Clear as Mud......

Am I mistaken or did John McCain just endorse Barack Obama today??? I can’t decide if this was some kind of short sighted hail mary maneuver or if he’s intentionally sabotaging his own campaign. Maybe he listened to Obama’s speech last night and was so moved that he had the epiphany (much like Bush must have had at some point) that he was in way over his head, and that the only way out was to throw the fight. Are you honestly telling me that their isn’t a single better qualified female Republican in all of the land than Sarah Palin, John? Are you sure you put that slipper on everyone’s foot??? Is this some kind of twisted Cheney"esque" logic that if you actually did get elected, every single person in this country would fervently protect your life in order to prevent your creationist friend from driving us all mindlessly toward rescinding the separation of church and state? Was it a senior moment gone bad? We’re talking a heartbeat away John........ and you are no spring chicken! RunninL8 said it best on her blog today when she declared that Hillary die hards are not so ditsy as to “give up their democratic values JUST to have a 2x chromosome in office?”
Really John, what do you take us girls for???

The Elephant in My Living Room

When we were kids we had a picture book about a frantic mother who called the doctor to report that her son wasn’t feeling well and had suddenly become frighteningly obese. I couldn’t remember the name of it but luckily my sister Sandie did. Mother, Mother, I Feel Sick Send For The Doctor Quick Quick Quick is really kind of a silly little book but I remember liking it as a kid when the doctor performed surgery and found that the boy had eaten everything he could lay his hands on. My favorite part was when a bike was pulled out from his abdomen in pristine and ready to ride condition. By the end of the book the boy was thin again, but mysteriously the doctor was missing his hat.

Nigel seems to be a case of life imitating art. We adopted him from the shelter when he was about 8 weeks old. You would think that in that short amount of time not too much could have happened to traumatize him but you’d be wrong. There must have been a day in there when he didn’t get to eat because he has since spent the last 5 years obsessing (and I mean OBSESSING!) about his next meal......which, if you can’t tell by looking at him is immediately following his last meal. In fact, they should have issued us stock in Purina when we took him home. If they had, we’d at least be able to recoup some of our loses. Needless to say Nigel’s a big boy. And yes, we could remove all food from the premises in order to control his insatiable neurosis but food makes him sooooo happy. You should hear him eating, he snorts and purrs, and grunts until he’s so worn out he falls asleep only to wake up and eat again. He’s quite a guy. I have a feeling his visions of grandeur involve something along the line of becoming a snow leopard and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to come home one day and find he’d eaten the dogs. In fact, it might be a good idea to start shutting the bedroom door at night.............

100 Species You'll Find in My House & Yard

Ponderosa Pine, Aspen, Hawthorne, Lilacs, Apple tree, Chokecherry, Willow, catnip, Lupine, Woodland Star, Cinquefoil, Lady Slipper, Wild Onions, Bell flower, Forget me nots, Poppies, Dandelions, Violets, Cow Parsnip, Salsify, Bull Thistle, Clover, Mullien, Yarrow, Holly Grapes, Fireweed, black eyed susans, Bachelor Buttons, Iris, Peony, Flax, daffodils, crocus, columbine, coreopsis, sweet william.

alyssum, phlox, nasturtium, begonia, chickadee, white nuthatch, pygmy nuthatch, cross bills, finches, mourning doves, magpies, grosbeaks, juncos, goldfinch, wrens, flickers, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, screech owl, turkey, mallards, orioles, pigeons, Marmot, squirrel, white tail deer, black bear, skunk, moose, elk, vole, rabbit, shrew, deer mice, ermine, mountain lion, moths.

ants, grasshoppers, bark beetles, roly poly bugs, worms, centipedes, butterflies, flies, bees, ticks, dragonflies, spiders, aphids, daddy long legs, mosquitoes, stink bugs, leaf hoppers, wasps, humans, cats, dogs, rats, parakeets, geese,painted turtles, horned toad, ducks, goldfish.

