Archive for the ‘Family - Claire’ Category
February 12, 2010 – Claire Interviews for World Food Prize Internship
This week we ventured to Des Moines for Claire to go through the final cut for a World Food Prize all expenses paid summer internship at a location somewhere in the world.
The interviews were at the Botanical Center in Des Moines for people living in the Midwest – the others will be interviewing via Skype. ...Read more.
January 20, 2010 – Want Ice with That?
Another ice storm fell from the heavens today. Ice is much harder to deal with than snow or rain.
It’s hard to read electric meters. It’s also hard to open garage doors that face in the direction of the wind. It took lots of pounding with a rubber mallet to pound the hundreds of pounds of ...Read more.
January 1, 2010 – Looking Back on 2009
Seems like everyone puts together some kind of year-in-review (and some decades in review this year). I’m not ambitious enough to sort through the last decade, but I will take a shot at the year in review. So without much further ado – the things we’ll remember most about 2009 in no particular ...Read more.
December 25, 2009 – Merry Christmas 2009
The family with the traditional pose under the tree.
one year ago…”Merry Christmas”
December 18, 2009 – Now this is A Christmas Tree!
This is the year we have been waiting for – the first Christmas tree grown on our farm. This summer Martin and GJ put an orange tag on the best tree after much deliberation.
On our way down to get the tree, we thought we might be in trouble when the snow started rising almost ...Read more.
November 6, 2009 – New Layers
We were alerted to someone who had brooded more heavy breed layers than they could accommodate, so we bought 20 pullets just about ready to lay. We’ll put some of our older hens in the freezer for stewing.
The girls bringing the pullets into the chicken coop.
One of the more interesting pullets is this Speckled Sussex ...Read more.
October 21, 2009 – Garlic Planting
When the girls got home from school, I decided it was time to make a rush to get some garlic in the ground. Garlic is a great crop as it doesn’t need to be put in the ground in the spring.
The garlic cloves, recently separated from their bulbs.
The girls planting a furrow of garlic. We ...Read more.
October 17, 2009 – World Food Prize Youth Institute
The final day of the events centered around the youth delegates. The students were split into groups of nine.
Here Claire is with her group, Ambassador Quinn, 2009 Laureate Dr. Gebisa Ejeta, and 2003 Laureate Catherine Bertini. Her group included students from Peru, Tanzania, Chicago and Iowa.
The students first met to present their papers to the ...Read more.
October 15, 2009 – World Food Prize Ceremony
Claire had a fantastic opportunity this week – she was selected as a participant in the World Food Prize Symposium Youth Institute. Usually a teacher accompanies the student to the three day all-expenses paid trip to the symposium, but Claire’s teacher had attended before and asked if Linda or I would like to attend in ...Read more.
October 2, 2009 – Applesauce Day
I’ll spare you the details of the processing, but today might be a record canning day at high hopes! The girls spent about three hours peeling apples, and we had some bags of apples in the freezer from earlier maturing trees. We made nine canner’s worth of applesauce. Apples take a while to cook into ...Read more.
September 20, 2009 – Inaugural Chicken Butchering
Today was the day we’ve been anticipating for quite some time. Two years ago the closest locker that butchered chickens (about 25 miles away) stopped processing chickens. Last year, the next closest locker (about 80 miles away) stopped doing chickens. Rather than drive even further – twice – once to drop off and ...Read more.
September 19, 2009 – Joint Birthday Parties
Since this is, in theory, Claire’s last birthday at home, the girls decided to have a joint birthday party this year. Their choice was to each invite 10 friends for an evening of fun like only high hopes gardens can provide. The night started out with a taco bar under the tent shelter, adorned with ...Read more.
August 20, 2009 – First Day of School
This year the kids all got on the same bus the first day of school!
Although this isn’t the typical portrait, it does show life waiting for the bus circa 2009. Oldest daughter texting someone. Young, skinny, boy huddles up trying to stay warm on the unseasonably cool August morning and middle daughter does well to ...Read more.
August 19, 2009 – Completion of First Round of College Visits
Today was a trip up to Northfield, MN to visit a couple of colleges – St. Olaf and Carleton. These are the last two on the initial list. Now, we may or may not do visits when school is in session. It looks like Claire will have a difficult decision, but perhaps ...Read more.
