I’ve made up my mind before Super Tuesday

Now this warms my heart, if not my feet

It’s still cold here, so cold the mercury is in hiding

(of course, you can run but you can’t hide with the newfangled digital technology)

but the good news is the snow has stopped falling and the wind has quit blowing, so it could be worse.
Worse as in as bad as it was on Monday, in fact, [...]

Downloading the Declaration and Constitution

“I prefer a man who will burn the flag and then wrap himself in the Constitution to a man who will burn the Constitution and then wrap himself in the flag.”
U.S. Congressman Craig A. Washington (D-Texas, 1989-1995)
Via GeekDad, the news that voiceover artist Debra Jean Dean has recorded her readings of the Declaration of Independence [...]

Speaking of cold blood,

cold hair, and cold skin, this is what 46 below zero C looks like.

An arctic ridge blew in yesterday, bringing the cold, blizzardy winds, and more snow. The wind and cold are supposed to stick around til the end of the week. You can get an idea of the general blizzardyness here,

And here are [...]

Life in Cold Blood

Sir David Attenborough, hale and hearty, and still very very busy at age 81, was recently interviewed by The Guardian in conjunction with his new BBC/Animal Planet program, “Life in Cold Blood“, which begins February 4th. It’s the final installment in his series of programs which have included “Life On Earth”, “The Private Life [...]

Basic concepts in science

John Wilkins at Evolving Thoughts, part of the ScienceBlogs group, is putting together a handy dandy list of blog posts on basic science concepts, including mathematics, philosophy, logic, and computer science. You can suggest posts, too. Stay tuned for the possibility of a dedicated wiki or blog.
Via GeekDad

Backlog: Winter fun 3: Toboggan party

The kids had a toboggan party after Christmas with some friends at the nearby provincial park, which has great big hills. Davy made it just to the edge of the (frozen) river at the end of the toboggan run, considerably past the end the of the hill.
Davy (red hat) and Daniel (dark jacket with [...]

Backlog: Winter fun 2: Christmas Eve

The kids went skiing and tobogganing at my inlaws on Christmas Eve afternoon. Tom and the kids groomed the ski hill and cleaned out the chalet at the top of the hill. I arrived around four, just as the sun was setting; I believe that’s one of my children on the way to [...]

Backlog: Winter fun 1: The magic of hoar frost

Most of December and early January saw very foggy nights and mornings, which resulted in hoar frost everywhere, including power lines (we got off easily with only one short outage, while friends and neighbors sat in the dark for considerably longer).
Some scenes from around the yard,

Trio of mad trappers

I’m not sure what the matter was with my digital camera, or why it didn’t like the new batteries I fed it.  Maybe it was feeling overworked and in need of a holiday.  At any rate, I tried the darn thing again this morning, with the very same new batteries as last time, and wouldn’t [...]

Poetry Friday: Bookshelves and anthologies

When My Ship Comes In
by Robert Burdette (1844-1914)
One room I’ll have that’s full of shelves,
For nothing but books; and the books themselves
Shall be of a sort that a man will choose
If he loves that good old word “peruse,”
The kind of book that you open by chance
To browse on the page with a leisurely glance,
Certain of [...]

New home

Welcome to Farm School’s new home.
I’ve long been looking for a more legible typeface and clearer, attractive theme, plus the chance for a more customized banner (the photo above is from my vegetable garden last year) and was never entirely satisfied with what was available at Blogger. I also have categories now with a [...]

Poetry Friday: The Round Up Is Here

Peter Mark Roget, inventor of the slide rule but most famous for his thesaurus, boon to poets everywhere, was born on this date in 1779. In his honor, I give you not a poem but an entry:
poetry, poetics, poesy, Muse, Calliope, tuneful Nine, Parnassus, Helicon, Pierides, Pierian spring. versification, rhyming, making verses; prosody, [...]

The 50 Greatest Books ever written

“Over the coming year, an international panel chosen by The Globe and Mail will select the 50 Greatest Books ever written. Each week, a single work will be discussed by an expert or a writer passionate about the work in question. This is the first in the series.”
Just started the other day (Saturday, in the [...]

Great Assumptions

Sophie Gee, an assistant professor of English at Princeton University and author of The Scandal of the Season, wrote in yesterday’s NY Times Book Review section,
Mass-market adaptations make Great Books go bad. Or so conventional wisdom would have it. But every so often, plundering and pillaging a canonical text for the sake of entertainment gives [...]

Another red herring

Yesterday I quoted this section from a New York Times article about the tragedy of the Jacks family in Washington, DC,
Mitchell L. Stevens, an associate professor of education and sociology at New York University, said school officials, who are required by law to report suspicion of child abuse, were society’s best watchdogs of how parents [...]

Red herrings, falling through the cracks, homework, and choice

Kate at I Think Therefore I Blog hits the nail on the head about The New York Times’s misguided and insufficiently researched article today about the tragic deaths in Washington, DC, of four children. Kate has also done her research, something that can’t be said for Times reporter Jane Gross. Read Kate’s post here. [...]

Time for delurking

Kris Bordessa, who blogs at Paradise Found, home schools, and writes nifty nonfiction for kids, says it’s Delurking Week so I believe her. Having made so many invisible friends through this blog, and from leaving comments at others’ blogs, I like the idea of meeting, and getting to know, new readers. Now’s your [...]

Poetry Friday

No. 668, c1863by Emily Dickinson
“Nature” is what we see –The Hill – the afternoon –Squirrel – Eclipse the Bumble bee –Nay – Nature is Heaven –Nature is what we hear –The Bobolink – the Sea –Thunder – the Cricket –Nay – Nature is Harmony –Nature is what we know –Yet have no art to say [...]

Beowulf and Grendel

rendered in Lego
by MicahBerger at Brickshelf. Click each thumbnail for a larger view.
This turned up in my “Beowulf” GoogleAlert…