Archive for May, 2009
May 10, 2009 – College of the Atlantic
I had a chance to roam around campus for a while. It’s in a great location – one side is the ocean and literally across the street is Acadia National Park.
The college concentrates on environmental arts, sciences and design. Claire would be a great fit for this place.
It’s the first “carbon-neutral” campus. This is the new wood-pellet fired boiler that heats the campus.
This is the administration building, among other things. Parts of the campus were formerly a monastery.
Here’s a formal herb garden overlooking the bay.
These are the student dormitories.
The shore right on campus property.
Finally, for Martin, a whale skull!
one year ago…”Glorious Spring”
May 9, 2009 – Bar Harbor, Maine
We had the chance to take a trip to Bar Harbor, Maine as Linda was invited by the College of the Atlantic to speak about sustainable agriculture. So I tagged along with her.
One of the streets heading down to Frenchman Bay in “downtown” Bar Harbor.
A sailing vessel moored out in the bay.
Sunset on the pier out in Frenchman Bay.
May 8, 2009 – Preview of Maine Trip
A preview of pictures from the upcoming trip to Maine that don’t fit any where else.
Check out the cool license plate promoting local agriculture!
I don’t suppose there are too many handicapped canoe parking spaces in the world!
one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #117″
May 7, 2009 – Thingamajig Thursday #163
Here’s this week’s thingamajig Thursday.
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.
May 6, 2009 – Mud Room Renovations
This doesn’t look like much, but for those that have visited, it may give hope for things that we just don’t see anymore, but others do. The ceiling in the mud room is half sheetrocked and half open to the rafters. I thought I’d use the old barn boards from the shed deconstruction to make a new ceiling instead of buying new lumber – just recycle the old.
I’m also going to put it over against the wall facing the house to cover up the additional bubble foil insulation I put up last fall. Always a project at high hopes gardens!
one year ago…”Out with the Old, In with the New”
May 5, 2009 – Feeding the World?
A common admonition about organic agriculture is that it cannot feed the world and that the crowning achievement of modern industrial agriculture is this claim to “feed the world.” I was very much taken aback to find the following graphic that shows of the 10 most undernourished countries in the world, eight of them receive no corn exports from the U.S.
This graphic is taken from a report from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy report on ethanol.
one year ago…”Fruit Tree Blossoms”
May 4, 2009 – A Walk in the Spring Forest
Martin and I went for a walk/bike in the spring forest looking for morels. Our mushroom-gathering bag remains empty, but we did enjoy the evening nonetheless.
The spring woodland flowers are out in full regalia. I’m not a botanist, but this looks like a dainty hepatica.
Purple violets.
Yellow violets.
Bluebells.
And this funky fungi, I think I’ll call it pipe organ mushroom, although I haven’t a clue to its real name.
Finally, some moss sporophytes end the botanical portion of the walk.
I believe that kids don’t have enough unstructured play, especially unstructured out-of-doors play. Here Martin crawled down a small ravine about 6 feet deep and was working on making a dam to stop the water. Great kid work.
one year ago…”Finally, Something in the Garden”
May 3, 2009 – Another Skystream Greets the Wind
Today we were fortunate to attend a dedication ceremony for another Skystream wind turbine.
Gary has a CSA between our house and Ames and decided to put one up as well.
He has an excellent site, with no obstructions and on the top of a small hill – looking to the south, it’s the highest point of land for miles. As great as April was for our production (over 550 kwh) this site brought home aobut 100 more kwh.
I greatly enjoyed the combination garden blessing and turbine dedication – Gary used a combination of milk and honey to dedicate the turbine and offered others a chance to come douse the turbine and offer a hope or observation for the future.
one year ago…”All Work and No Play Make Mark a Dull Boy”
May 2, 2009 – Field Trip to Farmer’s Market
Today Linda took some students to the Des Moines Farmer’s Market. A group of them are planning on marketing co-operatively through the market and thought it would be a good idea to see the market, look at the presentation, the audience, and the like so they could be ready for success when they visit.
A few of the students looking over a market stand.
Of course, walking around the market, even though we have our own farm, is still cause for purchase of things we don’t make or don’t have at the moment. So we picked up some nice bread, a bag of lettuce from Coyote Run Farm, some Italian sausage and shaved ham from Audubon County Farms, acouple varieties of goat cheese from Prairie Chevre, a couple of greenhouse tomatoes, a bunch of radishes, some multi-colored popcorn from Emmack Farms, and some Maytag blue cheese. Think there will be a good dinner tonight?
one year ago…”Up and Coming Materials Engineer?”
May 1, 2009 – Dinner with Oprah Editor
This week we were invited by a friend to provide “local color” at a dinner she hosted for the food editor of Oprah magazine.
The magazine is doing a story on her for the August issue. We had a nice dinner, speaking about the challenges and opportunities in agriculture and food.
