Sunset |

Jun 18 2008

Technology, picture update, and politics

Two days of spring left. Temperature has dropped back down into the balmy 60’s (as opposed to the scorching 90’s, the steamy 80’s, and the somewhat satisfying 70’s). The house is being reclaimed by the people and animals, pushing the remnants of the pre-garden and some of the larger, hardier house plants outside. Baxter has nearly caught 175 ice cream pail lids (Frisbees) and has jumped almost to eye level–somewhere around six feet in the air. He has the legs of a frog. :) Matthew’s plucker is complete (pictures later) and is collecting parts for a garden cart and some other chicken and gardening equipment. The garden is coming up nicely. Most things are doing well around here; the exception being the tomato plants, which look more like small trees but have yet to start producing any tomatos.

As I write this, I’m listening to Chopin’s piano concerto #2 in F minor. (ED. it’s now after supper, and I’m listening to Beethovens No. 1 and No 3, Eroica) Classical music can be quite relaxing after a hard day. If you want proof, just Google ‘the effects of music’. Another good Google seach is for web radio, and the first entry has some good clasical stations. One of these days, I’ll have to try to get some classical back on the blog. Of course, the bluegrass would still be there. I’ve finally (I think) figured out how to change the content of a page by the information after the ? in the url–so you could choose which music you want–but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Technology

If you are not technologically inclined and have trouble comprehending terms such as web browser, then feel free to skip this section. Otherwise, here we go! :)

I discovered a cool new website that has some nice color combos, and I’ve tried one of my favorite on pottervilla.net. I’d love to hear what you think. Pretty soon, I’ll be re-designing this blog away from the standard (three of the people in our blog roll use the same one) to something in close correlation to pottervilla.net. Also on the agenda is moving the sidebar to the other side, so we can see the entire music player. :)

On the Tuesday of the blackout, I received a new hard drive I’d ordered (it was a day late, but I didn’t complain since I had no power to run it with :) Since then, I’ve been trying to swap that out with my current boot drive (the hard drive that runs your operating system, or in my case two operating systems), but have been having currently insurmountable difficulties with my copied dual booting setup. Now, I’m giving up and am going to use that drive as my secondary data drive. I also have an old third hard drive that I’m going to try to install Linux on. Apparently, Linux needs three partitions, and each hard drive can only support four. You can support more if you use logical partitions instead of primary partitions, but that requires having a dynamic hard drive, which apparently can only boot one operating system. It doesn’t make sense to me ether, but that’s what the computer is saying. The new hard drive should make backups a lot faster, as well, since I would only have to backup to a drive in the computer rather than to a drive all the way across the network.

Firefox 3 is finally out! It’s a worthy upgrade, especially if you already use Firefox. If you use Internet explorer, it’s still a worthy upgrade. If you use any other browser; or especially–terror of all terror–a browser provided by your internet service provider, it’s definitely an excellent upgrade. I’ve just finished outfitting mine with the quintessential Google Toolbar, ad-block plus, FlashBlock, Foxmarks (keeps your bookmarks on a server so that you can synchronize them to any computer), IE Tab (which will let you open the few pages that don’t render well in Firefox with the Internet Explorer rendering software, but you still don’t need to leave Firefox), Fire Ftp (which is a file transfer utility for your Firefox browser, better than the add supported one that I currently use), and Fox Forecast (which gives an Accuweather.com forecast for the next four or five days, day and night, as well as a radar and sever weather warning alert). McAffe SiteAdvisor is also an installed must.

Pictures

A Recient Sunset

Breakfast :)

A Sunrise

Baxter playing with Dad (the shadow)

Baxter Playing with the chicken plucker
We have a bunch more pictures of the plucker, but I’ll let Matthew post them.

A tree growing in a tree – not good

The sky and fields looking south

The flag against the sky

A Picture with interesting power lines :)

Two bushes in the new landscaping

Jimmy – one of the roosters that’s going to survive butchering time.

Politics

First off, let me say that I abhor politics. Politics is just a bunch of men (and now women) in fancy suits slinging verbal mud at each other; politics is fueled by the dirt of hard working taxpayers, and powerful corporations supply water. You and I buy the suits–not by choice, mind you–and still submit to every kind of abuse. The suit-wearers place unrealistic controls on us; they bombard us with propaganda through their servants the media; they even limit the control we have by submitting to an international “consensus” which delegates power to a committee of so-called ‘experts.’

