A Special Song from Gavin

I asked our almost 2 1/2 year old nephew, Gavin, to sing a song. This is what came out - priceless!

Birthday Gifts

So I turn 27 on Sunday, which sounds much older than I feel. I have been so busy with work and school that it seemed to just sneak up on me a little.

I share a birthday week with our friend, Andrew, so his wife, Kristen, and Tim decided to throw a joint birthday party. We went to this wonderful place called Harry's Country Club which is nothing like a country club. It's just a laid back and fun place - perfect for the "Andrew/Trinity Birthday Celebration". This gift of time and fun that my friends gave me was the best. I am so thankful for good friends. It has been a great 27th birthday so far!

My wonderful husband also got me a new digital camera for my birthday. My digital camera broke about 6 months ago and I have been missing taking pictures. I love looking back at pictures of the past as a way to remember then and see the difference time has made. So now a gift for you - pictures on the blog!! We are headed to Atlanta in a couple of weeks and I will be ready with the new camera!

First picture on the new camera - thanks Tim!

Andrew - makes me laugh and reminds me there is reason to hope

Kristen - helps me feel less crazy, more creative and peaceful


Melissa - someone you can always count on to be there

Erin - full of energy and joy


Jayson and Eric - new friends that are very thoughtful and so much fun!


Happy Birthday Andrew!

Just for fun

We're still waiting on the video to get up, but here are some great photos from our recent gig. Have you ever seen NSync's video for Bye, Bye, Bye? Well, here's our version!

Can you tell who's in the lineup? When the curtain opened our fans were so loud we couldn't even hear the music! I'm not kidding. At this point we are all thinking "How are we going to do this with no music?!"

That's me singing to the fans.


One of the more dramatic moments.

Did you figure everyone out yet? For the Jewell folks out there, that's Dr. Calvin Permenter (Cal), me, Jeff Buscher (campus minister), Josh (a student), and Dr. Brad Chance (JBrad)

JBrad stole the show!

Festival of Shelters

Tonight I will be participating in a Festival of Shelters at Cherith Brook. The Festival is based on the traditional Jewish festival of Sukkot.

From CB:

The Festival of Shelters comes to us from Leviticus 23:42 where the People of God are instructed to build simple shelters and to live in them for seven days remembering a lifetime of days spent homeless, wandering the wilderness, in search of food and water, hoping for a promised place. The Festival also became a harvest celebration where the people remembered what it was like to be hungry and thirsty and to show gratitude for God’s provision of food.

WHY DO WE DO IT?
Our Festival of Shelters is intended to be a challenge to resist and celebration of rejoicing:
· We who have plenty are reminded that we have all experienced need and, that it is God who provides our needs;
· We are challenged to move away from greed and pride of wealth and accumulation;
· And to remember and that the stranger, the wanderer, the homeless and the hungry are specially loved and cared for by God.

We'll start with a celebration and blessing of the homeless tonight, and then I will head out with a small group of people to spend the night on the streets with some of our homeless friends in the Old NE. I did NOT take off work on Monday, so I will also be seeing what it's like to go to work after a night on the streets. I am excited about this eye opening experience. I'll let you know how it goes.

Camera download

I cleaned out the memory card on my camera today, so here are some photos of all kinds of things!

Allison, Wes & Lucy came to see us in May, and never made it onto the blog... We had a great time with them, especially Lucy! All the animals still miss her.

Twister doesn't get much blog love these days, so I thought I'd put him on here. See him sniffing around the tomatoes plants? He likes to sneak one off the vine when we're not looking for a quick snack!

The Ladies are doing well and giving us lots of eggs. We recently froze a bunch of pumpkin puree from the garden, and gave the Ladies one of their favorite treats - pumpkin scraps.

Benton is always looking for a new place to nap. Here you can see he is cozy in a paper grocery bag.

We attended the KC Ethnic Enrichment Festival again this fall. We learned that this is the biggest festival of this kind in the US. Of all the BIG cities out there with so many people represented, KC celebrates this with more energy than any other. Hope to see you there in the future!

