Happy September!  We spent the long weekend in Saskatchewan with my family-in-law.  I know I’ve said this about spring, and summer, and maybe once in December when feeling particularly generous about winter, but fall is the absolute loveliest time of year in North Dakota and Saskatchewan because it is bucolic agrarian at its BEST.  I’m surprised no one has put a “Oh, you HAVE to visit New Hampshire for the colors/Washington, DC for the cherry blossoms/the Hamptons for the rich people/etc etc” effort into selling the autumnal north as a tourist attraction.  I spent thirty minutes laying in the sunshine on the grass in the farmyard listening to the wheat swish and the doves coo and I tell you what, it’s therapy.

The only thing that wasn’t lovely and wasn’t therapy but WAS a lesson in why people should own chickens were the flies.  Harvest and flies go together like picnics and hornets, and so the flies were prolific.  Seventy-five percent of our drive was spent trying to get flies out of the car.  When we stopped at the US-Canadian border crossing to speak to the border guard, three flies flew into the car.

“You don’t need to declare that wildlife,” the border guard joked (“joked”).

“You can confiscate them,” I joked (“joked”) back.

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law didn’t have any flies at their house because they have 50 chickens and chickens eat flies – so now my list of “Why the American Kosiors Need Chickens” includes: 1) eggs, 2) they are soft and make fun little clucking noises, 3) they are a source of food if you choose to eat them, 4) they don’t like strangers and will freak out if someone they don’t know is skulking around your house, and 5) no flies.  Also, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law have a giant rooster with a giant floppy waddle named Oo-De-Lally, which is such a great name for a rooster if you’ve seen the Disney movie Robin Hood.  So, 6) awesome naming opportunities.

Speaking of chickens, the chicken coop sits on top of what used to be a shed.  The shed was built by my grandfather-in-law and was one of a handful of sheds on the home site.  After Kyle’s grandparents passed away, his brother moved his family onto the site and started cleaning out (and knocking down, because some of them were in bad shape) the sheds.  If you’ve ever known a farmer you know that farmers never, ever, ever throw anything away, and so those sheds were chock full of stuff.  As you can imagine, when you have a shed that is chock full of stuff, some of that stuff ends up on the ground.

We have three early teens in Kyle’s immediate family: our 14-year-old, our 14-year-old nephew, and our 13-year-old niece.  When children are younger than 13, they are kept busy by toys and cardboard boxes.  When children are older than 16, they are kept busy by jobs and boyfriends.  When children are 13-15, they don’t know what to do.

On our first day in Canada, the three teens rode bikes around town.  On the second day in Canada, they rode my father-in-law’s side-by-side in the country and watched a Canadian Football League game.  After the game concluded, the teens were fresh out of things to do.

Fortunately, Kyle had brought along his metal detectors.

“Why don’t you guys see if you can find an old chicken band by the coop?”  My sister-in-law suggested, referencing the metal bracelets that go around the ankles(?) of chickens to identify them.  “The oldest one we’ve found is from 1935; see if you can beat that.”

“Maybe we will find some money, too,” my nephew said.

“Focus on the bands,” my sister-in-law said, because Kyle’s grandpa may have dropped stuff on the floor of the sheds, but he carried magnets in his pockets to keep from dropping change.

The boys metal detected for at least two hours.  My niece metal detected for an hour until she found a dollar coin and then came in because she knew it wasn’t getting any better than that and, also, honestly, how much digging in the dirt can a 13-year-old girl do.  By the end of the evening, they had found an additional twenty cents, a handful of nails, a metal bracket, and a chicken band from the year 1931.

The next morning, we were in my father-in-law’s kitchen having coffee when my son came in.

“Grandpa,” he said.  “Can I have a shovel?”

“Yes,” my father-in-law said, and then, because he had raised three boys, “Why?”

(A side note – long ago, when the chicken coop brother-in-law was a kid, his buddy came looking for my father-in-law in the garage.  “Lionel,” he said, “we’re cutting back trees and we need a knife.”  Lionel gave him a small knife.

The boy came back a while later.  “Lionel,” he said, “we need a saw.”  Lionel gave him a small saw.

The boy came back a third time.  “Lionel,” he said, “we need an axe.”

“No, you don’t,” Lionel said.)

“We’re going to metal detect the garden,” Fourteen said.  Lionel gave him a shovel.

The boys dug outside in the garden for an hour.  My nephew ran the stand-up metal detector, and my son was on shovel and wand detector duty.  After an hour, they had found several nails and an old Matchbox car that my husband and his brothers had buried in the 80s.  Buoyed by their major success, they decided to detect one more time – this time out at the farm.

The boys went off beyond the Quonset, my ten-year-old and Kyle stood at the car and flew our drone around, and my other brother-in-law and I enjoyed the hot weather.  Nearby, my father-in-law had lined up his grain trucks and combines to prepare for harvest.

“Oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly, what a day,” I sang to myself in my head, swatting away a fly.

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I call the photo above, “Hello from Sask.”

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I wasn’t on TV this week because of the holiday!  Last week on North Dakota Today we talked about Sandy Kovar, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as a great organization helping kids look good and feel good. (Valley News Live)

If cuteness is news then this is news. (KX Net)

North Dakota has a new state vegetable and you’ll probably be unsurprised to hear what it is. (KFYR TV)

Max’s Ben Scheresky is an FFA American Star Finalist. (KX Net)

Dickinson’s Hope Magelky is the first female to compete in the World Para Ice Hockey Women’s Championships. (KFYR TV)

Williston’s Saint Joe’s now has six 8th graders – the first since 1970. (KFYR TV)

North Dakota is, once again, the hardest working state in the US. (KX Net)

There’s a new movie about Fargo called AJ Goes to the Dog Park.  Check it out. (Amazon, Found from “Oops Only Good News”)

 

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