It was kind of funny, and good for the students to get to meet and talk to people involved in farm bill politics, I think. For me it was okay too, a little tiring (4 weeks to go 'til potential new baby theoretically arrives), and a little separation-anxiety-y for me not to get to see Eytani for three whole days... but he, of course, did fine, and he got to hang out much both with papa and with visiting safta... and it was good practice for all of us, I'm sure :)
What else? Mike was accepted to a masters in teaching program (masters and teaching certificate in one year), a bachelors in nursing program (conversion from non-nursing to nursing bachelors in one year), and was wait-listed at a medical (doctor of osteopathy) school, all near pittsburgh. So he's in the midst of deciding lots of things... (although i'd say the lean is towards teaching, so far...).
**Photo interlude of Eytan gathering his things (hat, pacifier with attached duck, and potty/briefcase), saying goodbye to us, and getting ready to leave (for work? school? outing?). Sometimes the routine involves kissing the cat goodbye too.
Meanwhile, we're starting to look for places to move (in the area but not in the city), both because our landlord wants to rent our current apartment out to students starting this summer (he can put more students in here and presumably charge more rent) and (mostly) because urban life doesn't seem to suit us so much right now. There are, of course, conveniences -- walking to work, Mike being closer to classes, less car time for Eytan, nearby playgrounds...
But we miss being able to walk out the front door in bare feet and be outside. And we miss being able to have animals and gardens... not that we currently have tons of spare time, but we also don't really take advantage of city things all that much either (restaurants, movies, museums, concerts, etc.). So it's operation look-for-housing and operation bring-the-goats-east time. The only tricky part seems to be finding a place not too too too far a commute that will let us keep farm animals and that is more rural than suburban -- zoning seems to be, unsurprisingly, more restrictive here than in Wenatchee.
**Photo interlude: To contradict what I just said, here's a picture from a diner chain in the area that we decided to try out. Eytan decided the best part was eating the butter. And below a picture from the aviary where Mike and Eytan went with our neighbor and their 2-year-old.
It also looks like I'm going to be teaching a class on dairy in the fall, so I'm trying to get some leverage for housing the goats somewhere (our theoretical new place to live? the farm campus?) by building them into the class (well, and I think they'd be a really good complement to the class). It is one of the nice things about my job, the melding of academic stuff with hands-on stuff (i.e. I can totally justify, and am encouraged to justify, having goat-milking and cheese-making be part of my syllabi just like reading and writing are part of it). See photo below, for example, I sat in this semester on a meat production class that involved seven weeks at a lamb farm and slaughterhouse, with the last week being a lamb-cooking party. Really interesting too to cook under the instruction of a chef who can tell you why to cook things a certain way and how...
2 comments:
Congrats to Mike on the diversity of fields that see his gifts and potential! And best of luck with the decision. Good luck finding housing that works for you, too. Your teaching sounds super-cool. And do you know the sex of this baby-to-be?
Thanks :) And nope, this one is a mystery baby as well...
Post a Comment