Brainerd Lakes Minnesota MN Inn Accommodations Lodging Bed & And Breakfast BB

Brainerd (MN) Area Back to Basics Educ Opps

Beekeeping Classes

This series of classes will cover the basics of beekeeping for a beginner to understand and start keeping bees. Topics will include: vocabulary, equipment, bees, medications, diseases, and tools. Classes will meet the 1st & 3rd Tuesdays of each month, from January - May, as follows:
Jan. 6 - Introduction: vocabulary, equipment, bees, reference books
Jan. 20 - Bees: boxes, condos, hives, bee biology
Feb. 3 - Bee Biology & Equipment: diseases, pests, building boxes
Feb. 17 - Bee care: location, protection, feeding
Mar. 3 - Research: visit U of M, more diseases/pest prevention
Mar. 17 - Q&A: feeding, integrated pest management, etc.
Apr. 7 - Colonies: bee yard construction, cleaning, pollenating
Apr. 21 - Maintenance: cleaning, repair, feeding
May 5 - Maintenance: feeding, medicating, etc.
May 19 - Honey: prepare supers, clean & scrape boxes, clean honey house

6:00PM-7:30PM

Hunt Utilities Group Campus, Hwy. 2, West of Pine River
Cost: $5 per session, or $40 for all 10 sessions

For more information, contact:
Jim Etzel
218.587.5001
jime@hugllc.com

Join together with friends, neighbors, & family to expand your knowledge about all aspects of living sustainably at Back to Basics-Less is More, January 31, 8 a.m.-4:15 p.m., Pine River-Backus School.

 

Montessori Charter School Information Meeting The Discovery Woods Montessori School Development Team is exploring the possibility of starting a charter school for K- 6th graders in the Brainerd area. Charter schools are tuition-free public schools. Come learn about charter schools, Montessori education, and how you can get involved. March 3, 2009 6:00-7:30 p.m. Lakewood Evangelical Church, Baxter

Living off the grid without reliance on public utilities for things like electricity and water, is becoming a more common practice. Hear how people are doing it and glean lessons that you can apply to your own way of life. Brainerd Area Environmental Learning Network (BAELN)
The Path Less Traveled is offering a free event . Taking Charge: One Family's Journey toward Energy Self-Sufficiency The session will include an hour-long presentation with time for questions, networking, and refreshments. June 18, 3-5 p.m, MN Pollution Control Agency in Baxter, 7678 College Rd. Topics subject to change. For more information call Stephen Mikkelson at (218) 855-5001 or 1-800-657-3864.
 

 

pies... oh, my!

    

In the August 2007 issue of Midwest Living Magazine, the editor so wisely stated, "To know a community is to know its pie." Dick and I are continually searching for the best pie as we travel across the country, so we have learned that one must veer off the Interstate onto the backroads to talk to the locals who live in the small towns to find it. We have concluded that the best tasting pie is in our own backyard! In fact, it was chosen for the distinct honor of being one of three restaurants in the Brainerd/Baxter area chosen to be in the "57 Restaurants Worth the Drive" feature in the Minnesota Monthly Magazine July 2007 issue.

"The Barn", a restaurant located on Washington Street just a block from Brainerd's landmark water tower, opened in 1945 and was owned by a family from Iowa. In 1970, Gary Kinney's parents bought it. For almost twenty years his mom made the pies and helped run the business with his dad. In 1989, Gary bought the restaurant and started making the pies himself. The pies are stored in the original pie case to entice new customers to try a slice and be forever hooked. See the old-time tables and booths through the glass of the pie case? There are four of them along one wall and three on the other side of the room, as well as two small two-seaters along a third wall. You can also choose to sit at one of nine stools at the counter. The Barn has retained its small size throughout the years, which gives it its small town coziness where regular customers, as well as newcomers, quickly become family.

   

It was 9:30 this morning when Dick and I shared bites of this banana cream pie with mile-high meringue, still warm from the oven, after eating breakfast at The Barn. Rhubarb custard and sour cream raisin are other favorites of mine, but the coconut, lemon, apple, cherry, blueberry, and pumpkin are equally yummy. Gary bakes twenty pies early each morning and increases that number to thirty during the summer months. In addition to pies, The Barn, which is part of the original Maid-Rite franchises, offers menu selections as well as daily specials, homemade soups, and Maid-Rites. A "Maid-Rite" is finely ground, specially seasoned, ground beef on a bun... like a sloppy joe but without the sauce. It is served with mustard, pickles or chopped onions.

One of my mottos is: "Of all the paths you take in life... make sure a few of them are dirt." Translated that means to me that we need to slow our pace to be able to discover the true gems that so easily can be hidden from our view in life's hustle and bustle. The Barn is one such gem that you must not miss during your visit to the Brainerd Lakes Area. 

Hours:
5:30am – 4:00pm Monday through Friday
5:30am – 3:00pm on Saturday
Closed Sunday

Sunday-To Church and Mine Pit Lakes

On a warm afternoon, Dick and I like to drive through the backroads that wind through the Cuyuna Range Mine Pits near Crosby, Minnesota located twelve miles northeast of Whiteley Creek Homestead Bed and Breakfast. Today, on this early spring Sunday afternoon bright with sunshine, we did just that.

The dirt roads, which were spread with iron ore when they were originally constructed as an access to the mines, are no longer colored as dark a red as in years past. However, their hue is still unique enough to imagine the former activity that took place on these roads for 80 years. More than 106 million tons of ore were mined and shipped from the Cuyuna Range between its discovery in 1904, and 1984, when mining ceased. Dick's father was employed there for many years and his Grandma Olive Dullum ran a boarding house for the miners in her home in the nearby town of Woodrow.

The open-pit iron ore mining in this area, and the little towns that once thrived from serving the miners needs, has long ago become a meer skeleton of former booming activity. Remnants of building foundations can still be found in the dense undisturbed overgrowth. Tremendous beauty, however, abounds in these former pits that are now lakes stocked with trout to fish, canoe, kayak, and scuba dive.

The Cuyuna Lakes Trail for hiking, rollerblading, and biking weaves in between the mine pit lakes. The trail, which was built in 2005, is lesser known than the Paul Bunyan Trail in Brainerd but is as, if not more, beautiful. Cycle Path & Paddle in Crosby, a source for "silent sport" adventures, offers canoe, kayak, in-line skate, and bike rental. They offer drop-off service to a mine lake where you can paddle from that lake into four additional mine lakes. The area, owned and managed by the DNR, is very much a wilderness without human inhabitation... a hidden gem.