Archive for October, 2007
October 31, 2007 – Presidential Parade!
Living in Iowa as we do, I would be remiss if I didn’t comment on the parade of presidential candidates testing their message here.
Members of our family have already seen Barack Obama, John Edwards, John McCain, and we know people who have introduced Hillary Clinton on stage and hosted a house meeting with Sam Brownback (the Clinton-Brownback ...Read more.
October 30, 2007 – Catching Up on Old News
A while back I promised a link to a magazine article about the girls of high hopes gardens. Here it is. To see the whole article (3 pages), click next when you arrive at the site.
one year ago…
October 29, 2007 – City Smoke, Country Smoke
This afternoon a big fire and plume of smoke resulted from a solvent/chemical warehouse blowing up in Des Moines.
Here’s a picture from a local TV station showing the fire at mid-afternoon. It’s still burning at 8:30 pm, but they have reopened I-35, I-80, and I-235 after shutting them down for a good portion of the ...Read more.
October 28, 2007 – Rare Breed Chickens “Silver Campine”
The rare breed chickens the girls purchased a few months ago are growing up!
There’s really no way to describe them other than “chickeny” with their black, white and red coloring, long legs, and chicken strut. The bird in the foreground is a “Silver Campine” a breed originating in Belgium and came out of favor when ...Read more.
October 27, 2007 – Planting Garlic
Today was a catch-up day. We missed the window of opportunity to plant garlic and fall bulbs early in the month, and it has just been way too soggy up to now to get in the garden. So today we got the garlic in and some purple allium, and three kinds of peonies (Duchesse de ...Read more.
October 26, 2007 – Hog Barn Progress
Another current project is the hog barn renovation. About 2/3 of the roof is now up. I’d like to finish painting the upper floor and get the remaining 2nd level windows in and roof on this week.
Following that, but not as urgently, is to paint the right hand side of the lower level and replace those ...Read more.
October 25, 2007 – Thingamajig Thursday #92
Here’s this week’s “Thingamajig” entry. Guess what’s cookin’?
Also check out the last thingamajig answer.
As always, put your guess in a comment below.
Hold mouse over this sentence to pop-up answer.
one year ago…
October 24, 2007 – Fall Leaves
It seems like the leaves are really reluctant to turn this season. I’m not sure if it is the warm, moist fall – we really still haven’t had the temperatures drop into the 20’s yet this season.
Today I got a dose of the legendary Menards customer service. My steel siding/roofing was in, so I went ...Read more.
October 23, 2007 – Attic Update
From the project that never ends department, an update on the attic remodeling. The drywall on the ceiling is up! It’s now the home stretch. After it gets taped and sprayed, then we can paint it and start on putting the beadboard on the walls.
The view down the new big dormer to the south.
The view ...Read more.
October 22, 2007 – Adolescent Cooper’s Hawk?
Today Martin and I ran across an adolescent hawk near the old machine shed. Â She let us approach very close and I thought it might be injured, but eventually we saw it flying around. Immature birds are hard to identify, but we think it is a Cooper’s hawk.
I think she was interested in the chickens, but ...Read more.
October 21, 2007 – 1,000 Blog Entries
Yesterday was blog entry number 1000 on high hopes gardens blog!  When the blog was born 1,000 or so days ago (February 13, 2005) I thought it would mainly be a place to report on “the farm.” It has since taken on a split personality as it it sometimes hard to separate the “family” from the ...Read more.
October 20, 2007 – Final Thoughts on Mexican Immersion
Our last full day in Mexico was in Morelia, the capital of Michoacan. Â A few of us made a final visit to a market where we found many stalls packed with sweets.
Among those sweets were the sugar skulls. These were, for me, the most “Mexican” thing we encountered. Between the stone ruins of women who ...Read more.
October 19, 2007 – Visit to Village of Nocutzepo
Making tortillas. This is a really beautiful kitchen. Here Odelia’s sister is preparing tortillas for our lunch. Note the wood burning stove, the tortilla press and her can of corn flour. I have never had such fresh tortillas. Later, at lunch, we were given an impromptu cultural lesson by Marisella on how to eat tortillas. She ...Read more.
October 18, 2007 – Visit to Village of Arocutian
This is the view of Patzcuaro Lake from Arocutian. The lake is very visibly receding and quite contaminated by erosion from the deforested hills. The native fish once famous in Patzcuaro, are now locally extinct.
Thursday was another immersion day. Lest you think these days were easy or comfortable, they were not. We were required to ...Read more.
