Husband and I attended the Twin Buttes Community powwow on Saturday. It was truly a celebration, as the community had just finished a new powwow grounds. Powwows are held in circular structures called arbors. The new arbor is rain proof, yet open, with bleachers and space for the drum circle groups and lawn chairs for observers. The new arbor has astroturf for the dancers. There is also a new rodeo grounds/ race track.
Twin Buttes has mainly Arikara and Mandan natives. It is a progressive community planning a new medical clinic, assisted living facility, and Native run boarding school. Our Native friends are so proud of the accomplishments.
There are protocols to follow at powwows, especially those involving the photographing of dancers. You must get permission from the individual dancers to take their photos. Husband was scolded for walking the wrong way around a drum circle in the arbor, as it was considered disrespectful to the drum. He apologized profusely.
I am so happy to share with Baboons actual videos taken at the powwow and posted on Facebook by our dear Natve friend. I have always refrained from filming at powwows. I figure if he posts it on Facebook for all and sundry to see and share, it is ok for me to share with all of you. You will see Men’s Grass dance. Women’s Jingle dance, and Men’s Fancy dance.
A couple of weeks ago Husband and I went to a barbeque in the Killdeer Mountains. The Killdeer Mountains are about 45 miles north of our town. They are really two mesas formed by wind, and river and lake erosion. The highest point is only 975 feet. There are lots of trees there. It was a sacred place for our native tribes. There also are badlands on three sides. One of the last battles of the Civil War was fought there in 1864, when General Sully fought some Sioux who who the government wanted removed from the Upper Missouri area to protect communication lines to the gold fields in Montana and Idaho. It was also part of punishing any natives for the Dakota War of 1862 whether they had participated in it or not. You can see the remoteness of the area, despite oil drilling activity.
You can see a mesa from the plains that surround it.
A nurse friend of mine and her brother inherited 4000 acres of land in the Killdeer mountains, part of a ranch owned by their great grandfather. We had the barbeque at a lovely, old hunting cabin there, where my nurse friend goes for rest and relaxation. She doesn’t hunt. A neighbor runs cattle on part of the land. The bulk of the 4000 acres has been turned into a nature preserve by my friend and her brother with the help of the Nature Conservancy. There is a mountain lion there as well as elk in the tall spruce and pine trees that grow all over the place. It is peaceful and quiet. We didn’t see the mountain lion, but it was fun to know it was in the area. Some friends brought their bird dogs to the gathering, who had a blast running around and looking for the wildlife. Other friends brought their children, who did the same thing.
Where would you like to have a rustic cabin? What sort of animals would you want in your nature preserve?
“Six Degrees of Separation” is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of “friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps.
I recently listened to Garrison Keiller’s “Writer’s Almanac” after many years of just reading at the printed version. Maybe I haven’t listened since it went off the air. While listening I remember 1975 when I first discovered and loved Garrison’s radio show. We went to several of his live versions before and after it went national. But before it went national, I was visiting with a school friend and our English teacher in Cloquet. In the middle of the conversation my friend mentioned Garrison. She knew him! She had been the editor of the University of Minnesota’s monthly literary magazine, Ivory Tower in 1963 and 1964, and Garrison was her assistant editor. I was so happily astounded that I knew someone who knew him…Six Degrees of Separation! When I finally met Garrison while working at MPR in Duluth, I asked him if he remembered her. Of course, he did. They reconnected again not too long ago. And she and I are still close friends.
Another “Six Degree” tale to tell:
One of my favorite MPR classical music hosts was Australian Stephanie Wendt. I met her in person when she was the host of an event in Duluth and I was her “assistant.” She is also a classical pianist. She married a choral director and they moved to Sweden. We were Facebook friends and then I joined her blog where she posted beautiful photographs of where she lives. I recently asked a friend, Gunilla, who lives on the farm in Mahtowa she inherited from her uncle. She also lives and is a pastor in Sweden: “Is the town where my online friend, Stephanie, lives close to where you live?” Gunilla said, “Yes! I know Stephanie! She and her husband were just at and often are at my church!”
Do you have any “Six Degree of Separation” tales to tell?
