This way to the egress

PZ Myers has the creation museum carnival up and running. It looks like a terrific round-up of articles, which I look forward to reading the rest of the week post-4H, and I’m pleased that my little entry (the previous post) could be a part of it. Many thanks to Dr. Myers for the rounding up, [...]

I typed this all by myself with my opposable thumbs

I shouldn’t even be here posting, because we’re getting ready for the big 4H Beef Club weekend — achievement day, interclub show, and sale. (No, Laura doesn’t have to sell her heifer calf; only the steers get sold, heading straight to their doom and little wrapped packages. One reason an older friend of hers and [...]

Respectable history for a general readership: bad news and a bit of good news

I’m slowly wading through news from the past week or two and was saddened to read in The New York Times (registration is free or use Bug Me Not) that the wonderful American Heritage Magazine has suspended publication with the April/May 2007 issue, now on newsstands. Editor Richard F. Snow, who started in the magazine’s [...]

Into the woods

Tom and the kids went mushroom hunting for morels on Saturday. The haul came to about seven liters, including some whoppers (one below, in Daniel’s hands),

We had some for dinner that night, sauteed in cream with fresh chives from the garden (and organic sea salt from Brittany, so there goes the 100-Mile idea), and the [...]

It must be Spring…

because it’s Carnival and fair time! In chronological order,

Susan has the May “Fiesta in Texas” edition of the Carnival of Children’s Literature over at Chicken Spaghetti. Looks very hot and spicy!

Today Melissa Wiley is hosting this week’s Carnival of Homeschooling: Enthusiasm Abounds at her blog, The Lilting House. I haven’t participated in the [...]

When you riff upon a star

Last weekend a friend who knows me well enough to know that I don’t care much for the Shrek movies sent me a recent Time Magazine article by James Poniewozik, “How Shrek Changed Fairy Tales“. A few days later, in response to another friend, who thinks she might be a “prude” because she objects to [...]

Poetry Friday: The Hazards of Science

From our little old copy of The Arrow Book of Funny Poems, collected by Eleanor Clymer and published in 1961 by Scholastic, this poem seems appropriate in light of my last couple of posts. I’m about 12 hours early because Tom is pouring more concrete for a job near here tomorrow, and I’m [...]

In search of freedom and independence, and big bangs

For Daniel’s eighth birthday last month, his grandfather sent him the UK edition of The Dangerous Book for Boys by brothers Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden. The book, an oversize red-covered tome, is an appealing jumble of activities and projects (make your own battery or tree house or the greatest paper plane in the world, [...]

New to me

Sylvia’s Classical Bookworm blog, where the Sidebar Menu includes such tasty treats as “About the Great Books”, “Great Books Online”, “Great Publishers”, “Libraries”, “Reference”, “Reading Guides”, “Reading Groups”, “Book Arts”, “Illuminated Manuscripts”, “Appurtenances”, “Other Good Stuff”, “Art”, “Latin”, and “Just for Fun”. Worth noting that “Appurtenances” includes a link to the Antioch Bookplate Company, whose [...]

The beautiful basics of science

Listening to CBC radio while working in the garden last week, I heard an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times science reporter Natalie Angier about her new book, The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, which sounds very worthwhile. I take most Amazon reviews with a grain of salt, but [...]

Found in the garden this morning

Happily and busily planting, transplanting, and moving things around in the flower garden early today, I came across this

which on closer inspection

proved to be a robin’s egg. But why the female robin chose to lay it out in the open, with no nest in sight and far from any trees or shrubs, is a mystery. [...]

Thought of the day

If we shouldn’t depend on our husbands financially, should we then expect them to fight our battles for us?
Just wondering.

Wired world of education

From yesterday’s New York Times, “Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops”, (or get past free registration with Bug Me Not):
The students at Liverpool [NY] High have used their school-issued laptops to exchange answers on tests, download pornography and hack into local businesses. When the school tightened its network security, a 10th grader not only [...]

A new point on the reading compass

“Books are like neighbors, and your personal library is your neighborhood. Take a look at your bookshelves. What kind of neighborhood are you living in? Are you in a slum or in the suburbs? Who are your neighbors? Are they trash talkers or shrewd sages? If you live next door to Socrates, then invite him [...]

Poetry Friday: In Pursuit of Spring Early One Morning in May, with Edward Thomas

I first discovered the poems of Edward Thomas (1878-1917) as a child in my now out of print copy of All Day Long: An Anthology of Poetry for Children, compiled by Pamela Whitlock (Oxford University). Thomas wrote beautifully of the English countryside and the seasons. Later, in high school, I learned that he was also [...]