Category Archives: Uncategorized

2025, Family, gardening, home, Nature, Uncategorized, work

Pavers & Bricks

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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.

Any projects for you over the holiday weekend?

2025, Business, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Too Many Boxes

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My guess is that I’m more aware of post offices and postal boxes than the average person.  As you know, cards are my thing and I figure I send out over 400 cards a year: I spend a lot of time stopping by post offices during my regular errands.

About a month ago, I noticed that one of the two postal boxes outside my Nicollet post office was gone.  I didn’t give it much thought.  Then two weeks ago, I swung by the Edina post office.  For years they’ve had a “go around” that had four postal boxes – now there is just one.  I still didn’t think too much about it.  Then as I was going to the drive-through at the Richfield branch last week, there was a massive truck in the parking lot and it looked like one of the six boxes was being hoisted onto the truck by two big burly guys.  Shy isn’t a word that applies to me so I walked over to ask them what they were doing.  They were really nice and told me that they were removing postal boxes as part of the “reduce redundancy” strategy that the USPS is going through.  They said they were taking five of the six boxes; luckily it’s the drive-by box that remains.  Phew!

I couldn’t stop thinking about it though and had to do some math (and a bit of research).  I’m being pretty conservative with these numbers, also rounding down.  31,000 post offices in the U.S.  Wild speculation that the average number of boxes per post office is two.  Then I’m figuring 3 minutes per box to unlock it, get the mail out and re-lock it.  Times 2 boxes per post office, times 4 for how many times a day they clean out the box.  Times 6 days a week brings us to 4,464,000 minutes or 74,400 hours per week, 3,868,800 hours per year. The average postal workers wage is $25,000  which means  we’re talking $96,720,000 to keep these postal boxes cleaned out.  So by removing all the extras, USPS is saving $48,360,000 – $1,560 per box.   Sounds like impressive savings except for one thing.  It was a massive truck taking away the boxes.  And if I had to guess, those two big burley guys make more money than the average postal worker.  I can’t imagine how much money is really being saved in the end, but my guess is that it’s significantly less than $48 million.  I suppose if you add up future years it will eventually be worthwhile.   Here’s the actual math if you want to scrutinize my work:

post offices 31,000
average # of boxes 2
total boxes 62,000
# of minutes per box 3
total minutes 186,000
4 times a day 744,000
6 days a week 4,464,000
hours per week 74,400
hours per year 3,868,800
average wage $                             25.00
total wages 2 boxes $            96,720,000.00
wages for one box $            48,360,000.00
total wages savings $            48,360,000.00
per box savings  $                       1,560.00

Any other “redundancies” you’d like to address?

 

2025, Family, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Is YA really ET?

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YA works in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.  Occasionally she also goes into the office on a Monday or a Friday.  When she has a big project, she likes the quiet of the office as well as the big screen on her desk. 

There is a fairly complicated (from my perspective) process for her to get ready for work.  During her junior high and high school years she started wearing make-up and taught herself how to apply it.  As part of her beauty routine, she has a massive number of products, from masks to foundations to mascara to eyelash curlers to lip glosses.  Massive.  She can sit at her make-up table for upwards of 30 minutes some mornings.  It’s exhausting just to watch.

She learned none of this from me.  Not one smidge.  I think I’ve told the story of when I quit wearing make-up; it was well before she was born.  Even when I DID put on make-up it wasn’t anything as robust as YA’s routine.

Every now and then, when she is in a rush (usually when we’re going some place on the weekend or if she’s gotten up really late), she can cut the time down but very very rarely goes without.  On work mornings, I don’t usually pay that much attention.  I have my morning stuff to do (feed animals, make bed, eat breakfast, gym, errands, etc.)

Last week on Friday, she came rushing down and out the door before I even had a chance to look up.  After 15 minutes, our ring doorbell dinged my phone, which was in my pocket and as I was opening the app, I heard the front door open and YA’s footsteps running up the stairs.  She didn’t come down for almost 10 minutes, way too long for a forgotten key card or computer mouse.  When she was headed for the front door I asked what she had forgotten and she replied “I forgot to put on make-up.”

