Archive for the ‘Farm – All’ Category
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!
November 7, 2011 – Wind Turbine-Raising at Night
Now that is is dark before dinnertime, today we noticed that one of the new wind towers to the south was illuminated. It looked rather cool from a distance, a massive gleaming white tower, looking like an Atlas rocket, growing out of where there was nothing a few days ago.
So we ate dinner, and after dinner tasks and thought we’d drive down to see how close we’d get and to measure just how far they were from our house.
When we arrived, we were in for a surprise. We could get fairly close and at first it looked like they were raising a blade with the crane, but then realized it was all three blades at once going up together.
The blade assembly slowly lifted into the night air.
The crane must have been about 300 feet tall. Each of the more horizontal blades also had support guy wires on them
Finally, in the dark, calm of the evening, punctuated only by the sound of the crane winch, the blade assembly was in place. This tower is 2.8 miles south and a mile east of our place.
November 2, 2011 – The World’s Most Hated Vegetable?
Could this be the world’s most hated vegetable? The lowly brussels sprouts?
Brussels sprouts are a great crop because they aren’t much good until after a hard frost, and are one of the last fresh crops out of the garden. Many people can’t stand them, in part, to the chemical that get released after overcooking in boiling water.
October 31, 2011 – Look What We Started!
Who’d of thought that our little turbine would be a scout or decoy to lure some giant wind turbines to the neighborhood?
This turbine farm to our south. There are plans to build 52 turbines.
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 18, 2011 – Fall Color
Here’s the little tree we planted in the front yard – growing up quite nicely.
We planted an ash, maple, and oak along the north side of the driveway many years ago to grow up to replace the old spruce, and two maples. With age and all the wind of late, the spruce tree blew down this summer, and one maple is down to about 25% of its original branches from storm damage. So, it looks like these trees might add some meaningful shade on the south side of the house by the time the other trees are gone.
one year ago…”Mini-van Driver No More”
