Don is back from his Black Hills trip. Both he and the van did great. I got some pretty cool gifts from the Mt. Rushmore gift shop as thanks for loaning him Flying Cloud. I begin to wonder, “what shall we do for Friday night?” Movie? Nope, no theaters in town and the closest is…
I don’t expect to have such an exciting date for awhile (see Two Senior Citizens and a Dog on the James River) In fact, we won’t have any kind of date for at least a week. Don loves my van, Flying Cloud, as much as I do. He hitched up a trailer, loaded his motorcycle,…
Bird life on the prairie is more abundant than I expected. A few days ago I drove to a small town about 35 miles west. Oh look, huge Northern Harriers swooping down on rodent prey every few miles. Another dozen or so Prairie Falcons. The cattails surrounding the ponds are full of Yellow-Headed Blackbirds. On the…
Half the material I read calls this area the prairie. The other half uses the term Great Plains. Since I live here and write about life in North Dakota now, I decided that this is the time to figure out the difference, if any, between these two terms. Yes, a prairie and the Great Plains…
I have indeed gone to many wonderful places. Now I am sitting on the 100th meridian up here in North Dakota. I am not sitting on anything real, like a chair or a porch swing: a meridian is simply one of many imaginary lines that divide the globe into equal sections. I am in the…
I am not a stranger to forest fires, having lived at various times in California, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming. My closest encounter was in Northern California, around 1993. I was camping in Hendy Woods State Park, with my young son and friends, in a borrowed pop-up camper. In the wee hours, the rangers woke us…
Last summer I spent about a month in Northern Montana while on my 6-week sabbatical. I was intrigued by the extra longs days up north. I enjoyed sitting outside in the evening until 11 PM or so, when dark began to settle in. So, I have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of extra long days…
I am starting to feel like a local. For one thing, I made a dessert for the annual Fireman’s Fundraising Dinner. I don’t bake often, but I loved it. I used a recipe that the local “Germans from Russia” make (Two-Tone dessert, made with pudding, cream cheese, and Cool Whip on a flour/nut crust and…
Holy Week was busy in my new church and community. I had six services (Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday at the Nursing Home, Maundy Thursday at church, Good Friday, Easter Sunrise and Easter). That is a new record for me, so I started working on the services a few weeks earlier. I wasn’t sure I could…
The beautiful state of ND is still brown, yet I love wandering and exploring in the early spring. Migrating birds overhead and the return of resident ducks in the ponds and lakes draw me out into the sunshine. Sandhill Crane, Duck and Snow Goose migration continues overhead. In the water I observed endless species…