Good Morning America, How Are You?

In Nebraska, things are just fine.

In a Bony Light*

Our lawn looks like a graveyard. Everything that died in Nebraska this winter has been dragged into our square footage. Dogasaurus is saving up food for the nuclear holocaust. I just hope she buries all her loot before the start of lawn mowing season.



*with thanks to fans of Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend for the post title.

Music

I wish that you could hear what I'm hearing right now.













One picture may carry the weight of a thousand words, but a thousand pictures can't carry a tune.








Sometimes I just stop - to listen and be thankful and wonder, why am I so blessed?

Crayfishing

Every now and then we run across a crayfish.
          Crawfish.
          Crawdad.
          Crawdaddy maybe, if you live in the deep South.



Maybe what you call it depends on where you got it. If you order it through a catalog, if it comes vacuum sealed in clear thick plastic, with bright pink dye shot through its important internal organs, it's probably a crayfish.

Erica is dissecting a crayfish.

If its internal organs are all the color of pond-bottom mud, and you're planning to chase your sister with it, I'd say it's a crawdad.

Sam's crawdad.

Honking Geese

Geese honk when they fly overhead on their migratory treks to and from Canada. Southbound honks echo into the autumn skies with a plaintive sound, reminding me that the glory days of summer are over, the warmth of fall quicky expiring.

But this time of year, the loud cacophony in the northbound lanes sounds happy and hopeful to me. It says Spring!

Very occasionally, a pair of low-flying birds is silent, and I can hear the powerful whoosh of their wings against the air as they pass. But mostly these joyful, discordant crowds are above the trees where the din of their nasal honks drowns quiet wing strokes.

I wondered why geese nearly always honk when they fly, so I did a little internet search.

Now you know.

Good Morning! The Sun is Shining!

Merrill's curtain faces east. It dresses up morning's first rays with a sprinking of cut flowers before whispering "wake up, wake up."

Poor Merrill doesn't pop out of bed in the a.m. like I do, fully awake and rarin' to go. Petals gently falling through delicate sunshine will never persuade her to open her eyes. If we ever get around to redecorating her room, we'll have to filter the sun's greeting through something a little more powerful.....stampeding horses, maybe.

Hard Working Man

Zero degrees out when we woke up this morning!

Shadows

Day's End

I'm liking our new habit of walking together in the evenings. Sometimes we take a horse; always we leave behind the cell phones.

It is a good chance to shed the day's busyness, to slow down, to inhale peace.

Thanks to Merrill for the photo.

Guns

First it was Winchester '73. We settled in to watch the old classic from John's youth, in celebration of his birthday last week.

Winchester '73 is the guy's version of a Jane Austen chick flick -- the same thing happens over and over.

Austen's next scene is always about some encounter between males and females--who's going to marry whom?

Jimmy Stewart's next scene is always about some encounter between the good guys and the bad guys--who's going to shoot whom?

Next in the movie queue was Sergeant York, since the homeschool history class is studying WWI- the Great War.
Then came real life. Saturday woke us up with a strong sense of spring in the air, inviting my own hero into the back yard with his gun and one of his girls.

The good guys won every time.

One Thousand Nine Hundred Seventy-Two

I started working through the Spanish language CDs right alongside my girls, but, as with everything else around here, I couldn't spend as much time on it as I'd like, and now I'm behind. Way behind. Like completely dropped out, and no one's even pretending that I might learn Spanish before the Lord comes back.

When you grow up in Texas, you start learning Spanish just about the time you finish learning the pledge of allegiance. In spite of several years' instruction, I have forgotten every bit of it, except for one terrific little phrase: "mil novecientos setenta y dos." It rolls off my tongue quite easily, sort of like a Spanish version of "Super-cali-fragilistic-expiali-docious." Only it's not some silly, made-up, useless little babbling. Not at all! Mil novecientos setenta y dos is a REAL Spanish expression that could come in quite handy in today's globalized world.

