Study break

Last weekend I went with a friend to a cheese-making workshop at a suburban goat farm just north of Nashville. Not only did we learn how to make chevre and mozzarella, we got to feed a week-old kid and hang out with a few others that were just days old:

Don't let the perspective fool you: this goat is indeed just about the same size as this chicken.

Flora and fauna

At long last, I'm home in Philadelphia! Friends, neighborhood hangout spots, the sideyard garden, sensible public transit,* and -- most importantly -- my favorite husband ever all point to good summer times a-comin'. 

Before I left Nashville, though, I found time for a weekend adventure with my friend Carrie, an up-and-coming docent at the Nashville Zoo (and an all-around all-star to boot). She has beautifully blogged about our escapade here, so click through and read that. Go ahead, I'll wait.



All done? Here are a few other photos from the zoo day:

 (I was fascinated by these life-sized statues of donors to the zoo that occasionally appeared in different settings. Just...wow.)


The day after the zoo trip, I got to hear Nicaraguan revolutionary, priest, and poet Father Ernesto Cardenal read from his new collection of poetry entitled The Origin of Species. He calls this "science poetry," and I was moved by it. Click here to check out a reading he did a few days before he came to Nashville -- from what I can tell it's similar to the presentation he gave at Vanderbilt. 


Then Saturday, I biked down to South Philly to find the Wild Foodies, a Meetup group for foragers of wild edibles. We mucked around near the pond in FDR Park and I got to sample curly dock, burdock, mulberry leaves, and garlic mustard, among other delectables. I've been wanting to learn about foraging in these here parts for quite a while, but I figured it was in my better interest to go with people who know what they're doing. 

 Lesson one: check. Now on to finishing our garden for the year.

* I know, I just wrote that about SEPTA! This should tell you more about Nashville's system than anything else could. 

Pac-Man cornbread

So, a few photos from the handy iPhone, which reminds me that the best camera is the one you have with you, and lo and behold I always have my phone, so by default it's the best camera I own. (Is that sad?)


I made buttermilk cornbread in a cast-iron skillet last week and it was amazing! As you can see Pac-Man loves chevre cheese as much as I do. Goat cheese is easy to digest for all you L.I. folks out there like me (that's Lactose Intolerant for all you laypeople).


Grace from work scored this new string art for me from an estate sale -- she and her boyfriend went to bid on a Gator with a snowplow, and out they came with a string-art golfer that I won by text in bidding. What?!


This place looks amazing. How can you make a bar easier than paying money for alcohol? Ummm best go and find out.


Snow is pretty -- as seen here on this Blue Atlas Cedar -- but really killing me: after three days of shoveling and snow-blowing I am sore sore sore.

Our backyard friend is surviving the winter just fine. Here he/she is watching 3 dogs barking at him/her without flinching.

Last night a bunch of us went sledding after making homemade eggnog and drinking it in an igloo. I drank the milk-laden eggnog without eggs and without dairy products, so figure it out. Sledding last night was the first time this winter that I enjoyed the snow instead of endlessly moving it around.

What language do you speak?

-- is nearly an irrelevant question. How, or why, or where, or when, or with whom you speak might all be more informative. On the other hand, maybe those questions are all tied up in the choice of which language to speak when.

I've long been interested in the issues surrounding translation among languages, and I spent a lot of time this week reading about language and how it works (Wittgenstein, MacIntyre, Kristeva, anyone?). Is language a social phenomenon? How does narrative work to construct self-identity?

I remember reading years ago about Alex, the African gray parrot who was perhaps the non-human animal most fluent in a human language. He was able to communicate effectively on a number of fronts -- to the point of coining words -- but I always thought it was a little suspect to evaluate his intelligence based on his performance in a second language.  I was happy to discover this morning that language is not, after all, distinctive to humans, and we will have the chance to learn the syntax of another species. Hopefully they think we're smart (and that speaking with us is worth their while!).

As a side note, I saw Whistler's mother at the Frist last Saturday. She's looking as well as ever. 

[Insert joke about her talkativeness here...]

 

Kids in sweaters

I went to the PA Farm Show this past week and it was amazing. As proof, I submit the following:

Yes indeed, that is a THOUSAND POUNDS OF BUTTER! This is definitely the most action I've seen from dairy products in quite a while.

Q. What's better than watching the very cool (okay, and slightly gross) process of chicks hatching?

A. Watching duckings swim and slide! (As long as you were lucky enough to catch one of their performances, of course.)

Is this a reindeer? If so, is this what usually happens to them in the off season?

Aaaaw, angora rabbit!

Even more aaaaaaww: super-cute alpacas! (Do you think the neighbors would notice if we kept a few of these in the sideyard?)

Lest you think the farm show is all cute animals and food sculptures, this is what it mostly looks like:

That's a crazy amount of people, but I guess PA is 90% rural and 10% Philadelphia (okay, hi Pittsburgh), so it's no wonder there were thousands of people there.

Back to the cute animals:

Cutest. things. ever.

and then...

As you may have noticed from the upsurge in posts, Sharon and I are back to living apart. She has a tish (but not more) of spare time on her hands as the semester isn't fully in motion yet, and I have no class at UPenn at the moment. So time abounds. The biggest news for me over the past week is my attempt to cut back on my cheese intake. I already don't eat meat, drink milk or much fast food, so the loss of cheese is a big hit. For various reasons I decided to cut back, and about one week later I'm doing okay. I've found that I am much better at NOT doing something than starting something new (like flossing).

That was exciting. In other fun news, on my commute to work on Monday I was surprised to see a deer out in the middle of a creek on an icy logjam under a bridge. I thought about taking a photo, then decided against it -- I didn't want to spook the deer into a cold icy death, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Today I saw a fox and when I stopped to look, he ran away a bit then stopped to look at me. We watched each other for a minute until it got too cold to just be standing around in sub-freezing temps staring at another species. Later in the day I saw a group of deer trotting through the woods with a big proud buck prancing behind his ladies like one of those high-steppy fancy horses (like this).

I've enrolled to take the Arborist Certification Exam at the end of the month. I still have a class project due from my class at UPenn last semester, and my intern project needs to get rolling something serious to save myself from embarrassment. The Morris Arboretum spring course catalog just came, out so I'm picking out my favorites (one of the perks of being an intern are the free courses).

Lastly, as I sit here in Philadelphia with snow falling, the hum of four-wheelers racing in the streets, and the faint smell of smoke from yet another warehouse fire about a mile away, I remember where I was a year ago today: in Desarmes, Haiti, just finishing up a fun weekend with friends. A lot has changed since then. We are happy to be back in the US and look forward to the future. The news stories from Haiti are still heartbreaking: disease, destruction and corruption. My faith in international aid has been practically obliterated, as I see where Haiti is today and the many foreigners that have come and gone (a little wealthier with their resumes bolstered). I know good people there are doing good work, I just wish they were all those good people. This article seems spot-on in the Huff post.

The bull with bangs.

We had to measure trees today and this was on the other side of an electric fence:

We weren't sure if we should be scared or give it a noogie, we chose scared.

Resettling.

It turns out that the best way to get started in a new phase is family...

and food...

and friends.

Well, okay, the dogs of friends, but everyone knows that admiring dogs is the best way to connect with other people. 

Phew, new blog, post one: done and done.