We’ve had a mysterious clothesline change of location. After returning home from vacation, a line that goes from the tree to the clothesline pole was snapped, and the end of the line was about 15 feet up on the opposite side of the tree. Couldn’t quite figure out how it got there – if it snapped, it couldn’t weave its way through the branches up the opposite side of the tree. I tied it back and a few days later saw a squirrel chewing on the rope.

Again, it happened – the line usually goes between the pole and tree.

The line up in the tree, presumably dragged up by the squirrel – for fun or nesting material?

On our way to to a few days in the mountains – but first we must traverse Nebraska.

I’ve never been through Nebraska during the height of spring. The trip across was very green, and the Platte River was at flood stage. Contrary to many opinions, Martin thought it was more interesting than driving across Iowa as the highway followed the river for a good part of the state and the range was green instead of the current black of the Iowa cropland. Lots of wild turkeys along the river as well.

Went to a wonderful Senior recital this afternoon.

Eliza knocked it out with a combination of classical opera and show tunes.

All topped off with a bit of playfullness.

It’s not often that bands from my hometown make it this far south – but this weekend Duluth’s Trampled by Turtles found their way to town.

They brought their brand of whatever it is (Ralph Stanley meets Nirvana?) to an outdoor street concert.

Best of all, we are still not lame enough for our daughter not to attend with us!

Here’s a taste…

Trampled by Turtles – Victory

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT8gaiNVqOM]

There is a pair of vultures that like to hang out near my cube at work.

They’ll sit for a while with their wings extended.

Sometimes they’ll sit side-by side and keep a look out.  With the turkey vultures looking into us trapped on the inside on a beautiful day, I wonder if we offer the same amusement to them as we get when we go to the zoo to watch all the confined animals!

One of Martin’s Grandmothers gave him this popular children’s series bound in one volume she found at a rummage sale.

Martin opened it up and found that a previous owner had cut out the inside of some pages, presumably to hide something. We’re trying to guess what it might have contained. It’s not big enough for a pack of cigarettes, not big enough for a stack of bills. Martin is convinced it held some sort of illicit substance. I thought perhaps the place in the book may be of significance.

Anybody have an idea what might have been hidden? Bonus if you know what the name of the book series is from the bottom few sentences!

I stopped by to visit Iowa’s most famous carrot farmer (among other things).  Gary already has the same wind turbine on his farm as we do.

He recently added this solar array to the farm for a more balanced power input.

It’s winter, it’s cold and it’s not fun to get outside the house, unless its to a college basketball game!  And we are lucky enough to live close enough to one of the best venues in the country.  We have season tickets to the women’s team and they have the third highest attendance in the nation and play pretty good ball.

This game was a win against #14 Oklahoma.  The  next game was not so good against #1 Baylor, but in a moral victory of sorts, we held them to their lowest point total of the season, and lost by 15.

Today it was the #11 Kansas State men finding out how hard it is to play in Ames with another top 15 team going down.

You never know when the universe will reveal a miracle. Like the image of Jesus in a piece of toast, now Unitarians have their own foodstuff symbol – this image of a chalice made of Lucky Charm marshmallows! (chalice history here)

Since Linda was off at seminary all last week for classes, we had the “opportunity” to bring Lucky Charms into the house. While Lucky Charms are not expressly forbidden in the house, other breakfast options are highly encouraged.

When the chalice appeared in Emma’s cereal bowl, we faced a serious corundum – do we share the miraculous discovery of the chalice with Linda, thus exposing our food choices in her absence, or do we destroy the chalice and not say a word of it? We thought it most honorable to share the miracle with her and now with the world. We interpret finding the chalice as Universal blessing on our occasional consumption of Lucky Charms!

I know I’m a bit late in this “best of 2012” but without further ado, here are the most forgettable moments of 2012.

January – Claire went back to school and forgot some items at home. I had to find a box, find some tape, and drive to the Post Office to send them.

February – I shoveled the ice and snow off the sidewalk. Then the wind blew and filled it back up again and I had to do it all over.

March – I wanted to go cut up some branches that fell down over the winter. But I didn’t keep any oil and gas mixture for the chainsaw over the winter. So I had to remember to get some the next time I went to town, but forgot the next three times I went to town for something or another.

April – A story on the news broke that really pissed me off.

May – I was working outside and almost forgot to pick Martin up after school to bring him to piano lessons. I didn’t have time to grab a book, so I just sat and listened to his lessons and pretended to read the magazines scattered about the house that I really wasn’t interested in reading.

June – I was fishing off a dock in Northern Minnesota and a wave temporarily hid my bobber and I couldn’t find it for a split-second and thought I had a bite.

July – After the 4th of July fireworks display we had to sit in the car a long time waiting for all the people to leave.

August – I was working on something with tools and ripped off a small part of the edge of a fingernail. It hurt for a long time and I wondered if it would get infected or not, but a week later it was better.

September – I went down to the basement to retrieve something, but then started straightening up some disheveled items and went back upstairs and realized I forgot to retrieve what I originally went down to get.

October – I went out to prune some blackberries, but then walked by the low-hanging branches of an old Mulberry tree that I didn’t really care much for. Rather than sawing off the branch 10 feet above the ground, I thought it would be easier to just knock it down with the tractor loader. It didn’t really snap off that well and it took much longer than had I just cut it. Then, the blackberry canes took a lot longer to prune than I figured.

November – I spent a lot of time deciding the right building to store and buch of things in and ended up having to clean a space out and never actually moved the items.

December – I was trying to fill out some financial aid forms, tried to log onto a web site, but I forgot my password, so I had to have them resend it. But my mail provider changed smtp mail servers and I couldn’t get any mail, so couldn’t reset the passwords. It was late and had to wait until the next day. Then they spent and hour and a half the next day and could only get incoming mail to work.

I know many of you have received this in the mail, but here it is for my own “scrapbooking.”

[dmalbum path=”/wp-content/uploads/dm-albums/2012 Reader/”/]

There are new things in this world that have only recently come to my attention.  Evidently, the Gishwhes (Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World HAs Ever Seen) is one of them. The website proclaims ” This content is captured as videos or images to memorialize the annual Gishwhes experience. Art pieces range from the touching: “Take a picture of you hugging a war veteran” or “Create a video of you visiting a children’s hospital and giving a puppet show” to the weirdly sublime: “an image of a formal tea party replete with parasols, silverware and a string quartet situated in a junkyard or garbage dump” or “a fully dressed storm trooper cleaning a pool next to a sunbather”.

Exhibit One from this year – make a tea house out of recycled materials and have a tea party under a bridge.  Good thing this creek ran dry near our place.

Have a dog take a human for a walk.

Emma making a snow angel on the kitchen floor.  Thankfully, I was not aware of this until seeing the pictures later.

Received this “important’ envelope in the mail today.

It’s a good thing the envelope advised me that it was “FOR IMMEDIATE USE ONLY.”  Otherwise, I might have put it in the box of mail I’m waiting until I turn 65 to open.

On our way up to Northern MN for the funeral of my step-grandmother who passed away at age 90, blessings on her memory, we ran across this contraption.

At a gas station south of Duluth, saw that Red Green continues to inspire the denizens of Northern Minnesota to think creatively.  Attaching a smoker/grill to your pickup truck so you can have your dinner ready when you get to the hunting shack – just brilliant.  After all, what could go wrong with flames near the engine compartment of your truck?

See that flat thin bubble wrapped item on top of the boxes?

It’s a replacement laptop screen. The screen was in the small box below it, which was in turn in the bigger box further below. That’s it. They must not have had any extra refrigerator boxes lying around to put the bigger box in!

Two days, 46 bands, 3 stages at the intersection of I-80 and I-35 and you have the 80/35 festival.  It’s a homegrown festival, virtually totally volunteer run and organized (only two employees).  There’s a good mix of bands, both local and national.

Headlining the day was the Avett Brothers.

With a cello, upright bass, banjo, acoustic guitar and more, the  band runs on high octane!

Earlier in the day Pieta Brown and Bo Ramsey.  Bo is a fixture in the Iowa music scene, as a solo artist, as Greg Brown’s lead guitar player and stints playing with and producing albums by Lucinda Williams.  Nobody plays the silence between the notes like Bo – his sparse, mournful style is pretty distinctive.  Now he’s playing with Pieta Brown.

Useful Jenkins is a Minnesota based jam bluegrass band based on acoustic guitars and mandolin.

Opening the day was self-described hippie bluegrass band Dumptruck Butterlips from Lawrence KS.

First, from Ryan Adams’ new album, the opening lyrics to “Dirty Rain.”

Last time I was here it was raining,
It ain’t raining anymore,
Streets were drowning, the water’s laming
All the ruins washed ashore

Now I’m just looking through the rubble
Try to find out who we were
Last time I was here it was raining
It ain’t raining anymore

The previous two shots were the approach to the bridge at Jay Cooke, where we drove a couple weeks ago – ground level and aerial.  This all hits pretty close to home, so to speak. We are fresh off a visit to many of the places that were hit, Duluth is my hometown, and I still have many friends and family in the area.

Here’s the town (Moose Lake) about 40 miles south of Duluth where I gassed up the camp 15 passenger van for canoe and bike trips.

The paddle and boat up to gas stations and ATMs never gets old!

Here’s a wonderful old, historic swinging bridge in Jay Cooke State park.

This link shows many photos of the bridge in calmer times.

Photo Credits (in order of appearance)
MN Dept of homeland security
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Duluth News-Tribune
Bobby Wright

Three years ago a fancy new nitrate-retention pond was built. The idea was for all the field drainage to collect in a wetland. to use up any excess nitrogen before tumbling away downstream and off to a river. This is what the upper pond looked like three years ago.

There also was extensive grasslands around the ponds, but when we went to visit this year, most of those were plowed back up, after having been seeded to native plants just three years ago. Now, the lower pond shows signs of very high nitrogen (excess nitgrogen applied to farm fields and washed away). The masses of floating algae lumps have taken over the water.

Unfortunately,  most of the field drainage tiles lines are not fed into ponds like this and all that nitrogen is heading straight to the rivers and the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

Click to see how I feel when I explain what I do at work…

I’ve been absent for a while – but I have a good excuse – two of them in fact! First, my desktop computer died. The most likely culprit was a bad power supply, so I ordered a new power supply and a new iMac all-in-one as a backup in case it wasn’t the power supply.

The new power supply didn’t work, so it was a good thing that this box recently arrived.

The meltdown also came in the middle of a contract writing project that was nearing a deadline. So between those two things, I haven’t been breathing too much lately. Perhaps things will decelerate to more manageable pace for a few days and I can get caught up.

When I heard Glen Campbell was coming to Ames on his farewell tour, I couldn’t pass up the chance to see him play. Sure he has the onset of dementia and needs a teleprompter to remember the lyrics, but he’s got three of his kids in the band and a keyboard player of 35 years to help him along. One of my favorite songs of the night was “Try a Little Kindness.” This video is linked from an earlier concert.

His disease didn’t affect his playing as much as his singing. Here’s a little Dueling Banjo action as evidience.

All in all, it was a nice evening. I don’t ever remember people with such big contented smiles leaving a concert before. If we could all be so lucky to have the chance to take our family along on one last journey of doing what we love to do best, with the full understanding that this is the last go-round, but being able to savor every moment along the way.

Today is the day all Finns look forward to – the day of celebrating St Urho chasing the grasshoppers of out pre-glacial Finland and saving the grape crop.

“Ooksie kooksie coolama vee
Saintia Urho iss ta poy for me.
He sase out ta rogs so pig unt kreen
Praffest Finn I effer seen!
Some celeprate for Saint Pat unt hiss nakes
Putt Urho poyka got what it takes.
He got tall unt trong from feelia sour
Unt ate culla moyaka effery hour.
Tat’s why tat guy could soote tose rogs
What crew as pig as chack bine logs.
So let’s giff a cheer in hower pest way
On May dweeny fort, Saint Urho’s tay.

Bad news in Sebeka and Menahga Minnesota as many of the St. Urho activities have been cancelled or changed due to warm weather.

The Kolf Tourney, sponsored by Menahga Fire Department moved from Spirit Lake to the Blueberry Pines Driving Range.

The dog sled rides at the football field have been cancelled, due to lack of cold white stuff.  Parade starts at the Cottage House Cafe at 12:20 p.m as usual.

OK, what’s in the picture?  Strawberry soft serve or ground beef?

Since it seemed too easy, you probably guessed ground beef – you are correct.  McDonald’s recently announced they would no longer use this “product” in their hamburgers.  Evidently, that left a big opportunity for the USDA to buy 7 million pounds for our kids in the school lunch program.

Excerpts from an full article are below.

Made by grinding together connective tissue and beef scraps normally destined for dog food and rendering, BPI’s Lean Beef Trimmings are then treated with ammonia hydroxide, a process that kills pathogens such as salmonella and E. coli. The resulting pinkish substance is later blended into traditional ground beef and hamburger patties.

… two microbiologists believe that the product is just not “ground beef” or even “not meat.” Gerald Zirnstein, who first coined the term “pink slime” in 2002 after a visit to BPI said he did not “consider the stuff to be ground beef.” Retired microbiologist Carl Custer says:  “We originally called it soylent pink. We looked at the product and we objected to it because it used connective tissues instead of muscle. It was simply not nutritionally equivalent [to ground beef]. My main objection was that it was not meat.”

Bon Appetit!

I was checking out the blog statistics, and noticed an unusual spike in traffic from Italy this week.  Italy?  Really? Had I offended the Holy See? Were my food pictures being mocked by Italian chefs?  Upon a deeper dive, I found the traffic mostly coming from a URL of a wind energy newsgroup that was discussing small wind turbines.  A few of the comments as translated through an online translator from Italian to English are pasted below.

Thanks I just try to put that bit of knowledge and information to those who are interested in micro wind power as an industry in its infancy, the maglev would not know, I attach an email that came my belief that this is an excellent turbine but not yet in Italy found, but there are production data that can make us understand the potential of micro wind.

——-

Very interesting, this seems very solid Skystream. Sure the movie is perceived distinctly the noise when it is exposed to wind a bun, I think it is normal for a 2.6 kW turbine that spins at 330 rpm, but the problem would become serious if it were installed (at least that power) to ‘inside of a town center or, worse still on the roof of a house. Listening to the video instead of futurenergy I had the impression that it is much quieter, you confirm?

Another snapped-off tree from last July’s storm gets taken out of the way.

All gravy to get this kind of work done in February!  When the ground freezes back up again, I can get the tractor and loader back to take the stump down to a burn pile.

Happy Candlemas/Feast of the Presentation of the Lord/Groundhog Day/Imbolc/Lupercalia to all!

This is surely an important day, based on the many layers of tradition and meaning assigned to this otherwise unremarkable-sounding day. It is a day deeply-layered within many traditions – following is an abbreviated summary of some of the major markings of the day.

Romans celebrated Februa, also known as Februatio, the Roman festival of ritual purification, later incorporated into Lupercalia. The festival, commemorating spring washing or cleaning is old, and possibly of Sabine (pre-Roman) origin. According to Ovid, Februare as a Latin word which refers to means of purification derives from an earlier Etruscan word referring to purging.

In turn, the Romans celebrated Lupercalia, a very ancient, pre-Roman pastoral festival,to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility. Lupercalia subsumed Februa, an earlier-origin spring cleansing ritual held on the same date, which gives the month of February its name.

Traditionally the Western term “Candlemas” (or Candle Mass) referred to the practice whereby a priest on 2 February blessed beeswax candles for use throughout the year, some of which were distributed to the faithful for use in the home. In Poland the feast is called wi tem Matki Bo ej Gromnicznej. This name refers to the candles that are blessed on this day, called gromnicy, since these candles are lit during (thunder) storms and placed in windows to ward off storms.

Within the Roman Catholic Church, since the liturgical revisions of the Second Vatican Council, this feast has been referred to as the Feast of Presentation of the Lord, with references to candles and the purification of Mary de-emphasised in favor of the Prophecy of Simeon the Righteous. Pope John Paul II connected the feast day with the renewal of religious vows.

