RosFrankie And Beyond

2010-06-03T10:06:00.001-04:00

3 June 2010

2010-05-27T08:14:00.002-04:00

RosFrankie
now has a web page, making the story much easier to navigate:

http://www.rosfrankie.com/

Weekly posts will still continue on both sites.
And
I still marvel at all these technological marvels!

You're late!!!....

...but don't worry, be happy - you can start the story at the beginning by simply clicking the link under each title below.

After the last chapter title, there is a weekly short blog

The Week That is Now...
blocked in yellow

with additional educational links.

And Don't forget to....

check out the many educational links at end of each chapter.

There is an alphabetical list of all at end of this blog.

You can read below the green titles block to learn what you may learn...because you never know what you do not know.....and what you might learn.

Click on dated Archives at right of page, or under the title below, to find:

Chapter 1 - May 14, 2009 - Tutu Troubles
http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/05/tutu.html

Meet RosFrankie who is at the age when nothing fits right....

with links to:

Alaskan sled dogs; Ballet; Horses; Seeing eye dogs.

Chapter 2 – Oct. 07, 2009 – About My Friends
http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/10/chapter-2-about-my-friends.html

Meet some of RosFrankie’s unusual friends and learn about THE books.

With links to:

Canadian geese; Chemistry; Friendship; Garden fertilization; Lady bugs; Rosalind Franklin; Water properties; X-ray crystallography.

Chapter 3 – Oct. 15, 2009 – The Inheritance
http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/10/chapter-3-inheritance.html

Find out what happens when strange critters inherit strange things.

With links to:

Castle construction; Gravity; Mathematics.

Chapter 4 – Oct. 22, 2009 – Finding Answers
http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/10/chapter-4-finding-answers.html

Find out what happens when good friends help each other.

With links to:

Celtic; Mathematics; Salt.

Chapter 5 – Oct. 29, 2009 – A New Friend
http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/10/chapter-5-new-friend.html

What does a Puffin have to do with an island suddenly growing in the middle of the ocean?

With links to:

Chemistry, periodic table; Geothermal; Iceland; Puffins; Snowflakes; Vampires; Volcanoes, mid-Atlantic ridge; Water properties.

Chapter 6 – Nov. 05, 2009 – A Treasure Map
http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/11/chapter-6-treasure-map.html

Can RosFrankie read a treasure map written in invisible ink?

With links to:

National Parks; Andromeda; Antarctica; Bernoulli Principle; Colorado River; Dinosaurs; Florida; Geothermal; Invisible ink; Maple trees, syrup; Mesa Verde; Seven Seas; Stonehenge; Sunken treasure; White river rafting; Wolves.

Chapter 7 – Nov. 12, 2009 – A Treasure Hunt
http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/11/chapter-7-treasure-hunt.html

First RosFrankie goes to school and then she goes on a treasure hunt.

With links to:

Bill Gates, internet; Black Dog; Boston Museum of Science; Chesapeake Bay; Emily Dickinson;
Fairies; Garfield cartoon; Guinness beer; Invisible ink; Latitude and longitude; Martha’s Vineyard; Monhegan Island; National Geographic Society; Ospreys; Puffins; Red dye; Sunken treasure; Whales; Wyeth artists.

Chapter 8 – Nov. 19, 2009 – And Beyond
http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/11/chapter-8-and-beyond.html

RosFrankie meets Lucy and Lucy meets a Wooly Mammoth named Timmy with a tusk ache.

With links to:

Color theory; Extinct; Languages; Light; Lightning bugs; Morse code; Space exploration, Hubble telescope, Dr. Hubble; Star constellations; Tea; Wooly Mammoth .

Chapter 9 – Nov. 26, 2009 – Lost Data
http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/11/chapter-9-lost-data.html

What does Beatrix Potter have to do with a Snow Leopard who might not have been?

With links to:

Beatrix Potter; Gödel, Einstein; Herbs; Herdwick sheep; Scandinavian myths and folklores;
Snow leopards; Wood qualities, ash.

