Unraveling while traveling; life between the windshield and the rear-view mirror

Jul 01 2011

Hidden in Plain View

Dateline: Plainview, MN , pop. 3408,

The Heart of the Greenwood Prairie

Saturday, June 25, 2011
Country Breakfast on the Farm
Location: Little Valley Dairy
Donny & Holly Thompson, owners

Rochester is in the rear view mirror as we drift eastward through bucolic Olmsted County, a county without a lake, not a single one, in a state with the motto: Land of 10,000 Lakes. Planning to neither fish nor swim today, as investigative journalists our objective is a 5 dollar pancake, cheese, sausage breakfast, on a “reported” dairy farm, with “supposedly” 182 Holsteins☀, 1 crossbred, and 1 Brown Swiss who are “speculated” to produce 27,000 pounds of milk a year.

This is an obvious undercover scam, because we all know milk comes from a refrigerated wall at Trader Joe’s®, produced in plastic milk cartons, free of rBST, @ $1.99/half gallon, between the 2% Greek yogurt to the left and the organic brown eggs on the right.

However, we arrive at the Little Valley Dairy on CR 10 NE, nearly 4 miles south of Plainview, along with 100’s of families who have been duped by this sign:

Time: 6:30 am – 11:30 a.m.
Details: Enjoy a pancake breakfast.
Sponsor: Rochester Ag Committee, Olmsted County Farm Bureau Federation

Do these people look like someone you might trust ?

Tents, tables, vintage tractors, modern combines, milk parlor, barns, hay, more hay, cows, more cows, and celebrities;

“Victor”, the suspicious official mascot of the Minnesota Vikings attempting a ‘field goal’. Behind the facade of this uniform, the now retired Brett Favre, who, has at last found a real job. He still knows how to make a “pass”.

L- Mutant corn on the cob; R-Undercover agent

Donny Thompson in profile, Hollywood material for “Survivor-Dairy Farm”, a series coming to you soon

In spite of all the misconception, the people watching and the breakfast were both delicious. Armed with a full tummy we learned that:

and except for a Dairy Queen, no one can consume 7 gallons of ice cream in a single day.

The sights, sounds, and the aroma combine to make this the most memorable Saturday morning ever.

Thank heavens for holsteins, John Deere, and little girls

¤Holstein- a black and white milk producing hybrid between a buffalo and a dalmatian, with four, very large, ice cream dispensers.

We came away, convinced, that the photo below is true, that milk subsidies are essential, calcium builds strong bones, and running a 970 acre dairy farm is fun, demanding, and at times, very dangerous, and the debt we owe Donny and Holly Thompson defies translation into words.

p.s. These two “tired” imps tried to convince this investigator that hamburger comes from feeder cattle and NOT McDonald’s, so I am off on a new assignment:

ooo❍❍❍OOO are you really Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC ???

insightout©2011

Jun 24 2011

Festival Shopping

Dateline: Pine Island, Minnesota

As newcomers to southeast MN, our curiosity is piqued by local summer ‘festival’ events, those special moments that allow direct contact with local culture, so last weekend, as you might anticipate, we stayed home and gave consideration to a sexual encounter. Wait, wait, of course that’s not true, because this IS a family blog, but the point is you’ve got to get out and live a little, NOT outlive and get a little.

With the anticipation of two dogs in heat, we head north from Rochester, 20 miles, to attend the Pine Island Cheesefest. The weekend prior we had hit the jackpot visiting the Lanesboro Rhubarb Festival and thought this might be another winner, and from here forward, the day slowly turned downhill, like sasquatch in snowshoes attempting an escape from the beef jerky papparazzi.

It’s 10 AM, a Saturday morning, and the town, Pine Island is nearly deserted.

Jack and Chas stop in the local park to take “manly relief”

Flood stage, 24Sept2010,

Lynn takes note of the high water mark, easily five feet above the ladies room floor.

And nearby, on the outdoor patio of the Pine Island Cheese Company, Jack perches on the picnic table quietly anticipating a cheesey treat.

Beautiful building, locked, and nearly empty

Walking into town we take note of the ‘arts and crafts’ fair, in the auditorium of the middle school. Lynn ventures in, and then out, in less than ten minutes……”old ladies, card tables, garage sale castoffs, cheap trinkets from China, and not from the generals of Tao, the active and holistic conception of nature, but rather, the Dollar General store”.

The main street is closed to traffic by diligent civil patrol officers, swollen with importance and backup; orange barrels, do not cross tape, one whistle, and wooden horse barricades. The street is lined with food vendors, prepared it seems for an invasion of famished Sumo wrestlers….deep fried Oreo cookies, Indian Fry Bread, Funnel Cakes, Elephant ears, and 96 oz servings of iced slurpees. No cheese of any kind. Three hours here for ‘snacking’ + three hours in a tanning bed and you could go home looking like OPrah™.

