Life in a Chicken Coop

I have now been in Arizona for four weeks, and I feel that I am finally settling in a bit. I've driven around Flagstaff, learned the lay of land (to some degree, anyway) and visited some sites around the city. 

And I am living in chicken coops. 

Me and my chicken coop

The museum is kind enough to provide temporary housing on the museum campus for new employees. This is known as "the coops" and, as the names suggests, consists of several buildings that are actually renovated chicken coops.

Take it from me, this is much nicer than it sounds. First of all, think of the structure part of a chicken coop, not the chicken-wire part. Each coop is really a cozy little cabin, with a bed, desk and closet. And because Mom drove up here with me I have the largest coop which, in order to accommodate two beds, is about double the size of most of the coops.

Really the only downside is that the bathroom and kitchen are a short walk outside. This isn’t so bad in the middle of the day, but early in the morning when it’s 20 degrees out and the roofs are covered in frost or late at night when it’s dark and cold, it’s not as fun. It also wasn’t too fun when I locked myself out of my room without my phone and had to sleep on the couch in the common room.

Then again, on my nightly walks to the bathroom I’ve seen two herds of deer, a big jackrabbit, heard coyotes singing and seen three shooting stars. I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

Most of my work here will be done in the old collections storage. However, a large portion of the collection is in a fairly new, state-of-the-art collections center. The Easton Collections Center is amazing, and basically a collection’s manager’s dream. It has great security, a large amount of storage space and good climate control. 

The Easton Collections Center

The building was designed with input from three perspectives. Because it is a collections storage facility, typical collections care issue were addressed, including the HVAC system, physical access and the storage concerns for a mixed collection. For example, the building is heated and cooled through pipes in floor, rather than blowing air, which keeps blowing dust to a minimum. 

The ECC at sunset

Another important issue was that of sustainability. Most of the materials are local, including wood from a railway trestle that lay submerged under the Great Salt Lake. The high salt content naturally treated the wood and it now repels insects. In addition, the grass on the roof acts as an insulator and helps keep energy usage down.

Finally, the museum drew heavily on the perspectives of the local American Indian communities. 

The center is meant to blend in with the landscape, and the façade is reminiscent of pueblos. Doors and windows face east, and from several spots in the building there are views of the San Francisco Peaks, which are sacred to local tribes. All funerary objects and human remains are housed in another building.

In the large foyer there is a tall, thin, rectangular window. Sunlight comes in through the window and shines on the wall. On the solstices, it shines directly on the center of the large steel doors that lead to the actual collections storage space and on the equinoxes it shines on the corners. On the solstices and equinoxes, the doors are opened and the band of light shines onto the collections so that the objects can know the time of year.

As I mentioned, most of my work will not be done in the fancy building I just described. One of the big projects I am working on is a major inventory. The room that I am inventorying has about 75 units, and each unit has six shelves. Each shelf typically contains about four to ten boxes. While some boxes only have one or two objects, the majority have ten to thirty, and some boxes have a couple hundred. It may sound strange for a box to have 200 hundred objects, but it makes a little more sense when you consider that these are archeological collections. So, we’re talking potsherds, ground stone and lithics – small fragments of pots, arrowheads, pestles, axe heads and (at least to my untrained eyes) rocks. In other words, this is a very large undertaking.

Because the collection has moved a lot, this inventory is incredibly important. It's also a good way to familiarize myself with the museum's database (ARGUS) and the collections and it's strange numbering system (most definitely not the typical three-part number).

I will work on a wide variety of projects while I am at the Museum of Northern Arizona, and hopefully I will share some of the more interesting things on here!  And I will most certainly enjoy this beautiful place, surrounded by forests and mountains.

The San Francisco Peaks

My Mountain is Waiting

You're off to great places, 

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting, 

So...get on your way!

~ Dr. Suess

I am excited to share with everyone my next adventure. I will spend my next year in Flagstaff, Arizona as the Anthropology Collections Assistant at the Museum of Northern Arizona.

Flagstaff, Arizona
A few weeks ago I knew almost nothing about Flagstaff other than the fact that it is in Arizona. Everyone immediately thinks of the Arizona desert, the blistering heat and tall saguaro cactus. But Flagstaff is different. If in doubt, just take a look at these photos (which are not mine) from Flagstaff.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Flagstaff is 97, and it is apparently the only city Arizona that has never recorded a temperature of 100. With cool temperatures and a high elevation comes winter snow. In fact, Flagstaff averages 100 inches of snowfall a year, making it the fifth snowiest city (with a population of 50,000 or more) in the US. And yep, that's a ski lift right there. Just 7 miles outside of Flagstaff. Who knew?

