Music for the Eyes

I've known for a long time that the swelling and dancing of stringed instruments can be a blessing to the ears.

Yesterday, when Merrill's violin went in for repair, I got a chance to appreciate what the colors and curves can do for eyes as well.

I never noticed that violins came in so many shades of red, amber, brown, wheat.

Some even look like tigers. A Holstein cow. A giraffe or a dalmation dog.

I took pictures until the banjo said it was time for lunch.

Anna Naomi

Some of us got to visit our friend Anna in the hospital in Illinois last weekend. Look at that smile! Her joy spread to our hearts.

Anna means "gracious". Naomi means "pleasant" and "beautiful." This child is indeed Anna Naomi.

We're praying for you, Anna! God is way bigger than leukemia!

Attitude

Sometimes I put a cyber "signature" on my emails. A signature is a few words or an image that automatically attaches to every outgoing message. Oftentimes, my signature serves as a little reminder to my soul, like this one from a while back.

Sometimes my signature is just a little piece of something to bring a smile, both to me and to the recipient, like these samples from past seasons:

Recently I’ve been thinking about how much a little change in attitude can make a big change in my day or my perception of the world. A yucky job becomes tolerable, or maybe even pleasant, when I change my thinking. A difficult person can become an object of my compassion rather than recipient of my ire, and suddenly my knotted, hard heart is free. I am thrilled when I remember that my own thoughts, rather than my circumstances or other people’s actions, are the key to my joy. And that I can control my own thoughts.

This is not a new concept. Two thousand years ago, the apostle Paul wrote of “bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”. It takes effort to bring something into captivity – captives don’t choose that role for themselves – but I’m finding that a little effort returns very large dividends in the peace of my soul. As a reminder, I’ve got a new email signature:
Chuck Swindoll fleshed out the thought in a way that is worth reading—click here. Take a minute and a half to read his words now; then ponder and tuck them away. If you pull them out in the midst of your next struggle, you may be able to set sail for a better place.

Don't Forget.....

Overcoming

Audrey has been interested in insects for as long as I can remember. As a young girl, she would pluck colorful caterpillars off of dill plants, set them up in a cage, and feed them on our kitchen counter. I didn't mind. Sometimes one would escape to build its cocoon on the kitchen wall somewhere. I didn't mind that, either. One day we came home from church to find a freshly-hatched swallowtail butterfly plumping its wings on the end of a wooden spoon. I thought it was beautiful.



A sphinx moth pupating in its little cage on the kitchen counter was not a big deal, either, and I even thought her African Giant Millipede, Clem, was kind of cute, scratching his tickly little massage up and down my arm.





Grandmother & Clem, 2003
















Audrey recently captured this praying mantis, six inches long. It is one in an extensive string of insect pets that have lived in aquaria, cages and jars in the house, or died in the freezer, to be pinned in her collection. I haven't minded. I even toss the mantis a cricket or other insect whenever I find such an intruder running loose.

Mantis photo by Audrey

All of that puts me in pretty good shape for Homeschool Mom of the Year, wouldn't you say?

I certainly thought so, but I'm discovering that my cheerful tolerance of Phylum Arthropoda has its limit.

The latest insect pet is this: A Madagascar Giant Hissing Cockroach.

I can't think of an organism I like less than a cockroach. I spent part of my growing up years in humid Houston, cockroach heaven, where they fly, and can grow up to two inches in length. An early riser, I was usually the first one to flip on the kitchen lights, signalling the end of party time for the roaches, and sending two or three of the nasty brown creatures scuttling to their hidey holes. It was a fairly unappetizing start to breakfast, especially the time that one of the hiding places, unknown to me, was under the toaster. I was just about to drop my bread in the slot when I saw the long antennae poking out under the edge, undulating and gently sensing the air. Though I'd sat through health class and heard the standard warnings about skipping breakfast, the consequences for eating it seemed worse.

It made quite an impression. That was thirty years ago, yet I can still feel the shock of realizing that those two long brown "hairs" sticking out from the toaster weren't hairs at all.

The presence of cockroaches in Houston didn't indicate slovenly housekeeping any more than does a periodic invasion of ants or flies. It was just a fact of life. A can of Raid lived under the kitchen sink, right next to the dishwasher soap. From time to time, when the roaches got too thick, my parents would call an exterminator. We'd live roach-free for a while, until word spread that there were empty digs in our kitchen, and the thugs began to creep in again through cracks and crevices, or hitching a ride, hidden in the folds of paper bags from the grocery, or under anything carried from the garage.

