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18 11, 2022

Duck Ears

By judythemorgan|2022-11-14T10:31:11-06:00November 18th, 2022|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

Roosters have the reputation of being the noisiest birds on the farm. However, the ducks on Miller farm are really loud. A friend told me it sounds like they are laughing. I try to remember that when they annoy me.

The amazing thing is they seem to know when I open the back door and they start “laughing.” This gets the chickens started causing quite a cacophony at 6:00 in the morning.

I was wondering aloud if ducks have ears when Beekeeper Brian informed me that ducks actually have good hearing. This explains the effectiveness of duck calls in the hands of hunters. It makes perfect sense.

So then, I wondered what a duck ear looks like. I had to look at pictures because the ducks were not cooperating when I tried to examine their heads.

I saw nothing resembling ears.

So I did what any tech-savvy person would do and googled “do ducks have ears?” Up popped the article “Understanding Waterfowl: The five senses.”

According to this article “Waterfowl ears lack external appendages and are located slightly behind and below the eyes. The ear openings are covered with soft feathers, called auriculars, which offer protection and help muffle the sound of the wind when the birds are in flight.”

Very interesting! Now that I have learned something new today, can I go back to bed?

16 11, 2022

Cicero on Gratitude

By judythemorgan|2022-11-14T10:44:20-06:00November 16th, 2022|#wordlesswednesday, Wednesday Quote, Weekly Quote|1 Comment

In this month of emphasis on gratitude, I’m an author who is grateful to and thankful for

readers who read my books.

14 11, 2022

Gratitude begins with Thankfulness

By judythemorgan|2022-11-14T07:25:56-06:00November 14th, 2022|Make Me Think Monday|0 Comments

Blogging about thankfulness and gratitude in November is cliché.

On the other hand, there’s no better time than the month when our nation pauses for a whole day to give thanks.

Ralph Waldo Emerson suggested we should “cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously.”

Here are two ideas that can help focus an attitude of thankfulness.

Use social media

Author friend Daphne Dyer is doing 30 Days of Gratitude posts this month. She suggests daily topics and gives her answers. Check out her posts on Facebook for daily gratitude inspiration.

Another friend Shelia Athens uses every Thursday to share gratitude posts all year.

Keep a gratitude list.

It can be hard to think of something to be thankful for, especially when those terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days gang up. Research shows over time the act of physically writing out a daily list can produce a grateful attitude.

Writing’s not for you? Try grateful beads to help recall things to be thankful for.

I use a string of ten beads. Three beads remind me to be grateful for three people who touch my life. Six beads for six things, events, and occurrences, and the final bead reminds me to give thanks to our creator.

There are many options on Etsy Pinterest also has lots of ideas.

I discovered an M&M thankful game. Pick a color, name something I’m thankful for, and eat the M&M. Now that’s a game I can get into. Bring on the M&Ms.

Being grateful is a choice. Wouldn’t it be lovely to seek out things to be thankful for daily rather than only one day or one month per year?

11 11, 2022

Reminder

By judythemorgan|2022-11-03T18:25:36-05:00November 11th, 2022|Uncategorized|1 Comment

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

I am not sure there is a rougher week for teachers than the week of Halloween. And if Halloween is on a Monday, as it was this year, the week stretches into almost two weeks.

Our Fall Festival was on Friday then they had a Haunted House at the school on Monday evening. We are still feeling the effects two days later.

In times like these, I find myself doing more correcting than cheering.

As I greeted students this morning, I noticed one of my “happy notes” in the outside pocket of a backpack. These are just small pieces of paper with a positive message that I hand out to kids who have done a good job in music. It made me smile. I forget how much it means to students to be recognized.

In a culture that gives trophies for everything, sometimes just a small note can make a huge difference.

I am determined to look for students doing a good job from now on. It is an important reminder as we head into more weeks of craziness between now and Christmas.

9 11, 2022

Veterans Day Gratitude

By judythemorgan|2022-11-06T09:54:13-06:00November 9th, 2022|Holidays, Wednesday Words|0 Comments

Veterans Day is the day set aside to honor all those who have served our country in war or peace — dead or alive — although it’s largely intended to thank living veterans for their sacrifices.

Pause a moment this Veterans Day to say “thank you” to a friend, relative, or co-worker who is a U.S. military veteran or actively serving.

Spectators and veterans hold up “Thank You” signs during the 2012 Fayetteville Veterans Day parade, Nov. 10, 2012 in Fayetteville, N.C.

7 11, 2022

My love of Robots

By judythemorgan|2022-11-06T14:03:42-06:00November 7th, 2022|Writer's Life|1 Comment

Machines that do repetitious jobs using AI are manpower savers. Industry has employed robots for years.

