I had the funniest dream last night that there were several contract workers who were pilfering materials from my building site. They agreed to bring them back but were concerned it wasn't getting used. (Now my subconscious is feeling the need to work)

Yesterday at Lowe's I got chicken wire and insulation for the roof. The chicken wire will be to hem in the bales a little more and give some more stability. Plus I have some gaps that I can't fill with full bales and want to make sure it holds. The insulation is for the roof. I've been trying to figure out if I need to vent it. . . 

I could write a book on the things I just don't know about building. 

It's  holiday weekend. I plan to use it. 

I'm looking forward to seeing some real progress in the next few weeks. I will keep you all posted.... watch this space....

Things I love about building my own office space:

1. I can walk into Lowe's (Home improvement store) in my nastiest jeans, grungiest T-shirt, with my hair looking it's messiest, go to the exact part of the exact isle where I know the precise type of bits I'm looking for, and as Aerosmith blares on my iPod, I can carry myself with some seriously bad ass confidence in what I'm doing. Nice. 

Cha-cha-cha-changes....

When I left in early March - the office walls were up, but other than that, my "office" looked like this. See. Nice, open, airy...

BUT... while I was gone...

It rained...

A LOT...

And got warmer...

A LOT....

And now it looks like ...

THIS!!

The blue tarp is keeping the bales dry, and there has been a little more done on it... but I tell you... Spring done Sprung while I was gone!!!

The view from the front doors looked like this last fall, during the drought...

Now it looks like this!!

LUSH LUSH LUSH!!

And of course, the real reason I came back:

It's amazing how fast time flies. I could not be more proud of this kid. 

Now, I'm off to work on my shed.

Happy Memorial Day folks!

I'm BACK!!

This is where I've been:

No, I haven't been in prison. I've been in Namibia.

More people think it looks like this:
Honestly, I can understand it. It's prettier out here. This guy was very kind to pose for us.

But really, this is more of what I was doing. This is a community group up near the border with Angola. We help a bunch of meetings to ask them what they thought about a potential fence being built on the border to keep cows from going across. 

We also saw a lot of really neat sights. Like this Oshana - it's flooded because of well... the floods. This kid caught the fish that washed into the Oshanas with the floods. They are eating a LOT of fish there these days.
We also visited Ruacana Falls. It was impressive and definitely worth seeing. That's Angola on the other side. 
Also we were meeting with indigenous folks like this Himba woman. The guy, Penda, is not Himba, but he knows their language. He's a nice guy, but evidently she was ready to smack him.

Actually though, these ladies rub a paste of ochre and cow fat into their skin, and coat their hair with it. They are one of the most "traditional" societies left in Africa. They are lovely people, though a bit slow to trust outsiders. I could understand that. After all, we had no clue how to survive in this climate as well as they did. 
This is Epupa Falls - also on the border. They were going to build a dam here and flood this. But the Himba and a lot of international indigenous rights groups protested. So they didn't. It is genuinely beautiful. I'm glad it's not flooded... yet?
These are the folks I had the honor of traveling with. Penda, you've met. He was our translator and assistant. He works with the Ministry of Environment and Tourism as a Warden for 2 National Parks. He hangs out with folks like us on his off time for fun. The lovely lady next to him is Debbie. She's AWESOME! She's a PhD biologist who grew up in Zimbabwe. She's worked in Botswana and Namibia and specializes in elephants. She was a bush pilot, has a horse named Moose, and a really wonderful sense of humor. I could not have hoped for better traveling companions. I miss them both a lot. 
Speaking of elephants. We were on our way to Grootberg Lodge . How often do you see an ELEPHANTS CROSSING sign? I mean really... No, we didn't see any.
These are the rooms at Grootberg. They are built using local supplies and are part of a community owned nature conservancy. It's amazing. It's really really amazing. 

I'll post some more pictures later on. 

