The Memoirs of a Survivor

"that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny"

Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature this year. She has me shaking in my farmhouse over a cup of chamomile tea at 10:41 pm. An hour I haven't seen in a long time- what with waking up everyday at 3:48 am (a scant 5 hours from now). I just finished reading The Memoirs of a Survivor.

The only thing hopeful about this novel is the title. She Survived? She wrote Memoirs? Wasn't killed by the hoards of 4-year wild cannibal "kids."? Come to think of it at this late hour-- she probably was making some kind of analogy about how little kids can sure eat us up-- time, energy, emotions. Hmmmmm. I've got a few of those running lose around my house too. But in the book the hoards of subterranean wordless children actually kill people and eat them. They don't just confine them to playing Pinky Pie My Little Pony tea time with Hot Wheels action for the Little Ponies (when all I REALLY want is a nap-- because I've been up since 3:44 a.m.).

Ok-- so WHO told me to read this book? I forgot who you are but remind me why you said that this was a tale of hopeful survival in the face of collapse and apocalypse? Why did I rush into Borders to buy this book on your recommendations that it would buoy me in the face of the other apocolyptic books on my night stand? I know you are someone I respect because I bought the book immediately upon your suggestions. It helped that there was a new little "Winner of the NOBLE PRIZE in literature" sticker on the front. Please write me and let me know what you found redeeming.

The book wasn't really scary until the end-- until all of the people had left the city and the author (Doris says this is as close to an autobiography as she has written) and the young girl/woman character are left alone in the city with the cannibal children in the stories above them. It was them being alone in the city that scared me. It was even more frightening just now when I walked down my pitch black stairs looking out the living room window on acres and miles of dark, empty land. I knew-- just 10 minutes ago-- that I could not stay on this farm alone. I can't be here without Mike, Alma, Jens, and Lake. What would I do without Mike? And Happy. If Happy started to bark now I would be terrified-- not just scared. The other thing that scared me was that there was no place to escape to:

"...where would we be going? To what? There was silence from out there, the places so many people had set off to reach. No word ever came back.... And what of all those people who had left, the multitudes, what had happened to them? They might as well have walked off the edge of a flat world.... news from the east: yes, it seemed that there was life of a sort down there still. A few people even farmed, grew crops, made lives. "Down there"-- "out there"-- we did hear ofd these places; they were alive for us.... But north and west, no. Nothing but cold and silence"

Looks like I'll keep writing.... if interested you can click on Continue reading.

And maybe that is an analogy for my own escape from the city. Nothing but cold and silence. Both in terms of reporting back to my friends and in real terms with my surroundings. Mike reminded me in the mosquito free autumnal bliss of September to "hold that feeling through November." Perhaps he should have said to hold it through December or January. It is so quiet, so dark, cold.

I had to get out of the house two nights ago (inside for a few days with 2-3 sick people to care for-- flu, pink eye, etc...). Alma and I walked down the 1/2 mile driveway at night. It was so dark when we got outside the halo of the yard light-- so quiet-- so alone. Alma chatted happily holding my hand and skipping on the packed snow. I was wary, nervous. Stopping to listen, to look around. It was so alien to me to be so alone in the world. Nearest inhabited house 1.5 miles away. I saw the tail light of a snowmobile on the ridge some miles away and stopped in my tracks-- not comforted. Standing solitary with my little girl in hand out on the prairie-- without even reflective clothing in the dark. But it was more eerie than that. What are we on this prairie without our warm houses to run back into? What are you as a person, a mother, out here raw and exposed? There is not clan or tribe around me here-- I mean physically around me, around us. I stood there on this cold, dark (not even a star-- I longed to see just the light of a star), empty prairie with my little girl holding my hand. "Let's turn around now Alma." "No-- let's just go farther mom." She didn't know I was afraid-- we kept walking out into the darkness.

So back to The Memoirs. It is an illusion, isn't it?
"I had, in fact, often wondered if a certain family I had known in north Wales would shelter me. They were good farming folk--yes, that is exactly the measure of my fantasies about them. "Good farming folk" was how safety, refuge, peace--utopia--shaped itself in very many people's minds in those days."

