I took this film clip of Tori's Christmas band concert. The eighth grade band at Clark-Moores playing "Hark the Herald Trumpets Swing."

Political Campaigns in Lincoln's Time

The history department arranged for the Kentucky Historical Society's History-Mobile to be on campus this week. Local elementary and middle schools were invited to bring their students to visit the History-Mobile and the archives was asked to create an exhibit that would be on display for the same days.

In conjunction with this we decided to create an electronic display that would add information to what was available in the display case. Even though I've drooled over some great online exhibits (my favorite being Not For Ourselves Alone), I hadn't tried to do one myself.

I've been out of the web site creation field for several years now (maintaining a created page doesn't count), so I had a big learning curve to make this page do what I wanted it to do. Fortunately Dreamweaver made it fairly easy to do a cascading style sheet even though I had very limited experience with them. It took several uninterrupted hours of trial and error trying different properties to see what each one would do and how it worked, but overall Dreamweaver made it easy.

The image below shows the physical exhibit and clicking on it will link to the online version which includes more information about each document, including biographical sketches on key individuals of the era, information about the political climate and events and external links to other information. We also scanned some speeches in our collections to OCR to add as links.

Baby Chicks and Hunters

Baby chicks came in last week and they are so cute. We got Araucanas/Americanas (they lay colored eggs) and brown leghorns for eggs and a few Buff Orpington roosters to fill out the order. Yes, it's late in the season, but the idea was to let them grow over the winter and then they would be ready to start laying in the spring. Now to build a chicken coop.

The girls went deer hunting this weekend. The fact that they didn't get anything didn't keep them from having fun. Ashley wouldn't clown with them, so the picture is one girl short.

Historical Census Browser

The University of Virginia Library has developed a historical census browser that lets the user pull out statistical information found on the US Census from 1790 to 1960 down to the county level.

It will pull up multiple statistics, for example the total population in a location and the number of individuals attending school to allow users to compare statistics. It will pull the statistics over a period of years for comparison. Then it will map the results for you.

The statistics cover topics such as ethnicity, literacy in different ethnic groups and ages, farm and home ownership among different ethnic groups, employment, housing and more depending on the census year.

What you won't find are the names of individuals on the census, this browser is strictly for demographic information and it is outstanding for that type of information.

Harry the Hamster

Sometimes I feel like Harry going round and round in his wheel all night and getting nowhere.

And then sometimes my kids do something so awesome that it just makes me stop that wheel and cry.

Living 12 miles from town and being carless makes me feel trapped and desperate. Not a good feeling to have when car shopping. That said, if anyone has a good, used, car that gets good gas mileage to sell, come see me. Desperate buyers are good for the seller, right?

In the middle of worrying about that and everything else, last night my youngest daughter left a note on my bed. On the top it said "Do Not Worry." Below that she had copied the entire text of Matthew 6:25-34.

Fact or Fiction - EKU Trivia

One major project down only a dozen more to go.

The "Fact or Fiction: Test your EKU Knowledge" slide show has been uploaded to slideshare.net for those of you who really wanted to see it. In Powerpoint there were links to external information and a couple film clips that no longer work.

Maybe I can figure out how to upload the actual presentation with all the bells and whistles.

Fact Or Fiction

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

make lemonade. Ok, that's all fine and good, but just what are you supposed to do with a car that looks like this?

Unfortunately, Melissa has been driving the car while I've been carpooling and apparently it really isn't cool to be a high school senior and ride the bus to school. She is more upset than I am that we are temporarily carless.

All I can say is thank goodness that when I was trying to pare down insurance costs, I didn't drop the comprehensive. And a special thanks to the Good Samaratin who made a u-turn to help with his fire extinguisher.

Faith In Action

Over the weekend I was able to see my old pastor, Tiger Pennington, at a fundraiser for GraceNow and HealthNow, a local foodbank and health care center.

His message was basically "Faith in action is a response to grace."

Isn't it funny that you don't realize how much you miss someone until you see them again?

We Can Do OCR!

Yesterday afternoon I installed the new Abbyy FineReader software that just came in.

Installation was a breeze and the software is very intuitive to start using. Scanning the first document was simple. I didn't even have to look at the manual to scan or edit the text. It did get a bit more complicated when the document was saved, because there are so many options available.

