Fay Risner's Blog, page 5
April 24, 2019
You Have Got To Love Adalheida Wasser
I’m in the editing process for my next Nurse Hal Among The Amish book in the series. Often something that has happened on my acreage appears in one of my Amish books as a problem for Nurse Hallie Lindstrom Lapp. The book I am working on now You Have Got To Love Adalheida Wasser has two such problems. One middle ways of the book is about a billy goat Nurse Hal bought which butts down a new water hydrant Hal’s Amish husband has just hooked up. He is gone to the salebarn, but the bishop comes to visit and offers to fix the hydrant for Hal.
Those of you that read my posts on Facebook will recognize a post I made about this time last year about the Sweet Potato Thief in my basement. I saved all the comments and tips on how to catch the rat which kept outsmarting me. So the first chapter of this book will look familiar to many of you that knew my story about the rat. If you were one of the contributors whether it be advice or a comment, see if you can pick out your part in this chapter.
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Chapter One
“Ach! This is awful,” Hallie Lapp grumbled to herself. She placed her hands on her hips and stared in the sweet potato bin in the basement. Not believing what she saw, she picked up one of the large sweet potatoes and examined the gnawed hole middle ways of the potato. She fingered several more in the bin that looked just like the one missing a good-sized chunk out of it. “What could have happened to ruin these nice sweet potatoes? Maybe I should show this one to John. He might know.”
Hal hurried up the basement stairs, out the mud room door and around the side of the house. Usually, she’d have enjoyed the country sounds: her rooster crowing, and the baas, moos, and neighs coming from the pasture. Hal liked to listen to the trill of the red wing blackbird, the coo of mourning doves and the croaking of pheasants.
Right now she wasn’t in any mood to take pleasure in anything. She needed to find her husband. Last she knew, John was going to repair the pig pen. From the agitated sounds of squealing pigs, she figured he was still at it. She yelled, “John, John, where are you?”
The black-haired, bearded man raised his head above the wooden boards on the pig pen fence he was repairing. “Over here.” He placed his elbows on the top board and leaned against the fence, waiting for Hal to get to him.
Holding her prayer cap on top her carrot red curls, Hal rushed to him. Their young children, Redbird, Beth and Johnnie stopped a game of tag to find out what was happening. Their mother seemed really worked up. Hal thrust the sweet potato out for John to see. “What could have made this big hole?”
John took the damaged potato and inspected it. “Looks like a rat ate on it to me. Where did you have it?”
“In the basement with the rest of what’s left of the crop we raised. I went down to get a few to fix for lunch and found three with holes in them just like this one.” What John said finally sunk in. Hal moaned. “Surely, we don’t have a rat in the basement?”
The children looked at each other. The girls’ faces expressed fright. Johnnie grinned.
John nodded. “Jah, looks like we do. Rats love sweet potatoes.”
“We can’t let all those good sweet potatoes get wasted by a rat. What can we do?” Hal asked desperately.
John climbed over the fence and handed the potato back to his wife. “I’ll get you a live trap out of the tool shed to put in the basement. Move the rest of the sweet potatoes upstairs to the mudroom until you catch the rat.”
Hal trailed along behind John, wondering how it had became her problem to catch the destructive rodent. The children followed behind them to find out about the live trap.
John went into the tool shed and came out with a small live trap just big enough for a full-grown rat. He showed Hal how to hold the door open and pull out the trigger hooked to the flap at the back of the cage and slip it under the door. “Toss a small chunk of sweet potato to the back of the trap for bait. When the rat goes in for the bait, he will step on the flap, and the trap door snaps shut.”
“All recht, I will give this trap a try,” Hal grumbled, taking the trap by the handle.
Johnnie reached for her free hand and focused on his father. “I can help Mama.”
“That would be really great. Denki, Johnnie,” Hal declared.
The three children followed Hal down the basement steps, searching the basement floor for movement. The girls hoped they wouldn’t run into the rat, and Johnnie was hoping he’d at least get a glimpse of the speedy creature.
Once Hal had the trap set, she asked the children to carry the remaining sweet potatoes upstairs and lay them in a cardboard box in the mud room. While the children helped her by doing that, Hal started lunch.