Today we are having a pot luck luncheon at work for one of our psychiatric nurses who is retiring. I have worked with her since 1987, when we both worked at the local hospital in the now closed psychiatric unit. We both migrated to the Human Service Center after the unit closed in 1999. I will miss her.
I am bringing Mac and Cheese made from scratch, with Cabot extra sharp white cheddar, homemade bechemel, and sliced tomatoes on the top, and a nectarine crumble. It is actually a crumble, as it has no oats in the topping. Some people get pretty persnickity about the difference between crisp and crumble.
What do you like to bring to pot lucks? How do you define a crisp? Who is the coworker you have worked with the longest?
Daughters program held their second annual prom on Friday. It was fun to see the participants dressed up and waving and dancing. Daughter came out blowing kisses. That’s been her thing from her cheerleading days. She loves the limelight. She does have a tendency to light up a room when she enters. I had to laugh, staff asked me if I could tie a tie and I did that for a couple of the gentlemen. Another lost skill that means I’m old. And I thanked my dad for teaching me how to tie a tie.
On Tuesday night, Kelly and I had dinner at the Mayo Clinic Foundation house. It is the former home of Dr. William J. Mayo and his wife Hattie Damon Mayo. We were there for the Pathology Residents Graduation, the program that Kelly works with. It was a full 5 course meal with 3 forks, 3 glasses, a charger plate
and food I couldn’t pronounce, and was held up in the third floor Balfour Hall. (The Mayo’s oldest daughter, Carrie, was married to Dr. Balfour) We had time to snoop around the house and see some Frederic Remington statues, Dr. Will’s study, and wonder at living in such a place as this. The gentleman who was the guide said he’s been there for 18 years.
I’m still working on the shop project. I don’t feel like I got much done on it this week; Been busy with ‘stuff’, just not that stuff. Last Friday they poured the outside slab of cement and I’ve started to back fill that. It needs about 10 days before I can start driving tractors on it. I picked up some windows for the shop and hope to get them in next week.
It’s not like I’ve been busy cutting grass…
The baby chicks are doing real well, just starting to get tail feathers. Of the eggs I put in the incubator, we only got the one early chick, and then we got five guineas. Kelly spent several hours on Saturday trying to convince one of our broody hens that they’d like to be the mom they think they’re already doing in their heads. But none of them wanted anything to do with an actual live chick. We tried getting them to sit on some actual eggs over in a side pen, but they didn’t want that either. You can lead a hen to eggs, but you can’t make her sit on them. The guineas are living in a cardboard box in our entryway.
Crops are still looking pretty rough. The oats is just starting to head out, (we call that the ‘boot stage’), and, according to the seed dealers, they haven’t seen any oat fields in our area that look good. It’s about knee high. It should be almost waist high. I expect there will still be an oats crop, it just won’t be that great. And with the shorter height, there won’t be as much straw either.
The corn is still doing all right, it’s about knee-high. It will be canopied soon. But it’s coming up on a point when it will be taking up massive amounts of nutrients and moisture. Moisture requirements are between .2 to.3”/day at its peak and this will also be when the length and girth of the ear are set. Stress then makes bad yields well before the ears even show up.
My Soybeans. Ugh. They still look terrible.
There are plants out there, but they’re small, and many haven’t emerged. I drove to Northfield on Wednesday, and it appears if you were able to plant soybeans early enough, and they got some of that moisture in the ground, they got off to a good start. A lot of beans were planted in dry ground and it just hasn’t rained. I’m wondering if it wasn’t also the fact I planted with the drill, and most are planted with a planter, and that gave them better seed to soil contact than I got. Seed to soil contact is important, and most years I haven’t had a problem, perhaps because it’s rained. So, this crop feels like it’s already 3 weeks behind, even though it was planted when it should have been. We’ll see.
I baled the roadsides on Thursday. Not much there. I cut some waterways too and got 50 bales total. Most years I have 70 bales just on the road. The camera I added last year to watch the twine strings, was super helpful!
