Check out links at end of each chapter...
Chapter 1 - May 14, 2009 - Tutu Troubles
Chapter 1 - May 14, 2009 - Tutu Troubles
Chapter 2 – Oct. 07, 2009 – About My Friends
Chapter 3 – Oct. 15, 2009 – The Inheritance
Chapter 4 – Oct. 22, 2009 – Finding Answers
Chapter 5 – Oct. 29, 2009 – A New Friend
Chapter 6 – Nov. 05, 2009 – A Treasure Map
Chapter 7 – Nov. 12, 2009 – A Treasure Hunt
Chapter 8 – Nov. 19, 2009 – And Beyond
Chapter 9 – Nov. 26, 2009 – Lost Data
Chapter 10 – Dec. 3, 2009 – Found Data
Chapter 11 – Dec. 10, 2009 – The Castle Cellar
Chapter 12 – Dec. 17, 2009 – Forever Never Ending
RosFrankie and Beyond
Chapter 5
A New Friend
Méabh seems to be the only one who understands his grunts and she says that he is always telling her what he had learned when he was out exploring. It is most interesting to Méabh, but I don’t understand too much of it. Grunts can be tricky to translate.
‘Not to worry,’ Méabh says, ‘you’ll understand most of it someday when you are older.’
Which kind of makes me feel better, but I still miss Sunbeam. Fortunately, friends come in many different sizes and shapes and forms and at many different times. Just at this point, as I am relaxing in my mud bog and thinking things, I hear the call of wild geese over head.
‘Oh,’ I think, ‘Brant and Cana must be coming back.’ I get up from the mud bog and run down to the beaver dam to meet them. ‘I wonder how many goslings they will have this year?’ I say to myself.
But as I watch Brant and Cana flying in and landing, I notice something very strange on Cana’s back. It looks like a big bump. A very red and yellow triangular bump.
‘Oh my goodness,’ I worry, ‘I hope some hunter hasn’t shot her and injured her.’ I am suddenly very worried, even though Cana doesn’t fly like she is injured.
Once they land safely, they rush over to greet me. It is at this point that I notice that the very red and yellow triangular bump on Cana’s back has yellow eyes with red circles around them. And red feet!
‘RosFrankie,’ Cana says excitedly,’ Look what we found.’
What they found jumps off of Cana’s back and waddles over to me and starts rubbing against my leg.
A purring, peepy type of noise comes from the very red and yellow triangular beak. I think it is just too cute for words and I pick it up and pet it.
‘Where did you find it?’ I ask.
‘We don’t know.’ Brant answers.
I look at him inquisitively. Cana explains further. ‘We were flying up off of Iceland and realized that there was an island where there never was an island before. We were very curious because we didn’t know that islands grew. Do you know if there is such a thing as island seeds?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I answer, ‘but there is much I don’t know. We should ask Méabh.’
‘Well,’ continues Cana, ‘when we landed on the rocky island we found this little bird all alone all by itself just breaking out of a white egg on a rocky crevice. Well, we think it’s a bird, but we are not sure because it doesn’t seem to know how to fly. And all it ever says are those purring peeping sounds. But we couldn’t leave it alone and it seemed to want to come with us. Do you think we did the right thing?’
‘Oh, I don’t really know,’ I answer, ‘but it feels like the right thing to do. Maybe we should look in ‘THE’ books.’
‘We think it might be a special-needs bird,’ says Brant, ‘because it can’t fly or sing. But it does has a very special talent.’
‘Oh. What talent?’
‘Whenever danger is approaching, whether it be a hunter or a bad storm, it starts peeping loudly and running around in circles. At first we thought it was acting like a silly clown, but then eventually we realized that it was actually a very special self-defense warning-system talent to indicate an approaching danger.’
‘How very interesting! ‘ I reply, and then I notice Cana looking tired and starting to close her eyes, ‘But right now I think you should all rest for a few days after your long trip, and then we can go find Méabh.’
‘Good idea. We think also we should spend some time thinking up a name for it. “It” just doesn’t sound like a proper name to us.’
Well, a few days past, and ‘it’ becomes known as ‘Puff.’ And although Puff is not a magic dragon, he is definitely a magic bird. Everyone is charmed by him and wants to be his friend. He is a lucky and happy bird. Because of his special danger-sensing ability, we all decide that he must be like a watch dog. He is a watch puffin. But we are a little worried that Puff can’t fly. We think that Puff should be able to fly. ‘Not to worry,’ says Cana, ‘Puff can just ride on my back as we fly. No problem.’ Friends and family are like that.
