This post is from 2016, from the late Eric Bergeson, the Country Scribe, who plays “Gladiolus Rag,”a middle-period classic rag by Scott Joplin, considered by many to be Joplin’s best.
What does the landscape look like in the fall above 8,000 feet? Autumn in Arizona is in full swing, and these i images from photographer Eric Bergeson highlight the colorful flora on and near Marshall Gulch Trail, up the hill from Tucson.
Arizona is much more than the Grand Canyon, as these images from photographer Eric Bergeson show. These picturesque photos taken along the Catalina Highway, Sabino Canyon and the area around Patagonia show off some of Arizona’s other beautiful sights that await travelers to the Southwest.
Photographer Eric Bergeson recently took a drive along the Catalina Highway (officially the General Hitchcock Highway) up to Mount Lemmon in Pima County in southern Arizona. The highway is the only paved roadway providing access to the resort village of Summerhaven as well as various recreational and scientific facilities located near the summit of Mount Lemmon. Ascending from the desert floor …
Photographer Eric Bergeson captured the beauty of summer this week at Bergeson Nursery near Fertile, Minn. The nursery’s gardens are always open during daylight hours in the summer and are the most beautiful from late July through early September, as these images prove out.
It appears not even our country’s warmer climes are immune from snow this winter. A winter storm ravaged the Southwest U.S., dumping snow on parts of Greater Los Angeles and Tucson, Ariz., before moving eastward into the Plains. Northern Arizona was hit particularly hard, with Flagstaff reporting its snowiest single day on record, with more than 35 inches of snow …
Photographer Eric Bergeson thought he would try to ease the dreariness of winter by sharing these 2018 summer images from Bergeson Nursery near Fertile, Minn. In comparing this year’s pictures to other years, he thinks this past summer was the best growing season in memory.
Eric Bergeson, the Country Scribe, shares these photos taken near Patagonia, Ariz., a town of 800 in high ranch country near the Mexican border. In his own words, “So many worlds exist within a 100-mile radius of Tucson.”
Photographer and writer Eric Bergeson ventured out into the Arizona countryside recently, capturing these images in Ramsey Canyon, southwest of Sierra Vista.
My phone buzzes. It is Mom. Again. Third time today. Do I answer? Mom calls when she is distraught, when she has been walking the halls of the nursing home for hours, waiting for somebody to pick her up. Nobody comes. While wandering, Mom forgets she has a room and worries where she will sleep tonight. If I answer her …
Photographer Eric Bergeson knows a bit about flowers and pollination.
If you’ve never been to Bergeson Nursery during the summer, it’s probably something you should add to your bucket list. Located southeast of Fertile, Minn., the gardens are always open during daylight hours in the summer. They are the most beautiful from late July through early September, and during that time, printed garden guides are available then that allow you to …
A rare cloudy day in Arizona is a treat, “the mountains get moody and dramatic,” according to Eric Bergeson, who recently took a trip southeast of Tucson through some ranch country and then over the Santa Rita Mountain range.
Thursday was the first day of winter — and the shortest day of the year. Eric Bergeson, The Country Scribe, salutes our new season with Robert Frost’s “Stopping By The Woods On Snowy Evening.”
Here is the first chicken-of-the woods mushroom (above) that I have found all year. Big thrill. Once sauteed, or grilled, chickens are meaty and delicious. I am hoping those little ones off to the side grow into big ones. Chickens need to be harvested while still damp and cool to the touch. Once they dry out, they are past their …
Bergeson Gardens, located southeast of Fertile, Minn., at Bergeson Nursery, is in full bloom and will be through early September. There will be an open house at the nursery Saturday, which will feature free coffee and donuts, food and ice cream for sale, music (11 a.m. and 3 p.m.) and garden tours (10 a.m. and 2 p.m.). All plants will …
Eric discusses his book “A Treasury of Old Souls,” a collection of stories about the older people he knew growing up in a rural setting, and how they shaped his view of life, death and what really matters.
The Country Scribe, Eric Bergeson, knows a bit about caring for flowers, trees and shrubs in the Northland, being the third-generation owner of Bergeson Nursery in Fertile, Minn., a business started by his grandfather in 1937. Here, Eric offers some tips about caring for plants that you may have at your family cemetery plot, which is particularly pertinent on this Memorial Day weekend.
Finally, a gardening book for our area! “Successful Gardening on the Northern Prairie” is on its way from the printer, and features 326 pages of information specifically for us. Learn how our soils are different from most of the rest of the country’s and what you can do about it. Learn about the only two fertilizers (very cheap) you will …
Photographer Eric Bergeson has been doing some sightseeing this past month while taking a winter break in Tucson, Ariz. These are just a few of shots that caught his eye, including blooming wildflowers at Catalina State Park, which have been boosted by timely rain.
Chopin’s “Waltz In C-Sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2” was etched into Eric Bergeson’s subconscious by his father, who learned it when Eric was 3 years old. Eric recalls his dD put masking tape on the keys to learn the last run.
Sabino Canyon, located north of Tucson, Ariz., in the Santa Catalina Mountains, is a favorite walking, hiking and riding recreation area for residents and visitors to southern Arizona. Just minutes away from the desert, the canyon features large waterfalls along Sabino Creek with minor bridges constructed over them. Wildlife also is abundant in the canyon, including deer, javelina, skunks, tortoises, rattlesnakes and mountain lions. Stonework …
Are you up for some uplifting music this Christmas morn? How about a little “Gladiolus Rag,”a middle-period classic rag by Scott Joplin, considered by many to be his best. Here it is performed by The Country Scribe, Eric Bergeson.
