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

(calm music) - So yeah, there's risks, but you try not to go out there, you know, unprepared.

- You know, my whole life, my mom, anytime I went to her, you know, this is happening, this is happening, she'd always say, go to my cupboard and grab this.

- Never thought I would find myself where I'm at today just from learning a few chords my dad showed me so long ago, you know.

(uplifting 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.

- I have the hardest trouble explaining show skiing to people.

(dramatic orchestral music) Well, show skiing, by its nature, is just really weird and stupid.

(Nick laughs) So yeah, show skiing is basically a form of water skiing where you put different acts out on the water, be it pyramids, jumping, bare footing, and there's also a stage portion of the show, so comedy acts, an announcer and things like that.

It's just super rewarding, and then when you do that with friends, it just makes it all that better.

And now we're pulling up to the crows nest and we'll hook up the boat.

(Nick chuckles) (door rattles) - Perfect.

- There you go.

The first time I ever heard of the Little Crow ski team was in 1998.

We moved here as a family.

My mom got a job in Willmar, so it was something that we'd never even heard of.

What is a water ski show?

So we went and watched and 1998 happened to be the year that they won the national tournament, so it was kind of, you know, you're seeing the best right off the bat and I was kind of hooked after that.

So then the first year, I kind of came to realize that even though I thought I was a really good skier, I was not as good as the other kids my age, so there was a big learning curve there and I had to work really hard.

(gravel crunches) The site that we ski at is called Neer Park.

It's right in the town of New London.

It's been a place where I've spent most of my summers for the last almost 30 years.

- [Photographer] So that's the jump right there, isn't it?

- Yeah, that's the jump, 14 feet wide, five and a half feet high, at least that's what we think it is.

We just kind of put it in every year and hope it's accurate.

(Nick chuckles) We take it out every year, but I think that jump is over 30 years old.

There's been some repairs that have been done to it, a new surface and things like that, but not much else.

I love the site, because, one, it's just a great place to go and watch a show.

We have good facilities there, good bleachers, good sight lines for the audience.

Oh, Jay's already stretching.

But just mostly the memories that I've made there, you know, friends that I'll have for a lifetime, you know, people my age, even boat drivers, people that are older, people that are younger that you kind of share that common interest with.

And also it's probably one of the smallest sites in all of show skiing, so it's very unique to us.

We have to do things a lot differently at home than how we would do them at tournaments, but that also means that we have beautiful water 100% of the time, so for bare footing and for jumping, you really can't beat it.

- So I learned to ski when I was right around a little after the age of two.

My uncles would always take me out in the boat, and then I just picked up a pair of skis and went out and learned how to ski.

- [Interviewer] At two?

- Yeah.

- No.

- My grandma has the pictures.

I could barely even fit into my life jacket with a deal.

I joined the Little Crow ski team when I was seven years old.

I have been jumping about 30 years.

(Jay laughs) It is a good stretch.

I don't think most people hardly make it out of 20 years of jumping before they kind of hang it up and do something else.

The first show I was in, I believe it was in 1995 at the National Ski Tournament and I was on top of the three-tier barefoot pyramid.

Three-tier barefoot pyramid is probably one of the hardest pyramids ever done.

There's three guys bare footing on the bottom, two guys in the middle, and one guy on top of the pyramid.

- Yeah, you got- - Still the dumbest thing ever done in show skiing.

- You gotta kind of- - That is, yeah.

- This one.

- [Jay And Nick] The three-tier barefoot pyramid.

- Yeah.

- That one was '96 and this one was '95 and I was on top of both of them.

The three-tier barefoot pyramid has only been done by Little Crow to my knowledge.

- [Nick] And that is the highest scoring act you can do.

- [Jay] If you showed those pictures to another show skier, they're just like- - You're stupid.

- Yeah.

- It just knocks- - Nobody does it.

That's why it scores so high.

- Just knocks out the little guy on top.

- Yeah, there's definitely dangers.

- We had a show director a few years ago, Chad Thompson.

He actually lit himself on fire and went and did a gainer back flip over the jump.

- Yeah, there's Marky who did the two-way around the boat pole.

That was his little baby.

He spent a lot of time on that.

Over 20 years ago, we had a skier that skied professionally in San Antonio and he came to the dock one day and he said, hey, we do this trick where we do around the boat and there's a second person who just kind of stays behind the boat and it looks really cool, but I think we could send two people fully in opposite directions around the boat.

I need a whiteboard to explain how it was done.

