Main Street
Scott Olsen - Fargo Street Photography; Coffee Shops; Dead Zone Runoff
Support for Prairie Public is provided by Ted X. Fargo 2024. Journey into the enigmatic terrain of the unknown, where if beckons the curious, the daring, and the dreamers. July 25th at the Fargo Civic Center. Information available at TedXVargo.com. This is Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Ashley Thornberg. Coming up in the second half of today's show, a coffee, the art of the local coffee shop as we visit with Ricky on for Prairie Plates. Coffee shops and local cafes, of course, it's so important for setting the scene and the feel of a place. But how do you capture a sense of a place? Photographer W. Scott Olson is out with a new book, Fargo Street, documenting everyday life in a small city. And this book explores the people who call this place home. There are a few things really more fascinating or illuminating than looking at any town's street culture, the way people move around when they're outdoors. So what are you looking for and what are you seeing about the town right now? Well, all sorts of things are going on right now. You have people using Broadway Square as a place to relax and sort of spend part of the morning. You have a special event being set up. You have people walking through that may or may not know where they're heading. It is a microcosm and a great example of a great many things that are going on at the same time. Street culture is the kind of place where people are unguarded, where they are unapologetic. They're just being themselves outdoors. Now, I am in this space as an audio professional. Right now, I am noticing in particular that my left ear can hear this music. I'm hearing the opening and closing of these tables, like in here, as I'm zipping up my bag to try to move along. How do you navigate a space like this when you're holding a camera? It's not actually all that different. I listen as well, and I hear all the things that you've heard as well as the traffic as well as what people are actually saying in their conversations. I am a horrendous eavesdropper. I love listening to other people's conversations. A professional voyeur is what I like to call themselves. Well, which is what a street photographer is as well. Now, there's all sorts of things of interest. There's the visual of the tables that are being put up here. There are what people are wearing given the temperature that it is today and the forecast for the rest of the day. There are people's different purposes for being here and how their behavior sort of manifests that. There are colors. I mean, this is actually a fairly colorful place. They're the flowers on the light poles. There's the green of the trees, the green of the astroturf. I'm looking at these angel wings that I'm trying to look like ice cream cones, honestly, bright pink on top, yellow in the middle, blue wings. They look like if Dr. Seuss designed an ice cream cone. Absolutely. And those angel wings are magnificent for street photography because so many people walk by and either respond to them or don't. And people that ignore them when you put them in that same composition really can be an interesting commentary as well. Okay, tell me more about that. During the street fair, during the markets, you know, people walk by that all the time. And if you get somebody looking, let's just say, less than angelic, and put them-- Why don't you look at me when you said that? Don't be. You get some great bits of irony. When I contrast, I don't mean visual contrast. Like subject meaning contrast. Those things, the rock that's here in the park, the furniture, walk all through downtown and you see great opportunities where the setting is as much a part of the content of the image as the people you're photographing. Well, let's do that. Let's keep walking. As you're walking around with your camera, do you have a planned route? Like, where do you want to go? Right, left, J-walking? Well, we'll just start right here for a second. Okay. Do I have a plan? No. Do I have an area? Yes. Okay. And I'll let serendipity and chance lead me wherever I want to follow. For example, on a Saturday morning, there's an event center right across the street here where a lot of wedding things go on. And knowing that, I know I'm going to see dressed up people. I know I'm going to see crowds of people that look the same. And sometimes... Somebody's going to be rushing. Someone's going to be dropping things. Someone's going to be carrying lots and lots of stuff. Well, there's one of the great photographs that I missed, and I'm still kicking myself for this. This young woman who's dressed elegantly in a long dress with high heels came down the street holding about 75 balloons. And it was one of those days where the wind was blowing about 40 miles an hour. And I thought, "Oh, please Lord, let me get my camera out fast enough." Because it was a struggle. She was having a time. And I didn't get that one. And now. But stuff like that happens. And here in front of the Jasper, you people arriving and departing all the time. So there's a lot of commotion. And of course, here in the park, you have everything from yoga lessons to concerts to whatever. People congregate here. It's a park. So you're always going to see someone that looks interesting. