And the Beat Goes On...

My favorite word of the week has got to be: dour. I find it a wonderfully descriptive, and all inclusive adjective. I've found so many situations to fit it into and I'm having fun using around the house. I'm sure Spencer is sick to hear me use it. I can imagine his eyes rolling right now. I'm not saying I'm exhibiting this word, far from it. But I've found a use for it in my book and I'm happy to report that several of my characters will be quite dour indeed. It always make for a good story.

I am so excited! Tonight I get to meet Brandon Mull, the author of the Fablehaven series. He is wonderful. They are somewhat children's books; but I find them interesting since they are fantasy books as well. He is speaking at Southern Virginia University and I was invited by a professor to attend his class. It should be awesome. I'm so nervous.



Spencer is reading a book for one of his classes, it is, "Chasing Vermeer". A wonderful book for children, but it's a mystery. The children use these mathmatical blocks to help them solve the mystery. They are called Pentominoes, it's like saying Domino, but put the word Pent infront of it and take away the D...took me a while to figure it out. Anyway they are super awesome tools for thinking mathmatically, you have to get them to fit together and make a square or rectangle without any gaps or overlapping, there are thousands of solutions depending on how big of a square you make. I am going to the craft store to buy some small blocks, glue them togehter and make the twelve different shapes. They are named after letters of the alphabet, whichever they resemble the closest. I think they will be a great tool in homeschooling.

Meredith has been using the potty. We are so proud of her. She wont tell us when she has to go though, but if we take off her diaper and leave the potty out, she'll run and sit on it when she has to go. If she has a diaper on, she'll just use it. At least we are getting somewhere.

Xavier just went to the doctor and he weighs 15 pounds. He's dropped from the 90% to the 75%! But his height is only in the 50%...I want him to be tall, not short like me. Meredith already got that, so I hope he gets a growth spurt later on.

Meredith ate some poisonous berries yesterday, they are called Poke Berries. They grow on a plant called Pokeweed. I called poison control, and luckily, she'd only eatten a small amount so she was fine. If she'd popped in a few more she would have been puking, and if she'd eatten a whole bunch her respiratory system would have been paralized and she would have died. So we are going to be cutting down all these weeds soon. They are only toxic to mammals, so our goats shouldn't be near them either. But they are great for birds. So we acan just feed them to the chickens. Some people actually eat the leaves and berries in a salad...after they boil out the toxins. Weird! Why not just eat lettuce? Anyway, some websites state that these plants, once mature in late fall will glow in the dark, creepy. They are all over here in Virginia, and I've lived here a while, and I've never seen anything glowing in the dark.

Here it is, by popular demand, a picture of our eggs. The first two are white eggs that come from our leghorns. The first egg has a double yolk. You can tell because it's so much larger than the first. And no, if this egg were to be fertilized, it would not be twins. The yolk is the food for the baby chick, the white is the part that becomes the chicken. This is why chicks can live without food for the first few days and are able to be shipped across the country to farms. Nature did this so that the chick would have food while waiting for the fellow eggs to hatch. The hen doesn't let you out until all or most of the eggs have hatched, so they would starve before getting food if they were the first egg to hatch. The third egg is a brown one from our only female Astro. she is a beautiful hen, and the rooster is beautiful as well. The egg can seem a bit purple, or maroon, but it's supposed to be brown. And the last two are from our Americanas. The fourth egg is green while the last egg is blue. It's hard to tell the difference, but heck, you can at least tell it's not the normal white egg in the grocery store. They are quite mild compared to store brand eggs, the yolks are almost orange. The actually remind me of the color of the yolk in the Cadburry Easter Eggs. We have a few people buying some. I know organic eggs sell for a lot in the store, but our chickens are going to lay eggs whether or not we sell them, so we aren't charging huge amounts. If anyone close by wants eggs let us know, we'll see if we can supply some to you.
Well, it's back to my book. I have to learn how to write imagery, which I apparently stink at.

Also, one last note. I am grateful to all of you who read my blog, and love it. I love each of your blogs as well. And I do read them. I just hate posting things because I have dial-up. IF and WHEN we get high-speed, I will be more faithful in posting comments. It just takes all my patience to make my own blog, as well as pull up everyone elses. So by the time I read your blogs, I find that I cannot stand waiting another ten minutes to say what I wanted to. Beside, by then I've told myself I was going to say something stupid as a comment anyway and you wouldn't want to hear it. I hope you all don't think this blog thing is one sided. Sorry!