Pope Innocent XII believed Candlemas was created as an alternative to Roman Paganism, as stated in a sermon on the subject:

Why do we in this feast carry candles? Because the Gentiles dedicated the month of February to the infernal gods, and as at the beginning of it Pluto stole Proserpine, and her mother Ceres sought her in the night with lighted candles, so they, at the beginning of the month, walked about the city with lighted candles. Because the holy fathers could not extirpate the custom, they ordained that Christians should carry about candles in honor of the Blessed Virgin; and thus what was done before in the honor of Ceres is now done in honor of the Blessed Virgin.

The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, which falls on 2 February, celebrates an early episode in the life of Jesus. In the Eastern Orthodox Church and some Eastern Catholic Churches, it is one of the twelve Great Feasts. Other traditional names include Candlemas, the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, and the Meeting of the Lord. In the Roman Catholic Church the “Feast of the Presentation of the Lord” is a Feast Day, the major feast between the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle on January 25 and the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle on February 22. In some Western liturgical churches, Vespers (or Compline) on the Feast of the Presentation marks the end of the Epiphany season. In the Church of England, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple is a Principal Feast celebrated either on February 2 or on the Sunday between January 28 and February 3.

In the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple is the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary.

Meanwhile, in another part of the world, folks celebrate Imbolc (also Imbolg), or St Brigid’s Day, an Irish festival marking the beginning of spring. Most commonly it is celebrated on February 1 or 2 (or February 12, according to the Old Calendar) These dates fall approximately halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. The festival was observed in Gaelic Ireland during the Middle Ages.The holiday was, and for many still is, a festival of the hearth and home, and a celebration of the lengthening days and the early signs of spring. Celebrations often involved hearthfires, special foods, candles or a bonfire if the weather permits. Imbolc is traditionally a time of weather prognostication, and the old tradition of watching to see if serpents or badgers came from their winter dens is perhaps a precursor to the North American Groundhog Day. A Scottish Gaelic proverb about the day is:

“The serpent will come from the hole
On the brown Day of Bride,
Though there should be three feet of snow
On the flat surface of the ground.”

Fire and purification are an important aspect of this festival. Brigid is the Gaelic goddess of poetry, healing and smithcraft. As both goddess and saint she is also associated with holy wells, sacred flames, and healing. The lighting of candles and fires represents the return of warmth and the increasing power of the Sun over the coming months. Saint Brigid’s feast day is on the 1st February celebrated as St Brigid’s Day in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and by some Anglicans. The Gaelic festival coincides with Imbolc, which has sometimes been identified as the remnant of a prehistoric pagan festival associated with Brigid.

All in all, I feel kind of cheated as here in the USA in 2012, all we get is Punxsutawney Phil!

In the spirit of transparency and dialogue, I thought it best to share Knox College’s reply to my impressions following a recent visit.

Here is the response from the Dean of Admission:

Mark,

Thank you so much for your evaluation. As you can imagine, colleges each make different decisions about how to allocate their resources. Some invest heavily in campus facilities and grounds. Others invest more in their faculty and the educational programs available to students, e.g. undergraduate research, self-designed studies, study abroad, etc. Although somewhat less tangible than facilities and grounds, at Knox, we have always prioritized the latter.

Nonetheless, your feedback is extremely helpful in understanding how those choices impact the impressions of families visiting our campus. We do have some maintenance issues that need to be addressed and we would be well-served by making greater investments in the appearance of our campus. Your comments underscore the importance of this.

Some of your suggestions, of course, aren’t about financial resources but about how we present ourselves, including during the campus tour. For example, despite the absence of any LEED certified buildings or wind turbines on campus, our sustainability initiatives are very extensive. This includes initiatives such as locally-sourced food for dining services, composting of food waste, retrofitting all lighting and mechanical systems, sourcing electricity from renewable sources, and much more (see www.knox.edu/sustainability to learn more and see why the Sierra Club named Knox as a “Cool School” for our efforts). Despite all that we’ve done, however, your experience suggested that our efforts were limited to recycling bins. That’s a problem. Your feedback suggests that we need to work with our staff and tour guides to better highlight our sustainability initiatives and how those efforts have permeated so much of our campus culture.

Sustainability is just one of the examples you raised. The bottom line is your feedback gives us much to consider and much to act upon. I am very appreciative of your willingness to share your impressions with us.

Again, thank you.

Dear Knox College,

You present quite a quandary! I was intrigued because you were one of 40 colleges nationwide recommended in  “Colleges that Change Lives” – an intriguing book that attempted to rank colleges not on how hard it was to gain admittance, but how a college’s graduates were situated years after graduation – probably a much better measure of the success of a college. Your marketing and promotion materials were effective.

Your location offers a nice Midwestern pedigree as well – you’re celebrating your 175th anniversary this year. You’re located in a town mired in history – home of Carl Sandburg, along with world-famous brickyard, used to pave 60 miles of your town’s streets, along with streets in Paris, Bombay, and Panama City.

Your college has a long history of action. You were a stop on the underground railroad. It was home to the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

You let students on tour sit in a chair used by Mr. Lincoln.  Those are all things that seem to support your current mission.

Your Martin Luther King Day convocation was a wonderful event, complete with singing, words about the inspiration of Dr. King (and hey, thanks for the shout out to Theodore Parker, Unitarian Minister and inspiration for much of Dr. King’s thought), and words putting him in a contemporary context. I agree to think of it as a “day on” not a “day off.”

From all appearances there is a real esprit de corps among your students.  The classes my daughter attended showed the quality of your faculty.  So after all this, why am I torn in my impressions?

I was surprised at the amount of deferred maintenance that needs to be completed. I was surprised that the previous week’s snow had not been cleared from all the sidewalks; in fact from the compressed snow on the road in front of the admission office, it looked like the road was not plowed in a timely manner after the snowfall.  The strip maple flooring in the choir/band room the parents met for financial aid needed repair from termite damage. The list is no doubt very long.

I didn’t learn anything about the food service or cafeteria as the tour never went through there – we did have a lunch, but it was presented in a banquet buffet style, not of the style the students would get.  I get why, school was in session and the cafeteria probably can’t handle the excess.  But one look at the salad tells me that Bon Appetit is not your food service provider.  Hint: many of your peer institutions use them and the food is great.

I didn’t catch some of the tour – the guide didn’t have the traditional walk backwards and talk at the people taking the tour stance down. Instead she walked forward and talked, making it difficult to hear.

Unlike many of your peers, I saw virtually no signs of sustainabilty efforts – only a recycling program.  I didn’t see any LEED certified buildings, I didn’t see any college-owned solar panels or utility-sized wind turbines, or locally grown food (see Bon Appetit).  I did notice that the cost of attendance was about the same as peer institutions that did have these facilities and more.

So, here’s the corundum – can you fall madly in love with someone who keeps a messy house?  Eventually you probably can, but you take the risk of someone not hanging around long enough to find out.  I appreciated the words of your new President.  Perhaps the fresh eyes she has will lead you on a renaissance.  I had a good feeling about her. Knox seems like a grand old house that has fallen out of disrepair, but it doesn’t take much imagination to envision it remodeled into all it could be.  I don’t think my daughter will be attending, but perhaps in five years when my son is ready for his college search, the renovation will be well underway and it will be worth another look.

p.s. The Dean of Admissions was kind enough to respond to this post.  Read his comments as well.

The view to the south seems much more progressive now.  The wind farm is now pretty much operational.

After living near these giants for a few months now, it’s rather intriguing to watch how the interplay of the seasons, quality of light,  cloud cover and wind direction lead to different moods.  Today’s mood was one of spring – a 65 degree day on my birthday – one to remember for sure.

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.

Sometimes we humans think we’re the only ones that nurture our children and prepare them for a life of future emotional and financial success.

Evidently, as Emma noted as we were driving down highway 30 near Nevada, IA – it must have been “Take Your Crane to Work Day.”  I sure hope the child crane enjoyed the day with its parent on the job site.

Broke down and attended the Iowa State football game this weekend.  Brought the kids along and sat in the cheap seats, er cheap grass, 4 tix, 4 dogs, 4 pops, for 40 bills for hillside seating.  Two of us found a couple of seats at midfield and the rest stayed on the hillside.

Before the game, the ISU band invited the KU band over for some pre-game frivolity, one section at a time.

At halftime, got to see over 600 marching band members from the combined bands play the 1812 overture!

It’s not often a colleague publishes a memoir, writes a screenplay based on the memoir, gets a film made, film gets selected for Sundance, and then gets picked up by a major studio! The creative writing teacher at Marshalltown Community College did just this. The movie stars Vera Farminga (Up in the Air) and Joshua Leonard (Blair Witch Project).

We went to see it the night Carolyn made comments and asked questions, and then dragged our daughters and others the following week. I’m guessing while it is a heartfelt exploration of faith and personal choice, it might not last long at the box office as the movie relies as much on non-verbal cues as the script itself and does not contain explosions or full frontal.

I miss my sister – it’s been too long since I heard her laugh!

Here’s a photo of her doing one thing that she loves – in front of the microphone – she’s a throwback to the old style DJ who connected to her listeners and city.  Despite the corporate programming, she keeps as much of that as she can and listeners love her.

Here’s another group of people that love her.  She works at a group home and can’t believe she gets paid to hang out with some of her friends and take them out to the movies, park, or wherever.

one year ago…”Time to Pick Squash”

Claire is now starting her Sophomore year at Macalester in St. Paul, MN.

Photo Credit Macalester College

The year-opening convocation is opened by a piper, in the Scottish tradition of the school.

Photo Credit Macalester College

The guest speakers were a couple of Minnesota natives, Garrison Kellior, waxing about life and politics.  A belated 19th birthday to Claire!

one year ago…”Doing the Parade Thing”

I do not know any of the victims of 9/11 or their families.  However, the day should not pass with out a pause and remembrance. To try to bring it home, I thought I’d just profile one, Janat Alonso.

Her profile from the New York Times:

The next-to-last phone call Janet Alonso made on the morning of Sept. 11 was typical: its genesis was maternal anxiety, and its focal point was her second child, Robbie, born with Down syndrome 18 months ago. She was not only checking in with her mother-in-law, Margaret Alonso, who handled the baby-sitting during the three days each week that Janet spent as an e-mail analyst for Marsh & McLennan. She was also making sure Robbie’s foot braces, misplaced on Monday, had been located and returned to him; he finds it impossible to take his baby steps without them.

“Check his stroller,” Janet suggested. Bingo. Grandma discovered the braces. Janet and Robert Alonso were also the parents of Victoria, 2, a miracle baby of sorts. After 10 years of trying to conceive, using methods increasingly clinical, Ms. Alonso had all but surrendered her dream of becoming a mother when Victoria was conceived — surprise — the natural way. Ms. Alonso was so ecstatic she wrote her husband a letter, thanking him for this greatest gift. He was so moved he put the letter in a safe to preserve it.

Though her children were her passion, Janet was a diligent homemaker — literally. She loved painting and refinishing furniture, and spent the weekend before the disaster sanding the porch they had added to their house in Stony Point, N.Y. Her final phone call was to her husband; she told him that the office was filling with smoke and that she could not breathe. And she told him she loved him.

A profile of all the victims is at this CNN page.

one year ago…”Graphic of Obesity Epidemic”

Just Because.

Iowa State 44 – Iowa 41 in 3 OT.

Here’s the prediction from the “experts” before the game:

Sure the Cyclones opened the year with a win, but it was not an impressive decision. Now the Hawkeyes come to Ames and they will likely follow Northern Iowa’s foot steps and use a heavy dose of their rushing attack. Look for Iowa to run away with this contest.  Sports Network Predicted Outcome: Iowa 31, Iowa State 9

Photo of Jack Trice Stadium courtesy of Iowa State Football Facebook.

one year ago…”Beautiful Celosia”

I mentioned that there were many flowers in bloom adjacent to the beehives – here’s just a few.

Grey-headed coneflower.

Cupflower.

Behind the blossom of a cupflower.

Wild Bergamot.

Blazing Star.

Compass Plant leaf.

one year ago…”From the “You’ve go to be Kidding Dept”

When I was trying to burn the CD by Warren Zevon entitled “A Quiet Normal Life” to my Itunes, when it reached the song “Excitable Boy” it was all that as what sounded like a gunshot came from the PC. I was ready for smoke and flames to start pouring out, but instead I found a CD drive that was locked up.

After removing the CD drive and disassembling it – this is what’s left of the CD. Always the optimist, Martin wanted to try to super glue it together!  It’s time to order a new one from Newegg.

one year ago…”Buckwheat Cover Crop”

You hear all the time about great finds at garage sales and in hoarder houses, but my sister found the best deal anybody in my circle of acquaintances ever happened upon.  It’s not a lost Picasso or letter from George Washington, so she won’t be able to retire, or even go on a luxury cruise, but for her, it was a great find.

She’s a country DJ and has her basement decorated with posters and pictures of everyone in country music posed with her – Alan Jackson, Keith Urban, Garth Brooks, Brad Paisley, and the list goes on.  She stumbled on this mid 60’s to early 70’s Gibson acoustic guitar – a B-25 in a Sunburst pattern and picked it up for next to nothing.

Given her connections, she thought she should have it signed by an accomplished country guitarist, so she waited until she met up with Vince Gill and had him sign the Gibson.

one year ago…”She’s Gone to the World”

This year I lost two friends about my age. I wrote entries for both of them the past year – Sean Maher and Carl Anderson. I miss them both and think of them often.

one year ago…”OK, We’re Almost Done with Claire'”

After yesterday’s granary demolition, I’ve got a story of a not-so-happy demolition. Motored up to St. Paul to pick up Claire after year one at Macalester was over.  She’s got about a month at home before heading to DC for her summer internship with the USDA.

So on the way home on I-35 in southern Minnesota, one of the electronic signs warns “Accident Ahead – 3 miles. As we approach the site we can’t make out what has happened – I say – “It’s to big for a rolled over semi.” Claire offers, “It’s a billboard.” When we reach the scene, it is half of a modular house impaled sideways on a guard rail on an interstate overpass. The truck and trailer were short ways down the road. The house had evidently blown off the trailer.

I can imagine the call they needed to make to the homeowner, expecting to move into their new house in a few days – it could have gone at least a couple of directions.

“Sir, the good news is that half of your house is in place and bolted to the foundation.”
or
“How do you feel about moving to a great location just outside Faribault Minnesota at a site with easy access to the interstate?” Sorry, no pictures.

one year ago…”Frosty Mother’s Day”

At a Borders Bookstore going out of business sale, I picked up a book that cracked me up (because it pokes fun at people I know and myself). You don’t have to buy the book, it’s all online at Stuff White People Like. The following are two selections close to my heart.

Berry Picking

It is well established that white people like the past. Vintage clothing, history degrees, and nostalgia are just three examples of how white people show their love for by-gone eras. So when white people think about growing their own food they are reminded of pastoral images of farming, working the land, and growing whole natural foods for their family. This most positive viewpoint comes from the fact that white people have mostly enjoyed supervisory roles in agricultural production over the years.

But as more and more white people moved into cities, they lost their connection to working the land. In recent years, the most advanced white people have quit their jobs, moved to the country and opened artisanal dairies and small scale radicchio farms.

However, not all white people have the ability, or the trust funds, to quit their job and follow their food-based passions. Some white people have to get their fix by picking their own fruit.

Many of you might be familiar with the process of harvesting a crop, some of its more intense variations are often referred to as “migrant labor” and “slavery.” Under these conditions, laborers are expected to work extremely hard in order to live up to large expectations about their fruit picking output.

When white people harvests a crop it’s known as “berry picking” or “pick your own fruit.” Under these conditions, white people are expected to work leisurely with no real expectations and then they pay for the privilege to do so. In other words, berry picking is the agricultural equivalent to a private liberal arts college. It’s no surprise white people like it, because much like a liberal arts degree it feels like you’ve done real work when you really haven’t.