After the children rescued the sweet potatoes, Beth set the table. Redbird peeled the damaged sweet potatoes to boiled for lunch. Now that he wasn’t needed, Johnnie went outside to see if he could help his father.
The next morning, Hal eased down the basement steps to check the trap. In the loud voice she used to talk to Able Keffhoppre at church, she called repeatedly, “Mr. Rat, I’m coming. If you’re still in here get out of my sight. Please do that for me.”
Before she reached the bottom step, she heard faint skittering noises travel across the basement floor. The same noises ended up behind a row of canned peaches on one of the shelves across the room. She squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her lips together to keep from screaming until the noises ceased.
After the room had been quiet a few seconds, Hal opened her eyes and searched the dimly lit basement, listening intently. She sighed, wishing the basement had lights. She shook her head. Face it, Hallie, the small basement windows has worked for what I’ve done until now. She’d never had to worry about dodging out of the way of a rat before. No amount of light would be enough if she came face to face with that rat again.
The rat’s hiding place was behind the jars. She knew that. We aren’t going to eat another jar of canned peaches until that rat is out of here.
She edged slowly closer to the sweet potato bin and peered in. The trap was still set but without some of the bait. The piece of sweet potato was missing except for a scattering of peeling crumbs. What irked Hal was the square of stale cornbread was still in the trap. The rat didn’t touch it. She couldn’t understand why the rat didn’t like her cornbread. He shouldn’t be so particular.
Hal went back upstairs. She picked up a small sweet potato tuber from the box and cut it in half. She laid one half in the refrigerator for later bait and silently prayed she wouldn’t need it.
With the chunk in hand, Hal eased back down the steps, her voice raised to get the rat’s attention. “I am coming Rat. Get out of my sight fast. Please!”
Though the basement was eerily quiet, she took little comfort in that fact. Even thought the rat stayed hid, she was still in the same space as the rodent. To her way of thinking that was still way too close for her comfort. Hal threw the chunk inside the trap, aiming for it to land at the back beside the stale cornbread. The chunk landed on the flap and threw the trap shut with a loud clunk. Hal took hold of the trap and lifted the front up so the bait rolled to the back behind the flap and reset the trigger.
Now that was done. No way was she going to wait around to see what happened next. She didn’t want to be around when the rat came back. She hurried up the steps and made sure the basement door shut tightly.
A morning later, Hal made her way to the basement to make the daily check of the live trap. She conversed with the unseen rat on the way down. “Here I come, Rat. I’m coming down the steps right now. Stay hid.”
Instead of skittering sounds, she heard strange clicking noises coming from the sweet potato bin. She froze halfway down and tried to make sense out of what she heard. Hal decided there was no way to know until she looked at the trap. She clamped her right hand over her mouth as she eased over to the bin and peered in. A healthy, beady-eyed rat, the size of a small kitten, bit the metal cage bars with his sharp teeth. He took one look at her and went ballistic. He tramped over the piece of stale cornbread which he was still refusing to eat and raced back to the front. The rodent hesitated just long enough to bite cage bars as he raced.
Hal cringed as she stared at the panicked rat. Now what was she supposed to do? John was busy cleaning out the hay mow for haying season. Johnnie was too little to carry the cage up the stairs with that strong rat bouncing around in it. She figured the girls would refuse if she asked them to help her. Hal couldn’t say she blamed them. She didn’t want to get close enough to the cage to carry it either, but she didn’t have a choice. She caught the nasty creature so she had to get him out of the basement. She assumed that was what John would say if she asked him to come get the trap. One thing was for sure and certain. If John had other ideas, she wasn’t going to be the one to kill that rat.
Hal picked the cage up by the handle and held it away from her, afraid the rat might bite her through the cage bars if she let the cage brush against her skirt. She hustled back to the stairs, wanting to get the rat out of the house as fast as she could.
