Homemade Strawberry Jam

It's been a strange couple of years here for strawberries.  Typically in late Spring/early Summer there are a multitude of advertisements for U-Pick strawberry places in the local section of the newspaper.  Last year we dutifully checked the paper every day and by mid-July realized "I don't think there are going to be any strawberries to pick this year", and there really weren't.  So last year, we had to GASP! go without homemade strawberry jam for an entire year. 

Being without homemade strawberry jam for a year was sad, but we did have our awesome raspberry currant jam to help fill the void.  This year we decided to not only look in the paper, but also be a bit more proactive (this was a new sensation for me) and search out U-Pick places.  After some telephoning around last weekend, Alycia embarked on a strawberry picking journey of great importance. 

Strawberry fields, not quite forever, but close.  The hooded and cloaked figure in the distance is Alycia's Mom, who met Alycia at the fields and picked berries of her own. 

Only $8 bucks for this bucket of berries. 

Alycia picked all these berries.  Many met their fate in the jamming pot, others were consigned to death by freezing. 

It started to rain just as Alycia was leaving, which was really good timing.  There's an old Icelandic saying "a soggy berry picker is a sad berry picker". 

Your intrepid blogger and jam maker topping berries and preparing the jam ingredients. We made 16 jars (mostly 1/2 pint) of delicious strawberry jam. Winters in North Dakota are pretty long, and anything that helps you get through it, like delicious strawberry jam, really helps. I'll post the jam recipe and pictures of the finished product in another post. 

Bee Balm (Monarda) - Finally!!!

I planted a couple of different bee balms three years ago.  I didn't plant them the first year until mid summer, so I wasn't really expecting anything from them that first year other than pushing out a few leaves and surviving the winter.  They happily obliged.

Last year I anxiously awaited the proliferation of iridescent blooms that I expect from bee balm.  And I got....nothing.  All they did last year was grow to a height of 12-18 inches, their growth seeming to stagnate  by mid-summer.  Summer ended and I hung my head in shame at what I perceived to be yet another gardening mishap/failure/miscalculation/bad idea.  But this year I've got blooms, modest blooms, but blooms none the less.

 Bee Balm (Monarda)* - Coral Reef

Bee Balm (Monarda)* - Purple Rooster

* Please note that all plant identifications are a "I'm pretty sure that's what this is" and may not stand up to the scientific rigor of the blogosphere.

These aren't really all that impressive, I've seen much more incredible looking bee balm specimens.  But considering I've been waiting 2 plus years for this, I'm quite proud of this modest showing.  And next year should be even better.

I'm sharing my pictures with Tootsie for Fertilizer Friday - you should check out her amazing blog.  Along with her blog, there are some great gardening blogs every Friday, chock full of pictures of great blooming things. 

Dispute Over Vomit Cleanup Spurs Hammer Attack at Fair

Some breaking local news for you. Here's the article from the Grand Forks Herald.

FARGO – A carnival worker arrested last week for hitting a fellow employee at the Red River Valley Fair in the head with a hammer allegedly did so after the victim insisted he clean up a pile of vomit left on a ride by a fair-goer.

Richard “Old Man Richard” Wareham, 49, of Houston, Texas, was charged last week in Cass County District Court with one count of aggravated assault, a C felony.

According to court documents filed in the case, Cass County Deputy Jeff Arth was dispatched at 9:47 p.m. July 9 to a report of an assault with a hammer at the Red River Valley Fairgrounds in West Fargo.

Arth interviewed the man hit with the hammer, Jesus Geronimo Avila, 39, who said he was working on a ride he doesn’t normally work on, alongside a man nicknamed “Old Man Richard.”

Avila told the deputy that he confronted Wareham about not wanting to help clean up some vomit on the ride. The ride isn’t identified in court records.

According to Avila, he was putting away a broom when Wareham came after him with the hammer, hitting him in the head with it five times and leaving four lacerations, authorities allege in reports filed with the complaint.

Avila was taken to Sanford Medical Center after the alleged assault.
Wareham was taken to the Cass County Jail. His bail was set at $10,000 cash.

His next court appearance is set for Aug. 7.

You can read the full article at the Grand Forks Herald.  

Awesome Nephew Pictures

My little nephew was on vacation with the family outside Yosemite National Park, California and I received some photos of his various exploits.  He is an active member of the FFA (Future Firefighters of America) and was testing some of the towns equipment.

