This Summer has been one of the wettest on record here in western ND. Our veggie garden and flower beds are looking great. The trees are also looking quite happy.
We have a couple of hazelnut trees at the northwest corner of the house.
They are loaded with at the nuts, so that the thin branches are drooping lower and lower as the nuts get bigger and heavier.
We have never actually harvested any of the nuts because they disappear before we can pick them. I always notice an increased presence of sq6uirrels as the nuts ripen every year. I have seen squirrels with clusters of nuts in their mouths running along the top of our our neighbor’s fence as a bluejay shrieked “Thief!” in the way blujays do. I have never, ever, though, seen a squirrel in the hazel trees. The nuts are all at the outer ends of very thin branches. The nuts get removed right from the tree. Although the branches are sagging with the weight of the nuts, the lowest ones are still a good 3 feet off the ground and the ones at the top of the trees disappear, too. The only thing I can think is that the squirrels somehow crawl to the ends of these very thin branches, tear off the nuts, and leap to the ground. We find hoards of shells buried in the flowerbeds in the Spring. I think they really enjoy them.
I finished lighting the show in Chatfield last week, in time to fly out on Saturday with Kelly and our daughter. Kelly had a work conference and we got to travel along and amuse ourselves for a few days. I was under the impression that taxi drivers were always better than Uber / Lyft because they are more professional and know the roads better. But that plan falls apart if they’re all independent taxi’s and they all seem to need to enter the address in their phones anyway. And they tell me they’ve lived here multiple years, so it makes me wonder why they don’t know their way around yet? But whatever. Our first driver was crazy; drove like a maniac and told me he liked American women and big boobs! Second taxi was a nicer driver, but his car broke down and when daughter and I came out of the Butterfly Pavilion he was sitting right where he had left us. He called a friend of his to take us back to town. And the taxi back to the airport was a nice guy with sheet metal screws holding his car door together. Resourcefulness!
Daughter and I had a good time walking around downtown and there was lots to see. I took lots of photos of old buildings. The day we saw the butterflies, that only took an hour. We never got going too early in the day, because we were on vacation after all. I was surprised that I could out-walk daughter. It was as hot there as it was back in MN, but less humidity, so that was nice. I didn’t expect it to be that hot. I found it interesting so many restaurants and bars had wide open windows or garage doors and yet there was very few bugs. One bartender told us they really spray the place down at night, but she said there was less flies this year than usual.
On Wednesday Kelly gave a presentation on Laughter Yoga. I snuck in the back and watched. It was well received, the group liked it, and she had several good loud laughers, so that got the rest of the group going.
She picked up some swag for me with the catch phrase: “Wicked Smaht Pathologists” and a link to their group. It makes me laugh. If you need a pathologist, you’re gonna want one that’s Wicked Smaht.
We had a young lady staying at the house to deal with dogs overnight while we were gone, and some other friends that would take care of chickens and eggs and amuse the dogs during the day. They said, “Bailey and Humphrey make us want dogs. Luna reminds why we don’t have a dog.”
And on the way home, in the MSP airport, the gate agent was a girl I went to high school with and hadn’t seen in 40 years. We had a little reunion right there at the gate for 15 seconds. It was nice to see her again.
Last week as I was headed to Chatfield one night, I saw, walking on the side of the road, three nuns in full black habits with the veil and headpiece. I had to double take, and double take again. This was out in the country. A few days later, Facebook, of course, provided the answer. There is an old order Catholic Church in the area and they have been seen coming from there. Well that explains it. Sure did make me wonder though. And then, ten days later, I saw two more nuns in full habits. But that was outside a Catholic Church, and they were selling baked goods at a street fair. Although when I saw them, they were packing up. I saw them pulling the totes with the collapsible tents up the street. I hadn’t seen a nun in full habit for years and now here was twice!
You all had that big storm come through on Monday night with high winds… the oats got beat up. Yep, sure did. Maybe 50% of it down. We didn’t get any hail so nothing threshed out on the ground, it’s just broken off and lying down and it makes it more difficult to pick up for harvest.
