Things You Hear at an Auction

On Saturday we drove south and east of Mandan to attend Mary's sister and her husband's auction sale; they have decided to move off the farmstead where he has lived all of his 69 years and build a home in Mandan. Over the span of years a good deal of machinery and hardware accumulated so they liquidated to make room for their successors. I have always enjoyed hanging around auction sales and listening to the cry of the auctioneers, rubbing elbows with the crowd, and hearing stories being told. Flood stories floated: one I hadn't heard yet - deer are climbing the dikes and punching holes in the plastic with their little, pointy hooves.

I visited with the executive v.p. of the ND Stockmen's Ass'n (she happens to be my niece); her story of knowing one rancher in the northern part of the state who is forced to sell 350 cow-calf pairs illustrates the severity of the season and the hard conditions that have settled in. And rain it does! Last night a strong thunder storm dropped another inch of rain at our place with a strong chance of more rain each of the next seven days showing on our weather map. I thought the thunder and lightning had knocked out our wireless computer modem, but no... the tech guy came this morning. The only thing wrong was my screw-up in connecting wires to accommodate the new tv we hung in our kitchen yesterday.

Rock-lined Terraces

There's something about the randomness of these rock walls that I find attractive. I'd much rather see these shapes and forms than perfect rows and patterns. I took this picture standing on the lot that Mary's sister and husband purchased to build their home on and is only a few blocks from our home. It was when we drove up there to see their building site that I noticed this scene and resolved to return with my camera. A steep draw slopes off to the undeveloped area to the west, and lots of wildlife and cattle can be seen from the view. When I first saw them I was reminded of structured walls I'd seen pictured in magazines such as National Geographic that were located in places like Tibet, South America, and other places where tillable land was scarce and this was the answer to planting crops in severe inclines.

I first saw terraced land when I traveled south to harvest wheat in Kansas and Nebraska. There they make use of them on rolling land to stop the soil from eroding. The dirt berms were too steep to climb over with our machines so instead we followed their curves and combined parallel to them. Interesting patterns began to show through the stubble as we cut the wheat. By the way, the elevation of the land in the picture is about the highest Mandan offers. Stories of the flooding below us along the river will only get more grim. The crest won't hit until about a week from now, and a good deal of property will suffer.

Stepping Out

Mary tells me the name of this iris is "Stepping Out." And that is just what we did last night as we quietly celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary by going out to eat at the Texas Roadhouse. Quietly celebrating does not describe our wedding day, though. My friends and relatives who came over to Raleigh from the Sheldon area experienced a good party. Red Eye, a homemade concoction, if drunk too fast or too much really makes your knees weak, and that happened to some of the unwary. Kegs of beer, a sitdown meal, and live music really rounded out the day. Thirty seven years passed by just like that!

Watching "Pickers" on TV

Occasionally I like to watch the American Pickers tv show, and when I tuned in last night they visited a man who owned lots of old cars parked in dusty, leaky old buildings. For some reason the old cars made me think back to my old cars, especially my first one, a 1948 Chrysler, one like the picture above. Dad bought that car from Eph Loomer for $200 in 1958 because it had a fluid drive transmission that was easier for me to drive after my accident. This was in the
Elvis era when the young fellows were taking Fords and Chevies and customizing them to comply with the latest trends of the day. So here I came rolling down the streets in this big limousine. That car came to me in good condition featuring red plaid woolen seat upholstery, twin spotlights, and a tan paint job. I took lots of ribbing about my "tank" but for some reason no one ever complained about riding with me. I don't know of any pictures of that car and had to find this one on the internet. Years later, after I no longer owned it, I began thinking I'd like to have a picture and saw it parked in Smoky Sletmoe's pasture. When I finally got around asking him if I could tromp in there to snap some photos he informed me it had just gotten compacted and sold for scrap. Oh well, I've got my memories.

Then in another segment of the show the pickers found an Indian motorcycle that brought back some more memories. I had one experience with the old Indians. A friend, Larry Sprunk, owned one and offered me a ride one day. I got on behind him and held on tight (and tighter) as we began driving along a country road. As we picked up speed I knew he was driving fast, and at one point he hollered over the roar, "You just turned 80 on a dirt road!"

Another experience with motorcycles came when a classmate of my brother Howard, Lynn Bunn, came one day to help us move cattle. He was driving his 150 cc Honda, a very popular little bike in its day. After the cattle work was completed I asked him if I could take it for a spin and promptly killed the engine when I put it in gear. Thinking it was unpowered I gave it some gas the next try and I took off - straight into scrap metal piled at the edge of our shop. I twisted a knee in that wreck and limped around on crutches for a few days after that. I've since given up on motorcycles.

