Category Archives: Kids

2025, Family, Kids, Music, Uncategorized

First Instrument

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Our 7 year old grandson has taken a keen interest in his mother’s Ibanez acoustic guitar, and spends up to an hour at a time trying to pick out chords and play tunes on it. His dad taught him the tune “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica that he likes to pluck out.

Grandson isn’t big enough for a full size guitar, so yesterday we went to Sioux Falls and got him a three-quarter size Yamaha guitar. It fits him really well, and has just the right sized neck and fretboard. He is very excited! His parents have been in touch with a Brookings guitar teacher and are going to sign him up for lessons this week. His new sibling will arrive in August, and he will need something to keep him occupied when all the attention is on the new little one.

My first instrument after the piano was a B flat clarinet. Son had a trombone. Daughter was so excited to get her French Horn in Grade 5 that she marched around the block blasting on it. The first time she saw a violin that a friend had brought over to the house to jam with Husband, she almost wrestled him to the ground to get it away from him. She was 5. Husband set up violin lessons for her the next day. Husband had a cello, and still has one he loves to play. Daughter in law is a piano and flute player.

Grandson assures me that practicing won’t be a problem. We shall see. It is lovely, though, to have another musician in the family.

What was your first instrument? If you are an older sibling, how did you adjust to your younger siblings’ arrival. If you have older siblings, how did they react to your arrival?

2025, Baboon Achievers, gardening, home, Kids, Uncategorized, work

Young Entrepreneurs

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Husband had just finished mowing the lawn on Monday when two boys, looking to be about 11 or 12, came by offering to mow for us. They had their own mower. Husband explained he had just finished mowing, but they would certainly be welcome in the future to do it for us. Their asking price was reasonable.

I never had a “business” as a kid, unless you count babysitting. Girls in Luverne didn’t hire out to do lawn work back then. The boys who came by on Monday looked energetic and excited. There aren’t as many older people in the neighborhood as there used to be, so I hope they don’t get discouraged if they don’t get as much business as they hoped.

Husband has arthritis in his hands. I am having increased mobility issues with chronic sciatica, probably caused by lumbar scoliosis. I can see us hiring more yard work done in the future.

Did you have a business as a kid? What tasks do you see yourself hiring others to do in the future? If you were 12 right now, what business would you start?

2025, animals, home, Kids, Nature, Technology

Buzzin’ Around

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The sad news in our neighborhood is that my next door neighbors (the ones with the two little girls I adore) are moving.  Not too far away, but moving nonetheless.

This has meant a lot of activity next door.  Cleaning and organizing the place – a big job with two girls ages 5 and 9.  Moving lots of stuff to a storage place.  Marie’s elaborate cardboard box car is actually on my front porch right now.  Lots of showings and two Sundays of open houses.  Phew.

They had an offer on Friday so Monday was the official inspection.  First there were two different plumbing trucks – the funniest name for a plumbing company I’ve ever seen – The Sewer Rat.  Then at about 10 a.m. I noticed something on the sidewalk right outside their front porch. I wasn’t 100% sure but I thought it was a drone.  Fairly small.

I was so curious – why in heaven’s name was there a drone sitting on the sidewalk.  I wasn’t curious long – a young man came around the corner, got the drone going and started flying it over the house.  He was inspecting the roof!  I probably would not have thought of that as a use for a drone on my own.

As I was watching I started thinking about why drones are called drones.  I was thinking of a dull, monotonous sound – maybe what drones sound like when they’re flying?  Apparently not… the internet says based on the male worker bee, the drone.  I might have thought of that eventually. 

Have you ever operated a drone?  If you were going to, what would you use it for?

2025, Automotive, Business, Farming Update, Kids, Nature, Seasons, Songs, Uncategorized, work

Dirt

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I heard a snippet of a blog and they said, “A person will work three jobs so they can go home and farm. You never hear of a person working 3 jobs so they can open a plumbing shop.” Sweeping generalization alert there. I’ve been thinking about that since I heard it. And while I’m in the tractor I think about what it is that makes farming so entrenched for us. What exactly is it that calls us to it? For me, it’s a lot of things: I like the machinery, I like working on the tractor or changing the oil, and learning, and having the skills and tools (and shop!) to work on stuff. A sense of achievement. I like working up a field and watching the soil turn black. Stan Rogers says it best in ‘The Field Behind the Plow‘ “Watch the field behind the plow, turn to straight dark rows. Put another season’s promise in the ground”.

