For the past few weeks I’d had high hopes for Monday’s solar eclipse, hopes that I could sit outside and watch things darken in the middle of the day. The forecasts over the weekend led me to be doubtful. Monday was supposed to be mostly cloudy, with a good chance for rain later in the ...

Who would’ve believed it from an introverted and quiet farm boy? For quite some years, I’ve been holding wine tasting events. Please understand these events are not world class wine tasting happenings They are meant to be fun. I’ve tasted a rather hefty number of wines, read a bunch ...

The two men in Carhartt body suits watching their rods along the far side of the creek below the rock dam were a welcome sign. Though their pickups in the parking lot when I arrived suggested there may be more traffic at the out-of-the-way feeder creek where a number of seasons ago the pike ...

I recently felt a pressing need to own a drill press. No farm shop is complete without one and a man isn’t any kind of man if he doesn’t have a drill press. An internet search yielded a perplexing panoply of choices. There are big ones, small ones, short ones, and tall ones. I was ...

This much is true. I hit a home run. For years, Kevin Sweeney, the retired editor of The New Ulm Journal, wrote up New Ulm’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration. It was his way of poking fun at the dour Germans who surrounded him.  Kevin reported on true events, like New Ulm’s few Irish ...

While browsing through books at the Avera Thrift Store, I came across a book titled, “Growing Up In Minnesota: Ten Writers Remember Their Child- hoods”, edited by Chester G. Anderson, copyright 1976. On a blustery Minnesota day, I opened the book, and to my surprise, opposite the ...