Everyone knows that we need sleep. If we do not get enough sleep, we also know that it can have a variety of negative consequences. The same may be said of getting too much sleep. I suppose that. Too much, or too little, of anything can have consequences. One word for too little sleep is ...

“Unusual weather we’re having, ain’t it?” – the Cowardly Lion, upon awakening to a snowstorm after a poppy party in the docudrama “The Wizard of Oz.” We denizens of the prairie know that you don’t have to go somewhere over the rainbow to enjoy — or endure, depending on your ...

I had an interesting experience this week on Monday morning, one that involved a wide panorama of Midwestern history. I was part of a bus tour group that went to the Gold Star Military Museum at Camp Dodge west of Des Moines, Iowa. The stop was the last segment of a three-day mystery tour ...

Pam and I have a nice house. It’s one of those old farmhouses that’s been remodeled a hundred different ways. Since the kids left, it’s just Pam and me. And a few thousands of ladybugs. Several times a day, I go around the house sweeping ladybugs into a dustpan and tossing them outside. ...

Eric Miller with Suite Liv’n sent me an email a couple weeks ago inviting the Independent to cover a community outreach event involving apartment residents. The email stated that volunteers would be gathering to paint small flower pots and then add the soil and seeds. The pots were ...

Minnesota’s Republican members of Congress — Pete Stauber, Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach, and Tom Emmer — supported H.J. Res. 140, overturning protections for over 234,000 acres just outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) in Minnesota, thereby opening the door to ...