Historical Marker

I can't help myself. When I see one of those little brown signs with the arrow, I have to follow it. If only so that we can laugh about the inane item or event that someone thought needed a sign. Many times, you'll drive off the beaten path only to find a worn placard relating how some person who would become marginally important at some later date spit on a rock in this spot, thus making it nationally significant and worthy of a monument.

Then there are sites like the one we found today. It teeters on the brink of significance, but I can't ignore the timing. I just finished reading Exupery's Wind, Sand, and Stars (again) a few days ago. It's an autobiography of sorts, about his time as a mail carrier over France, Spain, and Africa. It was published in 1939, 5 years before the plane crash that precipitated his writing The Little Prince.

With this in mind, you can imagine my delight when we followed an impulse today to find a historical marker whose sign we pass frequently. I've looked before, but failed to locate it. Today we succeeded. This is what we found:

I'm thinkin' there needs to be a stamp. Yes?

Palm Pilot*

*Any resemblance to any gizmo living or dead is purely coincidental. No similarity to any gizmo living or dead is intended or should be inferred.

What I am about to share will put you in the category of "smarter than the average bear". At the very least, it will earn bonus points for you with your nephews.
I am going to teach you how to tell time with a stick.

Long before Timex came along, the cavemen still needed some sort of gadget to tell them what time it was so that they wouldn't miss their favorite programs on TV. They would pull their hand out of the pocket of their saber-tooth overalls, stab a stick through it, then go and watch "As the World Revolves" or" CSI: Pangea", depending on what time it was. This was the first pocket watch model available. Later models required fewer trips to the ER, but were more likely to get lost.

What you need:

• A straight stick (string will work too)
• Your hand
• Sunlight
• A little old fashioned know-how

What you must know first:

• Which way is North?
• Your latitude (Chicago is at 42*N, Seattle is at 47*N, and Miami is at 25*N)

 What to do:

• Stand in the sunshine.
• Hold your hand level with your palm facing upward.
• Grasp the stick with your thumb.
• Hold the stick so that it is at the same angle as your latitude (near Chicago it would be close to 45*)-on a sundial, the sticky-up part that casts the shadow is called a gnomon.
• Point the stick directly North. 
• In the morning, use your left hand and point your fingers west. In the afternoon, use your right hand and point your fingers east. (If you don't know whether it's morning or evening, what are the odds that you'll care about making a sundial with your hand?)
• Note where the shadow falls on your hand. Use the chart below to determine the time.
• If you can't see the stick, it's time to go home.

Of course, some of this is relative to your hand size, as well as the seasonal cycle and adjustements for Daylight Savings Time.
For greater accuracy allowing for hand size, take a day and physically mark out the hours on your own hand. The best time of year to do this is one of few days where no correction is necessary (use the graph below). I know it gets a little technical, but the graph below shows the appropriate corrections to make to your sundial given the time of year. The Equation of Time is universal. Latitude and time zone don't matter.

Can you tell about what time it is in the photo below?

If you're trying to catch a plane, I recommend that you stick with your Blackberry or iTouch. If you want to impress your hiking buddy, then your very own Palm Pilot is the way to go.

Conversely, if you know what time it is, you can use this app (ha!) to determine direction. Simply line up the stick's shadow with the matching time position on your hand and it will be pointing North.

Well, it looks like it's about time for "Ace of Caves". See you later.

Aaaaargh!

Still crossing the cyber desert. Must....have.....internet....soon.....

A virus destroyed all the data on my hard drive. Thank goodness for Carbonite! I have now been without a computer for 2 weeks, 4 days, 7 hours, 42 minutes and counting. And I have soooo much to share with you! From turtles to turkeys. Just wait.

Another Bucket

Thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and share a bucket list. I'll warn you though, mine isn't nearly as noble as some others'. I didn't spend much time in introspective pondering. I didn't plan for this list to show how I intend to leave my mark on this world. It's not even complete. So don't give it too much weight.

• Keep chickens--the kind with the pouf over their eyes

•  Jump out of a perfectly good airplane.
• Own a Corvette Stingray Convertible (green). Will settle for renting if it comes with a child-free, two week vacation to somewhere cool. Like Maui.
  

