Monthly Archives: January 2009

Nordic ski opportunities galore

January 30, 2009 – 12:34 pm

Winter lovers, rejoice: there’s a lot of great nordic (cross-country) ski activity over the next few weekends. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s (Saturday, January 31, Carleton College Upper Arb) Nordic Ski Fest, the annual fund-raiser for the Northfield High School Nordic Ski Team. Coach Dan Kust (at right) has done tremendous work with the ski [...]

By Bruce Anderson | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Preparing for spring

January 21, 2009 – 7:22 pm

One of the joys of January is poring over seed catalogs as they arrive with their promises of beautiful, bounteous yields of homegrown produce. I love to sit by the woodstove on a frigid winter’s evening and contemplate the potential merits of varieties of veggies and herbs I have not grown before versus tried and [...]

By Bruce Anderson | Posted in Agriculture, Community Education and Planning, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Looking for a leader, part II: the times, they are a-changing

January 20, 2009 – 9:07 am

On February 3, 2008 I blogged (“Looking for a leader”) about my family’s overwhelmingly positive experience at the previous day’s Obama rally at the Target Center in Minneapolis: “I’ve made my choice among the presidential candidates. I was 99% behind Barack Obama before yesterday (with 1% still considering support for Hillary Clinton, who I would [...]

By Bruce Anderson | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (2)

Building a strong local food system

January 9, 2009 – 11:05 am

I’ve been an organic gardener for about 3o years now, and have grown lots of my family’s veggies, herbs and berries over those years (more in some years, less in others). I love digging in the dirt, and the satisfaction of savoring the literal fruits of my labor. In addition, I have long believed that [...]

By Bruce Anderson | Posted in Agriculture | Comments (2)

Enjoying stored solar energy

January 6, 2009 – 11:05 am

I’ve been heating my home primarily with my freestanding Vermont Castings Dutchwest woodstove since December 1996. This high-efficiency, clean-burning, catalytic stove is able to heat our two-story, 1910-vintage home very nicely, although my wife and kids occasionally(!) complain about the temperature in the 2nd-floor bedrooms. I bow to their complaints to the extent that we use [...]

By Bruce Anderson | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)