Cookie Factory

Aunts, Uncles and Cousins

Fried okra, pecan pie, and six different kinds of barbeque on the menu.

Alligator and elk hanging on the walls.

Twenty-seven people sitting at the table,
and we're related to every last one of them.



Must be Texas.

Train Brain

The trains rumble awfully close to my parents' house in small-town Texas.  This photo was taken in their yard; that's their fence in the foreground.  Because there is an intersection right outside of the picture, the trains are loud, blasting their diesel horns day and night at the railroad crossing.   Not only that, but the curve means the metal wheels continually shriek their friction as they pass around the bend in metal tracks.

I didn't grow up in this house, but I still remember the first time I slept here, long after I had established my own home.  I woke up disoriented in the middle of the night.  The train whistle, six inches from my ear and bearing down, screamed that I was lying prone on the railroad tracks, just about to be decapitated.  I woke up in a panic, my heart racing, until I realized I was sitting up in the dark, safe in my soft bed, with the train passing outside and rattling my bedroom window glass.   

The trains are still just as loud here, but I never hear them at night.  It is amazing how a brain adapts. I asked my kids if any trains passed last night ; they said yes, but I slept right through.  A train whistle this loud at home would be an emergency.  But, even though I'm only here a few nights each year, my brain has figured out that it is OK, and it doesn't wake me.

Our brains are definitely fearfully and wonderfully made.

Chess Lesson

Her Name is Alice

She married my grandfather when I was seventeen.  Because it was my paternal grandfather, whose last name I bore, and because her first name is Alice, I found myself sharing both names with her.   I was miffed.  Or downright irritated.  Incensed that she had married my grandfather, who, I thought, should have remained married to my grandmother.  And further annoyed that, in one bold stroke, she stole not only my grandfather, but also my first and last names.  The AUDACITY!  That was just way too personal for an impetuous teen-ager to bear, so I politely kept her at arm's length.

She, however, was not so small.  She stood firm, holding on to both my grandfather and my name, while simultaneously reaching out to me.   The Audacity!

She must have, in her youth, read the Aesop Fable in which the wind and sun battle to see who can get the coat off of a man.  The sun won; gentleness triumphed over brute strength.  Alice applied the sun over a period of years; I warmed up to her, and discovered a delightful, audacious, adventuresome woman.

Since then, I have discovered that Audacity should be her middle name.  After my grandfather died in 2004, Alice began racing sailboats.  To celebrate her 70th birthday--seventieth, mind you--she fulfilled a lifelong dream by buying some Harley-Davidson boots, signing up for riding lessons and then taking a solo spin on a Harley. 

And, when we met her for a meal the other day, she wore a Yankees shirt!  This was no accident--she is well aware of my hatred for the Yankees.   Nonetheless, she intentionally pulled that shirt out of her closet and then marched in and sat down right next to me, wearing the horrid thing.  The audacity!

Happy New Year to Alice, whom I love!

Run in the Texas Sun

First Ever Wood Family New Year's Day 5K Run.

I came in last.  Happily.

Building

This building was outside of my window in Omaha.  It might be boring.

 Or it might be more fun than you would think!

Red and White

Jiffy Pop

Thirty or forty years ago, I used to see TV ads for Jiffy Pop popcorn, but my family never actually bought the stuff.  

John and I ran across some in a store the other day, and decided it would help fight the winter doldrums.

Jiffy Pop, Jiffy Pop, the magic treat. As much fun to make as it is to eat!

Rachel's afraid it's going to blow, so she protects Audrey's eyes.

Parents, if you see this on your grocer's shelf, you really ought to buy it and pop it with your kids, at least once in your lifetime. It IS as much fun to make as it is to eat! Really.

Snowmaha, Early Morning

Piper

This is Piper, our Golden Retriever pup.  She's eight months old.

My father-in-law calls her Hyper. 

Our yard is strewn with deer bones, dead moles, raccoon claws, chewed up shoes, shredded rugs, and a variety of other choice items brought to us by Piper.

Photo by Erica

If you did yesterday's algebra, you found out that the gift recipient in the song received a total of twenty-two pipers piping.  I'm glad I only have one Piper.

And I'll be glad when I don't hear that song again for a while.

Christmas Algebra

For some reason, I'm seeing the twelve days of Christmas everywhere I look.  And I don't even like that song! 

Yesterday I woke up thinking about all those turtle doves, French hens, calling birds, lords-a-leaping and et cetera.  While still half asleep I wondered this:  if the recipient got a partridge in a pear tree the first day; then two turtle doves and another partridge and on the second; three French hens, two more turtle doves and yet another partridge on the third, etc., etc., etc...can I figure out an algebraic equation that would allow me to plug in any one of those gifts and quickly figure out how many were given in total, over the twelve days of rampant gift-giving?

I do love puzzles, and I was happy to have stumbled across one to wrap my brain around before my feet even hit the ground. 

Try it, Puzzleheads!  Or try it with your algebra students.  It's definitely doable, and not too hard. The answer is in the comment section following this post. 