Take the girls on a Pacific Coast roadtrip.

Spain.

Norway.

Learn to draw.

Letterbox on Stone Mountain...

...in the PNW...

...somewhere out east--like Connecticut, where they are practically tripping over boxes.

Meet all of my letterboxing friends.

Attend an Enfield concert.

Eat Sushi and like it.

Hire a maid.

Own all four railroads.

Finish that puzzle of St. Basil's.

Leave a heap of unfolded laundry behind. Okay, that one I can cross off.

Digging Out

The snow that was so beautiful while it was falling over the last two days is now blowing across the fields at 30+ miles an hour and creating mountainous drifts across the roads and driveway. Inside our house we are dealing with equally mountainous drifts of kleenex, dirty laundry and dishes after the storm of illnesses. Since we have already completed at least four of our weekly projects (not counting the ones we didn't post), we're going to take a few days off to finish recuperating and catching up on schoolwork, bills and other essentials.
We'll be back when I stop doing dumb things like putting my ice cubes in the microwave and feeding the dog bell peppers.

A Quick Favor

I have a quick favor to ask of my readers.
I am currently working on building a new website for our church using only interlinked blogs. Why? Because I'm curious to see if it can be done. That and I'm bored. Ha!

I've installed Google Analytics to each page and I'd like to make sure it works. The easiest way to do that is to have people from different regions click through the site. Would you mind visiting the site for me? You can find it here: Somonauk Baptist Church. There isn't much to see yet, so it shouldn't take long at all.

Thanks ever so much!

It Begins

This might not seem like a monumental thing for most of you, but it's a big deal to me. This morning I was able to do 1/2 mile on the treadmill...without my knee hurting at all.
It's not an aerobic workout yet, but it felt wonderful. Walking is so much more than, well, walking to me. Walking brings inspiration. In that half mile this morning I came up with an idea for a series of short stories for the girls. It also means that the weight loss can start. In fact, I think it has begun already. It will take another week to know if this morning's weigh-in was a fluke or not, but it gives me hope.
And of course, it means that the serious hiking is getting closer. That Illinois pathtag will be earned. More boxes will be found. And more will be planted.

Inspiration and hope make a pretty powerful combination.

Soliloquy

Just because a person can have a blog, does not mean that they should have a blog. This is something that I have pondered at length. I might have something to say each day, but does anyone want to read it?
This isn't like trying to see how many friends you can accumulate on Facebook, or winning a high school popularity contest. Is it worth their time to visit? Do they come willingly? When they leave, have they gained something? Maybe occasionally, I hope.

It was a great encouragement to me this last weekend to find out that there are a lot more people paying attention than I would have imagined. I lost track of how many times someone asked me about my laundry. Maybe I should start carrying a photo of unfolded laundry in my wallet; right next to the pictures of the kids and the dog.
Folks wanted to know if Kirby or the girls were with us. Was I the Mystery Mailer? Many of them had solved (and enjoyed) the recent "evil" clues, or the oddball recipe. They liked the logbook tutorial better than the carving tutorial (mostly because of picture quality, I think). Several of them secretly read "the other blog".

Oh, and my cat's butt is famous.

Random Acts of Stupidity

So, I've been watching way more television than I care to admit lately, but I had a revelation last night during a program that I am not even going to confess to seeing.

If I had a dollar for every idiotic thing that people say or do (or watch~**snicker**) on TV, I would be a very wealthy woman indeed. I'm pretty sure that a lot of you feel the same way. So just for the fun of it, let's make a list of mind numbing dumbness. Send me your favorite Random Acts of Stupidity and I'll add them to the list. Here are a couple of my favorites:

• "Reality" television of any kind. Don't even get me started.
• Scented garbage bags with odor blocking technology (???)
  
• "Because truth is more dangerous than fiction"~from the trailer for the upcoming season of Destination Truth on SyFy.
• The "lollipop" Dell commercial--Aaaahhhhh!
• Using sex to sell everything from rice to radial tires.
• The phrases "because you're worth it" and "because you deserve it".
• The newest Scion commercial~I recommend they look up the definition of Icon.
  