(both laugh) Almost getting ran over by the boat.

Boat running over ropes.

- I almost lost an ear.

- Yeah.

Fader almost lost an ear.

When I was 21, I was doing 270s and my skis kind of separated and my leg just went.

(Nick smacks lips) - I hit a wave coming up to the jump and it kicked me sideways.

I ended up hitting my head on top of the jump and getting completely knocked out cold.

It blew both my ear drums and fractured a sinus cavity.

- That was a good one.

Now he can't hear out of one ear.

- We were doing a five-man heli and came around and the rope, like, wrapped around my ski and it took my whole knee and twisted it and faced it straight while my body was still facing backwards.

- So yeah, there's risks, but you try not to go out there, you know, unprepared.

(people faintly chattering) (wetsuits rustle) (boat engine hums) Uh-huh.

(boat engine growls) The Little Crow ski team has won the National Jump Team Competition five times.

Last year at the national tournament, we took the most outstanding act, so that was the highest scoring act of the entire tournament.

- [Jay] Winning team jump at nationals last year was a pretty cool moment.

Regionals did not go well.

- Is it a jump?

- It's a barefoot jump.

- Is it a jump?

It's a barefoot jump.

- I mean, I think we pretty much botched the whole thing and got second to last place.

- You wanna know what- - Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

- You wanna know what hurts?

Being old and falling.

How about that?

- Yeah.

- And we went to Warsaw and did our whole jump routine flawlessly, no falls.

We got first place, which is hard to do.

It's very hard to win team jump.

- For our jump team to have five national championships when we're pulling from New London and Spicer, an area that has a population combined of maybe four or 5,000, it's a pretty big deal when you're going up against teams from, you know, the Twin Cities and Madison, Wisconsin and things like that.

- Oh.

- I can't jump that long.

So to really look back on the journey of joining the ski team when I was, you know, 11, 12 years old where I was just rolling ropes and hauling skis to be where I'm at now with, you know, every time I go down to the dock it's like I'm with family.

My daughter's on the team now, so being the developmental director I can, you know, kind of help her progress, and then other kids her age and I see her kind of making those same friendships that I made when I was younger and it's something that's really fulfilling.

- Bridger, you're comparing yourself to Dan.

(kids chuckle) - Sometimes I'm doing- - Comparison is the thief of joy.

Just go out there and make a hellie.

You can do it.

- Jumping in shows and at practice and showing kids how to do the jumps and learn is almost more rewarding than myself going over the jump.

I think that's what keeps me coming back and at the age I'm 40 years old and still jumping, but I think it's more so for the kids, like, to show 'em, hey, let's keep going.

Let's build this thing and let's try to win a few more awards.

(laid back music) (funky music) - Mother's Cupboard, you know, most people would think it's a wellness shop, health store, but to us it's more than that.

I feel like Mother's Cupboard is, like, a hub for this community to come together, share, you know, experiences, education.

It is, you know, predominantly health focused.

We do have custom teas that we make in house, juice, smoothie bowls, salads, soups, power balls.

Did I say juice?

Yeah.

So, you know, I don't know.

It's constantly changing and evolving to what it actually is.

It's not a cafe.

It's not a restaurant.

It's not, you know, just a market.

We call it a remedy bar, so it's kind of a place where anybody can come and not feel intimidated to come and bring concerns they may have about their health.

We made a bar behind us so people could feel like, oh, I'm just, like, rolling up to the bar, you know, psychologically just kind of giving people that relaxation.

(water gushes) One and a half and a half.

Got it.

We make this juice every week and I still have to look at the recipe every time.

(Lauren chuckles) I don't know why.

(uplifting music) This is Celtic salt, gray sea salt, supposed to be called oeillet, great for electrolytes, bringing hydration into the cells, into the body.

This one is our Barbie girl.

It's our most popular juice.

We sell so much of it, 'cause most people love watermelon, pineapple, lemon and lime, mint.

It's a classic, classic flavor blast, and then we added a little bit of dragon fruit powder there and some sea salt and, yeah, nature's Gatorade pretty much.

It's like we constantly have to refill it, at three to four, and then we're stirring again, because you just don't want that to settle.

All right, dude, let's try.

Let's try it.

Nailed it.

It's the little wins.

It's the little wins.

It's, like, your modern day apothecary.

You know, when I moved back to town four years ago, I knew I wanted to have, like, a little shop, a little apothecary.

You know, I can't think of what the specific word is other than serendipitous.

