20-Crying babies and Whac-A-Mole are in the news again.Stop the whacking.

Warning:  This is not going to be the column you think it is.

This week the Wall Street Journal Research Report said “infant cries can affect heart rate, blood pressure and handgrip.”  Oh, do they ever.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304636404577300151510353004.html

Forty volunteers listened on earphones to crying babies, “distressed adults” (not sure how that was manifested) and bird screeches for 4.5 minutes each.  After each session, they played Whac-A –Mole for one minute. 

Whac-A-Mole, if you have never seen it, is an arcade game (and now!  in a home version by Hasbro!) in which there are several holes with little mole replicas in each.  Randomly they light up and pop up, and you try to hammer them with a mallet as they come up faster and faster.  I know this because when taking two boys to arcades, I had no interest in driving or shooting games, and this was the only other choice.

Guess what?  Both men and women whacked the moles faster and harder after hearing the crying babies for 4.5 minutes than hearing either “distressed” adult or bird noises.

Duh. 

Babies cry for one reason:  to get someone to help them because they are too immature to solve whatever problem they are having themselves.  Baby cries are supposed to annoy adults.

I have two sons who were once babies.  They used to cry several times a day to “I can’t remember the last time” now because I have somehow managed to raise them to feed themselves, go to the bathroom in a toilet (I no longer check this, but most of the time, I believe), and to put on more clothes when they are cold or take off more when they are warm, and go to sleep when they are tired.  This is wonderful.

I was one of those moms would could hear them rustle in their sleep way down the hall, and when they cried (or, let’s admit, whimpered), I could go from a sound sleep to straight down the hall in a fraction of second. 

Letting them cry themselves to sleep?  I did that once with the older son, and he cried so hard he threw up.  Last time for that.  (In the spirit of full disclosure, as a frantic first-time mommy I also stuck a bottle in that baby’s mouth {He’s cyring?  He must be hungry!  Let’s try feeding first!} so often that he had “kissy cheeks” the size of a bloodhound.)

At the same time the WSJ reported this amazing scientific study result, an article in our local paper sadly proved this increased handgrip phenomenon.  A 20-year-old father was charged with assaulting his eight-week-old daughter.  Without getting too graphic -- because it’s one of those stories that make me want to vomit -- the baby had 21 bone fractures and five more likely fractures because the alleged perpetrator squeezed her so hard.

Guess why?  To get her to stop crying.

I am also guessing there are no moles anywhere near this person’s establishment.

There seem to always be cases of people – dare I say it, usually men – who abuse a child because (s)he won’t stop crying and it is driving them nuts.  There must be 100 lines in TV cop shows and movies where the perpetrator, when asked, “Why’d you do it?” answers to the effect of, “He/She wouldn’t stop crying!”  Soon, if not already, like the “Twinkie defense,” there will be a “crying defense” for temporary insanity.  (Twenty six fractures?  Hardly temporary.)

What I find really sad, in addition to the abuse, of course, is that the researchers measured a violent response to infant cries.  Why did they not, say, run a vacuum cleaner and see if the research subjects vacuumed faster?  Or run around the block, and see if they ran faster?

Who is sticking up for the moles?

By that, I mean, why do have yet another game where people have to whack something innocent?  Moles aren’t even venomous.  Why is it in our nature, apparently, to derive pleasure from that? 

On Amazon.com selling the home game, 71 people reviewed the game, many with headlines like "We love it!"  "This game is a blast!  Highly recommended!" and "Excellent fun!"  Only one person posted on the discussion, saying it encouraged cruelty to animals.

People cheer at fights in hockey games, yet just a few months ago a high school kid here was permanently paralyzed after being checked against the wall.  Also in the news of the last few years are retired football players who, in their 50s, cannot walk because of the repeated trauma they underwent in the name of the game.  And look at Muhammed Ali.

Joseph Kony’s video on violence in South Sudan recently was in the news.  Everytime I hear of torture, I am amazed that one human being can, first of all, think up that hideous thing, and secondly, actually do it to another human being.  This goes all the way down to recent You Tube videos of kids daring another to eat a teaspoon of cinnamon and “don’t try this at home” warnings on national news.

I am not anti-hunting, and I appreciate the need to do so for population control, because dying from a quick shot is better than starving to death.  But why have most of us not adopted the Native American practice of honoring the spirit of the animal we kill?

I am not a crack-pot or someone who has an ax – so to speak – to grind.  I am a mom.  Yes, I stopped my boys from stomping ants and worms on the sidewalk because they needed to think about what they were doing and it wasn’t right.  (They probably don’t remember this and probably stomp away now, but I like to think they are kind young men.)

