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 10
Found Data
Lucy looks at the pages and says, ‘They are very very hard to read because they are Old English.’
HOG asks, ‘What’s Old English mean? Do they need special vitamins because they are old?’ HOG is a big fan of vitamins because she knows so much about nutrition.
‘No,’ Lucy smiles, ‘It means that they were written a long time ago in a very flowery and elaborate script when English was still developing as the International Language of Choice for World Business Communication.’
Both HOG and myself give Lucy one of those looks which critters give other critters when they don’t know exactly what they said but they don’t really want to know either.
‘Well,’ I say as I turn through the pages of the old diary, ‘They certainly ARE hard to read. I wonder if Lordy could do something with them on the computer with one of his translation programs. Although I think that maybe even if we do get to read these words, we are going to need extra help interpreting them.’
‘Oh, yes’ Lucy eagerly replies, ‘I think that’s a wonderful idea. Let’s go ask Lordy for help. Let’s go RIGHT NOW!’
I think that Lucy might be just a little too enthusiastic about going to see Lordy, but I don’t say anything. After all, Lucy is my friend.
Lordy also seems a little too enthusiastic to see us all. Again, I don’t say anything. Friends are like that. Friends often don't say anything even though they may be thinking things. After scanning the diary and trying 247 different translation programs, Lordy finally gets a readable print-out.
‘Well,’ he says as he hands me the papers, ‘Here is what it says but I can’t tell you what it means.’
HOG and I read over the pages together. Lucy, however, becomes very fascinated by Lordy’s various translation and code breaking programs and wants to learn all about them. He tells her about a man named Alan Turing who was THE original mostest and bestest and greatest computer code breaker of all time ever. Lucy is most enthralled with listening to Lordy. A little too enthralled, I think, but rather than say anything about it, I simply ask, ‘Lucy, will you please help us to understand what is written in this diary?’
Lucy seems not to hear me. I repeat the request, this time a little louder. Still Lucy does not seem to hear me. I begin to wonder if Lightening Bugs have problems with their hearing. ‘Do they even have ears?’ I wonder to myself. Then I just try shouting, ‘LUCY!’
Lucy is finally startled out of her revelry and begins to read out loud the pages from the diary. She says, ‘In common English it reads:
On this day Anno Domini 1533 September the 7th is born ye childe of my care ye pert Bess, with neither gown, nor kirtle, nor petticoat, but a princess she be nevertheless as foresooth be all ye herein. Prithee livith long and well, ye babe of King and Queen and Traitors. A childe wanted until birthed then bidded be gone for thou art not a man childe who wouldest be King. Thou art woman childe who mightest be Queen yet know thee not thou King thou wilst servith.
∞
Thou hast liveth one quarter year and are now thus escorted royally to thine own household in yon Hertfordshire at Hatfield House. Princess Mary no longer a princess to beith thou servant though yet she be sister of thee and old enough to mother. Princess of Wales no longer yet she knoweth no princess on England not herself. Tears do falleth and fore long I fear heads will rolleth. Babe in my arms, thou art princess but I feareth that thou would preferreth a peasant or a pauper to be.∞
Noweth the time for thou own words as thou beith old enough at seven to read and write and knoweth. Fare thee well my childe of many mothers.∞
Many mothers but none my owneth. She who mothers me I call not mother yet foresooth I know no other. He who teachest me, teachest me much but know he not how to father. I learnest much but I learneth not how to mother nor how to serve any other but to serve all. I learneth many tongues yet I knoweth nay teachest to playeth with the babe who will beith my King. Many mothers we shareth and many mothers we have not.∞
Edward noweth be King and I be pawn to a marriage madeth of royal worth. Yet Edward be sickly and I be sick of the games they playeth with my head, for I be old enough to mother yet I be childe still. ∞
Princess Mary now be Queen yet sister still. Yet she angers thy people and not learneth of common love. Vermin wench she nameth me and thinkith I wouldest a traitor be. Thy Faire at Londontown is where I wish to beith yet the Tower now my home it beith all.∞
Villanious and traitorest and vermin beith many. Privy I havest none. Yeah gowns and crowns adorneth me, my people adoreth me for tomorrow I beith Queen. Gaffer and Grammer I know not, not wouldest I a Grammer be. By your leave I weddeth my people and none other yet none other never wilst knoweth what mightest be∞
For noweth I am Queen the mightiest ever or ever to be wherefore whilst I livest no King shoulest be served, foresooth I see well enough by daylight without torches to knoweth that if I chooseth King I choosest death and shouldest mad Queen rather than mother beith.Long live the Queen.’
