Wenger Potpourri tomorrow

Yes, it's true, we're letting the madman/staff physicist Aaron Wenger on the Friday morning show tomorrow. And we're letting him pick the topic. Granted, he doesn't have control of the board...call in your question for Aaron at 8:40. Or email!

Also, at 8:10, we're talking with Sonny Brewer. Sonny's dog Cormac went missing in San Fransisco while he was on a book tour. One month later, Cormac showed up in Connecticut, neutered, renamed Cognac and waiting to be adopted. We'll find out the real story behind the wayward Cormac tomorrow.

Steve Martin's children's book on Morning Edition

I'm a big Steve Martin fan, are you? Even though I didn't get to interview ol' Steve, this morning NPR did a story on Steve Martin's new children's book "The Alphabet from A to Y With Bonus Letter Z". Steve, along with New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, has created rhyming couplets, "I tried to put in words ... that sound like the letter but aren't the letter and also use different expressions of the letter". Like, A...

Ambidextrous Alex was actually axed
For waxing, then faxing, his boss's new slacks.


You can listen here to the interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep. You can hear Morning Edition every weekday on KAXE starting at 5am. And tune in for Weekend Edition on Saturday and Sundays from 7-9am.

Maybe someday Steve Martin will be our guest on Realgoodwords!

Friday we're talking Fish Houses!

Kathryn Nordstrom will be joining us tomorrow to talk about her new book that celebrates that crazy thing we do in winter in Minnesota - put houses on frozen water! Kathryn's new book is published by Dovetailed Press and is a photographic journey that shows the ordinary and the extraordinary fish houses. From the Aitkin Fish House Parade to the Brainerd Ice Fishing Extravaganza to the shanty you can see from your window, it's a great exploration of Minnesota's culture of life on the ice. There's fancy fish houses that look better than some of our own houses to the basic no fuss variety. Tune in at 8:10 for a conversation about ice houses.

LEFSE in the KAXE Kitchen!

Carol Bauer (John's mom) will be in the KAXE kitchen tomorrow to teach us about the tradition of making lefse...Maybe you aren't from around these parts, and didn't get to partake in the family tradition of lutefisk (yuck!) and lefse (yum!) at Christmastime. Remember when Grandma Holtan would have all those plates of bars? And how that one year Cousin Randy took all the cornflake wreaths? Wait, maybe that was just in my family...

We've been talking about CLOSE TO HOME during this fundraiser - what foods remind you of home? Are there Minnesota foods?

Tune in to tomorrow's morning show for the lefse extravaganza, and of course, Maggie's update on her local diet and Don Boese's European Reflections and Classical Corner.

Jay and Molly on the Morning Show

Monday at 8:40 Scott will be talking with folk musicians Jay Ungar and Molly Mason. They'll be performing at the Reif Center in Grand Rapids on Sunday October 21st at 7:30pm.

You might know their music from Ken Burn's documentary, The Civil War. THe soundtrack won a grammy award and was nominated for an emmy.

Jay and Molly have been playing music together since the late 1970's. They play timeless renditions of hard-driving Appalachian, Cajun and Celtic fiddle tunes as well as Civil War classics and songs from the golden age of swing and country.

Tune in Monday morning at 8:40 when Jay and Molly join Scott Hall on the Morning Show.

Online Tree and Forestry Resources

My Minnesota Woods is a great new source for information about Minnesota forests. It's designed to help private forest landowners make good decisions on how to manage their forests. The site will keep you up to date on forestry issues, connect you with professional foresters, and focus special articles on specific tree species.

There is also a site that will help you figure out what trees will grow well on your property, when to prune them, how to deal with disease and other tips about trees. It's called MN Trees.

Energy Issues on the Brain

We're getting ready for the "Close to Home" fundraiser that's starting on Monday (10/8). Local is what KAXE does best, and our fundraiser will highlight the people of Northern Minnesota.

Scott and I are thinking about energy issues in terms of next week's Morning Show. On Monday morning, he and I will be talking to Mike Demchik. Mike is an Assistant Professor of Forestry at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Mike participated in a Wood Biomass conference in northern MN last August. Many are getting interested in the ideas of using trees and other forest resources for energy. But there are still unanswered questions about the economics and forest management options required to create a sustainable source of energy from wood. Mike will bring us up to date on the current thinking about the potential for using wood for energy.

We are also working on a story about a couple of KAXE members, Janet and Gary Hill, who live on Raspberry Island in McGregor. They moved there full time in 2006 and live off the grid, using solar, wood and some propane.

Did you know that every hour, more energy from sunlight strikes the Earth than is consumed worldwide in a year? The U.S. Deptartment of Energy has estimated that a net 10 percent-efficient solar energy farm covering 1.6 percent of the U.S. land area (roughly the size of Iowa) would meet the nation's ENTIRE domestic energy needs!

John Bauer and I took our microphones and cameras and went for a visit to Janet and Gary's "off the grid" life. We got the full tour of their beautiful island - chickens and all. You'll be able to hear the first of this tour next week on the Morning Show.

Janet and Gary donated some solar panels to KAXE and we're hoping to get them installed sometime soon. A radio station takes a lot of power, so it might not make a huge difference in the scope of things, but it's a start.

Do you use alternative energy sources? Are you thinking about it? What stops you?
-Heidi