It was unnerving how the rat squealed as loud as a mad sow, trying to say, “Let me out of here.” A step at a time, Hal eased up the open steps, balancing the trap on each step as the rat made his laps back and forth. The rat could have easily overbalanced her when he lunged one way and then the other, slamming into each end of the trap. For sure, she didn’t want to fall down to the basement floor, especially with the occupied trap falling along with her. The rat might end up on top of her. No way could she stand that happening.
As much as she hated being near the rodent, Hal suddenly felt pleased with herself for catching the sweet potato thief. Soon the rat would be out of the house and wait until she showed John she caught the rat by herself.
That pleased feeling didn’t last long. Three steps from the basement door, Hal set the trap on the step. The rat made another lap and lunged at the trap door. The door popped off the trap and sailed through dark space behind the basement steps. Following the trap door, the rat took a ten-foot nose dive to the floor. The square of hard-as-a-rock cornbread sailed after the rat. It was so dark below the stairs, Hal couldn’t see his landing if she had watched. She didn’t, because she was too busy screaming as she scrambled to get up the last three steps, gripping the empty trap.
Hal slammed the basement door shut and propped herself against it to keep from collapsing. Fudge! Why did that trap door have to break? She stared at the empty trap. That piece of rock-hard cornbread followed the rat as he fell. Was it too much to hope the cornbread knocked the noisy creature unconscious? Not that she had any intention of going back to the basement to find out.
John burst through the back door, and the children rushed through the front door. They all converged on Hal at the same time.
“Are you all recht?” John asked, grabbing Hal by the shoulders.
“You are so white,” Redbird noticed.
“Mama is shaking,” Beth said, taking Hal’s hand.
“She’s sick,” Johnnie guessed, puckering up to cry in concern for his mother.
Hal shook her head. “I am fine, kinner.” Her hand shook as she held the trap out to John.
John face held a dead pan expression as he took the trap. “Where’s the door?”
“In the basement with the rat,” Hal wheezed. “Your old trap broke when the rat hit the door.”
John’s eyes twinkled as he tried to keep a straight face. “It was a new trap.”
“Well, it’s not anymore,” Hal proclaimed. “Blame that old rat for it breaking. Not me.”
“Where is the rat?” John asked, glancing around them.
Hal swallowed hard to keep from crying. “How in the world should I know. He ran away.”
“I’m sorry the rat got away,” Johnnie said sympathetically.
Hal hugged Johnnie. “So am I. Believe me I really am. Right now I’m thanking my lucky stars I didn’t have the trap door turned more toward me when the door came off. I was almost to the top of the basement steps. There wasn’t room for that awful rat and me together on those steps. Thank goodness, the rat flew out into the air and plopped to the basement floor. John, is there any chance that the rat died when it hit the cement?” Hal asked hopefully.
John turned to his son. “I do not think so. Johnnie, you want to go down and look under the stairs to see?”
“Sure enough, Daed,” Johnnie said enthusiastically.
Hal moved slowly away from the door, hoping that her shaky legs would hold her up.
“I will bring you another trap which is a little bigger and better made than this one,” John said, trying to appease Hal.
“Fine! I will set the larger trap with a piece of cornbread, a chunk of sweet potato and a stale marshmallow for dessert.” Hal rubbed her forehead with a trembling hand. “Would it be too much to ask for the rat to find his exit hole and go back outside so I wouldn’t have to catch him again?”
John’s lips quivered, suppressing grin. “Jah, I am afraid so, Hal.”
The thud of Johnnie’s feet hurrying up the wooden steps preceded him in the doorway. He looked disappointed. “I did not see the rat. Just this piece of cornbread and crumbs.” He held his hand out with the cornbread in it.
John turned to face his son. “Reckon we better go find Mama that trap before we eat dinner.”
The trap John handed Hal was larger but made of a lighter weight metal. After lunch, Hal threw the bait, sweet potato chuck, the stale cornbread and a hard marshmallow, to the back of the trap and carried it to the basement. In her hurry, she forgot to warn the rat she was on her way down, but her footsteps were enough noise to alert the rat she was invading his territory. His skittering was loud until he ducked behind the peach jars. Silence as far as Hal was concerned was a blessing. As quick as she could, set set the trap and hurried to the safety of upstairs.
