Dave Marquardt's WeblogToday's Page Hits: 175
This page validates as XHTML 1.0, and will look much better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device. It was created using techniques detailed at glish.com/css/.
And then there were 13
On Friday the kid's elementary school PTA held its annual carnival. One of the attractions was a petting zoo. They had goats, piglets, rabbits and chickens.
Karen has been trying to figure out what to do with one our young roosters, Harry, who was hatched out in early January. He's acting more and more like a rooster, and is getting a bit unpleasant to be around. Also, living in a suburban neighborhood, we think sure the neighbors might get annoyed with hearing a rooster in the early morning, so we've always intended to get rid of our roosters. Karen had posted a "free rooster" note on a pet chickens web site, but got no interest. The next alternative was to take him up to the feed store and give him away.
Anyway, back to the petting zoo. Karen asked the petting zoo owner if she'd take a Rhode Island Red rooster, and she said she would. So Karen got our rooster and took him over there.
Our son Nick was upset and said he was going to miss Harry, but hasn't talked that much about him since then, so maybe he won't miss him that much. He still has 9 other chicks, 4 hens, 3 cats, a brother and mom and dad on which to shower his affection, so maybe that's enough :).
Posted at 04:52PM Apr 14, 2008 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
14 chickens
When I last wrote about chickens, we had nine chicks indoors and four hens outdoors. Last week I came home from work and was looking at the indoor chicks in their 2' W × 4' L × 2' H box and noticed a little black chick. To this I said "Where the heck did that come from?" I was told it was a silver laced Wyandotte pullet (female chick). Karen knows she's going to have to get rid of the new roosters at some point, so she wanted one more hen. Okaaay.
At first, the little chick seems quite wary of the much larger and older chicks, and got chased around by a Rhode Island Red rooster. But by the next morning, she seemed to have settled in and started hanging out with the larger chicks and keeping warm. She particularly liked our largest chick, which we think is a Buff Orpington rooster. She even roosts with the larger chicks. Also, she really stands out as the other chicks are buff and red and she's black with a bit of silver. Pretty cute.
The older chicks have a few weeks before it's warm enough for them to go live outside. We're not sure how this will work with the little Wyandotte, who may not be old enough to go outside yet. When we've taken the older chicks outside for a few hours, the poor little Wyandotte makes lots of noise and really misses her friends.
Posted at 01:21PM Feb 13, 2008 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
Nick is 10!
On Sunday my sone Nicholas turned 10 years old! Congratulations Nick! We had a sleepover party on Saturday night with four other fourth grade boys, and they were up and kept me awake until 1 a.m. Sunday morning. I think our family is still trying to recover. Nick in particular was not feeling well on Monday morning, so we've sent him to bed early the past couple of nights.
My wife Karen and I were chatting last night, and I mentioned how some of my memories have gotten muddled and I "remember" Nick being at certain places with us, when I know darn well he wasn't born yet. Weird. But we agreed it is difficult for us to remember life before Nick entered our lives during the 1998 Winter Olympics, which we remember watching on the television while Karen was in labor.
Posted at 12:51PM Feb 13, 2008 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
The Wild
I rented The Wild for my boys this weekend, and we really enjoyed it. If I recall correctly, this movie came out at nearly the same time as Madagascar, and parts of the story are similar enough that I'm sure a lot of people said "Oh, this is just like Madagascar, why bother?" In truth, while there are some similarities, like animals in a zoo in a large city go on an adventure, the characters, the reasons for their trips and the trips themselves are quite different.
Nick and Sam enjoyed The Wild enough to watch it a second time a couple of days later, and they talked and laughed about various scenes afterwards. This certainly isn't the case in all movies they watch, and I take it as a sign they give it "two thumbs up." :)
Posted at 03:57PM Jan 22, 2008 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
Texas vs. Colorado, Jan. 19
My son Sam's Tiger Cub Scout den decided to take advantage of a deal offered by UT (University of Texas) to get basketball tickets for $6 per seat for the UT vs. Colorado men's basketball game on Saturday 2007-01-19. We arrived a little bit late due to slow restaurant service, and UT was already a ways behind and it wasn't looking too good. At the half, UT was behind around ten points, and we weren't too hopeful that they would win.
Coach Barnes must have lit a fire under his players during half time, as they came out blazing in the second half and fairly quickly caught up. The Horns were up close to ten points for a while, but towards the end of the game they started to slip a bit and Colorado was catching up. The Longhorns hung on to win by two points. Quite an exciting game, particularly the second half.
