I almost missed this....

The first Painted Trillium I've ever seen growing in the wild. Spotted it while turkey hunting in Randolph County last weekend.

Catch of the Day

One female blue crab. Released alive.

One starfish, also released alive.

Without Words

It's Been a Long Winter....

but the new IndyCar neason starts this weekend.  Here's a rundown on this year's teams and drivers.....glad to see Josef Newgarden has a full time ride.

Rising

This arrived in my email yesterday.....timely and very appropriate. 




Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds      
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise

Hem Jeans Like the Pros!

Get someone to mark the hem for you, or you can match the length of a pair of jeans that are already the right length for you. Once you've got your jeans turned up to the proper length, measure the portion that needs to  be hemmed, from the fold to the bottom of the existing hem.  This pair is six inches too long.

Make a fold and measure from the fold to the upper edge of the existing hem, exactly HALF the depth of the total amount of shortening needed.  For this pair, that means three inches.

Do the same thing at the other side seam. For flared and some bootcut jeans, you may also need to measure and mark/pin at the center front and back in addition to the side seams.

Begin at the side seam with the most rows of topstitiching.  Make sure you have the stitiching lined up (in this photo, I have lowered the presser foot on the existing hem only to hold it in place), and sew as close as possible to the upper edge of the existing hem without catching it in your stitch line.

Trim off the excess with pinking shears, by serging off, or cutting with regular scissors and applying seam binding.

In this photo you can just barely see the line of stitching that effectively moves the original hem up the leg of the jeans.

Turn the original hem down, and topstitich with either matching or invisible thread. Start on the side seam with the most rows of topstitching.

Booyah.  

Many thanks to a client with rather short legs who unknowingly allowed me to use her jeans for this post. :)

Happy new year!

This is what it looks like where we are this morning.

Glad I Was Prepared...

A while back (I'd link to the particular post but I am posting from the app on my phone and I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet) I posted about whether or not I should take off the diamond ring I've worn on my left hand for years as a sort of visual 'leave me alone' message.

I did remove it and put it away. And at Christmas this year I received the promise ring in the photo. Yes, it is a diamond. It is beautiful.

At some point I promise to post the whole story, but suffice it to say for now that Mr. Awesome and I dated in high school, lost touch with each other, proceeded to live very tumultuous and oddly parallel lives for the next 31 years, and at the end of October he found me online and we are now writing OUR history.

Merry Christmas, everyone, and here's to a New Year full of awesomeness for all.

Part of the Reason I Haven't Posted in a While

And if you look over there on the right sidebar, you'll notice there are more of us than there used to be.

Life is good. I am loved, as are my children. I have someone to love and share my life with.

Merry Christmas!

Squeezable, yes?

My oldest, his wife and their son came to dinner yesterday evening. Look at this chubby face! Isn't he the cutest thing?

Another field trip

This evening we went up to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Church in Uniontown, PA to hear a concert by the choir of the Bl. Paul Gojdich Seminary in Presov, Slovakia. As soon as I figure out how to get a (not very good) audio snippet uploaded, I'll post it. It was a lovely evening, and I didn't even mind driving home in the rain (although we did have to blowdry a chicken once we got back).
And who knew there was a wind farm just east of Cheat Lake? I need to get out more, evidently.

Field Trip!

We visited the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, PA today, and then traveled up through Pennsylvania's Laurel Highlands to Johnstown, where we toured the Flood Museum, History and Children's Museums, and the Johnstown Inclined Plane. Most of the photos are on my camera, so I will write a longer post when I get those uploaded (this weekend, at least that's the plan).
It was a perfect day for driving and being outdoors, and the trees are nearly at peak color. We had a great time!

Thoughts from a Blogger who writes more eloquently than I

IndyCar Advocate: Dan Wheldon

New Chicken Coop, Construction Covers Most School Subjects; an Exercise in Stealth Schooling

We purchased four Cochin pullets at a poultry swap meet at the beginning of the month, and over the weekend we built them a coop. I think we managed to cover pretty much all the usual school subjects in the process!
We've been scrounging lumber and building supplies for a while; the fetching and carrying is good exercise (P.E.) and the kids asking for leftovers from various projects around the neighborhood is good public speaking practice (oral grammar and composition).
We had to figure out where in the yard to put the coop. It had to be a location not exposed to much direct sun or harsh weather, but also had to allow for good ventilation and the door had to face in a direction that allowed us access for cleaning, collecting future eggs, and letting out/locking up the chickens as necessary. (Geography, weather science)
Building the coop itself entailed math (measuring length of boards, checking for square corners and plumb walls, and level floor), vocabulary (names of tools, building supplies and hardware and different kinds of lumber), spelling (shopping list for a very few un-scroungeable items), penmanship (writing the actual list), social studies (educating passersby about what we were doing and why we keep chickens), science (life cycle of hens, how to tell when they are close to laying age, what their needs are as to food, water and a nesting spot, the fact that roosters are unnecessary for egg production).

This seems like a good place to introduce you readers to chicken math. Regular math says that we have 8 chickens; four in the original coop and four in the new one. BUT one of the older hens no longer lays, so she doesn't count. That makes 7. The other older hen lays irregularly, so she only counts as half a chicken. Total is now 6 1/2. Then the four pullets aren't laying yet, so they don't count either. This means that by using chicken math, we only have 2 1/2 chickens!

