Visitors

One recent Sunday afternoon we were all sitting dozing in the living room after lunch.  Mr. Marvelous Jr. happened to glance out the window and saw that we had a visitor in the front yard.

No wait, not her; she's been there so long she feels like a part of the family.

In case you are having trouble seeing it, it is a female cardinal.  I wish I could have gotten a better picture, but I didn't dare open the door and that is the best my camera can do at that distance.  

Isn't she lovely?  

And yes, that is a stalk of last years' okra that she is perched upon. 

Springtime

I know I have mentioned that my dear Aunt Roberta lives way up in northern Vermont in the little village of Glover.

I frequently go to accuweather.com to see what the weather is doing up there. 

As I am writing this, the wind in Alabama is howling and the temperatures are dropping down all the way to *gasp* freezing tonight.  But yesterday it was sunny with temperatures into the upper seventies.  Spring is arriving in our part of the world and things have started blooming.

In Glover it is an entirely different story.  It is cold.  Today they have had a blizzard that is expected to continue through the night.  They are expecting a total of 12-18 inches of new snow.

So Glover is cold, snowy, and it feels as if winter is never going to end.  And there are no flowers.

Yesterday I went and found some flowers.  Just for Aunt Roberta.  If I can't be in Glover to give her a hug, perhaps this will help.

I love you, Aunt Bobbie!

Animal Update: Bunnies

Please don't ask me why we raise bunnies if you are tender-hearted.  Thank you.

Our Little Mama, George, had another batch of babies not too long ago.  I always forget that she goes exactly thirty-one days.  I start getting antsy around day twenty-seven (because I think she goes twenty-eight days), and by day thirty I am ready to give up.  Then I walk out to the hutches the morning of day thirty-one to find that she's done it again.  George tends to multiply like a you-know-what.

I'm not sure if that look is "Ha!  Fooled you again!", or "Lady, when are you going to learn to count to thirty-one??"

She had ten this time.  I love how they look like little piglets.  George agrees with that description!









We lost one of them and I was worried about two others, but they have pulled through.  One is my little runt (who prefers to be referred to as "The Treasure"), and the other is slightly less small and fluffier than any of the rest of them.  That one is known as "The Woolly-Booger".

Naming Farm Animals is a dangerous game to play, by the way.

It always amazes me how quickly our animals mature.  They are born blind and furless and within just a few days have fur.  By ten days most of them have their eyes open.  By two weeks they have to start getting out of the nesting box into the cage (depending on the weather) and by three weeks the nesting box needs to be out of the hutch completely.

This leads to a Mama Bunny who seems to go back and forth between annoyance and defeat.  You see, Mama feeds the babies at sunrise and sunset.  That's IT.  But when the babies are out of the box and hopping around the hutch, they discover the joys and wonders of Second Breakfast!

She really misses having them in the nesting box all the time.

The View From My Kitchen Window: March 9, 2014

Computer struggles continue.  Sadly the laptop that replaced the one that died after April 27, 2011 is dying a slow and painful death.  It will have to be replaced soon.  In the meantime we are hoping that if we don't turn it off......

In honor of someone who is a friend, and the daughter of one of my greatest heroes, here are the morning pictures from Sunday March 9th.  That date is significant; it is the start of Daylight Savings Time.  Sorry Martha!

And oh, you should just see the western view at 6:00-7:00 p.m.  Daylight lingers past 6:00 p.m. now; what a lovely thing!

Walkabout Wednedsday: Colorado River, Lake Mead, and the Hoover Dam

The computer is working.  For now.  I am not turning it off because I'm afraid that if I do it will not turn back on.  According to its self-diagnosis, there is a problem with the CMOS.  Or maybe the DMOS.  How would I know?  Despite those computer classes I took back in the early 1980s, I know very little about computers and technology.  Please don't ask me about my grades in those classes.  Let's just leave it at, "That is not my strength"!  Fortunately Mr. Marvelous is, as always, marvelous.  He took the critter apart, put it back together, figured out a very quirky temporary fix and ordered a new internal battery thingy so that (hopefully) it will be back to the point where I won't have to be afraid to turn it off.  Good thing.  I'd hate to leave it on all night and then find out what the cats are ordering on-line.  Although I guess if they are willing to use their own Paypal accounts I shouldn't fuss.

