Monthly Archives: May 2009

My wish for you

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“I hope the days come easy and the moments pass slow,
And each road leads you where you want to go,
And if you’re faced with a choice, and you have to choose,
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.

And if one door opens to another door closed,
I hope you keep on walkin’ til you find the window…

But more than anything…
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.” ~ Rascal Flatts

She walked down the aisle tonight in her blue, flowing gown, a mortar board atop her head and a tassel rocking back and forth with each step she made toward the stage. She had a smile on her face, I had a lump in my throat and my mom had a tear in her eye.

How we’ve waited for this moment. For my folks, it was their first grandchild to graduate. For me, it was the first of eight nieces and nephews to earn a diploma. For Crystal’s parents, it was finally seeing a child finish high school.

As I write this tonight, the tears are flowing from my eyes and the words are flowing from my fingertips. What to say about the little blue-eyed girl that came into our lives so many years ago?

Crystal was four years old when her mom married my oldest brother. She joined our family along with her two older brothers, and they have become as much a part of who we are as anyone born into the Buntjer clan.

Over the years, we’ve watched them grow up, face challenges, fall and pick themselves back up again.

Tonight was such an emotional night for us because Crystal, the youngest of the three kids, is the first to graduate high school. Her older brothers dropped out for reasons we may not understand, but we hope one day they will earn their G.E.D.’s. They just have to want it for themselves.

That’s one thing I’ve had to learn as an aunt. As much as I want to say, “Go to school, get an education, make a life for yourself or else!” I can’t make them do anything … we can’t make anyone do anything they aren’t willing to do for themselves.

I’ll still be there offering encouragement, and perhaps during this weekend’s celebration offering some gentle ribbing to the boys about their younger sister achieving something they never did. Will it work? Who knows.

But as much as tonight’s graduation reminded me of the missed opportunities of the past, this was Crystal’s night and each tomorrow is her future. This is her success. She may not have been an honor student, the star athlete or the Homecoming Queen, but she walked off that stage tonight with a diploma in her hand, and nobody can take that away from her.

So Crystal, MY wish for you is that you find happiness in whatever you do; that life gives you more joy than tears; that challenges make you stronger, not fall in defeat; and that whatever happens, you know your family will always be here to help.

Did you know?

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I get quite a bit of mail here in the Daily Globe newsroom … most of it useful information and others, not so much.

I look forward to getting anything on my desk pertaining to agriculture, so when the latest edition of Minnesota Agriculture (produced by Minnesota Farmer’s Union) arrived, I glanced through its pages. Each edition includes a display on the Farmer’s Share of the Retail Food Dollar, which I always find interesting.

Did you know that the farmer only receives 20 cents of every food dollar that consumers spend on food for home and in restaurants? The USDA reports that off-farm costs for marketing, processing, wholesaling, distribution and retailing account for the remaining 80 percent of every food dollar spent in the U.S.

Here are a few of the examples Farmer’s Union provided in its latest edition:

The farmer gets 44 cents for a pound of bacon that sells for $2.99; 83 cents for a pound of top sirloin steak that retails for $5.99; 12 cents from a pound of $2.99 bread; 59 cents for a pound of $3.99 potatoes; 97 cents for a gallon of milk that retails for $2.99; 9 cents for a 13.5 ounce package of potato chips that retails for $3.99; $1.13 for a pound of cheddar cheese that retails for $4.99 and just 12 cents for a six-pack of beer that retails for $5.59.

The farmer’s share is derived from records at the USDA, while the retail values are based on Safeway brand, with the exception of the potato chips.

This particular edition of Minnesota Agriculture also included several interesting statistics on the ag industry in Minnesota.

As a state, our greatest ag export is soybeans and products, followed by feed grains and products, live animals and meat, wheat and other products.

Farmers in Minnesota make most of their money from corn, followed by soybeans, hogs, dairy products, cattle and calves, turkeys, sugar beets, wheat, greenhouse/nursery items, chicken eggs, hay, potatoes, broiler chickens, sweet corn, dry beans, sunflowers, sheep and lambs, oats, barley, apples and honey.

And, for a few more facts to impress people this weekend …

Minnesota has 79,600 farms, totaling nearly 28 million of the state’s 54 million acres.

The agriculture and food industry is the second largest employer in Minnesota.

Two-thirds of all ag jobs are off-farm, whether in processing, distribution, supply or service sectors.

Minnesota ranks fifth in farm exports.

Minnesota has 16 ethanol plants and three biodiesel plants. Total ethanol production capacity is 620 million gallons annually.

Choking on fumes

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Well, it’s the last day of my six-day vacation and since the cool weather decided to stick around, my hopes for a relaxing day of fishing are down the drain.

Yes, I know … it’s yet another sign that I should be cleaning the house. And I have been … choke … wheeze … inhaling cleaning fumes!