The plan is to start harvesting Friday. Going to try taking it straight- meaning I don’t swath it and lay it in windrows first. A lot of guys do take it straight. When we have tried it in the past it didn’t work so well… we shall see. I have the swather ready just in case.
The soybeans are waist tall and looking good. At least some of them. They don’t all look this good, but some of them.
There’s a guy on YouTube goes by ‘Bushel Billy’, from the Ohio area and he was talking about a corn issue with a certain variety, in extreme weather conditions, having “tassel wrap” meaning the last leaf doesn’t unwrap from the tassel. So of course if the tassel can’t open up to shed pollen, it’s going to be tough to get all the kernels (silks) pollinated. It takes 90,000 kernels to make a bushel. Hence 90K pollen grains to 90K silks are needed. He pointed out how after pollination the silks turn brown and detach from the kernel after pollination. I didn’t know that and I had to check it out myself.
Notice how many silks are loose. Just a few on the tip still stuck.
HUH! Sweet corn would be so much easier if the silks would detach.
According to the weather channel email I received on Thursday, an acre of corn releases 3000 gallons of water into the air every day. It’s “evapotranspiration”. A quick google search shows multiple newspaper articles blaming corn for the humid weather. I am tempted to call it misleading. I mean I don’t like the humidity either, but is it really all the corn’s fault? Data from the Ohio State University Extension office in 2024 says corn sweat is not contributing MEANINGFUL levels of humidity. More humidity is brought in by weather systems with southerly winds and bringing humidity from the Gulf of Mexico. The greatest amount of water usage by a corn plant is during tasseling and flowering, which is where we are at in SE MN. My corn just started tasseling this week. (And again, I am so amazed at how it all works! The silks emerge at the same time!) After tasseling, water usage in the corn decreases. All plants have some form of transpiration and evaporation. Don’t blame it all on the farmer and my corn.
The header photo by Kelly is soybean flowers. Soybeans are looking good and coming along.
This week I have been either finishing the projects at the Rep, or down in Chatfield lighting ‘Shrek’, the musical for Wits End Theater. Lots of road time. And with the main route to Chatfield, Highway 52 South closed at I90, I’ve been taking other routes. Sometimes Highway 7 through Eyota to 52, sometimes Highway 10 through Dover to the East side of Chatfield. Usually County Rd 19 through Marion to 52, or my favorite, County Road 1 through Simpson, past the Root River County Park, down in the valley over the North branch of the Root River and Fugles Mill, through Pleasant Grove, and into the west side of Chatfield. I try not to take the same road home as there.
I still haven’t gotten the oats harvested. It got mostly ripe but still had some green in it and that’s where it’s been sitting for 2 weeks. Rain and thunderstorms the last few days have caused more of it to go down. A lot of oats has been taken out. The Oat Mafia FB page says a lot of guys are finding it wetter than preferred. And there are some photos that show a stark reminder of the benefits of applying the fungicides. Fields without are broken and flat, while the fields with it are standing well.
No fungicide on left, fungicIde on right. PHOTO COUTESY OF THE OAT MAFIA FB PAGE
Oh, then our refrigerator died on Wednesday. I had noticed the freezer temp was 33 degree’s in the morning, and I thought maybe it was just defrosting. That afternoon it was at 39. We took everything to the basement chest freezer and I put a thermometer in the fridge. I laid on the floor and vacuumed off the coils and used the long narrow cleaning brush to dig out as much dust and gunk as I could. A repair guy was consulted and it was not given much hope. By that night, Kelly emptied the fridge, taking it to the downstairs smaller fridge. That little basement fridge was originally purchased as the “egg fridge”, but it has since become the pop fridge. Thanks goodness we have it. It’s a little no-name fridge that just keeps chugging along. Daughter is very put out that we don’t have the regular fridge upstairs. She insists it is still working and I’ve had to rescue her food and take it to the basement fridge a couple times. Thursday morning I went fridge scouting. The salesguy, Randy, his first question was counter depth or regular? “Uh….” Then he asked me what color? “Uh….” Did we want ice and water in the door? “Uh….” I didn’t have any of that information. My only question to him was ‘”Which ones have the better interior lighting like our old one?” That local store is where we’ve purchased appliances since we got married. They had a delivery slot open for Friday afternoon. I’ll take that one! And I sent Kelly some photos. We met there in the afternoon and agreed on a fridge for Friday.
