Though we just celebrated Valentine’s Day with much hoopla and in joyous ways, it does well to remember Valentine’s Day is every day.

The best gift you can give yourself on Valentine’s Day, and every day of the year, is the gift to your own heart.

I know you've heard these things a thousand times or more and may have elected to ignore them, believe “it can't matter to me,” or feel you're just not into it, but the fact of the matter is we need to be kind to our heart.

If your heart tires, wears out or doesn't work any more, you're without a motor, and there is no more. Discovering the fact of good health and how it affects your heart is usually not a concern until it threatens your life.

We take our heart for granted and don't always treat it like we could or should. We want to be healthy but not enough to work at it. Every minute of the day, three Americans have a heart attack. These yield some 800,000 deaths a year.

The number of American heart attacks in one year equals the total of all American deaths in 10 Vietnam wars. Over half of all Americans die from cardiovascular disease. That is more than the total death of all other causes — cancer, accidents, leukemia, etc.

Give a gift to your heart, yourself, and your family. Give serious thought to the care of your heart. Lifestyle is everything. Your heart works hard for our living. It deserves the best you can give it.

Your best friend works for you 24 hours a day. It pumps life-sustaining blood 12,000 miles a day to take care of all parts of your body.

It is not hard nor that easy to keep it pumping and sustaining our life — because we develop habits that interfere with the health of the heart.

Move it or lose it. No time to exercise?

Research has confirmed that physical inactivity is a major risk factor for heart disease. We know that people who are sedentary have a much greater chance of developing heart disease — and dying from it. We have also learned that you don't have to run a marathon every day to protect your heart. Moderate exercise, like regular walking, will do it.

Making exercise fun is important because you are apt to do it without even thinking about it.

You don't need a lot of expensive equipment or to spend hundreds of dollars on health club memberships. Just find ways to build activity into your normal day. All you need is a good pair of walking shoes and the willingness to move out of your comfort zone. The older you are, the more you need exercise. It helps prevent bone loss and reduces the risk of dozens of diseases.

If you can walk to the telephone you can walk around the block. Park your car farther away from the office. Take the stairs at work instead of the elevator. Walk the dog; it will do you both some good. Try exercising every time there is a commercial on your television disrupting your program. You're apt to get more exercise than you may want or need. Three 10-minute sessions add up to 30 minutes, which is all you need each day to stay healthy.

Commercial endeavors that taste good or make life easier sometimes get in the way and hide in unsuspected places. Even good things can be two-sided and provoke our well-being.

It isn't that we haven't heard it often enough or that we don't know better. We just don't think it affects us or that little bit won't hurt, forgetting sometimes those "little bits" get together and become "big bits."

Stress is a characteristic of modern life, but we don't have to succumb to it. Create a realistic perspective, clarify goals and unwind through exercise or a hobby. Thinking concern? Don't worry. If something is over, it can't be undone.

If you can't do anything about it, let it go. Ask yourself, “What the worst thing that can happen?” and then deal with it.

Children do what adults do, meaning they pick up unhealthy habits at an early age. 

Too much meat, not enough fruits or vegetables. They drink sugar drinks and not enough water. They don't exercise. Some may even go on to smoke.

They say, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” I beg to differ. They may be forever, but I say your heart is your best friend because without it beating there would be an end.

If you truly love someone, take care of yourself so you will be there for them.

Birthdays and anniversaries:

• Thursday, February 20th: Hadley Routh, Derek Flesche, Amy Shaunce, David Swearingen, Joyce Lageson Hoddick, LuAnn Sommer Granholdt, David & LeAnn Hanson, Jim & Nancy Cornelius

• Friday, February 21st: Jeannie Worrell, Andy Butler, Phillip Ingvaldson, Bryan Dirkson, Leanna Peterson, Chris & Kim Jensen, Darrell & Cynthia Farr, Max & Marlene Jensen

• Saturday, February 22nd: Shelia Nelson White, Carlie Thompson, Dalys Waltz, Joan & Marian Mast

