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
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.
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
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.