It's crazy to think that he's not even three years old yet, what a large little dude. 

Fighting imaginary fires can make you hungry, nothing better than a cool ice cream cone to stifle that hunger.

Homemade Tomato Cages on Yahoo

My blogging series on building homemade tomato cages with concrete remesh has culminated in getting published on (now defunct website ) Full of Knowledge.

DIY Heavy Duty Tomato Cages.

In case you missed the series of posts about these tomato cages over the years, you can read the First Post, the Second Post, and the Third Post in chronological order.  These posts offer the full story along with details on how to make some of your own. Along with these posts, my Cost Benefit Analysis and Final Thoughts completes the series.

If you don't want to make your own tomato cages, that's OK.  If you have a few bucks to spend, you can get some pretty sweet tomato cages, like the tomato towers or these sturdy and long lasting ones from Gardener's Supply Company or on Amazon.  

Deaf Dog Checklist

It was a banner day for Shadowfax the puppy the other day, 

Play fetch in the back yard? Check
Splish-splash through the pool? Check
Visit from Grandma and Grandpa? Done
Tug-of-War time and playing with toys? Completed
Patrol the house and yard and bark at everything/everyone? Accomplished
Shoot a beam of sunlight out of my nose? Check

Actually she collapsed on the carpet after a full day of romping puppy fun and antics.  The last few rays of evening sunshine were coming through the window and I snapped this photo.  It makes it seem as though she can shoot a ray of sunlight from her nose, when in fact this is not one of her super powers.

The Muppet Show - The Cat Came Back

I was out in the garden the other day, spending several hours planting and weeding and digging.  It was early afternoon and already pretty hot and humid, I was soaked through with sweat.  Perhaps it was the first sign of heat exhaustion, or that my internal cranial temperature reached some unknown threshhold required to connect some long lost neurons.  Or maybe it was just a sign of how my brain works.  Anyways, the following song popped into my head.

I haven't heard or even thought of this song in 20? 25? years, but there it was clear as day playing in my brain-jukebox as I whistled along.  It's on days like this that I feel kind of bad for Alycia.  It's strange/weird/difficult enough for me to live in my own head, I wonder how she feels sometimes having to interact with me and my inherent craziness on a daily basis.

And I know that you'll probably just go looking around on You Tube for your other favorite Muppet Show skits, so you should start off on the right foot with the Mahna Mahna Song.

Pembina County Fair

Alycia and I loaded the fur-kids in the car and drove up to visit her parents in Cavalier, North Dakota for the Fourth of July.  After spending some time visiting with them and wandering around their garden with the dogs, we left the dogs with them and headed over to nearby Hamilton, North Dakota (Pop. 61) for the Pembina County Fair.  It was nearing 7 pm on a warm, breezy, picture perfect summer evening. 

The Pembina County Fair is the oldest county fair in North Dakota.  It's exactly what I thought county fairs were supposed to be.  I grew up in San Diego and went to the San Diego County Fair every few years.  It's a huge month-long exhibition that attracts over a million people during its run.  It was fun (and HOT), but short on animals and "fair stuff" and seemed more concerned with separating you from your money.  At the Pembina County Fair? 

The 4-H folks were out in force and well represented.  There were cows...

...pigs...

...and a handful of sheep.  This fair was big on animals and agriculture, and also held on the hallowed ground and in the sacred halls where Alycia displayed her award winning guinea pig, Mokey, back in the day.  That's right, while other kids were wrangling cows and horses, Alycia was taming one of the most fearsome beasts ever domesticated by humans - the guinea pig.  Alycia claimed that there was a gold plaque somewhere that commemorated her local dominance in showing guinea pigs, but no such plaque was to be found. 

Tito's Summer Plucking

Tito is proudly part Corgi and often demonstrates typical Corgi characteristics, herding, nipping, being generally OCD.  He also has the Corgi power to shed, in fact for a dog his size, Tito is a champion shedder.

In late Spring or early summer Alycia tries her best to help get some of the hair/fur off Tito.  Since he hates (I can't emphasize enough how much he hates it) being brushed, the best that Alycia can do is to pluck out as much of his thick undercoat as possible. 