• Sunday, February 23rd: Sharon Gasner Ramaker, Bernie Warnke, Josh Krueger, Markus Allen Misgen, Daniel Suelter, Dale Waltz, Tiffany Mischke, Daniel Walterman, Laura & Jamie Baudoin

• Monday, February 24th: Jerry Hemingway, Rick Draper, Nathan Wayne, Roxy Menefee Ray, Sarah Zamora, Nancy Larson, Kathy & Daryl Reed

• Tuesday, February 25th: Berniece Farr Mattson, Colton Hagen, Brad Hagen, LuAnn Miller, Sherri Larson Fritz, Steve & Vicky Dobberstein

• Wednesday, February 26th: Sharon Menefee, Shawn Jensen, Becky Lassahn, Ray Coxworth, Ginger Cornelius, Mary Lou Spurr, Chris Sauke, Mike Glynn, Jeff & Robin Christensen, Joel & Peg Radjenovich

Wishing you quiet moments of beauty on your special day!

I am getting a little tired of the weather being the main topic of conversation in my recent columns. The hard winter we have been experiencing has really taken its toll on our area resources – mainly the fish population. Although the DNR says it is healthy to have an occasional fish kill, it’s hard to accept the fact a lake such as Pickerel, which was just coming into its own as a fishery, has suffered a setback. With that lake’s history of freezing out in past years, I guess a freeze out was inevitable.

As an outdoors enthusiast I have always considered myself a fisherman first, but one who appreciates the total outdoors package. Whenever I drive past any body of water, whether it is a lake or a small stream, I always have to wonder what type of fish, if any, lurk below the surface. I have been that way for as far back as I can remember, and I’d guess it’s what keeps my enthusiasm for the sport alive. It is that “little kid” curiosity in me that fuels my imagination and makes me want to explore new waters whenever the opportunity arises. This is, no doubt, the reason it saddens me to know some of our area lakes, which we take pretty much for granted, have succumbed to the hard winter and suffered a fish kill. I personally believe that no lake will totally kill off, but I’m no marine biologist, just a fisherman with that little kid mentality when it comes to our resources. It is just hard to think of starting over on a lake. The DNR is already planning on re-stocking Albert Lea Lake this spring.

There are still lakes in the area that, to my knowledge, have not suffered winter kills. Two of those lakes, St. Olaf and Beaver, are not that far away and can be just the ticket for a summer family outing. Both lakes have fishing piers and nice picnic areas along with swimming beaches. Each of these lakes offer a variety of fish; what a great way to spend an afternoon enjoying the outdoors with family.

When I was a kid these are the two lakes that gave me great memories which I still cherish today. It’s funny how much fun you can have just by taking a short drive to enjoy a little fishing and a picnic. Who says picnic anymore, and does anyone still own a picnic basket? I believe we still have one in the attic, complete with those colorful plastic plates with separate compartments, hard plastic cups with handles and a thermos bottle to keep the Kool-Aid cool. When I was a kid, a picnic was cold meat sandwiches, my mother’s famous potato salad and Van Camps pork and beans. To me, it just couldn’t possibly get any better than that.

It is amazing how taking a little break from our busy lives and driving just a short ways to enjoy an afternoon relaxing with family can make memories that last a lifetime. Of course I am talking about me and the times I enjoyed, but then I didn’t have Facebook, Twitter or other social media to worry about; just a fishing pole, a can of worms and an appetite for a good old picnic lunch.

Until next time, stay warm and get out when you can and enjoy a little Minnesota winter fun.

Please remember to keep our troops in your thoughts and prayers because they are the reason that we are able to enjoy all the freedoms that we have today.

Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

My brother thinks he's a snowblower.

Did you take him to a doctor?

No, I have to wait until the neighbor returns him.

Driving by the Bruces

I have two wonderful neighbors — both named Bruce — ho live across the road from each other. Whenever I pass their driveways, thoughts occur to me, such as: if I’m in a hurry, I shouldn’t be driving.