Priorities, you know? When I checked with Kelly, her only priority was double doors. Yep, that was all I looked at. And freezer at the bottom. And good lighting. Beyond that, I didn’t know.
I hate having too many choices, so thankfully that only left us three choices, and if you remove the $12,000 model, well, I sent Kelly photos of those two.
By Friday evening daughter should be back in her happy place and we’ll have a new fridge with nice interior lighting.
I finished mowing weeds this week. Last year the mower was being repaired so I wasn’t able to mow much at all. $2600 later it’s back and better than ever. I mow the edges of the road next to the fields to keep the weeds down, (and the crops always look better when the weeds are cut). Lots of wild parsnip, and thistles. Sometimes when it’s just grass I’ll leave it standing and I think to myself ‘What is the point of mowing all this?’ What is the point of mowing if it’s not noxious weeds? The waterways that go through the oat fields, I mow them off because it’s easier to harvest the oats and bale the straw without the weeds and grass in there. But it really does look nice when it is mowed down. I don’t worry too much about cover for wildlife, there’s plenty of cover yet.
I practice my side hill acrobatics too. It helps to remind myself how low the actual center of balance is on the tractor.
All the weight is under my feet. There is a bit of a ‘pucker factor’ but I’ve done this before so I know it’s OK. I worried more about these hillsides when I was a kid. Dad always told me it was OK. And I only ever tipped over one wagon and that was due to a badger hole.
Down in the pasture there is a lot of parsnip. Back when we had cattle, they kept the weeds and buckthorn down. Or maybe buckthorn hadn’t taken over 30 years ago.
While down in the pasture I found some wild flowers growing. At risk of stirring up the flower debate again, I present them here. I used the ‘Plant Net’ app to identify them. Wild bergamot, Giant St. John’s wort, American blue vervain (which we had bought some seedlings from a friend selling native plants, and I didn’t realize we have this), mullein, and lots of Goldenrod coming. I try to save most of that. Again, majority rules, so I’ll mow some off to get the parsnip.
VervainWild bergamotSt John’s wort
And Kelly took this picture of milkweed in the yard.
Milkweed blossom photo by Kelly
We learned about ‘Beggars Lice’ too. For years, the dogs would get these little stickers in their fur and I didn’t know what they were or where they came from. Ah. It’s this plant.
Beggar‘s Lice
Work at the theater went well. I won the ‘Power Actuated Nail Gun’ on the auction, and made good use of that. It was fun to use. I nailed 2×4’s and foam to the north wall for some insulation. We are attaching plywood to the 2×4’s. Nailing 2×4’s to concrete with a .22 blank! Awesome!
Crops are still looking good. Corn has nearly doubled in height since July 4th.
Beans are filling in and getting blossoms on them. The oats should be ready for harvest in another week or so.
I put a new fanbelt on the 630 tractor and I replaced the throttle plate so the throttle lever will hold its position. One of the padawans and I changed the oil in Kelly’s C tractor.
A little bit of everything this past week.
Next week I’m working on ‘Shrek’, the musical, down in Chatfield.
FAVORITE SOUR FOOD THAT MAKES YOU PUCKER?
OR QUESTIONS OF YOUR CHOICE BECAUSE I GOT NOTHING!
