Farm & City Days Medallion Clue No. 1

How well do you know New Richland? For the next four weeks, test your knowledge against clues that might lead you to the hidden Farm and City Days medallion and the prize of $50 in New Richland Bucks. One clue is added each week, right up to the big July 10-13 celebration. Clues will be printed in the Star Eagle and posted at local businesses. Good luck!

Clue No. 1:

Head to the city to begin the hunt. Everyone is sure to have fun. Above, below, around, up, down, all around. Don’t have to dig to find me. There are many kids around me. Oh, I see them go round and round.

There is sure to be laughter, joy, smiles, and even tears near me. Hard work pays off, remember. Everyone get up, come out and look, please someone find me!

NRHEG High School 2014 scholarship and award winners:

Scholarships (Name, Amount, Presenter, Recipient)

• Jacob Bushlack Memorial, $500, Dan Stork — Hannah Lundberg, Emily Christensen

• Raymond & Florence Sponberg, $500, Abby Christopherson — Carson Field, Abby Solland

• Darrol & Pauline Sponberg, $500, Abby Christopherson – Ryan Patraw, Jade Schultz

• E.F. Johnson Foundation, $3,000, Tim Stoesz – Adam Anderson

Schiltz, 6th in 1600, sets school record

By JIM LUTGENS

Editor/Publisher

The last time Carlie Wagner won a state high jump championship, there was a lot of drama involved.

This one was much easier.

Wagner cleared her first attempt at 5 feet, 5 inches, quietly claiming the Class A crown as Miki Lee of Norman County missed the height three times last Friday at Hamline University in St. Paul.

Helping Verbs in Your Life

I love baseball. There is so much perfection in the length of the bases, the shape of the diamond, the sound of bat on ball or ball smacking glove. Being outdoors on a perfect evening with a little breeze and watching a ballgame at any level from Anton’s young group of ballplayers to Jayna’s up and coming softball players to a Twins game is as close to nirvana as I’ve gotten.

Except for one thing – some of the banter.

I talk as much as anyone when I’m coaching baseball. I usually have something to say after every pitch. I was brought up to encourage teammates and keep the dialogue going, maybe not Ferris Bueller-like, but I can get going with the best if necessary.

But the English teacher in me just cringes when I hear one phrase: “Now you seen it!” after a player watches a good pitch go by. Brrr, just like listening to nails on a chalkboard! Actually, now you saw it or now you’ve seen it.

Even being the grammar freak that I am (it is my mutant power, after all), I don’t always speak the Queen’s English, especially (according to my wife) when I’m back home in New Ulm. However, the preponderance of “seen” being misused has started to irk me. I hear students say it constantly, I hear their parents say it often, and I even hear my co-workers misuse it.

I always tell my students that it is imperative they use the correct verbiage when writing and to strive for it most of the time while speaking. After all, we often speak in run-on sentences, but we’d prefer to see some more punctuation when you write that amazing story in your diary. But there comes a point where continued slaying of our language just makes you sound uneducated, and that can cost you money!

How so? I can only imagine that in most businesses, if you interview for a job and everything else is equal, the person who speaks better will get the job. If you tell the potential employer that you “seen something on my way in,” while the other candidate says that he/she “saw something,” you may be out of luck.

Does that sound preposterous? I have sat at job interviews and listened to teacher candidates speak as if they were in a junior high cafeteria. All things else equal when looking at resumes, those people dropped quickly on my list.

We’re supremely influenced by those around us. If we hear our parents speak that way, we are likely to follow in those footsteps since that’s what we know best. We look up to our parents and figure they know everything. I must have listened to my mom more growing up! (Happy birthday, Mom!)

Michelle and I are both pretty good grammatically, so imagine my surprise when I started hearing my kids speaking without those crucial helping verbs! I started connecting the dots and realized they were being influenced by talking with kids at daycare. I backtracked and thought about how Mom stayed home with me for many years, which could help explain this strange urge I have to correct other’s speech patterns since Mom speaks well. (Well, not good, but that might be another column!)

My wife’s aunt and uncle posted a cartoon on my Facebook page of an English teacher being arrested for changing a “Got Milk?” sign to proper English: “Do you have any milk?” That’s what I feel like doing too often, and I am guilty of correcting kids’ language frequently.