I believe our society, no, our entire world, needs to stop whacking anything.  (Insert red circle with word WHACKING in the middle and a line through it.)

Arcade games need to stop shooting and whacking (driving race cars and spaceships is OK).  Video games need to stop shooting and whacking.  Sports need to stop knocking out, tackling, checking, et al.  We need to find other ways to entertain ourselves, and we need to popularize whatever those are (and I don’t mean shopping).

Whacking is not OK.  I believe the moles, and that poor baby who may be permanently disfigured and/or have brain damage, would agree.  If they could.

19-Rhubarb -- and geek gardener’s excitement -- springs eternal

Rhubarb springs eternal in USDA hardiness zone 3

Usually on St. Patrick’s Day in northeastern Minnesota, the ground is frozen so solidly there is no way you can sink a shovel into it.  Even after you shovel the 18 inches of snow off the top.

So when a record-breaking warm spell sent temperatures soaring 20 degrees above normal for nearly a week, the gardeners among us got all jazzed, as if the gardening sap in our veins defrosted and started running early.  People were raking lawns, uncovering tender perennials and sweeping the sand-salt grit off driveways and out of garages about two months early.  That must mean extra growing days!

At a fruit and vegetable seminar put on by the county extension service, 160 gardeners filled nearly every aluminum folding chair in a township hall for six hours on St. Patrick’s Day.

Yes, you can grow a Magnolia in NE MN

These seminars usually are popular, but the energy running inside that building could have powered the Vegas Strip.  We couldn’t wait to hear about “Vegetable Varieties for the Northland and 2011 Tomato Trials,” “Small Space Gardening: Containers and Raised Bed System,” and “Growing Tree Fruits:  Apples, Plums, Cherries and Pears.”  Personally, I wanted to hear about
“Success with Small Fruits:  Blueberries, Raspberries and Strawberries,” and a new fruit called a “Haskap.” 

When the presenter went over tomato specie trial results in 2011, you could nip the tension with a pruning shear.  No simple Early Girls or Big Boys sent up from the southern headquarters of the Big Box stores for us.  Many in this room nurture tomato plants indoors from seed.  Many others comb locally-owned garden centers for species that are sure to bear ripe fruit in our short growing season.

We were waiting to hear what would work.  Fourth of July and Celebrity and Defiant did well, and pencils and pens scribbled notes in the seminar handbook.  But when he said a tomato named “Polvig” had produced as much as 20 pounds of fruit on one plant, a vacuum was created from 160 gardeners sucking in their collective breath. 

Yes, garden geeks get their thrills in strange ways.  Soil testing, then amending with peat, or compost, or fertilizer is popular.  Different ways of constructing raised bed gardens or trellises for climbing vine plants get us all breathing faster.  And then we move on to different ground covers (landscape fabric vs. plastic, green vs. black vs. clear vs. red) to keep weeds down and heat the soil, are always a conversation-starter.  Perhaps nothing gets more people talking then how to cover plants set out too early, or plants that are trying to be protected from a killing frost in September to extend the growing season up to another four or five weeks!  (I lost my basil last year in early September…dang, since basil is the most cost-effective plant.)

Gardeners everywhere share the health benefits of home-grown food and the incredibly better taste of fresh garden produce.  Likewise, “garden therapy” of digging in the soil, coaxing something from a seed to a strong plant that produces an edible gift has helped many a stressed human find relaxation, or the opportunity to work through some rough patches, if not downright nirvana.

But those of us who toil and till in USDA Zones 2, 3 and 4 are a special breed. 

We plant seeds outdoors during a soil-prep-and-plant marathon on Memorial Day weekend and then we cannot stand up straight for three days. 

We have about 12 minutes on June 1 to get the entire greenhouse planted outdoors.  We are so desperate for help we dare to enlist grumbling adolescents and any other available hand.

If we don’t get the plants we buy or the seedlings we grew indoors and have “hardened off” into the ground “in time,” we will spend all summer watering and weeding and get nothing but green tomatoes (and I don’t mean tomatillos, either) and red peppers that are still green.  One nursery near my home closes by the second week in June.  No point continuing, they must figure, it’s too late now.

Imagine our collective delight when a master gardener shared his method for getting cantaloupes and honeydews to mature in our area!!  I had given up long ago after tending vines and seeing fruit form, only to have a frost ruin it.  This guy assured us that – if you put your vines against a house in the hottest part of the yard, probably, and you set up trellises for the vines, and you pick varieties that mature in 75 days or less – AND HE NAMED THEM!  gasp! – you could get plenty of ripe, luscious melons!  This is like being given the Sparknotes of Melon Gardening in the Frigid USDA Zones.  Hope springs eternal!  We can try again!

