Have you ever taken a walk in the woods on a crisp fall day and taken in that certain smell that only fall seems to provide? It is hard to describe, but growing up in the country offered me close access to many of those wonderful smells. It won’t be long before we will hear the sound of leaves crunching underfoot as we walk through our yards.

I love spending time in the north woods in late fall with the rustling crunch of leaves beneath my feet. To me there is a certain closure that comes with fall, but not being a deer hunter may have something to do with that. I have always liked small game hunting and fall, of course, is the time to do that. I have mentioned many times how important it is to get our youth involved in the outdoors experience. There are many ways to introduce our youth to the outdoors and small game hunting is one way to do that.

Fishing is another activity that can introduce kids to the outdoors experience, and it is relatively inexpensive to boot. I will be spending a few days up north with my oldest son Brian and we will do a little fishing and maybe some grouse hunting if time allows. This has been an annual fall ritual for us for quite a few years and last year was the first time that we missed in some time.

Fishing in the fall can always be hit and miss, but if you hit the right time and right place it can be pretty awesome. Last year, for example, my grandson Dylan and I spent MEA weekend at the cabin and we had some good northern fishing on a little area lake not far from our cabin. Now that I think about it, Dylan has actually done quite well in the northern fishing department this year as well.

Over the years Brian and I have fished in some pretty bad weather with mixed results. As I’ve said many times, it’s not always about the catching, but the whole outdoors experience. There were times when we fished in snow squalls, which are common in late fall in Northern Minnesota. There have been a few times when I’ve been on a lake when a front came through; it can happen without hardly any warning at all. There were a couple times when we headed for shore and sought shelter while the storm ran its course. These squalls never seemed to last more than a few minutes and then it would clear and we would continue fishing. It was not uncommon for two or three of these squalls to occur in a single afternoon. Over the years I have learned to accept the fact that this is just a part of fall fishing.

The first time my family was introduced to Spider Lake was in the late ‘70s; it was towards the end of September and for most of that week it was overcast and rainy, but we still fished hard. Brian was pretty young when we fished Spider Lake for the first time. One of the high points of the week for me was catching my first muskie. I can remember that time like it was yesterday because Brian and my mother were both in the boat with me and Mom netted the fish for me. When we got it in the boat, the battle was really on because muskies tend to get a little crabby when you take them out of water and drop them in a boat. As the fish jumped around on the bottom of our little boat it must have scared the heck out of Brian because his little eyes were as big as silver dollars.

My mother loved to fish and she and my wife Jean would take turns going out in the boat while the other would watch my youngest son Brad, who wasn’t very old at the time. Although the fishing wasn’t all that great, my mother did catch some fish that week and that made us all happy. I know everyone enjoyed that week and when I look back on it and all those memories, it gives me a warm feeling inside.

Memories make the trip for me, whether it’s time spent sitting around a campfire with snow on the ground or time spent fishing (catching is nice too), it’s all good. Brian and I still talk about a fall trip to Spider when the highlight of each day was returning to a warm cabin after a couple of hours on the lake.

As I anticipate spending the next few days up north I have visions of that lunker lying in wait for me to drag my lure past it. If that fish fails to see my lure then I’ll just have to throw another log on the fire and savor the moment.

Until next time, get out and enjoy the fall colors. The leaves in our part of the state are 25-50% of peak so now is a great time to take a drive down a country road or take a drive or walk around one of our area lakes and enjoy the view. If you do take that drive in the country, remember that it’s harvest time and some farmers may be on the road driving from field to field.

Please take a little time to remember those who served, those who are serving now and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we are able to enjoy all the freedoms that we have today. 

Echoes from the Loafers' Club Meeting

What are you thinking about?

Nothing.

How can you think about nothing?

I pace myself.

Driving by the Bruces

I have two wonderful neighbors — both named Bruce — who live across the road from each other. Whenever I pass their driveways, thoughts occur to me, such as: a body at rest is probably a cat.

The cafe chronicles

The cafe was rural. The talk was cornversation. The breakfast special was cream of what. I attended a Loafers’ Club Meeting in Salina, Kansas. "Good morning to you," one said.

"And the rest of the day to you," I responded.

I asked one fellow how long he’d lived in Salina. He answered, "Sixty-eight years so far."

He asked where I was from. I told him. He had spent time in Minnesota last winter. He added, "I wouldn't want to be a cow in that weather."

That was a good point, but I wouldn't want to be a cow in any weather.

I told them that I take my wife to a snazzy restaurant regularly. On our anniversary, we go inside. That’s where we wait in line before being seated at their 17th to 23rd best table.

