field trip #2

As promised, another post! Wow, two in one weekend.
I seem to have saved up all these posts in my head and now it's time to give the imaginary blog a rest.
A few weeks ago I played hooky and visited the Chicago Cultural Center. There's a great installation of crocheted corals arranged to resemble a brilliantly colored reef. Apart from just looking really cool, this project was begun to raise the ol' awareness level of the sad state of our coral reefs as well as physically representing a non-Euclidean approach to geometry called 'the hyperbolic plane'.
This was all explained to me during a hands-on workshop where some lovely people helped me crochet my own piece of acrylic coral.
It was so well explained it actually made sense for a few minutes.
It no longer does.
But, if interested, this link will explain all...

www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/Events/coralreef2/

Hopefully, these pictures help as well

two months?

Yes, two months. Nothing like a blog to let you know the last time you wrote. Here is a brief list of the things I've done:

-went to a 25 year grade school reunion (?!)
-finally potted the few remaining cheap perennials I picked up at the big box
-checked on the wayward tomato plant growing in the alley next to our garage. It's a testament to the very warm fall we've had and it's still hanging in there with its little yellow blossoms. If I get tomatoes in December I'm voting for Al Gore.
-planned and planned and planned for next year...but didn't do a whole lot.

One thing I did do was visit Waters Elementary School back in October. It's your classic CPS neighborhood school with a decidedly green mission. They have many programs to introduce kids and the community to an environmentally aware lifestyle, but I found their huge organic garden on site so impressive.
Here, look:


See? And these don't really give you a good sense of the scale of this.
I have a few other field trips to report on, including the inspiring soil workshop I went to today, but that will have to wait. Just hopefully not two months.