Celebrating Camille’s birthday and the camaraderie of family and friends in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, with a couple of side trips down memory lane, meeting new friends, and savoring good times at Mary Beth and Brandon’s wedding with the old Oilseed Community gang
BANG
Big bang for the buck, these gladiolus and hydrangea came with the house.
ANNUAL VACATION
Our friend, Ned, has moved to Colorado, so we begin our annual celebration with Kathryn and Jim in Medford Lakes, and on to the shore for some good old nostalgic memory-laneing. More at New Jersey
THE EPICENTER
We have a lot of past, and some present, in New Jersey, but most of the now is happening in Shippensburg. Camille’s parents, both alive (no photos of her father this time around) and her brother John, his wife, Darla, two of their three children, and all ten of their grandchildren live within thirty minutes of each other. See more PA photos at: Pennsylvania
THE IMPROBABLE BURGER
Looks like a beef burger, has the same taste and texture as beef, the Impossible Burger, sold only in restaurants, involves no animal products. It was good, so disturbingly meat-like that Camille was torn between enjoyment, revulsion, and disbelief. We left the restaurant sated, and with the nagging suspicion that we’d been hoodwinked, that we had actually been served beef and charged the higher price for an unbelievable burger.
GAME CHANGER
With Mom in the nursing home, the Episcopal Square community room was off the table, so we had our gathering at Memorial Park. This was a whole other ball game, the way we celebrated family as children, and way more fun than hanging out in a climate-controlled room.
OUT-OF-TOWNERS
Far flung family drove in, among them, Camille’s cousins Grace and Brian, brother Bob, and Brian’s wife, Maggie. More fun photos on this page: 2018 Family Reunion
LONG TIME FRIENDS
We spent a few hours with our friend Donna at her lovely rural home. Donna and Camille have been friends for more than forty years.
VIRGINIA
After we said all our Shippensburg goodbyes, and stopped in for one more Impossible Burger (I know), we drove south to beautiful Shenandoah Valley to liaison with our friend Stephanie, the woman who co-authored Two Brauds Abroad with Camille. They couldn’t have done this without heavy editing help from her mother, Andrea. Turns out, Steph planned on flying in from New Zealand and staying with her mom and Ed. So we got our calendars together and worked out that we would drive home the back way and spend the night at Andrea and Ed’s.
Andrea and Ed are perfect hosts, world travelers who are relaxed and easy. Andrea baked two delicious puff pastries, one with caramelized onions, goat cheese, tomato, and fresh basil, and the other with caramelized red onions, goat cheese, and beets, She served it with wine and salad. While we digested, Ed took us on a fun driving tour of their stomping grounds and when we returned, Steph presented Camille with her birthday presents while we dug into a chocolate dessert that we used to celebrate all three June birthdays, Camille’s, Steph’s, and Andrea’s. A simple but elegant meal that left us wanting for nothing. Thank you, Steph for this photo and the Two Braud’s portrait, above.
ANIMAL TRAINING
When the hedge threatens to take a walk on the wild side, Bob reins it in. And he does more than conquer the beast, he is shaping it into a buffalo.
PERMACULTURE ENTHUSIASTS
Kam and Sean, of Sparkroot Farm, came over to meet Spot and join us for a small potluck with our friends Zoila, Buffy, and Doug.
A MATCHLESS MATCH
Our friends Mary Beth and Brandon tied the knot on June 23rd, a pair so perfectly suited it seems like a fairy tale. Everything about the wedding was sublime, from the venue, to the ceremony, to the cocktails, to the food. The presence of our old Oilseed Community buddies was icing on the cake.
PARENTHOOD
Dana and Matt are the proud parents of one bouncing, okra-eating boy, and Jessica and Simon now have five children.
THOSE DAYS
Camille and Bob, Dana and Matt, Adah, Jessica and Simon; we all got nostalgic for the old days at Oilseed. We rented the single-wide trailer named Camelina for two years before buying our own home. There were close to a dozen of us. Matt served as the Mayor of Oilseed. We grew food, ate together on Sundays, rotated hosting between three houses, and met monthly to make decisions about infrastructure, prospective community members, and anything else that needed our attention. We had protocols, structure, a bank account, and loads of good times.
MOTHERHOOD LOOKS GREAT ON SOME PEOPLE
What can we say? Emily is not your typical Mom. Nolan is one lucky lad.
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THIS MONTH’S QUOTES:
“We came from Caladan, a paradise world for our form of life. There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind — we could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life — we went soft, we lost our edge.” – from “Muad’Dib: Conversations by the Princess Irulan” in Frank Herbert’s novel, Dune
“We have become so alienated that we are destroying our own lifesupport systems.” – Leslie Gray
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubt, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” – Charles Bukowski
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