LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — A Warm January Day
Well, it was warm in my kitchen at Red Oak House. Playtime January 2025
Unheralded
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Winter
1977. 1978. Spring Lake ice fishing (southwest of Rhame, N.D.), 1971. Earl and Lena Belle Crook visit the Slope County farm, 1973. El Paso, Texas (Marian, Sarah, Thomas, and The White Cat.) Garland Crook and his son, Thomas, visiting Vaiden, Miss. Garland Crook, back in South Korea for the second time. The Crook kids in El Paso, Texas. Jasper Earl …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Red Oak House Winter Notes No. 8
Snow. Snow since October or November. Blizzards. Drifts. Shoveling. Blowing. Ice dams. Water in my house. Snow melting now. Snow melting in Slope County. Snow melting in Stark County. Snow melting in Billings County. Snow melting in Burleigh County and Morton County. Snow melting on my husband’s garlic and strawberry and raspberry beds. Ice on our driveway. Rivulets. Walkers in …
CHRIS ALLEN: Warm Memories
I recently said good-bye to an old friend. A warm, wrap-around friend who was always able to comfort me to the core in the harshest times. I gave away my North Dakota parka. I have gone whole years here in Omaha, Neb., without having to wear it. The coat was really too heavy for Nebraska’s relatively milder winters. This was …
DAVE BRUNER: Photo Gallery — ‘Frosty Mornings’
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner and his wife, Sheila, have been out and about recently, enjoying and photographing nature’s beautiful display of winter frost in the area.
DAVE BRUNER: Photo Gallery — ‘Winter Wonderland’
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner and his wife, Sheila, went out Wednesday and walked and traveled around the city and this is what they found.
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Red Oak House Winter Notes No. 6
Journal entries 20 October 2021 3:15 p.m. Sunny calm autumn day. A very large and healthy coyote just ran up my street, ahead of my vehicle a full block, and then zipped behind the house next to Red Oak House, in broad daylight (no photo, I was driving). I grew up in Slope County and I know what I saw, …
CLAY JENKINSON: The Jefferson Watch — Whose Idea Was This Anyway?
Clay Jenkinson wrote this Tuesday. I don’t deserve to pretend to be Thomas Jefferson. Not only don’t I speak and write French and Italian, but I have virtually none of Jefferson’s famous organizational skills. My home library has more than 20,000 volumes now, and though I have a relatively logical library classification system, I have a hard time finding books …
DAVE VORLAND: Photo Gallery — February Juxtaposition
Photographer Dave Vorland recently spent some time in Arizona, where the weather in February is in stark contrast to that of his home in Bloomington, Minn.
DAVE BRUNER: Photo Gallery — Winter Water Wonder
Stay inside? Not Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner, who ventured outdoors this morning. With the temperature at 33 below zero, Dave snapped these images that show him tossing a thermos of hot water colored with green dye into the air. After that, Dave headed back indoors, “staying inside to thaw out!”
RUSS HONS: Photo Gallery — Cold Weather Wonders
The bitterly cold weather, which pretty much of the country (including the Great Plains and the Midwest) is experiencing, can produce some pretty spectacular photographic images. Grand Forks photographer Russ Hons was out and about on Tuesday (Jan. 30) in temperatures that were minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit and lower. Here are some of the things he saw through his camera’s lens. (Check …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Red Oak House Winter Notes No. 3: Life’s Passages
There are no “Garden Notes” this time of year at Red Oak House (although Jim did already order his 2019 tomato seeds), but I do occasionally write “Winter Notes.” This entry is deeply significant for me because of a life passage my family and I have been experiencing. Autumn was short, cold and somewhat gloomy, and snow came early. Jim says …
TOM COYNE: Back In Circulation — Living A Sheltied Life
It’s been a long, cold winter. I know. … After all these years of living in Minnesota and North Dakota, I should be used to it by now. In fact, I freely admit to having sneered with derision at those overmatched out-of-towners who complained all the way to the airport, upon spending a few moderately cool days here for Super …
TONY J BENDER: That’s Life — Sometimes There Is No Spring
T. S. Elliot wrote that April is the cruelest month, but I’d argue that. It comes in the winter. Winter is more than a metaphor for the twilight of a life, the final whirl of child’s windup toy as the coiled spring inside releases the last of its energy and it freezes in suspended animation, a monument to a life …
TOM DAVIES: The Verdict — Oh, Say, Can You See? Not!
