Sparkle the Shining Ninja - RIP

My little boy can slaughter a chicken and accompany Reggie the Ram to Matkins Meat Processors.  He has soldiered through the deaths of baby chicks, the guinea fowl massacre, and the failure to thrive of five baby goats.  But this afternoon after the first day of school he was floored when he heard about the violent end of our favorite chicken; Sparkle the Shining Ninja.  The boy sobbed her name over and over - all I could do was hold him and sympathize with him.  We all loved her.

Sparkle was one of our four original chicks.  We brought them home from Sumner-Byrd last August when they were only a few days old and then turned around and took them up to a family reunion in New York State.  Every day we held them and changed their bedding.  They were excellent travelers. 

Two of our original four have gone on to live at Green Dragonfly Farm.  We kept Sparkle and Timmy partly because of their personalities; partly because of the names our children gave them.  They have both gone through many changes over the last year, from brooding in their nesting boxes to exploring tall grasses.  Sparkle surprised us all by eventually flying over the fence and free-ranging it.  She would roam all the way to our doors, clucking for some bread crusts.  She also loved to explore in the garden.  Just last week, she hopped up onto the arm of the camp chair my mom was sitting on in hopes of some treat.  Or maybe she just felt like being friendly.

When I was in London this summer I read an alarming facebook message from my husband stating that Sparkle was missing!  Luckily, she was only hidden away under the tarp on my Dad’s work table incubating her baby chick.  The family enjoyed watching her lead “Baby Sparkle” all around the yard.  Unfortunately, the great outdoors is a rough place for a baby and she disappeared one day. 

Today was another tragic day.  Our dog Molli was the cause of the guinea fowl massacre and she has killed four young unnamed chickens since then.  We mistakenly thought that she could only catch the pullets and that our older chickens would be safe.  We discovered we were wrong when Jason found Sparkle in front of the hen house today.

I knew that my boy had heard the news when I heard the sobbing.  I ran in to hold him, only gaining a break from the tears when I told him I was going to bury her in the garden.  “Not in the garden!” he announced.  I suggested burying her in a corner where I didn’t plant and where the dogs couldn’t dig.  He agreed to this but said “I want to dig”.  We dug as deep as we could in the dry hard ground and put rocks on her grave to protect her.

“I miss Sparkle walking around”, Franklin told me as I shoveled some dirt on top.  I miss her too.

Roaming over to Asheville

One big last Hurrah! before going back to school and getting serious about working, studying, farming, kid raising...Jason and I set off last Thursday morning to the mountain city of Asheville, NC.   Seeming to follow some sort of pattern this summer, I packed for cooler weather and ended up dragging the heat with me.  Light sweater and pants stayed in the bag and I gave thanks for my multiple tanks.
On the way in to Asheville, we stopped at a winery called Lake James.  According to the guy who owns the cheese shop in Asheville, this is one of the few good wineries in Western North Carolina so I guess we were lucky.  We did a wine tasting and couldn't resist buying a red and a couple bottles of white.  Neither of us like sweet wines, but this sweet white wine is out of this world.  It takes like a delicious sparkling apple juice and would be very dangerous on a hot thirsty day.

This coffee shop is imported all the way from London.
It's a converted double-decker bus.

But Asheville is really a place for people who like BEER.  There's the Green Man, The Thirsty Monk, The LAB, to just mention a few.  There are also many places to get freshly squeezed juice.  Of course, there is a fair trade coffee shop on every corner.  And it seems that every Asheville restaurant gets its ingredients from local farms - even the Indian street food restaurant.  Jason and I just walked from place to place trying not to get stuffed at each food joint so that we could save a bit of room for the next place. Following London tradition, I took pictures of a lot of my food and drinks:
First stop, French Broad Chocolates...

This was a cup of chocolate expresso custard with whipped cream on top.

Jason ate a packed-full-of-chocolate brownie with his standard cup of black coffee (served in a pottery mug made by a local artist)

We found this dish of seasonal vegetables, pasta, and goat cheese at an out of the way place called HomeGrown.  The bottle of wine is also called Home Grown, but it was made in California:

A little about pets in Asheville.  People love them.  Dogs are welcome at lots of restaurants and shops.  Some belong to the shoppers and some seem to belong in the shop itself.  I'm wondering about this cat below.  Is it really just relaxing in it's purple neck tutu or is has it collapsed in fury from its undignified predicament?