This guy spent a few weeks gathering his dinner in the garden this summer. We've had lots of spiders, but this is by far the biggest. You can see how big it is by noticing the fly and the big bumble bee caught in the web next to it. I was extra careful when I inched in for this shot!

We threw a Baby Celebration for the new additions to our community. Here's Trinity with the two moms! Annen is already here, and Baby Sweeten is on the way soon.

Trinity and I went on a day trip to Weston, MO with Merci.

Here's a photo from Badseed Urban Farm that we took on the Urban Farms Tour this summer.

Some of the more colorful produce from the garden.

I dug these boulders out of one of the new garden beds this spring. You can see how big it is compared to the shovel. I about broke my back pulling it out of there. In fact, there is another one as big as this still in the ground that I gave up on.

Jim & Andrew & Christina also made the trek from ATL to visit us. Here we are at the Nelson.

Plagued

I am disturbed by the level of paranoia surrounding the H1N1 virus. Some of the suggestions for how to avoid getting this flu might in fact make one successful at not getting it, but at what cost? Take a look at this exhaustive list of suggestions for example: http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-the-Flu-at-University

Of course washing our hands frequently and thoroughly, avoiding excessive amounts of alcohol, and getting enough rest, nutrition and exercise are important all the time, especially when the flu is going around, but there are also many suggestions in circulation that I believe to be problematic:

• Avoid getting too close to others (you never know who might make you sick!).
• Avoid using silverware in the cafeteria; use sealed, disposable plastic ware instead (you can't be sure those lazy folks behind the scenes cleaned it properly!).
• Avoid salad bars, bread baskets, or other communal food sources (basically, don't eat anything unless you have washed and prepared it safely yourself!).
• Order your meals "To Go" so that it is served on disposable and portable containers or bags and not reusable plates and trays (and additionally, you don't have to eat with all those sick people in the public space either!)
  
• Wash your clothes after they have been near other people.
  
• Change your clothes and shower after you go out and about.
• Avoid parties and social events (become a recluse until this thing blows over!)
• At all costs, avoid physical contact with any and everyone!

So, here's the problem. What kind of people would we be if we live like this, afraid of everyone and everything around us? What are we willing to sacrifice in order to stay "healthy?" Is this behavior actually "healthy behavior" anyway? If we all stay at a "safe" distance from each other, what is the point of staying healthy? I guess we can all stay home and watch TV shows in the clean comfort of our sterile living rooms. The actors can't make us sick through the air waves right. And let's stick to e-mail and phone calls to keep up with our friends and family too.

If you ask me, living like this sounds like a plague of another kind, and I do not plan on doing it. Maybe I'm living on the edge, but I would rather live fully in the present than hide in fear of the possible future. I will do so with freshly washed hands and a good night's rest, but I will not be hiding out at home with a can of Lysol in my hand for the rest of my life. I hope to see you out there!

Support urban farming in KC

Support Urban Food Production in Kansas City!!

Whether you grow local food or buy local food, this information is very important to you. Come to BADSEED, Tuesday, October 20, 6:00-7:30 pm, to discuss proposing City Code changes that will benefit Urban Agriculture.

BADSEED has gotten a lot of flack and legal pressure lately about farming in the city, and I want to invite Kansas City friends and allies to support Kansas City urban farming by coming to this initial meeting.

Katherine Kelly of KCCUA says, "In our meetings with the Urban Planning and Development staff, and with various city council people, they expressed a willingness to work with us to develop codes that more accurately fit the ways that urban food production is developing in Kansas City, MO. They are in a review period looking at the revised codes, so the timing is good for refinements.

The Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, Bad Seed Farm, and the Food Policy Coalition for Greater Kansas City are organizing a meeting of any interested community members who would like to have input into this process. You are invited to attend, Tuesday, October 20, 6:00-7:30 pm, at the Bad Seed Market at 1909 McGee, Kansas City, MO."