250 mm Zoom Lens, Part I

The University of Mary sits high on a bluff east of the Missouri River. On the back side of the library building one can walk close to the edge and look over. With my new zoom lens I looked to the north and saw this elementary school and a house near it that were well-ringed with high dikes of sandbags. Water is near, and with the river height projected to raise another two feet or so, it remains to be seen if all these dikes and hold or begin leaking or collapsing from the pressure. Literally hundreds of dump trucks are still hauling thousands of loads of clay to build miles of protection. A FEMA official inspected them and was featured on our TV news; he was well satisfied with the dikes' 40 foot width at the base and 10 foot width at their crown.

I am suddenly reminded of the flood in 1997 when it reached Grand Forks and inundated the downtown area and a fire broke out destroying several buildings. The slogan they adopted there was "Come Hell and High Water."

250 mm Zoom Lens, Part II

(For some reason I couldn't put three pictures on the same blog entry, still learning...)
We drove south a couple miles from the University of Mary and turned in where the sign said Kimball Bottoms. This is the scene we came upon. A couple of fellows had waded in and were having young man fun catching the carp that floated over the road. They had to be fast; this was not lazy water. From where I stood with the camera the sound of the water passing over the road sounded like a mountain waterfall. And this is just a little backwater creek! I might come back here when the river reaches its crest.



While at Kimball Bottoms, on the east side of the river, I visited with a guy on a motorcycle who told me a good view of the water could be had from near the Veteran's Cemetery, located on the west side. After driving over, I couldn't find a good spot for photos and decided instead to pull into the cemetery. This is a well-maintained site; many of the gravestones still displayed their Memorial Day decorations, and with bird-song filling the air, we found it very peaceful out there.

We're ready

I've been accused many times of being full of B.S. and today will probably not be an exception, but I've mentioned before that given our house elevation the only danger we have could possibly be a failure to the sewage system in town. So --- the above picture shows my solution.

The Missouri River did reach flood stage this morning, something over 16' but in the next two days will come up another 2'. Those 2' will be the problem, some houses just won't make it. Some property resides outside of the dikes that have hurriedly been constructed. Last evening I returned home from my camera class driving on I-94 and was amazed at the number of loaded dump trucks rolling on to their assigned dike building. Miles of dikes are being built and a projected four million sandbags have been filled. We North Dakotans always prove to be resourceful as illustrated by this true story:

After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, New York scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network.

Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed a California archaelogist dug to a depth of 20 feet, and shortly after, a story in the LA Times read: "California archaelogists, after finding 200 year old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundre years earlier than the New Yorkers."

One week later a local newspaper in ND reported the following: "After digging as deep as thirty feet in his pasture near Sheldon, Sven, a self-taught archaelogist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Sven has therefore concluded that 300 hundred years ago, North Dakota had already gone wireless."

North Dakotans are such a proud bunch!!!

Energy

A tremendous amount of Missouri River energy flows past a given point each day here in the Bismarck-Mandan area. Only a few days ago we drove up to the powerhouse gates at Garrison Dam and marveled at the gushing, foaming water released from Lake Sacajawea. The cfs rate
has increased since then and is projected to increase even further in the coming days. (People are evacuating.) I don't know if the generating turbines output is greater under these conditions, but I would guess not since their spin rate must be tightly controlled. But, this situation makes me think about power and the problems of providing it for the world's growing demand.

One of the news sources I read regularly posted an article today that caught my attention: Germany plans to phase out all their nuclear generating plants by 2022, eleven years from now. Germany's chancellor Merkel holds a Ph. D. in physics; after watching Japan's recent disaster at Fukushima's nuclear facility, the aftermath of a strong earthquake and powerful tsunami, she decided the risks of atomic energy are too great to ride those work horses any farther into the future. Apparently, Italy abandoned their plants after the Russian Chernobyl disaster, and, too, Switzerland plans to begin shutting down their plants after reaching their average life span of 50 years; the last one to be shut down in 2034.