I told you last week that I had made it all the way to Lake Mead.  I found some interesting information and pictures that I wanted to share with you this week.

Lake Mead was formed when the Hoover Dam was built between 1931 and 1936; another of the Roosevelt Depression era projects.  There are some fascinating documentaries available about the project.  I know that the Internet Archive has several short films here.  PBS did a good episode as part of their American Experience series that is available here (not for free).  The History Channel has several different short videos available here (these are free).  And Youtube has the National Geographic's 46 minutes special available here (these are also free).  It is fascinating to watch and learn about the building of this structure.

When you think about what was accomplished by the folks who took part in constructing this, and how they did it with just their own back-breaking labor it is impressive.

Lake Mead, when full (and it hasn't been for some time due to drought), has 759 miles of shoreline.  That is the distance from Atlanta to Philadelphia.  It holds (again, when full) 26,134,000 acre-feet of water.  That means that the water from Lake Mead would cover approximately the entire state of Pennsylvania to a depth of one foot.

Unfortunately, the lake is currently down quite a bit.  The information varies, depending on where you look, but the best I can figure is that while the maximum water volume is 26,134,000 acre-feet, the current volume is a little over half that.  Another statistic is that the maximum elevation is 1,221 feet and according to the Bureau of Reclamation: Lower Colorado the current elevation is 1107.  It is difficult to obtain consistent information but when looking at the current pictures, the lake level is down enough to leave a signature bath-tub ring and show some of the towns that were submerged when the dam was built.  It is interesting to note that it has gone through similar cycles of lower levels in other decades (data available from the Bureau of Reclamation here) (just in case you are worried about late-developing climate change)

In 1948 A B-29 Superfortress lost altitude, skipped along the surface of the lake and eventually sank.  All crew were able to evacuate into life rafts and were rescued several hours after the incident which was classified for fifty years.

Here are some pictures to share from the journey.

Lake Mead in 2003 showing depleted levels and the signature "bath-tub ring"

Photo Courtesy of nasa.gov

 The town of St. Thomas was submerged when the dam was built

Courtesy of Nevada Historical Society NPS

Photo Courtesy of GORP.com

Photo of Hoover Dam courtesy of Lasvegas.net

It is hard to look at this and understand the size of that wall, but if you put two Statues of Liberty on top of each other, the torch of the top one would just reach to the top of the dam!

And there you have it.  I'll be walking through Vegas next and then it is on to California.  

Uh-Oh!

Mama's having computer problems.  Here's hoping it does not mean I need a replacement!

I'll be back soon, I hope....

Monday Morning Memories: Grandpa and Grandma's House

Yesterday at church the pastor was talking about John 14 where Jesus is talking about His Father's House.  He asked us to think about the word House or Home and what that word brings to mind.  I am very blessed that these words make me think of things like comfort, warmth, security, peace and unity.  It made me think about the house where I grew up, and it made me think about a very special place I used to visit.

When I was a very little girl living in upstate South Carolina, my mother's parents lived in Athens, Georgia.

Grandpa was a lot of fun.  He and Grandma loved to have parties.  My Mom tells the story of their Monopoly parties back when that board game became popular.  Somehow they never had quite enough pieces, hotels, or houses for all the friends who would come over to play, so Grandpa would go out to his workshop the afternoon before the party and make more pieces!

Grandpa loved his family dearly.  He gave his daughters the same gift that my father gave each of his children; the gift of knowing that they are loved and the gift of knowing that as much as their Daddy loved them, their Heavenly Father loves them far more.