I like being this close to the seasons and the circle of… everything. The growth, a faith in something bigger I guess. It’s deep and it pulls in my chest.

I’ve had a few late nights. Working at the college, then home and it might be 6 or 7:00 before I get out in the tractor and to the field. But it’s my time and I got nothing else at the moment. I feed the chicks, talk with Kelly. Daughter asks me to sit on the deck with her. We play with the dogs. Going out half an hour later doesn’t matter. (unless there’s rain in the forecast)

Daughter, turning 30 chronologically, but maybe 16 developmentally, she gives lots of hugs, but when we say “Love You!” she responds, “yep” or “OK” or maybe just “Bye”. And it makes me chuckle. That is when she doesn’t roll her eyes and simply walk away.

So, I’m in the tractor. One night I listened to Joni Mitchell. I haven’t had her albums or listened to much of her stuff. Just the hits. We saw Ben Folds in Rochester on Wednesday night and I listened to his stuff. I did some classical MPR. On the weekends it’s MPR News and their great programming: Wait Wait, Moth, This American Life, Radio Lab. It’s all so interesting! And some podcasts. In the tractor is the only time I can really do that, when I can listen and pay attention.

Best of all, I found some podcasts of TLGMS!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mpr-skits-from-the-morning-show/id104720092

It has been so fun to hear all these characters again. Cap’n Billy, Bubby Spamden, The Bowzer Bed, Wally’s Sherpa, Dr. B. Marty Barry and his bottomless Well of Wellness, Spin Williams, Congressman Beechly, Genway, and that wonderful cure-all pill, Purplex from Spendy Popper. I cannot get over what an amazingly creative writer Dale is! How he came up with all these ideas! We didn’t know what we had at the time, did we?

Me and Bailey enjoy our tractor time. She’s 7 1/2 years old and I have to boost her up into the tractor. Every few minutes she sits up and put her head against my knee and I scratch her ears and she lays down again.

It was a busy week. Filled the big tractor with fuel. It only needed half a tank.

Ordered more diesel and gasoline for the barrels.

I’m using the boating app again to find my place in the fields. And how can I take the linear distance to make it acres? (13.6 miles x 5280 feet divided by 24′ digger divided by 43,500 sq feet / acre = ? Hmm, that doesn’t come out right. Seems like it should make sense.

Did a lot of math figuring what 18, 50 lb bags of oats, at 32 lbs per bushel and I want 3.5 bushels / acre will do how many acres. And if I ran out at 6 acres, how much did I really apply?

Went back to Meyer Seeds on Wednesday morning and bought 12 more bags. Remember last year when I ran out 1/2 acre short of finishing with rain in the forecast and I said I would order extra seed next year so I didn’t run out?? I DID order extra! But I got a different variety of oat seed and the rate changed so… back for more.

After planting, this year I had time and cooperative weather to go over the oat ground with the drag (harrow) to smooth it out and help cover the seed in the tractor tracks that don’t always get covered.

Got the old 630 running pretty well. And I’ve ordered a new exhaust pipe and muffler for it. I’m looking forward to working on that after the spring rush.

Parked the tractor in the shop and changed oil, engine air filters, (there’s two) and cab air filters. Two tall, narrow ones outside, and two small ones inside the cab.

The new exterior shop lights are great!

Finished planting oats on Friday while my brother was out working up corn ground. The Co-op applied corn fertilizer on Thursday, and I hope to be planting corn on Saturday.

When I’m planting, I’m travelling at about 5 MPH. Faster than that and the seed spacing gets messed up. And seed spacing is really critical in some crops. Corn it’s extremely important. Soybeans it’s moderately, and oats doesn’t matter so much.

Fancy newer ‘high speed’ equipment carries a seed to the ground using a brush belt to gently place the seed in the trench. New planters are capable of 10 MPH. Time is money you know. It’s fascinating how fast some of these parts are moving to drop a seed every 6″ at 10 MPH. There’s some math for you. Bill, how long does it take to go 100′ at 10MPH and how many seeds does it drop if they’re 6″ apart? That mechanism is really moving!  

