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Consignment Art Auction is March 30

By
Guest Columnist
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The 2024 Spring Consignment Art Auction at the Hutchinson Art Center is just a little over a month away.

This auction will feature over 100 works by local, regional, and national artists, including Jack Stout, Martha Hamilton, Birger Sandzen, and Leyster Raymer.

The auction is Saturday, March 30th. Doors open at 9:00 a.m., with the auction starting at 11:00 a.m. Lunch will be available, there will be plenty of seating, and admission is free and open to the public.

All artwork from this auction will be on display in the Main Gallery from March 15th – 29th. It will be a great opportunity to view the artwork in-person. Additionally, images of the artwork will be available for online viewing on the Art Center website starting in early March.

A portion of the funds raised by this event support future arts programming at the Hutchinson Art Center.

Potato Topper & More

By
Debbie Dance Uhrig
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This spring is definitely going to be a busy time for me, I’m traveling a great deal in March and again in April. For my Northeast Missouri friends, I’ll be speaking for a women’s event to be held April 20th, at the Methodist Church building, in Lewistown. It’s a women’s luncheon; stay tuned to the newspapers and on line for all the details. My speaking theme will be ‘Signs, Samplings & Simplicity.’ I love getting ready to inspire others with my foods and the wonderful journey that’s been presented for me. I’ll be sure to post it here in my column as the details develop.

This weekend I was flustered a couple of times with what I was going to fix for dinner. One meal I wanted to make, and didn’t get to was my mother’s recipe for Baked Potato toppers. What I love about this simple cream sauce is how versatile it can be. Not only can you layer it over a baked potato, but it isn’t too shabby over a bowl of pasta either.

I’ve implemented peas along with ham in my sauce, but there are a great deal more options. Think Easter and leftover asparagus and ham, or perhaps broccoli and ham. All will work quite well in the simple mixture. Each household is different, but creamed peas were always at the table for Easter. First, my brother, Greg, always loved them, and now my son, Phillip, truly enjoys them.

Mom used a sweet onion, but I think for presentation’s sake and taste I would use green onions. They could even be used on top of the potato at serving time. There’s also nothing to stop you from sauteing the onions in a bit of sherry or dry white wine. Mother thickened hers with flour, but cornstarch would also work, just remember to use 1/2, or 3 tablespoons instead of 6 tablespoons.

Well friends, I have mentioned Easter. It’s time to get rolling on your menu, before we blink it will be here. I got out Easter décor this weekend and started in with chores we do in the springtime. I mean with 75-degree weather, it’s pretty hard not to think spring. If you failed to look at the calendar Easter is the last weekend of the month, not April, this year.

It’s time to call my dad and see what he’s been up to, & then hit the hay! Have a grand week, and spend some time doing something for others. Simply yours, The Covered Dish.

Baked Potato Topper

Betty Dance

1/3 cup butter

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

4 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced

6 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

1/8 teaspoon black pepper, (could use more)

3 1/2 cups 2% milk or milk of your choice.

1 (8 oz.) creamed cheese, softened and cubed

3 cups cooked, chopped ham

10 ounces frozen peas, cooked & drained

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Sauté onion and mushroom in butter over medium to low heat until translucent/tender, cool. Blend in the flour, mustard, pepper & milk. Cook until the mixture boils and thickens. Over low heat add cream cheese, stirring to melt. Add the ham, peas and Worcestershire sauce. Serve over 5-6 baked potatoes.

You Never Know what You Might be Missing

By
Steve Gilliland
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I saw an old friend in town the other day and he asked how I had done trapping last year. I told him I hadn’t set as many traps as I’d wanted and thus hadn’t caught as many coyotes as I had planned. I’ll never forget his reply; he told me “I was never a very good trapper. I had a friend that was very good, and I would set twice as many traps as him and I would catch twice as little!” I chuckled at his wording, but it got me to thinking. If I had thrown in the towel every time I hadn’t gotten a deer, or trapped as many coyotes as planned, or caught all the fish I’d wanted I would probably have ceased even going outdoors years ago.

There have been plenty of years when I haven’t harvested a deer or trapped as many critters as I’d wanted, but my biggest challenge has always been my fishing skills, or better yet my lack-thereof. Growing up in Ohio, we enjoyed Lake Erie and one of the many islands in Lake Erie is named Kelley’s Island. Our neighbor was pastor at one of the churches on Kelley’s Island and stayed there in the parsonage during the weekend, and lived next door to us during the week. Because of our friendship, if we went to Kelley’s Island on week days, he let us stay in the church parsonage, so each year we planned a short fishing trip there during the week. One of the fish Lake Erie is known for is the Yellow Perch. They are nothing like our invasive species White Perch here in Kansas and in my book are nearly as good as Walleye as far as eating quality. In the fall the perch would be biting around the island so we planned our trips around that. We sometimes fished from the ferry dock alongside native islanders. I always bought the same bait from the same bait shop and used the same tackle as the native islanders, but sitting 3 feet away on the dock, they would catch 12 fish to my one.

