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I was looking forward to the Firemen’s Barbecue, an annual event that brings people together from near and far. Brice sees one man who graduated a few years ahead of him, but looks younger! He always introduces himself to me; he doesn’t need to, I’d recognize him anywhere! I see people at the Firemen’s Barbecue once a year. They remember me, and I remember them, but not always their names. A more informed person fills in the blanks. I was to be at the table selling VFW Aux. quilt raffle tickets, but I was late. I travel in a...
Hello, By the time you read this, the eclipse will have passed. Hopefully you did not stare at the sun for two and a half hours so you can still read. They are issuing warnings to not stare directly into the sun or it can damage your eyes. Really. They have to tell people not to stare into the sun or it will hurt your eyes. Some people are making a killing on this. They are selling sunglasses for dogs. Sun glasses for dogs! I know my dog isn’t very smart at all. He will chase birds that he will never catch. He will try to d...
Hello, We did it again. I mean we went to the Bike Rally in South Dakota. You may remember, years ago, when Shirley and I took the Honda Super 90 to the rally. We didn’t make it all the way. Shirley’s sweat pants got tangled up in the chain going down the hill to the Lost Bridge. Probably was just as well. And then one time we went through Sturgis on the way to a rodeo when we had the grand kids along. I think that was the time we were sitting at a light in Sturgis and a motorcycle pulled up alongside us. The motorcycle mam...
I had to do a lot of chores when I was a kid and teenager in Ekalaka. Despite that, my favorite thing to do was to explore the hills and forest behind and around our home. Sometimes I went with other boys from town and sometimes I even went alone. It was believed then, that at the age of ten a boy could have a .22 rifle, usually a single shot, and I had one at that age. I saved up my money until we could send away for it in the catalog, Sears, I guess. It was a Stevens as I recall. I usually took it with me. Gun safety was in...
We have been gone to Idaho to visit our daughter Arlene and family, so there no articles. I want to (must) share a couple of experiences that I had on the way to Twin Falls and my time there. On the journey there, we stopped in Idaho Falls, Idaho to take a break and to put drops in Phyl’s eyes. The restaurant is just off the interstate and we had eaten breakfast there a couple of times. We ordered and the waitress served our small order. She returned shortly to give more coffee and said to us “I see by your license plates tha...
My husband had just edited my Bright Idea for August 11 and sent it to the Eagle when a flock of grackles descended on our front yard and began pecking. We knew it would be only minutes before they moved to our heavily fruited Harrelson apple tree. The apples aren’t ready to pick until late September, but already show red on a side, especially apples on top, exposed to more sun. They’re also the largest, especially if only single apples cling to a branch. These birds were on apples everywhere on the tree. Our small Fro...
Hello, This is a column that is kind of like the Seinfeld show. A column about nothing. Or it could be considered a column about everything. This has been a tough year because of the drought. Hay was hard to find. I stooped to cutting kochia weeds in the old city lagoon. Now kochia is a big, bushy green weed that thrives in adverse conditions. It is the kind of week that helped livestock survive the thirties. But one of the problems is it can be high in nitrates. And that can be fatal to cattle. I was telling a friend about...
After fencing, putting a pickup load of sterilized beef manure on the garden, marking new rows, tilling, and eventually planting, we waited for green plants to shoot up. We waited, and waited. Volunteer lettuce was first up and first garden crop we harvested. The green and yellow beans came up; they have big leaves and looked impressive. The corn came up. It’s short and already has ears; we just hope they fill out. We didn’t have anything to put in our salads then, so we started using sliced water chestnuts. When we had radis...
Last week I couldn’t remember if I’d sent the Eagle a Bright Idea! If I had, my computer didn’t show it; if I didn’t I was busy trying to write a caption for the VFW Auxiliary raffle quilt. I didn’t do a very good job, trying to beat a deadline. I should do better in the Aux. ad. Memory is the first sign of dementia; could that be beginning? Medicines I take could lead to that, experts tell me. Replacement medicines are recommended. I’ll see what our PAs, or my pharmacist says. Todd would know. MS itself could lead to dem...
Hello, It’s been a long time since we had a rain. A real rain. One that sat in and rained for three or four days. Just a drizzle. Where you sat at the coffee table and looked out the window at the grass growing. Or you swept and cleaned the shop and the tack room because it was too wet to even get out to the road. Or you had the kids go to the shop and straighten nails. A rain where you could take a spade and go down to the horse pens and dig little ditches that drained out the corner of the pen and found its way to the c...
Hello, You know just when you thought there was nothing left in the world to write about, up jumps an idea. It happened to me while watching the Olympics. I know, I know. I’ve written about the Olympics before. Remember when Shirley and I did the ice skating routine to “Achy Breaky Heart”? In our overshoes and Carharts on the stock dam. Shirley never did fully recover from that. But that was the Winter Olympics. This was summer! Swimming. Maybe Shirley and I could do the synchronized swimming. She insisted I start out alone...
One thing I hear frequently as a nurse when visiting with patients is, “I’m going to talk to my doctor about getting off of some of these medications!” Well… okay, but (1) Why do you want to stop medications if they are controlling your chronic health condition? And (2) What lifestyle changes have you made in order to convince your Primary Healthcare Provider (PCP) to discontinue or stop a medication? This really starts with you! No PCP is just going to say, “Okay, yeah, let’s just stop that medication which is controlling...
