Now here is an heirloom seed seeker’s daydream: an herbal shop has reopened in Pompeii. Their stock includes seeds and plants that might have been offered at the herbal shop in the same location two thousand years ago. The new store, a product of a collaboration between biologists, botanists, archaeologists, and others, is discussed in an online English-language article in ANSA, an Italian newspaper:

Pompeian plants for sale
Herbalist’s shop opens in archaeological site

POMPEII (ANSA) - Fruits, herbs, seeds and other plant products popular with ancient Romans will go back on sale this week in a renovated herbalist’s store in the archaeological site of Pompeii.

The merchandise has all been produced from plants grown in a Pompeian botanical garden, painstakingly restored to its former glory.

An interdisciplinary team, including archaeologists, biologists, botanists and historians, has spent years excavating the remains of the site, identifying exactly which plants were grown where.
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2007-03-23_12355173.html

I updated the look of the blog today with a new theme. The new header image is of Isis. Just had to put my baby there, since she is the mischeivious horse.

My sister called. She will be arriving late today. Thank goodness! Otherwise, I have no idea how I’d be able to completed all of the stuff to do…

The closet took way too long last night. My friend was a great help. Boy was I thankful to have her help me with the closet! We put in 13 hours(!!!) before she left and the closet organizer system still wasn’t up. I finished it after she headed home. By about 2:00 AM all of the clothes were sorted and hung up. (Although I have yet to put up the clean clothes. I was just happy to have the hanging ones out of the way.)

Now I just have to put together two dressers and one cabinet — purchased in lieu of a “read dresser,” the cheapest of which was $200.

Okay, so it’s my birthday today. My sister is due here with her family in about 36 hours. I’ve been spending most of my evenings getting things around the house finished. The back door locke have been repaired (finally), vaccuuming is done, front yard is weeded and mowed: lots of little things. The type of things you’d do when the first family members visit your house. To me, it feels rather like getting the house ready to put on the market.

The last major task was to paint the second bedroom. It’s been taped since last September. I have avoided doing anything in there since the floor flooded and the shelving in the closet collapsed. It just seemed like way too much work to take on. A friend of mine agreed to come over and help me paint, so I figured I’d spend Friday evening getting the closet shelving fixed so the last few things could be safely moved out in preparation for painting.

What could possibly happen now that would spoil things? Of course the closet shelving in the master bedroom collapsed. Twelve feet of shelving. About 2:30 this mornig, the shelving just gave way. The booger I bought the house from didn’t secure the closet wracks with enough braces nor were they secured with toggle bolts, only drywall screws in some cases. It was a mess.

I was pissed. I called my Mom. Griped. Bitched. Seemed better than throwing things. She suggested I go to bed. I was too wound. I removed all of the clothes from my closet and piled them whereever there was available space. I went out to to Wal Mart to examine closet organizer options (not much there). Decided to wait until my friend came out in the morning.

Way too wound to sleep even after all of that. I finished the smaller closet. Took everything out, organized it, replaced the existing (collapsed) closet pole with storage shelving. Unpacked 8 boxes. Reordered and reshuffled everything.

So now my poor friend is going to get innundated. Instead of painting, I’m going to see how handy she is with a drill…

The Reg has an article on 10 reasons to purchase a Mac from Apple. I’m pretty much hooked. I refuse to go to Vista with all of it’s let me help you attitude problems. I hate operating systems that will not let you do what you need to do on a computer. That puts the power in the OSes hands and not the user’s. That’s just philosophically wrong.

So here is the article at The Reg: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/03/21/ten_reasons_to_buy_a_mac/

My sister will be here on Sunday evening with her husband and three children. While I’m looking forward to seeing them, I’m also slightly panicked about getting the house ready. I’ve been slowly finishing projects and getting things put into place. I’ve had one week and still I’m not done…

Dishes are done. Kitchen is (mostly) clean. Bedroom is clean. Sun room is almost done, just have to hang one more shade. The sunroom back door was fixed last night (took several hours to get the deadbolt working properly). My office looks like a small explosion hit. So does my closet. That will be sorted pretty quickly.

The hard part is cleaning out the closet in the second bedroom so I can get to the cot and other things the kids will need.

