Columns

Two weeks ago while I was watching huge chunks of ice pass by and the Des Lacs River quickly rise to flood stage, I saw a fur-bearing animal on the water trying to swim upstream. I was able to get some pictures of it, but in using an iPhone, you don’t have the option...

I have answered several surveys that query the name of my favorite teacher, and why. The question brings pause as I begin to think and narrow the list based on the good things and not so good things that I can remember about my classroom days. 1st grade, 2nd grade,...

A friend of mine, Marvin Baker, has a garden in Carpio. In North Dakota having a garden would certainly not make him unique, except that Marvin runs North Star Farms where he raises and sells naturally grown prairie produce. Marvin and I met some years ago as he used...

The snow is gone—for now. The streets are dry—for the most part. That crazy ice dam near Jersey Mike’s and Noodles & Co has melted. Signs of winter are fleeting—although the forecast still insists on including a chance of snow flurries, just to keep us on our...

A horse drawn wagon, flannel shirts, floppy eared caps, smiling faces, the smell of fresh pancakes, and sweet maple syrup.Vermont?Nope. Fort Stevenson State Park a few miles south of Garrison. Standing under one of the park’s most reliable box elder trees, Park...

When looking at farm and ranch statistics from the USDA Census of Agriculture, a person could take all day picking apart the various numbers, crops, livestock and even ag processing. There are farms themselves, which in 2017 totaled 26,374 that included 39.3 million...

It was Easter Monday, April 10th. It was a really nice day…we were in Bismarck in the afternoon, and it was 60 degrees. On the drive back we were commenting on how there were open fields loaded with geese. A week ago, this wasn’t true. We seemed to miss the majority...

Sometimes a person needs to listen to the silence. Our world is filled with sounds of all sorts, so much so that most of us don’t even realize it. There’s cheering and chatter, the closing of car doors, noise of traffic, televisions, ring tones of cell phones -- even...

It seems that every time we see information about North Dakota agriculture, it’s about the 11 crops that the Ag Department maintains as No. 1 in the nation. In one sense it paints a good picture for us, but in another it’s deceiving because anyone who farms or knows...