What does your student need? It’s not what you think. New plan… Next summer, I’ll just tape my eyelids open so I can’t blink and maybe summer will last a little longer. I’ve heard many moms say their kids need to get “back into a routine” this fall, but I’d like to suggest (and research supports) that we need to intentionally keep a little summer in our fall in order for our … [Read more...]
Let the Good Times Roll — Toilet Paper Day is August 26
It’s time for back-to-cool sales. Pick up a parka. And back-to-school sales. It’s an August sublime. I’m still eating sweet corn and the Minnesota Twins are still in the running. I recall a Luther League trip to Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington to watch the Twins during my first childhood. We sat in the cheap seats far from home plate. The only people seated farther … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past Market – Day and Meeting the 8 O’clock Evening Train
Moist air was good for wool is what wool buyer John Redding told teenager Cliff Orr, who had asked why there were so many pails of water in the shed near the railroad stockyards. It was May or June, about 1909, and “market day” in Houston, Minn. About 15 years old, Cliff had the job of driving the “two-seater” horse-drawn buggy that transported five women, including his sister, … [Read more...]
Preparing for Late Summer Seeding
By Emma Heiden University of Minnesota Extension There are many things to do and to consider when seeding mid-July to early August alfalfa. Seeding during this time is great if you have land available because it can be great for getting ahead of annual weeds and potentially increasing your first-year yield compared to spring seeding. With late summer seeding you typically … [Read more...]
It Was the First Time a Hush Fell Over That Crowd
A cat owns my wife and me. We have three litter boxes because cats are territorial about those things. The cat isn’t always a precious pet. It purrs as it knocks things from my desk to the floor. If the Earth were flat, cats would have pushed everything off it by now. I think of my narrow boyhood as an outstanding one in which I dabbled in perfection, but I can find no … [Read more...]
Pastor Devotions – Summer’s Lease Hath All Too Short a Date
By Pastor Jeff Jacobs Unity Lutheran Parish - St. Paul, Saetersdal and St. Matthew’s, Granger No, that’s not a quote from Scripture, but Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. And at mid-August, I’m sure many of us feel summer is flying too quickly – again! The prophet Isaiah had his own spin on transience: “The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past – Working Many Jobs Was Better Than No Job
Delivering milk all over Spring Grove before school was his first job, earning $2 a week. In 1930, that had the purchasing power that $38 has in 2024. During the Great Depression, many jobs were lost. Any job was better than no job, especially for a schoolboy like Mervin Dvergsten. Although on stage in all the high school plays and musicals, Dvergsten worked many jobs during … [Read more...]
Your Flying Farmer – Not on My Farm!
I recently saw someone talking about their food, saying, “Why do farmers need to spend so much time and effort when most people just get their food from the grocery store anyway?” Grocery stores must have a great big manufacturing facility somewhere that takes air and turns it into all the food that you eat. I imagine that a grocery store would be kind of like that … [Read more...]
The Best Used by Date is Today
I hadn’t heard from him since he went off to college at the South Dakota School of Mimes. I thought it was because he’d stopped talking, but there was another reason. I paid my respects to him, family members, friends and loved ones buried in a rural cemetery with their locations marked by gravestones showing expiration dates. A cemetery is any large burial ground, while a … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past – No One Else Ate Any of It
Blackcap sauce over cooked rice was an original family recipe and “comfort food” on a Houston County farm on South Ridge in the 1940s. Most food, including berries, came from the family garden, but blackcaps (small black raspberries resembling caps) were a rare wild treat. Annually, around the Fourth of July, the Beckman family would unpack long-sleeved shirts, because … [Read more...]