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8 06, 2020

What to do while in Coronavirus Chaos

By judythemorgan|2020-06-07T09:26:51-05:00June 8th, 2020|Make Me Think Monday|2 Comments

We’ve been cooped up now for weeks and, while restrictions are loosening, we’re still stuck with time on our hands.

But, on the plus side, confinement has given us opportunities. These are things I’ve done:

Learned technologies like Zoom, Skype, Facebook video, Facetime, and so many others.
Attended online tours, lectures, and conferences from the comfort of home in my pj bottoms.
Read new authors and re-read favorites.
Watched documentaries, movies, and series and revisit favorites.
Discovered new hobbies and lots of new recipes.
Toured familiar and faraway places online.
Organized and sorted junk drawers, pantries, garages, closets, bookshelves, photos, etc.
Work in my yards weeding and trimming. Planted flowers and mini-gardens.

COVID-19 continues to lurk about. New cases are on the rise again. We need to do what we can to curb the continued spread.

Practicing social distancing and wearing masks is a major part. Staying home is still the safest.

Still, finding energy and focus during the coronavirus chaos can be hard. Staying positive and keeping yourself occupied is a key to getting through.

Maybe you haven’t been able to do some of the things on my list above yet. Why not try your hand at a few?

5 06, 2020

Stream of Consciousness

By judythemorgan|2020-05-28T09:36:11-05:00June 5th, 2020|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

I really enjoyed my English classes in high school. I remember reading James Joyce. I don’t remember exactly what we read, only that he used a technique called stream of consciousness.

The way I remember it being explained is writing as your mind wanders, like right before you fall asleep. You just move from one topic to the next with only a thread of connection.

I believe the children’s version of stream of consciousness is seen in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff.

I thought about this as I got ready to go to work this morning.

I opened the fridge to make my salad for lunch and remembered I needed to clean out the produce drawer. We have some peaches in a brown sack that needed to go into the drawer.

So I cleaned the drawer and moved the peaches.

Then as I moved the peaches I saw my jar of sour dough starter. That reminded me that I was taking some to a friend this evening so I took it out to feed it.

Then I remembered I wanted to take some blueberry bars to our community group tonight also. I got them out of the back fridge and moved them into a different container that would fit in the front fridge where I could see it.

Then I remembered the teacher I am helping at school right now asked me to bring my paper shredder to school so I went to get it. When I unplugged it, I saw all the dirt and dust and dog hair that had been under it so I cleaned the floor in that area.

I loaded it into my car and came back into the kitchen to get my lunch and my water. When I opened the freezer to fill my cup with ice, I realized the ice trays needed to be emptied.

At this point I needed to get to work and I was afraid if I emptied the ice trays, I would remember something else so I went to work.

So instead of saying I got sidetracked I say I had a “stream of consciousness morning.” It sounds so much better.

3 06, 2020

Wednesday Quotes on Equality – Goodall

By judythemorgan|2020-06-02T13:39:16-05:00June 3rd, 2020|Wednesday Quote, Wednesday Words, Weekly Quote|1 Comment

1 06, 2020

Quarantine Isn’t Something New

By judythemorgan|2020-06-01T07:58:55-05:00June 1st, 2020|Make Me Think Monday|1 Comment

These COVID-19 pandemic days of self-isolation have made quarantine a common part of our vocabulary.

But did you know the word’s been around since the 9^th century?

Its quad root dates to the Proto-Indo-European or PIE language kwetwer, and linguists trace the PIE language to between 4500 BC to 2500 BC. We hear quad in words like quadruple and quadrilateral.

Quadraginta is the Latin word for forty. Quarantena referred to the desert where Jesus fasted for 40 days. In both Italian and French, the word also applied to Lent.

Today we we use the word to mean a period of isolation to prevent the spread of contagious disease.

The use of isolation traces to Middle Ages and Renaissance and the plague-ridden 14^th century when Venice required the crews of ships from afflicted countries to remain at anchor offshore for forty days before docking.

According to The Visual Thesaurus, being quarantined isn’t all bad. There are famous cases of creativity that have risen from periods of quarantine.

Shakespeare wrote King Lear
Isaac Newton worked on his theories of optics and gravitation
Giovanni Boccaccio wrote The Decameron, a book about people telling each other stories during quarantine

And stay-at-home authors create word origin searches like this to blog about. Which, if you were honest, is probably more than you wanted to know about quarantine.

What have you done while you stayed at home or quarantined during this COVID-19 pandemic?

29 05, 2020

Cuddle Ducks

By judythemorgan|2020-05-28T09:18:01-05:00May 29th, 2020|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|1 Comment

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

This transition from house ducks to outside ducks has been the smoothest ever. I was concerned, as always, that the smaller ducks would have to go through an initiation before they were accepted into the flock.

This did not happen.

I started by putting the ducks in the wire cage in the pen with their new friends.Usually it takes a fair amount of time for the littles to venture out. These ducks are particularly attached to each other so they went out together.They spent a few minutes cuddling and surveying their surroundings.

It reminded me how important it is to have a friend when facing a scary situation.

Before long they were eating and drinking. I could rest easy for the rest of the day.

I went to check on them before I went to bed. I was going to put them in the coop but I found them cuddling in the middle of all the big ducks.

They were safe at home.

