Archive for August, 2009
August 17, 2009 – Goodbye to PowerShot A510
My faithful carry-around digital camera died this weekend. Like an old car, it had acquired many quirks that should have sent it to the dust heap a while ago, but I was able to live with the defects.
Most of the problems dealt with the lens retraction. I experienced the dreaded Canon E18 error on many occasions and was always able to fix it with a bit of pushing/pulling on the lens. No more.
Although it’s not a sentient being and it’s rather anthropomorphic to asses human qualities to it – this little camera has in some degree been the lens through which my life, or at least the images I care to share, have been broadcast to friends, family, lurkers and random visitors.
The replacement camera will cost about the same as this one, but have 3x the megapixels, half the thickness and twice the viewfinder screen.
one year ago…”Blackberry Skeptics!”
August 16, 2009 – Bean Trellis
Here’s another use for 16 foot cattle panels.
This is the top of a bean trellis – it’s just a cattle panel looped over kept in place with half a steel fence post on each side. It always seems like a pain to get in during the spring rush, but this time of year, I always wish I had trellised more crops. The picking and disease problems, especially during a wet year like this, are greatly less than the ground beans.
August 15, 2009 – Atlantic Whale Watching
More guest blogging from Emma…
I had the opportunity to go to the marine sanctuary outside of Boston to look for whales. We were fortunate enough to see around 6 whales.
A boat that was the exact same kind as the one we took.
The boat ride was very windy and I let down my hair and enjoyed the wind in my hair and the salt spray on my face.
We were lucky enough to see several whales feeding. The birds surround them and pick off fish that rise to the surface. The whales swim under the surface around the ocean and scare the fish to the top and get them there.
We had a truly beautiful sunset while on the boat ride. A humpback whale was kind enough to pose for this shot.
We were farther out enough not to see the city in the sunset. A parting shot from the boat.
August 14, 2009 – New England Dining
Emma’s blogging again today…
While we were in Salem and Boston, we had the chance to eat some really great seafood and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. A little restaurant I really enjoyed was a little seafood place with lots of open air places with a view of the sea. I went for lunch and I liked it so much, I went back for dinner the same day.
Fried clams for lunch.
A devoured plate of mussels. A favorite with the group.
Very delicious spring rolls in a mango sauce. Not exactly seafood, but good all the same.
While at the seafood restaurant, I tried several new things including lobster, swordfish, and mussels. My personal favorite was the swordfish.
Following a long standing tradition of getting a “vermonster” on the last night, We got three. In less than ten minutes, all there were clean and washed. That’s approximately 60 scopes of ice cream, 16 ladles of hot fudge, at least 2 containers of whipped cream, a jar of sprinkles, 12 cookies, and 16 toppings including; gummy bears, bananas, Oreo cookies, and many others. It was, needless to say, very filling. A sweet end to and even better trip.
one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #128″
August 13, 2009 – Emma Hits Walden Pond
We also went to Walden Pond. It was where Henry David Thoreau chose to live for two years of his life. He chose to live out of society to see what it was like.
Where his cabin used to be. All that’s left is a pile of stones.
A view from the hiking trail from the beach to the cabin. A very worthwhile walk. It reminded me a lot of the boundary waters in northern Minnesota because of the lake and the types of trees around it.
And of course, you have to go swimming. The water was some of the clearest water I have ever seen.
one year ago…”What to do with Peaches?”
August 12, 2009 – Emma Around Boston
Emma is guest blogging today and the next few days…
My coming of age youth group of 27 youth went to Boston recently. We spent a week around the Boston area learning about Unitarian Universalist history and touring around. It was definitely in the top three best trips I’ve been on.
Paul Revere and Old North church.
The oldest organ in Boston, inside Old North Church.
These represent fallen soldiers in the war memorial garden.
We toured the house where Little Women was written. I never knew how many famous people the Alcottt’s knew.
The now beautiful site of the very first battle of the revolutionary war.
August 11, 2009 – Monsanto, Seed Prices and Farmers
Last week I went to a farmland leasing workshop hosted by ISU Extension – the purpose was to look at what was happening with farmland leasing, cash rents, and farm profitability. The outlook was not good for commodity farmers. A “perfect storm” of higher energy costs, higher fertilizer costs, lower ethanol demand, higher seed costs and record crops did not paint a good financial picture. However, of all the profit pressures, the one that worried the economist most was seed prices. So, I wasn’t surprised when just a week later, Monsanto announces a 42% increase for its new line of GMO seeds.
A story from Bloomberg is included below, along with some of my commentary following.
(Bloomberg) — Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed maker, plans to charge as much as 42 percent more for its new genetically modified seeds next year than older offerings because they increase farmer’s output.
Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans will cost farmers an average of $74 an acre in 2010, and original Roundup Ready soybeans will cost $52 an acre, St. Louis-based Monsanto said today in presentations on its Web site. SmartStax corn seeds, developed with Dow Chemical Co., will cost $130 an acre, 17 percent more than the YieldGard triple-stack seeds they will replace.
Our pricing has the flexibility built in to ensure the grower captures the greatest return from his seed investment, irrespective of market volatility, Chief Executive Officer Hugh Grant said today in a statement.
