Three years ago, I decided to start a garden. After a job in Scotland fell through, I had no job prospects and instead entertained naive illusions of herbs, flowers and vegetables springing up at the merest touch of my green thumb and afternoons at farmers markets selling my produce to impressed buyers.

Never mind that I had very little experience gardening, I dove in with the enthusiasm inspired by an open calendar and no other plans.

I sectioned of little sections for different types of plants and especially loved the herbs that I planted — lavender, basil, rosemary and thyme.

Just as the plants started to sprout and push their way through the soil, a job appeared out of thin air. It was completely different from anything I had ever done before but I think they were as anxious to find someone as I was to start having an income.

So with little idea of what I was getting into, I accepted the job and subsequently abandoned my fledgling garden. I didn’t mean to, but with a job and other obligations, all my free time was suddenly eaten up until the neat rows disappeared under a tangle of weeds and the whole thing became a bit of an embarrassment.

That unexplained affection for gardening has stuck around, and I decided to give it another go this year. I don’t have a yard with a garden plot, but I do have a lovely little deck with lots of sunshine and plenty of space for pots overflowing with flowers and herbs.

So I started early this year, because again, I was so excited about it.

I bought little cardboard planters and filled with me soil and gently covered the seeds. For some reason, I didn’t think it was important to keep the seed packets and the moment I threw them away, I forgot which seeds were planted where, but I figured that was part of the surprise, right?

I was amazed at the progress of my little plants. By the end of the first week, they were starting to sprout and by the end of two weeks, many of them had taken of and were easily over four inches long.

It didn’t take me too long to realize that the rapid growth wasn’t a good thing and that they were probably starving from lack of sunlight. So I started moving them around my apartment throughout the day to catch the most sun possi-ble. They would sit on my bed in the morning hours and then in the afternoon I would move them under the window on the other end of the house. It helped a little, but between lack of light and neglecting to water them regularly, I’m afraid they have always looked rather sickly.

I may be one of the few people that is secretly a little relieved at Worthington’s watering ban. I’ll put out a bucket to catch rain water and hopefully manage to keep a few little plants alive through the summer, but other than that, the rest of my gardening will have to wait until we have more water.

A year ago, I was far away from home. I was living in a little room in Managua with a tin roof and a hole in the wall large enough for stray cats to leave foot prints on my bed. As part of my job, I often went to communities hidden deep in the mountains and jungles of Nicaragua. The organization I was with did theological and agricultural development throughout the country — reasoning that well trained pastors are important regardless of where you live and as stewards of the land, well trained farmers are equally important.

While I was there, we started a new project with a community, Villa Nueva, near the Honduran border. Even though we had a general idea of the improvements we wanted to help the community with (clean water and stable food sources), we held a town hall style meeting with everyone in the community, men, women and children, to learn what their resources and needs were.

The group met in the only room in Villa Nueva large enough to hold us all and while we talked, toddlers, dogs and chicks (dyed pink in preparation for Easter), wandered through the open doors. Three women worked in the outdoor kitchen making corn tortillas and rice over an open fire for lunch.

By the end of our two days there, relationships had been formed and we had a good understanding of where the community wanted to go and the areas that they needed help. The community had come together to work out a plan for their future.

I spent last weekend thinking about community while I helped on my parent’s farm north of Fulda. After losing a tug-of-war with a tractor, my dad found himself wearing a boot and under strict orders to stay off his right leg as much as possible. For a farmer, this was close to the worst news he could receive right before planting season.

Fortunately, my sister, brother-in-law and I live close and we all went to the farm on Saturday to help Mom check some of the spring chores off the list — a new fence in the pasture, clean up the fallen branches, get the garden ready and whatever else we had time for — while Dad supervised from the porch.

The day passed quickly and we only stopped for lunch and cookie breaks. By the end of the day, we had finished everything we wanted to —and then some. We never would have gotten everything done without the help of neighbors and friends that kept popping by to see if we could use a hand.

Nancy helped sort the bulls from the rest of the cattle while her young son, Jake, helped fix a bird house and later watched all the activity from the hay mound (which he called the hay mountain). Stan handed parts for the planter to his son, Kole, to get everything ready for planting and Dennis came with a whole crew of second cousins to trim limbs from the trees in the front yard. I’ve never seen so many little groups of people working on different projects on the farm before.

And that was just one day. In the past couple weeks, so many friends and neighbors have stopped to lend a hand where ever they could.

