Minnesota Brown

Minnesota Brown: Modern Life on the Iron Range

Tag: Balsam Township

  • Shining a light on townships

    Shining a light on townships

    It’s been busy here at MinnesotaBrown World Headquarters. I wrote a column about Kristi Noem’s ouster at DHS that ran Saturday and forgot to post about it. Oops! (Here it is, if you’re still interested). Today’s topic is decidedly more local. If you didn’t know, today is Township Day. Local elections will be held in…

  • MinnesotaBrown Top Posts of 2024

    MinnesotaBrown Top Posts of 2024

    Like a cookie from the jar, another year has disappeared with startling speed. As such, it’s time to compile some of my favorite and most popular writing from 2024. We’re now well past the era when I blogged daily in hot pursuit of the elusive viral clickstorm. Like I mentioned last year, I’m no longer…

  • For whom the skunk sprays

    For whom the skunk sprays

     We’ve lived in the fetid heart of skunk country our whole lives — without incident, until recently. My wife Christina grew up north of Nashwauk and I was raised in the swamps of the Sax-Zim Bog, each of us well acquainted with skunks. In my case, the family junkyard was overrun with the striped stinkers.…

  • Only local birds

    Only local birds

    I live on a quiet little hill above a swamp at the end of a long dirt road in the woods. The nearest stoplight stands some 27 miles away. Out here, it’s easy to feel lonely. Or at least it seemed that way when we moved from town almost 20 years ago. Time, however, revealed…

  • MinnesotaBrown: Top Posts of 2023

    MinnesotaBrown: Top Posts of 2023

    If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? That old philosophical query runs through my mind as I pose a new question: if a writer stops tracking his web traffic, does anyone read what he wrote? Of course, the answer is that I think so, but can’t…

  • Raise the blue flags of summer

    Raise the blue flags of summer

    “I am an old woman,” sings John Prine in his classic song “Angel from Montgomery.” She’s full of desire but has no way to leave. “The years just flow by like a broken down dam.” John Prine songs always relate to specific people and feelings. And lately, I relate to the idea that the years…

  • New disc golf course in Balsam Township

    New disc golf course in Balsam Township

    Please indulge a proud dad moment. Our oldest son Henry Brown was featured on WDIO News last night for his Eagle Scout project. Raising almost $7,000 in cash and in-kind donations, with the help of 24 volunteers, Henry built a nine-hole disc golf course at Balsam Community Park near our home in the woods. He…

  • Seeking normalcy one year into pandemic

    Seeking normalcy one year into pandemic

    So, let’s not sugar coat this. I’ve been working from home for almost a year. And while I like my home and have everything I need to do my job here, I am starting to notice signs that this year has affected me in many poorly understood ways. We’ve been trying to help prevent the…

  • Sabotaging the mail harms democracy and rural life

    Sabotaging the mail harms democracy and rural life

    When you grow up in the country you form a special relationship with the mail. Back at our family’s junkyard in Zim my sisters and I would fight over who got to run up the driveway to get the mail each day. One time I almost got hit by a truck because I lurched for…

  • Mail voting safe, secure and simple

    Mail voting safe, secure and simple

    The first time I voted in a general election I was lying on a set of dorm room sheets that wouldn’t be washed until spring. Cigarette dangling from my lips, I marked my ballot for Jesse “The Body” Ventura as Minnesota’s next governor. Democracy prevailed. However you gauge the wisdom of my first ballot, it…

  • Sometimes it freezes in April

    Sometimes it freezes in April

    I walk every day, one of a few good habits that augment my shortcomings. Today, as I often do, I walked up the county road by my house toward the Prairie River. The river flooded its banks last week. It always does this time of year. I’ve seen it higher, but not by much. Acres…

  • New urgency for rural broadband

    New urgency for rural broadband

    My family and I live down a long dirt road in rural Itasca County. Mud season reminds us of the challenges of rural life and the thin tendon joining our home to civilization. This world seems even farther away during the coronavirus pandemic sweeping our nation and the world, but it’s still there. We still…

  • Iron Range in isolation: talking COVID-19

    Iron Range in isolation: talking COVID-19

    Last week I appeared on KAXE with Heidi Holtan talking about the COVID-19 situation on the Mesabi Iron Range. Check it out. This was my first radio appearance since being sheltered in place with my family here in the woods of northern Minnesota. We make a couple trips to town each week for groceries and…

  • MinnesotaBrown’s Top Posts of 2019

    MinnesotaBrown’s Top Posts of 2019

    We’re closing a momentous year and a momentous decade here at MinnesotaBrown. For most of you 2019 probably did not provide the most riveting year of material from yours truly. You saw 1-2 posts per week. Much less political coverage. Fewer posts about Northern Minnesota arts and culture. It would have appeared to you that…

  • When a boy becomes a snowman

    When a boy becomes a snowman

    One of the most obvious rules of parenting is not to put your baby in a snowbank. But what happens when your baby grows up to be a survivalist?