Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Our Fascinating Bird Of Prey

For the past three weeks there has been a red-tailed hawk that has been sitting down by the horse pen. The first time I saw him, I was doing my chores. It did not seem unusual, until he came back the next day, and the next day and the next.


We have seen lots of hawks fly or land around, but this hawk has been acting very strangely. He flies down before noon every day and lands on the t-post. Every time I try to take a picture, he flies away.


The red-tailed hawk is a bird of prey known as a raptor. They have two long wings and a short wide tail. They are a reddish brownish color. There are more than 250 species of hawks. All hawks use their feet to catch and grip their prey. This also allows them to capture and carry their meals while they are flying.


We all thought that he might be down there to try to catch the new chicks that we recently bought. So, we wanted to scare him away. We would chase him away, and the next thing you know he would be back again. He never seemed interested in the chicks, so, we left him alone.


Samuel saw the hawk fly down to the ground and catch something, but he did not know what it might have been. Then the next day, we saw him fly to the ground and grab something, and then he flew away. It looked like a mouse. The hawk is being helpful by decreasing the rodent population in our barnyard.


It is always cool to look down and see the hawk sitting there on the t-post. He is probably thinking of what he is going to eat for dinner. It is amazing how God designed this fascinating bird of prey.
~Isaac

Thursday, February 8, 2024

One Ring for Thirteen

On our birthday when turning thirteen, every girl in our family has gotten a birthstone ring. All my older sisters already have theirs, so I was especially excited to get mine. This year it was my turn to get one!


It came in a small little blue box, and I knew what it was and was excited to open it up. I pulled off the pretty colored paper carefully and saw my special ring. Mine is a garnet with white stones surrounding it and the color of the ring’s stone is red. I think that is a pretty color. It sparkles while holding it under the light. A garnet is a crystal that comes in many different colors. The most well-known color of this silicate mineral is red. I slipped the ring on my finger, and it fit perfectly! It’s lovely and exactly what I wanted.


Rings have been around for almost five thousand years. Egyptian kings wore them, and the garnet was even discovered in the art of their times. The word garnet comes from an old word that means pomegranate. It is thought that it is the color of the seed. The garnet has inspired many legends that talk about love, friendship, light, and vitality.


Now the hard part for me will be having it stay on my finger. Amanda told me how she lost her stone while she was working in the garden. Rachel had lost her ring too. Jayla once lost her stone from her ring, and later Jonah found it under the couch. Halayah has gotten a whole new ring, because her ring got lost from her finger. My plan is to keep it tightly on my finger and so far, that’s exactly what I’ve done.


So having a ring is a big responsibility for everyone. That’s why I’m going to take the best care of it I can and see how long I can keep it. I really enjoy gazing at it on my finger while I’m having fun doing all kinds of things. I got a ring for thirteen, and I like it extremely well. I had a great birthday.

-Unique 

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Radical Radicles


Last year, when the last of the produce had been gathered from our garden, instead of letting the boxes lay empty and bare, Dad decided to plant some late fall/winter plants. We scattered a few boxes with spinach seeds and worked up others to hold some late lettuce. Dad had already informed us that we would plant some turnips, but everyone was surprised when we found that six of our garden boxes had been prepared and planted with the globular radicles.


We recently had not planted nor harvested many turnips. However, we all watched and waited to see what would come to fruition from this year’s enterprise. All throughout the year, the garden had been in my charge and still was so when we decided to try late planting.


In the beginning of the colder season, the boxes did not call for visits from me every day, like they had in the summer. Nevertheless, I kept an occasional eye on the progress of the newly planted seedlings. The spinach and the lettuce grew sparsely, but we were able to have a few salads from them. The turnips, however, grew and grew and grew some more until those six boxes in the garden were probably the greenest vegetation on our farm.


Turnip greens store tons of vitamins A and C. The vitamin A from the turnip is great for vision improvement and also for strengthening the immune system. The vitamin C it provides is used by our body in building blood vessels, bone, and cartilage. Since our turnip greens grew so profusely and suddenly, we chose not to eat any of them and waited instead for the purple and white topped globes to form. The turnip bulbs contain lesser amounts of the same vitamins.


