As the two iconic battling moose towered above, Dennis Riedhammer chiseled mortar away from the sculpture’s base, one rock at a time. Riedhammer’s job this week is just one part of a process to restore the base of the bronze sculpture in East Grand Forks, Minn., which contained a serious design flaw. Originally, the base had a lichen cover that …
I’ll bet a $12,000 custom Taylor guitar you didn’t know local area musicians are competing in a northern Red River Valley songwriter challenge. Eighteen musicians so far have submitted their YouTube video entries in the 2018 Half Brothers Songwriter Challenge. Half Brothers Brewing Co., in Grand Forks, is the main sponsor for the competition. The contest runs throughout the summer. …
Spring teased the Northland last weekend. The seasonal diversion seemed as though it knew the winds from hell would soon attack us from the north. Rarely do March temperatures rise into the balmy, high 40s. But when they do, cabin fever-crazy Minnesotans head — where else? — outside. Sunday was the ideal day to take a hike along the East …
We’ve all been there. You’ve bought something — an appliance, tool, toy, DIY furniture, whatever — and the time arrives to use the thing. But first, decision-making time arrives. You see, humans divide themselves into those who read instructions before use, and those who don’t. Many, many men (mostly) I know believe they are born with that special intuitive skill — you know, …
Fall has finally arrived, and we’re on a roll. I said two blogs ago Nature is pregnant with surprises and looked forward to a return trip to the Brainerd (Minn.) Lakes Area to discover more of them. A couple of weeks ago, my oldest daughter, Arin, and her mountain climbing son, Asher, stumbled on a delicious species of edible mushroom called the …
Coupon grocery shopping is sort of like hunting for Easter eggs. Since I have no say in our household, I do both the shopping and egg hunting. The local family-owned grocery monopoly mails coupons to residents every once in awhile. Two weeks ago, we received some, so I decided I’d go spend and save some money. The colorful coupon package …
The stuff on the log looked like something that belonged in an ocean. Like pure, white clumps of coral growing on a reef, it stood out in stark relief to the jungle green of early September’s foliage. How could we have missed it? That we had passed it by the first time on our short hike on the mountain bike …
Since the 1930s, beginning with our great-grandfather’s clan, family members have heard wolves howl, grouse drum, deer blow, coyotes yip and bark, owls hoot, frogs croak. Then, there are the frequent, mysterious and sometimes scary unidentified critters who scream or moan or bray worse than almost all of our impressive presidential candidates. Most of the time we hear the sounds …
Unheralded.fish became a year old this week. One-year-olds are a blast to watch as they grow. They’re fresh, fun, unpredictable, messy, emotional, creative, aware and always entertaining. I’m describing my granddaughter, but many of those characteristics could describe the Fish, too. In the second year of life, humans slowly but surely learn to become aware of their environment. They become …
Yes, it’s 20 below. So what. In January, zero feels warm. Ten feels balmy. Twenty is sublime. And 32 is shirts and a vest temperature. We who live up North deal with stuff like cold with humor, which always makes the world a little warmer. You’ve probably seen or heard the following It’s So cold jokes, but some of these …
At 5 a.m. last weekend, our phone weather apps revealed the news: 13 below, a predicted a high of zero, plus a 20 mph blow. Perfect. We didn’t care as we headed east to the Red Lake Indian Reservation and a rendezvous with rainbow trout. Introductions I was the back seat passenger in a pickup with two friends, both named …
We told our brown bear story matter of factly to Ken and Neil Marlow. Their reaction confirmed what we had suspected. In their words, we had a very dangerous experience with an Alaskan brown bear despite not having seen nor heard the bruin. But the odor of the bear itself, or the carcass of its main course, probably a moose, …
My brother and I were waiting for a sign from God or someone to help us make one of the most important decisions of the year, not to mention our lives: to fish or not to fish Saturday’s May Opening Day in Minnesota. The five-day forecast for northeastern Minnesota where we fish calls for you name it: rain, maybe snow, …
Baby steps. Painful steps. Think baby steps. Take tiny steps and keep moving up, up, up these damnable mountains. My hiking boots step and stumble on some of the oldest rocks on the planet as we hike into the clouds of the Beartooth Mountains. We’ve already gained 7,000 feet in elevation, and the air isn’t exactly Gulf Coast thick and …
So called tech journalists gathered in San Francisco on Monday to breathlessly wait in awe for Apple CEO Tim Cook to announce details about the oh-so-cool, gotta-have-one “wearable device. It’s a well-known fact that these reporters follow Cook around like puppies following their mother. Meanwhile social media outlets vomited up-to-the second developments — Live Streaming! — from the Apple Special …