When I was down on the farm last Friday, Ben took me on a tour around the fields – it’s one of my favorite things about visiting. The corn was tall but weren’t showing any ears yet. Ben explained about where the ears start to form and we also talked about the difference between field corn and sweet corn. He commented that sweet corn is a bit ahead of field corn and in Iowa, there might be sweet corn already. I’m such a city girl – I love earning about farm stuff.
He was proved incredibly on the mark. As I was driving home, YA texted me that our former neighbors had dropped off some sweet corn for us; they had been visiting the grandparents in southern Iowa!
YA and I both love corn but for some reason the first sweet corn of the season is really special. We dragged the grill out of the garage on Saturday and roasted all the corn along with some veggie brats. Ate on our little patio in the backyard – it was perfect weather for the first corn lunch.
Yesterday, I used up the last of the ears. I was too impatient to drag out cookbooks and look for recipes so I just kind of made it up as I went along. This is what I made:
Corn Salsa
2 ears of corn, kernels removed from the cob
½ red onion, finely chopped
1 hot pepper, finely chopped (I used a pepper from our garden called “salsa pepper” – it was hotter than I anticipated, but not too hot to eat. A less hot pepper would be fine.)
3 T. chopped cilantro (also from garden)
Juice of one lime
Salt & pepper to taste
Mix it all together. Eat.ll
Elote Off the Cob
2 ears of corn, kernels removed from the cob
¾ c. cotijo cheese, crumbled
1 roma tomato, finely chopped
About 1/3 c. mayonnaise (not Miracle Whip because YA doesn’t like it)
2 T. cilantro, chopped (from garden)
2 T. chives chopped (from garden)
¼ tsp. tajin (if you don’t have tajin, you can use chili pepper & cumin)
Juice of half a lime
Salt & pepper to taste
Again, mix it all together!
Neither of these were big recipes, so I don’t expect the corn will last long. We’ll do plenty more corn this summer, but these first six ears were the best!
Every day this week, five AM pretty much right on the dot, Bailey barks outside. Luna and Humphrey bark inside until I can get to the door and get them out. And then everyone runs in separate directions and Bailey quietly wanders back to the garage, thinking, “suckers”. Pretty sure there’s been a coyote around for all the sniffing the other two are doing. Luna, she’s just running in circles barking. Humphrey is on the trail of something along the trees and around the crib, and down the field road. He’s got his nose to the ground and his tail is up and going. Bailey may sit and watch a bit, but mostly she’s letting the others take care of it. She will not engage until she has back up. Raises the alarm well, but not going to do anything about it on her own.
An hour later, they’re ready to come back in. Luna with a gentle bark. Humphrey with a scratch at the back door. Very randomly Humphrey might get locked in the feed room and he will not bark for attention. We realize he’s not around, call and call him and he will not bark. Eventually we backtrack enough we find him in the feed room, just waiting for someone to let him out. Not a sound from him.
And every night for the last week, there’s been barn owls calling. The first night, there was one in a tree right in the back yard and I had a flashlight and it just bobbed back and forth looking at me. I didn’t know what the noise was; I thought Kelly was whistling in her sleep. Sometimes they’re further away from the house, and Thursday night there was two of them right here, plus at least one more further away. A soft, whistling, screeching noise.
Daughter and the dogs take their daily walks. Sometimes, especially in this hot weather, daughter will text us asking for a rescue pick up. And Humphrey, just because he’s 10 years old and has a sore leg, sometimes we just go pick him up to give him a break. Bailey and Luna don’t always go for the walk. Bailey especially, as Luna is a bully to her, she’ll opt out just to get a break from Luna. And Luna sometimes thinks there are more interesting things happening at home with me. But Humphrey always ALWAYS goes for that walk, sore leg or not. I went to pick him up one day, and, not thinking, took the 4 wheeler, rather than the gator. He does not like being picked up, which is the only reason I was able to pick him up and put him on the front rack of the 4 wheeler; he didn’t expect this! And he sat there quietly and didn’t have to walk home. A win-win.
