Did you enjoy spring? I think it was on a Tuesday this year. Most of us follow meteorological seasons which means that spring is March 1 – May 31. Assuming that, we will have maybe three weeks of decent spring weather this year. With the long, cold winter followed by a cold spring I was … Continue reading "Surly Spring Staggers Toward Summer"

Dad shifted the car into high gear, then leveled the speed. We were going about 25 miles per hour. Birds were passing us. That was the speed of Dad. In the car, around the house, doing just about anything. He was very methodical. Maybe careful is a better term. And that made him slow. At … Continue reading "Viewing the Countryside from the Way Back "

We buried Grandpa last week. He was the older of our two cats that I’ve mentioned before. His real name was Arthur and he was more than 16 years old. I’ve called him Grandpa for probably the last five years when he began to slow down. He was a rescue cat who was a mile-a-minute … Continue reading "We Grant A Gracious Goodbye to Grandpa"

How do Minnesotans know spring has arrived? The calendar says there’s more daylight than darkness. That’s about it, except maybe the first barge passing through Lake Pepin. Everyone has already gone through the seed catalogs and mostly decided on what the year’s plantings will be. But that doesn’t mean it is truly spring yet. Meteorological … Continue reading "Winter’s Great Weight Becomes Spring’s Great Wait "

“Why does Red Wing have so many churches?” I’m often asked that question by visitors. “What do you mean?” I ask in reply, even though I’m pretty sure I know exactly what they mean. They are always referring to the many churches in Red Wing’s central corridor, along or near the one-way sections of East … Continue reading "Red Wing’s Churches . . . What’s Their Future?"

We are fast approaching Spring. So I decided to buy snowshoes and give it a try. Let me explain. As February was coming to a close, we woke up to several mornings of shovel-ready snow. Nuisance snow is what I call it. And that snow adds up. What had been a pretty dry winter suddenly … Continue reading "Snowshoeing My Way to Spring "

We can’t know everything. That’s why the world has professionals that provide services we need in areas we know little about. It’s an endless list that includes carpenters, electricians, doctors, waiters, farmers, cashiers, butchers and nuclear plant operators. They provide a needed service to make a living and it’s likely how we make (or made) … Continue reading "Our View of Work Shifts to a New Reality "

There are, perhaps surprisingly, many things we can agree on today despite all the divisiveness with COVID, politics and climate change. One we might be in agreement with is that here in the cold north we spend way too much time and money attempting to maintain a summer climate throughout our homes when it can … Continue reading "We Might Agree on More Than You Think"

If cookbooks and recipe cards marked with stains and notes are indicators of a good cook, my mother Bea must have been one of the best. Cooking and baking was a large part of what defined her. She didn’t have the most cookbooks. I know she had a version of Betty Crocker’s Cookbook. Doesn’t everyone … Continue reading "Mom’s Recipes Stirred Up Some Fine Dining "

Our family’s first transistor radio was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I didn’t know what a transistor was but this radio had six of them so it had to be good. My folks got it for free when they bought some furniture at a store in Bloomington. An airport runway now occupies that spot. … Continue reading "We’ve Come a Long Way from Transistor Radios"