I find it interesting how the tools change by the size of the tractor. Our oldest tractor, the little, two cylinder John Deere 630, has a plain wood handled hammer, a straight screwdriver, and an 8 inch adjustable wrench in the toolbox. Our next tractor, the 6410, the one I use for just about everything, has two 10 inch adjustable wrenches, two screwdrivers, a claw hammer with a fiberglass handle, and some various adapters. Then our big tractor, the 8200, has a 12 inch wrench, socket set, a 4 pound sledge hammer, and one large screwdriver / pry bar in the toolbox. The bigger the tractor, the bigger, the tools I guess. It seems like, when I was growing up, we fixed a lot more things out in the field. Every tractor had various nuts and bolts, and chain links in the toolbox. Add a piece of wire from a nearby fence and you could repair and keep going. These days I don’t hardly fix anything out in the field. It doesn’t seem like things break as much, or it’s something I have to go home to fix.
My shadow, Bailey, has to go everywhere I go. Humphrey just keeps an eye on me so he knows where I am but then he might go sleep at the house. I was laying on the floor of the shop, on my new cement, changing the drawbar length on the tractor and there’s Bailey, right in my face to help. I can appreciate that she wants to be my friend and she’s such a good dog and she makes me laugh, but does she have to be my friend from half an inch away? Can’t she be my friend from 6 inches away?
She also had a 12” piece of barb wire stuck in her coat and trailing behind her. Eventually I was able to snip off the part of her fur holding it tight.
I got started planting corn on Friday. Checked seed depth and placement.
Then I got rained out. It wasn’t supposed to rain until 7:00 and then only a little bit. Well. It started raining about 4:30. And it doesn’t take much before it’s sticking to the wheels of the tractor and planter, and the press wheels and closing wheels. And once that happens, seed depth is affected and it’s time to stop. And it rained all evening and we got an inch. Then another half inch the next day. And another inch Thursday. And I was dealing with Commencement Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday so the rain was OK. A lot of other guys got corn got planted though. Big equipment and many guys working a lot of longer hours than I do. Kudo’s to them. I talked to one guy who not only finished planting corn but finished planting soybeans as well. He said, “When we start something we go hard.” I guess. And it’s more than just him working it too. So it goes. We’ll get there.
Commencement went well; a good bunch of people, and while there were some minor technical issues, nothing serious. My work student, April and I hung a few lights last week, before they placed the stage. Monday, the IT guys had the projector hanging and running and the screen up before I got there at 10:00 AM.
April and I then hung the rest of the main lights, we got all the ground stuff running before I went home Monday evening about 7:00. It should have been sooner, but I had some issues. There was a high impendence air gap* in one of the fixtures that daisy chained to several others. And I numbered some of them wrong. Twice. I spent two hours trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Part of me just wanted to go home and deal with it in the morning with a fresh mind. But I knew I’d lay in bed thinking about this. I knew I had to fix it before I went home. Ah. Yep, Brain Fart. Numbered them appropriately and I went home and slept well.
It always comes down fast; a lot of helpers picking up chairs and the IT crew get their stuff down quick, and April and I got our stuff down quick and we were done with the hard part by 9:00 PM. Hauled my stuff back to the theater and the truck showed up for the rental stuff and I was home having ice cream by 10:00 PM.
AND! None of my appendages or internal organs fell off, or plugged up, or turned red, or swoll up! Yay me! I can do this!!
Last week was Kelly’s birthday. This week was my birthday. And Friday the 12th was our 33rd wedding anniversary. We don’t celebrate too hard. (we all took the day off and slept in) There’s a big family reunion happening on Saturday. It started as a ‘cousins get-together’; my nieces and nephews; that set of cousins. Some from Florida, some from South Carolina, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and various places in Minnesota. The cousins getting together turned into the whole families getting together and we’ll celebrate all the birthdays in May (There’s at least 6), Mothers day, our anniversary, our son and DiL’s anniversary, and our matriarch, my mom, turning 97 on the 16th.
Kelly and I always laugh about going to the all-night grocery store about midnight before our wedding because she wanted 3 gallons of lime sherbet for the punch the next day. I remember saying “Where are you going to put it!??” in her tiny little apartment freezer.
Kelly’s taste and smell are coming back after her covid. And she’s got a bit of a cough yet. My nose still runs, but I’m good otherwise.
We were running errands the other night and taking the scenic route and heard, off in the corner of a parking lot, a Jazz band. They were playing New Orleans jazz and it was really fun and we parked and listened to them for a few minutes. We tried to find out if they do this every Sunday night or it was just a jam session, or what, but we didn’t find anyone that spoke English. Man, they were good!
