A Girl has joined the family!

A princess has arrived - the King and Queen are elated and the five Princes are quite satisfied as well...

More will have to be written on the topic, but this will have to suffice for now.

Much rejoicing is at hand in the kingdom.  As to whether she will be more like Joan of Arc than a dainty princess, I think the answer is pretty obvious...she has five older brothers to teach her!

Congressman Rogers' Opening Statement on Healthcare Reform

Backyard Garden Harvest

The Royal Family spent an hour in the garden today and harvested some purple potatoes, carnival carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions (not pictured) and the last ear of corn. We are still harvesting the tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, carrots, melons, and squash. We might get another run at the strawberries.

There is something deeply wholesome about working the earth and bringing forth a harvest. It can be a lot of work. Our garden this year is a weedy mess due to the huge quantities of time that the King has spent away from home and the fact that the Queen is ready to deliver royal child #6 in a few weeks...but in spite of that, we have been regularly harvesting lots of wonderful garden products and enjoying them in the kitchen.

The Five Minute University

A hilarious and far too accurate parody on the value of a typical university education today. Of course, there are exceptions...but university education generally ceased to be a place where you learn to think a long time ago - now it's just a place where you receive training for a career.

Trebuchet!

I just returned from Boy Scout Camp - there was a class on medieval engineering where we built a trebuchet - so awesome! Time to build a home version...

The Danger with Busy-ness

You blink and your little kids are not so little anymore. Isn't it crazy? We all have our reasons, but many of you can probably identify with me - the busy-ness scale is off the chart in my life. This photo is taken from an airplane about a week ago - I went up with our pipeline patrol pilot to see what my project in Colorado looked like from the air. When combined with all of life's other activities, this project has kept me hopping, and has taken priority over some things in my personal life.

What do we do to counter the craziness that we experience when life gets so busy? I don't yet have all of the answers, but I'll be blogging about it here as I figure some out...and I hope to hear from others about what they do to cope.

Outfitter Stove

This is the new outfitter stove that my brothers and I picked up for use in the mountains - it weighs around 80 pounds and everything fits inside the stove for convenience in transportation. It has a 3 gallon water tank on the side - you always have hot water available and it improves heat retention in your living space. The stovepipe nests inside itself - it grows from 5 inches at the bottom to 6 inches at the top. Very cool - we are going to enjoy using it very much. If you're looking for something similar, go to the Cylinder Stove website.