George Murray, Jr.

Nearly a week ago, George Murray had a severe stroke and is in the hospital.  It is a very serious situation.  Please remember George, Arlene, and their family in your thoughts and prayers.

Let's Get Growin' with Marilyn Switzer Goes Video...Lazy Gardening: No-Dig Potatoes

Alterations and Mending by Marilyn Switzer

Marilyn Switzer of Barnard will do sewing for reasonable rates.  She has a great deal of experience making and mending clothes.  If you have mending that needs to be done, call her at 785-643-8631.

Leo Dowlin Fish Fry Rescheduled for April 27, 2013

The annual Leo Dowlin Memorial Fish Fry will be hosted by the Barnard Lions Club on Saturday, April 27, 2013.  The fish fry will run from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Barnard Community Building.  Cost is by donation and all are welcome to come.

Birth:	Mar. 4, 1940 Beloit Mitchell County Kansas, USA
Death:	Feb. 24, 2010 Barnard Lincoln County Kansas, USA
David Leo Dowlin of Barnard died February 24, 2010. He was born March 4,1940 at Beloit, the son of Charles and Viola Adams Dowlin. He was a fisheries biologist for 28 years. Survivors include his wife, Janet Dowlin; a son, Marin and wife Brandy of Manhattan; a daughter Amber Dowlin of Barnard; and a sister, Lenora Howe of Barnard. The funeral was February 27 at St. John Lutheran Church in Lincoln. Interment was the Milo Cemetery, Barnard. Memorials are to the Barnard Lions Club.

Doug Cramb

Doug Cramb, 71 years of age, died Thursday morning, April 11, 2013 at the Mitchell County Hospital in Beloit. 

Mr. Cramb is survived by his wife, Rose; daughter, Maria Halloran (Pat); and grandsons, Tim, Keegan, and Liam.

Visitation will be from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, at the Harrision Funeral Home in Beloit with Rosary at 7 p.m.  the casket will be closed at 6 p.m.

The funeral services will be at 10:30 a.m. Monday, April 15th, at St. John's Catholic church in Beloit with a luncheon at the Knights of Columbus.  Burial will follow at Milo Cemetery in Barnard, Kansas.

Caccie Ullom to Celebrate 90th Birthday

A 90th birthday open house will be held for Caccie Ullom.  Family and friends are invited to come celebrate Sunday, April 14, 2-4 p.m. in the Beloit Diary Queen party room.

Caccie Ullom was a resident of Barnard and is the maternal grandfather of Barnard residents Jeff and Nick Wallace.

Let's Get Growin'! with Marilyn Quade Switzer

Let’s Get Growin’ with Marilyn Quade Switzer

Gardening When You are Handicapped or Just Plain Worn Out…and Why I Garden…

I am a 60 year old overweight woman with two total knee replacements, one total hip replacement, degenerative disk disease, two bulging disks, raging arthritis in my right shoulder, carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists, and my left ankle is shot and the only way to fix it is to fuse the joint which will really screw up my balance.  I am already very “unbalanced.”  I suffer extreme pain in that ankle occasionally like a severely sprained ankle.  This comes on suddenly.  When it does, I have to hobble over to my garden chair, sit down, dig my heel into the ground and do something like traction by pulling my leg away from my ankle for 5 or 10 minutes, and then I can get up and go back to work.  I think of pain as proof that I am still alive. What a glorious feeling!

My Mom was “Mother Nature.”  She could grow anything.  It seemed like with the wave of her hand, the weeds would wither and her flowers and vegetables would flourish.  My Dad was a great potato and water melon grower.  He thought if you can’t eat it, don’t waste your time and space growing it!  They passed away two years apart, so, I planted flowers on Mom’s grave and potatoes on Pops.  It seemed like the right thing to do.

When Mom was alive, I tried to grow a garden.  Ha!  I thought I did everything like she did.  I even tried waving my hand.  When I did that, my plants would die and my weeds would flourish!  After Mom died, all that changed...her green thumb was the best inheritance she could have ever left me.  When I’m in my garden I feel her with me.  I have a friend who says she sees dead people.  She didn’t know my mom.  One day she was visiting me and we were out in the garden and she gave me a funny look and said “Do you know your mom is here?”  I said “Yes, she helps me.”  Then she described who she saw.  I said “Yep, that’s her.”  I also feel closest to God when I’m in the garden because it is, after all, his garden.  I’m just his tool.

I grow such a large garden because I need the exercise and need to keep busy.  You can’t go fishing all the time!  I sell produce to those who can afford it and give it to those who can’t.  I can and freeze as much as I have room to store.  I give a lot of that away to friends and family.  They just have to promise to return the canning jars. 

Adventures in Canning…

I didn’t start canning until about five years ago when I started really gardening.  The two years ago, I learned the joys of pressure cooker canning.  I started with a bumper crop of potatoes.  I used my French fry cutter and cut the potatoes in strips then cross cut them in about half inch cubes.  This works great for spur of the moment potato salad, potato soup, hash browns and even mashed potatoes.  Then I canned deer meat.  Wow!!  It makes for more spur of the moment things such as stew, deer n’ noodles, or whatever.  All you do is cut the meat in about one inch cubes, soak it  one hour in a brine of IT salt per quart of water, rinse and drain, pack in jars leaving one inch head space.  Do not add liquid and process following canner directions.  You don’t have to say “Oh, I forgot to thaw out anything for supper!”