It means "1972", and if that's not a pertinent thing to know in a foreign tongue, I don't know what is. This bit could prove invauable if I ever cross the border and need to convey some vital information, like, say, how many calories are in a Mexican Big Mac, or how much a draft horse weighs. Or maybe I'm in on a big discussion about Watergate----where would a big Mexican discussion about Watergate be if no one could say 1972?????

And I know it so well, I think I could say it in my sleep. That's because, at the beginning of junior high Spanish every day, we had to greet the teacher and recite the date. Most of what we said changed often---the day of the week, the date, the month--- and none of this took permanent root in the ol' cerebrum. But no matter the day or month, the classroom chorus always ended with "mil novecientos setenta y dos". 1972.

Back in junior high Spanish days, it was always 1972. And as far as my understanding of the language goes, it always will be. All I have to do, to slow down my fast-paced world, is speak a little Spanish.

On the other hand, we don't really want to go backwards, now do we?

Audrey's Great Job

Last week found Audrey face to face with this critter as he peered up at her out of a cardboard box.




A hush fell over the vet clinic as the box was opened. For just a moment, time froze, stilled by the majesty of God's creation.




Then it was time for vet business.
Someone had shot the bald eagle, leaving him to die. Someone else found him and took pity.


Before he could undergo the orthopedic surgery needed to put him back together, he had to breathe a little sleeping gas. "Just relax, and count slowly backward from ten," the vet is coaching.








This is Dr. Steph, one of Audrey's bosses. She's feeling the bones in the shoulder and wing, some of which have been shattered by the gunshot.


Audrey's standing by, ready to do whatever Dr. Steph asks. That's her bare hand at the bottom of the photo. Does this girl have a great job, or what!!!???

(Of course, some days she does clean cat cages.)









Dr. Steph has put four pins through the bones, to hold them together. The next step is to cut these pins off short, then affix an external stabilizer through all four of them, to hold them in place.

The bird will live with Raptor Recovery people for a few weeks while his bones heal. Then he'll be back to the vet, to have his hardware removed.

I hope Audrey is working on the day of his return visit.

Everyone needs a little awe now and then.

I wish I'd been there to take these photos, but I wasn't.

Zebra Farm

Why Grow Alfalfa?

Everyone should grow some alfalfa.

If you load your alfalfa onto a truck and sell it to someone else, you can convert it into cash.

Horses convert alfalfa into an afternoon of relaxation for their owners,

and cattle know how to convert alfalfa into a glass of milk or a T-bone steak!

What's not to love about alfalfa? Don't you need some of this very versatile crop?

It smells really good in the barn, too.

Barn and draft horse photos by Merrill

Long Shadows -- Early Morning Winter

Thank you to Merrill for pointing out colors and contrasts at the breakfast table.

Postcards

On the way home from church, we passed two bald eagles out in a soybean field, tearing at a deer carcass. When I returned with my camera, the shy birds fled. Not wanting to waste the trip, I took a roundabout way home, hoping to find something lovely or interesting to photograph. It worked:

If John ever gets tired of farming, I think I might have a future in postcards.

It's Not Baseball

"There are only two seasons - winter and baseball." ---Bill Veeck

Bill Veeck was a lifelong baseball fan. Starting as a concession vendor and ticket seller for the Chicago Cubs, Veeck eventually purchased and sold several major league teams. Veeck is credited with planting, in 1937, the ivy that still grows on the outfield wall at Chicago's Wrigley Field.

It's definitely not baseball season, so that leaves us with.................

For the Anne Girl

Someone has "tagged" me via cyberspace. Computer tag rules are:

*Post the rules on your blog
*Share six non-important/habits/quirks about yourself
*Link to the person who tagged you
*Tag six random people by linking their blogs at the end of your post
*Let each random person know she has been tagged by leaving a comment on her blog.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    This is who tagged me. Thanks to Erica for the photo.

