On Tuesday, we had several hours between our flight from Bismarck arriving in Minneapolis and our flight to Montreal departing. We settled in at our gate for a rather long wait.
Our gate for the Montreal flight was in the A Concourse, a section of the airport currently in the middle of renovation. There is new carpet, but no electrical outlets to charge phones and devices. There is unfinished drywall and exposed heating and pipes.
The monotony was enlivend by observing two little brown mice emerge from a hole in the wall and scamper under a row of seats, snatching any available crumbs on the floor. When startled, they went back in the hole until they felt safe to reemerge. Our fellow travelers were both alarmed and amused by their antics which went on for our whole wait. People took their photos. My main concern was that they didn’t run up my pant leg or end up as a stowaway in our carry-ons. A ticket agent commented this was nothing new, and she had seen them a few gates down earlier in the day. I thought that Airport Mouse would make a fine series of children’s stories.
What are some of the odder things you have seen in airports. Think up some plot lines for Airport Mouse.
Most years, our first foray to the zoo is during Farm Babies, which usually starts towards the end of April. The zoo opens up the Farm and there are usually some baby animals to pet. It’s not a big a celebration as it was in years’ past, but who can resist petting baby goats. Not us.
This year, YA broke tradition by waking up last weekend and suggesting we go to the zoo that day. I didn’t have any plans, so off we went.
Our normal routine is to start with the inside exhibits – first the Tropics and then the Minnesota Trail. We skipped the Bird Show as they re-jiggered the winter show last year and we didn’t care for it too much. Then we walked on the lake bridge to see the tigers, caribou and moose then around the Northern Trail – the Bactrian camels were all out sunning together – it looked like they were at a symposium:
The two takins that were out were having a great day, chasing each other around; we’ve never seen them that active. One of the snow leopards was also enjoying the sunshine (see the header photo). In fact, that did seem to be the theme of the day; many of the animals were enjoying the sunny day.
After winding back to the main building through the Grizzly Coast, we had our lunch, augmented with french fries. Had to hit the gift shop, although we almost never purchase anything. Then sea lions and weedy sea dragons and sharks before we headed home. A wonderful day.
How do you like your sunshine? Porch? Adirondack chairs? Chaise lounge? Hands and knees in the garden? Sun lamp?
If the travel gods are benevolent and things go according to plan, Husband and I are traveling outside the US this week. Although the header photo suggests we are somewhere on Mars, we are, in fact, at a latitude a little south of our home in North Dakota. We are here, strangely enough, because of our work on a ND regulatory board. I am the president. Chris is the complaints investigator.
The old and the new are blended beautifully here. There are many monuments to famous 18th and 19th century kings, queens, and military commanders. The place was settled long before the 18th century, though. Many languages are spoken here.
There are many beautiful old churches and cathedrals.
It is a place with superb food. It is a place renowned for its smoked meat and bagels. It is a port city. There even is a Tintin restaurant, based on the cartoon! The music here is also renowned for classical and folk artists. This photo is a dead giveaway.
It is still too early here for much yardwork, although things are starting to green up. Our weather has been volatile, with highs in the 80’s, then snow showers. People have been out mowing lawns.
We worked really hard last summer refurbishing our 20 year old strawberry patch. The plants had petered out and the soil was packed and hard. By last fall there were new plants and new runners coming along very nicely. We had to fence the whole thing due to rabbits eating the strawberry leaves. We had a whole herd of bunnies in the neighborhood. Our next door neighbor trapped and then released about 10 rabbits in the country. There were far fewer rabbits hopping around by the fall.
The fencing fell down over the winter. We planned to put it back up in a couple of weeks. Wouldn’t you know it, the minute the strawberry plants started to emerge and green up, there was a rabbit nibbling them. Husband was out last weekend in pelting sleet laying down a makeshift carpet of plastic fencing to foil the rabbits until we can put up a proper fence when the weather is better and we have more time.
How are your garden and yard plans coming along? Growing any fruits or vegetables this year?
I believe I wrote that we were so busy at church over Easter weekend that we had Easter dinner the weekend before Easter, and we weren’t going to cook Easter weekend. Well, as usual, that was not what happened. I made the header photo, Pizza Rustica, on Good Friday. It is a southern Italian deep dish pie with ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, hot Italian sausage, mortadella, sun dried tomatoes, salami, and seven eggs, encased in a lovely crust. My pie looked just like the header photo. It was absolutely delicious. I highly recommend it.
