Tag Archives: work

I fought the tree and the tree won

Posted on by
Reply

You know those safety messages that flood the media during the spring planting and fall harvest seasons? Farmers get in a hurry to put the crop in the ground after the snow melts and then get the crop in the bins before the snow flies again. They sometimes forget that cutting corners can lead to injury.

Well, the same can be said for clearing away tree limbs and cleaning up branches after that awful ice storm left tree debris on farm fields, across field driveways and on top of pasture fences.

I spent much of the day Saturday pulling downed limbs with the four-wheeler at the family farm. By the end of the day it looked like we’d made very little progress —the big picture is still a bit too overwhelming.

A more telling picture of the work accomplished might be better shown by looking at my arms. They look like I’ve been in a fight with a sharp-clawed farm cat.

I was poked and scraped and practically mauled by tree limbs, and the glorious sunshine left me with something worse than a farmer’s tan — a farmer’s tan that ends just above the wrists because of the fashionable brown Jersey gloves protecting my hands. Oh well, the sunburn has already started to fade, making the lines much less noticeable; and my injuries could have been much worse.

Still, I took my share of dares with the trees.

At one point, I’d positioned the four-wheeler underneath and slightly west of a dangling tree limb on the back side of the grove. I took the ATV out of gear (good safety habit), stood up and yanked on a branch in a game not unlike tug-of-war. I pulled, the tree cracked, I pulled some more and the tree cracked some more … and then it went boom. It didn’t put any cracks in the plastic fender of the four-wheeler, but one of those pesky branches put a not-so-nice black-and-blue mark on my arm. It’s still a bit tender to the touch.

That’s the only mark I can accurately source. The other cuts and scrapes weren’t even noticed until I’d cleaned up for the night.

I probably shouldn’t mention the hit made to my farm girl pride — courtesy of an ever-watching dad who said I “wasn’t doing it right.” The “it” in this case was hauling branches. (I’d been holding onto a branch and dragging it behind the four-wheeler.) Once he showed me how to work the log chain, I could move three or four large branches at a time. Somewhere in there you can envision a father saying “I told you so.”

On a positive note, I did learn how to use a log chain, and it worked quite well. I also learned how to use a chainsaw because, for the first time in 42 years, my dad thought I was finally old enough to be trusted with a dangerous power tool.

Liberating? I’m not sure. As far as I can tell, my newly acquired skills just mean I can do more work on the farm.

The Rabbits and the Panthers

Posted on by
2

There were all sorts of reasons why I accepted a reporting position at the Daily Globe more than nine years ago, but one of the lesser-known rationales was the dilemma I knew I’d face in my allegiance to certain high school sports teams.

I was the editor of the Wabasso Standard for four years prior to coming to Worthington. In that time, I followed the Rabbits during regular season games, through section championships and state title berths.

At a small town newspaper, with just a part-time reporter and some sports stringers, I was often the one with the camera dangling from my neck at those sporting events. I did my best to capture kids making baskets, pinning opponents, smacking balls to the outfield, slapping balls over the net and putting golf balls into holes.

While standing on the sidelines, I’ve been hit with basketballs, volleyballs, a football and even wrestling head-gear. So, when I’m sitting at Target Field and Joe Mauer comes on the big screen to ask us to keep an eye on the game, I do. The one time I didn’t, my oldest brother nearly ended up in my lap trying to catch a homerun ball.

I was never more thankful when, moving to Worthington, I learned I wouldn’t need to shoot another sporting event in my life — at least not for the newspaper!

Anyway, getting back to sports team allegiances…

It was about year three into my stint at Wabasso when the Wabasso Rabbits and the Ellsworth Panthers boys’ basketball teams faced off for a sub-section game in Marshall. By then, my older brother’s kids were students at Ellsworth, and the whole family came to the game. They sat on the Ellsworth side; I sat on the Wabasso side, and while I can’t remember who won, I remember my nephew stomping on a stuffed rabbit belonging to one of the Wabasso fans at the end of the game.

I was a bit mortified, and certainly hesitant to introduce him as my wonderful nephew — my fishing buddy as most Wabasso newspaper readers knew him through my weekly columns. Visions of Nephew Matt playing on that Ellsworth team in a few years made me realize right then and there that I couldn’t stay where I was. I couldn’t be hoping the Rabbits would head to state while watching Nephew Matt want the same for his team.

Since coming to Worthington, my allegiance has clearly been to the Panthers, even when they play my alma mater, the Trojans of WHS. Yet, without any niece or nephew currently playing at the high school level for Ellsworth — and an invite from the Wabasso statistician to meet up at last Saturday’s Wabasso-Ellsworth girls’ basketball game in the WHS gym — I found myself wondering who I should root for.

