2023, Technology, Uncategorized, work

Write On

20 Comments

I do a lot of note taking in my job. I administer tests of personality, intelligence, cognitive functioning, and adaptive functioning to people through the age span and I have to record their anwers verbatim, quickly. I conduct in-depth interviews and have to get the information jotted down. My favorite writing instrument is a 0.7 Pentel mechanical pencil. I have used them since grad school. I am spoiled at work since I am the only person there who uses mechanical pencils, but the Business office person manages to find a State approved procurement source for them.

Husband does exactly the same work I do. He prefers ink pens, preferably a Pentel Energel Needle Tip 0.7. He buys his own at a local office supply store. Our dog prefers either pen or mechanical pencil, since both are so delightfully crunchy when he steals them out of briefcases and off tables and chews them up.

A friend of mine with MS used to see a neuorologist who would dictate his progress notes for each session during each visit simultaneously while he interviewed her. She said it was rather disconcerting to talk to him while he was repeating everything he wanted in the note into a dictaphone. I am sure someone else transcribed the note. We used to dictate our evaluations using dictaphones, and then into voice recognition software when that became available, but at this point we type reports right into the computer into an evaluation template. No wonder Husband got carpal tunnel issues from all his years of typing. I have been lucky in that regard.

What is your favorite writing instrument? What is the first typewriter you ever used? How fast could type in your prime? Ever read your medical chart?

2023, Media, News, Uncategorized

What’s In The News?

22 Comments

I have lived in my current town since 1987. It is a fairly small community in an isolated area, and over the 36 year we have lived here, I have come to know lots of people in town and in the communities in the surrounding region. I can tell where many people live or grew up just by knowing their last names. I also know the family histories of many people here through my work as a mental health professional at a regional human service center. There are scads of large, Roman Catholic families out here, and everyone seems to be related to or connected with everyone else.

One of the first thing I do every day when I get to work is check out the on-line jail roster at the regional correctional center in town. It is updated daily. Our town and the small towns around us have a multicounty facility where anyone in our region who gets arrested is incarcerated. This is partly nosiness as well as important information to have if anyone I am currently working with or a member of their family has got into a spot of trouble with the law. They even have the mugshots and information about the arrests and charges. The facility holds about 50 people. I have recognized as many as six people at one time on the roster.

The next thing I do is to check the websites of the two funeral homes in town to see who died. This is pure nosiness, but in a small community it is important information to know what families are grieving and/or if I have to go to a funeral soon. World affairs often take a back seat to local news in my day to day life. I am considering subscribing on-line to the New York Times just to broaden my news horizons. I already subscribe to their cooking app, so I think I get a discount on the news sections. We have the Rock County Star Herald (Luverne, MN’s paper) and the Bismarck Tribune delivered to the house.

Where do you go to for news? Subscribe to any news sources? Do you have a paper delivered to your house or apartment?

2023, Gatherings, History, Nature, Uncategorized

Refuge

27 Comments

A couple of weeks ago Husband and I went to a barbeque in the Killdeer Mountains. The Killdeer Mountains are about 45 miles north of our town. They are really two mesas formed by wind, and river and lake erosion. The highest point is only 975 feet. There are lots of trees there. It was a sacred place for our native tribes. There also are badlands on three sides. One of the last battles of the Civil War was fought there in 1864, when General Sully fought some Sioux who who the government wanted removed from the Upper Missouri area to protect communication lines to the gold fields in Montana and Idaho. It was also part of punishing any natives for the Dakota War of 1862 whether they had participated in it or not. You can see the remoteness of the area, despite oil drilling activity.

You can see a mesa from the plains that surround it.

A nurse friend of mine and her brother inherited 4000 acres of land in the Killdeer mountains, part of a ranch owned by their great grandfather. We had the barbeque at a lovely, old hunting cabin there, where my nurse friend goes for rest and relaxation. She doesn’t hunt. A neighbor runs cattle on part of the land. The bulk of the 4000 acres has been turned into a nature preserve by my friend and her brother with the help of the Nature Conservancy. There is a mountain lion there as well as elk in the tall spruce and pine trees that grow all over the place. It is peaceful and quiet. We didn’t see the mountain lion, but it was fun to know it was in the area. Some friends brought their bird dogs to the gathering, who had a blast running around and looking for the wildlife. Other friends brought their children, who did the same thing.

Where would you like to have a rustic cabin? What sort of animals would you want in your nature preserve?

home, Mysteries, pets, Seasons

The Single Life….

30 Comments

The last couple of weeks Guinevere and I have repeatedly passed by a house on the parkway with one toddler’s pink shoe sitting on the front post of someone’s house.   It is still in good shape (despite a couple of storms) but it does look a little forlorn.  If YA had lost this shoe as a toddler, I might have re-traced our steps to find it but there are probably several good reasons why the shoe remains all by itself.

It makes me think about the socks that go missing in life.  This time of year I spend more time thinking about socks; winter socks are bigger and harder to mis-placed.  I mostly wear little no-show socks (if I’m wearing shoes) and I often find one of the missing when I fold up my weekly laundry.  I’ve developed a short process when this happens.

