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By Don Davis Food stamps are at the same time the biggest hurdle to enacting federal farm policy and a necessary part of passing the farm bill. Discussion about cutting spending for the program to feed poor Americans dominated Tuesday as three days of U.S. House debate began on the farm bill, a 2,000-page document to establish federal farm and nutrition policies for five years. Hundreds of amen...

Tonight look to the south and you'll see the waxing gibbous moon paired up with two bright "stars". One's a real star - Spica in Virgo - and the other is the planet Saturn. If you let your gaze slide further south and east you'll soon run into a third luminary - the red-orange heart of the Scorpius Antares (an-TAR-eez). While Antares is one of the sky's most interesting red supergiant stars,...

Paul Emil Preuss was born April 30, 1872 at Graudantz, Germany, the son of Ernest and Augusta Preuss. He came to the United States at the age of 19 with his parents and four brothers. The family settled in Wausau, Wis., where Paul went into the general merchandise business. In 1902, he married Augusta Girdwood and a few years later, in 1906, the couple moved to Perham with their daughter Evelyn...

Uffda," I said to Ole this morning when I looked out the window. "I think we should have moved to Alaska because the weather MUST be better up there than it is here." We've had 10 inches of heavy wet snow in the last 18 hours and it's still snowing. The weatherman says it's supposed to snow throughout the day and then we're supposed to "host" another "snow event" on Wednesday! (I just love the ...

Spring is trying to spring into action. I want to thank Otter Tail County for patching the streets that lead into town, hopefully it stays in place. On the city level we are waiting for it to warm up and dry out. I would like all of you to come out this Saturday evening for the Dancing With the Stars event at the Perham High School auditorium at 7:30 p.m. This event is aimed at raising money ...

Poky Little Puppy Finds a Thin Place In the 1940s, my great aunt, Ella, working for Emmanuel Episcopal Guild, made a layette for Church World Service, which they shipped to war impoverished people of Europe. My grandmother, Kate, also enclosed a stuffed Poky Little Puppy. She pinned a note on Poky. Dear Unknown Mother: It has been such a pleasure to prepare these clothes they were sewed by ...

My husband, Al, who is the editor of the Echo Press newspaper, wrote about his experience running the half-marathon in Las Vegas. The story, along with a picture of him running the race, ran in the Opinion section of the newspaper last Friday. His story is very vivid and almost makes it feel as if you could have been running right beside him. I would love for all of you to read it, so here is ...

brightcove.createExperiences(); What you will need for this recipe: 2 cups sugar 1/2 cup chocolate chips 1/4 lb. butter (one stick) 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup peanutbuter 1 ts. vanilla extract 3 cups oatmeal ...

All of you who've read my posts are awesome. Thank you for following along. While I'm sad to see this journey end, I'm excited with anticipation because this was just my first try. I'll be writing many more travel-inspired pieces as I explore new parts of the world. (Next on my radar is East Africa.) Also, this blog was just a rough draft. A more complete, polished effort is being tailored pres...

It can be a challenge cooking for two. When I made a big batch of Baked Garden Vegetable Stack the other day, I had a lot of tender vegetables left over. I turned them into creamy soup in 30 minutes. The thin slices of potatoes and tender ribbons of cabbage seemed to demand caraway, that distinctly flavored seed typically found in rye bread. I used to love ladling my mom's sauerkraut dotted ...

  I recall my first introduction to the game, at perhaps 11 years old. With little preparation or familiarity with the sport, my neighbor suggested we go out for the fastpitch team.It turned out my skills on the gymnastics mat didn't directly transfer to the ball field. My effort was less than satisfactory, at best. I didn't make the team that year. And so I joined a slow pitch leag...