One day a friend of mine and I went fishing…the bass were really biting.  The only problem was they were only four or five inches long.  Tow out of three casts we had fish.  We hated to throw them back though it was obvious the pond was overstocked with small bass.  We fished for about two hours and in all that time we caught maybe three that were keepers.  The larger fish were feeding on the smaller fish and didn’t want what we had to offer.  So I was setting there catching little fish and thought I might try canning these little rascals. I have been told that when you can fish, the bones become soft like in salmon and bass are very bony.  So I started putting the little bass in a five gallon bucket of water and when it got full, I’d dump[p it in a cooler.  At the end of the two hours, I alone had sixty little bass.  When I cleaned them, I scaled them, gutted and cut the head and fins off, buried all the entrails in the garden and pressure canned the fish in pint jars with Louisiana Hot Sauce.  I just soaked them in salt water over night, rinsed them, then soaked them just enough to coat them with the hot sauce for about an hour, then put them in the pint jars vertically packed as tight as I could get them…leaving an inch head space, and processed them in the pressure canner following the recommended pressure and time. 

Well, here comes another Wow!  The next time we went fishing, we both saved the little rascals and had about 100 fish.  That batch was canned in mustard with the same method.  The mustard kind of separates and gets watery but really tastes good and no bone problems!

The Barnard Music Jam…

The first Saturday of every month, I host a free music jam in Barnard, Kansas at the community building.  We have classic country, Gospel, oldies rock and roll, and blues.  We have a lot of very good musicians of many ages.  The jam starts at noon.  I serve two kinds of good homemade soup during the winter months and during the summer months, barbeque, smoked, and oven fried chicken, potato salad, coleslaw or baked beans and maybe even many flavors of homemade ice cream with a suggested donation. This is served all day or until it runs out.  The music starts at 1 p.m. and goes to about 4 p.m.  Then at 7 p.m. I host a card party and ask that you bring finger foods to share.  There is a kitty jar to help pay for the rent of the community building.  Come for good food, good fellowship, music appreciation, and relaxation.  There’s even room to dance, if you get the urge!!  No alcohol is allowed in the building.  There’s a park right across the street for the kids if you need it.

More to come…

I’ve been asked to write more for the blog but I’ve rambled enough for now.  I’ll share more about my handicapped gardening methods later, but now you know a little about me.  Keep looking for more…now it’s time to get back to the happy patch of dirt in Barnard, Kansas.

Easter Program from the First United Methodist Church of Barnard

Barnard Jam

It's that time again...

The Barnard Jam will be held on Saturday, April 6th, at the Barnard Community Building.  Food will be served at noon with music to follow.  Cards will start at 7 p.m.

A Thought...

We All Have Our Little Addictions by Kathryn Stapp

We all have our little addictions – those things we like to collect and hold onto.  For some it’s photos; others find comfort in shoes, or cars.  Still others collect slights or grudges.

Those who know me well, know that I could easily live in a bookstore.  I worked my way through college at a Mom and Pop bookstore, and I can spend hours at a time just looking.  On a recent book-a-thon I ran across something that affected me profoundly.

There’s a children’s book can Zen Shorts and it is a collection of good stories with some great messages that have been passed down through the generations.

One of my favorites, and this is my interpretation of it, is about two monks who are near a big puddle.  There is a queen who needs to cross the puddle and her helpers are busy carrying all of her belongings so they can’t carry her.  She refuses to cross the puddle so the older monk carries her across on his back.  When they are safely on the other side, she refuses to thank or acknowledge him.

The two monks continue walking.  The younger monk, who has been stewing about what happened for hours, finally can’t hold it in any longer.  He mentions the older monk’s disgrace for how the woman treated him and asked why he doesn’t seem upset by it.

The older and wiser monk responds, “I stopped carrying her hours ago and suggest that you do the same.”

We often carry things that keep us stressed and sabotage our success much longer than we should.

An old friend once gave me some great advice packed into four little words:  “Just lay it down.”

It’s easier said than done to let the past be the past.  When we experience resentment or anger because we think someone insulted or hurt us, we’re holding a grudge.  Often we hold on very tightly, for a very long time.  This keeps us from dealing with what ever happened and moving on.

Holding grudges holds us back and it’s important to address the root issue to keep old acrimony from tainting future relationships.

One of the biggest problems with grudges is that they color how we interpret the actions and intentions of other people.  Ultimately we end up suffering more than the person we’re angry at.

Perhaps the best all-time quote on this topic is said to come from the Buddha:  “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

Although we may not be responsible for what happened to us or how other people hurt us, we are entirely responsible for overcoming and getting past the hurt.  Getting past a grudge hinges on changing how we think about the events in our lives, and this is where forgiveness comes in. 

____________

Many people in Lincoln County and surrounding counties have expressed their condolences about the results of our recent election here in Barnard.  I have been asked if I was angry about it.  To be honest, there were plenty of emotions at first...anger was one.  I then thought maybe it was a blessing in disguise.  Then I came across this article written by Kathryn Stapp and found it to be inspiring. 

I saw some disturbing issues and I stood up with two others to do my part.  We didn't prevail and the issues won't go away.  The future will determine how events will play out, but I did stand up to do my part for the community that I am proud to call home.  I can only imagine what was said about me during this campaign, but I also know that I was honest and the future will sort the truths and the untruths.

What I also know is that the above article makes a very valid point..."Lay it down."  I know I did the best I could.  I know I will continue to live, love, and learn in this community.  I also know that in order to do that...I need to "change the things I can, accept the things I cannot, and have the wisdom to know the difference."  I will continue to find happiness in my life in Barnard and to do my part to make it a better place.  I also will pray that those charged with building its future on a wider scale will build the future based on wise decisions that will insure its survival rather than hasten its demise.

God bless Barnard, Kansas.

Barnard City Election Results

These are the Barnard election results obtained from the Lincoln County Clerk's office.

David Abell            23
Wayne Wallace        8

Nancy Houghton     23
Travis Zirkle             7

Randy Pickering      22
Monty Fuller             9