I recognized certain names from both teams, I recognized parents and grandparents from both teams in the stands; I even wore maroon — you can’t go wrong when the school colors of both Wabasso and Ellsworth are maroon and gold!

And, while I sat on the Ellsworth side of the gym, I chose a spot just a couple of rows behind the Wabasso team. I silently cheered for both teams, because cheering loudly for both would have been a bit confusing to everyone around me.

There’s nothing wrong with cheering for both teams. In fact, it takes some of the stress out of those high school allegiances we hold so deep in our hearts. (Someone may need to remind me of this when I have nephews and nieces playing baseball, basketball, volleyball and hockey games for Ellsworth and Fairmont in a few years!)

The Wabasso girls came out on top in Saturday’s match-up and will return to the WHS gym tonight to take on the Fulda Raiders. Meanwhile, the Wabasso Rabbits and the Ellsworth Panthers boys’ basketball teams will face off Thursday night in Ellsworth for the first round of tournament play. I can’t make it to either game, so I guess my allegiances won’t have to be tested again this week.

I’ll just say good luck to all of the teams.

My lovey, dovey Valentines

Posted on by
Reply

I must admit, I was a little disappointed to learn that my blog for the newspaper this week fell on Valentine’s Day.

As a single person, what do I have to say about the subject of love and commitment?

Zilch, nada, a big and barren goose egg, and that’s no yolk! Oops, I mean, no joke!

The nice thing about being single on Valentine’s Day is it doesn’t cost us a dime to take a sniff of a coworker’s beautiful floral bouquet (which, by the way, we can enjoy from afar until the bouquet goes home at the end of the day); and we can buy half-priced boxes of Valentine’s chocolates on Friday and not disappoint anyone but our own waistlines.

That said, if you see me in the half-price Valentine aisle on Friday, I’m only there because my nephews are coming for the weekend, and I think I’ll treat them to some lovey-dovey chocolate concoctions that will make them blush and roll their eyes. Hey, that’s what aunts are for, right?

It wasn’t all that many years ago that I hauled a bag of heart-shaped chocolates to an Ellsworth basketball game during the week of Valentine’s Day. My niece did the proverbial eye roll, and while the younger two were grateful for some sugar-laden goodness, the heart belonging to Nephew Matt, the basketball player, stayed hidden in the bag until long after the game. It still makes me laugh as I imagine what he would have said or done had I presented it to him in front of his teammates!

What is it about Valentine’s Day that makes kids so embarrassed?

I shouldn’t have to ask. I mean, I’m not so old that I’ve forgotten the days of construction paper-covered shoe boxes decorated in red, pink and white heart cut-outs. Do kids still do that today?

In every single grade throughout elementary school, the rule was, if you’re going to put a Valentine box out to collect Valentines, you must give a Valentine to every single kid in the class.

Now, this was back in the day when everyone had cooties — the boys thought the girls had cooties and the girls thought the boys had cooties. Yet, on that one day of the year, we forgot about cooties and enjoyed reading our Valentines while munching on our Valentine treats.

A stick of gum was a common treat in a Valentine card, I think mostly because it was the least embarrassing. I remember some years when I had to give out those yucky, sugary candy hearts with messages, and I was so careful not to put an “I Love You” heart in anyone’s envelope! Ooh, the hoots and gasps of finding a message like that in a Valentine at such a young age!

I wouldn’t doubt that Valentine’s Day could be one of the best days to be an elementary school teacher.

