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6/4/08 This
reporter business is pretty tough. Imagine getting an assignment to cover the
first running of the Redneck Yacht Club races. Yea, you get the picture. The
rules were simple: build a boat with cardboard, duct tape and garbage bags and
navigate the length of the pool. I'm wondering if Bill Marvin had that in mind
when he donated the pool. Probably, knowing his penchant for doing the
unimaginable. Anyway, the crafts carried into the pool area were of every
imaginable shape. A group of engineers from Yellow Rose Research & Development
had a nicely built craft there. Lots of guys and one gal from the school had
built their own versions. They all tried to make the length of the pool and
only one student made it. Trapper
hauled me down to Willie Krzoska's with the Missus' camera later in the week to
see Willie's tame partridge. When we got there, Willie was sitting in his
garage and the partridge was walking around his feet. He coaxed it into his
lap, but it wouldn't go up on his shoulder like it usually did. A pretty bird,
it was around for a while, then disappeared into the nearby thicket. Willie then
started up his 4-wheeler and drove over by the brush and the bird reappeared,
jumped up on the machine and, before long, up on Willie's shoulder. Predictably,
when I went to click the picture, I got the "memory full" message and
had to delete a picture and re-shoot before the bird changed its mind. The
little girls are out of school so I have company during the day. I have to
thank my friend Clayton the Percheron Man for finding me a saddle. I mentioned
that we needed one and he said he had just what I needed. He'd gone to an
auction, seen a harness that he wanted so he bid on it and got it. He'd asked
an Amish boy there to load his stuff for him, when he got home and opened the
door of the tack room on the trailer, not only did he have the harness, he had
an old saddle and bridle along with it. I could have it if I wanted it. I
wanted it so Trapper and I made the voyage down to the Skoien ranch. Clayton
settled up with Trapper over their mutual logging activities and we picked up
the saddle. Friday was spent getting each of the girls up on Amber the horse
and around the yard a couple of times. The
weekend was spent going south to lower northern 6/11/08 I
know many of you are anxiously awaiting an update on how the Buick is working
out for Management and me. Actually, it's been working out pretty well, but not
without a problem or two. I'd
noticed early on that the vacuum hose coming out of the fuel pressure regulator
on the venerable 3.8 V-6 was deteriorating so I replaced the hose. I did check
on the price of a regulator at the parts store but it was nearly half of what
I'd paid for the car. I figured that I'd use the Buick for awhile, maybe it
would heal itself. When I asked, Dick Wahlstrom informed me that the 5-50
warranty (5 seconds or 50 feet, whichever comes first) had expired before I'd
left his driveway the day I'd bought it. The Buick worked OK for a little
while, however it developed the annoying habit of stalling as Management drove
it around town. I figured I'd better bite the bullet and get the part, which I
did. I figure the value of the car has increased by 50% since the part cost
$143 at CarQuest and the car set me back $300, throw in a little labor for the
5 minute task of installing it and the car is now easily worth $450. It runs
much better; gas mileage is about 27mpg so I think I'll keep it awhile longer.
Still haven't found any of that dark tint window stuff... Most
of the seeds were gone from the racks in the stores but I was able to get some
turnip seeds one day. Management and the little girls found some Japanese hull-less
popcorn and some decorative maize so we were a little closer to our dream
garden. Trapper's Missus and another of Management's co-workers cleaned out
their seed boxes so when we got ready to plant we had some year-old corn seed,
30 year-old rutabaga seed, divers other out-of-date garden seeds and some fresh
bezel. Now that's my type of gardening. After
the Johnsons left, I resumed work on the garden project. The patch was still a
little rough so I decided to drag it a little more. Trapper had earlier told me
I could use his ancient 4-wheeler so I figured I'd use that to pull the drag
since the skid steer really wasn't made for that type of work. It wouldn't
start so we pulled it over by my garage. After two carb rebuilds and 3 lost
parts, I got it running, hooked it up to the drag and smoothed the dirt to my
liking. About that time, I had to go to the Blue Star for a Saturday shift. I
got done early and home before 9 PM so went out and marked all the rows with my
new row marker. Management started soaking some corn seed. No hoe around so I borrowed
Trapper's and dug out some rows. The little girls helped plant some of the
soaked corn and I planted a row of turnips before darkness ended the fun. It
was gorgeous the next morning so we were all out in the garden at about 7 AM
and finished planting. We ended up with about 7 rows of divers varieties of corn,
a row of peas, 3 rows of beans, a row of rutabagas, a row of turnips, 3 tomato
plants, 2 rows of sunflowers mixed with pole beans, a row of lettuce, a hill
each of squash, cantaloupe and cucumber, and a part row of bezel on the end. A
real masterpiece. After
that early Sunday morning activity, it was over to visit the folks at the Grilled
some Another
week in the Great North, see you next week!