Unfortunately, politics is necessary. Not the kind of politics that I just described above; that is the kind we have now. Some statesmen (basically truthful politicians), such as Ron Paul (who sadly dropped his bid for republican nominee), Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr still have a vision for a good government. Not all people follow the first and second commandments: love The Lord your God with all your heart, etc., and love your neighbor as yourself. Early after Israel settled in the promised land, they did not have government by man; they had judges and priests who kept things in order–some of the time at least.

Now, we have no such system. We have republicans and democrats. The republicans are hypocrites and the democrats are lairs. The truth of the matter is that a truthful democrat is ether a fool or ignorant. Republicans who do what they say are really constitutionalists.

The first issue at hand is the move to electing officials by ‘popular vote’, essentially changing America from a representative republic into a rough hewn democracy. The powers that be plan to do this without the necessary constitutional amendment. Beware the easy road; Take care when politicians make no big deal of something!

Next is an issue on which I don’t really have an opinion: whether we are better off with Barrack or Hilary. Obviously, since she dropped out, it isn’t something worth considering any longer, bar a government class paper. :)

Is the economy really in a slump now? According to bea.gov, (I realize the government can’t always be trusted, but how political are statisticians?) the ‘Real Gross Domestic Product’ has been positive since 1991, and has only been negative seven times since 1950. That’s in inflation adjusted numbers. For a good report on current inflation head over the the turtle mountain hillbilly. Inflation certainly has an effect on the economy. I know that my faimily (and probably most people reading this) are spending less these days than they have previously. In inflation adjusted dollars, dad’s making a lot less now than he did five years ago. I guess that constitutes economic problems. But then, we live in michigan where our wonderful democratic governer managed to pull the state into economic crisis well before anyone else felt anything, then (in my opinion) pulled the rest of the country with us. :)

Concluding thoughts:

“The more you read and observe about this Politics thing you got to admit that each party is worse than the other.” – Will Rogers

“A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.” – Adlai Stevenson

“You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream — the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.” – Ronald Regan

“The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.” – Adolf Hitler

“This is what the king who will reign over you will do:…He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants…He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.” – selections from Samuel 8.

Wow, 10%… we need a king!

“But when the crop comes in, give a fifth of it to Pharaoh.” – Genesis 47:24

20%…We need a pharaoh!

Now To him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!

In his name,

Jonathan

Tags: Baxter, Jonathan, Plant starting, Spring, Sunrise, Sunset

1 comment

May 13 2008

Fire Rainbow!? & etc…

Posted by Jonathan

Well, I finally have something to blog about. Looking south over our house, I believe I have seen a fire rainbow! What a gift from God!

According to Wikipedia,

A circumhorizontal arc or circumhorizon arc (CHA), also known as a fire rainbow, is a halo or an optical phenomenon similar in appearance to a horizontal rainbow, but in contrast caused by the refraction of light through the ice crystals in cirrus clouds.

It occurs only when the sun is high in the sky, at least 58° above the horizon, and can only occur in the presences of cirrus clouds. It can thus not be observed at locations north of 55°N, except occasionally from mountains.^[1]

The phenomenon is quite rare because the ice crystals must be aligned horizontally to refract the high sun. The arc is formed as light rays enter the horizontally-oriented flat hexagonal crystals through a vertical side face and exit through the horizontal bottom face. It is the 90° inclination that produces the well-separated rainbow-like colours and, if the crystal alignment is just right, makes the entire cirrus cloud shine like a flaming rainbow.^[2]^[1]

A circumhorizontal arc can be confused with an infralateral arc when the sun is high in the sky; the former is however always oriented horizontally where the latter is oriented as a section of a rainbow, e.g. as an arc stretching upwards from the horizon.^[2]

I checked the pictures of infralateral arcs, and this wasn’t it. Although I realize that this rainbow in the sky wasn’t nearly as bright as some of the ones documented across the internet, I doubt that I will ever see one again–a circumhorizontal arc, the rarest of all meteorological phenomena!

Pretty Cool, huh?

One of our music providers has gone off line, so all we have on the blog right now is bluegrass. Sigh… ;-)

Lets see…there are some flowers out, so here’s some pictures of them:

These are just a few of the little wonders God has scattered across our yard.

Here’s a picture of our front sign (the one mom painted):

And one of the beloved dog who wishes that I would quit taking pictures and play with him. :-)

Speaking of the dog, I reciently found some pictures of him from before he came to our house:

And here are matthew’s chicks (more due to arrive Monday):

Some of those chickens(by my reckoning) have got to be from the weirdest parts of God’s creation.