Through my internet exploration I have discovered several random and interesting facts about Flagstaff:

• Pluto was discovered at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff
• Coconino County is the second largest county in the contiguous United States
• Flagstaff's elevation is just under 7,000 feet. That's high up there, folks!
• Flagstaff sits on the historic Route 66 (as does Yukon, OK, where I spent a lot of time this past summer)
• While Flagstaff is not a huge city (just over 68,000 residents), Northern Arizona University adds an additional 25,000 people to the population
• Because of its high altitude, olympic athletes like to train in Flagstaff
• Flagstaff is just a 90 minute drive from the Grand Canyon

Yes, I'm Terrified
Is it fair to say that I'm a little terrified? You bet. I'm about to drive over 800 miles across a barren wasteland to live in a city I've never been to. Yep, terrified would be one word for it.

But I'm also excited. I'm excited about this new adventure, the work I will do and the things I will learn. Per the job announcement, I will work on a variety of collections projects at the museum. The Museum of Northern Arizona serves as a repository for some National Park Service collections, so I will be working with archaeological artifacts, including Coconino National Forest collections, Bureau of Indian Affairs collections and other NAGPRA projects. For those of you not up to date on the lingo, NAGPRA is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. This federal law was enacted in 1990 and involves human remains, funerary objects and religious artifacts.

Museum of Northern Arizona and the Colorado Plateau
The Museum of Northern Arizona collects, studies, preserves and interprets the natural and cultural heritage of the Colorado Plateau. The Colorado Plateau is basically the four corners region of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. In this area are 10 national parks and 17 national monuments. In other words, the Colorado Plateau is filled with cultural, geological and paleontological treasures. MNA's ethnological collection includes significant Hopi and Navajo collections, Zuni and Apache objects, and smaller numbers of objects from a variety of Pueblo tribes.

The Colorado Plateau (In case you were wondering, I didn't take this picture either)

Later this week I will make the drive out to Flagstaff. I plan to update this blog on a more regular basis, but I will admit that I often don't post as often as I would like. I'm also more likely to post on

other platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, where posts require little more that the push of a button - so follow me there!

It's hard to leave Texas behind. It's hard to leave my friends and family behind. But my mountain is waiting, and it's time to get on my way!

44,000 Object Files

My street. The house I'm staying in is just to the left. 

Hobby Lobby

I have now completed my second week at the Museum of the Bible. It’s already been an interesting experience, very different from my past museum work.

The museum collection is housed at Hobby Lobby’s corporate headquarters. Yesterday I got to take a tour of the Hobby Lobby campus, which includes some six million square feet of warehouse, manufacturing and office space.

Hobby Lobby began as a framing company and its original name, Greco, is still evident in the framing department. Greco comes not from the ancient Greek world, but is a combination of the Green’s name and that of his original partner.

We took a couple of motorized carts around and saw people making items like ficus trees and barn wood frames. One made a stop at the layout room, which is a full-size mock-up of a Hobby Lobby store. In here, they work out which items will remain on the shelves and which will be replaced with new items. They can also look at the layout of the store (hence the name). Each item on the shelf has an attached sticker. This sticker indicates how many of that item was sold in the last month, so they can get an idea of what is and isn’t selling.

What happens to the cake?

One of the most interesting sections is the art department. Here, graphic designers create patterns from art and then use this new art to make anything from fabric to gift bags to wall decorations. Also in the art department we saw the area where they make the inspiration sheets that you can find throughout the stores. These sheets include ideas and directions for completing crafts with store supplies. While we were there, they were working on a cake shoot. Bakers had made beautiful themed cakes, decorated with fondant, and people were working to create elaborate scenes around the cakes. I don’t know what happens to the cakes after they are photographed, but I can tell they aren’t sent over for the museum staff to enjoy. Shame.

If the whole museum thing doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll look into this. These employees spend the day decorating cakes or trying new craft projects. Sounds like a good time to me!

MOTB

Of course, while my job site is Hobby Lobby corporate, I am really working with a separate entity, The Museum of the Bible, or MOTB. Still, I really enjoyed seeing the behind-the-scenes working of a major corporation.

I am joined this summer by two other interns. The other interns don’t have museum experience, but instead are completing theology and biblical language degrees.

Therefore, due to my experience with collections work, I was assigned to work with the registration staff, while they are working with the curators.

I joined them one day this week and worked on their current project, which is measuring scrolls. This first involves unrolling each Torah scroll, of which MOTB currently has over 1,700. They take a photograph of the beginning and end of the scroll, as well as the Song of the Sea, which is in Exodus 15. This text has a different layout from the rest of Torah, which means it is recognizable even to someone who doesn’t read Hebrew.