No hat trick

I was working at Kansas Wesleyan University in the Fitzpatrick Theatre. As I scanned the impressive audience, I noticed an odd thing. There were only two hats being worn, both of the baseball-cap variety. One was worn by a college-aged student and the other by a fellow of retirement age. It reminded me of my wife’s family reunion, the one with the good folding chairs. A prospective inductee into the clan wore a cap to the dinner table. Aunt Ingeborg told him to remove his cap in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone in town except those with severe hearing loss. The young man, refusing to remove his cap, stormed off. Ingeborg said that it was no great loss.

Coach, cat, and Chevette

The coach exhorted us to get out there and bust a gut.

"Any questions?" he asked.

I had one, "My gut or someone else's?"

What we had was a failure to communicate. It was like that cat and me. I was doing some yard work when I saw the feline. It wasn't my cat. I didn't want it there. I told the cat to scram. English wasn't the cat’s first language. It watched me through eyes that saw me as a doofus with thumbs. It shared my yard with me.

The driver shared the road. Others could have everything in his exhaust fumes. His heap accelerated from 0 to 60 mph in less than a day, yet he raced from one traffic signal to the next. A dream catcher hung from the rearview mirror of his rusty, battered Chevette. He had some dreaming to do.

Life is like chasing a rainbow. You’ll never catch it. So you’d better enjoy the chase.

Customer comments

• Dan Baffa of Salina, Kansas, told me that when he started smoking, he didn't want his parents to know, so he’d make excuses to step outside to have a cigarette. One winter day, when he came back into the house, his mother said, "Cold weather can be hard on a smoker’s lungs."

• Henry Armknecht of Hays, Kansas, said that 98 percent of statistics are made up and the other 2 percent are wrong.

• Roger Boatman of Champlin said his friend is such an Allis-Chalmers enthusiast that he wears orange underwear.

• Jake Bursik of Wausau, Wisconsin, believes that Swedes invented the toilet seat, but it took a Norwegian to think of cutting a hole in it.

• Walt Schmidt of Glendale, Arizona, told me that breaking a cookie before eating it, allows all the calories to escape.

• Sharon Welch of Sturtevant, Wisconsin, said that a friend of hers from Phoenix, Arizona, carries potholders in the summer to use on her car door handles.

• Don Lobitz said that Maynard Speece, one-time farm director on WCCO Radio, commented that there were six children in his family — three boys and three girls. Maynard added, "I was one of the boys."

Investigative reporting

• Hartland Evangelical Lutheran Church Soup & Dessert will be October 27 from 4 to 7.

• Cross of Glory Lutheran Church Soup & Pie will be November 5 from 4:30 to 7.

• Bob Ratigan, a graduate of the local school of considerable learning, and his wife were named grand marshals for the Applefest parade in La Crescent.

Nature notes

Writing spiders, also called garden spiders or Argiope aurantia, are a striking yellow and black. They often live in gardens where they eat pests. The reason for the silk zigzag "writing," known as a stabilimentum, is debated. It may attract prey or prevent birds from flying into it. Folklore says that if you find your name written in the web, you have only a short time to live. If your name is MMMMMMMMM or WWWWWWWWW, you might want to get your affairs in order.

Meeting adjourned

Don’t worry. Be kind.

Over recent months, I’ve pondered some questions. I’m not sure if the answers I’ve come up with are agreeable to everyone; I’m not even sure I have answers to all of them. Let’s take a look and see, shall we?

Is “reply all” a default on some people’s phones and email programs? I don’t think that’s even a default option for me. If I want to reply to everyone on a particular text or email, I need to consciously think about that and go through a process. Still, it seems like some people use it all the time when it’s not necessary. If my child is invited to a party, I’m not really interested in how many other kids are RSVPing and don’t need my phone buzzing incessantly as those responses pour in. If a co-worker sends out an email to start a discussion, that’s a different story, as all involved in the email need to know what everyone else is thinking.

Is it possible to not be a distracted driver? I’m thinking no on this one. Obviously, we should avoid texting while driving or talking on our phone the entire trip. But don’t you get distracted by the radio? If I’m listening to KFAN, I might be distracted by a conversation on there. If I’m listening to Power 96, I might sing along to classic rock. If I’m listening to a book on CD, I’m certainly paying attention to the story. If there’s someone else in the car, I’m probably having a conversation, perhaps even mixed with one of the above items. Sometimes I find that I really need to concentrate on the road since those distractions can be pervasive.