As I sort and fold laundry, I tend to shake it out a bit.  If a sock is missing, I may unfold, shake and refold any likely suspects who might be holding onto a sock, especially the fitted sheet.  If that doesn’t turn up the missing footwear, then I head down to the basement to check the dryer and the washing machine.  If I am still single-socked, then I put the lonely sock into a little box that I keep in my closet.  Then when its mate shows up, I put them together and replace them in the sock drawer. 

Eventually I go through the single sock box and get rid of any inmates who have been there for a long long time.  Right now there are four socks in the box and none of them are likely to get paired up again.

How to you deal with lost socks, shoes, gloves?  Do you have a process?  How long to you keep single items before despairing of finding their mates?

2023, animals, Automotive, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Seasons

Summer “Farming”

51 Comments

The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Thankfully theaters are equipped with AC these days.  This week was all about theater.  

I was at the Rochester Repertory Theater Monday and Tuesday evenings finishing lighting and dress rehearsals for ‘I and You’ by Lauren Gunderson. That opened on Thursday with a preview audience on Wednesday so that Wednesday night I was headed to the town of Chatfield, 20 miles South of Rochester to begin lighting ‘Hello Dolly’. I drove down on Monday with my friend Paul to scope out the place since I didn’t work there last summer, and the building had a lot of renovations done. Potter Auditorium, built in 1936, is attached to an elementary school built in 1916. 

The theater was renovated in 2016. The renovation done to the school revealed the original skylights and main beams in a ‘great room’. It removed a lot of steps and ramps and various levels and added more bathrooms and elevators. It’s pretty nice.

I started working in Potter Auditorium in 1986, building the set for ‘Annie’ for $500. My dad and brother helped me carry 40 sheets of 4×8 particle board up from the basement to cover the gym floor (because of course it was a ‘gymnatorium’) and we couldn’t mess up the basketball floor.  

The next year I built the set for ‘Barnum’, and the next year, some kind of original talent show.  

Working in Chatfield always feels like going home. Lots of good memories there. There wasn’t AC until the 2016 renovation. Back in the 80’s, hornets would come in and buzz around on their backs on the floor. I’d walk over and step on them. Good times.  

I recently heard someone mention how, when they were a young kid, their dad talked about hunting and outdoor sports so that’s why they hunt now. And I thought, I got mail order books, and Disney records of Musicals. Mary Poppins, Robin Hood, Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Hmmm.    

I mentioned we had hail last Saturday. I notified crop insurance, and they assigned an adjuster. Haven’t met with him yet.

It knocked some oats out and beat up the corn and soybeans a bit. Left some marks on our cars too.  

The ceiling insulation for the shop was blown in on Wednesday. The ball is back in my court to start working again.  

I started cutting oats on Tuesday. It was so hot the swather wouldn’t run right and it left me walking home twice. And then we got an inch of rain Tuesday night. Because of course now it would rain.

Also Tuesday the electrician buried the new electric line to the shop. He cut the phone line, which I didn’t need to the shop anymore. He also found the phone line from 1968 when we lived in the machine shed while the house was being built.  

And then he found the current electric line to the old shop. The one my dad buried in the 1950’s and the one being replaced. It was 30 feet from where I thought it was. So, he changed course. Oops; found it again. Thinking back; there was a ravine and a tree there, so I guess Dad had to go around the tree. Maybe that’s why it was way over where it shouldn’t have been.  

But this guy is an electrician, and he was able to fix it; no harm, no foul.

Here is Kelly posing with her new Gator.

We like it better than the old one already.  

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE DISNEY MOVIE OR SONG?   PLEASE RESPOND BY SINGING IT.  

2023, animals, Fantasy, home, Medicine, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Mysteries

28 Comments

There have been some strange happenings here in usually dull ND that could be the basis of some interesting mytery or science fiction stories.

The first event was in Fargo. A couple of weeks ago there was a story in the Fargo Forum about a spat between a local hospital system and a medical waste disposal company It seems that a human torso showed up in a bin at the medical waste company, and the company blamed the hospital and the hospital blamed the medical waste company.

https://apnews.com/article/human-remains-medical-waste-fargo-9d5434b46441ec5e03275186a3de2887

No one has indicated the identity of the body, or where the rest of the body is. Hmm.

The second mystery is closer to home, in our driveway. About two weeks ago, Husband found the decapitated, eviscerated corpse of a small cottontail rabbit. The head was lying right by the body. All the entrails were gone. Our dog is never in the front yard. We have no roaming cats or dogs in the neighborhood. Who (or what) could have done this? We live in the middle of town. Hmm.

Come up with some hypotheses for these strange events. Could they be linked?

2023, Business, Food, Health, Movies

Discounted

35 Comments

To make that cauliflower salad I needed hazelnut oil.  Not something I have sitting on my shelf.  And, it turns out, not something that is all that easy to find.  That’s how I ended up at my co-op (well, technically one of my co-ops… I have three different memberships) on a Tuesday morning.  Although I can do errands whenever I want these days, I do find that I still end up with a lot of errands on the weekend.

