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I have just completed a three week medically imposed restriction from my wheelchair and days in my bed. I had two problems: A return of jaw pain and an open pressure sore on my bottom. Let’s tackle the jaw pain first. I had slowly been reducing pain medicine since the May 11 radiological treatment of jaw pain. One pain reliever requires abstinence from alcohol. In my case, that means wine. The last Monday of every month during the school year is book club where conversations about books are accompanied with snacks and w...
Hello, Sometimes things are much more difficult than they appear on TV. I don’t care if you are solving crimes, cleaning the oven, curing a cold, dieting or anything else. Take a suicide for instance. Now, on TV, if you want to commit suicide, it is a relatively simple deal. Grab a hose, put it over your exhaust pipe, in the window, and bam! Now, I’m not encouraging suicide. It’s the hose part that bothers me. How can this person find a hose that easy in an apartment in a city? One time we had a water tank froze up for about...
Hello, Those of you that have been following this column over the years know this is one of my favorite times of the year. It’s fair time! Now I don’t get too excited for the State Fair in Minot. Oh, fifty or sixty years ago I would. I loved the rides. I loved the livestock barns. I loved the food and the crowds. As I’ve aged, I started to hate the crowds. I got sick on the rides. I hated waiting in line for cotton candy or a pig on a stick. We were providing livestock for the rodeo there and it was too hot and too conge...
Here's nothing new: It's been hot recently. How hot? So hot, I saw a dog chasing a cat and they were both walking. So hot I'm being forced to use passive verbs. Okay, for those who suffer from the heat, extreme temperatures are no joke. However, maybe nature can teach us a few tricks to cope. In late summer, prairie amphibians, like the Great Plains toad are underground, waiting out the heat wave. All amphibians begin their lives in water, developing from eggs to swimming...
A few years ago Nelson stole a colt. Nelson was our mule. He’s a small mule. Like a Shetland pony. We’d had him about twenty years. I thought he was a mule colt when I bought him. I don’t know a lot about mules. He wasn’t a colt. He was a small mule. A kicking mule. We named him after the kicker for the Vikings. For twenty years Nelson has guarded the bucking mares. He kept coyotes, wolves, bear and gypsies away from the mares. He fought wild stallions, goblins and werewolves. And he always followed the pickup when you wan...
The next set of legal tips for you will be a four-part series of articles dedicated to providing the community with information regarding specific estate planning documents, forms, and what to do with the information. This article provides you with basic information regarding Wills. PART I: THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING A WILL What Is A Will? A Will is a legal document that allows you to designate who you want to receive your property upon your death. If you die without a Will, State statutes will control the distribution of your...
Hello, Farming and ranching has lots of challenges. And I’m not real good at challenges. Many of those challenges involve repairing equipment. This is something I’m really bad at. That is worse than being “not real good at”. So you would think that I would take something into the implement dealer or the pickup dealer if I have a problem. You would think so. But you are wrong. You see, they charge about $10,000 per hour to work on your pickup, tractor, or baler. You have to improvise. Shirley says that no one will ever st...
One of the things that I enjoyed the most while growing up and going to school in Ekalaka was engaging in snowball fights. New snow did not hold together well enough to make a snowball so you had to wait for awhile. Of course, you couldn't walk on new snow either, but had to wait until it hardened. Once when I was very young, probably 8 or so, I went over to Mr. Taylor’s house to do his chores. It was April 6th, Easter Sunday, and it had snowed up to my upper chest the night before so I had to make my way through this new s...
Depression is a common but serious mood disorder. It affects over 19 million teens and adults in the United States! Depression can cause severe symptoms that affect how you think, feel, and handle daily activities. However, depression and other mental health illnesses often have a negative stigma attached to them. Those with mental health illnesses are often afraid to talk to others about their illness because they fear you may view them differently, be afraid of them, or distance yourself from them. This can lead people...
Hello, It’s been awhile since I’ve been to the dentist. On my phone, I keep getting a message that it is time for my next appointment. I will get to it, but I have to finish haying first. And I also keep getting a message that it is time for my eye appointment. Again, haying comes first. But I promise, when the last of the hay is baled, I will honor these calls. I have a good dentist. He has TVs in the ceiling, so when you tip your chair back, you can watch the news, sports or cartoons that you like. That is cool. Not tha...
Hello, Do you remember that Don Williams song that has a line in it, “I love sleep without dreams?” Or wait; maybe it was Tom T. Hall. I’m not much into remembering songs or musicians. But I did play the trumpet for a number of years. Was pretty good, except for the high notes; I wasn’t a Louie Armstrong. What made me think of this were dreams. And stories. I’ve always been kind of a storyteller. When Will was growing up, at bedtime I would tell him and Alfred bedtime stories. They usually were stories about my war heroics....
In this article, I am going to deviate from my memories of those special neighbors to my graduating Class of 1948. The Days of ‘85 are coming up and a few class members wondered if we could “get together” some way during that time. Some thoughts and arrangements were made to accomplish this. Of the 34 that graduated, I believe that 17 are still alive, though scattered. Every graduating class is unique, but I feel this class was unique in at least two ways. First, there were six Gundlachs, three Waterlands, two Schwe...
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” — Emma Lazarus These words were written in 1883 by 34-year-old Emma Lazarus. She only lived until 1887, 38 years, but she managed to write volumes of poetry and attract the attention of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Her words appear on the base of the Statue of Liberty, the destination immigrants from Europe, including Irela...