Hey, you can talk how you want, but it frightens me when I ask students to listen to what they say, and they tell me it sounds perfectly fine to them. I guess some of them are destined to be baseball coaches some day!

Word of the Week: This week’s word is muzzy, which means blurred or indistinct, as in, “The ballplayer’s language was muzzy, leading people to miss his use of a contraction instead of a lack of a helping verb.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!

The scurs must’ve pushed the air conditioning lever too far the wrong direction on the Weather Eye. Nothing a little baling wire and a pair of pliers can’t solve, we hope. Starting Wednesday, mostly sunny with a good chance of showers and thunderstorms in the overnight. Highs near 80 and lows in the upper 50’s. Partly sunny and cooler on Thursday with highs in the upper 60’s and lows around 50. Mostly sunny Friday with a slight chance of a shower late. Highs in the mid-70’s and lows in the upper 50’s. Saturday, partly sunny becoming mostly cloudy with a good chance of an evening shower or thunderstorm. Highs in the mid-70’s and lows in the lower 60’s. Partly sunny on Sunday with a good chance of a shower or thunderstorm in the forenoon. Highs in the mid-70’s with lows around 60. Monday, partly cloudy with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 70’s and lows again around 60. Partly sunny becoming mostly cloudy with a good chance for rain on Tuesday. Highs in the low 70’s and lows in the mid-50’s. The normal high for Flag Day June 14th is 79 and the normal low is 58. On the 14th we will only gain about one more minute of daylight until the summer solstice. The scurs will have their hammock ready for their afternoon naps. 

The Full Moon for the month comes on the 12th and is known as the Full Strawberry Moon. This is the month when the berries are in their prime and those of us who enjoy that juicy red fruit are in 7th heaven. Few things are better with a bowl of ice cream. The Ojibwe and Sioux were both in agreement on the name for this moon as well. At the ranch it becomes the Mow Lawn in the Dark Moon.

Crops continued to make progress although the corn has slowed and is going through the ugly stage it frequently does this time of year. The plants are switching over from their seminal root system to the still developing nodal root system which will nurture the plant for the rest of the growing season. There frequently is a lag period that can be influenced by many factors including weather, hybrid and soil conditions at or before planting. Given some warm sunny weather, the plants outgrow it in a matter of a week or two. Soybeans are emerging and growing rapidly at this point with the recent rains coming to the aid of some fields where seedlings were struggling to break through a heavy crust after laying in dry soil. Alfalfa cuttings have been underway and yields appear to be decent. Last Saturday’s rainfall was extremely variable with some in Greater Bugtussle receiving nothing with others receiving up to 2 inches and everything in between. Fortunately our subsoil moisture is in pretty good shape so worrying about drought isn’t on the agenda just yet.

The garden at the ranch has experienced many of the same conditions that field crops have experienced. The vine crops, particularly the squash and pumpkins are born to run so we’ve left adequate space. They are poised and ready when the weather stays consistently warm. Not unexpected since they’ve already had the best of the rainfall and warm temperatures spring has had to offer since they were transplanted. Something to keep an eye on however are the striped cucumber beetles that appeared already on June 9th. They can decimate young vine crops if left unchecked for just a few days. There are also signs of cutworm activity, not surprising given the level captures in the pheromone trap monitored for the U of M’s black cutworm trapping network.

It has been a real struggle to keep up with the lawn mowing after the weekend rain. The windbreak gets neglected so it takes additional time to mow that when it gets away from us. We’re not alone. The drone of lawnmower engines can be heard across the landscape trying in vain to keep up. About the time we finish the last of the mowing the first mowed part needs mowing again. Fudgie and Ruby enjoy it. Walking behind the mower as it goes back and forth makes their white socks green. With that much grass stain, we should probably volunteer them for a laundry detergent ad campaign.

Auntie Mar Mar has been found! News of her demise was greatly exaggerated. And luckily for me it meant the blueberry bars I’d been craving suddenly appeared. I receive such neat things from readers. This includes goodies, prints, newspaper clippings, weeds, bugs, or even just the great conversations about common interests whether it's gardening, fruit trees, weather, dogs, etc. Nice to be appreciated and like all of us, it keeps us running.

