Archive for the ‘Family – Claire’ Category
June 21, 2011 – World Food Prize 2011 Laureate Announcement
The interns were invited to the 2011 World Food Prize Laureate announcement press conference at the State Department.
Interns mingle with the crowd in the Benjamin Franklin Room.
Claire thinking about taking the podium!
Claire hangs out with random documents in the State Department – in this case with the Treaty of Paris.
More interns at the podium.
Photo: World Food Prize
Claire was near the front at the presser (lower right). Hillary was supposed to make the announcement but got held up at the White House where Obama evidently held her over (the day he made his announcement on troop withdrawal in the Middle East). Pols in attendance included Iowa congressional representatives Steve King, Tom Latham, Leonard Boswell, and former Senator George McGovern.
one year ago…”Summer Tradition”
June 20, 2011 – Washington Beginnings
The first-week of the internship starts in DC with all the interns from around the country.
Claire plays her role as special interest lobbyist well!
Hanging out with some of the other interns over a meal.
Mystery sign in a car parked outside the USDA office. Not sure if it’s an employee’s funeral or a message to the USDA from Congress?
one year ago…”Mammatus”
June 18, 2011 – Claire Leaves for DC
Who could imagine this girl from the middle of nowhere in Iowa, setting out for a summer in DC, following a summer in India! Claire has certainly taken advantage of opportunities and shows what a bit of dedication and persistence can do, no matter where you live.
Here she is, with her summer full of bags, ready to take off to the airport to begin her summer.
Following is a brief summary about this summer’s internship lifted from the Carver-Wallace intern page – you can read more about Claire and the other interns at the Carver-Wallace Intern page.
“Fulfilling the shared vision of Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack and World Food Prize founder Dr. Norman Borlaug of inspiring the next generation of American scientific and humanitarian leaders, the United States Department of Agriculture and the World Food Prize Foundation have partnered to create the Wallace-Carver Internship Program.
The prestigious USDA Wallace-Carver Internships offer exceptional high school and college students the opportunity to collaborate with world-renowned scientists and policymakers through paid internships at leading USDA research centers and offices across the United States.
Fifteen former Borlaug-Ruan International Interns were selected to participate in the inaugural program in Summer 2011. These exceptional young leaders will be stationed at USDA research centers for eight weeks over the summer, where they will analyze agricultural and economic policy; assist in the management of food, nutrition and rural development programs; and take part in groundbreaking field and laboratory-based research.
The Wallace-Carver Internships kick off with a dynamic leadership and orientation training week in Washington D.C., hosted by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, where the students have the opportunity to:
- meet privately with the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Agriculture;
- discuss global and domestic food security challenges with key officials from USDA, the State Department and USAID;
- attend the World Food Prize Laureate Announcement Ceremony at the State Department and interact with a range of global leaders in science, industry, and policy;
- meet with the scientific leadership of the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center and tour the world’s largest and most diversified agricultural research complex;
- engage with World Food Prize Laureates, as well as young scientific, congressional and humanitarian leaders working to end hunger and poverty in America and abroad during intimate dinner discussions around the District.”
As I told Claire, I hope that only the discussions turn intimate in the District. Many in the District seem to have troubles knowing when to share their intimates!
one year ago…”High Hopes Flowers Grace Cover of Midwest Living Magazine”
May 29, 2011 – Daily Life of the Camper
Claire writes today.
Camping is a completely different style of life, and it’s so easy to forget everything but your basic needs which is endlessly refreshing. We pride ourselves on building one match fires, and all of the fires that we cooked on in the Boundary Waters were made with a single match.
Claire stirs the food while tending to the fire at the first campsite.
One of the beautiful things about camping is that your whole life for that period of time can fit into a canoe, and you can carry it anywhere in two trips. The efficiency of all the equipment is a beautiful thing.
Typically you try to find a campsite somewhere between 2 and 4 so you have time to set up camp. Portaging and canoeing all morning and afternoon is exhausting. Linda rests on a rock here after arriving at a campsite.
It gets cold at night. One morning we woke up with ice in our water bottles. Linda had the luxury of a brand new sleeping bag to keep her nice and toasty! The tent also held up quite well and it was affectionately nicknamed the “Emerald City”
Sometimes the weather doesn’t go quite your way. We were fortunate to have glorious day time weather all up until the last day when we awoke to raindrops. That’s when you pile on the rain gear and put a smile/grimace on your face!
one year ago…”Garlic off to Great Start”
May 28, 2011 – Boundary Waters Adventures
Claire writes today. One of the conditions of going on the Boundary Waters trip was that Claire carried the canoe on some of the portages. She and Linda split the portages about 50-50.
Here she carries the canoe on a portage
Claire paddles the bow in the canoe in one of the lakes they visited
Linda does her share of the beastly portages here.
The most useful (threatening) tool we had.
one year ago…”Smallest of Habitats”
May 27, 2011 – Mother-Daughter Get-Away
Claire requested a BWCA wilderness trip with her mother in the time between school and the start of her internship. Three weeks after ice-out isn’t necessarily the best time, but the bugs and other people are slow and sluggish at the end of May.
Here’s the route – plenty of portaging on this route.
At the Poplar Lake landing, ready to go!
one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #210″
May 13, 2011 – Claire’s Back
Now that Claire’s back, we get to shake up the menu a bit by adding Indian dishes to the rotation.
