travel

The nineteenth of April 2019

goats

Make sure you get a chance to look outside this evening because there is a fantastic full moon known as the Pink Moon. The Pink Moon will not actually appear pink, but was rather named for wild ground phlox which typically sprouts during this time of year. Often, you might hear different full moons called different things, such as a Wolf Moon or a Harvest Moon, and many of these names can be attributed to Algonquin people who inhabited eastern North America before the European invasion. Pink or not, it is a beautiful sight to see!

The pink moon is said to be a sign of spring.

The eighteenth of April 2019

goats

So, yesterday I dragged my family to a goat sanctuary that was not open to the public. I felt fairly bad, as it was a beautiful day and being cooped up in the car is no fun. Luckily, along our journey home we happened upon Pear Tree Farm Shop in Cheshire. It is a lovely shop, run by a very friendly woman with a son about the same age as mine. We walked in and fortuitously she mentioned something about goats! And there they were, three Pygmy goats enjoying the sunshine! My son enjoyed a delicious sausage roll and this morning I fried up half a dozen free range eggs for breakfast. Plus, I have a few new goat photographs for the archives.

Hanging out at Pear Tree Farm

The seventeenth of April 2019

goats

Today, was one of those days. My family and I had been spending some time in a holiday caravan near the Yorkshire Dales National Park and made our way back to our home after a lovely holiday. I had planned two stops on the way back, first to a trout farm, and second to a goat sanctuary to take new and exciting pictures of goats for my blog. I realize, that some of the goats you may have grown familiar with, as my visit to Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats last autumn produced quite a few unique photographs. However, I worry that my material has grown stale and that my followers and supporters are bored. I try to get new photographs whenever I have an opportunity.

Anyway, first, the trout farm was basically a pond where old men (I did not see any young people or women there) fish for trout and was not exciting and given that I was with my five year old, we were encouraged to leave.

Second, we found The Goat Sanctuary, somewhere between Manchester and Liverpool, but sadly it was not open to the public. I did manage to find some goats today, but will save them for tomorrow. As today has been a tad strange, I shall share with you my most favorite photograph from my library of goats. I met this goat in Delhi, India, and was struck by the self-assured glint in its eye, as though it holds some secrets of the universe or special knowledge. I think that even if Google sends this goat astray on its journey, it will continue to smile and saunter along as if that was always their plan. At any rate, today was a lovely spring day and a wonderful opportunity to meander across England.

This is my most favorite goat.

The seventh of April 2019

goats

Today was a very exciting day in the UK. A very famous race between two of the world’s most renowned universities, Oxford and Cambridge, takes place every year in the spring time. Each team spends the winter training and gearing up for the big day. Light blue versus regular blue, and there is plenty of pomp and circumstance before the big race and then…one goat representing Cambridge and one representing Oxford run side-by-side and whoever crosses the finish line at Spitalfields City Farm first wins! Last year, it was a very close race, but Hamish the goat representing Oxford gamboled across the finish line first – and this year he held his title! Hugo, the goat representing Cambridge put in a very good effort, but it was not quite enough to beat last year’s champion. The Oxford Cambridge Goat Race is a wonderful Sunday afternoon with plenty of tasty beverages, goat-related puns, and good times. There is even a pre-goat race pig race that is a lot of fun. It is very advisable to book in advance, as it is the best race happening in London this day and is likely to sell out – you wouldn’t want to be stuck with nothing to do on race day!

The sixth of April 2019

goats

Although many stereotypes would have you believe that goats like to eat garbage, we know that goats are usually just trying something out with an experimental chew before deciding whether or not its worth eating. That said, goats end up eating a lot of leafy green vegetables! Leafy green vegetables should also be a part of a human’s diet, as they are nutrient dense, with minimal calories, and help support a healthy immune system. They are also full of antioxidants, which help prevent your body from developing cancer. I like to eat a big pile of raw spinach with an egg in the morning.

