Bees, Beets and Alpacas

Linda and I arrived in Norman, OK on Wednesday afternoon and got settled in at our site. Our friends, Bobbie and Jim decided to stop and spend an evening with us before moving down the road to New Mexico. They set up in the site next to us and we had a good time catching up with them. Our friends Dave and Susie Smeal, who live here in Norman, came out to the campground after Susie got off work and we all had supper together. It was really windy and cold outside so we all got together inside Bobbie and Jim's 5th wheel to hang out. At 8:30 we broke up the party cause it had been a long day and Thursday was a work day for us. The next morning Bobbie and Jim got on the road, after Linda made them breakfast, and we headed off to work.

Linda and I have 10 more parks to do and then we are taking a 6 month leave of absence from AGS. I have applied for an internship at the White Violet Center for Eco Justice in Indiana and I got it ! I'm really excited about it because it combines all sorts of things that I am interested to learn more about. For those who don't know me, I grew up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania and as a youngster I had a produce stand where I sold fresh veggies and fruit that came from our garden. Before going on the road, I was the food service director at Pennsylvania College of Technology for 18 years and there I worked with a local farmer co-op to bring grass fed beef and milk products to the dining halls, as well as created a composting program with the grounds dept and worked with a local bio-diesel company to collect the waste oil from our fryers to turn it into fuel. I have strong ties to our food systems and am very concerned with where it is headed and the ingredients that are going into our food. That is why I'm so thrilled to find a place that cares about this as much as I do so we can learn from each other. They are excited to "pick my brain" on the initiatives that I had at the college.

Here is a little info, from Wikipedia about what the White Violet Center does:

White Violet Center for Eco-Justice is a non-profit eco-justice education center focusing on organic agriculture, spiritual ecology and social advocacy. Founded in 1996 by Sister of Providence Ann Sullivan, the center is a ministry of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana. The center grew out of the Roman Catholic women religious congregation's commitment to eco-spirituality and sustainability.^[1]

The center maintains a herd of alpacas, 343 acres (1.39 km²) of state-certified organic farmland, bees, a berry patch, a farmers' market, classified forest and orchards.^[2] White Violet Center hosts field trips, workshops and film series to educate both children and adults. The center has hosted a variety of speakers including cosmologist Brian Swimme, beekeeper Günther Hauk, author Judy Cannato and essayist Scott Russel Sanders.

White Violet Center is considered an "engaged project" by the Yale University Forum on Religion and Ecology.^[3] It is also featured in Sarah McFarland Taylor's 2007 book Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology.^[4]

 

They run a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program, which means that people can buy into the program and then each week,  during the growing season, they get an assortment of vegetables for their personal use. Here is an example of what folks got on their May16th pick-up last year. They run a summer and fall program. I will be an intern in the garden area but will get time with the bees, alpacas and other areas too. I want to learn it all ! Anything they can show me, I'm happy to learn about.

I will live in a dorm type of setting, have a private bedroom and shared bath and laundry areas. Although this is an organization run by Roman Catholic nuns, they seem really cool and I haven't had the sense that there are heavy overtones of religion. It's all about spiritual ecology, which is where my heart is at....love and care for the Earth. Two of the hardest things will be that Linda will take the rig, car and Boomer and go back east to see family and stay there during this time. The other thing will be dealing with that dreaded "S" word during winter and cold temps. I haven't been in really cold weather since we left to go on the road in 2007 so I'm pretty sure my blood is pretty thin and I will need to bundle up way more than most people till I get used to it. When we finish up our jobs in Wyoming on August 10, we will make our way to Indiana, where Linda will drop me off. She will hang out in a campground for a night or two till I see if I've forgotten to pack anything that I really need for six months. That's the sweet thing about living in an RV...anywhere you go, you have everything you need with you cause it's everything you own !

So in the coming months you'll see me talk about making plans for this new adventure, woven (no pun intended) into talk about where we are and what we're currently doing. Hope it won't get too confusing. Just think about all the cool things I can blog about when I get to the farm ! Speaking of the farm, last Sunday Linda and I went to an alpaca farm that was in Medina, TX to visit the owners there and learn more about alpacas. It was really neat. They had 43 alpacas and in another week they were due to be sheared. Their fiber is soooo dense...Leigh and Chuck showed us how thick it is on a couple of them. Once they are sheared they look so skinny cause the fiber fills them out so much. Each alpaca can produce 4-8# of fiber each year. The fiber from different areas on their body is used for different things. Leigh has made all sorts of things from the fiber and has it for sale in her shop. It's so soft but really warm for as light is it is. It was funny to watch the alpacas interact with each other and with the farm dog, Luke, who guards them from predators. Luke comes and goes through all of their pastures but a couple of the alpacas get a little attitude with him when he comes onto their turf. They like to chase after him and make him go back out his little escape hatch in the corner of the fence. When the alpacas get a little sassy with each other, they'll spit at each other. Not something you want to get in the middle of cause if comes from deep in their stomach and is pretty nasty smelling stuff. We had a great time talking and learning about alpacas. During my internship this fall, I'll get to card and spin the alpaca fiber they have from their 40 alpacas. A new skill to master ! Hopefully I'll be better at that than I am with crocheting. My mom and grandmother tried to teach me how to crochet but I couldn't get the hang of it. Maybe it was because I had creeks to explore and my bike to ride and no patience for sitting inside with yarn on my lap. Who knows...maybe it's not too late for me to learn. We're excited for the new adventure ahead !