See you next week…real good then.

While waiting in the doctor’s office recently, just out of curiosity, I picked up a Farmers magazine. Wow, I knew there were lots of changes in agriculture, but it goes way beyond my expectations. I would challenge the CEO of many of the big companies to have the knowledge and knowhow required of today’s farmers: machinery, marketing, quality of seeds, planting, harvesting and weather.

Today’s farmer does indeed wear many hats with a lot of smarts inside of it. No, I won't go into it because though some things I realize and understand, it was way over my head. I've always said how the farmer goes, so goes the world and now I know that is even truer than I thought.

Being a successful farmer has changed a great deal over the years. When farmers first settled in Southern Minnesota, most farms were just 80 acres as that was all the pioneer farmers could take care of. Farmers in the early 20th century were more diverse than today. They raised lots of different crops - corn, oats, wheat and barley. They also cared for many varied animals. Everyone milked cows, as well as raised hogs. The women also cared for animals, as they raised chickens and other poultry and many sold their eggs or exchanged them for groceries.

The women also did their share of spring planting. They had large gardens full of potatoes, carrots, lettuce, radishes, beans, onions, pumpkins, strawberries, etc. This year I am seeing more vegetable gardens being planted than I have observed in the past, perhaps for economy, or health reasons.

As machinery developed, farmers started working their land with machinery instead of horses and farms increased in size. As the years went by, many chose to find other means of earning a living and left the farms their families once occupied. Farms were bought up by the "die-hard farmers." Price and necessity of large machinery dictates the need for large amounts of acreage needed to offset those costs.

Many now just raise corn and soybeans. One doesn't often see farmers raising crops and still milking cows or raising cattle and hogs. Instead we see long buildings housing chickens, turkeys and swine as opposed to the small amounts once raised on diversified family farms.

Driving along our country roads, we are treated to artwork of the biggest kind. It would be hard to duplicate those rows of corn and beans that seem to go on forever in large fields, straight and green.

The landscape has changed, fewer fences and farm sites. Farming has a completely different look about it.

Patches of small grains, ground cover, hay lands, and ribbons of grass along waterways all contribute to the beauty of the land. The colors are patches of different fields like giant piece quilts accented by monstrous machines.

In the late 1800s, about 90 out of every 100 Americans were farmers. Today, the number has shrunk to two out of every 100.

Becoming a successful farmer today requires a great deal of educational preparation, knowledge of advanced technology and business skills. Farming is big business and many farmers today have gone on to learn about the business and practice of agriculture through advanced training programs at colleges and universities. The country doctor today is the veterinarian who has put in as many or more years of special training to treat varied species of animal injuries and diseases.

Take time to salute the farmer. Their expertise feeds the world. They must weigh all the pros and cons, gamble on weather year round, cherish and care for the soil for its increasing worth. Agriculture is the foundation of manufacture and commerce — and ever growing faith in God and his banker.

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Birthdays and anniversaries:

• Thursday, June 12th: Nancy Ver Hey, Hanna Gail Crabtree, John Wallace, Charlotte Hill, Grant Pavek, Keith & Teresa McDonald, Ryan & Amanda (Reese) Beavens and Ron & Julie Peterson

• Friday, June 13th: Steve & Rhonda Christensen, Fran & Fred Kenady, Marilyn & Gary Ulland, Keith & Kristin Hamberg, Kaden Jon Homuth, Cory Donald Haberman, Brent Reese, Ray Otteson, Tira Vangen, Corey Haberman, Tristan Richards, and Gary Jepson

• Saturday, June 14th: Camille Marjean Dunlap, Summer Stieglbauer, Herb Moon, Kelly Wacek, David Broskoff, James Deml, Obert Osmundson Jr., Richard Peterson, Mitchell Kubat and Michael & Stacy Keith  

• Sunday, June 15th: Dale & Nadine Strenge, Dale & Marlene Peterson, DeWayne Hagen, James Bremer, Dale Anderson, Jennifer Robertson, Kathy Jensen, Kim Nelson, Logan Vietze and Ovanna Haried

