Pizza party

I'm not quite sure how it all started, but Meredith and Grace and Lyndsay have been helping two of the neighbors on our street walk their dogs every day.  The ladies that own the dogs go with them and they have started a great routine enjoyed by all.  The neighbors have nothing but good things to say about the girls and how much they look forward to their time with them.  Another neighbor girl, Kyria, sometimes goes with them.  Kyria is outspoken and outgoing so it was fitting that she planned a pizza party for the newly named 'dog walking posse'. 

Of course the pizza party ended up being at our house even though we were told it would be elsewhere, but no big deal!  The pizza was purchased by the neighbors and we provided drinks - other neighbors brought dessert and a huge salad.  We actually had a great time.  It was nice to talk for a while with people we normally only wave to. 

Meredith and Kyria put on a concert for us all with tickets and two separate showings complete with their own songs and a rap!  I wish I would have taken a couple of pictures or at least a video, but...I didn't...  Kyria's 4 year old brother is adorable and he came dressed as Batman and enjoyed himself - I think :)

Cow carousel?

We went on our first official field trip today - to Fair Oaks Dairy Farm in Fair Oaks, IN.  I first heard about this farm from an email that my dad sent, and seeing that it is only a couple of hours away, I was surprised that I hadn't heard of it. 

We went with Lisa and Maria and, because of a change in work schedule, Eric was able to go also and provide a few cow puns at the start of the tour. :)

This place was quite an operation!  They have got this down to a science - not only the dairy and pig business, but the tourism phase as well.  They have around 30,000 acres and 36,000 cows.  Buses run to one of the cow barns and the pig barn every half hour.  A couple of the buses we were on today had standing room only.  The visitors center is laid out very nicely with all kinds of information about cows that is fun to read.  There is a section where you can time yourself hooking up cows to the vacuum pumps.  We learned that in the next five years they are adding about 15,000 more acres and are planning to build a new restaurant, a hotel, a water park, and add 4 more tours: beef, chickens, grain, and shrimp!  We all kind of chuckled at this.  A water park...and shrimp...at a dairy farm??  I guess if you're making a profit (and they obviously are) why not, right? 

The cows are milked 3 times a day every single day and each cow produces around 10-12 gallons of milk per day.  The buses drive part way through the middle of one of the barns and you are not allowed to get off nor open the windows.  It is a bio-sensitive environment (that's a new word for me).  The cows are herded in the same groups each day to a special area for the milking.  I mentioned that this whole thing is a Disney Pixar movie waiting to happen.  The are loaded onto a carousel and are hooked up to a vacuum machine that pumps the milk.  Once the carousel makes one trip around (it never stops) each cow knows it's her turn to get off.  She backs out and walks away and not too far away, more cows are stepping into their stall to get hooked up and go around. 

They have a separate birthing barn where all visitors can watch some of the 100 births they have every day.  We saw one and it was so beautiful.  The sad side of this is that after the mom cleans the baby, they are taken away pretty quickly.  The baby never gets to nurse from it's mother to prevent any kind of bonding.  The guide said that's something they wouldn't want to get into - it is a business after all, I guess.  From a maternal aspect I found this to be a little depressing.  The guide was quick to point out that the babies get the colostrum from other mothers, distributed in bottles, because that is so important in the first few days.  Since it is so important, why can't they just get the colostrum from their own mother?  Why would it be so bad if they bonded for a while?  Apparently, I wouldn't be successful in a dairy business.

 

The calf above was born today.  The calf below was born while we watched.  It is difficult to see the newborn calf - she is lying in the straw and looks yellow. The new calf to the left was very interested...

The pig side is run the same way.  There are huge rooms that hold pigs that are ready to give birth, giving birth, have piglets that are 1 week old and so on.  So many pigs!!  We also saw a midwife deliver one piglet.  Each pig delivers 12-14 piglets and they are rowdy when they want to eat!  Those poor mothers... :)

You can watch a video about it all here.

Notre Dame Culture

As the Notre Dame football team prepares to get beat by play Arizona State tonight, I can't help but be reluctant to watch or listen or even care.  Growing up, Notre Dame football was an important part of Saturday afternoons in the fall.  I have fond memories of hearing my family discuss all the ins and outs of the team and then analyze each game.  My dad would listen on the radio a lot because he didn't care for the TV announcers.  When Lou Holtz was coach, in my adolescent mind, he was the BEST.  Most everyone loved him and he was successful - everything a coach and their fans dream of.  He even took the team to a National Championship in 1988. 

When my husband reads this, he will probably be disappointed.  He no doubt knows how I feel, but I try to keep it fairly quiet because of his longstanding emotional admiration for this team.  He grew up heavily invested in Notre Dame sports, especially football.  He and his mom will still talk after the games to share their analysis, opinions and recommendations. 

In the past few years, Notre Dame has expanded their efforts to market themselves.  The year that Obama was nominated, they were the first university to invite him to be the commencement speaker which caused a huge uproar the likes I had not seen in this city before. 

In the years following that event, Notre Dame has been questioned regarding their true standing in terms of the Catholic faith in many ways - too many to list here.  Thankfully, there are those working tirelessly to make sure the Catholic tradition remains true on their campus.

Back to football - since Lou Holtz, there have been some tumultuous years with coaches and players, and it seems the whole program is on a slippery slope. 

