Archive for the ‘Family – Claire’ Category
May 18, 2012 – Hog Barn Refresh
There’s only two sides of buildings that haven’t been painted since we moved in. The north side of the old wooden machine shed, andt this, the east side of the hog barn.
Since Claire is one to keep busy, I put her in charge of taking care of it (except for the high parts).
May 9, 2012 – Big Gardening Day on the Farm
It was a great “getting things done on the farm day.” It was the first day that Linda and Claire were home all day, so the garden and other things were transformed.
First, Claire volunteered to clean out winter from the hen house. About five overflowing loader buckets (liberally soaked with water to aid the composting process) and the hen house was ready for fresh bedding, and next year’s compost is on the way.
Many plants and seeds and mulch found their way into the garden as well. We got the recycled lumber tarps out of the barn, Linda planted a bunch of peppers and tomatoes. I went to the neighbors via the bumpy dirt trail between the crop fields and retrieved two loads of loose straw from the loft of their barn and put the tomato cages on, pounded the stakes in, spread the mulch and wet it all down.
This photo shows some hearty garlic on the right, a cattle panel trellis that we put up this weekend. It has pole beans on the outside and lettuce and spinach underneath, hopefully to last a bit longer into the summer with the shade of the beans. To the left of the trellis is some space reserved for viney plants before a row of tomatoes. It’s nice to have that mulched portion of the garden already weeded for the whole season!
At the end of the day, I took some time to pull thistles from the pasture. It appears that last year’s pulling them out by had greatly reduced the population in the paddock we tested last year. We’ll continue that on the other paddocks this year.
January 3, 2012 – Year In Review
It’s time for a year=end review of some of my favorite moments and photos of 2011.
Kids and baby animals are hard to beat.
Extremes in any domain are interesting.
Martin’s new found love and interest in cooking gave us many great meals.
The promise of a neat spring garden always brings hope.
Linda’s wild look in the White House captures a moment.
“Walking the Talk”
Claire as a professional at her work post in DC.
Dad and Martin up on the North Shore of Minnesota.
Martin’s initiative to carry a big pack, rather cheerfully over 3.5 miles of portages.
Emma exploring new foods in Boston.
Taking care of some of our own responsibly-grown meat.
Visiting with women farmers from around the world at our farm.
The majesty and scale of the new wind turbine farm just south of our farm.
Finally, after 20 some odd years (who’s counting, exactly) the love of my life shining a little light of hers.
January 2, 2012 – Claire’s Caucus Quest
As Claire was running out things to do at home with all her college friends gone away and most of her high school friends on a band trip to Florida, she thought it might be educational to visit all the Republican candidates running around in pre-caucus-mode. In the matter of a few days, she was able to see four of them in Marshalltown, and was able to make a trip to Cedar Rapids to pick the last two in an afternoon.
Interesting juxtaposition of Claire’s t-shirt and political candidate!.
Claire with everyone’s favorite grandpa politician.
According to Claire, warm monster cookies provided by the Romney camp might be enough to swing anyone’s vote!
Rick Perry speaking to what he knows about in Marshalltown.
Claire with the only other declared female presidential candidate.
Rick Santorum live on the campaign trail. All in all, a good week for a poly-sci major to see candidates in action.
December 11, 2011 – What do They Have in Common?
What do the following people have in common?
They all met Claire at an “event” in a 37th floor penthouse in downtown Minneapolis! A few days before the event, the chair of the Political Science department at Macalester College asked if she could provide the name of a handful of students who might want to attend. Claire was picked and got to meet Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, Minnesota Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, Iowa Congressional challenger Christi Vilsack, Former VP Mondale, and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Ryback.
Claire enjoyed it immensely and in a debriefing with her professor the next day, she told Claire, “I’ve never seen a student work a room like you.”
The next day she received a call from the Governor’s office inviting her to interview in two days for an internship and by Friday she had the new internship. Her schedule is now set for a bit – Spring semester she has the internship in the Governor’s Office and her work-study internship in the Children’s Museum. She’s lucky to have two of her classes at night, so she has time during the day for these experiences. This summer is also set, as she’ll be back in Secretary Vilsack’s office in DC as she was last summer.
October 29, 2011 – Rocky Horror
Claire was home for a short break and was excited to go to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Guess I’ll let the picture speak for itself! Evidently a good time was had by all, with props provided by the theatre.
one year ago…”Signs of the Times”
October 19, 2011 – More Oxfam Pictures
A while back I posted some pictures from some international visitors brought to high hopes by Oxfam. They had a professional photographer with the group and following are some of the pictures taken by Ilene Perlman. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves (except for one that needs some explanation).
This type of water pump handle was familiar – it was interesting to see this woman “pump” the handle up and down, like I remember the pump on my grandfather’s farm.
one year ago…”Signs of the Times”
October 16, 2011 – World Food Prize/Oxfam Visitors
Once more this year, we were fortunate to host some amazing folks who were in town for the World Food Prize Symposium. This year’s event was much smaller than last year’s, but just as interesting.