Will we ever have “normal” weather patterns again? This seems doubtful. It’s not often we have a nice soaking rain overnight anymore; usually there are thunderstorms or five inches in one day or else we go a month with no precipitation. The snowfall amounts seem more akin to what it seemed they were when I was a kid, but after a blizzard in May, I’ll never feel comfortable that winter’s over until Memorial Day again!

Can there be any more TV shows that I enjoy playing on the same night? Wednesdays tax my DVR to the limit and beyond. I can only record two shows at once; thus, I have to make decisions since Survivor and Arrow start at 7, The Goldbergs at 7:30, and Modern Family at 8. Ugh! There are other times that you can mix in what my kids like to watch, and it makes things tough. Sundays are about to become that way since The Walking Dead is starting up again, mixed with The World Series of Poker and some Disney show Jayna enjoys. Netflix may have to be in my future.

Does every generation think the next group of kids is going to cause the apocalypse? When I started teaching, I remember a veteran teacher saying there was no way she’d start teaching anymore, which really put us rookies in a bind. We didn’t think the kids were so bad. However, as the years have elapsed, I’ve found it more difficult to deal with attitudes and laziness. Is this just me becoming older and more jaded? Are kids really the same or is there some disease slowly seeping into society? Certainly, times change: technology is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was, parenting styles have changed due to both necessity and a constantly changing family structure, and there are many more opportunities to make bad choices. Somehow, I’m guessing the adults when I was a kid thought the same things I do now.

What in the world did Michelle see in me all those years ago that made her want to spend the rest of her life with me? The reasons I was attracted to her are easy: she’s intelligent, beautiful, articulate, and has a sense of humor that matches mine. Sometimes I wonder how I outkicked my coverage on this one. According to some, I’m a self-absorbed, egotistical maniac. I know I’m pretty lucky to have found my lobster when so many other people seem to struggle to get it right the first time. We just celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary, and I know things are going well when she barely bats an eyelash at me spending our anniversary announcing a football game!

Are we more enlightened now? Probably not, but what is life without questions to fire up a conversation (or a column)?

Word of the Week: This week’s word is kibitzer, which means a person who offers unwanted advice or criticism, as in, “The kibitzer spent an entire column giving out answers to questions nobody wanted answered.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!

With the scurs’ memory slipping, the Weather Eye from the ‘74 Gremlin continues to make them ponder: Would the heater control cable benefit from a shot of PB Blaster to help warm up the temperatures?

Starting Wednesday, sunny with highs in the low 60’s and lows in the mid-40’s. Mostly sunny Thursday with highs in the mid-60’s and lows in the mid-40’s. Mostly sunny for Friday and slightly cooler with highs in the upper 50’s and lows in the upper 30’s. Saturday, slightly cooler and mostly sunny becoming partly cloudy towards evening. Highs in the low 50’s and lows in the mid-40’s. Partly cloudy Sunday with a slight chance of a passing shower. Highs in the low 50’s with lows around 35. Monday, sunny with highs near 55 and lows in the upper 30’s. Warmer for Tuesday under continued sunny skies. Highs in the low 60’s with lows in the low 40’s. The normal high for October 16th is 60 and the normal low is 37, much the same as we see around April 20th. With daylight disappearing at roughly 2 ½ minutes per day, twilight comes a little earlier each night. We dip below 11 hours of daylight on October 16th, something we haven’t experienced since February 24th. The scurs suspect they should be looking for their ice scraper soon.

Progress was made in the fields, although it continues to be slow going. Some corn has been harvested, but it will be a while, especially with soybeans still in the field. While yields have generally been a pleasant surprise, continued heavy dews and frosty mornings made for several later-than-wanted starts to the day for soybean combining. Add to that the general unevenness and it has been a frustrating soybean harvest thus far for many. The hard frosts of the past week should help in that department, but it still takes warmer temperatures to help that come to fruition. Unfortunately our calendar is heading the wrong direction. As Mark Seeley, Extension Climatologist from the U of M points out, we have a wider range of temperatures this time of year. Sure it warms up in the daytime, but it takes a while to get there. With the longer nights, the landscape tends to cool down more. Also, our high temperature for the day tends to occur earlier on a relative basis. For instance, our maximum daytime temperature occurs from 5–6 p.m. in July. In October that happens from 4–5 p.m. and in December, it slides up to 3–4 p.m. Let’s not go there just yet.

