The temperature for March 15 around Madison WI typically varies from 27°F to 41°F. Today it hit 80. It’s never done that before. All the more reason to build the most energy efficient, sustainable building practices house that we can. That meant working outside in tee shirts, although in the […]
I have built hundreds of fires in my life. For 12 years we partially heated our house in Illinois with a wood-burning stove, and I have made more than my share of campfires and bonfires. While we were living in exile in the northern Chicago suburb of Libertyville, Doug and […]
I just learned from a UW press release that one of my favorite new buildings in Madison, WI, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, has been named 2012 Laboratory of the Year in an international competition sponsored annually by R&D Magazine. Because this structure is nested between two of Madison’s major traffic […]
I got assigned to write a profile of a blogger for ON WISCONSIN, the University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni publication. The topic immediately caught my attention, but I had no idea how impressed I was about to become with Sarah Wu. Here’s how the piece starts: A hotdog encased in soggy […]
We have all heard about the collapse of the honey bee population, and if you aren’t scared – you should be. Pollinators make it possible for more than 70% of the plants on earth to set seed. You can thank pollinators for one in three mouthfuls of food you eat […]
2012 has started off a little ruggedly for me. In mid-January my appendix and part of my colon were removed, and at the end of my 3-week recuperation, I had one great day where I worked out on our land with the house-building team. The next day, I succumbed to […]
The first roundabout I clearly remember was the one where I looked in my rear view window to see the flashing lights of a police car I had unwittingly cut off within its circle as I approached the outskirts of Wellington, New Zealand. I was seriously jet lagged, bemused by […]
Yesterday Doug and I started our new one-day-a-week routine of working with the crew building our new house, Underhill. Thursdays is all we have for February because Doug is teaching genetics at University of Wisconsin-Platteville Monday thru Wednesday and Fridays, and I am juggling three writing projects – all with […]
It’s time for an update on building our house because things have been moving along swiftly this winter. Last summer we went over our 44 acres with Roald Gundersen and Della Hansmann from Whole Trees Architecture, selecting specific trees to be part of the house based on both their suitability […]
If a bouquet and a box of chocolate are part of your valentine vocabulary, you may be telling someone you love them with toxins and trafficking in children. Those flowers and candy didn’t cost you much, but like many other materials we take for granted, someone else may be paying […]
Digging in the Driftless 