Even with my scientific ignorance, these developments are very eye opening. I suppose I complacently accepted the notion that atomic energy was the future. Maybe not. And my mind began to change even a bit before. I subscribe to a small circulation magazine, "The Sun," an ad free publication that features just plain good writing. The latest issue, received just a few days ago, carried an interview article featuring the actor Peter Coyote. I've never cared or thought much about him except that he has a great voice for film voice-overs. Reading those words that reflect his knowledge and outlook made me read carefully, however. Nuclear energy entered into this discussion, and he stated that it is expensive, dirty, and waste needs to be stored for a hundred thousand years. He says, "It can't be done ... You can't avoid the 'oops' factor with humans, and you can't afford an 'oops' with a deadly material that stays poisonous forever." His comments were made before Japan's recent disaster; what would he have said then.

Maybe wind towers and solar energy will take their place as the best bet for future energy. I wonder how long it will take, though. Twenty coal trains still roll through here every day, and people are going crazy with delight as they drill in North Dakota's productive oil formations.

Purple Iris and Flooding

I don't have any good pictures of the flood threatening Bismarck-Mandan (are there ever any good ones?), so I submit this picture of beauty. Pictures and stories of the flood problems can be found at Bismarcktribune.com. As time goes along I'm sure I will snap a few. We drove over to Bismarck's east side this afternoon to visit Sam's Club and experienced different traffic than usually seen on a Sunday afternoon: trucks loaded with loose sand, filled sandbags on flatbed trailers, semi trailers hauling bundles of empty sandbags coming from who knows where, pickups and trailers hauling furniture, dikes and piled sandbags rising in many places, the radio filled with warnings some areas are advised to evacuate, etc. And here we sit high and dry at our place. I've tried to find our home's elevation to complare to flood zones and have had no luck yet, but we are nestled a good 20-25 feet above that. When we bought this lot it's elevation was one of the first things I noticed in a favorable light. I've always thought too much confidence was being placed in Garrison Dam's being a cure-all for low level flooding along the river. Developers heavily promoted river-front homes and buyers came. So here we are, facing several weeks of trouble and misery.

Boiling Tail Race, Garrison Dam

As a journalist might say, we are experiencing a developing situation here in Bismarck-Mandan. All at once we have flooding to worry about. A full reservoir, Lake Sacajawea, held in place by the Garrison Dam needs to have pressure released which keeps building from huge runoff from Montana's heavy rains and mountain snow-melt. Personally we have nothing to worry about here at our home because of our elevation but many neighborhoods will be at risk on both sides of the Missouri River. The Corps of Engineers keeps increasing their estimates as to the cubic feet per second (cfs) amount of release needed in the coming weeks to deal with the threat, so the city fathers keep revising their plans to deal with water. Since cfs figures keep bumping up Mary and I decided to drive up to the dam today to take a look at the tail race. The above picture gives a poor interpretation of the boil, but my haiku poem describes it as good as anything.

I felt the ground vibrating as I stood on the bank with my camera where I wished I owned the zoom lens I'm planning to buy. Probably 35 years ago I stood on a concrete pad on the east side and cast my fishing line below the tail race. At that time the water level in the river stood much lower and a good deal of the rusted outlet gates showed. Today nothing of them showed. The power and energy were obviously immense.

We stopped for a break at a convenience store in nearby Riverdale and told the manager our Heart River was running very high too. Yes, he knew of it and said the dam at Lake Tschida was overflowing. The only amusing thing we saw today appeared in nearby Pick City, a bar sign declaring "The best dam bar by a dam site."

The End of the World?

We're still here, even after the end of life as we know it never came to pass as predicted by the senile prophet who thought he and his followers were to be taken up to heaven last weekend and leave the rest of us evildoers behind. All of us in some way will experience death, and I'm sure not willing to give up time and treasure to that doddering old fool. End of life did come, though, to those who died in the recent tornado in Joplin, MO. Physical tragedies from storms, financial turmoil, engagement in wars, shortages, high prices, etc. all contribute to people's thinking we keep sinking deeper into a hole. As a kid I'd often see cartoons that pictured a person carrying a sign saying, "The end is near" with a tag line stating the joke. Now many years have passed since I first noticed dire prophecies told me the end is near, I'm still here, and I took away a good lesson.

The latest issue of the Smithsonian magazine came in my mailbox yesterday, and as usual I flipped through it rather hurriedly until one of the articles stopped me cold, "Don't Sniff the Antlers." I scanned it and several key words teased me to go back to read and re-read and underline and make notes until I fully grasped the author's gist. Lance Morrow wrote of the 13th century Buddhist monk named Kenko whose philosophy was to accept change and impermanence as part of living. He felt at the time Japan was degenerate and in decline. Morrow lifted this interesting view of Kinko, "It is perversely comforting to reflect that people have been anticipating the end of the world for so many centuries. Such pessimism almost gives one hope." Further, Morrow saw this in the 700 year old teachings of this Buddhist monk, "It is a form of vanity to imagine you are living in the worst of times - there have always been worse. In bad times and heavy seas, the natural fear is that things will get worse, and never better."

