Family, Food, gardening, home, News, Uncategorized, work

Expert Advice

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Husband was highly gratified yesterday to get an email from a local soil scientist who works for the FPAC-NRCS office in town. That is the soil conservation branch of the US Department of Agriculture, and they work with local ranchers and farmers to promote soil and water conservation. The sender of the email had heard through the local grapevine that Husband was a passionate proponent of urban agriculture, and she needed his advice putting together some soil health teaching/demonstrations to help local urban gardeners improve their garden soil and increase their production. She explained she was new to the area and was more familiar with the soil issues of area ranchers than she was with those of urban gardeners and the peculiarities of our local urban soil. Husband replied he would be happy to help.

We are usually asked for our expert opinions by the Court regarding rather sad and troubling situations. This was a delightful change. Also delightful was figuring out how on earth she got our email. It involved a tangled pathway from former clients, the Food Pantry, a pastor of a Lutheran church we don’t attend, and the pastor’s mother in law who is one our our fellow parishioners. Living in a small town can be quite interesting.

What could you provide expert advice on? What are the informal pathways that news and information travel in your family and community?

2022, Automotive, Business, Food, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Ooops

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I like to think of myself as a decent person – not a saint, just a person who likes to do what she thinks is the best thing to do in the moment.

A few years ago Dunkin’ Donuts opened a shop on the corner of 66th & Penn.  This is smack in my stomping grounds – the area that encompasses my hardware store, the library, the post office, the gym, the drugstore, and on the rim of the perimeter, Target.  This means I have way too many excuses to be driving by that intersection; I stop at DD at least once a week, sometimes two.  Did I mention they have a drive-thru?  Once this past winter, I still had my pajamas on when I picked up my two long johns and coffee.

Yesterday morning, just after I had placed my order through the speaker, I looked up to see the driver of the black SUV at the pick-up window drop their box of donuts onto the ground.  The box flipped upside down but didn’t open.  The driver’s door opened and I expected to see someone bend over to pick up the box.  Nope.  The door just stayed open and eventually the Dunkin’ Donuts employee passed out another box.  The black SUV drove off, leaving the box of donuts on the ground.

When I pulled up, I said to the employee “Are those donuts in the box?  Shall I pick it up?”  The employee rushed to say I didn’t need to do that.  But the idea of some employee having to put on a coat, walk out and around to pick up the box that the SUV driver have dropped really bugged me, so I opened my door, picked up the box and handed it through the window.  Two employees thanked me profusely.

As I drove home I had several thoughts.  Why didn’t the SUV driver pick up the box after it was dropped?  Why didn’t they take THOSE donuts?  (I know my donuts – I can’t envision any of the donuts were damaged in that short fall.  Was it really such a big deal that I picked up the box – to have TWO employees thank me?  Why didn’t I KEEP the box myself? 

Who would have thought one quick trip to get two long johns (I had other stops, this wasn’t the only reason I left the house – I swear) could generate so many questions and considerations?

If you were going to get something free today, what would it be?

2022, animals, Mysteries, Nature, News, Science, space, Uncategorized

Half a Giraffe

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You’re giving a announcement to the press about a small asteroid that has managed to get through our atmosphere without completely burning up.  The small space rock is named 2022 EB5 and hit above Iceland last Friday causing a boom and a flash of light as it whizzed across the sky.

You haven’t found any evidence of the asteroid actually making it all the way to the ground, but you want to make folks feel secure about how little damage it would have caused.  So you describe the size of the asteroid as small, 10 feet/3 meters across, “half the size of a giraffe”.

What?  I think a lot of people have probably seen a giraffe in a zoo and have a fairly good idea of how big a giraffe is but it’s certainly not the first thing I would think of when trying to tell someone the size of something.  Especially when 10 feet or 3 meters isn’t that hard to imagine.  But a giraffe…. actually HALF a giraffe?

Isn’t half a giraffe the same as a baby elephant?  Or six dolphins?  Are we picking on animals?  Should we say the asteroid is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle?  And even if we stay with giraffes are we talking half a male giraffe, a female giraffe, a dwarf giraffe?  Are we talking head to halfway through the torso or halfway through the torso to the feet?

Possibilities are endless.

What do you think is a measure of size that the world is missing out on?

2022, Art, books, gardening, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

Borrrrrrring!

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I’ve been writing a lot of notes these days and it’s been hard.  I don’t find I have much to say about my life.  It’s kinda boring.  I work, I sleep, I read – the triumvirate.  Then there’s all the day-to-day stuff that makes life run (cooking, eating, laundry, errands).

There is crafting of course.  It goes into the “Other Stuff” category because it’s not a daily activity; I tend to do most of my crafting on the weekend, when the big a** work monitor is moved off my desk in my studio.  It probably accounts for 6-7 hours a week. 

