Silk Farm

I decided Heritage Society Explorer group activities once a week was really too frequent. Others in my group felt the same. In addition, quite a few members of my group left the country over the summer. As a result, my Explorer group didn't really do much during the fall. This left many Wednesdays unscheduled for me and that meant B could have the car/driver for trips out to the plant site. A win/win.

However, I have friends in a couple of other Explorer groups. One of the groups invited me to join them on a guided tour of a silk farm in Bogor. Traffic into Bogor is usually OK in the mornings. It took us  a little over 1.5 hours to get there. The trip back in the afternoon took over 2.5 hours.

This place is called Rumah Sutera Alam. Translated in Google Translate it means "home natural silk." It's located near the Presidential Palace#2 and the Botanical Gardens. We've driven past the palace before but so far we haven't found ourselves at the gardens. Rumah Sutera Alam is a family run business started by our guide's parents.The guide explained they refer to it as "silk for human life." The farm provides what they need for their family, they employ people and they also train people to raise silkworms.

The house and the gardens are gorgeous!  I could have just sat there all day watching all of the butterflies and birds. It made me miss the various gardens we've planted over the years. This is especially true of the last house in Kentucky where we planted a very large native plant garden and enjoyed so many butterflies and birds. So pretty.

They also grow a lot of fruit on the grounds. In these shots you see dragonfruit plants.

Let's get back to talking about silk. 

How does it all start? They buy silk worm "eggs" and "allow them to hatch." They buy special silk worms. Then after they rest a bit, they start feeding them. The special silk worms are fed special leaves: mulberry leaves. The special silk worms are actually fed a variety of about 6 types of mulberry leaves. They have 2 hectares (almost 5 acres) which includes the home and gardens but they grow a lot of mulberry shrubs as well. They cannot grow all the leaves they need here so they do have other fields in other locations. In the background you can see mulberry bushes. They prune them to keep them short for easy picking I suspect. A member of the group asked if they do anything with the berries. He said they did not. I figure birds will get most of them anyway. Also in this shot you can see that umbrellas are often used as a replacement for a sun bonnet! We took a walk through the mulberry fields.

Probably a shelter for the field workers? It was a nice spot in the shade for our tour.

Here are the silkworms waking up and starting to eat! Their happy temporary home is a large tray.

A closeup! Not very pretty.

The silk worms eat and eat and eat and then they spin a cocoon. Once the cocoon is done, the cocoon is captured and then it is spun into thread.

It takes 12 cocoons to make 1 thread.  They undo 12 cocoons and spin them together.

Once they have individual threads, these are spun together with 5-18 threads depending on the durability and thread thickness desired.

Once they have the thread, the thread is woven into cloth. A weaver can make 3 meters of fabric per day.

We learned that not all silk worms make the same quality of silk. These two skeins are both natural color just from different silk worm varieties.

Angel Tree Luncheon

The American Women's Association hosts an annual fundraiser luncheon each year to raise money that goes directly to the charities we support. The event is called the Angel Tree Luncheon. "Angel" because everyone who attends is donating a lot of money so we are all angels. Tree because in addition to the luncheon tickets, you can take gift wish lists off of a tree and purchase gifts for children in the orphanages we support. Last year ladies from my crafty group enjoyed a lovely lunch together. It was really fun. This year the lady who hosted  our group's table last year really didn't have the time to host again all all by herself. She's from Canada and is now the head of the Canadian Women's Association.  I asked her if she had 50% of the time and what did she think about doing it as a team. The chair of the event had repeatedly asked me if I would please host a table. I just kept saying no, but ultimately I decided to do it. What does it mean to host? You have to find people to buy the luncheon tickets to fill your table, you have to create a centerpiece. You can provide all of the glassware, dishes, utensils, cloth napkins and really do it up big or borrow the rest of the items. You also need to encourage your table mates to buy some of the gifts for the orphans.

My co-host completely took on the encouragement about the tree gifts. She is a shopper. I gave her cash and she did the rest. Many of my friends did the same. But most of the host-related tasks were done by both of us. In fact, between travel schedules, we handed tasks back and forth with relative ease. This included the fact that she was originally going to buy items we needed to make our table souvenir ornaments for our table mates in Singapore. Then her trip got postponed. As luck would have it, we were traveling to Sydney so I was tasked with that job. To create the souvenir ornaments we met for 1.5-2 hours, cut out felt shapes divided them up and off we went. She traveled to Singapore and I started making my ornaments. We agreed to stitch them totally by hand since she would not have a machine with her on her trip. We each constructed half of the ornaments and it was pretty difficult to tell who did which ones. I sold tickets, she sold tickets and the tickets and lists and monies went back and forth.

My co-host worked out the centerpiece for the most part while I finished it off and delivered it and I constructed the table runner. She provided "fat quarter" fabrics for the cloth napkins, I folded them up.

 A bouquet of yarn ball flowers on a "field" ( aka tray) of additional yarn balls. The little sewing machine is adorable. It is a music box and when the music plays the foot peddle moves up and down. My co-host loaned it for the day. My table runner was a not-to-scale yellow tape measure made from a yellow Bali batik print. Perfect!

With both of us traveling in and out of town, it was amazing to me that we were able to carry it off so well. It was a true team effort and our table reflected our group. I am proud of both of us! I know the ladies had a really amazing time! Every one loved our sheep ornament souvenirs. Wool comes from sheep and yarn can be made of wool. Everything ties in. If you can see the booklet created for the event, I helped with that too.

