End of July, 2008
Dakota Mission Trip
Here it is Saturday, July 26 and a beautiful sunny day
in the neighborhood of Wisconsin.
Matt and two of his friends spent a week on the motorcycles
touring Upper Michigan and Northern Wisconsin, sleeping
in their tents and eating food over a campfire. Next week
he goes to Sturgis, South Dakota for their rally. He and Lisa
are buying a home in St. Francis, near the Milwaukee
airport. School starts in another month.
Robin, Madeline, Connor, Keith, Alyse, Tierney, Scott,
Marianne, Cassidy and Elena went to Massachusetts
and New Hampshire for 10 days to visit Richard, Sharon,
Joshua and Colin. Did the historic Boston Common,
the Gillette Foxboro New England Patriot Football
Stadium where Richard Works.the NH
White Moutains and the Atlantic Ocean beach in Maine.
All stayed night in Niagara Falls, Canada.
3100 miles, they came home tuckered out.
Richard says they have been busy signing contracts
for football players.
President Bush was on a trip to Japan. Politics is a big
thing now with Obama and McCain battling it out.
State Fair is next week in Milwaukee. Outagamie
county fair is this week. We are watching tv, the
Milwaukee Brewer Baseball games, they win most of
them. Had lunch with old Sunrise grade school friends, 8 of
us, good visit.
It was an email from Cousin Rochelle Ostermann Redhage
with an invitation to her Husband Rev. Lloyd Redhage's
25th Anniversary of his ordination into the Lutheran
Ministry to be held at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in
Ferney, South Dakota on Sunday July 20,2008.
As we were due for a trip, we decided to go and make the
whole round trip. Started out bright and early July 19,
towards LaCrosse, where Robin had a big breakfast
waiting. Richard McCannon's sister Janice, husband Mike
and Daughter Amanda from St. Louis were also visiting
so had a nice visit with them. Our garden had been
producing so took Robin peas, green beans and
raspberries which taste so good.
Crossing the Mississippi River into Minnesota,
bluffs along the river bank. Water was standing in the
corn fields. Passed near Rochester, home of the Mayo
Brothers Medical Clinic, Austin, Hormel Meat Plant where they
make Spam canned meat. 16 miles of road construction.
Wind generators. Lunch break at Albert Lea. Lots of corn and
soy bean fields.
South Dakota at Sioux Falls, bad storm, rained very
hard, could hardly see the road. Beef cattle, black
and brown. Big grain elevators. Old threshing machines
are in abandoned fields. Small Casinos on every corner.
Checked into the Cottage Motel in Desmet. home of Laura Ingalls
Wilder's family. Drove around town, past Surveyors Cabin,
Depot, out to the Cemetery where the Ingalls family is interred.
The Cottonwood tree grove is now a recreated village of the
Ingalls family farm. Girl Scouts were camping.
We had tickets for the Pageant 'These Happy Golden Years'.
Each July volunteers do a pageant from Laura's books.
Left half way through, too many bugs and mosquitoes.
Saw on television Pope Benedict from Rome was in Sydney,
Australia with the World Youth Group gathering.
On the road again, round bales of hay from cutting the ditches
next to the road. Swale Holes of water, called Glacial Lakes.
Flock of prairie chickens crossed the road.
Andover, South Dakota, a quaint quiet grain town nestled
next to the railroad tracks. Home to a huge dairy and beef farm.
Old Empty houses and two old abandoned churches.
Surprised Lloyd and Shelly at the morning service. Back to the
Redhage home for a very good chicken noodle casserole lunch
with the Redhage Boys, Daniel is a Lutheran Minister at Centerville
SD, he conducted the service in honor of his father. Matt was home
from Minneapolis. Daniel and his wife Amy have three adorable
children, David, Sarah and Michael. Amy is a music major in
Violin. Shelly has a big garden, strawberry bed, big lawn, 3 sheep,
2 dogs. Parsonage is near the church.
Reception for Lloyd at St. Paul's church in Ferney, attended by
100 friends and parishioners. Daughter Becky and her husband
Rev. Brian Idt of Aberdeen SD were there with their their children.
Brian just accepted a call to Ladysmith, Wisconsin.
On the road again to North Dakota, cottonwood trees by old abandoned
homesteads, cattails, flat prairie land. Stayed night at Folsom. Russ had
a wood tick. So few people or automobiles on the highways, everyone
waves. Sunflower fields, alfalfa, grazing cattle. Dead fox on road. Big
grain elevators, Canola fields. Rev. Robert and Ollie Weber in Grand
Forks, ND invited us for lunch. Bob spent time at the Zillmer farm
during the 1940s. His parents and mine were good friends from way
back, probably coming on the same boat from Germany. Bob and Ollie
have a beautiful home, yard, big flower garden, pond and waterfall.
Visited the Siouxland Buffalo farm in Grand Forks, owned by Doug and Derek Earl. Have 300 buffalo, feed corn silage, sugar beet and potato by-products.
Mother cows have small calves weighing about 40 pounds. Gave us
a tour right into the field of buffalo, amazing animals, shaggy, big horns.
bought a 4 pound buffalo roast, which I made when we got home, tastes
similar to our beef except not so fat. I always need to see buffalo on
a trip west, and I did get my Buffalo fix.
On the road again, into Minnesota, cross the Red River that flooded
so bad in 1996. Crop duster airplane was hovering over wheat fields.
Overnight in Bemidji and home to Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox,
on the lake. Short visit with Jack and Mavis Swenson who live
near Blackduck, which my Great Uncle Albert Klingbeil lived after
he ran away from home in 1914, and only came back to Manawa
Wisconsin after he died in 1950.
Chippewa National Forest, the beginning of the Mississippi River,
only a small stream. Dead trees from a forest fire 100 years ago.
Duluth and into Superior, Wisconsin and the Richard I. Bong
World War II Heritage Center, on the shores of Lake Superior.
Then to the Fairlawn Mansion and Museum which was home
to Grace and Martin Pattison, a 42 room mansion, which was
turned over as a children's orphanage from 1920-1962. It
housed some 2000 orphans.
On the road again to Hayward where we spent the night.
Beautiful farming country, good corn fields, alfalfa. Indian
Reservation, Chippewa Flowage, Ladysmith, Tomahawk,
Wisconsin River, ginseng fields. Tigerton and visit with
friends, a cheese stop. And home in Hortonville by noon.
1632 Miles.
Where Russell jumped on the tractor and cut down all the
second crop hay, ready to bale one of these days. Pcked
the raspberries, green beans and peas. Cut all the grass.
125th Anniversary today of the Dupont Farmer's Insurance
Company, a company my Great Grandfather Michael
Zillmer helped to found in 1883.
Oh, it is so good to be home again, our own bed, but nice
to see the world and how other people live. Hortonville
Wisconsin looks mighty good.
Russell and Delores.
copyright, 2008, Russell and Delores Miller
Back to Wisconsin Farm Journal page
copyright 2008, Russell and Delores Miller
Journal
No. 70, July 2008