I barely remember going to Athens with my Mom to visit her parents but I do have a few memories.  They lived in a huge mansion that had the biggest back yard in the whole wide world.  It went for miles from the house to the back end of the property, and almost as many miles from side to side.  I bet if I had tried to walk all the way around their yard it would have taken me prob'ly a whole year to get all the way around!  The fence along the side was a split rail fence and had a stile to go and visit the very nice lady next door.  She had some very, very wonderful toys including a put-it-together-all-by-yourself-tin-wild-west-fort-with-soldiers-and-horses!

Grandma and Grandpa's house, in addition to all the aforementioned amenities, had a fireplace.  It was the most wonderful fireplace ever because you could stand in the living room and look through it to the room on the other side of the fireplace.  You could play hide-and-seek with your cousin, Baby Susan.  You could even crawl through it to get to the other room if your mother was not watching.  Somehow Grandma always knew that you had taken that shortcut.  Maybe something to do with the ashes on the hands and knees? 

There was a set of stairs that went down from the kitchen to the basement.  My Aunt Roberta had me convinced that under those stairs lived Mr. Boo.  We would call and call for Mr. Boo and while I often heard him I never did quite catch sight of him.

I have so many memories of that wonderful house.

I have only one memory of my Grandpa; only one picture in my mind and my heart of this wonderful man.  I still remember being in that basement (probably looking for Mr. Boo) and hearing his voice as he came down the stairs calling for me and wondering aloud where I might be.  I remember looking up and seeing his face; one of my favorite faces in the whole world.

Grandpa died when I was 3 1/2 years old.  It amazes me that God has allowed me to have any memories of this dear man.  I treasure the one memory I have, and I treasure the stories my mother generously shares with me.

I look forward to getting to know him in eternity.

Grandpa and Aunt Roberta probably 1944 or so.

Homestead Update

It's been a cold winter for our part of the world.  My Aunt laughs at me when I fuss about the cold and the "winter weather".  She lives in Northern Vermont. 

Mr. Marvelous has had two trips to Northern Wisconsin since the first of the year, each one lasting a week.  The trips somehow seem to have coincided with the worst of the weather here. 

I've been busy keeping the animals warm and keeping their waterers thawed.  Spring is coming, the worst is (hopefully) over, and the animals have survived.

Before the first trip to Wisconsin we harvested all our old Buff Orpingtons and consolidated all our pullets into the large pen.  We now have eight Buffs (seven from the incubator experiments this past year and one "Old Girl" whom I made the mistake of naming.  She gets a permanent reprieve), and eight White Leghorns.  We will eventually get a White Leghorn Rooster to go in with all of them (of course his name will be Foghorn, what else?!).  We probably won't hatch any more of the Buffs; they just don't lay quite as well as the Leghorns.  We do plan to hatch out one or two runs of Leghorns periodically.  These girls average one egg/day six days a week.  They are amazing.  And they know it!

It is easy to tell who lay which eggs.  The Buffs' eggs are always brown, and the Leghorns' eggs are always white.  So we will know which ones to put in the incubator when the time comes.

The little Buffs are so funny.  The two who are laying both learned to lay right there in the middle of the pen by the fence.  Personally, I think they were trying to show off for the Roos on the other side of the fence.  Little hussies!








The roos.  Ah, the roos.  We still have six Buff Orpingtons.  We would have already harvested them, but the last harvest was eight and that was as many as Mr. Marvelous could manage in one morning.  We will get to them soon.  I'm going to try plucking when we do.  If that goes well we will definitely make turkeys our experiment for 2014.

All six of them have found their voices at this point.  I think they think the American Idol Scouts are in the area.  They begin their serenade/competition promptly every morning at 0400 .  And they don't stop.  This business of a rooster crowing only once at sunrise is a bunch of hooey!  On the plus side, that makes the harvest a lot easier emotionally.

We still have bees, and they are enjoying the warmer weather and sunshine. 

The rabbits are multiplying like you-know-whats. 

More with pictures next time!

Mama's Little Red(neck) Truck

I have wheels!