The goals of the meeting are:

· To look at existing codes that impact urban agriculture,

· To brainstorm about changes that might be useful and supportive of the benefits of urban agriculture, and

· To put together a volunteer committee of Kansas City, MO residents to lead the codes revisions process. This committee would work with KCCUA, the Food Policy Coalition, and city staff to research possibilities, prioritize, draft, and build political support for more urban ag applicable codes.

· Start a process that other municipalities in the metro area can use as inspiration and as a model for creating more urban ag friendly cities.

At the meeting, we will have KCMO Councilwoman Beth Gottstein, Patty Knoll from the Planning and Development Department of the city, and possibly other city representatives.

PLEASE RSVP! They want to have some idea of how many folks to expect. And, if you can, bring a folding chair, Bad Seed will have some on hand, but depending on the numbers, we may need more.

If you have any questions about this, you can contact:
Katherine Kelly, KC Center for Urban Agriculture, 913-831-2444, or katherine@kccua.org
Gretchen Kunkel, Food Policy Coalition of Greater Kansas City, ghkunkel@kc.rr.com
Dan Heryer & Brooke Salvaggio, badseedfarm@hotmail.com

Even if you can't make commitments to the long process ahead, I hope we can have lots of people show overwhelming support for this initial meeting. Hope to see you there!

The next morning it was time to begin the journey back home. We woke up and packed, took down the tent and straightened up our campsite. We stopped at another overlook on the way back through the park, away from the campgrounds, to see one more view and say goodbye to Arches. We wanted to see Moab one more time, so we headed into town for breakfast at Eclectica Café, browsing the various flea market items for sale while we waited for our food to cook. Then, time to hit the road. We drove back through eastern Utah and into the mountains of Colorado, stopping for lunch at the Happy Cooker in Georgetown, and then a stroll around town to stretch our legs.

After lunch we were back to the road and on the final chapters of our book. Trinity was driving, and I was riding and reading slowly to savor the last chapters and pages of the story. The end of The Time Traveler’s Wife is so beautiful and sad and happy all at the same time, and we were rolling through the mountains of Colorado balling our eyes out as we finished the book. I stopped a few times to make sure it was safe for Trinity to be driving through her tears!

We contemplated driving through the evening to get back home late Saturday night, but we have both been miserable when we’ve tried to do that before, so we opted for another night in the tent. It was finally time to check out Bonny Lake, where we had originally planned to stop the first night. We got a few more groceries for dinner, and then figured out which of the many forms to fill out at the ranger station now empty for the night. Now that we had a few nights behind us and knew exactly what needed to be done and where everything was, we had the tent up, the fire blazing, and dinner started within ten minutes of pulling up to our spot. Another night of eating in the dark, but no mishaps this time!

Even though we still had more than a few hours across Kansas to go in the morning, we were back to the rolling plains of our part of the country, and the sights and sounds were a little more familiar to us. It was nice to hear the crickets and tree frogs chirping in the distance, though I certainly did not miss the mosquitoes in the desert. There were even a few little frogs hopping around the bathroom to welcome us back to (almost) home.

Then Sunday. A long day. I have an above average appreciation for the drive through Kansas, but wow this day seemed to drag on forever. Our book was finished, it was the last day of our wonderful vacation and back to work the next day (with many of the typical vacation reentry realizations), and I-70 on Kansas is long and flat.

Actually, that might be an appropriate way to describe how we were feeling during that part of the drive, and how I have felt many times for the last couple of years, in this confusing stage of my life – long and flat. We’re still trying to figure out how we can bring that calm and collected, optimistic, rejuvenated spirit with us through more than just vacation days. Some days are good, others not so much. Writing about our trip has helped, and I wonder in what ways I can perceive my daily experiences differently, see the bright side, the possibilities, the resourceful opportunities that I miss in the midst of a boring and stressful routine. How can I transform the boredom and stress; and into what? The desert of Utah was a time of renewal for us, because we chose to embrace it in that way. How can this time of desert in my life be renewal too? How and what do I need to embrace to make it so?