Getting ready for commencement at the college. Hung some of the fixtures over the stage, before they place the stage. Had the gym to myself and it was pretty nice.

Will look a lot different this time next week.

Got the laptop and ‘Hog’ console set up and doing all that math / prep work. Or trying. Thursday afternoon the laptop didn’t want to play nice. But Friday morning all was well. I have a plan B and C. It will be fine, FINE I tell you!

HOW MANY JOBS HAVE YOU WORKED AT ONCE?

FOR WHAT GOAL?

2025, Family, Gatherings, Kids, Uncategorized, Words

Baby Sprinkle

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We will travel to Brookings, SD early next month for a Baby Sprinkle, a smaller sized Baby Shower that is being put on by friends of our son and dil who are expecting their second child in August.

I never heard the term Baby Sprinkle before, but I gather it is now the term for used when someone already has had a child and doesn’t need as many things as first time parents do. Son and dil are pretty well stocked with equipment from the birth of their first child seven years ago. We are so happy for them.

I have some baby afghans crocheted by my maternal grandmother from when our children were born and I plan to bring them, as well some other things I have in a cedar chest like family christening outfits. It will be fun.

What are some new terms or phrases you have encountered lately? What would you bring as a gift to a baby shower or sprinkle?

2025, animals, books, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized

Airport Mouse

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On Tuesday, we had several hours between our flight from Bismarck arriving in Minneapolis and our flight to Montreal departing. We settled in at our gate for a rather long wait.

Our gate for the Montreal flight was in the A Concourse, a section of the airport currently in the middle of renovation. There is new carpet, but no electrical outlets to charge phones and devices. There is unfinished drywall and exposed heating and pipes.

The monotony was enlivend by observing two little brown mice emerge from a hole in the wall and scamper under a row of seats, snatching any available crumbs on the floor. When startled, they went back in the hole until they felt safe to reemerge. Our fellow travelers were both alarmed and amused by their antics which went on for our whole wait. People took their photos. My main concern was that they didn’t run up my pant leg or end up as a stowaway in our carry-ons. A ticket agent commented this was nothing new, and she had seen them a few gates down earlier in the day. I thought that Airport Mouse would make a fine series of children’s stories.

What are some of the odder things you have seen in airports. Think up some plot lines for Airport Mouse.

2025, Family, Food, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized

Easter Dinner

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I believe I wrote that we were so busy at church over Easter weekend that we had Easter dinner the weekend before Easter, and we weren’t going to cook Easter weekend. Well, as usual, that was not what happened. I made the header photo, Pizza Rustica, on Good Friday. It is a southern Italian deep dish pie with ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, hot Italian sausage, mortadella, sun dried tomatoes, salami, and seven eggs, encased in a lovely crust. My pie looked just like the header photo. It was absolutely delicious. I highly recommend it.

We are traveling this week (more to come on that). The Grade 12 son of one of my coworkers is going to water the tomato seedlings, bring in the mail, and tend to the cat. He and his mom came on Saturday so we could show him what he needed to do. He intends to go to culinary school, so Husband showed him our cookbook library and I showed him the Pizza Rustica recipe. We loaned him several cookbooks and our pasta maker, since he expressed an interest in making homemade pasta and had used a pasta maker just like ours in school. It is one with a crank handle that is clamped to the counter. Husband calls this part of our “Radical Food Ministry “, getting people to cook from scratch. Husband told him he can borrow any of our cookbooks.

What is your favorite Easter dinner? Who mentored you? Who have you mentored?

2025, Art, education, Kids, sports, Uncategorized

A New Logo

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The big local news here lately is that the public high school mascot/logo is being retired. We are known as the Dickinson Midgets. We have apparently been Midgets for 100 years.

What is even bigger news is that virtually no one is protesting the change. The school board tried to change the name in 1996, and the whole board was recalled in a special election by disgruntled citizens who wouldn’t stand for a new mascot. This time, things are different, and students talk openly about how embarrassing the mascot is. Another good reason for a new mascot now is that they are renovating the gymnasium, and they can incorporate the new mascot logo into the gym floor. It will save money in the long run, you see. It will be good to have this little guy put to rest.