Of course the easiest way to turn a profit with this information would be to start your own fruit picking farm. But that is only looking at the small picture. It is well established that all white people enjoy doing manual labor under watered down and expensive conditions. So, if you are currently working in a job that requires intensive amounts of work, you should consider using that work space to create what is essentially an adult daycare for white people who would like to spend an afternoon learning how to use a loom or pretending to be a construction worker.

Camping

If you find yourself trapped in the middle of the woods without electricity, running water, or a car you would likely describe that situation as a “nightmare” or “a worse case scenario like after plane crash or something.” White people refer to it as “camping.”

When white people begin talking to you about camping they will do their best to tell you that it’s very easy and it allows them to escape the pressures and troubles of the urban lifestyle for a more natural, simplified, relaxing time. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In theory camping should be a very inexpensive activity since you are literally sleeping on the ground. But as with everything in white culture, the more simple it appears the more expensive it actually is.

Camping is a multi-day, multi-step, potentially lethal activity that will cost you a large amount of both time and money. Unless you are in some sort of position where you absolutely need the friendship of a white person, you should avoid camping at all costs.

The first stage of camping always involves a trip to an outdoor equipment store like REI (or in Canada, Mountain Equipment Co-Op). These stores are well known for their abundance of white customers and their extensive inventory of things for white people to buy and only use once. If you are ever tricked into going to one of these stores, you can make white people like you by saying things like “man, this Kayak is only $1200, if I use it 35 times I’ve already saved money over renting.” Note: do not actually buy the kayak.

Next, white people will then take this new equipment and load it into an SUV or Subaru Outback with a Thule or Yakima Roof Rack. Then they will drive for an extended period of time to a national park or campsite where they will pay an entrance fee and begin their journey. It is worth noting that white people are unaware of the irony of using a gas burning car to bring them closer to nature and it is not recommended that you point this out. It will ruin their weekend.

Once in the camp area, white people will walk around for a while, set up a tent, have a horrible night of sleep, walk around some more. Then get in the car and go home. This, of course, is a best case scenario. Worst case scenarios include: getting lost, poisoned, killed by an animal, and encountering an RV. Of these outcomes, the latter is seen by white people as the worst since it involves an encounter with the wrong kind of white people.

Conversely, any camping trip that ends in death at the hands of nature or requires the use of valuable government resources for a rescue is seen as relatively positive in white culture. This is because both situations might eventually lead to a book deal or documentary film about the experience.

Ultimately the best way to escape a camping trip with white people is to say that you have allergies. Since white people and their children are allergic to almost everything, they will understand and ask no further questions. You should not say something like “looking at history, the instances of my people encountering white people in the woods have not worked out very well for us.”

one year ago…”Local Meals”

My days attending arena concerts are nearly over. The reasons are many – ticket prices are too high, yacky and/or drunk people behind you spend the whole evening talking/yelling at their friends/spilling beer on you. Turns out most of the artists I like play at smaller venues, so it’s been ok for a while.

But Mellencamp was in town this week, tickets were under $50, he was touring to support the first album to make the Billboard top ten that was recorded in mono since 1964, and he was playing in a small house (2500) and the latest album was very follky.

But all to no avail. Not all of his fans have grown up with him. Despite the fact that early in the show as people yelled out songs as if it were a piano bar, he said, “don’t worry, we’ll get around to the songs you want to hear.” That didn’t seem to prevent the people from behind us bellowing out “Jack and Diane” or Hurts so Good” at every quiet moment.

And when the band left the stage for about a 45 minute acoustic set with just John and his guitar, it was viewed more as “recess time” and time to chat mindlessly instead of listening to these great new songs. I felt bad for myself and bad for the performers that all they really cared about was the songs from 20 years ago. He didn’t quite go Dylan and make the songs unintelligible so people couldn’t recognize them, but he really substantially rearranged many of the hit songs to get rid of the arena-rock chords and make them either more country, rockabilly, or bluesy than the originals. It was nice that he brought back the accordion and fiddle for this tour as well. John was pretty low-key about his political thoughts this time around, with only one pointed remark to today’s politicians when he reminded us of the preamble to the constitution “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare” He commented that while providing defense seemed to not be a problem, promoting for the general welfare of the people was forgotten.

xxx.

one year ago…”A Late President’s Day Message”

With one daughter recently in college and another on the way, we take our credentials as judge and jury of college mailings seriously. After all, our mailbox has been home to “please apply here” college material from coast to coast. However, one stands out as being particularly puzzling, and it’s a college only 60 miles from here – Drake.

Here’s the cover to the brochure they sent to Emma.

D+

Really? D+ is supposed to give me warm fuzzies about Drake? What is D+? The grade Drake received in the most recent Peterson’s Guide to Colleges? The average GPA of admitted students? After a closer look inside it’s evidently supposed to be Drake “plus” all kinds of great things. But if you don’t get past the cover (and why would you be intrigued by a place that labels itself as D+?), you’ll never find out. I give a D+ to the marketing department at Drake for this campaign!

one year ago…”OK Allergy Sufferers”

No thingamajig Thursday today in honor of Carl. I’ve worked with Carl for most of my years at Wells Fargo, most recently sitting adjacent to him. He was 56 and passed away on Tuesday. Carl loved trivia and word puzzles, marching bands, traveling and he was a converted Hawkeye fan that turned into the most fervent Cyclone fan I know. Carl led the way for me to wear Hawaiian shirts and vests to work.

Carl was a regular blog reader and loved the Thingamajig Thursday feature.

Carl Anderson, 56, of West Des Moines passed away April 12, 2011 at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines. The son of Marion and Lucille (Mitchell) Anderson, Carl was born on July 19, 1954 in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. He grew up in Olds, Iowa where he was active in church, band, sports, and scouting activities. He attained the rank of Eagle Scout.

Carl graduated from Iowa State University. He continued to return to play in the alumni band and attend sporting events. He also loved the St. Louis Cardinals, golfing, Jimmy Buffett, wine collecting and travel. He has worked the past 13 years for Wells Fargo Mortgage in West Des Moines.

Carl was preceded in death by his parents. He is survived by his wife of 25 years, Diana; sisters, Mary Lou and Margaret (Kris Yarbrough); step-daughters, Julie Melberg (Ben Garcia) and Dottie (John) Walker; and seven grandchildren. He was a loving man and he will be missed.

Memorial services will be 11 a.m., Saturday, April 16 at West Des Moines United Methodist Church (720 Grand Ave., West Des Moines). The family will greet friends from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday evening at the church. Memorials may be made to the Iowa State University Foundation to be designated for the Marching Band Fund (2505 University Boulevard, Ames, Iowa 50010).

one year ago…”Spring Flowering Begins”

I’m always thrilled to see good directions with a product.  So really, that means I’m hardly ever thrilled.  Typically the directions seem to be poorly translated from another language, or vague with poor or no drawings.

That’s why I was excited to see this new format in parts packaging (for a new office chair).  Labeling and packing the parts with their corresponding section of the directions, rather than having a big bag of nuts and bolts was a bold new step.

However, the written instructions were not good.  There were parts and steps that were not mentioned in the directions and were left unused and there was a part that was needed that was not listed in the directions.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #203″

During piano lessons, I thought I’d run to the grocery store (Hy-Vee) to get some milk. At the beginning of the frozen food aisle was a table with paper grocery bags and a sign that said “All the frozen items that you can fit into a paper bag will be 10% off!

I grabbed a sack and found just a lot of processed foods until I came to the tilapia fillets. I threw a bunch in the bag, grabbed some milk and a six-pack of a new micro-brew and hurried to the check-out. The frozen fish did not ring up with the 10% off. I asked why the frozen fish didn’t ring up with the “sack attack” discount. With a friendly smile, the checker told me with a slight hint of impatience “Frozen fish is considered to be meat and not frozen food.” The sign did not say “excludes meat.”

Using the logic that frozen fish in the frozen foods section is not frozen food, I wondered if frozen vegetables are considered produce? Is ice cream considered dairy? Is there any thing in the frozen food aisle that wasn’t something else before it was frozen?

I’m not so burned about the couple of bucks I didn’t save, but rather the thousands of others in Hy-Vees across the land who fell to the same trick. I also recall learning that Hy-Vee’s definition of “fresh meat” means meat that has only been frozen once. Perhaps what Hy-Vee really needs is a English/Hy-Vee dictionary so we can not be confused what “frozen” and “fresh” mean to Hy-Vee!

one year ago…”Signs of Early Spring”

I know there are many bright and intelligent people who work for the Iowa DOT (I actually know some).  However, the people responsible for planning and installing these signs are not among them!

Around mile marker 165 on US hwy 30, is this sign tandem.  Whizzing by at 65 mph, it’s really hard to know where you are, or how far you might be from the next three towns, especially since the speed limit sign is so close to the mileage to next towns sign.

I’m thinking about the guys who dug the holes to put the sign posts in the ground.  Maybe they were oblivious to the miles of empty road shoulder as far as the eye could see?  Maybe the signs were lonely and needed to be together?

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #202″

A former writer type co-worker of mine is now in Cambodia, volunteering for the American Jewish World Service. Mark lost his job at Wells Fargo and took it as an opportunity to volunteer. He’s keeping a blog at Mark in Cambodia. I’m particularly struck at the people, colors, and stories of the inhumanity of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979, during at which as at least 1.7 million people were killed and deaths documented so Pol Pot could be sure his underlings were telling the truth on executions and murders. If you’re so inclined, you can stop by his blog and read more and get more photos like the one below.

I’ll use Mark’s words to describe his work in Kampot: “Among my tasks this week, I created a volunteer plan for the NGO’s youth group who will be helping out with Cambofest, an indie film festival to held here in early March. I also developed an action plan for my work over the next three months. Central to that plan is an internal and external communications strategy, annual and quarterly report editing, development of one grant proposal and future proposal strategy, as well as developing English speaking, critical thinking and research skills of the NGO staff. Those who know me from my work know this puts me smack dab in the middle of my sweet spot.”

one year ago…”It’s Elementary”

This year has brought back memories from the old undergraduate days in Duluth Minnesota, where hockey reigned supreme.  I still remember the crisp, clear walks back from the arena after the game.  I was thankful that there were many blocks of skywalk to break the chill of the two mile walk.

This year’s team has once again made the NCAA Frozen Four.

This year, the tourney is hosted in St. Paul and would be a perfect time to go…if tix weren’t $100 game and you had to buy three games at that price, so a couple of tix sets you back $600.  That’s about 240 dozen eggs!

I found this photo in the archives of the Duluth News-Tribune from the early 80’s showing coach Mike Sertich celebrating after beating Wisconsin to win the conference championship.  The years I had season tickets the Bulldogs went to three NCAA tournaments.  If they can get by Notre Dame in the first game, they’ll play their nemesis North Dakota.

one year ago…”Sheep Bling”

I’ve noticed since the appearance of local food into consumer’s lingo, many other businesses are using the word as well, not all with the same values as local food presents.  To me, a large part of the lure of purchasing local food is its freshness, and to many others the primary motive is the idea that the money stays within the community, using the local multiplier effect and it lifts the entire local economy when money circulates locally rather than siphoned off to a  multinational corporation.

My Menards bill came in an envelope from this company with the interesting slogan “The World’s Local Bank.”  I would never consider that Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) is local.  In fact, from their worldwide establishments, they sucked 19 billion in profits out of local communities in 2010. (During a better banking year they removed almost 40 billion in2007 from “local” communities to their shareholder’s wallets.)

I fear this could be the latest term to lose all meaning because of co-option by large corporations, much like “natural” “sustainability” and “green” have been.  Indeed author Wendell Berry recently reminded us that it is not the words that offer us hope, but the relationship:

“Too much of the talk and politics of conservation consists of slogans, such as ‘Think globally, act locally’ or even single words such as ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ or ‘organic’ that act like slogans. Such language finally does harm. It becomes useful, in fact, to land-abusing corporations. What gives hope is actual conversation, actual discourse, in which people say to one another in good faith fully and exactly what they know, and acknowledge honestly, the limits of their knowledge.”

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #199″

Here’s a bit of an old man rant. One of Linda’s students used a web service named Easybib to prepare a list of works cited, but wasn’t quite alert enough to take the extra step to save as a Word Document and instead just printed off the web page, complete with URL of the citation service.

It’s rather amazing, since with a click of a button change the citation style from MLA, to Chicago Manual of Style etc. Back when I was growing up, getting the citation format was a major time sucker. Kids these days have it so easy!

one year ago…”Fog Sets In”

Recently, there has been more disappointing news regarding the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. The interim director appointed after the previous botched search has resigned.  In addition, Rich Pirog, Asssociate Director and face of the Center across the U.S. is leaving at the end of the month.
Essentially, the University Administration has literally hijacked the leadership of the Center by appointing three consecutive “interim directors” in a row after relieving Fred Kirschenmann of his duties. You may remember in the last search process, the search committee, composed of a broad range of people, selected four candidates to interview on campus. Of these, they recommended two to the President. Ricardo Salvador was the preferred candidate and another was acceptable, while two were deemed unacceptable. The job was offered to the 2nd candidate and at the same time Dr. Salvador, the #1 choice was sent a flush letter. The 2nd candidate eventually declined and the university was left with no other options.

According to the article in the The Chronicle of Higher Education, a comment Dr. Salvador made during a presentation that “cows evolved to eat grass” is counted as his downfall (this is a state whose agriculture is dominated by corn and confinements and feedlots that feed ruminants corn; the emperor did not appreciate this comment that suggests there was a lack of clothing.)

The Chronicle interviewed the Dean of Agriculture and asked her if she believed that “cows evolved to eat grass.” She said she had no opinion. (As though this is a question of opinion!). The Chronicle continued to push her and finally she said something to the effect that she was trained as an entomologist and should not be expected to know about everything! Hmm. I’d think for $227,000 dollars a year, a Land Grant university could find some genius who is underemployed who is not an animal scientist who might have a broad understanding of agriculture that includes the knowledge that cows are ruminants.

Obviously, the Dean knows the answer, and no matter who was in that position might have answered the same. There is a structural problem. The problem is that the concept of a Land Grant University funded by public taxes, no longer serves those who pay the taxes, but captains of industry, much like many politicians in Washington serve who do not vote for them.

Somehow, this seems appropriate on the anniversary of our democracy. There’s still work left to do! A recent billboard for Iowa State urged students to “Change your zip code and change the World.” If the University blocks progress on changing less than 2% of Iowa farmland and intercedes to maintain the status quo, there is no hope the world will change anytime soon. There are many bright faculty and students at Iowa State – they deserve leadership that allows them to do just that – change the world.

So, it’s time to go back to the founding legislation and mission of the Center, as put forth in the Groundwater Protection Act that established the Center to:

(1) identify the negative environmental and socioeconomic impacts of existing agricultural practices,
(2) research and assist the development of alternative, more sustainable agricultural practices, and
(3) inform the agricultural community and general public of the Center’s findings. It is important to recognize
that this mandate creates, by design, a dynamic tension between conventional and alternative forms of agriculture.

The latest string of administrative actions and the litmus test of needing the approval of the powers of conventional agriculture run counter to the designs of the center. It’s time to move the administration of the Center out of suffocating hand of the College of Agriculture and to a more broad-based reporting structure so it can fulfill it’s mission.

one year ago…”Real Life Marauder’s Map”

I thought this pair of socks I found at K-Mart represents something special. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a Remington shotgun and organic farm, but frankly, I didn’t think there was enough of me to make a market for branding organic socks with the Remington brand!

So, I’m not sure they were in the 75% off rack because they didn’t sell or because it is the end of the warm sock marketing season.

one year ago…”Basement Woes Over?”

I found this relic of Claire today. The office is now her old bedroom and even though every day I walk through the doorway I never noticed this addition to the top door frame (until today).

It’s a key from a defunct compute she attached to the entrance to her room.

one year ago…”One Cat or Two?”