We are not idiots. We know we are not going to be savoring the giant Honeyrocks that come from Indiana, or the sweet giant cantaloupe I recall purchasing as a child when my parents would stop at roadside farm markets in downstate Michigan. 

But we also know that – even though the strawberries and raspberries ripen and rot in about three weeks here – there is nothing like walking out your backdoor before work and eating handfuls of fresh berries.  Freezer jam lasts longer than it says it will on the package.  And every spoonful, even in January, tastes like July.

Garden geeks we are, concerned with nitrogen levels and organic matter and what time of day is best for watering and whether staking and pruning are needed.  I am guessing I am not the only one to go out of my way for free pine needle or wood chip mulch.

What a healthy obsession to proudly claim.  We love being out in the sun, smelling and feeling the fertile earth in our hands, and finding ways to make it come alive for our benefit. 

Even in Zones 2 and 3, there is nothing like a warm tomato, eaten fresh off the vine, juice dripping off your chin. 

It will be difficult to hold back this year, to wait until June 1.  We are being teased by the early spring, by dirt that can already be turned over, by the possibility of a longer season.

Polvig tomato, let’s go for 25 pounds in 2012!

By the way, the rhubarb is coming up, six weeks or more early!

18-Try living on $350,000 in the winter of our discontent

Recently a VP of communications for a big NYC financial services (Wall Street) company was overheard publically saying how difficult it was to live on that salary with the high NYC cost of living.



Snowblowing the softball field



People think you can live cheaper in the far northern part of the Upper Midwest.  But here's the one word that will raise the cost of living in the hinterlands:  Seasons. 

Now is when the snow is starting to shrink and reveal lost items.  Every day when I drive in the driveway after work, there are new things revealed sticking out of the snow.  I wondered where that blue snow shovel was.  Today, a soggy dog bone showed up…eeeewww.

So, of course you spend more because you lose a few things that must be replaced.  Snow shovels ain't cheap.

And, while parking rates in Manhattan may cost more than my mortgage, nothing is free here in Flyover Land.  Consider the expense of this list of must-have provisions due to our unique northern Minnesota seasonal weather conditions:

Home-Related:

Christmasy underwear for a Christmas storm



v  Finn scoop snow “shovel”

v  Yard rake for leaves

v  Roof rake for snow

v  Snowblower or Plow Guy

v  Space heater for at least one room

v  Air conditioner for at least one room

v  Sauna in the basement

v  Humidifier for winter

v  Dehumidifier for summer

v  House insulation

v  Window insulation “kits”

v  Screens for the windows

Miscellaneous extras:

·         Gallons of DEET mosquito dope (forget the citronella and “natural” ones)

·         Doctor office co-pay for lyme disease diagnosis

·         $200 for emergency vet visit for dog injured in tangling with raccoon in yard

·         $5 for essential skunk recipe of Dawn dishwashing detergent, hydrogen peroxide and baking soda

·         Possibly a special SAD lamp

Vehicle-related:



Should have had 4WD



o   Snow tires, or a 4WD vehicle on which you can use all-season tires (but when you do need one new tire, you need four new tires)

o   New brakes every time you turn around due to hilly city

o   Emergency car kit so you don’t die if you are stranded, one for each car

o   $500 cash for deductible due to deer-vehicle collision

o   Back seat mat for muddy dog paws

o   A million car washes to keep road salt off

o   Cash for body work when the road salt creates rust anyway

o   Seasonal oil change

           

Clothing:

§  Waterproof boots for soggy snow

§  For women, Ugg or Ugg knock-off sheepskin boots for real cold

§  If you are female, a pair of leather fashion boots for places Uggs won’t go

§  Mud shoes for Mud Season (possibly all or part of March April and May)

§  Down or very warm jacket

§  Wool dress coat

§  Mittens/gloves for slight cold (30s and 40s), medium cold (20s above to zero) and serious cold, and one pair of “dress” gloves (below zero and/or windchill)

§  Snow pants (yes, even for adults)

§  Long underwear

§  If children are involved, twice as many as above, so they can have a change if one is wet

§  If children of divorced parents are involved, four times as many, two for each household

§  Sheepskin slippers or those slippers you heat up in the microwave

So, you may be asking, why do we do it?



Because it builds character.  We are hardier and stronger for it.

Because while there are “bad guys” everywhere, many of go to milder climes for year ‘round crime.  They don’t generally perform home invasions when it’s 40 below.  Our kids ride bikes and swim in the area streams and lakes without bodyguards. 