While the community I saw in Nicaragua and the one I saw on my parents farm are vastly different, their foundations are built on friendship and caring and both made me glad to be a part of that community, if only during the time I spent there. Villa Nueva and the family farm are very little dots on the map, but they both show communities that make life a little richer and a little better.

More than two weeks after the snow and ice storm hit the Worthington area, things are almost back to normal and stories are starting to be passed around.

Already the storm has become come a “do you remember” event.

Years from now, when we’re all a little bit older and a little bit grayer, we’ll say over our cups of coffee, “Do you remember the April storm of 2013?”

And of course, everyone will remember. We’ll start telling stories about watching movies in cars when the rolling blackouts turned the houses dark, working on battery powered laptops near windows, struggling to keep food cold, standing in a store aisle when everything suddenly went dark and the impossible hunt for chainsaws, flashlights and oil lamps.

I will tell the story of finding myself as the anti-hero of a real life parable.

This fall when my Grandma moved out of her house in Fulda, my extended family came together to help clean out the house and condense years of possessions.

We went slowly through the process of dividing, discarding and donating everything. At the end of the day, I took home with a box of family heirlooms and odds and ends – quilts my great-grandmother made, a non-electric hand mixer, blue Bell jars, a purple feathered hat and an oil lamp that used to sit on the mantle.

I had used the oil lamp a few times before as a novelty but never as the only possible source of light — until the 17th when I came home from work to a very cold and very dark apartment.

I lit the lamp and snuggled up on the couch to read, smug in my electrical independence.

In fact, the lack of incandescent light hardly bothered me — until the flame began to fade. I turned the wick up a little higher, but it didn’t help for long.

That is when I noticed that the wick was no longer touching the oil and was burning at an alarming rate.

I quickly blew it out and sat in the dark, wondering where I could find more oil for my lamp. It was late and I was sure that none of my friends or neighbors would have any to spare. I thought about braving the storm to see if any store in town had more, but decided that at 9 p.m., it would be futile.

There I was — a young maiden who forgot to bring extra oil for her lamp.

I couldn’t believe it. After all those Sunday School lessons, I never thought I would end up as one of the foolish ones, I always assumed I would be wise enough to bring extra oil.

And yet, there I sat in the dark. I’m pretty sure if I would have looked out my window, I would have seen the bridegroom walk by on his way to the wedding feast.

I learned my lesson though. I may not know the day nor the hour when the power goes out again, but I have a two liter jug of oil in my closet ready for the next storm or a wedding feast — which ever comes first.

With our rotation of staff and guest writers, each of us in the newsroom write a blog post for the paper about every week and a half. Since my last blog was published on March 19, my turn came up again on Monday.

Aside from waking up my brother with “You’re going to be late for school!” on an April 1st that happened to fall on a Saturday, I’ve never been much for April Fools jokes and am usually content hearing about clever pranks pulled by others.

Nevertheless, when I realized that I had Monday’s blog, I figured the opportunity was too good to pass up — so I got creative.

They always say the best lies are based on a foundation a possibility — so that’s where I started.

Truth: Worthington has a lake and small communities are always looking to improve tourism.

Untruth: A New Mexico company, Water Adventures, plans to capitalize on that market.

I built the fabrication from there. Studies were cited and details given: “The University of Minnesota has outlined the potential growth of tourism around the lake,” and “the two-hour tours will start at the Chautauqua Park dock and work in a counter clockwise direction around the lake,”

The company was so confident in the Worthington market that “in 2014 they will expand to Fulda First and Second Lake, Lake Ocheda, Lime Lake and Round Lake and add a supper cruise and musical entertainment in Worthington.”

Community highlight along the shore would be pointed out during the tour cruise and the only negative feedback the City of Worthington received was “Why hasn’t anyone through of this before?”

I knew I had made my fabrication look enough like the truth that it might confuse people so in closing, I wrote “As we look forward to the new lake front enterprise, I hope you all have a delightful April Fool’s Day,” thinking that should take care of it.

I’ve always through that I’m a pretty good liar and that people are just lucky I don’t put that skill to use more often. Now I’ve got a story to back up my theory.

Unlike most mornings, I didn’t have time to look at the paper before I came into work yesterday. I was shocked and then baffled when I saw an email from the editor (who was out of the office for the day) telling me my blog had been pulled before the paper was printed and “this information shouldn’t be information buried in a blog.”

“I would like this to be a full-fledged story as soon as it can be done,” he wrote.

