Monthly Archives: January 2009

Nordic ski opportunities galore

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 [...]

Preparing for spring

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 [...]

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

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 [...]

Building a strong local food system

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 [...]

Enjoying stored solar energy

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 [...]