Tonight she made naan, a bean-carrot fry, a spinach potato curd curry, and a type of rice pudding. We’ll let her cook anytime! It gave me occasion to try out a whole new series of puns, some of which have very small audiences. First, it’s the early 90′s band “4 Naan Blondes,” or the pile of naan that have sight, smell, and touch, or “Naansense,” of the newspaper headline after the 747 takeoff was aborted after encountering a pile of naan on the runway “Naan Stop Flight.” The family has had enough groaning, so I’ll stop there!
one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #208″
March 16, 2011 – Mushroom Logs Inoculated with Spawn
Wednesday was a good day! Claire’s been home fro spring break to escape the lingering Minnesota snow. I ordered small amounts of six different types of mushrooms, 3 oyster varieties and 3 shiitake varieties. We order the plugs, and I got 100 plugs of each kind – so we have about two logs of each variety. Of course, we have plenty of wood as the giant maple was cut a few weeks ago – and now is the perfect time to inoculate the logs.
Claire drills the holes in the logs.
Martin pounds the dowels in the logs. As you can see in the background, the maple syrup boil continues.
The ends and dowels are sealed up with beeswax and the logs moved to to a shady spot to wait to bloom with mushrooms.
one year ago…”Three Cats in the Sun”
February 16, 2011 – Farm Fixture April Has Chased Last Rabbit
Today was the day every pet owner dreads – having to willingly drive to the vet to put a long-time pet away. April had slowly given up the will to live, not eating as much, then not eating at all, not drinking water, and finally the last two days, not moving from her comfortable place in the hay in the barn. So it was time.
April had been on the farm before Martin was born. The girls were three and five when we retrieved April from the shelter.
For 14 years, April has been part of the backdrop to the farm.
She took seriously her animal guarding duties. Whenever we packed up livestock, she spent the night close by, instead of in her usual spot.
In her younger days, she accompanied us to cut a Christmas tree. We’re guessing she was a mix of Golden Retriever and Collie. We called her our Marilyn Monroe dog. She was laid back and non-barking – things I prize in a a dog!
Like everyone, she had her faults and quirks – the biggest one was her terror of thunderstorms. When she was young, she was caught in a hailstorm, and rather than seeking shelter, she ran around in the hailstones – some big enough to break windows in the house. After that, she would stop at nothing to get into the house during thunderstorms. She destroyed two doors, before we learned to call her into the house when storms were coming and put up steel doors, so she couldn’t hurt herself or the doors if a storm came when we weren’t home.
It was a good life on the farm – sunshine and children to play with.
April always insisted on being part of the first day of school photos.
Everyone in the family had a chance to say goodbye to April. Last night, Claire even did when we put the phone up to April’s ear so Claire could say good-bye and April could hear her voice one last time.
Each child in this world, if they are lucky, only gets one good dog to grow up with. For our kids, we can thank April for being that special dog that they shared their childhood with. Thanks April.
one year ago…”Sheep Bagging Up”
February 8, 2011 – Claire’s Lemon Meringue Pie
OK, it’s back to Iowa farm-grown produce. Today, we feature lemons. I neglected to post these back over Christmas break, when the lemon harvest began in earnest.
Yes, these lemons were grown at High Hopes Gardens, albeit indoors for some of the year.
Claire shows no remorse shortly after ripping these baby lemons from her long-time companion lemon tree, named Panda. Being raised on a farm, and around farm animals, I guess she had no troubles tearing this lemon from its mother and immediately cutting it up.
The non-meringuey part of the pie.
The completed pie.
Never one to know when to stop making Panda feeling bad, here Claire returns with a sinister smile to taunt Panda with what her babies looked like after being knifed, crushed, and cooked!
January 2, 2011 – Claire Out of the Country Again!
Claire had spent virtually no money at school on “mad money” and between her miles to India and thriftiness, she had enough dough to fly to Montreal for an Indian Reunion of sorts.
One excursion an aspiring political scientist might want to make is a trip Ottawa to see the Canadian Capital. Here they are on the approach to Parliament Hill.
The Canadian Parliament building in Ottawa.
Claire was relieved to see that “Women are Persons” in Canada as well.
Of course, this revelation that Women are Persons, doesn’t mean the people in America’s attic don’t have a sense of humor and make female Supreme Court justices wear clothes reminiscent of a holly, jolly, philanthropic fellow!
Of course, no international trip is complete without sampling the local foods. In this case, Claire displays the maple beaver tail.
Back in Montreal and some brightly colored row houses.
Claire, excited to be reunited with her luggage after a three-day break-up, courtesy of United Airlines.
one year ago…”Putting the “art” in mARTin”
December 25, 2010 – Christmas Deck Rescue
What says Christmas like shoveling off a deck? The deck at Nana’s place needed to be shoveled off according to homeowner’s association rules. There were only a few problems. The door opened out to the deck and snow blocked it, the screen door did not have a removable window, and there are not stairs from the outside up to the deck.
Here Claire psychs up Martin to ready him for his journey out the kitchen window above the kitchen sink!
Martin gets the heave out the window.
The shovel shortly followed and Martin was able to get enough snow off the deck to open the door and get more help in shoveling the snow off the deck.
one year ago…”Merry Christmas 2009″
December 24, 2010 – Picking the Christmas Tree
We didn’t have far to go to pick our Christmas tree this year!
It was much easier this year than last year when the trees were buried in 4 foot snow drifts.
November 25, 2010 – The Feast
After yesterday’s uncomfortable outdoor experience, thought it best to lead with something warm and turkey related.
Here’s a slab of turkey in the smoker. We baked one turkey and smoked another half outside in the smoker. I was the best-smelling guy all day, tending the smoker. This turkey was out of this world good.
Pie master Linda at work on the lattice top for the cherry pie.
The completed cherry pie.
An apple pie.
And of course, a so-called pumpkin pie (actually it was squash from our garden - many folks don’t know that even store-bought pumpkin pie filling from the store is squash).
Getting the vittles ready.
Still more vittle preparation.
Making the cranberry sauce from scratch (great with port).
Finally, the turkey dressing getting ready to mix. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
one year ago…”Turkeys Ready to Go”
