May 15, 2020
weekly tip:
You have to wear a mask outside now. And you wear glasses. The two are not compatible.  It’s a messy dilemma in our post-covid world. What to do?? Some suggestions here…
trail talk
For a happy change of pace, this story, about one family’s long road to becoming just that, is a balm. Seth and Meg Mosier spent years trying to become parents. Five years hoping to conceive, two rounds of in vitro fertilization, and two years waiting to adopt had finally landed them, this past March, in India. There they were to meet their toddler daughter Selvi, right as the virus forced the country into a severe lockdown and all international flights were cancelled. Despite the uncertainty that it all might collapse at the last minute, the Mosiers and Selvi finally managed to make their way back to the United States. Now they’re building their family and using their time inside to learn to cook a mean potato masala. If there’s any way to quarantine right, that’s probably it.

And then there’s this, an enticing portrait of South Korea’s first working mothers, the Haenyeo , women who free-dive for shellfish and seaweed off of Jeju Island. For centuries these women have supported their families with their underwater harvesting. Late in her own pregnancy, Kimi Werner, a professional free-diver and spearfishing champion, went to visit these women to learn how they define motherhood and integrate parenting into their working lives. Turns out, mothering never stopped them down. These women dove throughout their pregnancies, some even went into labor underwater or gave birth on their boats. The hardest part of being 10 months pregnant…Women: always crushing it.
trail magic
There’s plenty of grim environmental news out there. But this story isn’t one of them . It’s about the search for solutions to one of the most intractable environmental problems we face right now: plastics in our oceans. From major corporations eliminating single-use plastics to bacteria, worms and caterpillars that can actually digest plastic, to students and engineers creating water vacuums to literally sweep up plastic debris, there are lots of people hard at work on solutions. It’s not going to be easy and there is no perfect fix yet. But the efforts are impressive, inspiring and hopeful. We like that a lot right now.
trail treasures
We’ve been using Zoom for a lot of work calls and cocktail hours recently – both of which we consider equally necessary, btw. But what about Zoom (or any other video conferencing tool) for an extended family game night? Seem tricky? Not if you follow these pro tips for eight board games well-suited to remote play . This should be pretty easy to pull off. And, we hope, pretty fun, too.
yard sale
Flash your breast-fed baby challenge. Honestly, the reactions of some of the dads are just about as funny as the babies . LOL
before you go...
snuggly soft merino
#letsgoiksplor