Alycia plucks Tito as he looks particularly pathetic.  You can see the pile of fur or "mini-Tito" that is forming to his left.  Again, for a dog as small as he is, Tito sheds like a champ.

Avast ye mini-Tito, ye shall rise up and be powerful. 

New Plants in the Garden

A month back I got a fairly regular e-mail from one of the Internet sites I've purchased from in the past (Blooming Bulb) that advertised a huge growers overstock sale with significant savings.  I clicked on the link and well, you know how this story goes.  Before my better senses could take over I'd ordered 125 root divisions.  Granted they were only being sold in increments of 25 and they were quite cheap, but still.  This was yet another case of my gardening eyes being bigger than my gardening stomach. 

That's why it's been quiet on the blog here, I've been planting (and panting) like crazy the last week getting everything in the ground.  It shouldn't be long before we have a whole lot of cool new flowers around here.  So what did I add?  25 each of the following:

• Zing Rose Maiden Pink Dianthus
• Summer Sun Heliopsis
• Paprika Yarrow
• Arizona Sun Gaillardia
• Caradonna Salvia  

Maybe in another month or so I'll have some new flower pictures to post, so stay tuned.   

Awesome Nephew Pics

It's been a while since I posted pictures of my awesome little nephew.  Well today you get a special 2-for-1, Jacob and his little brother (awesome nephew #2) James. 

Deaf Dog Pool Opening

The official Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes pool opened over the weekend.

It was near 90 degrees and quite humid and Shadowfax had a grand time splashing around and cooling off in the pool.  She's trying to get her white lacrosse ball that has sunk to the bottom and is completely ignoring the awesome green GoughNuts Ball that's floating on the surface. 

She mostly likes to stand in the pool, splash around and sometimes lie down in the cool water.  This is the deepest body of water she's ever been in, so we're not really sure how strong of a swimmer she is.

Peonies, Daisies, Geraniums, and other Blooms

We've had a late bloom and a slow start to the growing season this year.  Combined with the early warm weather and very early Spring from last year, our year over year garden comparisons are striking. 

The peonies bloomed almost a full month later this year compared to last year.  Sadly we had some big thunderstorms the night before these photos were taken and the peonies have all fallen over.  Every year I vow to stake these up so the heavy buds and blossoms don't fall over, and every year I never get around to it.  Behold and witness my gardeners shame!

This entire row of peonies were planted by the previous owners.  I don't love (or know enough about) peonies to plant them on my own, but this display is quite stunning when everything is blooming.

We removed a huge stand of overgrown messy lilacs from this area last year and filled it almost entirely with plant divisions and extras from one of Alycia's friends at work (thanks Sarah!).  There are daisies, so-called "wild" geraniums, and irises that have filled in quite nicely. This mound is not quite complete, we're going to wait and see where there are holes and fill them with other perennials. 

The purple geraniums and purple irises contrast well with the white daisies.  We're fairly happy with how this area turned out considering that I have no formal garden training and all these plants were free.  My joy with how this turned out balances out the gardening shame for not staking the peonies and puts me back at even.  

Upside Down Dog

No, not a yoga pose, our dog Shaak Ti.

Shaak Ti spends more time upside down than any other dog I've ever met.  And not just when she's sleeping, oftentimes she'll be awake, just hanging out, upside down. 

That's our little girl. The deaf, blue-eyed, upside down dog. 

Just Married

It's been a little quiet here on Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes over the last week.   But we have a good excuse. Perhaps the best excuse.  You see Alycia and I got married.

The wedding was in Yosemite National Park in California at the historic Ahwahnee Hotel.  It was a small crowd of 40 people, and we beheld the natural beauty of Yosemite in late Spring and basked in the delicious food, refreshing beverages, and splendor of our family and friends. 

Alycia looked amazing in her dress and I couldn't have been a happier camper or prouder groom.  Our photographer Patrick Pike spent almost the whole day with us and the shots we saw on the digital display of his camera looked fantastic, I can only imagine how great the actual photos will look.  And Patrick, if you're reading, this isn't a passive-aggressive "OMG where are my photos already?!?!?", I just thought we'd give you a shout out on this world famous blog.  Seriously, this is like six figures of free advertising.

And to all my regular readers, sorry for the superfluous and flowery language.  At least I didn't describe anything as "magical" (even though it kinda was). Your regularly programmed cynical and sarcastic author will be back shortly in the next post later this week...