Finally, Matthew’s newly revised (and much sturdier [he replaced his 12 1/2″ pvc pipe hoops with 6 1″ steel pipes {bent to spec–he went over to the gentleman from church’s house

and curved them on his trailer–and anchored to the ground via fence posts}]) hoop house:

And now I’m running out of pictures.

The DSL Chronicles

Every spring through fall, our DSL internet service becomes spotty. This year, with mom teaching Koreans English, we need better than spotty. So, we(she) have been constantly on the phone with the central office, or shepherding a tech around the house(technically, the service people shouldn’t need to be kept track of, but some of the ones we get need to be told where the mouse is at the computer[really, it’s true!] even though we keep it on a tray like most people do). One tech even came on the phone with the people at headquarters to tell me to undo what he did when he was here. Good thing I was watching. :-)

There was a really nice, knowledgeable guy (definitely a divine blessing) out from AT&T (the owners of the phone line, but unfortunately, not providers of DSL in this area) who checked all the lines for faults, and came up with no problems. He even told us all the technical information to relay to the service provider to backup his story. However, we still cannot seem to reliably and speedily connect to the internet, like we can all winter.

As their last possible fix(or so they say), the service provider is going to order a new line from the roadside box to our house. There’s not much else we can do ether after they throw up their hands, as they seem to be the only DSL provider in this area. The cable line stops up the road, and satellite has too much of a lag. We could look into getting an air card(which gets internet from the cell towers)but that is pretty expensive.

The Close of Band

We had our last band rehearsal on yesterday, and the concert is next Monday. We are playing(not necessarily in this order):

The William Bird Suite(movements 1 and 6)
Abrams Pursuit
Liberty Bell
The 1812 Overture
Marche Hongroise
Salute to America’s Finest

I’m not sure what we will do in the way of brass music over the summer, but we might startup the PotterVilla a Capriccio again.

Friends, Children, Countrymen!

We had some friends from the UP (that’s the upper peninsula to non-Michiganders–we live in the lower peninsula) come down to visit us for the homeschool conference. We got to look after four of their five kids while they went to the big city for the conference. Compared to ‘normal’ kids, these guys (actually more girls, as they only have one boy out of five) are very well behaved, and a joy to have over the weekend. When they come is one of the only times we get out the knex(see knex.com) and build stuff. Since the toys follow basic building principles, it’s pretty easy to build some BIG stuff. While they were here, we built a ferris wheel that stood about three feet high (we have built stuff that scraped the ceiling–and higher). There was some smaller stuff to come out of the weekend too, but not worthy of mention. I plan (if I ever get around to it) to make mother a knex spinning wheel out of the pretty hefty circular center. Knex is sturdy enough that I think it could actually be pretty useful. :-) Mother has this thing about standing up (it’s a miracle that she can even walk, due to a back problem, and a risky surgery–but more on that another day) so a drop spindle doesn’t work the greatest for her. Ether treadled or motorized, I think a knex spinning wheel would do the trick without costing a fortune. Mom doesn’t even know if she likes spinning yet, so the less investment the better.

While the kids were here, Matthew and I slept on the floor, him in his little closet/plant growing room, and me in the office/music room. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but we managed. That way, the four oldest kids could sleep in our room. Their parents slept downstairs in the guest/exercise room (notice that a lot of rooms have two functions? it’s the key to a useful house) with the youngest. We had contemplated sleeping outside, but since the weather was iffy, and we ended up not venturing out.

Current Events

Right now, Matthew is building outside (ether a chicken tractor, a whizzbang chicken plucker, a whizzbang garden cart, or something else I’m not aware of :-), mom is upstairs doing something I’m not aware of, and dad is somewhere I’m not aware of. Our internet is very spotty now, making it difficult to do web programing. Blogger seems to make it through some though.

Self imposed summer school starts several weeks from now, when I can hopefully finish up my advanced physics and trig. Also on the agenda, calculus, art (one of these times, I may finally learn how to draw!) and music should help fill in the time in between doing computer work, helping keep up outside, and operating my brother’s and mine lawn mowing business, dubbed PotterVilla Acres lawn care services. We mow about three of four lawns over the summer (mostly for widows from church, so we don’t charge much–however the price of gas is beginning to change that :-
Concluding Thoughts

I’m afraid I didn’t follow my last post’s advice very well, and sorry for the long post. We did have a lot to catch up on, though. :-)

Let’s finish off with a verse(actually 2):

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Makes for a nice end of a long post, doesn’t it? When the Apostle Paul wrote it, it was in the middle of a letter to the Ephesians. I still like it at the end.

