Archive for the ‘Farm – All’ Category
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”
October 17, 2011 – Tomatoes Won’t Stop
OK, this is it. The final tomato harvest of the year – frost is forecast in the next few days.
The plants loved the dry late summer and fall. It was an epic tomato canning year – our final tally ended up to be 97 quarts and 37 pints canned – even for us, a lot! So, we are ready in case there is a crop failure next year – we’re good for a couple of years for chili, minestrone soup, red hot dish and whatever else we can use our summer canned in a jar.
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 14, 2011 – High Hopes Blog Slowing Down
Since Feb 13, 2005, I’ve committed to daily posts on the High Hopes Blog and have done that for the most part, except for periodic computer breakdowns – my WordPress dashboard tells me I have 2,439 entries. The blog now receives clicks from about 150 visitors a day, 55,000 visits last year, 170,000 visits in the last three years and the highest number of visitors on any one day is 1,066. However, as much of an advocate for sustainable and self-sufficient living that I am, a post that has nothing to do with this topic remains the most popular post – the picture of Claire’s home-made duct tape Homecoming dress is far and away the single most visited post!
One astute observer refers to it as my “electronic scrapbooking” as the blog chronicles the farm and family. We often look back on it when we can’t remember when something happened, or how old an animal is.
With some of the farm activities winding down, there will be less material – so I am no longer committing to daily posts – instead, when something happens I will still post – it might be once or twice a week, we’ll have to see.
A big thanks to all who have and continue to keep up with the goings on at High Hopes Gardens and its denizens.
one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #229″
October 12, 2011 – Potato Yield from 50 foot Row
We had one more row of potatoes to dig up in the garden
It was a great row – here’s the yield from one 50 foot row! A rinse, dry and storage in the basement will give us potatoes well into winter.
one year ago…”Francis Thicke for Secretary of Agriculture”
October 11, 2011 – Today’s Facebook Steal
one year ago…”Lovin’ the Garden Chickens”
October 10, 2011 – Seeds
One benefit of not getting around to pick beans before the pods get too big is that later in the season, you’ve got some seeds for next year’s gardens. These are Rattlesnake Master pole beans, a non-hybrid, so the seeds grow true.
It’s still amazing all the information stored in each of these – instructions about when to sprout, what to do, what parts to make, how to respond to weather, and how to make more beans!
one year ago…”Lovin the 48 inch Tiller”
October 9, 2011 – Corn Recovery from Flattened
After the July windstorm, all the corn around here was flat on the ground. In less than a week it popped back up.
But walking is a field is almost impossible since the main part of the stalks are about 18 inches or so from where the stalks come out of the ground. Might make for some slow harvesting.
one year ago…”Duct Tape Hammock”
October 7, 2011 – Tomatoes for Salsa Project
The Marshalltown School District has a sizable minority population (not to be the minority much later since over half the births in the local hospital are of Hispanic origin.) The school has started a local foods project to make salsa using local ingredients.
These tomatoes are destined to become salsa in the lunch room.
one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #228″
October 3, 2011 – Chicken Butchering Commences
Yesterday was the day to put the chickens in the freezer. We skipped the first step in the photo sequence of butchering.
Here a nice bird is ready for the scalder.
A few dips and twists in the hot water and as soon as a wing feather can be plucked off easily by hand, it’s done.
Into the plucker.
about 15 seconds later, they look a lot like rubber chickens.
Emma and Linda cutting them up.
When we went to the chicken tractor, we found one critter had eaten part of a chicken through the wires. It’s always disheartening to feed an animal to its last day and lose it, but it was only one, and it could have been, and has been worse.
