Farms and family

Life is coming at us about as fast as we can take right now.  Since my last general update, both sets of grandparents visited us, and we took a weekend trip to Michigan.  "Why is this vacation so short?" was Clara's question of the weekend.  We assured her that at longer trip is forthcoming during which we'll travel even further north.

On recent bikes rides through the farmland surrounding our fair town, I've wondered about the economics of corn farming.  Thanks to a quick internet search, I'm an agricultural economics expert.  Farm roads around here are generally on a mile grid, so that's what I'm using for the numbers here.  Granted this is far from 40 acres and a mule, but I have no idea when that was a typical size, and I don't know the typical size "family" farm around here.  The bottom line:  a square mile has about $500,000 worth of corn.  About $100,000 of that was spent on fertilizer, $200,000 on all other stuff (seeds, pesticides, tractor, etc).  If all goes well, the farmer takes in about $200,000, IF they own their land outright.  Not too bad, if you inherited the land.  If you want to buy that square mile of land in our county, consider paying about $6 million.  Which you will pay off in somewhere around 30 years (I've made a zillion wrong assumptions here, but it's probably close).  Or you can rent land to farm, but you'd be pretty lucky to make about $30,000 each year.  As a non-owner of land, I'm sticking with my desk job.

Since grandma K was in town, we have some great photos to share.

Our adopt-student family has a big overhaul forthcoming.  4(?) of our students graduated this year, leaving us with only Tariq the senior and Sean the grad student as actual students in the group.  We're planning to recruit Kim's younger brother and hopefully some of his friends.

We got to see the Smith/Whites twice in the last month.  Our trip to Michigan included Jill's cousin's son's high school graduation party, where we also got to say a belated happy birthday to great-grandma (we decided to not drive the icy roads to attend her actual party in winter).

We're in the middle of softball season now.  The squad is undefeated so far, with a couple of nail-biters and a couple of 10 run rule wins.  The wind was blowing in from left/left-center at about 20-30 mph for the middle two game, which made it very difficult to get hits.  We won those games 3-1 and 5-0 (pitcher Jim filled in for the co-rec team on of those weeks and pitched a shutout for them.  3 games, 1 run scored.  He's just unhittable!).  In last week's game, the wind wasn't blowing as hard and was blowing out to right.  To make up for lost time, we scored 15 runs in the first inning (also thanks to some poor defense by the CFC gang).  Then we didn't score again until the 5th inning.  Consistency is overrated.

A Jack to go with Jill

Last year at about this time, Jarrod told me that there were some tandems at our community's used bike sale.  My mind started to think a little bit.  The girls are getting bigger, which means two things:  (1)  it takes more work to pull them in the trailer and (2) they could potentially contribute to our motion.

Fast forward to last week when I saw a nice tandem for sale on the internets, but it was in Knoxville, TN.  I inquired, and it turned out the seller has a sister in Savoy and was willing to drive it up here and pay a visit to her.  Done and done.

Here it is:

 A 1980 Jack Taylor touring tandem.  Jill rode with me up and down our street.  She didn't hate it.

That's a huge improvement from our last tandem ride.  We borrowed Kirk's tandem just before dusk and rode up the hill from White Rock to Los Alamos (1000` up).  We were about 2/3 of the way home when it started to snow, hard.  So we had snow, dark, and a bike that didn't fit all that well.  Jill hated not being in control.  Does that say something about her, or just the tandem?  [Ouch].  Probably just the tandem.

The tires are 32 mm, but eventually I'll put on some much fatter tires since there's room.  I ordered a seat post because the captain's post is too short for me.

The other big change will be adding some kid stoker cranks.  Hopefully, they'll be in the mail soon.  And Clara and I will be off on adventures!  Hopefully for years to come.

Bump bump bump

Clara and Janny have a chant for bumpy roads while riding in the trailer.  The chant can be repeated a number of times before the conversation turns.  It goes like so:
    Bump bump bump
    we we we
    mushroom me!***

*** an alternate translation:  mushroomy.  Scholars continue to debate both the phrasing and the possible meaning(s).  In fact, the first line may also be interpreted as bum bum bum.  However, external evidence (previously mentioned bumpy roads) strongly points to the first interpretation.

Recently, Clara suggested another chant, but it was far too complex for Janny to memorize it.  I enjoy it because it is reminiscent of the classic Oski yell first cheered at UC Berkeley (Cal, California, etc.) in the 1940s.
      Oski Wow-Wow!

Whiskey Wee-Wee!

Olee! Muckie-eye!

Olee! Berkeley-eye!

      California! Wow!
The University of Illinois (UIUC, U of I, etc) also claims a version of the chant, but I'm too lazy to look up the lyrics.  Also, there is no possible better final line than Cal's.  Wow!

Recently, Janny has resisted going to bed at night.  She says, "I need to go potty," and then sits on the potty for longer than I can stand.  So I carry her back to bed.  Before I leave their room, she has to go potty again.  On Sunday, I had enough.  So I moved the tiny toilet to their bathroom and told her she was on her own.  After watching our favorite show (White Collar), we decided to check on her.  Janny was silently sitting on the potty.  I think she is stubborn.

