I think I married Captain Planet?

Nate came home one night not too long ago and offered a few scary words.

“Karyn,” he said. “I have a million dollar idea.”

I’m probably exaggerating slightly. Although his ideas can be a little off the mainstream, he’s batting about .500 in his money-saving ideas. He built his own sprinkler system last summer for the cows that impressed me, but the deer corn business flopped a few falls ago.

“Here we go again,” I told Nate as I closed my book to give him my full attention. Now I will admit, I sort of hesitate to talk about this because it’s very preliminary, but I do believe it’s a good idea that has the potential to help farmers a lot. For that reason, it’s important enough to discuss even if some of you farmers out there borrow his idea. Actually, his idea is already on loan. He showed me an article in The Country Today about farmers in Barron County who are growing their own diesel fuel.

There farmers are growing canola and sunflowers, both high oil crops, and pressing them to extract the magic juice. That oil is then mixed with a few other ingredients to make biodiesel. Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel. It burns cleaner than traditional diesel, and actually helps clean all the gunk from the lines. That’s why plugged fuel filters are common the first few weeks of use. From the research I’ve done, it doesn’t look like any modifications are needed to our existing farm equipment to use it. Nate’s been doing a lot of reading on the subject since that fateful day a few weeks ago. He’d like to grow a small amount of sunflowers next year to test. We’re a little worried about bird damage and harvesting it, but not enough to deter Nate’s enthusiasm.

The processing will be the challenging part. Before all you farmers get all gung-ho and start spreading sunflower seeds on your corn fields, consider a press and mixing equipment costs well over $20,000, from what we’ve learned so far. Also, it takes a chunk of land. An acre of sunflowers yields about 90-100 gallons of oil, if it’s the high-oil variety. But we use over 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year. It’s pretty likely farm fuel is going to hit $3 a gallon. At that price, payback for the equipment will be less than two years. And we’ll have by-products. The leftover solids from pressing seeds can be fed to the cows. Biodiesel production also produces glycerin, the same ingredient as in soap. Nate has read glycerin can also be spread on fields to alter the pH of the soil like lime.

Nate also hopes to get a partner in the deal and is researching grant opportunities. We have connections in the DATCP and the UW-Extension, so I’m hoping that will pay off. With fuel prices now reaching the sickening level, I encourage all farmers to consider how they can help prevent an energy crisis. With digesters and biodiesel, dairy farmers can make their own clean energy right in this area.

Trip to Miller Park

Ah yes, the Nelson Zoo. It’s what I lovingly (most of the time) refer to my home farm near Spring Green. Why the “Zoo?” Because there’s always something going on, people running in 18 different directions and a menagerie of animals.

This weekend wasn’t too much different, although they were down a few heads. My brother and sister-in-law were out of town, and although they don’t live there, they spend enough time at the farm to add to the chaos. It was a pretty short trip, but an important one. The key purpose was to celebrate my dad’s 51st birthday and Jacob’s 1st birthday. My original goal was to leave early Saturday morning, but a wrench got thrown into the gears when the guys had to sample milk that morning. So an hour or two later than we wanted, Nate, Jacob and I hit the road.

It was early afternoon when we arrived. Once again, Jacob was a little skittish of unfamiliar faces, but it didn’t take him too long to warm up and show off his newly acquired walking skills. My little sister, Kaitlyn, and I took a walking tour of the heifer barns to check out the young stock. My family has been pretty aggressive in infusing top quality genetics into our Holstein herd the last few years. It’s been expensive, but the results are really paying off. They’ve got one of the nicest group of heifers I can ever remember the farm having.

Back at the house, we decided it was time for a dip in the pool. Jacob’s been swimming there one other time, but I think he enjoyed it even more this go-around. He’s a squirmy kid to try and hold onto when wet, especially when he’s splashing water in your face. Later in the evening after chores, we had a family dinner and birthday celebration. Jacob did what every one-year-old is supposed to when presented with birthday cake. He grabbed a handful of frosting and smeared it into his mouth. After the child finally dozed off, us kids (plus one husband and one boyfriend) hit the pool once more for a pretty wild game of Keep Away.

The next morning after the cows were milked, seven of us headed for Milwaukee to take in a Brewers game. After grilling some brats in the parking lot, we headed inside to check out Miller Park. This was the first trip there for half the group. Nate, Mom and Dad had been there before. Kirsten, my aunt and I had been to the old County Stadium, but never to the new park.

The Brewers ended up winning, but not before they almost blew a four run lead in the ninth inning. It looks like the guys they got in exchange for Carlos Lee will do well. One batted in four RBIs, and the other got the save.

Jacob seemed to enjoy the whole experience. He clapped his hands for strikeouts, stared at the flashing scoreboard and almost jumped off my lap when the fireworks exploded for a home run. Then it was back home, but not before a stop at the home of family friends for ice cream cake. We do have priorities.

Things I'll never understand

Sorry...I HAVE t get better about updating this. My bad. Anyway, here's my column from this week.

It’s finally happened: I’ve run out of interesting things to say. I didn’t do anything very stimulating last weekend, nor did I stumble across any intriguing dilemmas throughout the week. My bank of useless knowledge has been tapped out, and I don’t much feel like boring you with a few childhood memories.

Instead, I’ve come up with a new list of random thoughts. If successful, I might make this an annual event. It’s called: “25 things I’ll never understand.” It’s dedicated to the failure of all the teachers, my parents, family and friends who may have attempted to teach me these things. And these are in no particular order.

1. Matrices in Algebra II. Sorry Mrs. Lins, it went right over my head.
2. The Kreb’s Cycle.
3. Why the gas price in Medford is $3.03, in Abbotsford it’s $3.05-3.07, and in Athens it’s $3.11.
4. Free verse poetry.
5.HTML computer language. Dreamweaver, however, I do get for the most part.
6. The Monty Python movies. A history teacher, my sister and a former co-worker tried to teach me about those, first with The Holy Grail, then with The Life of Brian. I still don’t find them that funny.
7.Nose and tongue piercings. Seriously, how do you eat spaghetti with a bar through your tongue?
8. Why storm clouds come rolling in, then break up before it can give our poor corn a drink.
9. Calculus.
10. How to get little boys to go to sleep at night.
11. Knitting. My mom tried to teach me once, but being a lefty, I failed at it miserably.
12. Cricket.
13. Risk (the board game). My sisters tried to teach me that one, and I did learn the rules, I think. I just don’t get how people enjoy it.
13. The book, Don Quixote. I attempted to read it for a world history project when I was a junior in high school. Don’t tell Mr. Kettner, but I ended up relying mostly on cliff notes.
14. How to politely tell a person they have something stuck in their teeth.
15. How to get a man to do the dishes or laundry without bribing them.
16. Nuclear fusion.
17. Feminists.
18. Why I can never find pants in “tall” at any store I go to.
19. How to tell my left from my right without needing to think about it.
20. Bar codes. You’d think they would run out of different ones after a while.
21. European comedy in general.
22. Star Trek.
23. Murphy’s laws. Who is this Murphy and why is he such a pessimist?
24. Keno.
25. Why people are so amused by waiting for a barrel to fall through the ice on a pond.

Sorry about that. Next week I should have something interesting to tell you about. I’m heading to the Nelson Zoo for the weekend.