Signed a contract for insulation for the shop. Found some ‘reject’ windows at a lumber yard that I decided to add. Used some chalk and marked out the floor for the walls and doors. Talked to some HVAC and LP guys about how big of a heater I’d need and where to put the LP tank.
My college boss made a comment about the next show opening in 2 weeks and my head kinda went blank for a minute. Heck. My focus was just on getting through commencement. I knew there was another show at the end of the month, but I hadn’t really looked at the calendar yet. It’s fairly small, and fairly easy. (and to be honest, I’m waiting for this whole thing to fall apart, but I didn’t say that out loud). So, I better work on that next week. I still haven’t gotten the college shop cleaned up from the play we closed on April 29th because we went right into concerts and then right into commencement. It’s making me crazy.
Then I’m doing another show opening the first week of June. Another in July, another in August, and then summer’s over and I’m back at the college. Bother.
What are your summer plans? Did you play with matches?
My warehouse projects are this Friday and Saturday. Part of the warehouse “experience” is having cheering throngs when the winners arrive at the warehouse. For one of the very first warehouse programs (about 15 years ago), somebody had the idea to invite the Vikings cheerleaders to welcome the winners; as cheesy at it sounds, the participants ate it up. Unfortunately it didn’t often work out (time-wise or budget-wise) to keep bringing “professionals” in to cheer. That’s when we started recruiting regular employees to take a break from their desks to come root the winners on as they get off the bus. Didn’t take long before we added noisemakers and clappers for the ultimate event.
For my very first warehouse run, my winners were veterinarian pharmaceutical sales folks and I found out early on that there were four subsets of them… and they didn’t like each other. I never did figure out exactly how they were competitors but the bottom line was the client didn’t want the four groups in the warehouse at the same time. Instead of one run with about 45 winners, we had to have four runs in one day, with 8-12 winners each. That wasn’t a problem for anybody except for me. It was the first week of December and I was really worried that I wouldn’t get people out to cheer four times in one day, especially a cold day.
That’s when I thought up the hot chocolate. I ordered four big containers of hot chocolate along with cups, set up a table outside the warehouse (where folks congregate to cheer) and then four times that day poured out cup after cup of hot cocoa. It was a big hit and several folks came out repeatedly that day, one even mentioning to me that he came for the hot drink. We’ve been supplying hot chocolate at cold weather warehouse runs ever since and have added lemonade for hot weather runs. I’ve always felt proud that this was my idea.
Fast forward to this week. Since pandemic, Mondays and Fridays are work-at-home days; normally the buildings are all but empty. There haven’t been many Friday warehouse programs since the travel industry got back on its feet but there have been just enough folks who are either already on campus or willing to drive in to cheer. But Saturdays are a whole `nother matter Not only is Saturday in itself a problem — the group is big enough that we have to do a morning run and an afternoon run. We even advised the client that we couldn’t guarantee the cheering. With management’s blessing, we have an incentive set up to get folks to come in to cheer. In addition, I’ve ordered doughnuts for the Friday and Saturday morning cheerers and cookies for the Saturday afternoon cheerers. Hopefully between the company incentive and the goodies, we’ll get enough to make it exciting for the winners. Fingers crossed.
What would it take to get you to come out and cheer on a weekend?
One of my coworkers, after leaving our agency as a secretary, decided to start selling Tupperware. I am a little concerned about her, as I see that Tupperware is probably going bankrupt.
I have had several coworkers who discovered things they liked at various parties specific to selling a certain product, and decided to become sellers themselves just to get the things at a discount. I have been to Longaberger Basket parties and Pampered Chef parties put on by coworkers. I bought a few things, but it wasn’t long before my friends stopped selling these things. I was really surprised to find out this week that a fellow psychologist at another State agency sells Pampered Chef products. She is very subtle about it.
I think there are still Avon representatives in our area. I see that Avon had worldwide sales of $9.1 billion in 2020. My father sold vitamins for a while after he wanted to get the large amounts of Vitamin E he took at wholesale prices. He was convinced Vitamin E kept him from needing cardiac bypass surgery when he was in his late 40’s. He eventually needed the surgery in his 70’s, but still kept selling vitamins.