The end result that I wanted was a .pdf document that looked like the original that, but that had a text layer underneath which allowed the user to search the document. After several tries and reading the manual (imagine that) here is the end result.

To get a document that looks like the original scan select 'keep original image size,' 'text under page image' and 'enable tagged pdf'.'

Some things to note. FineReader automatically rotated the landscape photograph on page 8, but it couldn't read the text that was sideways in the table on page 16. To get that section of text readable I think it would take a lot of extra effort.

I was impressed with the accuracy of the OCR and the ease of use. So now we enter another phase of digitization.

Finishing Knitting Projects

Since realizing just how many knitting projects I have started, I've been working hard to finish some of them.

The yoga mat bag was the easiest to complete once I resolved the not enough yarn issue, so I ripped out the strap and used that yarn to finish the bag. Instead of knitting a strap, I braided one from the Navaho rope directions in Shear Spirit. So one project is finished except for the drawstring around the top and that doesn't count. Sorry for the blurry photo and the cardboard tube used as filler, but that's what was available.

Then I started on the couch pillow that was mostly finished, only now it isn't. I learned the proper way to make a seam and got excited, but when I put it on the pillow form, I was even more dissatisfied with the flap that buttons down. Since that was the first part knit, I refuse to rip out the whole pillow, so I think I will try unraveling it at the color change, pick up stitches and reknit the flap differently. Isn't the right seam so much prettier? Well at least it is neater.

From Other Blogs

I picked this up from Eastside Farm Chronicles and want to keep it where I can get back to it, so here goes.

The Wolves Inside You

A Parable

An elder Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith."

"This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too", he added.

The Grandchildren thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied... "The one you feed."

And from Rosemary-go-Round my next knitting project. I have the yarn in my stash and this one's a keeper.

Horses are Family, Too

Ashley's Camera 12 2006 070
Originally uploaded by tormash9

Phanton and Bubba Louie have been part of our family for four years. We got them when the girls wanted any horse, just to have horses. The owner was moving and wanted a good home for them. Since they had injuries as weanlings they weren't rideable and as we soon found out, they were extremely high strung. They have been together since they were babies and don't like being separated.

The girls are older and we have acquired other horses that they can ride (a total of 6). With the drought this year and gas prices so high the hay cutter took 2/3 instead of 1/2, we don't have enough hay to carry us through the winter. So we had to find homes for some horses.

I made arrangements with Kentucky Equine Humane Center to take Phantom and Bubba, arranged for a truck and trailer to haul them, took off work and found out at the last minute that they had to have a negative coggins test. We loaded them to take them to the vet to draw blood. Not an easy task. They had only been in a horse trailer once before in their lives and they didn't like the looks of this one. When we finally got them loaded we started talking about how to get them loaded next week for the trip to Nicholasville. Todd, being a cow and goat person, wasn't too anxious to go through that ordeal again and myself, looking at scraping together almost $300 to give away two horses, started talking about what to do with them.

After a couple phone calls we finally decided to take them to the stockyards and let them go through the sale ring Saturday. I'm trying not to think about what will happen to them from there. They are both sweet and I wish they could have lived out there lives right where they were. I feel like such a traitor.

Water For Elephants

I have always been a voracious reader. If I go for a couple months without reading, then I can't do anything until I've devoured several books back to back. That makes it really hard to get things done.

Then I discovered audio books. Then the public library gave us access to free audio downloads through Kentucky Libraries Unbound and I got an MP3 player. Now I can 'read' books anywhere. While I'm knitting, pulling weeds, cutting up dozens of apples to can, walking, you name it. I'm much more productive and it makes the job I'm working on less monotonous.

Water for Elephants is the first audio book I've listened to that I feel like I need to go back to the real book and actually read it to make sure I didn't miss a single word. It is one of the best books I've read in a long time. Parts of it are heartbreakingly sad, and parts are funny and the twist at the end makes you go back to reread the prologue immediately. If you're looking for a good read, I highly recommend Water for Elephants.

House Renovations Already

All the canning that has been keeping me busy for the past couple months has caused an immediate renovation project (to a new house). Closet Maid shelving is easy to install and easy to keep clean and is fairly durable in most circumstances. Holding many jars of food is not one of them.

