A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Sorted by date Results 51 - 75 of 84
I figured since most of us are sequestered indoors it might be a good time for some Wrenshall trivia. Since I am “new” to town, having moved here just 20 years ago, I thought I would bring in some ringers for this challenge. I’ve asked Dale Wolf to come up with some Wrenshall questions. See if you can answer them and email your responses to [email protected] with the subject line “Wrenshall Quiz.” The first person to email me with the most correct answers wins a Wrenshall brick. Please do...
The famed rodent of Punxsutawney Pennsylvania did not see his shadow this year, prognosticating an early spring for 2020 and right here at the Food Farm we had our first picnic of the year… in the greenhouse. The thermostat said 94 degrees on Sunday afternoon and some of the smaller amongst us were in tank tops. There are other signs of spring on the farm. We have onions in the ground, the bees have been spring cleaning their hives, we got our seeds inventoried, and we’ve been busy telling the...
Wrenshall had a strong showing this past weekend at the country's largest organic farming conference held in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Rick Dalen and Clara Salveson of Northern Harvest Farm, Jason Amundson of Farm LoLa, and practically the whole family from our Food Farm attended the conference. My husband and I both felt it was the power of being part of a group of folks who are dealing with similar challenges and successes. It's energizing hearing what other people are growing and how they are...
It’s homecoming week for Wrenshall! Monday kicked off the festivities with a rally featuring a family feud game show with the homecoming court as contestants, as well as a scooter relay race. There were dress-up days throughout the week, with Friday’s basketball game against Floodwood the culmination of all the fun and games. The JV boys team plays at 4:45 p.m. and the varsity game is at 6:15 p.m. Friday also marks the 100th day of the school year. It’s a day that many schools mark with fanfa...
Minnesota climatology records show that January was the cloudiest on record since recorded observations started in 1963. With the gloomy weather it can be hard to stay motivated. Luckily, our community has some options for you. The city of Wrenshall created and maintains a free outdoor ice rink located just behind the post office and bus garage. It is lit by lights hanging in the pine trees that stay on until around 9 p.m. There is a warming house and bench for folks to put on skates and rest....
The Wrenshall elementary art club is open to students in grades 3-6 and meets once a month for 90 minutes after school in Molly Kidd's art room. She says students ask about the next month's offering as each monthly meeting ends. "They are so engaged during art club, it's really fun to see," Kidd said. "I really see a difference in the students' demeanor while they are making art. It is a special time that they can just let go and focus on creating." I talked to Kidd after learning about the...
Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and one of the ways I try and honor his legacy is to try something new and push myself to leave my comfort zone. Given the divisive nature of our national politics I am hoping to use the holiday to have a conversation with someone that I might not normally engage with. The national organization Story Corps has started a similar initiative that they are calling “One Small Step.” Story Corps has spent the last 15 years preserving and sharing humanity’s stori...
This was the first week of “back to reality” for a lot of us. School is back in session and most folks are back to work. Monday morning was a bit rough and it can be hard to find our way into routine again. I’m like a lot of folks who are looking to develop some new, healthier routines with the coming year. One of the ways I am approaching this is by choosing just one word for 2020 that I can use to focus on and reflect throughout the buffering and jostling of daily life. Since having kids, I ha...
As I was mailing a package from the Duluth post office this week, the woman behind the counter noticed my address. "Wrenshall has the best burgers around, hands down!" she said. "I worked at that post office for a while and I would run across the street for Brickyard almost every day, although I had to start cutting back to once a week." I wholeheartedly agreed with her and promptly ordered takeout for my family that afternoon. A reminder that you can get your burgers and breakfast this...
A reader in Cloquet sent a lovely email about the amazing teachers at Wrenshall school. She is an avid supporter of the nonprofit DonorsChoose (donorschoose.org), which makes it easy for people to help classrooms, teachers and students get the tools and experience they need for a great education. The reader explained, “Teachers submit their projects and the charity arranges delivery after the project is fully funded. I ended up being absolutely obsessed with this charity. Since then, I r...
When I was a kid, my family used to hold weekly meetings to check in on how things were going and what was on the calendar coming up for the week ahead. We’d talk about some highlights from the past week and share what we were looking forward to in the week ahead. This month, there are a lot of things to look forward to in Wrenshall, so pull out a calendar and take notes. Basketball starts up again, and both boys and girls have home games in December. The girls play Cromwell Dec. 12 and East C...
Gratitude can be a funny thing; it's often the case that when you have less of something, you tend to be thankful for it more than when you have it in abundance. Take light, for instance. This time of year we have a lot less of the stuff compared to summertime. By the winter solstice (December 21) we'll have eight and a half hours of daylight versus the almost 16 hours of daylight we get at the end of June. I think the increasing darkness is one of the reasons holiday lighting gives me such...
The phrase Wrenshall resident James Sheetz keeps coming back to is "Now, what just happened?" His sister, Diana Sheetz Carlson, died by suicide in 2013. "It's still there, like every once in a while you get a jolt," he said. One of the ways that Sheetz has dealt with his grief over the last six years is through music. "It just touches your soul in a way that just words can't. It's like the music starts and everything just shifts." Sheetz is a trained musician and conductor and produces regular...