Hello, I started haying on June 2. That is a long time ago. But, thankfully, we had a few stretches where it was rainy and couldn’t hay, but the past couple weeks we’ve been going pretty steady. So when we had a chance to take an afternoon off and go help friends celebrate 50 years of marriage, we took off. Shirley said it was too wet to bale. I remember going to my folks’ 50th anniversary party. I marveled at how they could still dance! My gosh! 50 years of marriage and they could still dance! As Shirley and I are getti...
We always had a carnival come to town, usually in the middle of the summer, during the early days in Ekalaka. Everyone looked forward to it and enjoyed themselves thoroughly when it came. Of course there were the carnival rides, I don't believe that we had tilt-a-whirls and things like that in Ekalaka, but we had the Ferris wheel and of course the merry-go-round. My experience with the merry-go-round came very early, at probably age 3. I wanted to go on and Mother put me on, only to have to rescue me when I cried. Later, I...
Those are the first words of a song from the movie “Cabaret,” starring Liza Minnelli. The song goes on to say, “Money makes the world go around.” I must have believed that. Never having any excess money, I bought two Powerball lottery tickets every week. I had selected numbers for tickets, based on Ekalaka’s zip code. I wanted to pave Ekalaka’s streets. I had not thought that problem through. I would need much more than the paving cost to cover maintenance and repair. And costs would go on and on. What is the town’s tota...
Hello, I really don’t care for a lot of things that happen on the Fourth of July - I used to. I used to like fireworks, but as I’ve aged, they have lost a lot of their bang. And when you have horses and dogs near a city, it is stressful because cities will announce, “No fireworks inside city limits.” So, that means celebrators drive a mile or two out of town and set them off by our pasture. I used to like parades, but as I’ve aged, parades don’t carry the same appeal they used to. When a five-year-old kid can beat me to...
My article didn’t get written in time to be included in the 4th of July holiday paper. My husband explains his refusal to hurry, saying he had rushed to beat deadlines for nearly 30 years. He refuses to do that in retirement. Well, that is his reason; I just didn’t nail down my choice of subject until too late to beat the deadline. My final choice of subject was the shooting of journalists at a Maryland newspaper. Carter County folks probably carry more guns than Maryland residents. But we were taught as children not to poi...
Hello, You haven’t seen me around lately. No, this isn’t a repeat of last week’s column. Although I have been known to do that. The reason for my disappearance this week is hay. Now, I know hay is not real exciting. Hay is not real funny. Hay is not interesting. There is not much you can say about hay. But, as in the Forrest Gump movie, when Bubba is talking about shrimp; there is alfalfa hay, CRP hay, slough hay, prairie hay, wet hay, dry hay, haylage, timothy hay… I have to tell you a little about haying. Fresh cut hay sme...
Hello, We lost a neighbor this week. A cowboy. A one in a million kind of guy. Bob Christophersen. In the Dakotas, you don’t have to live down the street or across the fence to be a neighbor. As Garrison Keillor once said, “North Dakota is really just a mid-size town with real long streets.” So when we lose someone we’ve known and loved, it hurts. One of the weekly news shows on Sunday mornings always closes with a segment aptly named “A Life Well-Lived.” That show could be about Bob. Bob was a cowboy. A Hall of Fame cowboy...
If this Universe has a Creator, she must have been having a good day when she created birds. They are colorful and dull, helpful and ruinous. They eat bird seed, harmful insects, even our garbage. They will also ruin your clean car and carry off your cat at night. They nest in trees, on the ground and even underground. Yes, even underground. A friend called a couple of years ago excited that a pair of burrowing owls had taken up residence in an abandoned gopher hole on her...
We had quite a discussion on Facebook awhile back about my grandma, Lena Coon’s, blindness, so let me tell all of you the story about this and other things. My grandparents, Lena and Fred Coons, homesteaded near Belltower around 1910. My mother Mildred was born in Malvern, Iowa in January 1910 and moved to Belltower as a very young baby. Maybe Grandma had sight problems before this, but as far as I know it started in the late ‘30s or very early ‘40s when my uncle Chet Coon ran into a fence with their International picku...
My hometown had some 8,000 residents, situated midway between Kansas City and St. Louis, on the Missouri River. James A. Michener mentioned the town without using its name in the book “Centennial.” By Missouri standards, we were a small town. A reformatory for boys, ages 10-18, was located on the edge of town, complete with a dairy. Every 4th of July they put on a free fireworks display. When we lived in town, my dad would drive the car to the prescribed parking lot and we’d settle in for the evening. Mom always made lots...
Hello, I think maybe the rain we had over the weekend was one for the books. It’s not many times in your life when we get a June rain like this. Most reports are from one to three inches. And it came straight down! Here, in the Dakotas, rain and snow don’t often come straight down. I know I’ve told you of wet roundups before, but dang, it’s hard not think of them when you get a rain like this. Once the roundup had started you went every day. Kind of like the postman. “Neither rain nor sleet nor hail,” you know. Only lack o...
Years ago, when I lived in Billings, I’d walk to the bus stop downtown and get on the bus headed to Rimrock Mall. I just had to be careful not to buy more than I could carry. Not many people were on the bus; just mentally and physically handicapped youngsters headed for their jobs at the handicapped workshop. There was plenty of room for me. Later I’d catch the bus headed back downtown, making sure not to miss the last bus. We had a friend who didn’t own a car. A divorced mother of four with an ex-husband who only spora...
