After spending thirty-nine years living in the country I have had my sleep interrupted many times by a variety of nature’s alarm clocks. The problem with that situation is the alarm clocks don’t always go off when its convenient for me or my sleep pattern. Take this spring for example. It was 6:00 am, an hour and a half ahead of my normal wake up time when just outside our bedroom window the most awful “rat-a-tat-tat” filled the still morning…..
The message on my iPad read, “Hi!! I have a question for you and you can absolutely say no!! What are the odds the great Mr. Mike would be willing to come out of retirement next Friday?” Do you notice the clever way of using the words “the great” just at the right time in that message? How could my ego turn down such a request? So I didn’t! Cassie sent the message as she was doing my old job…..
“On and off” gentleman farmer might be a strange description when it comes to describing my farming behavior. But it does get across the point that I didn’t fit into the normal stereotypic ‘roll up your sleeves, dig in the dirt’ farmer role. My farming practices had their ups and downs. I grew up on a family farm and that old saying is so true, “You can take the boy off the farm but you can’t take the farm out…..
Selena is our granddaughter. She is in the fourth grade and we recently attended her spring music concert. It is a tradition at their house to have a post-concert celebration at Dairy Queen and feast on an ice cream treat of each person’s choice. I look forward to that tradition and since a hot fudge, marshmallow sundae is my favorite treat I dream about it from the beginning to the end of every concert I attend. Selena would be celebrating…..
I am sitting at my computer composing another blog and an April snowstorm is approaching. When one’s mind is expecting spring to appear any day the thought of a fresh foot of snow is disappointing. So I’m going to continue in the disappointing vain for a bit. Because after twenty years of growing pumpkins and selling them along the highway that passes our house I have decided to retire from pumpkin farming. As I announced my retirement intentions to the…..
Spring is creeping back into our northland. As the temperatures begin to slowly climb above freezing we anticipate the ‘ice out’ in our ponds, lakes and rivers. We have a creek that runs several hundred yards in front of our house and this time of the year as the snow begins to melt I can stick my head out of our front door a hear the roar of the water churning and tumbling as it makes it’s way to Lake…..
After Kathie and I married our family began to grow in numbers. First our son was born followed by a daughter. Then there was a five year break before our second daughter made her appearance. So for the first eighteen years the male/female ratio in our family was pretty close. We males were outnumbered but not too badly and we were able to hold our own. And then it happened. Our son completed his senior year in high school so…..
My blog title pretty much describes how things went for me last week. It all started when I was driving our car up our driveway. Since we live where the Red River Valley begins the landscape can be pretty much describe as flat. We live out in the country and our property contains one of the few hills in the area. Our driveway travels up the side of that hill. The driveway was covered with several inches of loose snow…..
I imagine with a blog title referring to a double header you are assuming this blog will deal with the game of baseball. But that is highly unlikely since spring training is just beginning and only the pitchers are checking into camp. There won’t be any baseball double headers played for a few weeks. The double header I’m referring to is something that is rare in the small town of 1500 that I live in. This blog is going to…..
It’s time for cabin fever to strike. We are approaching the middle of February after struggling through below zero temps and several feet of snow. Its been a brutal winter so far. In fact as I’m typing this blog a blizzard is raging outside my office window. Thirty years ago cabin fever was a normal part of a Minnesota winter. There were certain things that brought it on. Having to shovel your driveway out before going to work and then…..
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