Travel on the Gravel

A a few weeks ago we had occasion to pass through Hutchinson and took the opportunity to hit the Sunday buffet at the Anchor Inn. This is still a terrific place to eat, I'm happy to report. An interesting development in recent years has been the domestication of Cow Creek in downtown Hutchinson. Reminiscent (faintly) of the Riverwalk in San Antonio, or Bricktown in Oklahoma City, the creek has been made into an urban amenity. Up the bank is a nifty water park much enjoyed by local kids. It includes hydraulic guns for water fights. Set into the sidewalk along Main above Cow Creek are historic tiles celebrating people, events, and places important to Hutchinson. One tile notes the opening of the Fox Theatre in 1931. And around the corner, here's the theatre.

Despite the lack of a summer, our crop of green chiles is good. Most folks around these parts have no idea what to do with green chiles. Here's a series of photos illustrating how to harvest green chile flesh.
Green chiles just picked
Blistering green chiles on the gas grill
Dashing scorched chiles into a bucket of cold water
Pile of green chiles ready for peeling
Peeling a green chile
Opening a green chile
Stripping seeds
Pile of green chile filets

Then there was the green chile hotdish, subject of an upcoming Plains Folk feature.
Breaded green chiles in frying pan
Fried chiles draining
Green chile hotdish ready for oven
Green chile hotdish ready to eat

It was full dark when we finally took Arnie the History Dog for his evening ramble, not suspecting what lay ahead up the section road. A mile or so from the house we heard the sounds of a death struggle in the bar ditch—the absurd baying of a retriever trying to sound fierce, along with a grotesque screeching I could not identify. Ordinarily by day I can call the dog off such encounters before they start, but this one commenced in the dark, and once begun, the dog being an entire animal, testosterone took over. In the grass I could not get a good look at his antagonist, but when the fight shifted into the adjacent stubblefield, the action was visible. It turns out the threat to ranch security was a mink. Its battle technique was indeed fascinating. Several times I saw the dog trying to disengage, but the mink was on the attack, leaping six feet through the air trying to bite the dog. The affair ended badly for the mink. The dog’s shots are current. His nose is a little worse for the wear.

The incident struck me as odd, since I had seen no mink or evidence of same in the vicinity before, and since we were not near a marsh. My copy of Mammals of the Northern Great Plains, however, informs me “mink may travel overland for considerable distances or forage far from water;” also, “Late summer and autumn dispersal of juveniles may take them far from the area in which they were born;” and finally, when opportunities present, mink delight to dine on voles. The stubblefields that were the scene of last night’s deadly encounter host an unusually large number of voles this year, I have observed.

I've been negligent about blogging in recent months--been overwhelmed with work (and sometimes play). For a while now I'm going to be posting some catch-up images. For instance, I've always admired Pete Felton's Monarch of the Plains, right alongside Fort Hays on the edge of Hays, Kansas. I think it ranks with Bennett Brein's rebar buffalo on the North Dakota capitol grounds as one of the finest representations of bison in sculpture on the plains. Early this summer we paused to contemplate the monarch. Here are some images. I particularly like the relief carvings set into the base of the statue.
The Monarch
The Monarch overlooks the beats of the city park
Cow & calf
Railroad
Monarch legend
Hunter

It was a shock to hear, a few years ago, of the fire in Festival Hall, on the old Wells County Fairgrounds, Fessenden. Fortunately, Festival has been rebuilt; the exterior looks good; I haven't seen the interior, but having seen the original interior, I doubt anything like it could be restored. Anyway, a recent research junket with ZZ to the courthouse in Fessenden gave opportunity to swing through the fairgrounds for a look. There is other restoration work going on there, too--I hope it continues to progress, especially the work on the south grandstand. Here are some snaps from this remarkable complex.
Entrance to fairgrounds
Home Ec Building
Festival Hall
Front of Festival
Stone and concrete work on side
South grandstand
Russian thistles growing where seats have been torn out

It’s hard to believe it, but the fall supper season is almost upon us again. Last year I compiled a directory of fall suppers on the northern plains. Now I’m calling around to update information; I’m also interested in new listings. If you’d like to promote your church’s fall supper, then let me know about it. View the directory here: http://www.plainsfolk.com/suppers/

That darned Mike Miller, Germans-from-Russia Bibliographer for NDSU Libraries, is always working. No one person, I dare say, has done so much as he to gather, consolidate, and disseminate the beautiful culture of the German-Russians on the plains. He's just published a new book--one of many his office has offered--entitled The Last Link: Old North Dakota Memories. The author is Tom Mueller, who treats the story of his great-grandparents and others in Logan County, North Dakota. Books like this are modest, of course, like the German-Russians themselves, but taken as a body, they amount to a wondrous legacy. The publication and collection of such works, so assiduously pursued by Mike, ensures that German-Russian culture is documented from the grassroots. For more info on the book, go here: http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/order/nd_sd/mueller.html

Later this week I'll go into Fargo studios of North Dakota Public Radio with producer Skip Wood and record a set of Plains Folk essays for broadcast. The news, then, breaks first via this blog: the new venue for Plains Folk columns will be NDPR. I'm sure there will be publicity out about this, but otherwise, watch this space for an announcement of air times.