There never seems to be ….

There never seems to be two springs alike. As I made my way around Loyal this afternoon, I may have missed a field that has not been worked or planted.

While there has been little rain the ground doesn’t seem that dry. I remember years when you looked for a farmer working in the field, you just looked for a cloud of dust.

It has been a grand year to enjoy the beauty of the flowering apple trees and especially our flowering crab apple trees.

Like all good things it will end soon and on to the next step in our change of seasons. I noticed some of the pretty yellow dandelions have turned white with the seeds blowing here and there ready to add to the springtime atmosphere another year.

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A mailing from the Marshfield Health Plan the other day had a special insert included with the mailing. It announced this is the 50th anniversary of what was once called the Greater Marshfield Community Health Plan. That was in 1971, and later renamed Security Health Plan.

It was the first rural health maintenance plan (HMO), and as I recall, Clark County residents were not eligible to join at the time. It was close, as the town of Sherman residents could join. It has served us well and certainly taken the burden off our minds when it comes to health care.

I can say I’m one of those who can be happy to say, earlier detection has saved me from cancer on a number of occasions.

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Call it Christmas in May or anything else that made today a little extra special. Actually it is just Christmas on the go. Last week I was telling you about my trips to The Highground to spend a gift certificate from Mark and his family.

Just a week ago I finished off a gift card from granddaughter Stephanie and family that went for a couple of car washes, some gasoline and a few odds and ends at Kwik Trip.

It was another gift card I got for Christmas, this one from granddaughter Shelby and family. The catch was it was from Schecky’s Snack Shack and they weren’t open at Christmastime. So I just had to wait and wait. Well, today was the day they were open for the first time this season. I didn’t go until after seven and you would have thought everyone had already had their fill, but that just wasn’t the case.

Hopefully I can make it stretch through the summer but have to be a little careful. Last fall they up and closed before I’d gotten my gift card and other special funds used up. I did discover ice cream doesn’t spoil. It was as good last night as I remember any trip down that I had made last summer.

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The other day I was reading an article about agriculture and they were promoting milk, cheese and beef. As I thought about it, the thought that it is more than those three helped me recall an incident that happened years ago when I was still working in the post office in Turtle Lake.

This was in the days when farmers were still using ten gallon cans and some who lived close to town who hauled their own milk in. There was one farmer, who I would describe as someone who kept trying, but never got ahead. He came in every day with his milk and every day his wife must have written a letter to someone. So he not only brought his milk to town, he mailed his wife’s letters or greeting cards that she was sending. I might add it wasn’t hard to tell that he had been in the post office as the scent stayed around for an hour or so.

He wasn’t a bad guy but he sure loved to complain about things. He kept complaining once about the price of cows at an auction. I wondered who was buying these cows as no farmer, according to him, had any money to spend on more cows.

Then one day the complaint was about the price of milk and it had just been announced that a new farm bill was out and the result was that it was going to increase the income from raising corn. This one particular day he got started on milk prices again and I mentioned to him about the new farm program. He came right back to remind me that that was just going to help the corn farmers and the dairy farmers would get nothing. You just couldn’t win.

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The news was certainly welcome, but a bit confusing. That was the news the other day about not needing to wear a mask anymore. That unless but -- But - if you don’t have the complete set of shots, then you have to keep wearing them. But - if the business place you are planning to enter still requires them, you must comply. And the list goes on and on.

I guess we can be thankful someone came up with the right kind of shots which seems to have knocked the virus in the head. However, we can’t forget the nearly 600,000 people who weren’t so lucky and lost their lives to the dreaded sickness.