Poetry Monday

How Far is it to Bethlehem?
By Frances Chesterton

How far is it to Bethlehem?
Not very far.
Shall we find the stable-room
Lit by a star?

Can we see the little Child?
Is He within?
If we lift the wooden latch,
May we go in?

May we stroke the creatures there--
Ox, ass, or sheep?
May we peep like them and see
Jesus asleep?

If we touch His tiny hand,
Will He awake?
Will He know we've come so far
Just for His sake?

Great Kings have precious gifts,
And we have naught;
Little smiles and little tears
Are all we brought.

For all weary children
Mary must weep;
Here, on His bed of straw,
Sleep, children, sleep.

God, in His mother's arms,
Babes in the byre,
Sleep, as they sleep who find
Their heart's desire.

Tale of a Monarch

We found a Monarch caterpillar early in October quietly munching milkweed on the edge of our church parking lot. This was pretty late in the season but we took him in and fed him fresh milkweed and waited for the amazing transformation from pretty caterpillar to stunning chrysalis. And waited and waited. And finally he morphed. But still he didn't hatch for weeks not the usual 10 or so days. We really gave up on him. But low and behold one day he split his chrysalis and emerged. It was snowing! So we brought in a potted mum and resigned ourselves to letting him live out his short life in the house. But luck was with our little friend and we had a span of absolutely lovely November weather and we released our Monarch into the wild.

No new name

One of the larger hobbits opined thatit was time to change the name of our school. After all they are BIG now. And two of them are vey big--5'10" and still stretching. However, I pointed out that the name came from the frequency of the meals not the size of the students. Are you ready to give up secong breakfast? Elevenses? Tea?? No. It was more like,"EGAD! NO!!" So, the name stays.

Ocular Athletics

A Dog
by Ken

Dogs are very useful.They help you hunt because they will fetch birds that you shoot. They are very good house pets. Good friends. They cheer you up when you're sad. Our family has a Golden Retriever.


Trees by Adam

Beautiful, spectacular, wondrous trees are the subject of this paper which regrettably is made out of a tree. Did you know that lots of trees are cut down just for paper? But never mind, I'm beginning to sound like an environmentalist. (Whew, long word.) Anyway, I did not start this paper to complain. (overly) Whenever I look around I see at least one tree. The tree I'm looking at right now is a small birch. Not tiny mind, it actually is rather big. It's a good forty feet high and a foot's width. It's branches extend about thirteen feet from the trunk. These are rough estimates so if the imagined tree is out of shape don't blame me. Matters press, so I will end this paper with: I like maple trees. How about you?


A Helmet
by Joe

A helmet is a protective coveringfor the head. The army still uses helmets but not as much as they did back in 1200 A.D. Some helmets have a bowl for your head and a nose guard. Others are like a box for your head with eye slits ans breathing holes and others look like you are wearing a pot on your hed. Some helmets can stop a sword without a dent, while others cannot stop a rock thrown by a young boy. Helmets can be made out of just aobut anything from cardboard to steel. But I gotta read my Civics so goodbye. See you next Thursday.

Poetry Monday

Ryhme of November Stars
by Sara Teasdale

The noiseless marching of the stars
Sweeps above me all night long;
Up the skies, over the skies,
Passes the uncounted throng,
Without haste, without rest,
From the east to the west:
Vega, Deneb, white Altair
Shine like crystals in the air,
And the lonely Fomalhaut
In the dark south, paces low.
Now the timid Pleiades
Leave the shelter of the trees,
While toward the north, mounting high,
Gold Capella, like a queen,
Watches over her demesne
Stretching toward the kingly one,
Dusky, dark Aldebaran.
Betelguese and Rigel burn
In their wide wheel, slow to turn,
And in the sharp November frost
Bright Sirius, with his blue light
Completes the loveliness of night.

Fabulous Weather = No Blogging

We have been enjoying a run of absolutely wonderful weather here and have been enjoying every minute of it after a winter of unprecedented snowfall and a summer of record rain! We've been washing windows and raking leaves and knocking down cobwebs and playing at the lake.....

