Tonight we're gonna party like it's 2009!

Written to Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers

If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn't show up.
- Dr Seuss

Admittedly, it could well appear as though Lone and I are doing less farm work these days, and I had to laugh when our oldest son, Johannes, recently commented -in fairness while studying for his final, pre-graduation exams at Imperial College London (BSc in Physics), that the rentz, as presently configured, have more of a life than he does. Objectively speaking, we do...or rather we certainly have had over the past several weeks. As if to add insult to his injury, this past week we were able to carry the momentum from our dovetailing birthdays into a weekend party at our friends', Emmanuel Rengade and his wife, Filipa, fazenda, Fazenda Santa Helena. Lone and I showed up expecting a do, but nothing could have prepared us for the extravaganza (notice the pineapple parrot) we experienced.

The day started at noon with drinks and appetizers by the pool and then moved down to the outdoor riding ring for a sort of Festas de Cavalhadas, the commemoration of the medieval victory of Iberian Christian knights over the Moors.

The Festas de Cavalhadas feature a parade beginning with a bugle fanfare announcing the knight's pages, then the mounted knights displaying their colors.

24 riders are divided into two groups to play the old fight. The men in red represent the Moors, the blue represent the Christians. Among the combatants, there are the characters of the king, the ambassador and the warriors.

Ironically, this historic victory over the Moors in many ways marked the culmination of the “the great age of translation”, the revival of Renaissance Humanism, where the intellect of Greece reemerged from the culture of those who had preserved it, the Arabs.

The transfer of Greek works from the Byzantines to the Latin West took place in two main stages:

The first occurred in Babylon, when Greek works were translated into Arabic in the 8th and 9th century during Abbasid rule.

One night in Baghdad, the 9th century Caliph Al-Mamun was visited by a dream. The philosopher Aristotle appeared to him, saying that the reason of the Greeks and the revelation of Islam were not opposed. On waking, the Caliph demanded that all of Aristotle’s works be translated into Arabic. And they were. And it wasn’t just Aristotle. Over the next 200 years Greek philosophy, medicine, engineering and maths were all poured and sometimes squeezed into Arabic. It was a translation movement of extraordinary depth and scope so that, hundreds of years before Aristotle reached the West, the intellect of Greece was woven into the tapestry of Arab thought.

The second is “the great age of translation” in the 12th and 13th centuries as Europeans conquered formerly Islamic territories in Spain and Sicily. Scholars came from all over Europe to benefit from Arab learning and culture. About the same period, after the Fourth Crusade, scholars such as William of Moerbeke gained access to the original Greek texts that had been preserved in the Byzantine empire, and translated them directly into Latin.[6] There was a later stage when Western knowledge of Greek began to revive in Renaissance Humanism, and especially after the Fall of Constantinople when there was an influx of refugee Greek scholars in the Renaissance.

The Cavalhadas was followed by a barbecue...not a US-style barbecue, or even by a Brazilian churrasqueira...but a B * B * Q (vegetarian readers are herewith warned). More precisely, a whole cow was slaughtered and cooked over an open fire for 24 hours before the party. Lone, not surprisingly, was first in line to taste the exquisite beef, displaying her Viking roots, though she was quickly followed by about 200 other guests.

The guests included the Prefeita of São Luiz do Paraitinga, Ana Lúcia Bilard Sicherle, a city run by women (Mayor, City Council President, Judge, Prosecutor, Commissioner and Captain of Military Police) and affectionately referred to by its inhabitants as the 'pink city'.

Paraitinga tem prefeita, presidente da Câmara Municipal, juíza, promotora (são as únicas da cidade), delegada, capitã da Polícia Militar, assessoras de secretarias municipais (como são chamadas as titulares das pastas), gerentes de banco, donas de pousada, de lojas e por aí vai. Os moradores brincam que é a "cidade cor-de-rosa".

In farm-related news, the Nelore appear to be enjoying pasture 5...pasture 6 is on its way and will hopefully be finished by the end of next week.

Also, we had to purchase six cubic meters of stones to shore up our entry road after the many rains...the first three truckloadfuls arrived this week. We also bought two more horses from Márcio; the latter arrived today.

Finally, many of the hogs are looking VERY pregnant...we hope to have big news soon.