We all know that Méabh is the person to ask about Puff. However, we are all a little hesitant to ask for Méabh at her castle. Mostly she is never there anyway, but she is usually out somewhere with her tent. We are all a little intimidated by her butler whose name is But. He is what is known as a proper English butler, but, in truth, he reminds us all of a vampire. He is very pale and thin and serious. His eyes have big black shadows and no one ever sees him smile. Méabh says he looks that way because he spends all of his time inside in the cold, stale and dark castle. She says it simply is not a good place for living beings to spend a lot of time. Beings need sunlight and fresh air. But But seems to like it.
Méabh calls him ‘But’ not because it is short for ‘butler’ but because every time she suggests something he says, ‘That’s a good idea BUT I have a better one.’ He is always ‘but,’ ‘but,’ and ‘butting.’ Which is also alright with Méabh because she says he comes up with some really good ideas. Only some of the ideas are like Rube Goldberg ideas, which are very very un-necessarily complicated. Méabh will often have to take his complicated solutions and ideas and simplify them greatly in order to make them into workable ideas. And then they really are great ideas. So Méabh really likes working with But even though we all are a little nervous around him. However, this time we don’t have to go to the castle because Méabh comes to us.
‘A little bird told me you had a unique new friend,’ she says.
So we tell her all about Puff. As usual, we all try to talk at once, but eventually she sorts out everything we are saying. Méabh is like that.
‘Mmm…’ she says, ‘let me investigate and ponder on this a while and we’ll see what comes up.’ She scratches Puff under his beak and she almost smiles. She would smile but she knows she has a reputation which she has to keep.
A few days later Méabh comes back and says some interesting things. Brant and Cana are right about the island just growing. Iceland is right on the Mid-Atlantic Rift.
‘What’s the Mid-Atlantic Rift?’ I ask.
It’s a mountain range of volcanoes which runs north to south right down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Right under all the water. And sometimes the volcanic activity will result in a new island being made. Which means we maybe sometimes should be a little worried about tsunamis.’
chart Woods Hole: www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2492
‘What’s are tsunamis?’ Cana wants to know.
‘They are huge waves caused by an underwater earthquake often associated with volcanic activity. Sometimes they are over 100 feet high! They can wipe out whole beaches and beach towns.’
‘Oh.’ we all say rather quietly, thinking maybe we will go to the mountains this summer rather than the beach.
‘And But is off on a new mission!’ Méabh continues, ‘We discovered that because of all this hot lava activity underneath Iceland, many of the homes in Iceland are heated with geothermal heat. They run water pipes deep into the ground and this water heats up and comes back up to heat the houses. But thinks that he can devise a geothermal heat pipe to heat the castle. But, of course, I think he is not quite right. I think it will be too difficult to run the pipe all the way down through the cliffs. Maybe it will even cause some of the cliff to break away. Maybe we will lose some of the castle if he tries to drill pipe. I don’t know. We have to study more. But I must make sure that But doesn’t run off cock-sure and do anything before we have studied all the options yet. He sometimes just gets too focused on one part of the problem. Although he does have a history of coming up with some great ideas. I just hope I can survive them all!’
And off she goes, muttering to herself, which is a thing she tends to do a lot, especially when she is talking about But.
‘Well,’ says Brant, ‘that is most interesting. I think.’
‘I wonder if we should ask the computer bug about Iceland before we go back there?’ says Cana.
‘Computer bug? You mean Lordy?’ I ask.
‘Yes, that’s the one. He’s ever so clever finding out things. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt us to know as much as we can about a place if we regularly visit it.’
‘Maybe he can also tell us,’ I say, ‘what geothermal actually means!’
‘I think there is a car called a ‘geo,’’ says Brant.
‘And I know,’ I say, ‘that ‘thermal’ has something to do with long underwear.’
‘Well, there you have it,’ says Cana, ‘it must be long underwear for cars. That would certainly be useful in Iceland.’
Then we all laugh as we watch Puff doing his new favorite thing to do. Play in the mud bog. It’s good to have a mud bog and even better to have friends to share it with.
Unique
Gosling
Vampire
Volcanic
geothermal
Questions:
How far is Iceland from where you live?
Is Iceland made only of ice?
Where and when do geese fly when they migrate?
Would you like to fly with the geese every season?
Did you ever plant Island seeds?
What other questions should be asked?
