Country Cousin

Vigilant...





Hi Folks!

Well, folks, here we are at the end of July. In one month Marinette County Fair will be in full swing, and schools will be opening their doors for another school year. Summer is all but over. Doesn’t time fly!

The drought that had us so worried earlier this summer hasn’t happened. In fact, areas in the southern parts of the state are suffering some severe flooding. Here in the north, fields, gardens and lawns are growing so fast we can’t keep up with them.

Another of those recurrent storms blew in Tuesday night, putting out power briefly in some areas of Peshtigo and elsewhere in Marinette and Oconto counties.

It was a quick moving storm. One weather watch site reported storm damage calls from Mountain at 10:18 p.m., Crivitz at 10:29 p.m. and Peshtigo at 10:52. Fire Departments were called out for trees and power lines down. At Camp Bear Paw in Oconto County there were reports of 6-inch trees taken out. In Peshtigo a power transformer was blown.

LUSH AND GREEN

Was worried earlier this year because we haven’t been having the thunder boomers needed to release nitrogen from the atmosphere and put it back into the ground. Lightning has its benefits as well as its dangers.

Well, that lack has been made up. Electrical storms have crackled around us more than a few times this summer. The lush green growth everywhere in and around TIMESland shows it. Gardens are flourishing, and that’s a very good thing.

LOTS TO DO

Summer may be drawing to a close, but the list of fun things to do in Marinette County seems to keep getting longer.

This week, for example, Music Jar will be playing at Badger Park in Peshtigo this evening, Wednesday, July 28, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

On Thursday, July 29 at the Bandshell on the lakeshore in downtown Menominee from 7 to 9 p.m., there’s a free concert, with music by “Jazz Spectrum”.

Saturday, July 31 offers a mind boggling choice of places to go and things to do that no one could hope to enjoy them all. Many support good causes, too.

For example the annual Wagner Fire Department fund raiser picnic at Menominee River Park on Hwy. 180 and County Highway X gets underway at 11 a.m. and lasts until 8 p.m. There will be music by Neon Detour from 2 to 7 p.m. There’s a horseshoe tournament at 1 p.m. Kids games, raffles, paddle wheel, food and refreshment sales will be going on all day. Tickets are for sale at Heritage Inn, McAllister; Bear Point, Wausaukee; Camp Shakey at Stephenson, Mich.; Evergreens and Legends in Porterfield, or from any fire department member.

Anyone aged 50 or over with ties to Menekaunee is invited to Red Arrow Park in Marinette at noon Saturday, July 31, for the annual Menekaunee Old Timers get together. Bring your own lawn chairs & beverage. Cost is $12 if paid by July 26 or $15 if paid later. Send checks to Menekaunee Old Timers, 160 W Bay Shore Street, Marinette, WI 54143. Call 715-735-5577 with questions.

The sixth annual Harmony by the Bay community music festival will be held on Saturday, July 31 at the band shell in Great Lakes Marina Memorial Park on First Street in Menominee from 11 a.m. through 9 pm., featuring recording artists and local bands. In case of rain, the event will move to Blesch Auditorium.

Sunday, Aug. 1 offers a few fun filled church picnics. Attend Mass, then spend the day enjoying fun and food on church grounds of St. Augustine Parish in Wausaukee or SS. Joseph & Edward Parish, 1 mile west of Hwy. 180 on County G in Walsh.

The St. Augustine event starts with Mass at 10 a.m. with festivities to follow. Picnic will have music, food, refreshments, children’s games, raffle, paddle wheel, silent auction, 3 on 3 basketball and horseshoes at 2 p.m. Contact parish office at 715-856-5276.

SS. Joseph & Edward Parish invites everyone to join them from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for food, music and children’s games.

Schwartz Loll Richards American Legion Post # 476 and Auxiliary is sponsoring a day of food and fun in Loomis from 10 a,m. to 11 p.m. Friday, July 30 at the Town of Lake Hall. The Auxiliary will be selling food, water and soda. There’s a pig roast from 4 to 6 p.m., and music at 1 p.m. by “Wings of Eagles Bluegrass Gospel Band”, and at 7 p.m. by the Jack Clarkson Band. Raffles, free bounce house, rummage sale, vendors and crafters add to the day’s fun.

Anyone who likes nostalgic history should enjoy “Love Letters From the Logging Camp,” at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Thursday, July 29 at Holt and Balcom Logging Camp, off Hwy. F, behind McCauslin Golf Course Clubhouse at Lake-wood. The performance involves fictional accounts of camp life by husbands of Ladies of the North. A $5 donation is requested for camp restoration.

This year’s annual “Night Out” events for Marinette County will be held from 4 to 9 .m. on Tuesday, Aug. 3 at Keith Albers Field in Coleman and Stephenson Island in Marinette.

