I continue to learn about northern bog lemmings and their world so I can situate Saul in the right place in the right way. Here are a few descriptions of these little creatures and their ways:
Elusive Isolated and local Seldom seen A rare and splendid rodent
I love that last description: “a rare and splendid rodent.” Wish I’d thought of it. Wouldn’t it make a wonderful book title?
I’m still searching for Saul. I’ve seen little glimpses of him as I do my research.
Way up in the north, you’ll find the Big Bog and in the Big Bog you’ll find small Saul. It’s not a swamp. It’s not a marsh. It’s not even a fen. It’s a bog, where peat gathers, orchids bloom, plants eat insects and the ground swallows the rain. The bog has its secrets.
You could get lost in the Big Bog, wandering from place to place where to the casual eye everything looks the same. Visitors to the bog must be careful, but those who live there know the neighborhood like you know yours.
If you stay still and keep your eyes open, you might see one of the bog’s most elusive creatures. Do you see that little haystack made of clipped sedge grasses? Keep watching it…there! Small Saul, the northern bog lemming, is building a runway through the grasses, minding his own business.
I’ll probably find Saul in the morning, making little haystacks out of blog clippings.
I mentioned last week that I’m reading through a poetry collection. To be specific, it’s a book called “The Golden Treasury of Poetry,” and I’ve had such a long association with it that I’ve inserted into my mind a false memory of bringing it into our marriage. But no, it was a book from my husband’s childhood. It strikes a chord with me because of the illustrations by Joan Walsh Anglund. She was one of my Mom’s favorite book illustrators and I grew up in a bedroom that had a display of Joan Walsh Anglund illustrations that went all the way across one of the walls. Wish I had a photo of that.
Usually poetry collections are a resource that you pick up now and again, and that’s how we used this book during the homeschool years. I have run across a few poems in this one that some of my children memorized and recited – oh, the memories! “Tyger, Tyger, burning bright…,” “The Akond of Swat,” “The Owl Critic,” and a hilarious one called “The Twins,” that I just HAD to have my twins memorize and recite for one of our homeschool recitals.
Last year (July 1, to be exact), I decided to read through the book, cover to cover. It’s been such an enjoyable experience! This week, I’ve been reading through some of the limericks. I’ll share a few with you and finish up with one of my own.
A girl who weighed many an oz. Used language I dared not pronoz. For a fellow unkind Pulled her chair out behind Just to see (so he said) if she’d boz.
And here’s another one that relies on you pronouncing the whole word that’s been abbreviated (as if it rhymes with Michigan):
There’s a girl out in Ann Arbor, Mich., To meet whom I never would wich., She’d eat up ice cream Till with colic she’d scream, Then order another big dich.
Here’s a two-stanza one:
The daughter of the farrier Could find no one to marry her, Because she said She would not wed A man who could not carry her.
The foolish girl was wrong enough, And had to wait quite long enough; For as she sat She grew so fat That nobody was strong enough!
And here’s one that I’m writing even as I type, so don’t expect the heights of cleverness that the previous ones exemplified:
I met a bog lemming named Saul, Whose diet was painfully small Just grasses and seeds Met all of his needs It’s a wonder he grew up at all!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
There’s a post that I need to delete, And it’s right here under my feet I’ll wait ‘til the morning To give it fair warning Before kicking it out on the street.
The rooster phase continues. These are the copies I made from watercolors I found on Pinterest in the order that I painted them. Let’s imagine that we are hens and get to choose one of these studly bachelors based solely on their appearance. We don’t get to find out what their favorite hobbies and foods are and where they’d take us on a first date, but other than that, just exactly like the Bachelor Show. Let’s get started!
Candidate #1, the original. We’ll call him “Mr. Primitive.”
Candidate #2, Mr. Bright Feathers
Candidate #3: Mr. Sloppy But Sincere
Candidate #4: Mr. Bold and Loose (but not morally loose)
Candidate #5: Mr. Showman
Which one of these handsome fellas gets your vote? Vote early, vote often!
Next week I’ll be painting an original from a photograph, my way of taking the training wheels off.
At the first cock-a-doodle-doo of the morning, this will be hen-pecked.