The birds are certainly telling us at the ranch that winter will be here before we know it. The hummingbirds haven’t been back since the 4th, although we’ve left some sugar water in one feeder for the benefit of any stragglers. While the frosts have done in much of the flora, there are still lots of salvia that escaped relatively unscathed. On the 10th, some of our migrating spring visitors, namely the white throated and Harris’s sparrows, were heard and seen. One wonders if they’re the same individuals we saw in the spring but there is really no way for us to tell. The birds are transitioning from summer to fall as well. Lots of blue jays calling and flying from one feeder to the next. A red-bellied woodpecker appears daily on the ear corn and a white-breasted nuthatch frequents the sunflower feeder as I eat my cereal each morning. A handful of goldfinches still visit occasionally, the brilliant yellow summer color of the males already a distant memory. Large flocks of robins continue to make their way through, having picked the nannyberries nearly clean in just a few weeks’ time.

Gardening continues as we dug the potatoes under Ruby’s close supervision. She must think I’m going to unearth more play balls as she tenses up, ready to pounce should one of the tubers make a false move. Fudgie would rather do what most kids do this time of year and that’s roll in the leaves. The ash leaves are starting to accumulate in areas and while there are no real piles, they’re crispy and make lots of noise so it doesn’t seem to matter. Like many in the area, we’ve also picked lots of apples, mostly to give away and/or trade. The Haralson and Firesides are enormous this year and the Haralson tree in particular is loaded. Sunday we had some beekeeper customers from Eagle Bend who bought a ram and some ewes from us. Mrs. Cheviot wound up swapping some gourds, Indian corn, carrots, squash and apples for a copious amount of honey, both regular and the spun variety. Heavenly! 

Sometimes a sense of nostalgia comes over me. 40 years ago I distinctly remember the fall of ’74 when it froze early. Dad decided it was a good idea to borrow the neighbor’s single row McCormick corn binder and shock a small field. Corn shocks add a pastoral view to the land, but as anyone who has performed the task of shocking can tell you, it’s a lot of work. IH made its last corn binder in 1953, marking the end of an era. Few missed carrying the heavy bundles or were sad to see the corn binders gone. The neighbor’s model was a horse-drawn model that had been converted so it could be pulled by a tractor. It also had a bundle carrier. The bundle carrier was a nice feature allowing bundles to accumulate as one drove across the field. A rope was pulled engaging the conveyor on the carrier and dumping the bundles off in piles for more efficient shocking. Many of the binders of the day had made the next step to being PTO powered. Oddly enough, most farmers didn’t retro fit those models for horses. Apparently there was no place on the horse to attach the PTO shaft.

See you next week…real good then.

Marvelle A. Peterson, age 82 of Waseca, went home to be with her precious Lord and Savior on Monday, October 13, 2014 at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis.

Born and raised in faith on the family farm near Garretson, SD, she was the daughter of Ralph and Agnes (Andersen) Sorenson. She attended rural country school and graduated high school from Augustana Academy in Canton, SD. She then attended Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD, where she met her future husband. Marvelle married Raymond Peterson on June 7, 1950 at Palisade Lutheran Church in Valley Springs, SD. After getting married, they lived in various cities in South Dakota, New York, and Minnesota.

Mary Jo Wallace was born on August 16, 1977, in Waseca, MN. She was the daughter of Brad and Kathy Wallace. Mary Jo was baptized as an infant and later confirmed in her Catholic faith as a youth at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Gaylord. She received her education in New Richland and Arlington, MN, and was a graduate of the Sibley East High School Class of 1996. 

Funeral services for Donald Bartness will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, October 16, 2014 at Trinity Lutheran Church, New Richland. The Reverend Paul Andree will officiate. Visitation will be from 4-7 on Wednesday at the Friedrich Funeral Chapel New Richland, and again one hour prior to the service at the church. Interment will be at the Hartland Cemetery. Military honors will be accorded by the New Richland American Legion.

Donald passed away on October 12, 2014 at Mayo Clinic Health Systems, Albert Lea. He was 88 years old.

Cub Scouts fundraiser set for Saturday

Did we miss you at home? The Cub Scouts will be selling popcorn and taking wreath orders at Wagner Foods on Saturday, October 18, from 10 a.m. to noon.

Peggy Sorenson benefit Saturday

A benefit for Peggy Sorenson is set for Saturday, Oct. 18 from 3 to  7 p.m. at the Geneva Comunity Center. Peggy was recently diagnosed with a very rare, aggressive type of breast cancer. She has started chemotherapy and will undergo up to 24 treatments, then surgery and radiation. The benefit will feature silent auction, live auction and bake sale.