As I have written previously, the population of New England, North Dakota is a little over 600 people. There is very little excitement in New England, it is mostly quiet, peaceful, slow-paced, uneventful.

May has been the first warm weather month since six-months of cold that started in November. Not only were residents ready to get outside and do something, there actually was quite a bit to do.

There was some leaf and branch clean-up, whether bagging leaves, or dumping leaves into trailers, the City landfill was busy during the few afternoon hours that it was open on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday as everyone cleaned up their yards.

Then, the mowing began. About half the people in New England bag their grass-clippings, which makes twice as much work when a person has to empty their lawnmower bag every five minutes. There has been so much rainfall, that many people have had to mow their yard every week this month.

About 20% of the people in New England have a garden, and gardening is competitive. Necessary steps of gardening here are adding manure before anything else, then tilling, then raking, then running string-lines to lay-out rows, then planting seeds according to what week we are in. The first things I saw planted were onions, then later carrots, then potatoes. I have witnessed rhubarb being harvested already to make rhubarb pie.

Farmers have been busy towing white cylindrical tanks of anhydrous ammonia fertilizer at 25 mph on every road and highway this month, seeking to martyr themselves and not using their turn signals.

The last day of school at the New England Public School K-12 was this past Friday, May 17. I believe that the High School Graduation ceremony was held this afternoon. There were approximately fifteen graduates.

In downtown New England, there are two bars, but it appears that neither of them are open for business on Sunday. The Golden West Bar seems to be fairly consistently open after 5:00 p.m. every day except Sunday. The Golden West Bar has a sullen appearance on the outside, but it is much nicer on the inside, and it has a very large dining area. Families in New England do dine at the Golden West Bar in the evening, as it is the only restaurant open in the evening.

Western North Dakota, especially the small towns like New England, Belfield, South Heart, Richardton, Taylor, Gladstone, Bowman, Scranton, Reeder, Hettinger, Regent, Mott, Amidon are experiencing a slight Recession. What had been making these aforementioned small towns bustle, was that a dozen or so residents in each of these towns were earning unusually high pay in the oil field, but that is not happening right now like it had been.

I see real estate advertisements for single-family houses in the towns of New England, Regent, Mott, and Hettinger in the $50K price range for small, older houses. Usually every week a few inexpensive houses can be found in southwest North Dakota.

In contrast, and I find it very strange and unwarranted, the single-family house prices in Dickinson, North Dakota are extremely high, ridiculously high. I think that the absurdly high house prices in Dickinson right now are a result of both real estate agents and homeowners being completely out-of-touch with reality.

Reading the Dickinson Press newspaper “Police Blotter” each month, there is quite a bit of crime in Dickinson currently, especially drug-crime, out-of-control people, and theft.

There is very little crime in New England currently. And what crime there is, it’s kind of like it is hushed-up, both for the benefit of the town, and to save the parties involved from embarrassment and gossip, in my opinion. I wish that the Hettinger County Sheriff Department and the Hettinger Herald newspaper would publish what crimes are occurring so that residents could be more vigilant and careful.