(chiming music) - [Announcer] On this episode of "Postcards."

- This is kinda my hobby.

I love this, I love this industry, I love doing what I'm doing.

- This is a family-friendly place.

This is exactly what we built the place for is somewhere for families to take their children and learn about the Western lifestyle and the Western way of life.

- Makes you feel kinda proud.

It does.

(serene music) (lively rhythmic music) - [Announcer] "Postcards" is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by: Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies; Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen, on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota, on the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

A better future starts now.

West Central Initiative empowers communities with resources, funding, and support for a thriving region.

More at wcif.org.

(lively rhythmic music) - We love being in Willmar.

We all grew up here, we have family here, and we're trying to do something that, you know, brings new breath to what's going on in town.

- To me, I considered Willmar a big city almost, growing up, and Paynesville's only 2,000, Willmar being a little over 20 now.

There's a ton of people that are so friendly and, like, outgoing, and honestly interested in making sure that businesses survive and prosper in this town.

- Foxhole Brewhouse was located downtown Willmar for the past eight years, taking our location from downtown into this new venue that we have, adding food and cocktails to the menu to kinda broaden the horizon of where we can expand our beer to get to new people.

(lively rhythmic music) I'm not good at the beer part, that's all Ryan, so (laughs).

- And no, brewers don't get to drink beer all day while they brew (laughs).

So getting started brewing, I actually met a guy on our bowling team who started getting me into drinking craft beer, and then my wife, Liv, had a friend, and he told me, "Well, you can make your own beer," and I was, like, "Excuse me?"

Get 'em all good and clean.

I think, when I'm making beer, I lean a little more towards the scientific side.

I really enjoy the water chemistry, the biology of all the yeast.

Designing recipes, I love doing that.

You get to do a little research on styles, you know, potential hops that you're gonna put in beers.

If you're doing any of the beers with the hops, I'm, like, yeah, that's good to smell.

And then even making little one-off kegs, so maybe adding some fruit to a certain style of beer and just trying to experiment with those, and, I don't know, I love it.

I didn't think, when I was younger, that I was going to wanna to be, like, a business owner, but I don't think you could understand it when you're younger, how it's great.

Like it's more pressure, don't get me wrong, but I kinda enjoy that.

So you kinda have to, like, budget your time and plan on two, three different projects in a day, what you're gonna get done.

If not, maybe we'll cut out a little early and head to the lake.

(lively rhythmic music) - Liv and Ryan are the husband and wife team, so they originally started Foxhole Brewhouse, and then my wife, Cari, and I joined on.

- Expanding just from a small little microbrewery downtown and then moving out here, I don't even know the size difference.

I think our downtown space was only about 1,800 square feet, and I think our patio is bigger than that, and now we're in this huge, two-story building.

I had no vision of this whatsoever (laughs).

I think I was actually probably the one who said I didn't wanna really ever get into food in that combination, but it was necessary.

- In the COVID era, we were able to sit down with Liv and Ryan and have time to figure out like, what do we wanna to do next?

We always wanna make sure that we're relevant and doing things that people can count on us.

- People kinda were losing that luster of going to a microbrewery and just sitting down, and just always having a beer, with no food.

It's Minnesota, you need your patio.

This was about one of the only properties we could find that had a beautiful lake view.

- We're the only restaurant in Willmar, in a city of lakes, that has a view of the lake.

The sunsets are absolutely fantastic.

- Yeah, it was probably our smartest move we ever made.

(lively rhythmic music) - We wanted to bring the old brewery into the new era, and part of that is, you know, having music, having events, and then trying to bridge that gap of we're a restaurant, but we still wanna to have a brewery vibe so that people feel like they can come and relax and hang out.

Artwork was done by Eva Margaret, she is Liv's sister.

She's done the murals, she did our original logo, and then she also has other artwork throughout the building, so been nice to have her, and use her talents as part of our decor, and gallery for her.

(upbeat music) This is kinda my hobby.

I love this, I love this industry, I love doing what I'm doing.

- Working in this industry and this business is pretty much like working in a tight family.

Grant and Cari, we've known them for years, then you know, hiring Chef Charlie, that was a huge addition.

- I was working across the lake at the golf course, and there was a post on Facebook that said that they were looking for someone to run their kitchen at the new location.