Now I was really stumped. It’s a tricky thing to explain to your boss that what he read was in fact not the worst reporting I had ever done —un-cited quotes and everything — like he must have thought but rather completely made up. Especially when you have to do the explaining over email.

Fortunately, he was a good sport and the rest of the office got a pretty good kick out of it too.

I have to say though, I’ve learned my lesson. From now on, I think I’ll leave the April Fools jokes to others and stick with reporting the facts.

In spite of what must have been a frantic night, the town was quiet as I crossed the city limits and drove to Main Street. At the corner of Mill and Main, I could see what used to be one of the few restaurants in Edgerton.

From the front, it was still a recognizable version of itself, twisted and blackened, but from the back ally, no clue was visible in the burnt rubble to help identify what used to stand there.

I made the same trip a month before, heading west to do an interview with a well-known Edgerton family. That time, unhindered by a barricade of fire trucks and yellow caution tape, I pulled in front of the restaurant just moments before my grandpa did.

I had called him up the night before to see if he wanted to grab lunch with me and was glad he was able to squeeze me in before heading over to Sioux Falls for an appointment at the VA to get his hearing aids checked again.

“They still don’t work right,” he complained.

When we got out of our cars, he came over to give me a hug and as we walked past the newspaper vending machines, he proudly pointed out my name on the Globe, just visible above the fold.

“I keep thinking I should get that paper delivered to my house” he said.

As we ate, we talked about the small, trivial things that make up life, updating each other on the latest pregnancy, vacation and engagement news within our more than 75 member family.

We talked about what I had been doing and then what Grandpa had been doing — helping my uncle on the farm and taking care of Sadie.

“She is the smartest dog. She even tells me when she wants to eat,” he said.

And we talked about my grandma, who grandpa visits three times a week, even though she doesn’t remember her life anymore and sometimes doesn’t know him.

“She hasn’t had a good day since your parents visited last month.”

In between telling me stories about times when fields were plowed with horses and soldiers took trains home from war, he kept looking over his shoulder for people he knew, greeting old friends and commenting on the weather or mutual friends.

“Say now,” he’d say if he didn’t know them, “Who are you? You look familiar.”

Then he and his new acquaintance would launch into a complex game of “Six Degrees of Separation”, skimming over family lineages, friends and neighbors until a connection was found and each was able to place the other into the appropriate category of family, occupation, religion and politics.

We left as the restaurant started to fill up, families laughing and neighbors greeting each other with a firm handshake before launching into a conversation about the weather.

As I took photos for the newspaper a couple weeks later, I gave the building wide berth and it was hard to believe it was the same place I had lunch in.

The building was still drawing people together, but this time they were firefighters, talking in clusters as their peers tried to put out hot spots that stubbornly remained, hours after the blaze had been contained.

As they told me briefly about the hours they had spent there and all the area firefighters that had responded, I couldn’t help feel gratitude for what they did.

While I was growing up, my family experienced two fires on our farm, both in the same building. The first was able to be put out before the building was lost, but the second time, no one woke up until the building was consumed. All that could be done was to let it burn out.

I remember what it’s like to breathe in air heavy with the smell of ash and look at the remains of a building that used to hold memories and contribute to a family business.

I also remember what it’s like to move on after a fire, figuring out what do to with the space once the ruble has been cleared.

Whatever the future holds for the lot at 950 Main, I hope it can once again be a place that draws the community together and cultivates conversations about wonderfully ordinary things.

Church fundraisers in southwest Minnesota always seem to have a lot in common. When I was growing up, a church hosted potluck usually meant sitting through the service, focused not on the message, but on the smell of homemade food wafting up from the basement.

There was always the dish you looked forward to, those you avoided and the obligatory Jell-O salad with fruit cocktail and whipped cream.

When I decided to go to the church fundraiser held by St. Mary’s Catholic Church for Julia Barrera, I assumed I would find something similar to what I was used to.

I should have been tipped off when I drove up to the parking lot that something was going to be different than what I expected.

Mass was still going on and as my friend Kelli and I walked up to the school, we could hear organ led hymns coming from the sanctuary.

When we walked into the school’s cafeteria, the smells that greeted us were a far cry from chili and barbeque. Instead the air was filled with spicy peppers and tomatoes.

The room was lined with long tables that formed stations for different foods, each label with signs designed to both identify and promote the food — delicious hotdogs! Rich desserts! Fresh drinks!

