Tag: sioux falls

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Winter is for the Birds

By Christian Begeman

A friend of mine recently shared a link to a bird photographer’s exquisite work capturing small songbirds in flight. The message was accompanied by a good-natured challenge to start producing similar images of my own. I’m always up for a challenge. The problem, I soon discovered, is that getting a good photo of wild birds in nature is extremely hard … not to mention predicting where and when said bird will take flight. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve failed miserably in this particular challenge … so far.

With that confession on the table, I figured I’d share some tips (and photos, both good and bad) that I picked up along the way. Now I’m not much more than a greenhorn birder myself, but I do have a starting suggestion. Find the nearest winter bird feeder and camp out nearby. Last year I had good luck at the Sioux Falls Outdoor Campus during a steady morning snowfall. This year I tried the bird feeders at Farm Island State Park near Pierre and at the entrance to Good Earth State Park southeast of Sioux Falls. These feeders allow you to get fairly close as long as you stay still and are willing to wait for the birds to return after initially disturbing them. This wait can take anywhere from five to 15 minutes. At Good Earth, I chose to sit cross-legged on the ground next to an evergreen as I waited. Soon I had juncos hopping a few feet away and a downy woodpecker nearly ran into my head. I sat so still for so long that my leg fell asleep. Good thing no one was around. Standing up was accompanied by numerous mutterings and murmurs.

I read that Farm Island is home to northern saw-whet owls, so after spending some time at the feeder missing shots of flying finches (those things can move!), I searched for a couple of known saw-whet roosts reported on a birding website. I failed to find them as well. My guess is that the high water a few years back may have re-arranged a lot of things on the island (but in reality, being a rookie birder didn’t help much either). I did, however, have a fun game of hide and seek with a noisy northern cardinal male for about a half hour along the trail. I must have been near its nest when I saw a flash of red and heard the telltale metallic chirp. Long story short, he let me get the closest I’ve ever been to a cardinal, with one stipulation: he put as many branches and twigs of his favorite tree between the two of us at all times.

I really like owls, and earlier in the month I accidentally scared a great horned out of an abandoned church. He flew to the tree windbreak nearby and, like the cardinal, kept the densest part of the tree between him and me. I saw a long-eared owl for the first time in my life while checking out the swans of LaCreek National Wildlife Refuge in Bennett County. He was sunning himself in the early morning light and I happened to notice his outline from at least a quarter mile away. I didn’t get a great shot of him from that distance, but it made the day worthwhile.

The last tip I have is to use your ears. The best tool for locating a bird while out and about is hearing them. I’ve still got work to do on this one. Just last weekend, as I sat quietly along Sergeant Creek at Newton Hills State Park, I could pick out cardinal, chickadee and at least two other unknown songs amongst the steady drumming of woodpeckers and the brazen calls of blue jays. The only birds I could actually see were two bald eagles soaring high above the distant Big Sioux River. Experiences like this make birding addicting. I know they are out there, I know they make great photos, and I know it is a challenge to put it all together and get the unique shot. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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Molding Ma’amoul

By Laura Andrews

In the November/December issue of South Dakota Magazine, we featured mouthwatering holiday treats from several South Dakota food bloggers. One of my favorites is Sioux Falls restaurateur Sanaa Abourezk. She serves healthy variations on recipes popular in her native Syria and other Middle Eastern countries at Sanaa’s 8th Street Gourmet and shares recipes on her blog, sanaacooks.com.

When I saw her recipe for ma’amoul, a shaped, stuffed cookie made for Christmas, Easter or Eid, I was reminded of a lecture I’d attended at Augustana College earlier this year. Stephen Cusulos is researching Sioux Falls’ Syrian and Lebanese community, which started over one hundred years ago. Though some were Muslim and some were Eastern Orthodox Christians, these immigrants were bound together by the Arabic language and by a common culture. Many were peddlers back in the horse and buggy days, traveling around the region delivering goods to farm families. When automobiles took over, the peddlers set up shop in downtown Sioux Falls, opening up groceries, cafes, candy stores or selling dry goods.

Though Cusulos joked about these immigrants'”gift of gab,” they were surprisingly quiet about their shared culture, at least to the outside world. But it was a different story when they met in each other’s homes to socialize, or in the case of the Muslim immigrants, to worship together. Perhaps they met to make ma’amoul, just as Sanaa’s family did in Syria. Here’s how she describes those gatherings:

My mom used to get together with her friends on a certain day before the Eid to make ma’amoul. One friend would bring the dough, another would bring one kind of stuffing and someone else would bring another kind of stuffing. The rest would bring stories and gossip. The ladies would spend the whole afternoon making the cookies. I can still remember hearing them, talking, laughing and baking.

Ma’amoul

From Sanaa Cooks


Dough

4 cups farina (a type of wheat flour)
1 cups cake flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup warm milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon yeast

Mix farina, cake flour, 1/2 cup of sugar and salt. Add butter and mix well. Dissolve 1 tablespoon of sugar in the warm milk. Add yeast and stir. Let yeast rest for a few minutes, then add to the flour mixture, mixing until the dough is smooth. Add a couple of tablespoons of cold water if needed. Cover and let the dough rest for 1 hour.