The superintendent asked for ideas for a new mascot and had 850 entries. A committee of students and faculty settled on two: The Defenders or The Mavericks. Both ideas seem pretty palatable to me, and seem to go well with our Old West ethos out here.

What was your school mascot? What are some of the sillier mascots you have heard of? Make up some new school mascot names.

2025, Art, books, Family, Kids, Nature, Poems, Uncategorized

Flower Fairies

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I got a text from our daughter the other day asking if we still had the Flower Fairy books. I told her we had taken them with all the children’s books to our grandson in Brookings. I also told her I would order her another set, and did so.

I don’t know how many Baboons are familiar with these lovely books by British author and artist Cicely Mary Barker, but they have been family favorites since our son was born. Barker wrote and illustrated the books from 1923 to 1948. There about eight of them that feature seasonal flowers and flowers in different settings. The flower illustrations are quite accurate, and each flower is set with a fairy figure whose clothing corresponds to the flower in the illustration, along with a short poem. Barker used children from her sister’s Kindergarten as models for the fairies. Most of the poems were written by her sister.

We found these poems and illustrations wonderful for bedtime reading, as well as a great way to teach our children the names of flowers. We still recite “Scilla, scilla, tell me true, why are you so very blue?” when they pop up under the bay window in the spring.

What were your favorite childhood stories and poems? How did you learn about flowers and plants?

2025, animals, Farming Update, Food, gardening, Kids, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized

Maple-ing. The Ambiance.

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Although I probably won’t go down again to boil sap, I truly enjoyed the experience.  Part of it was learning all about the process, but a lot was also the ambiance.  Not in any particular order…

The weather was just about perfect.  It started about bright and sunny (I put on sunscreen) and even when it clouded up in the afternoon, the temperature seemed just right for boiling.  Not cold enough that you really felt it but not warm enough that the work made us sweat.  There was a short rain shower after dark, but when it cleared up, the stars in the night sky were amazing.  As a city gal, I never see stars like that.

Before dinner we had tea but instead of plain old boiling water, we used the boiling sap.  Very sweet tea but wonderful drinking it outside.

There was good company while we were working.  Astrid is a big dog with a big deep bark but a big softie; after dark we heard coyotes and while Astrid worked hard to convince us that she was a guard dog, she didn’t move more than 20 feet from us.  Whiskey looks like a cat, but he is really a dog.  He comes when he is called, hangs around most of the day for petting and doesn’t seem to think the rain matters at all.

My godson doesn’t actually “farm” but is embracing country lifestyle.  He was happy to tell me about all the classes he has taken at the local folk school (bee keeping, chain saw safety, how to “manage” chickens, syrup making and to show me all the improvements he’s made to the house and outbuildings. He has some animals: chickens and a mean rooster (I have bruises to prove it) and also a small herd of goats.  He has just acquired a male, so perhaps there will be kids and milk in the future.  I shared with him the wonderful soaps that Barb made when she had goats.

He is also a terrific cook and by the time he went in to make dinner, I had a handle on the boiling so didn’t need to panic.  Several of the borscht ingredients come from their garden and it was delicious.  Just soup and toasted baguettes.  Yummy.

Children.  He has three kids – 7, 5 and 3.  I got to play Legos with the youngest.  Lots of racing “vehicles” and crashing.  The 5-year old was obsessed with arithmetic so we did a ton of “what is ten plus ten” and other combinations.  He hasn’t worked on subtraction yet, so we did some “what is three minus two”, using fingers.  There was a very lively conversation after the 7-year old got home from school concerning the weight of the earth and how you would weigh it.  He’s got a lot on the ball for seven and there was gravity walls/barriers and gravity robot discussion.  My godson brought up the planet-building spheres from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, to which I replied that the weight of the earth is clearly 42.  The 7-year old didn’t get this joke but god son did!

It was just a wonderful trip, even if you don’t count the maple syrup (and a bonus small bottle of their black walnut syrup which I’ve had before and it fabulous).  I can’t imagine how it could have been better!

When was the last time you just really enjoyed something?