27 05, 2020

May Flower Quotes – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

By judythemorgan|2020-05-26T20:02:49-05:00May 27th, 2020|Wednesday Quote, Wednesday Words, Weekly Quote|1 Comment

About the Graphic

Hubby Dear snapped this picture of a Texas Star Hibiscus with our digital camera. He has an excellent eye for capturing floral images. Don’t you think?

About the Quote

The word amen is a Hebrew word used frequently in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. According to Bible Study Tools, the verb form is found more than one hundred times in the Old Testament and nearly seventy times in the Gospels.The Common English translations are “surely”, “truly”, and “so be it.”

People around the world say the world in personal prayer and the liturgy, affirming what is spoken or prayed. I like to think, like Holmes, that Nature also says amen or so be it with every bloom.

25 05, 2020

How to celebrate Memorial Day During the Coronavirus Quarantine

By judythemorgan|2020-05-24T18:15:25-05:00May 25th, 2020|Holidays, Make Me Think Monday|2 Comments

Memorial Day is the holiday set aside to remember the men and women who gave their lives while serving this country. To say thank you for their supreme sacrifice.

Because parades and gatherings are cancelled this Memorial Day weekend, retired Air Force bugler Jari Villanueva and CBS News “On the Road” correspondent Steve Hartman are asking buglers and trumpet players across the country to stand on their porches this Memorial Day at 3 p.m. local time and play “Taps.”

The rest of us can pause for a moment to remember the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice serving this country as well as all the victims of the coronavirus pandemic while maintaining social distancing guidelines.

If you’d like to dust off your trumpet or bugle and sound the call, click here for directions on how to participate.

If you’re not a bugler then perhaps you can play a version of Taps from YouTube like this one.

22 05, 2020

Bath Day

By judythemorgan|2020-05-28T09:46:52-05:00May 22nd, 2020|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|1 Comment

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

The newest arrivals to our duck pen really seem to enjoy the “duck pond” (i.e. kiddie swimming pool). Since we built the duck pen in the front corner of the chicken yard, I can watch the ducks swim from my kitchen window. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen so I get to see the ducks often.

At least once a week I empty the “pond” and refill it with fresh water. This is the ducks’ favorite day. I stand outside to get a better view of them in the clean pond.

Ricky is always the first to get into the water. He is the oldest duck and I call him the daddy duck.

When he is in the water, no one else comes around. Ricky doesn’t share.

The younger ducks are content to play in the puddle created by emptying the “pond.”

After Ricky has finished playing in the water, the rest of the ducks can take their turn.

The younger ducks are much better at sharing. They are not so good at social distancing.

20 05, 2020

Flowers and Friends – Wednesday Quote

By judythemorgan|2020-05-20T06:29:05-05:00May 20th, 2020|Uncategorized|0 Comments

About the graphic

These gladiolas are from a special friend’s garden. They were so gorgeous I couldn’t resist taking a picture and using it as a background for this week’s quote.

About the quote

I found several people named Celeste Barnard in my web search. The quote came from a Country Living magazine that only identified the author by name. So Celeste Barnard, if you see this, please let me know these are your words, and I’ll add a short bio.

What I liked about the quote was that it reminded me of my friend who brought this lovely, lovely bouquet of gladiolas. The amazing thing is she grows these beauties in her yard. She’s such a lovely person to fill my world with beautiful gladiolas and books she passes on to me.

18 05, 2020

The Difficult Puzzle

By judythemorgan|2020-05-16T13:37:52-05:00May 18th, 2020|Writer's Life|3 Comments

I enjoy working jigsaw puzzles. And word puzzles, but jigsaw puzzles are my brain sorter for plot issues and escape from reality.

Working a puzzle, I can focus on fitting all the pieces together and when it’s finished, I have a lovely picture. Usually.

Didn’t happen this year. Not with Mary Engelbreit’s Puzzle A Girl’s Best Friend, which I love putting together for Mother’s Day every year.

All those black and white squares on the frame were my downfall. If my grandson weren’t here while his college is shut down for the pandemic, I’d never have finished.

At one point I took out the tape measure to confirm the side measured 20 inches. I decided maybe pieces had gone missing in the last move.

I took the sides apart and started again multiple times. By the fourth time, I was extremely frustrated.

Enter grandson with sharp eyes and nimble fingers. He got the frame together while I worked the middle, which with all the similar colored patterns did not prove much easier.

With Mother’s Day three days away, the middle was finished and only the floral border between the inner picture and the black and white edge remained to connect.

Grandson had a major project due, so I was on my own. A piece would fit the black and white edge but not connect to the middle pieces. Happened not once but several times.

I pulled the edge apart and reassembled. Still the floral border pieces wouldn’t connect.

Mother’s Day and the puzzle still not finished, I admitted defeat and, threatening to throw the puzzle away, went to bed. Next morning, I found this.

Grandson had flipped top and bottom edge pieces and finished.

I’m not throwing the puzzle away. But I’m not messing with edge again either.

I didn’t cheat and leave them connected when I took the puzzle apart, though I was very tempted. I coded the backs of all the edge pieces then stored them in their own little bag in the puzzle box. Next time, I’ll know which border pieces belong on which side.

Maybe I’ll work the puzzle again next year. Maybe not. Grandson won’t be here. I’d be on my own. But, at least, I won’t go blind trying to connect the pesky frame.