"Walking? I love walking!" - Jeremy Tankard

I'm missing my 4th floor walk-up London apartment.  A few more months of walking up three flights of stairs multiple times every day and I would be fit as a fiddle!  Of course, that doesn't really fit in to real life. If I had two young children and a real load of groceries to lug up those stairs, I wouldn't be singing their praises.  As it is, I'm back to willing myself to go on walks I don't have to go on.  I don't have to walk from The Elon School to The Acorn to get a cup of coffee.  I don't have to walk through the paths in the woods behind the barn.
I know I didn't have to, but I somehow spontaneously motivated myself to take two dogs and a boy on a walk to the back pasture this afternoon.  It helped that the temperature today was in the mid 80's (instead of high 90's) and that my semester/trimester hasn't officially started yet.  I have more energy now than I will in a week or two.  The boy was not happy about the walk so I sent him back with the larger dog and headed off with little Belle and asked myself as I do every time I walk in the woods "why don't I do this every day?  Multiple times every day?!?"  It rejuvenates the spirit to walk back there.  The day just falls off and curriculum planning, child rearing, and paper writing don't seem so overwhelming.  Bug bites and spider webs can't dampen the spirits while walking through the green shade.  Sometimes you can find a turtle.  Belle loves it too.
So maybe I can remember that next time I think I would rather check email or wash the dishes than go for a walk.  Getting exercise is not enough motivation for me; I need to feel that it's absolutely necessary in other ways.  We're in the process of building a goat corral pretty far back on the property, so the necessity of checking on the goats back there may be the impetus I need.  And once I'm back there, I won't be able to resist going even further.

Cataloguing London Multimedia 2011

Click here to view this photo book larger

Photobook: Cataloguing London Multimedia 2011

My very last project for London Multimedia 2011 is due today and it makes me kind of sad.  After I publish my photobook, all my official ties to this class and my classmates will be through.  Fortunately, we will still have facebook.  I have sometimes cursed but mostly enjoyed posting pictures and thoughts to this blog every day.  It's not really difficult to think of things to write about when you are traipsing around London, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Oxford, and Paris.  Something is bound to come up.

I made this photobook on my Mac with iPhoto instead of with an online program like Shutterfly or Snapfish.  I was therefore able to work on it at internet void places like the Rollerskating rink in Burlington and my house (when the internet decided to flake out).  The European Travel theme was nice to work with and the preset layouts weren't too bad.  I struggled with my desire to move things around - you can't tweak the layouts very much.  It's probably a good thing I didn't have the option to do much custom design with this program since I would still be working on it right now trying to find a way to make myself stop.  The fonts were difficult and confusing to work with but it was easy to move the pages around.  After I had almost completed the book, I decided I wanted to put my categories of pictures into a Dewey Decimal system classification scheme.  I think it works as an organizational method.  I am studying to become a professional librarian after all.

After creating the book, I exported it to itunes then uploaded it to vimeo.com.


Cataloguing London Multimedia 2011 from Beth Lehman on Vimeo.

Hope you like it. I had a joyful time taking all these pictures and putting them together.  I think it's kind of difficult to see and read so I might redo it on Shutterfly after all.  If I do, I'll put it on another blog post.

My favorite London pictures

Dr. E asked us all to post our favorite London picture from the whole trip.  I assumed that included pictures from our time in Paris, Oxford, Stonehenge, and Salisbury so I made a folder in iphoto containing my favorite pictures from the last three weeks.  I soon realized I would not be able to make a choice with so many to select from.  So I made another folder and edited it down to my top 5 pictures that were actually taken in London.  I had to add some more limits to the pictures - they needed to be unique to that moment in time with my individual perspective.  They also needed to connect to a happy memory.  So here are the top five.  It's going to be really tough to pick one:

This was taken from a bus while our Blue Badge guide Shawn talked to us about some of the sites in London.  I was in an "experimenting with raindrops" photography phase that day so what I was focusing on was the streaks down the window.  I love that this pictures also contains a London Underground sign and a black cab.  This building facade was very typical for the part of London we were staying in.

Another picture taken while on a tour with Shawn.  This time we had travelled to the Bromley-by-Bow tube stop on the way to Olympic Park to see some of the East End neighborhood that is being fixed up as part of the preparations for the Summer Olympics 2012.  I loved seeing a part of London that people don't ordinarily travel to see.  I like the contrast of height in the picture above.