If you’re not a member of your local freecycle group, it’s a great place to find a home for things you no longer want, but know someone can use. A plus for me  are the email messages that make you smile. There have been a couple in particular the last month that have caused me to crack a smile.

[marshallcountyiafreecycle] OFFER:4 Jars of Grape Jelly
I have 4 jars of grape jelly. Only serious takers only. Need to get rid of ASAP. Email me back if you want them.

(I hate to think of what might happen if these aren’t gone ASAP!  I also worry about people emailing who aren’t serious about the grape jelly and just jerk her around and ask if she might have raspberry jam instead of grape jelly)

Or this one:
[marshallcountyiafreecycle] Offer: one Night stand (Marshalltown)

(This one might have attracted the wrong kind of attention – it’s not often night stands are separated like this)

Enough of the freecycle. On another note, isn’t it curious that the day after our visit to the Accordion European restaurant, the “year ago” is entitled “Accordion Skywalk Player.” Just must be something about this time of year and accordions!

one year ago…”Accordion Skywalk Player”

Today was spent in memory of Sean Maher. Sean is one of the three “neighbors” we went in with to buy the chicken plucker.  The funeral was today at the Basilica of Saint John’s in Des Moines.  I’m obviously not the  only one who had great respect for Sean, as the priest noted it was the largest funeral in the Basilica in the 11 years he’s presided at there.  As funerals go, it was a wonderful service with many priests, wonderful organ music, a children’s choir, and vocalists as part of the mass.

Sean had a big family, pictured here.  He was stricken with tongue cancer about a year ago, and after a whole range of highly compassionate and thorough care, including a trip to Ecuador for treatments not yet available in the United States, he passed away this week, at age 49 (blog with the story here).  Sean, was a natural-born leader in the best sense of the word.  He had an infectious smile and truly was happy to live.

He loved to play in the dirt.  He was a big, teddy-bear kind of guy, captain and running back of two Dartmouth Ivy League football teams (obit and online photo book). (Photo credits for this post go to the online memory book, where these photos came from).

But he also cleaned up nicely. He really was a man who loved and put his family first and really meant it.

He and his wife are one of those couples that had so much love and respect for each other that you knew they were a “lock” to stay together “til death do us part.”  In Sean’s case, this was a great 27 years. Did I say that Sean was also a lot of fun and had a bit ‘o Irish in him?  He brought “beer to the basilica” as after the mass was over, there was a meal in the church basement that featured Guinness for all! I’ll leave you with some words his wife wrote on the blog concerning his death and the last year.

We lit holy candles, were all praying, singing, and whispering consoling words, stroking his head and kissing his head, holding hands, etc. He received Viaticum (holy communion for the dying – literally “with you for the way” )- food for the journey from this world to the next. Very comforting. Bryan, our son-in-law, read the prayers for the dying from the Handbook of Catholic Prayers, a profession of Faith, a Litany of the Saints, The Chaplet of Divine Mercy…Just prior to this, he was anxious and confused and terribly uncomfortable. Maddie and I got to work when we knew what was going on, called in reinforcements, and did what we knew to do from our Catholic training. We comforted him then, just as we comforted him all along this long, precious, arduous time of purification and suffering. Jack and I were at his head, and we watched as he most peacefully and quietly breathed his last…It was so beautiful, still unexpected to all of us there in the bedroom, but so sweet…

This past year was perhaps the sweetest and most intimate of all our married years. We spent more time together, and we both realized how deep our love for each other really was. This sublime love for each other is just so precious, and even though I thought we were going to come out of it and just really rock, (sorry, I have lots of teens and I can’t think of a better term), I think everything will be OK because I really feel his closeness to me and our family – strong.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #195″

The deluge of college letters begins for Emma.  I must admit, I was a bit puzzled by the return envelope provided by the University of Minnesota.

Like me , you may be puzzled to notice that the UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA Office of Admissions is conveniently located in AKRON, OHIO.

Now, there are a few perfectly good reasons why the “send me more information” letter about the U of MN would go to Akron.  Here’s my list:

• There are no longer any employees at the University of Minnesota capable of opening envelopes and selecting the appropriate college brochure information to return to the sender.
• The state-funded University of Minnesota decided that the entry-level job of opening and returning envelopes was too expensive for Minnesota and they outsourced to Ohio, where they could pay pennies less per hour and have the employees pay taxes to the state of Ohio, instead of Minnesota.
• They want to make sure prospective students know that bean counters are in charge of the university, so when they arrive, they will not be surprised that while the classroom may be in Minneapolis or Akron, the professor is in Toledo.
• Due to budget cuts, the University of Minnesota is now being administered by THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, but Columbus is too expensive, so the new University of Minnesota will be located in Akron.
• The Dean of Admissions really likes the old Pretenders song “My City Was Gone”  and wanted to reverse the economic slide of his home town.

I WENT BACK TO OHIO
BUT MY PRETTY COUNTRYSIDE
HAD BEEN PAVED DOWN THE MIDDLE
BY A GOVERNMENT THAT HAD NO PRIDE
THE FARMS OF OHIO
HAD BEEN REPLACED BY SHOPPING MALLS
AND MUZAK FILLED THE AIR
FROM SENECA TO CUYAHOGA FALLS

one year ago…”Winter Driving”

This week was Carole Winkleblack’s last days on the job as director of the Marshalltown Public Library.

While Carole brought many skills and talents to her position, perhaps after her optimistic personality, she will best be remembered for bringing a state-of-the-art Public Library to town.  The library is Iowa’s only LEED certified library and earned a LEED Gold rating.  In addition, it was named the State of Iowa’s best Commercial/Civic development in 2009.

The library contains Iowa’s largest solar array on the roof, has native prairie landscaping, used local limestone and brick, passive solar lighting, and a host of lighting controls and the like.  It also earned kudos for remaining in the Central Business District, helping to alleviate the trend of dying or dead downtown areas.

Carole will be the first to say the library was the work of many people, and that is true.  In a difficult anti-tax environment, Carole led the bond issue to garner 70% approval by the town’s residents who voted to raise their taxes for the new library.  Yes, it is true that many people were involved, it is also true that without the spark, enthusiasm, and attention to financial detail, that Carole brought, the library would not have been built to have such a low impact on future energy and bills.

Carole has our family’s deep appreciation for providing the leadership for this project.  Now, we look forward to visiting Carole in her so-called retirement as she and her husband rejuvenate an old Iowa Farmstead somewhere along the state’s namesake river where Carole can attend to chickens, restored prairie, saplings, children, gardens, and a classic farmhouse for a while!  Thanks Carole!

one year ago…”Easy (and cheap) Row Covers”

I’ll admit, it’s the middle of the winter, things are quiet on the farm, and we’re all hunkered down inside. So, you can expect some far-ranging posts until the farm warms up.

While I was working away doing the equivalent of spring housecleaning on the computer, I was streaming old World Cafe and All Songs Considered episodes.

That’s when I ran across First Aid Kit.  No, not a medical helper, but a couple of teenage sisters from Sweden. When they were 15 and 17 they headed to the woods with a guitar and did a cover version of a song by Fleet Foxes.  Nearly 2 million youtube hits later, they have a recording contract.  Here’s another song by First Aid Kit in the Swedish forest.

Their sisterly harmonies are delightful and family knitter Linda is particularly enamored with their sweaters and fingerless gloves. So, one thing leads to another, they get selected as a showcase artist for South By Southwest in Austin Texas, start getting love on NPR radio shows and suddenly they are on high hopes gardens blog. They have arrived!

They’ve got a bit of Scandinavian quirkiness that must appeal to me with my authentic Swedish surname. I particularly like that the parents of these girls “made” them endure long hikes in the woods as well.

one year ago…”Blizzard Warning with No Warning?”

Claire left behind the letter “V” from her new deluxe Scrabble game.

Here’s a copy of the message to her from the person currently in possession of the letter V.

one year ago…”Foggy Landscape”

Bro recently headed up to Lake of the Woods in Minnesota/Canada for a weekend fishing trip.

Check out the “bomber” vehicle that transported them to the ice fishing house.

A more modern version of the bomber.  I don’t think too many people are making out in this Chevy van.

OK, so I’ve never caught a 10 lb walleye before.  I say if you catch a fish through the ice is it like a tree falling in the woods when nobody hears it?

one year ago…”Need to Cut Meat with Circular Saw?”

We are very fortunate for the last two years to “borrow” season tix to Iowa State women’s basketball.  The seats are in the second row behind the scorer’s table.  So, today, a night at the game.

Coach Fennelly shaking hands with a “Lady Rattler” from Florida A&M (great marching band anyone?). The uniforms, however looked a lot like Gatorade bottles.

Bill talks with point guard Lauren Mansfield.  I can only imagine what it must be like to be coach and have a vision in your head about how a team plays and reacts and trying to get that into the heads of five independent players on the team.

Bill looks relatively calm in this time-out.

Everybody’s best friend Cy posing for a picture.

Rich Fellingham and Molly Parrot, the voices of the Cyclones.  It’s always a surprise, one way or another to see radio folks in person.

#11 Kelsey Bolte hits another three.  She finished with 28 points as the Cyclones silenced the Lady Rattlers.

As a bonus, Emma’s band played at the game.  During break, the Cyclones invite local high school bands to play during the games when the Cyclone pep band is away.

one year ago…”Volunteer Leave Wraps Up”

Gee, I know I took a few days off from shaving over the holidays and the salt and pepper beard resembled gimpy old man Brett Favre’s face, but I am not even within a year of a milestone birthday and this comes in the mail.

Maybe by sending this early, the AARP people want you to slowly get used to the idea that you are closer to the nursing home than to Sweet Home Alabama?

one year ago…”Sticky Rolls”

For any of our Jewish (and perhaps more for our non-Jewish readers), a special, modern Hanukkah greeting!

one year ago…”Now This is a Christmas Tree!”

Today, I received the first mail item that I’ve sent that came back with the “DECEASED” stamp.  There’s something so final and cold about the official post office rubber stamp announcing a death.  Death is usually communicated in person or by voice.  It’s not that it is particularly shocking that Margaret, age 93, passed away.  But even though it’s been over 25 years or so since I worked with her, and probably 10 years since I last visited with her,  it still struck me as a loss.

Margaret worked as a cook at YMCA Camp Miller the eight or so years I worked there.  The first few years, I didn’t pay that much attention to her, but as the years went on, and especially when I became the camp caretaker for a year when the previous caretaker suddenly passed away (during the fall and winter weekends the camp opened for retreats and such) I got to know Margaret much better.

Margaret was a robust woman, strong, and slow to anger, but certainly capable of indignation.  If the mood was right, and not too many people were around, we could coax Margaret to play the piano.  She had a roaring, raucous style.  After Margaret found out my grandfather was Polish and played the accordion as well, she really thought I was OK!

I think it also helped when one year I was the cabin counselor for one of her grandchildren who was attending camp.

One of the jaw-dropping moments at camp for me was when the strapping young teen boys assigned to help in the kitchen that week were struggling and complaining about carrying what must have been a 120 quart stainless steel vat of  “bug juice” (essentially institutional kool-aid) to the counter. Margaret couldn’t stand it any more, shooshed the two of them away (one struggling on each handle) and picked up the vat herself and carried around the room as though she was moving a pan of brownies.  Margaret was no-nonsense about many things, but when you could tickle her funny bone, she would turn red in the face and offer up a great belly laugh that meant something.  Margaret also seemed to be one of those people that lived as though she had a finite number of words they could utter during a lifetime and judiciously used them, at least until you got to know her very well.

For some reason, across the years, Margaret and I clicked and had a real fondness for each other.  I felt honored when this shy woman invited me out to her farm.  I’m not sure that more than a handful of camp staff over her 25 years or so at Camp Miller ever got that chance.  She had an absolutely gorgeous farm.  She and her husband, who died many years before she did, had a dairy farm, and she lived there many years after his death.

The farm was nestled in the woods, but had some nice, open pastures and hayfields, a charming farmhouse and beautiful barn.  She had a fondness for Collies that seemed a natural part of the farm.  And at the back of the property, a river snaked through the forest.  I’d live there in a second.

Later, after she moved to town, (and she greatly missed living on the farm) on our trips to the BWCA in far Northern Minnesota , we’d stop in and visit with her to catch up on things and show off my babies and young children.  Now, I don’t think I’ve stopped since Martin was born, but we still exchanged Christmas letters, at least up to this year- she had beautiful handwriting and always included a long note catching me up on life in Moose Lake.

This year, there was no flowing artistic handwritten letter, just my returned letter to her with a hastily stamped imprint simply saying “DECEASED.” I suppose that might have been the way Margaret might have preferred it to be  – simple and direct.

Rest well Margaret, rest well.

one year ago…”Snowbanks”

Today I was sitting in Linda’s office after a Lego League practice and one of Linda’s friends and teaching colleagues walks in Linda’s office and drops incredible news on us.  A movie based on a book she wrote was picked as one of the 16 films out of some 3,000 or so films submitted to hit the main stage at the Sundance Film Festival!  She also wrote the screenplay, so it was all jaw-dropping news.  In the oddest corners of the world, like at Marshalltown Community College, the creative writing teacher suddenly gets her life turned around (again)!

The book is autobiographical, called This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost.   The book is out of print and I haven’t read it, but it portrays Carolyn’s life as a pregnant 17-yr old girl in a Des Moines trailer park who joins a kind of hippie fundamentalist sect and her journey out of the cultish group.

No doubt many adventures are ahead for Carolyn, not the least of which will be seeing this part of her life played by Vera Farminga (who played opposite George Clooney in Up in the Air) along with Josh Leonard of Blair Witch Project fame.

one year ago…”Putting Bees Away for Winter”

This evening there seemed to be a higher than usual number of contrails in the air.

All the Thanksgiving travelers heading home Sunday night?

one year ago…”Emma on the Hardwoods”

Time for a periodic music review. John Mellencamp’s latest album No Better than This is a throwback to another time.  The album is a throwback to a time when the music was more important than the production methods.  The album was recorded with a vintage  55 year-old Ampex tape recorder with just one microphone and released in mono.

The album was recorded in three historical locations. First, in Sun Studios in Memphis where he and his musicians  dutifully arranged themselves on the studio floor in accordance with markings that had been laid down by Sam Phillips many years before for optimal acoustics.

Second, in Savannah’s First African Baptist Church which is the first Black church in North America- dating to pre-revolutionary times. The original congregation and ministry were slaves; the church, in fact, provided sanctuary to runaways before emancipation.

And finally in Room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio where Robert Johnson first recorded in 1936. Mellencamp sang facing the corner of the room that Johnson had almost 74 years earlier.

As for the music, all the songs are written by Mellencamp, although there is some serious channeling of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, John Prine.  While the album holds together well, some of the songs have serious folk, country, rockabilly, and blues feel.

While the songs were all written the past few year, if you didn’t know better, you’d think they were just-found songs written by Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, and Dylan.

John reminds us on the first song to

Save some time to dream
‘Cause your dream could save us all

one year ago…”High Hopes on Oprah.com”

Veteran’s Day is one holiday I just don’t understand. Can someone please explain to me why government workers and bankers get the day off, but Veterans have to go to work? I tried writing my congressmen to sponsor a bill to change it to give Veterans the day off instead of postal workers and bankers, but it didn’t gain any traction.

Thanks to all who serve.

one year ago…”Updated Web Site”

I took Emma and one of her band friends to the Drumline Live! theatrical show at Stephens Auditorium in Ames.  We had seats early, and landed in the fourth row.  It was a fantastic show.  The outfit is made out of the best of the wild and crazy southern college marching bands.

They did the usual marching band stuff, but the show was much more than that.  It was basically a living history of African-American music through time.

They started out in traditional African tribal dress.

