Mark your calendars for the Dakota Nights Astronomy Festival – a three-day celebration of North Dakota’s night skies!  The Festival open on August 30 in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and includes rocket building, solar system hikes, and kids crafts.

And saddle up for today’s North Dakota Nice news – about a cool new foundation, a new/old Duck Factory, and a sculpture garden.  Read on.

The Lamoureux sisters have started a foundation to help North Dakota’s disadvantaged children. (Bismarck Tribune)

One of the fields near my house was recently converted from farmland to wetland.  It took nearly a year to build it up, and now it’s full of ducks, geese, and all sorts of other wildlife.  In Wells County, ND, a piece of “North America’s Duck Factory” became “retired” from a similar conservation program, and so rancher Steve Walker re-protected it by turning it into grazing land. (Grand Forks Herald)

Chahinkapa Park in Wahpeton has three new art pieces in the sculpture garden, including a memorial monument to 17-year-old Carter Casey. (Wahpeton Daily News)