Tolna, ND

Today I stopped in the Tolna Friends and Neighbors Cafe to hang up a flier and ended up spending an hour.  That place was hopping!

This community-owned cafe, that was established only a few years ago, is going through a major  kitchen expansion.  When finished, the kitchen will be more than doubled in size and will be much more efficient with lots more work space and storage. 

Even though a long wall has been installed across one side of the building, no seating space will be lost because the freezers and refrigerators that were scattered in various parts of the dining area will now be housed within the kitchen. 

The cafe employees are excited about this change as it will make for less steps as everything will be more conveniently situated.

Esther Bjorlie, employee and chef, stated, “We will now have a professional kitchen in which to work instead of one that was more like a home kitchen”.

Some sizable donations have been received to help pay for the remodel and, as usual in this community, volunteers are doing much of the labor.

I also noticed some new wall decorations and Diane Poehls, general manager and faithful volunteer, said, “Just wait; there is more to come!”

The cafe will need to be closed from Friday, February 26, to Tuesday, March 2, for the final stages of this remodel; can’t wait to go back on Wednesday morning to see the finished product.  Let’s meet there for a cup of coffee, okay?

Ahhh . . . . . free food. 

So, by now you have guessed that there must be an important event going on in the community since free food has come to be the pattern.

Mark your calendars for Tuesday, March 2, 6:30 p.m. at the American Lutheran Church, Tolna, as there is a combined meeting of Community Club and Horizons following a tasty meal.

The Tolna Community Goals will be reviewed and progress reports will be presented.

It’s exciting to be planning and preparing for Tolna to be established as a thriving recreational/resort town with high goals of someday having a campground near the dock and possibly a nice recreational area for family-oriented activitied.

Other ideas to reduce poverty, improve and strengthen our quality of life are in the works.  You are invited to attend and participate. 

“A community is like a ship.  Everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm,” Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian dramatist, 1828-1906

I read in the Fargo Forum yesterday that the snowfall is now in excess of 23″.  My hubby thinks that we have had at least that here on our farm in the Tolna area.  Our deck was shoveled off once and the snow is up to the window sill again.

On February 5 I flew my mother to Mesa, AZ, to celebrate her 90th birthday.  Many friends and family members helped us celebrate at a hotel lobby on the 6th of February.  Mom and I stayed in that beautiful, warm city for a week.  That trip will certainly shorten the winter for me but ever since I came home, I have had the winter doldrums.  All that I want to do is sleep, surf and read my books.

I did go to New Life Fellowship yesterday afternoon and evening. 

For the past several months I’ve been teaching some quilting techniques to some youth (mostly girls but there is one brave young man in the class) and adults at our church.  One young lady has now finished a baby-sized quilt and a senior citizen is nearly done with a table centerpiece.  This class has been a very rewarding adventure for both myself and my students.  In fact, once they finish a project, they are ready to start something new. 

I am very thankful that I don’t have go out in the cold, scrape my windows and go to work every day.  Been there; done that!  Am glad I can now stay home and sew, read and surf. 

Spring is right around the corner.

Once again the teens at New Life Fellowship, rural Hamar,  will be serving a Valentine’s Day banquet for couples and single adults.  It will take place on Saturday, February 13, at 6 p.m. 

Call Karol Kapelle, 262-4446, with your choice of entree — prime rib or chicken breast.  There will be fresh flowers and other festive effects.

The movie, No Greater Love, will be shown after the meal.  If you loved Fireproof, you will enjoy this movie even more. 

As I sit here at my kitchen table this morning reading the forecast on the Internet, I think it would be fun to have some sharing on what you do when the temperatures drop to this degree.

You know, this site is interactive.  You can leave comments. 

When the snow is deep, the winds kick up and the temperatures drop, my first thought is, “No problem, we have lots of food in the house”.   And, you probably do, too.  Rural people just do!  We probably all have freezers and a stash of canned goods.

So, back to what do I do?  My first thought is to make a big pot of soup, then I find a good book. 

I am so spoiled as I never shovel snow (maybe I should start as I hear it is great exercise and I’m short of that).  That’s probably why I don’t mind winter. 

Did I say that I was so spoiled?  Yes, I am. 

We don’t have an attached garage; the car goes in the quonset across the yard.  So, when I am going somewhere, Lyle warms up the car and brings it to the house for me.

Yes, I am so spoiled.

This afternoon I am meeting a lady in Jamestown as we are riding together for a meeting in Bismarck.  Because of the forecasted low temps, my awesome husband is driving me to Jamestown so I don’t have to deal with a cold car when we come back to Jamestown tomorrow.

So, now it’s your turn.  What do you do when the temperatures drop?

There’s nothing like a yummy, tasty home-cooked meal at home but when you find a cafe that serves ‘em up, too, you really have something! !