The travails of Hal and the rat goes most of the way through the book which is really about an elderly woman known as the Wise Woman, and then the billy takes out her husband’s new hydrant.
More later when I have the book completed and for sale.
Enjoy the first chapter,
Fay Risner
March 11, 2019
February 7, 2019
Who Owns The Mineral Rights On Your Property in Iowa
After listening to possible mineral exploration in Iowa on the news recently when more funding is provided, I had some questions. Do my husband and I as property owners own the mineral rights to our land? Is there some way a drilling company can come in and start defacing our land? It was a surprise to me that oil wells have been drilled in Washington County, Iowa. Three struck oil but not a large amount. I know for a fact that a good share of Oklahoma property owners own the land but not the property rights which previous owners sold years ago. I know this because my father had a cousin who became wealthy from her mineral rights because of money from oil companies. Oil wells were placed in pastures and front yards with no regard for the owners.
Below is the answers I came up for Iowa.
The U.S. and a few other countries allow mineral rights on private property, but those rights are commonly “separable” from the surface rights. That means a property owner can sell the rights to take the valuable stuff out the ground while holding on to the right to use the surface of the ground. Once mineral rights have been sold, they’re gone. A previous owner may have sold the mineral rights out from under you 200 years ago. If that’s the case, you can put up a gazebo, but not an oil well.
Geography
Where you live plays a major role in determining whether you own the mineral rights to your property. In some places, the standard practice has been to keep surface and mineral rights bound together. In areas without significant mineral resources — that anyone knows about, at least — no one’s bothered to separate mineral rights, since no one was buying them. By contrast, the vast mineral-rich lands of the West were once owned by the federal government, and big chunks still are. When the government made these lands available to homesteaders, it typically reserved the mineral rights and sold them separately.
Finding Out
The way to learn for sure whether you own your property’s mineral rights is by examining the “chain of title” to your land. That means tracing the ownership of the property all the way to the original land grant — the official act that made the land private property. These are all public records and should be available through your county clerk’s office. If you received an “abstract of title” when you bought your property, you already have these records. Read through the records in chronological order; if mineral rights have been separated — or were never granted in the first place — that should be noted. You can also hire an abstracting company to compile the records for you. If your property ownership is defined in public records as “a fee simple title,” that usually means you have full rights to the land, both surface and mineral rights.
Conflicting Rights
If it turns out you don’t own the mineral rights, that doesn’t necessarily mean a gang of coal miners is going to show up and demand to start blasting down into the earth from your basement. The rights may have been sold decades ago and then essentially abandoned. Still, it could happen. Local laws govern the accommodations that surface rights owners must make for mineral rights owners; in general, mineral rights holders are expected to minimize the impact of their extraction activities on surface owners. They may offer to buy your surface rights to avoid headaches — but if the property owner who originally sold off the rights gave the buyer certain rights, like to dynamite any structures on the property, you’re likely bound by that agreement.
How Are Mineral Rights Separated Out for a Piece of Property?
Mineral rights are automatically included as a part of the land in a property conveyance, unless and until the ownership gets separated at some point by an owner/seller. An owner can separate the mineral rights from his or her land by:
Conveying (selling or otherwise transferring) the land but retaining the mineral rights. (This is accomplished by including a statement in the deed conveying the land that reserves all rights to the minerals to the seller.)
Conveying the mineral rights and retaining the land. (In this case, the seller will issue a separate mineral deed to the purchaser of the mineral rights.)
Conveying the land to one person and the mineral rights to another.
Since a seller can convey only property that he or she owns, each sale of the land after the minerals are separated automatically includes only the land. Deeds to the land made after the first separation of the minerals will not refer to the fact that the mineral rights are not included.
This means that in most cases, you cannot determine whether you own the rights to the minerals under your land just by looking at your deed. Owners are sometimes surprised to find out someone else owns the rights to the minerals under their land.
Additionally, U.S. laws regulating mining and mineral rights typically prohibit the mineral owner from damaging, or interfering with the use of any homes or other improvements on the land when extracting minerals. As a result, mineral owners do not typically attempt mineral extraction in highly populated areas. This means that if you live in a city, or an area with many houses on small plots of land, you probably won’t need to worry about whether or not you own the minerals under you.
