we couldn’t have afforded it anyway.  But it was nice that my neighbors brought us over an engagement cake (called “marry girl cake” in the past) which are sent out by the bride’s family to announce the upcoming nuptials.  I looked up the label to find out it was a red bean variety but then YA translate-googled the Chinese ingredient list and found out it also has pork.  So we got to admire it, but didn’t eat it.

Weddings are way down on my list of favorite things.  Way down.  Too much pomp, too much emphasis on the day and not the life afterwards, too much expense, too much “it’s the bride’s day”.  My first wedding was pretty much run by my mother; I made a few key decisions but she took care of everything else.  It was too big as far as I was concerned but at least it was very low key.  My second wedding was at a table at Good Earth; the judge joined us but didn’t stay for lunch.  Our witnesses were our waiter Philip and the waitress Sarah from the next section over.  The restaurant gifted us with a little centerpiece and comped our dessert.  Even though the marriage didn’t go the distance, I’m still happy with the memory of that wedding day.

YA will not expect a big flashy wedding from me… if she ever ties a knot.  I’ve been sending her psychic messages for years…. just one word…. “elope”!

Any good wedding stories?

2025, animals, Family, Health, home, Uncategorized

Billows

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I couldn’t find the cat yesterday afternoon, so I looked in our bedroom and found her snuggled in the down comforter we keep on our bed. She had been there for hours. You can see her in the header photo. She looks pretty comfortable, I think.

We have twelve very nice goose down pillows for the three queen size beds in our home, plus down comforters for each bed. Our friend who will live with us is allergic to feathers, so we bought two non-down pillows for her when she visits. The dog sleeps with us and also expects to have a pillow for his head at night. We are a spoiled bunch.

Husband’s allergies are so much better here. He is very allergic to cats and dust. There is very little dust compared to western North Dakota, and it seems the cat is shedding less now, probably because the humidity is higher. Our friend’s four cats will stay in the basement after she moves in, but I think we will get an air cleaner or two to mitigate any upward cat dander migration. I just had a Shark vacuum delivered that is especially good for pet hair, so I think we are covered. The dog doesn’t shed.

What kind of pillows do you prefer? Do you let pets sleep with you? If you have allergies, how do you manage them?

2025, Business, Family, Food, Gatherings

Super Mercado!

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I’m pretty sure that not too many people see grocery-shopping as an exciting activity.  Well, count YA and I as the outliers.  For some reason over the years, we have cultivated grocery-shopping as an activity we like to do together.

Our favorite is Trader Joes.  We especially like to go every couple of months when the new round of items hits the stores.  We go through the Fearless Flyer that TJs sends out and highlight stuff that looks good.  Sometimes, if I just want a couple of things, I don’t tell YA that I’m going to Trader Joes; if she comes along, it will triple the bill at the register.

The spot where Rainbow Foods used to be in the Hub Shopping Center near our house has been empty for seven years.  A couple of times there were signs for temporary spots, like a Halloween store, but they never materialized.  When construction started to happen almost a year ago, we were both excited to see what was happening there and then doubly excited when we found out it was going to be a Mexican market, bakery and taqueria.  Unfortunately, it took WAY too long to open, so I had put my excitement on the back burner.  Finally, about a month ago, it was clear from the trucks in the parking lot that progress was finally happening. 

The grand opening was this past Saturday.  Prizes, giveaway, samples, a bouncy house, mariachis and native dancers made it a big party.  And it was CROWDED.  The opening was at noon and we arrived at 1.  Thank goodness for my bad knees and temporary handicap parking placard; we would have had to have parked in Iowa otherwise.  And forget getting a shopping cart.  Luckily YA and I didn’t have any big shopping plans so we just used a big bag that we had in the car.

Lots of nice-looking produce, a massive dairy/cheese aisle and two bakery sections, one with cakes, pies and then the self-serve bakery aisle …. I don’t even have the words

There were plenty of mainstream items alongside the Latino foodstuffs you would expect to find.  A big endcap of Mary statuettes and a long row of Mary and other religious paintings above the front windows.  They even have a Currency Exchange office.  The taqueria was doing a bang-up business, as well as the deli.  The tortillaria, where they will make fresh corn and flour tortillas is still in the works and should be open in a couple of weeks.  You could see that area and the machines waiting to get set up.  Since I’ve quit making my own tortillas, I can’t wait.

Anyway, YA and I had a fun time.  We picked up a few items that I needed for a soup I wanted to make but didn’t partake of any on-site food – just too crowded, even for us.  But my guess is that in the next few weeks, as the hoopla dies down, this will be another grocery shopping venue that YA and I will add to our events catalog!

