… 11/15/09

As ‘oxymoronic‘ as it seems, yes, vegetarians get to eat chili too.

It’s the 21st annual Lonestar Vegetarian Chili Cook-off.

Come out to the old Historic Travis County Farmer’s Market on Burnet Rd on Sunday the 15th. It’s right next to the new pub, The Pour House. There will be competition for the best veggie chili and the best booth. There will be exhibits, live entertainment, and giveaways.

Not only that, but the awesome 512 brewery will be out there supplying delicious beer who, just recently, celebrated their 1 year anniversary with a batch of an awesome Belgium strong ale that blew up in popularity in Austin.

This should be pretty fun. A great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. We have a couple of friends who will be out there with their chili and we will definitely be there to eat their chili!

It’s $7 for adults and $3 for kiddos and goes on from 11:30am to 4pm.

Hope to see you out there!!

Casa De Luz

Today Josh and I ventured out to Casa de Luz to do a bit of early morning yoga.  Okay, so it was at 9 a.m. -  but when you get up at 5:30 every morning, 9 on a Sunday does seem early!  The month of September is National Yoga Awareness Month, and one of the members of the Austin Progressive Vegetarians offered to teach a class for us.  The class was awesome!  I was somehow simultaneously both relaxed and energized, and I was able to make it all the way through the class despite my extreme inexperience.  Thank goodness for modifications!

Casa de Luz

I had this image of flexible elegance in my head, but I had managed to set my yoga mat up under a low-branching tree and every upward sweep of my arm sent a shower of dewy droplets onto my face.  Regardless, it was an hour well-spent and I definately felt like I deserved a treat afterwards!

Luckily, Casa de Luz is a community center that offers classes in everything from yoga to meditation to tai chi.  They also have a 100% vegan, deliciously macrobiotic restaurant located on the premisis.

What are macrobiotics you ask?  I’ll show you the definition I swiped straight from the Macrobiotic Guide: “Macrobiotics is an approach to physical and emotional wellness through consuming foods that are balanced energetically (between yin and yang) and nutritionally. It is typically a well-balanced diet with high fibre, low fat, lots of vegetables and grains, vegetable protein, and limited meat, with an emphasis on eating seasonal organic food.”

Open kitchen at Casa de Luz

Dining at Casa de Luz is a one-of-a-kind experience.  It is different from a traditional restaurant in that you don’t order food off a menu.  At lunch for example, you receive a token that you place on the table.  You can then help yourself to salad and soup while you wait and a server will bring out a plate with that day’s offering.  So do you get to pick the food?  No.  But is it awesome?  Yes!

For those who really want to know what’s on the menu in advance, you can check out their daily menus on the Dining page of their website.  I enjoyed being surprised, myself.

Casa de Luz was beautiful and peaceful.  For those of you living in the Austin area, I highly recomming visiting this enchanting community center.

Katie and I ventured out with the Austin Progressive Vegetarian group once more to tackle all that is good and healthy in our fair city. It has been nice meeting new like-minded people and getting a chance to try out some eateries that we might otherwise have overlooked. Cheer Up Charlie’s is a trailer located at 1104 East 6^th Street that serves vegan/raw foods, coconut drinks, and smoothies, as well as handmade raw chocolates.

The owner Tamara fixed us a couple of her signature health drinks; Katie had the Bare Bones and I tried the Bruce Lee. Not only were both a good price at $5 apiece, but they were a dose of energy badly needed mid-week. After the outdoor screening of Fletch, I decided to get a hummus burrito to take home for later.  It was devoured within minutes. The hummus burrito was by far the best thing I had eaten in weeks and it left me craving more. A real treat during the evening was unknowingly standing in line with musical group The Dandy Warhols. The band was headlining at local venue Emo’s that night. Tamara had volunteered to stay open to host their after party and I was welcomed to stay for a late evening.

Cheer Up Charlie’s is open Tuesday and Wednesday from 10am-9pm, Thursday 10am-10pm or later, Friday 10am-midnight or later, and Saturdays 1pm-3am or later. Please keep in mind that they are closed Sunday and Monday for a well-deserved break.

Ooh what a strange bird, the pelican! His mouth can hold more than his belly can!

Taking a trip to the zoo during our trip to Tyler, Texas caused some debate between Josh and I(And even worse – I made him listen to Simon and Garfunkel’s “At the Zoo” on the way there).  I am an avid zoo lover,  my favorite being the Wild Animal Park in San Diego, California.  Josh was a little bit shy in demonstrating his zoo enthusiasm, perhaps concerned that ‘zoo’ might merely be another name for ‘animal prison’.  This was a legitimate concern that sparked a bit of research.  Luckily, the Caldwell Zoo provided a wealth of information concerning their own conservation efforts and educational programs.

Scarlet Ibis feeding its young

While there are certainly some zoo environments in which the animals may be treated less than fairly, most major zoos are playing a large role in the conservation of threatened and endangered animal species from all over the world.  Zoos like the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler, Texas try to put animals in environments as close to their native lands as possible, creating large habitats rather than small exhibits.    These zoos are trying to educate the public and raise awareness of conservation efforts rather than serve as a collection facility for gawking.

Cheetah

According to the Conservation Page of the Caldwell Zoo, factors that can threaten a species include restricted distribution, migration across international boundaries, inability to adapt, long gestation period or low birth rate, pet trade, or domination by an introduced species.  The main factor is Habitat destruction, mostly caused by deforestation.  Imagine someone coming and knocking over your house or apartment complex.  Whoops!  Sorry we took your home, but we’ve got this swell patch of grass you can set up shop in.  Oh yeah… it’s on the other side of the world and you can’t bring your family with you.  It breaks my heart to think about it, but I for one am glad that these zoos are trying to provide a place for endangered animals until such time as we can give them their homes back.

