Lutsen, MN Outdoors

The first three pictures show our hike up Moose Mountain. You start down towards a creek, then up and up. At the top of the mountain is a chalet and a beautiful view.







The last picture shows the condo where we stayed. I heard that Caribou Highlands, the resort 'village', tries to be really green- composting toilets, saltwater in their pools instead of chlorine. It was a great time in the outdoors and a great time with family.

A Few Farming Points I Didn't Know:

Many, many bees die from constipation because they will not 'soil' their own hive if they can help it. When they can't help it, bees have diarrhea and there are few things that stink as much as a bee hive full of bee diarrhea. Also, when bees are alarmed, they send out a scent that smells like bananas...so if you smell that...RUN.

'Sticking'- is when you open a chicken's beak and stick a knife in there, immediately scrambling it's brain,so that it doesn't 'feel' its imminent death from breaking or cutting it's neck. I've heard it is considered the most humane way to kill a chicken. There will still be reflex actions from the chicken, moving its wings and feet for a couple minutes. Also, chickens don't have a lot of blood but it is best to hang the chicken upside down to drain. As with most animals, the younger hens (1-3 years) are the tenderest for eating.

My time at the farm came to an end on Friday; I was sent off with some horseradish, mustard greens, summer sausage, BBQ beef sticks, rhubarb, eggs, carrot cake, and some honey.

This weekend was spent with Caleb & Daphne in Minneapolis and we had SO much fun!!! I just arrived at Brage and Brian's and have vacay this next week as several other family members come. Lots of Scrabble will be enjoyed!

Random Events

I'm out in the garden using this hat every day.



Yesterday, we checked on the bee hives.... Evidently bees are more agreeable when nectar is readily available & being produced (summer) so we only needed netted-hats and the smoker. Smoke 'calms' or 'frightens' the bees and is used before and immediately after opening the hives. We opened up 5 hives and checked each one methodically for chalk broods, for mites, honey production, queens, etc.



This is a re-enactment of the 'two-finger test' which is how my host farmer demonstrated how to tell whether a hen can lay eggs. He caught a hen, turned her upside down, and stuck two fingers in her. That particular hen could lay eggs because three fingers fit.

In other news, the farmer and I drove to a nearby dairy for non-homogenized milk yesterday. This is milk that you take home, let rest in room temperature for a couple hours to separate the milk from the cream and then spoon out the cream at the top.

Also, hay is any type of grass, alfalfa, etc. that is cut & dried for animal feed. I didn't know that until yesterday.


Outside of farm news...I thought this article: http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/63/altruism-vs-economics/3
was particularly interesting. I may post some more thoughts about the 'market' in the future and how psychologists and economists studying human behavior are radically changing economic theory away from 'perfectly rational participants' and away from 'greed and/or self-interest as the necessary main ingredient for a well-functioning market'.

Tree Identification

The last few days have been quite fun:

Tuesday- we (the organic farm family) drove to Lake Itasca for tree identifications and measurements. There are many plots set up in Lake Itasca that have been measured every 7 to 10 years since the 60's for biodiversity. Stakes are set at particular GPS points with three lines going out from the stake. One line is placed directly north and the other two lines move in quadrants clockwise so that we are researching two circles around the stakes. The volunteer researchers are interested in everything within a particular radius from the stakes.

Within the first line (and first radius), two researchers confer about all the small plant matter within..including 'litter'-fallen leaves, twigs, etc.. The second line is for researchers identifying trees. The day consisted of going to many different plots in Lake Itasca and shouting out things like: "1-live, 2-red pine, 3-dbh: 50.6, 4-ring 4".

1-We differentiated between live and dead trees.
2-Researchers originally started calling out trees in English but in the middle of the day switched to Latin. So red pine would be pinus resinosa I believe. It made it difficult to switch gears half-way but still fun. I got to identify several different types of trees- red maple, red pine, black ash, paper birch, etc.
3-DBH refers to the measurement of the tree. centimeters times 3.14 (pi).
4-We had 5 rings from the stake and needed to shout out 'where the tree was' in relation to the stake.

Each researcher was given chalk to mark the trees measured and a tape measure. Later the data will be compiled. Lake Itasca is a particularly interesting research location for at least two reasons: 1) plants were selected and planted similarly in many locations but plants have become very 'micro-localized' with species dying and other ones taking their place. Researchers love knowing why certain plants have come in to these plots and others didn't survive...and 2) DNR in MN has done localized burns to prevent larger forest fires and to encourage biodiversity. The mixture of plots with and without burns can help researchers better understand what happens after a controlled burn.

Wednesday-the dad went again for identifications, but I stayed behind to look after the farm. What was particularly fun was the 3 minute tutorial he gave about driving the tractor...then me driving it along paved county roads and then 'raking' hay in the afternoon with the tractor.

From Idaho

I forgot that the family sent a few pictures before I came.






Here is the outside and inside of the truck where I'm living. And it does have electricity, I just didn't know it.

Biomimicry

My Biomimicry paraphrase: Everything that humans can do, nature already does it better. Or for a person of faith...everything that humans can do, God already does it better through nature.

In the book, Biomimicry, Janine Benyus does a better job of explaining:

¨Biomimicry comes from the Greek ´bios´ which means life and ´mimesis´ or imitation.¨ It is founded on the following 3 principles:

¨1. Nature as model. Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature´s models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problem, e.g. a solar cell inspired by a leaf.

2. Nature as measure. Biomimicry uses an ecological standard to judge the ¨rightness¨of our innovations....Nature has learned: What works. What is appropriate. What lasts.

3. Nature as mentor. Biomimicry is a new way of viewing and valuing nature. It introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but on what we can learn from it.¨

Hopefully in the next post, I will illustrate a number of different designs in nature that demonstrate the elegance, complexity & simplicity combined, and efficiency in God´s creation both in the individual and in ecosystems.

The Garden My Host Dad in Bolivia is Cultivating