Walnut Stuffing

4 cups walnuts
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon orange blossom water

Grind the walnuts, then mix with sugar and orange blossom water.

Date Stuffing

4 cups chopped dates
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon orange marmalade

Add dates, butter and marmalade to a food processor and process until the mixture forms a smooth paste.

Assembly

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To form the ma’amoul, take a small piece of dough. Make a dent in the middle of the dough to form a cup. Spoon about 1 teaspoon of filling into the cup, then gently close the opening with your fingers. Decorate the top of the ma’amoul by pinching the dough with pastry tweezers or pressing the cookie in a ma’amoul mold. Place your hand under the mold and gently strike the mold on the edge of a table to make the cookie fall in your palm.

Place the ma’amoul on a cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes, or until lightly browned. Allow cookies to cool for one hour, then dust with powdered sugar and store in a tightly closed container. Makes 50 cookies.


Note: Sanaa also has a gluten-free, vegan version of this recipe on her blog.

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Sue’s Back in South Dakota!

By Rebecca Johnson

The saga of Sue the T. Rex began in the summer of 1990 when a team from Black Hills Institute hunted fossils near Faith. While the rest of the crew went to town for a truck repair, Sue Hendrickson discovered the first of the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found.

Ried Holien wrote about the dramatic story that followed in our May/June 1999 issue.

Pete Larson, BHI’s director, took the specimen, nicknamed Sue (in Hendrickson’s honor), to Hill City to clean, strengthen, and prepare the bones for display. Two years later, after the Institute had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless man-hours in Sue, Federal agents seized the fossil and arrested Larson.

Sue was found on land the Institute believed belonged to rancher and Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member Maurice Williams, who had given them permission to dig. In fact, the land was held in federal trust for Williams. Technically that made Sue government property, and gave federal agents the power to seize the fossil. It also was their justification for initiating a massive criminal proceeding against Larson and the institute.

After a lengthy trial, Larson served 19 months in federal prison. He was released in September 1997, only to find that the dinosaur was on the auction block. Sotheby’s sold Sue in October for $8.36 million. She debuted at Chicago’s Field Museum three years later.

Folks have the opportunity to see the controversial skeleton this winter in Sioux Falls. A replica of the ancient bones is part of an exhibition called”A T. Rex Named Sue” at the Washington Pavilion through January 5. A major renovation of the Pavilion’s 4th floor was completed to accommodate the enormous bipedal carnivore and create room for future traveling exhibits. Sue is 42 feet long and 17 feet high at her highest point.”The tail meets the ceiling almost,” says Erica Lacey, Kirby Science Discovery Center Director at the Washington Pavilion.”It needed every inch.”

Along with the replica, there are nine hands-on stations to learn about Sue’s eyesight, movement and sense of smell, and a 23-minute film in the Wells Fargo Cinedome called Waking the T. Rex.”The exhibits help you understand as a whole how she lived when she was alive,” Lacey explains.”It also allows us to bring out some of the walking demonstrations we already had on hand related to our Stan the T. Rex permanently on exhibit in the third floor gallery.”

“A T. Rex Named Sue” opened on September 21.”We’ve seen toddlers and adults all come through and enjoy it,” Lacey says. There have been moments of nostalgia for some as they remember the media attention surrounding Sue’s discovery.”For those people to be able to pass it on to their children and family members has been very precious.”

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Great Plains Zoo

The Great Plains Zoo and Delbridge Museum in Sioux Falls is home to 1,000 animals — from asian cats and anteaters to striped skunks and zebras. And it’s open year-round.

Tommie Fantine Lauer took these photos last September. Lauer was born in Sioux Falls and currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. She makes Lennox her home when visiting South Dakota. You may view more of her photos here.

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One Stormy Night

Scott Korsten shared these photos of a storm passing through Sioux Falls on August 31st. “We were in the city limits of Sioux Falls that Saturday night,” Korsten says. “Our niece had just moved into her new house. Although there was golf ball and baseball-sized hail in some places, her brand new home was spared any damage.”

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Co-op Natural Foods Day

By Rebecca Johnson

Gov. Dennis Daugaard has proclaimed August 17th Co-op Natural Foods Day in South Dakota in honor of the Sioux Falls store’s 40th anniversary. The Co-op got its start on a farm near Garretson in the early 1970s. A small group would pool their money to buy foods like rolled oats, sunflower seeds and brown rice from a warehouse in the Twin Cities. Peter Dye, a former member remembers taking a Volkswagon bus to a Grateful Dead concert and picking up food on the way home. Co-op Natural Foods operated more formally from a few sites around and in Sioux Falls before landing at its current store at 2504 South Duluth about five years ago.

As the operation grew, the store went mainstream as a professionally run business. Co-op Natural Foods now has 1,300 active, stock-holding members, but anyone is welcome to shop at the full-service grocery store specializing in organic products, natural goods, bulk ingredients, and local foods. General Manager Molly Langley says they’ve never lost their”emphasis on providing fresh, healthy food with a transparent production history.”

