Category Archives: home

2023, Family, Food, home, Uncategorized

Caramel Rolls

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Our daughter had an inexplicable yearning for a caramel roll the other day and went out to find one in Tacoma. No one she asked knew what she was talking about. Some people suggested sticky buns, but they didn’t look right to her. The ones she likes are available in every little café around here. The caramel is at the bottom of the pan, and the rolls are dumped upside down when they come out of the oven and the caramel drips down over the hot rolls.

She did some research and found that the caramel rolls that she was familiar with as well as the name caramel roll are peculiar to the Dakotas, Minnesota, and maybe parts of Wisconsin. She phoned some friends from California and they confirmed that they had never heard of caramel rolls. They had sticky buns. A Bismarck friend who lives in Virginia said no one there knew what caramel rolls were. Her best friend from childhood now lives in Reno, NV, and she said no one there spoke of caramel rolls, either. That led to her friend getting her aunt’s recipe for the caramel rolls that she bakes at her restaurant called The Cowboy Café in Medora, ND. Daughter sent me the recipe. It makes six pans of rolls, and the girls are hoping I can reduce the recipe to a single batch so they can make them. Her friend’s mother also sent them a caramel roll recipe from a cookbook published by a Lutheran church in Sharon, ND.

Husband found the cookbook from my Lutheran Church in Luverne. It had two caramel rolls recipes. He also found caramel roll recipes in the New Prague Hotel Cookbook and in The Norske Nook Cookbook from Osseo, WI. I sent the recipes to Daughter and her friend in Reno. They are thrilled. They both like to bake. Now they have multiple recipes to choose from when they are feeling homesick.

What do you miss most when you are away from home? Ever had genuine homesickness?

2023, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, home, Nature, Theatre, Uncategorized

Wrapping Up

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

Sunday we saw ‘Aladdin’ at the Orpheum. It was big and fun. Everything you would expect of a Disney musical. Bright costumes, lots and lots of colorful lights, and a lot of magic. I still haven’t figured out how the carpet flew. It must have been magic.

I had feed delivered to the farm Monday. I had cracked corn put in the bulk bin by the barn and I feed it to the chickens. It wasn’t empty yet, but I didn’t want the truck coming down when the road gets icy or snow covered. I was planning ahead. The bin holds maybe 6000 lbs. I usually order 100 bushels (remember, 56 lbs / bushel, so 5600 lbs) about every 8 months. Because the bin wasn’t empty, I was gonna order 50 bushels. But the elevator / coop, wanted at least 4000 lbs to deliver. As long as the weather forecast was decent, we postponed for two weeks, and the corn fit with a little room to spare. The corn is from the ‘grain bank’; Corn I have the elevator store specifically for use as feed. (It’s not MY specific corn, it’s just an amount of bushels, so when I need corn, I don’t have to purchase that. I pay for the hauling and the cracking. $30 to crack it, $100 to deliver it.

I wish I had taken a picture of the truck unloading. Nothing has gotten smaller in the last 30 years…The driver said they have 5 bin trucks, and 7 bin trucks. This was a 7.  

The chickens are doing well. So well they’re doubling up on box space.

Maybe this is where the double yolkers come from!

One of our summer chickens turned into a rooster. So far, he hangs out with the hens and keeps to himself and hasn’t caused any trouble.

I’m not sure the other roosters even pay him any attention yet. Funny to think ‘They don’t know he’s around’, but maybe.

I stepped out one morning and everyone came to see what I had for them. The usual table scraps.

Crop insurance payment came in. It was enough I bought myself a new ladder. And I went for the heavy-duty fiberglass. I often see aluminum extension ladders on auctions, but not fiberglass.

I got a call from Samantha, my agronomist talking about 2024 crops. Input costs are down a bit from 2023, thank goodness. I expect Nate, my seed dealer to call soon. Early orders get discounts. Can I please just not have debt for a few weeks before taking out next year’s loan?

College semester is over. I finished the class with 94%. Whew. Creative Writing begins January 8th, and that will be an in-person class with a teacher I know well. Need about 22 credits yet and I’ll have a degree!