As a longtime Star Wars fan, robots and droids fascinate me. I love watching these guys.

Back in my elementary school teaching days, I taught a robotics unit where we designed robots with Legos and wrote essays about the robot’s use. No automation, but each design had to have a purpose.

The kids loved the designing part…hated the writing part.

Legos advanced to motorized remote control robot kits and robotic competitions. Two of my grandchildren competed in several and won several

Robots are marvelous things for industry and movies. Now we have robots designed for repetitious household tasks.

I never realized how much of a good thing a household robotic vacuum would be until C-3P0 came to live at our house. I was always skeptical that a machine could vacuum as well as a human. Then our OES Finn was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that causes him to lose his hair.

Sick and tired of having to vacuum every day, we took the plunge and bought a robotic vacuum. Named after the Stars Wars robot, C-3PO is a marvel.

Using a phone app to control where he goes, we watch C-3PO buzz along sweeping the floors over rugs and door thresholds.

So does Finn.

When C-3PC’s finished, he gives a beep-beep like a roadrunner and heads to his station to recharge.

From teaching kids about robots to owning one—life’s amazing!

What next?

4 11, 2022

New Challenges

By judythemorgan|2022-11-01T19:41:29-05:00November 4th, 2022|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|2 Comments

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

Life has presented many challenges over the past few years, the most notable being the COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers had to rethink everything they did to protect themselves and their students from an unseen virus.

The current challenge also deals with protection, this time from threats of violence.

Schools across the state are being required to implement new security procedures including various drills to prepare for different dangers. In my school, we have had all the doors fitted with crash bars allowing them to be opened from the inside while remaining locked on the outside. This required that all the locks be replaced.

Since all doors are now required to be locked at all times, teachers are carrying multiple keys. While I understand the rationale behind these measures, it makes getting around the campus a little more difficult.

I now carry five keys: one for the sanctuary where I teach, one for the teacher’s workroom, the office, the cafeteria, and the room where I hold choir rehearsal.

I also have an Allen wrench to keep the door unlocked during morning assembly so students can enter after eating breakfast.

It is a little complicated and somewhat overwhelming.

Once we are safely in our room, though, we can sing, move, listen and play to our heart’s content, forgetting, if just for a moment, that the world is becoming increasingly scary.

2 11, 2022

Peanuts’ Great Pumpkin Patch Search

By judythemorgan|2022-10-30T12:54:55-05:00November 2nd, 2022|Uncategorized|1 Comment

31 10, 2022

Halloween Costumes

By judythemorgan|2022-10-30T18:13:16-05:00October 31st, 2022|Holidays, Make Me Think Monday|0 Comments

A little synchronicity going on with blogs this Halloween.

Chicken Wrangler Sara’s post for last Friday about crayon costumes she’d made for her children arrived for me to schedule as I was searching through my stash of pictures for a Halloween costume photo to use for my blog today. As I told her, great minds think alike.

My search for the photo of her brother and sister in their costumes turned into more of a search than I wanted. I discovered two things:

#1 The albums I used back in the 1970s were disintegrating. The pictures were fine the photo holders not so much.

Not a big problem. Now I know there’s an issue. I’ll switch all those photos to albums like the other years before cell phone photography and cloud storage.

#2 Daughter #2 (the one in the picture) had the photograph.

That proved to be more of an issue. After texting Daughter #2, I learned she did have the photo I wanted for sure along with several others. All taken with permission. However, she couldn’t find the photo of her and her brother in Halloween costumes.

Thus began the great Halloween picture search at our family gathering to watch the opening game of the World Series. She brought a huge pile of pictures for us to search through as we sipped craft beer and cheered the Astros.

No luck that night so her search continued.

No luck the next day or the next. “No worries,” I said through my disappointment.

Then I got a text late Sunday afternoon: “I never did find the original but suddenly remembered that I had scanned it in on my old phone!!” The photo we’d been searching for was included. I had to laugh at the full circle…snapshot to jpg. Computers to the rescue.

Here’s the picture. Our son is in a devil costume I made and daughter #2 is one of the three blind mice. (Back then Halloweens were kinder and gentler.)

After that buildup, you’ll probably find the photo anti-climactic, but don’t miss the paper decorations in the windows.

28 10, 2022

Crayons

By judythemorgan|2022-10-28T08:10:27-05:00October 28th, 2022|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

Every year at Halloween I think about the costumes I made when we lived in Mexico.

Catherine was 5, Rachel was 3 and Matthew was almost 2. In a moment of creativity, I made crayon costumes and I was the box.

Now the crayons have left the box.

While it is sometimes sad, it is also fun to watch their colors grow brighter as they find their way into adulthood.