Some of my "Needle Nomads" (crafty group) plus one. One lady new to our group had committed to attending but then canceled. I was able to sell her ticket to an acquaintance from my Heritage Explorer group who really wanted to attend. We all tried to make her feel very welcome.

Why all the white outfits? White dress was suggested to symbolize the hope, etc. for the holiday season and the new year. It was only a suggestion . I noticed at least one table chose to all attend in very dark colors. Maybe they thought it would blend with their table better?  We opted for the caterer supplied glasses, plates and utensils!

This was a very busy few weeks for me. I also volunteered to assist the woman who took over as chair of this event. The previous chair was suddenly re-patriated. The new chair needed help and I had the know how, so I assisted with the art, etc. for the pamphlet for the event.

Blue Mountains, Australia Part 4

Still on Day 2 in the Blue Mountains

What goes down must go up. To get out of the valley, we selected the railway.

As noted earlier, this is a very steep incline. The seats, though, tilt to level you out a little or add even more excitement by tilting more. We had so many people on our bench we just left it the way it was.

After riding this train from the bottom up, I can see the real thrill is riding down. We entered this tunnel from the lower end. But if you enter on the way down the track it would appear that the train was just dropping off a cliff as you exit the tunnel. I'm sure that people scream when that happens, especially folks in the front seats!

One night for dinner we felt like something different. We learned there was a pretty decent Chinese restaurant down the road. Easy walk they said Ah, not so much. The restaurant was all the way at the top of this "little hill"  after it flattened out, on the right side.

After exploring Scenic World, we sadly left the mountains and returned to Sydney for a couple of additional days. Sydney was great, but the mountains were wonderful!

Along the way we stopped at a highly advertised place, "Rick Rutherford's Country" in Lawson. This is supposed to be a quaint, Christmas store with a cafe. After knocking anything I touched off the display trees and before anything got broken, we moved on. The place was tiny despite the ads making it appear large. I'm still glad we stopped. It might have been great.

It's always nice to close out with pretty sunset photos, so here are 2 taken in the Blue Mountains.

Blue Mountains, Australia Part 3

Day 2 Katoomba
We got a pretty early start and spent the morning at Scenic World in the Blue Mountains.

There are may options here but all are included in the pricey entry fee: Scenic Railway, Scenic Skyway, Scenic Cableway and Scenic Walkway.

The only one we didn't do was the Scenic Skyway. It's a short cable car trip  across a small section of the top of the valley.

We took the Cableway down to the valley floor. Each car will hold 84 people but there were only a few in our car. We were there at opening time. We all stood at the front windows for the best views. It travels down from a height of 545 m (1790 ft) to the valley floor.

At the valley floor we walked along the 2.4 km (1.5 miles) boardwalk trail and enjoyed it so much! So nice to get out in nature. So nice to get out and walk!

They must have sudden storms because there were quite a few covered storm shelters.

Someone told us that there used to be koalas in the Blue Mountains but massive fires wiped them all out and they never returned. He also told us that he had seen wallaby a couple of time down in the valley. We didn't see wallaby, but we did see what he said was a relative of a bush turkey. The large bird searches for food by scratching at the dirt with its feet. First we would hear the bird, then we'd look for it. Great camouflage on the forest floor.

There are 100 km of tunnels in cliffs at this level down in the valley. Mining started here in 1878 and at various times there were as many as 40 mines here all looking for and removing coal. We could see remains of the old railway to haul the coal up out of the valley.

Here's me attempting a selfie with some interesting vines or roots behind me. Note: I can't seem to figure selfies out!

B on the boardwalk.

The mountain blue gum trees in this valley sprouted shortly after the mining was abandoned here in 1895 so the trees here are 116 years old.

Blue Mountains, Australia Part 2

Day 1 in Katoomba
We couldn't check in at the hour we arrived in Katoomba so we left our bags and went walking. Let me correct that. We went bushwalking. Trails are tracks and hiking/walking is called bushwalking. So we went bushwalking on some tracks in the Katoomba area.

On our very first walk, we heard and saw our first wild sulphur-crested cockatoo.

We could pass through a city park on our way to Echoes Point. We noticed an interesting sculpture on the way. This memorial commemorates the convict road builders that worked in the Blue Mountains in the early 1800s. These roads opened up the Australian continent.

On most of our walks in Katoomba we were greeted by the cockatoos. Sometimes single birds, sometimes in raucous groups.

Walking distance from our hotel to Echoes Point was an easy 5 minutes.

Brrr. I'm wearing a jacket! From here you can see Three Sisters, a rocky formation with three parts. There are lots of stories about the origin of the name. One version says there were three maiden sisters who were turned into stone for their protection while tribal war ensued. Unfortunately, no one could break the spell after the wars ended so they remained as stone.

From Echoes Point there are several tracks. We bushwalked from Echoes Point to Katoomba Falls.

There were quite a few metal animal sculptures in and around Echoes Point. Really interesting. There were even families of cidadas!

We then walked from the falls out towards Scenic World (more later), caught a bus and went back to Echoes Point and then did the track to the Three Sisters. We used our OPAL cards for this for the bus segment.:)

P got a foot massage later in the day! Yay! While P did that B went to a nearby chocolate store and got some goodies.

At sunset we walked back to Echoes Point to observe the light striking the Three Sisters. We went pretty early and were glad we did. The information said this happens at sunset. The really pretty part happens quite a bit earlier than actual sunset. We saw folks arriving at the technical sunset time and they'd missed it.