(images from flicker)
mosaics made with Big Huge Labs

Letterpress Cuts

Before we met Larry was stationed in Germany for four years. He would spend his time off driving around Europe visiting the antique shops and restaurants of small villages. One of the things he hauled back from that tour was a collection of antique copper letterpress cuts.


He bought them from an old man who sold antiques out of his kitchen near Giessen. Originally there were about 1500 cuts but we recently sold about 500 of them through ebay in order to pay for a new septic and wood stove (before deciding to keep the remainder of the collection). Most of our customers were book artists, but we also sold to jewelers, leather workers, collectors, printers, and potters.




The cuts were manufactured by the Joseph H. Kreuter Company of Giessen, Germany between 1903-1953.





Before I began listing them I was able to find Kreuter’s 25th and 50th anniversary catalogs from a bookseller in Germany (for $300!!!) which helped to authenticate the designs and narrow down which pieces were 100 years old and which were just 50. Unfortunately neither of us can read German so I don’t know a whole lot about Mr Kreuter.

A woman from Berlin did contact me after seeing my listings and said that she grew up in Giessen and knew the Kreuter family. According to her the grandchildren eventually ran the business into the ground before her mother purchased their building from them. Michaela was selling the brass dies that the cuts were manufactured from on the German Ebay until a man from Poland bought her out.

This is a postcard that she gave me with a picture of her son Lennart on it.

Other than that, we are the only resource for these cuts that I know of. I’m not sure what application this has in the digital age but I keep thinking that the catalog images would make for some cool clip art. I did email a Kreuter family from Giessen to get permission to make a free website of the designs and never heard back. But for all I know Kreuter could be as common a German surname as Smith is here. Anyways, I spent this morning filling some shelves I found at a yard sale yesterday with the cuts so I thought I would post about them.

I think we have about 1000 left and I’m always toying with how I might use them creatively.......haven’t hit on anything I’m really excited about yet but they’re kind of cool and I am really happy that their boxes aren’t under my desk anymore!

Story Days......

Every year just before school starts and the summer residents head south our community celebrates Story Days. There is a fire dept. pancake breakfast fund raiser, parade, quilt show, library book sale fund raiser, pig roast, inflatable rides, yard sales, art displays, and music. This year's theme was "gifts of the mountain".

(book sale~ Shelter fund raising kitten~a t-shirt & bumper sticker I thought were funny...click to enlarge)

Wednesday night Zoe decided she wanted to be in the parade for the first time. She found an instructional mask making video on Youtube and spent yesterday (with a little help) making a white wolf mask. I was skeptical that she would be able to finish on such short notice but she pulled it off beautifully.

(Zoe in the parade)

It's a pretty small town (population 600) so there was a lot of speculation on who was underneath that mask. Word got around fairly quickly and within an hour people were commenting to her on the street about how much they liked it. She had a really good time clawing and growling at the little kids although she drew the line when Trash wanted her to perform tricks for him.

(quilts and wood carving displays)

So that's a peek at our little town's ritual end of summer celebration.
Hope you are all having a GREAT weekend!

Political Discourse

Hanging Horn and I were discussing the Zogby Poll that came out this week putting John McCain 5 points ahead of Barack Obama nationally and this was his reaction.
I can't say I disagree.
(no photoshop, just Hanging Horn being goofy)

Spore Bearing

We live in a place of few seasons. Mostly we divide our weather into tolerable and intolerable. Still, once you’ve lived here a while you do begin to understand the forest’s cycles. Right now it’s burr time. Each August burrs suddenly erupt out of nowhere and before you know it we are all covered in them. I pick them off of myself, off of the dogs, out from between the sheets in the middle of the night, and even off of the deer. Whenever we’re not looking, their invisible little fingers reach out in desperation and cling to us as if their lives depended upon it. They lovingly and mistakenly attach all of their hopes for fertility, propagation, and connectedness to our indifferent ankles as if we were wormholes capable of transporting them through the farthest reaches of space. Well, we aren’t. In fact dear burrs, hooking your parasitic little hearts to mine will not result in heavenly symbiotic oneness. It’s not that I’m cold or indifferent to your mobility issues, it’s just that you’re all about going places, and I rarely go anywhere. Loren Eiseley in The Secret of Life said “let them ride. After all, who am I to contend against such ingenuity?” He’s probably right, and ride if you must, but honestly I think you’d gain as much ground attaching yourselves to a rock.