Update

We are doing better here. The boys are pretty much over the flu with just a slight cough left. I have what appears to be a common, garden variety cold that has me sneezing and coughing but otherwise okay. We did manage to do school a couple of days this week but, alas, no Ocular Athletics...

Bush vs. Obama on Transparency

I'm sure you've been pondering this very question! Now here is the answer!

Third Hobbit Down

It's turned into sick week here at the Hobbit Homeschool. Swine flu is still the most probably diagnosis. It's not so bad. Headache and fever followed by sore throat and cough. And no energy which is very unusual around here! We've been watching alot of movies--The Return of the King, Ivanhoe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, 300 Spartans, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Alarmingly, I'm actually liking this! No dividing fractions or getting our declension endings right! I've caught up with a few (okay, more than a few!) blogs, tackled a couple of house keeping chores I've been putting off (or how thick is the algae in this fish tank??)started online Christmas shopping...I would think we have the makings of unschoolers if I thought the low energy would last but I know soon enough they will be clammering for stuff to do. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the quiet!

Sick Day

I have two hobbits down for the count and one that is not any too lively. The big question is...Is it Swine Flu or not?? I checked online and found these symptoms:

Fever-check

Cough--check

Sore throat--check

Runny/stuffy nose--check

Body aches--check

Headache--check

Chills--check

Fatigue--check

Diarrhea or vomiting--check for one hobbit but not the other.

Hmmm. Maybe or maybe not. In any event today is a day for the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings.

Poetry Monday

Autumn by Emily Dickenson

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

More Zoo Photos

Or it was dry in the bird house....


This little fellow wanted to come out and play.


And I couldn't resist adding this beauty who posed for us at our local zoo!

Ocular Athletics

A Bucket by Joe

As I'm sure you know (but a friend of my mom's pointed out that not everyone in Britain has a baseball cap so I'm going to tell you anyway) is rather like a pot. Buckets are round and usually have a handle which flips up. There are thousands of kinds of buckets. Some of them are called pots but they are really buckets. An example of this would be flower pots (buckets). I hate it when things get credited for other things work. No one ever calls a pot a bucket but people call buckets pots which is very annoying. Just think that without buckets there would be no syrup, no milk and by extension no cheese, ice cream, yogurt and no pancakes. think how often you use all that stuff especially cheese. Well I gotta do my math, folks. Adios.

Salt by Adam

Today I am going to write about salt, but today I will try a different way to go about it but this is my first try so if I slip back to my ordinary way forgive me. Salt is more valuable than you know. A lot of tasty meals you eat would not be possible without salt. Salt is immaculate in the practicality of its common use. Say if you where to eat an apple it is good but it has no salt. But if you make, say, an apple pie or apple crisp, they both use salt. Most everything uses salt. Look around and see if you can find a food without salt. It's out there though a little hard to find. Well, I will withdraw from the limited section of my mind to this wonderful world of though and idea where my hazardous simplicity is certainly required elsewhere.

Yarn by Ken

Yarn is very useful for knitting. Without yarn you couldn't knit at all. Sometimes, when I play with action figures I use yarn as spiderman web. There's not much else I can put into words about yarn. Except that my cat loves it. Good bye.

Wet Weekend

We had a very wet visit to Washington,D.C. this weekend to visit the hobbits' sister and to see some sites. On the plus side we had the zoo pretty much to ourselves. On the minus side alot of the animals don't like to come out in the rain. Otters were an exception. We had a great time in spite of the rain. Washington is a beautiful city.

Ocular Athletics

A Picture by Adam

A picture, like most things I write about, is just an ordinary, boring, every day object to which I try my utmost best to make as interesting and exciting as I can. A picture can be a simple photo or a grand and articulate masterpiece. A photo is quite astoundingly a frozen image in time, a memory whether happy or sad, like right now I am looking at a picture of my sister Ked and Kevin's wedding. A happy memory, it is strange to think it is the only wedding I can remember ever attending. One of my favorite painters is Leonardo Da Vinci, quite a mouth full, so I will call him Leo. Leo loved to paint horses, mainly ones in war charges. Toward the end of his life Leo made the Mona Lisa, a painting so realistic it looks as of she is looking at you. No matter how much I enjoy writing this I expect you are getting bored so I bring this page to a gracious close with these few words; just because it is ordinary does not mean it is not wonderful.