One of the themes of The Time Traveler’s Wife is embracing the present moment, because really, the present is all we have. When things are great, like vacation highs, this is easy for me, as it is for most of us, but other times it’s very hard because I am so adept and practiced at focusing on the negatives of any particular moment. After we got home and unloaded the car into the living room floor we decided we needed another hike, this time around the neighborhood. As we walked Trinity had the brilliant idea to just ask, “What is good about this moment?” and so we’ve been working on that question in many present moments since.

Even though we are practicing finding the positive in the present, we are also looking forward to our next big trip, and hopefully some smaller camping trips in the meantime. I am dreaming of a long crazy float trip down the Colorado River, through Canyonlands or the Grand Canyon, to see the same places from another perspective!

I woke up the next morning a bit on the early side, so I quietly unzipped the sleeping bag and tent and stepped out into the cool smooth sand without disturbing Trinity. The sun was just beginning to creep over the rocks so I grabbed the camera for a few shots, and then I put it down so I could enjoy the present moment with my own unobstructed eyes. It was a drizzly morning with clouds floating by and showers coming and going. We were planning to take a day trip to the nearby Canyonlands National Park, an hour away from Arches, and from anything else, including food. Rather than pack a full lunch, we decided to have a large leisurely breakfast before heading out, so I started a fire and enjoyed the early campground quiet before most folks stirred from their tents, reading the Michael Jackson Special Commemorative Issue of Rolling Stone. I made a big skillet of fried potatoes, toast, and coffee and when it was about ready I went to wake Trinity for breakfast.


After cleanup and afternoon snack packing, we headed to Canyonlands over more Time Traveler’s Wife. Canyonlands National Park is huge, and there is actually no way to go all the way through the park, across the main canyon. Wait, let me rephrase that – there is no way in a car to go all the way through the park – backpacking through is certainly an option, but one we were not prepared for! In order to see the whole park by car, you have to drive hours and hours around it to three different entrances. This adventure would take days, unless your goal was literally just to drive around the whole thing and not really enjoy where you were going, so we picked the closest entrance, the Island in the Sky section, and headed for the visitors center. There was an exuberant young Park Ranger setting up for a brief presentation, so we started our visit learning about the Utah Juniper and Big Horn Sheep, from a very excited graduate student/Park Ranger!

We were pretty worn out and sore from yesterday’s hikes, so we picked a lesser trail, which luckily was also supposed to be one of the most beautiful in this park. We still hiked more than a couple of miles throughout the day. Canyonlands is where the Colorado River and the Green River meet, and there are some amazing views of these rivers curling through the canyon hundreds of feet below. We hiked this first trail, and then took it easy the rest of the day, driving to the “overlook” spots for the views. We heard another Park Ranger extolling the beauty of the nearby Dead Horse State Park, so we decided to drive there after we had seen the main spots in Canyonlands.




We rounded out the day with more leisure time by the fire and another early night to bed. This was a much slower day of good home cooking, sunrises, canyon vistas, and reading… that wonderful stuff that vacations are made of. Why can’t we take time to enjoy these kinds of things at home more often? I am simultaneously determined to find it in my daily life at home, and plagued by the fact that my youthful optimism seems to be seeping away with each day’s commute to the office… Well, I don’t want to end this installment on a sour note, so here’s a look on the brighter side:

Once when we were starting one of the trails, we saw a couple of boys, maybe 10-15 years old, waiting at the entrance by themselves, kicking and tearing at one of the old worn out fence posts. We were both annoyed and disgusted with these guys, and I tried my trusty old passive aggressive technique of saying, “Wow, I can’t believe they’re doing that,” loud enough for them to hear. But they did not hear and kept right on destroying. So, Trinity turned around and walked back over to them and scolded them with a little lecture! After the hike when we walked back by, the fence post was safe and sound thanks to Trinity and her laughable sidekick.