When Who Owns the Minerals Does Matter
In areas where mineral exploitation is common, whether or not you own the minerals under your land might be a real concern. For example, if your property is in an area where oil rigs are an everyday sight, where natural gas drilling is prevalent, or where coal mining operations exist, if you don’t own the minerals under your land, the mineral owner might come calling.
The Extent of the Mineral Owners’ Rights
A mineral owner’s rights typically include the right to use the surface of the land to access and mine the minerals owned. This might mean the mineral owner has the right to drill an oil or natural gas well, or excavate a mine on your property. The mineral owner is also commonly allowed to build roadways or other improvements necessary to facilitate the mineral extraction.
Sometimes the terms of the conveyance of the mineral rights restrict the mineral owner’s rights. For example, a mineral deed might put a time limit on how long drilling can continue, or restrict excavation to a certain depth. Additionally, to protect the land owner and the environment, state and local laws regulating mining and drilling typically contain restrictions on mineral extraction activities.
What to Do if You’re Concerned About Mineral Rights
If a mineral owner contacts you about removing the minerals under your land, your first step should be to contact a lawyer in your area experienced in mineral law. The attorney can help you wade through this complex area of law and determine who really owns the minerals under your land (an arduous process of tracing deeds back to the original mineral reservation or conveyance). A number of owners might even own the rights to different minerals. Additionally, sometimes mineral royalties (the right to profit from the minerals) are conveyed separately from the mineral ownership rights.
If the person claiming mineral ownership has a valid ownership right, you might not be able to prevent him or her from removing the minerals. You can, however, talk with the attorney about how to minimize the removal operations’ impact on you and your land. At a minimum, the attorney can take steps to ensure that the mineral owner complies with any and all restrictions and regulations governing the mineral extraction and clean-up process.
‘Needle in a haystack’
Right now, only one window into the region’s mystery mineral prospects exists — a core drilled near Elkader by a mineral company in the 1960s. UI researchers are pulling rocks from that core and testing the age of minerals found within.
“We have used modern techniques to try to find a needle in a haystack,” Clark said, noting colleagues “have been going through with fine-toothed combs for anything we can find that could possible yield an age.”
The Iowa Geological Survey could seek funding to drill a second core for further research in the hilly region. The USGS had a plan to do just that before its budget was cut last year.
“We are sitting and waiting to see if the funding is restored or not,” Clark said.
If it is, Iowa could pursue financing for underground monitoring. If it’s not, the state could take the helm in creating a new core, or a mineral company could come in and pay to drill.
“But their purpose might be different from ours,” Clark said. “Our job is to get a better understanding of what the whole formation is.”
Should Iowa geologists achieve adequate access to the untapped trove, Clark said, “I really believe we would get the information of what this rock formation is, and prove that it’s similar to the Duluth Complex.”
Public vs. private
One known difference between the Duluth and Northeast Iowa complexes is ownership of the land under them.
Much of the Duluth Complex is on public property, managed by the state’s Department of Natural Resources.
That includes “School Trust Lands,” which is property the federal government granted Minnesota at statehood for schools, according to Minnesota’s DNR. The state today boasts 2.5 million acres of School Trust Lands, along with another 1 million acres of severed mineral rights, which occurs when the state sells the land but retains the rights to subsurface materials.
For revenue generated from the School Trust Lands, Minnesota established a permanent school fund for the benefit of K-12 public schools, according to Peter Clevenstine, assistant director of minerals in Minnesota’s Division of Lands and Minerals.
Leasing land to mining companies has produced hundreds of millions in revenue for the K-12 and public university trusts, according to Clevenstine.
Although the mineral-rich public property has been known about for decades, Minnesota only now is pursuing its mining potential.
“We have three deposits of nonferrous metals that are not producing,” he said. “If they do start producing, we could put another $2 billion into the permanent school trusts for K-12 education.”
Mining operations must complete environmental reviews and jump through permitting hoops before that can happen. But one company is close to meeting its requirements — recently landing a permit from the state and waiting on its last from the federal government, according to Clevenstine.