Grant is introducing new modified seeds that boost yields as part of a plan to double gross profit from 2007 to 2012. The new soybeans, which resist Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, produce 7.4 percent more soybeans per acre than the older version. SmartStax kills insects in multiple ways, reducing the amount of conventional corn that must be planted to deter insecticide resistance.
SmartStax pricing is higher than we initially expected, Vincent Andrews, a New York-based analyst at Morgan Stanley, said today in a report.
Pricing for SmartStax is at the high end of expectations, Laurence Alexander, a New York-based analyst at Jefferies & Co., said by telephone.
Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybean seeds were planted on 1.5 million acres this year and will be planted on as many as 8 million acres next year in the U.S. with a potential to one day reach 55 million acres, Monsanto said.
The company is pricing its seeds to share the benefit of increased yields with farmers, said Mark Gulley, a New York- based analyst at Soleil Securities. Prices include seed treatments designed to protect seedlings from pests and disease, Monsanto said.
They are in essence splitting the value of the extra yield 50-50, Gulley said by telephone.
I am especially taken with the assertion that Monsanto will take half the yield profit gained by the seeds via increased seed prices. The notion that they are “essentially splitting the value of the extra yield 50-50 with the farmer” is absolutely absurd to me. Monsanto assumes that the only two factors are seed cost and farmer profit? The farmer still shoulders the risk of high energy and fertilizer costs, risks associated with weather and crop failure. If the crop fails due to weather, is Monsanto going to “refund” their 50% portion of the yield? Yeah right.
If I had money to throw around, it would be in a open-pollinated corn company. Sooner or later, it will be more profitable to have a lower yield, along with significantly lower seed costs. When’s the last time any working stiffs got a 42% increase per year?
one year ago…”Presenting… Linda at the State Fair”
August 10, 2009 – Mulberry Forage
Mulberry is excellent forage – comparing favorably to alfalfa in protein content. There is so shortage of mulberry around here, so the goats and sheep have been getting a small daily ration of trees cut out of fencelines and other places I don’t want them going.
When the pastures start to fade in late summer, it’s a good boost for the animals.
August 9, 2009 – Rain, Finally
This weekend we had some ominous weather – we’d been dry for about three weeks, but a downpour found us this weekend.
There was one of the worst hailstorms an ISU field agronomist had seen in 30 years a county just north of us. This might be the southern edge of that storm, although we had 2-3 rounds of storms that day, I’m not sure what time of day the Hardin County storm hit. About 80,000 acres of corn are estimated to have been flattened – the stalks down to 6 inches and much property damage and people injured, many inside their own homes primarily from damage related to hail.
August 8, 2009 – Hazelnuts
We have a few hazels around the farm – we planted a half-dozen more that were handed down to us this summer.
This is the first year the bushes will produce more than a handful. If we can just beat the squirrels to the harvest later this fall! One of the best places to get information on hazelnuts is a long-time breeder in southern MN, Badgersett.
one year ago…”Cherry Leaf Spot”
August 7, 2009 – Tillage Radishes
We’re trying a new cover crop this year – tillage radishes.
We planted some just a few days ago, covered them with a layer of fine compost since the ground was too hard and dry to work up and it only took a few days for them to germinate. The idea behind tillage radishes is that they pull up nutrients from the deep and decompose in place over late fall/winter/early spring and offer a chance to break up hard, clayey soil before planting. We have one garden that has difficult soil and we are testing the tillage radishes in a small area. For more information see the tillage radish web site.
one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #127″
August 6, 2009 – Thingamajig Thursday #173
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.
one year ago…”Luscious Peaches”
August 5, 2009 – Iowa Youth Leadership International
Over the first couple weeks of August, Claire is participating in the Iowa Youth Leadership International program. She won a scholarship to attend. Students from around the world are participating.
The group has two weeks of activities – things like visiting lawmakers, including the Governor, Secretary of State, Mayor of Des Moines, many local business leaders and so on. She’s having great appreciation for Dad’s commute after she drove to Des Moines every day for a week!
one year ago…”More Garden Space”
August 4, 2009 – College Visits
I haven’t talked about last week’s college visits. We visited Grinnell, Cornell College, and Macalester. I didn’t take any pictures, but noted one observation from the two colleges with largest endowments – the key to large endowments seemed directly linked to contraband livestock.
At Grinnell, they relayed the story of a student named Robert Noyce. It was luau night at the college and Robert thought it was appropriate to have a pig roast at a luau, so he ventured out in the country and stole a pig from a nearby farm. He brought it to campus and butchered it in the dorm shower. The next day, felling regretful, he returned to the farm to confess his larceny. A series of events nearly caused him to be expelled from Grinnell. Only the intervention of a physics teacher on his behalf prevented his expulsion, and instead he was granted only a one semester suspension. Later on, Robert went on to form a little company called Intel and left a billion dollars in Intel stock to Grinnell and he urged them to diversify it. They did, and in a rare case of a bad result of diversification, had the college not diversified, the endowment would have been over 70 billion!
At Macalester, Dewitt Wallace led a cow four stories up the old main building. Cows go up stairs, but do not go down stairs (at least while they are alive). This event, along with others, led him to leave Macalaster before graduation. Later he went on to publish Reader’s Digest and also left a large endowment to his old school.
one year ago…”Oppressive Weather”