Homemade Tomato Cages - Cost Benefit Analysis and Final Thoughts

It's the third year of using our Homemade Tomato Cages and with that experience under my belt, I thought it might be useful to perform a final cost benefit analysis to determine if it was worth it to go through the trouble of making these Homemade Tomato Cages.  There are also a few pros and cons of these tomato cages that I'll pass along in case you're interested in replicating these for your garden. 

In case you missed the previous posts about these tomato cages over the years, you can read the First Post, the Second Post, and the Third Post in chronological order.  These posts offer the full story along with details on how to make some of your own. 

So was it worth it to build these myself versus buying them?  Right off the bat my knee jerk reaction is yes since there just aren't commercially available tomato cages that are this big and this sturdy.  But how much did each tomato cage cost?  Well I purchased the following materials:

5' x 50' Reinforcing Mesh, 10 Gauge -        $29.99
10" End Cutting Pliers (to cut wire mesh) - $19.99
Spool of Wire for securing cages -                 $3.49

New Pages on the Blog

A few months ago we added some additional pages to the world famous Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes blog.  These started out as the garden variety "About Us" types of things, but quickly and predictably took on a life of their own.  You now have a lot more back story of the three pooches here at the homestead, and we'll add more later.

So please take some time, if you haven't already, and read the background story, pictures, and blog entries about the three furry critters that make our lives so dang entertaining.

The Tale (or Tail) of Tito

The Saga of Shaak Ti

The Story of Shadowfax

A Guilty Dog

Wanna see what a guilty dog looks like?

Shadowfax the puppy had a dilly of a time digging up the clematis vine that I had just planted, her toes were caked with dirt.  At least she looked appropriately guilty. 

Being bad can make you tired, tired as a sleepy dog. A pink-tummied, spotted, sleepy dog.

Homemade Vanilla Extract Follow Up

It was over a year ago that I wrote about Making Homemade Vanilla Extract.  That post detailed how to make the vanilla extract, but I never got around to mentioning how it turned out.  Well, it turned out great.  We've been using it for six months or so and I can't tell the difference between the homemade and the store-bought, except that the homemade stuff is 1/10th the price.

This is what it looked like after about six months.  Since we have two bottles this size, we took one bottle, ran the contents through a coffee filter (to get the vanilla bits out) and left the second bottle in the dark pantry to keep infusing its vanilla-esque goodness.

A few months later, it was even darker and more chock full of vanilla flavor.  Since it's pretty much just alcohol with vanilla beans in it, it will stay good for quite a while.  This is a good thing since it might take us another year to get to this bottle. 

Glimpses of Yellow

We saw glimpses of bright yellow this week on the homestead.

Yellow tulips are almost spent, this is probably their last day of full blooming glory.

Brilliant yellow American Goldfinches.  This picture doesn't do them justice, but click on it and see how many you can count.  Their cheery active songs and yellow feathering make them a tiny orb of sunlight, flitting around the yard.

Cavalier Evacuation Update

We learned today that Cavalier, North Dakota is re-opening (Grand Re-Opening?) Friday morning at 7:00 am.  Our house guests will probably have some breakfast with us and then hit the road.  It's been fun to have them here, but they're clearly stressed, anxious, and concerned about their house. 

They actually have a friend in town who ignored the evacuation order and scoped out their house.  They learned from their friend that they have about four inches of water in their basement, which isn't catastrophically bad, but certainly is going to be a significant clean up. You can read more about the damn that held and how the town is re-opening on the Grand Forks Herald or WDAZ website.

And even though residents are being allowed back in, the situation is by no means resolved.  The water behind the dam is slowly dropping (by 1/10th a foot per hour) but could realistically still be a problem.  Anyone who comes back in town is being warned that they could be evacuated again, and it's suggested to keep a bag packed in case the order is given to high-tail it out of town again. 

Evacuation of Cavalier, North Dakota

Big news from North Dakota.  Alycia's hometown of Cavalier, North Dakota is under a mandatory evacuation.  The dam about 6 miles west of town is threatening to burst and flood the town.

Alycia's parents live there and already had about 4 inches of water in their basement from seepage due to the 6 to 7 inches of rain that fell over the last 3 days.  Her parents are under mandatory evacuation and are going to be staying with us for little while. More information (and probably some humorous stories) to follow.