Besides the fact that I'm out of space (a couple dozen jars are on the kitchen counter still) these shelves are sagging to the point that I just know I'll wake up one night to a huge crash.

Over the weekend I gave my daughter the choice to put in new wooden shelves or to slice and peel apples for apple pie filling. She chose shelving. She found the studs, measured everything, predrilled holes, screwed the braces into the studs, leveled everything both directions, cut the shelves and reorganized the jars.

This afternoon she is using the last of the shelving to add one more shelf and eventually all the Closet Maid shelves will be replaced. Since the new shelves are closer together there will be more room to store food.

Just for the record she is 17 and yes, I am just a little proud of her.

The star of the garden this year has been sweet potatoes. These two potatoes alone weigh 5 pounds and there were a couple dozen between 1 and 2 pounds, not to mention the dozens of smaller potatoes. Even though they are huge they are still tender and delicious.

Knitting Has Gotten Out of Hand

When I woke up this morning the first thing I saw was yarn and knitting needles. Then I started counting works in progress. Yikes! There were seven projects within reach and 5 more that were hiding in a box just out of sight.

Granted 4 of these projects just need to be sewn together and have the ends woven in to be complete. For one I need a larger circular needle than I have right now. One I ran out of yarn and am trying to figure out how to work around that; the dye lots I can find are way off the original, so the handle may get a new color. I cast on a pair of socks for Ashley to knit this weekend that somehow ended up back in my pile of knitting even though I'm positive that I gave them to her and showed her how to do it.

For some reason there is something in my head that just can't wait to start the next new project. Who cares if there are a dozen in varying stages of completion waiting my attention? It must be a sickness, but is there a cure? Help!

Just What I Need

This post is for reference for an upcoming trip to Athens, GA.

The Cat's Meow
2141A w. Broad Street
Athens, GA 30606
+1 (706) 316 2130
Owner: Heather West
email: thecatsmeowyarnshop@hotmail.com
This is Athens' first yarn store. The Cat's Meow is a full-service shop with frequent classes, weekly knit-ins, and helpful, friendly and knowledgeable staff. The yarns carried here are high quality (Noro, Debbie Bliss, Brown Sheep, Elsebeth Lavold among many others) and there is a large selection of novelty and baby yarns as well. Different brands of needles in a wide range of sizes (Clover, Crystal Palace and Addi Turbos) and knitting notions, books and patterns are also available. This store is a must for any visitors to the Athens area.

Book Terminology

The Independent Online Booksellers Association has a great list of book terms on their website.

Perfect Corn Revisited

I tried the cabbage/hot pepper mixture on the corn this year and it worked pretty well. It stunk to high heaven, but I had only a couple ears with ear worms. I had more that was damaged by the worms that bore in through the sides, so next year I'll try spraying the entire ear rather than just the silks.

The biggest problem was pollination because we planted only 2 rows and ran out of seed. It needed at least 3 rows.

Local Food

GEDC0421
Originally uploaded by tormash9

There is something really satisfying about sitting down to a meal made up entirely of stuff you grew. Except for the dumplings (I'm not quite ambitious enough to try wheat for flour), the entire meal was raised here.

Now if only my kids could appreciate how good a fresh homegrown tomato is, instead of accusing me of starving them.

Knitting - Lessons Learned (Maybe)

A friend of mine is extremely precise in everything she does. She checks and double checks to make sure she has the right materials and processes before she starts anything. I could learn from her.

I found a pattern on Ravelry for a scarf that I wanted to make as a Christmas gift. It was knit in lace weight yarn which I have plenty of since I ordered a sampler package from Knitpicks. I picked a color I though would be good (a baby alpaca/silk blend), cast on and started knitting. At the end of the first repeat I looked at what I had knitted and was not at all satisfied with the result.

Time to rip it out and pick another yarn, this time a merino with more loft than the alpaca. I finished the swatch and again it looked terrible.

I ripped it out again and moved up to a fingering yarn. I had some sock yarn leftover that I thought would be enough to make a scarf. Again after the first repeat I still wasn't satisfied with the result. It was better, but still didn't look right. At this point I stretched the fabric and compared it closely with the photo in the pattern.

Aha! The problem was that my yarnovers didn't twist. It totally changed the look of the fabric. So once again I ripped it all out and pulled out my trusty Readers Digest Guide to Needlework. It stays on the table beside my bed, so I can refer to it when I have a how-to question. I was working yarnovers for a purl lace, exactly backwards of what they should have been.