That should give you a nudge. Now it's your turn.

Sportin' my New Duds!

A couple weeks back when Teresa (Shadohart) was part of the Royal Blog Tour, little 'ole me won some blog candy in one of her drawings. Yippee! Woot! Woot! We got all of the details worked out and what do you think of my new look? I love it! FlowerWind and I had a blast putting the picture together (Thank you, Caper, for sitting still long enough for us to get a photograph of your rear end), and Tee worked her magic. We've decided that someday it would make a great subject for a clue.
Thank you, Tee, for creating something special for me! It's Fantastic!

On a side note, M managed to snap a picture of the pair of Eastern Meadowlarks that live somewhere nearby. It's a little fuzzy, but she doesn't have much of a zoom lens and they were pretty far. Meadowlarks are fairly solitary birds. This is the only time I have ever seen a pair together. We were pretty excited.

See you in a couple days!

One Picture

At first glance this photo reveals storm clouds and an average countryside. It’s a typical rural scene; and for the most part, quite boring. Except that it isn’t just any old landscape picture. Not to me.

Facing west from our front porch is a panoramic view that speaks volumes of life in the country. The seasons are measured by which tractors are in use at the moment, and time is marked out in three year cycles by the ever rotating crops just on the edge of our yard. Spring winds ripple the green wheat like waves on a lake. For a few brief weeks fireflies fill the dusk with glitter. Sultry summer heat hovers over the soybeans like a palpable cloud and the clock visibly slows. The cicadas shout their glee during the day and the crickets echo it at night. Finally a cooling gust rustles and crackles through the dry corn stalks foretelling a brief rest and time for celebration during the coming winter months. Each change brings with it a host of rich sensory pleasures that defy planning or being organized into life, but are simply experienced with joyful abandon when they present themselves. Free from manmade constraints like train schedules and traffic lights, farm life flows with the pulse of the earth.

The unobstructed view offers up the sights of roiling storm clouds sweeping across the land and sunsets so vivid they bring tears to your eyes. The wide open spaces also bring winds that tear the spit right out of your mouth and rattle the pictures in the upstairs hallway. In the spring, before the crops cover the soil, the wind carries the dust in through the open windows where it settles in fine layers over every horizontal surface it can find.

A little over six years ago, all of this ground was planted in soybeans. After several years of dreaming and planning, we dug a hole and built a house that we love and hope to grow old in. We have to stay here. We planted lots of little trees and we want to watch them grow up. We want to enjoy their shade. Someday we hope that they will block a little of that wind. In the meantime, we’re learning to work with our windy environment and plant lots of sturdy prairie wildflowers instead of fussier hybrids. The yellow patch outside the fence is a perfect testimony to the endurance of native plants. Before the house was finished, or the lawn seeded, I threw out a handful of seeds in the corner of the yard. Nothing happened. The grass grew in and I began the ritual of mowing. For three years I mowed; first with a riding tractor which took more than four hours to mow our three acres. I learned a great deal from that mowing. My Father in Law then gifted us with a John Deere Zero Turn Hydrostatic mower and the weekly task of grooming our grass started taking only 2 hours and became almost a pleasure. At least, it did after I learned how to handle the thing without mowing down our baby trees. Shortly after the arrival of the new mower, I noticed some strange leaves in the grass as I sped past. Upon closer examination, they revealed themselves to be in the Cone flower family and I remembered the casually flung seeds. Several weeks of avoiding the patch rewarded us with a mass of bright yellow Mexican Hats. That patch has been joined by several others now and all of them are fair game for the girls’ flower picking delight.

Memories of family come flooding into mind; everyone flocking together to build that fence and celebrate a special birthday at the same time. There were brothers and fathers and In-Laws digging holes, driving posts and stretching fence. The women chased children and dogs, cooked and cleaned a little and were extremely pampered by the hiring of maids and a chef. There were tractor rides, games of corn hole, and a clay pigeon shoot. Lots of presents were opened, and even more pictures were taken. Hard work, good food and simple entertainment working hand in hand to draw us closer together. And now the dog spends far more time tagging along with Grandpa on the farm or following the kids around than he ever does inside the fence.

