Happy Solstrice

Way back in 1991, when I was busy antagonizing my dad by shacking up with my German boyfriend in hippie Oregon, I mail-ordered a box of greeting cards from a progressive company that clearly couldn't afford to hire a proofreader. Sometimes typos etch a permanent place in one's memory. Thus on this joyful day, I quote:

Welcome the return of the light.

Happy Solstrice!

That penguin lady

Ambassador penguins (Aptenodytes terrae). Height: 2-10cm. Range: North America (!).

The Potters' Penguin Project entered its fundraising phase in May 2017 with the Greensboro Science Center's Tuxedo Trot 5K. The Tuxedo Trot raises funds for the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), with which the GSC's African penguin exhibit has ties. E, S, and I set up a table and gifted joggers with penguins if they made donations to SANCCOB. We raised about $250.

In 2018, pining to have our downstairs shower back (where else does one store 2,000 penguins?), I finally got my act in gear and started actively fundraising for Earthjustice. Claymakers hosted several hundred penguins this past summer, and 200 found "forever homes" in exchange for donations. When the Durham County Pottery Tour rolled around in November, three other potters and I hosted subcolonies at our studios, and I hosted penguins again at my studio open house in December; consequently, another hundred and ten penguins or so have waddled off. Attempting to spread the penguin joy beyond the NC Triangle, I started a fundraiser for Earthjustice on Facebook, so a few penguins have traveled to new homes via USPS. Yesterday, I shipped 25 Ambassador penguins (Aptenodytes terrae) and ~$2,500 in checks to Earthjustice's San Francisco headquarters. Fly, little birds, fly (figuratively speaking, of course)!

Yet...Because this amazing community-building project created over 2,000 penguins, I am still living with roughly 1,650 of them. Let me bear witness: that's a lotta clay penguins. On the bright side, they drive home the point they were created to illustrate, that a colony loss of 150,000 penguins is a travesty. On the down side, I am surrounded by a lotta clay penguins. I would love to adopt them all myself, but then I would become "that penguin lady" who gives over her entire house to an outrageous number of stray animals, eventually requiring a visit from the Animal Protection Society or the Health Department.

Added to the penguin mix were three boxes of organ sheet music that I used to store at work but, having left that gig in early October, I've been storing under the piano. (Remember the Great Purge of 2012, when we cleared out the study to make room for the fabulous piano? See how empty the room was? Those were the days!) Plus, of course, we have pottery everywhere, because it was Pottery Tour and open house season. In need of horizontal surfaces, after Thanksgiving we installed some basic Ikea shelving along one wall of the study.

Voila! Room for sheet music, pots, and 1,650 penguins! Which brings me to today's adventure: rough penguin inventorying! I used to know which boxes contained exactly which penguins, but as the colony has moved here and there and back again, penguins have jumped from box to box, and it's hard to know who's where. Penguin inventorying means greeting favorite penguins again ("oh, I remember you!"). I try to keep the joyous reunions brief, reminding myself that I can't keep every adorable penguin that crosses my path. It turns out I remember most makers--if not individual makers, at least their teams--folks from the NCSU and Claymakers Make-a-Penguin events; area elementary-, middle-, and high-schoolers; summer campers, friends, etc. When the entire colony was exhibited at Claymakers in 2017, I was impressed that makers could pick their penguins out of a crowd of (then) 1,973--but not surprised. Because really, every penguin is an individual.

Want to give some penguins a "forever home"? Contact me or see our Facebook fundraiser for details.

The time has come

‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
     ‘To talk of many things:
Of school—and work—and camping trips—
     Of children spreading wings—
And when to leave a trusty gig
     To learn what else life brings.’

‘O Org’nist,’ said the Carpenter,
     ‘You’ve had a pleasant run!
But after nearly fifteen years,
     We understand—you’re done.
Go! Make some waffles! Sleep past dawn!
     Hike! Backpack! Bye! Have fun!”

Mt. Rogers backpacking trip

I have fantasized for years about walking out the door and walking and walking without worrying about turning around and coming back. Walking fantasies have appeared in dreams about alternate careers (mail carrier), but have only been realized briefly in assorted day hikes in Germany plus a few long-ago overnight backpacking adventures in the U.S. At this point, the walking-and-walking fantasy isn't going to become reality unless I make a more serious commitment to it and get in backpacking shape.