Last week on one of those hot days, the fan in the chicken coop stopped working. What was in there was an old box fan from the theater because their other fan had stopped working last summer. And that fan was a replacement for a previous barn fan. I’ve always thought electric motors were interesting what with stator and rotors, the windings, the capacitors on some of the bigger ones, brushes, ect. We have had a lot of electric motors on the farm, many more when milking cows and they were vital to daily operation. Big 5 and 7.5 hp electric motors on the silo unloaders, a 5HP on the feel bunk, a 5HP on the vacuum pump, a ¾ HP on the milk pump, and any of them failing was a bad day. The ones on the silo unloader might be 35 feet up in the silo, so if it failed, it was a pain in the butt not to mention an expense. I learned how to check and change capacitors, and most of the time that was the only problem. They could be replaced in the silo. Getting the motors out of the silo was a much bigger deal. Ropes and pulleys were involved.
So the chicken’s fan. The box fan I threw out. I took the one motor apart, found decayed wires deep inside and tossed it into the scrap bucket. The old barn fan motor; it would run for ten seconds, quit for ten, run for another ten, repeat. I pulled it apart. Well, first I watched some You Tube videos, then I pulled it apart, which first meant getting the fan blade and the cage guard off. (A torch was involved, just to heat up the set screws and shank to facilitate removal, not to cut it off.) I remember Dad buying this fan as an exhaust fan for the dairy barn, maybe 40 years ago, and it was too powerful; it got too cold in the barn in winter, so he took it out and it collected dust for a lot of years. Then I rescued it and hung it in the middle of the barn alley so I had a fan on those hot humid summer days milking cows. And I sold the cows 22 years ago and it’s been gathering dust again. Not really surprising the motor had quit working. I got it apart, found a wire shorting out on the windings, added a piece of heat shrink tubing to protect it, and Viola! It works! The chickens are pleased to have a fan back.
The padawans managed to get the theater boiler apart and out on the boulevard. One of the neighbors asked if he could have the metal. I said “If you can move it, you can have it”. And he did! I don’t know how, but it’s over in his yard now!
One of the padawans brought his car to my shop.
He was replacing some part of the exhaust, to make it louder or sound “cooler”… I didn’t follow the full explanation. He and a buddy spent many hours removing the old parts. Started at 8PM, went for supper and came back, left at 2AM, back at 4AM, left at 7AM. Every time they came back the dogs barked. By 9 PM the next day it was reassembled. Padawan’s girlfriend drove him out. She hung out in the shop, played with the dogs, made a chicken friend that she sat with for an hour, and helped daughter do chores. We like her a lot.
When YA and I go to the zoo, we normally follow a particular pattern of what we see in what order. I’m not sure why, it’s just a habit we’ve fallen into.
There’s been a lot going at the new zoo (Minnesota Zoo – it will always be the new zoo to me – unless a third zoo opens up in Twin Cities – then I’ll have to revise). There is the sea lion show which has been getting good reviews, new Bennett’s wallabies from Australia, a new Black Water Monitor, the new Red Panda / Crane exhibit, the summer Llama Trek AND the bird show has moved outside for the summer.
You can’t just show up at the zoo and get in these days – you have to get reservations ahead of time (this is a post-covid thing) and you also have to get reservations for the sea lions and the bird show. No charge for these. For the sea lion show if there are still seats at 5 minutes before the show, you can get in without the reservation. For the bird show, YA and I were there fairly early to get the seats we wanted and to settle in and drink the pop we had just bought – if they were asking folks to show their reservations, we didn’t see it.
SO… with all this going on, we had an agenda and as the day went on, we adjusted as needed. First Tropics. This took longer than usual because the tapir had just gotten out of its pool and decided to do zoomies:
I’ve hardly ever seen a tapir walking around much less running. Clearly nobody else had either, judging by the crowd it was drawing. Even the two zoo staff were filming!
We had time to do the Minnesota trail before we headed over to the sea lion show. YA got some good photos of the coyote and the mountain lion.