A Ball Cap by Joe

A ball cap as I am sure you know (but I am going to tell you anyway) is a hat designed to keep the sun out of your eyes. It is shaped like a bowl with a duck's bill on the end. My favorite ball cap is my Cleveland Indian's hat. I have never met anyone who didn't have a ball cap. They are quite inconvenient at amusement parks, however. I once lost a really nice one on a roller coaster and never saw it again. (It was actually my dad's hat that I happened to be wearing.)


Scissors by Ken

Scissors are very useful objects. They cut paper into shapes or whatever you want to do with paper. The scissors I happen to be looking at have orange handles but are really only casing metal handles to make them more comfortable. They have two metal pieces that are pretty sharp. Each one is attached to the handle. They are held together by a very short nail.

Uncle Chestnut

We've been enjoying The Inconvenient Adventures of Uncle Chestnut by Paul Nowak. It is based on stories from Chesterton's Tremendous Trifles among other of his writings and is written like a memoir of a small boy who follows Chesterton around and learns alot about life at the same time. It is an easy reader and the 10 year old could easily read it to himself but we are reading it aloud so we can experience it together. A great addition to our Ocular Athletics! You can get it on amazon or here.

Masaccio

Vasari's next artist of note is Masaccio and Vasari loves him! His rendering of feet really excites Vasari! People appearing to walk on tiptoe is a big pet peeve of Vasari's and Masaccio's feet are considered sublime! You can judge for your self. Unfortunately, Masaccio died suddenly at the age of 26.

Feast of the Holy Rosary

Or Battle of Lepanto Day!! We'll be celebrating with an afternoon tea party and of course a reading of Chesteron's Lepanto.

The Rosary

I've been meaning to post about this little book since last summer when a very dear friend recommended it to me.Now that it is the month for the Rosary I can no longer justify further procrastination! The Rosary subtitled Keeping company with Jesus and Mary by Karen Edmisten is a wonderful book! How I wish I had it when I was learning to pray the Rosary. I wanted to follow Pope John Paul II's Rosarium Virginis Mariae and pray the rosary daily but oh how my mind wandered in those days (well, in these days, too) and Saint Louis De Montfort's True Devotion to Mary made me feel unworthy to even be in the same room as a rosary let alone pick one up. But I persevered and kept praying, telling myself that someday I would have more time and at least I would be in the habit...
This book addresses just that and much more in such a friendly way that the Rosary becomes a joy. Thank you, Karen, for such a beautiful little book!

Poetry Monday

I love October and not just because it is the most beautiful month. It's because it is the month of the Rosayr and that means it must be Lepanto season!

Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!

Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise

I've been reading Vasari's Lives of the Artists. This is one of those books I bought for my daughter when she was on a Renaissance binge and meant to read but.... Well, I finally have a little time to read and it is pretty good! Vasari is very readable and when I think I could skip an artist as too obscure he corrects me. I had never heard of Lorenzo Ghiberti but according to Vasari and Michelangelo he is "worthy of heaven, itself". (it was Ghiberti's vanishing points that got them all excited!)

Dum cernit valvas aurato ex aere nitentes
In templo, Michael Angelus obstupuit:
Attonitusque diu, sic alta silentia rupit:
O divinum opus: O janua digna polo!

When Michaelangelo the panels saw
Gleaming upon the church in gilded bronze
Amaz'd he stood; after long wonder thus
The solemn silence broke:'O work divine!
O door worthy of heaven!'

Zoo

Yesterday was one of those absolutely perfect autumn days that we could not bare to face Latin declesions. So we headed to the zoo. And if my dial up wasn't so horribly slow I would post pictures!