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit more about what you just said about, "Please, let me get my camera out there." Did you ever feel like you could say, "Hold on, just wait. Let me get the camera." It's like, could you have done that and still been a street photographer? Absolutely. I am one of those people that... Really, I walk around with my camera in my hand. I am not hiding the fact that I am taking street photographs. And a lot of street photographers actually do pry themselves on stealth. They don't want to be seen. Yeah. They say that's going to end. Shoot from the head. Or these little tiny cameras. They say making their presence known dilutes the moment. And I agree with them at some time. But those aren't the only moments. If you go through the book, you'll see fully half the images. Got to love the loud cars. Yeah. Fargo loves cars. This is the hang around down here. You're going to see old cars. You're going to see classic cars. You're going to see all sorts of things. And the people who are driving them. The people who are parading their vehicles around. Yeah. Quite often, if I see somebody who has an interesting look, I will go up to them and I will say, "You've got a great look, do you mind if I take your picture?" And that is street photography. It's a street portrait. It's sort of a subset. They are fully aware that I'm taking their picture. And then we go on. Just as often, I will take a picture. And whoever I'm taking a picture of has no idea that I have taken the picture. And it's not private behavior. It's behavior out in public. It is the kind of thing that I don't want to ruin the moment. And I will often, after that, go up to them. And say, "Hey, I just took a great picture of you. Are you okay with this?" And they will say, "Yes or no?" If they say, "No, I will delete it." Right in front of them. I will delete it. Okay. Legally, you have the right to photograph anything that happens in public view. But, ethically, you did feel like you need to... There is a big difference between law and ethics and street photography. Oh, that's passed for a second right here. Like, are you seeing this outfit coming up? Yeah. Like, this is a fabulous little woman in, like, a full, silk, pink outfit. Like, how much do you want your camera right now? You guys all look fantastic. Here we go. We have a car. Now, one of the things a habit of street photographers is the compliment. And I don't mean to lie. I mean, you don't go up and something. But, it's really a good thing to... If you're going to talk to somebody, is to say, "I think you look interesting." You look cool. Yeah. Okay. So... And it's amazing how easily people will want to talk to you. I have had a vacation several times where I've walked up to somebody after taking their picture. And I've said, "Hey, I got this picture. What do you think?" I was okay. And they said, "Oh, I wish you would. I'd delete it right in front of them." And then I've had them chase me down and say, "Can you take that again?" Oh, really? Yeah. They say, "You know, actually that was, you know..." That was cool. That was okay. Yeah. How interesting. And there are all sorts of other ethics in there. Yeah. Such as photographing children or photographing the homeless or photographing people that don't have, perhaps as much authority or agency to respond to you. Oh, sure. As you want. And it's really easy to exploit people as a street photographer. Yeah. And realizing that the subtleties of that are important. You keep that in mind the entire time. There is, for example, right up around the corner from us here a fire escape that has a covering at the end. And just before they serve breakfast over here at the Salvation Army, during the summer, during the warm weather, there's probably somebody sleeping underneath that. Which I know because I'm downtown a lot. I see what's going on. I don't know the picture of that. That's not something I'm interested in taking a picture of. Well, yeah. Okay. They don't have the ability to say no in the way that I think is responsible for me. Like I said, you know, they say they take a picture of kids. Okay. You know, can they say no? Yes. So they really understand what's going on. No. Now, standing here at the window of mezzaluna. I stood out here and took a picture of them cooking one night. Oh, nice. Okay. And they saw me. Yeah. Okay. And I'm in a public place. They have a giant window there. Yeah. That's part of why they're doing that. Yes. That's part of their marketing. Absolutely. How do you go through the process of deciding what ends up in the book? Because you have images of kids going down a sledding hill. You have people at protests. You have people dancing in the street. You have a guy sitting in an apartment window across from a cat. You have a guy doing handstands in the park. You have the governor and his bodyguard. But how do you decide who's going to end up staying in the book? I have thousands of pictures that are not in the book, even though they might be interesting. The picture has to be, first of all, compelling just in