One night while we were cooking dinner on the campfire it had gotten pretty late on us, and it was dark by the time it was ready to eat. Donning my oven mitts, I grabbed the cast iron pot off of the fire and set it down on the picnic table and we dug in. After we finished a delicious meal of our household favorite picadillo (a Costa Rican recipe for “green bean hash” from our Extending the Table cookbook) we began to clean up. When I went to grab the cast iron pot… It didn’t budge. Yes, the metal picnic table in fact had a plastic coating to prevent it from rusting, which I did not notice in the dark, which the hot cast iron pot had melted and was not quite stuck to. I pulled and pulled, but it was holding tight. I wish I could say that I held my cool, but for a few minutes I was quite upset and wondering if I had just ruined my favorite pot, and donated it to the park ranger!

After a few minutes I calmed down and got creative. I put some rocks into the fire to get hot and when they began to glow red I grabbed them with the tongs and put them into the pot so they could reheat the cast iron. In a matter of seconds the plastic softened back up and it popped right off of the table. The next morning in the light I could see that there was definitely some evidence left on the table, and on the bottom of my pot – and I could also see that I was not the first one to have done this! The good news is the next time we used the cast iron, all plastic melted away and the pot is now as good as new, and I got a great opportunity to be resourceful.

After our night of camping in Moab we got up bright and early to go grab ourselves a spot in the Arches National Park campground. We got their in plenty of time and had no problem getting a site for the next two nights. The park is so big that it is actually more than a thirty minute drive into the park to get to the campsites. We headed in to choose our site, ignoring our desire to stop and gawk at all the amazing scenery along the way. We were on a mission! The campsites at Arches are wonderful, clean, and far away from traffic, and we had plenty of room to spread out and enjoy the peace and quiet. Knowing that we’d be tired after the day of hiking and sunset watching we had planned, we put up the tent and then headed out for our first hike to see some arches.


Our first trek was the 4 mile hike to see Landscape and Double O Arches. The half a mile or so to Landscape is pretty easy, with a clear path, and then it switches to a “primitive trail” with nothing more than piles of rocks (cairns) showing you where to go. We made lots of stops in the hot, dry sun to drink water. There were many people making the trek with us, and in fact it began to feel like we were hiking in another country! We heard a handful of languages, but the one we heard the most was French. This remained the case throughout our two days in Utah – we must have been right in the middle of French (or Canadian) holiday season.

Landscape Arch

Double O Arch (Tim standing in the bottom O)

After a few hours of hiking with our French friends we made it back to the car just in time to avoid the heat of the afternoon and headed into Moab for lunch and air conditioning at Paradox Pizza. We lingered there and did a little window shopping in Moab. We did get some postcards to send out, a magnet for our souvenir magnet collection, a sun hat for Trinity, and a cup of coffee in some more AC. We wanted to make sure we rested up for the sunset hike, so we headed back to camp to chill with our book in the shade for the last hour or so.

Then we hiked up, up, up another 3 miles to see the iconic Delicate Arch at sunset. This was a beautiful site to see, and a lot of fun to do with the many other people (hundreds maybe?) with the same idea. As we were sitting there with all of these strangers enjoying the unique view of the arch and watching the sunset I felt a deep ancient connection to the throngs of people who came before us to see and experience the same wonder. It felt as though we were sitting there with more than just the people we could see today. We had light synthetic backpacks and aluminum water bottles, while other wore animal skins and carried water bottles made from bladders, but with our eyes and our spirits we were all beholding this same awesome vista of creation. The sense of reverence was amazing.

About half way up the climb.
You can see the cars way back there in the original photo.

Delicate Arch

As we hiked back down toward the cars, we made a stop to see some petroglyphs (rock engravings) carved about 500 years ago, another wondrous sight.


After a full day of hiking we made it back to the tent and crawled in for a very good night’s rest.