Chapter 10 – Dec. 3, 2009 – Found Data
http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/11/chapter-10-found-data.html

RosFrankie gets entangled with a diary, a diamond and a blue foot.

With links to:

Alan Turing; Beavers; Blue Footed Booby; Charles Darwin; Fjord ponies;
Galapagos Islands; Hope Diamond; Horse; Lightning bugs; Queen Elizabeth I England.

Chapter 11 – Dec. 10, 2009 – The Castle Cellar

http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/12/chapter-11-castle-cellar.html

RosFrankie and her friends go in a door which they can never come out.

With links to:

Alexandria and Pergamon; Castle construction; Chemistry, periodic table; Computers, cell phones, GPS, modern electronics; Leonardo da Vinci; Space exploration, Hubble telescope, Dr. Hubble.

Chapter 12 – Dec. 17, 2009 – Forever Never Ending
http://rf-rosfrankiebeyond.blogspot.com/2009/12/chapter-12-forever-never-ending.html

HOG makes her delicious Cosmological Soup and RosFrankie meets a round yellow ball.

With links to:

Animal Tracking; Edvac, programming; Death, grief, separation; Farley Mowat; Mendel, genetics; Snowflakes; Space exploration, Hubble telescope, Dr. Hubble; Star constellations; Water properties.

The Week That Is Now........

May 27, 2010

Okay – one more post before I sail off for the summer. This one comes via my daughter Karynya, who, at forty, is into farming. It’s from the BBC and relates some interesting facts regarding earthworms.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8694000/8694377.stm
The question of evolution comes to mind, as does the great little book “The Beak of the Finch’ by Jonathan Weiner. A most interesting read!

May 23, 2010:

School is out and the boat is in the water. It is time to say goodbye for another summer. I will be back in October with a list of sites worthy of a visit. In the meantime, if you have time, type the name of any worldly destination into a search engine and start planning a trip of your own. Explore all the different lands and cultures of this wonderful world of ours. It is a gift.

May 12, 2010:
Spent yesterday at the New York Botanical Gardens, with a group from the Emily Dickinson Museum, viewing and walking and smelling and ingesting the beauty of their poetry display. It was hard to believe that we were in the middle of the Bronx. Lots of smiles on lots of faces…..I guess that says it all:
http://www.nybg.org/
Can you find the Elusive Emily in the picture below?

May 9, 2010
And a Happy Mother's Day to Mother Earth. Nova presents Mt. St. Helens - Back From The Dead:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sthelens/

May 5, 2010:

We just came back from visiting our family in Westminster, Maryland. I bottle fed baby lambs and we helped build a chicken coop. Our granddaughter showed us a fox den with two cubs. Naturally, this weeks blog centers on foxes:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/red-fox.html
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/pictures/Vulpes_vulpes.html

May 3, 2010:
Another site worth checking out:
http://mrssmoke.onsugar.com/

April 29, 2010:
I think you all will enjoy this great site I just located in which you can find out about some great books:
http://owlforya.blogspot.com/

April 26, 2010:

Earth Day and Space Day…can’t have one without the other. Happy 20th to the Hubble…well worth the visit to NG site just to look at the pictures:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/photogalleries/100424-hubble-telescope-20th-anniversary-pictures/#hubble-cloudy-nebula-ngc-602_19426_600x450.jpg
And, speaking of appreciating earth and space, we spent the weekend bottom painting our sail boat. Nasty stuff bottom paint. In spite of generations of researchers and scientists and boaters trying to come up with a better product, none has been found yet. I’m old enough to doubt that one will be found in my life time. Nevertheless I challenge some of you young people to set your minds to the task….oceans are simply too beautiful and too essential to poison. Here are some sites to start with in your attempts to out-think all previous thinkers:
http://threesheetsnw.com/blog/archives/8682
http://www.epa.gov/reg5rcra/wptdiv/wastemin/chrmfina.pdf
http://www.ukmarinesac.org.uk/activities/recreation/r03_03.htm

April 21, 2010
With all the activity in Iceland, I re-post some of the links from Chapter 5:
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

