Category Archives: work

2023, Family, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Traveling Companions

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I got the idea for this on Sunday as I talked with our daughter. (It is sort of a continuation of VS’s post from yesterday, although I didn’t plan it that way.)

I drove our daughter to Bismarck for violin lessons one day a week from the time she was in Grade 6 until she graduated from high school. That was a 190 mile round trip each week for seven years, but it was worth it. It was a really wonderful experience for our daughter. It gave us time to bond. She made a particular, same-age friend named Michelle who is now an environmental engineer based in Virginia. Friend’s job is to monitor and lessen environmental impacts for a coal mining company. She and Daughter decided to visit their Suzuki teacher this past weekend who moved to New Mexico to care for her aging parents. They had a great time.

They flew into El Paso, had a rather harrowing, late-night drive to Roswell, NM to see what was there, and then drove to Las Cruces to visit their teacher and her husband, and see the sights. They were surprised by the high elevations and all the snow. They drove into the mountains and visited the grave of the real Smokey The Bear, where they both inexplicably burst into tears. They loved the food. They had such fun connecting with their teacher, and pledged to visit her again.

One of their most memorable eating experiences was at a hole in the wall place in Las Cruces called Perk and Jerk, a breakfast place with award winning jerky and great coffee. Its interior was less than welcoming.

Daughter said it was the best jerky she ever had. I guess appearances can be deceiving.

Daughter and her friend decided that they want to have more travel adventures together. Daughter said that being together seems to cancel out their respective anxieties, and that they are extremely compatible. Their next trip is to West Virginia to visit a coal mine museum in September. I reminded Daughter that her ancestors are Scots coal miners, and that her great great great grandfather died in a coal mining accident near Glasgow. The family immigrated to Ohio and West Virginia and continued to mine until they found other work. Her friend has an adopted grandparent couple in Bismarck who are from Norway, so in the spring of 2024 they want to travel to Oslo and the Faroe Islands and honor those folks’ relatives. I think it is wonderful.

Who are your best and worst travel companions? What makes for a great traveling companion? Ever been to the Faroe islands?

2023, Family, Uncategorized, work

Legal Eagle

57 Comments

The regulatory board of which I am a member has had the same attorney for the past 11 years. The Board attorney is provided to us by the State Attorney General’s Office. He has been very helpful. We were sad to learn at our most recent meeting that he is leaving to be the executive director of a medical practitioner regulatory group. We will miss him.

I am happy to say that my experiences with attorneys have been pretty limited over the years. I mainly interact with the local county attorneys in my capacity as an expert witness and when I am the expert examiner for mental health commitments. I get along quite well with all the county attorneys and district judges. We used to have a quite inept local attorney who everyone referred to as “The Dumb Swede” to distinguish him from “The Big Swede”, a very tall district judge. I keep waiting for the retirement of another local attorney who must be in his 70’s and who has had the same really awful toupee for the 35 years I have known him. The toupee looks like it is being devoured by moths.

The other day in the grocery store, Husband and I ran into one of our district judges (not the Big Swede) who also attends our church. The judge made a comment about a rather flamboyant older member of the congregation who had recently died. Husband told His Honor in jest that he really needed to stop judging people like that. The judge thought that was pretty funny.

What have been your experiences with attorneys? Any good lawyer or judge jokes? Any stories about toupees?

2023, animals, Family, Farming Update, Food, pets, Uncategorized, Weather, work

Made It!

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

Should be warming up by the time you’re reading this. My mom’s mother’s birthday is February 8, 1899. (She died on February 8, 1990.) and mom always said, by her mom’s birthday you could tell spring was coming and the days are getting longer.

But boy, the wind on Thursday. Blowing out of the North and it’s COLD, yet the sunshine is so nice.

15° but there’s mud on the south side of the shed, and that’s what’s so cool about the weather. The sun sure is getting powerful as we move toward spring and April showers and it will be here before you know it.