Everything just came together so easily and in life I feel like, when it happens, like, you gotta do it, right?

It's so exciting.

You know why?

'Cause nobody's asking us to do it.

We're just doing it 'cause we want to, and then we try to sell it to people and it tastes good so they buy it.

- We do it 'cause we want to eat it.

- Exactly.

Everything we make is because we want it.

You know, this week it's like, we had beets.

Beets are in season.

We're gonna make a nice beet salad.

We've got quinoa left over, so we're like, all right, let's look up a quinoa beet salad and that's what we're making this week.

I mean, there's no, like, rhyme or reason other than my family gets together on Sundays and we decide, okay, what are we making this week?

Is Sarah done with that?

My mom is, yeah, one of the biggest inspirations and why we're doing this.

You know, my whole life, my mom, anytime I went to her, you know, this is happening, this is happening, she'd always say, go to my cupboard and grab this.

You know, so it was that idea that you have all these remedies at home that somebody can administer.

Not everything is this we need to go to the emergency room.

- I haven't drank any water today.

I should probably do that.

- I know that mother knows best.

That should be our tagline.

Mother knows best.

- Oh.

- Oh my god.

I just came up with that.

- So I asked my mom if she wanted to be a part of it.

Both my mom and my sister are trained RNs, so they've been in this field for a long time.

My mom has gotten her degree in everything from reflexology, reiki, you name it.

Like, she had her own wellness center, when I was gone in college, and you know, for me, I wasn't into this stuff, even though I grew up with a mother who was like, had all her stuff in the cupboard, you know.

I would be, the first thing I'd come home, I'm sick, I'm this, and she was like, you need to come in, you need to do an ion cleanse, and I'm like, no, I'm just gonna go take some Sudafed and I'll be fine, you know, eating Taco Bell, smoking Marlboro Lights.

But you know, it just changes.

Life changes and you have to learn it all for yourself so you can apply it to, you know, your own journey.

My mom could tell me 'til she's blue in the face everything probably that I could have avoided all the pain and suffering, but that isn't life.

You have to experience it to get to where you are today.

- It's all right, if you wanna try the sample tea.

We have it in the sample pack and you don't have to commit.

- Yeah, no, I like these.

These look good.

- Huh?

- These look good.

- Yeah.

- There's a lot of intention behind the products that we bring together and somebody, if they're struggling mentally, physically, like, to come in here to just kind of, like, get that, like, mom hug, you know.

Not everybody is lucky enough and fortunate enough to grow up with a mom like that, but I think a lot of us are and we have that nostalgia to that, so that's kind of the atmosphere we're trying to create here is just really amazing, high frequency, you know, products that can make you feel your best and give you the, you know, great energy.

I want anybody that walks into this door to leave, you know, feeling better with more energy than not.

- But everything that we make is also made with intention to improve health, support health, restore and repair, and so a lot of people don't want to eat 15 pounds of spinach, but they will drink a juice.

Does that make sense?

So we're trying to make everything taste good, but it's also fueling your body.

- I've just been floating around pretty much all of my twenties, which I love and I think I could probably live the rest of my life that way, but I don't know.

There's something about this business that feels important, and so it's worth showing up and I don't know where it's gonna end, but I'm excited for the journey of where that is going.

(uplifting music) (laid back acoustic guitar music) ♪ Thinking where the feeling of the pain inside my heart ♪ ♪ There is about you ♪ Wondering if I'll ever be the same ♪ ♪ As I was before I knew you My family actually bought a vehicle back in 2018 in the glove compartment.

I found a CD that had from, it was like 1950s, forties, fifties country music.

It was really, I mean, even older than the stuff that I play, but before that, I really didn't care for country music at all, 'cause I don't know, I just didn't like the new, the modern stuff very much, but you might say it went off from there, and then I started listening to the more artists of yester years really and just fell in love with it.

♪ I hope the stars are brighter ♪ ♪ Where you stand tonight ♪ I hope the moon and the galaxies ♪ ♪ Shine on you 'til daylight ♪ Lord, it's been a very long time ♪ ♪ Since I've seen the warmth in your blue eyes ♪ ♪ You don't need to hide it ♪ You don't need to put it in the stars ♪ Yeah, I grew up on a farm in southwest Minnesota here.

Our family had a family band.

There was nine siblings altogether, myself included.

So this show is from 2007, I think, 2006.

2006.

Yeah, it's a couple years ago.

(CD player smacks) It's a little goofy, this thing.

It takes a tap.