And covered many eras of music – jazz, soul, Motown, gospel, funk, pop and rock.  The cast was extremely talented – were great musicians, singers, and dancers.  It’s hard to describe, but if you can imagine where an energetic marching band, southern gospel revival tent and burlesque show intersect, you’ll have a sense of the show.

one year ago…”New Layers”

one year ago…”Barn in Fall”

This was supposed to be a great work day. Ended up on the couch, waiting to visit the porcelain gods. Waaah. Waah. Waah.

one year ago…”October Stir-Fry”

Many years ago, I swore I would not be the driver of a minivan. Regular cars and extended cab trucks were the only vehicles in my mind. Then Martin, the caboose, came along and getting the car seat and kids in the back of the Taurus station wagon proved to be problematic. So, I ate my words and entered the realm of the soccer mom.

To be sure, the minivan served us well. It got us where we needed to go with plenty of room. It was with a little reminiscing that I let it go last week. Now that Claire is off to college, we no longer need a minivan and downsized to an Outback, adding another 4WD to the stable. We did well by this van, it served us well and only lost about $1000 dollars of value each year we had it. It was a bit of a risk to buy a Kia many years ago as some wondered how long they’d be in business – well, as it turns out, I never would have guessed that GM and Chrysler would go under!

one year ago…”PFI Field Day”

We’ve got one eye open for a new flute for Emma and while browsing Craigslist ads, was intrigued by this ad for an “old flute.”

Something tells me this isn’t a flute, and isn’t from the 1800’s either.

one year ago…”Turn of Seasons”

Thanks to Claire for pointing out this new feature of Google maps.  I put in I wanted to go from Des Moines to China.  By george, it did it – taking me over as much land as possible.  It included a 2,756 mile kayak to Hawaii, then overland in Hawaii, then a 3,879 mile kayak from Hawaii to Japan, overland in Japan, and finally a break from kayaking as it suggested a short 486 mile jet ski from Japan to China!  The route is 11,124 miles and it should take 38 days and one hour according to Google.

I think the time calculation must not take into account carrying your kayak and jet ski overland across Hawaii and your jet ski overland in Japan.  That’s got to add a week to the trip! Who’s going to be the first one to try this and then have their family sue Google after the kayak overturns in Puget Sound and drowns the poor sap trying to kayak to China!

one year ago…”Big Tomato Day”

After an uproar, the Troubled Waters film I blogged about a few days ago is back on, according to the University of Minnesota officials, who all seem to be playing with a different playbook and set of rules as the reasons and rationale seem to change daily after a PR director stopped the release of the film.  Does every work of literature, poetry, film, publication, brochure, theatre production now require the imprimatur of the head PR person, or just those that she disagrees with?

Many questions remain – like how the head of PR at the university stops the film, and then is unavailable/unwilling to comment during the week the uproar rages in the newspapers while the University President is in Morocco (I’m sure there’s a good reason for the President of the University of Minnesota to be in Morocco during the first weeks of the new academic year!)

So this situation violates two “Intro to PR” principles. First, by disappearing while the story broke and unfolded – the “U” let others define the story by their lack of response and absence of the PR person not making statements, in this case for many days. Secondly, there is no better way to bring public notice to something you want hidden than to ban it and have ensuing firestorm bring the item to everyone’s attention, rather than just the few academics who might have otherwise seen it. The university is now adding additional screenings to accommodate a much higher anticipated audience than the film might have otherwise had!

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #178″

Dear Vegetarians,

Please stop eating all our food.

Sincerely, the herbivores
—————————
Dear New York,

Way to be creative about your name.

Sincerely, York, England
—————————-
Dear Fantasy Football,

You should rebrand yourself as a contraceptive.

Sincerely, Lonely Wife/Girlfriend
—————————
Dear 2012,

They Fall for it Every Time.

Sincerely, Y2K
————————–
Dear Guy Who Stole My Bike,

Thanks for leaving my helmet behind. Now if I fall down walking home, I’ll still be protected.

Sincerely, bike-less girl
————————-
Dear Joke Writers,

Please mind your own business. We should be able the cross the road without being harassed for personal information.

Sincerely, The Chicken
————————
Dear Corn,

Please leave some room for the rest of us to grow.

Sincerely, All the world’s other domesticated plants
———————–

All these and more can be seen on Dear Blank, Please Blank – a serious time-waster of a web site that Emma showed me. If you’d like to share your own “Dear Blank, Please Blank” that just flashed through your mind, just put it in a comment!

one year ago…”Gettin’ the Cub Runnin'”

While at work yesterday, my bro emailed me this photo of a fish he picked up earlier in the day while fishing on Lake Minnetonka in the Twin Cities.

It’s a nice scene – an empty lake, blue water, blue sky, and an unexpected fish on a Thursday morning.  Can’t say I didn’t wish I could change places with him.  I’ll have to see what I can do on vacation later this summer in Minnesota.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #169″

OK, so of all the photos Claire’s taken in India, the “in case of fire” sign has been most interesting to me.

I am particularly impressed with the first instruction, which is usually left off similar instructions in the US – that is to yell “AAG AAG” or “FIRE FIRE.”  Come on admit it, if you saw a fire you’d yell and scream on your way to push the fire alarm!  I’m not sure I would have thought to yell “AAG AAG,” but I’d be OK with shouting FIRE repeatedly. It also sounds interesting to try to use gunny bags as fire beaters.

These instructions are much different than those at my employer, which our only task is to get out of the building, not help anyone out.  I was really taken aback at one question at the building safety hazards class that if the fire alarms went off and the elevators were disabled, that if there was someone who was unable to walk down the stairs, that you were to leave them at the top of the stairs (six story building) and wait for the fire department to carry them out – and not try to assist them.  We were assured that the fire doors on each floor would keep them safe from the flames (let’s not worry about toxic smoke suffocating them long before the flames arrive).  No doubt, this is one case in which company policy would be violated in short order.

one year ago…”Drying Strawberries”

Someone googled and found our dock jumping pics from Kawishiwi Lodge in Northern Minnesota and asked for them to be included on his dock jumping around the world web site. So now there the girls are on the dock jumping site – it’s a fun place!

one year ago…”Dinner with Oprah Food Editor”

Even though February is but a distant memory, I recently ran across this video of the President of Macalester College on President’s Day and thought it was blogworthy in addition to providing good humor as well!

one year ago…”Energy Group”

What’s the deal with the cell phone commercials I saw during the NCAA tournament? I was especially struck with a commercial disparaging phones that were incapable of surfing the web while you talked on the phone.  So, if I’m understanding this correctly, first cell phones become ubiquitous and allow you to ignore those you are physically with while you talk with and text those out of your sight.  Now, with the new phones that allow you to surf the web while you talk, you can not only ignore those that you are with, you can also ignore those that you are talking to while you watch videos or make reservations!  This is a great country!

That brings us to the next thought – I’m not a marketing genius, but I think I could probably do better than the company that designed the following ad I grabbed off a web page.

I’m not sure the photograph and the text are a good match.  Perhaps the ad agency had a low budget for an image gallery and this photo was the best match for urging people to go back to school? Or I could be reading the ad incorrectly – just maybe the elderly gentleman’s name is Grant, and I can qualify to have him come live with me and take care of my children and household while I return to school?  Furthermore, I’m not sure that this guy would even stay alive through four year’s of college!

one year ago…”Early Strawberries”

Spring is on the verge of busting out very quickly.

This bumblebee finds some early season nourishment on this shrub.

Aspen catkins fly in the wind.

Finally, the old alder catkins hang on while the new catkin emerges.

one year ago…”Conference Day 2 – Ice Breaker”

Did anyone else notice the startling resemblance of new-found college basketball hero Ali Farokhmanesh and singer Paul Simon?

Ali (known as “Stroke” to his teammates) and the Northern Iowa Panthers shocked the college basketball world, when he hit the winning three-pointer in games against UNLV and Kansas, and brings his team to the sweet 16.  I’m sure there’s a nice spoof entitled “50 ways to beat a Jayhawk” just waiting to be produced, but I don’t have time for more than one verse:

Just shoot off the key, Ali
It’s all quite simple you see

one year ago…”Dinosaur Egg”

For all you Harry Potter fans, here’s a real life marauder’s map!  This is the “Sprint Family Locator.”

It’s available on any computer or our cell phones. This shows on a map where two of our family members are at this particular time. The girls thought it was a bit creepy for us to be able to know where they always were, but it sure comes in handy for wondering when someone will be home for dinner, knowing when to pick them up from a sporting event in Fort Dodge or Mason City, or if Dad is still moving on his ride home from Des Moines on a slippery night.

You can even zoom in to a very detailed level to locate someone – on this photo, it looks like Linda might be in a greenhouse – shocking, I know! Best of all, it just costs $5.00 month. I wonder what the implications for law enforcement are regarding placing people at the scene of a crime with all these GPS enabled phones? I can get emails at times I request for locations of any family member. We have shared the password with the kids, so they could also see where we are at.  It gives them precious minutes to get the dishes done or boys out of the house when we are on our way home!

one year ago…”Maple Sugaring Part 2″

It’s amazing that mechanical devices work as well as they do in weather like this.

Today it was snowing and about 28 degrees, so most of the snow was melting on the highways as though driving in the rain – only difference being when the spray hits the sides of the car, or anything else, it freezes on contact.

What do you call the bunch of ice that forms behind the wheels of cars in winter?  Where I come from they are known as “clunkers.”

one year ago…”New Hay Feeder”

I had a chance to attend a meeting (actually I presented about wind energy) near Cedar Rapids. I arrived about a half-hour early and was curious about the recovery after the 500 year flood in 2008. I was struck at the lack of progress in recovery – still blocks of abandoned homes.

You can still see the water lines on the door in the first house.

The next house down the block.  The neighborhoods were eerily quiet. No sidewalks shoveled, no cars parked in the street – quiet. I thought of all the effort that people had put into the houses in the 10 square miles that flooded – all in a zone that was never expected to flood. I thought about Katrina and the differences – although the loss of habitation in the neighborhoods is similar, residents of Cedar Rapids did not live with the fact that their homes were below sea level. I can imagine the critters and the like that have moved into these houses with broken windows, and holes in the walls.

The video above is from a web site, the Cedar Rapids Flood Story that tells of the progress and frustrations of falling out of the national news cycle.

The city is stuck with a 5.5 billion dollar repair bill, and has received about 0.3 billion in aid. All the politician’s speeches the days after the flood, were just that – photo ops.  The city now faces an unprecedented loss of tax revenue (75% of downtown businesses remain closed) as a result of homes and businesses off the tax rolls, along with a recession, and an unprecedented repair bill. People of Iowa do not need to to travel to other countries or New Orleans for mission trips as long as Cedar Rapids remains is disarray.

one year ago…”I’m Melting”

The following Christmas card offered a great point of discussion in our family.

I looked at it, thought of who it was from, and said, “What great humor to put little smokie sausages in a cookie cutter for a Christmas card!”  However, more conventional eyes saw red sprinkles, not sausages in the cookie cutter, which makes more sense, but isn’t nearly as much fun as a giant cookie cutter full of sausages.

one year ago…”This is the Nice Day?”

One of the best things to do on a cold winter night is to go to a college basketball game.  The girls have season tickets that have been passed down to us through two other families for second row seats behind the scorer’s bench at about mid-court.

Here, current star Allison Lacey puts up a three – she is one of the best point guards in the country – she is averaging about 19 points, 7 assists and only 1.5 turnovers a game.

Kelsey Bolte is another hot-shot, second leading scorer and deadly from the outside.

Of course, it all starts with Coach Fennelly – he has a rare lifetime contract, has brought two teams to the Elite 8, and has the women off to a 10-1 start this year.  Last year, only two teams in all of college basketball had a higher average game attendance – national champion UConn and traditional power Tennessee.  The games are fun, the team play up-tempo, and many of the starters are from Iowa high schools.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #148″

So, I’m a bad boy and didn’t even take any pictures of the baked turkey.

Here cousin Erin displays the vintage server holding the stuffing.

Julie looks forward to the mashed potatoes year-round.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #143″

After having never made the state football playoffs – ever – and coming off a 3-6 season, this year’s 13-0 record and berth in the state championship game was a big treat for Marshalltown.

Twenty minutes before game time, this is what the Marshalltown side of the UNI-Dome looked like.

This is what the Iowa City side of the dome looked like.  The fairy-tale season ended with a loss, but was a great run for this team with undersized numbers and size, but oversized heart.  The front page of the Des Moines Register led with this story – the first few lines reproduced below.

Marshalltown, Ia. – This city loves to surprise you.

Think Marshalltown is all about factories and smokestacks, pork processing and furnace manufacturing? Think again. The city has a sparkling, $20 million YMCA, an international virtual-reality company, a surprising arts scene and a Main Street district filled with businesses.

Think the city of 26,000 is as white-bread as most of the rest of Iowa? Think again. The school district is nearly 40 percent Hispanic, and the city boasts sizable Bosnian, Ukrainian and Sudanese populations as well.

And think Marshalltown is a place where the high school football team never plays in November?

Think again about the 13-0 Bobcats, who have played the role of underdogs all season – much like their city. The UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls will be a sea of blue and red tonight, filled with about a third of the city’s population watching the school’s first state championship game when the Bobcats face No. 1 Iowa City High at 7:05 p.m.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #142″

Today was a day in Ames.  We went to see the first exhibition game of the year for last year’s Elite Eight Iowa State women’s basketball team.  The girls now have season tickets in the 2nd from the floor a few feet from center court thanks to a good friend.  After the game, it was a short walk next door to the Band Extravaganza to see a concert of the Iowa State symphonic, wind ensemble, jazz and marching bands.

This year’s ISU marching band is 329 members strong – 24 tubas alone!  It was a great sound to hear the band within the confines of an auditorium – no loudspeakers needed!  The girls were especially enthralled to watch a band an age level up as they are both in regular band and marching band and Claire plays keyboards in the jazz band.

one year ago…”Farm Auction”

From the top of a sea salt shaker.

Ya think?

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #136″

There’s a very interesting article in this month’s Wired magazine about Craigslist founder, named, oddly enough, Craig Newmark.  The article spends some time berating the site for not being all it could be in terms of design and profit.  The site only charges fees for a few kinds of ads, mainly help wanted in large cities.  Best estimates are that these ads earn about $100 million per year.  The rest of us get to post and browse free classified ads.  Craigslist gets more hits than Ebay or Amazon.  Many people think that with a redesign of the site, or making sponsored ads or charging a minimal fee that Craigslist might be worth a sum in the billions of dollars on the open market.

When asked about why he doesn’t try to make more money from a potential goldmine of a site, Craig’s philosophy comes through as he “already has a parking space, a hummingbird feeder, a small home with a view, and a shower with strong water pressure.”  What else does he need? He also dislikes meetings and tensions between technology and internal business units.  At Craigslist there is no tension between the marketing, sales, and technology groups, because there is no marketing or sales departments.  He’s put technological back-door roadblocks in place to prevent automated searches across all of Craigslist locations, insisting it is for local commerce only.  I think I’d like this guy!

one year ago…”Good Old Small Town Life”

My faithful carry-around digital camera died this weekend.  Like an old car, it had acquired many quirks that should have sent it to the dust heap a while ago, but I was able to live with the defects.

Most of the problems dealt with the lens retraction.  I experienced the dreaded Canon E18 error on many occasions and was always able to fix it with a bit of pushing/pulling on the lens.  No more.

Although it’s not a sentient being and it’s rather anthropomorphic to asses human qualities to it – this little camera has in some degree been the lens through which my life, or at least the images I care to share, have been broadcast to friends, family, lurkers and random visitors.

The replacement camera will cost about the same as this one, but have 3x the megapixels, half the thickness and twice the viewfinder screen.

one year ago…”Blackberry Skeptics!”

Today there was some magic at the farm.

This 1993 Ford F150 turned into…

a 2010 Toyota Corolla!

This is a milestone for me as this is the first new car I have ever purchased.  I always bought used cars and trucks and sold my cars when domestic cars hit 150,000 miles and imports hit 200,000 miles. But the fact that I could get $4500 for my old beater pickup truck worth a few hundred for a a new Corolla at 1/3 off was a deal I couldn’t resist.  To top it off, the sales tax can be deducted from this year’s taxes as well.  Best of all,  on the 50 mile trip home, the car pegged in at 43 mpg.