That is how it shapes itself in my mind too-- this whole moving to the farm thing. Good farming folk. December is long and dark-- that is why, I guess, we gather for hymnsings and coffee at Eidskog Lutheran afterall. Why we light the night-- why we gather across the prairie miles to sing together. This is so typical -- I always leap to the positive (ok-- so the students in the Philosopy course will be surprised to hear that). That is not what I really meant to say. Enough on the hymn sings.

We (humanity) can't survive a collapse without community. Without each other. Alone on your farm is societal suicide -- like the vignette in The Road where father and son come to a barn and go inside to see three people hanging from the rafters. Those farmers, to my mind, could not bear to live in a barren and burnt world. We need strong communities- people who respect and treat each other as equals and share like equals. You need cohesion. Where does that come from?

When I talk about what I am doing out here it is to Resettle Big Stone county. I need neighbors. But it is more than that. And who knows-- maybe it is already here.

Time for a couple Tylenol PM and I'll take this train of thought back up in May or June.

Christmas bling

Maybe there was this much Christmas all around me in St. Paul but I was oblivious or my attention dissipated by so many other distractions. I went to church in St. Paul -being among the social justice side of the religious left. So it's not like I found church in Big Stone County. But I will tell you that there is something refreshing about the lack of self censorship here. An innocent indulgence in the spirit of Christmas among grown ups and kids.

We drove out our driveway and three miles into the dark prairie-- through the low marshlands to the south and up to Eidskog Lutheran church. As isolated as any prairie church could be-- not even the occasional farmstead light along the way. We parked on the road and crunched through the night snow. We walked into the church ablaze with light and the smell of coffee coming from the basement fellowship "hall." The smell of coffee permeating from the very walls from 120 years of egg coffee brewed by generations of sturdy old world women. There were over 200 people seated in this isolated country church. We sang and listened to Christmas hymns and heard people's stories and memories of the songs they offered up. Then we moved downstairs in a rush of talking and laughter for coffee, sloppy joes, pickles, and Christmas cookies. Can you smell it?

No offering asked for.

That was the first of three hymn sings I've been to close to our farm. Aside-- in St. Paul I wasn't even asked to audition for the choir. Here a couple people told me I had a lovely voice. It's a fair, alto voice-- but here I join a choir a bit more scant. And I try very seriously to blend in remembering the women from out of town singing soprano solos amidst the congregation-- their lovely lilting voices lifted to God and the enjoyment hearing themselves standing out.

Browns Valley-- in my bones

Photo of the Couteau des Prairie. This does not do it justice. This place begs for some photographers and artists to capture the images.

I drove yesterday north and west from our farm through Browns Valley, Minnesota on my way to NDSU. This is a magical place. Magical. It is the continental divide between the Gulf of Mexico and the Hudsons Bay. I was so distracted driving here-- the landscape changes dramatically from flat corn and bean fields to a valley with boulders, grasses, and the couteau across the valley rising up in the Dakotas. Other worldly, haunting, soul touching, lovely. It feels safe and sheltered. The wind was howling-- shaking my car along the road. I felt that if I were here hundreds or thousands of years ago I would feel safe. I had the sensation that I had roots here-- ancient roots. I felt it in my bones.

The earliest people on this land were drawn here. About 9,400 years ago the ice dams broke loose and waters flowed to the north-- the Red River. How dramatic that must have been! And people made this their home shortly after that. I looked it up when I got home and found this history of the region

"The area has seen human presence for thousands of years. A Paleo-Indian skeleton now know as "Browns Valley Man" was unearthed in 1933, under circumstances which suggested death after deposition of the gravel but before creation of significant topsoil. Found with tools of the Clovis and Folsom types, the human remains have been dated approximately 9,000 years b.p.[4][12]

The Traverse Gap was used by Native Americans, who recognized its geographic significance. Two buffalo skulls were placed on the continental divide, where travelers would stop to smoke a pipe to mark the place where the waters divided."

As you pass through here you can sense that something significant is happening on this landscape. One can almost feel the continental divide.

Six weeks- one car

photo credit Chris Long
[an entry from October]

Took Alma and the boys (in burly) out for a bike ride-- 6 miles in total, about 4 miles on blacktop. After about 3 miles Alma says to me "There are no cars at all. It's kind of creepy." We rode all 6 miles without being passed by a single car. It's not creepy to me. What a change from our house in St. Paul where we couldn't let them ride bicycle even on the sidewalks. Strangers and neighbors constantly pulling into driveways and turning around. We saw a little girl on our block riding on the sidewalk get hit by a car turning into a driveway. She was ok, but her bike was crushed.

