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 |   A Journal to impart knowledge and facts |
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July 22, 2015 I'm going to start today to record on a daily basis whatever happens to strike my fancy. So, it is a very cool breezy day. I just posted 5 short book reviews to The Monthly Reading Challenge. I'm suppose to put away some winter wood today from the woodpile outside but I'm playing hookey from work to write so starting this blog will get done. I'm having a daily fight with a flock of English Sparrows that are trying to take over my barn. They are making a terrible mess so they have to go. I have destroyed several nests so far they don't leave but they get out of the barn when I am around. I'm just starting the fight so I guess I don't know how far I have to go to discourage them. I'm trying not to spread myself to thin on WDC because I find so many things that are interesting here and I am trying to work on a new story. I really enjoy sitting at my desk with a cup of tea and reading blogs on WDC. |
National Adopt a Pet Day Or Shelter Pet Day.![Merit Badge in The Blogging Banana Bar
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Congratulations & Thank You
from Andre
For competing the full four weeks of the Non-Judgmental Blogging Event in January 2023.
Please show your badge when entering the Banana Bar and join others in the Banana Bloggers' Lounge .
Your blogging is always welcome at [Link To Item #1985857] .](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/group-The_Blogging_Banana_Bar-2246010_9.gif)  I follow some shelters on Facebook: I've had numerous pets in my life. All my previous pets came as puppies or kittens. Now, I have in my home 3 dogs. One came here as a 5-year-old dog. I actually puppy sat this dog several times and was there when the owners first brought him home. So, I've known the dog since he was a pup. When the owners gave him up permanently, he was a handful but now he is well established. He knows the ropes and rarely gets into much trouble. The other 2 are dogs I took in from shelters of one sort or another. I am their third or fourth home. One I have had since December 2021 the other has been here since September 2023. I approve of the shelter movement. You should know though, that when you adopt a pet from a shelter you may need to go through at least a year for that animal to really believe it is safe and secure with you. If you are the second or third home the dog or cat has been through, they are quick to expect they won't be with you long. And depending on the kind of abuse they may have suffered they won't be quick to trust the new place they are staying. I'm putting these two new pets through respect and obedience training slowly, so they know I intend for them to be here always. (as long as I live) As third or fourth owner dogs they can find more ways to try the normal persons patience. Like all dogs they are loving creatures so I always wonder how people can raise a pup then just give it up. Everywhere I went I took my pets with me. Except the Panama Canal zone. I could not take my dog there. He stayed on my dads' farm while I was gone about 6 weeks. Both these new dogs show the same kind of mischief and try patience in the same ways. They also experience the same kind of actual fear when they hear the word no. I wish dogs of this type came with a written history so new owner's knew what kind of training they had before they got to a new home. We took in one rescue who was abandoned. The owners moved, just drove away and left the dog. It took 3 years for that dog to believe it was staying forever. Car rides are interesting, they won't get in the car because they think they won't come back with you. Take them to McDonald's buy them a burger then go home. They soon get the idea car rides are not so bad. If you take in a shelter pet, just be really patient with all the newness it takes a while for them to believe they found a forever home. |
Prompt: Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. Write about this in your Blog entry today. Be yourself. What happens when everyone around you keeps accusing you of thinking things you are not thinking? This often happens when something you are saying is interrupted by someone who thinks they know what you are going to say before you say it. I have even caught myself doing this on occasion, which makes me want to listen more closely to what others are saying and even question people about subjects more closely. Example: I know a woman who is actually really mean to people sometimes. By watching and listening I have discovered she is really using mean ideas to defend herself against things others have done to her or things people have said to her in the past. This is an area of the world where people try to use psychology to manipulate others. A professor once told me psychology is a science not a power. Sorting the difference helps me understand human social problems better. Sometimes people don't take the time to understand who they really are. Mindfulness is a good way to get into the reality of your own personality. Mindfulness also helps you learn to defend your own ego from manipulations by others. It is important to be yourself. Maybe not if you are a serial manipulator of others. Spoken by a true introvert.  Keep on keepin on! |