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Perhaps goats are wiser about food choices than we realize!

The second of April 2019

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Many goats are so beloved by the communities they live in. For example, recently in the United States, the town of Fair Haven, Vermont, elected a goat named Lincoln to preside as mayor. The village of Cushendun in Northern Ireland had a similar beloved town goat; however, Johann, to my knowledge, never held elected office. He served the village of Cushendun as a volunteer greeter to visitors hoping to enjoy the Victorian architecture settled along the sea. Sadly, Johann served Cushendun until 2001, when he was the last animal to put to rest during the great Foot and Mouth Outbreak that brought the agriculture to a halt in the United Kingdom. Many people now visit Cushendun because it was the setting of an infamous scene from the popular television show Game of Thrones when sorceress Melisandre birthed a shadow. If you find yourself looking for the cave of the shadow baby, you can’t miss the statue built to celebrate the life of Johann the goat, welcoming you to the village.

The statue commemorating Johann the Goat was sculpted in 2002 by artist Deborah Brooks.

The twenty ninth of March 2019

goats

There is always something to look forward to, whether it is a big cake on your birthday, a new adventure over the Easter holidays, a sunny day, or even a good night’s rest.

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Springtime always fills me with hope.

The third of March 2019

goats

Desire paths are those trodden, foot created trails you sometimes see across open spaces representing places that lack a proper paved sidewalk or footpath that people (and or goats) use to make their journeys more efficient. Perhaps they signal a certain yearning to rebel against the modern world, forge your own path and thumb your nose at the algorithms of urban planning. On one hand, they are a form of active resistance, dividing planted grassy knolls and designated open spaces, but on the other, they are literally perhaps the “path of least resistance” making traveling across these spaces perhaps easier and less time consuming. Desire paths are the physical manifestation of one of the paradoxes of being human – a longing to be your own, individual person, guided by your own desires, intuition and knowledge that is better than anyone else’s for your experience; however, longing to belong and fit in with others, to experience the stages of life in their proper order and to share your life’s path with others. Perhaps there is no real solution other than finding balance between our yearning for individuality and belonging, and maybe updated urban planning algorithms.

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What is your desire path?

The twenty eighth of February 2019

goats

By the time February rolls around, the sparkle of the festive season is long gone, and the hopes of the new year start to feel a bit stale. Also, in many places, February has the worst weather out of the year (climate change related spring fake-outs notwithstanding). So, maybe whoever set up the way we keep track of time way back when felt the same way? Perhaps!

Throughout human history, people in different cultures and places had different conceptions of how to track the passage of time. The calendar most of us are familiar with is the Gregorian calendar, created in 1582 under the direction of Pope Gregory XIII, who was trying to solve the problem that seasons do not always change in formulaic ways and that it takes Earth 365.24219 days to revolve around the sun – making the possibility for calendrical wonkiness quite high.

So then, why is February so short? Actually, this time you can’t really blame a pope.  The origins of the calendar take us to the eighth century BC, when the smaller Roman world was organized on the calendar of Romulus – ten months of the year beginning with March on the vernal equinox. Winter was mostly unaccounted for, so you had about two months of calendrical void. To solve the issue, King Numa Pompilius added two months – January and February, and roughly organized the calendar to lunar cycles. This made more sense and you could finally schedule winter time appointments! Pompilius and other people at the time apparently thought that even numbers were unlucky and when they hashed everything out decided that if there had to be an unlucky month in order to have 355 days in  a year, it should be the shortest. By the time Julius Caesar reorganized the calendar to come to 365 days on a solar-based model, the twenty-eight day short month of February was here to stay. I suppose that over a millennia everyone from the pre-Roman Republic kings to Renaissance Popes basically agreed that this time of year is a bit of a bummer, keeping the month to 28 (sometimes 29) days a year.

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Perhaps take solace in the fact that historically, February has always kind of sucked?