We lived here for 6 weeks before I saw a car drive down the gravel road at the end of our driveway. Alma and I were riding bike up the driveway and I looked to the north and saw a truck coming down the gravel road. I actually said out loud "what is that?!" Six weeks -one car.

That was in mid-October. Then the harvest started and hunting season and the world came alive with men. Tractors, trucks and combines all night long, all around us. You should have seen the harvest moon and the men out working the fields. I drove home to the farm from the Cities-- looking at the suddenly populated acres that had been sitting so still and quiet for the first six weeks we had lived here. The moon so bright-- it was enchanting.

And hunters everywhere. One of Alma and my last bike rides we were on our way back home when a truck of hunters approached slowly and rolled down the windows. The urban alertness in me made me feel really frightened. Alma and I were in a completely isolated area with a truck full of men approaching. We were wearing blaze orange and the men laughed and asked us if we were hunting. They said they were from the Chokio area and waved goodbye.

Inner Apocalypt Part I

Inner Apocalypt Part I
I just came from a class I’m “consulting�? to-- Phil. 1905: Possibilities of a Sustainable Future. The class was reporting their ideas for designing a sustainable world—sustainable families, recreation, towns, buildings, farms. The rooms was abuzz with great ideas. Many of which I see being tried and practices throughout greater Minnesota.

So, I think I was a bit of a buzzkill-- to use a quip from one of my new friends. No one else brought up cannibalism. No kidding I did. I read The Road by Cormac MacArthy. Not just read it once but I’m on my 3rd reading. It is the prose/poem story of a man and a son walking down a road in post apocalyptic America.

I don’t recommend you read it.

It's one of the most important book I’ve read.

I won’t lie to you. One of the reasons I was so eager to take up farming a gas tank away from St. Paul is because I have an inner apocalypt. Life in St. Paul was wonderfully easy, fun, pleasurable. But I had an escape plan to leave the City— travel to a farm where we could survive whatever crisis was upon us. I executed the escape plan early. Not for the wrong reasons—we’re not holed up survivalists. I am there for the right reasons—the Possibilities of a Sustainable Future.

Haven't earned my stripes...

No turning back...

Our beautiful home in St. Paul sold yesterday. Mike is just giddy with joy- a huge weight off his shoulders. I'm stunned and scared. Truth be told-- I have my feet in both lives. Yeh, I talk big about my life on the prairie. But I've been in St. Paul every week for work. Coming back to this sunny, lovely home of my own. With an espresso maker and premium ice cream in the freezer.

So now my bluff is called. The house is gone. There's no going back to this comfortable, easy street in Highland Park. Mike's committed. I have to ratchet up my commitment to a new level. Frankly I'm scared. Who will I be outside of the Cities?

Yesterday I took Alma and Jens for a bike ride -- Jens in the pull behind. There were hunters out so we all wore blaze orange. We rode "next door" to the US Fish and Wildlife land. We hiked into the marshy wetlands surrounding the pothole pond/lake. My kids were intrepid. They found a water trail leading through the reeds to the pond. They were so much more eager to explore it than I was. Walking through the prairie grass whenever Jens saw a huge ant (or other critter) mound he would climb on top and yell "Beware the wolf-- hoowowoowooowooo." He's 3 years old. I actually thought "well-- at least these kids won't suffer from Nature Deficit Disorder."

So... until one is committed

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans.

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. -

Let there be LIGHT

Fiber optic light that is!






This is Jason. We would not be able to live here if it were not for Federated Communications out of Chokio Minnesota. They put down 2 miles of fiber optic cable to our farm. We are not in their service area-- just on the edge. It cost them over $11,000 for which we signed a two year contract for phone and high speed internet. A deal.

Thank you Jason! Thank you Tom Lorenz! Thank you Federated.

I am sitting here in my 1912 farm house looking our over plowed corn, silos, prairie, and wetlands. The geese are flying through in the thousands. Unlike anything I've ever seen. All the while listening to Fine Tuning on XM satellite radio via my wireless internet, compliments of Federated. Hip Hip Hurrah!

