The Words: As our last outing with Jared’s family before we ran back to the comfort and loud of the city, we went to Dim Sum (another feast of ridiculous proportions even for the 9 people that sat around the table). I was the white girl that needed a fork but I survived. I drank soy milk on a “dare” (newsflash to the 30 and older crowd – soy milk is no longer a strange thing. You can get it on every corner, be it in a Starbuck’s or a CVS) and tried sesame balls for the first time. Yummy! (Even if Jared doesn’t seem to think so).
Next, we went to the IRA in Boston. A lot of modern art and people-watching of the ironic tophat wearing and crazy variety. This is the first “exhibit”, right as you enter the museum, which is right on the Boston Harbor. I like the way that the youngest people are also the closest ones to the bright reflection of modern art. A little farther back is Jared’s Uncle Kenny and still not quite sure about this whole thing – Jared’s Grandma Chiang. (Not pictured: Littlest Zeizel, Austin who spent his time in the museum texting his friends 🙂 )
Camille: hey will you write really quickly about how you got Isabelle/her name?
Below is what my boyfriend wrote when I typed that into this blog and passed him my laptop on the BoltBus on the way home from Christmas with his family. The adoration and love you see in this photo obviously goes both ways. See for yourself in his story.
Six Years Ago, my mom decided she wanted a dog. We all loved dogs so we were not opposed. My dad couldn’t oppose because he was in Morocco or Thailand or somewhere. He enjoys man’s best friend as much as the next joe, so we figured that upon his return he would not kick the dog we were planning on getting to the curb.
Being that my mom is a goodhearted lady, she made the executive decision that our family would adopted a dog from a rescue program. After what I imagine to be hours, my mother came upon a dog rescue program situated out of Vermont or Maine or one of those New England states that was not Massachusetts or Rhode Island, that found their impoverished dogs from the Island of Anguilla.
The Words: Christmas dinner is never a production at my house. Yes, we go out the day before to pick up the Christmas ham the good folks at Honeybaked have been holding on to for us. My mother creates amazing potatoes, rolls and salads to accompany them. But when we sit down for dinner, it is just the four of us. Mother, father, son and daughter. No far-traveling relatives, and no grandparents with old tales. But both of those were present at this Christmas dinner.
Jared’s mom has two brothers, one who was able to make the trip from Maryland and another who his grandparents didn’t expect at the house because he lives in California. But when they came downstairs this morning, there was their son, all the way from California, sharing bagels and lox with the family.
Then, after the craziness of presents had passed and every scrap of wrapping paper had been reclaimed, Jared broke out the video camera and interview his grandparents about their lives in China and America during World War II, the 50s, and beyond. It was amazing to hear the small anecdotes that make up so many years of life.
Here Jared and his mom prepare for dinner. Vivian made a ridiculous feast, complete with courses with their own sauces, and plenty of vegetarian things for me. I truly felt welcome and blessed to be a part of it.
Yeah… I know there’s no day 3, but gotta be honest… I was on a bus!
The Words: Jared and I are spending Christmas with his family in Boston. Tonight was so typically family-time, I was in heaven. We stuffed ourselves on Chinese food and then came home to play poker. Jared’s grandma, mom, Uncle Jack, and grandpa got really into it, betting up to $1.50 a time! Watch out, Vegas! Also pictured is Jared’s dad’s hand, digging into the delish pie and coffee we shared while laughing over cards. Merry Christmas, everyone!
Here’s day two. This is quite difficult! But I will be on a bus for quite some time tomorrow traveling from NYC to the Boston area so maybe not only photo taking but photo uploading might take place.
This blog has no purpose. At this moment, it doesn’t. This WordPress, camilledemere.wordpress.com, has been many things. It was my first experience with WordPress – a medium I now use daily with my work at my internship at WCBS and when I’m back at school, with the Pendulum. It was the spot to post many fledgling stories from my Reporting for the Public Good classes. But now I’m done with those. So what does this blog do?