Anyway, we’ll talk to you all later (whether by reading your blog or in the comments of blogs or whatever :-) and hope all you mothers out there had a wonderful day devoted to you by people who are always devoted to you.

Thanks for reading,

In His name,

For His glory,

And trying to follow His path,

Jonathan Potter
for PotterVilla Academy

Tags: Baxter, Chicks, children, Dog, DSL, Fire Rainbow, friends, Jonathan, spinning, Spring, Sunset, Wind

2 comments

Mar 23 2008

A Sunset over “Ice Fields Parkway” (Read On….)

Posted by Matthew

This morning when we woke up to 15 degree temperatures we were wondering if there had ever been an Easter this cold! But I guess that this isn’t actually the earliest that Easter can be–March 22 is, given the right circumstances. It makes things interesting having the date of the Holy day determined by the equinox and the moon. You see Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring (the equinox). [that’s it for useful information today I think–the rest of this will just be scraps and oddments :-) ]

But on to the sunset (from last night). Allow me to set the scene: We were invaded. They came in overwhelming numbers. We were just getting used a life free from their intimidation and threats. A life of soft summer breezes and warm sunny days. Days filled with birdsong and laughter….And then they came. We had no escape. The land was again viciously thrust under their control. An icy cold grasp, usually unrelenting, and one that would choke the life out of the flora and fauna if given half a chance….

But before you get to feeling too sorry for us, I’ll tell you what happen….No it wasn’t grasshoppers, Asian lady beetles (although we have been besieged by them numerous times before–not fun!), or stray cats–it was snow flakes. (Of course you knew that from the last post, but a guy’s gotta take a little “poetic license” now and a again) (Oh, and I don’t really hate winter that much but I am ready for spring!) Thankfully, their days are numbered. And while this really is NOT a sunset over Ice Fields Parkway, here it is. (On an “oddment” note, we have been on the Ice Fields Parkway and, in my unprofessional opinion….it’s not that great. Now don’t get me wrong, it was “interesting,” but the actual Ice Fields are so far away. Now if we had been able to climb on them….) (Oh, yeah, the photo…coming right up…)

The following picture was taken looking West [obviously–it was a sunSET ;-) ] over the vast, endless snow pack that stretched to horizon, that wet, fluffy (or sloppy) white stuff that had taken back over the landscape

Even in this picture you can see that the sun had actually melted the tops of the hills off. However, that morning there was at least a good 8 to 10 inches everywhere and more in the drifts. It is a good packing snow, if it wasn’t going to melt off so fast I would be tempted to build another snow fort. Some time in January, or February (or was it December…hmmm….) we had one that covered about a third of the patio outside the back door….not the best place because we had to roll all of the snow balls up hill! And we’re not talking just little snow balls either, we’re talking at least three and a half feet tall and between a foot and a half to three feet thick.

Our favorite fort was not even built in Michigan though, it was in a state to the South West…New Mexico! We were on vacation (either en-route to the Grand Cannon or on our way home, I forget) and staying in Glorietta at the Southern Baptist Convention Center of the same name (great place to stay by the way, they have sort of like apartment with a couple of bedrooms and a kitchen all for rent at a very reasonable rate (at least when we were there) they have one in Western North Carolina too–Ridgecrest) any way we were staying up in the mountains, and the night of the day after we arrived and got unpacked (in our short sleeve shirts) it snowed. It did not snow a little. It snowed a lot! It started snowing Sunday night, by Monday morning we had got roughly 18 inches, by Tuesday morning 2 feet! It was great! The best part of the whole trip! We had (optimistically) taken our winter coats and the snow shoes–Praise the Lord (PTL) and good idea Mom!! Did I mention that it was the middle of March and the danger of snow was basically past? Yes I do believe God had his hand it that….(as some would say “meddling again.” Nice when He does that isn’t it?) Let’s see where was I….Oh yes the snow fort. We met the people staying next door, a pastor and his wife and two girls, rounding out their vacation before going back to Ok city to finish moving, and any way the girls built a little mound-up-a-bit-of-snow-and-call-it-a-fort fort, and we thought it would be fun to show them what a Michigan fort looked like. So we rolled up a bunch of two foot snow ball and stacked them all up nicely–even built in seats and a “fridge” to hold watter bottles! But the best part of that fort was the snow was so deep it didn’t take much to get a really big snow ball, AND there was a lovely hill right handy so we could roll the ball down hill. That was probably our biggest and best fort ever. Even Mom helped build it. And I bet it melted a couple of days later. (we had to leave the next day, I think it was to go home…)