Prairie fire

Last Friday I joined Alma in school for her nursery rhyme recital. Honestly the highlight for me was to play chicken and fox in the gym. Have I mentioned that she has gym and music class everyday in Clinton Elementary. She did not have that in St. Paul (but hey! don't tell anyone because they might take it away-- are kids suppose to have gym and music anymore??). Back to chicken and fox-- teams of 2, me and Alma, hoola hoops with wiffle balls to guard (the chicken) while the other person runs around trying to steal other people's "eggs." Oooooo what fun. I asked if we could play dodge ball and was informed by the teacher that wasn't allowed (do the Chicken Little dodge ball dance here).

As we turned to drive east out of townafter school I could see a big smoke rising up into the air. It was to the east and slightly south. Exactly the direction of our farm. But our farm is about 11 miles away-- could that be from our farm? You see we had a little fire here a few days before what with cutting up metal in the dry grass. Luckily someone was farming near by and plowed a patch that stopped the fire.

Sure enough I'm driving closer and closer and the billowing smoke is aligning with the coordinates of our farm. I turn down our road and all I see is a pink wall of smoke. The fire is on the west of our gravel road and strips have been plowed on the western edge of our fields that would keep it from jumping over the gravel. I'm not sure if I should drive into the wall of smoke. So I stopped to take pictures. The fires didn't cross into our section and the crops were harvested across the road so that the crops weren't lost and didn't fuel an inferno.

There have been a few dramatic fires around here lately. I'm not sure if they are planned or accidents-- like ours was.

Farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization

Alma and I took a trip to Washington DC last month-- thanks to my birth Mom Leona. It was wonderful, relaxing, and inspiring. I find the quote above from the US House of Representative inspiring-- exactly why I want my kids to farm. Exactly what I want my husband to be doing while I'm writing the great American Agro-Eco Thriller in my 3rd story office overlooking the prairie. Teehee hee.

The picture below is my favorite sculpture in all of WDC-- it sits in front of the Supreme Court. I've kept a framed photo I took of this sculpture close by me for the past 10 year. A confident woman riding a seething horse/serpent while brushing back her hair. In this picture I can see the relaxation in my face-- it was so wonderful to be completely there.

Sending the littles one off on the bus

In St. Paul we walked out the door at 9:08 to be in Alma's classroom at 9:10 with time to spare. There were three doors between our door and the Elementary school-- we didn't even have to cross the street. I loved my leisurely mornings with my kids.

Now I walk out the door with my three little ones (ages 8, 3, and 3) at 7:10 am. That gives us 15 minutes to walk our 1/2 mile driveway to where the school bus picks them up. It takes all 15 minutes to walk that far with 3-year olds. Now that the toads, frogs, and salamanders are gone the walk goes a little faster. We are the furthest stop on the route-- but not the first kids to be picked up thankfully. The bus turns around in our driveway and heads back north.
My boys are incorrigible – maybe because they are boys, because they are twins, because I have a totally emotive parenting style in contrast to their dad’s authoritarian style (we’re a good parenting team). Dale, the bus driver for the past 1/3 century is threatening to suspend my little darlings from riding the bus.

Which leads to the logical question—what are a pair of 3-year olds doing on a bus for 1.5 hours per day anyway??? I asked myself that question before we put them on the bus for the first time. But Mike (my husband) and Dale (the bus driver) assured me that this was the proper and logical thing to do. Dale had dealt with as many at FIVE 3-year-olds on his bus in the past. So, Mike put them on the bus for the first time in their lives on Thursday September 6, 2007. The only problem was, there was no pre-school on Thursday September 6, 2007. So he put them on a bus by themselves in the world to, well, nowhere. But we now live in a small community. So the boys were well cared for in the absence of parents or teachers until the offending parent could pick them up.

So they all ride the bus. We now arm Alma with a pile of candy that she can dole out for good behavior as the bus travels down the gravel roads picking up the increasing number of kids in our “neighborhood.�? Did I mention that we are the only family in a four square mile area? So like the term “prairie�? I use the term “neigborhood�? loosely.

But look at that sunrise—it is a pleasant treat to walk that mile a day with my kids.