Occasionally some sensible thinking and writing comes along, and I always find it refreshing when it does. I'm just going to keep plodding along, and like everyone else I will experience the end of the world some day. You are all invited to attend my funeral.

You Can Tell It's Spring Now

Here is a picture of the dear wife going bonkers in the Cottontail Greenhouse just a bit south of our place on Highway 1806. Since opening a few years ago this has been a favorite destination of hers during the planting season. I inquired beforehand if I could take a few pictures and the man said I could if I gave the name of his business, so here it is again: Cottontail Greenhouse. I still don't know much about this camera of mine but I still have two classes to go at Bismarck State so maybe I will have an epiphany. Actually what I need to do is take hundreds of pictures and figure out what setting goes where. Things are working a bit better with some healing of the old gluteus maximus that I injured a while back, and I can walk around a bit better now to take pictures. I exercised in the fitness center today the first time in about three weeks and a couple of the regulars wondered where I'd been. Visiting with my 91 year old mother on the phone yesterday I told her about limping around and she imparted this wisdom, "You aren't getting any younger, are you?"

How High's the Water, Mama

Sheyenne River



Johnny Cash sang that song a long time ago, and it still applies. I don't know how high but it's risin'. Here in the Bis-Man area the Missouri River rises daily because they're opening the gates at the Garrison Dam due to the build-up of water volume on Lake Sacajawea. People with low-lying property along the river bank are getting nervous, and I heard someone on the local news last night say it's probably all right for now, but what if down river they close some gates to control flooding downstream. Then we can look for back-up just as it happened a couple years ago when the ice jams made the water rise locally. I'm still glad our house sits on high ground.

As for the Sheyenne River's future, it just might have to contend with high water on a permanent basis if the folks up in Devil's Lake get their way and start draining that water into the Sheyenne. This year almost everyone has too much water. My old stomping grounds east of Sheldon is the worst it's ever been according to my cousin who farms land there, and when I drove along Highway 46 I saw plenty of other farmland that will probably be un-farmable this year. And the landowners still have to pay taxes on it.

Thinking About Old Times

Not much remains on Main Street Sheldon nowadays to remind me of the old days. I wanted this picture while the sign still hangs on the old bank building; one never knows when a wild storm might take it down and fling it in a heap somewhere. When the town stood as a viable shopping center this old bank hosted lots of activity. Reading old newspapers at the Heritage Center here in Bismarck offers proof of that. I remember going in there while it was still being used and remember how nice the woodwork looked. The chair on which I'm sitting came from there - a straight-backed oak chair with thin padding which I had re-upholstered a long time ago when I first acquired it, and again last winter when Mary freshened it up with a classical floral pattern. The chair will outlast me, even though the bank sign and the leaky-roofed building will disappear.

As we gathered in the cemetery on Monday a lot of talk centered on names of those who rest in eternity beneath their monument markers. The number of people I knew well and inter-acted with who have passed away grows year by year. But knowledge of another, older generation has faded. I could only guess one of the names, Joyal, was a past barber in town, and when I was in the younger grades I loved talking my mother out of a fifty-cent piece and get excused from class to go down there and get a haircut during the school day. I usually disturbed his card game when I entered the place, and I still remember how fast he trimmed me so he could get back to it.

Mary and I talk about where our final resting place should be, and we seem to agree that maybe this will be our spot, too. A hundred years hence people can then wonder who we were.

A Day for Funeral Services

Too seldom extended families gather except for weddings and funerals. Yesterday members of the Bueling family gathered to say goodbye to two of their members. Pictured is the priest presiding over the graveside of Jane Bueling, wife of Steve. Jane chose to have her ashes buried here, and on this day it could not have been a more beautiful day with mild temperatures, a slight southerly breeze, and dozens of birds singing in the tree tops. Following this simple ceremony, we traveled to the Sheyenne River with the ashes of another of our family, Bruce, who wished to have his ashes scattered in the Sheyenne River at a spot southeast of Sheldon where river flows fast and high and wildlife abound.