Before we knew it, the turnips were ready for harvesting. All throughout December we were able to enjoy the fruit of our labor in a couple of different ways. Mashed turnips ended up being our favorite way to fix and eat these root stock. When the cold weather set in, the turnips still lived on. Now in the first month of the new year, we are still harvesting produce from these radical radicles!
~Halayah

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Bungs For Years to Come



Not too long ago, we received a gift of bungs from Granny and Papaw! Bungs are the plugs for wooden barrels. The round wooden pieces are fun to play with, as they are great for building towers and making castles. Another thing they are good for, is playing a game kind of like Jenga.


On Mom’s side of the family, they would play a game that they called bungs. Mom’s cousins worked at the bung factory and would bring the damaged bungs back for kindling. After a while, the wooden bungs began being played and used for making towers on the pool table where it could be better seen. You would build a circle shaped tower with the bungs, then you would try to remove one of the lower layered bungs from the tower and place it on the top of the tower. After a while, the tower would get weak at the bottom from the lack of support. If the castle fell on your turn, then you were out. Not too long after Mom’s family made up the game, a game came out called Jenga.


Bungs were originally made as plugs for wine barrels. The round shaped wooden bungs are made mostly out of poplar wood, which expand in the barrel’s hole making a watertight seal. The chipped or damaged bungs were sold or given away as kindling, as they were good for starting fires.


While the family was here for Christmas, I played a game of bungs with a few of my nieces and nephews! We had a little trouble trying to keep the tower from being knocked down by some of the younger members of the family, but finally managed to complete our structure. Then the game started, and although the rules weren’t followed to the letter, we still had lots of fun.


On Isaac’s birthday, we had a big game of bungs! We built our tower on the kitchen table so that everyone could easily get around to play. We carefully moved around the table, trying not to bump into it. Each time a bung was removed, the tower shifted. 


The birthday boy had the tower fall on his turn two times and Halayah had it fall on her once. As the third tower fell, I managed to catch it on slow motion video! It was amazing to see the whole tower fall very slowly. I love seeing the reaction on everyone’s faces. We had a lot of fun. The biggest official Jenga tower had a count of 1,840 Jenga pieces! Our bung towers are big, but not that big.


I love the game we play with bungs; I am glad Granny and Pawpaw gave them to us. I am sure that they will last a long time and that we will enjoy playing with them for many years to come.

- Samuel 

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

To the Moon and Part Way Back


What does 120,000 laps at the Daytona Speedway, traveling coast to coast 100 times, making 75 round trips across the Atlantic Ocean, navigating 12 journeys around the world, or going to the moon and partway back have in common with my 2002 Chevy Suburban? They are all distances our automobile could have traveled up to now in its lifetime.




This month marked the 300,000th mile of my trustworthy mode of transportation. While many of the miles were put on the SUV by a previous owner, nearly a third of its life has been spent as my traveling partner. The Bureau of Transportation says that most cars today can be expected to run up to 200,000 miles. That is a far cry better than cars from years gone by, when 100,000 miles meant it may be time to look for a trade in. The Model T from the 1920’s would rarely make it to 100,000 miles and had to be overhauled every 20,000. So, this milestone of my Suburban is a significant feat!

Terry Hunt's Ice Cream Can Celebrate Anything!

While in its day, my Suburban was probably quite the gem. Today, time has definitely taken its toll. A collision with a couple of rogue deer, a little rust on the side panels, and a few dings here and there show signs of its age. A little smoke from the exhaust, a new transmission, and some cracks in the seats also bear testimony of better days. Yet, it keeps rolling along as my trustworthy transport on our old dusty roads, rarely giving me any grief.


The day will come when the life of the vehicle will come to an end, but today is not that day. Every mile that I currently drive is pretty inexpensive as long as no major repairs are needed. They say the car you drive reflects a little about your personality. I think thrifty would be the trait that would come to mind with my work vehicle. It gets me where I’m going and brings me back home in a safe, reliable, and economical way. While the new car smell is long gone, I am still grateful for each mile the car continues to traverse in getting me to my intended destination. 400,000?
~Mark

Thursday, January 25, 2024

A Word or Two


Who does not love getting a letter in the mail from a friend, a Christmas card during the holidays, or just a little note from a loved one? What makes this little charge of thoughtfulness even more special is when it is written by hand. It tells you something about the person when there was time taken to write even a few words! You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life.