At the end of the Michigan State game, the coach was talking to the news reporter on the field after the game and when the students and team started singing the Alma Mater (a tradition which was started in 2006), the coach didn't bother to stop his interview to be with his team...he just kept talking. 

The Notre Dame athletic director decided to change the 'policy' regarding the singing of the Alma Mater in 2011 to determine that it would only be sung after a win.  Even though they have experienced a few losses this year already, the students were still singing at the end of those games.  The students have recently spoken about their disappointment in the above policy change.  I think the administration is missing the point completely.  The song honors Our Lady and since she is the patron saint of the university, the student body and football team should come together to honor Our Lady at the end of every game no matter the outcome. 

We found out yesterday on campus that last week the coach cancelled a longstanding tradition of the team going to Mass before a game.  Turning away from their origins in the Catholic faith is at the root of some current Notre Dame issues (in my humble opinion) and the slope continues to get more slippery.

I'll get off my soapbox now.....

Apple picking

Sunday was a beautiful day and we decided to go pick apples up in Michigan.  It was such a nice place and there weren't too many people there so we lingered after the apple bags were full.  There were so many picture opportunities, a collage was better this time...

The craziness of life

I suppose everyone has a level of stress that they reach when they know they've reached their limit.  I hit that limit a couple of weeks ago.  I can always tell by the dull ache in my chest and inability to sleep all night.  I normally fall asleep within 1-5 minutes (not kidding) and sleep all the way through until the alarm goes off.  Not when heavy stress sets in.  Can't fall asleep right away, thoughts start racing, wake up off and on and then the alarm goes off and I feel like a large, heavy log laying on the bed. 

Here's just a small bit of some of that week's events.  Sarah had 3 doctor appointments.  I had 2.  Josh misplaced his wallet at a friend's house and 3 people frantically searched for that for a few days until Eric took Josh there himself and HE found it!  Here's a picture of my calendar which obviously doesn't even list the normal daily things...

When I actually post a picture of it and look at it, it doesn't look as bad as it felt.  Of course, in a busy family, many things are going on all the time and don't get written down.  This particular week I also felt like I was sitting in the van way more than normal which makes me crazy.  

It's really helpful to write things down.  When things get to be too much, write everything down!  Every. Single. Thing.  Once you get it on paper it feels like it's out of your head if only for a little while and provides some much needed peace.  For the past almost two years I had been managing (or so I thought) to keep organized relying solely on my phone.  I used the notes, calendar, Errands app and others.  After this week I realized that I just needed to go back to what works and get a planner.  I went to CVS before the week was up and thankfully they had a few left (and 50% off!).  I'm trying to get Eric to do this also...

Photography club

I went out on a limb and joined a photography club.  The Michiana Digital Photography Excursionists.  I called Gene's camera store to see if they could tell me a good place to go and shoot the sunrise and the lady recommended this group.  I signed up that night.  They meet once a month sometimes to shoot or sometimes to look at everyone's pictures from the last meeting. 

We went to the East Race and spent about an hour there.  Everyone uploads their shots to the website and we all comment on each other's photos.  It was really fun.  I met some nice people and it's a good lesson in not judging a book by it's cover ;)  We made a list for a fall scavenger hunt to do before the next meeting and at that meeting we will critique everyone's scavenger hunt photos.  I need to get busy on that...

A few shots from the East Race...

This last one has a watermark because I entered it in a contest and the watermark was required.  It got a few votes :)

It's been a while...

It's been almost three weeks since the last post!  I think that's a record here.  I have thought of quite a few things I would like to have posted, but...no time.  More on that later.

I attended a talk tonight, after an Altar Rosary Society meeting, at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture.  Every fall they have a Catholic literature series with talks given weekly.  This year the topic is Children's Literature and tonight's talk was about the Harry Potter series.  The speaker is a philosophy professor at Notre Dame and a homeschool dad.  It was in a good-sized lecture hall and was very well attended. 

I'll not write too much about it because it wouldn't be nearly as meaningful as how it was spoken.  Mr. O'Callaghan started out discussing some of the most well known philosophers (Socrates, Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Descartes to name a few) and their individual philosophies of life.  Then he eased into how this all relates to the Harry Potter novels.  Whether it was intentional by the author or not the story from beginning to end is a Christian allegory.  No matter what your religion is, no matter what Dumbledore's background story is, no matter what your philosophy of life is, no matter what Rowling's faith life is, if you have eyes to see (as O'Callaghan says), there is an incredible amount of Christian meaning. 

On a side note, one of the daughters of the speaker recited an excerpt from one of the novels at a Catholic Homeschool Talent Show a couple of years ago and was booed by some in the mostly Catholic audience. 

Mr. O'Callaghan stated that when he started reading the novels after their children received them as gifts, it was to make sure they were appropriate for them to be reading.  He had heard from other parents already that the books were about evil, witchcraft and sorcery.  After reading them, he decided that he wasn't just going to let the children read the novels, he was going to make them!   They are full of powerful philosophical and religious messages!

I could go on and on.  I want to end by mentioning that I talked with a couple of other mothers afterwards in the parking lot and one of them made the correlation of the message of the books to being a stay at home mom.  We are not of the will-to-power philosophy, but we believe that sacrificial love is what leads to true happiness.  Love is everything.

I will try to post the talk here when I receive it...