On Tuesday afternoon, Julie Spilinek attended the Presbyterian Women’s monthly meeting at the Presbyterian church in St. Paul. Joyce Ward was the hostess, and Julie led the Bible Study of the “Sabbath”.

Nebraska USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) is reminding agricultural producers of the availability of two financial assistance programs designed to address revenue losses associated with natural disasters and the pandemic. The Emergency Relief Program (ERP) Phase 2 and the Pandemic Assistance Revenue Program (PARP) currently are both open for application at FSA offices across the state.

National Severe Weather Awareness Week is March 27th through March 31st, with the Statewide tornado drill scheduled for Wednesday. Sirens will be tested on Wednesday, March 29th, between 10:00 a.m., and 10:30 a.m. in many of the Region 26 towns. This is a time to review your tornado plan for taking shelter, either at work or at home. Region 26 will also be testing their CodeRED emergency alerting system in each county next week. Residents and businesses in Region 26 will receive a test call if they have registered with CodeRed. The recording might ask for residents to press any key to listen to the message. The test call-out will come from (308) 942 - 3462 and text from No. 76993. Weather alerts would come from 1(800) 566 - 9780. If you are not signed up to receive the CodeRED alerts, you may do so by calling the Region 26 office at (308) 942 3461 if you live in Thomas, Blaine, Loup, Garfield, Wheeler, Greeley, Valley, or Sherman counties. You do not need to register again if you have signed up before. If you have a prerecorded message on your phone, CodeRED alerts will not come through.

A couple years ago, while thumbing through the pages of the Lincoln Journal-Star, I stumbled upon a story that caught my eye. A Lincoln couple, who had spent a decade living in Istanbul, Turkey, had collected over one-hundred chandeliers during their time living abroad and during their travels to neighboring countries.

The South Loup River has a flow of 331 cubic feet per second, down a little more from last week, and the flow at St. Paul is 1520 cubic feet per second, which is up from last week by almost 500 CF/S. As of Sunday morning, due to the cold snap, we have a lot of ice floating down the river. We have robins, geese starting to lay eggs/ building nests, and sandhill cranes flying through. I also saw a field white with snow geese when I went to Ord this week. I’ve also noticed some ‘green’ in the pasture, and grass showing up. Spring is springing.