Snake season is here. Not a hunting season, but a season to admire Montana's snakes for what they are: a vital cog in the natural world that serves an important purpose even if some of us suffer the heebie-jeebies at the mere thought of a snake. Last week while out for a morning jog, I passed a gopher snake (our subspecies is the bullsnake) lying motionless and camouflaged on a bed of gravel next to the trail. No telling how many people walked or ran by the reptile without...
Hello, It is turning into a long, hot summer. I mean it is really hot. We’ve had several days well over one hundred degrees. Measurable rain is non-existent. The hay crop and small grain crops have been decimated. Many ranchers are selling off a huge part of their herds. Others are contemplating what to do. Should you sell off now or wait for fall? The pastures are going to be in tough shape for next spring. What if I buy hay, or send my cows away, and the rains don’t come this fall or next spring? And I have nowhere to go....
I have written about our need for a fence to keep the deer out. Many “urban" Ekalaka gardeners face the same problem, and even some fences don’t work. We’ll have ours tested, I’m sure. The body of the fence had been in place over a month, maybe closer to two months. One deer meandered in one 10’ space where a gate would be placed, munching on one potato plant, while making its way out the other gate opening. Brice saw its footprints. That may have worked once, but as of July 10, it will no longer work without an 82” leap,...
June is historically our rainiest month. So, where was the rain? What does this mean, if anything? Is this an effect of global warming? Is it just another dry period like we have experienced before? How many months or years will we be dry? Will summer or fall showers replace the current lack of precipitation? On our way home from Miles City, June 28, we drove through two heavy showers that could have totaled half an inch. When we got home, Brice checked the rain gauge, and it was just a trace. That’s a lot of question m...
When I read in the Eagle about our Ekalaka school lunch system getting an award from the state it reminded me of my experiences with Ekalaka school lunches. Congratulations to all of the workers and to Eric’s mother who heads it up. We didn’t always have what we called hot lunches during my time in grade school in Ekalaka. They kind of came and went according to the money available. We never had anything like that during my high school days. I really don’t remember whether we had to pay for them but I suppose that we did....
Hello, If you haven’t noticed, there is a severe drought taking place across much of the Dakotas. It extends into Montana as far west as Miles City. Maybe further now. I haven’t been to Wyoming. But I just figure it is always dry there. You see people haying some pretty poor stuff. Road ditches that make a bale or two to the mile. Side hills that normally are left alone. Crops that are too poor to combine but may make a bale an acre. Hay is scarce. In North Dakota we have only two seasons. “Putting up hay season” and “feedin...
Hello, This is the time of the year for outdoor cooking. I don’t care if you are going to the lake, a rodeo, or just an evening at home. A lot of people will pack a grill and groceries when they go on vacation. They will go on vacation and cook! I guess the women in our family are a bit different. Carm said if they go on vacation she is ordering out. She is not going on vacation to cook. The last time they went on a 4-H trip all the other families brought grills and salads. She brought pop tarts and licorice. Shirley was like...
I will have at least one more article on Bob and Grace Renshaw. I last wrote about how Bob had left the homestead, been elected Clerk and Recorder, rented the Lane property, and eventually moved to their permanent home in Ekalaka in 1931. Like most of us, he reports that they paid “monthly installments.” I remember, especially as a grade schooler, what a beautiful yard and home they had. There was always lots of work for the new clerk and recorder and he named the following people who helped him in his office: Eddie Syk...
I have written my story about fish and seafood being my favorite protein. That is a bold statement to make in beef country, but people used to feel sorry for me, so I could get away with it. I’ll see if that still works. My mother loved to fish and bring the catch to the house. We had catfish and bass, never trout, and they were delicious. I remember one particular time when Mom’s relatives were visiting: her parents, Aunt Betty, Uncle Merle, and infant daughter, Melanie. I didn’t know anything about babies, but they left...
Hello, Haying season gets kind of hectic. First, you have to be smarter than the hay. You have to know when it is too wet. You have to know when it is too dry. You have to know when the leafy spurge is hiding in the alfalfa and grass so you can cut around it. You have to know where the hen pheasant has her nest or chicks hidden. It is important to keep them alive so someone else can kill them in the fall. I never have really figured that out. In order to do all of these things right, you sometimes are forced to bale at...
I don’t know how I ate as an infant or small child. My weight was over eight pounds at birth. My father’s weight had been over nine pounds; it was genetic. Katie’s weight was also over eight pounds. From birth through the year I turned eight, my family would drive to the Dairy Queen on summer Saturday nights and order. When I was a baby, they bought me an ice cream cone and my dad had a malt. Mom didn’t have anything; she claimed not to have a “sweet tooth.” My folks didn’t know a baby can’t digest or use ice cream. Anyway, m...
Yay!!! Summer is finally here!!! Alright, I know it’s felt like summer for the past month, but now that it’s officially here, I’m going to talk about skin cancer and SUNSCREEN! The primary use of sunscreen is to prevent skin cancer. However, using sunscreen is NOT just a summer time thing. You can even get skin damage on a cloudy day; that’s because the Ultraviolet (UV) rays of the sun are what cause skin damage, and clouds don’t block UV rays. Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer. Every year in the United States, n...
I don’t usually write articles about recent deaths, but I hope you don’t object to my words. The first recent death was Gary Brower. He was welcomed to the Beaver Lodge Cemetery Board about the time I resigned. He quickly became president and made important changes to the cemetery, and at the same time or soon after began cleaning, removing and remodeling one old home in our neighborhood. With help from his wife, Birgit, the couple changed their old home and worked together on the finishing touches in our neighborhood. Oth...
