Tami and I have enrolled our children in night school.

We’ve noticed that they do all their homework before they come to the plant and they get straight “A’s” without trying.  That is either a testimony to their big brains or a knock against Horton Middle School.

We are unable to homeschool by day, and so we have undertaken the task at night.

One night their study of science involved the crushing of seeds to see which one had the most oil.  Rachel took them to the college, dropped them off with Matt, who handed them off to Andy, who helped them run sunflower, safflower, and mustard seed through the crusher.

On the drive home they reflected on how it was “the best night school night of all.”

Which shocked me. It was merely an array of  some of the best bio-oleo-chemical instructors in the country.

“Because we had a real teacher,” they said.

Somewhere there is a plaque which named me “Environmental Educator of the Year,” once upon a time when I taught at the college.  I guess I’ll move over for Andy.

We had a rare snow storm the other day.  Horton Middle School, and the rest of the piedmont of North Carolina closed for the day.

As a bitter Canadian, raised in the “snow belt” of southwestern Ontario, who never received a “snow day” growing up, I announced that our subject of study for the day would be “marksmanship,” and the three of us headed into the woods for a protracted snowball fight.

We ended up at the Coop, where work never stops.  People were plumbing and farming and making fuel in the midst of the snow.

And on the roof, there was a “volunteer opportunity,” to sweep the snow from the solar thermal collectors.  Our beneficent landlord dropped a hickory tree in the front yard so that the old solar collectors are now in full sun.  And the system has been re-plumbed.

The concept of  passive solar hasn’t quite sunk in, since someone has blocked the sun from the Grease Warming Zone with black barrels and totes in the yard-but that’s OK.  One thing at a time.

At one point I was asked if the boys were working on the roof in an expectation of future fuel, and I explained that instead they were learning the joys of volunteerism as part of their new curriculum.

At the same time, they seemed to be quick studies in military strategy, availing themselves of the “high ground” to pellet those of us in the yard with snowballs.

Our trip through the woods morphed into a gathering at Scott and Rachel’s for banana bread, which then turned into an “intern intake” party at our house.

And I have to say it is impressive.  Caleb has the Coop spinning like a top.  Moya is collecting more grease than the Coop plant can handle, Michael is spinning it into fuel, Kate is jumping in with both feet, and locally collected feedstocks are being converted into fuel for the members who draw from the B100 Community Trail.

Rain or snow.  It’s happening.

And it is an inspiration.

Despite the odd snowball to the face…

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 9:34 pm and is filed under Energy Blog, Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.