We were at supper with friends the other night and comfort food came up. I hadn’t thought of an actual food to call comfort food and I was kinda stumped. Popcorn was a big one though. Lately I’ve been making coleslaw at home. Met a friend at the grocery store one day and he had a bag of cabbage mix in his cart, and I thought that sounded good. A little vinegar, sour cream, mayo, pinch of sugar, some salt and pepper, garlic and onion, and Kelly and I are really enjoying it. I can’t figure out why. I think it’s such a good mix of crunchy, creamy, with just a little ‘zing’ too it. Some of you that know your way around the kitchen better than us; should we replace the bay leave that’s been in our flour container since 1997??

Egg production is down a bit with these temps, but everyone is surviving. I’ve got my new hooded jacket, zak-traks for my new insulated boots, and wearing nitrile gloves under my regular gloves and were doing fine.

This cold weather has me thinking of watering calves when I was growing up. Baby calves were kept in the barn with the cows. (Which is frowned upon but now; too many germs spread from cows to the calves that the calves are not old enough to handle yet.) They were warm and I had a simple float on a bucket for their water. When they were about 3 months old, I moved them up to the other barn. They’d be about 300 pounds and boy, that was a rodeo. It’s only 50 feet from here to there, but they didn’t know where they were going, and after burning the horn buds off they were all riled up and it was all I could do to get them up there. It was uphill. Both ways. I just hung on for the ride and tried to head them in that direction. Course once in that barn, I still had to get the rope halter off them. I was younger then thank goodness.

And in this barn was an old metal water tank. 400 gallons or something. One of those galvanized oval metal tanks you’ve all seen. In the summer it was outside with a hose and a float to keep it full of water. In the winter, it was inside. Dad didn’t believe in electric waterers nor was there an outlet in the barn and the calves would have gotten into it and that would be a whole big thing.

Sometimes I would use a hose to fill the tank. And then drain the hose and it hang inside the feed room door, so it was on the warm barn side. But if I didn’t want to use the hose, I used 5 gallon buckets. Carrying those buckets of water built muscle and character. Carrying 2 did it even faster. Remember it was uphill. Depending on the weather, it might take 4 or 6 buckets to fill it. When it was this cold it all froze solid except maybe a depression in the middle so it would only hold 5 gallons. Eventually I’d have to knock out the ice to make more room. The calves, like any outdoor animal, is fine in the cold as long as they can get out of the wind, and they have enough food and water to keep their energy up. When it got to the point they couldn’t drink I could bang on the outside using the backside of an old axe, then chop out a bunch inside, then pound some more on the outside. Mind you, eventually I’d cut a hole in the metal. Sooner if I forgot to turn the axe around. Then it held less water…

As the weather got warmer, eventually Id be able to get the water tank out of the frozen manure, and flipped over all ALL the ice knocked out of it and those ice chunks would last a long time.

So now in winter I haul water in 8 quart buckets to the chickens. It’s downhill all the way to their pen. And a longer walk of 150 feet. (summer we use a hose and multiple buckets) I can carry two buckets in one hand, and corn and water in the other. I have strong fingers. Maybe from all those 5 gallon buckets?

Chickens don’t like bread crust either. But they didn’t eat the cantaloupe, which is weird. We’ve always said we have fussy chickens.

I’ve mentioned we have electric heat. When its below zero, it might cost us $12 / day and I have to think, how much is heat worth to me? Do I want to be cold or do I want to pay the $12.

Good thing this cold spell didn’t last too long.

What Is your favorite cabbage recipe? What is the longest cold spell you remember? What is your ice removal strategy? What do you do with old spices?

2023, Business, Mysteries, Uncategorized, work

The Favor

61 Comments

As you all know, I adore being retired.  It’s been six months and the novelty has not worn off.  And my boss knows as well.  When she called me last week, the first words out of her mouth were “don’t hang up on me”.  Two new programs for the first week of May have just sold, an unusual happenstance for this late in the fiscal year.  They are warehouse programs, of which I was the undisputed queen, and nobody else has any wiggle room in their workload to fit these in.  Could I pretty please with a cherry on top come out of retirement on a temporary, part time basis and run these two programs?

