Two things happened last week that were quite unlike but came together within a similar story. The first item of interest is a book by Terry Theise titled “What Makes A Wine Worth Drinking?” It’s a very deep book wrapped around the author’s long experience in tasting, buying and ...

We have some hooters in our neighborhood. Not the kind associated with carbonated beverages and megacalorie pub grub, though. I’m talking about actual owls. We often hear them at dusk and at dawn, their “Who? You?” booming out from the hidden depths of our farm grove. The hoots of a ...

Like most of my minor honey-dos from the end of year, going through old clothing to donate to the local thrift store ended up getting done two months into the following tax calendar; mostly due to deer hunting and some late season pheasant tromps that took up the last seven weekends before the ...

The most common form of farming in our region from the late 1800s through the 1940s was small-scale, mixed farming. Small-scale simply means the average farms were small — a quarter section (160 acres) was typical. Reliance on draft animals or the early, smaller tractors for field work ...

Feb. 15 would have been the great Galileo Galilei’s 456th birthday. Without a doubt, he was one of the great cornerstones of the foundation of modern-day astronomy. There were indeed others before him, including Nicolaus Copernicus, who came up with the theory that the planets, including our ...

Have you ever thought that maybe we’re all from the same root stock? Or, how about this? What if, over the millenniums, that same root stock blended many cultures, people, foods and traditions together to form who we are today? We are, whether we like it or not, a blending of the New ...

The cunning assassin silently slipped in under the cover of darkness. It was after suppertime and my wife and I were watching TV. Slowly, I began to intuit hints of the assassin’s presence. An inexplicable feeling of discombobulation crept over me. My instincts whispered that something was ...

Even with the rather kind spell that Mother Nature has afforded us over the last few weeks with no blizzards, light winds and even some melting temperatures scattered in here and there, winter can still feel a little long. Spending afternoons huddled over an ice hole can wear on a die-hard ...

Part II The life of the pioneers was hard. My father helped build the railroad from Balaton to Flandreau, S.D., in the summer of 1879 and 1880. He was seventeen years old and small in stature; so he was hired as a water boy and general roustabout. During the summer he rose to the rank of ...

Valentine’s Day is coming. Love is in the air and the Marshall night sky! This year the celestial timing is almost right. I say almost because the full moon this month is this weekend, but not on Friday for Valentine’s Day. That would add to the romance, but maybe you can get your Valentine ...

We’ve learned how Kenny earned his Submariner’s Badge; married his high school sweetheart, Lenae, while on leave; and reported to the Navy’s Nuclear Power School at Bainbridge, Maryland. The Navy assigned the newly-weds an 8x28 trailer as their quarters. They also met another Navy ...

For the last couple weeks of January I was wearing a small heart monitor called the Zio XT. Since the end of November, I’ve been having some heart issues (well I think it’s heart-involved) where my heart feels like it’s jumping around or racing when I try to do cardio exercise. Needless ...

Suddenly, it happened. Have you ever thought about the idea that life is filled with things that occur suddenly? Let’s put that “suddenly” into perspective. Suddenly doesn’t always mean immediately. Everyone understands that our journey is filled with people, places and things that ...

It’s a perennial problem for those of us who are lesser-abled in the area of romance, people who lack the knack for expressing their deepest feelings of endearment to those closest to them. We are of course talking about guys. Guys generally aren’t very adept at communicating mushy ...

I can recall rolling down the gravel driveway of the shooting range to attend my first high school trap team meeting after moving to town in 2017, overwhelmed by the excitement and possibilities the 13 trap houses presented. Through a connection on Facebook I got the time and the date from one ...

Great job Lyon County! In 2019, residents in our area worked really hard at recycling and disposing of things in the right place. Residents recycled 31 more tons of materials in 2019 compared to 2018 through the curbside recycling or community recycling program. Since 2015, Lyon County has been ...

Part I In a publication titled “Ninety Years at St. Paul’s,” October 1977, a committee of the members of the Icelandic Lutheran Church in Minneota compiled and wrote a history of the church and that of the early settlers. The following excerpt was written by J.A. Josefson, chairman of ...

Tax season is approaching, and we have made replacing your annual Benefit Statement even easier. The Benefit Statement, also known as the SSA-1099 or the SSA-1042S, is a tax form we mail each year in January to people who receive Social Security benefits. It shows the total amount of benefits ...

February stargazing is fantastic for many reasons. Sure, it’s not as comfortable for stargazers living with the winter cold, but the extra special celestial jewels make it so worth it! If you’re not already in the darker countryside, try to get out there. But even with light-polluted skies, ...

The social news or gossip columns in the old newspapers are always fascinating to read. A special section in the newspaper was devoted to the social media of the day. The whereabouts of local people and events were often featured in these columns. Here are a few from The News Messenger of Lyon ...