The Coleman event offers be lots of demonstrations, a bike rodeo, demonstrations of the K-9 units of Marinette County Sheriff’s Department and Crivitz Police Department, jumpers, games, prizes, a mock crash scene and much, much more. Most of it is just good fun, but there’s a bunch of life saving information thrown in, and some free goodies besides.

The City of Marinette Night Out has some of the same events and demonstrations, and some different ones. There will be live music, a dunk tank, chances for kids eight and under to win a bike, an inflatable bouncer, rock climbing wall, and a waterball tournament for kids aged 8 to 14. Wisconsin National Guard will be on hand, Enstrom Helicopter will have a display, and there will be a fire safety house demonstration by Marinette and Menominee fire departments. No parking will be allowed on Stephenson Island, but a shuttle bus operated by Westlund Bus Lines will deliver people to the Night Out festivities from the parking lot at Angeli’s in Menominee.

VIGILANT PRESS

We here in Wisconsin sort of view California, especially Los Angeles and points south, as pretty much the high rent district of our nation. We expect local officials there to be drawing pretty healthy salaries, but recent national news media stories about the highway robberies of small-time local politicians in little Bell, Calif. are a bit shocking, to say the least.

The out of line salaries were discovered and published first by the Los Angeles Times. There isn’t a local newspaper. If there had been, perhaps the scandal uncovered there would never have happened.

Bell has a population of about 40,000, approximately twice the size of the City of Marinette. One councilman there has been receiving the standard salary of $8,000 a year for his part-time work for the citizens of his city, while the other four council members pocketed salaries in the $100,000 a year range for the same jobs, plus service on a few related committees and governing boards.

Guess the $8,000 a year councilman wasn’t a member of the “in” group! Maybe he wasn’t even aware of what was happening, but he should have been. That’s what happens when you let the professionals handle things. Sometimes they’re very professional. Fortunately, schools don’t offer credits for what they’re professional at.

The city manager, police chief and assistant city manager of Bell all resigned last week, days after it was revealed their take from the public trough totaled about $1.6 million a year. The city manager alone was paid about $800,000 for his “services” to the city. That’s more than the President of the United States. When the news broke, he resigned. Whoopee! Now he’ll have to get by on only his pension - $600,000 a year. Doesn’t your heart just bleed for him?? Wonder who negotiated his contract? Someone signed the paper for that agreement and that person should go to jail. But probably won’t.

The mayor and the four greedy council members have refused to resign, but have agreed to take no salaries until their terms end in March. The mayor said he will not run again.

Wait a minute! That agreement to take no salaries? Somebody had best check their pay for serving on various boards, commissions, etc. Better yet, maybe someone should run them out of town!

The greedy politicians of Bell supposedly managed to get an obscure measure on the ballot some time back that allowed them to pay themselves whatever they chose.

While Bell officials were receiving some of the highest salaries in the nation, the city was cutting spending on police, social services and parks and recreation. It’s a blue collar community, where much of the population lives below the poverty level.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and the state attorney general are now looking into the inflated salaries and per diems, and Gov. Jerry Brown has become involved. Some irate taxpayers are calling for audits all over the nation to determine exactly how many hard earned taxpayer dollars greedy politicians are guzzling at the public trough. Might be a good idea. Might explain some of the widespread budget problems!

So how did this happen? Why did no one suspect?

The short answer is that no newspaper covers the city’s business regularly. The hard-pressed taxpayers had no watchdogs keeping their local officials honest.

It’s human nature. Put enough temptation out there long enough and someone will come along to take advantage of it. In politics, secrecy breeds contempt. Keep the fresh air of information flowing through our halls of government and the chances for abuse are diametrically reduced!

Yours Truly is proud to be part of a news team that keeps a vigilant eye on goings on in TIMESland and tries to insure that situations like the one in Bell can’t happen here.

That bit of news from California is one more good reason why everyone - not just the professionals - must firmly reject every effort to stifle and regulate the free press and limit public access to information.

PERSONAL TOUCH

There’s nothing like the personal touch in business contacts. That’s why some firms (and politicians) still use the printed word sent by regular post to deliver their messages. A lot of thought obviously went into a message signed, “With warmest personal regards.” It was addressed to “Occupant.”

OUTSIDE THE BOX

Ever get frustrated by an old recipe that calls for tying a batch of spices up in bit of cheesecloth and tossing it into the cooking pot? Don’t know about you, but I simply don’t have bits of cheesecloth laying around, and if there was some in our kitchen it would be old and musty by now and I certainly wouldn’t want it in anything we’d be eating.

But we do have coffee filters. Just pretend they’re cheesecloth and tie up the spices in one of them.

There are bunches of other uses for coffee filters too. For example, if you break the cork on a bottle of wine and don’t want to chew up the pieces as you try to drink the wine, strain the beverage through a coffee filter and it will be good as new.

