Tea Time

One our quasi "traditions" is to go to tea when I'm home. This past trip we tried a new place and it was pretty cute.

I wasn't too crazy about the food, but I really liked my tea. It was a white tea (Called a "Wedding Tea"...which I picked mainly because I was feeling wishful!) that tasted like vanilla and rose and just YUM! Only problem was...drinking all that tea and I barely made it home before I had to use the restroom!

NANA WITH THE FOOD

She absolutely put me to shame and ate her half. Me, I just nibbled on things and was bummed there was no clotted cream to go with the yummy scones.

MOM AND LINDSEY

FAMILY LADIES

I'll have to find my pictures of the tea my sister and I had at Kensington Palace in England. That was really fun.

Those Crazy Shakers

One of the day trips I did while back home was to head to the Berkshires to visit the Norman Rockwell museum. I had no idea how prolific an illustrator and artist he was. I really enjoyed the museum, but alas...no photos allowed so all I have is this picture of his favorite work studio.

NORMAN ROCKWELL'S STUDIO

The whole time I was there I kept thinking how lovely it would be to move to the Berkshires. It's quasi rural and in the summer it's got lovely green hills, flowers everywhere and just has a nice rustic community feel to it. So besides wanting to live on Maui, Alaska, Cusco (Peru), in Italy, Hanover (NH), I guess you can add the Berkshires.

At the Rockwell museum they had discounts if you went to other area attractions. So nerdy me picked the Shaker village. As a religion major I know...

absolutely nothing about Shakers other than they apparently shake during their religious ceremonies. Well I learned a lot.

First, Shakers were really into being efficient. So they are not to be confused with the Amish as they embrace technology. An example of their love of being efficient is that they are credited with inventing the flat broom. Betcha didn't know that, didya?

NO, WE AREN'T IN SALEM...WE'RE IN SHAKER TOWN!

And they invented a script so as not to waste ink when writing. That's why some fonts have a dot at some point in their letters... Although I will say as an educator that I am pretty shocked they only went to school for 3 months out of a year!

SHAKER SCHOOL

Second, Shakers don't have sex. If you are married and convert to become a Shaker, your marriage is dissolved and you become "brother and sister"...huh...go figure. They believed in equality between gender and races, but the "brothers" and "sisters" were kept pretty separate. Despite their puritanical views on sex, they dormed together. But the buildings were basically split right down the middle - men on one side and women on the other. They were designed so that men and women would have no reason to touch each other, even in passing through a hallway.

Sometimes they had rocking meetings in their dorm in the evenings...they'd sing, enjoy refreshments like lemonade and popcorn....and of course make sure they were at least five feet apart from each other:

MEN ON ONE SIDE, WOMEN ON THE OTHER...THOSE CRAZY PARTY ANIMALS

Some other fun pictures from our trip:

MY MOTHER MILKING A FAKE COW :)

MY SISTER GETTING READY TO THREAD SOME WOOL (AS LEARNED FROM A MR. ROGERS EPISODE)

A NEAT ROUND BARN

SHAKER GRAFFITI

The lamp oil was stored in this cabinet. However, one resident kept spilling a little oil every time their filled their lamp. Finally a Shaker woman got so fed up with this waste (That efficiency thing coming in to play again) she wrote a note in the cabinet that essentially says, quit wasting oil. If you can't do it right...leave your lamp and I will do it for you!

THE INFIRMARY'S ADULT CRADLE...APPARENTLY TO "COMFORT" THE ILL AND FEEBLE

SO MY QUESTION FOR THIS SHAKER COMMUNAL (?!?!?!) TOILET IS...UH WHAT'S THE CORN FOR???

ME CONTEMPLATING CONVERTING...AND THINKING, "SHEESH, A MUUMUU IS MORE FLATTERING"

Our New Pet

Things have been very busy lately and I have much to catch on! Our latest adventure is that we have been adopted by a nene!

For those of you that follow Real Housewives of Atlanta...no...Nene Leakes did NOT land in our backyard (but could you IMAGINE if she had???? Now THAT'D be a blog entry). Rather, the nene is a Hawaiian goose. It is the world's rarest goose and is considered endangered.

So Chris and I were just hanging out in our living room when out of the corner of my eye I see this:

"Chris! I think there's a goose in our yard!" say I.
"What?!" says Chris.

We leap up to investigate...keep in mind my dear readers, I LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE. And now to add insult to injury we have no TV. So yes, a goose landing in our backyard is pretty darn exciting by our current living standards.

"I think it's a nene." says Chris. This now kicks our excitement up a few notches. We take a few pictures and then after staring at it and watching it (I wish I could say I was exaggerating) for a good hour or so, we call the local rescue people.

THE NENE UP CLOSE

As the nene is endangered, we don't want to mess too much with this thing. So imagine our surprise when they tell us to feed it and give it water. Keep in mind that there are signs all over Hawaii not to feed the nene.

The lady Chris called needed to get in contact with the nene biologist (or as Chris calls her, "the federally licensed nene messer with-er"). In the meanwhile we were to watch the nene and of course feed it. This was not a difficult task as it was the most exciting thing to happen to Chris since I'd been gone on my trip back to the East coast.

WE TAUGHT IT TO BOW FOR BREAD (I'M KIDDING)

GAVE IT WATER

"PLEASE SIR, I WANT SOME MORE"

AND FED IT LETTUCE

Apparently nene go gaga for lettuce. But on a more serious note, we had noticed that it was missing a foot. This is another reason we had called the rescue folks. The poor thing just hobbled around like it was sensitive to bear weight on it and it was pretty sad to watch.

The rescue lady called Chris back and this is what I heard on my end: "Uh-huh. Really? Wow. How? Have you ever done this before? Okay, my girlfriend can help me."

So what did we have to do? Oh, nothing but CATCH AN ENDANGERED SPECIES and put it in a box. And had the rescue lady done this herself? Yeah, once....with a turkey!

Well, we came up with a stellar plan. I'd lure it with bread or lettuce and then Chris would pounce (not literally) with a towel and scoop him up so we could place him in a box. Unfortunately, they may be endangered, but nene are no dummies. It knew what was up.

So this was a perfect time to get friendly with the neighbors. We called them down from their balcony (Connie and Aaron/Alan?) and with the four of us we basically chased the poor thing into a corner on our porch so that Chris could do his towel and grab maneuver.

DUCK IN A BOX (HA HA...CHRIS THINKS THIS IS HYSTERICAL)

The rescue lady came to pick him up shortly thereafter and after a short lecture on folding the box flaps as we had (Apparently some chicken had gotten it's neck stuck in the gap and had accidentaly hung itself), we thought that'd be the end of Nene S&$*ts as we've taken to calling our nene since it had managed to poop EVERYWHERE in the short time it was with us (Chris again being "punny" on the Real Housewife's name).

Later in the afternoon we get a call from our rescue lady. Our friend was deemed fine and his foot was not needing medical attention. So they re-released him into our backyard and he's been there for the last day or two.

We can't have a pet on our lease, but it didn't say anything about us being adopted by an endangered species....now I wonder what it would take to get a giant panda to land in our yard....