Last time was a charm. It looks, well, like it's supposed to look. When I got about halfway through the scarf, I laid down the knitting needles and read the size. My short blue needles weren't size eight, they were size ten. The lace weight yarns probably would have worked perfectly with the proper size needle.

Awesome Friends

GEDC0415
Originally uploaded by tormash9

You know you have an amazing friend when he'll take you and a friend to the lake with his canoe and a bottle of wine, then sit and read while the two you are out paddling around and relieving stress. Thanks Terry! You are the best!

Preservation 101 Online Course

Linda Clark Benedict, Alone in the Archives Blog recently had a link to an online Preservation 101 workshop that looks really good. It was funded by an IMLS grant to the Northeast Document Conservation Center and has two study options. The self study is unfacilitated and free of charge; there is also an instructor facilitated study for a fee which earns continuing education credits.

In my spare time I think I'll work my way through the self study.

Maude Gibson Paintings

Several months ago I borrowed an idea from another archives and started a Find of the Month. The August find was Maude Gibson's paintings. Maude was an art professor at Eastern from 1910 to about 1941 and painted almost her entire life. She died in 1964 at the age of 93 and the painting to the left is dated 1962.

The small paintings were scanned and uploaded to Flickr, but in the process of resizing them I got screen shots of small closeups of the paintings showing the layers of color and brush strokes. These small clips were so cool that I copied several of them from her paintings and uploaded them as well.

Here are some of my favorites. To see the entire collection click on the Flickr link above. If you want to have fun, try to match up the abstract clips with the original painting.

Eastern's Historical Resources

Eastern celebrated it's centennial anniversary in 2006. The provost provided funds to hire Joyce Miller, who compiled an inventory of the art, sculpture and other historical artifacts that were on campus at the time.

For 2 years that information has been sitting in an Access database not being used by anyone. Now it has been added to the University Archives Photo and Image Database. So anyone can find photos and information on the art and sculpture on campus.

The inventory may not be complete, because Joyce may not have been able to get into every office with university owned art work. For example, I know that she was unable to get into the Blanton House, so nothing in there was inventoried.

If you know of any art that was missed in the Historical Resources Inventory, leave a comment here and we'll photograph and add it. One other shortcoming is that very few of the art works in the University Archives were inventoried.

Perfect Corn with no Pesticides

My neighbor gave us a bag of corn from his garden this weekend and it was the prettiest ears of corn I think I've ever seen. They were perfect ears with no signs of bugs at all. We took it home and put it straight on the stove for corn on the cob. Delicious!

When I asked him how he kept the worms off, he gave me his recipe. He fermented cabbage and hot peppers in water, strained off the solids and sprayed the silks with the liquid. Since my corn is getting close, I started a batch Sunday. Hopefully it will be ready to use soon.

Quote of the Day

"A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world; everyone you meet is your mirror."
- Ken Keyes, Jr.

Simple Pleasures

The mimosa tree by the road has been in full bloom for about a month now, but about a week ago I noticed that it was full of hummingbirds. They move so fast it's impossible to count, but there must have been close to 10 of them flitting from bloom to bloom and then darting off in pairs to find another source of nectar. After many tries I actually got a picture of one. I know it's not good, but I should have a new camera in a couple days. GE decided that the problem was with the camera and they've sent a replacement.

While I was picking peaches over the weekend I didn't see many hummingbirds, but the tree was covered with butterflies. This red-spotted purple was on the compost pile.

I was able to freeze 3 quarts of peaches and make 8 pints of peach jam, so I was pleased. Every other year the bugs eat way more than we do. One thing I noticed was that the peaches that weren't quite ripe had no bug damage, but by the time they get ripe the worms have gotten to them. So next year the tree needs pruned more, concentrating on removing some of the small branches and the peaches need to be picked just before they get ripe and allowed to ripen inside away from the bugs.

Now if only my kids would eat what is coming out of the garden. You would think I was trying to poison them by feeding them 'raw tomatoes, fried banana peppers, beet greens and zucchini.' Heaven forbid!