I wonder how many people are aware of the unseen heroics among our fellow neighbors. The extreme cold, accompanied by recent blizzard-like conditions often blocking visibility, placed too many of our fellow humans in unnecessary situations. City, county and state police officers are on duty 24/7, 365 days a year. When unsafe driving conditions develop but drivers throw caution to …
MICHAEL BOGERT: Photo Gallery — Winter Wanderings
Grand Forks photographer Michael Bogert has been braving the recent cold weather, venturing into the countryside in search of picturesque settings. Here is what he found.
TOM DAVIES: The Verdict — In My Day, Kids Were Daring
We all have memories of the good old days. The older one gets, the more unusual they seem. When I was a young lad growing up in Grand Forks, N.D., the only inside rink in the city was the University of North Dakota arena. It was a glorified farm shed with no heating, and when it was cold outside, it …
DAVE BRUNER: Photo Gallery — ‘Sun Dogs Of North Dakota’
Photographer Dave Bruner ventured out in the extreme cold (minus 25 degrees with a wind chill of minus 40) Saturday morning to try and capture some images of the sun dogs, as extreme cold is needed plus ice crystals in the air. It all came together as he was fortunate to capture this phenomenon in full detail. They formed the …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Winter Interlude
We went away over Christmas for a winter interlude with my sisters and their families and my mother, gathering in a large house in the woods of the Black Hills of South Dakota. Driving west across the Memorial Bridge, we could see chunks of ice in the Missouri River. We traversed familiar west Dakota roads, in the midst of the …
ERIC BERGESON: The Country Scribe — ‘Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening’
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.”
NANCY EDMONDS HANSON: After Thought — Turning Up The Heat
At a time when there’s so much to worry about — global war, the long-range forecast, the coming shortage of citrus fruit — it seems almost silly to mention the one threat that causes us most to get hot under the collar. But here is it: the thermostat. As outdoor temperatures crashed this week, the Hansons’ silent battle for the …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Settling In For The Winter
We are settling in here at Red Oak House for the winter, tweaking our list of indoor projects and savoring meals of turkey, pork roast and ham. Outside my kitchen office window, the chickadees and woodpeckers on busy on the suet feeder. Specifically, ours in North Dakota are black-capped chickadees, parus atricapillus. Parus is Latin for “titmouse” and atricapillus for “black-capped, formed …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Red Oak House Winter Notes No. 1: And So It Begins
When we opened the blinds last Friday morning, it was to a world of whiteness. The snow shovels are staged, and all that was left to do was rummage in the garage storage box for the windshield scraper and the runner rug for the slate front patio (which gets very slippery in the cold weather). I even dug out the …
DAVE BRUNER: Photo Gallery — First Snow Wonderland
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner has a knack for capturing scenic landscape images, as is demonstrated by these fantastic shots.
NANCY EDMONDS HANSON: After Thought — Warming Up To Winter
We finally turned our furnace on last Friday. It wasn’t the 32-degree high that did it; it was the 40-mile-per-hour gusts the night before that convinced us to start burning wattage in a more significant way. Thirty-two degrees? Ha! In March, that would warrant running outside without a coat. The fully acclimated Minnesotan laughs at such measly reports after surviving …
DAVE BRUNER: Photo Gallery — Late Winter Snowstorm
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner went out a few hours during the late spring snowstorm Wednesday and captured some scenes from “hopefully our last snow for spring!”
NANCY EDMONDS HANSON: After Thought — Look on the Sunny Side of Winter
Now we remember why they’re called French, not Polar, poodles. Since vintage winter arrived last week, our little yapdoodle has once again raised serious questions about why we live in Minnesota. When it’s time to let her out, she approaches the door like a condemned innocent being marched to the gallows. We watch her try her best to do her …