I’ve learned

• Astrology was invented to make economics seem like an exact science.

• When a spouse says "we," he or she means "you."

• A head is not a good place to store numbers.

The news from Hartland

• Bob and Betty Bigger proudly announce the birth of a son. The littlest Bigger’s name wasn’t available at press time.

• Vegetable farm begins near the dip in the road.

• Zoo receives bad gnus.

Cafe chronicles

"The food here is great," he said. "But this place is filled with geniuses. Every one of whom thinks he could farm better than I can."

"I need coffee and a line of credit."

There were no holes in the conversation.

"Most people my age are dead. Either Casey Stengel or my uncle Earl said that."

"Today's special is buy two dinners and pay for them both," the waitress interrupted.

The sign read, "No senior discounts. You’ve had long enough to raise the money."

Still, a discount was offered.

"Is the senior discount at 55, 60, or 65?" asked a customer, a woman wearing a sweatshirt reading, "Sweat dries. Blood clots. Bones heal. Cowgirl up."

The waitress replied, "If you feel like a senior, you get the discount."

Two men ordered the exact same breakfast. The friendly waitress hoped aloud that she wouldn’t confuse the two.

A young person entered. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, obviously dressed for the weather he wished we were having.

The company of a car

When you buy a car, you hope for the best. The first dent is the loudest sound in the world. One of the things you notice when you purchase a different vehicle, is that there are many cars just like yours. I just put 200,000 miles on my car, which has been a wonderful traveling companion. I wanted to stop and celebrate the mileage achievement, but I was driving down an interstate highway and it didn’t seem the place for jollification. I did bark out "Who let the miles out" and gave the car a kiss on her steering wheel. I appreciate her good company.

If I don’t see you in the future, I’ll see you in the pasture

I love the funny pages in newspapers. I enjoyed Rick O'Shay, a sometimes light-hearted, sometimes serious western set in the town of Conniption. The creator, Stan Lynde, introduced a number of colorfully-named supporting characters for the hopeful protagonist, Rick O’Shay. There was Mort Gage the banker and Hipshot Percussion, a gunslinger. Lynde passed away not long ago in Montana. I never got around to thanking him for his strip.

Customer comments

Sue Levy of Webster, Tex., wrote, "My husband favored the biblical method of snow removal. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Eventually."

Leon Schoenrock of New Richland wrote, "In regards to your statistic on hand washing, my friend Dave "Sharkey" Dunnette says you can tell what kind of job you have by your hand-washing habits. If you have a white-collar job, you wash your hands after you go to the bathroom. If you have a blue-collar job, you wash your hands before you go to the bathroom."

Did you know?

• Sigmund Freud had a chow, which sat beside him as Freud conducted therapy sessions. Freud felt that dogs could judge character.

• A CNN investigation found that between 7 and 18 percent of football and basketball players at big-time athletics universities read at an elementary school level.

• One out of eight Americans eats pizza each day.

Nature notes

"What kind of duck is Daffy Duck?" Daffy Duck is the kind of waterfowl that says things like, "I'm not afraid of ghosts. In fact, I'm not afraid of anything. Except perhaps low quarterly profit projections and personal intimacy." Daffy Duck is a Looney Tunes cartoon character created by Tex Avery for Warner Brothers. An argument could be made that Daffy was modeled after the black scoter, a ring-necked duck, a mallard, or an American black duck. Daffy doesn’t match any of them. Daffy appears to be a hybrid hunted by Elmer Fudd.

New Richland Public Library

Please join me there on the evening of February 26.

Thanks for stopping by

Marcel Proust wrote, "Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." Be kind.

Last year I wrote a couple of columns regarding my coaching philosophy and how it has changed over time. As you read this, I am approaching the final tournament of my four-year career as an elementary basketball coach. It has been quite the ride!