After a quick survey of the room, Kelli and I decided to choose something completely unknown: pozole soup.

The red brown broth had been flavored with chili powder, the woman told us, and blobs of hominy and whole chicken legs dripping with bits of meat broke the surface of the opaque liquid.

After we topped our soup with the recommended onions, lettuce, radishes and oregano and grabbed with two hard tortillas, Kelli and I found a seat and contemplated the meal before us.

Never of us had ever tried to eat soup with a tortilla and we were both at a bit of a loose how to even start.

Not ones to be deterred, we eventually dove in, watching more experienced pozole eaters out of the corner of our eyes for direction.

As mass finished, the room filled with the buzz of rapid Spanish and people hungry and eager to help one of the parishioners of their church as she battled cancer.

Young men stood proudly by each of the tables, calling out the food they were selling, trying to convince people to come their way.

“We’ve got amazing pozole and tamales!” one said, while another shouted that the Mexican hotdogs he was selling were delicious.

I couldn’t help laughing when a stack of boxes from Pizza Hut were carried in and all the children yelled, “Pizza!” and converged on the table where the pizza was being sold by the slice.

The whole event felt like a family reunion so big you haven’t met most of the cousins before.

Children were laughing and chasing each other around the tables, while the adults talked and enjoyed quality home cooked food.

Mariana Gutierrez, Spanish ministry coordinator, told me she estimated there were over 400 people there to support Julia.

That is the beauty of small towns and supportive communities and I am thankful be part of helping, whether barbeque or pozole is served.

Last weekend my sister, Kristen and I decided to push our culinary skills further than they had ever gone before.

Further than the time I assumed using stiff egg whites in an angel food cake was a suggestion.Further than the time we tried to make Turkish Delight and then convince our brother that it was supposed to taste that way and in our generosity, he could have all of it.Further than Orange Zest Mashed Potatoes, an epic failure from my pre-teen days.

Since those early days, both of us have grown in our kitchen skills but Minnesota girls at heart, we seldom venture too far beyond the culinary boarders of our state, let alone those of our country.

On Saturday night we decided to push our horizons and challenged ourselves to take on a food that some chefs spend years mastering — sushi

My one experience with local sushi was highly disappointing and with  a little bit of research and some creative thinking, I was sure we would be able to do better.

Our courage did not extend to attempting the more traditional raw fish filled sushi.

It doesn’t take too much imagination to see that ending very poorly, not to mention the near impossibility of finding fresh seafood in Worthington, where the seas are metaphorical and made of corn and soybeans.

Our evening started with a run to the grocery store. Unfortunately, in our excitement, we broke a very basic cooking rule by forgetting our grocery list.

Thank heavens “phone a friend” is still an option in real life and I happen to have a sushi expert on speed dial.

After some debating we settled on avocado, cucumber and shallots and then on our way to the register, we grabbed a mango for a bit of variety.

The Asian market downtown had the last two items we needed – dried seaweed and a bamboo rolling mat — because for $2.50, we decided we needed a bamboo rolling mat.

Regardless of the edibility of the sushi we produced, the trip to the Asian market would have made the whole evening worth it.

The air was heavy with foreign spices and the selection of whole, dehydrated fish alone created the illusion that the streets of Bejing lay outside the front door.

Once we got home, the sushi process was a bit of a hodge-podge —we realized we didn’t have the right kind of vinegar (or any vinegar for that matter).

Then we underestimated the amount of rice needed and ended up making two batches. We also learned that shallots’ size has no correlation to their flavor.

When it was all said and done, we were pretty impressed with ourselves.

Each role we made was edible, and our fourth and last one was even enjoyable.

As we ate the last bits of rice and surveyed the mess awaiting us in the kitchen, we talked about future sushi ideas.

“Maybe corn next time?”

“Or maybe a little bacon?”

Turns out it’s harder to leave those Minnesota roots behind than I thought.

Although the snow was coming down lightly, enough had accumulated to cover everything in a soft, glittering white. There were a few people walking on the streets. Brave souls who had errands to run or wanted to see the city in its quietness — a contrast to an average day.

I wasn’t really sure how, but from my seat behind the snowplow wheel, I knew that once the light turned green, it was my job to clear the road for the cars behind me.

As a reporter, my job has taken me to interesting places, and pushed me out of my element a couple of times. This assignment was no different, but since they offered to let me try, I figured I better give it a go.