I baked the first batch of Amish Friendship Bread on Wednesday night. I had a bottle of Grape pop, I had my headphones on and I was listening to the first album of Chicago, when they were “Chicago Transit Authority”. It turned out OK.

WHAT WAS YOUR MUSIC THIS WEEK?

2023, Family, home, The Future, Uncategorized, work

Getting Old

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In the last week I have done something rather unheard of for me-I took two full days off of work because I was tired.

I am rarely sick. I normally have enough energy to get done all the things I want to accomplish in the evenings and on the weekends. I am not doing any more than I normally do. I am in good health. Work is no more stressful than it usually is. Why, then, am I in bed most nights by 8:30? Husband is having the same experience that I am and is tired all the time.

I realized to my great annoyance that we are tired because we are aging. I will only be 66 in February. That isn’t that old. Husband will be 70, so I can understand a little more why he is taking more naps. After all, he may be retired, but he is working 20 hours a week.

My two days off allowed me to get a lot of things done at home that I would never have accomplished after work. I have to accept that I need to take more time off. With only a year of full time work left before I retire, I doubt that the administration will be too upset about me taking the occasional day off. They are hopeful I will work part-time after I formally retire, so they will be nice to me.

What about getting older has surprised and/ or annoyed you? If you are retired, is it what you hoped it would be?

2023, animals, Family, Farming Update, Health, home, pets, Uncategorized, work

Pause

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Today’s Farm Update is from Ben.

Felt like a rather quiet week on the farm.

I did get snow fence installed, and driveway markers are in.

Hauled in the last of the scrap Iron I wanted to do for this year. I’ll be curious to see what my total was for scrap iron this year. Several thousand lbs. This last load was 3500 lbs and was an old disc, a bit of the old elevator frame, and some misc pieces. Price was still $100 / ton so it paid for the gas anyway.

I did an (almost) final cleaned up behind the shed one day just scraping all the brush into a pile; I wish I had done a before photo but there’s the after.

Just image it full of trees and junk and crap collected over 40 years. I’d love to put an overhang back here to shelter some machinery like the rear blade, the snow blower, the brush mower, etc. Got a pile of cement blocks to move yet.

Met our banker one day and made a plan. I’ve got most of the big bills paid. Signed the last of the papers for crop insurance, but don’t know what that’s going to pay yet.

Had two nights of Holiday Concerts at the college this past week. The choir sounds really very nice. The band is small but growing, and they’ll be really good in another year or two. The one photo is the designer, Paul, with Santa.

We’ve had a little issue with Luna and Bailey lately. They really got into a fight the day I was working on snow fence. Like a ‘to the death’ type fight. I had to separate them three times, finally putting Bailey in the gator.

We can tell Bailey seems jealous, yet she’s picking fights she doesn’t want to be in. They’re equal size and weight. It almost seems like Luna is trying to find her place in the order. Bailey is spayed, we don’t think Luna is yet. We’ve had Luna for 2 months now. She’s really settling in. Which might be what’s putting Bailey off. Any thoughts on 2 female dogs getting along would be appreciated.

Need to get the final paper submitted for class this coming week and the semester is over on the 15th.

The Rep Theater has the next phase of heating and AC going on so that will take some of my time. They have a lot of old photos out as part of the 40 year anniversary. This was me at about 20 years old at the Rep. PHOTO

I should get going on 2023 bookwork one of these days… I’ve been really lazy on that this year.

HAVE YOU GOT THINGS WRAPPED UP?

2023, Family, holidays, home, Uncategorized

Lit Up

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When we first moved to our house in 1988, people referred to our street, in December, as Santa Claus Lane because about four houses at the end of the street had elaborate, wooden, hand made, moving Christmas decorations in the front yard. One, the home of a piano teacher, had the swaying figure of an organist that looked like the teacher herself seated at a pipe organ, with choir boys standing along side in a row. The boys looked like the teacher’s three sons.

As the owners of the elaborate decorations aged and/or died, the decorations have been given to other residents on the street, but the decorations have aged, too, and no longer move. Most other residents opt for strings of lights on the trees and houses. All we have are four, year round LED lanterns stuck in the ground lining the edge of the front peony bed.

