2025, Business, Food, Technology

Identification Please?

27 Comments

Yesterday I had to stand in the check-out line at Target; I was getting a giftcard for YA and I’ve never managed to do self-checkout successfully with a giftcard.  There was only one cashier working the regular check-outs and the line was pretty long.  The woman in front of me had a cart full of items, including a bunch of veggies which the cashier had to look up one by one.  At one point the cashier asked to see her ID – it was a six-pack of something.  This woman was clearly a senior citizen: completely white hair, hearing aids, cane on the side of her shopping cart.  If I had to guess she had to be at least 80.  The cashier looked at her license and typed something into the cash register.  The line behind me got longer as this happened. 

I understand that there are probably laws and/or corporate policies that lead to asking every single person for ID in these circumstances, but truly, carding an 80-year old woman at Target?  And considering that I never get carded at the liquor store here in Minnesota or even buying liquor in Wisconsin (wine advent calendars at Aldis), I’m guessing it’s a Target policy and cash register programming enforces it.  Sigh.

As I was heading to my car, it occurred to me that the woman’s purchase couldn’t have been alcohol.  In Minnesota you can only buy alcohol at a state-licensed liquor store. 

So what in heaven’s name was she purchasing?

2024, 2025, Fantasy, Games, Kids, sports, Uncategorized

It’s a Hobby

40 Comments

When YA was seven, she wanted to be a “horse girl” for Halloween.  Took me a bit by surprise because she hadn’t shown any particular horsey interest up to that point.  We had fun putting the costume together.  Nonny bought the cowboy boots, I got her a hat and a stick horse.  The jeans and shirt she already had.  I still have that stick horse in a corner of my bedroom.

Imagine my surprise last week (while I was wasting time on my phone while Nonny did her morning exercises) when I stumbled on a website for Hobby Horse Championships.

This is a real thing.  It’s called “hobby horsing” and if you look it up on Wikipedia there is a note at the top, in italics, that says “Not to be confused with Hobby Horse polo”.  That made me snort coffee up my nose.  HHing was apparently born in Finland and started to make waves in 2017.  Most participants are young girls, between the age of 12-18.  Classic horse-loving demographic.  These days there are quite a few national competitions (most in Europe) and the largest gathering of 2024 was at the end of August in Finland.  The United States’ games were the beginning of August.

I doubt YA will be interested in this; her infatuation with horses ended after a couple of summer horse camps when she was in Girl Scouts.  But you never know.

YA’s stick horse needs a name.  What do you think?

2025, Mysteries, Technology, Travel

The Waiting Game

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People watching at the airport is almost as much fun as at the State Fair – if you’re not stressing out.  I take a page from my mother’s playbook and always get to the airport with way too much time so I’m not usually too worried about time in the TSA line. 

There was a pretty long line on Saturday so there was plenty to watch.  The most interesting was the young couple in front of me.  When I first noticed them, the young man was wearing a fairly large, stuffed backpack and handling a big carry-on as well.  The young woman was unencumbered.  Before I had a chance to process that, she tried to take over carry-on duty.  He wouldn’t let go of the bag.  She was mad.  She ripped it out of his hands and if looks could kill, he would have been a goner.  Then he made two really bad mistakes.  First he tried to take the bag back and when she spoke to him in a stern voice, he smiled.  I wanted to say “ooh, buddy, bad move” but I didn’t need to.  She blasted him and they didn’t speak for  minutes until they got right up to the TSA desk.  I didn’t see them again.

Our plane wasn’t at the gate on time – late from its last stop I assume.  There was a red-haired woman who was just freaking out about this.  Not enough to get security called on her, but enough that all of us in the waiting area heard every word.  She somehow seemed to think that the gate agent could magically make a plane appear.  After venting her spleen she wandered off; I didn’t see her come back.  There weren’t any other flights that were leaving any time around the time of our flight so I don’t know what she did.  Maybe she had a couple of stiff drinks and was the last one onto the plane?

Of course when the plane did come and we were all loaded, the pilot made an announcement about some outside door flap being frozen.  Twenty minutes they said, which is airline speak for “at least an hour”.    We were going to St. Louis, so I’m guessing from the flurry of panicked phone calls, there were quite a few people with connecting flights.  The woman in front of me was positively melting down about it.  I wasn’t connecting although my sibling gathering was planned for that afternoon.  No meltdown from me. 

We made most of the hour up in the air so I was in time for the sibling gathering but not enough time to stop at the deli to pick anything up for the party!

How do you like to pass the time while waiting?