What we've been up to

We started school a few weeks ago and have been trying to establish a routine. It is going pretty well so far. We had a good routine going last year and it has been fairly easy to fall back into it. We are moving ahead in Latin with Latina Christiana II. I meant to add more English grammar but there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day so for now this will have to cover that too. I'm hoping to cover about 500 years of history--1500 to 2000--this year. However, the Renaissance is impossible to rush through! We'll see how it goes.
The high school years are looming ahead of me and I want to use as many of G.K. Chesterton's books on authors and saints as I can fit in. To that end we are reading (or are going to read) alot of Stevenson, and Dickens. Kipling, too. The hobbits are already familiar with St. Francis and St. Thomas Aquinas. And of course, Chesterton himself. More Father Brown, definitely and maybe some of his other fiction. Napoleon of Notting Hill perhaps. No point in over planning!!

The Very Quotable Charlotte Mason

I've been reading A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason. I've dipped in to this book many times before but this is the first time I've attempted to read it cover to cover. I'm finding it irresistible. It accompanies me to the beach, to soccer. I'd take it shopping if I could. She is at her feisty best in this one. An example on a carefully prepared "child environment": "We had thought that the terrible succession of blows inflicted by the War had changed all that; but, no; the errors of education still hold sway and we still have amongst us the better-than-my-neighbor folk, whose function, let us hope, is to administer the benefits of adversity to most of us. What if parents and teachers in their zeal misread the schedule of their duties, magnified their office unduly and encroached upon the personality of children? It is not an environment that these want, a set of artificial relations carefully constructed, but an atmosphere which nobody has been at pains to constitute." Well, no fear of a carefully maintained environment here!

Time passes....quickly

We've been busy this summer! Soccer followed baseball. We've been to the beach, the amusement park,and the water slide park. We've mowed alot of grass, pulled alot of weeds (not enough, though!). We've painted a room and shifted alot of furniture. We've read alot of books. We've played alot of high intensity capture the flag (with sword fighting and jousting included)with the neighbors. We've taken our turn at cleaning the church. (Alot more floor space to clean since they added that social hall!). We've hunted fireflies and shooting stars.

Now it's time to ease back into some education! After a few weeks with their peers, phrases such as "That is like way so cool!" have slipped into the hobbits day to day conversation. We are hoping to fix this by evening Shakespeare readings. (Dad is doing this with As You Like It. He is great at singing the songs!) And reading something other than the Percy Jackson series or Eragon. Wind in the Willows for Ken, Robert Louis Stevensen for the twins. Next week we will ad some math and latin review. Amo, amas, amat....

Quiet Time

It is that time between -- baseball is over and soccer is yet to begin. We are all lost in the world of the Last Olympians.

Saint Anthony

All loving God,
You have given us St. Anthony,
the patron of the lost,
as an intercessor of those
who are in need of your mercy.
Listen to his voice as he calls
out to You on our behalf,
and grant those things which
will help us grow in Your love.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Cricket!

A commenter (you know who you are!) has suggested I don't know a bowler from a wicket keeper! I'll have you know I watch a lot of British TV!!! Doctor Who is a wicked good Cricket player! Actually, you're right. Baseball is confusing but Cricket is in a league of its own.

Sigh...

There is no joy in Mudville, the mighty FireFox have struck out. We lost 15 to 8 or something. I lost track.(There was a diverting interlude when the opposing coach had a big blowout with the ump. I've heard about these things happening but had never witnessed one. It's a kids game guys. Let's keep it fun.) On the plus side, we have our Friday evenings back. Movie and popcorn anyone?

No Pressure...

It is sink or swim night for the FireFox! After a not so great season ending 2-8 and losing the first play-off game 12-9 they have to win tonight or it is all over! I will breathe a sigh of relief either way! (That's Joe on the mound.)

All Baseball, All the Time!