- [Photographer] A little bit of percussive maintenance.

- A little bit of, I like that.

I use that on my equipment, but at least I don't have to use it on, like, with sledgehammer and stuff.

That's reserved for only the pickup.

- I'd like to introduce to you all, my little brother Mario.

He's one and a half years old.

♪ Mario, I'm home again, boy ♪ To get the sun back in my sky ♪ ♪ Mario, I'm home again, boy ♪ About a thousand kisses shy - I was still growing up at the time, so I didn't really start playing music at all until I learned guitar first at, like, 10, 11 years old.

- You asked if I would teach you how to play guitar, so I taught him a few chords, and within a week or two, he just took off.

It was like he was playing possum.

He didn't get involved in the family music that the rest of the kids were involved in until later, and then he just took off from there and exploded, so it was, I suppose, a talent on loan from God.

There you go.

- [Mario] Yeah, my parents met in Colorado in '84.

He was working on a harvest crew.

- You have to understand the situation.

When a harvest crew moves into a small town, the population triples and all the new immigrants are young men from 18 to 25, and if there's only one or two young women in town, they certainly got plenty of attention, but she picked me out of that crowd and we got to know each other somewhat and I had to move, like usual, working our way up into Canada, so I proposed to her rather quickly, within 24 hours.

Not that I recommend that, but that's been over 40 years ago, nine kids, 27 grandchildren, three on the way.

It worked.

This is my bride when I met her, beautiful lady, still is.

(clasps snap) - I wrote my first song back when I worked in North Dakota back in '21.

It wasn't a very good first song, but it came from my heart really and it's about a blonde-haired girl I used to know.

That's a long story.

(Mario chuckles) (jaunty country music) I have my own band called the Midwest Cowboys.

We play classic outlaw country from, like, seventies through the nineties.

Waylon Jennings to George Strait to many different artists of the area.

We have a lot of fun doing it.

We love bringing joy to people.

We love what we do and we've been doing it for a while, but the last two to three years, it seems like many things have fallen into place for us.

We've got a song out.

It's called "Coors Banquet".

(relaxed country music) ♪ Well, I pulled into a bar ♪ To have myself a cold one ♪ But the old man sat next to me ♪ ♪ Said, "What you drinking, son?"

♪ I remember the first time we heard it on the radio and, listen, we hadn't even heard it from the studio and Maynard played it and we were in Nebraska on tour and it's like, is that our song?

Oh, yeah.

Like, Clarence is, like, yeah, that's our song.

I'm like, really?

Because now I can hear all the screw ups I put in there.

But no, it's worked out and we've done pretty good with that record so far.

It's sold at least a couple hundred copies of it over the last year, so.

♪ I like Coors Banquet ♪ Hell, I'll take it ♪ And maybe somebody it'll help me ♪ ♪ Get over you First thing you got here is a Squire Telecaster, Fender Telecaster.

This is my family's and had its venture off the stage once or twice before.

I rebuilt this guitar.

The electronics were all shot.

One the frets, which I had to glue back down, 'cause one of the kids I think used a pliars or a knife on it.

When we're on the road with, you know, the band and stuff, I'm also the maintenance guy, 'cause I'm the only one that knows how to solder, so.

This is my newest creation, you might say.

This is also a Fender Telecaster, but I hand built this one.

Ain't she a beauty?

These are custom brass buckle knuckle back here and it's actually quite heavy, but I did a good job.

I liked the burned wood barn design, so that's what I put on it.

I like building things.

You know, that's one thing we always did around here is everything we did was pretty much just you made it work.

Growing up on my family farm, you gotta realize you're exposed to many different things.

It's a very diverse landscape to be a kid on and be raised on.

There's been a lot of sweat shed here.

I can honestly say I'm glad I was born and raised here, 'cause I just, I couldn't imagine any other life.

Never thought I would find myself where I'm at today, just from learning a few chords my dad showed me so long ago, you know.

It's a sincere form of music, country.

I mean, this is just my opinion, but it's the most sincere music in the world.

There's something deep about country music that not a lot of people can fully understand, but it stirs emotion in your soul.

♪ I like Coors Banquet ♪ Hell, it's my favorite ♪ There ain't nothing about it ♪ That'll make me blue ♪ I like Coors Banquet ♪ Hell, I'll take it ♪ And maybe somebody it'll help me ♪ ♪ Get over you ♪ I know somebody it'll help me ♪ ♪ Get over you (uplifting 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.

(uplifting music)