Sea lion show was great and so was Llama Trek. It was almost as if the llamas had all had a “Photo Op” seminar over the winter:
The tiger waterfall was turned on and the bird show was very nice, ending with a flurry of beautiful macaws free-flying into and out of the exhibit. We got to everything we wanted and at the right times. Fabulous day at the zoo!
When was the last time you had to keep to a schedule?
Happy day after July 4! Everyone still got all their fingers and toes?
Corn and oats both made knee high.
It’s been a busy week for a lot of different reasons. Monday morning I got a call from the co-op asking if I could pull out a stuck sprayer. No, I couldn’t, I was about to head to town with daughter and I also had an appointment. They called neighbor Dave, and he ran right over. I was pretty sure where the sprayer was stuck: a field that was wet when I tried to plant it a month ago, and that was before we got 6 inches of rain. I talked to Dave later and he said all he did was get the sprayer more stuck. The sprayer driver had gotten out and looked before he drove into the field, and Dave agreed, it was dry on the top. But you broke through that crust and it was muck underneath. And he didn’t get more than about 10’ into the field. Heck, I didn’t even think that was the wet spot.
Eventually a tow truck was called to pull the sprayer out. This was one of those fields that neighbor K wanted for a deer food plot and it’s the first time it had been worked up in 20 some years. I kept telling the neighbor there’s a reason this field was put in the Conservation Reserve Program back then, but I don’t think he’s figured it out yet.
Sunday afternoon Kelly and I had our usual Sunday Farm Gator Tour and we also found a wet spot in a field. Didn’t get stuck but close enough.
When I came home Monday afternoon there was another drone at the farm. neighbors Dave and Parm, who rent our pasture hired a company that uses a drone to spray for weeds. They used the drone to spray the wonderful crop of thistles. It was really pretty cool to watch. The pasture is so rugged, with so many gullies, and steep slopes, that you can’t drive it with a tractor and mower, so this was an absolutely perfect application for a drone. Talking with the operators, the drone will cost you about $25,000. They also have $75,000 in the spray trailer, complete with a 30 kW generator on the front, landing pad on the top, room for a second drone, chargers, chemical storage tanks, etc. Maybe we could all chip in and buy one. Then what should we do with it? Oh, you also need the drone operator’s license, which is fairly involved, and a license from the federal government allowing you to spray chemicals from a drone.
I did cut the grass on the sides of our road, and the one small field here in the front of the shed. I put the exhaust pipe and the new muffler on the 630 and used that for raking. That thing is as loud as ever. I never really thought about it before but evidently John Deere two cylinder tractors were not known for being quiet. I got it baled Wednesday afternoon. The baler worked perfect, never missing a knot on the bales, and my camera to watch the knots, is still slick to have.
Kelly’s tractor and the smoking wire I still haven’t completely diagnosed but I’ve ruled out a few things.I replaced a couple wires and I’ve disconnected both the rear light and the front lights and the wire still gets hot, so now I’m not sure if it’s the switch, or there’s something else wrong. I don’t really know what it could be, and adding to the mystery is a blown fuse on the dash. And if the fuse is blown, why is anything still working?
There’s a couple different places I order old tractor parts from. Lind Brothers included a bag of microwave popcorn in their box. It was really good popcorn. Steiner Tractor Parts always puts “Cow Tails“ candy in with their parts. When I order theatre stuff from Monkey Wrench, they throw a handful of candy in their boxes, usually something banana shaped. And Sweetwater, of course has to put candy in their box too. Can’t have a name like that and not include candy.
The padawans and I spent three days working on summer remodeling projects at the Rochester Repertory theatre. One day I painted the bottom of the balcony black.
We are adding a few more hanging racks in the costume room, and trying to remove an old boiler that was original to the building,1959. I asked a few plumbers how to get it out and they’d all groan and roll their eyes and say get a sledgehammer and a couple young men. Every day I bring a new Implement of destruction, we are working on it, and it’s slow going.