Some years back when Joyce and I still had a boat, we went to Kannapolis fishing with another couple who were both avid fishermen, they in their boat and Joyce and I in ours. They had numerous brush piles in the lake marked on their GPS, so we anchored on each side of a long narrow brush pile. Joyce and I both rigged our rods exactly like theirs, and our boats were so close that at one point they tossed us the exact jig they were using. They caught crappies left and right and the only thing we caught was the rope anchoring the marker buoy.

My points here are, number one, I’m a lousy fisherman, seemingly almost cursed at times, but yet I still go when I can. Point number two is, that although harvesting fish and game is usually the goal when in the field or on the lake, the harvest should not be our sole purpose for being there. On one particular deer hunt during my youth, I was standing in a pre-determined spot in a large woodlot awaiting other hunters walking toward me. I heard rustling in the leaves, and watched as a mother red fox and her family of half-grown kits ran past me just a few feet away. As I recall, I didn’t harvest a deer that year, but would have missed that once-in-a-lifetime-sight had I not been there anyway.

I could fill pages with other stories like that of bobcats that peered at us from a few feet away, or hawks that cruised past us mere feet above the ground and only a stones-throw away, or the beaver that swam beneath my feet under the ice of a frozen creek. The bottom line is that all that would have been missed had we not been there, successful harvest or not. Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors (successful harvest or not!)

Steve can be contacted by email at [email protected]

Opportunity

By
John Marshall
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john marshal

Four years ago, students and educators in southwest Kansas began talk of bringing a satellite campus from one of the state’s universities to Dodge City (Fort Hays was mentioned). Students wanted to pursue four-year degrees in the southwest because they wanted to live there. The educators wanted to teach there.

At stake, they said, was the long-term health of communities in the region, an “education desert” in the one quadrant of the state with no four-year public university. The campus at St. Mary of the Plains, a liberal arts college that closed in 1992, was mentioned as a potential site. Legislators yawned.

Many young men and women today pursue college after high school, a degree and a return to farm country. Scholarship applications, informal polls and surveys reveal a pulsating call of home, a longing for places they came to love while growing up.

*

Despite indifference in Topeka, there are signs of energy and advantage for farm towns and communities. Among other marks:

‒ Opportunity zones:

A federal plan involving state and local government directs infrastructure improvements, technology upgrades, housing programs and other aid to communities with growth potential. These are often places with an institution of higher learning and a thriving hospital.

‒ Medicaid expansion:

Rural hospitals are not thriving. For five years, Gov. Laura Kelly has offered plans to expand Medicaid for 150,000 Kansans who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to pay for private insurance. This year, Washington would pay 100 percent of the expansion cost for two years; after that, a hospital surcharge pays the state’s ten percent share with no added cost to taxpayers.

Of 102 rural hospitals, 84 reported financial losses because the under-insured or uninsured couldn’t pay their bills. A dozen have closed since 2005, 27 are at immediate risk of collapse and 59 are in jeopardy. Medicaid expansion is to save a vital service for life in rural communities.

In recent polls, more than 70 percent support expansion. Our neighbors ‒ Nebraska, Colorado Missouri, Oklahoma ‒ have expanded Medicaid. Kansas is one of ten states that have not. Legislative leaders in Topeka have refused even to allow debate of the idea.

‒ Property tax relief:

Over the past 20 years, the legislature has sluiced away more than $1.5 billion in property tax relief owed to Kansas cities and counties and ordered by state law. The money, now more than $100 million annually, is derived from the Local Ad Valorem Tax Relief fund, framed in statutes dating to 1937.

Legislators each year have routinely suspended the transfer ‒ 3.63 percent of annual state sales tax revenues ‒ and siphoned the money for dubious purposes, political pets or, lately, a doubling of their own pay.

The governor wants to make amends. Her plan would not cover the 20-year theft, but at least commits $54 million annually to local tax relief. Payments to cities and counties would be apportioned by population and property valuation.

*

There are other signs, including support for workforce development and a long-term solution for a groundwater aquifer crisis that threatens farms and cities.

