Fascinating Fun Factoids From The Eves

 

• Anacostia, a part of Washington, DC is one of the most historically interesting parts of the nation’s capital. Here, Fredrick Douglass and Booker T. Washington and the black elite of the 1890s made their homes.
• The National Grange Project came into existence, after the American Civil War in an effort to unite citizens in improving the economic and social position of the nation’s farm population. Oliver Kelly, and his niece Caroline Hall were central to this project. The National Grange building still sits across the street from the White House and is the only privately held building on the block.
• Washington, DC was not established until 1791. The area of Mt. Pleasant, where Jessica lives, just three miles from the White House would not see significant development until the 1900s.
• The plant buckwheat, planted in “Joan’s Acre” is used because it pours nutrients into the soil, keeps the weeds down, and serves as critical summer food source for the bees.
• Part of each woman’s DNA, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), is passed from a mother to her offspring equally, male and female, sons, and daughters. However, only the daughters carry that same DNA successfully into reproduction and the next generation. Her son’s mitochondrial DNA does not make it through fertilization. Thus, her genetic footprint does not carry to her son’s offspring. Meanwhile, her daughter carries her mtDNA to her daughters, and granddaughters carry it to their daughters in an unbroken chain. Most surprisingly, regardless of the size of our world, or our diverse cultures, experiences and preferences, scientists have determined that there are only nine differences in mtDNA across all of humankind.
• George Calvert was the first “Lord Baltimore.” Escaping England’s persecution for his Catholic faith he came here to a settlement he called St. Mary’s. He claimed the land for Christ’s mother, Mary and called it Mary’s Land. Maryland. It was 1631. Fast forward 250 years. Make friends with the Indians, displace the Indians, establish a colony, grow tobacco, fight a revolutionary war, establish slavery, fight a civil war, abolish slavery, give Tobias and Delores Thatcher land. Fast forward 140 some-odd years and four generations. And we arrive where we are today, at The Eves.
• The quotes “to thine own self be true” and “neither a borrower nor a lender be” are both from Hamlet: Act one, Scene Three.
• According to a “USA Today” article, older people’s regrets are not in the present time like losing hair, health, body image, etc. Older Americans mourn events that are decades old. They regret a road not taken, a talent not followed, a missed chance, a relationship that wasn’t fixed.
• The Native American sculpture called a “storyteller” originated with the Cochiti clay artist Helen Cordero. She was actually a bad potter, she could not quite get the coiling right for pots, so she made these figures, commissioned by Anglo’s, instead. They are often remembrances of her grandfather, braids going down his back, children climbing all over him, his mouth opened, mid-story.
• Llamas, like their camel cousins, spit. The spit is a green, odorous slime. Llamas are also used as guards in herds of sheep.
• The sustainable living features at The Eves include a straw-bale house, all recycled materials for the kitchen cabinets and countertops, a gray water system for filtering of all water, a whole-house, solar-driven battery operation electrical system, and a human manure toilet - with the brand name “Loveable Loo.”
• In the early 1800s, prior to refrigeration, there was a trade called “the frozen water trade.” It had to do with the making of ice. Although some of the ice came from the St. Mary’s river, near The Eves, most of the ice came from ponds and waterways between New England and the Hudson River in New York.
• Frederick Douglass’ second wife, Helen Pitts, established the Douglass Museum in Anacostia. She graduated from Mount Holyoke, was a suffragette, and as a white woman was the subject of much scorn in both the Black and white communities. Her marriage caused her estrangement from her parents.
• There are 1400 varieties of orchids growing in Costa Rica. The small yellow ones can be dried and fermented and become vanilla. They can also be used for some types of chemotherapy. Vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world. The first is saffron, which comes from crocus flowers.
• The injection of the polio virus into an individual is a type of treatment for brain cancer.
• Quilts may (or may not) not have been used as messages along the Underground Railroad.
• Orion, the hunter constellation, is the largest constellation in the winter sky.
• If the wind is blowing in just the right direction, you really can hear lions roar at night from the National Zoo in Washington, DC.
• On safari, the “big five” are lion, elephant, Cape Buffalo, leopard, and rhinos white and black.
• At least as late at 2011 a Bantu man needed 10 cows as a bride price to marry.
• The Ngorongoro Crater, part of the Great Rift Valley, extends from Africa to Israel and Mesopotamia. It is the world’s largest, inactive, intact, and unfilled basin. It is the world’s most unchanged wildlife sanctuary. There you will see rafters of hippo, creches of ostrich, kaleidoscopes of giraffe, parliaments of vultures, and sounders of wart hogs. There you will see dazzles of zebra and many implausibility of wildebeest.
• In 1935 hospital rooms were not normal places for childbirth. Hospitals promoted new labor and delivery services as safe and “away from potential tenement fires.” Hospitals provided a flat-rate services that would include a seven day stay, the use of the labor and delivery room, all normal supplies, nursing care and laundry for the baby. The fee was $75.00 for a private room and $40.00 for a ward accommodation.
• Even in modern convents, thru the 1950’s, the nun’s rooms were called “cells."
• The story of Juneteenth is filled with murder, intrigue and injustice. Picture it – it’s 1865, two years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Executive Order freeing the slaves. For 2 ½ years after Lincoln’s order, in Texas, slaves remained slaves. It wasn’t until a general arrived in Galveston and announced the war had ended and the slaves were free. No one knows why it took two years to get the news. That’s where the murder and intrigue fits in. In any event there was a large celebration. The general arrived and read his proclamation on-or-about June 19 and that’s how we got Juneteenth; the oldest nationally celebrated remembrance of the ending of slavery in America and an official state holiday in Texas.
• A satellite takes about an hour and half to circle the earth.
• Mother’s Day is celebrated, almost universally, in May. In Norway it is celebrated in early February.
• Llamas are easily sheered, they take it in stride, get tethered to a post and with a simple set of sheers their fleece comes off in blanket-like sections. The sheep, however, go kicking and bleating. Each sheep is placed on a blanket and made to sit squarely on its bottom, feet off the ground. In this position, held in place by one hand of the shepherd, the sheep are immobile and look quite indignant. The sheep wool can be removed in almost one piece.
• The Paul Simon song “Mother and Child Reunion” was inspired by a menu item in a Chinese restaurant that contained both egg and chicken. The name of the item was “Mother and Child Reunion.”
• The bonus of the summer sky is Sirius. The brightest star in our galaxy. Part of the constellation Canis Major, actually consists of two stars, but the Greeks didn’t know that. Canis, is the dog constellation. It’s where we get the expression the dog days of summer. Myth has it that Sirius was Orion’s hunting dog.