its own right. There has to be a narrative. There has to be something about the image that makes you wonder or engage with what's going on. So story is actually the first dynamic that I've got. Is there a story in this image that is implied or explicit or makes you want to know what's going on here? I'm a great fan of irony. I'm a great fan of a disconnect, so there's generally in the images things that don't match. That's not always the case, but often it is. I'm not out to get anybody. And I have a bunch of images that I think are wonderful images that will never see the light of day, because that's being a little mean, that's being a little bit too hardcore in terms of exposing something. You're telling me you'd be a terrible paparazzi photographer. No, I would simply make a different decision. I would say, okay, I am out to get somebody. And frankly, if I was doing this on some other assignment, let's say I was doing a giant exposé on sidewalks, you know, I would be working with a different ethic. No, my ethic in my projects really is to illuminate and sort of celebrate the town more than expose something seemingly about it. Narrative is the first thing that goes in there. And a good sense of composition, I mean, the image itself is balanced. Finally, the emotion that it evokes, street photography, if you're thinking about New York or Paris or London, rarely includes landscape shots. For some reason, you don't see a lot of pictures of Central Park or Hyde Park in street photography books from those cities. And yet I included a bunch of them in my book because landscape around here, you know, being as small as we are, is a good bit more present. And there are things down here like this thing right here. What are we looking at? This is Radio Scott. Okay, this is, we're in Robert's Alley and this is the faded painted sign across the alley from beer and fish for something or other. And orders for something overall, something, something, toggery, is toggery a word. Could be. But you know, there is this whole thing out there called ghost signs, which are exactly this. The signs, the old painted signs. And Fargo is filled with them. If you start walking around, then you realize there is a story, not so much of people, but of... The Plains. The Plains. The history. Mm-hmm. Now, if you remember standing here in Robert's Alley today, one of the things that you notice is that all the superstructure is gone, all the old telephone poles and electric wires that used to be up there. Okay, I did not notice what's not here. Right. One of the things about a street photographer is it's not to show up on a Tuesday afternoon shoot and leave. Yeah. It's history. It's knowing what's going on. Yeah. There are the tracks of the old trolley system in the alley over by the Mario wall, you know, knowing that that's the old trolley system. It leads you to something else. So... There's so much more texture than I've ever paid attention to right now with just the, there are paintings on a nice brick facade, there has been... The artwork on the electrical stuff. There's artwork that's on the electrical stuff. There's somebody who is experiencing homelessness hanging out back there. There is a kind of a tapestry painted, I kind of go with the term industrial chic and they just try to paint over existing, you know, infrastructure, but then across the way you've got this little enclave of bright colored flowers and ivy growing over an area that, you know, you'd walk behind this door and suddenly you sort of feel like you're in a totally different place. Absolutely. And street work is a series of choices. I can stand right here and think I've got a wide angle lens on. I'm going to try and capture as much as I can. Yeah. Or I'm going to put on a really tight lens and I'm going to go for some small detail that I find residents or evocative that way. Yeah. How often are you caught by surprise? All the time, absolutely all the time. Because there is, I mean you and I could walk around the block and come right back down this alley, the cars will have changed, the people will have changed, the light will have changed. There's one story for example, there's a guy who probably most of us know, who plays street guitar and he's generally hanging out over near atomic coffee. Well, one afternoon the police were after him just a little bit about using an amplifier. As I understand the story, he had a permission for busking, but not for amplified music. And he said, well, what about all the loud music coming out of these cars that are going by? They're a lot louder than I am. And the police told them that music coming from cars is not covered by the ordinance. So he went and he got his pickup truck. He sat in the bed of his pickles. And that's the picture I bought. And I love that. Yeah, he wasn't being disturbing or annoying or anything, but he looked at it. Why is this guy sitting in the bed of a pickup truck playing guitar? Right. No, there you go. He's making a point. It's kind of like the people who can't have chickens because they're too loud, but nobody cares about the dogs. Yeah. Now, one of the images in the book you'll notice right here doesn't exist anymore. They've taken that