Solar and wind power have taken root across the Smoky Hills and High Plains. A process called “carbon sequestration” to keep carbon out of the atmosphere, gains interest. Corrective farming practices include planting cover crops, leaving organic matter in fields after harvest, rotating in additional crops and managing grazing.

We once climbed out of depressions with government help and local innovation. Invention and change are again on the march in farm country and would blossom, if only Topeka’s leadership had sense enough to back the effort.

 

 

Plan A ain’t workin’

By
Milo Yield
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Thayne Cozart
Milo Yield

Nevah and I recently had bizness in the Kansas City area. At my age, I despise driving in big city traffic, but we needed to make the trip. So, we overnighted with my old high school classmate, Canby Handy, and his wife May Bea. After a thoroughly enjoyable evening of playing cards and eating too much, the next morning ol’ Canby said to hop into his pickup truck for a little sightseeing around Platte City, Mo., which is just north of the Kansas City Airport.

Folks, from what I saw on our little excursion, I can say confidently — rightly or wrongly — that the Plan A war on carbon dioxide is hopelessly lost. Here’s why I say that: Last time I visited the Canby’s their new home was on the edge of a huge housing development. Today, there are probably more than a hundred new homes around his and new construction was on-going everywhere.

Within a very few miles, I saw a humongous new warehouse that has been finished in recent months. Then we stopped on some high ground and I saw a brand new concrete slab being poured that had to be bigger than 40-acres. It wuz just a small portion of a several-hundred-acre new industrial site being developed just east of the airport. The cement plant for the development wuz on the site. Dozens of cement trucks were lined up hauling cement. Dozens of track hoes, caterpillars, sheep tracks, and utility company equipment were all going at high gear.

When I looked up, I saw airliners landing and taking off at KCI every few seconds. The KCI parking lots were full to overflowing with thousands of every sort of vehicle. In short, the entire KC area is a beehive of activities spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The same held true everywhere I looked on both sides of the Kansas/Missouri state line.

After seeing all that development everywhere I looked in the KC area, I’ll make the flat-out statement that the goal of curbing carbon dioxide is a pipe dream. It goes against human nature. I don’t know what the progressive Plan B for humanity is, but clearly Plan A ain’t workin’.

***

The good thing about our trip wuz the KC area barbecue joints. I’d recommend two: “Scott’s Kitchen & Catering” just east of the KC airport, and “Q39” on Antioch Road. Your tastebuds will thank you for eating at either one.

***

Another of my favorite country music singers is now performing on the “Next Life” Grand Ol’ Opry stage. Toby Keith left us country/western music fans with a batch of never-to-be-forgotten pure country songs and memorable lyrics. Toby had a unique quality in his voice that set him apart. The best set of Toby Keith lyrics, in my opinion, came from the song, “A Little Less Talk And A Lot More Action.” Here those lyrics are:

 

Well, she was fighting them off at a corner table

She had a long-neck bottle. She was peeling the label

The look on her face, it was perfectly clear,

Said, “somebody please get me out of here.”

The look she shot me through the glass refraction

Said “a little less talk and a lot more action.”

 

The other set of my favorite Toby Keith lyrics were in his famous “Red Solo Cup” song. Here are those lyrics:

 

Now, red solo cup is the best receptacle

For barbecues, tailgates, fairs, and festivals

And you, sir, do not have a pair of testicles

If you prefer drinkin’ from glass.

Hey, red solo cup is cheap and disposable

And in fourteen years, they are decomposable

And unlike my home, they are not forecloseable

Freddy Mac, can kiss my a#%.”

***

Folks, I’ve gotten new hearing aids recently. They are the expensive kind that cost about as much as a whole farm did with I wuz a kid. They work in tandem with my IPhone. And, while they are not perfect, I can honestly say I can hear much better in most locales and in most circumstances.

***

Our new home is within a mile of the northern boundary of the Ft. Riley military reservation. The Army uses the northern part of the base as its artillery practice area. From the frequency and ferocity of the artillery practices we hear every night and day, I’d guess that our troops are honing their artillery skills pretty intently. Hope it’s not for a new war.

***

I forgot to mention one fact in my recent columns about reaching the 50th anniversary of FARM TALK. For those who might be interested, the Kansas Historical Building research library in Topeka has archived every copy of the paper and my column ever published.

***

During a recent Old Geezer Gathering around Valentines Day, my height-challenged buddy, ol’ Bob Doff, wisely questioned, “How is it that women get flowers for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, but men get flowers only on their caskets?” Who knows?

***

Here are my words of wisdom for the week: “Some folks drink deeply from the well of knowledge. Too many, though, just rinse and spit.” Have a good ‘un.

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