Lucy finally finishes reading and I ask, ‘Wow, what does that all really mean? It all sounds so very strange. Whose diary is this anyway? How can we find out?’
‘Well,’ Lordy says, ‘It is all very confusing. Maybe we should do what Mary-Ann-Drusillda always says and just follow the numbers. They are about the only thing written clearly on these pages. We can google September 7, 1533 and see what comes up.’
‘Oh,’ says Lucy, fluttering her eye lashes at Lordy, ‘I think that is just a brilliant idea. What would we ever do without you!’
At this point, I would like to tell her what we would do without him, but then I realize that not only are both of these critters my good friends, even though they both seem to be acting very strange, even strange for normally strange critters, but, in point of fact, I do want Lordy to google the date as suggested. ‘That really is a great idea Lordy. Let’s do it,’ I say.
And so we google the numbers of the date, September 7, 1533, and we find out all the answers to all our questions. It is a scary story. History is full of facts which are told in story which become myths which turn into legends and are sometimes forgotten. Sometimes they do not get forgotten. Sometimes even the facts which are so unpleasant that they should be forgotten do not get forgotten. Should the children of critters always be told the truth especially when the truth is so hard to both know and to tell? I don’t know. Do you?
‘That’s scarier than any Halloween story I have ever read. And it's true history. Very scary!’ I say to my friends. They all agree.
Obviously, after much thought and pondering and deep consideration, we all decide that there is really only one thing we can do. We don't want to think about that scary story anymore so we all decide to have a nice comfy mud bog with a nice hot cup of tea. Mud bogs and tea make life feel good!
[Do you want to find out more about the diary? If so, see the information at the end of this chapter and/or google September 7, 1533...but be forwarned - it is a scary story!!! And it's true.]
*****
As Lucy, Lordy and myself are all relaxing in the comforts of the mud bog, with HOG sitting by the side, there is a sound of wings fluttering in the air overhead. Much to everyone’s pleasure, we are soon joined by Brant and Cana and Puff. Lucy is delighted to meet three more of my friends. Friends are much better than scary stories.
After awhile, HOG, having finished her nice cup of hot tea, says to everyone as we are relaxing in the deep soothing mud, ‘Well, I’m sorry to have to go now, but I must get home and make dinner. I have gotten an idea for a new recipe which I want to try which I think I will title Diary Soup. It will take me awhile to stew all the ingredients together so that they will be digestible. You are all welcome to come over later and try it. Bye Bye.’
‘Bye bye,’ we all say in unison.
‘Diary Soup sounds a little scary,’ Lordy says, ‘ Even scarier than the diary HOG found, except that everything HOG cooks tastes really great.’
‘I know a really scary story,’ Lucy says, ‘Do you want to hear it?’
‘Oh, yes,’ everyone answers in unison with the full knowledge that they are safe and comfortable in the surrounds of the mud bog.
‘It actually has to do with some of my Lost Data. It’s called The Hope Diamond.’
‘It gets scarier,’ Lucy continues, ‘The Hope Diamond is a big blue stone which originally weighed 112 carats.’
’112 carrots don’t really weigh that much,’ I say.
‘Carats not carrots,’ Lucy explains.
‘Oh,’ I say, without actually saying that I don’t really know what Lucy just said.
‘Supposedly the story goes that this big blue stone was stolen from the eye of a statue of the Hindu Goddess Sita. Anyways, because it was stolen, there is suppose to be a curse on it. Anyone who owns it or wears it or even touches it is suppose to have very bad luck.’
‘Oh,’ Cana asks, ‘How about if they just talk about it?’
