Goat Kids in Pajamas

I have no idea how to include the video, but it is a must-see. I found the video here on a Kansas City news station.

Baby goats are adorable regardless, but wearing pajamas is a hoot.

Photo taken from here.

I visited the website of Sunflower Farm Creamery. They are a small farm in Cumberland, Maine. Based on their web site they adore their animals. (When did they find the time to make the pajamas? And why? Maybe Maine is colder than they like.)

The farm is offering goat yoga, though! Hahaha. They have a woman standing in mountain pose (or something) holding a tiny goat above her head. I wonder if the goat wiggles or just rests there.

I guess I am reaching, but the pajamas are made of fiber...




PS - Happy Birthday, you know who you are!

Chicken Footstools

I have no idea when I picked up the card. I can visualize the chickens, but not where I met them.

I am amazed by people's imaginations. Where did this idea come from? I took this explanation from the website:

The chickens are handcrafted in Lyons, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri with care and delight, upholstered to function as footstools. Each is one-of-a-kind, unique in posture and personality. A turned wood egg-shaped core stands on bronze feet and is connected to a bronze beak. Feathers are handcrafted with traditional fiber art techniques- dyeing, felting, spinning, knitting- and are stitched by hand. And a surprise? Their heads bob.

I can't seem to grab a photo from the website to post here, so you must got see them here.  Aren't they the cutest things you have ever seen? I love the brightly colored ones. Not cheap, but delightful ($1,450 - $2,600 range). I just watched the videos, and I take it all back... worth every penny. They are amazing.

Wait, wait, found another way, taken from the Fort Worth Arts Festival web site:

Hmmm... I wonder if the knitters ever thought about getting themselves a foot stool to use while they knit sweaters for real chickens.

Firstborns are smartest

Being a second born.... I'm not sure I want to agree with this. And besides, my younger brother told me that Dad told him he was the smartest! (Do we think there might be some sibling stuff going on here?)

And what about the story about Europe's most fertile man from three years ago on this blog? If he has had 98 children, is the 98th less smart than the first? Or is it all about doting parents and not aged telomeres? I wonder if it's worth the investigation. It was always the mother that was blamed for problems in the past, but aged sperm also contributes to issues.

Here’s one to fuel sibling rivalries: New research suggests the order in which brothers and sisters are born may influence their relative intelligence. Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Sydney analyzed data on roughly 5,000 American children, who were followed from pregnancy until age 14. They found that firstborns consistently outperformed their younger siblings on IQ tests—including for reading, matching letters, and picture vocabulary—and that the disparities began just 12 months after birth. The team speculates that this advantage may be traced back to the extra attention doting parents give to their first child. “First-time parents tend to want to do everything right and generally have a greater awareness of their interactions with and investments in the firstborn,” the study’s co-author, Jee-Yeon Lehmann, tells Today.com. With each additional child that parents have, Lehmann explains, they tend to have less time and energy to devote to activities they perceive as nonessential, such as reading, arts and crafts, and playing musical instruments. Another factor could be that first-time mothers are less likely to drink, smoke, or take part in other risky behaviors during pregnancy.

From my favorite news source, the distilled Week Magazine, March 3rd.

Diet key to weight loss

So, exactly how many times do we need to hear this to get it? I have asked the question many times... as clearly I don't yet get it. I ate a quesadilla for lunch today and can't get the lump out of my stomach. I have been having this trouble for weeks now... don't know why it has begun, but I am constantly feeling awful. (Bought a papaya to help with digestion... not sure it's working, but can I say, that thing has a distinct smell of vomit... I swear... no wonder people think it helps with digestion. So, does freezing it for shakes kill the benefits? Any-who....)

Exercise has many proven health benefits, but those who dutifully log miles on the treadmill in the hopes of shedding stubborn pounds may want to reconsider their approach to weight loss. In a new study, researchers at Loyola University in Chicago found that healthy eating habits appear to be more important than exercise for long-term weight control, reports LiveScience.com. The team analyzed the physical activity and weight fluctuations of roughly 2,000 adults from the U.S., Ghana, Jamaica, South Africa, and the Seychelles. In each of the five countries, many of those who did 2½ hours of moderate weekly exercise actually put on more pounds over two years than their more sedentary peers. The most likely explanation for this? Exercise tends to boost appetite, meaning active people eat more than they otherwise would. The findings suggest that physical activity alone is “not enough to prevent weight gain,” says lead author Lara Dugas. “What we really need to look at is what people are eating.”