Arg. Friends have asked me to go out tomorrow evening for my birthday. Another friend volunteered (WAS DRAFTED!) to help me Saturday morning and afternoon. Hopefully we’ll finish the painting and yard stuff.

And of course everything else is due this week too… Just a little bit of panic setting in.

The search for the source of the ‘Feast of Epona’ on June 13th continues. The topic came up again on another mailing list I’m on. This lead to some more topic searches to try and track down the source.

I tried to find the source of this using both a Google and Amazon (’Look Inside’) search. Of the two pages of hits on a search for ‘Feast of Epona’, none of them cited a source for the Feast of Epona. The majority of results were NeoPagan or Women’s spirituality books. The copyright dates on these books seem to start around the early 1990s.

The downfall of using the ‘Look Inside’ feature of Amazon’s search is that you can’t always see the bibliography nor the index. I’ve ordered a few of the books to see exactly what is said and which books are referenced.

The Religious Tolerance article on the Summer Solstice features a feast date for Epona of June 13.[1] No supporting evidence is cited. The text of this article has proliferated across quite a few web sites (most of those don’t state the source of the text either).

On a side note, one of the interesting feasts of Epona that I found was one in Michigan. Mackinac Island has a Feast of Epona every year around June 13th as part of the Lilac Festival.[2] This site also does not list a reference for the feast of Epona nor a clear date for when the feast of Epona was added to the Lilac Festival (which has been running for 58 years).

[1] Religious Tolerance summer solstice article:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/summer_solstice.htm
[2] Lilac Festival: http://www.mackinacisland.org/lilacfestival.html

The Register has an excellent article on Net Neutrality. The author puts the pros and cons of of the term ‘net neutrality’ in very plain terms.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/21/net_neutrality_a_monkey_hangers_guide/

The question of whether to breed or not to is especially hard to me. I grew up on a breeding farm. We bred the best Crabbet and Egyptian Arabians (later only straight Egyptians) we could afford and always made sure they found homes. My primary mare, Isis, is a product of the Crabbet/Egyptian breeding. She is the granddaughter of our first Arabian mare. I have had the honor of meeting the majority of her grandparents and even great-grandparents.

I’ve thought about breeding Isis to have her daughter as a replacement. She is an exquisite mare with a lot of jumping and dressage potential. Isis is insulin resistant (see safergrass.org for info on this condition). She is carefully managed now. Prior to her diagnosis, she has had laminitis twice (little to no rotation) as a result of her body’s inability to properly process fructans. She has also had skin-related issues (rain rot goes systemic, for example) due to immune system problems caused by IR. There is a chance that she could pass this condition on to her foal.

My Mom has a stallion who would cross beautifully with Isis. The foal would have an amazing pedigree and considering the two phenotypes–potentially gorgeous and athletic.

So here is my question… Would you breed a mare with insulin resistance to preserve a much-loved bloodline? How do you weigh the love of the horse and wanting to have her or her daughter around with the potential repercussions on a foal?

(As a side note on a long post After two years of recovery, chiropractic/accupuncture sessions, specialized shoeing, and close work with a trainer, Isis went to her first show July 8, 2006. Four classes, three over fences (18″ walk-trot and one equitation. She pinned 6th in all of the over fences and 5th on the flat out of 9. I was so proud of her. Six weeks later, she colicked from two lipomas (fatty tumors suspended from stalks) that had wrapped around 70% of her small intestines. I do not know if the lipomas were related to the insulin resistance or not. One of her vets (who specializes in IR) said he has seen lipomas frequently in IR horses, but doesn’t have any evidence to show a connection.

Surgery, one week in intensive care, and a lot of careful management…She is (mostly) recovered. I rode her for the first time in the saddle last Friday. =) )

Things at work and at home have gotten hectic. I’ve been spending time at the barn dealing with mares in heat (talk about a good name for a comic strip) and fixing up the house. My sister is coming to visit in a while and I have a lot of work to do!

The brief update: Isis is back under saddle (PARTY!), Rajiyyah seems to have a perpetual heat cycle, and it’s now light enough that I can ride after work (yay!).