I’m still thinking about this.  First off, how do you forget something that is so much a part of your every single day routine.  And mostly, why get 10 minutes from the house (about half way to the office) and turn back to put on make-up when it’s Friday and there’s next to no one in the office?  Her answer when I asked her later was “just in case”.  When I asked “just in case what?” all I got was a shoulder shrug.

So, yet one more instance of my certainty that I live with an alien from another world!

Do you have anything that is an every-single-day-no-matter-what routines?

2025, animals, Gatherings, Music, Nature, Uncategorized

Don’t Pet The Fluffy Cows

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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?

2025, Gatherings, Kids, Uncategorized

Summer Camp

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I drive past the local college every day on my way to work. Yesterday I noticed quite a few school buses in the college parking lot, signs that the week long summer high school football camp was starting.

My agency used to be housed in a former dorm at the college, and the building overlooked the college practice field. We could watch and hear the 100 or so boys as they practiced their tackles and formations. I can’t imagine what the dorms and food service were like all week.

Our children attended music camps and Concordia Language Villages in the summer. We especially liked the Suzuki Camp our daughter attended in Montreal for a couple of summers, with an added benefit that we attended with her. I usually attended church camp a kid. Husband was a camp counselor for a couple of summers at a church camp near his home in Wisconsin. One highlight was the night the Grade 5 and Grade 6 boys in his cabin caught about 50 frogs and let them loose in the cabin. Ah, Youth!

Did you attend summer camp? How did you spend your time in the summer when you were a kid?

2025, gardening, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Rewarded!

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We rolled the stump down to the boulevard.  I didn’t think that anybody driving along would see it and think “hey, we could use a big stump for something, couldn’t we?” and take it.  I was hoping however that it was small enough that the yard waste folks would take it.  Nope.  Turns out that they’re fairly strict about that kind of thing and my Plan B of rolling it into my trash can was quashed when I saw in the garbage/recycling website that it is actually illegal to put “substantial” yardwaste into your garbage can.

YA was not tricked into thinking that chopping up the stump was a fun way to spend her time so I finally decided to tackle it myself.  If I chopped it into small chunks, I could put them in my yard wastebags with my run-of-the-mill weeds.  In order to make myself do this, I had to say “just 20 minutes”.  It helps that our little chainsaw has a fairly short battery life so 20 minutes is about all I can do at one shot.  At the rate it was taking, I figured this would be a 10 or 12 day project.

While I was working on this, I noticed a woman working on the yard kitty corner to me.  She didn’t look familiar and there was a name emblazoned on her pick-up that indicated she had been hired, as opposed to living there.  As I continued on other yard projects, I noticed she was coming across the street.  Turns out she is the mother of the gal who apparently has just bought the place.  She asked about what kind of bags the city requires and I pointed out my paper bags.   I asked her if she needed a couple and I gave her two and when she asked, I gave her directions to Menards which is about as cheap as you can find the bags these days.  We talked about what you could and couldn’t put out; I told her about leaving bigger branches/small logs out for people to take.  I then mentioned that the city wouldn’t take my stump which was why she had seen me cutting bits off.  To my surprise she immediately said she could take the stump in her truck; her home is on 30 acres in Wisconsin and she has a perfect place to dump it.  I was stunned.  And grateful.  I almost offered her more bags.

So within 5 minutes, we had rolled the stump into her wheelbarrow, pushed the wheelbarrow across the street and gotten the little monster into the back of her pickup.   After three weeks of it sitting on the boulevard, miraculously and suddenly it’s gone!

I don’t think I’ve ever had a good deed of mine reward me so quickly and so wonderfully. 

Can you think of a time a good deed has paid dividends?

2025, Family, Travel, Uncategorized

Canoe

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Yesterday Husband declared that after we move to Minnesota we are taking a trip to Alexandria so he can buy a canoe.

Husband has wanted a canoe for decades. He chose the Alexandria shop on the recommendation of someone from the Wenonah Canoe Company. While Luverne isn’t close to any reasonably sized lakes, there are several navigable but smaller rivers nearby that he is excited to explore. The rivers in our current location are either too shallow or too big (The Missouri).

He wants a one person canoe. That is fine with me. I had a truly wonderful and exhilarating experience on a BWCA canoe trip with my church youth group in 1974, and that was all I needed to have a happy life. We canoed in Manitoba during our courtship and early marriage, but my canoeing days are over. He can take his day excursions on the Rock River and Big Sioux River, and I will sit comfortably at home with the dog, drawing on my Dutch roots and practicing niksen.

