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NewsHopper TM November 10, 2007 9 U P NORTH FIREPLACE GALLERY Located at Aitkin Rental • 218-927-6907 1068 Air Park Drive, Aitkin, MN 56431 Multi Fuel Energy Efficient Stoves 218-927-6919 • Open 6 a.m. - 10 p.m. Highway 169 S., Aitkin EXPRESS GAS & CAR WASH FILL YOUR TANK TODAY! 927-2191 800-450-2191 www.mlecmn.net A dd beauty to your Christmas lighting display without adding to your electric bill! Mille Lacs Energy and Aitkin Public Utilities, along with Pamida, Hyytinen Hardware Hank and Aitkin True Value - Aitkin; Weidell Trustworthy Hardware - Brainerd; Holiday “De-Lites” North - McGregor; and Agnew Hardware Hank - Onamia are asking you to get rid of your traditional holiday lighting and replace them with LED holiday lighting. Bring in your old lights and get $5 off LED lights - Limit 5 per customer/must be 50 bulbs or more per string. Why buy LED? • LED (light emitting diode) bulbs use 10 times less electricity than mini-lights and 100 times less than C-7 bulbs • The lifespan of LEDs is extremely long—up to 100,000 hours inside and 50,000 outside • Holiday LEDs are available in mini-lights, flame-tips, globes, gems, ropes, icicles • All-weather, unbreakable and water-resistant • Cool to the touch, shatterproof, shock-resistant THIS HOLIDAY SEASON, GIVE Y OURSELF THE GIFT OF A SMALLER ELECTRIC BILL DO THE RIGHT THING REPLACE A STRING The glow of the holidays - LED lights The world glows with a colorful light at one time of the year - Christmas. Every- where you look, Christmas lights sparkle and brighten every door step, window, and Christmas tree. The red, green, and white glow of Christmas lights not only light up the cold winter landscape, they ignite the Christmas spirit within us all. Since the 17th Century, peo- ple have lit their Christmas trees to sit by its comforting glow. The families of Christ- mas past attached candles to the ends of the tree’s branches using wax or pins. Given the fire risk involved with using lit candles, most families deco- rated their trees on Christmas eve and quickly tore them down again just after Christ- mas day. In 1879, Thomas Edison in- vented the first practical light bulb; but it wasn’t until 1882 when Edward Johnson, an associate of Edison’s, created the first string of Christmas lights by hand wiring 80 red, white, and blue bulbs together in a string. The creation of the first string of electric Christ- mas lights didn’t replace the candles on Christmas trees very quickly however - very few people saw that first string of lights. Christmas lights wouldn’t truly see the light of day until 1895, when President Grover Cleveland first put lights on the White House Christmas tree. The prohibitive cost and equipment required to power those early strings of lights limited their use to larger de- partment stores and the White House until 1903. In 1903, the first strings of Christmas lights were sold to the masses. By 1905, Christmas light sets with small screw-in bulbs and a socket plug or battery packs, were becoming a Christmas mainstay. These early lights evolved into the Christmas lights that you know and love today. Strings of Christmas lights continue to evolve. Filament light bulbs are losing ground to energy-saving light-emit- ting-diode (LED) Christmas lights - LED lights use less than 10 percent of the electricity consumed by filament bulbs and can save you close to 95 percent on your electric- ity bill. LED lights also stay cooler than traditional lights making them safer to hang next to your Christmas tree ornaments. It’s hard to imagine Christ- mas without bright, twinkling lights. Every December parents bundle their little ones into the car just to drive around at night to look at the glow and twinkle of color sparkling through the trees and reflect- ing off the snow. City parks are often filled with dazzling displays of Christmas lights in the trees and full-sized glow- ing reindeer and snowmen. Al- though red, white, and green remain traditional favorites, Christmas lights are available in every shade of the rainbow. Blue lights are becoming quite popular for the soft, icy blue glow they cast. Both indoor strings for your Christmas tree and outdoor strings for your eaves offer a soothing, steady glow or the blink and twinkle resembling stars or dancing candlelight. If you want your lights to dance, simply replace a steady bulb in your string with the blink- ing bulb, included with your lights. If you want a steady, mystical glow cast over your yard and house, try LED lights. Colored LED lights glow with an almost neon-like quality, while the simple white LED lights cast an icy, ethereal glow wherever they hang. No matter your preference, Christ- mas lights are a “must have” for your holiday decorating - so string up those lights and shine on! LED Christmas lights save approximately 80 percent in electricity reducing your holi- day energy costs over C7 or C9 lights. The cost savings are just one reason for the growing popularity of LED lights. Its long bulb life is another; on average LED lights last up to 50,000 hours! Also, if one of the bulbs on the string burns out, the others will remain lit - yet another bonus of LED lights. Finally LED lights come in a wide array of colors and textures and illuminate with a unique, vivid glow. Wildlife improvements with biomass pilot project Haying portions of two state wildlife management areas (WMAs) and three federal waterfowl production areas (WPAs) in Stevens County may give habitat managers a new tool that encourages native plant growth, attracts more wildlife and reduces dependence on fossil fuels, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Re- sources (DNR). Forty-eight acres of the 300- acre Eldorado WMA and 16 acres of the 160-acre Klason WMA will be cut as part of a biomass pilot project that includes the DNR, University of Minnesota-Morris (UMM) and US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). The USFWS manages an- other 169 acres scheduled to be cut as part of the project. They are Giese Waterfowl Production Area WPA north- west of Donnelly, Pepperton WPA north of Alberta and Lamprecht WPA southwest of Morris. Weather condi- tions prevented prescribed burns on each WPA last spring. The project will examine the harvesting and use of native prairie vegetation as biofuels for an $8.9 million UMM gasification project in which up to 80 percent of campus steam heating needs will be met with locally pro- duced biofuels. “The Minnesota DNR man- ages its lands first and fore- most for wildlife,” said Kevin Kotts, DNR Glenwood area wildlife manager. “We won’t compromise that mission. But cutting these small areas makes sense because we’ll remove some undesirable growth and use the infor- mation we gain to deter- mine if haying is a viable and sensible management practice.” Prairie needs periodic dis- turbance in order to thrive. Land managers today rely on prescribed burning as the chief method for revitalizing prairie growth and control- ling invasive woody growth or noxious weeds. But prescribed burns re- quire exacting weather conditions and significant manpower to conduct, two requirements not always present. So land managers are experimenting with oc- casional grazing and haying, which mimic the grazing once provided by native grazers including bison. Regardless of the pilot project’s success, haying this fall will benefit both WMAs, Kotts said. The cut- tings will remove trees that are invading both sites and undesirable reed canary grass that is competing with native grasses. In addi- tion, the haying will create firebreaks that will make next spring’s planned burns much easier. A crucial part of the proj- ect is to determine whether native grasses are a vi- able biofuel for gasification plants as well as for land- owners, Kotts said. Creating more energy from biomass reduces dependence on foreign oil and private land- owners would benefit by keeping or increasing land in conservation programs. If native grasses are a vi- able fuel, wildlife would benefit from improved land management options for landowners and the sub- sequent increase in acres planted with native grasses. And more grass on the ground would improve wa- ter quality. “The expectation is that this year’s pilot project will provide a lot of answers,” Kotts said. “The lessons learned from this project will help determine what changes need to be made and what direction to go in the future.” HYYTINEN’S Hwy. 210/169 • Aitkin • 218-927-3117 Energy efficient LED Christmas Lights