The cashier at the co-op was a nice young man and when I checked out he very gently asked if anyone in my household was 50 or older.  I laughed, pointed at myself and said “just me”.  Apparently Tuesday is Senior Discount Day at the co-op.  The discount was just enough to offset the ‘round-up’ that I always do when I shop there.  As I was getting back into my car, I laughed a bit to myself thinking that they’ve probably had store-wide sensitivity training about asking folks if they are old enough for the senior discount.  Maybe the “is anyone in your household” question was born there. 

Aging, while not always the most fun I’ve had, isn’t a problem for me on principal.  One of my favorite movie quotes is from People Will Talk with Cary Grant and Jeanne Crain.  He plays a doctor and one of his elderly patients laments that it’s no fun to get old.  Cary Grand replies “It’s even less fun if you don’t get to be old.”  

The first time I got the senior discount was when I was 50, at a miniature golf course in Hayward, Wisconsin.  It was listed on the price board and I asked for it.  The second time was at Perkins when I turned 55.  After that, I went home and sent my mother a sympathy card for having a daughter old enough to get the senior discount.

So the cashier didn’t need to pussyfoot around me about a senior discount.  I’ll take any discount that anyone if willing to give me for having survived this long!

Do you get any kind of discounts?

2023, Food, Nature, Travel

The Cauliflower That Ate New York

25 Comments

I didn’t mean to come home from Madison with a cauliflower the size of my head.

But there it was – gloriously purple and calling to me.  Never mind that I know full well that YA is going to be gone for two weeks.  Never mind that we still had the entire capitol to walk around with this monster in my bag.  Never mind that I only brought my smaller cooler for dragging stuff home and I had already bought 4 loaves of Stella’s Chili Cheese Bread.  I had to have it.

It’s ways too big for just one recipe of anything (I put the can of water next to it for the photo so you can see how big it is).  The first thing I’m making is Savory Cauliflower Salad from Twelves Months of Monastery Salads by Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette.

SaladVinaigrette
1 good-sized head cauliflower, cut into florets¼ c. olive oil
3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled, coarsely chopped3 Tbsp. hazelnut oil
2 shallots, finely chopped3 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
2 Tbsp. capers, drained1 tsp. Dijon mustard
 1 tsp. chopped fresh or dried tarragon
 Salt & pepper to taste
  1. To make the salad, put the florets in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water, cover, and steam until tender, 15-20 minutes, o cook in a large saucepan of boiling salted water for about 5 minutes.  Drain and allow them to cool.

2. Put the cauliflower in a good-sized salad bowl and add the eggs, shallots and capers.  Toss gently to combine.

3. Whisk the vinaigrette ingredients together in a measuring cup or small bowl until thickened.  Pour over the salad and toss gently to coat evenly.

Not sure what I’ll do with the other half of this giant.  Maybe a Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower.  Maybe a soup.

What was your last impulsive purchase/acquisition?

2023, Automotive, books, Fantasy, Food, Kids, Travel

Road Trip

17 Comments

When I was packing for a long weekend in Madison, I noticed Henrietta watching me from her spot on my little dresser.  Since Henrietta was a gift from my Madison friend, I thought I would take her along.  She seemed excited to be on the move.

It was overall a very lazy and relaxing weekend – we spent a lot of time sitting and reading but we did have a few outings so Henrietta could get some fresh air!

We did the farmer’s market at the capital.  Henrietta enjoyed meeting some of the vendors and smelling all the good smells.  We stopped at the library to pick up a couple of books and then had to have ice cream from Sassy Cow, a great creamery close to my friend’s house.  Henrietta met two little girls there who petted and hugged her.

My friend is seriously considering buying a Tesla so we had a loaner for the weekend.  Henrietta enjoyed the view but didn’t get to drive because she couldn’t reach the pedals.  We drove up to Lake Merrimac and took the ferry across and back.  Henrietta appointed herself “authorized personnel” but since the ferry ride is only four minutes, she didn’t get to flex that authority!

All in all a great trip although Henrietta is not a great conversationalist so the drive to and from Madison was a little quiet!

Who do you like to travel with?

2023, animals, Business, Family, Food, home

Adieu to the Milk Man

32 Comments

This weekend, for the first time in 25 years, I’m going to have to go pick up milk at the grocery store and lug it home.  YA and I (well, it was mostly “I”) made the decision this week to discontinue our dairy delivery service. 

The combination of YA and I doing a little less dairy these days along with the reduction of items available from our dairy guy (thanks SO MUCH Kemps… she says with her voice dripping with sarcasm), it just isn’t worth it.  I find myself adding things to the order form that we don’t really need because I feel guilty not having as big an order as we used to have.  This is how I ended up with six rolls of cinnamon rolls in my fridge and four bags of tortilla chips in the cabinet.

It’s going to feel weird to not put the cooler and order form out on Wednesday night (my guy delivers to our house at 3 a.m.) but I’m looking forward to not having to get up at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning to get everything out of the cooler and into the fridge.  We’ll see how long before this wears off as I’m dragging cartons of milk home!

How much does a cow have to eat and drink to produce my gallon of milk every week?