“We have the opportunity now in the next 30 years from three operations to have $2 billion added to that trust,” he said.
Iowa’s situation is different. Most of its underground potential sits under privately-owned land, according to Clark. That means any company — or state or government entity, for that matter — must negotiate with individual landowners over access and royalties.
“The lack of public land has been an issue,” Clark said.
He’s found a defunct limestone quarry that owns land in the target area and is willing to provide access for research.
“That is the closest thing I’ve found to being able to drill this next research hole,” Clark said. “If it does go to the exploration phase, where a company can come in, they would have to enter into an agreement with whoever owns the land.”
That commercializing side is where the economic potential for Iowa lies. Arriving mineral companies would create jobs and generate revenue through taxes, fees and the like.
Natural resources
But Clark and Clevenstine stressed this work requires care in protecting the land while also exploring the potential benefits.
“It’s our job to balance and protect those natural resources and also provide economic opportunities for the wide use of these resources,” Clevenstine said.
So long as Iowa maintains that bilateral view, Sen. Dan Zumbach, R-Ryan, said he’s OK with further research and even exploration into the hidden potential of the region he represents.
“I think it’s important that no matter how you use your resources, you need to be thoughtful,” he said. “It’s always exciting to see new potential for job opportunities, and you need to look at those things. But you always want to be respectful to the environmental as well.”
December 22, 2018
December 9, 2018
October 7, 2018
An old Quilt Pattern made new again
A bit of history on the Grandmother’s Fan quilt: This pattern first appeared in print in a Ladies Art Company catalog of 1897. Prior to that, fans were common motifs in late nineteenth century crazy quilts. Their popularity likely was due to the fad for decorating in the Japanese style, which was prompted by Americans’ exposure to Japanese art at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. By the 1930s, fans were standard favorites for quilt patterns which is understandable. The fan is made from scraps left over from making clothes or less faded pieces cut out of clothes in the rag box before the rest of the garment was turned into dish clothes and dust rags. The 1930s quilts patterns quilting came about during the depression when with brilliant thrift the women used to create useful, beautiful quilts from what they had. Many of us have seen these quilts on our elderly relatives beds. The Great Depression of the 1930s was the longest and most severe economic crisis in American history. It impacted jobs, standards of living, well-being and many areas of American popular culture. It also created a sense of connectedness among those who experienced the period. Passed on orally in many families, the experience of life in hard times has become part of the common heritage of millions of Americans.
This is my version of the Fan quilt. The piece in the middle is a dresser scarf much older than the quilt top. I got two of these dresser scarves at a yard sale and realized they were some elderly woman’s treasures. They had been stored in an wooden dresser and had the distinctive scent of oak permeating through them. The material was muslin from a feed sack or flour sack. In the scarves beginnings they had been used and washed often. I knew this because some of the embroidery thread had washed away. It was amazing to see the pattern still imprinted on the material. I replaced pieces of roses and leaves. The crocheted border was still as neat as the day the woman finished crocheting it. In the beginning of the fan quilt, a fan design was quilted in the white piece of the block. I got my pattern from an old quilting magazine given to me by my aunt. With that pattern was a quilting design of a rose with two leaves. I am planning on using that design so that it matches the roses on the scarf. If all goes well the finished quilt will be my entry at the fair next year.
August 2, 2018
Help Find This Young Girl so She Can Be Brought HOme
[image error]Please keep an eye out for this young lady at the gas stations around you. She has been kidnapped and missing for two weeks from Brooklyn Iowa. She was last seen last week in a car headed south from Carney, Mo. north of Kansas City.
In small towns in the midwest where everyone knows everyone else people feel safe to go jogging alone or not to lock the doors after dark. Mollie was taken in the night. There seems to be a pattern of missing kids in this area. Two months ago a young man was taken near Laport City, Iowa. No clue to where he is. Six years ago there were two young girls, cousins, riding their bikes in July and they were taken. Six months later their bodies was found in a wooded reserve. Over the years I have heard reports of a white van cruising near kids and trying to get their attention. Don’t know if it is the same devious people or not, but please watch for Mollie and call the police.
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