A horse is a horse, of course. Unless you ask 2-and-a-half-year-old Ella Watson, whose four-legged friend, Horsey, can not only fly but is also able to provide rides for Barbie. Ella received Horsey as a gift from her grandmother on her first birthday and they’ve been inseparable ever since, sleeping and traipsing around the house together. Says Ella’s mom, Kara, “Horsey gets lots of hugs and Eskimo kisses.”
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(Photo by Cramer Photo) |
THE BIG READ: Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
By guest reviewer, Sarah Hamfeldt, Young Adult Librarian at Northside Library
Most of the time, THE BIG READ tends to reunite me with old friends. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird took me back to Ms. Greenfeld’s seventh grade class, and Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God moved me to reach out to an inspirational former professor. In the the past, the books become new again, revived upon re-reading and sharing with the thousands of people who participate in BIG READ programs each year. This year was different. The magical realism of Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya piqued my interest and I eagerly looked forward to meeting this classic of Chicano literature.
At its core, Bless Me, Ultima is the story of Tonio, a young boy coming-of-age and besieged on all sides by powerful formative influences. Tonio lives in a post-war New Mexico countryside, where modern influence is starting to bleed out from the cities. Within his family, he is torn between his father’s hard-riding ranch ancestors, his mother’s predictable farm folk, and his personal calling as an altar boy. His world is irrevocably changed by the appearance of Ultima, a healer who moves in with the family. Ultima taps into Tonio’s spiritual nature, coaxing brilliant visions, and inspiring respect for the land and the true meaning of bravery.
A native of the New Mexico, Anaya fills the seemingly empty plains and surrounding mountains with color and life through powerful and expressive language. With Ultima as our guide, we learn to look closer, to see the great and hidden bounty of the desert, a gift to be honored and protected.
Tonio’s journey is a universally accessible one. The strong, concise narrative takes me back to my own adolescent confusion, a story to which we can all relate. The struggle to reconcile inherited belief systems with new ideas. Tonio does not want to disappoint his family by turning his back on his heritage, but he cannot deny what Ultima teaches him. Though specifics may change, we all must learn that embracing a choice means leaving others behind, no matter how much we are taught to value them. The genius of Anaya’s work is the presentation of this conundrum through young Tonio’s eyes, without reducing its complexity and the magnitude of consequences.
I had the great pleasure of visiting New Mexico a few years ago and was thrilled to find myself reunited with its complex landscape in these pages. A book, however, is never fully read until it is shared, and I look forward to hearing your reactions. Join the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library for a book discussion, share your BIG READ video in YouTube contest, or enter the chile pepper salsa contest! Check THE BIG READ website for more info at www.jmrl.org/bigread and share your thoughts with the JMRL staff throughout March!
REALTOR® Day on the Hill – A Sweetheart Day
Robert Radifera Named Event Photographer for â¨Design House 2012
Many Virginians can remember where they were at 1:51 pm on August 23, 2011. That is when Virginia was rocked with its largest earthquake in a century. The epicenter was located outside of Mineral in Louisa County, but it could be felt along the east coast from Georgia to Canada. When the shaking began, the idea that it may be the result of an earthquake was not the first thing that came to mind. After all, our region is not known for earthquakes like California or Alaska.
If you’ve visited Crozet you know it is both a quaint, quiet village and a rapidly growing part of our area. Located 12 miles west of Charlottesville, it has panoramic mountain views, restaurants, shops, vineyards and recreational activities. While the community plans to build a new library, if you want to borrow a book today you still will find it by visiting the historic old train station in the center of town. Crozet is also known as the setting for the film Evan Almighty and for the Mrs. Murphy mysteries featuring felines and their companion animals by local author Rita Mae Brown and her cat Sneaky Pie Brown.
RecreationStreet milling and paving operations will take place on McIntire Road, between the 250 Bypass and Harris Street, between the hours of 9am-3pm on Monday and Tuesday, March 5-6.
Southbound traffic off the Bypass onto McIntire Road will be prohibited during these hours. Message boards will be sited on the bypass advising motorists to use alternate routes. The message boards will be on site tomorrow (Friday) advising motorists of the pending work.
Northbound McIntire Rd traffic flow will be maintained at all times.
A local Occupy protest of the Verizon store in Pantops, planned as part of a national day to “Shut Down the Corporations,” turned into a police exercise Wednesday, thanks in part to a federal initiative to share information between law enforcement agencies.