We are traveling this week (more to come on that). The Grade 12 son of one of my coworkers is going to water the tomato seedlings, bring in the mail, and tend to the cat. He and his mom came on Saturday so we could show him what he needed to do. He intends to go to culinary school, so Husband showed him our cookbook library and I showed him the Pizza Rustica recipe. We loaned him several cookbooks and our pasta maker, since he expressed an interest in making homemade pasta and had used a pasta maker just like ours in school. It is one with a crank handle that is clamped to the counter. Husband calls this part of our “Radical Food Ministry “, getting people to cook from scratch. Husband told him he can borrow any of our cookbooks.
What is your favorite Easter dinner? Who mentored you? Who have you mentored?
Life is what you make out of it. It’s always an adventure.
Monday you’re bit by a dog, Tuesday daughter will run out in bare feet to greet you when you return home, and Wednesday she stands outside your door and says she hates you. Thursday there’s a tree on fire. Is it any wonder I can’t remember what day of the week it is?
Whoosh! Another week gone. Or maybe that was just the wind on Thursday.
Got the college show open and it is going well. The floor turned out OK and the wall patterns, well, I can’t decide if it looks like giant presents, or wall paper. The concept is still good, it’s just the execution that lost traction. There’s a lot of justification in this if you know the story and think about it long enough. Love, relationships, difficulties in both.
I got corn and oat seed picked up last Saturday,
Got the wagon top swapped on the running gear,
Had all four tractors out and running, and got 3 of them back inside the shed.
Got the shop stereo hooked up to one speaker, and the blu-tooth receiver connected to an old cell phone and streamed Radio Heartland as the inaugural music. Will be better when I get the second speaker mounted, but at least it works.
Monday I got bit by a stray dog I was trying to pick up for the township and spent a few hours in the Emergency Department. I was inspected and injected and injected some more. Two more rabies shots to go (four total) I got a Tetanus booster, and immuglobulin in the ED. Had a great RN and to my astonishment, the ER waiting room was empty when I arrived! Honestly, there are worse things in life, this was nothing. I joked, I’m going to go pick up all the rabid dogs now! The other township guys joked I will need to wear a rabies tag.
I got a call about running another 20 acres of ground in the neighborhood. I’m going to do it, but I also had to run some numbers first. It’s not the best soil, and there are just as many deer there as my place. And with input cost up, and crop prices down, I offered a low rental price. It was accepted for this year, and we’ll see how it does. “Experts” are predicting an increase in farm income, due to Government Rescue payments, and cattle prices are up, but…it’s still going to be a tough year financially.
We had thunderstorms Thursday night, and over an inch of rain, which we really needed. As I came home from the college show, about 9:30 PM, I could see a light where there shouldn’t have been light. A tree was on fire.
I always thought if lightning struck a tree it exploded. Nope, this was just on fire 30 feet up. I called the non-emergency line for the fire department, because I wasn’t quite sure what to do about this. It rained enough after they put it out that there wasn’t a risk of re-igniting. At the time, I didn’t know how much rain we had gotten and I was concerned about the dry grass below it.
We got our new baby chicks on Tuesday. These 40 chicks are Black Australorp, and Barred Rock. Twenty of each.
I used a new hatchery this year due to supply issues with chicks at the hatchery I have been using, and these were the available breeds. We’ve been looking up guineas to order later this summer, and again, some places have NOTHING available for 2025. I’d sure like to do more ducks, but not if they’re only going to get eaten by something.
There’s a female Cardinal really stuck on watching herself in our car Windows.
I did a little fieldwork Thursday afternoon.
It was good to get out in the dirt. And now with the rain, I can take the time to check tires, and grease machinery and replace some parts.
So it’s been a busy week. With the show open and no more evening rehearsals, I hope to get some farming done now.
It always feel like I should have more time, and then suddenly the weather is nice, and the ground has dried up and, worst of all, I’ve seen some neighbors out working, and then I gotta get out there! Springtime is always hard. There’s always a college show to open, and then concerts, and commencement, and depending on how the winter was and how soon the snow melts, assuming we had any, it all affects what all I should be doing at the same time. And it will all get done. I still should cut down some trees hanging over the fields, and I still have branches to pick up in the waterway area. Plus getting the machinery greased and tires checked, and oil changed.
When I swapped the wagon top last weekend, I tightened up the rear wheel bearings and added grease to the bearings on the running gear. That’s not something I do often enough, but this was the perfect time to do it before I put the wagon on top.