And because there is nothing like:

o   sitting on the dock or a deck on a warm summer night, watching fireflies or shooting stars

o   walking the dog in one of those snow globe-like fluffy snows that coat the trees, and doing it with as big of a chance of flushing a deer as running into other people and dogs

o   putting on sunglasses because the fall colors (that means “leaves”) are so bright you need them

o   watching a gale-force storm on the world’s largest freshwater lake whip up immense waves

o   swimming in that same crystal clear lake on a burning hot summer day

o   drinking the purest water on earth straight out of the tap for pennies a day. 

Because instead of getting on the subway and pushing and shoving to start our slavin' job to earn our pay, this is gorgeous country and we are lucky to spend our days here.

Priceless.









17-Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Monster Truck Mashes…really?

This week, our Governor Mark Dayton announced a preliminary agreement to build a new super-duper stadium in downtown Minneapolis on the current Metrodome site.

"Our state will have a premiere stadium to host the Minnesota Vikings, college and high school teams, rock concerts, monster truck mashes and other major events, that will generate even more economic activity and showcase both Minneapolis and Minnesota to people all over the world," Dayton said during his press conference.

“Monster truck mashes?”  What?

I was driving when I heard the radio report.  I checked newspaper reports and even the governor’s website to see if the speech was quoted saying that.  Nothing in print.

So I went to the Minnesota Public Radio site to see if I had heard correctly. I had, and the quote is above.  http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/03/01/vikings-stadium-plan-legislature-reax/

We really need to have a lot of those to encourage tourism and showcase our alleged love of monster truck events to the world, or to generate a better quality of life in this state? 

Who thought that up?  Is that speechwriter still employed?  Or does the governor have some sort of personal fetish and so he pencilled it into his speech, going rogue off the scripted comments? 

I like our governor.  He is a hardworking man who served in the U.S. Senate, and he didn’t just fall off the ah...turnip truck.  But he strikes me as a guy liking classical music and an occasional romp with his German shepherd, not cheering wildly when the sparks come out of the exhaust pipe.

Conan O’Brien apparently likes monster trucks.  He drove Grave Digger on his show less than a week ago.  I'd like to drive one, too, who wouldn't?  So maybe the Governor caught this and was inspired? 

Driving one is way different that watching them.  I just don’t see this as an attraction that is in the same league for drawing folks as major sports events and rock concerts.

I googled “monster truck mashes Minnesota” to see if there is a huge industry out there in our fair state.  I got “did you mean monster truck smashes?

Honestly, I have nothing against this form of entertainment.  In fact, I spent my own money and bought tickets and went to one.  Once.

It was maybe 10 years ago.  I was a single mom with two boys about 6 and 10, and I have a January birthday, which means indoor entertainment.  So we went to a rally for my birthday.

The boys were pumped, which makes sense, cuz boys like toys, and I was up for meeting Bigfoot.

First, it was LOUD.  As in, capital letters LOUD.  Inside the arena, big giant trucks were revving and backfiring as they drove over crushed cars.

It was smelly.  The aroma of gas and exhaust was in the air.

It was…different.  I’ve never seen tons of sand dumped indoors.  Nor have I seen what I remember as clowns and/or guys in gorilla costumes driving four-wheelers and other vehicles around and around and around, I guess something to keep the crowd entertained in between crushings and wheelies.

We sat, we watched, we pointed out things that were going on at once and we yelled to be heard.

Then, after a suitably long time, one boy spoke up and said something to the effect of, “We can go now.”  The other two of us just said, “OK, fine with me.”  And we left.  Not mad.  Not disappointed.  Just done.  We came.  We saw.  We left.  “That was interesting.”

In retrospect, it seems like a huge waste of very expensive gas.

If Governor Dayton thinks this is going to be a great way to pump up the local economy and attract thousands of visitors to Minneapolis – like maybe Bon Jovi or McCartney or a Super Bowl could -- I am not getting it.  I think a huge amount of beer might be purchased, but are we caving to the beer lobby, here?  Let's not bet a big amount of taxpayer dollars on the size of the Monster Truck draw.

But I don’t understand Nascar, either. 

I did really enjoy something called “enduro racing” at the Proctor Speedway, where people in old cars put on helmets, get in, and drive around and around a mud track, sliding into each other and busting out windows.  I think anyone with an old car and a helmet could do it.  Some of the vehicles (my favorite was a stationwagon) were pimped out with things like holiday lights, an iron bed headboard over the grill, and a yellow rubber ducky on the very top.  I don’t know who won, or how, but I enjoyed watching.

I wanted to go back to watch the once-a-year school bus races, but I never really had anyone to go with (imagine that), or the timing wasn’t convenient.  Here's a link to the Proctor Speedway school bus racing:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYqajrXNJPI

Everyone watches monster trucks, Governor.  You fill that new stadium with a mud track and a bunch of old school buses, I’m in.  That'd give Minnesota something to showcase to the world.