The store is celebrating this Saturday with a tasting party from 2 — 4 p.m. Several Co-op vendors like Crow Peak Brewing Company and Breadico will serve samples in the store’s parking lot — weather permitting. The event is free and open to the public. At 2:30 they’ll present an award to the late Senator George McGovern for his career-long devotion to helping feed the hungry. The award will be accepted by Judy Harrington, a former McGovern staffer who helped organize the George McGovern Memorial Fund donations to Feeding South Dakota.

“This started out as a moment to celebrate 40 years and its gotten kind of emotional on us,” Langley says.”A lot of people have done a lot over the years to keep the Co-op going.”

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South Dakota Sky

Scott Korsten shared these photos of rural Sioux Falls. “Like so many other South Dakotans, my eyes are drawn to the sky, especially when the weather is active or changing,” Korsten says. “My favorite images come from times when the three C’s are present in varied degrees — clouds, color and change.”

Korsten considers himself a “photo hobbyist.” He regularly volunteers his photography efforts to Children’s Home Society and the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. Korsten is one of the founding partners of Showplace Wood Products and is director of marketing for their cabinet company.

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Siouxland Renaissance Festival

Saturday’s weather was cool and rainy but it didn’t dampen spirits at the Siouxland Renaissance Festival. The 11th annual event was held on the W.H. Lyon Fairgrounds in Sioux Falls on June 1st & 2nd. Visitors were transported to the 16th century through celtic games, mead tasting, jousting, live music, food and entertainment. Photos by Rebecca Johnson.

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‘I Told You So’

By John Andrews

Richard Pettigrew did not leave this earth on good terms with the men who ran Sioux Falls. Despite the fact that he attracted railroads to the fledgling community on the falls of the Big Sioux River, established businesses and secured land grants, his opinions on other political matters alienated him from nearly everyone in town. When he died in 1926, the surveyor, politician, businessman and South Dakota’s first full-term senator was quickly forgotten.

But Darwin Wolf has resurrected Pettigrew. His statue of the man, a project 10 years in the making, was unveiled last week along Phillips Avenue in downtown Sioux Falls. The dedication featured kind words for Pettigrew from city officials, the presentation of a small replica to students from R.F. Pettigrew Elementary who helped raise money for the project (and who watched Wolf sculpt as part of the Artists in Schools program), and deeper reflection on the man who was part city-builder, part scoundrel.

We visited Wolf in his Sioux Falls studio in 2010, when the Pettigrew statue was still a clay head sitting atop a table. When he took the job in 2003, it began with meticulous research, just like his other projects. But the artist grew fascinated with the wily politician.”The more I learned, the more I found that I liked and disliked,” he told us.”He was such a tenacious fighter and did so many good things for Sioux Falls, the monument evolved into being a project for some redemption.”

There are countless stories of Pettigrew’s unscrupulous behavior. There’s the”Deuel County Fraud” that marred his first run for the state legislature. Pettigrew discovered that his opponent had ensured Pettigrew’s name was left off ballots circulated south of Sioux Falls. So naturally, Pettigrew omitted his opponent’s name on ballots north of town. Pettigrew was elected, but the House threw him out.”He fought fire with fire, and he was the one who got burned,” Wolf said at the dedication.

In 1870 Pettigrew and Nyrum Phillips wanted Congress to open Fort Dakota to settlement. Too few people lived within Minnehaha County to sign their petition, so they added names of men they thought would soon arrive and sent the document to Washington. He also started a stockyard and meatpacking plant along the Big Sioux River, but had no plan in place for waste removal. It was simply dumped into the river.

Chicanery aside, we cannot deny the role Pettigrew played in making Sioux Falls the urban center it is today. He brought five railroad lines to town, and got funds to build the county courthouse, post office and penitentiary. And, as Augustana College president Rob Oliver noted at the dedication, he helped secure the land grant on which the school stands today.

As U.S. Senator, many of his stances ran counter to popular opinion. He was an early advocate of women’s suffrage and opposed imperialism and America’s involvement in the Spanish-American War. He was indicted under the Espionage Act for comments disparaging President Woodrow Wilson and encouraging young soldiers to avoid fighting in World War I. His stellar legal team led by Clarence Darrow avoided prosecution, and you can still see the indictment hanging next to the Declaration of Independence inside Pettigrew’s home at the corner of Eighth and Duluth, just as it was on the day he died.

Wolf’s statue stands 10 feet tall (15 if you include the pedestal), and everything about it is meant to vindicate Pettigrew’s position on one final contentious issue. Pettigrew holds a letter in his right hand. It’s meant to be the note he penned to city leaders in the 1920s urging them to spare a piece of land near the falls from urbanization and create a park. They paid him no heed, and businesses soon moved in. Their buildings were hollow shells by the 1990s, when the city decided to remove them and spruce up the area as part of its Phillips to the Falls project.

Today Pettigrew stands at the corner of Fifth and Phillips overlooking downtown as families enjoy Falls Park behind him. If he could say anything to the leaders who occupied those downtown office buildings 100 years ago, it might be the line Wolf scratched into the base of his statue:”I told you so.”