Every now and again I find a cockroach here in Nebraska. The small kind, less than a half-inch, and apparently not nearly as prolific as the Texas variety. I kill what I find, and don't see another one for years.

But this week begins the intentional habitation of a huge cockroach in our home! Audrey has to observe it, feed it on purpose, and then write a paper about it for the distance entomology class she is taking from the University of Nebraska. She tells me that the female of the species bear live young, and that, not wanting to risk a lawsuit over parental heart attacks, the University only sends out males. She even shows me the distinguishing armor bumps and feathery antennae that prove a boy cockroach is indeed a boy. She shows me that this guy is too big and way too slow to scuttle anywhere; why, he moves as if he's half asleep all the time.

Why am I not comforted?

I'm not sure I'm up for this. My instincts may just kick in and bring a quick end to this project. The bigger they come, the harder they fall. I hope the teacher grades on a curve for people whose mothers grew up in Texas.

Homeschool Happens Anywhere

Shopping, Draft Horse Style

I did a little shopping for John last weekend. He had a previous commitment, so he sent me to South Dakota with some draft horse people, to check out an auction sale.

Before my adrenaline had settled back to normal, I was dragging a plow, a chain for a horse-drawn manure spreader, and a new floor for the same spreader into Kevin's trailer. Not your usual Saturday-afternoon-at-the-mall shopping trip like I used to have growing up in Dallas, but probably more interesting.

Here's our friend Kevin, securing the "new" plow.

There was lots of harness for sale, hanging on long racks that had been cobbled together for the occasion.

The same racks held several sets of fly nets. You throw these over the backs of your horses. As the horses move, so do the strands of netting, scaring the flies.

If you know me, you know I'm not a real big shopper---more the sight-it-shoot-it-bag-it type. There's none of that at an auction sale; instead you sit around and stand around and wait around until the auctioneers get to the item you're interested in. This gives you plenty of time to argue with yourself about how high you're willing to bid, and how much the item is worth.

Sometimes it's a little hard to tell exactly what's being auctioned, especially if the crowd is thick. These ringmen, at a sale I attended a few weeks ago, carry a sign to make things perfectly clear.

Likely as not, when they finally do get to your item, the bidding shoots right past you before you ever get your hand in the air. That's what happened to me when these mowers were sold.

If you get tired of second-guessing yourself about whether you bid too much or too little, you can shift into people watching mode.

And if you're not interested in buying harness or equipment, maybe you can talk your daddy into buying something else.

Sometimes

Sometimes I feel like the airplane..........


















airplane photo by Merrill

sometimes I feel like the chicken.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. John 16:33

Brown Windows, Brown Widows

Fall means a yard full of spiders. Audrey found this harmless garden spider enjoying a mid-afternoon grasshopper when she went out to pick cherry tomatoes.

One time earlier in the summer we had to clear a jungle of spiders and fly specks off of our front porch. I decided we'd wash the windows at the same time. All went well until Rachel's arms flew in the air as she began to shriek about the largest spider she'd ever seen in her life. Would the girl with the vacuum please hustle over quickly to gobble it up? Erica did so, willingly. A few minutes of peace, and then another howl split the air. Rachel began fearfully pleading for my intervention, as these were the largest, and certainly the most poisonous spiders she'd ever seen. Her big brown eyes earnestly begged for me to come rescue this princess from the horrid villains, bound to attack at any moment. Then she played her trump...."They look like, just like..............like BROWN WIDOWS!!!"


I could not take this crisis very seriously.

Below are Nebraska's two poisonous spiders: Black Widow (left) and Brown Recluse. I have not seen either one hanging around our front porch. College princesses and houseguests may also rest assured that we have cleaned from our entryway all of the ferocious Brown Widows .

Making Hay

My dear hubby asked me to bale hay. I've baled hay before - small square bales that weigh fifty or sixty-five pounds apiece. You pull the small square baler behind a tractor; the baler is about knee-high, maybe waist-high at the tall part.

But this time, Desperate John has asked me to bale with the big square baler. You pull it behind a tractor, too, but it looks like this:

OK, I admit. I cheated a little with Photoshop on the size thing, but you get the idea. It feels this big from the outside, and gets even bigger when you climb in the cab. When you sit in the seat and look down over the terrain, you feel like you could wheel this baby alongside the semis at a truck stop without losing any self-respect.

A husband who asks his wife to drive it is a husband in dire straits, don't you think? Poor man. The full-time guy went back to school last month and John's left with help that doesn't know a pressure valve from a peanut. But, because I'm basically a good sport, and because he didn't discuss this with me after 9 p.m.--brain cell hibernation time--I agreed to give it a shot.

