Camping season is winding down
October 16th, 2018
Greetings from my office in Myre-Big Island State Park! It’s the perfect place for a client meeting, and a meeting with a local attorney, drafting a Petition for Reconsideration… nothing like having a fully equipped office with wheels! The downside is that there’s a season where it works, and a season where it doesn’t — for sure it does not work in the dead of winter.
We’re getting to the end of the season, it came to an end too quickly. There was about an inch of snow here, it rained/sleeted/snowed all night Friday and all day Saturay. Sunday morning people cleared out of here like it was on fire. Our furnace and little heater kept up well, and one down comforter was sufficient!
Cooking was kinda rough the first two days, but washing dishes was worse! Then today arrived and the sun was out and it was beautiful!
Sadie got to play with her “cousin” Sandie at the dog park two days running, and she was a happy, pooped, and socialist puppy! They’re getting along quite well, but Sandie is… well… a PUPPY! She’s now bigger than Sadie, plump and jiggly, whereas Sadie is for sure greyhound style.
Got to see little bro’s “new” house, and, well, it’s a good thing he didn’t get the first one he told me about down there, Hwy 13 in Hartland, right near Bernie and Cheryl Hagen and right in Bent Tree! DON’T YOU DARE! I sent Alan and Sadie out to play while I was writing, and there was some serious bonding going on the first day at the dog park and Home Depot. A few mods to the camper, we now have two more stable tables, and a new outlet where the camper was designed for an air conditioner plug, so running little electric heater and oven or tea kettle at the same time is no problem. One less thing to think about. It was odd, there were two circuits, everything was on one, and nothing on the other, but all set up and ready to run, just needed an outlet. Who needs an air conditioner, particularly in a camper! But we all need another outlet, eh?
Only one more meeting to go, and then homeward bound!
Camping at Camden State Park, etc.!
June 17th, 2018
Back from camping with a friend this week. Last fall, a friend from Northfield mentioned that she’d like to visit Pipestone National Monument, it was on her bucket list, but there’s no campground at Pipestone, just an RV park (UGH!) nearby, sooooo, have pop-up, will travel, and we booked it in October! Alan and I have the routine down, and it’s very different with a friend who hasn’t been camping in decades, and never in a pop-up!
Getting there… CapX 2020 and other transmission was EVERYWHERE!
The weather was bizarre. Got set up, but had to do it quickly, as it dribbled a bit of rain not long after (whew, good timing). But the WIND! WHEW! It was SO windy. Tied down the awning right away, and ultimately had to use an emergency blanked clamped to the awning as a windscreen to be able to cook! Put the camper’s stove on the table, set up as another wind screen, and propped up the Coleman in that, kinda precarious, but needed the shelter. It rained all day and all night and the next day too, and most of the next night!!! Waterlogged, for sure!
Hard to keep everything under the awning, and very hard to keep that emergency blanket “rain fly” in one place. On the stove there is the makings of wild rice (and sweet peppers, corn, green onions, mushrooms, and a dash of cream!), to go with the turkey (so easy when we have electricity, the hardest part is fitting it in the convection oven). Got the hang of this now, first one was Thanksgiving in Arkansas, and this was worry free, no way the wind could blow away that oven.
The next day, we hit Pipestone National Monument, which was cool, actually hot but windy to make it OK, and there was a class meeting in the grass near the building when we arrived, and the next day, we learned that the Minnesota Historical Society had a group that had been there the day before, I think it was part of the American Indian Museum Fellowship program. Pipestone National Monument is a sacred site,and in many places, there are remnants of prayers and offerings.
There are active quarries, and inside, three stations for pipestone carvers. The carver I talked with had been wanting a spot there for over a decade, and it’s a long-term family thing, with ties going back generations, with the next generation waiting for someone to retire before they can take a place there as a carver. Throughout, I thought of Robert Rosebear — I’d commissioned a piece decades ago, and he put a lot more into it than I’d bargained for, much more, the detail was amazing, priceless. How he planned and pieced that together was amazing. Rosebear had mined the pipestone for his carvings from the quarries here. It struck me that natives have to go through a permitting process to mine pipestone, but how does that work? How is it that the Pipestone National Monument got into the hands of the feds, and the feds are in charge of determining who gets to mine at this sacred site? Seems a bit off…
But this… GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
The following day, we went over to the Jeffers Petroglyphs:
It was impossible to get reasonable photos because it was at early afternoon, and the sun disappeared the petroglyphs, but staff tricks with boards and mirrors, and an occasional squirt bottle revealed them. Here’s a depiction:
Thursday, it was off to Albert Lea for some pretty monumentous real estate closings — the Bent Tree buyouts are DONE! What an intense day! And over 300 miles!
It’s good to be home!!
Ice throw from turbine hits truck cab!
February 24th, 2018
Photo of TNT, LLC truck cab taken at the scene
On Thursday, just as we were leaving the hearing for the Freeborn Wind project at the Albert Lea Armory, a large chunk of ice flew off one of the Bent Tree turbines and hit the drivers side of a truck going south on Hwy. 13 towards Albert Lea. Put a scratch and lite dent in the door, and took a big chunk out of the faring near the gas cap. That’s a big piece of plastic that costs way, way too much to replace.
A chunk of ice also hit the Langrud’s shop nearby. Others???
The ice last week was unreal, I’ve never experienced that level of ice coating my vehicle as last Monday, it was raining all the way from Red Wing to Albert Lea, and in places it was an inch thick. I can just imagine how it was caked on the turbines.
It’s been reported in both the Albert Lea Tribune and KAAL TV 6:
Complaint: Ice From Freeborn Co. Wind Turbine Hit Semi – KAAL
Turbines temporarily shut down after ice … – Albert Lea Tribune
And here is the letter sent by Alliant/Wisconsin Power & Light Company regarding the ice throw:
Letter in Albert Lea Tribune re: Freeborn Wind Farm
December 16th, 2017
On Tuesday, Commerce is having a wind project transmission scoping meeting (MPUC Docket 17-322):
6 p.m. on December 19, 2017
Room 124
Riverland Community College
Albert Lea, MN
The Albert Lea Tribune printed my Letter to the Editor about the Freeborn Wind Farm transmission scoping meeting:
Letter: Meeting on new wind farm is planned next week
At 6 p.m. Dec. 19 in Room 124 at Riverland Community College, the Minnesota Department of Commerce is holding a public comment and scoping meeting for the transmission line designed to serve the Freeborn Wind project. This is the opportunity for you to raise any questions and concerns about what issues should be investigated and reviewed in the Department of Commerce’s environmental review. This includes all of the things you know about the area, and any alternatives that should be in the mix.
Minnesota has a policy of non-proliferation of transmission corridors, which means that as a matter of law, transmission should be routed using existing corridors, such as transmission lines already in place or road right of way. This line, instead, is proposed to traverse cross country. That’s not non-proliferation.
Another problem is that Freeborn Wind developers claim they have land rights to all land needed for this transmission line, and then state that they’ll use eminent domain if they don’t. Well, which is it? And it’s troubling, because only public service corporations have the power of eminent domain, but Freeborn is a LLC, not a public service corporation. To make things more complicated, need has not been demonstrated, and there is no certificate of need. Need is a requirement for use of eminent domain. What’s their basis for saying they can use eminent domain?
This is yet another overreach by the developers — more infrastructure, which would forever change the landscape of this community. Dec. 19 at Riverland College — now is the time to speak up!
Carol A. Overland
Attorney for Association of Freeborn County Landowners