It's that time of the year again where I try to get the hobbits to wrap up the school year but all they can think of is baseball. We have games on Tuesdays, Fridays , and Saturdays with practice thrown in on Wednesdays for good measure.I'll add pictures when I get my new laptop operational (can you believe a dial up modem is no longer standard on these things??) as this computer refuses to converse with my camera!

Wrapping up the year

After the Easter break it is always hard to get back to the old schedule. Add in beautiful spring weather and baseball season and you have fidgety hobbits that are not at all interested in Latin declensions. So I've let that go for now and we are concentrating on finishing up a few loose ends like math books and spelling workbooks so we can start fresh next fall. Even Ocular Athletics has become stale. Luckily for me I bought a copy of Nancy Carpentier Browns study guide of The Blue Cross. Just the thing for a very enjoyable end to a very Chestertonian year!

Holy Week

We have been clicking along quite nicely with school and now can afford (meaning we will still finish that math book by mid-May) to take a couple of weeks off and concentrate on Easter. We have been cleaning to the point that I would have to follow the boys around with the vacuum to keep the place any cleaner. (Okay, the stove is still waiting ...) and today we are relaxing, me with the computer and the Hobbits with a game of Hero Scape.
Tomorrow we will be attending the Holy Thursday mass which will be said in memory of our very beloved priest who died three years ago on Holy Thursday. He is still greatly missed and I am sure we will need a large supply of kleenex to get through this. Cake and coffee afterwards and then Eucharistic adoration...
I haven't decided about Friday. Stations and liturgy are at noon with no service later that we could attend as a family. We have had Good Friday snow storms the last couple of years (snow is early this year and the nine inches we got yesterday should be gone by Friday)and we have done the stations here at home. I like this. We place cards of the stations around the dining room table with small candles set in front of them. The boys take turns reading the devotions and then blowing out the candle. The room is fairly dark by the end and we are subdued by the great sacrifice of our Lord. Hmmm...
On Saturday we will tidy up, decorate eggs and the house, bake bread and go to the Vigil Mass. It is ten years since we entered the Church as a family! The best ten years, ever!!
On Easter Sunday Grandma will come and we will celebrate with an Easter Egg hunt. (and a huge ham dinner!)Hopefully, out side.(not the dinner) It has been a few years since we have done that. Little Hobbit can't remember an outdoor hunt!

Spring Cleaning

We've been out of touch for a while due to a computer virus. And now, thanks to some absolutely beautiful Spring weather we have the cleaning bug...

Ocular Athletics

Math by Joe

Math is boring!!! I hate to start a report with so blunt a statement but it's true. For instance, why on earth would you need to know this: If there are four green marbles, three red marbles, and 6 yellow marbles in a sack what are the odds that you are going to pull out a red one? The question seems utterly pointless to me but our neighbor, Frank says that it would be helpful if you were a planter. Meanwhile, on the other side of the road (or world) I'm learning (or reading ) about percents, cubic measurement, decimals, and factions.

Music by Adam

Music, some say, is an irritable sound except if played so well it is flawless. I, on the other hand, prefer to hear the occasional mistake then the harmony lasting on and on with no brake until the player decides to end the song. It makes the player sound more human when the song has a mistake or two in it. I mean Beethoven was good but does get boring after a while. Wouldn't you say he was a little too good? I guess I say this because the only instrument I can play at all is the piano which still sounds like I am pounding with a hammer. But since I am not that at ease with the world right now I will leave this page here.

Poetry Monday

The hobbits copy poetry in notebooks on Mondays instead of their handwriting workbooks. They have developed a real love for poetry over the year and I thought I would participate by blogging a poem here on Mondays. Here is today's offering which doesn't have a title that I know of. I found it in Wisdom and Innocence by Joseph Pearce. It was written by G.K. Chesterton for one of his beloved neighbors.

Rejoice all nations under the sun;
Their bishops dance, their aged statesmen run,
Paint the world red and think it frightful fun
That Barbara, Barbara is Twenty-One.
But the Crier is crying
In Lyme of the King
Lost, Stolen or Strayed
Is the Marvelous Thing.
I will ring for the sea-gulls
That dance in the spray
But the girls that go dancing
Go dancing away,
The girls that go dancing
Go dancing
go dancing,
The girls that go dancing
Go dancing away.