‘That’s okay,’ Lucy continues, ‘The guy who stole it died of a fever soon afterwards and his body was torn apart by wild animals. Kings and queens who have owned it have been executed. People who own it have drown in shipwrecks. People have killed other people to get possession of the stone, and then they themselves got killed by other people. That’s the way of curses. Even jewelers who have polished the blue diamond have ended up cursed and crazy. They lose all their money and sense of value and especially they lose all their friends. People get shot and stabbed and hurled over high bridges. Sometimes they die suddenly for no reason. They lose their jobs and their homes burn down and they can’t get any electricity to power their computers because all their batteries blow up. Still, in spite of the curse, other people keep trying to steal the big blue stone even though they know it will bring tragedy to them. Isn’t that really scary to think that humans will risk all they love to own a stone which has a curse on it?’
‘That’s very scary,’ we all agree.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘everyone should know what’s really important in life and not be tricked by the tricks of trickery.’
Lordy adds, ‘It’s sounds like, though, that the story of the Hope Diamond being a stone with a curse on it might be a little like The Fates getting blamed for every thing. Nothing to do with the stone but everything to do with the humans who own the stone. It’s too bad though that the Hope Diamond is part of your lost data. It would be interesting to see how much it actually weighs.’
Brant scratches his head with his foot, which is actually rather difficult for a goose to do, and asks, ‘This Hope Diamond thingy stone or whatever, is it about so big with a greenish bluish color due to the boron in it and it’s also semi-conductive and usually phosphoresce?’
Everyone looks at him in surprise. We didn’t know he knew such big words. We didn’t know we didn’t know such big words ourselves because we had not heard these words before now to know that we didn’t know them. Everyone, that is, except Lucy.
Lucy looks at Brant and with anticipation in her voice, she says, ‘You have seen this stone, haven’t you?’
‘Oh, yeah, lots of times. I was born on the beaver dam over by the pond yonder and Cleaver, good old Cleaver, I always go back to visit him. He’s just got tons of stuff inside his little lodge. Bit of a messy housekeeper, really, but just so many interesting things and stuff. Problem is, he has no place to store things and he just never throws anything out. Bit of work for him too, because the dam keeps breaking and he has to keep re-building it. Come to think of it, that dam has been breaking and re-breaking every since he found that big blue stone thing. Mmmm..…maybe there is something to this curse story.’
‘Don’t be silly. Dams breaking are the nature of dams. Do you think your friend Cleaver would allow me to bring the Hope Diamond back through the Black Hole to give it to Those In The Know so that they could study it?’ Lucy asks.
‘Oh, I’m sure of it! He’d be glad to. He’s always trying to give his stuff away. Especially to a good home. It’s throwing things out that he can’t do. Says there is always a purpose and a place for everything. Only not always at his place. ‘
And so, before long, we all walk over to the beaver pond and find Cleaver.
credit: Wikipedia
*****
Eventually, Lucy, Lordy, Brant, Cana, Puff and myself are all back enjoying the comforts of the comfy mud bog when Mary-Ann-Drusillda comes happily trotting back from her excursion to the Enchanted Wood and proudly announces, ‘57,362.’
Lucy does not quite understand what she means and Lucy is hesitant to ask because everyone else seems to think that this is a fine number for Mary-Ann-Drusillda to announce. Lucy does not want to appear to be the stupidest critter in the mud bog so she just lets her curiosity not be satisfied just this once. Which is rather unfortunate because she misses out on knowing that there are now currently 3,462 trees growing in the Enchanted Wood. It’s one of those important numbers which environmentalists and other critters need to keep track of so that they can tell if the woods are getting bigger or smaller or more or less crowded or endangered. One never really knows when it might come in handy to know this information so it is important that one always knows it. But, on this day, Lucy does not learn it. And she really is just a little bit too absorbed with the sparkling beauty of the Blue Hope Diamond which she holds in her hand.
‘I really do think,’ she says, ‘that the brilliant blue in this stone is the prettiest blue that there just ever was anywhere ever.’
We agree with her that it is indeed just the prettiest blue that we have ever seen. All except Puff. Puff says, ‘Well, it certainly is pretty, but it’s not anywhere near as pretty a shade of blue as the blue of my cousin Pauly’s foot.’
‘His foot! Does he have a problem with his foot?’ I ask, although everyone else is thinking the same question.
‘A problem with his foot!’ Puff exclaims, ‘I should think not! Why, when he shakes his blue foot around in the air, the girls just go wild. WILD!’
credit: theadventuretravelcompany.wordpress.com/2009
‘They do?’ Lucy asks, ‘Why?’
