Today was the day we would meet with a friend of Panna's this morning and her family for dinner in the evening. We started off by going to her house to pick her up. We were met with two BIG poodles (I was told they are "standard" poodles!). One LOVES attention and demands to be petted constantly! He will put his nose under your hand to give you the message. They also play fetch, and they will bark if you don't throw the slobbery ball!

I met the woman's daughter while there. She had an interesting story about living in Ciudad de Mexico while married and then having to come back to the states in order to leave the violence of the war between the government and the transnational criminal organizations, the war between the organizations themselves, and the emerging war between the citizenry who are tired of it all and the parties responsible for the war. I feel for her, as I hear it is a beautiful country. I hope that someday, it will be a country one would want to live in and explore once again.

She moved to Ohio to start over and get settled with her daughter. She is an interpreter for the deaf and has been doing research in deafness, especially in regards to interpreting between American Sign Language, English, and Spanish, and the issues involved in phone relay services between these languages as far as the differences in the languages go. An example is the interpreter wondering whether to use the formal or informal form of "you" when the interpreter has no idea of the nature of the relationship between the two parties in the relayed phone call. Another example is whether to say the female or male gender of a name or word that describes a person, leading to an older teenaged girl getting in trouble with her mother for going out with friends who are boys (well, she signed "friends" and internally meant her girl friends, amigas, but the interpreter said amigos instead). The relay interpreter had to suspend the conversation to get the confusion cleared up. It is this sort of thing that her research project is trying to address and find solutions for. I brought up what would be a good research project for the future; stem cell therapy for deafness and its impact on the Deaf community and its members (notice I wrote "deaf" with a big D). It reminded us of cochlear implants and the impact on the community years ago when they first came out, and what the coming revolution might mean for the Deaf community if it does become reality.

I was very surprised to find out that she had worked for REI in Houston years ago, when it was in its original location! What a small world! We talked names and who was still working there and who had left since then. It got really interesting when she told me the story of her daughter's biological father, who was the "donor" for the artificial insemination. He worked at REI along with his roommate, who shall remain nameless. Suffice it is to say that he borrowed from his roommate a small tupperware container that played a role in the girl's eventual birth. And no, the roommate never accepted the container back after the deed was done.

I needed to find out about the jeep dealership in town and found that it was not far away, so we could go there after the herbal study group. First, the three of us went to the goat farm to look at the animals that live there, which include goats, a milk cow and her calf, chickens, and turkeys.

There was the Farmall tractor hooked up to a farming implement, so it was obviously getting used and not just sitting there as a historical farming footnote.

Inside the wellness center, I found the refrigerator where Panna gets her raw goat milk from as well as some locally made items. It is beautiful and peaceful out there, away from through traffic. Quiet, just the noises of animals on a sunny, cool day. Here are some chickens. The second photo is just classic!

A new addition to the farm was a milk cow who had her calf after she arrived.

Some goats, some of which are for the goat milk.

Then some turkeys.

Next, we went to the herbal study group at Stratford Ecological Center, which you enter through a wooded driveway which is thick with trees before opening up to a clearing to the left and parking in front of the center to the right.

We weeded the garden and the walkway around the gazebo for a while. Here is Panna hard at work!

Flowers in the garden surrounding the gazebo. Look for the bee in the first photo. There is another one in the upper left, out of focus.

Later, we went inside where the women (and one man) held the study group on herbs. One herb I got to try was stevia, which is used as a sweetener. I did find that it did have a not-so-obvious quality to the medicinal or bitter aftertaste after the initial sweetness went away. I never had anything like it before. Here is the layout of Stratford Ecological Center. We came in through the west side and ended at the parking lot. The gazebo is in that parking lot, in the east end of it. The education building (#1) is immediately below that parking lot.