| Mars for Andre: References from: www.Nasa.gov they have an article for 4th and 5th graders, just my speed for today. https://youtu.be/snb-gs9lUK4?si=VkM6tCAtGpGdyyht So. you want to lose weight.? Go to Mars. The gravity on mars is 2/3 less than the gravity on earth. So, you weigh approximately 2/3 less. When rocks fall on the red planet, they fall slower than on earth Nasa's rovers have found proof that the planet use to have water. If you watch the YouTube video as Perseverance rover moves across the surface of the planet, it is a desolate view. The iron oxide in the soil makes everything red. When the Greeks and Romans viewed the red planet, it looked bloody, so they named the planet Mars after the Roman god of war. The view from Perserverance looks like the devastation after an atomic war. The two moons of Mars are named Phobos (fear) and Deimes (panic) after the sons of the Greek god of war. If you are fleeing a Zombie war on planet earth and flee to mars take a heater with you because the temperature is -80 degrees. Very, very cold. Mars is the 4th planet from the sun. The planet turns more slowly on its' axis than earth. A day there is 24.6 hours long. The planet hosts a year as 687 days. Only 1/2 the size of earth the red planet once had the same kind of atmospheric protections that the earth presently has. (see Nasa .gov for a more biological explanation of this fact) Nasa has sent many expeditions and several different types of rovers to the red planet. The present rover called Perserverance has been roving Mars since 2020. This is just a few of the cool facts about our neighbor. Mars. Merry Christmas |
Goals for December:  I have very few. First, I'm going to decorate the tree I set up the day before Thanksgiving. I never set it up until the first day of deer hunting season. This year I set it up early but have not decorated it yet. I'm going to try some new interesting finger twisting guitar exercises. and try to finish section 2 of my anatomy course. The anatomy course is going slow because of house clean out, which started in September and is ongoing. What I would really like is to schedule a do nothing at all except read fiction for a month. First snow of the season hit last night. Makes me want to curl up under a blanket and read until spring. If I do some of all of this and play with the dogs, I will be successful, I guess. Have a story tumbling around in my brain. Maybe I will write it down. Merry Christmas watch out for Zombies. |
National Law Day/Talk Like Yoda Day National Law Day takes place in May. Next year it will be on May 1st which is a Wednesday in case you want to mark your calendar. It is celebrated in many different ways. Courts may declare a day for bringing in students and answering questions about how the court systems work. Teachers may use it to teach the constitution or how law is a cornerstone of Democracy. Lawyers may use it as an excuse for fund raising or luncheons to pay respect to different parts of their profession. It is not an official government holiday. President Eisenhower proclaimed it a holiday in 1958. One of the reasons put forth to make it a holiday was to suppress May Day which is a worker's holiday. May day is considered to bring to much attention to workers and becomes a vessel for communism. Statistics make claims that there is one attorney for every 240 people in the USA. More than 1.3 million lawyers work in the USA. The District of Columbia has the highest count of lawyers in the nation. While I was acquiring facts about Law Day on www.Holidayscalendar.com I noticed some of the other special holidays listed. One that particularly caught my eye was Talk Like Yoda Day. This day is also celebrated in May. In 2024 it will fall on May 21 which is a Tuesday. Yoda who lives on the planet Dagobah, is considered one of the best movie characters ever written. He is grand master of the Jedi council, a general during the clone wars, and Obi-Wan's mentor. At the age of 900 plus years he is used to being in movies, magazine articles, and TV shows. Papua New Guinea has a bat called the Yoda Bat. Also, biology tells us there is a reddish-purple worm called Yoda purputa = Purple Yoda. I saw a picture of an obscure breed of cat on Facebook that looks like Yoda. To complete the day, you must speak like Yoda who places the object, subject, and verb at the end of every sentence. One of his quotes says, "failure is and always with you, it cannot be undone." Having been informed of the value of this day you have plenty of time to practice your speech patterns before next May. Yabba, Yabba, Yoda. |