Today

Back to School......Angst and Indecision 2

Yesterday I wrote about some of the reasons why we home school Zoe and rather than bore you with reading lists, unit studies, and text books I’m going to skip forward to trying to figure out what the best approach for the upcoming semester is. First of all, there are always two stages to outlining the year’s goals that really have absolutely nothing to do with one another. The first is completing our school district’s paperwork which simply consists of describing the subjects we’re going to cover along with a materials and textbook description. Once that’s presentable and submitted I move on to trying to figure out what we’re actually going to do. You know, what she really needs to learn, what our priorities are. This is where I’m torn. I’d love to actually “unschool” for the first time this year but I don’t think thats going to work out. At the beginning of the summer I had instructed Zoe to spend one hour each day reading, doing, or teaching herself ANYTHING she wanted as long as it wasn’t computer or video games, television or drawing (which she does on her own all day, every day). I thought that an hour each day of self directed activity might open the door to true unschooling (plus math). Let’s just say that that didn’t happen, which leads me to believe that we’re still in need of a structured academic schedule. The one area in which our path is pretty much set is Math. We’ve been using the Hake Saxon textbooks. They’re incredibly laborious but really thorough. Math is one of those subjects that I really want her to be proficient in (although I’ve got to say that I can’t imagine the immediate need for writing complex equations using scientific notation and don’t even get me started on what the point of prime factorization is!). So, no matter what I decide our over all approach will be, the daily bouts of Hake Saxon torture stays. Beyond that we could:

A) chart out an hourly schedule for reading, writing, science, geography, history, Spanish, and mythology and stick to using traditional assignments, text, and internet materials. The downside to this is it isn’t very engaging and she tends to do the work with little interest just to get it done.

B) She can complete the daily reading and math I give her and then work on various unit studies. The upside to this is that I develop the units to fit her interests and/or educational needs and she can work at her own pace rather than having to finish up and move on to the next subject. The downside is that preparing the units is hugely time consuming for me. I wouldn’t mind if they were really inspiring to her but they are largely met with the same apathy as the text work so thats frustrating.

C) She could complete the daily reading and math and then we could revisit my unschooling idea from earlier in the summer for the remainder of her “school” time. The upside is that it would force her to take some responsibility for her own education and would foster independence. The down side would be that I would have to hover and prod and enforce which I’m going to hate and will inevitably invite conflict and power struggles.

D) Again, she could complete the daily reading and math and then we could work on the curriculum one on one. The upside is that she is always much more interested and engaged when we work together. The down side is that it reinforces her need for my participation and encourages her dependence and attachment upon me and while that might be acceptable now, she really is going to need to work independently once she starts college. I mean we are together 24/7 as it is and the idea is for her to find herself not to become Sharon, The Next Generation.

Doc wrote an article a while back about homeschooling and being sufficiently prepared for college, here’s a short excerpt:

"The real point is, it didn’t matter if I was “prepared” or that I’d had very little science and math. I took them in college. If I’d had more math and science, I’d still have had to take them in college for the undergrad requirements. If every student in public school is so much more prepared academically, then why do they offer 100 level science and maths, and why are those classes always full? I can guarantee you this - not once did any of my professors ask me about my previous schooling - since I was in their lower level class, they assumed I didn’t know anything and taught me. It wasn’t a big deal."

I completely agree with her but at the same time I think it’s important to pry Zoe away from the computer for some period each day. If we lived in a more urban area with museums, classes, and other cultural activities there would be less of a need to force the issue but since we live quite literally in the middle of nowhere diversity and learning require conscious commitment and effort.

