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7/2/08 Summer is in full swing. Management gave me the task of
taking Alyssa into Warroad Tuesday night last for the first “Annie” practice.
While the music director took the orphans through their songs, I escaped to The
Point and stopped at the new Trading Post. Since I’d heard that a Warroad
Custom is having an ice cream cone at the Trading Post, I decided that was the
thing to do. A waffle cone filled with ice cream tagged with three names, I
forgot the other two but the middle name was It looks like the mayor might want to consider taking some
ballroom dance classes; Ed Bradley was cutting up the floor pretty good with
Loralee. Norbert and Jean Bragg were down from their undisclosed location in John Michael said that wife Denise had cranked his arm
pretty good to get him to barbeque the hamburgers and brats for the event. He
didn’t have any bruises and neither did Gerry Hitner who made the same claim so
party organizer Denise must have kept her powers of persuasion within reason.
Jody Cole, Tammy Cole and Kim Calder made for an attractive set of servers.
Rumor is that they were also responsible for the original idea for the party.
Each blames the other and further investigation appears to be a blind alley so
unless any new leads surface, we’ll leave it at that. A great week in 7/9/08 It is very interesting to see what difference three days
makes. We went to lower Before we left Thursday night, I went over to Trapper’s to check in. Trapper was just coming out of the shower. Yes, he does shower sometimes. He sat down at the table and mentioned that he’d raked and baled up 85 round bales that day. A good reason that I try to keep my mouth shut (with marginal success) when he talks farming. Back on my little Hill City swamp farm, I’d start haying sometime around the 4th of July and around the first of September I’d hit a hundred bales if I was lucky. I had several fields rented, mostly small, odd shaped spots surrounded by forest. By the first of November I’d be, say, maybe at the 200 mark, again, if I was lucky. Trapper’s operation is quite different than I’m used to. I’m delegated to using Skiddy to smooth the driveway. The garden is progressing. Trapper lent me his tiller and, after rebuilding the carb a couple of times, it actually runs pretty good. To say the carb was a little gummed up is an understatement. He said he’d just used it last year, but then he thinks the tornado was last year, too. Or maybe it was the flood… Tilling eliminated the weeds between the rows. I’m gradually pulling the weeds between the plants as soon as I can figure out the difference, it’s tough sometimes. The transplanted plants from Honker Flats are taking pretty well even though they haven’t gotten the attention they deserve. I’ll have to go there a little earlier next year. Management and Alyssa both got parts in “Annie” so the Buick is burning up the road between Roseen’s Corner and Warroad almost nightly. The Library provided us a video of the play so all the little girls are singing the songs. It’s some good music so I’m looking forward to seeing the play for more than two reasons. Old Timer Orlin Ostby is now well into his trek down the
Pembina Trail. While the modern technology of computers and cell phones haven’t
been reliable for him, the old technology of an ox and a cart are moving down
the trail. Orlin’s cell phone did work well enough for a three minute
conversation, I found out Tuesday morning that he was just west of One of our family traditions is to run in the 4th
of July 5 K race in See you next week! I was sitting in the cafeteria at the Blue Star last week talking to Rick (Bobcat) Olson. We call him Bobcat because he manages every year to bring in as many bobcats as the rest of the trappers in the area combined, no mean feat. Anyway, he was showing around pictures of his deer plot. One picture was of his dad Emil blitzing the plot with his tractor, getting it ready to seed. I know that some might say that using a 2470 Case with duals on 3 acres is a bit underpowered, but, as ‘ol Bobcat says, “Ya use what ya got in the yard!” For some reason, he wouldn’t tell us just exactly where this plot was… I figured more wet weather was coming. I know I haven’t lived here as long as most of the rest of you, but last year, right after the army of swathers started attacking the bluegrass fields, the monsoons hit. This year is no different. Almost as if on cue, soon after the bluegrass massacre started last week, the rains came again. Trapper wasn’t happy, he doesn’t have any bluegrass but his haying operation is pretty much on stall. He is able to move bales off some of the fields, very carefully, one by one. Trapper invited me along on a road trip Saturday morning to survey storm damage. I was at work and hadn’t known about the storm with severe winds that went through on Friday at 5 PM. Trapper said, “We’ll just go ‘round half a block.” I didn’t know that in Falun, “going ‘round half a block” means an 18 mile road trip. He had an ulterior motive, as usual. We did see some fallen trees, but the one stop of the trip was to survey one of LaRae’s weedless gardens. Not only was it immaculately kept, the potatoes were nearly as