When I started coaching Jayna’s class, I had no intention of doing this beyond the four years of the elementary program. However, I’ve had so much fun watching this fine group of girls grow and develop, not just in their basketball skills, but in their personalities as well, that I plan to apply to continue coaching them in junior high.

With that in sight, and by the request of many of the girls, Todd Born, our other coach, and I signed them up to play in two spring basketball tournaments. We always felt that we didn’t want to overdo the amount of tournaments, and at the end of each season, the girls have wanted more. That was a good sign to us that we had hit the right number of games on the head. Thus, we’ve gone from one to four to five to six tournaments over the years, now adding an additional two as a buffer before junior high.

This has all been part of a carefully-crafted plan, with this end in sight, back in third grade. The plan has adjusted at times to meet the needs of the large number of girls we have playing, which is currently twenty.

And now is when the truly difficult part begins. I mentioned in my musings last year about my firm belief in giving people opportunities, and I stand by that. However, those opportunities now include giving all players chances to play in different groups than they’ve had the chance to in recent years. We always had four groups, divided equally, and rotated girls so that half of them played in one location and the other half in another. We’ve never put together “A” and “B” teams. Now the time has come to be able to allow the combinations that we didn’t get to use due to the splitting of teams.

I really think we did things the right way, and Todd and I have seen some kids become much better players, which might not have happened if they had been on a “B” team. Had we divided that way, our “B” team might have been throttled routinely since all the best ball-handlers would have been on the “A” team. Instead, by dividing equally, we’ve had some success, placing second, third, or fourth in many of the tournaments. That’s pretty good when you don’t have all your players.

However, we now need to give the opportunity to the kids who have progressed to a higher level to all be on the court at the same time, at least for portions of games. This leads to us merging into one team only, and it might cause some hard feelings. While girls have gotten many chances to play more regularly in the past, during this year, we’ve tended to reward those who are working hard and understanding the concepts better with more playing time. If you still can’t run our basic offense after four years in the system and still don’t know where your person is on defense, you won’t see the floor as much.

By playing in Pacesetter tournaments this spring, we will face a higher level of competition, and players need to be ready for it. Every girl that plays will continue to receive chances to prove herself, but in the end, playing time will be limited for some, especially if most of the girls continue to play.

If a girl loves the sport and is willing to work hard and understand her role on the team, she’s always got a place on a team I coach. It’s the “understanding her role” portion that becomes difficult for some to swallow. Not everybody can be a starter and not everybody can be the first people off the bench. When I played varsity basketball, I understood my role to be the person who pushed the starters in practice and worked hard to get better; I simply did not have the talent to play much.

Todd and I still love the enthusiastic interest in the sport and appreciate the efforts of the girls, as well as the tremendous group of parents we get to work with; they have been awesome in their support. We hope the players can understand their roles, but also know that some will begin to drift away in the next couple of years. In the end, we hope to have a competitive group of girls left at the varsity level to keep up the strong tradition that is being built and should continue for years to come.

Word of the Week: This week’s word is bumfuzzle, which means to confuse, as in, “The zone defense seemed to bumfuzzle the players, who had only seen man-to-man defense previously.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!

The scurs and their Gremlin X Weather Eye with the Studebaker thermostat have given them a degree of accuracy not previously achieved. After more tinkering, will the results continue on track? Starting Wednesday, mostly cloudy with a moderate chance of snow. Highs in the mid-30’s and lows in the upper 20’s. Cloudy on Thursday with a good chance of snow. Windy conditions may cause blizzard conditions. Highs in the mid-20’s and lows in the low teens. Partly sunny and starting a cooling trend on Friday. Highs in the low 20’s and lows in the middle single digits. Cooler and mostly cloudy Saturday. Highs in the upper teens and lows near zero. Partly cloudy Sunday with a slight chance of snow. Highs near 15 with lows just below zero. Mostly sunny and cold on Monday. Highs near 10 and lows near zero. Warmer for Tuesday with highs rebounding to near 20 and lows in the upper single digits above zero. The normal high for Washington’s real birthday on the 22nd is 30 and the normal low is 12. The scurs will be shoveled out for a piece of cherry pie at Hartland’s Village Inn by then. Probably have some ice cream too while they’re at it.

