Almost endless years of school Countless hours of study Promotions moving ever up An awful sense of duty To be the expert and make change A constant goal since youth Use of hands and head at once Connecting truth with truth Explore and build to meet demand Reflect on what's been made More to know you've done it right Than strictly to get paid A phantom of some lingering dream Haunting daily chores Wants unmet in truthful life Like salt in open sores No new ideas are his today Great works he builds no more He simply gathers and compiles… Read the rest
All posts by Peter
Fog
I’ve always liked writing, but rarely get a chance to write things not formal, technical, or even worse… bureaucratic. Given my background, you’d think anything artistic would have atrophied years ago, and in truth it probably has. However, though unqualified and not particularly gifted, every once in a while I get an urge to dust off the non-analytical parts of my self and see just how much of it is left.
In a home filled with artistic, musical, and literary talent, I often end up filling the requirement for an audience. It’s unlikely anyone would ask me to perform when … Read the rest
Kids fall asleep in the darndest places!
Updated 21 Dec 2014…
This one requires explanation. Liz found Michael asleep on the piano bench. He stirred, got up, and announced that he was going to go lay down in his bed. However, when Liz came back a few minutes later this is what she found:
Apparently he had gone to his bed, pulled a blanket off, and gone back to the piano bench to sleep. He stayed there for almost an hour.
Sydney, 2002
Sydney 2002
Isaac 2004
Isaac 2004
Isaac 2004
Isaac 2005
Sydney 2005
Isaac 2005
Isaac 2005
Isaac 2006
Isaac 2006
Michael 2012
Michael 20013
Good Ideas
The weekend after Thanksgiving we took the family up to Waco to a harvest festival put on by a group of anababtists who farm using traditional (non-mechanized) methods, teach traditional crafts, and generally do things a bit slower than the general population. Along with selling their wares, they teach a series of seminars on self sufficiency, skills like blacksmithing and beekeeping, animal husbandry, etc… It’s interesting and fun to spend a few days wandering, watching, and listening. This year, Liz came home with a few “good ideas.” Good ideas generally mean work… lots of it.
We’ve been meaning to put … Read the rest
Building the Back Yard
Every project we’ve done so far in the “yard” has been geared towards something that produces food or is food. So far projects have included things like the barn, fence, chicken coop, electric to the barn and coop, water to the animals, etc… The only thing I’ve done to the yard is to cut back the brush and let wild grasses grow in. Not much of a yard, and not particularly good at keeping the mud down when it rains.
Now that some of the major projects are done, and all the animals have homes and water, I decided to … Read the rest
Syd’s Recital
Sydney got a new piano teacher recently. For several years, she’s been tolerating lessons from Liz, but wasn’t making much progress. About six months ago we decided to try farming her out to an outside teacher to see if taking Mom out of the mix would help. Two teachers and several months later… boy did it ever!
Syd has found her soul-mate in the music world, and is enjoying learning and playing. We almost can’t get her to stop practising. Her teacher is working with her on creative stuff like improvisation and arranging pieces herself, which has really touched off … Read the rest
Free cats are REALLY hard to keep
A while back I wrote that free cats were hard to keep. That hasn’t changed. Since that post, we’ve had another three to four cats go AWOL. All of them quite friendly, dedicated, and effective at keeping the mice under control.
Our most recent mouser (Cocoa’s friend seen above) lasted only a few weeks. At this point, I can’t even remember it’s name because we’ve been through so many. Needless to say, it was named for some Shakespearian character (Guildenstern maybe).
The unfortunate thing about cats around here is that they are just about meal-sized for coyotes, and they … Read the rest
Meet Cocoa
The coyotes seem to have given us a break recently. Between permanently moving Thornton outside and doing a better job making sure the electric fence isn’t shorted out, we haven’t lost any animals to predators in a few months. So what do we do to celebrate… get more animals I guess.
Nippa the milk machine had a pair of very nice kids last March. Rex, the boy, has found a home with Linda’s (the lady we got Nippa from) neighbour, but Linda figured Nippa could use some company and sent Cocoa our way rather than continue to spend money to … Read the rest
Northern Lights
This was the most dramatic northern-lights display I saw in Alaska. It happened on Valentines day 2012. The kids and I spent almost an hour outside at 30+ below zero watching this because it was so beautiful.
More Old Pictures
Can’t sleep tonight, so I’ll upload a few older pictures from the time-frame when we weren’t updating the blog. These are from when Isaac and Sydney tested for Green-Belt in Tae Kwan Do. The instructor frequently had them spar each other until Sydney learned to fight back instead of just try to run away from her little brother.
Enjoy!