‘Well,’ says Puff, ‘I don’t know why. Just because. You would have to ask Darwin about that. All I know is that when Pauly shakes his foot, the girls go wild. I guess it is just the nature of the Blue Footed Booby living on the Galapagos Islands.’
We all look at him with a not-quite-look of disbelief on our faces, because we are all too polite to call him a liar, and besides, we know he does not ever tell lies, although he has been known to sometimes exaggerate and over-imagine.
‘I’m not making that up,’ he says, ‘I could never make up something that absurd. Only nature could make up something that absurd.’
‘Is it ALL the girls,’ Lordy asks, ‘or just the ones that have been on the Islands too long?’
‘I honestly don’t know. I just know about the blue foot shaking and the girls going wild. You do believe me, don’t you?’
‘I believe you,’ say Lucy, ‘Do you think we could meet your cousin Pauly?’
‘Well, I’m sure he’d love to meet you all and shake his foot at you. But we would have to go to the Galapagos Islands. Pauly would never come here.’
‘How could we ever get to the Galapagos Islands?’ I wonder out loud.
‘Well,’ says Brant as he counts the number of critters in the mud bog, ’I can fly Puff on my back, but I don’t think my back will carry everyone.’
‘Why don’t we ask Marge to give us all a ride?’ Cana suggests.
‘That’s a great idea,’ Brant says, ‘I heard her say last week that she wanted to go fly along the west coast of South America but that she didn’t want to go alone.’
‘Who is Marge?’ I ask, ‘I have not met a Marge before.’
‘Oh,’ says Cana, ‘she is just the most wonderful Fjord pony. We met her when we were at the Chesapeake Bay last summer. She’s a magical transporter and can take any one any where any time.’
credit: Google images
‘Could she take all of us all the way to the Galapagos Islands?’ Lordy asks.
‘Oh, I’m sure she could. After all, Charles Darwin went there all the way on the back of a Beagle, and I’m pretty sure that the Fjord ponies have been showing critters around longer than Beagles have been showing critters around,’ Cana informs us.
And before anyone can say ‘Jack Robin,’ we are all having a wonderful ride on the back of Marge, flying to the Galapagos Islands.
credit: GraphicMaps.com
We all get to admire Pauly’s wonderful shade of blue foot as he shakes it at us. And Lucy, after playing around the island with the Blue Footed Boobies, manages to collect some Lost Data which she didn’t even know was lost. But, more importantly, she discovers the meaning of fun. It isn’t something she needs to add to her formula for finding her way back home again but it is necessary to sooth her spirit. It’s amazing where one can go and what one can learn about one self when one has a magic pony to take one places one has never been before.
Maybe Nature does know something we don’t know?
A few days later, when everything has settled down and we have all had plenty of time to talk about our adventures on the Galapagos Islands, and we are back in our real every day world doing what we usually do in our real every day world, myself and Lucy and Mary-Ann-Drusillda are relaxing in the mud bog. We are just sorta discussing all sorts of things and stuff when we notice Méabh walking towards us from the direction of the castle.
‘Hello,’ Méabh yells before she even gets to us, which makes me very suspicious. Méabh never says ‘hello’ but usually just starts talking to someone in the middle of a conversation she is usually already having with herself. Méabh is like that. It’s one of the things I like best about her. But when Méabh says ‘hello’ first, I naturally have to wonder if Méabh might be sick or have a headache or something.
‘Hi,’ I say, ‘Is everything okay?’
At this point one would expect Méabh to give me one of her Méabh looks. But instead she just sorta sinks into the mud bog and lays back and closes her eyes and answers, ‘I’ve just spent hours with But down in the Castle Cellar. He’s still trying to figure out how to safely drill some geothermal heating vents down there. We walked all around down there. The things and the stuff stored down there are discombobulating. And it’s so dark. No fresh air at all. Foggy. Smelly. Oh the smells! Atrocious! I just can’t understand why But likes to spend so much time down there. It’s so unhealthy.’
‘Well,’ says Lucy. ‘You can’t find a better place to rejuvenate than the mud bog.’
