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.
January 2, 2012 – Claire’s Caucus Quest
As Claire was running out things to do at home with all her college friends gone away and most of her high school friends on a band trip to Florida, she thought it might be educational to visit all the Republican candidates running around in pre-caucus-mode. In the matter of a few days, she was able to see four of them in Marshalltown, and was able to make a trip to Cedar Rapids to pick the last two in an afternoon.
Interesting juxtaposition of Claire’s t-shirt and political candidate!.
Claire with everyone’s favorite grandpa politician.
According to Claire, warm monster cookies provided by the Romney camp might be enough to swing anyone’s vote!
Rick Perry speaking to what he knows about in Marshalltown.
Claire with the only other declared female presidential candidate.
Rick Santorum live on the campaign trail. All in all, a good week for a poly-sci major to see candidates in action.
January 1, 2012 – “Iowa Nice” on Caucus Eve
With Stephen Bloom’s recent disparaging rant about Iowa and the accompanying response, this feller took it upon himself to produce a retort of sorts, just in time for the Iowa Caucuses.
December 31, 2011 – Endless Late October
It has indeed been an endless late October this so-called winter. Here we are at New Year’s Eve.
This afternoon, for example, it was in the upper 50′s a far cry from the common sub-zero usually on this day.
Heck, we were even able to get laundry out on the line!
December 30, 2011 – Emma at Citrus Bowl
The Bobcat Band has spent the last couple of years raising money for a bowl trip. This year they went to Orlando for the Citrus Bowl. The following photo came from another band parent.
No doubt I’ll have more on Emma’s trip when she returns with her camera.
December 26, 2011 – Martin’s Stop-Action Premiere
With nothing better to do (since our kids are limited to half hour of TV/PC games per day), they are able to pursue other activities. Martin wanted to make a stop-motion video using his new Atlantis Lego set. So without further ado – Martin’s premiere Sea Man vs Evil Shark.
December 24, 2011 – New Kind of Christmas Dinner
With Emma heading off with the Bobcat band to play in Orlando and in the Citrus Bowl parade (corporate sponsor intentionally left off), we couldn’t spend as much time as usual in Minnesota. So we were home Christmas Eve and after sugar-high crash, we were craving something green and fresh.
Linda made some spring rolls from scratch for the first time. We’ll work on the rolling, but they were still yummy!
Then it was a wok full of stir-fry for the main course.
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 12, 2011 – Team Mu? First Lego League Shines Again!
The following is from the school website (I don’t have to write today!)
Lenihan’s FIRST LEGO League team took the overall championship at the regional contest held Saturday, Dec. 10, at Marshalltown Community College. The win advances the team to the state competition Jan. 14, 2012, at Iowa State University.
Lenihan’s Extended Learning Program team won the overall Championship, in a field of 32 Central Iowa teams, by earning the highest combined scores in all four competition categories: Robot Challenge, Technical Interview, Research Presentation, and FLL Core Values.
The 2011-2012 FLL theme is “Food Factor”. Throughout the fall semester, the team has researched milk production and possible bacterial contamination points. Based on this research, the students wrote a project presentation, designed an innovative solution to the contamination problem, and compiled an annotated bibliography of their research sources.
Work on the robot challenge included completing advanced programming tutorials, constructing three robot prototypes and their final robot design, and programming multiple missions using LEGO MINDSTORM software. The students incorporated a light sensor and ultrasonic sensor to input data for an autonomous program as well as utilized a third motor to operate their forklift, fishing net, catch basin, and bumper attachments.
The team will face 72 qualifying teams Jan. 14 at the ISU College of Engineering. More than 200 teams competed at regional competitions across the state.
December 11, 2011 – What do They Have in Common?
What do the following people have in common?
They all met Claire at an “event” in a 37th floor penthouse in downtown Minneapolis! A few days before the event, the chair of the Political Science department at Macalester College asked if she could provide the name of a handful of students who might want to attend. Claire was picked and got to meet Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, Minnesota Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, Iowa Congressional challenger Christi Vilsack, Former VP Mondale, and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Ryback.
Claire enjoyed it immensely and in a debriefing with her professor the next day, she told Claire, “I’ve never seen a student work a room like you.”
The next day she received a call from the Governor’s office inviting her to interview in two days for an internship and by Friday she had the new internship. Her schedule is now set for a bit – Spring semester she has the internship in the Governor’s Office and her work-study internship in the Children’s Museum. She’s lucky to have two of her classes at night, so she has time during the day for these experiences. This summer is also set, as she’ll be back in Secretary Vilsack’s office in DC as she was last summer.
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 29, 2011 – Christmas Tree Season is Upon Us!
This year, we will be once again selling Christmas trees at Wheatsfield Grocery in Ames and off the farm.
Weather depending, we’ll be at Wheatsfield Sat Dec 3 from 10-4, Sunday Dec 4 from 12-4, and Sunday Dec 11 from 12-4. The trees will be cut on Friday December 2, so they’ll be a much fresher than the ones at Menards and Hy-Vee that were probably cut early to mid November. We’ll also sell them from the farm as cut your own by arrangement.