Our front yard isn’t conducive to light displays because of the awkward placement of the only electrical outlet on the front of the house being between the double garage doors. We would have to drive over electrical cords. I am fine with no lights. Something in me rebels about the falderal, and really, all that just takes up space in the basement 11 months of the year. Husband is even more ascetic than I am, but confessed last weekend while we were running errands to strange urges to get lights and hang the all over the front of the house. I don’t know what got into him, but I got him home as soon as I could and poured a glass of German brandy for him. that is something we usually only have around this time of year, since I need it for Stollen.

How do you decorate the outside of your house for the holidays? What is your favorite holiday beverage?

2023, Business, Family, home

Home Project Lessons

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I learned a couple of things during the course of our bathroom project.

First… do everything in your power to get a good contractor.  Hugo was highly recommended (by my next-door neighbor, who is the head of construction, maintenance project and capital planning for the Minneapolis schools.  Hugo communicated well through-out, was easy going, delivered bad news gently and, of course, did a nice job at a good price.

Second… also do everything in your power to have a handy person living in your house with you – especially someone who is invested in the outcome of your project.  I have YA for this.  She is MUCH handier than I am, as she is more patient as she goes about whatever she is working on.  She installed the toilet paper holder and the towel racks.  She un-installed the new light sconces because she thought there was a “ridge” along the edge, spackled and sanded and then re-painted.  She also installed two slider baskets on the bottom shelves of the vanity so it would be easy to get at our stuff.  And she also took a teeny paintbrush from my studio to “straighten” a couple of the paint seams. 

And she gets credit for most of the decisions in the bathroom.  She picked the tile, the flooring, the wainscotting design, the medicine cabinet and the light sconces.  I had final approval but most of the time, her choice was OK with me.

So between Hugo and YA, I don’t really get any credit for the bathroom, unless you count having to arrange all the financing!

Any lessons you’ve learned this week?

2023, home, Uncategorized

Great Expectations

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Yesterday marked exactly eight weeks since our bathroom project started. It started as what I thought would be a quick (and inexpensive) fix of my weird shower system and very quickly went straight downhill. The hot water assembly was so old that when an interior piece of the handle broke, those words “not up to code” were uttered (for two different parts of the bathroom) and started that proverbial domino effect.

When the contractor was finalizing his proposal, I asked him for a guesstimate on how long it would take.  He said four weeks.  I assumed he was padding that and then padded it again myself so I wouldn’t be upset if the bathroom wasn’t up and running again in a month.  Good thing.

The first issue was that the plumber put in the wrong tub for the project.  It took several days to get this resolved;  I ended up having the contractor replace the tub and I stopped payment on the plumbers until they refunded a chunk of change.

Second issue was the tile.  We chose a tile that showed in stock at our local Home Depot.  The day we went in to order it, the person who helped us said “Oh yeah, we took a pallet of this down yesterday – there’s plenty.”  When contractor went to pick it up the next day, Home Depot said they didn’t have enough. This is when having a good contractor comes in handy – he beat them up enough that they ended up getting it at another store and delivering it right to the house.

Third issue was the vanity.  Home Depot SAID that it would be delivered in 2-4 days.  They must have meant hours on Mercury, because it certainly didn’t arrive within 4 days.  Then when it did arrive, they informed me that they couldn’t deliver it up the steps onto the front porch because I hadn’t paid the additional “in house” delivery fee.  Grrr….  Luckily my next-door neighbor was our in his yard and between him and me and YA, we got it onto the porch fairly easily.  Of course, when the contractor arrived the next morning and opened it up, it was broken:

Since the return process didn’t go smoothly, I ordered the second one sent to the store.  After another set of Mercury-long days, I got multiple messages via text and email saying different things about where the vanity actually was.  Called Home Depot and got told the vanity was at the store.  I called the store and talked somebody into checking that it was actually there.  Called contractor (I spent a lot of time on the phone for this project) and told him he could pick up vanity in the morning.  Then lo and behold, overnight I got an email saying vanity had arrived at the store broken.  Apparently when the guy at the store told me it was there, it hadn’t been taken off the pallet yet so they didn’t realize it was broken.  Sigh.  I made kind of a large stink at that point.  Not sure if it helped or not but the third vanity arrived undamaged.  And even though the store said they had checked it, my contractor made them open it up so HE could check. 