You’re in luck! I have another few hours to kill before the flight to Milan takes off. You’re probably thinking that I can’t possibly eke out any more to say after so little time has passed – but if you’re thinking that, you don’t know me very well. If Kris were here, I’d be chatting with him and wouldn’t give you all a second thought, so if it’s convenient for you, please blame this excessive narrative on him. My goal is to keep you really on the edge of your seats and make you care about the minutiae of my life (“did she choose pretzels, peanuts or a cookie for the on-flight snack?”).
I’ve been struck with a condition that I shall call “jacket envy.” A guy waiting for my flight had a huge gray cardigan just flung carelessly over his suitcase. Why did he bring it if he wasn’t going to use it at least offer it to someone else? I had a window seat and the man two seats down from me came in wearing a suit and immediately took his jacket off and looked annoyed at having to find a place to put it. “Give it to me,” I urged silently. Not having perfected the art of ESP, I was not successful in getting the idea across to him subliminally and it seemed past the border of social appropriateness to ask him for it.
Next thing you know, we’re soaring over the clouds and I’m contemplating why I can’t even make it to the top of Hermann the German because of my fear of heights, but I can look down from thousands of feet in the air and not feel the same way. Nothing but air and fluffy clouds underneath us and I’m perfectly fine with it. Why is that? The flight was, as we say so cavalierly, uneventful. I read, worked on a crossword puzzle and looked out the window pondering various things that seemed quite profound at the time. In no time at all, we were beginning our descent (no time = 90+ minutes) and moving downward through many layers of clouds. This is the point at which turbulence happens, as I learned on our trip back from NY, so I took a page from David’s book and decided to focus my attention on the clouds and the sights below (little miniature trees, tiny meandering rivers, and eventually many clusters of neighborhoods with their little tiny houses that looked like Monopoly pieces). This concentrated the mind wonderfully.
I had another invigorating walk to my gate in Atlanta and am looking around surreptitiously for the wife of one of my husband’s co-workers who is on the same plane to Milan to meet her husband over there. We exchanged photos, so I’m hoping it’ll be obvious. Hey, just as I was typing that, she showed up! So, thus ends this narrative about nothing. There’ll be more interesting things for me to write about in Italy, right?
Love,
Lynn/Mom
P.S. I chose the pretzels.
I’ll probably delete this excessive narrative in the morning.
Am I the only one who sometimes has inwardly cloudy days? I’ve had a refrain running through my mind all day: “Put on a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness.” Yep, it’s like that – a spirit of heaviness. The prophet Isaiah spoke of those that were mourning in Zion, that the Anointed One would give them “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness…” My blahs are hardly in the category of the mourning that was going on in Zion, but the prescription remains the same: put on a garment of praise. So I offer up my praises to our King by displaying a bit of His glory, light to lighten the darkness.
Wanting to write a little story about small Saul the northern bog lemming, I thought I should do a little research. What’s it like in Saul’s world? When we went to Big Bog State Park last year, we were amazed at how interesting it was in bog-land.
I’ve printed out a few little articles about bog lemmings and have a library book about bogs. I don’t have a story yet, but I did a couple illustrations of the carnivorous plants in the bog. When we were there, we saw tons of pitcher plants, but the sundew plants were past their season.
That’s all I’ve got for today – a story is brewing in the brain but not yet materialized on the screen. It’s about as mysterious a process as life is in the bog.
The unsuspecting blog post wanders too close to the sundew in the morning…GULP!
I read a few epigrams and epitaphs today in the book of poetry I’m slowly making my way through. An epigram is a short, sharp little bit of poetry.
Here’s an example by Matthew Prior from the book: Sir, I admit your general rule That every poet is a fool; But yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet.
Here’s my contribution to the craft: What makes a soup turn into stew? What makes a stew all soupy? If I knew the reason, I wouldn’t tell you, On account of you’re being so snoopy.
Sometimes they come in the form of epitaphs: Here lies Richard Dent In his cheapest tenement.
Or, Here lies what’s left Of Leslie Moore. No Les No more.
Or how about this one about a dentist: Stranger, approach this spot with gravity; John Brown is filling his last cavity.
I don’t have anything to add to that I guess that’s my last epitaph.
When the blog is over, the blog is done Nobody lost and nobody won.
Chickens and roosters are unexpectedly good subjects for painting, so I decided to have a go at it.
My first thought was “I can do better,” so I found a few more watercolor examples on Pinterest (from which I copied the one above) and rough sketched out four more candidates.