At least 20 members of the Albemarle County Police Department were on site as 25 local members of Occupy protested Verizon’s contributions to the American Legislative Exchange Council.
“We were setting up on the sidewalk there on the corner, and three officers and a corporate security guard came over from the Verizon building,” explained Tim Davis, one of protest organizers. “The lead officer, Lieutenant Todd Hopwood, informed me of the rules about staying off the property and such, but then went on to tell me that we shouldn’t be alarmed if there were lots of extra police, and fire personnel, and several other entities present. He said it was all part of a training exercise against possible future ‘civil disturbances.’”
Sergeant Darrell Byers, spokesperson for the ACPD, said his department got word of the Occupy protests–which were held in over 70 cities across the country on–from the Virginia Fusion Center, before deciding to use the event as a way to train its officers to deal with large scale civil disobedience. The Virginia Fusion Center is a partnership between the Virginia State Police and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management created in conjunction with a federal initiative led by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to share information relevant to the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan.
According to Byers, two officers, including Lieutenant Hopwood, made contact with the protesters gathered outside the Verizon store, while the rest remained removed from the action. Members of the Albemarle County Fire Department and Emergency Management also participated in the training.
“We did try to coordinate this as a regional effort, so we did invite members of the fire department and emergency management, because we wanted to practice should we run into a large scale situation to make sure we were properly trained and would have a proper response to civil disobedience,” Byers said.
Davis said the officers he made contact with told him they had monitored the protesters’ Facebook page and arrived with detailed information about their plans. He expressed dismay at the level of police involvement in an exercise of free speech.
“The protest was a success, but I find the scale of police involvement at such an innocuous event very troubling,” Davis said. “Why are we paying taxes not only to be spied upon, but also for the excessive display of the cities’ resources, and all for the benefit of this corporation who hasn’t paid a single dime in federal taxes for three years? Why do we let the Albemarle police become Verizon’s corporate security guards? Let them hire their own. With all these kickbacks from the government, I’m certain they can afford it.”
Byers called the training a success and said the ACPD officers on site were there to protect the protesters, Verizon, and the owners of the property.
"More importantly we were there to ensure that they were peacefully assembled, that they weren’t bothered in that regard, and that Verizon would be able to conduct business along with their demonstration,” Byers said.
Hey folks. Tonight’s post is by Sky Blue, who helps run Cville Foodscapes and gets around mostly by bike.
When we moved to Charlottesville, one of our goals was to make a livelihood in a way that is personally satisfying and in alignment with our values. Accepting that challenge was part of why we helped create Cville Foodscapes. Cville Foodscapes, now entering its third year, designs, installs, and maintains vegetable gardens for people at their home or business. Our primary mission is to help people grow their own food, but making a decent dollar per hour is also essential.
When we started the business our hope was to do a lot of the work by bike. Foodscapes is a very eco-focused business. Growing your own food reduces your need to drive, reduces the number of miles your food is shipped, reduces the use of petrol-based synthetic chemicals, and likely results in making other ecologically-minded lifestyle choices. As a business, we want the way we operate to be in alignment with the service we are providing.
To start, we decided to limit how far we would travel. We generally won’t do jobs that are further than 15 miles from the center of town. When we do our free initial consultations for prospective clients, we almost always ride our bikes if they’re in town. Basic garden maintenance for clients in town is also doable by bike.
The challenge comes when a lot of tools or materials are involved. I’ve thought about strapping the tiller to our bike trailer, but it just doesn’t seem safe. And when someone wants a wooden-framed raised bed, it means trucking in lumber and a cubic yard of soil-compost mix. Even doing an in-ground garden without the tiller usually requires a significant load of compost, in addition to the various tools. The one time we did try to transport a large load of compost by bike, I almost ended up with a busted bike and compost all over the road.
Usually it’s a time/money trade off. By using cover crop, leaves from your yard or neighborhood, and a home composting system, you can have rich soil and a productive garden in a year or two without the need to truck in new soil and/or compost. Materials cost and energy usage goes down, but labor goes up. The cost to the client would be about the same, but it would take longer before they had a productive garden.
The silver lining is the world we’re working towards. We’re going to have to continue burning gas for a while—there’s no way around that. But our hope is that this business is burning gas in an effort to create a more sustainable society.
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