fire escape down. Oh, okay. Okay, and so there's going to be an image where you say, where is that? You can't go find it anymore. So there is a historical value. The alleys of Fargo are all very interesting, but oh, yeah, this is remarkably different from Robert's alley. There's like no color. No, but here we've got the graver barbers with a great window. And it never appealed to me photographically until one tremendously cold, blizzardy day I was driving by and here was some guy getting his haircut in the window with the snow and the wind and everything. And I thought, there's an image. There's that disconnect, you know, the kind of intimacy and familiarity of getting your haircut with weather that will kill you. So we have to have an intimate relationship with weather around here. There are a lot of weather images in the book. Yeah, well, I mean, you're capturing a sense of place in a city known for weather that will kill you. And yet it doesn't take over. The images that included the weather kind of made me snicker, like the mailbox that was just completely covered in snow, whereas I feel like if I was walking around to that, I'd be so angry. We brag about the weather around here. When we get horrible storms, we get on the phone and call people and say, it's 15 degrees below zero because we want people to be impressed with the fact that we're still alive. Fargo as you also know, it has, what, 32, 33 murals. They are interesting in and of themselves. What have you noticed about like the way people interact with space based on the changes that have happened? When I came here for college in the early 2000s, I don't remember any of these murals. And maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I mean, we definitely didn't have Broadway Square. We definitely didn't have the wings to pose in front of all the big like fun art spaces to pose. You know, people's relationships to space is really complicated. I mean, there used to be a little cliché that people would never subscribe to a newspaper until they got a mortgage. One state felt like I have roots. I have roots. Yeah. And there's a lot of people, you know, especially in the student population, that they, you know, they don't feel invested that way in the town. Sometimes often what's interesting is simple geometry. Oh, yeah. I mean, one branch of street photography is what's called urban landscape or architecture, where you just walk around and you look for really cool patterns in the physical presence of a town. This series of electrical boxes here in the Condo, it's leading into the apartment building, just graphically is really intriguing, you know, why, you know, the whole branch of philosophy called aesthetics. Why is this beautiful? Yeah. Because I tried to explain that. Right. Now see, this to me would be interesting. Oh, yeah. This is just a discarded pile of bricks, clearly from a demolition site. Yep. As you can hear, there's a fair bit of demolition and construction going on on this lawn. And those bricks won't be there in a week. Right. Yeah. So you got to get them now. Sites in town have their own clientele, they have their own groups of people. So standing again here, you know, at Broadway in second, we have on one corner of the VFW, which is one population. Across the street, we have the silver lining, Creamery, which is a very different population, but they all meet right here. And so street photographers talk about hunting and fishing. Hunting is you go walking around looking for stuff. Fishing is you sit down and wait. And it's not either or it's both and. But this corner right here in the park is a great place just to settle. And that's what happened the other day when this guy comes along and starts dropping off what he called gratitude stones in town. Little rocks that he'd rubber banded sayings of gratitude, he was just leaving all around town for people to find. And the only reason I saw him was because I was not moving. I was simply sitting still waiting to see what came to the square versus walking. Other days, I'm huffing it. I'm going everywhere I possibly can. Yeah. And do you decide that ahead of time or is this how much of this is just instinct? Instinct accident. I mean, I may walk for an hour and think I'm tired, I'm going to sit down. Now I'm going to wait for an hour. Some of it's based on, you know, what's going on. Yeah. Okay. You know, there is the guy sets up here quite a bit because the soul tacos, okay? I really like his food. So I'll hang out there for a while. People in this town are fairly approachable and it might be, you know, because I'm just an old guy walking around and you look relatively harmless, I've not had ever any issues of people responding badly to what I'm doing. I have to have people say, no, when I say, can I take your picture? Okay. Fine. You know, that's, you know. If I have that, right? They do. Now, which brings up an interesting thing about when the book comes out. Then I took their picture. Many people knew I was taking their picture. Many people didn't, but none of them know because I didn't know at the time that they're going to be in a book. And so I think this book is going to be a huge surprise and I'm hoping