I have a fairly small house and when scents of Mountain Berry, Country Fresh, Fresh Linen, Lemon and Outdoor Fresh combine, it’s enough to have me running to the back door to breathe in the "real" air. Uff da!

As my cleaning bottles are empty, I think I will replace all of them with "Unscented" varieties that won’t give me a headache. I say that now, but who doesn’t want their mirrors to smell like mountain berries or their furniture to smell outdoor fresh? Yes, I get lured in by the pretty scents.

I’ve made it through three of the five rooms on my main floor so far. At this pace, I may just finish before I return to the newsroom on Thursday!

Dad and I finished putting the field stones around my perennial garden, so that’s one more checkmark off my "To Do" list.

Now if I could just get that sidewalk replaced, tear out a wall to make my bathroom bigger, refinish the hardwood floors, replace the kitchen cabinets, paint my front door, fix the garage roof … oh, will the work ever end?

Spring cleaning leads to spring dreaming!

For the birds

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Well, I took a couple of vacation days to extend the long weekend, and of course, the weather is cooperating just as it did the last time I took a vacation day … rainy and dreary.

Perhaps it’s a sign that I need to stay inside and get some work done around the house! So much for heading up to the lake to catch some more of those sunfish and crappies.

Last night, Dad and I headed out to the far back of the Buntjer farm to go digging through some rock piles. It’s been in the plans for a year … I’ve just never gotten around to it. I wanted some field stone to border two sides of my perennial garden in the back yard, and now when I look out the window of my home office, I can see them in all of their varying shades of beauty. Yes, simple things make me happy.

We underestimated the number of rocks, though, so it looks like another bumpy ride through the old cattle pasture is in order … on a day when it isn’t raining.

After we pulled up next to the rock pile yesterday, I stepped out of the truck and coaxed my dog, Molly out. (She sat between Dad and I on the seat because, well, I let her. Dad didn’t care for that too much, but it’s an old farm truck … what harm could she do?)

Anyway, I took about one step and a pheasant hen flushed at my feet … scared me so much I nearly tripped over a rock! I was surprised the hen hadn’t taken off sooner – the front wheel was only about two feet from her. But there was a reason she waited … she was sitting on a nest full of eggs. I found it a couple of minutes after she flushed, and I was glad I did. We didn’t want to damage the eggs or disturb the nest, and thankfully Molly was too distracted by the field mouse she caught to notice our discovery.

My second encounter with a nest came last night. I had just finished mowing my lawn, pulling weeds and putting the downspouts back in place, and decided to knock down the nest that birds built in the little crook between the downspout and the overhang.

I thought the nest would be empty … but it wasn’t. There were two robins inside, both big enough to survive … but the momma and daddy robin were not pleased. I thought they were going to take my head off the way they swooped and squawked over me.

Here’s another life lesson: Either destroy the nest before it looks like a nest, or leave the nest in place and live with all the slimy bird droppings that drip down my office window!

Gee, I just remembered that other job I should do today … wash a window!

Fishing and family

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Well, I finally caught my first fish of the season … my first four fish! I reeled in a nice sunfish and three crappies – the last of which snapped that little bar on the bottom of the reel … the one that slides underneath the rod thingy. It broke in two places … and I’m not too happy about it because I just bought a new reel to replace another one that won’t cast out! My hobby budget just won’t allow for all of these problems.

Anyway, after the reel snapped off, niece Jessie came to the rescue and held onto the rod while I took the reel in my hands and tried to fight the crappie to shore. I won!

It was a girls’ day at the lake … just me and my 18-year-old and 15-year-old nieces. The 8-year-old and 7-year-old nephews stayed closer to home and went fishing for bullheads with Grandpa, and Grandma was stuck at home with the pair of 3-year-olds and the 18-month-old. Yes, it’s been a busy couple of days with that many kids running around the farm, and I think my folks and I will be relieved to see them all go back home on Monday!

I have officially lost my patience with little boys who don’t pay attention to fishing lines and get them tangled in tree branches, rocks and weeds … and for big girls who beg to go fishing, yet while I’m trying to reel in my favorite panfish I turn around to see their fishing poles tossed on the dock and their feet splashing in the water.

I’m tired of kids who yank on their fishing rods as I’m trying to put wax worms on the hooks … not on purpose, of course, but because they’re too antsy to stand still.

In the last two days I’ve had a hook stuck in my finger, in my jeans, in my net and in my glove, and I didn’t cause any of them!

I love spending time with my nieces and nephews, and I’m usually also glad (exhausted) when they go back home … but only for a little while.

By Monday night, when the house is back to its normal silence, I’ll get a little melancholy for their smiling faces, their giggles, their bear hugs … and maybe even their constant questions. I know this will be true … it happens every time.