Locks of Love

Time after time over the past year,  Audrey has asked her hairdresser to get out the ruler and measure before the first snip.

Not yet.

Not yet, Audrey.

Not this time.

But this time, the hair did  measure ten inches.  That's the minimum needed to donate hair to Locks of Love, an organization that provides wigs to children who've lost their hair to a medical condition.  For a full year, Audrey has been growing out her hair, waiting until it gets long enough to donate.

Today was the day.

Somewhere out there
 a little girl is fighting against a medical problem that has stolen her hair

and a self-consciousness problem stealing her joy.

Maybe, a few weeks or months from now,

she will walk out into the sunshine wearing Audrey's hair. 

Blessings upon your head, little girl.

Nice job, Audrey.

No Sweat

No kidding!

Horse Play

"Normally, the sight of a Belgian gathering her hindquarters underneath herself would put the fear in me, but today, as they prepared to launch themselves through those drifts, it was just fun!"
                                                                                        ---John

The girls thought it was fun, too.  You can't tell in this photo, but they are laughing hard and hanging on tight.

The laughing stopped, temporarily, when the farm fuel tank...er....bench seat on the sled...tumbled itself and its passenger into the snow while cornering.

John's next comment:  "It's great to have a couple of farm girls on board, ones who will just wrestle the ol' fuel tank back onto the sled."

At the Choral Concert

Today is sunny and sad.  Our little family of six, so rarely all in one spot for long stretches, has carefully, purposefully torn off the calendar pages for three weeks of winter break together.  Reading and running, playing Settlers and Wii, laughing, baking, working crosswords, watching the traditional movies at the traditional times and places.  Meeting new people, catching up with some we've known forever.  Disposable time has become more precious than disposable income, and today marks the end of a large chunk of easy, sweet family time.  I'm sad to see it go. 

John reads a lot.  He consumes a whole magazine, or newspaper, or sheaf of Sunday comics, and regularly points out for me the one bit he thinks I would enjoy.  He nearly always hits the mark (well, except with the comics).  I love having my own personal Reading Editor.

This morning, while he was pecking away at the Sudoku in the Sunday paper, I mentioned feeling sad that such a beautiful, restful vacation was coming to an end.  My editor flipped over the newsprint and handed me this poem: 

_____________________________________________________________________________
At the Choral Concert
by Tim Nolan

The high school kids are so beautiful
in thier lavendar blouses and crisp white shirts.

They open thier mouths to sing with that
far-off stare they had looking out from the crib.

Their voices lift up from the marble bed
of the high altar to the blue endless ceiling

of heaven as depicted in the cloudy dome--
and we--as the parents--crane our necks

to see our children and what is above us--
and ahead of us--until the end when we

are invited up to sing with them--sopranos
and altos--tenors and basses--to sing the great

Hallelujah Chorus--and I'm standing with the other
stunned and gray fathers--holding our sheet music--

searching for our parts--and we realize--
our voices are surprisingly rich--experienced--

For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth--
and how do we all know to come in

at exactly the right moment?--Forever and ever--
and how can it not seem that we shall reign

forever and ever--in one voice with our beautiful
children--looking out into all those lights.

______________________________________________________________________________

Happy New Year and Hallelujah from one standing with neck craned,
                   to see our children
                                   and what is above us
                                                  and ahead of us,
                                                           looking into the light
                                                                            until the end.

Darn That Global Warming

The head of Climate Research at England's University of East Anglia wrote, in a private email, about using a "trick" in his scientific data to "hide the decline" that he had found in global temperatures.  He and many of his colleagues are locked into a mindset that wants to squash any scientific voices that may disagree with their politically correct opinion about man-made global warming.

Another prominent man-made glabal warming advocate, and head scientist for Climate Analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, wrote in an e-mail: “The fact is we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

The hacked emails are full of references to hiding or destroying data that doesn't support the concept of an alarming global warming problem..

I'm not suggesting that the 3.6 degrees outside my window screen, or my last three snowy winter posts, are any sort of evidence against global warming. I'm just saying that the real travesty is that scientists will compromise intellectual honesty in order to advance a political agenda.