Taken from the March 3rd edition of The Week Magazine.

The Superbug-Fighting Weed

From my favorite news source on March 3rd...

An invasive shrub known as the Brazilian peppertree could be a new weapon in the fight against antibiotic-resistant superbugs, reports WashingtonPost.com. A relative of poison ivy indigenous to South America, the Brazilian peppertree is the scourge of homeowners across the southern U.S., Florida in particular. But traditional healers in the Amazon have been using its bright red berries to treat skin infections for centuries, and researchers from the University of Iowa and Emory University believe the plant may contain a substance that effectively neutralizes methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The team infected mice with the bacteria and treated some of them with Brazilian peppertree extract. While the untreated mice developed skin lesions, those who were given the plant compound did not. “It essentially disarms the MRSA bacteria, preventing it from excreting the toxins it uses as weapons to damage tissues,” explains Cassandra Quave, an ethnobotanist at Emory. “The body’s normal immune system then stands a better chance of healing a wound.” The findings could lead to new ways of controlling antibiotic resistance and treating MRSA infections, which claimed 11,000 lives in the U.S. in 2011.

And here we are, wiping out all sorts of animals and plants... Makes you wonder when killing off a species what benefits it might have brought to the human race. Certainly this has science behind it, rather than erectile dysfunction and the Rhino horn from the French zoo. One of very few left in the world.... (Though I did once hear that they might try and grow a white rhino embryo in the black rhino.)

We know this has been a subject of interest for me... wonder what is happening with all these discoveries. I don't ever want to find out first hand, though. But, recently we discussed superbugs which have no cure. How does this effect that situation? (Are these scientists talking to one another? They better be!) And we spoke of the very amusing story here and here.

The above blurb was taken from here.

James Michalopoulos - New Orleans Painter & Sculptor

Whoa. Went to hear the artist speak at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Mr. Michalopoulos is incredibly prolific and his paintings are fun! I probably respond as I do because in many cases the subject is architecture... and New Orleans architecture to boot. I love the colors and the Dr. Seuss-esque quality to the perspective.

You can find his bio on his website, but I will reproduce here:

Celebrated New Orleans artist James Michalopoulos was born in 1951 in Pittsburgh. After graduating from Bowdoin College with a Bachelor of Arts degree he pursued the life of a modern-day itinerate artist, traveling throughout the South while capturing its unexpected, everyday exotica in his paintings. He eventually settled in New Orleans, drawn to the city that would become his muse. He studied fine art at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art and at the University of New Orleans. He began painting en plein air in the French Quarter, working in oil on canvas, and became known for his energetically distorted interpretations of vernacular New Orleans buildings. His paintings capture the life, movement and personality of his subjects. His has a uniquely musical, energetic style–full of color and broad brushstrokes. He lays paint on thickly, sculpting the paint with a palette knife until his subject emerges. “My style is an abstraction of the figurative. I like color, volumetric shape and graphic lines. While one may recognize the subject of my painting, through my work one discovers the spirit of it.”

Although he remains inspired by the duality of beauty and decay that is the heart of New Orleans, Michalopoulos’ recent canvases also capture the human form – both in portraiture and social scenes, abstracted landscapes–mostly of the woods and fields surrounding his home in France, and occasionally animals that have managed to catch both his eye and imagination.

His work has been shown extensively in the U.S. and abroad, including: France, England, Germany, Switzerland and Holland. He has been named Official Artist of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival six times, with his work appearing each time on the coveted poster, an unprecedented, and–to date–unmatched honor. Gambit Weekly has declared him “Best Artist of the Year” eight times. His work has been collected by such distinguished figures as: Jackson Browne, John Goodman, Linda Hamilton, Bonnie Raitt, Sharon Stone, Aaron Neville, Emmylou Harris and Bruce Willis.

Public and corporate collections include: the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Governor’s Mansion of Louisiana, Universal Studios, the New Orleans Museum of Art, Chevrolet Motor Corporation, the Chrysler Corporation and Northwest Airlines, among others.

I enjoyed hearing about his process and to hear about the daily life of an artist. Makes one think that everyone can do it, but also understand that it takes some serious commitment and a special life perspective to do it. I envy him.








It appears one can buy some posters or prints of his work... and he is also a very talented sculptor. Very colorful and whimsical.