But even with the crafting, my life right now feels boring to me.  I lost my winter attitude way too soon this year and I’ve been feeling trapped in the house by the cold weather.  This is not something I usually experience during Minnesota winter.  The only difference between this winter and other winters has to be the lack of seeing other folks.  Calls, text, even online meetings for work aren’t quite the same as being with people (although I will admit the irony that I wish I could keep working from home starting the first week of April). 

 I am really looking forward go warmer weather so I can add a socializing slice to my pie.  And then there will soon be a gardening/yardwork slice to my pie as well as a dog-walking slice.  Can’t WAIT for a more interesting pie!

What does your pie include these days?  Any new slices coming up for you?

2022, animals, Business, Farming Update, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

It’s All Downhill From Here

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The weekend farm report comes to us from Ben.

Our farm is in the “gently rolling hills” of SE MN. I have one field that is mostly flat and that’s on the low ground by Silver Creek and is in the Conservation Reserve program. The rest of the farm, the valleys, and the shape of our farm, is primarily the result of hundreds and thousands of years of water erosion. Its beginning was hundreds of millions of years ago and the seas that covered the area and created the limestone layers that eventually I played on as a kid. (Thank you Dr. John Tacinelli and the class MN Rocks and Waters for teaching me that). The topographical map in the header photo is part of our farm; the closer the lines, the steeper the slope. All those lines also mean our ground is considered highly erodible, which is why we use conservation tillage practices and crop rotation.

Also, when we get freezing rain, every step is treacherous. Everything seems to be downhill from wherever I am. Course then it’s all uphill back.

Those thousands of years of erosion are still happening… heavy rains or spring melt and there’s quite the stream coming down through our place. It’s impressive to think about the total area it might be draining; roughly 70 acres doing a quick Google Map distance check.

Last Saturday morning it was warm and the snow was melting and we’d had a little rain and I could hear the water rushing through the culvert under the field road down in the swamp.

Later in the day, the snow melt had grown in volume and was over the road.

The culvert is mostly frozen yet, so it didn’t take too much more to overload it. But since the ground was frozen it didn’t hurt anything. Later in the day the runoff slowed and it was back in place.  When I was a kid there wasn’t a road here, we had to go off through the pastures to get to those fields. And my siblings talk about skating on the pond down there. I think I even caught a crawdad down there once. Then dad put in some old culverts and made the road, and when that washed out, I had a better culvert put in.

Sometime last week we lost two more poufy ducks. Then the next day one was back! Pretty beat up, moving slow, and all bloody, but back. We started calling him Lazarus. He’d be gone one day and back the next. We couldn’t get too close, but we could see he had something wrong with his bill. One day I went to get corn for the ducks and when I came out of the feed room, he was right there. I gave him some corn and got him some water. He seemed like he wanted our help. To leave the other ducks, go off by himself, and come that close to us… the ducks don’t normally do that. He drank some water; I used the hose and ran some water near him and sprayed a little on him. He seemed to appreciate that. Then he let me pick him up and I could see he had a chunk tore off his bottom beak. I didn’t want to try cutting it off yet. I put him in the feedroom with food and water so he could just rest. Kelly went down at noon and checked on him and talked with him, and I went down after work and he’d died. Shucks. I wonder if he came to us for help, or as animals do, was he looking to go off on his own because he knew he was dying? We hate to lose one, but it’s worse when we’ve been helping and we get attached to them.

Township elections and the Annual Meeting was last Tuesday. The second Tuesday in March is ‘Township Day’ and all 1780 townships in MN have elections and annual meetings that day. A township is the rural equivalent of the city council. Townships provide or coordinate road maintenance, fire protection, law enforcement, and whatever other issues may arise. It might be property boundary issues or animals at large.  Usually, it’s a pretty low turn out and a pretty quiet meeting, which means we’re doing alright. When there’s a crowd, there’s usually a problem.

You’re up for election. What position did you win?

2022, Fantasy, History, Movies, Mysteries, TV, Uncategorized

I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That

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Some movies are just so weird.

I was clicking around last week, looking for some good background noise while I addressed some cards and discovered 2001: A Space Odyssey available.  I remember seeing 2001 in the movie theatre when it came out and I remember a good deal of it; but even 5 decades later and a lot more science fiction under my belt, it is still weird.

Research led me to things I didn’t know.  First off, 2001 was a collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke; it was not first a book and then turned into a movie.  The movie actually came out first followed by the book, although by the time the book was published it only had Clarke’s name on it.  I also found out that all the colored lights and psychedelic effects at the end were Dave becoming a “star child” after going through a star gate.  Of course I’m not sure what a star child is – I haven’t actually read 2001 (although you all know it’s on my short list now) – and the movie certainly doesn’t elucidate any of this.