2025, Farming Update, home, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Bathroom BRRR??

66 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Not much happening on the farm this week, it’s been pretty cold.

The chickens are appreciating the fact there is / was no snow- or very little snow, so they’re still able to go out and move around. They get up against the south side of a building and stay in the sunshine and I try to spread their corn out in those areas. I did get nine eggs the other day, so production is slowly coming up.

Luna is still trying to find another rooster to play with her, but they are not interested in this activity.

Our bathroom and laundry room remodeling is progressing. Rough in plumbing has been completed, the fans, ductwork, and dryer vent have been installed. A little more demolition happened with the downstairs bathroom ceiling and the closet of an adjoining room being removed to allow access for pipes, which of course means the bathroom downstairs is gonna end up with a fresh paint job as well. “It all started with a new bathroom fan.” And that’s probably OK since it hasn’t been touched since the house was built in 1968.

At least the sink and toilet are not pink.

Striped wallpaper on the hot pink walls. Pretty much it’s just been me and daughter using that bathroom and I always kinda liked it. We’ve always joked about my mom painting it that way and she says it wasn’t her idea. I would expect she got a couple gallons of pink paint from somebody. We laugh that upstairs it’s 2020 but when you open the basement door it’s 1968 again. Our little time portal. That bathroom even has a wooden toilet paper roller! Speaking of which, we’ve started using bamboo TP. It’s OK!

It’s also unfortunate the cold weather coincided with tearing out the ceiling sheet rock and removing all the insulation in this area. They have plastic up on the ceiling, and zipper plastic walls, so it’s only cold in this area.

It also strikes me as a bit of a paradox that when it’s the coldest is when the electric company turns off the heat. Part of the dual fuel program, and I know it’s for the greater good, I know it’s all part of conserving energy and keeping the rates low, but that’s a big picture thing and it’s hard to keep in mind. For a lot of people.  

Luna is getting frustrated because it’s been too cold for her to stay out and get the exercise that she would like. Daughter has decided it’s too cold for her long walks, too. I do play fetch with Luna and whatever stick I find while doing chores, and Luna loves running with that, but then she gets distracted by something else and leaves it lay somewhere until we find it again the next day. Course there’s always another stick in our yard.

I have been talking the dogs for walks. Through the woods or down the creek or across the pastures.

And that’s been nice. It reminds me of how often I had to walk out and get the cows for milking and I wonder if that chore made me so grumpy about walking? As a kid, it was one of my chores to go get the cows. As I got older, it was just part of the job. Often, they’d come home by themselves, they knew it was milking time. Cows love routine. We share that.

DID YOU SQUEEZE THE CHARMIN?   GOT ANY GROCERY STORE MIS-ADVENTURES?

2024, Art, Travel, Uncategorized

Train Art

33 Comments

Most days on my drive to work I travel on Villard Street, which is the main east-west route through our downtown area. It is also known as Old Highway 10, the route that ran from Detroit to Seattle before the interstate highways were built.

Villard runs parallel to the BNSF railroad tracks through town, and the street and the tracks are no more than 20 yards apart. There are always trains, either chugging through town or parked, waiting for who knows what.

I get a good glimpse of the train cars on my way to work, and I am always amazed at the intricate graffiti on them. Last week there were very nice Boris and Natasha portraits on one. I never observe people painting on the cars in our town. They would be seen, given that the cars are parked in the middle of town. It makes me wonder where on the train route the cars can be parked long enough for people to paint them without getting caught.

It seems that the graffiti is inevitable. I think it would be terribly fun for the railroad to have train car decorating contests, and legitimize what is going to happen anyway. Think of the fun!

What would you like to paint, or see painted, on train cars? Any memories on Old Highway 10?

2025, education, Mysteries, Words

Weird Words

44 Comments

Vocabulary has always been a fun topic for me.  It started in the fifth grade when Mrs. McCracken offered extra credit if we found the week’s vocabulary words out and about in the real world (books, newspaper, etc.) 

I get an email every day with a new vocabulary word from a dictionary site.  I’d say that about 60% of the time, I know the word or can work it out based on its parts.  Nothing else, just a few seconds of each day.

But in the last couple of weeks I’ve come across two that not only did I not know, but I had to look up how they would be used in a sentence to make sense of them. 

Animadvert – to comment unfavorably or critically.  First recorded in 1630–40.  From the Latin animadvertere, meaning “to heed, censure;” combines animum, meaning “mind,” + advertere, meaning “to notice or advert¹.”   Here are two examples.  “The famous director was not afraid to animadvert on the lack of originality in modern filmmaking” and “The union leaders publicly animadverted on the company’s decision to cut wages, arguing it was retaliation”. 