They sent me out as the front plow, giving me the task of clearing the center line. It’s a job that is trickier than is sounds when you can’t see the center line, let alone the where the road ends, and I assumed that cities are not thrilled when you decide to redesign the curb’s curve with a misplaced steel blade.

The gas pedal required a more pressure than my little car, but gradually I eased into the intersection and began sending up a dense cloud of snow visible in my right mirror.

It took me a little bit to find the center, but once I did, I was able to maintain a fairly straight path, only changing course for crazy drivers who insisted on scooting out in front of me before getting caught in my wake.

At my first turn, I almost hit a semi. In fact, I was sure I was going to.

A snowplow is a lot of truck to maneuver, and I took the advice of “make a wide turn” a little too seriously.

In spite of my crescendoing oh-nos, the woman behind me had the presence of mind to grab the wheel and prevent me from fish-tailing all over the place.

As I steadied my course again, I could hear the snowplowing veterans to my left chuckling. What a rookie mistake.

The rest of the drive continued without incident and when I felt the wheel rumble as I crossed the railroad tracks, the simulation suddenly ended. I let out the tension I didn’t know I had been holding with a sigh.

It’s hard work keeping an eye out for errant drivers and icy patches, not to mention having to remember to lift your blades and spread sand at the right moments.

Afterward, the trainers showed me all the other simulations they could have thrown at me. I silently thanked them for not making the drive as difficult as they could have.

One of them suggested that if this whole writing thing doesn’t work out, I could start a whole new career as a snow plow driver.

Considering I had just beating the score he had earned earlier, I thought I probably could.

On the other hand, it did take me at least 15 minutes to complete the maybe 10- block course.

And there was that whole semi incident. . .

Perhaps it would be wiser to stick with words and leave the plowing to the pros.

Born in 1867, Feb. 7th would have been Laura Ingalls Wilder’s 146th birthday.

My siblings and I spent many winters leaning against our mother as she read the Little House on the Prairie series to us.

We would rush home from school each day and after chores and any homework was done, we would get to read one chapter before super, maybe a second before bed if we were lucky.

Weekend afternoons always meant long stretches of uninterrupted time listening to my mother read about what life easily could have been like for us if we had lived in a different time.

When I was younger, I was convinced I could have made it with Laura out on the Midwest planes of the 1800’s.

Trips in covered wagons sounded terribly exciting and I was sure I could have quickly learned to use a wood stove or sew a dress by hand.
Frankly, I have no idea what I was thinking.

The more I think about it, the thankful I am that I was able to listen to those stories in the comfort of our living room, rather than in real life with Laura herself.

Aside from the fact that statistically, not all the members of my family would have survived the hazards of life all too present back then, there are too many daily life activities that the Ingalls family did on a regular basis that would make me say, “You have got to be kidding me.”

I’ve been known to rough it before and as a farm girl, I’ve been known to complete chores most people wouldn’t want to touch, but collecting cow pie chips to fuel a fire, which is then used to cook supper over, is just too much.

In On the Banks of Plum Creek, the entire Ingalls family catches malaria, supposedly from eating bad watermelon.

Not only would have mistakenly lived in fear of wa-termelon my whole life, malaria is not fun and I imagine it was even less then then.

In the books, Laura re-members the summer that grasshoppers came and literally ate everything, including the family’s crops and livelihood for the coming year.

Firstly, I will never forget the day I was riding my bike as a 10 year old and grasshopper landed right between the tongue of my shoe and my ankle.

Needless to say, there was lots of sudden screaming and frantic efforts to get it out, which unfortunately were not successful until after the bug as accidentally squished.

Secondly, can I get an “amen!” for crop insur-ance?

In the 9 book series, Pa (Charles Ingalls) builds a total of four houses — by hand. I’ve never built a house or any sort of struc-ture for that matter, but I imagine after the first two, I’d be ready to never move again in my life and by the fourth one, living in won would look awfully appealing.

I hate to admit it, but I complain as much as the next person about the winter weather, but the 7 month-long blizzard that Laura recounts in The Long Winter puts all of our complaining to shame.

During that time, the family lived primarily on bread and potatoes, and while I love carbs as much as the next person, I imagine after 7 months, I’d never want to see a spud again.

Inspite of the unglamorous parts of her life, all of Mrs. Wilder’s experiences clearly gave her some wonderful stories to tell and some even better quotes.

Like this one, which I think is the perfect response for any farm visitor unaccustomed to lingering fragrance only farms can produce.
“Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell,” Laura Ingalls Wilder.