I'd never seen a basketball game in an arena, and I figured we'd have nosebleed seats and wouldn't be able to see well. But I realized when we got there that no one really had a bad seat, and the view was pretty good.
We'll probably go again, particularly if we get a good deal on tickets like this time. There's another opportunity coming up for Cub Scouts to see the women's basketball team vs. Texas A & M for $5 per seat next month.
Posted at 03:39PM Jan 22, 2008 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
Brand new chicks
Late last week and over the weekend we had 9 chicken eggs hatch in our incubator. We started out with 20 or 22 (don't remember), discarded some earlier as they weren't developing or had stopped developing, and were left with about 15 eggs we hoped would hatch. Getting 9 is pretty good, as Karen knows folks who've tried hatching multiple times and gotten no chicks at all.
We have
Buff Orpington sounds like some sort of macho guy to me, but Buff Silkie sounds like an oxymoron, as we think of buff as well built and silkie as kind of prissy looking. But in this case, of course, buff refers to the color, a light blondish color.
Sam and Karen took care of turning the eggs three times a day and candling them to see if they were developing. My only involvement with the incubation was to help wire up the incubator. I wired up a light bulb to a hot water heater thermostat, and Karen used a thermometer to help set the termperature. I also wired up a computer fan from an old computer we still have around to an A/C adapter. Funny thing about that, the best place on the web to find instructions on wiring a computer fan to an A/C adapter was a web site dedicated to growing pot! :)
The nine little chicks seem to be doing well, and they act like chickens right out of the box. They test new things by pecking at them, so every new chick that was born was pecked by the others first :). We moved them to a brooder box with pine shavings, they had to peck at the pine shavings to determine whether it was something to eat. We saw one poor chick got one of her toes grabbed by another who thought it might be something to eat!
Posted at 05:26PM Jan 07, 2008 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
Rugby World Cup final
About ten of us watched the Rugby World Cup final on Monday night. Our friend Michael downloaded the match from the Internet when it became available 24 hours after the match, and we watched it via a project in his garage.
While Michael, a Scot, wasn't really cheering for either side, I suspect he leaned towards South Africa given he has a habit of cheering anyone who's up against England. I've caught that habit myself, and was pleased to see South Africa play tough and make things difficult for the English. South Africa prevailed.
I saw three matches and part of a fourth during this tournament. We saw the opening USA vs. England match, where I was pleased to see the USA team play okay against England. We tried to view the Scotland vs. Argentina quarterfinal, but only saw the first half due to some technical difficulties. We also watched the France vs. New Zealand quarterfinal, which was really a fantastic effort by the French, especially the second half, and the best match I saw. And finally the final.
I've only been watching rugby for a few seasons now. We've seen some Six Nations matches and now some World Cup matches. One of these days I'll go see a live match here in Austin.
Posted at 11:23AM Oct 23, 2007 by Dave Marquardt in Life | Comments[2]
Soudan Underground Mine
On Wednesday August 8 we journeyed from our campsite south of Ely to Soudan Underground Mine State Park. This mine was owned by U.S. Steel and given to the state of Minnesota when it closed in the early 1960s. I visited the mine at least once as a kid. It is the oldest and deepest mine on the Vermilion Range.
We took the elevator down 2400 feet in about 3 minutes, then took a train trip to an area where the tour guide talked about the mine, mining, and miners. The tour happens on the 27th level down, as it is the easiest, and quite like safest, place to put a large group.
The Huntington Canyon, Utah mine collapse had occurred recently, and the tour guide, a former miner and the descendant of miners, turned off the lights and talked about what it would be like to be those miners. Your light would only last some hours, you probably wouldn't have food or water. The Soudan mine has deep holes in it, so if you had been stuck there, you'd have to move around quite carefully.
I later discussed the dangerous jobs left in our country with Karen and some of my neighbors. Mining is one of those jobs, the others we could think of are forestry, fishing and farming. There are probably others we haven't considered. Some of these jobs have certainly gotten safer over the years, but they're still risky, especially compared to my job as a software engineer in a nice office.
Posted at 11:21AM Aug 22, 2007 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
South Kawishiwi River camping
After our visit to Split Rock Lighthouse, we headed towards Ely, with our eventual goal being Soudan. Our maps showed campgrounds along MN 1, so we figured we'd find a campground along the way.