A hobbit reading...

in his hobbit hole...

Ocular Athletics

Snow by Joe

Snow, as you know but I'm going to bore you to death telling you anyway, is a crystal of ice that fell from the sky. We have 263" of the stuff and rising. I don't like snow because I have a driveway 1/12 of a mile long and likes to be shoveled. But that builds muscles. It also is appetite inspiring. Every snowflake is about this * big. Pretty odd how that can add up to 263 inches.

By Adam

Have you ever seen a bird fly by the window while you were reading a book? Have you ever wished you were a happy-go-lucky bird flying through the air, the roar of the wind in your ears whipping your hair about like it was bound and determined to rip it from your scalp? If you have we are of one mind. If you haven't then this paper means nothing to you. Every night I lay under the heavy covers thinking about flying, wishing I could do it and for someone who has never ridden a plane the image is in my mind of ant sized houses sailing under me and is so real it feels like a memory. I can collapse into myself and imagine I'm a bird with soft feathers and spindly legs clutching a branch with needle sharp claws. The one thing that doesn't sound appealing is hitting an ice cold window at 20 miles an hour. But again my flood of thoughts have stalled, hit a window just like a bird so
hasta la vista.

February Poll

I asked the hobbits what their two favorite subjects are so far. For Adam and Joe it was unanimous: Ocular Athletics and spelling. Ken preferred history and spelling (he doesn't do Ocular Athletics yet). That would be Seton's spelling workbooks-Spelling for Young Catholics.

Least Favorite: They all agreed on this--Narrations. I had been having them narrate a section of The Children's Homer by Padraic Collum every Friday. It being February and since they looooove spelling so much I dropped this!

Ocular Athletics

Bloggers by JCM

I don't see the point of whiling away hours of unprofitable boredom by hours of unprofitable blogging. But then it might be the grownup equivalent of video gaming. Either way , I don't see the point. But if I started a blog it would be called "Bloggermort" (as in Voldemort). My older sister is urging Ken to start a blog called "Trickie's Musings." But my brain has encountered a block and is now wandering the unending possibilities of cheese. See you later.


Adam's offering:

You are probably thinking, "Oh,NO!" or "Why me?" but hello it's me again and what's more, on the same boring subject...how depressing. But, I hope you have the decency to read this page of boredom and complaint. But I am trying hard to tell if not show you what I think about. Like right now I just thought of another pointless title for a pointless book which as you could half guess is about me. Hey, maybe if I get enough of these I'll put them in a book, maybe several.(but it's okay if you do, you don't have to read it) So all I need is a lot of names for them. This one is "Brains I Never Had and Probably Never Will." Now we are out of that subject. Isn't it a relief? Look at the weather outside. Well, of course, you can't see what it's like. I will try to relay it to you, here goes. It's quite dreary outside, the left-over snow from the three feet we had is just the banks now. The grass that shows is covered in a white layer of frost. That about covers it, it was nice torturing you. See you later.

Poetry

I found this poem by Cecily Hallack (author of Adventure of the Amethyst) and I thought I'd share.

The Divine Office of the Kitchen

Lord of the pots and pipkins, since
I have no time to be
A saint by doing lovely things and
Vigiling with Thee,
By watching in the twilight dawn,
And storming Heaven's gates,
Make me a saint by getting meals;
And washing up the plates!

Lord of the pots and pipkins, please,
I offer Thee for souls
The tiresomeness of tea-leaves
And the sticky porridge bowls!
Remind me of the things I need,
Not just to save the stairs,
But so that I may perfectly lay
Tables into prayers.

Accept my roughened hands
Because I made them so for Thee!
Pretend my dish mop is a bow,
Which heavenly harmony
Makes on a fiddle frying pan; it
Is so hard to clean,
And oh, so horrid! Hear, dear Lord,
The music that I mean!

