By Bill Anderson

Last week’s thunder, lightning and rain knocked out most of the remaining frost pockets and settled the soil for Spring planting. Here in Rutland, the combined rainfall total from the Friday afternoon downpour and Saturday’s day long drizzle amounted to .7 of an inch but other areas of Sargent County were drenched with considerably more precipitation. Mark Bopp, who farms northeast of Cogswell, reports 2.5” of total precipitation from the Friday-Saturday double whammy. Sunshine, temperatures in the 70’s & 80’s, and light winds from Sunday through Wednesday, May 14-17, helped to get fields in shape to hold machinery, but more rain is being predicted for Thursday & Friday of this week.

Despite the gray, hazy appearance of the sky, and the reddish-orange appearance of the Sun at daybreak, local weather experts have been telling us that there are no clouds and that the sky is perfectly clear. So, what’s going on. Is this the new, “artificial intelligence,” technology at work, telling us to believe what they say, not what we see? Well, not exactly. The gray, hazy appearance of the sky is actually the result of an old-fashioned natural process, wildfires burning in the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, producing smoke that is carried across North America by upper-level air currents. The smoke is so high, the experts say, that we can’t smell it right now, but an approaching cold front is expected to bring the smoke down to Earth to torment creatures, including us, here below. So, that’s the weather story for North Dakota. Always something to look forward to.

Mark Wyum, who is helping his son, Rob, get the 2023 crop planted, reports that the hilltops are in good shape, but the slough edges and low spots are marginal, at best. Rob is planting some spring wheat this year, the first wheat in the Wyum Farm’s crop rotation in 30 years, just to see how it goes. He expects to have his planned total of 600 acres planted to wheat before day’s end on “Syttende Mai,” May 17. Other crews were just getting started on corn and beans, and hope to be hitting it hard by next week.

It is finally Spring, and that means that it’s also time for the Rutland Cemetery Association’s annual meeting. Association President Roger Pearson had scheduled the meeting to be held at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 10, in the Community Room of Stock Growers Bank’s Rutland Station. The meeting was called to order by Vice-President Paul Anderson. The big items of business were: approval of a budget for normal 2023 operating expenses; approval of the appropriation of approximately $7,000 from the Perpetual Care Fund for straightening and repairing a number of larger tombstones in the cemetery; and, election of a new Director to replace Norbert Kulzer on the Cemetery Association’s Board. Norbert said that, by his estimate, he had been a member of the board for at least the past 152 years, but Secretary Casee Carlson said that she could only find records to indicate that Norbert had been serving as a board member since the early 1980’s. Jerry Woytassek was elected to the board for a 4-year term. Members of the Rutland Cemetery Association Board are now: Roger Pearson; Paul Anderson; Casee Carlson; Chuck Sundlie; and Jerry Woytassek. Greg Donaldson serves as the Cemetery’s Sexton. The next meeting of the Rutland Cemetery Association’s membership is tentatively scheduled for the 2^nd Wednesday in May 2024. The members of the Association expressed their congratulations and thanks to Norbert Kulzer for his 4, or 15 decades of faithful service on the Cemetery Board.

Continue reading “The Rooster Crows – May 19, 2023” →