Finding Food in Farm Country

From our home in St. Paul we were within walking distance of Mississippi Market in Highland Park. Abundant fresh, local and diverse food. On Saturday I drove over 50 miles round trip to the Hutterite colony to stock up on local foods-- 50#'s of potatoes, tomatoes, squash, pumpkin, pickles, sauerkraut, some frozen turkey pot pies, jams, relishes, cucumbers and the last of the seasons watermelon. Delicious and wonderful harvest. Next year we should have some of our own. I'm grateful for my Hutterite "neighbors."

So I'm a mom and a local foods advocate living in rural Minnesota. My gold standard would be organic and local. In the mean time local would be great. Apart from the Hutterites farm market, my nearest grocery store is now 11 miles away and doesn't carry any local foods-- except for some of the Hutterite jellies, jams, and relishes. I asked about carrying some local eggs-- the Pride of the Prairie egg coop operates in this area. Bonnie, our grocer, said that she only has 1 choice for eggs on the food distributors list. If I could track down the contact information she would look into it. I told her it might cost more-- she said that people prefer the Hutterite jams and do pay more for them and so she would be willing to give it a try. Heck-- we go through a couple dozen a week ourselves.
It's interesting that I move from the smack dab middle of St. Paul where I have quick, easy and abundant access to local foods to a farm where it is much more of any effort to track down a local diet. I'm sure over time we will get grow more of our own-- but in the mean time I'm like many working families that depends on the local grocery store. Our food choices don't include much local/organic.
Kinda confirms Ken Meter's work on Finding Food in Farm Country

http://www.crcworks.org/wcmnsum.pdf

Never been so glad to have a dog....

This is Happy. We got her about 4 years ago after our precious middle daughter Milly died. I thought that we needed a reason to say the word "Happy" over and over each day. Little did I know how often we would be saying to the puppy "No! Happy No!" Honestly, Happy was an ok part of the family-- but too big for our little yard, lots and lots of hair in the house, too wild to take to the playground with the kids, bit the nice neighbor lady etc...

I am so very very happy to have this dog today. She was born to guard our farm-- to bark wildly at the bus absconding our little children-- and to run with me through the prairie in the morning. I am not alone on this big lonely prairie. I have a good companion along side of me every mile I run. She doesn't chase the deer or the pheasants, but she does have a thing for rabbits.

I've been having a lot of Little House on the Prairie flashbacks. I read all the Laura Ingalls books to Alma a couple years ago. There was a scene where the Ingalls in their covered wagon come across a man and woman stranded along the trail-- their horses stolen while they slept. The Ingalls offered to take them to the next stop, but they declined to leave their lives' belongings. As the Ingalls ride away, Pa says something to the effect of "what are they thinking to be out here without a dog." Remember the Ingalls have the faithful Jack.

And now I can finally say after all these years. I am really happy to have Happy. She is living up to her name in our lives and our family. We got Happy a dog house-- it has lichen growing on the top-- I'll get a picture. When we put it in the yard facing the house she refused to sleep in it. I moved it around so the back is to the house and the front looks down the driveway and she is in there all the time. She wants to guard us. She is guarding us out on the prairie.

Ill afforded sentimentality

This is the last of the original 1912 buildings on the farmstead and it is not long for this world. The only thing holding up that building was the 1952 pickup truck-- which was pulled out and collapsed the west side of the building. I'm sentimental about these buildings in a way that my neighbor says he and his fellow farmers can't afford to be. Life can be hard and cruel on the farm. Attach your heartstrings to a building and they'll get pulled down along with the building.

I'm reading The World Without Us right now. It's an ecological trip through various parts of the world if humans are wiped from the face of the planet in an instant (i.e. not dragging down the entire planet with us over the coming centuries). The author quotes a farmer as saying if you want to bring down a barn put an 18 inch hole in the roof. In 10 years the barn will be dust. It's true. Drive around rural Minnesota-- not the collar suburbs or the exurbs-- but the far agricultural corners of this State. There are no animals in barns. The barns, where they still stand, are surrounded on every possible side with corn and soybeans. There are no pastures and there are no functioning barns. I think that SE Minnesota might be faring better than other parts of the State, but wouldn't count on that. My sister and her husband have a dairy farm there- a confinement dairy like the majority of dairies. But there are a few pasture based dairies left. Not here.