My good friend, David Wells, recently graduated from Elon University. He also recently started a project called A Thousand A Day and encouraged his friends to do the same. Each day, David takes and posts a photograph that tells a story. I’m going to try to do that. So here’s the thousand words that made up December 20. Look for other pictures in the Thousand Word tab at the top and check back!
The Words: Getting into the Christmas Spirit, Jared and I decided to make gingerbread cookies, something neither one of us had ever made, from scratch. Trader Joe’s had no molasses, so we trudged in the cascading snow to The Food Emporium, which only had overpriced icing and minimal ingredients to offer us. Whole Foods supplied (for a nominal fee) the ginger, molasses and everything else for the cookies. But they only had gingerbread women cookie cutters! How incredibly P.C. So it was back to the Food Emporium to grab dog and heart cutters. The puppy cutter made it as my photo of the day. Tomorrow I’ll post more photos from our holiday baking.
On gray mornings like today, Elon students want to curl up and not go to class. And when they do drag their feet to the hallowed halls, they do it in the comfort of their cars. Bright pink squares dot Williamson Ave. this morning showing that a few of those students have over stayed their welcome.
“They definitely stay longer. They think I’m not coming ’cause its raining,” said Jody Rainker, parking enforcement officer for the town of Elon. She adds with a laugh: “And sometimes I don’t come when it’s raining.”
The cold and wet don’t bother Rainker who moved to North Carolina from upstate New York.
“I enjoy being out here no matter the weather,” she said.
She ripped another damp pink rectangle from her pad and placed it under windshield wipers that will be getting some use this week.
Rainker and the rest of Elon will trudge a few more days of rain and cold. Going into the weekend, expect light precipitation and highs of less than 60 degrees.
Rich experiences at Homeland Creamery offer insight to milk industry
This story originally ran in the Pendulum and on its Web site on November 10, 2009.
In a time when the average meal can travel about 1,500 miles to a consumer’s plate, it isn’t strange to feel detached from food or not think of its origins past the refrigerated aisles of the grocery store. But 20 minutes away from Elon in Julian, N.C., Diana Euliss and Homeland Creamery are working to change that.
For five years the creamery, which boasts its own herd of about 330 cows, has put on tours for school-age children to get comfortable with a farm environment and see where their food really comes from. Euliss has been guiding the tours for four years.
“It’s good for them to know that they can come out here and see how crops are grown,” she said. “They see exactly where their milk comes from and that it really doesn’t just come from the grocery store.”
Four-year-old Georgia Moorefield feeds a 5-week-old calf at Homeland Creamery with help from Diana Euliss. Photo by Brian Allenby.
One fall morning, Euliss guided seven children, 4 years old and younger, to a rumbling tractor towing a flat-bed trailer lined in hay-bale seats.
She pointed out the three breeds of dairy cows lounging in the sun near the creamery’s entrance. The classic black-and-white spotted Holsteins, creamy brown Jerseys and one rust-and-white splotched Ayrshire are not cooped up. They have free reign of a large field that goes from the road all the way back to the milking parlor.
From 3:30 to 6 a.m., cows are led 16 at a time into a barn-like building covered in stainless steel.
At each station, a computer scans each cow’s ear tag which houses a microchip that stores vital information like the cow’s age, its average milk output and any medications it takes.
“We do take very good care of our cows,” Euliss said. “If they need antibiotics or any kind of medication, they get it. But it’s not good for us to drink the milk with medication in it.”
Milk from cows on medicine flows directly into drains and is not collected for processing. The rest is pushed through stainless steel tubes to the on-site processing plant built seven years ago.
“We can actually milk our cows, process the milk and deliver it to the store all in the same 24 hours,” Euliss said.
Lowe’s Foods on University Drive is one of the stores that carries Homeland’s milk.
“We started getting milk from them when we had the Gibsonville store,” said Terri Heitger, who is in charge of receiving goods at the grocery store. “Their prices don’t change as much with the economy, but they have a lot of people that are really loyal.”
Diana Euliss explains the inner workings of Homeland Creamery to a group of school-age children. Photos by Brian Allenby.