The big job will be insulating a north wall which is just concrete block. I have two by fours and blue insulation board and I’m bidding on a power actuated nail gun on an auction. It’s a “hammer“, that uses a 22 blank as a charge to drive a nail. I’ve seen them, never used one. Sounds like fun. I think that would be faster than trying to use cement screws. This is the auction that I took that old cultivator, running gear, and garage door to be sold. As of Friday the cultivator is at $41, the wagon is at $6 and the garage door at $7. Drifting off to sleep one night I bid on a really nice 26 foot cabin cruiser, and a mower. I need to not open the auction page as I’m falling asleep. Thankfully I was outbid on both within a day or two. The boat was gonna be a steel at $6! Kelly said I should at least go up to $10. It jumped to $96. We thought we could make a B&B out of it. Park it out on the lawn.
REMEMBER CRACKER JACK’S? WHAT SURPRISES WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET IN A BOX?
Yesterday YA had the day off so we decided to tackle a couple of outdoor projects first thing in the morning before the heat took over the day.
I started with putting some paving stones on the south side of the house under the water spigot. The pavers were left over from when we expanded the little patio two summers ago so I thought I’d put them to better use than just being stacked up in the garage. Unfortunately the ants didn’t think this was a grand project and it took a bit for them to give it up and I did get a couple of good bites out of it before they moved their party elsewhere.
By the time I was done, YA had made a good start on edging our northern “garden” with bricks that we inherited from our neighbor who just moved. She asked which of the jobs I wanted – digging or placing the bricks. While placing the bricks seemed like the easier of the two jobs, I know my daughter well. If I placed the bricks, she would eventually come behind me and “fix” what I had done. I admit freely that she is more patient with a lot of home projects and therefore does an overall better job. This made it an easy choice – I dug and let her place the bricks. It was a great decision. As I dug I watched her running her hands along the bricks to make sure they were even and using her finger as a measurement tool to make sure they were all the same depth. I would not have thought to do either of these steps.
We didn’t finish yesterday. It got a bit too steamy so we knocked off about half way through and vowed to finish in a couple days when it’s a bit cooler. Looks good so far.
Yesterday we left the house at 7:15 am to drive to Medora. Our church bell choir had a gig at the Congregational Church there. Medora is a little town just outside Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the heart of the ND Badlands. It is full of tourists and tourist attractions. The church only has services in the summer now, with guest pastors each week. It is a small, one room church with about 20 pews.
On the way there, we saw a couple of Forest Service trucks on the side of the road near a deep ditch. There were about four guys there, along with a big bison. We gathered that the bison had somehow got through the very tall fence that marks the park boundary along the interstate. The fence is presumably high enough to keep the elk and bison from jumping over. I wouldn’t want to have the task of herding an angry bison, intent on roaming, back through the fence. They are fierce creatures. I don’t understand why any sane person would think they could walk up to one and pet it.
We encountered another wild creature once we made it to the church. The preacher for the day was a well-known local Lutheran minister, retired now, with a reputation for being a real character. The mild mannered librarian in our bell choir muttered “Oh s##t” when she saw his name in the bulletin. She has known him since she was a young adult and had him as a pastor for a while. He is a kind, gracious and well-intentiond man, but one who is all over the place in terms of his sermons and impulsive changes to the liturgy. He would be as hard to manage at a church council meeting as that bison in the ditch would be. He named several people sitting in the pews told and anecdotes about them and their familes (including the librarian) from years past, somehow connecting them to the theme of his sermon. His sermon didn’t run over the time allotted, though, and he only digressed from the order of service in the bulletin a couple of times.
On the drive home we saw the forest service trucks along with a Sherriff’s Department truck a mile or so west of where we saw them on the way to Medora. I guess the bison was still on the move. I hope they can get it back through the fence without anyone getting hurt.
What up close and personal experiences have you had with wildlife? Who are some characters in your life?
Trail Baboon 