Wrenshall coach Jeremy Zywicki was recently named coach of the year for the 9 Man North White district of the Minnesota State High School Football League for his work this year with the new Carlton/Wrenshall Raptors. This honor prompted me to check in with Coach Zywicki and co-coach Jason Crane. The two led the team to an 8-0 record in the regular season. According to Zywicki, the accomplishment is due in large part to the positive, hard-working students who made the dream of this season a...
When I moved to Wrenshall after graduate school in New York City I had many friends and colleagues tell me some version of the same thing: “Oh, what a unique thing. Art and farming. How can you possibly pursue art living in the country?” There is a false divide in our popular culture and a pervasive understanding that urban centers should be hubs that export culture and import food. We celebrate the idea of terroir when it applies to wine or food — the idea that a particular grape can take...
Dave Hanlon was succinct. "Its just a stupid amount of carrots." That's how Hanlon, from the Food Farm in Wrenshall, describes our record-breaking harvest this fall. In the last two weeks we've pulled more than 75,000 pounds of carrots out of the ground, all despite what farmer Janaki Fisher-Merritt describes as "challenging conditions." A dry summer sandwiched between a wet spring and fall made for difficult harvest weather. But the outcome was by far the best we've ever experienced for the...
Jules Massenet’s “Cendrillon” or, as we now know it, “Cinderella,” first debuted at the National Theater of the Opéra Comique in Paris in 1899. On Monday, it was performed in the Wrenshall School commons for a raucous crowd of grade-schoolers by Little Opera of the North, presented by Lyric Opera of the North’s Little Loon program. “This was totally different from the movie,” exclaimed one awestruck student after the performance. “There was real magic … and the prince actually sang in thi...
The harvest moon, the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, made its appearance last month but, for our farm, the high harvest is happening right now — and the weather hasn’t been kind for mucking about in the fields. We’re trying to get everything out of the ground and into the root cellar for a full season of winter vegetable delivery. In honor of what I consider the real harvest moon, Oct. 13, I’m including a recipe from our last summer CSA share delivery. Speaking of the full moon, t...
Full disclosure: I live with a Wrenshall School board member, Janaki Fisher-Merritt. Most days when he comes home from a late meeting, I brace myself to hear a recap of difficult issues and tough decisions. Last week was not one of those nights. Instead, Janaki came home with a story about an act of kindness and compassion. This year there is a student who needs daily shots for medical care. It was a traumatic experience for the student as well as the staff since the shots had to be delivered...
Brian DePew said "seeing contemporary art in a barn next to an organic farm in northern Minnesota is not the way I thought I would be ending my evening," DePew, the executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs located in Lyons, Neb., went on: "But I couldn't have imagined a more wonderful end to the day". DePew was in Wrenshall Tuesday night along with 20 other fellows from BALLE, which stands for Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. The best description of what they are about cam...
"People are always happy when they come here, and if they aren't, they are always happy when they leave". That was Angela Rubish's response when I asked her about her business, the Ru-Ridge corn maze, located just north of Wrenshall on County Road 1. I tested Rubish's claim this past weekend when I took my 2- and 4-year-old children for an afternoon visit. We came happy, we left happy, and we had some good times in between - all without even making it 10 feet into the maze itself. "I'm always...
It's the most wonderful time of the year! Brickyard Days is here! The official festivities are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 3, but there will be reunions and revelry throughout the whole weekend. In fact, the get-togethers have already begun. The Wrenshall Class of 1965 enjoyed their yearly reunion at VIP Pizza in Superior with their former teacher, Irene Gigliotti, lovingly referred to as "Mrs. G." Gigliotti taught in Wrenshall, along with her husband, Orlando Gigliotti, from 1956 to...
"Come on, Betsy, let's go!" This was the enthusiastic cheer of my 4-year-old last Friday as we set off with his grandma and 50 other area residents on a coach bus tour of the Nemadji Watershed. Organized by Carlton Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) water resources technician Melanie Bomier, the tour was a kickoff to the development of a master plan for the Nemadji watershed. Dubbed "Nemadji One Watershed," this planning initiative is designed to provide a comprehensive vision for the...
Wrenshall is the land of milk and honey — literally. Two weeks ago we celebrated milk production in Wrenshall with Breakfast on the Farm at the Laveau Dairy, and this week I got to taste fresh honey straight from the comb. The Food Farm provides fields for local producer Christian Dahm’s bees to forage. His bright, multicolored boxes are located on the northwest corner of our farm and offer a cheery sight for folks coming and going on County Road 1. On Sunday, Dahm was out checking on his col...
This is the third year that Doreen and Duane Laveau have hosted folks on their farm for a celebration of Carlton County’s dairy industry. Breakfast on the Farm will run 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at 508 Cemetery Road in Wrenshall. There is free parking at the farm. The $4 breakfast will include pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, coffee and milk. The event is open to kids and adults and will include milking demonstrations and hayrides. Special guests in the pole barn include Rebekah Paskewitz ...