This is akin to the “bluebird” phase I went through a few years ago. I’d like to get better at both the sketching part (proportions and all that) and the painting part. And we all know that there’s no way to get there except through practice. After I do these four, I’ll find actual photos of chickens and roosters on the internet and launch out on my own, rather than relying on copying the work that other artists have done.
I finished the last page in February for the “Year at Providence Place” book that looks like it will take me 10 years to finish at this rate.
Ideally I’d have one more page for February, but I’m running out of steam. This project may not carry through.
That’s it for this week! What’s going on in your workshop?
My first thought about this post is “I can do better; I’ll probably delete it in the morning.”
My husband had a business meeting in Italy back in 2016 and we decided that it would be a good time for me to meet him there afterward so we could spend a few days in Italy together. He’s a seasoned traveler, but I’m almost completely unseasoned and would never go anywhere by myself. Anyway, it will not surprise you (if you know me), that I kept a journal of the experience by way of letters (emails) home. I thought it would be fun to publish those as a weekly series on my blog. It will definitely be fun for me – you’ll have to let me know if fun is had on your side of things as well. Some of you have read these before – maybe you’ll enjoy revisiting it. Or maybe you’ll have a good reason to skip reading my blog on these days. Here we go!
Adventures in Italy – Part 1 I got here (the airport) the prescribed 2 hours early and have nothing to do, so that bodes ill for all of you, since you will now be subjected to early reports about almost nothing. I left 45 minutes earlier than planned after having gotten a surprising amount of sleep (I know I’m not the only person who doesn’t sleep well before a major trip!). Thank you, Lord! Just south of Lakeville, traffic came to a grinding halt and a delay of 45 minutes as we all slowly made our way forward. Of course, you can’t really see what’s going on and you have no idea how long this parking lot state of existence is going to last. Somewhere in the middle of that time, I realized I’d forgotten my only jacket and had to grapple with the 5 stages of grieving. Of course, it’s going to be really warm in Italy, but I was counting on it keeping me warm on the plane. Oh well. Eventually passed the source of the delay – a semi had gone off the road into some mud and a whole fleet of emergency vehicles and tow trucks of immense size were on hand to lend their aid.
Dropped the car off at the lot and was immediately picked up by a shuttle. As I boarded the freezing cold bus, I felt another pang of regret about the jacket. I had a TSA pre-check ticket on my phone, but sort of squandered all that freedom by forgetting to remove the car keys from my pocket when I went through the thingy. Had to step aside and go through the other thingy so they could X-Ray all my parts for dangerous things. Being a newbie is really a drag sometimes. Experienced another moment of confusion when I realized that I didn’t know what concourse I was supposed to be going to. Turns out the G21 on the ticket didn’t stand for Gate 21. Got a good walk in while I walked to the farthest end of the airport to find Concourse G and Gate 21. Everyone at the airport looks vaguely bored like “we’ve all done this a million times,” so I worked on adopting a more seasoned look, rather than the “lost little girl” look I was no doubt currently sporting.
The only jacket I saw at the airport was a MN Twins sweatshirt-type jacket for $75!! The phrase “highway robbery” came to mind. Kris said they have blankets on the airplane, so I’m going to count on that. I’ll just have to think ahead to the weather in Italy:
I have a feeling that all your sympathies for my jacket-less existence just evaporated.
Found out shortly after I sat down that there’s been an earthquake in Italy! Kris didn’t mention it when he texted me, so I’m guessing it was too far south to have any impact where he is.
Well, that brings us up to date! Don’t expect this kind of mind-numbing detail every day. (I heard that collective sigh of relief!!). Remember, you can still opt out of these missives by replying to me something like “enough already!” 🙂
Looking forward to being reunited with my honey in Italy!! Love, Lynn/Mom
Of course I made a book out of it! Wouldn’t you?
I’ll probably delete this in the buongiorno. Ciao!
Now that we’re done hiking all of the state parks in Minnesota, my husband and I decided that each month in 2024 we’ll pick an interesting Minnesota attraction to visit. We didn’t actually think of this plan until January was in the rear-view mirror, so our first adventure was at the Spam Museum in February. Our March choice was to go to the Bell Museum (formerly known as the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History), which both of us had visited while we were college students back in the early 1980’s. Back then it was right on the Minneapolis campus and entry for students was free, so why not? That location closed in January of 2017 and after some arduous work and planning, the museum’s exhibits were moved into a new building on the St. Paul campus on Larpenteur Avenue and opened up in 2018 to welcome visitors once again.