I remember the last time I played a game of real tag, not in the computer realm. It was on a big piece of playground equipment. The other contestants were lots younger, and lots faster, and their enthusiasm ran longer than mine. I frolicked and chased and tagged for a time, but after a bit my attention wandered. The rules and the boundaries faded; I strayed off in search of my camera or a bit of conversation.

Same for the cyber world. You may tag me, but I might just make a faltering attempt and then wander away, looking for a cup of tea.

In that vein:

1) I can do a funny "lip trick" that no one I've ever met could duplicate.
2) I used to wish I were a boy, when my mother would call me in to set the table while leaving my brother outside playing swords with my male cousin. I'm so glad we don't always get what we wish for.
3) I'm not very good at anything after 9 p.m., but I can fall asleep in less than ten seconds.
4) I've met Garrison Keillor. I've been in the same room with Ronald Reagan and, later, Mikhail Gorbachev.
5) I lived in Germany for three years, beginning when I was six.
6) Once I rode my bicycle all the way across Nebraska.

Whew. I'm out of breath. No tag backs.

Nerds and Geeks

Did you realize that Tim Tebow, winner of the 2007 Heisman Trophy, was homeschooled until he went to college?

I know of homeschooled people who are good at lots of different things, both in my locale and around the country. Things like building computers, filmmaking, constructing houses, writing and publishing books. They are privately and successfully running homes and businesses with little notice from the rest of the world. But it's also nice for homeschooling to occasionally put on a big, successful public face like Tim Tebow's. These people are public banners, proclaiming that the quiet universe of homeschooling actually works, and proving that we're really not just an assortment of nerds and geeks.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Internet photo

Groundhog Day

No posts for nearly a month! I must have, like the famous groundhog living in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, seen my shadow on Feb. 2 and retreated to my hidey hole for another six weeks of hibernation. Sometimes that doesn't sound like TOO bad of an idea, but it's not the truth.

The truth is that I've been learning physics and selling a software program that my dad wrote for farmers and teaching geometry and designing a horse barn and visiting relatives out of state and preparing for the nuclear or economic collapse of the world and......deep breath........taking just a few moments to see if I could get a good photograph of the fire that chases away winter's bleakness around here.

This morning the Lord reminded me that His yoke is easy and His burden light. Today I am coming to Him, learning of Him, warming my soul at his hearth.

It is a good place to be.

Significant Figures

Audrey and I are taking physics together. Neither one of us has ever taken physics before, so this could get interesting. The home school instructor is definitely not the teacher this time around, but maybe we can learn together.

Of course, Audrey and I took chemistry together last year, which means I kept up with her for the first three or four units. I had a pretty good grade until I quit reading the chapters and quit doing the assignments. Nonetheless, I had to drop out. Incomplete. Withdrawn due to lack of time.

I also started Spanish when the girls began studying foreign language. That lasted about two weeks. My daughters are beginning to speak to each other, just a little, in this foreign tongue, but I still only know one Spanish phrase.

I love learning new things, but learning takes time. Too often I have too many other responsibilities and joys calling my name, so I wind up leaving the bulk of academic studies to my children.

And now it's physics. Audrey and I sat down last night for a review of the mathematical concepts used in physics. One of the topics was significant figures.

My brain has never been really good at comprehending scientific definitions. I want scientific definitions to explain what I have seen and experienced, but the steps between the definitions and the observable world are often long and seem convoluted. Take significant figures, for example. The scientific community defines significant figures as "the digits of the decimal form of a number beginning with the leftmost nonzero digit and extending to the right to include all digits warranted by the accuracy of measuring devices used to obtain the numbers."

But to me, when you say "significant figures," I think of these:

I am thankful for so very many significant figures in my life. I could never put them all up here. This is merely a random sampling, a representative grouping, a collection of specimens, a subset of a larger set.

Note for family members: You are conspicuous by your absence. But don't feel badly - if even my own children are missing from the "sig figs" list, you know I just decided that posting the people I love in my family was too big of a task. Isn't that a great problem to have?

I love you all.