Now don't be jealous.  If you are prone to the sin of covetousness, you might want to skip this post.  I don't want to lead you astray.

For my birthday last year, Mr. Marvelous and I went truck shopping.  And we found this little beauty out toward Locust Grove.

It's a 1987 (the year we got married) Mazda B2000.

Don't you just love it?

It's such a southern kind of truck, isn't it?  Even down to the mud spatters (and how it got there is a story for another day, OK?)

At least 5 other people stopped by to drool over it and make an offer while we were talking to the man who was selling it.

But we got it!

Mr. Marvelous says that half the value of the truck was in the tires.

The seats were made in 1987.











That's OK, I have beach towels.

 I think they add a certain je ne sais quoi, don't you?















It needed a lot of work.  New head gasket, and other stuff I don't remember.  Because I'm not the mechanical one in the family; why should I be when Mr. Marvelous is so good at it?

It had to wait on those repairs for almost longer than I was patient.

Finally after Mr. Marvelous injured his back, we agreed that we would call the son of our good friends who was just getting a car-repair business started.

Mr. Marvelous had started the repair.  Gavin the Hero finished it up for me.

I need to make Gavin a cape, I think.  His kids would love it!

The first time I put it on the road it changed its mind; it didn't want to that day.  It over-heated because the radiator cap was not the exact right size (picky, picky!)

We replaced that and it has been doing just fine ever since.

We will need to replace the carburetor soon (that's a tricky word to spell, by the way).

Mr. Marvelous says that when we do it won't keep conking out and will get better gas mileage.  It might even quit the nasty habit of smoking for the first mile  couple of few miles.  It's that or try a Nicotine patch.  A new carburetor will probably be cheaper.

My favorite part of this is the quirky way in which I start the engine.

First you put the key in the ignition and turn it.  The only function this serves is to unlock the steering wheel.

Then you flip the toggle switch on the right up.

Then you push the button on the left in.

And away we go!


I took Mr. Marvelous Jr. for a ride the other day.  He's still shaking his head.  Bless his heart!

Walkabout Wednesday: Finally!

After that little conniption fit last week over taxes, I sat down and totalled up my mileage for January and 3 weeks of February.  I should probably wait to count February but I don't want to lose my momentum.

The counted miles for January totalled 58.47.  That's a pathetic number.  It's frustrating because I wore my pedometer every single day that month.  I just forgot to stop at the end of the day (or even week) and write those little numbers down. 

So far for February, my total is  76.36.  That brings my year total to 134.83 and my overall total to 2073.87.  That's right, over two thousand miles!! 

I have made it past the Grand Canyon and all the way along the Colorado River to Lake Mead.  I'm walking along the Arizona/Nevada state line.  If you look at the map, you will discover that the line is in the middle of the water at this point.  I figure with the Pacific Ocean coming up it is probably a good idea to practice walking on water and get used to it!

I hope to be to the Hoover Dam early in March and then it is on to the coast from there with a few stops along the way. 

Next week: Pictures!

The View From My Kitchen Window: February 23, 2014

Seventy degrees and the back door is open.  Hold on, Spring is coming!

Monday Memories: Books for Jack

My friend Jack is having a hard time finding good books to suit him. 

I remember how difficult that was when Mr. Marvelous Jr. was at that age.  It seemed as if all the good books were girly books.  Junior was home schooling by that time, so I was responsible for literature.  It was quite a struggle finding things to suit him even though he is almost as much a book-worm as his mother (this is the kid who at the age of 11 read Ben Hur straight through in just under 24 hours). 

So here are a few authors and/or titles for my buddy Jack.

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

E. Nesbitt.  Anything she writes is terrific.  House of Arden and Harding's Luck are companion pieces.  They are more serious and deal with time-travel.  The Treasure Seekers, The Would-be-Goods and The New Treasure Seekers are just plain funny.  Most of her other books, except the Railway Children (which is emotionally a more difficult book), have a LOT of humor in them.  What would happen if magic really happened in this world?  Probably a lot of very silly things!