My current idea is that I'll head out the door once E has settled comfortably into college, which puts a long-distance walk about 15-18 months on the horizon. That's enough time to hike more, carry more, camp more, and figure out more or less where I'm going.

So let the training commence. In mid-July, friend L and I did a quick overnight trip to southern Virginia, where we hiked a loop around Mt. Rogers, the highest peak in VA (which sounds vaguely impressive until you realize it's only 5,729 feet above sea level and we started at about 3,000 feet). We hiked a little more than 9 miles on the first day, mostly uphill, and about 8 miles on the second day, mostly downhill. We revised our planned route on the second day, cutting off a dip down to the Scales in favor of a stretch on the Pine Mountain Trail (part of the old AT), which turned out to be some of the most pleasant hiking of the trip.

Lessons learned: (1) my 3-liter Camelbak is more than large enough--I barely drank two liters in 24 hours--and (2) next time we should be more serious about carrying dehydrated food, because hydrated food sure weighs a lot. Day 2 was much easier than Day 1, not just because of gravity but also because we had consumed half our food and water.

Day 1:

Proof we were there.

Our first long-distance view.

These woods were emerald green, but my cell phone camera didn't know what to do with that and made the trail purple.

Either this is the highest point in VA, or the highest point is one boulder over. They look about the same.

Wild ponies, hanging out.

Greenery in the greenery

Squashed frog or tree root?

Climbing boulders to get another good view...

...Ta da!

Lichens. Worth zooming in to see.

Apple trees?

We overshot our intended campsite and ended up camping with cows...

...and more ponies.

Well after sunset, a ranger drove by in a jeep and stopped to ask if we had seen a 15-yr-old girl who had been reported missing from the Appalachian Trail for about six hours. After he left, we listened to helicopters searching for her in the dark for about 30 minutes. Then the ranger drove by again and said the helicopters had found her. Whew.

Day 2:

Sunrise to the west of us...

...sunrise to the east of us.

Snack time at Old Orchard Shelter.

My pack. I went for comfort over weight when choosing my pack and sleeping mat, so I ended up carrying about two pounds of pure comfort. I think it was worth it, but I might not think so on a longer hike.

There were rhododendrons all over the lower parts of the trail, but all but a few were well beyond blooming. We should come back in June.

Cardboard boats

Thanks to an article in Raleigh's News & Observer, we recently learned that the town of Smithfield, NC, would be inaugurating its new boat launch with a cardboard boat race. Boats and oars were to be made of nothing more than corrugated cardboard, duct tape, and glue, and each boat would be piloted down the Neuse River by a two-person team. What better project could there be to keep young engineering minds sharp over summer break? With barely one week to spare, E's thumbs sprang into action, texting a recruitment message to his high school robotics club and a few other friends. We solicited the neighborhood email list for cardboard, and received abundant donations. The team met for the first time the Saturday before the race, and hit the ground running.

They continued to meet nightly, their prototypes gradually emerging into an unconventional but plausible design, their industrious philosophy best encapsulated by the question, "Why draw on millennia of accumulated cultural knowledge when you can just wing it instead?"

By Friday afternoon, we still had so much cardboard on the front and back porches and in the living room that S and I wondered out loud whether we should build a boat ourselves. E's immediate response was "YES! DO IT! That would be so excellent!" So S and I skipped out early from a friend's party, drew on millennia of accumulated cultural knowledge, and built our own boat.

Early the next morning, we loaded the auspiciously named S.S. S.O.S. and Das Boot onto our trailer and headed to Smithfield.

Once in Smithfield, we registered our vessels and received copies of the rules. My favorite rule--the one that best illustrated the organizers' confidence in the success of everyone's efforts--was, "Your boat must have at least 2 sides remaining at the finish line to still be considered a boat. In other words, you can't just be hanging onto a piece of cardboard."

Many more boats entered the competition than competitors or organizers were expecting--33 in all. The rules didn't say anything about paint, so it didn't occur to us to decorate our boats, but many teams went all out.

BLR Hotrods came in first and also won the Best Decorated Boat prize

The most elegant boat was designed by a group of friends who had majored in engineering and design at NCSU, so naturally we dragged the rising seniors of Team S.S S.O.S. into a conversation with them.