End cuts of our prime rib from the weekend.

I had worked at the old Sheep Shedde restaurant in Olivia for years and years, and I moved to the Twin Cities and went to the Le Cordon Bleu program of Culinary Arts at Brown College.

I think what brought me to the culinary arts is just that every day's different.

There's a sense of urgency, there's a sense of pride, and doing that through food is just, that's my language.

These are Colorado peaches.

These'll be a peach and brie melt, so it's the grilled peaches with brie cheese, arugula, and prosciutto.

- What I'm really proud of is the way that we designed the menu.

We have a core menu that has a lot of staples on it, so buffalo wings, burgers, some unique stuff, like our deep-fried deviled eggs, short rib egg rolls.

We also have a chef menu that we change out quite often, every four to six weeks, putting my head and Grant's head together and we just kinda bounce ideas back and forth so we can keep people that are in the community coming back.

There's always something they can count on, but something that's intriguing and new that they might wanna try.

(gentle rhythmic music) - Two years into this, we've had servers and other workers in the kitchen that you really start to get to know a little bit more about them, and I think that's one of the reasons so many customers enjoy it is they see a lot of the banter and the joking around, like all our employees are very upbeat, fun.

- Exciting, different, challenging, it's rewarding in your own eyes, it's rewarding in people telling you, "Oh, this is so amazing!"

That definitely makes it all worth it.

- It really boils down to wanting to make people happy, and food's an easy way to do that, because everybody needs it, everybody loves it, and when you can give them the food and sustenance, their bellies are full, get a couple of beers in 'em, they're having a blast, like, there's no better feeling.

(lively rhythmic music) (gentle rhythmic music) - Years ago, we started the Smilin' D Arena, and it started when my husband started riding, he always had the biggest grin on his face and he got that nickname, Smilin' D, so then when we... You know, there wasn't a lot of places to ride in the winter, so we kinda had that goal in mind is to provide a place to ride that was heated.

- We had a cute little place in college, we were right in Willmar, it took me 20 minutes to mow my lawn.

I just loved it, my wife loved it, and then we started having babies, and Brady was born, and his first word that he said was, "Horse."

- Every horse on every sign, he would say, "Horse, horse, horse," so his two year birthday, every gift was related to horses, and soon after, we got our first, I suppose, and moved to the farm.

- I was working at a wastewater treatment plant in Ak-Chin, Arizona, at the time, and my wife called me and said, "We need to move to the country."

I said, "Find one, buy one.

I'm busy, I gotta get back to work," and she actually found a farm place that I grew up on as a child, and we ended up buying the property in Kandiyohi, and we moved in, and we had horses within a week.

I mean, we built a little stall, and we bought horses right away.

So that's how we kinda got into horses in the beginning, for sure, so, and we went from one to two horses, to three, to four, to five, and pretty soon, we built an indoor riding arena as you see in the background there, and we just started having fun with horses, and we just started getting into it.

We didn't have any idea that people rode so much.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to your Back to School Jackpot, right here at the Smilin' D Arena in Colfax, Minnesota.

Raising our kids riding horses was a very crazy time.

We had young kids and newborn babies.

My wife was extremely busy raising kids.

And then we decided to build the arena and it was just like a whole 'nother job.

(lively rhythmic music) - Well, Dave is always full of surprises, he keeps me on my toes, and we definitely, I would say, complement each other, I slow him down a little bit and he speeds me up sometimes, but horses has always been a passion of both of ours, and that's a hobby that we enjoy together.

We do have other hobbies that we like to do, but that's always been our favorite together, but.

She's beautiful.

She has such a cute head.

It's so small, her ears are small.

She's got good conformation.

- We have five grandchildren right now, and we were sitting around our place one winter night, and our grandkids, all they wanted to do was play with cell phones, and video games, and watch movies, and I told my wife that night, I said, "We need to build another barn and get these kids out into the country so that they can experience life just a little bit, and dealing with people, and what I envisioned when I pulled in was stadium seating in the hill, with an outdoor arena, and we'd just do a little bit of roping practice and things like that, an outdoor venue, and my wife told me, she says, "If you build anything, it better have a roof on it, 'cause you don't ride in the summertime, we only ride in the wintertime."