We didn't see much in the way of campgrounds before Isabella, and then we were sent on a detour through Superior National Forest on dirt/gravel roads. This was significantly slower than MN 1, as going too fast caused us to lose traction, and the roads themselves were pretty narrow. We saw signs on our detour pointing towards camping areas, but the detour eventually led us away from the camping areas and sent us back to MN 1, about 10-15 miles south of Ely.
We stopped at the first campground we saw, a national forest campground called South Kawishiwi River. After figuring the campground out and seeing plenty of sites available, we stopped where the host was camped and talked to his assistant. We reserved a site and got a couple of bundles of firewood.
The campground was on the primitive side, is had outhouses and we had to haul water from the one pump available. This probably kept out the rowdier folks we some times encounter when camping. We set up our tent and Karen started dinner. Nick attempted to start a fire with the fire starting kit he bought at North West Company Fur Post in Pine City. It was definitely more difficult than he thought, and he eventually started the fire using the camp stove lighter. We decided against roasting marshmallows as it was getting late by the time we finished dinner. This was a very quiet campground, as we heard very little going on around us as the evening wore on.
The sun finally disappeared around 10, and we all went to bed. It often takes me a while to fall asleep in the tent, so I was listening for animals. I heard loons a few times, and boy, they are loud! I wonder why they call in the night. Given how close we were to Ely, I was hoping to hear wolves, but I'm pretty sure I only heard loons.
After breakfast and tearing down the camp, we decided to hike on the hiking trail that goes around the camp sites and down by the lake (although the site was called "South Kawishiwi River" I later found on maps that we were actually on Birch Lake). We ended up at a beach for a while, so we all went wading. At a bulletin board at the beach, I saw a sign that said "Welcome to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness" or something similar. Very cool, as I hadn't been to BWCAW in over 30 years! After the beach, we hike the trail all the way to the other end, where we had paid for our campsite and wood. It was a nice hike, probably about one and a half miles.
We got in the car to leave, and as we pulled around the loop, discovered that Sam had left his shoes on the ground just outside the car, so we headed back to the camp site, picked up Sam's shoes and left for our journey to Soudan.
Posted at 12:45PM Aug 20, 2007 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
Split Rock Lighthouse
On Tuesday afternoon, August 7, we continued up MN 61 to Split Rock Lighthouse, which is both a Minnesota Historical Society site and a Minnesota state park. The light house is on a rocky cliff over Lake Superior, and is restored to its 1920s appearance. It provided a light using a Fresnel lens and a foghorn to help ships avoid the area. We toured the light house, the fog signal building and the restored keeper's house. One of the tour guides turned on the fog horn briefly, which was quite loud. He said the real thing would have been ten times as loud!
When the light house was completed in 1910, the area was quite remote and supplies were brought to a dock below the light house and brought up by a winch system and later a train. We did take a hike down to the lake were the dock had once been, and the boys played on the shore. Nick stepped into some shallow puddles of water on the rocks on shore, which were much warmer than the lake itself.
Posted at 12:26PM Aug 20, 2007 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
Two Harbors
After leaving Duluth on Tuesday morning, August 7, we headed up the north shore of Lake Superior, and stopped in Two Harbors for lunch. We stopped at a park on Agate Harbor, with a view of an ore ship being loaded, and a rocky beach for hunting agates. While Karen fixed a picnic lunch, the boys played on another beach. After lunch, we walked over to the other beach where other folks were hunting agates. Unfortunately, they didn't know much better than we did what a raw agate looks like. So we each grabbed a few pretty rocks and took them along with us. Later Karen found something that talked about agates, and I think she actually found some. Must be her interest in gems for her beading hobby.
On the way out of town, we stopped back at some old trains we saw near by and spent five minutes checking them out. That seemed to be enough for the boys, who were only promised five minutes to look.
Posted at 12:16PM Aug 20, 2007 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
Duluth
After our our visit to the North West Company Fur Post, we headed towards Duluth, arriving late in the afternoon. While I might have liked to stay in one of the hotels in the Canal Park area, they were full (we should have called ahead). So we ended up at the Radisson Hotel Duluth Harborview and paid a little extra to actually get the harbor view. This turned out well, as Karen wasn't feeling well and wanted to stay in the room while I took the boys down to the canal to do some site seeing. Karen got to see some of the big boats go through the canal and she said it was a nice view.
