Monthly Archives: March 2012

Frogs, feathers and ticks, oh my!

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What do you get when you pack up the car with a power drill, a pooper scooper-type device and a quartet of kids?

An adventure of epic proportions, of course!

On Saturday, a couple of the 4-H’ers I mentor teamed up with my niece Katie and nephew Zach to close up bluebird houses located on Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) in Bigelow Township, just a mile or two from the farm where I grew up. There are 22 bluebird houses and a few wood duck houses on the parcels, and this is the earliest we’ve been able to get out to them and close them up for the beautiful bluebirds to build their nests.

Feathers in a wood duck house.

On our very first stop we realized we needed to stand up-wind from the birdhouses. Some of houses didn’t get opened last fall, and Saturday’s gale-force winds caused feathers, dust and nesting material to quickly sail into the air.

The second stop gave the kids a chance to peer into a couple of wood duck houses. These were built and erected a couple of years ago by 4-H’ers, with help from Pheasants Forever, the Okabena-Ocheda Watershed District and a Minnesota 4-H Foundation Helping Hands grant. One box had obviously been used at some point, but the other was just as clean inside as it was on the day we put it out there.

On our way back to the car, I pointed out the rocks placed along the cement culvert and told the kids I lost a few fishhooks on those blasted things when I was a kid about their age. The water is low enough now that it would have been easy to see any lost lures, but I’m sure the hooks I lost there as a kid have long since rusted away.

A giant frog.

We’d climbed out of the ditch, only for the kids to oooh and aaah over a set of deer tracks and then delight in finding a giant frog resting nearby. Alyssa picked it up, and then let out a scream when it jumped to freedom.

Yes, my citifed neighbor kids were connecting with nature at the WMAs.

Stop three was just as exciting, as Scott Des Lauriers and his gang were pulling in nets from Lake Bella. They’d harvested nearly 7,000 pounds of buffalo fish on Friday, and were gearing up for yet another haul. The crew had a successful harvest from the same lake last fall.

The kids watched the guys work the nets for a while, and then Scott told them he had a couple of buffalo fish in a bin if they wanted to see them. As expected, they bolted toward the box on the shoreline to see the massive fish. I’m pretty sure there were more ooohs and aaahs.

Deer tracks in the gravel road.

Eventually, we climbed back in the car and drove to our final destination — a WMA with 12 bluebird houses that requires crossing a creek — twice. By the time we reached the second birdhouse, leader Zach had stepped into a rather large critter hole and came up hobbling on a sore ankle. We thanked him for pointing the hole out to us, and then continued on our journey. At the third house, the girls and I were ready for a break, so we sent the boys off with the DeWalt drill and a “Good Luck!”

The boys cleared 12 nests from 12 bluebird houses — three or four of which showed promise as having actually been used by bluebirds — and had managed to cross the creek twice without getting wet or muddy.

As we pulled the car out of the last WMA and headed back to the farm, I was thinking about all the fun we had on our outdoor adventure. And then, breaking into my thoughts, came a scream from the back seat. Niece Katie found a wood tick crawling on her.

I guess I should be glad it was only a wood tick catastrophe when I think of all the things that could have happened. At least we didn’t scare up a skunk, the boys didn’t fall in the creek and I didn’t see any snakes!

The Farmer in the Dell

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From time to time, the co-worker who shares my little corner of the newsroom says something so off-the-wall that I just have to burst out laughing.

Editor Ryan trying to look like a farmer.

On Thursday, the laughter came when Online Content Coordinator Aaron Hagen told our editor it was time to go and milk the cows … or go and feed the pigs … or go and plant the crops.

The reason for Aaron’s attempted ridicule at our newsroom chief was due to the boss wearing a plaid shirt to work.

Apparently, in Aaron’s mind, a plaid shirt is worn only by men who drive tractors, herd cattle and tend to a flock of sheep for a living.

That this whole discussion took place on National Agriculture Day, of all days, served as perfect fodder for my blog.

Curious about Aaron’s perception of the American farmer, I asked what he expected a farmer to wear.

He pointed at Ryan.

Then he asked if I thought Ryan looked like a farmer.

“More like a politician trying to blend into a crowd of farmers,” I replied. I mean, have you ever noticed when a presidential candidate goes to farm country, he wears a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, blue jeans and a pair of loafers? The top of the politician’s head gives it away — the hairdo looks like it’s never been covered up by a seed corn cap or straw hat (that’s another of Aaron’s stereotypes, by the way).

My suggestion that we all come to work Friday dressed like farmers — in honor of National Agriculture Week, of course — was met with little enthusiasm in the newsroom. It again made me wonder what my citified co-workers really envision farmers wearing on the job.

Aaron, quick to Google farming attire, of course had to find the one photo that least represents a farm girl. Let’s just say, she had a strong resemblance to Daisy Duke, and I certainly wasn’t coming in to work dressed like THAT!

The truth is, since Friday is jeans day, I’m already half clad in what certainly passes for farm clothes. The top can be just an old T-shirt or sweatshirt — with or without a grease stain, jagged rip from the barbed wire fence or body odor (yours or the odor seeped in from the cattle yard or pig barn).

My dad in his GTA Feeds coveralls.

The best example of farm clothes I can think of is my dad’s 30-plus year old pair of blue GTA Feeds coveralls. Yes, he still wears them. Thanks to Mom, they’ve been patched dozens of times — including long, wide patches on both legs that stretch from the shins to the thighs. Those coveralls have been covered in dust from scooping up five gallon pails full of ground ear corn, they’ve been subjected to cattle who think they need to take a lick of the cotton fabric and I’m sure there are more than a few oil or grease stains to be found on them as well.

I’ve admired those GTA coveralls for so long that, several years ago, I had Dad put them on, grab a pitchfork and pose in the cattle yard wearing his favorite farming attire. My attempt at photography wasn’t great that day — the pictures in which he wore his farm cap left a shadow over his face and the pictures where I made him take the cap off left a dome that looked like it needed to be covered by a farm cap.

When I think of a farmer, I don’t think of some guy wearing a plaid shirt and blue jeans, I think of Dad wearing those faded coveralls.

Happy National Agriculture Week to all of you farmers — men and women — out there, whether you don work boots and seed caps or Stetsons and cowboy boots. Thank you for the work you do, today and every day, to feed the world.