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Battle of the Books and Books

Lifestyle Columns

The Traverse des Sioux Library Cooperative will host its Tween and Teen Battle of the Books on August 2, 2025 at the St. Peter Community Center. Battle of the Books is now accepting participant applications. You can apply at the New Ulm Public Library or on our website at www.newulmlibrary.org. Just scroll down on the library’s home page and click on the poster for the event in your age range. You have until May 29 at noon to apply and space is limited. Tweens (ages 9-12) and teens (ages 13 -18) who are accepted will receive four books to keep. You will be notified when your books ...

A passion for creativity

Lifestyle Feature

One of the more talented advertising artists at The Journal, Joyce Reese of Layfayette continues her passion for art in retirement. Long-time Journal readers may remember advertising artist Reese’s full-page advertisements in the Sunday edition of The Daily Journal she helped create ...

Off the Shelf

Lifestyle Columns

Pooh book by A.A. Milne, Pooh and Piglet set out on a very windy day to visit as many friends as they can within the Hundred Acre Wood to wish them a happy Thursday and perhaps get a “little smackerel of something.” Their friend Owl remarks, “…am I right in supposing that it is a very Blusterous day outside?” I have often been reminded of this story in the past few weeks as many people have commented on how windy it has been. Much like in the Winnie the Pooh story, trees have been knocked down by the wind, and people have been blown about too. In the English language, we have ...

Wooden knives are functional works of folk art

Lifestyle Columns

A knife with a painted wooden blade might sound like something strictly decorative. If it’s a flax knife, or scutching knife, that’s not the case. Before mechanization, making flax into linen fabric was a very long, complicated, multi-step process. Scutching, removing the tough stalk from prepared flax stems, comes partway through this process. The resulting flax fibers are then further processed, spun into thread and finally woven into linen. The fibers are separated from the stalk by scraping or beating, not cutting; so scutching knives are made of wood. There are simple wooden ...

Dunwa Omot makes ‘his mark’

Lifestyle Feature

On March 15, Southwest Minnesota State University’s Dunwa Omot played the last game of his collegiate basketball career as the Mustangs took a close 69-62 loss to Winona State in the opening round of the DII NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. In the game, Omot scored 12 points by hitting ...