I thought about it over the weekend and got input from several friends (all of whom said “go for it’ – I need new friends).  When I told my boss I would do it, I gave her a long list of requirements, all of which she agreed to.  Rats.  I also told her that this was a big favor and it was the only one she was going to get.  If these programs re-up next year, I won’t do them.  And she can’t apply the favor to a non-warehouse program.  It’s these two and no others.

I’m not all that excited about this development, but all my former team-mates are ecstatic.  Not so much because I’m coming back temporarily but because now they know they don’t have to try to squeeze either of these programs into their calendar!

Tell me about a huge favor you’ve done for someone.  Or a huge favor they’ve done for you!

2022, animals, Farming Update, home, Seasons, Theatre, Uncategorized, work

Snowed

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Today’s Farm Update comes from Ben.

Snowed overnight. About 5” wet, sticky snow. Gave daughter a snow day. I started waking her up, kept looking out the window at the snow falling, talked with Kelly, and we decided, life is too short. Covered daughter back up and turned off her light. She wasn’t awake anyway. Can you say ‘teenager’??

I made a quick path up the driveway and back. Will do more around the yard later with Kelly so she can refresh how to drive the tractor and work the blade. Header photo is halfway down our driveway.

I finished meteorology class. Got 57/60 on the final (which the teacher opened early for me), and I submitted the final lab assignment (on water usage in our homes) and got 10 points of extra credit for doing another test. Don’t know my final grade yet as the teacher hasn’t graded three assignments, but I’m expecting an A. Three credits closer to getting a degree someday.

I won some items in an online auction this week. This auction is open for about 8 days. And if someone bids on an item in the last 5 minutes, the timer resets for another 5 minutes. I was bidding on some heavy-duty pallet shelving. Did some research on new stuff, and it’s about $600 for one end and 2 bars. Typically, you figure half the price for used. So, these three auction lots were three uprights, six bars, and a bunch of cross pieces. There was three lots and I bid on two. Got one lot for $725. Couldn’t afford the second, but still a bargain.

Also got a set of 6’ fork extensions to put on the pallet forks I use on the loader. I remember first using forklift extensions as a stagehand and sometimes there was larger, awkward cases that needed a longer reach than normal forklift forks.

These will be good for picking up branches, or scrap iron. I thought about taking my trailer to pick up this stuff. But my trailer has sides on it, about 1′ tall. It’s great for hauling straw. It’s not so great when trying to load something from the sides, like pallet shelving, because a forklift can’t set it down with those sides in the way. I may have to buy a flat trailer too, because… you know. Toys.

I hauled in the scrap iron I dumped on the trailer a few weeks ago, plus a couple other things I had tossed on there. It weighed 1000 lbs and scrap was a low price of $50/ton. I never check the price; I just haul it in. Sometimes scrap is $400 / ton. Obviously, more people are hauling their scrap in when the price is high. I learned from the salvage yard guy that when they scrap cars, they drain the fuel out of them, and they save the good fuel and use it in their own cars. He did admit it’s a little like Russian roulette. But the machine they use to drain and filter the fuel has a site gauge and you can see bad fuel and divert it. It also costs them $4/gallon to get rid of old fuel.

This week at the college I’ve been working on lighting our holiday concert. My friend Paul creates the decor. I light it up. One night only, so I can tolerate that. We have ice mountains and a giant Nutcracker.

And this is my view from the booth.

After Paul finishes building the set, he leaves some bit of decor in the office. This year it was Version 1 of the Nutcracker’s mustache.

I was outside the other day and suddenly the chickens all made a racket and they headed for shelter and the dogs started barking and ran around trying to figure out what was happening. And there was a red-tailed hawk right next to the house trying to get a chicken. It flew away. No blood, some feathers. It might have been after one of the roosters; Number 3 was missing some neck feathers. Seems pretty ambitious for a hawk. Or desperation.

And some of the ducks are bathing in the water tank down by the barn. Nothing wrong with that except they spill a lot of water and it’s making an icy spot. Won’t be my problem in a few days.

Here’s some chicken and duck photos. The last one is Rosie and Guildy.