a pleasant surprise to a lot of people. Okay. Just stop right here. We have a dunk tank. We're walking down the street and this was not here when we walked by an hour ago. No, but now you start to wonder. Why is there a dunk tank on a trailer in the middle of the street on a Wednesday morning? What's next for you? A new project that I'm also starting, which is more street photography, but in one of the classic cities of the world, I won't say I can't say where, but I'm going to make a little trip and do a dedicated dive. You're going to Des Moines? Des Moines. Yes. That was a photographer W. Scott Olson about his book Fargo Street. Presale is going on right now and it ends July 15th. It's $28 on presale and after presale ends on July 15th, it goes up to $40 plus shipping. And Scott notes that anyone who orders within 60 miles of Fargo Morehead will get the book hand delivered by Scott himself, just type in local when you order the book and it is available at readframes.com by searching Fargo Street. And just a side note, it has already sold to people in 23 different countries. Still to come on Main Street, Prairie Plates with Riccion as we go in search of good coffee and caramel rolls. That's after this. But for Prairie Public is provided by the Bush Foundation, investing in great ideas and the people who power them. Introducing the recipients of the 2024 Bush Fellowship. Learn more about the 2024 fellows at bushfoundation.org/fellows. And with that music, it means it's time for Prairie Plates with Riccion. Ric, thanks for joining us today. Good to be back with you Ashley. We're always happy to have you on Main Street and today we are not quite in the Main Street Studio. Well where are we Ric? We are at Moonrise Cafe in downtown Fargo which has great coffee items and really good baked items and their cakes are phenomenal so yeah we're enjoying our outing today. Alright so why did you want us to chat at not just a coffee shop but you know not a chain coffee shop? Yeah I think local, we try to emphasize local on this segment not that we're against chain and franchise places, they employ a lot of people and that's really good for the economy but I think there's a really good local scene happening honestly throughout North Dakota and you really see it in these coffee shops and it's not only here in downtown Fargo but you see it in Bismarck quite a bit, Grand Forks and I was just down in Elgin in Mott, North Dakota and they have a coffee shop called the Sippin' Chicken. Oh I love that, tell me everything. Yes. Okay for starters why is it called the Sippin' Chicken? Are you drinking chicken bums? Well maybe next time I'll ask that question but yeah it's- You know you're up with the chickens and you're having coffee and that wakes you up. You know I don't know, I'm just speculating. There's a lot of farms around there so that's probably it but it's a nice little coffee shop that's very well run. Two younger gals are running it, had a nice conversation with them and so next time I will ask them what's up with this name? Right or send an email to Main Street at Prairie Public that Oregon if you know the origin of that name but Rick I want to zero in on the two words that you used a moment to go local scene. Yeah. What do you mean when you say local scene? I think you're seeing kind of, I don't know about a resurgence but just a really good development of local, locally run coffee shops, butcher shops, restaurants, North Dakota and I think a lot of people would agree with me that 20 plus years ago it was a lot of franchise and chain places and again I'm not against that. I just think that people are really interested in food, they're really interested in agriculture, they're really interested in community, they're really interested in serving people and this is the way they can do it and so it's really been phenomenal. When I drive around the state I really try to emphasize going to these local places whether it's a butcher shop, a cafe or a coffee shop like the Tulip and Mott or the Sip and Chicken and Elgin or here at Moonarizing Downtown Park. I love both of those names. Yeah. And in Bismarck you're seeing like Anima Kuchina, Brick Oven Bakery, there's many others, there's many coffee shops throughout the state. These are just places I like to go and I understand people like to go other places too but you're seeing like developments like James Beard Semifinalist nominations such as Anima Kuchina and Bismarck or here in Fargo Luna, burn bombs. You're just seeing these things happen, Mollye up in East Grand Fork so I just got a nice note from because I sent her a Goodis Essen cookbook not too long ago but she's really running a nice outfit called Bernie's in East Grand Fork so you're really seeing a large development especially after COVID which is surprising because I think the food industry is giving you a lot of staffing issues, staffing issues, supply chain, prices are high, it's not an easy business to be in so I'm thankful to be on Main Street in the show to not promote but just discuss all these local places that are popping up. Well talk a little bit about the feel of a place when it's local versus you know when you are walking into something