The Full Moon on Valentine’s Day was as good as advertised. It was orange and huge as it rose, prompting a reader to call and ask if I’d seen it. Indeed I had as we were settling in for an evening of Gopher hockey. Quite a planet we live on and full of beauty in the skies this time of year. Venus continues to shine brightly in the morning at chore time. Mars will become a more prominent feature as the month draws to a close, rising around 10 o’clock in the east. Jupiter has been high overhead around 10 p.m., one night recently appearing to be racing with the moon. On February 25th we’ll see 11 hours of daylight for the first time since the middle of October. We have actually seen some sun too once the clouds roll out. A welcome relief from the long dark days of late December.

The lack of snow was suddenly changed, although it was amazing how much mileage we got from the dabs of snow that fell. High winds were responsible for several back-to-back driveway cleanings with the same snow. Saturday changed all that with about 3 inches of snow at the ranch followed by Monday’s encore performance of another 3+ inches. The amount of moisture in the snow has been changing as well. The snow last week was very dry with .02” of liquid in .6” of snow. This week the snow on Monday for example was .35” of liquid per 3.2” of snow. Seasonal wetlands should benefit, although it’s unlikely this latest snow will impact the fields much as the frost depth was 28” at the SROC on February 17th. Snow depth is guesstimated at about a foot at the ranch. Reports of frozen pipes are becoming more and more commonplace, particularly in areas that have been kept clear of snow. Frost has been reported as deep as 6’ in those situations.

The birds continue to respond to the cold conditions with increased amounts of snow on the ground. The pheasants in particular are becoming more numerous in and around our yard. Over a dozen at a time were spotted at the ear corn feeder recently. When you’re reading the paper and they fly by the living room window, it’s comical. Some people have automobile traffic. I guess we have pheasant traffic. Sunday morning saw the first robins of the season. They were back on Tuesday morning. One has to wonder if perhaps some were sick of trying to tough out the winter and were moving south. I think a lot of us can relate.

Shearing was accomplished once again at the ranch over the weekend. The fleeces were clean and for some reason extremely dry and light. The sheep were generally cooperative although one ram decided to demonstrate his four-wheel drive by snapping a steel T-post off at ground level. Thanks to my cat-like reflexes, he narrowly missed my knee. Our age is beginning to catch up with us though. The next day getting motivated to do much more than move from the couch to the dinner table was challenging. It doesn’t seem to faze the shearer and the catcher however. They seem to never age. We had more lambs on the ground when he came and after he left the games began in earnest. Thank goodness it warmed up, although those born in the sub-zero cold are doing just fine. It’ll be time to move them into a loafing area soon so the lambs can access the creep feeder. Must be nice to be young and able to eat as much as you want.

In between moving snow and running back and forth to the barn, we make some time to watch Gopher hoops and hockey, both men’s and women’s. All the teams have been competitive and, win or lose, the games are entertaining. The Olympics have also been a great way to relax when we get a chance. Ruby’s latest pet peeve appears to be figure skaters. She can awaken from a dead sleep and if figure skating is on TV, she’s growling. Unless the skaters fall of course. Their movement stops and true to her Border Collie roots, that’s the way she prefers it.

See you next week…real good then.

Memorial Services for Mavis L. Roberts, of rural Ellendale, will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 22, 2014, at Bonnerup Funeral Service, Albert Lea. The Reverend Richard Spande will officiate.

Interment will be in Clarks Grove Cemetery at a later date.  Visitation will be one hour before services at the funeral home.

Mavis died at her home in rural Ellendale on Monday, February 17, 2014. She was 81.

She was born on April 24, 1932, in Albert Lea, the only child of Julius and Lillian (Hanson) Nelson.