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By pigwhisperer, February 24, 2010

Our coffee trees flowered in late November. It’s now February and, thanks to some great summer rains, our beans are turning into big boys (and girls).

About 6-8 weeks after a coffee flower is fertilized, cell division occurs to make a tiny coffee fruit. It’s as big as a pin head at this stage, but depending on climate, it can grow pretty rapidly. Coffee beans should ripen 30-35 weeks after flowering, turning from green to red. If this calculation is correct, that means our harvest will start at the end of June. This is much earlier than previous years, when we’ve started picking as late as August. But when I was a kid, June was always harvest time. Hopefully, we’re returning to our normal cycle.

Here’s a great little animated diagram of coffee bean development. I’ve linked to this before, but it’s so good, I can’t help but do it again.

Agora em português!
Nossos pés de café floresceram no final de novembro. Graças umas chuvas fortes esse verão, os nossos grãos de café estão ficando graúdos.

Cerca de 6-8 semanas após uma flor de café é fertilizado, ocorre uma divisão celular e nasce um fruto de café pequeno. (É tão grande como uma cabeça de alfinete.) Dependendo das chuvas, esse pequeno grão pode crescer rapidamente. Grãos de café devem amadurecer 30-35 semanas após a floração. Se este cálculo está correto, isso significa que nossa colheita começará no final de junho. Nos anos anteriores, começamos colhendo em agosto! Mas na minha infância, junho sempre foi o tempo de colheita. Pode ser que estamos retornando ao nosso ciclo normal.

Aqui está um link que mostra desenvolvimento do grão de café .

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By pigwhisperer, February 14, 2010

For Valentine’s Day, some excerpts of letters between Franz Kafka and his fiancé, Felice Bauer. They had a five-year relationship carried out mostly through letters, and were engaged twice.

Hoje é Dia dos Namorados nos EUA. Para comemorar, trechos da correspondência de Franz Kafka com Felice Bauer. Eles eram noivos para 5 anos e, durante seu noivado, tiveram uma correspondência de mais de 700 páginas. (Só achei trechos das cartas em inglês, infelizmente.)

In 1912, Kafka wrote to Bauer about how she had become inseparable from his work, and also how anticipation of her writing kept him awake at night. He wrote:

“Lately I have found to my amazement how intimately you have now become associated with my writing, although until recently I believe that the only time I did not think about you at all was while I was writing. In one short paragraph I had written, there were, among others, the following references to you and your letters: someone was give a bar of chocolate. There was talk of small diversions someone had during working hours. Then there was a telephone call. And finally somebody urged someone to go to bed, and threatened to take him straight to his room if he did not obey, which was certainly prompted by the recollection of your mother’s annoyance when you stayed so late at the office. — Such passages are especially dear to me; in them I take hold of you, without your feeling it, and therefore without your having to resist.

Eleven days later, Kafka wrote to her:
“Fraulein Felice!
I am now going to ask you a favour which sounds quite crazy, and which I should regard as such, were I the one to receive the letter. It is also the very greatest test that even the kindest person could be put to. Well this is it: Write to me only once a week, so that your letter arrives on Sunday — for I cannot endure your daily letters, I am incapable of enduring them.
For instance, I answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats through my entire body and is conscious only of you. I belong to you; there is really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough. But for this very reason I don’t want to know what you are wearing; it confuses me so much that I cannot deal with life; and that’s why I don’t want to know that you are fond of me. If I did, how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you?”

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By pigwhisperer, February 12, 2010

Suma de Letras has released “La Costurera” in Spain. I’m very excited to see the book translated into Spanish, and love Suma’s cover artwork. For all of you Spanish speakers, I’ve included Suma’s book summary below. Felicidades!

A editora espanhola Suma de Letras lancou “La Costurera” na Espanha. Estou super feliz para ver o livro traduzido para o espanhol, e adorei a nova capa. Para vocês que falam espanhol, incluir o resumo do livro da Suma. Que felicidade!

Una saga épica sobre la vida de dos hermanas
en el Brasil de principios del siglo XX

Frances de Pontes Peebles nos demuestra con su novela la importancia de los lazos familiares, inquebrantables incluso en la distancia y en la adversidad. Su cuidado estilo, su sensibilidad y su facilidad para contar grandes historias de sagas familiares, le han servido además para que numerosos medios la comparen con Gabriel García Márquez e Isabel Allende.

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By pigwhisperer, February 12, 2010

Descobrimos um ninho com esse passarinho dentro. Ontem, ele voou. Acho que ele estava pronto para brincar carnaval, e queria sair de casa!

This week found a nest with a baby bird in it. Yesterday, he flew away. Carnaval begins on Saturday, so maybe he was hoping to get a head start on the fun.