Our unique selfie!
I’d been to the new location once in 2018 with friends, but this time around we had a distinct advantage, having in the meantime met someone who works there, who offered to take us around and give us an unofficial guided tour.
Our friend Kyle has worked at the museum for a number of years (a number which I’ve forgotten, hence the vagueness). We couldn’t have had a better guide – he was knowledgeable, enthusiastic and full of all sorts of behind-the-scenes information that enriched our experience.
We started out looking at some of the many little displays of bones and specimens, followed by a peek at the huge wooly mammoth and giant beaver. From there we made our way to the second floor where all the dioramas are, after which Kyle left us to return to his office and we went through the Plein Air art exhibit, ending our visit with a nice sit-down at the planetarium to watch one of the shows.
Our intrepid guide and his large friend. Thanks, Kyle!The giant beaver
The highlight of our tour was the nature dioramas, many of which are based on actual locations in Minnesota. The artwork for most of the background to the dioramas was done by the artist Francis Lee Jaques (pronounced JAY-kweez) back in the 1920’s to 1940’s. We own a couple books written by his wife Florence and illustrated by him, so we were already familiar with his beautiful artwork.
As we meandered from diorama to diorama, Kyle told us that he and his family have a goal of going to the original locations for each diorama based on a Minnesota locale. They’ve been to several so far and he showed us the photos he’d taken so we could compare them to the illustrations that Jaques had done. Very impressive!
Detail in one of the dioramas – see below to find the hidden gnome in the painting in the rocks on the lower left.
He pointed out a few “Easter eggs” in the diorama paintings not obvious to the untrained eye: a gnome in the Cascade River diorama and a teddy bear creature in the Sand Hill Crane exhibit. My teddy bear photo didn’t turn out, but here’s the “gnome.”
He also gave us the background on how the dioramas were moved and the kind of repairs and maintenance needed to keep them in good shape. Each diorama has a small display where you can listen to the sounds made by the animals and get more information about everything in the diorama. Very cool. The elks sounded surprisingly shrill.
The elk singing his shrill songThe snow geese exhibit is the only one with a painted ceiling to show in reflections in the water
There’s a place where you can make a fool out of yourself trying to imitate the mating dance of the whooping crane. I complied and afterward the footage of me doing the dance was shown on the display. It was only temporary, so don’t run off to the museum hoping to see it.
The feature we watched at the planetarium was called “Totality” and was about eclipses. You’re not supposed to take photos during the show, so all I have is this nice colorful one before it started. The planetarium show was well done and very interesting, but by that time I was tired and struggled with staying awake, since the conditions were perfect for sleeping. I think I caught most of it though.
A question posed in the astronomy section. Why indeed? See the Bible for answers
If you have a suggestion for a place to go in Minnesota, let me know! We haven’t filled up our docket yet, although plans to go to Como Park and Zoo are firm.
Years ago during his retirement years, my father took a class called “Swamp, Bog, Marsh and Fen.” At the time, I could not even imagine why anyone would want to study something so horribly dull. Good grief! I put it in the same category as his enjoyment of whole wheat bread (shudder) and marmalade (ugh).
Never doubt that the Lord has a sense of humor, folks. Here I am in my mid-60’s and I absolutely love whole wheat bread and marmalade. And now, on the brink of writing a children’s book about a bog lemming, I found myself yesterday doing some good old-fashioned research into the difference between…you guessed it: swamps, bogs, marshes and fens. I was not nearly curious enough about the world when I was younger, nor about the world’s Maker.
Naturally, I wrote a poem, which might appear in the book. I wanted to keep it simple so I left scads of stuff out, but hopefully, the distinctions are made plain enough.
A swamp, my friend, has slow moving waters, Where trees grow, near rivers or lakes. The water stays still in the mellow marsh, Non-woody plants feed the drakes. A fen is a mystery, it’s almost a bog, It’s groundwater seeping through clay. But the peat-filled bog is dependent on rain And water collects there to stay.
Oh, Dad, Dad, Dad…I’m sorry I scorned your interest in this big, beautiful world. Just think of the conversations we could have had if I’d woken up earlier.
Dad would have been 97 today if he were still alive, so it seems fitting to tell this story today.
Lynniebeemuseoday 