We’ve got an Easter ham thawing and I’m looking forward to that.
I’ll promote a place we’ve been ordering meat from lately:
It was started by a couple guys who raise hogs down in Iowa. They have a Youtube channel and I watch them. They started marketing their own hogs, and it expanded into other farms with beef and chicken. Beef from Sonne Farms in South Dakota (and others). Sonne Farms also have a YouTube page I watch.
The big local news here lately is that the public high school mascot/logo is being retired. We are known as the Dickinson Midgets. We have apparently been Midgets for 100 years.
What is even bigger news is that virtually no one is protesting the change. The school board tried to change the name in 1996, and the whole board was recalled in a special election by disgruntled citizens who wouldn’t stand for a new mascot. This time, things are different, and students talk openly about how embarrassing the mascot is. Another good reason for a new mascot now is that they are renovating the gymnasium, and they can incorporate the new mascot logo into the gym floor. It will save money in the long run, you see. It will be good to have this little guy put to rest.
The superintendent asked for ideas for a new mascot and had 850 entries. A committee of students and faculty settled on two: The Defenders or The Mavericks. Both ideas seem pretty palatable to me, and seem to go well with our Old West ethos out here.
What was your school mascot? What are some of the sillier mascots you have heard of? Make up some new school mascot names.
I have always loved the music of Sibelius, and was tickled to hear that he described the third movement of his violin concerto as “a polonaise for polar bears”. What a visual! It is a sort of lumbering piece. I also love the pieces he has done that are inspired by swans.
Carnival of the Animals and Peter and the Wolf are family favorites. Many composers were inspired by animals, like Delius On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring and Vaughan Williams Lark Ascending. Satie wrote about a dreamy fish, and Scarlatti wrote a keyboard sonata called the Cat Sonata. Vivaldi wrote about the goldfinch. Then, of course, there is Gershwin:
What are your favorite animal-inspired musical pieces or songs?
The joy of occasionally re-reading a book is that you come across phrases or paragraphs that spark recognition, especially if you enjoyed them the first time around.
I’ve been reading the Gamache series by Louise Penny recently (my other book club had the first one on it’s list earlier this year) and I’m liking them just as much as the first time around. Yesterday I came across section in The Cruelest Month. The characters are taking part in a séance when they are frightened by an interruption:
A window pane rattled and a horrible face appeared at the glass. The circle gasped and recoiled. “For Christ’s sake, Dorothy, I know you’re in there,” screamed the voice. It wasn’t what Clara had imagined would be the last words she’d hear on earth. She’s always thought they’d be, “What were you thinking?”
This paragraph made me laugh out loud – again. I know there are folks that like to find out the last words of famous and a quick internet search finds a lot of hits. The only one that I can ever seem to remember is attributed to Oscar Wilde. “This wallpaper is killing me. Either it goes or I go.” I’m not sure this is accurate but because it’s the kind of thing that Oscar Wilde would have said, I’ve always remembered it. I also remember another quote attributed to him – “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.”
I’m pretty sure my last words will be “Will there be donuts?”
Anyone’s last words that you remember? That you’d like attributed to you?
Yesterday was Kyrill’s grooming appointment. He gets groomed every 6 weeks or so. Cesky Terriers don’t shed. Their coats just gets thicker and longer. It is also curly and needs regular brushing out. This is him, exhausted, after his appointment yesterday.
As you can see from the photo, Cesky Terriers have a very distinctive grooming pattern for their faces. They have the traditional terrier beard along with a hank of hair that extends from the eyebrow to the nose. This is presumably to protect their eyes as they rout vermin out of their holes and chivy wild swine from their dens so hunters can shoot them. Kyrill can see very well through all that hair. I make a point of trimming the hair from the outside of his eye sockets so he has good peripheral vision.
My father and grandfathers never had beards. Neither Husband or son has a beard currently. Son will occasionally grow one for a special contest at the college where he works. Husband had a beard decades ago, but his hair is curly and his beard had the texture of a scrub brush, so he hasn’t had a beard for more than 40 years.
I don’t find the current trend of excessive human male facial hair particularly attractive. I suppose it is less expensive than shaving every day. We are traveling to Montreal next week, and Son wants us to get him some fancy shaving things at a store he likes there, at our expense, of course!
Male Baboons, do you have, or ever have had, a beard?Female Baboons, ever had a significant other with a beard? What are your favorite or least favorite dog grooming standards?
Trail Baboon 