that could be in any city. Yeah I mean for a coffee shop it's definitely the smell and I think it smells great no matter if it's Starbucks or moonrise but I think you're just going to find a little bit more feel and things you're going to find a little bit more personality because they're not doing the corporate thing I guess and again I've seen a lot of local art, a lot of posters that are literally put up like you can see the tape line, these are not professionally framed yeah holes in the wall from the ends that sort of thing and yeah the local art is great and being involved in community, the red river market's coming up here right next door on Saturday it becomes a community is what it does and that's just I think it's an upper midwest thing it's just really it's been really fun to see. Yeah you know it's funny for me I grew up in Valhalla and there was a section of the Sunnax where you'd go and get gas and there was one booth there and it was the same eight older men who would come and sit there and drink their gas station coffee and have their conversation about the weather probably I mean probably that's pretty important to most of the careers in that area yes but yeah in that case it wasn't so much about the coffee but it was very much about having a place where people who just kind of get it like they understand your life and where you're coming from and it's like it's its own little safe space it is and people that have gotten to know me over the East Wing public offices know I drink coffee kind of like an old man some days like a grumpy old man some days I'm not grumpy so I really does it depend on the caffeine intake if you are grumpy or not it depends on the part of the day but yes but yeah that is all a part of it too and we can't discount the Senex station at all because that's where a lot of the community revolves around too but coffee kind of brings people together food brings people together and it's not it's not a new thing but it's just kind of shifted gears I think in the last 20 years in North Dakota to more locally owned places and I think it's really good to see yeah yeah yeah let's talk about the pastry game because rarely do you go into a coffee shop for just coffee come on oh you need a treat you need a little snack right the amount of times I've convinced myself I deserve a treat for walking into a building it's just shocking yeah so here the cakes are really good they make extremely good cookies sandwiches the soup here is amazing but then on the other side of the state in Elgin North Dakota and the sip and chicken there was an article in one of the newspapers not too long ago saying that they had some of the best caramel rolls in the state and I did buy one and it was the size of my head how do they do that I make caramel rolls from scratch and they're never bigger than my fist and I follow all the directions it's from a cookbook from a world-renowned baker how do you get them so big sounds like you need to go to the sip and chicken I think so but it was quite good and I will say it's one of the better caramel rolls I had in the state so yes they're they're onto something so tell me about you know there's a cinnamon bun there's a caramel roll there's you know honey almond you can do all sorts of different sorts of slurries where are you at when it comes to this most delicious of refined carbohydrates I'm into the caramel rolls and at the sip and chicken they have both cinnamon bun huge ones and caramel rolls but I'm into caramel rolls all day I love them they're just really good I just like the caramel I like the butter I like the cinnamon it's just a really good combo and it goes well with coffee obviously yeah yeah it's an incentive I feel like I'm a little heavier on the butter end of things so I tend to gravitate towards the pastries that are a little bit more sure like European versus American because I'm like oh no I want I want the butter like if I could just have the butter in an IV I would do that you and I both and you know Nicole's fine pastry on the edge of downtown Fargo here is amazing for that Bernie's make some really good croissants and east grandfarks but I think the best one on that end is brick oven bakery in downtown Bismarck okay they are killing it those pastries are world class they're amazing that place is busy they sell out of pastries and their nephla soup is actually quite good so just a little tip there it's not all about the sweets all right so what else you got going on like food wise what are you because we're still doing some food festivals and stuff coming up for the summer we're a little bit past fair season around here anyway and maybe not eating too much on a stick right now my big thing is the Red River market on Saturday right next door to hear I'm guessing there will be five to ten thousand people here the first three or four of them two Bell them is is a fix and to be at the one in Bismarck this Saturday I know oh great yeah well maybe I'll go to the one here and and the one in Bismarck I know got to check things out yeah well I mean it is it is the time where we can start getting some of the early season produce the lettuce the radishes some of the maybe the carrots