‘Not bad at all,’ Lucy answers her. Then Lucy, Mary-Ann-Drusillda and myself proceed to tell her all about our adventures with Marge the Fjord Pony and Puff’s cousin Pauly with the blue feet.
‘Oh, I’m sorry I missed all that! It sounds like a great adventure,’ Méabh exclaims, ‘I was wondering though,’ she asks Lucy, ‘how are you going to transport all this Lost Data back home to the other side of the Black Hole.’
‘Oh, not a problem,’ Lucy answers, ‘Just some chemistry and physics and the freedom of a little imagination. HOG has offered to help me. We will simply take it all and put it into one of her big, really BIG, pots. We will mix it all together and then we will reduce it down to a small amount of liquid which I will drink. It’s called Cosmological Soup. When I drink all this knowledge up it will become a part of me forever. Then when I get back home, all Those In The Know have to do to retrieve this knowledge is to listen to my heart beat. It’s all very high tech stuff. Easy to say but a bit difficult to do. Those In The Know are amazingly talented.’
Words:
Nutrition
Translation
Enthralled
Fjord
Boron
Semi-conductive
Phosphoresce
Discombobulating
Atrocious
Cosmological
Questions:
Do you keep a diary?
What is the scariest story you ever heard?
What makes the Blue Footed Booby’s foot blue?
Do you believe in magic ponies?
Have you ever seen the inside of a beaver lodge?
What other questions should be asked?
BTW:
English use in world business: International English is the concept of the English language as a global means of communication. Pros and cons for this concept are common, while success, as always, will be defined by what actual works in practice.
September 7, 1533, Queen Elizabeth the first: Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England 17 November 1558 until her death. The daughter of Henry VIII, she was born a princess, but her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed three years after her birth, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Her brother, Edward VI, cut her out of the succession. His will, however, was set aside, and in 1558 Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister, the Catholic Mary, during whose reign she had been imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels. It was expected that Elizabeth would marry, but she never did. The reasons for this choice are unknown, and they have been much debated. In government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and siblings. One of her mottoes was "video et taceo" ("I see, and say nothing"). This strategy is viewed as having often saved her from political and marital misalliances. Elizabeth's reign is known as the Elizabethan era, famous above all for the flourishing of English drama, led by William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and for the seafaring prowess of English adventurers such as Francis Drake and John Hawkins. Historians often depict Elizabeth as a short-tempered, sometimes indecisive ruler, who enjoyed more than her share of luck. Elizabeth is, however, acknowledged as a charismatic performer and a survivor, in an age when government was ramshackled and limited. One of Elizabeth's rivals, was Mary, Queen of Scots, whom she imprisoned in 1568 and eventually had executed in 1587. After the short reigns of Elizabeth's brother and sister, her 44 years on the throne provided valuable stability for the kingdom and helped forge a sense of national identity. Scary times!
Alan Turing: Alan Turing (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, logician and cryptographer. Turing is often considered to be the father of modern computer science. He provided an influential formalization of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine. He made a significant and characteristically provocative contribution to the debate regarding artificial intelligence: whether it will ever be possible to say that a machine is conscious and can think. During the Second World War, Turing worked at Bletchley Park, Britain's code-breaking centre, in the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method that could find settings for the Enigma machine. In 1948, he moved to the University of Manchester to work on what was then emerging as one of the world's earliest true computers. Turing was gay, living in an era when homosexuality was still both illegal and officially considered a mental illness. He was criminally prosecuted, which essentially ended his career. He died not long after, under what some believe were ambiguous circumstances. The death of a national hero, prosecuted by the nation he helped to save, is a sad mark on human history.
Hope Diamond: The Hope Diamond is a large, 45.52-carat, fancy deep grayish-blue diamond, currently housed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. In 1839, the Hope Diamond appeared in a published catalogue of the gem collection of Henry Philip Hope, which is where it got it’s name. It’s legend came in later years, some say as a means of promoting dramatic dinner-time conversation for bored wealthy people. The jury is out on that judgment.
Carats and carrots: carrots are long orange tasty vegetables, often used for noses on snowmen so that they never go hungry, while a carat is the term used to express the weight of a diamond, with one carat equaling 200 milligrams of actual weight. But what is 200 milligrams? Look it up.