| On this day in history , Lewis Carroll published Alice in Wonderland. What's your favorite character from the story and why? This quote by Carroll is interesting---- "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." What impossible things happened before breakfast today?  I ate breakfast at 4:30 A.M. Because that is when the dogs woke me up to go out. Then they want their breakfast and then they will settle down for another nap. It was impossible for it to be warm at that time of the morning outside. Just opening the door to let the dogs out can make me shiver. However, no snow yet. Not possible to stay up for any reason at that time of morning so I snuggled back into the warm covers to read for a while. We often have a vehicle on the road at 3 or 4 a.m. It is a dirt rural road, so I wonder who needs to be driving around that early. impossible to know. Deer, rabbits, squirrels, and birds are all tucked in at that time of day also. I liked the rabbit. I always wondered why he did not make more appearance in the story. More imagination would help me with this prompt. Have a nice day. I will probably be wondering what else is impossible before breakfast for the rest of the day. |
| Prompt: Use these lyrics to inspire your entry today: Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening. A beautiful sight. We're happy tonight. Walking in a winter wonderland. Have fun! Blog City I like Sleigh bells. It would surprise me to hear them outside on a snowy day. We are expecting snow tonight and Monday. I have a sleigh bell attached to my back door. The bell is about 2 inches in diameter and attached to a heavy piece of leather. The leather is attached to a clip so the bell could be clipped onto the harness the pony wore when pulling our cart. I actually found it in the old barn that was on my property when I was a child. My dad owned the property then. Dad lived here and grew up here when it was a working farm. They did not have tractors then they farmed the fields and went to town in a wagon drawn by large work horses. Dad told me he was often the one who handled the horses because his dad (my grandfather} thought dad had a talent with the horses. I hung the bell on the back door so I would know when it opened if I was working in the kitchen. It is also a good ornament. When I first found it, I took the time to clean the leather and soak it in a leather renew product. There was also a side saddle in the barn at that time. Dad told me it was Grandma's when she was a girl. After I finished renewing the leather on the saddle, I rode in it a few times. It was an interesting way to sit a horse. Although I expected to be unbalanced, I was pleasantly surprised to feel quite secure in a side saddle. Riding astride is still more secure for jumping and any unexpected types of riding action. I gave the saddle to dad and don't know what he did with it. If we get the amount of snow, they are predicting I probably won't t want to go walking in a winter wonder land. I went to sleep last night listening to Christmas music on the Christmas music channel on Amazon. It was relaxing. Maybe we will have a white Christmas. |
| Prompt: International day for the elimination of violence against women. For Andre the Blog Monkey's Banana Bar. The focus on this date 11/25/2023 started in a resolution put forth in the United Nations by the Dominican Republic. The resolution was passed in, 1999. Celebrations of the day start on November 25 and last 16 days until December 10. This year there are many rallies in many countries bringing awareness of the day and the reason for the day. People in rallies are pressing for more action to protect women. It is a fact that even though awareness that this problem is growing most countries are not using monies and laws to enhance protection of women. A few statistics state facts like 1. 12 to 15 % of women in Europe face possible violence on a daily basis. 2. Other statistics, say, that more than 5 women or girls are killed every day Throughout the world by someone in their own family. 3. One out of every 4 women in the world will be raped in their lifetime. 4. Violence against women is one of the most prevalent human rights violations. 5. Only 1 out of 9 or 10 attacks on women are ever reported. 6. Violence against women is a major cause of ill health in women. Major excuses for violence against women. 1. The Bible says you have to obey everything I say because we are married. 2.I'm experimenting on you. 3. Only males go to heaven. (This was told to me personally) 4. Feminism is lording it over males. People should be aware of the fact that women who keep pets are often targeted. Even their children or pet could be punished as a part of the violence against a woman. I really believe females should help females against this type of ignorance. Not always the case sometimes women will actually step away from someone who is being abused, perhaps in a need to protect their own selves from the abuser. Personally, over the course of 78 years I have experienced psychological abuse, and physical abuse of different kinds. The worst problems occur when there is no one else to turn to or to whom you can tell your story. I have heard of a story about a woman who was being abused. She became enraged and attacked the abuser with a knife. He called the police. She went to jail. I also believe the church is partly to blame. They preach