Writing by electronic use has become more common than handwriting, but pencil, pen and paper will always have its place. Writing by hand is an incredibly important skill, whether it is for taking notes, filling out documents, journaling, or writing a letter to a friend. Good penmanship shows that you care, and it adds a certain charm to your words. I’ve seen it time and again: our cursive is so neat and straight when we have first learned, then it does not take long for our good penmanship to decline as we get familiar with the letters and sacrifice neatness for speed. Writing becomes highly automated using motor programs stored in our memory. The roundness or sharpness of letters, spacing, slope, pressure of pen to paper, average letter size, and thickness of the letters, are all qualities that make each person’s writing style unique.


Everybody’s handwriting is different and unique. Why else do they have you sign your name on every important document? As a matter of fact, when one attempts to forge a signature, the name to be copied is generally held upside down so the forger’s penmanship (due to the familiarity of the letters) does not interfere with the attempt.


Handwriting does take time, but studies show it is good for the brain. Writing develops motor control skills using motor coordination of multiple joints in the hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder to form characters on the page. The forming of letters depends on the sensory information from skin, joints, and muscles of the hand, as it adjusts movement and pressure to changes in the friction between the pen and paper. Writing strengthens our memory because it involves 100% focus and attention. It improves learning because it gives us more time to think thoroughly about the subject being recorded as opposed to fast typing on a keyboard.


It takes so very little effort to write a few words on a pre-made card, but it adds so much more depth to the recipient. The pen and written word have so much power! As Dale Carnegie put it so well, “You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world’s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.” 


Why not pull out a pen and paper today… right now? Someone you know could use a little note of kindness. The bathroom mirror is a nice place to put a note. The lunchbox? The shoe? Slipped under the door? In a mailbox?
~Jayla

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

A Ride to Remember


While we were at Myrtle Beach, Dad and Mom took us out to go on a helicopter ride! We had never ridden in a helicopter or an airplane before, and we were all very excited and scared at the same time. We pulled into the little airport where Oceanfront Helicopters was located. We walked into the building to sign up for a ride.


We were considering taking the five-minute trip, but the employee working there told us that it was a very short ride. After some discussion, we decided to take the Broadway Tour. This took you up 90 feet above sea level for ten minutes in the air, and you got a beach tour along the coastline with views of local attractions, including the Grand Strand and the boardwalk.


The helicopter could only hold four people total and there were ten of us, so we had to split up into groups. Mom and Dad were together, so were Jayla and Samuel. Halayah, Unique, and Isaac were in a group together. My group included Mamaw and Aunt Sue.


After we were organized into our groups, we headed out to the landing pad where the helicopter was waiting. The first ones to ride were Samuel and Jayla. They climbed into the copter with the help of two employees. When they were in and the door was shut, the helicopter lifted off the ground and was soon out of sight! We stood in our spots, amazed to see them go. When we saw the copter flying back in over the trees, we knew our turn was getting closer. After they had landed, Samuel and Jayla were let out, and Mom and Dad were in for the next ride.



After they were back, it was our turn. Mamaw and Aunt Sue got into the two back seats, and I was able to sit in the front seat beside the pilot. After buckling and putting on our headphones, the door of the copter was shut, and we were off! We started lifting higher and higher into the air and heading toward the ocean. A couple of seconds later, we were hovering over the sea! It was amazing to see the water under us, and to look to my left and see the beach. The pilot told us we were 200 feet in the air and going over one hundred miles per hour! I was surprised, because it felt like we were hardly moving! We flew over the beach, and the people looked very small. We also saw Swamp Fox, one of the oldest roller coasters in the world, and the Sky Wheel in the streets of Myrtle Beach.


Sadly, it was nearing time to return. The pilot banked to the left, as we turned around to head back to the airport. As we got closer, I could see Halayah, Isaac, and Unique waiting in line for their turn to take a flight. They got bigger and bigger was we approached. After a nice smooth landing, we got out and the next riders got in.


It was thrilling to ride in a helicopter! It was fun to fly over the ocean. It was also neat to fly over the tops of the trees and see all the beautiful colored leaves. I hope someday to be able to ride in a helicopter again. It was a ride to remember.
~Jonah