Generalismo

I don’t know if I’ve posted this video before, but I figured I’d do it again because I like it so much!

I practiced a little accordion today. Actually, I played on a big one. It’s taking a bit to get used to the chromatic layout for the right hand. It’s fun though, and it’s definitely a challenge!

Yesterday we went to the dairy and pulled cucumber weeds in their cornfield. WOW. It was about half a mile long and there was no way we were going to be able to walk the length of every row in one afternoon, so we tried to scout out from the top of the bus where the biggest patches of cucumber weed were and walked out to pull them up. I did walk the entire length of the field without coming out of the row I was in, and boy was it long. And the corn leaves are so rough! I’m really glad I borrowed on of Dad’s hats and had long sleeves on. Hopefully we got most of the weeds out, but I know there are still some hiding in there.

Then I went and washed down the floor in the milking parlour, and we went home. And then I slept well

Posted by Bonnie under agriculture, music, outdoors

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Is this the reason my viewer count has gone down? That I post about getting new mugs?

I bought a little basket of chocolates and such that was marked down after Valentines Day (yes, I have to buy chocolates for myself), and there was a Starbucks mug in there. Now I’ve never even been to Starbucks, but it was a big mug, and that’s good when you’re trying to ensure sufficient coffee intake. So it made my top mug spot and I’ve drunk a lot of coffee out of it.

Well, it broke last week. And I had just happened to pick up another mug at a second hand store that I work at! I don’t know why I like it so much. The design (short and fatter as opposed to tall and skinny, and yes, that does represent how I’ll be if I drink too much sweetened iced coffee with half and half) bugs me just a little because liquid tends to splosh out easier. But it’s so…so..um, I don’t know what it is, but I’m particularly enamored with it for some strange reason.

So let’s take a moment to analyze. Up to this point I haven’t done so. The ridges on the outside resemble clapboards on a house. Or perhaps the way a pine tree is shaped, with ridges to indicate the gradual widening of the base of the tree. And the lovely oatmeal color inside that pokes out. This could indicate two things. No three. One is that I like the word OATMEAL as a color. It just feels good. I mean hey, who doesn’t like wearing oatmeal colored socks? Not tan or beige. Those wool socks that are not white but rather natural looking are oatmeal. Second, the explosion of oatmeal color on the outside could represent a generous helping of whipped cream on top of a steaming drink. Or, most poetically, it could represent a mountain covered with snow. Aha! I must be liking this mug because it represents everything I would like in the camping trip that hasn’t worked out to happen yet. Yes, of course

So now that my coffee is old and stale because I took so much time to blog, I need to go pour some into my new mug

Posted by Bonnie under food, outdoors

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Have you ever gotten in one of those moods where you are inclined to extended periods of staring? I have them sometimes when I’m playing guitar for fun and a particular phrase comes out that engages my mind, and right now my mind must be engaged with thought. I keep staring. Hah. Even while I’m writing this I’m inclined to staring. It’s possible it’s because my sleep pattern is getting messed up (it always gets changed when we’re on the road!).

The funny thing is that I can’t always identify which thoughts are making me prone to stare. Ahh…well. On to more interesting things.

I went in a minute ago to get the card out of the camera so I could post some pictures from this weekend but there were only about a dozen on there. Someone must have already dealt with them and uploaded them to a computer. No big deal, but it means no pictures in this post Unless I post from the archive. I think I’ll just click on a random page in my album and post something from it.
Ok, here’s The Little Trumpet That Was, from page 45 (current page is one, the oldest page is the highest numbered).

You may notice that I used the past tense of “to be,” and indeed this trumpet is no longer. The robbers took it out of its case and stepped on it I guess they just don’t have time to pay attention to what has fallen on the floor and where they are stepping. I had made it for a contest, including moving valves with springs made out of a high E guitar string wrapped around a pin. It lost, of course

Heh, this is the oldest picture in the book, so to speak

He can still do that, but he never does it with his Huber!! (No kidding!).

Ah! Page 41, another similar picture.

Last one for today, from page 37, because I’m looking forward to summer thunderstorms:

Posted by Bonnie under outdoors, pictures

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Sooo..we went to butcher a cow yesterday. I’ve never assisted butchering anything larger than a racoon, and believe me, it’s a lot more backbreaking to do a cow than a racoon! The hide alone weighs over 50 lbs, and the guts weighed so much it was incredible.

We cut open several stomachs. One to get out the tripe, the other to see the amazing folds that the farmer told us we’d find. One had little fingers like grass in it, it was quite neat. The tripe one was FULL of grass. Well maybe not full, but there must have been 5 gallons of grass in there, looking almost like it had just been mowed and mixed with a little water. Quite incredible for a city girl like me! Actually I’m not quite a city girl, and I guess butchering a cow moves me closer to the country girl status ;)

Above is a picture of the omasum.  See all those folds! It’s incredible. I also found here that they sell salted omasum, so it must be edible. Visit this site for more anatomy pictures of cow stomachs and other animal organs.

A cow has four stomachs; the rumen, reticulum, omasum and the abomasum. I knew cows had four stomachs but I didn’t really pay attention till I had seen the stomachs come out of a cow. Here’s a site about the digestive process of a cow.

The hide is really neat. I think someone’s going to get a rug We also got the eyes for dissection purposes, and intestines for sausage. Anyone got a recipe? I know they need to be scraped down and the meat needs to be seasoned, but I’m not sure with what, exactly.

Definitely visit this blog for more info about our butchering exerience.

Posted by Bonnie under agriculture, food, learning, outdoors

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Did you know the average surface temperature of the earth is around 60 degrees fahreheit? (15 celsius)

The circumference of the earth is about 24,900 miles around. That’s about 131,472,000 feet and would take you 88.66 days (2,128 hours) to run if you kept up the pace (11.7 mph) of the 2007 Boston Marathon winner!
And of course, you’d need to be able to walk on water too, as you’d have to cover some of the water that covers about 70% of the surface area of the earth.

Speaking of water, there are an estimated 326 million cubic miles of water in the rivers, atmosphere, oceans, groundwater, and other places on earth. Each cubic mile of water is an astonishing 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) gallons of water, making the total amount of water 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons. While I was looking for the info on how many zeros this figure would contain I found this table of zeros to number names (the above figure is 326 quintillion). Why not check the table and find the highest number you know and then learn the next highest one? It’s not worth it to me to memorize the whole table up to a centillion (303 zeros), but it can’t be too hard to just memorize one more.

Posted by Bonnie under math, outdoors, running, statistics, world

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