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.

No doubt I’ll have more on Emma’s trip when she returns with her camera.

This photo captures much in its ordinariness.  People gather around the appetizers in the kitchen while Martin receives instruction from his uncles regarding sound effect production.

Middle child often gets left out of family publications, so to make it up to her, I found her doing dishes while her siblings were off playing and having fun.  Great Christmas memories for Emma, for sure!

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The towers are made of three sections. This is the bottom of a yet unattached top tower section.

Here’s the top of the same (third) section – not much room for a person to squeeze through.

Emma with 2/3 of the tower built, along with the blade assembly still on the ground.

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”

Luther scored points for having traditional Norwegian cookies – including rosettes, kringla, krumkake, and sandbakkle.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #230″

one year ago…”Turkey Update”

Here’s Emma goofing off with her date.  The local paper endeared themselves to the entire high school by reprinting a previous year’s homecoming article and only updating the homecoming court names and photos.  The article was complete with quotes from a previous principal, talk about moving the parade indoors because of rain (it was clear an in the 70s and 80s all week), and had the wrong theme.  So the writer and editor both let that onw slip by.

one year ago…”Emma Visits River Museum”

Then you separate the beeswax from the frames.  Emma with the heated knife and gj with a wax scraper.

Then you separate the honey from the frames in the extractor.

Then you filter out all the bee parts and remaining wax from the honey.

A final look at Emma with a nice frame.  We ended up with about 15 gallons of honey from two hives.  Shortly after the aerial jockeys sprayed around our farm, the hive at our place ha greatly reduced activity.  After the bees died, the wax moths took over and there was no honey – but the two hives at another location adjacent to about 15 acres of prairie, did very well.

one year ago…”U of M Public Relations Disaster”

We take our bonfires seriously (perhaps a bit too seriously).  At any rate, this one did not escape beyond our property boundaries!

What better to do around a bonfire than plank on a pile of teenagers?

one year ago…”Farm Energy Working Group Meeting”