I feel grief, a heavy sadness at this building coming down. Yes-- we will salvage the wood and Yes-- it will be the bus shelter at the end of our 1/2 mile drive or the siding on the "chicken coop of my dreams" yet to be designed and built (and the chickens are waiting!!).

I feel grief that no one cared to fill the 18 inch hole in this granary. It was a two story granary. Beautiful, but not useful to modern agriculture. If you are working from morning until night-- your fingers swollen with arthritis-- your farm on the verge of bankrupcy-- you don't have the luxury to buy the supplies, take the time and take the physical risk to climb atop an 85 year old granary that serves no modern purpose. There isn't room for sentimentality.

I feel grief that all of these buildings are going away-- more and more every year. And believe me when I tell you that modern buildings-- like granaries and confinement feeding operations-- are not built for beauty. Our here form follows function in 2007-- and the form of industrial agriculture is not beautiful. Somehow I believe it was more than that in 1912. I don't know for sure, but I have a sense. There are some core pieces of beauty inside our house-- I've seen some lovely hand carved rafters.

I can afford to be sentimental. I have a job in the City. I don't have my heart in my throat to just hang onto the land in the face of industrial agriculture.

Yesterday Morning

photo credit Jim Ginsdorf


September 11, 2007
Yesterday morning I was completely and utterly awestruck by this place. I put my kids on the bus at 7:25 am and went for a morning run to a prairie pond sanctuary. Who knew that egrets flocked-- I'd only ever seen them as solitary birds standing alone. As I stood in that naturally holy place, pelicans flew in overhead from six different directions in the sky and merged into a flock above my head. They are such massive and primitive looking creatures. They don't make any noises -- but the sounds of their wings flying low in the sky over my head was the whoosh of a whispering jet.

They fly in a wave formation-- it appears to go from front to back. The first one flaps its wings, the next one and on down the line to the last. While the first one glides and then they all glide down the line. Over and over. A rhythm
-- like a wave demonstration in physics class.

I could have fallen to my knees in awe in the pink morning light.

Corn is Scary

Went for a bike ride with my 7-year old daughter, Alma, to the Minimum Maintence Road-- Travel at Your Own Risk- about 1.5 miles from our house on the prairie. We were riding up this dirt trail when she yelled to "STOP" and got off her bike and said "mom-- we're going into that corn." We're surrounded by corn on all sides-- it is high enough over our heads that we can't see over it to where it ends.
**Aside** This is something I would never have thought to do. This, frankly, is the adventure in having kids-- they come up with great ideas I would not have on my own.
So- what the heck- we start walking through the corn-- against the rows. We are parting the rows of corn and stomping through. It is a beautiful blisteringly bright afternoon on the now crispy drying prairie (I use the word prairie liberally because it is really mostly corn and soybeans). I realize that I am JUMPY and AFRAID. Can I impress upon you that there are NO PEOPLE HERE? The entire county has 5,000 people and most of them are in the small towns and Ortonville. But I think-- if I were homeless or a criminal no one would find me in this corn. You can see about 3 feet in front and behind you and about 10 feet down each row. The world is very small in the middle of a corn field. When our dog-- Happy-- comes bursting through the corn I literally JUMP. This happens a few times. [disclaimer-- I had had a diet coke and a few espressos recently]
I realize that there are all these scary movie images of corn fields. Remember Signs?-- good movie recommend it. There is something inherently spooky about being enclosed in corn where you could be (and probably are) only a few feet from terrible danger and fright yet only suspect it!
We keep moving through the field of corn-- I figure if we keep cutting perpendicular to the corn rows we have to come out the other side-- right? Well we do come bursting out of the corn and right onto the edge of a praire wetland complex. Boom-- right there wild roses and rose hips, prairie grasses, rushes around the water. Dang-- again I'm just so grateful to be here. So grateful to have a kid who makes the sidetrip the main purpose of the journey.
Mike, my husband, says "hold that feeling through November."

Greetings from Big Stone County

Well... We find ourselves living on the prairie. Alma in school and the boys in pre-school at Clinton-Beardsley-Graceville Elementary. Hope to learn to use this blog and start describing my adventures. I am having new experiences and insights every single day and I feel compelled to share them.
Wish me luck in learning to use this tool. The pictures are amazing and that is part of what I hope to share.

Kathy