tall as my corn. I guess Trapper, after seeing my weed challenged garden, figured I needed to see how it was done. Since we are talking about gardens, I guess I’d better give you an update on my little plot. It has actually produced something: lambsquarters. Yes, we’ve had three meals of the weeds from the garden, also some small radishes and broccoli. I can’t take much credit for the broccoli, it had started heading out while in the greenhouse at Honker Flats. The local deer also like the broccoli, haven’t decided what to do about that yet… Trapper stopped by the other morning with a box of strawberries from one of the local strawberry farms. Some of them were almost as big as crabapples. He’s talking about a trip to Beltrami for blueberries. He tells us that when picking blueberries up in Beltrami, one must perfect this move: pick 3 blueberries, eat one, throw 2 in the pail and swat a mosquito, all in one motion. Kinda the same thing I do at dusk in the garden when picking lambsquarters except for the eating part. Management shooed the little girls and I out of the house Saturday about noon and we escaped to Fertile, MN. I’d never been to Fertile, MN. Orlin Ostby is traveling the Pembina Trail and said he’d stop with Pum in Fertile over the weekend. When we got to Fertile, we discovered that the Polk County Fair was in progress. Figuring that was where they would be, we tracked them down and found that the monster Ox was a huge hit. Orlin’s son Christopher was having a good time lifting the kids up to sit on Pum’s back, probably because some of the “kids” were very cute teen-aged girls. On Sunday morning, Management and I decided to take the girls to the Assembly of God Church just west of Warroad. It is a nice little church with friendly people. Praise leader and fill-in pastor Jessie Behm gave a good sermon about appreciating the small miracles that often occur to us. After church, we stopped at Doug’s and Management bought
some bread and sandwich meat for a picnic at the Point. The little girls really
love that place, another session of stress testing the playground equipment.
The 30-some mph winds were keeping most of the boats off the lake although I
did see a couple of them carefully navigating the whitecaps. Later in the day, Management, the girls and I watched “Murder Once Removed” at the mini-theatre. I almost thought a couple of celebrities had come to town. The male lead, Robert Baril, could almost have doubled as our governor, Tim Pawlenty. The female lead, Kelly Schaible, has more than a passing resemblance to Valerie Bertinelli. The play was done well. Go and watch it; you shouldn’t be disappointed. The Eagles are at it again. This time they had a benefit going on at the Golf Course for Cyndi Pearson. The little girls and Isopped by Sunday afternoon and it looked like lots of people were there for the food and silent auction. I bought a raffle ticket for the old Explorer they were giving away, still waiting for the phone call telling me I won it… See you next week! A few weeks ago, neighbor Allan Kukowski hooked up Snip and
Snap, his giant Percherons, to his covered wagon and brought it over to
Trapper’s house. The occasion was a visit by Theodore and Lucille John
from David Johnson had brought them out for the evening ride. A thundershower made the 2 mile ride more than a little interesting. Allan and the horses had to contend with the downpour, but the cover on the wagon afforded a sort of protection for the rest of us. We didn’t get too wet and the mixture of thunderclouds and blue sky was ruggedly beautiful as the horses stepped smartly along through the raindrops. I think that all involved enjoyed the ride, but then I didn’t ask Snip and Snap. After the ride, it was coffee and cobbler courtesy of Trapper’s Missus. Last Saturday morning, it was another “round a half block” trip with Trapper. We started out to visit Kirby the logger north of Salol but he’d evidently heard we were on the loose and left before we got there. Since we were in the area, we trekked over to visit Duane Comstock. A visit with Duane is always interesting. Partway through our visit, Duane looked at me and asked, “Do you still live next to this guy?” He nodded his head towards Trapper. Falling for the gamut, I said, “Yeah, I live in his yard.” Duane shook his head sadly. He said, “I keep some sympathy cards here. Give me a minute and I’ll write one out for you. I’ll give it to you right now to save the 42 cents it’ll cost to mail it. You really need it, having to live right next to him!” After that education on the art of putdown from the master, we made our way over to Vollville. I know it’s a real place, it’s on a sign in Henry Voll’s yard. Though I’d heard about Henry, it was my first time meeting him. Henry is a school bus driver. Most bus drivers that started driving 55 years ago are former bus drivers but Henry is still driving. He and wife Loretta were preparing to leave for the all school reunion at Salol. Henry was obviously happy for the opportunity he would have see former riders he hadn’t seen for years. Management took the little girls to My sister directs the variety show held on the banks of the Gary Johnson stopped by one morning this week for coffee, and after hearing about Trapper’s performance and seeing the pictures I took, was wondering out loud if Willie Nelson had to be worried about Trapper taking over his spot. I’m of the opinion…no, I think I’ll leave that one be. By the way, congratulations to Gary and IdaMae for being