In addition, they measure the entire length of the scroll and then count the total number of klafs. A klaf is a section of vellum or parchment, which are sewn together to create the scroll. They also count the columns in each klaf and the lines in each column. I took some photographs and counted the lines in several scrolls. I enjoyed spending some time working with the artifacts and with the other interns.

Foundational Filing

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my main project this summer is developing a filing system for the collection. The largest portion of this task is making paper object files for each object. While my hand is sometimes cramping at the end of a day of writing information on folders, I am getting a very good grasp on the scope of the collection. Each folder heading includes the object’s accession number, acquisition number, dealer and a brief one to three word description of the object. This week I’ve made files for everything from Dead Sea Scroll fragments to Torah scrolls to Elvis Presley’s Bible to cuneiform tablets. Very exciting!

It is very interesting to be involved at the start of a museum. Everywhere else that I’ve worked, these things have already been in place. For example, the Holocaust Museum has rows of filing cabinets, already full to the brim, of accession files. As new objects are accessioned, the staff makes new files. Eventually the MOTB will be at this point, but first I must make files for the existing collection.

When I sit at the table, the kitties take up position right under my chair

Does this mean that I will make 44,000 object files this summer? I doubt it. I work very fast, but I can’t make the roughly 500 files a day that this would require.

I hope to do a variety of work while I am here, but it remains to be seen if I will have a chance to do more than work on the files. Despite the monotony of the work, it is kind of exciting to be a part of this foundational work for the museum.

The Museum of the Bible

A Museum Master
It's hard to believe that two years ago I moved to Waco, began another degree and embarked on a career in museums. It is perhaps even more astounding that I  am now a Master of Museum Studies. I don't think I ever thought that I would be old enough to hold a graduate degree.

And yet here I am, with another diploma in hand and a quarter of my life behind me.

Thankfully, due to a multitude of courses, projects, internships and volunteer work I feel very affirmed in my choice of profession.

It was a great day when I realized that I could turn one of my passions into a career. I can still remember when I discovered that universities offered master's degrees in museum studies.

"Sign me up," I said. And with that, I decided to return to school.

For a variety of reasons, I chose to go to Baylor for my degree. I am now very happy with this decision. My professors are knowledgeable, and held in high-esteem by the Texas museum community. My classmates have been wonderful, and many of them have become very good friends. My classes have taught me much, and provided me with the opportunity to learn and grow.

In a field where a master's degree has become essential, I am very thankful for this opportunity.

It is incredibly satisfying to feel that I am in the right place, to discover that books I purchased for free reading are required texts for classes and that I actually enjoy some of my assignments.

So, what's next? I don't yet have long-term plans or a full-time, permanent job. Hopefully those will come in the relatively near future. I always hoped to have a job lined up upon graduation, but museum collection jobs are few and far between.

The Museum of the Bible

My work building, at the Hobby Lobby headquarters

I do, however, have another summer internship. This week I began a summer internship with the Museum of the Bible and the Green Collection in Oklahoma City. With over 40,000 objects, the Green Collection is the largest privately owned collection of biblical artifacts and manuscripts. The collection includes such treasures as fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, part of a Gutenberg Bible, and letters from Martin Luther.

Over the course of the summer, I will work with both the curatorial and registration departments, assisting with all nature of museum collections tasks. It will certainly be different from last summer, as this is a museum still in the beginning stages. The Greens began collecting in 2009, and formal organization began after that. For those wondering, the Greens run Hobby Lobby and therefore have the resources to create such a wonderful, invaluable collection.

My first task involves creating a filing system, which currently does not exist. Luckily, I have plenty of experience with filing! I will make paper files for each dealer and each object within the collection. Furthermore, I will create digital object files on the computer. And after that, who knows!

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains...
All of this means that I am living in Oklahoma City for the summer. One of my colleagues and his wife are currently in Rome with one the museum's special exhibits. They have graciously opened their home to me for the first half of the summer (Side note: if you know of a good place for me to stay for July, I would be very grateful!). They have a house out in the country, which I am currently occupying.

My closest neighbors. Seriously, y'all. I live closer to horses than to humans.

This house also has two cats. Two incredibly affectionate and attention-starved cats. The cats are very sweet and, honestly, nice to have around. It makes the house not quite as lonely.

Don't worry Mom, I'm not becoming a cat person, as my allergies will never allow this.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am kind of terrified of thunder, and big thunderstorms in particular. So far, we have had several massive thunderstorms roll through, one of which included 70-mph wind gusts. In other words, long nights for Rebekah.