Gardening - Tools, Rocks and Weeds

One of the best things about my garden is that it is where piles of cow manure from a small dairy were left to compost for years. Now the soil has tons of organic matter and and clumps break up easily. It is easy to till and easy to pull weeds.

That's a good thing. Because one of the bad things about my garden is that while it was composting it spent five or more years growing weeds and spreading enough seed to grow weeds into the next millennium. My mantra this year has been 'if it doesn't seed there won't be as many weeds next year.' The new tiller is helping, but by the time I got it, the weeds were already too big for it. Which leads me to tools.

I have always heard to buy the best tools you can buy because they are well worth the money. My dad has said it, Donny always says it, every man I know says it, but it always seems like when I go to buy tools I never have the money to buy good ones. So, the rake I bought early last summer isn't usable this summer and the hoe I bought at good, old Walmart broke the first week.

New mantra. 'Buy good tools.'

Now for the other bad thing about my garden. When all that cow manure was scraped over to the manure pile, lots of rock went along with it. I don't know if I can ever get all the rock out, but with the help of my trusty wheelbarrow (a good one that Donny gave me when he upgraded to a two wheeler) I've been filling the holes in the driveway. Since my driveway is about 800 feet long, I figure that all the holes will be filled about the time the garden is free of rocks.

Now the best thing about my garden is eating a vine ripened tomato warm from the sun during a break from weeding.

Ultimate Relaxation

Sitting in a canoe in the middle of a lake, knitting and drifting. I wish I could do this every night. If only I could turn my pond into a lake, I'd have it made.

Peaches

Yes! I found the first ripe peach last night. It was small, but tasted wonderful. I guess that means putting up peaches this weekend. Beetles haven't gotten them yet, so I may actually have a small crop. Maybe Ashley will even make a peach pie. She's turning into a pretty decent baker and she even makes the crust from scratch.

I'll probably can them so I can save freezer space for beef.

Blackberries are Ripe

May was really dry, but in June we got just enough rain, and the blackberries have loved it. The berries are large and juicy and abundant. We have made two cobblers, frozen 4 quarts for cobblers later in the year and over the weekend I made 9 pints of jam. Another gallon of berries will do us.

There is something satisfying about seeing jars lined up in the pantry and knowing that your family will eat good over the winter from food that grew just outside your door. Peaches will be next. They aren't large, but there are a lot of them and the beetles haven't found them yet, so we should have plenty and some to spare.

Here's the cobbler recipe my grandma used. I love it because it's so easy.

• Melt one stick of butter in a baking dish. (I cut this back to 1/2 stick and it's still good)
• Mix 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of self rising flour add one cup of milk to this mix. Pour over the melted butter. Add one quart of fruit and use spoon to make an 'x' through the mixture without stirring.
• Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes or until brown on top.

Of course we won't talk about the poison ivy on both ankles and arms or the chiggers that have eaten me alive.

We also got the first tomato from the garden finally. I made my traditional tomato and Miracle Whip sandwich for lunch Saturday, but the girls were not impressed. Next year I need to pay more attention to maturity dates and pick some early veggies so we don't have to wait until July for that first tomato and corn.

Google Reader pointed me to this local eating website that has some good information on it.

Pictures to come when I get them off my phone. Hopefully I'll have my camera back soon. The new one I got at Christmas decided not to power on.

Recycling Things You Never Thought About

This web page has some great links and ideas on recycling things that you never thought about recycling. Old tennis shoes, wine corks, toothbrushes. Check it out.

Wordle

I just learned about a new tool through Cindi's blog post. Wordle lets you input text to create a tag cloud. You also have the option to make a cloud out of a user's del.icio.us tags. The EKU Archives cloud turned out really cool.

And I really liked this one. 1 Corinthians 13 is one of my favorite chapters.

Farming the Hard Way

Last year I finally got smart and instead of paying someone to mow pastures and then buy hay, I made arrangements to have someone cut hay on shares. Duh. Why didn't I think of that before?

Let me start by saying that mechanical things don't like me. If it takes gas and has a pull rope, it really doesn't like me. It's so bad that the tiller I just bought is electric. Don't laugh.

I do have an old Ford Jubilee tractor, but it also doesn't like me. I can't keep it running for anything, so when it was time to put that free hay in the barn, I had to get creative. My daughter and I created a sled out of a sheet of plywood and a piece of 1/2" rope and pulled it with the car. Much cheaper than a hay wagon, but it could only hold 14 bales at a time.