• Monday, June 16th: Andren Richard Aaseth, Aven Leo Aaseth, Emily Otto, Bethany Otto Mikesell, Doug Smith, Lorraine Wallace, Vonda Humburg, Kenny Evenson, Kari Ingvaldson, Chase  Boehme, Heather (Crabtree) & Keith Krenke, Rochelle (Butler) & Brent Chapman, Tracy & Paul Marcus, Richard & Becky Axmann, Kim (Anderson) & Rich Schneider and Dale & Marlene Peterson

• Tuesday, June 17th: Kimberly & Mike Luhring, Jim & Jeanne Worrell, Tiffany (Moon) & Josh Krueger, Natalie Jean Aaseth, Jim Hohansee, Eric Tobiason, Joshua Churchill, Aaron Casterton, Matthew Xavier, Tim Butler, Chase Hanson, and Anna Kay Hardyman.

• Wednesday, June 18th: Keturah Katherine Mae Gassmann, Brett Hagen, Dennis O'Neil, Dave Lieberg, Marie Dobberstein, Marvin Enzenauer, Bonnie Nelson, Krysti Cameron, Margo & Milton Wayne, Wayne & Diane Jensen, Greg & Linda Pavek, Brad & Tammy Thompson, Kathy (Barnett) & Chad Peterson, Amy & Brady Jensen, (2011)

Wishing you a very special day blooming with warm and happy memories!

It’s a wonderful thing what warmer weather and sunshine can do for a person. This past weekend I observed many folks walking, biking, jogging or just enjoying an afternoon picnic at one of the many nice parks we have in this area. With so many options we have, not only around Albert Lea but also around the area, it is great to see folks taking advantage of it.

I have been able to enjoy one of my favorite spring smells this past couple of weeks while on my early morning walks. No, I’m not talking about the smell of dead fish still hanging around the Albert Lea Lake vicinity. I am thinking lilacs, which are probably my favorite smelling blossoms, especially this time of year. Although the window of opportunity is rather small when it comes to being able to enjoy that magnificent odor, it is one I relate to with fond memories.

As a kid I can remember my Mother picking the flowers off the lilac bushes in the front yard and putting them in vases around the house. To me this was the smell of spring and it seemed to make the house come alive after a long winter of closed doors and windows. As a kid growing up in the country, or at least the outskirts of town, I had two rituals I usually followed. First thing my mother would do after school let out was to take me to town to Northside Barber Shop, where Earl Peterson would give me a flat top haircut. The next thing that I shed was my shoes. Oh, how I loved to run around barefoot, and each year it was not without seriously stubbing one or both of my big toes. Once that was out of the way, there was just the matter of toughening up my feet so that walking on rocks and gravel became less painful. We usually had limestone in our driveway and, if you know what that is, you know those rocks can be very sharp.

Once the shoes were shed I loved walking in the yard and enjoyed the feeling of the new grass underfoot. This didn’t come without a few setbacks, like thistles or stepping on a bee that was busily extracting pollen from a dandelion, and you would also know when a stray dog happened to visit the yard if you stepped on something and it squished up between your toes. These were all just minor setbacks in the quest to spend most of a summer outside without shoes or socks. I can still hear my mom yelling to me after I had come in from outdoors, “Did you remember to wash your feet?” I would usually answer yes as I hurriedly ran to the bathroom to catch up to my little white lie before she did.

Yes, I guess our generation was blessed by an appreciation for the simpler things in life that didn’t take much more than an imagination.

In that light, I can say that looking back to my early days of camping when a person only needed a tent, a Coleman stove and lantern and a couple of good lawn chairs. By good, I mean chairs that had most of the webbing still intact so it would hold an average sized adult as he or she cozied up to the campfire.

Yes, even camping keeps expanding its world. When I had a pickup camper I thought I had jumped to the top of the camping chain, only to be replaced by pull behind pop-up campers, and those folks eventually weren’t in the hunt unless they had travel trailers or fifth-wheelers with pull-out rooms to expand them almost to the size of a mid-sized house. All of these things are good and the comfort they add to your camping experience is nice, but eventually I have to wonder when it quits becoming camping and becomes another home on someone else’s property for a couple of days or maybe even a week. The nice thing about those campers is the fact you are able to enjoy an outdoors experience and see a lot of different places if you choose to do so and still have the comforts of home.