Owl

Some species’ homes have been destroyed to the point where the only place those animals can now exist is in a zoo.  Zoos are nurturing and attempting to breed these animals in the hopes of one day being able to reintroduce them to the wild.  There are many different conservation efforts that people can donate to; some are general and some are specific to a certain species of animal.  One such effort is the Eco-cell project at the Tyler Zoo.  People can donate their old cell phones to the zoo.  They will, in turn, recycle those phones and give all the proceeds to the International Rhino Foundation.   Not only does this help aid in conservation efforts, but it also keeps these phones out of the landfills.  Eco-monkeys gives this two hairy thumbs up!

Josh being silly

One of my favorite attractions at the Caldwell Zoo was a small aviary where for $1.00, parents could purchase a popsicle stick covered with seeds so that their children could chase after birds in the hope that one of these flying piglets might perch on their hand.  We had to try it.  Of course.  Josh dutifully purchased one of the ‘Seed Sticks’ and managed to get a bird to land upon it.  My favorite part of this, aside from watching kids run around like demented monkies yelling “Here, Birdie Birdie!” and Josh being silly in his own delightful way, was that this was an exhibit where children could actually interact with animals.  I will never forget a goat eating my grandfather’s pants at the San Diego Zoo when I was a small tyke myself.  It’s experiences like these, however silly, that keep us coming back for more and learning about the animals we are sharing a planet with.

Josh and I posing in front of the alligators. You can see the butt of one right behind our heads.

Visit the Caldwell Zoo at their website:

Caldwell Zoo

Municipal Gardens - Tyler, Texas

The first thing Josh said when we stepped out into the garden was “Look, Babe!  I never have to buy you a rose again because a brought you to a whole garden of them!”  Hmph.  Men.

The Tyler Municipal Rose Garden is fragrant, beautiful, and organized(and free to the public!).  Just the way an OCD eco-monkey likes it.  The 14-acres of roses are organized into rows with small plaques identifying each variety.  It is the largest rose garden in the nation and boasts over 38,000 bushes of 500 varieties of roses.

Melodie Parfumee

Josh and I wandered somewhat aimlessly among the rows, stopping every now and then to take a picture or two of blooms that caught our attention.  I captured the roses…Josh took pictures of the bugs.  Men.

Unidentified Bug

The garden itself has been open since 1952 and serves as both a display garden and a trial garden.  Toward the back of the garden is Tyler’s All-American Rose Selection (AARS) trial garden.  The roses here must survive for two years and must be new varieties in the United States.  Roses that pass this and other other strict criteria for vigor, flowering, and disease-resistance are eventually planted in the display section of the garden.  People often come to this garden to mark down these roses in order to make purchases for their own collections.

Hopefuls in the AARS Trial Garden

Josh and I spent a very relaxing morning walking around the garden and watching other couples and families do the same.  We enjoyed seeing all the species of roses (and bugs!).

The Tyler Municipal Rose Garden is not a place one can really describe with words, so hopefully my humble collection of pictures will convey some of the beauty that we saw.

More information can be found here:

Tyler Municipal Rose Garden Center

Lily pond

Dolly Parton

Stainless Steel

Charlotte

Disneyland Rose

Rockin' Robin

Champagne Cocktail

Dream Come True

Looking up through the trees at Camp Ford

Josh and I decided to take a quick trip up to Tyler Texas this week so that we could get out of town for a couple of days and check out a place neither of us had been before.  We left Austin at three in the morning and headed east.  Despite my hopes for “bonding while driving”, Josh had to work late that night  so I did most of the driving while Josh slept and I belted out the words to Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill (It’s the only album I know ALL the words to.  Blame the 6th grade).

We arrived in Tyler around 7 a.m. and, unfortunately, most of the places we wanted to see did not open until 9 a.m. so we decided to visit the one place on our list that did not have a time restriction: Camp Ford

Camp Ford, Tyler Texas

It was a little odd to hear cars rushing by along the highway behind us as we entered the site of what used to be a confederate prison camp for Union soldiers during the Civil War, but as we walked into the beautiful Piney Woods, civilization seemed to fade away and it was easy to lose ourselves in musings of what camp life must have been like.

A narrow dirt path leads up to the only building standing in the woods.  The camp itself has been gone for well over one hundred years, but due to the diary of one Lt. Col. J.B. Leake, a reporoduction of one of the typical prisoner cabins has been erected.

Prisoner Cabin, Camp Ford

The cabin itself was maybe 6′ x 6′.  It was dark and musty and not a place I could imagine spending any length of time in without going crazy.  After reading the descriptions of the prisoner’s lodgings, I decided that squatting in a musty cabin would have actually been considered a luxury.   So many men were sent to Camp Ford that the area around it was deforested for an entire mile.  Men who came after all the trees had been cut down were forced to erect shelters for themselves out of any scraps of brush they could find lying around.

View of the woods at Camp Ford

After reading the different informational panels erected aronud the camp, Josh and I stepped off trail a little and simply enjoyed the cool stillness of the morning as we wandered through the tall, beautiful trees.

View of the woods at Camp Ford

It was hard for us to imagine what the camp must have looked like – what the land must have looked like completely denuded of its natural growth.  The property is now flanked by a busy highway and by gas stations and other modern buildings.  However, the vegetation where we were standing had grown back lush and thick and, at the risk of sounding cheesy, it made this eco-monkey happy that despite the terrible things we Americans have done to each other in the past, there is always a chance for forgiveness, growth, and rebirth.

For more  information on Camp Ford, check out the following websites:

Camp Ford Historical Association

Texas Beyond History – Camp Ford

Census Duggins – Camp Ford