Hasn’t been any particular music this week. Just trying to keep the Holiday earworms away.

Next week is knee surgery. Yippee!

WHICH AMBITIOUS GOAL DID YOU WORK ON THIS YEAR?

2022, Uncategorized, work

Teamwork

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I am happy to report that the Youth and Family Team at my agency will soon be fully staffed. We provide mental health services to seriously emotionally disturbed children and their families in the far southwest counties in our state. We are supposed to have a clinical lead (a licensed social worker or licensed counselor) who supervises and also also acts as a therapist, another therapist (either a licensed social worker or a licensed counselor), a Skills Trainer who teaches basic coping skills to children and parenting skill to their parents. two Mental Health technicians who reinforce the skills for the parents and children at home and in the community after they have demonstrated minimal mastery of them, and a case manager who keeps track of things and makes sure we are in compliance with all the deadlines and fills out all the releases of information and goes to school and social services meetings. I am sort of an adjunct therapist and consultant for the team.

Last spring we lost a therapist, team lead, skills trainer and case manager. We have gradually filled all the empty positions, including two this week. Positions are hard to fill all over the state, but especially here in the remote West. We are fortunate, but especially fortunate because we all get along and work well together. The people we just hired are amiable and hard working.

It is really miserable to work on a team where there are conflicts and poor communication. Knowing how to work on a team is a special skill..

What are your experiences on teams? What qualities do you think make for a good team player?

Family, home, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized, work

A Brand New Start

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It was a year ago that we lost our Steve.  I’m re-running one of his posts (from February 2020) for the day.  You can answer his intial question or share a Steve memory!

Today’s post comes from Steve Grooms.

I have been marveling at what my daughter accomplished this past year. Last winter she, her family and I were living in Port Huron, Michigan. She couldn’t find a job, for the local economy is depressed. My son-in-law had a job he detested, with no possibility of finding a better job. I lived in a senior citizen complex near their rental home, staying alone in my room unless my daughter was visiting me. Nobody was very happy.

It became painfully clear that my daughter and s-i-l had to move and set up new lives. Since I cast my lot with my daughter’s family when I sold my home in 2014, I would have to move too. The experiment of living in Michigan was mostly a botch.

Because my daughter was not working, she was the obvious person to do the research and planning necessary to make the move possible. But, oh my, what a fiendishly complicated task that would be.

Breaking this challenge down into smaller pieces, my daughter needed to:

  • Pick a new town and neighborhood to live in where all four of us (three adults, a kid and a large old dog) might be happy.
  • Find a new apartment or rental home where my daughter’s family could live, doing this research while living in Michigan, unable to look at rental properties in person. This would be especially difficult due to the shortage of affordable housing.
  • Find a senior living community for me. It had to be near her home near her new job . . . wherever they might be. Once again, my daughter had no way to visit the various facilities under consideration.
  • Find movers who could relocate two households 800 miles without charging much.
  • Devise a way to get three automobiles from Michigan to Minnesota, a feat complicated by the fact we had only two drivers.
  • Find a job for herself (a job near her new home and my new apartment, wherever they would turn out to be). This decision, too, had to be done without the benefit of a visit.
  • Find a job for her husband (or at least identify a process which he could follow to find one).
  • Find a great new school for her fourth-grade son.
  • Do all the physical work of boxing up two households for the move.
  • Clean her rental home and my apartment.
  • Accomplish all of this and make the actual move in less than three months.

I wonder if that list adequately reflects how complicated this was. The sixth item alone is daunting. Everything on the list was inextricably connected to all the other issues, which made the overall project extremely tricky. Each choice depended on several other decisions, and there seemed to be no obvious place to start.

My daughter was amused by how her research turned out. The Minnesota metro region emerged as the clear favorite for many reasons but especially its strong economy. St. Paul seemed the most attractive city in Minnesota. The most desirable place to live in St. Paul, her research said, turned out to be Highland Park. So my daughter’s search for the ideal place to move led her to exactly the neighborhood where she had grown up.

