Our good friend Bill McKelvey recently visited the farm and told us of a how-to paper he had describing how to take your own aerial photos with a kite and a digital camera. We thought the idea sounded fantastic, and saw it as a great event for a farm day of the future.

Before planning for such fun though, we thought that we should first start taking the steps needed to become expert kite-people. We figured that with all of the scrap materials we have on the farm we could easily construct a kite for no cost.

So…with a little web surfing, some old lath, a peat moss bag, tomato twine, a stapler, and some old rags, we attempted our first kite today. After several unsuccessful combinations of materials (row cover appears to be too thin) we hit it right with the peat moss bag for the kite and old tea towels and t-shirt material for the tail.

The wind was a little weak, but despite that we got the kite up and flying–a successful trial run. Now we will start working on the contraption needed to house the digital camera, and play around with some kite designs and sizes.

If you have kite flying experience we would love to hear from you. We look forward to having some fun with the late-Winter and Spring winds that always cross the farm.

Tom with his kite.

Rebecca launching the kite.