Nuestras Raices

Take me down to the farming lands 

where the flowers are bloomin' 

and the animals miniature!

Oh won't you please take me dooooown

Got a chance to see agriculture at work.

Nuestras Raices is a wonderful place that educates the future farmers.  

They provide budding farmers with the skills and tools necessary for a successful farmer basically. 

They used to have meals on wheels but that is a project seeing revamping.

They also run a youth program that gives Holyoke youth a chance to really engage in agriculture with their own hands. 

After our trip to the farm we visited one of the original garden plots that Nuestras Raices planned/ted, mainly to honor the memorial of a man who had more or less started nuestras raices.

Seeing all of their hard work was inspiring to say the least. 

I'm hoping to engage my local farms better once I figure out my future situations. Mayhaps there will be opportunities for me to learn as much as I can about agriculture that time allows.

Philadelphia Museum of Art - Part 4

In all honesty... the building itself is quite beautiful.

This is a comb.

This is a stupid sideways stove/fireplace

The entrance to the Mines of Moria

Which apparently leads you to a Spanish courtyard. Something tells me the dwarves of Moria were Spanish. OYE CALIENTE!

But they couldn't take the heat.

Even with the small water fountain/well

Ice Cube has turned to Pimp My Crib

But he wasn't aware of literalists bringing him cribs to be inlaid with bits of ivory, mother of pearl veneers, and a hint of gold leaf. 

Man I can't handle you walking all over the carpet. Put that ish in some GLASS!

KEEPS IT ALL PRETTY AND ISH

Shh... I may have stumbled upon Indiana Jones' latest adventure

He seems to be having a lot of trouble with taking clear photos as the entire world before him shakes.

And that shaking lead us to the exotic eastern kingdoms of China, Japan, and Korea

Where we sipped on some fine sake

And played hide and go seek in some dressers with the stereotypical nazi villain 

But it is time to retire for you and I.

Lest we have a mishap with a dog at dusk.

Philadelphia Museum of Art - Part 3

Not much to say here other than LOOK AT ALL OF THE COOL ARMOR STUFF!

Honestly, walking through this place made me feel like I was actually walking in the armories of the books I've been reading.

(Finally got through Robert Jordan's bullshit regarding the Knife of Dreams, biznitches be crazy...).

I was sort of attempting to show the relative ginormous-ness of the sword on top of this exhibit. Maybe it counts as a longsword with a hand and a half on the pommel...

Either way, that thing is ridiculous and I can only imagine the battles to be fought with that in hand. 

In fact, it seems crazier since we have the basic (perhaps misleading) understanding that humans were generally smaller then than they were now. 

The helmets certainly accentuated that fact. 

Also reminded me of my huge head and glorious amounts of lion's mane that would be too much for the helmets to handle.

But I must say that the detail on some of the helmets were gorgeous.

There was some armor for horses as well. 

I was fully convinced that there was an actual horse and person when I turned to see this unicorn.

Apparently the chestpiece on the left was made for quite the large man. AKA FAT.

They had armor and weapons along the walls as if they didn't know what to do with all of them.

When I saw the muzzle pieces I thought it was cruel to do that to a horse despite how awesome their grill bling looked. Then I noted that they probably need their mouths protected for the inevitable face slashing that goes on in battle.

Eventually made my way into the actual shields, swords, and guns section of the Philadelphia armory.

Some might say that Philly has some large balls.

...

If you didn't notice earlier, the curators of this exhibit seemed to have an intense fascination with Final Fantasy...

Turns out someone actually did make a gunblade in times past. God only knows if the thing actually worked well. 

It was still amusing to see it was separated from all of the other jam packed cases of guns, blades, and shields.