Expedited Shipping came in 2nd

The SS S.O.S. flew a banner of black Sharpie calculations emblazoned on a field of unbleached-cardboard brown.

All pilots were required to wear personal flotation devices. Can you spot them in the photo?

The new boat launch was quite nice...

The regatta was supported by multiple rescue crews from Smithfield and beyond. This meant that anyone from the age of 8 to 88 could pilot a boat, sink, and be quickly plucked from the delightfully temperate leisurely flowing river raging waters. Boats entered the water one by one, were accompanied downstream by a rescue boat, and met at the finish line under the bridge by volunteers standing waist-deep in the water. The next boat would launch as soon as the wake from the returning rescue boat dissipated.

The SS S.O.S. queued up relatively early in the race.

Alas, the front of the SS S.O.S. was more buoyant than anticipated, and the boat began to take on water in back. The valiant pilots attempted to regain control of the ship, but it flooded beyond recovery--although, perhaps to its credit, not dramatically enough to win the Titanic Award for Most Memorable Sinking. The pilots were pulled from the water and brought to shore in the rescue craft. Happily, this will give them material for their college-application essays. The team is already planning how to up the drama to win the Titanic Award next year. 

Das Boot fared somewhat better.

Tau Day, peaches, and paleo

Tau Day (6.28) was this past Thursday, which required baking pies. I went around in circles on how many to make, because I couldn't decide whether to represent tau with one or two pies--would two pies be four pi, or two tau, or what? I ended up making three pies/three tau/six pi, then called for help to eat them. One friend wanted to come a fashionable 6.283185307179586476925286766559 minutes late, but he was off by a factor of e.

I made chocolate cream pie, blueberry pie, and peach custard pie. N thumbs up.

The chocolate cream pie filling was adapted from here, using two 70% dark chocolate bars and reducing the sugar a bit. Yum.

The blueberry pie is my mom's recipe, made with freshly picked farm-share berries: 1/3 pie volume fresh blueberries, add a little water and sugar; bring to boil, add lemon juice to taste, then add some cornstarch in water to thicken; remove from heat, add 2/3 pie volume fresh blueberries, dump in prebaked crust. Yum.

The cream of the crop was the peach custard pie--a last-minute entry made from this recipe. I used Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, 4 egg yolks instead of 3, chopped candied ginger instead of cinnamon (not because I didn't have any cinnamon, but because ginger is the absolute most appropriate spice for peaches), and two layers of peaches instead of one, because four medium sliced peaches wouldn't fit in a single overlapping layer. I used one ripe peach and three crunchy peaches (thus my hesitation), because that's all that was available from OUR VERY OWN BACKYARD PEACH TREE (screw hesitation).

We bought the tree as a sapling three years ago at Costco. A friend asked what variety of peach we got, and all I could tell her was Kirkland.

This is the first year the tree has borne fruit that has survived into the summer. There were so many peaches on one branch that their weight snapped the branch.

Our neighbor J warned us to beware of local fauna getting to the peaches before we could. When I checked on the tree on Thursday, I saw this:

so I picked these:

I like that I can see wee tooth marks in the nibbled peach, and I like thinking about a squirrel (or raccoon?) sitting in the tree enjoying fruit, or having a peach party with its buddies. Peaches are so much tastier than acorns or compost; imagine the revelry! Nonetheless, a friend has offered to lend me her slingshot and arsenal of dried chickpeas.

The Tau Day pies left me with a bunch of leftover egg whites. Usually I'd make an angel food cake or meringues, but it was too humid for the latter, and I wanted to try something new. Googling yielded dozens of websites that recommended turning them into two-ingredient "Paleo" banana egg-white pancakes. "You'll never believe how good these are!," recipe blog authors joyfully claim--recipe blog writers who care about fitness and body image and, I am convinced, have tastebuds numbed by years of eating protein powder just like our prehistoric ancestors never did. So as a public service announcement, I offer the following observations:

1. These pancakes are not anything any sane paleohuman would have ever cooked, because no one who had prehistoric bananas and chicken eggs around in the same place at the same time would have sacrificed either for these.

2. Banana egg-white pancakes are gross. Do not eat them.

3. Re. optional toppings: what kind of trade routes and prehistoric succulent refineries do Paleo fans think would have ever put bananas, agave syrup, and peanut butter in the same vicinity? Oy.

4. See #2.

Next time, angel food cake.