string beans maybe peas I don't know it's kind of been an interesting growing season this year because it's been chilly yeah and a lot of moisture very wet a lot of moisture yeah yeah yeah I know that my and I'm not growing food I'm just got plants but my garden is as lush as I have ever seen it around here yeah and it's interesting I was talking to some farmers at animal kachina in Bismarck a couple days ago and they were saying the wheat in south this is in southwestern North Dakota doing quite well but the corn needs hot it needs sun it needs hot there's a lot of moisture in so corn crop may suffer a little bit this year if we don't get these hot days but it's hot this week and pretty much the whole whole state so I think I think they're getting what they're asking well and if it's good for the wheat I mean it could be good for the caramel roll industry yeah it all is connected isn't it yes and the sugar for the sugar beets and the valley here and all of that stuff we're growing ourselves a lot of treats here on that main street and if you have ideas for Rick or want to get in on this best caramel roll instead of North Dakota options send an email to plates@puripublic.org that will get you directly to Rick or if you want to contact us through Main Street you can send it to Main Street at PrairiePublic.org always looking forward to hearing about what it is you love to eat and what brings us together about food well Rick it has been a pleasure this is my last official recording of Prairie Plates with you but it's been a real pleasure working on this segment and I sure appreciate the way that you are getting around the state and showcasing the incredible talent in what I consider to be the finest of all the art forms which is food I do too absolutely certainly the most delicious I mean I love painters I love sculptors I love musicians but you can't eat it can you lick paintings I don't know let's let's not find out yeah about that well I'm going to miss you too and this has really been a lot of fun to do and just to talk about food in North Dakota in the upper Midwest and the growing food scene and happy to be a part of that I look forward to following you on your Facebook page which one more time as a reminder Fargo Morehead eats it's a big Facebook group about 40,000 members these days okay and what was it when you started well obviously it was zero but like how long did it take to get to 40,000 I started it about three years ago now to be three years in September so it really blew up it's one of the larger group pages in the state of North Dakota and there's a lot of people on it from all over the area yeah it's it's it's pretty insane you know I've said it before you might need to change the name Tom brussell was actually mentioned that too you might have to call it North Dakota eats you too you too you two need to be my marketing director welcome back to main street on Prairie public I'm Craig blooming shine it's called the dead zone it's a massive area off the Gulf of Mexico that's so low in oxygen fish and other aquatic life can't live there roughly 70% of harmful nutrients that caused the dead zone come from farms in the Midwest namely fertilizer and climate change may be making this runoff worse without specific laws to regulate the use of fertilizer farmers are left to make changes on their own but many don't Mississippi river basin and water desk reporter eric schmid reports on why dug downs farms about 2000 acres of corn and soybeans in central Illinois a few years ago a farm next door to his was for sale it was a public auction and up on a board were numbers of how much that farm had produced each year I hate to say it like this they were shockingly low for the type of farm they were in the area the farm was known to use cover crops in the off-season plants like cereal rye or wheat which can soak up nutrients like nitrogen and keep them from running off and polluting the water Downs had long been curious if cover crops could work on his fields but these numbers I'm like holy cow I mean I could there's no way I could make that work Downs isn't against cover crops he's used them for years and these days about 15 to 20 percent of his fields have them but I can't use them everywhere I can't lose money for the sake of growing the cover crop so Downs does what many Midwestern farmers do he uses additional fertilizer for the corn he grows I need that nitrogen I gotta have it it's this nitrogen that's causing the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack says some farmers are even using more of it than they need to many of our corn acres are being over fertilized the reason is most farmers are focused on growing as much corn and soy as they can each year so says Jay are buckle a rural sociologist at Iowa State University who has surveyed hundreds of farmers over the past 25 years they tell him it's all about their bottom line you know if I'm not economically sustainable in the short term there's no way I can be environmentally sustainable in the long term what some farmers may not realize our buckle says is that cover crops make more nitrogen available in the soil which means farmers could spend less money on additional