very simple

So, I finally decided to download my photos from Labor Day weekend, given that it’s almost November and I haven’t even put up a post since September. I’ll blame that part on the whole ‘having a job’ thing, even though, truth be told, I do have my weekends free. I’m just lazy.

But that started me down a wonderful journey of discovering that there was some sort of script error in my blog installation, which forced me to spend the last three hours venturing further down the rabbit hole of wordpress reinstallations, backups, “emergency” password fixes after wordpress decided to no longer recognize me…fun stuff.

it all appears to be (hopefully) working again, at least insofar as I can actually log in and write a post, but I had to delete a lot of plugin customizations particularly around stats. Not that anyone reads this thing anyway, so I guess that’s no great loss!

Anyway…on to the original point of this post. Labor Day weekend, as usual, was spent in the Berkshires. This year it was very rainy, so we ventured up to The Clark in Williamstown to check out some of the art. The coolest thing was an exhibit by El Anatsui, a Ghanaian artist who refashions the multitude of liquor bottles foisted upon the local population into beautiful wall hangings. So this is mostly that. As always, click on the thumbnail to get the full image.

I’m pretty sure I’ve given up the ghost on the 365 project (again), but I’m still taking pictures when the mood strikes. I’m going to blame it on the fact that I’ve got a new job (finally) and that’s taking up a lot of my brain-space now, which I view as a good thing. Getting paid doesn’t hurt either. But, in any event, I headed up to the family compound in the Berkshires for memorial day weekend, and took some pics of the burgeoning spring/summer flora and fauna. As always, click on the thumbnail to see the full photos.

We are not a particularly religious family, but we still do the big holidays. of course, we do them in our own unique, potentially sacrilegious way.

Our seder plate – the plate itself is beautiful, a gift to my stepmother from someone she knew who was an Iraqi jew. We, of course, never have all of the proper ingredients, so we do things like replace the hard-boiled egg with a purple marshmallow peep.

I can’t even estimate how old this bottle of Manischewitz is. It’s got a modern label, so it can’t be that old, but I do know that we dig it out of the basement every passover, use about 3 oz of it for the actual seder (and Elijah’s cup), and then drink good, non-kosher wine with our actual dinner. Then the bottle goes back in the basement for another year.

And finally – our passover table. This one is pretty traditional, including the deluxe edition Coffees of Maxwell House Passover Haggadah.

This weekend, we headed up to the berkshires for an early passover seder on Sunday. But on Saturday, we had a farm day at our friend Billie’s farm. Billie runs the farm (where she raises chicken and cows) largely by herself, so a few times a year, friends head over to take care of some of the bigger projects that require more than one person. This year, we were re-fencing a pasture after the fence got damaged from all the snow this winter, and we were tearing out one of the gardens in order to turn it into more cow pasture. I (of course) brought my camera. I ended up taking more pics of the animals than of people, because that’s what happens when you put me near adorable farm animals (including adorable baby farm animals), but nevertheless, here are some shots from the day.

My brother, who just finish his Masters Degree in education, is leaving the country (again) to travel to Africa and Nepal for a year. In between climbing lots of rocks, he’s planning on visiting a variety of educational institutions during his trip in order to…well, I’ll just let him explain it himself.

I can’t believe he’s leaving again. It seems like he just got back from the Peace Corps yesterday.

(and yes, he is totally one of those do-gooder-type people who wants to make the world a better place while the rest of us obsess over the real estate market).