Tolna went without a cafe for several years and then the city teamed up with the Tolna Senior’s Citizens and came up with the idea of using their large, empty-many-days-a-week-building and they turned it into a bustling restaurant.  That was a great idea!  Thanks to everyone who had a hand in that!

We were there with some friends after church yesterday and I made sure that I picked up the November senior meals menu.  (Course, it’s also the special for the day for people of any age.)

Here is a sampling:  Pork Chops/gravy, mashed potatoes, veggie, dessert (That’s for today and when they say “mashed potatoes”, they are talking about the real thing.  The gravy is the real thing, too; it’s better than I can make and my girls always say that my gravy is the BEST!  )

Tater Tot hotdish, ham/bean soup, chicken fried steak, meatloaf, scalloped potatoes and ham, salmon loaf, . . . . . . . .   Let’s see, I was going to figure out what days we would eat in town this month, maybe we’ll just go every day!

I long ago figured out that the Friends and Neighbors Cafe is not a good place to take my hubby if I need some time alone with him because he usually knows everyone in the place.  Oh well, so nice to have a place to go to meet friends and catch up with the neighbors, too.

The cafe is open Monday through Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday, 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Sunday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.  There are Sunday specials this month as follows:  November 8 - Roast Turkey Buffet, November 15 - Roast Beef Buffet and November 29  BBQ Ribs Buffet.  On the other Sundays, it is off the menu.  They will be closed on Thanksgiving Day.

No, I’m not trying to run an ad; that’s actually something Lyle has never wanted me to do and he really hasn’t needed to advertise.  I’m actually trying to get better at regular blogging and one idea, that we were given, was to recognize someone in our communities.

Lyle began Lyle’s Repair nearly 40 years, I believe.  His shop is in a small white building on our farm.  It’s nothing fancy but Lyle doesn’t need “fancy” or “state of the art” to accomplish the variety of mechanical tasks that he knows how to do. And, there are a lot!

I’ve always noticed that he does a lot of diagnostic work for which he never charges.  It used to irritate me when I heard him on the phone asking someone if they checked this, tried that, etc.  All I could think of was when I worked for an attorney and how he charged for every minute of his time, whether on the phone or not.  But, Lyle would say, “I just like helping people”.

Lyle has always said that the worst part about doing this type of work is that he enjoys it so much that it seems wrong to charge for the service.  Some customers actually pay him more than he bills because they that feel he deserves it.  Have you ever paid a company more than the amount of the bill? 

The part that he enjoys a lot is having that cup of coffee whether someone stops at our house or he goes to theirs, as he loves to visit, so much.

Okay, I blogged about someone in our community.  Who is ready for me to interview next?

We have now completed the strategic plan for Tolna and it has been submitted to NDSU.  Here are some of the goals that we will be working toward in the coming months:

I.  Establishing a Thriving Recreational/Resort Town

    A.  Campground at Tolna Bay

    B.  Family Beach at Tolna Bay

    C.  Tourism Promotion

II.  Improving and Expanding Tolna Infrastructure

    A.  More and Affordable Housing

    B.  Utilization of Viable Buildings in Tolna

    C.  City Park Improvements and Walk/Bike Path

III.  Offering Needed Services to Residents and Visitors - - The things that make you want to live here, stay here and visit here

    A.  Community Communication

    B.  Library/Computer Kiosk

    C.  Mentor/Apprentice Program

    D.  Improving Senior Citizen Activities/Offerings

Taken together, these goals will work to provide significant steps toward alleviating the poverty of available jobs and housing, community isolation, and physical lethargy in Tolna.  The achievement of these goals will contribute to the on-going quality of life here, providing a safe, stimulating and healthy lifestyle that prospers all who live here.

Tolna will be a community that utilizes all of its human and natural resources inviting residents and visitors to share in the present quality of life represented by our shared core values:  a community that is safe, friendly, caring, progressive and supportive.

Tolna wil provide a place where everyone has a sense of belonging and is encouraged to participate in the goal of enhancing the prosperity of all.

I was so pleased to see people streaming into the multi-purpose room at the Tolna school for the visioning rally last night.  I believe there were 111 who signed the guest book.  That is awesome and we figure that’s about 70% of the population of this community!

The BBQ ribs meal with all of the trimmings that was prepared and served by the Friends and Neighbors Cafe was simply delicious!

Lynnette Flage did a super job of helping us determine the core values of our community.  We decided that Tolna is friendly, caring, safe, cooperative, helping, progressive, hardworking, ethical and religious.

People seemed to enjoy voting on their choices of various topics with the electronic clickers.  It was a very efficient way to get the job done without getting us sidetracked.

We worked in groups on various tasks.  One of them was to write our vision for Tolna for 2014.  Here are some of things that were mentioned:

• Tolna would be a thriving recreational resort town.
• Tolna would be the fishing capital of North Dakota.
• Tolna would be the home to some new small industry.

Thanks everyone for your participation and for all who showed up to set up and clean up.