After I finished writing this I had her read it over so she could share her thoughts with me.

Me: "What do you think of this?"

Zoe: “It makes me want to die”
Me: “I know, but which option makes you want to die the least?”
Zoe: “C”

If you have even the tiniest thought or opinion I’m really, really interested in hearing it. What would you do???

Back to School......Angst and Indecision

Don said the other day that he was interested in hearing about our home schooling and since I’m in the thick of trying to make some decisions about the upcoming semester this seemed like a really good time to post about it. First off, let me apologize if this ends up being excessively long and rambling. There are so many options and issues to deal with that I’m using this post to organize my thoughts. In fact it’s probably going to have to be broken up across several days for brevity’s sake.

Zoe has never been to school although now that she’s older that’s her choice. I feel like the most important thing is for her to learn who she is, and who she wants to be, and to live her life as freely and authentically as possible. It’s hard enough knowing your own mind but to complicate that with peer pressure and necessitated conformity would make it all the more difficult. She’s always been very outgoing and spirited and I feel confident that she has a pretty good sense of self at this point, so my concerns for her autonomy and independence are significantly lessened. On the flip side of that I think that spunk would land her butt in the principal’s office on a fairly regular basis, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone!

When she was little we completed pretty structured unit based lesson plans. The last couple of years though I’ve been trying to encourage more independent study. The idea at this point (unless she decides otherwise) is to continue homeschooling until she is 15. Then (starting out slowly) she’ll begin classes at our community college until she’s 17 or 18 and ready to move to a 4 year university.

So the bottom line is that she needs to keep pace with her peers enough to be college ready without forfeiting her individuality or self esteem. It has always been my hope that she would be excited about, and an active participant in, her own education. You know, that ideally I would have magically and elegantly inspired a lifelong enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge like some kind of rare educational guru...... luckily for her I can take a hint and have given up on that one. She does what she has to do to get the work done but we’re a far cry from self motivated exploration. We're shooting for a solid base of intellectual mediocrity while maintaining high hopes for quality of life and fostering radical, healthy, responsible, nonconforming enthusiasm. And if we can avoid a lot of tattoos and body piercings along the way, all the better!

to be continued..........

Walls.........

Anet posted her walls today and said that she thought our walls tell a lot about us. So I decided to follow her lead and post mine too. This is a photo I took of Zoe when she was 10.

This painting is by an Ohio artist but I don't remember his name.

I don't know who painted the bugs on the left but the canvas on the right was done by a friend's son when he was five. He was here last spring installing our new stove. He's in his 20's now....UGH!

This wall hanging was given to me by my brother-in-law.

This is an old painting of Larry's he did when he was young and innocent. You know, before the military and all of the angsty, world weary synicism set in.

These were both Christmas gifts from Zoe. The elephant is in the downstairs bath and the giraffe is on the balcony.

And this is another Larry painting.
Much moodier and more primal than the painting he did in his teens!

Is There Anything You Want to Tell Me???

I called my Mom in Michigan yesterday and she was busy at some funeral home planning her final moments above ground to the last detail. She’s been smoking since childhood so I imagine her health to be quite poor. She isn’t one to discuss such things so I let it go after a cursory “is there anything you want to tell me?”. We then absently continued chatting as if planning your own funeral were a perfectly natural way to spend an afternoon.

Personally, I’d like to fade back into the scenery with as little fanfare as possible when my time comes. I’m not someone who has a need to leave a legacy or footprint behind. Somewhere along the line I’ve come to understand and embrace myself as a very small part of a very wonderful/terrible/amazing existence. I haven’t always felt that way. It’s so easy to imagine being more omnipotent and responsible than we really are. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making excuses in order to justify apathy or some kind of irresponsible “anything goes” lifestyle, really I’m not. But as much as I’d love to have the capacity to influence humanity, I know that my contributions (or lack of them) will be just that, contributions.........a small part of this vast oneness. In contrast, Larry is unwaveringly optimistic of the importance of what he brings to the table. How in the world he managed 20 years in the army without having that beaten out of him is a miracle..........or pathological, I don’t know. Whichever it is, it’s kind of endearing.