Back in the milking parlor, Homeland Creamery also collects a small amount of the milk from a cow that has recently given birth to feed its calf.
To do this, Euliss holds a foot-tall baby bottle steady as 4-year-old Griffin Reader helps feed a 5-week-old calf its mother’s milk.
“For our kids, it was probably more just playing with the animals,” said his mother, Lori Reader, who also brought her 2-year-old daughter Sydney along. “But at least now they know that’s where their milk comes from and that you can make ice cream out of it.”
Euliss said the education offered on the tours isn’t just for the kindergarten set.
“It’s also to educate the parents somewhat because a lot of grown-ups don’t really understand the workings of the farm,” she said.
“Grown-ups” can learn how to milk by trying it for themselves on a metal and rubber tubing stand-in, a standard part of a creamery tour which finishes off by trying some of the creamery’s products, like its cake batter ice cream.
Homeland Creamery offers tours for all ages, at 10 p.m. Monday through Friday through mid-November. Call Vicki at (336) 674-8598 to make reservations. Tours are $6 per person.
When Erin Mahngraduated from Elon University in 2007, she knew that journalism was her calling. She just needed employers to call her back.
She ventured into New York City looking for a job, but nothing panned out.
“I had two friends who let me crash on their couch all summer,” she said. “I got a couple job offers, but the salaries were about the same as the tuition at Elon.”
Her summer application blitz included papers in all locations, from Alaska to Singapore. Her self-imposed deadline to get a job was the end of August after graduation.
“At that point, it was whatever paid the most and offered the most experience,” she said.
That paper was the Daily Banner, in Cambridge, Md. and only 45 minutes from her hometown of Salisbury.
Because of its small circulation of about 5000, the Daily Banner offered Mahn experience and responsibility from the onset. She covered town hall meetings and true stories while her fellow graduates were earning their chops writing obituaries.
She got practice leaving her bias at the door during one of her favorite stories that she’s covered, the 64th annual National Outdoor Show. The show features a beauty contest on one night and a muskrat-skinning contest the next.
“Even though this is near my hometown, it wasn’t what I was used to,” she said.
Mahn met up with the Abbott family, including a 17-year-old beauty queen with muskrat blood under her nails and J.R. Abbott, who won fifth place using his late father’s knife and skinning technique. Because of tight deadlines, Mahn only had 30 minutes to put together the story, sending it over the lines at 1:30 a.m.
After two years at the paper, Mahn is on the hunt for her next job. She said she understands the industry is changing, but the switch to online doesn’t faze her.
“I’m completely for it either way,” she said. “Writing is writing.”
Younger journalists are getting their chance because papers are able to publish their content for free. Florida International University students provide content for top papers and Web sites in the areas. Schools like the University of California at Berkley’s graduate program in journalism runs specific Web sites for local news, bypassing the newspapers altogether.
This is interesting to me, because of my current position in Elon University’s student newspaper and news Web site. Student journalists often share content with the larger, professional papers in the area, but more in an individual way. For example, David Koontz, a senior journalism student, writes for the Rock Creek Record, detailing the Elon town council meetings. Even though he is on the Pendulum staff (as a copy editor), he does not represent the Pendulum in his Rock Creek writings.
I’m not sure what to think about providing content to larger professional papers as a school or as a student paper. Most of the schools that were mentioned immediately jumped out at me as major journalism schools, and because of this, I don’t think anyone would complain if they picked up the paper and saw that content was provided by a student paper. But I think that up-and-coming journalism schools might not be able to follow that path, just because readers might react similarly to reporters identified as student journalists providing content as an intern doing their check-up – wary and untrusting.
The Words: As our last outing with Jared’s family before we ran back to the comfort and loud of the city, we went to Dim Sum (another feast of ridiculous proportions even for the 9 people that sat around the table). I was the white girl that needed a fork but I survived. I drank soy milk on a “dare” (newsflash to the 30 and older crowd – soy milk is no longer a strange thing. You can get it on every corner, be it in a Starbuck’s or a CVS) and tried sesame balls for the first time. Yummy! (Even if Jared doesn’t seem to think so).
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