By Bev Johnson Master Gardener Petunia was complaining to Bunkey about how boring the flowerbeds were looking.  The mums hadn’t started blooming, the phlox were done, some of the lilies hadn’t had their spent blooms cut off and the only thing showing much color were the annuals scattered here and there. She was right, he decided, it… Read More

The Prairie Spy Alan “Lindy” Linda As quite a few of you know, I read a lot. Don’t care what. Might be Chinese history; might be the history of British politics. Or about what’s really, really inside an atom’s nucleus.  If it pops up in front of me, I read it. As I’ve consumed various kinds of fiction–novels,… Read More

Ask A Trooper Sgt. Jesse Grabow Question: Is it legal for farmers to load hay on a state highway? Our neighbor bales several miles of state highway ditches.  To load the round bales he drives down the highway with a pickup and bale wagon.  His son is in the ditch with a tractor and loader.  The son… Read More

Plan for the future when planting a new shrub By Bev Johnson Master Gardener The last edition of the Northern Gardener magazine had a list of uncommon shrubs for zone 3. If your estate needs a bit of a tune up, perhaps you should look into one of these. Aronia or black chokeberry is a 6X6 foot shrub… Read More

The Prairie Spy Alan “Lindy” Linda It has been one hundred years since a young Swiss patent clerk named Albert Einstein turned the world upside down with his preposterous ideas. His third paper is the one we’re all somewhat familiar with, the theory of relativity. Pretend you’re sitting in a saddle affixed to a light beam tearing through… Read More

Ask A Trooper Sgt. Jesse Grabow Question: A friend recently told me that it’s illegal to honk your car horn in Minnesota (he showed me an internet article).  I find this hard to believe.   So many friends and family members drive by our house, giving their horn a little honk and waving; is this illegal?   What if… Read More

Tucker’s Telegram Tucker Henderson Reporter When you glance around New York Mills, it’s hard to imagine what it looked like in the early, lumber company days. When the New York Mills Company purchased the land from R. L. Frazee on which to build their lumber mill, the virgin white pine forest was still thick with wild… Read More

The Prairie Spy Alan “Lindy” Linda The Darwin Awards are given to people who remove themselves from the gene pool in rewardingly stupid ways. Here are some of them. Sidney Zelaya Gonzalez, 20, was pinning a king-size mattress to top of a van with the weight of her body, intent on claiming the free curb-side find, when her… Read More

Ask A Trooper Sgt. Jesse Grabow Question: Why are so many vehicles allowed to be on Minnesota roads with only a rear license plate? This seems to be especially true of late model expensive makes (Tesla, Audi, Mercedes, BMW, etc.). Isn’t the lack of a front plate a primary offense and the vehicle therefor subject to a… Read More

Process can be difficult, but necessary to save rose bushes By Bev Johnson Master Gardener Roses are a diverse group of plants that have many options for gardens here in the frozen north. Some shrub rose cultivars are completely hardy or have very little dieback in zones 3 and 4. Remember we are in 4B but it… Read More