Local Eating Again

Kentucky Farm Bureau also has a list of farm markets including these in Madison County:

• Acres of Land Winery
• Baldwin Farm (How could I have forgotten them. We always get our Christmas trees there)
• McQuerry's Family Farm Herbs-N-Heirlooms in Paint Lick
• Warren Farm Greenhouse

How to Build a Window Seat

I thought I would go back to an earlier post and show how I built the dormer window seat in the loft. All the wood used for this project was scraps left over from building the house so they aren't pretty, but they are covered up and eventually I'll paint them. The pictures are pretty poor, but hopefully they illustrate what I'm trying to describe.

The first step was to cut a 2x4 to fit across the wall under the window. You can see this at the back of the photo. Place this at the desired height, level it and screw it into the studs with long deck screws. Remember you probably have 1 1/2" of 2x4 and 1/2" of drywall, so make sure there is enough screw to secure this board well and make sure to hit the stud. I would recommend a 4" screw. This seat is almost too high, because the window is so high. It's good because it gives me lots of storage space for blankets and fabric, but it needs a step to actually sit in it easily.

After that I built the front wall like a regular framed knee wall on 16" centers so that I would have studs to nail the cedar to and plenty of support to hold people. The total wall height equaled the height of the first board placed. I placed this wall 3/4" inside the loft wall because I wanted the cedar facing boards to be flush with loft wall.

Then I cut 2x4s to fit along the side walls. Line them up with the front wall and the back ledger board and screw into the wall at the studs. If the height measurements were correct these 2x4s will be level. To support the seat I also nailed a 2x2 in the center between the knee wall and the back board, but this is probably overkill and would only be needed if your seat was wider than 48".

The top is made up of three pieces of wood. First, I covered the framing with a 1x4 along the back wall. (This board is under the cubbyholes, so you can't see it.) This board was joined to the lid (which was made from a scrap of Advantech flooring) with a zipper hinge and a flat handle was attached to the lid. They probably make better handles, but this was all our local Lowes had in stock. The front of the top was finished off with a piece of cedar mitered on the front edge to provide a more leg friendly surface. I left 1/8" between the lid and the front cedar to allow the lid to open and close without rubbing.

Cedar was nailed on the front diagonally to match other cedar walls in the house and was trimmed with thin strips of cedar rounded on the router and mitered in the corners.

The original plan was to cover the entire seat with a cushion, but then I found out that the foam only comes in 24" widths. To make up the difference between the cushion width and the actual window seat width I put together a cedar cubbyhole to hold books, pencils, paper, etc. This is the one item I would redo, assuming I get another spurt of inspiration. It works, but it could be refined to look better.

Hopefully this will help someone build their own window seat. Questions are welcome and I'd love to see the end results if you build a seat.

Eating Locally

Our family is trying to reduce our carbon footprint and a big part of that is eating locally. We have a large garden, a small flock of chickens, a few goats and I'm seeing a couple cows in our future. Still there are times when we need to buy stuff.

Like coffee. The best place in the county to buy Fair Trade, Organic coffee is Berea Coffee and Tea, Kentucky's first "green" coffee shop. Their long list of coffees can be found here. While you're at their website you can also read about the process they went through to become "green."

Berea College Farms are selling locally raised beef and other meats. You select how much meat you need, how you want it cut (if you select a quarter or side) and then pick it up and pay for it in the fall when it's ready. Berea College is also trying to become sustainable by raising the food they use on campus on their farms.

There are several farmer's markets in Richmond, Berea and Irvine. The organic market in Berea is open on Tuesday and Friday evenings beside Promenade Gallery. There is another Berea market under the stadium beside the pool at Berea Community School, but I'm not sure of the days. In Richmond the market is in the Lowes parking lot on Tuesday afternoon and Saturday morning. There is a list of other markets in the state here.

I mentioned local strawberries in an earlier post, but leave a comment if you know of any other local food options.

Knitting Two Socks at One Time

After knitting two pairs of socks, I thought I'd try two at the same time, so I don't have to force myself to knit the second sock.

It took knitting for several inches before I got control of the two strands of yarn and cables and could easily pick things back up when I put down the needles. In fact I had to take out several rows because I started knitting backwards and didn't catch it until it was time to change needles. The heel didn't work exactly right, it was very awkward, but I'm past that now, just need to finish the foot and toe.