On the horizon, just left of center is a white farmhouse belonging to friends, family, neighbors, and piano teacher; all rolled into one. One of the occupants grew up in the house when it was located five miles down the road. Several years ago, he purchased it and we watched as they jacked it onto a truck, hauled it down the road and across a field to its new location just around the corner from us. In fact, every house in that picture holds either relatives or friends. In the country, there are no strangers.

The power lines visible in the distance, while barely recognizable, are the very same power lines that showered deadly sparks on Jerry Shaw and Rachel Holloman on “Route 126” in the film Eagle Eye. Once again, the country bumpkins watched from their porches as the filming crew set up base in the parking lot of the Lutheran church and busily drove their white vans back and forth and flew their helicopters around and even recruited a few locals as stand ins. We purchased the movie as soon as it was available; not because it’s a dramatic movie in which world wide disaster is averted by a few unlikely characters who find the strength deep within themselves in the eleventh hour. No, we bought it because in that one scene we can see a portion of our wheat field digitally preserved for all time.

So this isn’t just a boring picture snapped on a whim. It is a flood of memories brimming with love of family and the joys of nature. And it’s exactly a thousand words.

Cornsumption

I always feel sorry for the saps buying sweet corn at Wal-Mart. I know that not everone is fortunate enough to have an acre of it right outside their back door, but the stuff they sell in the big stores is Nasty. Just about everyone could do better, and with a little education, you'll understand why.
When sweet corn is picked, the sugars in the corn begin the process of converting to starches. This happens to a much smaller degree everyday, on the stalk, as the corn heats in the sun, and reverses during the cool of the night. Which is why every farm wife worth her salt prepares her corn immediately after picking to preserve as much of the sweetness as possible. In moments of desperation, you can leave it in a cool place until the next morning at the latest, but you would never admit that you had done that to your neighbor.
The sweet corn sold in the grocery store was likely picked who-knows-how-many days ago and will be very dry and starchy. Your best bet is always going to be finding a local source, even if it means paying a bit more.
Once you have obtained your corn, then everyone gets involved...

...shucking
...eating
...cutting
...freezing
...and canning.

We put up 52 quarts of corn, or 29 dozen ears this year. I also need to say a word about "organics". Most local farmers put in rows of sweet corn on the edge of one of their other fields, right next to the field corn. It is simply easier to fill some of the boxes on the planter with sweet corn and plant it at the same time as the other. Because of this, the only way that sweet corn can claim to be truly organic is if the rest of the field corn is also organic. Chemical drift being very difficult to control and such. So if avoiding pesticides, herbicides and fungicides is important to you, bear this in mind when you are inquiring about the source of your sweet corn.

I'm going to post about the dark side of sweet corn next!

Happy Cows

Have you seen the commercials about the happy cows? The ones that tell you that real cheese comes from happy cows and happy cows come from California? Well, all of the cows in California are laughing at me.
You see, our family is working on switching over to Whole Foods. Now before you think that this seems very Un-Slacker-like of me, bear in mind that once I've done a bit of leg work, this should be cheaper, healthier, and Less work than what I'm doing now.
One of the things that I have been researching is Raw Certified Milk. Raw Certified Milk is the only milk in the United States, raw or pasturized, that is tested for Salmonella. Since my little brother almost died from Salmonella during the Jewel milk scare back in the 80's, testing is a good thing in my book. That, along with other things that I have read have convinced me that it would be worth it to try it.
Ha. Apparently, our great state has once again decided that We the People are incapable of making wise decisions without their intervention, and the sale of raw dairy products is illegal in Illinois. However...if you own a cow, they cannot prevent you from reaping the benefits of said cow in whatever form you like, processed or otherwise. And it just so happens that there are clubs to join, where for a minimal yearly fee you can own a "membership" in a cow, thus circumventing that particular law. While the thought of being in a "Cow Club" and having a "Cow Card" is just Oh So Far Side, I had to check it out. Basically, you join, place a weekly order, drive over an hour away to a private residence and pick up your milk. At $16 a gallon. And this isn't the certified stuff either, which means I wouldn't consider it at 1/4 that price. It comes in quart jars, which you rinse and return at the next pick up. Not that I'd really know, but this has the feel of an illegal drug purchase to me. But it's just Milk, for crying out loud!!!
Obviously, I have no intention of doing this. It would be cheaper to buy a cow and milk it myself.
Those of you in California that can purchase raw certified milk in the stores, have a glass for me and let me know if its any good. And tell those Alta Dena cows that I can hear them and it's not nice to laugh at people.