I'm trying very hard to get Clara riding her bike without training wheels this spring.  And by hard, I mean trying to be very patient and a little persistent.  She's doing great with her balance bike, but her pink bike is pretty intimidating still.  I took off the training wheels last weekend for a couple of laps around our patio.  Most of the time I was holding on to her seat, but she rode a short stretch on her own.

Jill continues to wake up unenviably early most weekdays.  Wake up is around 5am, but I couldn't say for sure for obvious reasons.

Spring is happening this year!  Jill planted some seeds.  Some green leaves are poking up.  We harvested our first set of chives to put in tonights peanut pasta dish.  I changed my big chainring from 44 to 48 teeth.  I bought new chains for our commuter bikes (interesting to me note:  the total cost for the 2 chains was around $40, which is quite reasonable I say.  I was quite surprised to find that my chain was $12 and Jill's was $26 (7/8 speed vs 9 speed).  Long live 7 speeds!

Janny is 3

Janny turned 3 a couple weeks ago!  To celebrate her birthday, we invited a few friends (plus Grandpa and Grandma S) over to eat snacks and have cake.  Janny blew out all 3 candles on her first try!  I can't remember who initially came up with the idea, but we are starting birthday parties at 10am and go to about noon.  That way, no one (read mom and dad) is tired yet.

Scene:  a toy is in mommy and daddy's room.  Dusk.  

Clara:  Mommy, could you turn on the light?

Mommy:  It's not dark.  Plus you can turn on the light yourself.

Janny:  Clara, I will help you.

Clara and Janny walk into the room together and get the toy.

 Today was glorious.  60 degrees and sunny.  We ate popsicles outside.  I think we earned it.

Janny can ride Clara's pink bike (today with an umbrella).  Clara is zooming around on the pedal-free bike.  I might have to start perusing craigslist for another kid bike.  Hopefully, Clara can get up to speed on a real kid bike without training wheels while Janny cruises around on a different bike with them.  Clara tried to crush my spirits recently by stating that she doesn't like riding bikes (I don't believe her, but words hurt).

TCBC basketball ended unceremoniously last week.  In the first round of the playoffs we rematched the team that beat us in the finals last year (CCC).  The teams had a couple of key changes from last year:  our superstar moved away, and they picked up a 6'6" skilled guy to go along with their 2 other huge guys.  We played well, giving them a bit of a scare with about 10 minutes left.  Then we stopped making shots, and they pulled away.  Overall, the season was a success.  We won every game that we should have and were mostly competitive is other games.  Upcoming.... softball.

In other church news, our small group now has 18 adults and 17 children (and sometimes a grandchild), 11 of them under 6.  Though we rarely we have everyone at a meeting, we are planning to split into 2 groups.  

It's interesting to see the number of young families continuing to increase at church.  Ideally, we want to maintain age diversity in our group but family's with older/grown children are scarce.  In fact, more young families want to join a group like ours because they want to know people who aren't drowning in child rearing (I can't say if the reverse is true.  I hope it is!).  This can lead to a Yogi Berra-ism; nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded.  We need to step up our recruiting!

Finally, we'll conclude with Janny's prayer.  Repeating this may not grant you untold wealth and fame, or even nice sweaters.  But it might.

    Pray for everything

    Pray for goats

    Pray for everything

    Pray for God

    In Jesus name, amen!

Personal CO2 emissions .... but why

Our church recently hosted a climate change talk by ol' friend and fellow U of Ill alum Katharine Hayhoe Farley.  Her talk was referenced in the sermon on Sunday, which surely was the first time ever in our pulpit.  You could say that our church is a little late taking an interest in the topic, but our church never mentions political issues (save abortion about once per year).

Moving on, these mentions have led to some discussions in our small group and, I'm sure, other groups of people in the church.

First, I was interested to check on my family's CO2 emissions (the standard method of determining our impact on the climate).  So here are the major contributors (from http://www.terrapass.com/, but other calculators seemed to give the same results):

Chad, Jill and kids rough estimation of CO2 annual emissions (lb CO2/year)

Driving (one car, ~29 mpg, 6000 miles per year)                                 4000

Flying (one trip per year, 4 people to the West)                                   5500

home electricity ( around 500 kWh/month, assuming coal-generated)  12000

home natural gas (around 880 therms/year)                                         12000

So where could we cut back?  We might be able to drive less per year, but that would require visiting family in Tennessee and Michigan less often.  We don't drive much in town, but I suppose I could always ride my bike to basketball and softball games.  We could avoid driving to local state parks.  That's a bummer list.

As for flying, we could tell my family that we refuse to visit them because the impact on the climate is too great.  I suspect that they would be upset, but they would be willing to visit us more often. However, if they did, the net effect of our choice would be nullified.  [We could take the train or drive out there (would it take 4 days each way?)]  

At home, we could switch to LED lights and solar water heating.  I have hopes to do these, but not soon.  We could get PV, but I'm not rich.

Let's see, what did I leave out?  Water (must be pumped, treated, and treated after use).  Food growing, transporting, and cooking (minus our contribution already counted).