BTW:
Liquid, solid, gas: Everything on Earth can be explained in terms of 4 states of matter-- solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. A substance in a solid state is relatively rigid, has a definite volume and shape. Liquids have a definite volume, but are able to change their shape by flowing. Gases have no definite volume or shape. If unconstrained gases will spread out indefinitely. If confined they will take the shape of their container. The fourth state of matter is plasma. Plasma is an ionized gas, a gas into which sufficient energy is provided to free electrons from atoms or molecules and to allow both ions and electrons to coexist. In effect a plasma is a cloud of protons, neutrons and electrons where all the electrons have come loose from their respective molecules and atoms, giving the plasma the ability to act as a whole rather than as a bunch of atoms. Plasmas are the most common state of matter in the universe comprising more than 99% of our visible universe and most of that not visible.
Puff Magic Dragon song and history: "Puff, the Magic Dragon" is a song written by Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow and made popular by the group Peter, Paul and Mary in a 1963 recording. The song is so well-known that it has entered American and British pop culture. The lyrics for "Puff, the Magic Dragon" were based on a 1959 poem by Leonard Lipton, a nineteen-year-old Cornell student. Lipton was inspired by an Ogden Nash poem titled "Custard the Dragon," about a "Really-O, Truly-O, little pet dragon." Lipton passed his poem on to friend and fellow Cornell student Peter Yarrow, who created music and more lyrics to make the poem into the song. In 1961, Yarrow joined Paul Stookey and Mary Travers to form Peter, Paul and Mary. The group incorporated the song into their live performances before recording it in 1962; their 1962 recording of "Puff" reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1963. The authors of the song have repeatedly refuted the urban legend that the song refers to drug use and have strongly and consistently denied that they intended any references to drug use. Peter Yarrow has frequently explained that "Puff" is about the hardships of growing older and has no relationship to drug-taking. He has also said of the song that it "never had any meaning other than the obvious one".
Rube Goldberg: Reuben Goldberg (4 July 1883 – 7 December 1970) was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor who received a 1948 Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning. He is best known for his series of popular cartoons depicting Rube Goldberg machines, complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. The Reuben Award of the National Cartoonists Society is named in his honor. In addition, there are several contests around the world known as Rube Goldberg contests which challenge high school students to make a complex machine to perform a simple task.
Computer bugs: The first bug was official named as such in 1945 when engineers found a moth in Panel F, Relay #70 of the Harvard Mark II system. The computer was running a test of its multiplier and adder when the engineers noticed something was wrong. The moth was trapped, removed and taped into the computer's logbook with the words: "first actual case of a bug being found." Sixty years later, computer bugs are still with us, and show no sign of going extinct. I would seriously suggest that you check this reference for confirmation before you repeat it. It doesn’t matter at my age if I say something strange because people just assume I’m getting ‘too old,’ but you’re too young to be ‘too old.’
Check out:
Chemistry, periodic table
http://www.dayah.com/periodic/
http://chemistry.about.com/
Geothermal
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/renewable/geothermal.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRAQrDduaU0
Iceland
http://www.visiticeland.com/
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ic.html
http://www.iceland.org/us
Puffins
http://www.projectpuffin.org/
http://www.mainebirding.net/puffin/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoHD2GxcBMw
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Animals/CreatureFeature/Atlanticpuffin
Snowflakes
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/
http://snowflakebentley.com/
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-3D-Paper-Snowflake
http://chemistry.about.com/od/moleculescompounds/a/snowflake.htm
Vampires
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Animals/CreatureFeature/Vampire-bat
Volcanoes, mid-Atlantic ridge
http://staff.imsa.edu/science/si/horrell/materials/Earthquakes/quakes5.html
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/understanding.html
http://www.gly.bris.ac.uk/www/teach/virtrips/MAR/mar.html
http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2394
http://www.exploratorium.edu/theworld/iceland/volcanoes.html
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Thumblinks/mar_page.html
http://revver.com/video/684735/bus-ride-to-mid-atlantic-ridge-iceland/
http://www.mnh.si.edu/earth/text/4_3_1_0.html
http://www.divephotoguide.com/news/scientists_aim_to_unlock_deep_sea___secrets___of_earth__s_crust
www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2492
Water properties
http://www.uni.edu/~iowawet/H2OProperties.html
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/state.html
http://core.ecu.edu/geology/woods/H2OUNEEK.htm
http://www.chemistry.nmsu.edu/studntres/chem115/notes/ch11.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_(molecule)
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Physical_properties_of_water
Next chapter: A Treasure Map due to be posted on November 5, 2009
All text and images copyright 2009 Jule Dupre
unless otherwise noted.
Observe much - Think long - Say little...
[Credited to Oxford professor of C. Darwin]
Except, of course, in an emergency. Then you should
Look quick - Think fast - Yell loud!
[Credited to The Evil Grandmother]
Remember to always check your references!
Always question, but question with due respect.
No comments:
Post a Comment