Although I must have Martha hands,
I have a Mary mind,
And when I black the boots, I try
Thy sandals, Lord, to find.
I think of how they trod our earth,
What time I scrub the floor.
Accept this meditation when I
Haven't time for more!

Vespers and Compline come to pass
By washing supper things,
And mostly I am very tired, and
All the heart that sings
About the morning's work is gone
Before me into bed.
Lend me, dear Lord, Thy tireless
Heart, to work in me instead!

My Matins are said over night to
Praise and bless Thy name
Beforehand for to-morrow's work,
Which will be just the same;
So that it seems I go to bed still
In my working dress.
Lord, make Thy Cinderella, soon
A heavenly Princess.

Warm all the kitchen with Thy love,
And light it with Thy peace!
Forgive the worrying and make
The grumbling words to cease.
Lord, Who laid breakfast on the shore,
Forgive the world which saith,
"Can any good thing come to God
Out of poor Nazareth?"

Ocular Athletics

The jungle of my imagination: on this page is enclosed the so called jungle of my imagination, in which I will try to explain the uncontrollable ramblings of my mind. Do not expect it to be interesting, I don't either, but try to bear along with me to the end of my document full of what ever I choose to put in it. Why? I hardly know myself. If you were to ask, I would be stumped at your curiosity. This is the best way to write, I think, instead of just staying strictly to one topic. This way I can just skip to whatever my mind leads me to and I feel much more at ease with the world. It is much more fun to me to write whatever my mind thinks in the order it comes. I think I should write a book soley about the wanderings of my untamable mind. I will call this book The Boring Book of Brains. Well, it was fun writing about this wonderful topic but sometime or another I will have to turn off the tap, so to speak. So I'll see you next time.
by Adam

A pygmy as you (better) know is a very small person. I would like to be a pygmy because then I would take my bb gun and go hunting mice, I would dig tunnels in the snow, and I would have en excuse to write like this. If I was a pygmy I wouldn't have to do any chores because I'd be too small. (I suppose I could carry bits of guinea pig food one piece at a time.) If you were a pygmy, then one slice of cheese would last you a week. Speaking of cheese, swiss cheese would be awesome because you could climb around in the tunnels.
by Joe

The Cooky that got the hobbits through January

This is it: Outrageous Chocolate Chip Cookies courtesy of the Robin Hood flour bag. This cooky has everything:chocolate chips, peanut butter, and oatmeal!
1 cup butter, softened and blended with 1 cup white supar, 2/3 cup brown sugar, 1 cup peanut butter, 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla.
2 cups flour
1 cup quick oats
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt ( stir these together and add to butter/sugar mixture. Stir in
1 package chocolate chips


Bake on ungreased cooky sheets at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. Let sit on cooky sheet for a minute before removing to wire rack to cool. Very good!

Adventure of the Amethyst

We've been reading this book every morning after a decade of the Rosary. I expected to finish it by October at the latest but it was so deep....we went from one religious/philosophical question to another and we didn't finish it until yesterday morning. This morning after the rosary Joe sighed deeply and said,"I miss the Lovells." (the family in the book) Yes, we all do. We learned a lot about missionaries, shrines, loving your neighbor, uses of money and time, well about Catholic life! We loved it. There is a chapter from it in Seton's World History--The Old Granary.

Babies

Since the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade last week I have been trying to compose a pro-life post that actually adds something to the debate and is not just "divisive". My daughter,Tegan, has done a wonderful job. Much better written then anything I could have come up with!

Ocular Athletics

Today's athletics were Tall Tales....

Chessnut and the Lion

One day I (a guinea pig) was going on a walk. After I walked about 2 inches in 20 minutes I bumped into a lion.
He said,"Out of my way twerp," and he boxed my ears.
I said,"Squeak!"
He laughed. I boxed his ears. He whined. And then I said,"Don't pick on pigs!"
He slunk off with his tail between his legs and ever after there was a new constellation called Leo. (Which is Latin for lion.)