What about work?  I work in the same cubicle every day.  For this to happen, my company needs to send salespeople to customers, lead developers to technical conferences, the CEO to CEO-things (most recently SXSW).  Someone needs to make and power our servers, heat/cool/power our office, etc, etc.

What is my share of our military CO2 emissions?  Police emissions?  Hospitals?  Infrastructure construction?

Probably someone has calculated all of these things, but by this point I'm losing interest.  I really don't care how we're doing compared to other families of 4 in our income bracket, age group, location, etc. etc.  I've gotten reasonably close to my minimum for the near term.  

My creativity for becoming part of a solution is admittedly tiny.  I'll list a few ideas, but if you have more please share.  

1.  Join a movement.  Any suggestions?

2.  Raise awareness among friends and family (does this blog count?).  Help when possible

3.  Become very poor.

4.  Buy carbon offsets a la Al Gore (note:  never.  This is a joke.  Really.)

5.  Develop the CO2-to-oil-anator (note:  thermodynamics matter)
6.  Develop fusion reactor (note:  cost matters)

shiver-shiver

    Heard this winter:

coworker:  "My car won't start.  Working from home today."

church friend:  "My car's coolant froze.  The engine overheats, and my heater doesn't work."

same coworker: "My car won't start.  Working from home today."

other church friend (house in bad shape after broken water pipe):  "XX hotel is sketchy with sketchy people.  YY hotel is much nicer.  Thankfully, insurances pays the $2700 / month."

same coworker:  "My car won't start.  Working from home today."

other coworker:  "I rode my bike about 3 blocks from my house before my freehub ratchet wouldn't engage.  Walked back home to get my car."

friend:  "I-57 is a sheet of ice."

Are you interested to know our home energy usage?  Above is our brief report from Ameren (gas plus electricity).  We're using about 40% less energy than the average household in our neighborhood.  The main approaches for the year include the following:

1.  put sleeping bags or blankets along the bottom of all exterior doors.

2.  set thermostat at 64 during day, 61 at night.  Except when friends are over, then 67.  

   Note:  this requires wearing multiple layers.  

   Note 2:  During the day, I'm sitting at an office with thermostat set to 70ish.

   Note 3:  this is just above the temperature at which the family revolts.  

3.  Running ceiling fans.

4.  No plastic over the windows this year.  I was too lazy, and I'm not sure it makes a huge difference.

 As ever, Clara and Janny are the princesses of the house.  Jill took them to see Frozen.  They loved it.  They really enjoyed the big sister/ little sister angle.

We have snow.  It rained on Saturday, then froze, then snowed on Tues.  So there's a layer of ice under the snow.  The driveway is slick.

 My bike keeps chugging along this winter despite the snow, salt, and ice.

Finally, church league basketball is tough.  But I'm pleased to report that we won a game, aided by the other team taking the Lord's name in vain.  The game was tied with 30 seconds left, and we missed a free throw.  After guy on other team grabs the uncontested rebound, guy behind me violates the 3rd commandment (no idea why).  Technical foul!  We make a free throw and get the ball.  We won by 1.  Our record is now 1-3.

A Narnian winter

Okay, so this is an older photo (taken from the first big storm of the year in December), but I would like to convey a sense of what this winter is like.  It's like cold and snowy.  Except not the nice fluffy white snowflakes floating to the ground while we're drinking hot chocolate and watching White Collar.  No, it's a gale force wind whipping those flakes around.  But it doesn't all fall at once, more like a 1/2" every day.  In the weather's defense, at least it warms up sometimes and melts all the snow before dropping back to single digits.  

 We spent the holidays in Nashville with Jill's family.  On the Sunny, 50 degree day, Jill and I left the kids with grandpa and grandma to take a nice hike at the reservoir.  I think we walked 8 miles.  It felt like spring.  On Christmas eve, all the kids put on a nativity scene for us.  This tradition will continue.

 This Christmas was the first that Clara was super excited about one particular toy.  Thankfully she reminded us what it was every day so that we could eventually figure out what it was.  She called it "control dusty", at which I nodded knowingly without knowing.  Jill ordered Remote Control Dusty, a remote controlled airplane that rolls around on the floor.  It's not a bad toy.  Clara has played with it several times.  But even better, she made her own airplane out of toilet paper rolls, tape, a spice container, and flashlights to match Dusty and played with it about as much.

 I got Jill a new short chef's knife (it's Japanese!), and she got me a soldering gun (still looking for my first soldering project).  Janny got a lego organizer that looks like a big lego head.

Janny's funny new saying goes like this.  "Mommy, can we have dessert?And says yes!"

 New projects are created daily around here.  Our desert scheming tonight led to the idea shown below:  toasted marshmallow chocolate m&m cookie (broiled in the oven).

Church league basketball started again this month.  Our superduperstar from last year moved away and several solid players are busy (hmmm...) this year.  So we've struggled in our first two games.  I suspect we'll struggle all year because we can't defend or score well.

Have I mentioned that I'm really trying to practice guitar this winter?  I'm doing pretty well, almost playing through Over in the Meadow mistake-free.