Strangers among us

Posted on by
Reply
In a little less than two weeks, I will mark my ninth anniversary with the Daily Globe news team.
Nine years. It may not sound like a long time, but it seems like forever ago that I took the leap to a daily newspaper — the hometown newspaper, no less — to introduce a new audience of readers to a writing style I’ve been honing for the better part of two decades.
As I sit at my office desk on this Sunday night reminiscing, I can’t begin to comprehend the number of words I’ve written or tally the bylines I’ve had in this paper.
What I do realize is that I’ve had more opportunities as a reporter than most people could ever dream of having in a lifetime. I’ve ridden on airplanes, floated on boats, bounced around on hay racks, walked through cattle pastures and prairie grasses and stumbled through plowed fields — all for the sake of gathering the news.
I’ve shed tears of sorrow with World War II veterans, cancer patients and tornado victims — and tears of joy during Christmas concerts and basketball championships. At the end of the day I go home and do what I can to decompress. I smile about the good memories and try not to spend too much time dwelling on the bad.
Being a reporter changed me. As much as I didn’t want it to — as much as I tried not to let it happen — it did anyway. I can see it now. I’ve seen it for a while.
Reporters can become pretty good at shutting ourselves off to the seemingly constant bad news around us. We see too much, hear too much and know too much about the struggles of others that if we don’t put up a mental roadblock, the emotions are just too overwhelming. At least they are for me.
I share this with you as a lead in to what I really want to talk about.
In today’s paper is a story I wrote about the new refrigerators and freezers donated to the local food pantries. If you read the entire story, you will learn about the “bad news” in that seemingly good news story.
While I was visiting with Dennis and Marie Weeks Friday morning at Manna Food Pantry, they shared with me several stories about the people they see coming in and asking for help. They are the strangers among us.
I can’t give you the name of a single person who goes to the food shelf because they can’t afford to put a meal on the table or stock their cupboards.
I can’t give you a name, but if I volunteered to help stock the shelves or assist those in need, I might recognize a few faces. I’d venture to guess many of you might as well.
Is there a stigma about people who ask for food? Do we have preconceived ideas of what a homeless person looks like?
 As open minded as I try to be, I still must answer yes to both of those questions. Why? I don’t know.
Maybe I’d rather not know children are going hungry in our community because their parents can’t afford groceries. Maybe I’d rather not know that an elderly man was living in his car, getting something to eat or showering thanks to the generosity of truckers passing through town. Maybe I’d rather not know homeless people enjoy our local parks because they offer shelter from the elements.
I’m grateful there are people in this community who are quick to give both a hand-out and a hand up; and while I wish I could share a name or better describe the face of a person in need with you, I can’t. Just know, there are strangers among us — they may live next door, perhaps they take shelter in the park down the block or maybe they’re getting by on food shelf assistance.
Wherever they may be, it’s up to us to do what we can to help. We can’t say we don’t know about them anymore and, unless you’re better than me at putting up a mental roadblock, it’s not easy to push a nameless, faceless, hungry or homeless person out of your mind.
In this season of Christmas, I’m sure you can find plenty of opportunities to make a difference in the life of another.

Stress farm survives election night

Posted on by
Reply

There’s no denying a reporter’s job is stressful. We have daily deadlines – sometimes multiple daily deadlines – and are under constant pressure to gather all of the facts, write concise, detailed, well-balanced and informative stories and make sure, in the end, that every word is spelled correctly and the story is written in such a way that someone with an eighth-grade education can understand it.

Can we manage to meet all of those criteria with every story? Well, let’s just say we try. I learned long ago to stop stressing out about writing the perfect story – I just tend to forget to remind myself of that life lesson sometimes.

There’s all sorts of things reporters can do to ease the stress of the work day. Some will take a walk to the water cooler or catch some fresh air outside, the sports guys usually toss a ball of some sort in the air, and others – namely me – will reach for a victim from my stress farm.

My stress farm, complete with the latest addition, a stress peanut I picked up at Bertie County Peanuts in North Carolina.

I think I’ve mentioned my stress farm in a previous blog post, but I’ve had at least a couple of new additions to it in the last year. Neither one is a farm animal, although they are still very much tied to agriculture.

My stress farm includes two chickens, a dairy cow, a pig that doubles as a cell phone holder and a green tractor. A year ago, while at the Iowa State Fair, I picked up a stress can of vegetables; and on my visit last month to a peanut farm in Bertie County, N.C., I traded $2 for a stress peanut. It’s the first stress farm addition I actually had to pay for, but I just had to have it!

There are two things about my stress farm that you should know – the first is that I’m always looking for new additions to it; and the second is that I keep it on a shelf behind my desk. That probably isn’t the most ideal location for when I’m under stress, but I keep it there for a reason. If I had to look at it every day, I’d undoubtedly squeeze the chicken until its eyes popped out (don’t worry, it’s made to do that!) or take my stress cow and crush it until it looked like a soccer ball.

Now, I should be the last to complain about stress, having just taken that wonderful, two-week vacation, but the reality is – like other jobs, I’m sure – there’s a period of time where one must play “catch-up.”

Just as I was almost finished “catching up,” along came election night. And there I was, without my stress peanut. (I finally remembered to take it to the office on Wednesday.)

To be honest, election night wasn’t too bad this year. Aside from a few glitches and an incredibly slow-loading Secretary of State website, we were able to gather all of the information and deliver it to you, our readers, in a timely fashion.

Many kudos to the Nobles County Auditor-Treasurer’s office for getting us up-to-the-minute election results, and to Christy Riley in Murray County for emailing us the complete results so we didn’t have to search through various pages on the SOS site. We are grateful for all of the help you provided the media to help ease our election night workload. (My stress farm thanks you too, especially since all of my stress animals are still intact!)