What are your most interesting canoeing or boating experiences? Does niksen hold any interest for you?

2025, animals, Government, Uncategorized

Feeling Mulish

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We live about 40 miles from Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It is very rugged, with buttes, gullies, strange rock formations, rattle snakes, big horn sheep, bison, and prairie dogs. We have enjoyed hiking there since our children were little.

In about 1998 the United States Forest Service built a 144 mile trail that connected the South Unit of the park with the North Unit. It is called the Maah Daah Hey Trail, which is a Mandan Indian word for “grandfather”. Bicyclists, hikers, and horse riders use it a lot. We have hiked a mile or so on it.

In 2023 a bridge near one of the trail heads collapsed into a gully, and that area of the trail has been closed. The Forest Service is responsible for its upkeep, and recently started bridge repair. Although motor vehicles could have hauled in the bridge materials, the Forest Service chose to use some of their pack mules to do the hauling so as to not disturb the landscape. The Forest Service has about 300 pack mules that are kept in Missoula, MT and help out with projects like this in our region. They only make the mules carry about 150 pounds of material at a time, which is about only half of what the average mule can haul. They retire the mules when they are about 25 years old and care for them for their remaining years. I think that is sweet. Who knew the Forest Service owned mules?

Where are your favorite places to hike or ride? Any experiences with mules or donkeys? Felt mulish lately?

2025, books, Family, home, Uncategorized

Making It Pretty

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This Thursday a photographer is coming over to take pictures of the house and yard for the real estate listing. We spent the weekend packing eight more bankers boxes full of books and sheet music and stowed them and the fourteen boxes of books we packed last weekend in the empty closets in the basement bedrooms. Then we put all the basement furniture back in place as the painter finished up painting the basement last Friday. We also took lots of unwanted things from the shelving in the furnace room and put them in Husband’s truck so he can take them to the landfill tomorrow. I straightened out the remaining items on the furnace room shelves so they look neat. Our new house has tons of storage and we don’t need to take any shelving with us. We hope to use the furnace room shelving as an added enticement to buy our ND house.

Today I am painting the front door and a couple of small garage doors and touching up some chipped interior paint upstairs. My goal then is to stow anything that might make the upstairs look cluttered in the upstairs closets. It will come out after the photographer is done on Thursday. I also plan to straighten up the work benches in the garage so they look neat and tidy. All this is an exhausting nuisance, but I guess this is the game you play when you sell your house. There is some consolation in knowing that everything we box up or toss out will make the final move that much easier.

I am thankful our realtor thinks our house looks nice enough as is (now that the basement is newly painted) without asking us to do any more “prettying up”. The idea to paint the doors was mine. (I intended to paint the front door 10 years ago when we had new siding put on, but never got around to it.) We will have to be vigilant about keeping the house as clean and uncluttered as possible though, for when the realtor has people over for a showing.

What kind of “prettying up” would you need to do sell your house? Any long put off chores for you?

2025, animals, Gatherings, holidays, Uncategorized

Up North

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Happy Solstice, Midsommar, or whatever you call the first day of summer! The days are longer now, which I appreciate.

I have heard from two friends lately who have experienced some very long days. One is a college friend who lives way up north in Sweden near the Arctic circle. She posted a photo of her and her husband dropping her brother off last week at the nearby train station at 2:00 am. It was fully bright out. She then mentioned that when she and her husband arrived home at 3:00 am, the sun was starting to rise. It must have not got dark there at all! She and her husband are evangelical ministers. I doubt they will be doing too much carousing at Midsommar festivities, which I understand can get pretty wild.

I also heard from my friend the international pet sitter. Her most recent gig took her and her husband to Dawson City, Yukon, to take care of a Great Pyrenees dog. It was a huge, friendly dog who wanted to sit on her lap. They loved the Yukon. The permafrost makes it impossible to pave the streets. The local liquor store and Drivers License Bureau share the same office space. She took a photo at 10:00 pm and it looked like she took it at noon.

I think the farthest north I have been is Gimli, Manitoba. I like it dark when I sleep, and I don’t think I would adjust well when it would be light all day.

What us the farthest north you have ever been? Any Midsommar celebrating today and tomorrow?