Beaver lodge: is created from severed branches and mud. The beavers cover their lodges late every autumn with fresh mud which freezes when the frost sets in. The mud becomes almost as hard as stone, so that predators can not enter. The lodge has underwater entrances to make entry nearly impossible for any other animal except the beavers. A very small amount of the lodge is actually used as a living area. There are typically two dens within the lodge, one for drying off after exiting the water, and another, drier one where the family actually lives. Their houses are formed with little order or regularity of structure, and seldom contain more than four old, and six or eight young beavers. When the ice breaks up in spring they always leave their embankments, and rove about until a little before fall, when they return to their old habitations, and lay in their winter stock of wood. They seldom begin to repair the houses till the frost sets in, and never finish the outer coating till the cold becomes severe. When they erect a new habitation, they fell the wood early in summer, but usually don’t begin building till towards the end of August.
Blue Footed Boobies: The Blue-footed Booby is a bird in the Sulidae family which comprises ten species of long-winged seabirds. The name “booby” comes from the Spanish term bobo, which means "Stupid". This is because the Blue-footed Booby is clumsy on the land. Like other seabirds, they can be very tame. The natural breeding habitat of the Blue-footed Booby is a nature preserve of profound diversity, the Galápagos Islands, located off of the west coast of South America and made famous by Charles Darwin, who visited them in 1835 when he circumnavigated the world aboard the H.M.S. Beagle and from which log notes he wrote The Origins of Species. What does H.M.S. mean? Why was a boat named after a dog? More things to look up! Satisfying curiosity is way-too time consuming. Often worth it though.
Fjord pony: Fjord ponies bears the most striking resemblance to the Asiatic Wild Horse of the Ice Age. It retains much of its ancestor's primitive vigor, as well as the uniform dun coat color. The latter is accompanied by an eel stripe running from the forelock to the tip of the tail, and sometimes by zebra bars on the legs. The mane and tail are usually lighter in color, and can be almost silver. A notable feature is the coarse, erect mane, which is characteristic of primitive equines. Were it left alone the mane would grow as long as that of any other breed, but by ancient tradition it is hogged (clipped) so that the black hairs at the centre stand above the rest. Horses with their manes hogged in this way appear on the rune stone carvings of the Vikings, which may still be seen in Norway. The Fjord was the Viking horse. It is compact and strongly muscled and has short limbs with plenty of bone. The head is wide, with small ears, and is of pony type. It is sound and hard and can operate on a modest diet. Fjords have been successful in European driving competitions, and their stamina and courage are an asset in long-distance riding.
Check out:
Alan Turing, code breaking
Hodges, Andrew – Alan Turing: the enigma, Walker, 2000.
Leavitt, David – The Man Who Knew Too Much, W.W.Norton, 2006.
Singh, Simon – The Code Book, Doubleday, 1999.
Beavers
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/beaver.html
Blue Footed Booby
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/blue-footed-booby.html
Charles Darwin
Darwin, Charles – Autobiography, [written 1892], WWNorton, 1993.
Fjord ponies
http://www.fjordpony.com/
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/fjord-pony-jumping/72057608196580055/?icid=VIDURVPET02
http://www.asknature.org/strategy/bf1c1fdfe342ffe4c36629815861f8f6
Galapagos Islands
http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/Galapagos.html
http://www.galapagos.org/2008/
http://www.pbs.org/safarchive/galapagos.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMIltYbSXBg
Hope Diamond
http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/hope.htm
http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/hope_nav/main_hopfrm.html
http://history1900s.about.com/od/1950s/a/hopediamond.htm
http://www.minerant.org/home.html
Horse
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/category/for-educators/eduby-animal/eduhorse/
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/horses/
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/horses/
Lightning Bugs:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/firefly.html
http://iris.biosci.ohio-state.edu/projects/FFiles/
http://www.backyardnature.net/lightbug.htm
http://www.hitchcockcenter.org/
Queen Elizabeth I England
http://www.royal.gov.uk/HistoryoftheMonarchy/KingsandQueensofEngland/TheTudors/ElizabethI.aspx
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/eliza.htm
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/elizabio.htm
http://www.tudorhistory.org/elizabeth/
Next chapter - The Castle Cellar due to post on December 10, 2009
PS: Emily Dickinson's birthday is December 10. When is your birthday?
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.