If you want to work it out on your own, stop here.  If you want some help, read on.  If you think the whole thing is totally nuts, go bake some cookies and bring me some.  I'll put the coffee on.

*********************************************

How to solve:

Let T be the total number of any certain thing.....laying geese, golden rings, whatever.  T is the total number of that particular gift in hand after the twelve days expire. 

Let D stand for the day on which that gift was first introduced, or, to phrase it a little differently, D can stand for how many of that particular gift were given at a time.  They are the same number.  So, for maids-a-milking, D = 8, because eight maids-a-milking first show up on the 8th day of Christmas, and then eight are given each day through the 12th..

Now comes the thinking part.  Obviously, how many swans-a-swimming you get will be the number of swans you receive per day, times the number of days you receive them.  Think about how many days you get turtle doves, and how many days you get French hens, etc., and see if you can find a pattern that relates the quantity of how many you get at a time to the number of times, total, that you receive that quantity.  If you can make that pattern into an equation, you're home free.  Try out your formula on a couple of different gifts and see if it works.  If it does, you've solved the puzzle! 

Congratulations.  And don't forget to send me the cookies!

....four girls a-laughing

....three kinds of cookies

...two runners running

John said to be sure and put the photo of the cookies right before the photo of the running, the second showing atonement for the first.

It's been a long time since I had to run the dishwasher two or three times a day

I don't mind a bit.  Nice to have you home, girls.

Bald Eagles

Baldy found a deer carcass for breakfast.  I'm happy for him, and happy that he is thinking more about his belly than about the strangers who brought their car to a stop on the road nearby.  The last time I tried to get a photo of a bald eagle--just last week--he flew off before my tires had even quit rolling.   

Seeing this bird feasting on breakfast reminded me of a time last year when John spotted a different bald eagle from his combine seat. 

Some punk had shot this one off of a power pole, and it fell in our fencerow. John didn't see the crime, just the evidence.

He called the game warden, who confirmed Audrey's ID of an immature bald eagle. Bald eagles live in the wild for twenty or thirty years, but they don't get their white heads until they are around five years old.  This

is a young one.

I'm sad that some people feel big if they can put down something smaller than themselves.

Lunar Eclipse or Lunacy?

The word "lunacy" comes from "luna", a Latin root that refers to the moon.  A thirteenth century definition of "lunacy" reads:   periodic insanity, dependent on the changes of the moon.

This may look like periodic insanity, dependent on changes in the moon.  But let me assure you, these are  perfectly sane people, even if they did spend a while outside in the twenty degee darkness between 1 and 2 a.m. this morning.

Lunar eclipses happen at least twice each year, although the last total lunar eclipse was in 2008.

Things that look like lunacy can happen any time.



Grey

This photo has not been edited, nor changed to black-and-white.
God sometimes paints in shades of grey.

Leaving the Big City after a Big Day

Cap and Gown

Homeschooling carries with it a multitude of benefits, tempered by a few losses.

If you teach your children at home through high school, you might miss the chance to see them beam from beneath a cap, gown, and tassle as they walk across a stage and hear their names read aloud. 

Or then again, you might get the opportunity.

We are proud of Rachel.

What do farmers do in winter?

Sometimes they work cattle.

This little guy, along with thirty of his buddies and thirty mama cows,

has to go down a long alleyway into the squeeze chute. The vet pulls the lever to tighten the sides of the chute, so that the immobilized animal can't hurt himself or anyone else.

Then Merrill and the vet and the vet tech pour on lice protection, administer vaccinations, and check to see which cows are pregnant and which aren't.

Merrill writes it all down,

while Shane keeps the cattle moving to and through the alleyway.

John hauls the treated cattle back to the field.  Alice tries to look helpful and important, but is really there because she wants to take pictures.

The heavens declare the glory of God

Too Many Roosters

Four roosters are too many for our little laying flock.  Two roosters, a prize-winning Black Australorp and a Barred Plymouth Rock, are really too many, but we like variety, so two roosters still live. But the other two had to go. "Had to go" is a euphemism. Using euphemisms, and not putting too many photos of the "going" keeps the blog clean and family friendly.

Once before, when roosters had to go, Audrey and I decided not to heat the scalding water and set up the electric plucker and all the butchering equipment just for a couple of roosters. It all has to be hauled out of the shed and cleaned up before use. Then, it all has to be cleaned again before you put it away. That's a lot of work. We thought it would be easier just to pluck or skin the birds by hand, but, thirty minutes into the project, we thought it would have been easier to just throw their carcasses into the trees for the coyotes.

As with so many things in life, when you get discouraged and want to quit, that's when you're just about over the hump. We pressed on, and then were glad that we did, as there was homemade chicken soup waiting to warm chilly fingers and hearts when the snow flew.

But almost all of my butchering help has flown the coop, so to speak, and other things besides chicken noodle soup crowded my calendar last week.   So this rooster fed the circle of life in the form of coyotes, not people.

There is a time coming, when something doesn't have to die in order for something else can live. I'm looking forward to it.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6

Welcome, Tuesday

Sunrise out my back door

This Makes Me Smile

Grey Farm Morning