I do like the idea of having both socks done at once, but I'm getting bored with them, so I started a lace project too.

This weekend was spent fixing strawberries, working in the yard and knitting lace. We went to Marcum Farms and picked seven gallons of berries. They were great, but I noticed later in the day that another farm less than a quarter mile up the road had berries for $6 a gallon rather than $9, just in case anyone wants to pick strawberries.

Here is a quick picture of the lace stole I'm working on. It's like knitting a cloud. The lace is so light and soft. The yarn is Kid Seta by Madil Yarns from ReBelle Girls in Lexington. It is 70% kid mohair, 30% silk and it is luscious. My new camera is on the blink, so none of these pictures are very good. I apologize for that.

Blackberry Winter/Local Strawberries Ready

According to the local farmers, we just had blackberry winter. Blackberries are in full bloom and the temps were 38 degrees the night before last.

How is it that it always happens that way? I think I'll keep track of it for a few years.

If you're looking for local produce, the strawberries at Marcum Farms just up College Hill Road from Waco are ready to pick. $9 a gallon for u-pick, $11 a gallon if they pick. I haven't stopped yet, but last year they were terrific. Melissa made jam and we enjoyed it up until January, so we need to make more this year.

KCA Spring 2008

The Spring Kentucky Council on Archives meeting was held at Appalshop in Whitesburg, KY. It was a long, rainy drive but beautiful.

There were three speakers for this meeting:

• Caroline Rubens of Appalshop: To Fit Our Own Category: Preservation of 35 Years of Appalshop Audio Recordings
• Robert Gipe of Southeast Community and Technical College: Higher Ground: The Role of Self-documentation in the Preservation of Community Identity
• Dwight Swanson formerly of Appalshop: Film Preservation at Appalshop: Funding and Process

Caroline's talk centered around the processes related to preserving some of Appalshop's earliest recordings. Most of their work was made possible through grants and they reformatted audio materials three different ways:

1. Inhouse
2. With a small production company
3. Using a large company with conservation abilities

They decided to work with the finished products rather than the raw sound files as the finished audio that had been sold was the closest to the artist's original vision for the music.

Caroline gave pros and cons for each experience, but the end result was that they would use the professional conservator for audio that they planned on selling. Other audio would be done inhouse with their equipment and Adobe Audition for digitization.

Some other interesting items were that they used a food dehydrator for baking tapes with sticky tape syndrome. They were using LTO Data tapes for long term offsite storage rather than a server or external hard drive.

Robert Gipe is the head of Appalachian Studies at Southeast Community College and talked about his project in using art to document the community. They focused on photography, community theater and tile mosaic murals. The photography combined photographs with oral history which was then turned into several tile mosaics and a play. The "If These Hills Could Talk" mosaic is awesome. The tiles making up the hills are stamped with letters and make up quotes from the oral history project.

Last was Dwight Swanson talking about film preservation projects at Appalshop. All their projects were funded through grants from the National Film Preservation Foundation(NFPF). The earliest grants were to have older films preserved and put on new 16mm film. Later grants have included digitization of films as well. The NFPF site gives a list of labs that can do the preservation work as well as grant information.

The cost estimate to preserve and make a copy of 1000 feet of 16mm film (about 28 minutes) is nearly $4,000 and the cost to digitize the preserved film is nearly $1,000. This cost is for a professional film conservation lab to do the work.

Good presenters and good information. Also we got the chance to talk to other colleagues about our Flickr project. There was a lot of interest from other institutions in using Flickr for their photos as well.

Springtime

There has been so much going on at the farm right now, that I can't seem to keep up with it all. After living in the house for over a year I'm finally trying to get some landscaping done, so every evening I'm planting something or moving dirt.

I started pouring a concrete pathway to the house last summer, but it seemed to take so long and it got complicated when I decided to do a curvy path rather than straight. A few weeks ago I noticed a lot of slate laying on top of the ground where they had recently put in a water line close to home. So every evening I've stopped and picked up slate. One more night will give me enough to do most of the path and it will be much faster than mixing about 30 bags of concrete.

