voice thread

I haven't updated in a while and it's been a full and beautiful summer. I was just introduced to this great new tool so instead of posting pictures here I'm going to use Voicethread to make a series of "books" about our summer.

here's the first one:

voicethread.com/share/1346623/

The best part of this software is the interaction....so please....make a free account on the site and leave a comment ( it can be voice, video or text)

Crabs on the roof

In a very real sense, we’re all made out of sunlight. Sunlight radiating heat, visible light, and ultraviolet light is the source of virtually all life on Earth.Everything you see alive around you is there because a plant somewhere was able to capture sunlight and store it.All animals live from these plants, whether directly (as with herbivores) or indirectly (as with carnivores, which eat the herbivores). This is true of mammals, insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles, bacteria...everything living. Every life form on the surface of this planet is here because a plant was able to gather sunlight and store it, and something else was able to eat that plant and take that sunlight-energy in to power its body.

--Thom Hartmann

So here is the little bundle of sunshine after 2 weeks and 8 months of converting star stuff into body stuff.
It wasn't easy getting him back into that shirt.
Louie has been using a variety of fruit and veg to make his body...but still most eagerly with breast milk. It's great to see him enjoy food as a full body experience dancing and rocking in his chair as he anticipates the next spoonful.

As for us, we had the occasion to incorporate crab into our bodies last weekend. Seunghwan's sister Yuri had bought a decent weight of fresh whole crabs which she froze, and gave us half. ( thanks Yuri!)A week before we watched a video of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall preparing crab pasta (thanks James!)and we were inspired to try the pasta recipe.
We steamed half the crab and mixed it into the pasta sauce and Seunghwan Barbecued the rest
to be eaten straight up. I think everyone agreed that the pasta was delish but the BBQed meat had better flavour.
North Americans in general tend to be a little cowardly in their approach to food. We don't really like to see the animal it comes from, or touch it with our hands, and are not so fond of consuming organs...especially when they are called by their true name.
I was impressed to see that Seunghwan could expertly open the crab and identify everything inside it and that he not only ate but thoroughly enjoyed every part save the shell and mustache...yes, crabs have mustaches.

To me this is true respect for the animal. To use all of it...to enjoy all of it.

I wish I could have done the same but I did enjoy the crab meat in the pasta.

Staying fit with baby

We picked up a used jogging stroller on our trip to Canada at Christmas. It has been so nice to get out for a run with Louie and take advantage of the 35km stretch of flat path along the Han River which runs through the center of Seoul.The inconvenience of extra baggage is a faint memory. We actually live quite close too...a 15 minute walk or 10 min sprint straight down the hill from our place. Louie plays with his toys, eats banana, or just takes in the fresh morning breeze and view of the water for a half hour and then we play at one of the many parks along along the path. And at every park there is inevitably a group of Ajjumas or middle school girls ready to smother Louie...he loves it!

Lately we go a couple of times a week and then other mornings I enjoy a solo run while Seunghwan plays with Louie.

And Seunghwan has found a new weight training technique in which the poundage magically increases on it's own week by week.

Dinner: tomato/zucchini omelet with rice

Feed Me!

Louie is now eating rice, mushroom, wheat, banana, seaweed, carrot, spinach, melon, oatmeal and more, but nothing gets the response pictured below quite the same as his favorite: sweet potato. He's so eager for sweet potato that his little arms and legs flap wildly up and down if it takes me more than a nanosecond to deliver the next spoonful.

He has also begun grazing on poppies.

And yummy foolishness remains part of a well balanced diet.




















Dinner: Brown rice and veggies with rice paper wraps and peanut sauce.

Natural Building Weekend 2 http://cafe.naver.com/strawbalehouse.cafe

We drove to a small village called Hyangnam in Gyunggido a few weeks ago to participate in a meetup of members of an online Natural building forum.

This was the first of such meetups and the hosts were not expecting such a big response. They were planning to invite participants into their small straw bale home but happily ended up having to erect three tents to house the nearly 80 of us who came.There were speakers presenting information mostly about what kinds of natural building materials are commercially available in Korea. Representatives from companies were showing their wares: including wood products, tiles made from specialized minerals that draw impurities from the environment, and a wood pellet boiler system.I don't think I'd like to be dependent on a industry manufactured product for heating, but some pellet boilers can also burn logs.
The model we saw was similar t this:

I love the idea of making your own pellets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs471oZgbtg&feature=related

It was great to see so many people interested in building there own home in a culture where DIY is just beginning to lose it's low class stigma. Overall though, there seemed to be too much focus on prefabricated materials rather than evaluating the natural building materials available right at the building site. dirt, stone, clay!

To balance this, there was one speaker who presented ideas about the importance of people reacquainting themselves with nature and using home building as an opportunity to do so.
Hopefully for the next meeting there will be some hands on work, this time around it was very much classroom style sit down and listen to the expert style learning.

The hosts home is a modest size strawbale building maybe 700 square feet and was originally built as a retirement home for his parents.

here are some pictures.