to the females more than they preach to the males. It's a well-known fact we live in a male dominated society. Lower pay for females for the same job a male is doing is still a problem in our society. Inaccurate reading comprehension in scripture puts balances in favor of males over females. I've run out of time and information. The few references I have in the above article came from my own life experiences, an article released in 1994 by the World Bank, and an article from History.com. This is such a large subject. It is the kind of subject my journalism professor would have said break it up and do several articles hitting a different part in each article. I know in the 1980's laws were being passed to help women have some way to gain help in the USA. More needs to be done. Accent on this day 11/25 any year helps. |
| TALK ABOUT CHILDHOOD MEMORIES: For: Blog City: My Brother died this year. During the year I think in the month of June. As the years wore on, we did not get together much and the last time we talked he said he was well. Anyway, no one told me until two months later. Not cool! I have a lot of good memories about Duane. He built me a tree house once and talked my dad into letting me use it. I spent a whole summer in it reading and watching the sky and the wind blow the branches and leaves around in the tree. When he was in the Navy, he bought me a radio. And he gave me my first puppy. A part German Shepard, part collie. A great dog that was my side kick for a lot of years. He also talked my dad, into letting me keep a stray cat. He pretty much looked out for me after my mom died some. When I was in first grade there was a carnival at the school, I'm not sure what they were celebrating. I was in line to get a pop when an older boy put a piece of dry ice on my leg. My brother smacked him. Dad was sure upset at my brother for fighting but I thought it was cool. We were kind of rowdy kids. When he was on leave from the Navy I was learning to drive. He had an old car with stick shift in it. So. He was teaching me to drive it. He said, stop so I carefully brought the car to a slow halt. Making sure the clutch was used properly. So, he was not happy I had taken about 10 feet to stop the car. He told me, " When I say stop, I mean now not 10 feet down the road." The next time he said stop I dumped the clutch, slammed on the breaks, and his head struck the wind shield. I said, "Was that better?" I drove him a lot during that leave and learned to drive stick. Just before I was married, he took the time to teach me how to cook scrambled eggs the Navy way. He said if you can cook eggs, you will never go hungry. And when my husband was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone, he took me and my son into his home for a while until I could make arrangements to go to Panama. He was always a force in life. Death of the body makes an empty space. I've discovered the Christmas season is here. Snow is forcast for the weekend.. |
| On this day in 1949 Gene Autry's single "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" first appears on music charts. "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer by songwriter Johnny Marks based on the 1939 story Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer published by the Montgomery Ward Company. Gene Autry's recording hit No. 1 on the U.S. charts the week of Christmas 1949. What's your favorite Christmas song? Do you sing carols with your family? I still know the words to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I always liked the singing cowboys when I was a kid. I like Christmas carols. There are a couple that irritate. One I'm not so fond of is the one that enumerates the days of Christmas. Evan though I know the words to that one too. I've never been quite sure why there is a partridge in a Pear tree? My favorite is "The Little Drummer Boy." "Shall I play for you? Ba Rump a Bump Bum, On my Drum." I don't think anyone in my house but me and Drifter (my dog) sing. If I hit just the right note Drifter will join in. He actually tries to follow the notes as they go up or down. It is kind of cool to have a singing dog. And you know what? I've been really busy still cleaning. I finally reached the basement, and it is the worst place in the house. I'm probably only a 1/10 of the way finished with it. It will take all winter to finish it. Then, I decided to have family Thanksgiving at our house. I have basically ignored Christmas. Until I put up the tree this week. It isn't decorated but it is up. I haven't cooked a turkey in a while and the food all turned out great. The family gathered and we all had a good time visiting. The only cloud was my two oldest boys who still stay away. So, now I'm going to find my Christmas carol disks and play carols this afternoon. Until I read this prompt, I had not even thought about Christmas carols. Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. Merry Christmas to all. apondia#1781748 |
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And yes, we do get to have different teachers for different things in life. 
fudge, I'm coming over!