As usual, it's been an
interesting week, work and area culture in spades. I've been working on getting
my skid steer to a state where it can be used in the swampy conditions we find
ourselves in. June is like we used to have it: cold and wet. Since we have a horse now,
there are certain things that need to be done. Here at Roseen's Corner, the
barnyards still have a large amount of manure and hay needing removal. I took
Skiddy, my John Deere 250 skid steer, back to the pen Amber the horse resides
in to do some cleanup. It became rapidly apparent that I'd better get the
tracks on it if I was going to complete the task sometime before snowfall. Skiddy
works well on dry or frozen ground without the tracks but with rainfall every
20 minutes or so, it doesn't work, it spins. Skiddy's tracks needed some
new bolts and steel bushings so time between writing and welding at the Blue
Star was spent cutting bushings out of 1 1/4" rolled steel and cutting off
the old bolts and inserting new bushings and bolts. Trapper was off on his Trout
Research /Food Procurement Project near Middle daughter Katelyn and
I then headed over to Greenbush for another high class event: Racing Greenbush
style. We happened to get there on Sprint Car night so it was a little pricey
but Promoter Eugene had nearly full stands for the event anyway. The track crew
had managed to get the track into a semblance of racing shape after the
monsoons. The track was tacky, the more powerful of the Sprints could wheelie
down the front stretch if they chose to, several of them did. While the sprints were
colorful and loud, the best race of the night was the Street Stock feature race.
Two cars from the Pure Stock class joined the 4 Street Stock cars in attendance
to raise the numbers racing. They had to start at the back and about three laps
into the race, one of the lower-class cars knifed through the pack and took the
lead. He was challenged by one of the other cars for some time but held the
lead and won the race. The track crew spent much
time on the track between races to keep the track smooth but it was tough. No
dry slick that night. One of the Sprint cars flipped up on its side during hot
laps and couldn't make the feature. The Sprint heat races were more or less
parades, it was obvious that the drivers were not comfortable with the wet
track. After lunch, we split up. I
attended the matinee of "No Sex Please, We're British", alone, since
it was likely not appropriate for the little girls. It wasn't. It was still a
credible production by local talent. I'd recommend the comedy for more mature
audiences. Management took the little
girls over to the packed The band was gracious
enough to let the little girls debut their rendition of "Catch a Falling
Star" in preparation for their appearance in the Grand Rapids Showboat later
in the summer. Then it was off to Another week in the great
north. See you next week! We’ve finally been blessed with a streak of more seasonal weather. Well, maybe I should re-phrase that since I’ve experienced many rainy Junes in 50 some years. We’ve had nearly a week of mainly sunshine which has prompted me to start wearing short-sleeved shirts and even tee-shirts. They have to be pocket tee-shirts so I can keep my Dollar Saver reading glasses handy. Where was I? Oh, nice weather. Great weather for the car
show in Warroad on Saturday. Everybody there seemed to be having a great time.
Drove in about noon and found some shade to park in since I had Abby the dog
along. I was only able to spend a couple of hours at the show before heading to
lower northern There was a great selection of cars. As could be expected, Mayor Bob was there with a car or three. Loralee and Uff-Da were Relaying for Life next to the Food Booth. The Hard Driving Editor here at the Pioneer Office, Mark Marvin, says Uff-Da has to be near food… or maybe it was LoraLee, I don’t quite remember… Anyhow, I really like it when I go to an event and the food is actually reasonably priced. They were serving up plates of sauerkraut covered brats, beans and chips for $3, a big cup of pop for $.50. Kudos to Dan Ostlund and the rest of the Cruisers. The show was just the thing for this Gearhead. They called it the Motorhead Classic, close enough. I circled the grounds several times trying to pick a favorite. There was this A-bodied Buick from the ‘80’s, a 455 gracing the engine bay, that caught my eye. The alternator on the monster motor was so high it looked like they’d have to put a bulge in the hood for it. Other than that and the fact that it is a Buick, it ranks right up there. There was a flat fendered Jeep that’s definitely in contention. Another possible contender is the Ford powered Porsche. Not sure whether to call it a PorFord or a Forsche. I wondered about asking the Mayor if I could take a spin in the Boss 429, but thought the better of it. I figured that Matt Anderson’s Land Cruiser should be pretty good for winter driving, another contender. Scott Ostroski’s ’40 Ford pickup looked pretty hi-tech to me so I gave that one some consideration. After parsing through all the vehicles I saw, I’ll name the
brown bare bones Belvedere the Southwest Angle Car of the Show. It reminds me
of the Plymouths that Dad used to drive when I was a kid. He’d usually have a While I was eating my reasonably priced meal at the car
show, there were no empty tables so I sat at one already occupied by a fellow
wearing a BMW vest. I struck up a conversation by asking about his Bimmer. He
said he’d had a BMW motorcycle, but the vest was better than the bike. He said
his name was Josef and he was just riding through Warroad on his motorcycle, a
650 Suzuki V-Strom, and stopped at the car show. He’s from I had to leave the show and drive the SuperCab and trailer
down to lower northern Sarah has to be commended for her resourcefulness and diligent work on this project. It is always good to see someone take a great idea to completion, involving much of the rest of the community to benefit the seniors. She is the first entry for the 2008 Citizen of the Year for this column, COTY for short. As with the other award, there will be no trophy or prize, but maybe a certificate? Made it to all the Grad parties, then loaded the old John Deere A on the trailer and brought it back here to Roseen’s Corner. I unloaded it on Monday and was tempted to unhook LaRae’s discbine from her Case-IH Maxxum 140 and hook it up to my old two banger. After thinking it over, I figured the discbine wouldn’t be able to take the torque; or at least that’s what I told myself, so I just parked the A by the shed… See you next week! |