A Mighty Wind.

We have two wind turbines here in Northfield and I have become fascinated with them. I am learning about their inner workings, and finding them very similar to airplanes!

Over the past few years, I have looked down from my plane and counted hundreds of wind turbines in a remote area in southwestern Minnesota


So this weekend I was driving back from South Dakota and took a little detour to photograph the wind turbines clustered on high ground near Lake Benton, MN. This area is the WINDIEST area in Minnesota with reliable sustained winds.

There are over 250 wind turbines in this part of Minnesota on various private wind farms. Most are accessible by dirt roads, but I don't recommend you trespass on private land to visit them. They are best viewed from a distance I think.

Having said that........

Yep, that's my truck after driving across the open prairie to get onto this ridgeline and photograph some of these beautiful machines. It was -2 degrees at the time.

(I my defense, I NEVER actually enter a single area that was posted no trespassing. That includes this spot shown here.)

Most wind turbines stand about 257 feet tall and weigh 196,000 pounds. Each turbine has 3 blades with a rotor diameter of approx 160 feet, and can supply the annual electricity needs of 250 homes.

This wind farm now accumulatively offsets over a billion pounds of carbon dioxide and over 450,000 tons of coal.

With large wind turbines the voltage generated is usually 690 Volts(AC). The current is subsequently sent through a transformer next to the wind turbine (or inside the tower) to raise the voltage to somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 volts, depending on the local electrical grid.


The owners of the wind farms sell the power to the electric company.

I saw several sub-stations where power is routed from the wind turbines and enters the electrical grid.


My favorite part of this visit to the wind farm was the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh sound the wind turbines made. But when you get closer, you can also here the generators wining inside....their pitch changing ever so slightly with the blowing of the wind.

(Did I mention it was windy and -2 degrees?)

Workin' Hard or Hardly Workin'?

Posted by Kevin........

Aaaah, the good old days: when gas was $2.799 a gallon and my truck sat parked for a week at a time, when I only worked four or five days a month, and when Stace had only one job and she HATED it.

Now things are much different. Stace is a college professor with her own private practice AND works at a counseling center. I fly four days a week, driving 80 to 120 miles round trip to various airports and get paid more for it. Oh, and gas is now $1.899.


My schedule for the rest of winter will be flying cargo from Minneapolis throughout North Dakota in the middle of the night 3 days a week. Then flying throughout South Dakota during the day on Fridays.

I had two meetings in St. Paul on Monday with various aviation operations people about expanding our services in St. Paul. Without going into detail, we are considering providing increased service out of St. Paul if we are sure the market can support it. So I "spied" around the airport finding out info about our competitors while another pilot talked with an advertising firm in the city.

The course Stace is teaching ends Thursday January 25, and she will be taking some time off in February for a tiny vacation.

Teaching a college course while working another full time job and still seeing her private clients on the side is, well..........it's a lot like riding your bike 100 miles in one afternoon:

It's hard work, at times you feel totally overwhelmed, it seems like it's never going to end, you ask yourself why are you doing this and when it's over you say you are never going to do this again.

And then you sit back, rest a while, and start looking for the next ride.

Of course it snowed.

Posted by Kevin....

When Stace and I ran into a few friends down at the Goodbye Blue Monday Coffee House, I told everyone we would have no snow all winter, then one big blizzard in Spring with 4 feet of snow.

It snowed four inches overnight.

Anyway, I took 81 photos this morning. Here are a few:

It's Spanish for "The Nino"

Today's high was 15 degrees.....the warmest it's been in 4 days.

Most of the time, we were sitting at zero degrees.

That's right, there was no temperature.

We had no degrees. Which is still better than having negative degrees. It's strange, but when it's below zero, I feel cheated.....like someone owes somebody some degrees!

Maybe we squandered all our degrees in December when it was in the 40's and 50's. (You can blame El Nino, El Gore, or El Calentarse del Global for all I care.)

Man, I now wish I hadn't taken those degrees for granted. I spent many 40 degree days inside watching TV or playing games on the computer while precious degrees wizzed by my window.

I always thought I'd have more degrees. And now they're almost all gone.





As you can see from the picture, my friend Jason in Canada has it much worse.

(NOTE: There comes a time when it doesn't matter whether you measure your degrees in Celsius or Fahrenheit.)

Afternoon Observations.......

Posted by Kevin....

1. Our Home: Few things save energy as cheaply has covering the windows in your home with sheets of plastic. And few things devalue the whole neighborhood like a house with sheets of plastic over the windows.

I weigh this paradox all morning before relenting to winter and covering our windows with plastic. (Placed over the outside of the windows, the plastic not only reduces condensation on the inside, but at night it sounds like you're sleeping in a tent!)