Lake? Medina

Up until Thursday we were staying in Bandera at Skyline Ranch RV Park. We had a great site out by the pasture so we could watch the  steer and donkeys. Who needs an alarm clock when the donkeys and roosters go off at the crack of dawn each day ? Being here makes a connection, for me, with my roots of growing up on a dairy farm. Boomer loves watching the deer when they come out each evening and stroll through the campground. The little ones would crawl under the fence and the big ones jump over the fence....it was cute to watch.

On Sunday, the 17th, we drove down to Hondo, to the Skp park, to visit our friends Wendy and Cindy. Since it was St. Patty's day, they had fixed an awesome Irish meal of corned beef and cabbage with some Irish side dishes. We brought a non-Irish dessert of apple pie, apple ice cream and apple strudel coffee. We had picked up all of these at the Apple Store, in Medina just before we drove down to see them. The apple pie was hot out of the oven just before we got there....it was so yummy ! They use 5# of apples in every pie they make. A high dome crust, filled to the top with apples. I didn't realize it, until I spent time talking with the owner of the Apple Store but he is the largest propagator of maple trees in the state of Texas. He raises the "Lost Maple" trees, which are a sugar maple and grow 3' per year. He has a variety of trees for sale outside the store. We had a great time with the girls. On Wednesday, they came to Bandera to do some sight seeing and joined us at the 11th Street Cowboy Bar for Steak night. Everyone brings their own meat and you cook it yourself over large grills they have gotten ready. There are all sorts of seasonings available and for $6 you get salad, a huge baked potato, roll and all the fixins to go with your entree. It had been quite a while since I've had a baked potato and theirs was particularly yummy (I don't think the blue cheese dressing I put on top of it in lieu of sour cream hurt either). Linda's cousin and his family joined us and we had a great time with our friends and family.

Ok, so that catches me up to now. It's Saturday and we are in Lakehills next to Lake Medina, which doesn't look much like a lake anymore. The water is down 70 feet and it looks like a big crater in the ground. I wish I could find a picture to post of this same shot from three years ago when we first came to this area....it was bad then. It's really sad now. This picture is taken at the top of the hill before you descend down to the ranch where our campground is, along the shores of the lake. The drought has affected so many of the homes and businesses in the area. People's wells are going dry...businesses are closing up. But people keep chugging along, hoping for some enduring rain to fill the lake and several people told me that it can happen in 36 hours. Someone told me that 10" of rain would go a long way to filling it and it's happened a number of times in the past 10 years. If a category 2 hurricane were to come ashore near Corpus Christi and then slow over the Bandera area and just dump the rain, it would do the trick. Hoping for rain for this area (no loss of life) but the one time where a little hurricane might be welcomed in this area. 

I mentioned that the campground is part of a working ranch. Yep, we drive through the pasture to get in and out of here. More calves this year than we've ever seen. So cute to watch them as we drive through the pasture. Lots of deer here too for Boomer to watch. Each night at dusk they come around and he sits up on the couch and watches them out the window. We are finishing up here and heading out on Tuesday for our next jobs in Oklahoma. Hoping that all the cold and snowy weather is drawing to a close in the central part of the country. Every time I talk to my mom in Pennsylvania, she is getting cold temps and more snow. She's getting really sick of it and is ready for spring. I can't say as I blame her although the oak pollen here is killing me right now. Springtime in Texas !

Annual Company Meeting/Bandera

We spent last week at our company's annual meeting. A very busy time with sessions during the day and dinner/event in the evening. On Sunday, everyone that made the $100,000 club went to brunch at the local country club. Newbies to the club get their $100,000 club jacket and for those of us who already have one, we cheer for them. We had a great breakfast, with a made-to-order omelet station. After breakfast, we gathered outside for a group photo. On Monday night we had the awards dinner. Linda and I met the criteria for one of the new bonus programs so we got a certificate and bonus check for that. We also got a cute award for our making the $100,000 club. We sold $146,682 for 2012....so close to making the $150,000 club. Over $40,000 was given out Monday night, in bonus money, to our reps. It was so much fun to see some of the new teams meet their goals and get big checks for their efforts. Our rep teams are so supportive of each other. To me, our annual meeting feels like a family reunion and the only time we get to see some of the other teams.Sometimes it can be pretty lonely out here, all year long, working on our accounts. When we all get together, the energy level is really high and we soak it all up for as long as we can before heading back out to do our work. The week goes by much too quickly. Thankfully we had planned on staying one day beyond the scheduled events to catch up with some of our friends. It still feels like we needed another day or two....there is so much information that comes out of our sessions that it takes a couple days to unwind and get ready to go back to work.

But back to work are we.....here in Bandera. It took us five hours to get from Montgomery to Bandera on Friday. We got set up at the campground and then went out to meet with our two parks to get paperwork signed. Tomorrow we are off and running to work these two parks.

Had some thunderstorms roll through last night but not much rain. This area is very, very dry. The river is really low and brown grass all over. It would take a pretty lengthy period of rain to get water levels back to where they should be. It's really sad to see.