As I write this, Christmas is close enough to smell. I mean that in mostly a good way. 

Most of the big holidays have foods associated with them that are so intertwined with the celebration as to almost overtake the holiday itself.

Turkey Day is the most obvious. Different ethnic backgrounds and national heritages carry with them special dishes served only on those occasions.

Since there are many of Norwegian heritage in my area, much is made about the annual serving of lefse (a potato-based tortilla) and lutefisk (a fish that has been dried, preserved and reconstituted).

Editorial: Lefse is served with butter and sugar. What wouldn't a beet grower like about that? Lutefisk is best served with noseplugs.

Read our entire issue and back issues. Click here.

Change can be hard. When we get comfortable working with someone to the point where the relationship has  been not only professionally rewarding but also has evolved into a long-term friendship, well, it is tough to see it end.

This year, Rick Morgan, my instructor in the Moorhead Adult Farm Management class where I’ve participated for 30-plus years, retired. I am sure I will find a way to make my books balance, but it will take some self-discipline.

Worse yet, my ag advisor, Virgil Jons, is calling it enough. I have come to rely on him not just for advice about problems in my field. Virgil under- stood, and cared about, my operation — yet was just enough detached to give great personal advice. I would not have been comfortable being so involved with boards and organizations, and therefore gone so much, without his help.

I went to the Beet Show                                                       
       In Fargo at the Dome.                                                          
It’s handy when it’s there                                                     
       And only twenty miles from home.

    I wanted so bad to talk about the fiscal cliff this month.  I know you all want to hear more about the brilliant maneuvering that saved us all.  But I just couldn’t find words that were descriptive enough and yet ones that Don, my editor, would let me print.  Instead, let me share a family story where my two-year-old grandson learns what it appears those in Congress have not.

    As most of you may have heard by now, it was pretty wet in the northern end of the Red River Valley this fall.

I lost a pair of pliers
   Again — again today.
How can something without legs
   So easily go astray?

    Those of you about my age may remember the title of this piece as the last line from the poem that comes at the end of the Moody Blues song, “Nights In White Satin.”  For several varied reasons, that line has repeatedly come back to my head this winter.