You can read the whole "dam" story on the Grand Forks Herald/WDAY News site.

More Bird Sightings - Scarlet Tanager, Indigo Bunting, Northern Baltimore Oriole

It has been an amazing week of bird watching here at the homestead.  After chronicling our sighting of a Rose Breasted Grosbeak and Goldfinches in the post Bird Sighting - Rose Breasted Grosbeak earlier this week, we had several additional cool bird sightings.  Over the last few days we spent much of our time either out in the garden or on the front porch relaxing after working in the garden, so there was ample opportunity for spying birds. 

It's truly a perfect time for bird watching since migratory birds are passing through and trees haven't fully leafed out yet, making it easier to see the birds.  All the photos are from others much better than myself at capturing birds with a camera. 

The first bird we saw was a Scarlet Tanager, a vibrant red bird that grabbed my eye immediately.  I was hoping the red meant that it was a cardinal (I really want to see a cardinal), but the black shoulder and smaller size led us to an identification of the Scarlet Tanager. 

Photo Credit

I also spotted an Indigo Bunting, a bird as brilliantly blue as the Scarlet Tanager was red.  The Indigo Bunting is actually a fairly common bird in South Dakota and North Dakota, but this is the first time we've seen one here on the homestead.  He (I know it was a dude since the ladies aren't nearly as colorful) was a very cool bird, so amazingly blue. 

Photo Credit

After seeing these two cool birds in one day, we thought we had seen enough fantastic things for one season, but the next day we saw a Northern Baltimore Oriole.  This bird caught my eye as a sudden flash of orange.  He (again I know it was a male since the females aren't as colorful) stayed just for a few minutes, and wasn't interested in the sunflower seeds we had to offer.  A bit of research indicated they prefer orange halves, so it might be time to build special feeder just to attract orioles. 

Photo Credit

Spotting the Northern Baltimore Oriole actually led to some concurrent spirited Internet research between Alycia and myself.  There's some debate as to whether the Northern is a different species than the Baltimore Oriole.  From this website about Orioles:

When John James Audubon painted these birds in 1836 and 1825, he considered them to be two different species. For about three decades starting in the late 1960s, many ornithologists thought they were the same species and "lumped them" into the Northern Oriole. Now they've "split" them back the way Audubon thought they were all along.

In addition to the new birds, the Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks have been around all week as well, sometimes as many as a half-dozen at a time.  They're entertaining birds to watch - tumbling, climbing, squabbling with one another, and just generally making for good bird watching.

Blue Scilla and Yellow Tulips

After a very long winter here in North Dakota we're finally seeing some gardening glory, the first blooms of Spring.  Due to an unusually late start to Spring in all the Upper Mid-West, but especially here Eastern North Dakota, everything seems to be at least a few weeks delayed.

The blue scilla are the first bulbs to pop every year.  They're a small delicate blue flower, and the plant itself is only 2-3 inches high.  They're supposed to naturalize here in Zone 4 and they're started to do so, spreading out in larger clumps in a few places. 

Alycia really enjoys them and I like them as well.  We've planted some around the apple trees and some in the lawn around the box elder we had removed last year.  They're such a striking blue and their arrival sends a positive message that Winter is finally over and Spring is here.    

The first of the tulips (the name escapes me) have started to bloom as well.  We're looking forward to the next few weeks of tulips.

Late arriving Spring has left us with an unusually compressed and time crunched Spring.  Winter clean up, Spring garden preparations, seed starting, and planting things in the yard has not only happened in a small span of time, but has also coincided with the end of the school semester.  As such we're left feeling extra harried and rushed this year. This is probably the same feeling that all gardeners have in Spring but it seems more pronounced this year.

This post represents our first (of hopefully many) participation of the year in Tootsie Time: Fertilizer Friday/Flaunt Your Flowers posting.  Tootsie Time is a fantastic garden blogger who has this "contest" every Friday, allowing people to flaunt what's blooming in their yard right now.  I highly recommend checking it out and participating!

Bird Sighting - Rose Breasted Grosbeak

We had a new bird sighting just this morning at the homestead - a rose breasted grosbeak. They're not exactly rare in North Dakota, but this is the first time we've seen one on the homestead. The mottled brown bird on the feeder may even be his lady-bird friend.