Sit Tomy and the Dragon

Sir Tomy was a knight in the time of King Arthur. Sir Tomy didn't get a seat on the round table because Arthur wanted the other knights to have a chance to prove themselves. Tomy moved so fast in his armor that he could do 47 missions at once. Then a dragon moved in. His name was as long as his tail and his head was the size of Madagascar and his body was so big it could not fit in the Atlantic Ocean. All King Arthur's knights were scared stiff. But Sir Tomy wasn't. He went up to Mt. Everest where the dragon was. The dragon saw he was dressed for battle. Dragon blew flames at Tomy and the knight's armor, sword and shield were melted solid. So Tomy went up the mountain and beat the scales on the dragon until it flew away from the fearless knight. But to slow it Sir Tomy grabbed his tail and swung him about so fast the dragon forgot half his name and a tornabo (the tornado's distant cousin twice removed) sprang up in the Americas. Sir Tomy let the dragon go and the dragon was so embarrassed it shrank to the size of the round table and it took the half of its name it could remember, Komodo. And Sir Tomy? Well, we will see him a lot later.

Missee Lee

We just finished this book by Arthur Ransome and it was great! Pirate adventure and Latin declensions! What more could we want?

First Aid

Twin hobbits have been practicing their first aid and survival skills in anticipation of the upcoming Klondike Derby. Here they are carting young Hobbit on a stretcher made of two sticks and a blanket.

Ocular Athletics

Hunting Squirrels by Joe

One sunny day in December I was doing the dishes and saw a squirrel. I dried my hands quite calmly and then ran like a madman to my bedroom, grabbed my airgun, dropped two pellets and one BB. I picked up one pellet and the BB, put them away and loaded my gun with the last pellet. I tore outside and found the squirrel. I aimed, tugged the trigger....it wouldn't budge. I angrily took off the safety, aimed again and realized I hadn't pumped it. So I (pretty angrily by now) stamped my foot, pumped it up and MISSED! I watched a little tuft of fur fall to the ground and went in. Where most unsympathetically, everybody asked if I hit him.
(Mom note: He didn't actually miss...)

"Fire in the hall!" Shouts and bangs sounded in the kitchen, bedroom, and dining room as the combatants fought to the death. Armed with blasters and a head set the two fighters fled for cover. (Earlier that day Joe had challenged me to a duel with the flashing toy guns we had got for Christmas. We also had to wear uncomfortable and utterly ridiculous head sets. The rules wher simple: abstract ten lives from the other person by shooting the antenna with your gun.) The intense fighting and blasting stopped and silence ensued. The innocent inhabitants of the area in which the two warriors fought came out of hiding and desperately tried to escape the scene. A disembodied voice sounded:"Give up you mangy cur! You can never win. I have more lives than you and I also know where you are and know when you leave your hidey hole!"
"You think you can beat me, eh?" came the muted reply."Just come see my barricade!"
One warrior charged and disappeared behing the door. The following was pandemonium. Then a warrior appeared. The crowd waited as he lifted his dark shades...the crowd roared and surged forward, lifting him on to their shoulders. Our hero is victorious! I had won!
Actually, what really happened was I won but the most I got was a congratulations and that was it. No pat on the back, no nothing. Can you believe people?

Nature Lover's Book

This was an impulse purchase last Autumn when I saw it at The Bookworm. It's a beautiful book and my only quibble is there is not an illustration for every flower like there is for birds and trees...and the illustrations could be in color but other than that it is delightful and I've been waiting for January to start using it for nature study. Today is the day, cold and rainy but not snowy so we can see what there is to see growing in the yard. We had a thaw before Christmas and our 146 inches of snow compacted into about 6 inches of crust so the walking was easy. We didn't find too much growing....some strawberries were bravely showing through the snow and Joe spotted a squirrel's nest high up in a beech tree. It was fun and we came in and had cocoa in front of a roaring fire. Just the thing for January blues.

Skiing!

Over Christmas break the littlest hobbit learned to ski (downhill). Poor Papa Hobbit wiped out on the bunny hill and wrenched his ankle and knee.