In case you were wondering....

What an egg without a shell looks like.

Laid by Drumstick and immediately collected by Velvet (otherwise it probably would have been eaten).

Lightning McQueen opened it with a knife and said that aside from the lack of a hard shell it was just like any other egg.

New Project!

We have collected all the materials we need to build a DIY incubator, and will begin putting it together soon.

We're using an old crafting cabinet, but other people have used insulated coolers (styrofoam too, though these don't make good brooders after the chicks hatch), large drawers, plastic storage totes, etc.

Want to build one too? Here's a materials list:

Some kind of container you can drill holes into and cut a window in, for the incubation box
A 12v fan from an old desktop computer, leave wires attached
An old cell phone charger or other 12v transformer that plugs into the wall
A piece of plexiglas or glass, about 9" x 12" for a viewing window
Duct tape
A lamp socket with cord
A light bulb (40w suggested; may have to adjust wattage to get temp to the right point)
Hot water heater thermostat (lower)
Hardware cloth
Thermometer and hygrometer
Pan for water as a humidity source, also jars filled with sand, pebbles or hot water to use as heat sinks

We also picked up a package of styrofoam insulation panels to insulate the cabinet, since it is made from thin boards.

You'll also need a drill and bits, screwdriver, keyhole saw for cutting the viewing window, electrical tape and/or wire nuts, perhaps some aluminum foil, and a desire to watch eggs hatch into chicks.

I included a photo of the cabinet as it is now. Regular updates to follow!

Report Card, Sort Of

I realized I haven't said pea turkey about the new school year in a while, so here's a bit of an update!

Birdman was promoted again in CAP. He's now a Cadet Senior Master Sergeant (only 2 more promotions until he's a Cadet 2nd Lieutenant!) He's been doing remarkably well with his Geometry, considering he can't watch the teaching CD-ROM right now. Biology is going well too; he did an experiment the other day in which he extracted DNA from dried peas. I was chained to my sewing machine and unable to take photos, unfortunately.
He's also pretty much taken over the yard work....I may give it a good going-over in a couple of weeks but its bearable the way he does it for now.

Velvet....math remains a problem, but I have determined that she CAN spell. She just chooses not to - in too much of a hurry maybe? She wrote me a note the other day and ALL the spelling and punctuation was correct! I plan to put the note in her folder and save it.
She's quite responsible about letting the chickens and Eli out in the mornings, which is very helpful since she gets up way before either of the boys crawl out from under their respective rocks. I have a bit of trouble getting her to remember to take a poo bag with her when she walks Eli, but even that is improving.
We have some new neighbors staying with the family across the street, and she and Lightning have befriended the two children. Velvet enjoys having a new playmate in the afternoons, and they seem to have a good time together.

It's a struggle to challenge Lightning McQueen. He was blessed with an abundance of smarts, but way too much of it goes towards thinking of ways to get into trouble. He's a year ahead of Velvet in math, and I'm trying now to think of other structured things to keep him occupied so he won't run me completely into the poorhouse.
He and are going to work together and build an incubator in which to try to hatch chicken eggs, and we're also going to build a second coop to expand the flock.

I had put a field trip on the calendar for this coming week, but I pushed it back a week because it's been so rainy....one of the destinations is Johnstown, PA and I'd hate to get caught in another flood up there!

Birdman will be going to the library this week to research Korean recipes for our first International Menu Night; as soon as we have a menu I'll post it. I have a feeling the main dish will probably be bulgoki.

(Realized there is one misspelled word in Velvet's note, but believe me that's an improvement)

It Is a Mystery to Me

Why any marginally politically-educated, properly catechized Catholic could ever vote for ANY Democrat, but that's just me.

I found the closing sentence of the following article to be particularly interesting:

Why Obama is in Danger of Losing the Catholic Vote in 2012 | CatholicVote.org

Busy Weekend!

I attended the first of our state GOP's Lincoln-Reagan Galas on Saturday evening. I carpooled with a friend with whom I serve on our county's Republican Executive Committee and two nice young women from the university's College Republicans.

The Honorable Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi, gave the keynote speech. We were also treated to brief speeches by each of our state's Republican representatives in Congress - Rep. David McKinley, P.E. (WV-1) and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV-3). AND an address by Mr. Bill Maloney, the GOP nominee for Governor, which special election is coming up October 4.

A great evening, filled with interesting people, good food and conversation, and lots of points to ponder. I was even able to lay the groundwork for some good civics education opportunities for my children over the next few months. And I got to dress up and look nice, which is always fun (because I don't do that often enough for it to be ho-hum).

How was your weekend?

International Menu Nights, 2011-12 Edition

A couple of years ago we did a series of international menu nights, in which we had one dinner per month with all the menu items from one continent.

In case you're wondering, we did include Antarctica.  We pretended we were polar explorers and had granola bars, chocolate candy, beef jerky and hot cocoa while sitting around the chiminea in the backyard. :)

This year we are doing individual countries.

Birdman made little slips of paper with the names of countries on them; four countries from each continent. We included Australia but omitted Antarctica. ;)

This month's country is:

Korea.

Stay tuned for the menu, recipes and a full report in a week or so!