2. Snacking Healthy: Stace loves her Oasis pita chips and Hummus. But I'm not allowed to touch them. So I had one today. (They are GREAT, but very hard and crispy. Kind of like a piece of granite is very hard and crispy.)

My TERRA "Exotic Vegetable Chips" live up to their hyped name! They are great, especially the Mediterranean style. (Stace's tooth crushing pita chips are safe now.)

3. I made my point: For some reason, I was compelled to post an article from the New York Times on our refrigerator AFTER I read it to Stace the day before.

In the past, Stace has insisted to me to let leftovers cool before closing the Tupperwear lid and placing it in the frige. But in the article, the FDA recommended that leftovers be refrigerated IMMEDIATELY! It seems bacteria can double every 30 minutes on meat that is left out to cool.

Stace reasoned that moisture would form inside the container and mold would grow or the food would spoil faster unless the food was left to cool first.

Although I never actually disagreed with her on this, I felt a strange smugness in bring this to her attention. (However I really don't think this changes our leftover policy.)

4. Two Guys and a Ladder: Nate, the roofer (who is BANNED from our property when Stace is home because of her reaction to his "hunkyness" or however she put it) appeared at the front patio with a ladder this morning. I bolted out the front door, angry about this unscheduled invasion of privacy.

I saw Nate was with the Northfield building inspector, who was on the roof checking the ice and water membrane. It seems the city has the power to just climb up on your new roof and check the quality of the new work without any warning to the home owner.

We chatted briefly and the cranky inspector trotted off to the next house with his ladder.

Actually, it meant a lot to us that these guys came by to follow up on our roof work. To bad Stace missed Nate.

Posted by Stace

I bet you all thought I was trapped underneith something heavy... well, in fact, I have been, and it is called "teaching" -which actually, I like a lot, but holy night it is more work than I bargained for. So anyway, because I have been so busy, I only have a minute to say what I need to say: go get - no, Run to go get this movie: Little Miss Sunshine. I mean to tell you - you won't regret it - I saw it tonight and I laughed, I cried, I held my hands to my face in embarrassment and trepidation - this is an excellent movie. You might think to yourself, oh, I'll rent it some time. And I would say to you go get it now, and you might as well think about purchasing it because it is just a beautiful thing.

So, pop yourself some popcorn, go pee before it starts, and enjoy the show.

Oh, and don't fold clothes or knit throughout - you'll miss it.

Winter Car Safety Kit.

Posted by Kevin......
Recent events in the news, and some dicussions with my friend Jason in Canada, have gotten me thinking more about folks keeping Winter Car Safety Kits in their trunks. It cheap and easy, and you don't have to go all out.

But a few basics could save you life on day:

My new LL Bean car kit (a Christmas Gift) includes:

-zippered carrying case that folds out as a blanket (fleece on one side, nylon pack cloth on the other side). THIS IS WAY COOL, and really the best thing!
-LED flashlight that never needs batteries....shake it to recharge.
-Tiny Flashing Red LED light.
-Orange safety vest.
-Gloves

My own additional duffle bag contains:

-Nylon tow strap with steel hook on each end.
-Jumper cables in a small pouch.
-Road flares.
-Ripstop nylon wind pants and hooded wind jacket.
-Fleece balaclava. (A MUST FOR WINDY CONDITIONS)
-Cheap ski gloves.
-Pocket knife.
-Lots of matches.
-First aid kit.
-Old down vest
-Old work boots

Also in our cars during winter:

-snow shovel
-cat litter
-wool blankets

My compact flight bag kit:

-first aid kit
-Swiss Army Knife
-Mirror
-Firestarter
-Space sleeping bag
-Space blanket
-water purification tablets
-whistle
-compass
-orange signal panel
-paracord
-tiny survival manual

Go to http://www.angelfire.com/mn/flyerkk/survivalcarkit.html for more info.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Posted by Kevin.......
Finally, some more snow has fallen at the Northfield Rambler.

If the first day of 2007 is indicative of what's in store for this year, then I hereby predict that we will have fresh snow on the ground everyday until the end of said year.


Although we are both off today, Stace will be working hard on the computer putting the finishing touches on her lesson plans for her class, which starts tomorrow! Meanwhile, I'll be shoveling our driveway and the neighbors sidewalk and stoop.

Also, since most of the guys in the Northfield Bike Club are also cross country skiers, there was much e-mailing back and forth trying to plan some skiing for this morning...... while some guys were still holding out hope that the roads would be clear enough for a bicycle ride. (Yes, it's 25 degrees.)

Later today, I will mountain bike down to Blue Monday to say hi to the bikers/skiers.

And by "mountain bike", I mean drive my truck.