One detail I really like are these low windows that make use of the cool air coming down from the mountain behind the house. For a culture that spends a lot of time on the floor this is great vernacular architecture! Felt wonderful to feel the breeze across folded legs at are low table lunch.

Louie enjoyed a good snooze in the fresh country air*

Title tracks

There are so many occasions for funny but most recently...

1. spoons. They don't have to do much but be spoons...they are just that funny.




2. Daddy. He's funny...but this camera is a fascinating object....oh but daddy's funny!!....but this camera is so compelling....but ha! daddy!...

Dinner: Veggie Curry, mango chutney, yogurt.

Louie Loves his tummy tub

Louie had his first bath about a week after he was born. The midwife came back for a postpartum check up and gave him his first dip in the tummy tub. It was love from the start. And since then, any time he's feeling fussy, a dip in the water always soothes him.
The tub is meant to mimic the womb in it's snugness. Now that Louie's rounded out so well it must feel like the snugness of a womb in it's 9th month, but he still loves any opportunity to get in for a soak.

Dinner: Pad Thai

socialization!

Louie had his boys group meeting at our house today. He hasn't had much socialization with other babes and he's definitely not jumping in with both feet, but slowly he's coming around to appreciate his friends. These pictures show his progression...it comes in waves like this but the smiling is lasting longer and longer. It's just so intense!

sleeping tiger

The Squash is sprouting ...

...and the Tiger is sleeping.






























Dinner: Fermented soybean stew, roasted seaweed, salad and rice

Natural Building Weekend

A couple of weekends ago, we took the train to Gwangju then borrowed Seungwhans parents car to drive to Jangheung. We were meeting with some people who teach natural building and appropriate technology.

Seunghwan helped lay bricks for the thermal mass heater and did a coat of lime wash on the exterior walls.

I hung out with Louie, took pictures, harvested shitake mushrooms and did some wild herb foraging for our lunch salad. Louie enjoyed stretching out on the forest floor and observing the shifting bamboo canopy.

Our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Kim prefer to go by the nicknames Fish and Fat Dog respectively. They are wonderful soulful people interested in starting a community to teach about simple living. Jangheung is the perfect spot for this as it's already been designated a slow city. http://cittaslow.kr/new/eng_sub01_01_01.htmlme

So far they have completed their own family home which is steel frame, earth bag walls loft style building using many reused materials. and which they say was their first work of art. indeed it is.

oops...should have taken more pics of the main house.

They have also begun a round, wood frame earth bag common room just across from the main house that still needs a last coat of cob on the exterior and interior finishing...floor...rocket stove heating. It's going to be beautiful when it's done. Fat dog, Louie and I had a cup of tea on the built in earth bag bench and talked about flowers. again..too caught up in the moment for pictures.

The building just up the hill that we came to help with will eventually house volunteers. Wood frame, light straw clay walls, thermal mass heating in walls and floors. Lucky volunteers...this is going to be one cozy spot.

They also work on their lovely garden, and try to incorporate permaculture techniques where they can including what looked like a grey water system for watering. Behind the main house is a row of shitake inoculated logs that will produce for 5 years! yum!

Our hosts were so generous to have us stay when they were so busy preparing for a group of architecture students coming for a workshop the next day. they fed us fresh organic food and interesting conversation about natural building, reconnecting with nature, coffee, anarchy and love. Because the was no room at their place we stayed at a nearby building that was formerly an elementary school but that is now used to teach herbal medicine workshops. it was COLD! but we were brought new radiant heat technology to keep us warm. it was a paper thin sheet of plastic that you unroll and plug in. voila! instant portable ondol!

It felt so good to be out of the city and to wake up with the mountains, unobstructed. space.

We will definitely be returning here*

Lunch at the build site: seafood stew, rice and namul.

what a boy! what a joy!

Back from the doctor today. Louie has gained 1.1 kg in 1 month ! It's from all that snacking!




SeungHwan has been feeding him pureed rice and loves it but he is still primarily a milkavore. A great trick would be to get him to consume my milk from a bottle on occasion but so far the answer has been a definitive "no"...actually it's more like " are you out of your mind? no!"
And I understand... who wouldn't want a warm breast over a synthetic nipple, but just for the rare occasion that I need to be away for more than a couple of hours...
hmmm...well some new nipples came in the mail today. Perhaps these will be "the ones".

His knock off Bumbo arrived at more than half the price of the original. The brand name is "Jelly Mom" which is sometimes the condition of my brain after working on our immigration sponsorship application!

But sweet Louie ventilates all that jelly with joy...like this:

Dinner: cold soba noodles with wasabi sauce and veg, roasted acorn squash.

Louie models his EC fashion

This ragamuffin look is perfect for ECing ( elimination communication) http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/

We've been doing it for about 3 weeks now and Louie has had all of his poops on the toilet for the same amount of time! He has about 50% of his pee there and the other 50 is in the diaper and sprinkled through the house.

We're getting better at reading his signals and he's getting better at recognizing cues.

Dinner tonight: Potato leek soup, salad, brown rice with gogi berries