So fast forward, we had 35 guys that were looking for work that were on our crews, so to keep them busy, we decided just to build a shell of a building, and they put it up so fast, pretty soon we're insulating it, and pretty soon we're building a bar, and it just kinda happened, and it just kinda got out of control just a little bit, and it kinda pushed us to a point where we not only are just gonna enjoy this place, but we have to enjoy this place now (chuckles), so we started planning events and trying to make the place cash flow, and turned it into a business, for sure.

(lively rhythmic music) - Well, I like to ride, so anytime I'm sitting on a horse is a good day, and getting the kids involved in the community and somewhere to go and something fun to do in the winter instead of sitting at home and watching TV all day or playing video games, and it keeps us super busy, which some days is pretty draining, but other days it's just wonderful, and we just really enjoy it, so.

- We are here in Belgrade, Minnesota, for the Vegas 131 Bull Riding, Vegas style.

(lively music) (crowd shouting) - Another day, another dollar.

(lively music) (crowd shouting) (lively music) (announcer commentating indistinctly) - Hey, they are awesome.

This is fun to watch, and I guarantee it's fun to ride.

(energetic music) (crowd cheering) - I grew up around here, right down the road from Smilin' D. Smilin' D was put in, like, a couple years ago, not even, but my whole life, there's always been horses, and cattle, and everything around here, and when word got out that they're building a rodeo arena here, I mean, my family, especially my mom, was ecstatic.

I mean this is the, I think the Reigstads killed it with putting a rodeo arena here.

With, you know, with the demand, with the amount of horses, and, you know, cowboys and cowgirls.

this place is insane.

I love it!

(slow rhythmic music) - Well, here we are at Smilin' D in Belgrade, Minnesota, with Levi Engen and Jaron Engen, two of my sons.

Also have Wyatt Engen here, who's riding in the Open Bulls.

Just got back from Ada, Oklahoma, recently, where these two competed in the PYRA national finals, where Levi finished 13th in Bulls and Jaron became the world champion in Peewee Broncs.

We just wanna thank Smilin' D for hosting this and for also sponsoring our boys to go to Ada, Oklahoma.

They had a great time and it wouldn't be without Smilin' D and putting on these events so these boys could just be cowboys and have fun.

- Our very first event that we have had was a Bette Davis Eyes cutting, and cutting is where there's 25 to 30 head of cattle down on the one end, and one horse rides in, takes one cow out, away from the herd, and pushes 'em out until the cow says, "Oh, my gosh, I wanna be by my friends," and then the horse has to go in between the herd and that cow and keep it separate, and as the rider drops his hand down on the horse's neck, without any control, you have to work your horse to stop that cow, and it's really fun to watch, and it's fun to ride, for sure.

So that was kind of our first event that we had at the arena, and then we moved into a draft horse pull, and that's where the team of draft horses pull heavy weight, a weighted sled, and we just keep stacking blocks on it until they can't pull it anymore, and then they line up in different weight classes.

(energetic music) (men shouting) This is a family-friendly place.

This is exactly what we built the place for is somewhere for families to take their children and learn about the Western lifestyle and the Western way of life, and all we can do is simulate what it looks like, and it's an event center designed for that.

(energetic music) (people shouting) This arena has definitely brought our family closer together.

We're constantly talking, and planning our next events, and talking about ways to make it better for the future.

(announcer calling out indistinctly) Well, anything that you can do for the community, I think is beneficial, and when you can pull communities together and have a place to gather, and meet, and hang out.

I enjoy the most when we have an event and there's people all around, and they're visiting, laughing, and just having a good time.

Sometimes the event isn't all that important.

Sometimes people are just here communicating, hanging out, visiting with their friends, and it's just a social gathering.

Sometimes they don't even watch, you know, it's just fun to be here and fun to be with your friends.

(lively rhythmic music) (serene music) - When you live in a town like Appleton, and you can drive down the streets, and you can actually put together the history of the veterans that served, and their families, is absolutely a great honor.

- After World War II, our mayor at that time, Bob Miller, figured out that men lost and the streets were almost equal, so he proposed to the city council that the streets be named after these men who had died.

It was renamed in 1947, so it'd be World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and one from Iraq, Jesse, was the last one we lost.

- Jesse was my soldier.

I talked him into joining the National Guard so he could have money to go to college.

