We've been on the road since mid-June.
Individually, each piece of this trip has been good and/or needed. But together, it has been a bit too much... On the plus side, really nice to not have the kids in daycare and to get to hang out with them more. On the minus side, between travel and jet lag and leftover work projects which were supposed to be finished before we left but weren't (and which are much harder to do when there's no daycare), it was overly ambitious. Goals for next summer: 1. Do less. 2. Say no to everything possible work related. 3. Stay home more.
That said, it has not been a boring summer. Here's the short-in-text long-in-pictures version.
First stop: Vermont -- 4-day conference, including cheesemaking class #1.
Adding rennet to cultured milk
Cutting curds
Heating
Eating
Second stop: New York -- family visits
Oops! No pictures!
Third stop: Israel -- a trip we had been hoping to take for several years but hadn't. We decided that, despite the two small toddler types, it wouldn't necessarily get any easier as time went on to go, so we went for it. It was a two-week combo of family/friend visits (of which for some reason I didn't take many pictures!), touristy visiting, and playground stops.
Jerusalem (same for the next two as well)
Markets (and below too)
At the Dead Sea
Windy car
Desert
On the train from Beer Sheva to Haifa
Haifa
Akko (and video below too)
Fourth stop: Minnesota -- I taught a travel/field class on corn/soybean agriculture and we did some family/friend visiting as well. The class was interesting and well-received, but made the two-week trip (it's a trend) way busier than hoped for.
Students at farmer visit
Soybeans
Grain elevator
Jolly Green Giant
Li'el is on the right, Caleb zee cousin on the left.
Fifth stop: Washington State -- Back for another research meeting, and also a few cheesemaking classes to strengthen that part of my dairy class this fall. Even so, I have to say this was the chillest two-week stop on our voyage -- a little more downtime, a little less work and running around.
Sixth stop: Florida -- A few extra days of family get-together time. We're actually heading there on Friday so no updates from that yet.
Seventh stop: Pittsburgh -- The week before we left, we got the two newest goat babies disbudded, to stop their horns from growing -- it's pretty standard practice, although I never really like it (makes it harder for them to thermo-regulate, but easier for them not to hurt anyone, especially if some are already horn-less). But this time the vet was a little too thorough... and one of the babies got a major infection and meningitis and... well, bad bad deal. The mama stopped recognizing/feeding her, so she had to be bottle fed most of the summer (by two students who were taking care of our goats). She has apparently recovered pretty well, but it was questionable for a while.
This event was followed by another, the night before we left, when Cle (our old wether) broke his leg trying to jump off a newly introduced (but apparently risky!) climbing spool. Another trip to the vet, a splint that needed weekly changing, and a second break a couple of weeks ago when he got too comfortable with it. So, we hope to arrive back to Pittsburgh, two months after we left, with better goat news than we left with.
So, all in all, we're well visited, but tired. Hoping for a little nap before school starts again...