After negotiating the price over the last few weeks via e-mail by with Des Moines Toyota and other dealers, I was able to walk into the dealer, complete all the paperwork, hand over the Ford, and drive away in less than an hour.  It was also the first vehicle in about 15 years I bought in the state of Iowa and didn’t have to drive to Minnesota or Wisconsin for the best deal.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #125″

I occasionally use this blog to rant about poor products or customer service. In fairness, I thought I should rave about good experiences.

When we were in Maine, I bought a deeply discounted leather and green canvas attache case at a L.L. Bean Outlet store in Ellsworth. Now, a few months later, the one of the buckles (pictured above) was lost (my fault).

I contacted customer service asking if I could purchase a replacement – and about a week later a pair of the exact clips arrived in the mail – free of charge!

one year ago…”Hosting Costa Ricans at High Hopes”

It’s a 10 hour ride to the “End of the Road” past Ely, MN en route to vacation.

I guess the the highlight of the trip is stopping for lunch at Subway!

one year ago…”Young Girls and Moms Overnight”

It has recently come to my attention that a judge refused to grant damages to a woman who claimed damages after eating Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries for four years. She sued for damages from false advertising after finding out that crunchberries were not real berries and in fact, were not fruit.

The judge did not look kindly on the lawsuit, in part because “This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a “crunchberry. So far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world.” Thus, since the plaintiff was unable to locate any waving fields of flowering crunchberries, her claims were summarily dropped.

This falls on the heels of a similar case whereby “froot loops” were discovered by the court not to contain any fruit, and the plaintiff dismissed as a poor speller.

I suppose as a result of these failed cases, my pending cases against “Special K” not really having any “Special Potassium” and my recent discovery that grape nuts contains neither grapes nor nuts may be in danger, especially if the case is heard by either the crunchberry or froot loops judges.

one year ago…”Enough Already – Battered by High Winds”

We are soon to get a new septic system.  Ours is rather archaic and it’s time for a new one (I’ll spare you all the cruddy details).  The guys who are putting it in, said we could save a bit of coin if we did our own percolation or “perc tests” to see how big of a drain field we’d need based on the drainage characteristics of our soils.

First, you dig four holes three feet deep, mark a point a few inches below the surface, and fill the hole with water and measure how far it has dropped in a certain time period.  Repeat this until three readings are close to each other (the first few readings, the drop is large as the soil saturates.

We had a helpful recorder so we could haul water and time measurements.

one year ago…”Oil Change Girl”

Here’s an envelope from the City of Duluth that I saw a parking attendant put on my car in Duluth a few weeks ago. (I was in a space after the yellow line stopped on the curve, but the winter salt and grime obscured the white hatches indicating no parking – the ticket was a warning, but I got the envelope as if it had been a real violation.)

So now the City of Duluth has outsourced its parking fine payment to Tarrytown, New York.  It strikes me that the computer systems needed to implement this system and the and unfamiliarity the New Yorkers have with Duluth streets seems like a bad idea.  I wonder if the city bean counters considered the additional loss of the local multipliers of the local people who lost their jobs processing payments, who might not be able to find a new job and go on public assistance!

This reminds me of  an article about McDonald’s in Hawaii outsourcing their drive through order-taking to a call center in Texas.

“It takes a little getting used to on the order-taker’s side, but I think with practice, they become more and more comfortable working with our local clientele,” Okazaki said.

McDonald’s said the new system is delivering more accurate orders and speeding up service, but there is no cost savings. “We haven’t pared back on our labor force at all. In fact, we’ve been able to have our crew members concentrate more on their particular position,” Okazaki said.

Evidently, it is now too complicated to both listen to an order and put the items in a bag.  Now the “put the hamburgers in a bag” people will be able to perfect their “loading burgers in a bag position” without having to learn to coordinate listening and putting food in a bag.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #114″

OK,  so this won’t be the most fuzzy and warm news from high hopes gardens, but it’s February, so expectations cannot be too high.  The last couple of weeks whenever a toilet flushed, other drains in the house have gurgled.  It most likely means that the vent is partially or completely clogged, or the septic tank needs attention.

The vent was the first thing to check. The roof of the house is about 30 feet off the ground and the extension ladder is 28 feet.  So, I put the ladder in the tractor bucket and raised it up a few feet.  I crawled up there and on the north facing slope, saw some ice, a steep slope, and encountered a general unwillingness to make the full crawl up on the roof.  I thought it would be best to call a plumber.

Then, just two days later, when liquid started backing up in the basement floor drain, and I made the call to the “Turd Herder.”  Well, the herder had had the unfortunate experience of having a 300 lb cement lid to a septic tank land on his foot the day before, but he thought he could make it out when his boy got out of school at 3:00.  He called shortly after and said he wouldn’t be able to make it after all, so I had to call AAA Septic.  Somehow, it seems like a letdown to call AAA Septic after having a chance at the Turd Herder.  But AAA was fast and efficient.  Here’s a view into the opening of the tank.

To make a short story long, he relayed the “good news, bad news.”  The good news was that we could flush, the bad news was that he couldn’t get the bottom 2/3 of solids out of the tank and said we’d need to hire a backhoe this spring to dig the tank out to the bigger cleanout six feet under.  Because we have discovered we have a rinky-dink system (a 500 gallon tank, draining through an old cistern and then through one drain field), instead of that fix, we signed up for a new system this spring.  So, you could say the the backup in the basement was our stimulus package.

one year ago…”Same Story, Different Day”

From the “Never Eat Anything Your Grandmother Would Not Recognize as Food” department comes a revelation that depending on the manufacturing process used, high fructose corn syrup contains mercury. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is one of the most common ingredients in processed foods. Young children, especially, are urged not to ingest mercury. It’s kind of freaky that parents may be unwittingly be adding to their child’s mercury intake by feeding them Quaker Oatmeal to Go or Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

In a nutshell, the production of hfcs involves using caustic lye which can be produced by a manufacturing process that uses mercury cells. Many countries have outlawed this process, but the United States has not.

Here’s a list of the top 15 offending foods from the report:

Just because a food isn’t on the list doesn’t mean it is safe – the study just took samples of 55 supermarket foods.  The group that released the study urges an immediate ban on this practice that leads to unwitting mercury ingestion. You can read the press release for further information and more details and suggestions.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #104″

I’m not sure if the holidays give the snow removal people a break.

This sign indicates that there is to be no “snow storage” in this area.  But this begs another question.  What is the snow being stored for?  Why would you want to store snow?

one year ago…”Deep Winter Night”

One of the unintended benefits of the this blog is as a “scrapbook” of sorts for our kids. I think it will be a hoot for the kids to look at in years to come. The only problem is that the software I use to create it requires server software and all the info is stored in a database – so doing a backup of the site is all fine and good, but will not be something you can put on a cd or flash drive and view – it requires the web host server to work.

I found some free software called HTTrack which captures an HTML mirror (copy) of a web site you indicate. So, now I have an offline copy of the blog that only needs a web browser to view and that is portable and can be viewed on any computer.

one year ago…”Digging Gladiolas”.

This week Linda and I snuck out to see Lucinda Williams play a grand old theatre in Des Moines. Lu is one of those artists that’s hard to put in a category, so she’s never on commercial radio. She plays rock, country (Cline, Willie, and Waylon type country, not Garth, and other hat acts), and blues all with her own sound. We got fifth row seats, so had a good view.

Lots of her fans are worried now that she’s happy. Don’t worry, she can write happy songs as well as songs that walk on the unpleasant side of life.

one year ago…”Garlic Planting”.

I’ve restrained myself from commenting on the mortgage mess for some time now, but today is the day, so if you come here to read about the farm, skip this entry and hook back up with us tomorrow.

I work for a large mortgage company 30 hours week in addition to the farm and have some thoughts on the meltdown.

Does anybody really believe that prices of commodity products have any real link to the supply and demand of those products? I look at the cost of a barrel of oil and cost of a bushel of corn over the past few months and shake my head in disbelief.

On the corn side, Chicago corn futures rose to an all-time high on Monday June 9th, 2008. The new-crop July 2009 corn contract scaled an all-time peak of $7.20 per bushel. This week when I went to the local co-op to pick up some turkey feed, the price was $3.50 bushel.

Earlier this summer, crude oil prices topped out at $145 per barrel and last week dropped to $61 per barrel.

So what’s the real price of these items, and what/who is really controlling the market price? Supply and demand have not swung a factor of 100% less for corn and oil in the last few months, but yet the price for each is less than half of what it was in June.  So supply and demand are no longer the leading factor in determining a good’s price?

The stock market is a similar story – in some ways the prices are all just make-believe, not cemented in any concrete factors other than what people believe will happen. As an employee of one of the nation’s largest mortgage companies and banks, I’ve had a front row seat to the housing and mortgage crisis. This isn’t a crisis that is unforeseen as Alan Greenspan tried to explain. Maybe my simple co-workers and I aren’t sophisticated enough to understand what has happened.

But I clearly remember 2-3 years ago sitting around the office with my co-workers and for months marveling at the make-believe in the mortgage industry. Our company was a leading mortgage provider and as other companies passed us up in the rankings, we skipped further and further down the charts and saw profits climb not nearly as fast as our competitors who were offering loans that defied common sense and historical measures – for example loans valued at 125% of the appraised value and loans granted on “stated income” where a maid at a motel 6 could say she earned $250,000 a year and the mortgage company would not require verification of income.

Our company faced a near revolt among the loan officers when a number of years ago the company changed the way appraisals were ordered from a system where the loan agent ordered an appraisal from a buddy, to a “blind” appraisal where appraisers were not assigned by a loan officer, but by a “blind” central assignment system so loan agents couldn’t get cozy with appraisers and inflate values. The loan reps saw their competitors doing this and they were losing market share. We knew that these exotic loans were building a house of cards that would only last as long as house values rapidly appreciated.

The simple-minded people in our cube farm knew that it was not possible for housing prices to increase 20% a year (sometimes a month in some markets) forever and when something happened that reversed house prices increases, the whole house of cards would tumble down.

What we didn’t anticipate in the housing melt-down was the impacts it would have on the rest of the economy. So far, the crash has been relatively good for our company – the two companies that practiced these exotic loans (Countrywide and Washington Mutual) are now both essentially gone, so in the long run, the conservative lending practices will reward my employer. I’m a little disappointed that the so-called free-market politicians did not let the prices of financial companies drop to their real bottom, so well-run and managed companies could be rewarded for their discipline and buy the failed companies, but instead the government has come in and “rescued” these failed companies – thus preventing the prudent companies from being rewarded for their approach by buying ex-competitors on the cheap who gambled, won big, then failed.

One of the most amusing stories I’ve heard is people who appear at foreclosure hearings and ask one simple question: “Show me that you have custody of the mortgage note that is the legal document that shows I owe you the money. Otherwise I won’t pay, because any bank could come in and say they own the loan – you must produce the note that you have when you purchased my mortgage note from the loan origination company.” The loans have been sold so many times, some up to 7-8 times, sometimes split into 3-4 different mortgage pools or securities and the original note was lost in the rush to securitize and repackage the loans. Many judges have thrown the foreclosures out of court, because the legal status of the foreclosing entity could not be proven.

At some point, we will once again need to make things or provide services that have a tangible value – trading imaginary prices of goods to other people who think they can make a living based on the value of the imaginary price of a good doesn’t really provide a service any more.  When futures traders try to justify their service – it is to provide a guide and guarantee of a price of good for some time in the future that helps those producing it today plan and invest – but when it comes to the wild prices swinging 100% in a few short months, it has the opposite effect and injects great uncertainty into the system.  So my thought is we need an economy based on real goods and services – much of the making of real goods has been moved off of US soil.  So with every time of change comes opportunity – we have the choice of scaling up entire new industries or chasing the same old jobs.  It is a great time to be an innovator once again, as we look for new pathways to work that produces something of value.

one year ago…”1,000 Blog Entries”.

OK, I know many of you don’t come here for wireless reviews, but I’m sure some will find this as a result of a google search. Emma is now old enough to practice managing her own money. She made an annual budget for clothes, school lunches, entertainment, etc. and we set her up with a credit card/checking account and bi-weekly deposits.

She had a big paycheck from babysitting saved up and wanted to get a prepaid cell phone. She researched and found Alltell wireless would be the best package for her. Her first transaction was to purchase the phone and initial service. She was very excited when the phone arrived, activated it and found she could not receive calls. Try customer service – closed. She calls the next day, they try some things and say it should work the next day. The next day it still doesn’t work and she calls back again and reached 2nd level tech support. They can’t get it to work and say take it into the local office. She reports this to me and my response is you paid for a new working phone, not a phone DOA, call back and ask for a return.

She calls back the next day and they say return it to the store even though the instructions with the phone say to return it via mail after receiving the “RMA Code.” She emails the appointed email address to get the “RMA Code” and two days later it finally arrives (keep in mind the 15 days you have to return a defective phone are ticking away with every delay). I’m thinking they’re sending a prepaid label and number in the mail for the return. Wrong – she finally gets an e-mail with the RMA number (why it takes upwards of 2 days is beyond me – every other transaction I do online responds within minutes).

She calls for clarification on shipping – it’s on her dime to ship it back with verificaton of delivery, but she shouldn’t worry since she is supposed to return it to the store anyways. And they way they won’t refund the “activation fee.” So I go to the Alltel web site store locator and find a map of the nearest store location. Actually, this is nothing other than another delay because the store is on the other side of town than depicted on the map on the Alltel web site and driving directions are to a random house on 12th street in Marshalltown – this is following the directions on the Alltel web.

You know what’s next, I get to the store and they refuse to take the phone. I argue for a bit, the CSR fumbles with the keyboard and says there’s nothing they can do. I kindly say, that I’ll spread the word and walk out the door. So I am. I enclosed a nice letter explaining the poor phone, poor service, miscommunication, and wild goose chase I encountered and kindly asked for the entire amount back. I’ll keep you posted what their response is.

Alltel Response:

Emma was grateful to receive her entire purchase price back from Alltel, including activation fee, so was only out on priority mail return shipping, verification of delivery, and run-around time.

one year ago…”Buckwheat Cover Crop”.

Ever since we moved in, I’ve been meaning to take this old, heavy pump out of the basement.  That day never came, until today, when in a fit of basement cleaning, I decided it was time to get the sawz-all and cut it loose from its pipes.

I’m happy to report that the removal was uneventful – I drilled a couple small holes in the pipes going through the wall before tearing into it to make sure it wasn’t holding back water – we think it was for an old cistern that is now filled in with dirt in the front yard.  It sure was an ugly thing and really prevented full use of that part of the basement in terms of shelving and storage.

one year ago…”Peaches”

The last few days we had some visitors from the east. I’m not sure what the blood relationship is called, but my grandfather and his grandmother were brother and sister. He is my Mom’s cousin. At any rate, Bob came along with his wife Philothea and their son Anton.

We had a nice visit – they have a farm in SE Wisconsin where they do many of the same things as us, and many more – including a smoke house, timber land, and an old mobile home converted into a recording studio. I totally forgot to get pictures – everytime I thought of it, one of the group was off somewhere else. We’d like to try to get to return a visit this fall, so we’ll get some photos at their place.

one year ago…”Local Food at high hopes”

This week we had a visit with some neighbors from the past. When we lived in Ames (I won’t say how many years ago) the family of “Dr Jay” lived next door with their three children. They were the first or one of the first “adult” friends we made as we transitioned from college to post-college life. They were good for us as they had kids and a family and still were fun people to be around – a jolt for young adult who had not yet crossed over the line into parenthood.

