Nepal & Thailand - Our Amazing Experience

There's not much more to say - I'll let the pictures do the talkin'!

Nepal Photos

Thailand Photos

Humpback Whales and Hummingbirds

You can view the awesomeness of the Humpback Whale at an on-line exhibit on the Animal Planet website. Also, today was the first day I saw a hummingbird at our feeder in the front yard.

It was a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Yeah, we've finally attracted hummingbirds! I've been called a granola as of late and I'm starting to see why.

North Carolina Museum Ecuador Study Tour

From June 18-27, 2008, I was given the opportunity to travel with a group of North Carolina's finest and brightest educators to Ecuador on a Heifer International Study Tour, through the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. It was a truly amazing experience, where the relationships built among the participants and the people of Ecuador was equal to the natural wonders we were able to explore. From high atop the Andes Mountains to the Pacific Ocean - we laughed, we cried and we told a few inappropriate jokes.

Each day a different team would have the responsibility for writing a journal entry and answering questions we recieved through the North Carolina Museum website. Then Kim and Mary Ann would scoot across Ecuador to find the rare internet cafe so that the team's work and images could be uploaded onto the website. Anyways, I don't believe I could add much more to the wonderful job each team did with their journal entries, so I am just going to refer you to the trip journal website for more details on what we did everyday. You can also find more fantastic photos from the trip too.

Say hello to my little friend...

Please welcome the newest addition to our family - Pepé the Scooter (specifically a Yahama 125 Vino, 96 mpg) - a mean "green" gas saving machine! Watch out - Will and I might be doing a scooter drive by through your neighborhood soon.

Honduras Trip - April 2008

I have the best job sometimes, I really do. I got to go to Honduras for work on a research trip! Honduras is the country we send most of our Study Tours to because the program has the capacity to host many more groups throughout the year than our other country programs. Katherine and I went to find out the secrets to their success, so to speak, and see if we could replicate it in the other countries we send trips to. This first picture is Katherine and I at the Mayan Ruins in Copan. We ususally take groups here on the last 2 days of their trip, after they have had a Heifer Honduras orientation, workshops on the issues surrounding hunger and poverty, and several project visits where they go out into the field for several days and get the opportunity to see what Heifer International actually does within communities.

This was a fantastic trip and very eye-opening for me, as it was my first real experience in the field. It was definitely not a vacation, but the pace was slow enough for me to be able to soak it all in. I felt like I was learning something new almost every second! That in itself was a completely new experience for me. The McCaw is the National Bird of Honduras.

This is the market in Copan and the view from Honduras looking towards Guatemala.

The first project we visited was an Chorti Mayan livestock project. The Chorti are an indigenous people of Honduras and decendants of the Mayans. They are historically heavily discriminated against in Honduras and usually make up the poorest segment of the population. The second project we visited was also an indigenous group - El Chillar.

Both groups have received livestock from Heifer and building materials from another NGO and were working on replacing their thatched housing with concrete block housing.

Vegetable Patch Update 2.0

Our garden is thriving by the end of May and we are very proud of ourselves. We have to stay positive because gardening is such hard work! I thought pulling weeds was theraputic back in March, but I believe I have had enough therapy by now. Still, everyday Will and I come home from work excited to see what changes have occured in the garden. We get out there together and start pulling weeds and looking around and then pat ourselves on the back and go in when the mosquitos become to much to bear. Here are some photos of what we have coming up.

We have already eaten all of our lettuce, and now we have strawberries and tomatoes growing. The onions and potatoes are also doing well and the pumpkin vines are exploding.

Vegetable Patch Update 1.0

March 23-29, 2008: Spring Break 08, Will and I spent the whole week putting in a 800 sqf vegetable garden. Needless to say, we got in over our heads as novice gardeners, but everything came out all right in the end. It's our little/big experiment with organic gardening and composting. We used the back 1/4 south section of our yard. This first picture is the before shot.


The second picture is basically mid-way through the week. The clouds were threatening rain towards the end of the week, but we managed to finish before the monsoons came for the next 2 weeks. You can see our white composting bin Will built in the back of the garden - he put in a fence gate so we can get back there easily too.


Here is a close-up of a finished row at the end of the week. The Drew Vegetable Patch contains four raised beds. The bed to the far south is our herb (mint, lavender, parsley, rosemary, and cilantro) and sunflower bed. We also have a few extra brussel sprouts in there. The other beds are planted with corn, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, peppers, potatos, pumpkins, strawberries, onions, cucumbers, and tomatoes. About a week before, I had visited one of Heifer's Urban Gardens in Memphis for work and noticed that they were using the companion planting method where you pair plants and flowers together that have mutual benefits for each other. This supposedly helps control pests and attract benficial insects. So, that's why I planted two rows of marigolds in each row.