Angle of Repose

Yesterday, as we drove back after picking Mary up at the airport I noticed a landslide on the west side of West Fargo on an interstate ramp. The excessive amount of moisture we've received this year worked with gravity, and a large chunk of good old Red River Valley dirt came sliding down. Just south of the interstate by Valley City there was another spot like it. I ran across the term "angle of repose" a few years back when I read one of the great American novels of the same name Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. It means the maximum angle of slope at which sand, loose rock, mud, etc. will remain in place without sliding on a hillside. Stegner, born in 1909, lived for a time in North Dakota, and I am surprised the state promoters haven't laid more claim to him than they have people like Louis L'Amour, Lawrence Welk, Peggy Lee, plus the whole lot of them that grace the hallway of the state capital building.

The book centers on the life and thoughts of a historian and the history of his family that he uncovers. As a professor Stegner ran the writing program at Stanford University for many years and a good many of my favorite writers studied under him: Larry McMurtry, N. Scott Momaday, Thomas McGuane, Ken Kesey, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, William Kittridge, to name a few. The book can probably be considered a metaphor for him and his family as after much sliding and moving downhill, they finally came to rest, just as a landslide would.

Living Alone

Bachelorhood doesn't fit very well anymore. Mary flew off to Minneapolis to help with Clint and Robyn's kids for the week. Around here doors don't slam, pots and pans aren't banging, the wash machine isn't swishing, I'm eating in cafes, nothing much is going on. So here I sit just feeling sorry for myself. I guess I'll just have to start following orders: watering the plants, vacuuming the carpet, mowing the grass, and picking up my mess! P.S. I had fun writing the limerick. Maybe I'll try a few more of them.

Bridge and Rails

During the tourist season this site comes into view by those who choose to buy the ticket to ride the rails to Fort Abraham Lincoln. A lot of trains pass through Mandan every day but they don't use this particular line. Loaded coal trains heading east and empty trains heading back west to reload comprise the bulk of the traffic. I've heard different numbers as to their frequency, but 18-20 long trains per day seems to be agreed upon. Maintenance of these heavy traffic lines seems to require much attention. Driving east along I-94 I lately seen hundreds of new railroad ties laying alongside the tracks and a string of machines that seem to have automated most of the labor. Remember the old "John Henry was a steel driving man, Lord, Lord, oh what a man was he!" I still see that little old speeder leaving Sheldon with three or four men going out to inspect and repair track. And, I'd just as soon forget a carful of young bucks tooted up on too much beer who lined their car up on the tracks and rode the rails all the way to Leonard.

Mysteries of the Camera

The picture shown here is of no use to anyone except that it shows some experimenting with my camera from the 4th floor of the NECE building on Bismarck State's campus. Last evening was the first session of the photography class I'm taking named "Beyond the Auto Button." Hopefully I'll learn some of the settings on my digital slr camera. It faces the southern view and if one squints you can make out a butte on the extreme right of the horizon called Little Heart Butte.

Right now a back problem prevents me from getting too verbal at my keyboard. A trip to my prostheticist didn't bring relief, so now I'm heading to my doctor for a probable x-ray. I suspect I worked too hard with my gym exercises, namely the sit-up machine. How does the old saying go, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

Kansas item of interest

Already a long time ago I would follow the harvest down to southern Kansas and then work my way north to home again. I've never forgotten the scene when somewhere north of Russell, Kansas I drove my truck and combine past miles of stone fence posts that were erected by a past generation that have weathered well to endure many years of usefulness. It was one of those strong memories formed when so much of the world was still new to my eyes.

Stone fence posts stood statue-like
by Highway 281
north of Russell, Kansas. Hewn
from common "post rock," they held
barbed wire that marked boundaries
and kept free-ranging cattle
from trampling hard-worked wheat fields.
Northern boy, I thought this strange
having sunk wooden fence posts
around and through pasture land,
digging post holes with auger
or clam-shell, setting them straight
after eye-balling them on
a landmark in the distance,
unrolling wire, tightening
it with a rope and pulley,
finally pounding staples
to fasten it to the wood.

(Curious with ways of the world
I thought it looked out-of-sync
when Dad worked on down the line
and the humid summer air
slowed the sound from reaching me
when his hammer struck staples.)



Indians called those thorny loops
of prickly vines Devil's Rope.
It spread across the landscape
choking the free range because
ranchers ran ever-larger
herds; then cold, killing blizzards
screamed that overgrazed grass lands
couldn't support their greed schemes.
It's barbed wire we're talking here,
an invasive invention
that begged to be criticized
by some, welcomed by others.
Range wars raged over its metes
and bounds when settlers defined
their farms with it; the shortage
of wood did not deter them
when stone fence posts could be crafted
to stand for a century.
.....

Recent bumper sticker - "Get hooked on barbed wire."