Dad and I also got to go snow shoeing up the mountain in the snow. We were following some sort of trail–I think! It followed and kept crossing a beautiful mountain stream, the pines were laden with piles of powder and the woods were silent except for the rushing brook. It was great.
Another thing I really liked about staying there was the hot lunches. That may sound strange, but I liked it…all the soup and sandwiches…the…the…um…there must have been something else, but now I don’t remember. Maybe it wasn’t that great after all :-) (I’m sure it was)

Oh before I forget here is another interesting shot of the same sunset:

The snow started settling shortly after it fell, and by today we’re down to about 3 to 6 inches. The plowed/shoveled areas are melted off and quite dry. The Robins are glad for someplace without snow!

On a different subject….

This morning at church we had an early service at eight, breakfast at nine, Sunday school and ten, and the regular service (not a meeting–I hate meetings!) at eleven. A rather full morning. And since there would be no food for breakfast if we all didn’t bring any….I’m sure you get the point. Mom was able to prepare her offerings yesterday so we didn’t have to think about that this morning, PTL. She usually makes Empty Tomb rolls, and this year was no exception. These are special rolls that are, can you guess?, that’s right–empty! For any one interested in the recipe, here it is:
Homemade Bread dough (None out there would even think of using…horror of all horrors…store bought now would they?)
Marshmallows (We don’t make our own of these for some reason…perhaps it’s the air puffing that’s the hard part)
First preheat your oven to a low temp to raise the bread. (or don’t preheat and just turn it on when you get the rolls in there!) Next take a piece of dough a little bigger than a golf ball (for you fellow poor deprived non-golfers, that’s about a two inch lump. We know about golf balls due to having a golf course practically in our back yard (used to be a corn field….sigh. I’ve heard it plays like it’s still a corn field–maybe one day again)) take the dough and shape it around a marshmallow. Make sure you seal it up really well or all of the sticky marshmallow will leak out on to your greased baking sheet. (I did mention that part didn’t I? Grease them well, or you may be sorry!) Once you have about three or four hundred dozen of these made (or how ever many you care to make) and placed on your greased cookie sheet, place them in your warm (but not hot–you don’t want to melt the marshmallow yet) oven to rise. Once they have risen to the appropriate size (roughly doubled or so) crank the temp up to about 350 degrees and bake them for about 20 minutes (or till they’re done–if you leave ’em in there too long the smoke alarm will go off and that batch will have to go to the chickens, or pigs, or goats or something–maybe just cut the bottom off) When you cut the perfectly browned product in half there will be a hole in the middle–just like the empty grave Easter morning. So there you have it a delicious breakfast treat, kind of sugary (somehow sugar seems to be the main ingredient in marshmallows. You’d never guess from how sweet they taste [insert sarcasm into that last remark if you haven’t already]), but good. And if you actually can follow that recipe amongst all the commentary you deserve a prize! (please note I did NOT say that you would get one, just that you deserved one!) Have fun baking!

At least with two services this morning there are none to night–kind of nice to just stay home and rest once and awhile.

The hoop house is doing fairly well. The snow load on the West side turned it into and A frame for awhile but I think I have it straighten out again. The grass is really greening up in there. Inside of the Hoop Coop, a.k.a. chicken tractor, which is inside of the hoop house, the grass is up tall enough to mow already! If I ever get some chicken to the point to where they live long enough to go out side, they will really like it I imagine. The new batch of chick is due tomorrow morning–bright and early I’m sure–the last time the Post Office called me at 6:11am. I got rid of all the old bedding and disinfected the feeders/waterers so hopefully this batch will do a lot better than the last batch. (100% mortality in about two weeks!) We will see.

The plants I have growing upstairs are doing fairly well. I am never sure how much to water. I need to plant some more stuff too–peppers, redo some tomatoes, and start some butterchrunch head lettuce. Any advice on starting seeds (or chicks for that matter) would be appreciated….I’ve never done this stuff before and am just about the definition of a bumbling amature :-)

Well that’s all for now,

Until next time,

Matthew

Tags: Chicks, Easter, Matthew, Seeds, Sunset

2 comments

Technology, picture update, and politics

Fire Rainbow!? & etc…

A Sunset over “Ice Fields Parkway” (Read On….)

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Technology, picture update, and politics

Fire Rainbow!? & etc…

A Sunset over “Ice Fields Parkway” (Read On….)

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