I have a small, rustic cabin in the north woods that I totally enjoy spending time at, but there are still times when I have thought about what fun it would be to tent for a night on one of the many national forest campsites that are available for free on many of the lakes in the area. I told my grandson Dylan a couple of weeks ago that we should take the brand new three-man tent that I’ve had in the attic for a few years and pitch it on Spider Lake. There are at least three different public campsites on Spider that are first come first serve and the only restrictions are that you pick up after yourself and your stay can be no longer than 14 days. I really would like to try that tenting thing for one night. Who knows, maybe it would start another little tradition.

Dylan and I will be heading up to the cabin for a few days, hopefully to make a few more good fishing memories. Looking ahead to next summer I assume that Dylan will probably have a job, so I need to enjoy this time while I can.

Until next time, any time is a great time to enjoy a little fishing, and now is a perfect time to introduce a kid to fishing. Remember to play safe and if you’re in a boat be sure to wear your life jacket.

It doesn’t have to be a special holiday to remember those who served 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

I grew up poor. There were 23 kids in my family. 

Did you live on the wrong side of the tracks? 

With 23 kids, we lived on both sides of the tracks.

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: you can blame yourself for anything if you think about it long enough.

The news from Hartland

• Dentist, Les Plack, has a saliva barrel that he uses to water his garden.

• Grain elevator is a large scale effort.

• Pat Pending buys copy machine in an attempt to do some human cloning.

• Musician fired for taking notes.

Hast a la vista, baby

One of my students in a writing class had the hiccups. I asked the rest of the class if they had any cures. As is usually the case, someone advised that the troubled young man say, "Pineapple."

He did and the hiccups went away.

A day later, I tried the same cure on my hiccuping wife. Her hiccups stopped.

Time marches on and the alarm goes off more often

She hit a home run as her team won the Benilde softball tournament. She hit another as her team took the Waseca tournament. I watched her swish a three pointer effortlessly during an AAU basketball tournament. Her grades are in the A category.

A granddaughter has become a 7th grader. It happened so quickly. It seems like only yesterday when I held her when she was brand new.

As I watched her on the field and court, I felt love, happy, and old.

I visited a friend who was lightening his load. He had nearly 90 years of experience and was disposing of things that he once yearned for. It left his house with a spare look, as if it were being emptied. That was because it was being emptied. It wasn’t unattractive. Books were spread about as if they were ingredients for a hotdish about to be prepared.

Sooner or later, the books will go. His residence will be filled with little but memories.

I file the memories of academic and athletic accomplishments of loved ones for a day that needs filling.

Those thrilling days of yesteryear

I grew up with an outhouse.

We were in the same grade.

An outhouse was always an interesting place to transact business.

There was a stick with a sharpened point that leaned against our outhouse.

It was used to fend off bloodthirsty mosquitoes.

If everyone drove a white automobile, it would be a white car nation

A friend, Alan McBride of Preston, England, is a Pisces born on March 5. I am a fellow Pisces.

Alan told me that reincarnation is done in order and done 12 times, once for each astrological sign. Pisces are last. A Pisces is on his 12th life. His journey on Earth is nearly finished. 

Alan says he doesn’t get excited about things, because everything is familiar. He has seen it 11 times before.

I’ve never been good at being a Pisces. We are supposed to see both sides, which makes it difficult to take a side. I do that, but I get excited about opportunities, adventures, and the beauty of this world.

Another friend, Chris Watson lives in Alice Springs, Australia. It’s a place where it’s easy to get sand in your shoes. One of the world’s most venomous plants is found there, the gympie-gympie stinging tree that can cause months of excruciating pain for unfortunate people. But as Chris explains, the stinging tree doesn’t chase anyone down the street. That’s certainly the silver lining of a dark cloud. Who could keep from wanting to visit a place named Alice Springs?

I am grateful for each day.

Customer comments

Tim Strivens of Suffolk, UK, says that an alcoholic is someone who drinks more than his doctor.

Did you know?

• The USDA says that 31 percent of our food goes uneaten.