G. A. Henty  I didn't read that many of these, but Mr. Marvelous Jr. certainly enjoyed them

Jim Kjelgaard.  He wrote all the Big Red books.  Lots of fun

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George.  Everyone has to read this at some point and dream about what it would be like.

The View From Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg

From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, also by E. L. Konigsburg.  Jack has a big sister.

Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain.  Back when I started teaching my friend John Boyd gave up his lunch hour twice a week to come and read these books through to my students so that I could have a break/planning period.  My kids thought he was the greatest grown-up in the world.  I tended to agree with them.

Gary Paulsen's Hatchet is good but is not for everyone.

Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book and Just-So Stories.  Friends don't let friends grow up without reading these. 

Marguerite Henry's books.  Especially King of The Wind and Justin Morgan Had a Horse

Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy

Richard and Florence Atwater's Mr. Popper's Penguins.  Please, please do not talk to me about the movie.  Thanks.

E. B. White  Stuart Little,  Charlotte's Web and The Trumpet of the Swan

Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series.  IMPORTANT: these are written by an English author in the 1930's and 1940's.  A lot of modern children will not appreciate them.  They can be perceived as rather slow and, if you are not interested in sailing, boring.  But if you like British children's literature, and if you like sailing, you may enjoy them as much as my grown nephews do.

William Pene DuBois The Twenty-One Balloons

Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island.  This is much more a book to have someone read out loud to you than one to just pick up and read on your own.  Especially if that someone does the voices as well as my Mom did.  See the end comments.

L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz series (there are a lot more of them than you think)

The Homer Price books by Robert McCloskey  Especially if you like doughnuts!

The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill.  Hard to find but a fantastic book.

So there you go, Jack.  I hope you enjoy some of these!

Mr. Marvelous just told me that I left off Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes.  Which also reminds me of Ben and Me, and Mr. Revere and I, both by Robert Lawson

Oh and Jack?  You really should dive into Narnia before too long.  At this point I would highly recommend Dawn Treader (avoid the movie; the book is terrific) and The Horse and His Boy. The Silver Chair is my least favorite of all of them.

End Comments:
For the Mothers of sons who happen to be reading this, one of the most wonderful things that you can do for your son (and all your family) is to have a daily story time.  Read out loud to the family.  Share the books that you love.  In our family we did not ever try and make it a time to practice reading out loud ~ we had other time for doing that.  Story time was Mom reading a story to Mr. Marvelous and Mr. Marvelous Jr.  The only rule was that they could not be reading something else while I was reading (cell phones and electronic games were not available back then.  If they had been, they would have been banned).  The men were not scolded for falling asleep, but they almost never did that.  They did not intensely enjoy every single book I picked, but they listened and their horizons were expanded.  It usually didn't last more than 30 minutes at the very most, and it was a very enjoyable way to end our day together. 

Walkabout Wednesday

Well, sort of. 

Actually I spent the evening yesterday doing Federal and State Income Taxes. 

 

And meditating on government.  

The Tax Collector's Office by Pieter Brueghel c. 1615 Things haven't changed much since then, have they?!

So if you will excuse me, I'm going to spend the day walking it off.

I'll publish totals later

The View From My Kitchen Window: Honey, We're surrounded!

February 9, 2014

Both my men were sick, so we stayed home that Sunday.  Late morning I was in the kitchen and glanced out the window.  

  I blinked and looked again.

Was that.....??

Oh yes, as a matter of fact it is; 

three wild turkeys!

I called the men to come and look

The final official count out the window was eight.  

We decided to see if we could sneak out onto the back porch for a better view.  We could and we were surprised; there were more on the back hill!  

I'm pretty sure there were at least sixteen total, although it gets a little tricky trying to count that many wild turkeys.

I have been wondering about whether or not to add a few turkeys this year for our 2014 homesteading experiment.  

I'm thinking I just might.