6 Month Reunion

Yesterday Roni Jo and David celebrated their six month wedding anniversary in Boston.  Here on the farm we had a six month reunion.  My cousins Margaret, Therese and her husband Dave, were here this weekend to cheer on Anthony's robotics team  at the Pacific Northwest Robotics championship.

Last night we invited Crayton and Beth to come our for dinner so that we could have "wedding workers" reunion.  It would have been wonderful to have all the wedding prep crew here, but we made do with those of us that were here.  A great time was had by all!

Uncle Dave and Reynald NEVER run out of stuff to talk about!

Crayton and my dad's relationship goes back decades.  They always have such fun together.

We all had such a great time catching up and visiting.

The hamburger bar.

Reynald loaded up his plate and went back for seconds!

Oven french fries made from garden potatoes.

Anthony's robotics team qualified for the World Robotics Championship in Houston in two weeks.  Congratulations to Error Code Xero 1425 from Wilsonville High School in Oregon!

Margaret and Anthony with their team t-shirts!

Robotics!

Today I learned so much!  We traveled to Cheney WA today to watch our nephew, Anthony, compete at the FRC Pacific Northwest Robotics Championship.  This is quite an event.  We had no idea what we were getting in to!  Thankfully, Anthony's mom (my cousin Margaret) was there to explain it all to us.

There's no way I can even begin to do justice to what we witnessed, but with the following photos, you may get a sliver of an idea of what went on today at the competition, and I do mean competition!

This is the name of Anthony's team.

Each year in early January, teams from around the world gather at specified locations to receive the challenge for the year.  The very moment after the announcement of the parameters of the competition, the work begins.  By the first of March, robots are designed and ready to begin the competition season.

The playing field.

A closer look at one tower and the steam plant in the corner. 

Anthony's team's robot.  It would take hours to explain how this works!  

Teams number less than ten kids on a team to over 30.  Teams are led by mentors, but the kids truly do all the work.  They design, write the programs, machine the parts, do the wiring, and assemble the parts, test and re-test their designs.  Hours and hours of work go in to this project.

Reynald is holding a piece of Anthony's team's robot.  Every piece of this was machined by the kids.

Once on the floor and the bell is sounded, off go the robots!  For this challenge they had to design a machine that would pick up and then deposit one of these gears to the tower.

A close up of a gear.

This robot has just deposited a gear and is backing away to get another.

The gear at the bottom, starting it's journey up to the platform.

This gear is to the top.  A team member picks it up and puts it on the rail.  There is a pre-determined number of gears that have to be gathered to get the maximum points.

The robot also had to be able to pick up these yellow balls and then shoot them in to the steam plant.

The robots have to hit this bin that holds the balls to release them so that they can pick them up to shoot in to the steam plant.

This robot is shooting balls in to the steam plant.  For every three balls that fall in to the target, the team gets one point.

Finally, they had to find a rope on the tower and grab on to it and climb up to the top.  IF the robot made it to the top of the rope, it tapped a light that went off to signal that it had reached the final goal.

These are the kids that drive the robot and help with strategy.

Two robots on their way up to tap the light.

You can see the robots suspended in the air, and the lights at the top are shining.

This all happens in two minutes.  As you might imagine, there is a great deal of strategy involved.  There are referees, play by play announcers and even instant replay!

There are four referees watching each match.  

These two fellas called the matches as they saw them!

Note the drawings on the instant replay, just like the ESPN announcers do!

When the floor competition is complete, the robot goes back to the "pit" where it is inspected by two judges who critique the finer points of the construction and originality of design.

The adults in the blue shirts are the judges that evaluating and questioning the design team of this robot.

Anthony explaining some of the robot pieces to Uncle Ron.

The experience these kiddos are getting and the learning that is happening is awe inspiring.  There was such energy and power in this building today, all from kids aged 14 to 18 years.  What a gift they have.

Harrowing!!!

Late yesterday afternoon we moved the harrow to the field we are going to plant to spring crop.  It's still too wet to harrow but we need to push the envelope a little, since we're getting such a late start.

The harrow folds up for transport down the road.  Once you get to the field you back up until the hitch is straight.

This shows the harrow still in the upright transportation position, but the hitch is straight.