• The average U.S. worker toils 4.6 percent more hours than a Canadian worker, 21 percent more hours than a French worker and 28 percent more hours than a German worker, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Nature notes

Cedar waxwings feed on fruits. Their name derives from their appetite for cedar berries, but they also eat the fruits of mountain ash, honeysuckle, crabapple, hawthorn, etc. In the song, "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries," there is this line, "You keep repeating, it's the berries." When it comes to cedar waxwings, life is the berries. 

Meeting adjourned

There is no weakness in kindness.

‘Twas an early Friday morning in May when four wannabe good fishermen left Owatonna headed for Leech Lake to catch mega walleyes. Paul Proft and Jonathon Proft of Owatonna, Bob Goetz of Austin, and Bob Hanson of Albert Lea were the four. Jonathon left Sunday evening, and Ross Heilman of Mankato joined us Monday for the rest of the week.

Many of you have seen the movie “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly,” starring Clint Eastwood. The following is our version of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of our week of fishing at Leech Lake for walleyes.

The Good:

1. We missed the stop-and-go bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-35 both leaving and returning to Owatonna.

2. Getting to the Blue Water Lodge (on a beautiful day) just south of Walker, MN.

3. Being met by the great Amy and made to feel like a VIP.

4. Seeing an osprey attack an adult bald eagle in mid-air. The osprey won, as the eagle dropped the perch it had in its claws.

5. The weather was such that we managed to fish every day.

6. All of us are now excellent cribbage players.

6. A meal of crappies plus bringing home our limit of 10 crappies each. Most of the crappies were over a pound, with the largest pushing two pounds. Excellent crappie fishing.

7. All of the lake ice on Leech was gone.

The Bad:

1. Walleye fishing was very slow. We caught about 12 in a week’s time.

2. Northern fishing was at a low – we caught one.

3. Big perch fishing was very slow, we caught about six.

The Ugly:

1. Having to wait until May of 2015 for our next annual week of fishing at Leech Lake (It will be the fortieth year as an AAL fishing group.)

In summary:

1. Being there with the group of guys was the most important thing. Fishing was secondary.

2. Any charges were according to how busy they are. We got a very good rate as we were there the week after fishing opening and just before Memorial Day. Amy can be reached at 218-56-0385.

3. The accommodations, the setting, the service at the Blue Water Lodge are ten on a scale of one to ten.

Looking ahead on my June calendar, a lot of things are happening.

The full moon is on Friday the 13th. I’m a little superstitious so I’ll avoid black cats and ladders.

Flag Day is Saturday, June 14. Remember, “This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land.” Please honor Old Glory whenever you see her flying. As a veteran, I’ll click my heels along with a snappy salute.

Father’s Day is Sunday, June 15. Living or deceased, a “Thanks, Dad” is the order of the day. Blessed be our Dads.

Tuesday, June 17 is daughter Deb’s birthday. From Dad in Minnesota to daughter in North Carolina, “A cell phone is a distant second to a hug.”

Saturday, June 21 is the first day of summer.

Sunday, June 22 is the bus to Church Basement Ladies.

Last but not least, say “Hi” to that great wife, mom and nurse. She goes by the handle of Amber Lewer.

— — —

Bob is a retired AAL (Aid Association for Lutherans) agent, currently working on his master’s degree in Volunteering. His wife, Genie, is a retired RN, currently working on her doctor’s degree in Volunteering. They have two children, Deb in North Carolina, and Dan in Vermont. Bob says if you enjoy his column, let him know. If you don’t enjoy it, keep on reading, it can get worse. Words of wisdom: There is always room for God.

Aiden Corey Bos, the son of Corey and Jennifer Bos, Moorhead, MN, was born and died, Saturday, June 14, 2014 at Sanford Health in Fargo, ND.

He is survived by his parents, Corey and Jennifer Bos, Moorhead, MN; his grandparents, Wayne and Maureen Parkin, East Grand Forks, MN, Diane Waltz and her husband Dalys Waltz, Ellendale, MN; aunts and uncles, Jeremy Bos, Williston, ND, Kyle Bos Owatonna, MN, Brian Bos, Fargo, ND, Chelsey Waltz, Mankato, MN and Michele Parkin, Grand Forks, ND.