Dr. Jay, one of his daughters and two grand children were back in Iowa and spent the night. Among other things, Jay is a compulsive gatherer of firewood (I can relate) and studies pacifism in early 20th century evangelical churches. It was good to see them and catch up with them since the last time we saw them in Portland, many years ago.

one year ago…”Emma at Work”

Recently I noticed that the blog was being invaded by link spammers. It wasn’t visible on the pages you see, but it was in the code (index.php for you programmers) and as a result, when someone did a search and returned a result from high hopes gardens, links to various pharmaceuticals and other typical spam were in the search results.

I found out that it was a result of a security hole in the older version of WordPress I was using. It was a bit complicated to upgrade as I also use a custom theme and couldn’t do a quick and dirty update. But I managed the update fine and then went looking for add-ons to improve security. I found one that added another level of password security anytime someone touched a file on the web server. So I installed that and I was immediately password protected out of my own stuff! I could not access any of the administration panels to delete the add-on. So, while my blog looked fine to the outside world, I could not add or delete anything to it on the server, even if I FTPed and deleted the folder that held plug-in. I was stuck in the deep mud. Messages to Yahoo, the add-in community, and WordPress did not help me, although I did find out the reason it did not work was that the add-in was only designed for a web server running a certain kind of software – nowhere in the instructions did it tell you this – so my web provider did not support one of the needed files, so I was in never-never land.

After a few days of waiting and searching for an answer, the only way I could get back was to delete everything from the web server and reinstall everything from backups and new install packages. But now we’re back!

one year ago…”Emma’s New Fun”

Last year a group of people in Sydney, Australia started what they call “earth hour.” Earth Hour is a voluntary one hour time period where people and businesses turned off their lights.  Over 2.2 million people and over 2,00 businesses turned their lights off last year in Sydney, including the Sydney Opera house.  The sponsors (The World Wildlife Federation, Google, Hewlett Packard) hope it sparks thought and discussion about the effects of global warming.  As a bit of a reminder, just this week a 160 square mile piece of ice broke off from the antarctic ice shelf and will soon drift into warmer waters and melt.  This year’s event has moved beyond Australia and promises to involve many more people.  The earth hour is set for 8-9 pm Saturday March 29.

one year ago…”Moving Fencing Material into Place”

Oh my – this important day has already reached us without fanfare or warning. It is the day to celebrate St Urho’s banishment of the grasshoppers from Finland to save the Finnish grape crop. Some people have claimed that the story is not entirely accurate, but then again, nobody argues with the guy who claims to have moved the snakes off the Emerald Isle?

St. Urho got some good run in the Minnesota Monthly magazine with excerpt from an article about Minnesota Favorites.

Minnesota is known for wild rice, hotdish, and mojakka. Okay, so maybe the Finnish-American soup (pronounced MOY-a-kah) hasn’t quite caught on yet outside of ethnic enclaves. That soon may change: the annual St. Urho’s Day Mojakka Cook-Off held in Cloquet has helped popularize the fish- or beef-based stew since the event’s debut in 2003. According to the Ode to St. Urho, the Finnish hero ate culla mojakka effery hour to maintain his Samson-like physique. A remarkable feat, considering we weren’t able to finish the bowl we sampled at the Family Tradition Restaurant in Cloquet, due to its odd tinge of allspice and rutabagas. At least it tastes better than lutefisk. For more information, go to www.mojakka.com.

one year ago…”Artists in My Music Collection Night at SXSW”

Today Forbes Magazine published a study of the “Smartest Cities in America.” There was only one state in the union with two cities represented – and no, it wasn’t a state on the East Coast or the West Coast, but Iowa!

If anybody’s keeping track of these things, Ames, IA, home of Iowa State University, came it at number 6 in the nation and Iowa City, just slipped into the top 10.  Here’s the list:

1. Boulder, CO
2. Bethesda, MD
3. Ithaca, NY
4. Ann Arbor, MI
5. Corvallis, OR
6. Ames, IA
7. Lawrence, KS
8. Cambridge, MA
9. San Francisco, CA
10. Iowa City, IA

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #60″

Today was the public comment period for the coal plant.  I was in the minority position.  I expected that most, if not all of the local construction and trade unions would turn out; they did.  Trade unions have much to gain personally during the construction of the plant.  Local government officials were also wildly enthusiastic about the plant, both donkeys and elephants.  There were a few surprises for me – first, the former director of the county conservation board spoke in favor; the administration of Linda’s school – the Iowa Valley Community College District spoke in favor, and most shocking to me was that the local hospital spoke in favor of building the coal plant! 

I had to remind myself that the utility board was there to consider the power plant on the merits of the plant according the Code of Iowa.  Most of the endless parade of supporters seemed to think the mission of the utilities board was to create jobs.  Even though the people speaking out in favor of the plant far outnumbered those in opposition, I’m not sure that the notion of job creation is/should be central in the minds of the utility board in making their decision.

one year ago…no entry

Linda has worked tirelessly for many years, mainly on her own time, to try to establish a sustainable agriculture program and entrepreneurial farm at Marshalltown Community College where beginning and established farmers could rent a section of a 140 acre farm to start a farming enterprise. 

She just found out that Congressman Tom Latham has agreed that it is a concept whose time has come, so it earned a $250,000 appropriation!  More details are forthcoming.  She’s still waiting for the new farm bill to get through congress to see if there will be a tiny slice of the farm bill for the program as she has met with Senator Harkin and his staff about the concept as well and it was very well received. 

one year ago…

This winter is especially hard on birds and animals that forage of the ground. The thick mantle of ice make the ground and seeds and such inaccessible. We put up a bird feeder for the first time in years (the cats used to catch the birds, so the stopped). But so far this year, the cats have not bothered the birds. Either they have grown too old, or found better sport elsewhere.

This is a female Downy Woodpecker at the suet feeder.

one year ago…

On this day we usually have about 100 people descend upon our house for a giant bonfire and potluck. Due to the extreme winds and snow, we postponed it until tomorrow. We even brought gj to the airport a day early since we weren’t sure we’d be able to get out tomorrow.
one year ago…

The ice is still hanging around, although a few dustings of snow have provided a bit more traction.

I imagine the birds and any animals that are used to digging through the snow to find food are having a hard time with a thick layer of ice between the snow and the ground.

one year ago…

Yesterday Des Moines Register staff writer Mike Klein wrote a story about a reporter from the Rocky Mountain News who moved to Iowa for the nine months before the caucus to cover the candidates for his newspaper.  Following is an exerpt from the piece:

His first impressions were “mind-numbing” drives between muddy fields. “Then I see little cornstalks growing out of the ground. Little things. Then it grows into this big plant. Then it dies. I got sad,” he cracked. Early on last spring, he was astounded at Iowans’ sense of entitlement. He watched Iowa reporters ask candidate Mike Huckabee why he had been ignoring Iowa. Huckabee had visited Iowa a dozen times already.

Then an odd thing happened. Sprengelmeyer started to like Iowa, even more than he did when he got his first taste of the state in 1988 – on a caucus road trip with three Northwestern University student newspaper cronies.

“If you are not from Iowa, you think of it as a boring place. But I grew up in the desert (Albuquerque). The scenery is dynamic here,” said Sprengelmeyer, 40. “I’ve been to the pearl button factory in Muscatine, to the cheese factory in Kalona. I fell in love with Marshalltown, an interesting place going through this big transformation with immigration issues. Iowa is more diverse than people realize.”

The reported M. E. Sprengelmeyer, also wrote a column for his paper about what he found in Marshalltown.  I thought it was a very accurate, well-done piece for a reporter coming into an unfamiliar town. Â Often times people who live in a place are unaware or oblivious to some of the things he mentions in the article.

one year ago…

I travel rather seamlessly between two disparate worlds - my job in the mortage technology group of Wells Fargo and the farm.  Mortgage finance is now a pertinent and unfolding story.  I marvel how much better rewarded (financially) mortgage finance work is than farming.  This week the Wells Fargo CEO came out and said it was the worst housing crisis since the great depression.  He was roundly criticized by some for not following the finance party line, which is trying to reassure people that everything is all right and keep on spending.  To his credit, Wells Fargo is one of the few companies that did not fall prey to the easy, if suspect, moneymaking financing schemes that have/are crashing down.  That’s not to say that something won’t come out later, but to this point, the company’s conservative finance position has allowed it to keep making profits, even in these times when other banks are reporting losses of BILLIONS of dollars.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the old Smith-Barney slogan “We make money the old-fashioned way, we earn it.” It’s ironic that the company that used to be Smith-Barney has been merged into Citicorp, one of the biggest losers in the latest meltdown.  It makes me think about the notion that you can get something for nothing that has infected American society.  People who have bought houses and expected their value go up tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in the span of a few years without doing anything. People who have structured the mortgage loans in new and possibly illegal ways (perhaps only still legal because the law always takes a long time to catch up with crooks in suits).  There have even been cases where people who had their houses recently foreclosed asked a simple question at the foreclosure hearing -Who owns my mortgage – prove it.  Since some people thought to ask that question, 14 homeowners in foreclosure had to have proceedings halted because the “owner” could not produce the mortgage deed showing the finance company’s stake in the loan.  The loans have been sliced and diced so many ways and co-mingled with other loans to make them look legitimate that the trail is broken. Â  Likewise, I’ve come across reports of the same mortgage that was sold to multiple investors.

Hang with me, we’ll get back to the farm.  So what has happened to a country that rewards fund managers to play with numbers on a computer get million-dollar salaries, while others who produce the things necessary for life – farmers, electricians, carpenters, cheesemakers, teachers, and meatcutters are near the bottom of the economic scale?  I don’t have any answers, but I do know a sustainable society cannot indefinitely exist on paper gains only and ever-expanding profits for people that don’t “do” anything.  That’s not to say the finance and providers of capital are not necessary – they are, but the only sustainable way is to invest in enterprises with real worth.  Finance used to exist to help real things happen, now, too often it is an end to itself, with no connection to production of goods or services.  Futures markets are just one such thing – people trading pieces of paper for the future value of commodities – like corn or petroleum future traders.

So I wonder, will there be a time in the future that the work of those that produce real goods and services be rewarded for the importance of their work to society instead of their value to some mysterious financial market?  What do you think?  Will sustainable jobs ever be rewarded?  Will a time come when making money the old-fashioned way – earning it, will come back into fashion?

one year ago…

Martin received an unusual invitation in the mail the other day.  Here it is:

How could you turn down an opportunity like this only about 2 miles away? It was an old house on a property with a newer house and this one had seen better days and was claimed by ‘coons and other critters.

Here are the three boys, watching the fire, including the host, all dressed up in fireman gear.

The firemen used it as a training, although, they really didn’t want to put the fire out.  Previously to this day, they had filled it with smoke and practiced retrieving straw dummies in their respirators, etc.

They just wanted to prevent other things from burning.

Without fire hydrants, rural fire departments set up these temporary pools for the tanker trucks to dump and go get more water.

one year ago…

Around 8:00 this morning, as a semi-truck was loading grain from this bin, some workers heard some popping noises and buckling and quickly told the semi-driver to drive the rig out immediately.  Not much later, this 95,000 bushel grain bin collapsed and would have easily buried the truck and driver.  Everybody is thought to be safe.

You can see a new shiny bin next door – there were lots of workers around, putting the finishing touches on those bins that are much larger than the older one that collapsed.  There is still no reason given – it was a very windy day, but the bin was full, they were working on an adjacent bin, but the cause is only speculation at this point.  All the bins were full – so all this corn will have to be trucked out to somewhere else once the investigators have a look. It’s hard to get a sense of scale in this photo, but if you look just to the right of the left-most bin, you can see the top of the 2nd story of the old Melbourne school.

Here’s another closer view.

one year ago…

This afternoon a big fire and plume of smoke resulted from a solvent/chemical warehouse blowing up in Des Moines.

Here’s a picture from a local TV station showing the fire at mid-afternoon.  It’s still burning at 8:30 pm, but they have reopened I-35, I-80, and I-235 after shutting them down for a good portion of the afternoon. As I-80 is the busiest cross-country interstate in the nation, it made a huge mess to detour the interstate via city streets.  The wind is SW, which means the smoke is blowing in our general direction. What made me scared is that this warehouse is adjacent to a natural gas storage facility – you can see some of the tanks in the left-hand side of the photo.  Had the wind been different, I wonder if the gas tanks could hold back the barrage of 55 gallon flaming barrels shooting out of the plant?

Here, out in the country, this is the view to our east as you can see the wisps of smoke from the fire, at this point, about 45 miles away from the fire.  Officials claim the air is safe to breathe.

one year ago…

The good folks at Baxter Oil Company who have installed our furnace/AC and corn stove now have a web site created by high hopes gardens! I used one of the Yahoo Templates and web hosting so it would be easy for them to update without having to pay a web developer for simple changes. It’s nice to live in a place and do business on a handshake!

one year ago…

Today one of our new neighbors had some folks over to play some music at her new place and invited us over. (Yes, she is in our township, so we now may have to amend the slogan of high hopes garden’s farm music slogan to “The Original Live Music Capital of Logan Township!”

She’s the one behind the piano and the one with seven pianos in her garage!

I’m bad at remembering names, but another jammer.

Here’s the “small world” section of the entry.  This is Tim Jenkins, renowned in this part of the country as a fine dance caller.  I noticed his shirt was from a place close to one of my relatives who lives even more “off the grid” than we do in SW Wisconsin.  I asked if he knew him and his eyes lit up and turns out they play together a frequently back in Wisconsin. 

one year ago…

Last week when I had my camera in hand in town, I couldn’t help but stop and take a snapshot of the Marshall County Courthouse.  It truly is a landmark, taking up a city block in the middle of Marshalltown, Iowa – a town of about 25,000.  I remember a historian once remarking you could tell what was most important to a culture by observing what its biggest buildings were – the biggest buildings were once churches, then government buildings, of which this is an example, and finally buildings of commerce today.

The courthouse was dedicated in 1886. It was constructed of limestone from Marshall County at a cost of $150,000. Much later, there were several attempts to replace this building with a “modern” county-city building; all of them failed (we can imagine what a “modern” 1975 building might look like today!).

The State Fire Marshall ordered the building repaired or removed in 1973. At this time the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Friends of the Courthouse Committee, a newly-formed organization, decided to save the building. A referendum barely passed to restore the courthouse, but it passed (huge thanks to those who fought to save it!). The courthouse was remodeled at a cost of $2.7 million dollars in 1975 and remains the centerpiece of the city today.

one year ago…

Tonight about 7:00 my sister called me and asked if I knew where my brother was (he lives in the Twin Cities) and she was worried that she couldn’t reach him via his cell or home phone.  She was relieved to find out that he was in Orlando with his family, so she could quit worrying that he was on the bottom of the Mississippi River off the I-35W bridge.

Just a couple of days ago, Claire and GJ were so struck by the bridge that crosses the Mississippi River in Burlington, IA that they stopped to take some snapshots of it. 

The tragic collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis hits home to many people, no matter where they live.  Most of us cross a bridge over a river daily and we can all easily put ourselves in the place of the folks who were on that bridge when it collapsed.

As a native Minnesotan, (and now Iowan), I-35 is easily the Interstate I have most traveled.  I spent much time at the northern end, in Duluth, MN and been as far south on it as San Antonio, TX.  I still drive on it every day I go to work.  Linda grew up in the Twin Cities, so we have both been over that bridge countless times.  It’s just amazing to me it could drop in a flash.

one year ago…

Friday night Linda and I snuck out for some live music.

 
Cross Canadian Ragweed and Los Lobos played in an outdoor ampitheatre along the river in Des Moines.  Los Lobos, “Just another band from east L.A.” was the headliner.  The encore was “La Bamba” and they invited about 25 of their new closest fans up from the crowd to dance and since on stage with the band.  It was a fitting end, as the artist who wrote La Bamba – Richie Valens, performed the song for the very last time in the Surf Ballroom in Mason City, Iowa in 1959; shortly thereafter, he was in the plane with Buddy Holly that crashed and killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper.

I was first attracted to Los Lobos back in the 80’s – their folky ethnic sound was dangerously close to the “Chmielewski Fun Time” and “Jolly Brothers” polka bands that were a staple of my childhood.  Even though the polka bands and Mexican folk cross thousands of miles, the music must share some deep roots.