We made the move last June. I believe this is the most difficult my daughter has ever faced. As of the middle of January, 2020, every single item on the list has been met successfully. My daughter now lives in an apartment a few blocks from her childhood home (although serious house-hunting begins this spring). And everybody, even the old dog, is delighted to be here.

What is the hardest thing you have ever done? Have you ever discovered that you needed to make a brand new start?

2022, home, Uncategorized, work

Making Progress

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Although not everyone might think so, the following photos suggest to me that great progress is being made with our bathroom remodals.

Things have been stalled for a couple of weeks due to weather and getting the plumbers to finally show up, which they did on Tuesday. For the upstairs bathroom they had to move the pipes for the toilet over about 3 feet to make room for a larger vanity and sink. They also had to set up new pipes for the shower, and cap pipes for the old shower. They had to do some work in the attic and in the basement for running the pipes.

The downstairs bathroom didn’t need any new plumbing. The tub there just gets a liner and new surround.

The carpenters are coming next week to finish the drywall. After that, the main contractor can come to install the new flooring and fixtures. This is taking longer than I anticipated, but seeing the progress this week has given me hope that our home will soon be back in order. I am not a patient person, and the uproar that this remodel has caused has been hard to deal with.

Would you rather be a plumber, an electrician, or a carpenter? What is giving you hope these days? What are some satisfying projects you have seen to their conclusions?

2022, Baboon Achievers, home, Uncategorized, work

The Rockets Red Glare!

59 Comments

Hallelujah!!!  Joy of joys – let the heavens part and rain down the praise of angels!!!

Yes, it’s really me.  All the painting is done – the breakfast room, the kitchen and the windows on the front porch.

As if this isn’t momentous enough, I cleaned up and organized the tool room in the basement before putting all the various tools away that have been cluttering up the porch and the dining room and the breakfast room for weeks.  I hadn’t planned on the clean up/organization.  In fact, my initial plan was to dump everything into the tool room and then ignore it until after the holidays.  Then at the very last minute, I changed my mind.  Assuming it would take a lot longer than it actually did, I was thinking I would do the clean up on day and then sort out all the tools the next day.  But it went swimmingly and once I got going, I just kept going. 

One big black garbage bag got filled with junk as I emptied every cabinet and drawer so I could clean them.  It’s amazing what you find when you do this.  We have 8 of those paint keys that they give you when you purchase paint.  We have 12 scrappers.  We have six handles for scrubbing pads.  We have four bags of steel wool, each with a different amount in it.  But the most amazing was the tape.

It seems like I am always buying tape and now I know why… we keep taking it to the basement when we’re done with a project.  The photo only shows the tape that survived – several rolls were too dirty or dried out to keep.  I brought all the tape up so that it’s in the dining room chest of drawers; hopefully this will keep us from buying more the next time we have a project!

What do you have too much of?

2022, books, Family, home, Uncategorized, work

Getting Ready

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In about a week, carpenters will arrive at our home and start demolishing two of our three bathrooms. One slated for renovation is just off our bedroom. The other is in the basement.

In order to prepare for the carpenters, we had to move three large bookcases in the basement that were full of vinyl record albums, sheet music, and all our cookbooks and various other books. The carpenters need access to the basement ceiling which is under the upstairs bathroom and right above the bookcases. As long as we were moving them, Husband decided to cull what he didn’t want or need anymore. His pickup is now full of what we threw out. We are exhausted but feeling accomplished. We were able to eliminate the contents of one bookcase entirely.

Next, Husband has to move all the things from the bathroom off our bedroom (the one which he uses) into the one I use that isn’t being renovated. For a couple of weeks, we will have to share a bathroom. This means I have to go through the cupboards in my bathroom to make room for Husband’s stuff from his bathroom.

We will be “at all sixes and sevens” most of November until the renovations are done. We are spending Thanksgiving with our son and family in Brookings, so no pressure to have the house all up to snuff. I am glad we don’t do this on a regular basis. I like having a bathroom to myself.

How many bathrooms do you have? What are your experiences with remodeling. How are you at sharing?