It seems as if Stanley Kubrick got a little lost in his special effects.  And for 1968, they are great.  And the whole Hal sequence is, of course, fabulous:

I’m hoping the book will make a little more sense than the movie.  Fingers crossed.

Any special effects that you particularly like?  Cinematic or otherwise?

2022, books, History, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather

Into the Unknown

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In October of 1915, Ernest Shackleton’s ship, The Endurance (oh, the irony), was crushed by pack ice in the Antarctic and then sank.  It had been trapped in the ice for 9 months.  In August of the following year, a rescue ship arrived; all of Shackleton’s crew had survived.

The news from Antarctica this week is that after 100 years, the wreck of The Endurance has been found – nearly 10,000 feet under those frigid waters.  It didn’t move too far in 100 years, it was found just four miles south of the location recorded by the crew when she sank.  According to the search team, it is “in a brilliant state of preservation” and is even sitting upright. 

I’ve read a handful of books about various exploration voyages, some about Shackleton, some about others.  I also see several stories in National Geographic every year about someone heading off into the unknown to do something that no one has ever done before.  None of these stories makes me want to do this kind of thing.  Even today, 100+ years later, I can’t imagine how awful it must have been to be trapped on the ice of Antarctica, listening to the timbers of your ship creaking then finally breaking.  You’d have to be fairly certain at that point that you would never see home/family/friends again.  I don’t even like to set up the tent out of sightline from the car! 

I used to think of myself as adventurous, based on all my travels, but after reading these stories about wandering out into the unknown, I’ve decided my level of adventure tolerance is much lower.  I can live with that.

Have you ever ventured into the unknown?  The partly unknown?

Family, Food, Uncategorized

Sentimental Attachments

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Husband has a sentimental attachment to the old wooden spoons he likes to use for cooking. I think they are filthy havens for germs and bacteria. He thinks I am cold hearted and unreasonable. I have tried enticing him with attractive, laminated bamboo ones. He likes them, sort of, but we can’t find them in just the right size to replace his smallest wooden spoon. The same goes for the silicon spoons- they are just not the right size.

I suppose I have sentimental attachments to silly things, too, like my mother’s old costume jewelry that I never wear, or my father’s china pug figurine. I would think Husband cold hearted and unreasonable if he wanted me to get rid of them. There was a very funny article in the New Yorker this week by Patricia Marx about ways to get rid of your possessions. She laments all the possessions we Boomers have, and how our children don’t want them. I do hope my children don’t have a sentimental attachment to the wooden spoons just because their dad did, and they toss them when we are gone if I haven’t managed to toss them out first. That pug figurine, now, is something special!

What silly things so you have sentimental attachments to. What do you look for in a kitchen spoon? What is your favorite kitchen spoon?

2022, books, Fantasy, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Color Me Surprised

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I’m surprised and embarrassed. 

Surprised because two weeks ago I discovered by accident that Andre Norton, a prolific science fiction/fantasy author was a woman.  I didn’t have a clue.

The embarrassment is because not only do I read a lot and consider fantasy one of my chosen genres, but I worked in a bookstore for six years.  Six years of shelving Andre Norton titles with my own hands and not knowing.  How could I not know this?  And despite knowing the name and the genre, I have to admit I’ve never read any Norton.  I’m really don’t know why – it probably has more to do with the fact that at any given moment, there is a list of about 100 books that I’m thinking about as “next on the list”.  I just never got around to her. 

Her very first book wasn’t in the Hennepin County Library, but I did get it from InterLibrary loan, so we’ll see if I go for more after I read this one. 

But I’m still flummoxed that I didn’t know she was a woman.

What’s a big surprise you’ve had recently?  Extra points if you feel like you should have known….

books, Business, Fantasy, Media, Movies, Mysteries

Evil Abounds

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Today’s photo credit: Justin Lim

You’re a minion.  You work for an evil warlord.  For years you have cheated, stolen and even killed for him.  He pays really well and the benefits package seems great. 

One day the malevolent machinations of your boss are uncovered.  He decides to blow up his solar energy plant to cover his tracks and he heads to the helicopter pad with the damsel in distress to head away from the mess he’s made.  He closes the door of the helicopter, leaving you standing on the helipad.  Right then, as your boss flies away from his bomb-ridden plant, one of the good guys shows up.  You fight him and fight him, even though it’s just a few minutes to the big boom.

You are part of a long-standing tradition.  A truly loyal evil minion – you continue to plague good guys and fight until the bitter end, often for a boss who clearly kills off your peers rather than pay retirement and who always abandons you when the going gets tough.

Can you tell me why?