If you happen to schedule this outing, the Pine Island Cheesefest for 2012, note the following:

there is no cheese
very few pine trees
no island

And should one of your companions be of the female persuasion, make sure she has a bathing suit to swim into the restroom. The only water in sight is the north branch of the middle fork on the Zumbro River, whose sole function is to flood the ladies room in the park every fall, where it is said, No Man is an Island. So the summary of this blog is very much like the Seinfeld theme, a show about nothing. Pine Island provided us a proper balance to Lanesboro, and we left feeling we were batting .500, good in any league.

We head eastward on MN 60, to and thru Mazeppa, presumably named after Zeppa’s mother, and a two hour drive drifting through the Richard Dorer Memorial Hardwood Forest, > 1,000,000 acres of forest-savanna transition, so serene and peaceful that we are back up to batting a thousand.

Reminiscent of the Allan Funt production mantra of the 1950s…..sometimes, when you least expect it, “smile, you’re on Candid Camera”, this glorious ride had all three of us, me, Jack, and Lynn, grinning from ear-to-ear.

Now pass me another one of those Oreos.

insightout©2011

Jun 06 2011

Schmoozing Rhubarb

Surrounded by bluffs more than one hundred feet high, carved by the Root River during the pleistocene era, lies a valley too beautiful to describe. The centerpiece, a bucolic small town of less than 800 people, Lanesboro, MN, by state proclamation, has been declared the Rhubarb Capital of Minnesota. The first Saturday in June is the designated date for the only festival devoted exclusively to a rhizome (an androgynous plant that can be either a fruit or a vegetable, but not once mistaken for a cross dressing pumpkin).

So Lynn, Jack, and I leave Rochester for the 40 mile trek, passing first through Chatfield, MN, home to Billy Funk Trucking.

Try saying that fast, three times in a row

Lanesboro has been featured in, get this, lineup:

Great American Main Street Award, 1998
50 Best Outdoor Sports Towns; Sports Afield
20 Best Dream Towns in America; Outside Magazine
The fluff Sunday newspaper supplement, Parade Magazine

AND, drum roll, Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion

In spite of that we were not deterred and forged ahead to be welcomed by:

Vibrant downtown unchanged for 50 years

The festival is held in Sylvan Park, a pristine setting with premier people gazing, while…

in pink socks….

Courtesy of an extraordinary a capella vocal quartet, The Rhubarb Sisters, let’s bring them on…

Don’t let their upscale dress fool you, the sisters have TALENT

Followed by their understudies below, the Rhubarb community chorus, who balance lesser talent with an overdose of enthusiasm

I was particularly enthralled with the beautiful lady behind the “H” in rhubarb. Not mentioned in the town bio, in ages 18 and over, women outnumber men, 100 to 85.1. You have to love those odds, I’d like to be 0.1 for a day.

There are the young,

The old,

the oldest

and in-between the buns

Makes biking to the United Methodist Church an attractive option

The outrageous

and the mundane

A mime clown juggling rhubarb sticks on fire

Even Jack served as a judge, in an olympic forum contest among youngsters, as to who grew the largest leaf and stalk combined. The winner was determined by accurate measurements and capricious, arbitrary, canine oversight.

Hmmm…lemme see now, anybody wanna bribe the judge with a rhubarb pie dog treat?

We ended the day at the Peddle Pusher restaurant (which had been the local drugstore through 1985) with the daily special, Chicken rhubarb salad on a croissant (with walnuts, diced fresh onion, and bits of apple). Delicious + a pie to go from the Lutheran Ladies and a torte from The Sons of Norway.

Lynn held her own against a Texas Star quilt

My favorite, “old blue eyes” with or without a nasal cannula accessory

It really doesn’t get any better, anywhere, than Lanesboro on a June in Saturday and sharing it is a pleasure. Hard to recall a day where I’ve been more proud to be a citizen of this country.

On the way out I find that we are being stalked by three very hot adolescent women, in the rear view mirror.

On County Road 8, headed westward, the refrain from the Rhubarb National Anthem (sung to America the Beautiful) rings between my ears and my heart:

Oh beautiful for rhubarb stalks

For red and green and pink (and pink)

For lovely green expansive leaves

Above the kitchen sink

Oh rhubarb plant, oh rhubarb plant

God shed His grace on thee (on thee)

And crown thy good–and darling–

Would you share your recipe ?

Keep on trunking.