Next you hook up the two cables that pull the wings of the hitch.  There are two cables on each side.

Then, you slowly lower the frame of the harrow with hydraulics. 

Still lowering.....

Still lowering.  You can see that if you just went straight down from here, the drag harrow would be all bunched up.

So at this point you slowly pull forward as you continue to lower the frame, so that the drag harrow spreads out.

Moving forward as the drag harrow spreads out.

Everything is ready to go!

I got a few hours of work in before the sun set.  Feels good to be on the tractor again!

The new harrow teeth are doing what they are supposed to do, spreading the straw evenly across the field.  There was a little dust yesterday, but the surface of the ground is still very wet.

Palouse Falls

Yesterday we took a drive to Palouse Falls State Park.  It's an amazing geological formation, caused by the great Missoula Flood centuries ago.  Because of the wet spring and heavy run off from snow melt, the falls are running high.

On our way to the falls we came across this beautiful herd of straight bred Hereford cattle.  This is my dream.  I have always wanted to have a cattle ranch, full of Herefords.  I love this breed of cattle.  My brother asked me why I liked them so much and I said, "because they are so pretty"!

These are just a few of the cattle we saw on our way to the falls.

Aren't they girls just darling?

 We were surprised when we arrived at the entrance of Palouse Falls, to see a large line up of cars waiting to get in to the park.  We waited for about 45 minutes before we were able to enter.

The line up waiting to get in to the park.

Reynald and I have been here three or four times before but my parents and my brother do not remember ever seeing the falls.  It was well worth the wait!

Mom and dad at the falls.

Looking down the canyon.  I think this is so beautiful.  

This is called cathedral rock.  It's at the top of the falls, on the west side.   There are all kinds of tails for hiking.  You can see that several people have ventured over to this area.

We visited Palouse falls when our girls were very young.  At that time there wasn't any fencing or developed paths for hiking.  You could walk right up to the edge of the cliff and look over.  Reynald was a nervous wreck, fearing the girls would go right off the edge.  He kept a tight grip on their little hands.

Across the way, opposite of the park, were these three mountain sheep.  I'm not sure they are mountain sheep or mountain goats, but they were beautiful.   

Out like a lamb

Today was a perfect spring day.  This is one of the few times I can remember March coming in like a lion and out like a lamb.  Usually it's lion all the way from start to finish!  60 degrees today, blue sky and sun and just the slightest breeze.  Two days ago I was wearing long underware, a wool scarf and three layers on top, just to survive working outside on the harrow.  Today was a delight!

The shop daffodils came out to play and make us smile.

It was so warm and sunny that I hung the sheets on the line to dry and they actually dried!  Oh, the fragrance of line dried sheets.

We took a long drive in the gator today to check our fields.  Here's what we found....

Snow mold

This is what can happen when the show lays for too many days on the wheat.  

Ir will come back, but will never be healthy and won't produce a good yield.

The lighter color in the field is the area that has snow mold.  

More snow mold.

And another shot.  Most of the south facing slopes have this amount of damage.  The wind blew from the north east, causing large drifts on the south slopes.

Winter damaged wheat

The bronze color on the leaf tips show that wheat plant suffered some winter damage.  This is the wheat that was uncovered when the wind blew the snow in to drifts on the south slopes.

Some really pretty wheat

This is what healthy wheat plants are supposed to look like.

This is a nice slope, but up at the top right you can see a pocket of wheat that is winter damaged.

Also looking healthy is the cheat grass.  That's the tiny green plants that are growing on the top of the furrow.  If left unchecked, this would cause some yield loss.  But look at that residue!  We have lots of composting straw between the rows of wheat which is a good thing.

Water where there isn't supposed to be water

We were buzzing along in the gator and almost got stuck in this draw!  Yikes!!!  And this wasn't the only spot that this happened today on our drive.

There is actually water running in the bottom of this draw.  A spring that only runs when it's very wet like this year.  We've never seen this before.

A balloon.

The next time you feel the urge to release a balloon in to the air, give some thought to where it will end up, and the fact that it's actually throwing thrash out in to the environment.  We find several balloons in our fields every year.

And to top off the day, a beautiful sunset.

Saint Francis finally emerged from the snow bank!

The first, of hopefully many evenings on the porch with a glass of wine after a long and productive day of work.