as time goes by, it's almost easy to diminish the mountains of gumption required to drop everything and move to rural wisconsin based in part on a crazy dream and a strong feeling that no matter how insane it seemed that somehow, someway things would work out.

beyond the worries of whether or not we'd actually end up liking life in a small town ( we absolutely, positively do ) after years of living in the bright lights of the big city, there was the rather large problem of how to scratch out a living in one of the poorest counties in wisconsin.

so it was quite a relief and a surprise to quickly pick up contract work at organic valley and an even bigger surprise to find that i didn't like working for the company. i love it. it's always dangerous to drink the kool-aid, but drink i have. it's an absolute joy to go to work for a company with a cooperative spirit so infused into its dna. as an added bonus, the little cooperative that started with 7 farmers 20 years ago is now poised to hit $500M in sales in the near on record setting growth.

and they are apparently quite appreciative when someone with my rather eclectic mix of systems implementation, process improvement, software development and analytical skills moves in their back yard. i'm very happy to announce that i've accepted a full time position as a demand analyst and am very much looking forward to the challenge of helping them do the things they need to do to more efficiently meet the almost insatiable demand for organic products in the years to come.

to celebrate, i decided to pick up some seasonal egg nog ( sure, i'm biased, but it really is the best eggnog i've ever had and i'm a bit of an eggnog snob ) which i hear might be sold out soon due to an unprecedented increase in demand :-)

next year i might have to take the odin factor into account for production planning. these days, when i walk in the door after a day at work, i'm greeted with "more eggnog, poppi!"

could camp be any funner for a toddler?

water doesn't just come out of a tap, you have to really work for it with a clanky vacuum pump. and if you don't want to use the outhouse you're encouraged to pee outside! and there's a sauna!

any jokes about all hunters being like small children will be ignored.

approximately 1 minute before testing to see if we were really serious about going home if he ran into the lake.

then again, even with the uncharacteristically warm november weather, it's still brisk at the shore of northern lake michigan so maybe he really did just want to go back to his grandparent's house :-)

whenever we visit the u.p. it's mandatory to partake in a sauna ( which, of course, you know is properly pronounced sow-nah. ); it's hard to believe it has already been a year since odin's first sauna.



in the past, he has been curious and tolerant, if not overly excited about the practice. ooooh how that's changed. now, before bed every night he says excitedly, "soowwwna! soowwwna! i want soowwwna!"

something tells me we're probably going to have to bump our plans for building one of our own because an ordinary bath just isn't the same.

i'm guessing that the vast majority of you haven't seen a buck bladder full of urine - so here you go :-)

yes, that's right, it's that time of year.

don't let anyone fool you, when and where you use buck urine is more complicated than you might think.

rumors to the contrary, my camera's not broken and i haven't abandoned chronicling odin's adventures. i've just been in an extraordinarily busy cycle which will hopefully ease up soon. there's lots of good things happening on the snowdeal show ® and i'm sure i'll write more about that later.

odin has been talking more than ever, going to pre,pre school(!) once a week, taking swimming lessons, playing with lots of new friends, pretty much almost ready to say goodbye to diapers for good, getting bigger than ever ( he's grown 2 inches taller (36") in just the past few months! ) and offering whenever he can to help pick up the slack around the house. certainly, if kris waited for me, the new boot box would never get put together. but odin's already pretty handy with the wood glue and seems to be able to decipher the directions much more quickly than i :-)

hope all is well with our real and virtual friends and family. we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming soon.

while we think viroqua, our new hometown, has a lot to offer there's no doubt that living in one of poorest counties in wisconsin comes with unique challenges particularly if you are a small business owner. soon after we moved no less than four local businesses folded, including two pharmacies that had been in business for over a hundred years - the casualties of a new and very controversial walgreens store.

adding insult to injury felix's, a local clothier that had recently celebrated a 100 years of service to the local community, announced that it would be closing its doors. and it's not like this is a new phenomenon. our insurance saleman was forced to sell his shoe store that had been owned by his family for decades because they couldn't compete with the local walmart. according to him, five other shoe stores also went out of business ( it's astonishing that such a small town could support 6 shoe stores in the first place ).

while there's a vocal contigent of residents that believe that doing business locally is key to making local economy sustainable, it seems that most residents are voting with their wallets at the big box stores.

the iconoclastic jim kunstler recently wrote ( hat tip to treehugger ):

"Driving a Prius might induce raptures of eco-moral superiority, but changing the zoning laws would produce a better outcome -- and that's just too hard."

so, we got tired of our industrial kitchen equipment and went out and bought a new refrigerator and range/oven. we thought we had purchased an all gas appliance, but once it arrived we found out that it had a gas range and an electric oven. i guess maybe i've been living under a rock because i've never heard of such a thing, but supposedly it's a desirable "feature". as you might have guessed the electric oven needed a 220 volt receptacle which we were lacking, but we didn't think it would be a problem to have an electrician come by an install a new one, not realizing that in our new, small, rural hometown that it can take weeks to get an appointment with certified electrician.

now, i can calculate the unknown given a few knowns with ohm's law, but when it comes to doing actual electrical work, about the only thing i know is that if you stick your screwdriver in the wrong part of a electrical box, the results can be dire indeed. but i decided to give it a go after a few days of attempting ( and failing ) to make 3 square meals in a toaster oven ( we're luddites and don't own a microwave oven. ) and after a bit of chiding from a brother-in-law who not-so-subtly insulted my manliness when he heard i didn't think i had the skills to install the receptacle, run the wire and rig the box with a new circuit breaker.

i'm happy to report that after being empowered with a small bit of knowledge from lowes how-to and making a half-dozen trips to the local hardware store, i reclaimed my manhood and actually managed to install the receptacle without suffering grievous bodily harm. w00t!

perhaps next week i'll get to work on that flux capacitor i've always wanted to build.

"The biggest study ever to look at the side effects of flu shots in children confirmed that the vaccine is safe for babies and toddlers. Researchers studied 45,000 U.S. children and found almost no side effects requiring medical treatment during the six weeks after the youngsters were vaccinated."

"FLU vaccines may be far less effective at combating seasonal outbreaks than previously thought, researchers say, adding that they may not be worth the cost and effort required to produce them."