If a tomato is a fruit, does that make ketchup a smoothie?  Any good grocery shopping stories?

2025, Family, Food, Gatherings, holidays, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Thanks

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I have purposely chosen to not write about Halloween today, as it seems to me we have enough horror and fear around us. Instead, I wanted to let Baboons know what I am thankful for right now.

First, I am thankful to all the Baboons for putting up with all the posts I have written over the past several months about moving. I am sure they were getting pretty tedious to read. Moving is over, and now we are getting settled and organized. Not much more needs to be said about it.

I am also thankful for the increased time with our son and his family. We saw them yesterday in Sioux Falls and I got the best smiles from our 3 month old granddaughter.

Thanksgiving is four weeks away, and our son has requested a particular brined turkey ala Alton Brown, homemade French bread, and various other side dishes. Son and family, along with my best friend, will spend Thanksgiving weekend with us. I am so excited to cook in our new kitchen.

Finally, I am thankful that the court hearing Husband was to testify remotely at yesterday was settled on Wednesday afternoon. He had done a parental capacity evaluation on the parent in hot water with a central ND county. Now he is officially done working.

What are you thankful for these days. What are your Thanksgiving plans?

2025, Family, home, Kids, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Crimson and Scarlet Trees

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Our son and daughter loved listening to Rabbit Ears productions of children’s stories narrated by famous actors accompanied by wonderful musicians. One of their favorites was a story about Paul Bunyon narrated by Jonathan Winters with music by Leo Kottke. It was funny to hear Paul Bunyan talk about the assignment he got from the president to clear off all the trees from North Dakota. We could certainly relate, as we had a dearth of trees in our region.

Husband has really enjoyed walking the dog and seeing all the crimson and scarlet maple leaves in the neighborhood. We didn’t have these kind of maples in ND. He said the last time he lived in a place that had maples like this was 46 years ago in Madison, WI. The trees in Dickinson were mainly Green Ash and Cottonwoods. Their leaves were pretty blah in the fall.

We have a maple and an oak in the our front boulevard. We also have a Birch in the backyard, along with a Blue Spruce and a Flowering Crab. There are also all sorts of Arbor Vitae. We are well set for trees and bushes. The header photo is a tree across the street from us

What trees do you have in your yard? Any favorite Jonathan Winter or Leo Kottke creations?

2025, Family, home, Nature, Uncategorized

Salty Water

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Unless you got your water from a well back in Dickinson, no one needed a water softener. Our city water came from the Missouri River, and had just the right amount of minerals and wasn’t too hard. You didn’t need a special tap and faucet for drinking water

I had forgot that back here in Rock County, everyone has a water softener, as the water is very hard. The people we bought the house from were kind enough to leave us several bags of softener salt. The kitchen is plumbed so that our drinking water comes through the refrigerator door/icemaker. It is going to be tedious to fill up the tall pasta pot with water from the fridge door. I also have to get used to feeling as though I didn’t get all the soap off when I take a shower.

There were two guys in town with the same last name of Frakes who both were friends of my dad. One ran the Culligan franchise, so dad called him “Softwater Frakes”. The other was a building contractor named Marion who was married to a woman my dad called “The Devil’s Grandmother” due to her fussy and irascible temperament. I think of them now every time I drive passed the Culligan shop.

What are your favorite songs and stories about water and the sea. Anyone who you know who could be the Devil’s Grandmother?

2025, animals, Family, home, pets, Uncategorized

Hello, Fritz!

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Since moving into the new house, Husband and I have been visited by a very cheeky Boston Terrier/Miniature Poodle mix named Fritz. He lives next door with a calico cat who also frequents our yard. Our yard is currently unfenced, but we have arranged to have it fenced in early November. None of the people on our block have fences, and animals seem to run at will.

Fritz’s person told us that he was a frequent visitor to the former owners who worked from home and often let him into the house and even into bed with them. (I don’t see that happening with us.) He also enjoyed playing with their hunting dog. He appears to view our house as an extention of his. His owners are fine with us putting up a fence. I hope that he and Kyrill can hit it off. Kyrill is currently being boarded at the local vet along with the cat, so he and Fritz haven’t met yet.

The movers unloaded our things on Wednesday, and with the help of our son we have unpacked a great many boxes. We have a lot left to do, but we were able to sleep in the house last night. We find ourselves strangely exhausted despite having had more sleep in the past couple of nights than we have had in months. My anxiety level has dropped precipitously. It feels very good to be here. I even like Fritz.

Any stories about your neighborhood pets? How do you introduce your pets to other neighbors and animals?