Carpophagous – feed on fruit, fruit-eating.  First recorded in 1830–40.   Combines carpo-¹, meaning “fruit,” + -phagous, meaning “eating.”   Again, two examples.  “The carpophagous bat species are crucial for pollination as they feed on nectar and fruit” and “The carpophagous diet of the iguana primarily consists of fruits and leafy greens”. 

Both of these words strike me as not being too useful these days.  I suppose in biology circles you might eventually stumble across carpophagous but even having sentences for animadvert, I’m having trouble imagining anybody using it these days.  I could be wrong – but I don’t think so (Monk theme song…)

Any words you think the English language would be better off without?

2025, Art, Mysteries, Seasons

Winter Lights

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Normally I don’t consider myself dull or boring but every now and then I wonder.

  • Midsommer Murders – I’ve seen every episode repeatedly – but every afternoon if I am at home and have the television on, that’s what I settle on.
  • State Fair. I’m not suggesting that the State Fair is boring but seriously, five or six trips every year?  Clearly the repetitiveness has to be a bit of the appeal.
  • A Christmas Carol. Read it every year and watch various versions repeatedly throughout the holiday season.
  • Death on the Nile. Two versions that I like… I don’t want to even guess how many times I’ve watched one or the other of them.  Ditto for Murder on the Orient Express (although only one acceptable version of this).

I joined the Arboretum four years ago during Pandemic – it was one place where it was easy to spend time without worrying about social distancing as well as being comforting.  Since then I have gone often, including every year for the Winter Lights display.  I love walking through the Arb when it’s brisk and chilly, seeing the lovely lights in shapes of flowers, snowflakes, butterflies.  YA won’t come every year because the displays don’t change much.

This year, I ended up parking in the last parking lot near what I’ve always thought of as the “end” of the light tour, several little houses, all lit up and that are a magnet for kids of all ages.  For some reason I decided that instead of heading up to the main building I would do the little houses first and then do the lights backwards.  There were hundreds of visitors at the Arb that night and I was absolutely the only one going in that direction.  A couple of times it was a little funny as I had to step aside on a path to let a glut of people pass in the opposite way.

It was a fun experience and I may do it backwards again next year… since I’m sure I’ll go again.

What’s something you can do/see over and over again?

2025, Food, Gatherings, holidays

Leftovers

28 Comments

One of the hallmarks of my annual holiday party is the amount of food – it seems like enough to feed an army.  I can’t help myself; there are so many things I like and so many things that others like. 

Of course, that much food means lots of leftovers.  For the most part this isn’t a problem; YA and I happily nosh on party goodies for days afterwards.  Most everything lasts a few days and some things (like the sliced cheese) can go longer if they’re wrapped well.

What doesn’t last too long is the leftover crudite.  I wanted carrots, peppers and cauliflower this year.  YA wanted broccoli and celery.  I also had grape tomatoes left over after making the mozzarella skewers, so I added them to the serving plate with the other veggies.  I have to say that most years I end up tossing more veggies than I like so this year I really committed to myself that I would figure out a way to not waste so much.

The first up was ramen with veggies in a peanut sauce.  This is something we have a lot at our house but usually I make it with frozen vegetables.  I chopped up a couple of cups of veggies, sauteed them then added the ramen and the peanut sauce.  Quite tasty.

The next day I made a veggie and cheese frittata (extra points for using some of the leftover cheese).  Sauteed chopped veggie, added eggs and cheese and a bunch of spices and baked it up.  So easy and yummy.

The last of the veggies went into a soup.  I was going to add some pasta but YA wanted potato.  I ended up putting some of both in.  It made a huge pot, which disappeared pretty quickly.

So for the first time ever we managed to get through all the leftovers on our own, including all the crudite, without having to toss anything!

Did you have any leftovers this holiday season that you had to deal with?

2025, Mysteries, Nature, Weather

Earmuffs and Mittens

25 Comments

Although I grew up in Missouri, I spent many summer and winter vacations in northern Wisconsin, either at the family homestead or at relative’s cabins on the Eau Claire lakes.  When it was time to pick a college, I announced to my parents that I would only apply to schools in Wisconsin or Minnesota.  When I had been in Northfield for two months, I took my first trip to the Twin Cities.  All it took was that weekend – I knew this was where I wanted to be.  After wasband finished graduate school in Milwaukee, we hightailed it here.  After 40+ years, I’d like to consider myself a Minnesotan rather than a Missourian. 

