News you can use
News you can use
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It’s not the type of headlines you expect to have blowing up the internet: “Controversy over the advertising of sex toys at curling Olympic qualifier cancels televised coverage in U.S.” I would like to think that you have at least heard of the sport of curling, but in case you’re in the dark, curling is that team sport played on ice with a 42-pound polished granite stone. One person, with a push maneuver, kind of launches the stone down a 150-foot lane. The teammates frantical...
The groundhog known as Milltown Mel died just days before this year’s Groundhog Day. The first sentence of the death notice on his official Facebook page reads: “We Wranglers are sad to report that Milltown Mel recently crossed over the rainbow bridge.” I did not know the Milltown, New Jersey, weather prognosticator personally or professionally, but I should probably be sad and just let things go out of respect for the dead, even if he is a rodent. I just can’t let the opportu...
When I had cataract surgery a few years ago, when the pads were removed from my eyes, I felt like I had been given a new set of eyeballs. Suddenly the world appeared more clearly, more colorful than ever before in my clouded memory. Other gifts of new sight have happened more gradually, like this one I want to share with you. You all know I have quite an extensive array of plants in my garden. To some of the flowers, bushes and trees I’ve given names. I have a couple plants I...
In my dream, the jungle was thick and dark. There was a river running through it and I was on a small raft, careening down it. The current was flowing fast in the center and I wanted to steer closer to the banks, but the jungle was filled with monsters: prehistoric creatures that roared when they saw my little raft tumbling in the water. I never saw them clearly, but could sense their large presence. They reared their giant heads as I went by. The branches of the trees...
It is the time of year that agriculture, education, political, and any other meetings you can think of are happening. On top of that, it is campaign season. As I mentioned in my last article, I am again vying for the Senate District 14 position, and therefore fully into campaign mode. Campaigning is a busy season, but I appreciate the opportunity to connect with constituents both in person and through other media platforms. If there are issues you’d like to discuss or if you’d like to get involved with my campaign, ple...
Horses are psychic — if you don’t believe it, just watch them be jerks about it. I just spent three days researching, reading, interviewing and writing about livestock predation due to grizzlies, wolves, mountain lions and coyotes — which is the technical way of saying I was drowning in the details about large, wild meat-eaters making a meal out of livestock. The day I finished with the project, my horses spent the entire time I was out feeding them, in the dark, spook...
For the past eight year I served on the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee, six as chair. When combined with my eight years in the House, I have spent more time evaluating the Public Service Commission’s regulatory duties and commissioners than anyone in the legislature. The PSC consists of five members, each elected from a distinct geographic Montana district, whose primary charge is keeping your lights on and power costs low. Previous efforts made by the legislature to redraw the PSC district boundaries to c...
Some days when I look out my door, there just doesn’t seem to be much happening. I remember wishing, when my children were young, just wishing for one boring day. Just one day of absolute boredom, please, Dear God. That wish-prayer was never answered. I’m the kind of person who simply does not get bored. However, back in the day, I also remember when good friends sat me down and suggested that I was a bit of an adrenalin junkie, just a tad addicted to drama. I listened. It...
“You’ll never guess what I did!” my husband, Peter, announced. “You’re right. I won’t.” “I microwaved the masking tape!” I can’t tell you how pleased he was with himself. My husband has a hack for everything. When I buy a roll of masking tape that is good for nothing but causing intense frustration, I am willing to give it up, toss the tape, and call it a lesson learned. “Next time, I’m buying the expensive kind!” I said to Peter, after the tape shredded into itty-bitty bits j...
It is a strange biological condition that air is the most crucial element for sustaining life, but wind — a form of air — is an agent of nature whose primary purpose is to wreak havoc and, if at all possible, to kill us. Wind is, of course, just air in motion, but it is the moment that air gains movement which changes everything, like feeding a gremlin after midnight. At 30 below zero my insulated outer layers and my hood pulled snug around my face hold my body heat aro...
I’m not saying winter is over and done. I’m not that presumptuous. However, it surely does feel like spring has bumped winter off the edge. Why, when we’ve only sailed through mid-January, am I waking up to mornings 15 and 20 degrees warmer than at Christmas? Why are some of the jacaranda trees beginning to flower? Those trees bloom in April and May through June. Purple flowers pop out like moles in a newly laid lawn. This tree, then that tree, then the one over yonder. But n...
“I bought more broccoli because I knew you were coming,” my mother informed me. You can never get enough broccoli; that is my belief. I am lucky in that I never had to acquire a taste for vegetables out of some sort of concern for my health. I have always loved vegetables. My mother has a picture of me at 3 years old, sound asleep with a serving spoon in my hand. I had apparently offered to finish up the remaining peas. I did, then fell fast asleep at the table. I think I cou...
Experts say that completing tasks inspires feelings like pride, satisfaction and confidence. I am the exception that disproves the rule. I just finished tiling the bathroom floor in the house-to-be and I couldn’t be more, eh, whatever about the whole thing. Seriously. It took days of planning, hours of labor and untold gallons of sweat equity. … And I gotta be totally and brutally honest here: all this and I didn’t even have to tile the entire floor, just a 3-by-4 foot alcov...