Did I mention that during the tear-down process, the toilet got cracked?  The brand new toilet that we had put in just seven months ago?  Contractor took full responsibility and ordered a new tank.  In the meantime, I’m here to tell you that FlexSeal really works.  Not sure you can really seal  up a boat and drive around the Everglades like in their commercial, but it held the toilet together really well until the next tank arrived yesterday.

Now I realize that this isn’t too bad compared to a lot of the horror stories out there, including some we’ve heard here, but it was enough that the contractor’s 4 weeks and my 6 weeks weren’t padded enough.  But overall I’m feeling relatively lucky; this is the second major project that hasn’t been nearly as bad as I expected.   Before and after pictures tomorrow!

How do you keep your expectations in check?

2023, Business, home, Technology

Photo Finish

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In the last seven weeks I haven’t gone more than a day or so without having to stop by either Home Depot or my local hardware store.  There are only a couple of bits left until the bathroom is completely finished, but we are now slowly putting it back together.  This has driven me to the hardware store several times in the last week.  Screws, anchors, springs, plugs, paintbrushes….  I feel like I’m practically living there.

Last Saturday morning, they were slammed; I wasn’t the only one with a home project.  Rather than wait around for help, I ventured to the back where the entire wall is filled with drawers and boxes of nails, screws, bolts and the like.  I needed some kind of rubber plug for the end of a spring I had bought the day before to hopefully allow us to keep using our current shower caddy.  (Anything to staunch the flow of cash into this bathroom!)  I did actually find something that would work perfectly.

None of the store employees was at the back of the store and I didn’t trust myself to remember the part number or even the price until I got to the register, as I had a few other things to pick up.  Although I had a pen, I didn’t have anything to write on.  I was just about to write on my hand when I suddenly realized I could use my phone to take a photo of the price and sku.  Not an earth-shattering thought but I’d never thought of it before.  Snapped the above picture and headed back to pick up my other items.  The young cashier did actually thank me profusely.  Apparently most people expect the employees to know all the prices which means a quick trip to the back of the store to check; I got good-customer brownie points!

When was the last time technology pleasantly surprised you?

2023, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Bad Habits

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I bought my house in 1991. 

The bathroom light switch was on the wall OUTSIDE the bathroom.  I don’t know why.  But for 30+ years I have switched on the light before I go into the bathroom and switched it off when I come out of the bathroom.  Also for 30+ years, anytime a guest has used the bathroom I have cautioned them “the light switch is on the wall in the hall”.

Since the entire inside of the bathroom got ripped up for the remodel, including the wall where the electrical box was located, I figured we might as well move the switch to the inside of the bathroom.  The electrician also moved the fan switch and overhead heat lamp switch over as well, so all three switches now live together. 

Here are the three switches in their new location:

This is where the switch used to be:

It’s been two weeks.  I still try to turn the lights on/off outside the bathroom at least 5 times a day. 

How long does it take you to change a habit?

2023, Family, home, Uncategorized

Hot Mess

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We’re in the very last death throes of our bathroom remodel: the time when you realize you need a new shower caddy, a little table, new towel racks, new shade, new curtain……  aarrggghhhh. 

Home Depot feels like it has become our home away from home.  We were there last night for a toilet paper holder, a new shade (we have a new window that is a different size from the old window) and some towel rods.  YA is fairly handy and took on the toilet paper holder on Saturday afternoon.  She didn’t like the size of the anchors to attach the handles so we had to make a trip to the hardware store.  It was the third hardware store trip of the day for me, although the other two trips were about the shower caddy, not the toilet paper holder.

Once we were home, she was able to get it finished up in less than a half hour.  When she called me to look at her handiwork, the photo above is what I saw.  Quite a bit of mess for a toilet paper holder.  She’s not traditionally as good about cleaning up after a project, but she did straighten up.  I suggested she could clean up more and she reminded me that she’ll need these same tools for the towel racks.  Good thought.

When I had to take a picture of the big mess for the little project, she objected and then said “why didn’t you take a picture of the holder?”  So… voila:

Are you good at cleaning up your messes?