The Non-Existance of Tornados

I am trying to pretend that this tornado shelter doesn't exist, or more accurately that the need for this doesn't exist, as I must admit that tornados absolutely terrify me. The weatherman last night seemed so excited about the storm coming through.

"Look at that beautiful formation," "See that rotation?" He gleefully announced. Yeah, I see it and I'm pretending it doesn't exist. Yes, I know how unlikely it is that a tornado will hit the house. But my slightly irrational fear of storms means I'm thankful to have access to this shelter. One particularly close lightning strike and the virtually simultaneous accompanying thunderclap made me and both cats jump. Seriously, those cats jumped a foot straight up in the air. Clearly I'm not the only nervous one here!

There is not internet at the house, so my online posts will be spotty, at least for the first half of the summer. Instagram and Twitter posts are quick and use less data, so if you want more frequent updates, check out those accounts of mine.

I'm looking forward to an interesting summer, one which I hope lays groundwork for my future career. My Bible degree and museum degree ensure that this museum collection is right up my alley and I intend to make the most of it.

Time to close up shop, disconnect from the online world again and go watch California Chrome win the Belmont Stakes.

As always, Sic 'em Bears!!

Adventures in Making Mozzarella

"There are two food groups in the world: The one you put cheese on and the one you put chocolate on." ~ Anonymous

A Love of Cheese
I love cheese. Anyone who knows me at all knows this. At one point this last semester a glance into my fridge revealed Cheddar, Babybel (which is Edam cheese), Feta, Swiss, Provolone, Brie, Mozzarella, Colby Jack, shredded Parmesan, grated Parmesan and a hunk of fresh Parmesan. I believe this adequately illustrates my obsession with cheese.

I think we'll all be happier if we just pretend that cheese is a non-fattening food that counts as one of our daily vegetable servings.

It should come as no surprise that the concept of making cheese at home sounds fantastic to me! One of my Christmas gifts this year was a mozzarella and ricotta cheesemaking kit. My parents know me so well.

Selecting Milk
As I began to prepare for my cheesemaking adventure I discovered first and foremost that not all milks are created equal. Well, I suppose they're all created equal, but wide discrepancies in pasteurizing temperatures mean that by the time the milk hits the shelf they are no longer equal.

Ultra-pasteurized milk does not produce cheese. The good news is, most milk is not UP and this must be clearly marked on the label. The bad news?

Many milks are pasteurized at temps just shy of ultra-paseteurization, and this information is not included on the label. Most cheese-makers recommend using raw milk, or pasteurizing raw milk at home.

I know that there are a lot of arguments for the benefits and safety of raw milk, but it makes me nervous. Frankly, I think if you aren't 100% confident as to the cleanliness of the milk, raw milk is too big of a risk. Therefore, I chose to experiment with pasteurized milk from the grocery store. Gandy's dairy is located in Lubbock, so the milk is relatively local. I hoped this might mean a lower pasteurization temperature, as one of the reasons for UP is to help milk keep longer as it is transported long distances.

Making my Curds and Whey
Cheesemaking is not particularly difficult. The only ingredients are milk, water, citric acid, rennet and salt. These are combined and the mixture is heated to various temperatures as ingredients are added. The goal is to end up with silky, custard-like curds.

These are not those. These are ricotta-like curds and they signal that my milk was pasteurized at a high temperature.

Rats.

At this point, I suspected failure. My curds were all wrong and did not promise to yield a beautiful ball of mozzarella. I also began to suspect that my food photography needs work, as that is one ugly photo of curds and whey. But to my knowledge, that doesn't affect the cheesemaking process.


I Made Cheese!
With nothing else to do, I decided to continue following the instructions through to the end.

After the curds are removed from the whey, they are heated and stretched, until the curds meld together.

Surprisingly, as I stretched, I got the texture that I had been looking for. I've got cheese! I formed a ball, a log and couple of cheese sticks and threw them into cold water.

A taste test revealed a product that tastes like mozzarella. Fresh, delicious, homemade mozzarella. Perhaps you can tell, I'm fairly proud of this accomplishment.

Making my own cheese makes me so happy that I've already made a second batch. This time I did even more research on milks and discovered that several people have had success with Borden milk, so I used this. Here are my curds at the exact same point in the process as the above curd photo. The curds are solid and custardy. Looks like Borden milk is pasteurized at a lower temperature than Gandy's. I've found a winner! And I'm enjoying fresh mozzarella with freshly baked bread made using the whey from making cheese.

Now, if only I could stay home tomorrow and make cheese and bake bread. I suppose I'll go to work and class instead.