Disclaimer: The artist formerly known as The Colonel has proofed and approved this message! :)

What Not to Wear

Every once in a while Kitara will have a seemingly irrational and very loud tantrum. It’s pretty normal for her to express herself vocally but when her ranting becomes an all out frenzied scream for survival you know something is up. That’s what happened this morning. From the sound of it I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a bear or mountain lion behind me, but as it turns out she was just complaining about Larry’s choice of clothing. He was wearing a red t-shirt and Kitara hates anything red. It’s very upsetting to her, and later when I tried to tell her that his barbaric and inconsiderate behavior was nothing to take personally she confided in me that she was certain it was more than a mistake; it was passive aggressive, and that deep, deep, down he fully intended to ruin her day. And now that I think about it she might be right, because it’s already noon and he hasn’t taken it off yet.

Note: Birds can see ultraviolet light and have at least four types of color sensitive cone cells. Humans have only three types of cone.

Tara mentioned in her comment a website that compares scenes as seen from the human eye with various other animals. This picture is of a field as seen by a bird. Here is an excerpt from that site:

Daytime birds see a greater range of colors than humans, including ultraviolet light. As humans, we have never actually seen many of these colors, so a bird's actual vision would be very difficult (if not impossible) to emulate here. It is generally accepted that color is much more vibrant in a typical bird's vision than it is in humans.

Not Even Once

This post isn’t about Meth Amphetamines, it’s about Methimazole. A couple of months ago I wrote about Purr’s diagnosis with hyperthyroidism and the ethical problems associated with extensive veterinary intervention. When his vet prescribed methimazole for him I strenuously voiced my concerns about its side effects because of a previous nightmare of torture, and subsequent death, that we (out of love) subjected Sylvester (a different cat) to 7 years ago. She assured me that Sylvester’s situation was a rare case and that she’d never had ANY problems like that. Well......... she has now! We’ve hit the jackpot again and let me assure you deciding what to do is very difficult when faced with a prematurely dying animal. Long story short Purr’s health quite unexpectedly and suddenly crashed last week. When we took him in his white blood cell count was 1000 when it should have been 20,000 and his platelets at one point measured 13,000 when they should have been 300,000.

He’s home now, and while his numbers aren’t normal he is improving. I’m really glad he’s doing well but that leaves us with a whole new set of problems. First of all, the vet’s guilt for almost treating him to death was not so overwhelming that she wasn’t able to personally hand me a bill for $439.87 in the middle of her heart felt apology. Add to that the $416 dollars we’ve spent on this since June for a total of $850. So problem #1 is how much is too much? $850.00 would buy:

850 dozen eggs for someone in Bangladesh
425 units of blood for transfusion in India
more than 1/2 of a house in Uganda
and 6800 cups of milk in Ghana

Each step along the way I’ve done what I thought was right, and what’s done is done, but that doesn’t lessen my awareness of the inequities I am perpetuating. And unfortunately this isn’t over. Purr still suffers from his original thyroid problem and will require treatment in the form of surgery (another $800) or other potentially dangerous medications with no guaranteed assurances of longevity, quality of life, or freedom from additional suffering. As I’m writing this it seems obvious that I have once again backed myself into the same corner I was in 7 years ago.

Last weekend was an emotional roller coaster; shock (at his sudden deterioration), followed by sadness and grief (at his impending death), and finally acceptance of our decision to put him down. Miraculously that decisiveness was just the motivation he needed to start recovering almost as quickly as he deteriorated. My ulcer, on the other hand, is not improving. And as for what to do now, I find I possess about as much clarity and resolve as a meth addict.

Yee-Haw!