It is partly the weather that drew me here so I’ve been surprised by what seems to be a trend the last several years of many Minnesotans over-reacting to the weather before the weather even gets here.  So many times there is an alarming forecast and people almost burrow in, stocking up and preparing not to leave their homes.  Then, of course, 8 out of 10 times, the dreaded weather never arrives.

This has happened to me once already, when snow was forecast for the week before Christmas.  On that Tuesday, my book club baled on our rare in person meeting which was scheduled for Thursday.  There was snow on Thursday but not nearly what was threatened.  Main road and highways were fine.

Now I’ve gotten an email from a friend with whom I have concert plans in March, asking if I’d rather get online viewing tickets instead of driving downtown to see the show in person.  Because it’s March, when we often have snowstorms. 

This is a trend that mystifies me.  Does this make me a tough Minnesotan?

How do you handle weather where you are?

2025, Automotive, Family, Farming Update, Seasons

NOVUS INITIUM

82 Comments

A NEW OR FRESH BEGINNING

The weekend farm report comes to us from Ben.

Asking Google for a Latin translation for a “new beginning” turned into more questions than answers, so it’s something like the title. Or maybe not. One of you will have a better idea. I just didn’t want to give this a tired or cliched heading. I thought of PT Barnum and “This way to the Egress!” but Ingress wasn’t what I wanted. 

I went around on Wednesday morning and recorded the mileage and hours on the cars, truck, tractors, gator, lawn mower, and the pump on the diesel barrel. 

Everything was pretty average. Kelly drives a lot less miles now that she’s working at home of course. We spent 34 hours cutting grass. 140 hours between the two tractors, slightly less than normal for me. No snow to move last winter, and less weeds mowed last summer. I moved 488 dozen eggs, which is pretty impressive. That’s 5856 eggs! Jeepers! Well done girls. Other than December when I got maybe 5 dozen, they were over 40 dozen / month with May being the highest at 63 dozen. 

We are starting 2025 with the bathroom and laundry room remodeling project. Our contractor, Joe, called on Tuesday afternoon and said he could start Thursday if we wanted. Well, with my family Christmas at our house on Saturday, January 4th, and already having the theme of “A YMCA Construction Christmas! Dress as your favorite Village Person”, we figured ‘why not!’ and also, then we don’t need to clean so much. I’ll put a sign on the front door: “Pardon our mess”. 

We spent New Years Day cleaning out the laundry room and bathroom, taking pictures off the walls, and doing laundry. We delivered several boxes to Goodwill, and created a couple bags of trash, and it felt good to purge.

Everything is in disarray and is going to be a pain in the butt for a couple of weeks. They have been starting in the mornings before daughter is awake. We’ve warned them she’ll probably come out and yell at them and slam her door at least a few times. Sure hope it’s worth it. Kelly has been planning this for about a year and she’s still going through the catalogs and watching home remodeling shows. Pretty soon it will be too late to change her mind. SO MANY DETAILS! Tile, finish, walls, flooring, knobs, door styles, lights, hooks, towel racks, shower door, should this be here or here, oh my goodness. It makes my head spin. She’s enjoying herself.  

My 2024 To do list: It’s fun to put it in Excel just to count it up. I had 212 listed items. And some were pretty mundane, such as ‘haul in garbage’ or ‘cut the grass’, but that’s what I needed to do that week, and it’s always satisfying to cross something off. There were 58 items I carried over to 2025. Like having the septic tank emptied (carried over from 2023) and shingling the feed room. Plus, a few more shop things. My big project for 2025 is to build a lean-too off the back of the shed to make up for what I’ve lost in storage space inside with the shop project. I’d love more concrete inside the shed, but I need to pay down what I’ve spent the last two years. 

 Honestly, I think the best thing we did was add the hot and cold faucets in the garage. That is just so handy. The point was to be able to wash the dogs, which we’ve only done about once, but filling their water buckets just makes that Worth it. And all the buckthorn that Kelly cleaned out the last two summers! That makes me happy every day! The view that it has brought back, both from the road above, and from below looking up. Even the neighbors commented on that. So many of the things on the list was just work that had to be done. Kelly and I were talking one day about so much of the last 30 years we can’t even remember. As the phrase goes, ‘Life is F-ing Relentless’. it’s so hard to remember every-day special moments because you’re so busy just existing. Milk the cows, go to work, do chores, feed the kids, repeat. It’s hard to remember all the little day to day stuff.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE LATIN PHRASE?