Admittedly, it's not the best photo, but considering it's with my 8 year old digital point-and-shoot camera through a window, it's pretty good. It's a great time of year for watching birds here.  The summer birds are starting to return and migratory species that don't live here are passing through for a sunflower seed snack.  We just started seeing one of my favorites, the goldfinches, a couple of days ago. 

You can find more information and some better pictures at the Cornell Ornithology All About Birds entry for the Rose Breasted Grosbeak.

Washington DC Trip

Alycia took a trip to Washington DC last month for a grant writing seminar.  She's swamped with end-of-semester stuff, so I'm going to post her pictures for her. This might seem weird, but it's the only way these will ever get posted.  I mean we still have many pictures from our trip to England (last Fall) that we haven't posted yet...sigh.

There were still a few cherry blossoms.  And there were apparently more than a few locals who were sick of the cherry blossom related tourists.

Ford's Theater where Lincoln was shot.  It was once a government office building and is now a museum. 

I've only been to Washington DC once and found it an interesting mix of historical places, interesting things to learn, and solemn spots where words aren't necessary.

The Washington Monument was 75% covered in scaffolding due to an earthquake retrofit. 

The World War II Memorial.  Each state has marker and wreath. Alycia made sure to visit the marker for both North Dakota and California.

The Smithsonian Castle.  This was Alycia's best photo, well done.  Composition, framing, awesome.

The gardens outside the Smithsonian Castle.

Tulips in the flower library.  I never knew that there was a living flower library in Washington DC. 

Alycia couldn't remember what building this was.  She thinks it's the Jefferson Memorial...

She made sure to visit the Internal Revenue Service Building just for me.  That's how us accountants roll.

Alycia also felt compelled to stop by the Canadian Embassy for some reason.  She does have many Canadian students, and there are always Canadian shoppers here in town on the weekend, so I had Alycia pick up a US-Canada dictionary so we could learn some useful phrases to help communicate with our neighbors to the North.  

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World Naked Gardening Day

Did you know that today, Saturday May 4, 2013, is World Naked Gardening Day?  I kind of doubt that you knew that, but just in case you were looking for a way to legitimize your urge to perform some gardening chores whilst naked, today's your chance.

Special thanks to the folks at Root Simple for making us aware of this holiday.  And in case you think I'm kidding, you can check out World Naked Gardening Day's website, but be warned, it isn't as awesome as you think. There are a lot of pictures of naked folks doing everyday gardening chores like weed-whacking and pruning trees (two chores that while performing I would strongly prefer to be wearing more clothes, not less). 

Will we be participating in World Naked Gardening Day here at the homestead?  Well, you'll just have to stay tuned to find out.  OK, I'll end the suspense now.  We will NOT be gardening naked (at least not today...) and will NOT be posting pictures of us gardening naked, sorry.  Did I ruin the suspense?

More Awesome Nephew Pics

I thought posting pictures of my little nephew Jacob would be an occasional thing, but I wasn't aware how many cute photos I'd get from the family.  So this may have to be a semi-regular series through the years.  I guess I also underestimated how much of a proud Uncle I would be.  Here's my awesome nephew with his baby brother.  Pretty cool. 

Around the homestead...well there have been drastic changes.  Extensive snowbanks melted in mere days under near 70 degree temps over the weekend.  Buds are swelling on trees, sporadic individual grass blades have turned green, tulips and other bulbs are poking up through the soil, and there are just general signs of life in the yard.  I'll grab the camera, capture the late Spring and report back to you ASAP. 

The River Also Rises

We're wrapping up a doozie of a week here at the homestead, way too much work and work related stuff.  How was your week? 

The frigid winter temperatures finally appear to be somewhat subsiding and we're in for a major heat wave starting today (mid 50's) through the weekend where mid to upper 60's are forecast.  This is fantastic for us so we can start to thaw out from winter and maybe even begin some long over due winter clean up chores, but it's bad for the flooding situation to get so warm so quickly. 

We won't have any flooding problems here in Grand Forks, but they may in other parts of the state.   The river is only expected to crest at 43 feet (we're protected up to 60+) here so we're not worried.  If you're a weather geek like I am, or if you just like graphs and numbers and such, you should check out the National Weather Service/NOAA website.  It has the projected river crest, flood predictions, and lots of other cool stuff related to weather here in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

National Weather Service - Grand Forks, North Dakota