Archive for the ‘Farm – All’ Category

February 4, 2012 – Claire’s got Stones!

At least curling stones.

You’re looking at about 640 pounds of pure unadulterated fun on ice.

Macalester offered up an free afternoon of curling to a busload of students – Claire was all over it as a daughter whose father neglected her by never once taking her to a hockey game, even though her little brother witnessed the Frozen Four championship game.  Here a nice man instructs the kids how the game is played.

Not yet skilled at using the broom as an extension of the arm to maintain balance during the throw, she’s down. I hope she was able to say that the stone made it into the house.

OK, at least Claire made it into the house!

As with most sports, although you might not think of it, every possible warning is issued to protect from legal action in the unlikely event a stone becomes airborne.  I just went and added the Canadian cult film Men with Brooms to my Netflix queue!

January 27, 2012 – Not Your Father’s Mr. Potato Head

When I was growing up, the only fun we had with potatoes was pushing plastic face parts into a tuber.  Things are different now.

Now, kids are using potatoes to generate electricity, as demonstrated by Martin’s potato-powered clock.  Sure it’s a bit bulky for a clock, but it’s potato-powered!

January 14, 2012 – First Lego League Iowa Championships

This week was he culmination of the First Lego League season.

It’s a crazy scene in the atrium of Hoover Hall at the ISU College of Engineering as the 72 teams that qualified for state gather.

Team Mu? watching the robot on it’s mission to complete as many tasks as possible.  The other two parts of the competition, the presentation about an innovative solution and team problem-solving exercises  are just as important as the robot programming, but less camera-freindly.

The team poses with long-time FLL supporter and Emcee Brandon.

The team poses with this year’s award, third place in the State in the “Gracious Professionalism” category.  This is one of the core values to First Lego Leaugue and is described as following from FLL:

With Gracious Professionalism, fierce competition and mutual gain are not separate notions. Gracious professionals learn and compete like crazy, but treat one another with respect and kindness in the process. They avoid treating anyone like losers. No chest thumping tough talk, but no sticky-sweet platitudes either. Knowledge, competition, and empathy are comfortably blended. In the long run, Gracious Professionalism is part of pursuing a meaningful life. One can add to society and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing one has acted with integrity and sensitivity.

Photos without high hopes gardens watermark are courtesy of Frank Roessler.

January 9, 2012 – 2011 Skystream Wind Turbine Results

Ok, the numbers are in from last year’s Skystream production. In summary, the Skystream produced an average of 387 kWh per month. This compares quite favorably to the average of the previous two years (333 kWh), and our household electric use dropped from an monthly average of 857 kWh in 2010 to 819 kWh in 2011. So, the Skystream produced 47% of our electric use in 2011.

Production stats for the Skystream Turbine for 2011.

2009 Summary
In 2009, the Skystream produced 4012 kWh, an average of 334 kWh per month. The farm and household used 11,068 kWh, an average of 922 kWh per month. The Skystream produced 36% of our energy.

2010 Summary
In 2010, the Skystream produced 3993 kWh, an average of 332 kWh per month. The farm and household used 10,284 kWh, an average of 857 kWh per month. The Skystream produced 39% of our energy.

2011 Summary
In 2011, the Skystream produced 4643 kWh, an average of 387 kWh per month. The farm and household used 10,145 kWh, an average of 819 kWh per month. The Skystream produced 47% of our energy.

January 8, 2012 – The Storm that Keeps on Giving

The extraordinarily warm winter to date allows for some jobs that might have waited until spring.  We’re still cleaning up debris from the storm.  It was nice enough to get the chain saw out today and cut up some more trees and haul more branches to one of the burn piles.

We’re probably about 80% done with the cleanup, if you don’t count whether the trees that were snapped off 1/2 way up come down or not.

January 6, 2012 – Trying to do Our Part

Although, like most people, I don’t like seeing myself on film, the Farm Energy Working group asked if they could interview me for part of a larger series on farm energy. For better or worse, here’s my 4 minute segment.

January 4, 2012 – January Garden Harvest

OK, the streak continues, now 12 consecutive months with a harvest!

On pizza earlier this week, springtime favorite spinach from the garden made it on the homemade pizza.

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.

December 23, 2011 – Christmas Chaos

More than anything, family Christmas gatherings seem to be more chaos management than Silent Night. I won’t pull out the smiling children in front of a Christmas Tree now (that may be coming later).

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!

December 21, 2011 – The Days Once Again Lengthen!

Once again, the earth turns and the days will once again lengthen!  Tonight we had our annual bonfire/potluck to try to bring the light back.  After the fire, the house was crammed full of people yet again, probably somewhere between 80-100.

Linda with a candle not in the wind.  It was the warmest winter solstice in memory.

The bonfire fueled by the wreckage from this year’s windstorm, was one of the hottest and brightest ever.   There were some trunks 4 ft across that didn’t burn much, so will be a bast for next year’s fire.  Oh yeah, and we still have three more piles from the storm sitting in wait – we might have to increase the party occasions to get rid of them all.

December 10, 2011 – December Mushrooms!

Even though we’ve had some days in the single digits, the mushrooms are still producing!

With this December harvest, that means for 2011, we have harvested something from the farm every month but January! We had an early sap run the last day of February and have harvested something every month since then.  The bounty is amazing!

November 30, 2011 – December Lettuce!

How’s this for wonderful – we’ll be eating fresh lettuce out of the garden into December!

We’ve picked a bunch for the fridge, to guarantee December lettuce.  Any day we could get that first day it’s in the low teens at night and not above freezing during the day to finally kill it off.

November 15, 2011 – At a Wind Turbine Work Site

After seeing the turbine blades lifted in a dramatic night-time maneuver, we thought we’d go check out one not quite built to get a scale of these turbines.

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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.

November 14, 2011 – Fall Sunset

Had to take 30 seconds out of the day to grab this fall sunset.

We all need to smell the roses while we still can!