Opening act was Cross Canadian Ragweed (not really from Canada, from Oklahoma/Texas).  They didn’t seem to like playing in the daylight and we didn’t go to the bar show later than night – the two strongest songs were covers that ended their set – Todd Snider’s “I Believe in You” and Ray Wylie Hubbard”s “Rock and Roll.” (Thanks to Shannon from Cross Canadian Ragweed for correcting the title on the Ray Wylie song, now correct on this entry.) 

one year ago…

Today was our 18th anniversary! We pretended to live in the city today for something different. We went to Des Moines and went for a walk around the new trail around Gray’s Lake, dined at one the city’s “happening” restaurants – Centro, stalked the aisles of a funky gourmet/organic market, drove down Grand Avenue from downtown to the end of the suburbs and watched the city change from lofts, apartments, grand brick houses in tree-lined neighborhoods, finally making way to the strip malls and beige houses in treeless housing tracts. A stop for ice cream prepared on a cold granite stone ended the day.

I didn’t bring the camera, so today’s picture is of a tiny prairie remnant close by our house – purple coneflowers, compass plant and more have somehow survived.

one year ago…

An invader has crept into my garage.

This plant has snuck under the garage door, ran behind some sheets of plywood (8 feet long), worked its way up the plywood, found a window and is making its way into the wall propane heater.

Today Linda made the trip tp Decorah to the Dorian Music camp at Luther College to pick up Claire after a week of band camp. Between her fellow bandmates, old and camp friends and other camp friends, she had a great week and Mom was treated to some outstanding music at the end-of-week concert.

one year ago…

In Neil Young’s Prairie Wind CD, there’s a song about an old guitar.

This old guitar ain’t mine to keep
Just taking care of it now
It’s been around for years and years
Just waiting in its old case
It’s been up and down the country roads
It’s brought a tear and a smile
It’s seen its share of dreams and hopes
And never went out of style
The more I play it, the better it sounds
It cries when I leave it alone
Silently it waits for me
Or someone else, I suppose
This old guitar has caught some breaks
But it never searched for gold
It cant be blamed for my mistakes
It only does what it’s told
It’s been a messenger in times of trouble
In times of hope and fear
When I get drunk and seeing double
It jumps behind the wheel and steers
This old guitar ain’t mine to keep
It’s mine to play for a while

This isn’t surprising as a guy who’s been around as long as Neil has no doubt collected many guitars. But this guitar has a bit of history longer than Neil – it’s Hank Williams’ Martin D-28 guitar. Neil bought it in a music store in Nashville in the 70’s and still plays it today. That leads me to my question for the day. Who deserves the guitar? Who should Neil Young pass the guitar onto? Back to the family to Hank Jr. or Hank III? To a country player who stays close to the roots of Hank’s music or is a good picker – Dwight Yoakam or Vince Gill? A member of another extended first family of country music – Roseanne Cash or Rodney Crowell? One of his friends – John Mellencamp? A younger person who has already established a body of work like Ryan Adams or Jeff Tweedy? If you’ve got an idea, put the name in a comment below.

one year ago…

It must be time for some roadside botany!  The weather has turned hot and sultry.  Just a few steps down the road from our driveway a native grass is nearing the end of its seasonal lifecycle.  Needlegrass is a very ingenious native plant with a great seed planting strategy.

In this picture, the mature needlegrass is the grass that has turned brown and silvery. It’s a cool-season grass which means it matures early in the season.

Here’s a picture of one of the seedheads.  You’ll notice the sharp point on one side and the braided stem alternating dark and light bands.  When the seed falls off the plant, it lands point side down, then as it dries out, the dark and light bands wrap around each other and “drill” the seed into the ground as the light and dark bands dry at different rates in the sun.

one year ago…

It’s Memorial Day 2007. I take this time to pause and remember those that have gone before us, especially those that may have died in the past year.

This year we went to Maple Grove instead of Logan Cemetery. They are both old township cemeteries, about equal distances from our house.  The deaths that we noted as a family were a step-aunt, choir director from church, and two goats, Blaze and a newborn goat.

Here’s the old warming house. 

A peek into a world gone by is the back door of the warming house, left ajar to show the original bathroom.

one year ago…

I’ve spent the last three days in downtown Minneapolis at the national conference of the Society for Technical Communication.  It’s the kind of place where you’ll see somebody wearing a hat that says “RTFM.”  For those of you not in the know with that particular acronym, the kinder, gentler version is “RTM” Read the Manual.

Whisked from the wide-open spaces of my usual surroundings to the heart of downtown Minneapolis was quite a contrast.  I did see one strip of green grass about as wide as half a sidewalk, but other than that, it was all pavement and concrete.

Technical writers sometime have a reputation for being picky or particular.  One of the presenters went way over the top.  The session presented an approach information layout.  I needed a quick review of design principles, so I went.  The first part was very good, this particular uber-geek, previously a Stanford physics doctorate, had a neat grid-based layout that resulted in neat, clean, uncluttered layouts. 

Then he got into some topics that showed that the layout was more important than the content.  His website is almost completely pdf files (just in case the viewer would change the font size in the browser, for accessibility issues, for example.)  He locked his content in PDF so it could not vary in presentation from his design.  Even his e-mails, he puts a hard return after each line so he’s sure where the lines break if the recipient has a wider or narrower e-mail pane open, and made sure the last line of each paragraph was as long as the lines above it.  This, of course, requires adding or subtracting words from the paragrph to make sure the last line was the correct length.  Fortunately there were a lot of groans in the audience for this obsessive-compulsive non-reader centered approach.

one year ago…

It’s mid-may.  Too many things vie for my time this season.  Get the garden/trees in. Start up the new batches of livestock and poultry.  Then there are the things that I like to do that get left in the dust – wander the woods for morel mushrooms, roam the lakeshores for crappies.

When we picked up our lambs over in Tama county, we were offered morels.  So, even if I don’t get out, I’ll still be able to have some of the seasonal delights.

one year ago…

You may have noticed the new world map in the left navigation bar. I was excited to put the map on this page to see the locations of visitors to the blog.  Being a bit of a skeptic, I’m not sure the map portrays “real” visitors.

You may notice numerous visitors worldwide, and although I do get a comment from overseas now and then, I think this map grossly overstates “real visitors.” Here’s what I think is really going on. Right now, in my “spam” comment folder are 106 messages for the usual body part extenders, mortgages, drugs, and hot stock picks. My guess is most of these dots represent comment spammers and not real visitors. I’ll probably take it off, unless someone has an idea or source for a map that doesn’t include the spammer’s locations.

one year ago…

Yesterday Grandpa Dave and G’ma Ann came down for Grandparent’s Day for Martin’s Kindergarten class. Martin had a great time showing off his classroom. But Linda got the biggest surprise of all, two stacking barrister bookcases circa 1906. They were originally her grandfather’s furniture and have been from Iowa, to Arizona, to Minnesota, and now back to Iowa.

They look great in the living room, flanking the entertainment center and just seem to belong. Linda can still smell her grandmother’s house in the bookcases!

one year ago…

Today, the kids started getting ready for Easter.

Who doesn’t have fond memories of dying Easter eggs as a kid or with their kids? The amazing transformation from white to brightly colored eggs is magic.

Egg dying is always a bit of a quandary at our house as all of our chickens lay brown or green eggs. We have to buy white store eggs to dye. It’s hard to put that package of sterile commodity white egggs into the cart.

one year ago…

Today was a day of errands and more errands. At noon I was a guest lecturer to a business class at MCC talking about the benefits/process of forming a LLC. The errands continued until 9:00 as I needed to drive Claire to Ames for a meeting at church regarding their trip to Boston this summmer.

one year ago…

Normalcy returned today. Everybody was at school or work. Emma had a choir concert. Power was restored to the rest of the neighborhood. Indeed, a good non-eventful day!

Sunday morning a house less than a mile from us was intentionally set on fire.  It points to one of the problems I see with absentee ownership.  Someone now from Connecticut owns this property (proudly displaying the “Century Farm” signs that indicates 100 year ownership of the farm by the same family).  The house had been rented for at least the last 10 years and nothing had been done to it.  As windows broke, they were replaced with plywood, the porch roof was collapsing – all while the owners were collecting rent and when the renters finally stopped paying, they were kicked out and the house had reached the point of no return, so the owner simply had the house burned.  A sad story all around.

one year ago…

Finally, the cold has ended in earnest! The driveway is starting to melt. Ever since I was a kid, it’s been my job to make drainages for snow melt in the spring – dig channels, make pathways to drain the snowmelt puddles away. There  is some utility in doing this – draining the puddles prevents them from freezing in a skating rink at night and I’m sure it helps usher in spring a little faster.

one year ago…

Today was a day full of thought and beauty. This morning Claire’s high school youth group planned, led, and conducted the Sunday Service. Their theme was the benefits of the arts (music, dance, drama, visual arts) to support varied ways of learning and expression. Each person performed, spoke of what moved them meant to them and reported on research that supported different ways of learning.

The afternoon was Claire’s band concert – the highlight was a song commemorating the battle of Gettysburg, complete with muted trumpets off-stage in the distance, distant drums outside the auditorium simulating gunfire, along with a rather somber symphonic band piece.

This evening was a treat in the Memorial Union at Iowa State. This week is the symposium on wildness, wilderness and the creative imagination sponsored by the MFA program in Creative Writing and the Environment at Iowa State. We were only able to attend a couple of events today – first, a blues musician who plays piano, harmonica, and foot persussion simultaneously – Patrick Hazell.

Bill McKibben spoke about his latest book “Deep Economy” Some of his previous books are “The End of Nature,” “Hope, Human and Wild” and “The Hundred Dollar Christmas.” He speaks generally about the impact of global warming on the world. The message is, if the leaders don’t lead, the people must lead. The current administration has not reacted to the threat that is orders of magnitude greater than any group of terrorists could accomplish.

Imagine losing all the coastal cities in the US and not having any ports. NASA’s chief climate researcher has become increasingly alarmed at the lastest data. A few years ago, he thought we had 100 years to turn the trends around. Now he thinks we may have 10. The lack of polar ice formation 2 straight years, and most distubring, is the Greenland ice cap, which in all previous models, was thought to be stable and not much of a contributor to rising sea levels, is now showing signs of faster melting, and more importantly, the water is seeping down to the bottom, where it can act as a lubricant to provide a pathway for massive slippage of the ice sheet into the ocean and melt. The Greenland ice cap alone melting would raise sea level 30 feet. This research was ordered not released by the administration. Similarly, the plant hardiness maps were due to be republished 3 years ago and not released by the USDA. Over the northern sections of the US, most areas moved a zone or half zone warmer. This was not released until the Arbor Day foundation took the government data and released the new plant hardiness zone maps.

So, what to do? Political action is the first step. April 14, a nationwide rally is planned to get government officials’ attention. Already a strong coalition of environmental, liberal and conservative religious organizations (one of the strongest is the statement signed by 86 evangelical leaders including the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller “The Purpose-Driven Life.”) While the nation debates and spends time and treasure on a distant war, the threat of the inundation of our major cites has no priority.

McKibbin provides some other suggestions -starting with local production and control of food, energy, and even entertainment and money. Gathering food locally prevents long-distance shipping and strengthens local economies – same with energy. He points out studies that show since the mid-50’s American’s happiness has steadily dropped. That coincides to the centralization of food, energy, and entertainment. Just one small example is that there used to be 1300 opera houses in Iowa alone. There were performers enriching the community instead of today we obsess about how many CDs Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake sell.

All in all it was a thought-provoking evening and made us feel good about our own work to improve all things local!
one year ago…

Next month, I get a treat – attending the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin, Texas. I’ve always wanted to go and started planning a couple of years ago to go this March. It sounds like a music junkie’s biggest fix. About 1500 bands are selected from thousands that apply. There are about 65 music venues and four nights. That works out to about 6 bands per venue per night. Each band gets an hour on stage to give it their best shot. Lots of small labels/producers/industry types gather, new bands are formed and a good time is had by most. There are music lectures during the day, this year’s speakers are Pete Townsend of the Who, Rickie Lee Jones, Emmy Lou Harris, and David Byrne from the Talking Heads.

Lots of bands trying to break in, along with some established artists like Aqualung, Michelle Shocked, Graham Parker, Cracker, Carrie Rodriguez, Steve Earle, Charlie Sexton, Robyn Hitchcock, Iggy Pop.

But what I’m really looking forward to are the new bands and to be able to hear a blues band followed by a rock band, followed by an alt-country band. More later.

Well, the cold has settled in.  Time for inside work.  The Iowa Network for Community Agriculture conference is coming up on Saturday.  I’m presenting part of a workshop and on the planning committee, so lots of details to focus on this week.

After a week of messing around, the blog has been moved to a brand, new location.  As feared, there was no action from Google on kicking off the spammer, so I’m on the High Hopes Gardens web server, using a new blog tool, WordPress.

There are still a bunch of links within posts that don’t yet work.  They’ll get cleaned up as I go on.

The high hopes blog has been hijacked – I was backing it up and temporarily renamed the file and in seconds a bot took over the name. I’ll see if Google can restore it, otherwise I’ll have to give it a new name somewhere else.

one year ago…

Once again, it’s time for the “Best of 2006” high hopes gardens blog entries, month by month.

January
How could home spelunking stay off the list?

February
Building the animal composter has been a great labor saver and a great project for Martin and I to work on together!

March
Here’s an entry from off the farm – perhaps the most enjoyable day of the year with spectacular scenery, history, solitude, and beauty in New Mexico.

April #1
Martin and Grandma Jo in their beekeeper suits was a great look throughout the year.

April #2
Getting the tractor!

May
A bittersweet piano story.

June
For some seasonal reflections.

July
A day of many harvests on the farm.

August
The world swallows Martin.

September
Weather shot.

October
The attic construction has been the biggest time sucker for me this year.

November
Using the egg candler let to some spooky pictures!

December
We sold all our gift boxes the first year we tried!

one year ago…

Another day about 25 degrees above normal. When do I have to start mowing the grass again?

There are some sections of the yard that are starting to turn green. Yes, it is January 1!

It’s nice to catch up on what didn’t get done last summer, or get ahead on next spring’s work, but the kids are missing snow and I haven’t had the time inside to read and do the more traditional winter things. I know I could, but when it’s 50 degrees and there are no bugs, it’s hard not to go outside.

one year ago…

Today Linda and I finished the north fence. I’m a bit tired from post pounding. It was another warm, rainy day in the 50’s.

This is the post of a fence perpendicular to the fence we moved – I was struck at the different color lichens that grow on the north and south sides of the fencepost – the north side of the post is green and the south are yellowish.

Had an example of someone who wasn’t thinking at the farm store. I needed just a few more 16 foot combination panels. There are three main kinds of panels – cattle panels with wide spacing and tall. Pig panels with tight spacing and short, and combination panels that are tall with narrow spacing on the bottom and wide on the top. I needed a few of those as they do a pretty good job of keeping chickens out.

There were a number of rows of different kinds of panels at the store. Row 1 was 1 stack of cattle panels. Row 2 was 2 stacks of cattle panels. Row 3 was 3 stacks of panels, piled 4 bundles high and you can guess that the combination panels were on the bottom of the pile furthest back.

It took three guys and a forklift digging in the mud, fork blades, a boom, and about 45 minutes to an hour to move the hundreds of cattle panels to get the 5 combo panels I needed. I was able to run some other errands so I didn’t have to waste all that time.

one year ago…

Here our freshly cut tree still sits in the garage stuffed around bags of insulation three days after we cut it down.

Our usual tree farm has been sold as development land and is no longer a tree farm. The place we went didn’t have much selection, but we’ll make the tree work if we ever get it up – it’s finals week for Linda, I’m getting the Christmas letter written, produced, and out the door and there’s evening kids holiday concerts, so we haven’t been around much – maybe this weekend it gets up.

one year ago…