Check out all the wonderful shots that have been uploaded so far from our community photo project last weekend, Day in the Life of Asheville. I have yet to upload my top 15, though I have uploaded a bunch to my Flikr stream. Check them out and tell me which ones you like. Deadline is Friday at midnight.
Musings on aging, responsibility and parenting using a recent high school band reunion (and Kurt Vonnegut) as jumping off points:
Not that I want to talk too much about the ravages of aging, but some obvious differences between us at 18 and us at 45 include more adipose tissue and less hair. And those 25,000 beers we’ve drunk over the past 30 years? Some of them stuck around to pad our middles — making us more huggable, right?
Beer gypsies, the Trollingers, me and Julie of Bruisin' Ales
It’s been eons since I wrote much about mommy’s little equilibrium enhancer. Why? Because I’ve been trying to cut back on the quantities of beer I imbibe. Before summer fest comes beer fast. Also, my beer metabolism just ain’t what it used to be. So sad.
I was equally saddened to miss meeting beer rock star, Sam Calgione of Dogfish Head brewery, last weekend. Sam was delayed in Charlotte on Friday night, and I had to get home for a tag team night with E-spouse, so I missed the guy. And I hear he’s just my type–low-key, swarthy, and brimming with beer facts. For photos and dets of Sam’s visit to Ashevegas, visit Bruisin’ Ales loverly blog.
To honor Sam, I bought some Midas Touch and took it to Atlanta with me for an impromptu beer tasting at a party Saturday night. Midas is made using an ancient Turkish recipe (I made up that it was Sumerian, but I was wrong). It’s brewed with honey and grapes, which makes it a bit mead-like. I like it, but as a dessert beer, not a sipping-at-a-party beer. Next I’d like to try the Raison D’Etre, described by Dogfish Head as a deep mahogany ale brewed with beet sugar, green raisins and Belgian yeast. Yum!
I also took some of Highland Brewing’s Cattail Peak Wheat to Atlanta (a craft beer desert whose only watering hole is Sweet Water Brewing). I heart this beer. It’s now organic. Hurrah! It’s a smooth summer drinking beer with body.
In other brew news, we, the city of Asheville, tied with Portland, Ore., for number one beer city in the U.S. Yes, we did. And to celebrate, there will be a hops-infused party at The Orange Peel on June 26, sponsored by both the Peel and Mountain Xpress. It should be a blast.
Also, I hear the Asheville Tourists are sponsoring a beer festival on August 22 at McCormick Field. That’s less than a month before Brewgrass (Sept. 19), but Brewgrass is, as always, sold out, so I guess it’s not much competition.
So that’s three local craft beer parties this summer. Oh, be still my pounding heart.
This week’s column is about veggies and kids (again). Mostly about growing them. Happy planting!
This week my column’s all about chicken education at the kids’ school.
What day of the week do chickens hate? Fry-day!
The lowly chicken has been big news around town lately.
For one, the Asheville City Chickens movement pushed through changes to the city’s animal control ordinance governing urban chickens last week at Asheville City Council. Now those of us with houses so close together you can use two paper cups and a string to chat can keep chickens, too. Thanks to the ACC, the minimum distance between a coop and your neighbor’s home has been reduced — though I still don’t have room for poultry.
Plus, I don’t much care for live chickens — it’s those beady little eyes and dinosaur-like claws — though I don’t mind eating them and their eggs (the raccoons who live in the house behind mine wouldn’t mind eating them either). So, no chickens in Edgy land.
Luckily, my kids’ school, Isaac Dickson Elementary, keeps chickens, and the mostly city-raised students there know much more about poultry care and chicken life cycles than, well, I do. In fact, these kids learn tons from the lowly chicken. I call it chicken education.
The other day, I watched Patti Evans’ class of kindergartners and first-graders loving on the month-old chicks they incubated and hatched. The students thrill at telling the birth stories of the critters — these kids are like mini-parents. One explains that baby chicks break open their shells using an egg tooth that then falls off. See? Small dinosaurs in your back yard, ACCers.
Read the rest here. Thanks to Jason for the great photo.