Being home is nice. It's good to spend time with my boys and to pick up on the work on my office... But that will come tomorrow...

Good night, y'all!!

Cairo Bound!

Hi Kids!

I just wanted to touch base with you all, thank you for a really fun couple of weeks and all your good work in class.

I made it to Cairo, which was a lot of fun and very educational. If you look over my left shoulder in the photo, you can see the big challenges faced for environmental work there!! (No!! THE OTHER Shoulder!!! I'm talking about the smog and airpollution that is behind me, not the Pyramids!) Yes, really that is Cairo and this was a relatively clear day there!

Also, I wanted to remind you to please send me your Power Point presentations from class if you haven't. I think I am still missing a few.
And regarding the plaster party for my office, it will be delayed a bit. I think I won't be home until sometime in mid May at this point.

I'm currently in Namibia and should have fairly reliable e-mail access for the trip. It's been good to be here and this project has a lot of very interesting components. And as always, Namibia is a lovely place.

I hope you all enjoyed Rome, Naples and Florence. Enjoy Italy, give my best to everyone there and stay in touch!!

VERY BEST,
Mary

This is actually a mispost for my students from Verona... but it does give an idea of what's going on with me!

By the way, I thought building my office was tough... these Pyramids were really humbling when it came to thinking about how and why someone would do something like this!! But they've definitely lasted!!

As it stands now...

I've been dreaming about my office lately.

I'm not really one to do the whole "sacred spaces" stuff, but I do have a real affinity for this little nitch in the woods. Yesterday I was talking to my students here in Italy about it, and ended up showing them photos. They said it looks like a "REALLY COOL treehouse!" WHAT A COMPLIMENT!!

Seriously, it's such an amazing place. In my dream this morning, my husband told me he'd sold the house and was moving to Arizona. I refused to go. I didn't want to leave my shed. And the worse thing was the buyer wanted to tear it down. Ugh. Anyway, It's fun to realize, it was ONLY a dream.

I've gotten good news. I'll have some time in May that I may be available to work on it. I'm really looking forward to that! I just read back through my full blog - what one does in Italy when exhausted and listening to Grace Jones. It was so neat to see everything from the very earliest starts, the "tent office" to this.

It's been good to see the progress, and I smile ruefully to know how much more I have yet to do. And the funny thing is, even though I am working again, I still want to be the one to do the work on it myself. I don't want to hire out the work. I've really come to love the time working on it.

I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I'm doing it.

I'll post the Plastering Party dates when we get closer to them. One thing about Italy is they do some fun stuff with plaster. It's inspirational. Maybe I'll put angels above the windows or gargoyles on the roof. Or, um, oh yeah. Maybe not.

We'll see.

I'm looking forward to getting back to it!!

Not completely gone

Hi Folks!

Sorry to be in absentia for so long. Dad's health took a bad turn - and he needed to be tended to more closely than would allow me to be out working on the "shed". He's with my beloved brother right now, giving me a break.

I did have a magnificent time with the local county permitting office. They finally decided I needed on.

To clarify - when I called last summer, they said "come by when you have your plans together, and we'll get you taken care of."

Well, okay, it's now spring, so what's my excuse?

My plans keep changing.

BUT they wanted something on record, so I went in (3 times) and got the requisit building permits. I had a most wonderful time finding out that my county officials take their jobs seriously and do everything they can to protect the ecology of our area. They had to inspect the site to be sure that I was not building in the riparian zone of the stream that borders our property (I wasn't). Then ANOTHER guy had to come out to check that my building was not impacting the stream with erosion. (It isn't)

When I thanked them for doing this they looked at me like I'd just grown another head. But when I explained that my job is going all over the world helping governments protect their waterways, and that I was so THRILLED to have it in my own back yard. (They nodded, smiled and looked marginally relieved.)

Anyway, I'm now in Italy. (*yeah, life is tough) and I don't quite know when I'll be home.

But that will be saved for another post.

Take care!
M