Know anyone who sold Tupperware or Avon? What sales parties have you attended? Do you take vitamins or dietary supplements?
Man, this week. Or this month. Or this year. Or maybe this Spring. Whoosh. There it goes…
I had that equipment up at the online auction that ended on Tuesday. But the corn head for the chopper (the part used when chopping up corn. Just like it sounds I guess) was in a part of the old shed that I never try to get into until June. It was quite the deal getting the corn head out on Sunday evening. (Saw Hamilton Sunday afternoon. Yes, it was as fantastic as I expected).
There was still ice and snow back on Sunday. Remember that? I chopped and dug and eventually cut 6” off the bottom of one door before I got them open. Then moved the hay rake, and thank goodness the swather started, and I had to chop out more ice because the swather has no traction. Then moved some other junk, THEN was able to get to the corn head out and load it on the trailer. It was kind of a process.
Hauled that to the auction lot on Monday, went to the vet’s office across the street and spent too much money on tick prevention and heartworm pills for the dogs. Talked to the agronomist about getting fertilizer spread for the oats, ordered diesel fuel, and picked up oats seed. Had a township ‘Board of Appeals’ meeting regarding property taxes in the afternoon.
After the meeting, Daughter and I picked up driveway markers, I moved the snowblower out of the shed, and Kelly and I cut some brush behind the shed. It was a good day.
The auction. My stuff didn’t sell as good as I wanted it too. But the chopper was 40 years old and been in the shed unused for the last 20 years, so at least it’s gone. The rear blade sold pretty well. And the old tools of dads went for a couple bucks.
The ‘vintage’ item I had were old cultivator shields. Sold for $2. Scrap price might have been $3 or $4…I thought someone might have a unique use for them. No one would use them as cultivator shields anymore. And I bought a rock “grapple” bucket for my loader. It’s like ‘fingers’ to grab trees and rocks and “stuff”. Always wanted one. I’ll need to add some more hydraulics line to run it… you remember how the last hydraulic project went. I will pay more attention to this one.
The killdeer have returned. The Sandhill Cranes are back (Hi Steve!) and Kelly has been listening to them call during the day since she has the windows open in this warm weather. The chives are coming and Kelly found a deer shed on one of her walks.
I haven’t seen the female duck lately, and there’s two males here. I’m hoping she’s sitting on a nest. I saw eggs in the pond and when I googled “Why are there duck eggs in my pond”, the thought is ducks are lousy moms. Eggs just sort of ‘pop out’ where-ever they are. Like the pond apparently. Google also said not to eat them.
When the diesel fuel was delivered, I was talking with the driver that the gauge has been broken since I got this tank and I couldn’t get the old one out. He said it shouldn’t be that hard; “get a hammer and chisel.” And those, along with an 18” pipe wrench and a pipe extension handle, we did get the old one out. The new gauge is nice.
Been hanging lights and started programming lights for the musical ‘Spring Awakening’ at the Rep theater, and finishing up set stuff for ‘Boy Gets Girl’ at the college. Both open next Thursday and luckily college rehearsals are afternoon and the Rep’s are evening.
And I farm between things.
Started planting oats Thursday night! Hope to finish on Friday. It’s even a little dusty. I keep forgetting the thermometer to check the soil temperature, but I know it’s warmed up.
On Sunday, we played in the church bell choir accompanied by the High School band director on timpani and a very accomplished group of High School brass players.
Being musicians, the bell choir players had some rather acerbic comments about the brass players. One of the trumpet players was always late for our rehearsals, and a bell player who is also a music teacher commented that trumpet players were notoriously full of themselves and didn’t think they had to follow the rules everyone else had to follow. I commented that my father advised me in all seriousness when I was in High School to never marry an oboe player, since they had to blow so hard on their double reed that they eventually went mad.
As a psychologist, I always love discussing personality types. I have known humble trumpet players and perfectly sane oboe players, but I wonder where these stereotypes come from. I was a bass clarinet player, and I don’t know of any stereotypes of those who play that instrument. Perhaps an unusual affection for the Grand Canyon Suite?
What are some occupational stereotypes you feel are accurate? Inaccurate? Who are some people you know who defy stereotypes?
Trail Baboon 