fertilizer this would make their profits bigger and put fewer pollutants in the water but it could take years before an operation like that becomes profitable years that many farmers simply can't afford our buckle says this is the result of a decades old system that rewards farmers for growing as much as they can regardless of the consequences farmers are now saying well we've we've done what you asked us to do and now we're being asked to do something different how do I get there one program that's answering that question is precision conservation management which is run by the Illinois Corn Growers Association it uses government and private money to pay farmers to try things like cover crops or no-till farming which can reduce the need for extra nitrogen and these practices can produce crops that could then be marketed as better for the environment at decker who also farms corn and soy in central Illinois recently signed up he says while he and other farmers value their independence it is nice to get paid to try something new it's a double-edged sword honestly we kind of need to be doing it on our own if that's the right thing to do in the long term the program is still pretty small only a fraction of Illinois farmers are enrolled the idea is to get farmers to change now before the federal or state government steps in to regulate them dug downs expects this will happen that farmers like him will eventually be required to use more cover crops and less synthetic fertilizers he says he'll try anything that could help him do that it just has to make sense for his bottom line we're not providing a service i mean i hate to say it like that i'm here to make a living my my definition of sustainability is staying in business and putting my kids through school and making my mortgage payments and making my farm payments you know you certainly don't want to plute my water for now downs says he will use less fertilizer next year and see if he can figure out how to make it and other sustainable farming practices work for him in the future i'm Eric Schmid this story comes from the Mississippi River Basin egg and water desk and it's being distributed through harvest public media Dakota Datebook is next this is Dakota Datebook for July 10th on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 the battlefields of Europe fell silent as the armistice went into effect after the fighting ended it took several months to hash out a final treaty the allies presented their version to Germany on May 7th but Germany rejected the harsh terms on June 17th the allies gave Germany an ultimatum except the treaty as written or the war would resume Germany had little choice on June 28th 1919 a solemn delegation gathered at the palace of Versailles on one side of the table were representatives of France the United States Great Britain and Italy the german delegation consisted of the minister of foreign affairs and one assistant today we are accustomed to instant communication and are able to watch live coverage of momentous events that was not the case in 1919 while articles could be speedily transmitted by telegraph sending pictures was another matter on this date in 1919 a front page article in the bismarck tribune explained how the newspaper scored a scoop and obtained a photograph of the treaty signing calling it the most remarkable achievement of modern journalism the tribune was a member of the newspaper enterprise association that organization had obtained the photograph and distributed it to its members it was a major undertaking a british royal airforce plane flew the photograph from paris to london and what the newspaper noted was the blazing speed of 130 miles per hour a courier met the plane in london and took the photograph to edenborough scottland by train there the courier turned the photograph over to commander lense down of the united states navy lense down took the photograph to the united states on a Zeppelin a newspaper enterprise association representative met the airship the moment it landed and drove the photograph to new york the photograph then had to be engraved so it was in a printable form from there the association rushed the picture to members by a process called phototelography the tribune bragged that the picture was in the possession of the newspaper before it reached officials in washington and that was how north dakotans got their first glimpse of the momentous event today's dakota datebook written by dr carol butcher i'm an analyst dakota datebook is produced in cooperation with the state historical society of north dakota with funding by humanities north dakota north dakota's largest lifelong learning community we'd like to thank the north dakota council on the arts for supporting arts programming here on prairie public and that's it for this edition of main street on prairie public we are deeply grateful that you've spent time with us tomorrow on the show well we say our final goodbye to my co-host ashley thornberg she's on to bigger and better things but has spent a decade here at prairie public and my colleague eric death ridge spent some time and reminises with ashley that's tomorrow on main street so so so so so so so so so so so so