Many of the folks who stopped by were international visitors who are used to living in rural areas, and were thrilled to get out to the country after spending a week in hotels downtown. One of my favorite moments is when one of the visitor’s eyes light up when they see or smell something familiar to them – whether it be the aroma of a fresh herb in the air or seeing and old standard-breed chicken.
Here Linda speaks with Mrs. Silas Samsom Buru, a farmer from Ethiopia. Although she had never traveled more than a few miles from her village in her life before this trip, she was on a panel at the symposium panel with VPs from Wal-Mart, Kraft Foods, and NGO Director Generals and was a natural at expressing her viewpoints. She spoke about a new crop insurance program that pays out not based on an individual farmer’s crop loss, but instead if average yields fall below a certain level in the region. Farmers can pay with cash, or improve their long-term farming sustainability by soil organic matter improvement to make the soils hold more water through droughts. She said the program has the possibility of improving the lot of the next generation so they will not need so much outside food aid.
The woman in front of Linda is Nelly Velandia from Columbia. Nelly practiced civil disobedience by setting up a farmer’s market in towns where they were not prohibited, on the steps of the government building. The markets were a huge success and the rules were changed. In Bogotá, she even convinced the mayor’s office to help cover the cost of setting up markets in parks and public squares. The markets offer poor rural farmers a much more profitable return and urban residents cheaper, more nutritious food.
It was uplifting to share stories among these women of their efforts to improve their corners of the world.
one year ago…”Oxfam Event at High Hopes Gardens”
October 15, 2011 – Claire’s In the State
At least I think she is – she came home late Monday night/Tuesday morning and then used the one of the high hopes rental fleet and drove to Des Moines for the week for the World Food Prize activities.
Here she is on a shopping mission to Wal-Mart, a place she seldom if ever steps into, so she made sure to learn from the now famous Wal-Mart fashion tip she read on the internet:
Claire had a week of volunteering and attending events. She marveled at the new Hall of Laureates, which saved the old Des Moines downtown public library from the wrecking ball.
The building hopes to meet LEED Platinum standard – among other things, it maintained the character of the old building and new by covering the roof with solar panels, invisible from the street.
one year ago…”Claire Back in Town for World Food Prize Events”
September 19, 2011 – Mark One More Off Claire’s Bucket List
Claire was able to cross one item off her bucket list.
Ay guesses, where she is before scrolling down?
It’s Garrison Kellior’s annual meatloaf dinner and street dance outside the Fitzgerald Theatre in Downtown St. Paul.
We have subjected her to weekly doses of the Prairie Home Companion and stories from Lake Wobegone on many Saturday evenings while preparing dinner or driving somewhere in the car. She, however, gets to be the first one to attend the meatloaf dinner!
one year ago…”Mushrooms Ready to Dry”
August 20, 2011 – Expanding Claire’s Horizons
Today, Claire and I woke up bright and early to bring most of this year’s lambs to the sale barn. Although, sharp-eyed readers may debate that either “Colfax Lives” or that we should have brought Linda’s latest knit socks along instead of some lambs.
Isn’t it nice to see Claire on a gravel parking lot wearing knee-high rubber chore boots? Better yet, inside, was no one younger than me, nor of the opposite sex, save for the teen running the concession stand. Surely a different world than that of Washington DC or college. We aim to produce well-rounded children with a wide variety of experiences second to none – and surely, few, if any of her classmates at school or co-workers in DC, have had parents to avail their children to such an experience!
one year ago…”Bees Keeping Cool”
August 10, 2011 – A Year Ago
It’s about a year ago that Claire returned form India. After a near PC meltdown last week, I found this video she took, of just a random walk down a street in Hyderabad.
Just a nice look into life on the other side of the world.
one year ago…”Back in the Old Days…”
July 5, 2011 – Linda Visits Claire in DC
Linda was able to drop in and see Claire (and actually have a sleepover at Claire’s place one night while she was there).
Mother and Daughter in front of USDA building, Claire’s work station for the summer.
After all the photos of her out and about town, there’s at least one of her at work!
Claire picked out this place for them to dine. This acclaimed restaurant is owned by the North Dakota Farmer’s Union! Great food and atmosphere.
At the Capitol at dusk.
July 4, 2011 – 4th in DC
Since Linda and I had to wake up at O’dark thirty to get Linda to the airport (3:30 am), we were not thrilled about driving to fireworks, so the kids lit snakes and sparklers outside with the fireflies. Claire, however, had a different experience.
There was the parade down Constitution Avenue and here’s Claire’s perch in front of the National Archives.
I’m glad she filmed the finale of the fireworks – probably better than what we might have seen!
one year ago…”Are You Smarter than a Dean of Agriculture at Iowa State?”