The first thing that caught my eye when I got in the tractor was the cute DVD player.

Well now, isn't that nice!? I thought. Baling can't be TOO terribly hard if they give you a DVD player to help the time pass. Should I watch a bit of the five-hour Our Mutual Friend, or re-live the glory days of summer 2004 with the Red Sox whupping the Yankees?

John flipped a switch, and my DVD suddenly morphed into a computer monitor that has ten screens, each with eight or ten different bits of information about the hay I'm baling. Can you believe that? We've got more stats on this bale than Steinbrenner has on A-Rod!

Fortunately, I only have to keep track of four or five numbers, with instructions to call John if any one of them strays from the acceptable zone. Or if I forget to close the pressure valve, and the numbers begin to orbit around in outer space, and I can't figure out why. Turns out we talked a lot on the phone that afternoon.

Before he trusted me alone with his baler, we made a practice round. Something on the monitor beeped; John said to turn around and look at my knotter sensors.

I cranked my neck around to see this:

"Sensors? Where? What sensors?" I asked.

Shouldn't "sensors" in this technological masterpiece involve LEDs, digital numbers, wireless signals and flashing transmitters? Instead, all I see are six little white plastic disks---lids off of Pringles cans---cheerfully bouncing up and down atop the baler. I can't believe this! Six lollipops, probably held by six little Teletubbies, overlooking six rows of baler twine, and those are the sensors? "Ee-eee-eee--eee-eee," the head Tubbie says. "Hold up your lollipop if your little string gets tangled."

Sure enough, one of the Tubbies is holding his lollipop high, indicating something wrong with the third knotter.

By the time we can stop the tractor, climb on the baler and open the lid, the Teletubbies have all run away. There are lots of places to hide in a big baler.

John shows me how to rethread a knotter. Just like threading a sewing machine. I can do this.

I only threaded it wrong once. (Never mind that the Tubbies only signalled once,....I'll get it right next time).

Overall, the baling went better than I thought it would, and John seemed pleased. I had to live without the DVD, but the Rangers were on the radio. I learned something, helped my hubby, and had a great sense of accomplishment. I never did see the Teletubbies, but I know they were back there - those lollipops kept bouncing!

Erica pulling out with the rake.

And besides all that, it was great family bonding time, with Erica raking, me baling, and John picking up bales, all in the same field!

Thunder, No Rain

photo by Merrill

Running Behind

School started and blog time took a mighty hit, hard enough that I didn't get a post up to congratulate the GeorgiaGirl on her twentieth birthday.

She left for the South before the big day, so we rejoiced with her in advance. Micah remembered the official day with this beautiful bouquet.

Happy belated birthday, Rachel.

We miss you!

The Great Exhibition

This cartoon, published in Punch in 1851, refers to the world's first great fair, held in London in 1851. It was the brainchild of Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, and it drew six million visitors -- equal to one-third the population of Great Britain at the time. The caption reads: "An old gentleman, anxious that his wife should possess some trifle from the Great Exhibition, purchases (amongst other things) the stuffed elephant...."

You could see some strange things at the Great Exhibition in 1851, including a barometer run by agitated leeches ringing a bell when storms approached. I am not making this up--check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_Prognosticator

Half a world and many years from the Great Exhibition, one can still see oddities at a fair, or drop plenty of money in order to come home with stuffed animals or other "trifles".

Merrill partook of fried alligator-on-a-stick at the Nebraska State Fair this weekend, a thousand miles from alligator country.

Every imaginable food has been fried and poked onto a stick to sell at the State Fair. Even some things that one can hardly call food are available, for just a few of your hard-earned dollars.

This sow looks pretty calm strolling down the Midway, but she was giving the Pork-Chop-On-A-Stick kiosk a wide berth.

Some of the gastronomical exhibits at the fair try to be educational as well.

Do these girls look a little skeptical at the plastic cow whose rubber teats can produce squirts of real water?

Audrey seems more comfortable with the genuine article.

Parts of the fair are pure entertainment, like this competition to see how far your dog can leap, chasing a tennis ball into a tank full of water.

The sun beat down hard, until we were all envious of the dog.


John got to dream about someday entering Kandy and Jess
into the farm team obstacle course race.
And to dream about driving eight horses at a time, like the Budweiser Clydesdale team.




He also reflected on some of the benefits of not being a kid anymore,
while I took my chances at being one.