- I did serve with Jesse for a number of years here, and then we deployed together, and then unfortunately, he was killed in action over in Baghdad, Iraq, on the 21st of February, 2005.

- He was, he was like a son to me, and I escorted his remains back to Appleton.

- I actually was able to come home from overseas, and meet with the family, and actually be present when they dedicated that street to Jesse.

It means a whole lot to me.

- To our knowledge, there is no other town in the United States that honors their veterans who died in service by renaming their streets.

- And that's quite an accomplishment on the part of Appleton, and that shows a lot of pride.

(gentle rhythmic music) - We always knew the streets were named after these men, but we never had a face to go with that name, so when I came up with the idea, that was the goal, to get that face with the name.

(gentle rhythmic music) We are at the site of the Streets of Honor, the portraits, here in Appleton, Minnesota.

I just came up with this idea of painting portraits.

I'm not sure how I thought I could do it.

I've never done portraits.

The portraits were painted by myself and a friend of mine, Katia Andreeva, so we painted, and worked together, and talked about 'em, and it was a important time, and I know Katia still, she comes out to see her guys.

It's just something that you can't help it, you just get attached to 'em and you know their story.

(serene rhythmic music) - We've got a very interesting Veterans Memorial on the north end of Main Street that is depicting the pride and the honor of the Red Bull and of the soldiers that have served in this area.

- The pin on my coat is the Red Bull.

It's for the Red Bull Division of the Minnesota Army National Guard, one of the elite fighting groups in World War II, and they were also deployed in Iraq.

- It's actually called the 34th Red Bull Infantry Division, and that was started during World War II when the soldiers from the state of Minnesota were all mobilized and the National Guard of Minnesota, the Red Bull, was the first division that went overseas to fight in World War II, prior to any Marines, prior to the active duty Army, it was National Guard from Minnesota.

(upbeat music) (solemn music) - Every year, we do the Memorial Day program, which is done by AMVETS, and we will be putting up, a little over 100 flags go up in the flags that are on our site.

(gentle rhythmic music) - We got a little over about 105 casket flags that have been donated for our flags of honor.

(gentle rhythmic music) - After the flags are generally set up, then a bunch of us meet, then we go out to the cemetery and we make sure all the veterans out there have flags put on their veteran stars, and if the stars need repair, we try to repair 'em right then and there.

Otherwise, we get 'em repaired to ensure that they are honored.

(serene music) Living here in Appleton and all the streets being named after veterans means a lot.

It still shows that the public still cares, and they're very much supportive here in this community.

(serene music) - This project has definitely been a community effort, and so the journey has been pretty... It's been longer and harder than I thought, but definitely worth it, so hopefully, we never have to rename a street.

- To me, it's almost a tear-jerking display of soldiers who sacrificed their life for our freedom, and that it's gonna be an ongoing legacy now we've got the pictures and the stories of those soldiers who were willing to sacrifice that much for our freedom.

(serene music) - Makes you feel kinda proud.

It does.

(serene music) (festive instrumental music) (Banduro Duo singing in Ukrainian) - The one song that everyone hears and might recognize is "Carol of the Bells," but what many people do not know is that it originates from a Ukrainian folk song called "Shchedryk," and this was a song that used to be sung in order to help welcome spring, because its lyrics are about a bird that's flying by, and it's singing to the farmer, "Come and look at your harvest as the spring has awakened."

A hundred years ago, it was almost a century, the Ukrainian choir was invited here to America as a international exchange of public, of comradery, and to share cultural songs, and they performed, here in Carnegie Hall, "Shchedryk," but there was an American composer who listened, and he really liked the song, and he thought that the song reminded him of little bells being rung, so he wrote the lyrics, "Carol of the Bells," and so it really gained popularity here in the United States, and a lot of us, and across the world, and a lot of us know the tune, but a lot of us don't know the origins of it.

(Banduro duo singing in Ukrainian) (Banduro duo singing in Ukrainian continues) (Banduro duo singing in Ukrainian continues) (light instrumental music) (graphic whooshes) (energetic music) - [Announcer] "Postcards" is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by: Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies; Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen, on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota, on the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

A better future starts now.

West Central Initiative empowers communities with resources, funding, and support for a thriving region.

More at wcif.org.

(upbeat music)