How to make a Million Dollars

So I got this letter in the mail today and for Only $6, I can make $250,000.00 in just a few weeks.
It's Not a chain letter--or so it says in bold letters on the second page. But it works just like a chain letter. Send $1 to the six perfect strangers on the list, and then copy and mail the letter to 200 innocent, unsuspecting people and Presto! The money will start flowing in from around the globe.
It's Not a pyramid scam. That claim is made on the front page right under the ambiguous proofs by "various, highly-respected U.S. TV and Radio programs...". Oprah being one of them named (really, what hasn't that woman had on her show?). But when you purchase a $45 mailing list on the second page and use it to solicit money and other purchased mailing lists from the same company, well, that smacks of a pyramid to me. And don't forget the postage for all of this. (Hmmm. Maybe it's a conspiracy! Maybe email has hurt the PO more than we know.)
"A Fifteen year old boy could do it!" Of course he can. Fifteen year olds know how to do everything.
So let's actually do some math on this, shall we?
$6.00 sent to strangers
$45.00 to purchase mailing list
$82.00 for the 200 stamps to mail the letters
$6.00 to print 3 pages 200 times (both sides)
I'm being generous with that last one. It would cost me a lot more than that for the ink cartridges for my printer. I suppose you could scam 6oo copies from your boss, if you had one, but the guilt is worth the six bucks, I think. I'm also being generous in assuming that you already have 200 business size envelopes at home.
So far, that looks more like $139, not a six dollar investment.
Realistically, you could drop that by $45 if you went through your own address book and mailed the letter to everyone you know even remotely. But do you really want to risk sending this kind of letter to all of your friends and relatives this close to Christmas?
I think what bothers me the most about this is the declaration at the bottom of every page. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:3
I've studied the Sermon on the Mount and I'm fairly certain that whoever started this scam is unclear on the concept of being "poor in spirit" as well as what it means to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven.
The company that sells the mailing lists is supposed to be listed with the BBB. Hmph. I wonder...

Gonna Be A Bear

In this life I'm a woman. In my next life, I'd like to come back as a bear. When you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.

Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that too.

When you're a girl bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you're sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute, cuddly cubs. I could definately deal with that.

If you're a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that.

If you're a bear, your mate Expects you to wake up growling. He Expects that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.

Yup. Gonna be a bear!

Author unknown, but thanks Aunt Cheryl!

The image is an enlarged version of my Teddy Bear cootie from the Tunes in my Head series.
Blogger's note: It would be downright goofy of you to think I was actually serious about any of this, but especially the whole reincarnation bit and the swatting the cubs bit.

A Blue Haired Lady

Today was the last day of the two weeks of Vacation Bible School at our church. The teams have been competing all this week to see who got to pick the color that my hair became. It was very close a couple of times, but the Blue team emerged victorious. So last night, professional hair dye in hand, this perfectly sentient and otherwise reasonable adult barricaded herself in the bathroom and proceeded to turn herself into a blue haired lady. Intentionally.
Only it didn't work. I sat with what looked like printer's ink on my hair for a full 15 minutes, but when I rinsed it out, nothing. No change at all!
I won't bore you with the details of how, but by the time I went this morning, my hair did look and feel like I had dunked my head in a bucket of Tempera paint. And the kids loved it. And the dog growled at me. And it washed out on the first try, which means my DH is happy.

And now VBS is done until next year. I am going to take a nap now. But in the morning, I have several letterboxes that I want to plant, a letterboxing buddy to create, postals to mail, plus a whole myriad of other things that I want to catch up on. Not one of which is laundry.