Here we go again, ’round and ’round the merry-go-round, twirling so fast we dare not jump off. Leo was just here with the daily death report from town. Last night the governor of Jalisco spoke to the people. He basically locked us down again. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t congregate in bunches. Wear masks. No travel unless absolutely necessary. Now that the holidays have passed, tourists and Mexican-Americans here to visit family have gone back home, the latest COVID variant is on...
I was excited to wear my new dress. It was slimming, I thought: all black and covered with flounces from the neckline to the hemline. I wore it with high heels — which I rarely wear — and red drop earrings. I was feeling much more sophisticated than I usually do when I went over to my sister’s house for dinner. “Nice dress!” my mother said. I gave my new dress a little twirl and set the ruffles flying in all directions. “You look like a car wash,” my sister said. This is...
Judy and I want to wish you a Happy New Year, good heath, and our best for 2022! I pray you had a great Christmas with family and friends. Over the holidays, we spent time with three of our four kids and eight of the grands. We played games, laughed, giggled, and some stayed up most of Christmas Eve waiting for Santa. I also had an opportunity to spend time with both of my brothers, whom I had not seen in around three years. There was a lot of catching up to be done. From grandkids to brothers, it seems we are all getting...
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and his wife, Fran, intended to help the state’s popularity soar with a new state license plate, but it quickly hit turbulence and had to make an immediate course correction, which was a bit difficult with all that egg on their face. The Associated Press reported back in October that Ohio debuted its new license plate. It’s a beautiful illustration with an art deco flair depicting the essential elements of Ohio’s self-identity — a glorius sun emanati...
To jump start a new year and top off my week, we had a puzzling close encounter of the impossible kind. Lola The Dog chased down an adult opossum. It might have dropped out of the avocado tree. Lola was beside herself with dog joy. Lola has a good measure of hunter in her parentage. She’s brought me birds and lizards of various shades. But this is a biggie. She proudly deposited her gift at my feet, tail wagging like ‘copter blades. Good dog. There it lay, dead. I’d never...
The New Year is when we take stock. In some cases, like my husband Peter’s, this is literal. He keeps an inventory of our canned goods and chastises me if I mess up his inventory. “Did you mark off the black beans?” “Um, no.” “You have to mark it off on the list or I won’t know how many I have.” “Oh. Sorry.” I am less concerned about our supply of canned goods in the New Year and more concerned about stockpiles closer to home — on my hips, for example. I had gotten out of the...
Not since the Renaissance has Italy led the world so clearly in the culture wars, but this time we’re not talking about arts, and certainly not sciences, we’re talking about the great COVID vaccine resistance of 2021. Those Italians put some skin in the game. Even with a pretty high 73% full-vaccination rate in the country, on Dec. 6 Italy started requiring a health pass to prove vaccination for some professions and for entrance into many venues. The Thursday before the law...
Farm Report: Tomatoes are up and everything else is down. More or less. I’m not sure what it is about tomatoes here but they insist on growing under extreme conditions, such as winter. Well, our winter, not your winter. Still, they astonish me. Remember, my farm is in five-gallon buckets, baby baths, and other assorted strange containers. I’m really tired of eating tomatoes. My neighbors are glad to relieve me of the excess. Herbs are year round. Flowers are forever. But the...
My Uncle Andy recently turned 90, and it was hard to imagine what a guy would like for his 90th birthday. At 90, getting a lot of new stuff doesn’t sound very appealing. Andy is in the process of getting rid of stuff, a job made more challenging by the fact that neither he nor his wife, Bea, have any children to fob the stuff off on. Andy and Bea live in the farmhouse where my mom was raised, and we were stumped when the subject of a 90th birthday present came up. “What does A...
I thought to write a Christmas newsletter but then common sense prevailed. What would I say? For all of us, 2021 has been a year of isolation, of illness and deaths in our friends, families, neighbors and acquaintances; a year of worry and fret. To balance what I said above, the solitude, for me, has been a most precious gift. I don’t have any words to explain, just that it has allowed a deepening and sharpening of senses and sensibilities. That doesn’t make sense. You’d have...
I walk around my neighborhood later in the evening these days, mostly so I can see the lights. There are some impressive houses just a mile or so away, and I walk down the sidewalks and see what has appeared on the lawns and in the windows now, right before Christmas. Some of the houses clearly had outside assistance. There are lights hung in places that only a cherry picker could reach. One house had four such enormous trees in a row, all in uniform white lights, until the...
As I write this, the quarters of a white-tailed buck deer I harvested over the Thanksgiving weekend hang in my garage. It’s not that I couldn’t find time in the last 10 days to get the cutting, grinding and packaging done. I won’t butcher it until I get back the testing results for Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD. CWD is an always-fatal neurological condition that’s spreading rapidly in our country’s deer herds. It also affects elk and moose. Much of its workings are still a mystery to researchers. CWD is not caused by...