I took Sam and Nick to the Canal Park area, and they had a good time chasing sea gulls, dodging waves in the small rocky beach area next to the canal, watching the Aerial Lift Bridge go up and down, and we got to see a big 1000 foot ore tanker go out from the harbor into the lake through the canal. We also went inside to the Army Corps of Engineers facility there to get some information about the canal. There was a nice museum in there, but we were running out of time. We also walked down the trail along the lake towards another beach. And we saw a pedestrian draw bridge, and made a note to go see the floating maritime museum the next morning.
So, the next morning, after checking out of the hotel and a stop at Caribou Coffee, we visited the Great Lakes Floating Maritime Museum. This consists of the S.S. William A. Irvin and the US Coast Guard Cutter Sundew. The Irvin was the flagship of the U.S. Steel fleet when it was built in 1938, and was 600 feet long. It was retired about 40 years later, as it couldn't compete with the 1000 foot ships that were out at that time. We had a good tour from a retired ship hand. The Sundew was used for about 60 years before being retired, and had, amongst other things, buoy duty, i.e. tending to the shipping lane buoys in Lake Superior. It was also and icebreaker, and that sure looked like cold work!
Our final stops in Duluth were a visit to Duluth Pack to pick up something we saw in the window that we thought would be great for a friend, and a brief visit to the Grandma's Marathon store front, where I picked up a brochure. While I'm not so thrilled with running marathons these days, they also have a half marathon, and running along the lake looks pretty good to me. As for Duluth Pack, I used Duluth pack as a kid and counselor at YMCA Camp Ihduhapi, especially on canoe trips. So the store definitely brought back memories. Also, we had seen the forehead strap used by the voyageurs at the North West Company Fur Post the day before, and I hadn't realized the idea of the forehead strap went so far back in time.
What didn't we see? Lots. The Glensheen Mansion is a place Karen and I have visited in the past, but we figured the kids wouldn't appreciate it. There's also a zoo and other sites we just couldn't fit in, as we were on our way up the north shore of Lake Superior.
Posted at 12:08PM Aug 16, 2007 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
North West Company Fur Post visit
We left Bloomington, Minnesota on Monday August 6 and headed north to Pine City. I would have gone north on I-35W and eventually hit I-35 where I-35W and I-35E come together, but with the bridge collapse the week before, I took I-494 east to I-35E and then headed north.
So, what's in Pine City? The North West Company Fur Post, a re-enactment of an 1804 Ojibwe encampment and nearby fur trading post. Our guide, Winona, an Ojibwe squaw, showed us the encampment and explained how her group moved to six different places in a circle over the course of a year. After this, she took us to the fur company wintering camp, where she showed us the various living quarters and store. We discussed the roles of the different workers, intermarriage between the fur traders and Ojibwe, and Winona demonstrated starting a fire from a flint and steel. Nick was quite enthralled (as many 9-year-olds are) with starting the fire, and he bought himself a fire starting kit at the gift shop.
While some Minnesota Historical Society historic sites are not at locations of actual historic sites, this site actually was a fur trading site in the early 19th century.
I hadn't visited this site before, and I thought it was quite nice and informative.
Posted at 11:16AM Aug 15, 2007 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
I-35W bridge collapse
On our recent vacation, we visited with relatives in the Twin Cities area. We were in town when the I-35W bridge collapsed, but were safely miles away from the bridge when it collapsed. There are many bridges over the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers in the area, and we crossed a few of them a few times, but not the one that collapsed, as we weren't going to anything in that direction from where we were based, at my mom's house in Bloomington.
My son Nick was particularly concerned about the bridge collapsing, and we sought to reassure both Nick and his little brother Sam that the other bridges on which we were traveling were safe. I guess I've got to believe that or lose all faith in our various governments and somehow never cross a bridge. Sorry, but I can't avoid bridges here in central Texas and I can't avoid them when I visit Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes (and many rivers).
There was another collapse some years ago when the Lake Street bridge over the Mississippi was being replaced. The new bridge under construction collapsed. Oddly, they had a very difficult time bringing down the old bridge that supposedly needed replacement.
This bridge collapse causes lots of thoughts and discussion:
Posted at 10:53AM Aug 15, 2007 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
Happy birthday Sam!
Happy sixth birthday Sam!
Posted at 10:50AM Aug 15, 2007 by Dave Marquardt in Life |
