Entries in nature (43)
Noisy Neighbor Revenge
Monday, July 27, 2009 at 8:08AM What on earth happened to this poor tree?
Angry beavers, that's what.
How do I know the beavers are angry?
Because they went for the very biggest tree and are chewing it so that it will fall right on the fence.
Why are the beavers angry?
Noisy neighbors, that's why. This little punk is always having wild parties. If he were my neighbor, I might chew down a few trees myself, and if my landlord weren't helpful, I might be tempted to cause a little bit of property damage.
Damage.
Get it?
Dam-age?
Hahahahaha!
Wasting Time
Friday, July 10, 2009 at 8:52AM I should probably be cleaning something or weeding something or teaching something, but I've been much too busy playing with my new best friend Poladroid.
It's the cutest application ever. After you download it, you open it up and drag pictures onto the camera. It clicks and whirs and spits out a thumbnail onto your desktop to develop. It's so much fun!
It's great because you can salvage pictures that aren't quite good enough to frame. Imperfections are part of the old Polaroid camera's charm. I like charm. I think it's because I don't have much of it myself.
The program is a little buggy (meaning I've had to download it more than twice) but hey, it's Free and Fabulous, and a few weevils never killed anybody.
You can play with the pictures in your photo editor afterwards, too. I decided I didn't really want the frame around my milkweed, so I cropped it out:
And then I decided that since I was already wasting time, I might as well see what it looks like in black and white. Me like.
Crap, I gotta go. My mother (who has never wasted a single minute in her entire life, God love her) is calling me. She'll want an explanation for my not cooking something or weeding something or teaching something.
"Um, I'm doing research."
"Um, I'm developing my creative talents."
"All right, all right! I'm coming!"
nature in The Squares 
Gettysburg, PA: Marsh Creek
Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:01AM The Goobs were in the creek within five minutes of parking at the campground.
They were soon out again, but only because they wanted their swimsuits.
If we're not out on the battlefield, they're in the creek. They've been having a fantastic time, though JellyMan seems to fall down an awful lot. (I think he must do it on purpose, but I just smile benignly and go back to my book and my peach iced tea with vodka.)
Other mothers have been giving me dirty looks because now THEIR children want to play in the creek. I know how they feel. Anything could be in that creek - parasites, fishing hooks, human waste, pesticide, leeches, water moccasins. Yes, they're right to be concerned.
They should get themselves some peach iced tea and put some vodka in it. That'd calm 'em down.
The Goobers, nature in The Squares Vacation
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 2:31PM 
Because all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy (and it doesn't do Jill any favors, either.)
The Goobers, nature in The Squares 
A blog, you say? What's that?
Monday, June 15, 2009 at 5:20PM 
I haven't been online lately because I've been busy with my family and the farm and homeschool (boy, am I regretting taking two months off for Christmas!) and relaxing after several months of constant Goober activity. There are a lot of things I miss about living in town (Taco Bell and DSL, for instance) but sitting in my car for hours each day waiting for The Goobs to be finished with whatever it is that they're doing is NOT one of them. Okay, now for some updates!
We're nearing the end of our school year, and we are not as far along as I'd like. The Goobs have both finished their math and grammar books, which is good, but neither one of them has finished their Latin and JellyMan is only about halfway through Classical Writing. That isn't good at all. For history we have been watching Ken Burns' Civil War series, and we will follow that up with a trip to Gettysburg. JellyMan is memorizing Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Anemone is learning The Battle Hymn of the Republic. For science we've been insect collecting and bird watching. (Yeah, I know. But we left the dissection equipment at home. I couldn't quite bring myself to spend 11 hours trapped in a car with sheep brains.) We have seen some good stuff - Baltimore orioles, bluebirds, hawks, owls and barn swallows, and I was able to get this picture of a pair of goldfinches that hang around my mom's porch.
We've been busy with the garden; The Goobs have planted beans, corn, pumpkins and gourds and have tilled and weeded and staked and watered. They painted a few flower pots for toad houses - we've seen several and they look like they could use a permanent residence. The men have been out making hay while the sun shines, and we had a lot of excitement when the new bull made his appearance (more about that later.) We've had wienie roasts with the family and hikes through the woods on our own, and we've hunted coyote and pinned insects and got stuck in the mud. The Goobs have made solo trips on the four wheeler and the truck. We've seen at least fifty deer (including a dead fawn gripped in the jaws of a wolf hybrid) and we've managed to avoid the ticks. The guys at the feed store know our names, we're caught up with all the doings of the cousins and we're all sunburned. In short, it's been just another trip home.
And now I'm off to look at tractors. Woo-hoo.
cows, nature in Farm, Homeschool