Eric Bergeson, The Country Scribe, offers his take on the classic Robert Frost poem, “Stopping By Woods On Snowy Evening.” Imagery, personification and repetition are prominent in the work, written in 1922 and published in 1923, by one of the most celebrated poets in America.
The Electoral College is with us forever. Barbara Boxer can introduce bills to abolish it until the cows come home, but ending it requires a constitutional amendment, which would require 37 state legislatures to approve it. At least 12 of those state legislatures would have to volunteer to reduce their impact in the presidential election by more than 50 percent. …
I think of the local combat veterans I know and know of with particular gratitude: Ken Helm, Keith Bolstad (and his buddies I have met), Pumper Christianson, Jon Hovde, Harding Vidden, Bernie Lieder, the late Victor Ness, late neighbor Norris Jacobson, a nursery employee named Gullickson who committed suicide after World War II due to PSTD, neighbor Krogstad whose landing …
Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata, 1st Movement.”
A brief tour of the gardens, yesterday … what a beautiful time of year.
“Elite Synchopations,” a lesser-known ragtime by Scott Joplin, but probably one the most fun to play. Joplin said it is never right to play ragtime fast. Long may he spin in his grave!
Eric Bergeson snapped these beautiful images on a recent U.S. West trip.
Family vacation, Glacier Park, Montana, 1988. Noon. Ham and cheese sandwiches in a jammed restaurant just outside the park. After Dad paid the tab, I put $1 in the juke box, played Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” seven times and headed for the door. Before I got there, Prince started. Loudly. The juke box was set at the previous night’s volume, when …
Eric Bergeson recently visited the Tucson (Ariz.) Botanical Gardens, named by Reader’s Digest as the “BEST Secret Garden in America.” According to the its website, “The Tucson Botanical Gardens promotes responsible and appropriate use of plants and water in a desert environment through education and demonstration and provides a place of beauty and tranquility for Tucson residents and visitors.” The 40-year-old facility offers year-round tours, community events, classes and art exhibits and includes specialty gardens including the Cactus & Succulent Garden, Barrio Garden and Herb Garden, which highlight the diversity of native plants while offering …
From Catalina State Park north of Tuscon to Sabino Canyon in the Santa Catalina Mountains to San Pedro Riparian National Wildlife Refuge east of Sierra Vista to Madera Canyon south of Tucson, photographer Eric Bergeson — aka The Country Scribe — captures many spectacular images of the Southwest. Among them: California poppies, a cactus wren, calliandra shrubs, a group of women hikers (snowbirds from all over the …
According to the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists have isolated the gene that causes people to eat lutefisk. The news was greeted with jubilation in the lutefisk-eating community, which hopes the discovery that the desire for lutefisk is genetic will lead to greater acceptance of their eating habits. “This study strikes a great blow to the forces …
As I was leaving the nursing home a few years back, I shook hands with an old man who pulled me toward him and pleaded, “Please, please, take me to Rollag!” Since it was Labor Day weekend, and the Steam Thresher’s Reunion was in full swing, I was tempted to load him up and go. But the old man’s son …
Today at the Fertile (Minn.) Library, author Jack El-Hai spoke about his recent book, “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist,” which focused on the relationship between psychiatrist Douglas Kelly and Nazi Hermann Göring formed at Nuremberg. In the audience was Art Olson (above right) of McIntosh, Minn., age 90, who was Göring’s guard at the prison in 1946 and spoke often …
Late each summer while he was able, my grandpa would take me on our annual golf outing. It was always an odd experience. Grandpa considered himself to be exempt from green fees. In lieu of payment, he would bring along his clippers and trim the trees on the fairways as we golfed. This slowed us down quite a bit. It also …
The Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 is one of the chestnuts of classical music, so much so that pop musicians have been stealing melodies from it for decades. Eric Carmen, Celine Dion, on and on. The concerto is so popular that many classical music fans tire of its constant repetition in concert halls across the country. Well, it is tiring to hear mediocre …
When my Grandmother Olga Bergeson passed away in 1995, her funeral was held on a perfect September day at the little country church where she had been comfirmed nearly 80 years before. After the graveside service, neighbor Paul Ofstedal pulled my aunt aside and said, “Now, that was a slam-dunk funeral.” Yesterday came Paul’s turn for a slam-dunk funeral. Paul was a citizen of …
For many, many years, some of our best customers have been Larry and Bridget Drummer, who live by Maple Lake near Mentor, Minn. Always quiet, kind and cheerful, Larry clearly loved plants and gardening and his wife Bridget. I finally put together that he owned the big diesel repair shop on the East Side. We never had a conversation, but you didn’t …
Can Donald Trump keep it up? When will he implode? What explains his rise in the polls? How do we stop him? The pundits wring their hands. Josh Marshall thinks Trump is a doofus who uses sophisticated military strategy. Peggy Noonan, who penned the phrase “1000 points of light” for George H. W. Bush, declares Trump to be a sign of molecules …
Maybe the name Eric Bergeson sounds familiar to you. For the past 15 years, several northwestern Minnesota newspapers have carried Bergeson’s weekly columns. Or maybe you’ve read one of six books, including “Pirates on the Prairie,” which the Minneapolis Tribune called “a Minnesota cultural and historical treasure.” Or maybe you saw his name in the news when he sought the …
The Minnesota Twins salvaged their season by sweeping the Baltimore Orioles this past weekend. Their offense is still stagnant, but their pitching seems to be gaining steam. On Sept. 1, the rosters expand from 25 to 40 players. In the past, the Twins have been conservative about bringing up prospects for the month of September. This year should be different. …