I didn't have anything I wanted to post today but Goth's friend who blogs wrote this and posted it on her site. She gave me permission to repost it here as an alternative perspective of life in Wyoming as seen through the eyes of a teenager. Here's her post:

I thought that I'd clear up some common misconceptions about living in Wyoming.
-I don't ride a horse to school...
-I've never even ridden a horse.
-I don't say Yee-haw! when I'm excited.
-No, Wyoming is not in Canada.
-I don't wear 20 pounds of leather everywhere.
-Wearing leather creeps me out.
-We have pavement.
-I don't wear giant belt buckles that cover half of my upper body.
-I know this is surprising, but we actually have trees.
-Most of our trees are alive.
-Most of the younger generation have been in malls, just not here.

However, some things about Wyoming are true to the common naive tourist's viewpoint.

-It's brown.
-Or tan.
-And has no big cities.
-Whatsoever.
-Sometimes I wish I was in Canada rather than Wyoming.

Why? Because although it does have its good things... I really would rather live elsewhere!!!
However, on a good day I can almost like it here.

Almost.....

Plato's Cave

The other day in a comment Ruth said:

“Anyway, I think that was an interesting case in point that we present a limited view of ourselves - what we want our blog friends to see. And now I'm thinking what would I think of me if I only knew me through this forum?”

I think we really do present a limited view of ourselves when blogging. Much like Plato’s cave allegory we seem to exist for each other in shadow form no matter how honest our intentions. You can ask me whatever you want and I will answer you as honestly as I can and still that will only provide you with a fraction of who I am. That’s probably good because the last thing in the world you are going to want to hear about are my every insecurity and neurosis. I’m assuming you and your families have got plenty of your own idiosyncrasies to put up with. I’m not saying that we should censor ourselves so that we only present some idealized and pretentious facade but what I am saying is that it’s kind of nice to know each other through what we choose to share. Those choices in themselves say something about us. It’s as if each of you are a wonderful enigma and every time you post I am able to put another piece of the puzzle in place.

A perfect example is that awhile back Gwen posted a watercolor she did of one of her mugs. Ruth, and then I, followed her lead and also did mug posts. Because there was a whole artsy/earthy/beautiful feel to all of our posts Anet and I joked that we should also have an ugly mug contest. I really liked that idea because it seemed so honest; kind of an acknowledgment that our lives are also about mundane things like waiting in line at the grocery store, and trying to maintain some shred of dignity while spreading your legs for the gynecologist each year. So last week Anet posted her ugly mugs and while I bow to her absolute supremacy in this contest (due to Darth Vader) I still wanted to post my offering.

I think my absolute UGLIEST mug is this one. I find it’s trite religious message so repulsive that I wanted to chuck it out the window the minute it was given to us. I didn’t, out of politeness, but since just being near it is giving me the heebie-jeebies I may just go give it a good hard toss right now.

Have a GREAT day everyone!

Flickr Meme

How it’s played:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name? Sharon
2. What is your favorite food? pizza
3. What high school did you go to? West Senior High School
4. What is your favorite color? black
5. Favorite pastime? snuggling
6. Favorite drink? water
7. Dream vacation? astral projection :)
8. Favorite dessert? ice cream cake
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Wise
10. What do you love most in life? Love
11. One word to describe you. Plebian
12. What town do you live in? Story
13. What is your occupation? Life
14. What did you have for breakfast? Watermelon
15. Favorite element? Fire
16. Favorite season? Fall in Kansas
17. Favorite seasonal activity? (Hanging the) houseplants outside (signaling the start of summer).
18. Fave music when you don't know what else to listen to? Leonard Cohen
19. Celeb you would like to meet? God
20. What is on your computer desk top? Gray scale seed pod.
21. Favorite shoes? Uggs
22. Favorite alcoholic drink? none
23. Favorite candy? Reeses
24. Favorite flower? Zinnias
25. What did you do today? Soaked myself (hosing the chimney for leaks).

I borrowed this meme from Anet at The Purple Squirrel who posted it yesterday. Thanks Anet!