I like the look and perspective of St. Paul's Cathedral from here.  I'm including it mainly to brag about the fact that I climbed 530 steps to get to the Golden Gallery and take this picture.

We saw the play Ann Boleyn by Howard Brenton here at the Globe Theater.  We got to sit on the benches and saw the play from this angle.  The place was packed with lots of people standing in the center area of The Globe - I think it was worth standing for but I'm glad I didn't have to.  Great play and performance!

This was taken from our seats at a table at La Piazzetta: juice bar cafe, restaurant.  We found this restaurant on a Sunday when a lot of other places were closed.  It's located at 13 Neal's Yard which is within this brightly painted corner area off of Monmouth Street in the Covent Garden area.  Wonderful food, atmosphere, and colors.

OK, I can't just pick five.  I left off this picture which I love.  While we were walking around one day, I peeked down a side alleyway and saw these flower covered balconies.  I can't remember what street this was off of:

Up before the crack of dawn

Linus and Lizzie say "Good Morning"

In London the sun was up by 5:30 in the morning.  I know that because I would open my eyes, decide to go take a shower before anyone else was up, and by the time I was dressed and ready, it would only be 6:00am.  Now I’m back at Frankora Farm, USA and I opened my eyes to darkness.  Oh no, am I waking up early morning London time?  I looked over at the clock and there it was: 5:30.  Only this time it wasn’t the sun waking me up.  I wonder if this wake-up time will continue into the school year.  If it does and I can get through the day without collapsing that would be GREAT.  I had decided in London that I would love to be one of those people who only needs 3-4 hours of sleep.  Sure, a good sleep is nice but it seems like such a waste of time.  When I went to winter camp many years ago at Deering Conference Center I met a man named Gordon who could do anything - chop wood, fix cars, talk about God stuff without making you feel uncomfortable – and he said that he only slept about 3 hours a night – that’s all he needed.  At the time I thought that sounded kind of lonely or boring to be awake when everybody else is asleep.  Being what my life is now, that sounds completely necessary.  Unfortunately, I am completely exhausted by 9:00pm at night – jet lag and all.  Jason and I took the kids over to their friends’ house last night for a pool party until 8:30pm and I felt horrific on the way home.  When we got here, I asked the kids to put their jammies on, thinking I would read them a story. 

(Side note – Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mixes can hear too well.  Belle is whining because she can hear me typing from three rooms away.)

They didn’t jump to it and I in turn collapsed on the bed.  Jason walked in with panic on his face.  I tried to pre-empt any requests for evening time chores by stating how sick and tired I felt.  “Can you at least do the dogs and cats?” he asked with exasperation.  Nope (I asked Cora to do those chores).  Now I’m up and I’m sure that I will be shouldering a portion of the load in a few minutes.  There is milking the goat, feeding and watering the poultry, taking the dogs out, feeding dogs and cats, cleaning litter boxes, getting breakfast for the kids, and that’s just the stuff to do to make sure everyone stays alive.  Listing off these things emphasizes again to me that there is no way I would have been able to do my multimedia projects for my summer classes if I had done them from home.  As guilty as I felt leaving everybody at home, going to London was absolutely necessary, even with all the distractions of the city itself. Nobody asked me to get or to prepare anything for them.  I only had to worry about my own survival as I pulled coins together to get something to eat and avoided speeding taxis.  I could spend as long as I wanted figuring out how to add songs and voice to a video and cut out the original sound of the track.

So how will I do it all now?  I’m wondering if it is too late to sign the kids up for a week of summer camp since Jason and I both need to work non-stop to get ready for our classes in the fall.  My last multimedia class project will be complete and embedded in this blog by the end of the weekend so I should have a week or two off until my FSU fall class starts.  I still need to catalog all the new books for the library.  I would like to get some seeds planted in the last garden plot I made so we can have fresh veggies this fall.  I have so many books to read and reread so that I’m ready to teach them in the fall.  There are also the fun things that I’ve been looking forward to doing with my family – taking a bike ride, playing a board game, making some cookies, showing visitors around this fun place.

So back to my point – sleep.  I would really rather not and I’ll be trying to figure out a healthy way to get as little as possible.  Here’s to a 5:30am wake-up time!