My youngest just turned 13, so it's official, a household full of female teenagers and one menopausal mom. It gets interesting. Somehow she managed to get a four-legged birthday present. That 'S' tattooed on my forehead must be getting bigger.

Once again the peach tree is loaded with tiny peaches, but since they never get very big, I'm trying the advice in one of my gardening books and I'm thinning them. Maybe this year we'll have good peaches and the Japanese beetles won't get them all.

Ashley just started a blog for things that are happening on the farm which finally has a name, Cedar Pond Farm.

Locust Winter

Well, the locust trees are in full bloom, so I guess this cold spell is officially 'Locust Winter' according to the old timers at the local store. I even had to turn on the heat again last night.

Friends

Good friends plus a street dance with live music plus a moonlight walk in the woods plus a glass of wine near a gurgling creek equals one of the best evenings I've had in a long time.

A Slideshow From EKUArchives @ Flickr

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

These photos are from the 1950s set.

Archives Flickr Project Launched

Back in February our archives set up a Flickr account and started uploading photos to prepare for Alumni Weekend. We’ve talked for a long time about doing some kind of photo identification project to get names on some of the thousands of pictures we have before they can’t be identified.

When the Library of Congress uploaded photos to Flickr, we decided to follow suit. Since February we uploaded, tagged and described over 700 EKU images. We created sets so users could find images of interest more easily, sorting photos by decade and by topic. There are some mistakes that still need to be corrected, it’s easy to flip a negative and scan it backwards. There are some typos and a couple misidentifications, but those problems are easily corrected. We have a couple Flickr problems; for example, you can add a note to some photos, but not all. It is a global setting, so we can’t figure out why it doesn’t always work.

The test came this past weekend. It was Alumni Weekend and we had three opportunities to showcase the project. We made up cards with a direct link so that anyone interested could go straight to our photostream from home.

Friday night before the Scholarship Dinner we set up three laptops with Flickr slideshows and talked to everyone who stopped. Cards were passed out and most people we talked to seemed really interested.

Saturday we set up at the Alumni Breakfast and talked to alumni for several hours before lunch and again in the archives that afternoon. One of the Pioneer Club inductees was the Milestone photographer for the 57 and 58 yearbooks. He was really excited to see some of his photos on Flickr and promised to make as many IDs as he could. Sunday we showcased the project to Friends of the Library.

Tiring weekend, but we got a lot of great feedback, including identifications on several photos we had posted. Before the weekend, our photostream had been viewed about 1150 times, Monday morning that had jumped to 1246 views.

One of our students spent a couple months adding a series of negatives from the 1950s to our photo database and is now scanning some of the late 1950s images to add to Flickr. We chose these years to concentrate on, since most of the alumni we spoke with were there for their 50^th reunion. Later we’ll add more from other decades and see how it goes.

A Late Earth Day Post

We’re having a real spring this year and everything seems to be staying in bloom forever, because of the cool weather. So to celebrate Earth Day, here are some signs of spring around our farm.

Kittens anyone? We now have 9. The other litter is grays and blacks, with a bobtail orange.

The first time I saw the apple tree in full bloom it took my breath away, it was so beautiful, but the photo of the whole tree didn’t do it justice.

In our family there is nothing that says spring more than having weather nice enough to play with the horses again. Tori got her very own horse for her birthday and is loving it. He just rolled in the pond so he isn’t his usual pretty gray color, more like mud.

Foodwise, spring is great. Lettuce and spinach are ready to eat. The hens are laying three or four eggs a day, so we have more than we can eat right now. And best of all the asparagus is just popping through the ground. This bed was planted last year, so we shouldn’t eat it till next year, but I did steal a few shoots from this plant for a quiche, since they were a really nice size.

The bees were really buzzing around this redbud tree when I was wandering around taking pictures. Minnie and I were talking about the different winters that Kentucky gets each spring. She said that her grandmother always said there were seven different winters, but she couldn’t remember all of them. The first cold spell we got the pears were blooming, but neither of us had ever heard of Pear Winter. The next cold spell coincided with the redbuds blooming, so that was Redbud Winter. This cold spell we’re having right now the dogwoods are blooming, so Dogwood Winter. The others coming up should be Locust Winter and last of all will be Blackberry Winter. Has anyone heard of any others? Neither of us could come up with seven. But in all the years I’ve watched this it holds true almost every year.