finalists for the I’m planning on taking my old John Deere A to the
tractor pull at the Roseau County Fair. I’ve done some tractor pulling in my
long ago past and hope to remember some of the finer points before I hit the
track. My preparations are simple: make sure it starts and runs. It hadn’t done
anything for a couple of years so when I started it up this spring, it didn’t
run too well. I think I’ve figured out which carb jet does what and after some
careful adjustment it runs better than it did. Still lopes a bit at idle so
I’ll just tell anyone that asks that I’m running a hot cam in it. That
explanation worked when I had a stock car so why shouldn’t it work with a John
Deere? I took daughter Alyssa to Church Night at the Roseau County Fair on Sunday night. It was a very nice service. The Zion Worship Band did a good job on the musical part of it. While some of the music may have been different than some are used to, it was still Top Shelf Stuff. Some people are very versatile. David Landby was running the sound board for the Broderna Truck concert the last time I saw him; he’d swapped that for a bass guitar for the fair service. The skits about how we err as Christians were good. Thanks to all involved in this endeavor. See you next week! One thing about getting older is that the memory seems
to be getting a little bit faulty. I’ve seen and done so many things this last
week that I figured I’d have plenty of material for this column. I distinctly
remember telling several people, “that’ll make the paper”. Now that I’m sitting
at the keyboard and the deadline is staring me in the face, I simply can’t
remember a thing.
Abby is a jumper. She also is enthusiastic about
greeting people once she’s barked at them. When Uff-Da, sitting on Bob’s lap,
poked her head over the side of “The Judge”, Abby barked at her, then ran toward
the car for the second part of her repertoire, a friendly jump. About this time,
Bob got a helpless look on his face and yelled something at Abby. I yelled
something at Abby and made an uncharacteristically quick lunge at her and
grabbed her collar as she jumped at the door of the car.
Fortunately, there was a sign on the door where her paw
grazed it. Loralee said that Bob is still recovering, but OK. If you see him,
you might want to tell him I’m sorry, I’m not sure if he’s ready to talk to me
yet. The people in the parade were sure friendly. I was
standing taking pictures and the participants were looking my way, smiling and
saying “hi”. The funny thing was, their eyes seemed to be focused beyond me. I
was standing near Uff-Da, I don’t think that had anything to do with
it… Made a bunch of money by going to the tractor pull. It
cost $10 to register and they sent me a $15 check because they said I took first
place in my class. Let’s see, after paying for gas, that’s…oh, maybe I’d better
try that again, only different. I grossed $15 by taking my Slant-dash A to the
tractor pull. That sounds lots better. The Fish Fest on Saturday between Riverside Bait and the
The competition appeared to be intense for the event. I
tried to take lots of pictures. At one booth, the guys were so intense on
cooking and serving their secret recipe walleye, I never did see their eyes,
just a couple of hat brims. That wasn’t the case down where the 4-Wheelin’ Girls
Rock team was dishing up Cajun Walleye. I couldn’t really taste the walleye;
their camo-pink t-shirts were so bright my taste buds were affected. I gave them
my vote for their enthusiasm. They were just plain having good, clean Warroad
fun. I rate events by how long it takes the Little Girls to
come and ask me when it’s time to go. At this one, I had to look them up and pry
them away from the games, fish and free Root Beer Floats.
I saw Julie Jones at the Fish Fest and begged to watch a
dress rehearsal of “Jungle Book” so I could wedge the pseudo-review into this
week’s “Pioneer”. She assented, so Katelyn, Valeri and I were at the
mini-theatre on Sunday to peruse the play. Lots of kids have a great opportunity
to experience the stage side of theatre with the Popcorn Players.
You can read the pseudo-review elsewhere in the
newspaper. While I was heading home after the rehearsal, I was thinking,
dangerous, I know. I think I’ve come up with some guidelines for the people of
the Southwest Angle. Here goes. As a rule of thumb, if you are an
acquaintance of the cast member of a local community production, the minimum
number of performances you are required to see is 1. If you have a niece or a
nephew in the cast, the minimum is also 1. If your son or daughter is in the
cast, come at least twice. For a grandfather, again, twice. The expectation is
that the doting grandmother will attend each performance. Remember, these are
only minimums, the Popcorn Players will appreciate it if you exceed these. As a
caveat, this rule only applies for those within reasonable commuting
distance. I hope I’ve helped you all out with this one.
See you next week! |