Use filters to clean windows, mirrors, eye glasses, camera lenses, television and computer screens. They’re lint free and they won’t scratch.

When you harvest sweetly scented herbs and dried flowers from your garden, tie them in a coffee filter to make sachets for dresser drawers and closets.

COOKIN’ TIME

Gardens are producing in bounty, and roadside homegrown produce stands are springing up thick as quack grass. Enjoy the wealth! And save some for winter.

ZUCCHINI RELISH

This doesn’t take a lot of time, and works wonderfully for making ground bologna sandwich fillings, egg salad or chicken salad. Also great on burgers, hot dogs or brats.

10 medium zucchini, trimmed and cut into eighths

4 medium green peppers, seeded and cut into sixths

3 medium sweet red peppers, seeded and cut into sixths

6 medium onions, cut into sixths

5 tablespoons salt

Water

2 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar

2 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon dry mustard

2 teaspoons celery salt

Use the coarse blade of a food grinder to prepare the veggies, or whirr them to a coarsely ground texture with your food processor. Put ground zucchini, peppers, and onion into a large bowl and cover with salt and water. Let stand overnight. The next day, rinse and drain the vegetables and place in a 5-quart cooking pot, enamel or stainless steel, not aluminum. Add vinegar, sugar, turmeric, nutmeg, dry mustard, and celery salt. Bring mixture to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes. Ladle into hot, sterilized jars, put on lids and process 15 minutes in a boiling water both. Remove jars from bath; cool and check seals.

VEGGIE QUICHE

Even men enjoy this luscious quiche for breakfast or lunch. And it’s really, really healthy eating. No pie shell involved. If you prefer a non-vegetarian version, throw in some finely diced ham or crumbled bacon bits.

3 eggs

1/3 to 1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs

4 teaspoons butter

1 clove garlic

1/2 small onion (or about a quarter cup sliced green onions)

1/2 green or red pepper

1 cup greens of any kind (lettuce, kale, spinach, etc.)

1 cup veggies like summer squash

3/4 cup mixed cheeses, goat, cheddar, romano etc.

More cheese for the top, optional

Cook greens in water to cover until tender, about 1/2 hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. When greens are done, drain and chop. Slice onions and peppers, julienne style. Grate harder veggies, like squash, turnips or carrots. Melt 1 teaspoon butter in a small pan and brown chopped garlic. Add onions and peppers. Cook until onions are transparent. Meanwhile beat 3 eggs in a large mixing bowl. Add the cooked veggies, the grated veggies, the cheeses (grated or broken in small chunks) and mix well. Melt 2 teaspoons butter in the pan, and brown the bread crumbs. Don’t let them burn. Put the last teaspoon of butter in an 8” quiche or oven proof pan and melt in the oven. Spread the melted butter around and pour in the veggie/cheese mixture. Cover the top with the bread crumbs, and more cheese if you like. Bake approximately 25 minutes, or until eggs are set firmly.

FROZEN RASPBERRY CAKE

Takes about 20 minutes to put together, not counting freezing times, and then it needs to freeze for four or more hours. But it’s worth it. Serves 8 to 10. You’ll need a 9-inch springform pan and some cooking parchment.

2 frozen pound cakes

3 cups slightly softened vanilla ice cream

4 cups raspberry sorbet or sherbet, slightly softened

1 pint fresh raspberries

3 tablespoons Chambord or other raspberry-flavored liqueur

1/4 cup sugar

Whipped cream or frozen whipped topping, optional

Clean berries and mix with the sugar and liqueur. Cover and refrigerate. Cut a 9” round of parchment and put in the bottom of the pan. Then cut a 3”x27” strip of parchment and tape it securely to fit around the inside of the pan. Trim the crusts from the cakes and cut into 1/4” thick slices. Cover bottom of pan with a single layer of slices and spread on the vanilla ice cream. Freeze for about half an hour, or until the ice cream firms up. Spread on half of the sorbet or sherbet, then add another layer of pound cake slices. Return to freezer for about 10 minutes. Remove cake and spread the berries evenly on top. Top with a final layer of cake slices and the rest of the sorbet. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and freeze until firm, at least four hours. To serve, remove from pan upright, and peel off the ring of parchment. Cut into serving slices and spoon on whipped cream and serve with additional berries if you like. (For easier cutting it helps to rinse the knife in hot water.)

Thought for the week: George F. Kernan said of his pioneer ancestors in a quote from “Memoirs” printed in a 1969 magazine: “They accepted the logic of their passion for independence. They asked of the government only that it leave them alone to struggle in their own way. When times were hard, as they often were, groans and lamentations went up to God, but never to Washington.” Would that there were more like them today!

COUNTRY COUSIN

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