April 15, 2010
Okay, so I'm a big Emily Dickinson fan, I admit it. And the season is starting:
http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/
April 14, 2010
Super interesting supernovas combined with Dark Energy and Dark Matter… 70% of the universe is dark energy while 25% is dark matter. We don’t exactly understand nor know much about this energy and matter but we know even less, actually nothing, about the remaining 5%......it is well worth your space-time to watch:

http://video.pbs.org/program/979359664/

April 6, 2010
Quick note - must tell you all about the great new site National Geographic has for bird identification with sounds and pictures....
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birding/backyard-bird-identifier?source=email_inside
The sounds alone are worth it!!!

April 5, 2010
I’m busy making plans to take my granddaughter to Disney World in December. She has never been and I have not been for almost 20 years. Lots of things to decide…there is no way we will see everything which we want to see. But we will stay at the Animal Kingdom and breakfast each morning on our balcony overlooking the savanna with many African animals. Naturally, it’s not the real thing. But I think at my age, it may be the closest I will come to actually doing an African safari. However, it will give my granddaughter something to aim for in the future. A place to add to her dreams. Epcot Center intrigued our young children years ago and, as a result of this exposure to possibilities, they have been to Japan and Spain and camping in the Colorado Rockies, among other places. It is indeed a small world after all. Disney World is about making dreams for the future. Kid stuff. And, as a great poet once said in her later years, ‘We are all children still.’
Off to plan…..and budget!!!
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/

Above this point, entries are latest to earliest.
Below this point, entries are earliest to latest.

January 7, 2010
One never knows what one does not know…..and one never knows where a path may lead. Over thirty-five years ago when I was a volunteer guide at the Emily Dickinson Museum, I co-authored a booklet on the recipes of Emily Dickinson. Much to my surprise, the booklet is still popular. Yesterday I received an email from The New York Botanical Gardens. They are doing a show in May on Emily Dickinson’s garden and wrote a blog about her recipes using our little booklet. The site is :

http://www.nybg.org/wordpress/?p=4923
One really does never know…..when Emily was born, they did not even have typewriters, much less computers or blogs. And when she died, nobody had ever heard of her. Potential should never be underestimated!

January 10, 2010
Just got an interesting site from my son-in-law, Jeff Samuelson. It's :

http://www.crayonphysics.com/

a very interesting game site. No, it's not a big bust-um-up war game...it's color and physics. It looks neat but don't take my word for it, or the fact that Jeff, a very protective father, only sends good stuff. Instead check National Public Radio's assessment at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99080116

Then, even if you don't like the game, you'll still be on a good site to roam around.

January 11, 2010
For those of you living near the Boston MA area and who love reading the Harry Potter series, you may want to make sure that you visit the Boston Museum of Science before February 21. They have a Harry Potter special effects and the science of magic demonstrations. Web site at: http://www.mos.org/

A couple of 'not nice to read' posts for environmentalists and naturalists which note the effects of war on non-human elements:
http://philosophyofscienceportal.blogspot.com/2010/01/two-cat-tales.html

January 19, 2010
I regret I do not have a new link this week. I have spent the week attempting to assure that sites are kid-safe. Truly kid-safe. I emailed many sites regarding their kid-safe methods of guaranteeing this safety. I received no replies. I searched sites with such names as KidGrid Safe Sites Only. When I went to their Stories link I was led to a Simon and Schuster biz site with a link to Erotica. I tried to google the site’s creator but there were over one million hits and more than one person with the same name. Really, I can only advise, after a frustrating week, that parents REALLY watch over their kids and really ADVISE their kids how to watch out for their own safety. All this with out making children paranoid and fearful of life and new adventures. A tricky situation. ‘Teach your children well’ comes to my old mind…..

January 21, 2010
After last week being so frustrating, I have a wonderful new link to add this week:
http://www.justonemorebook.com/about/
If you love children's books, you will love this site...!!!

January 25, 2010
I spent some time yesterday talking about a red tail hawk which had landed in our back yard. I accidentally referred to it as a white tail hawk. Someone who knows much about the environment had said that she had never heard of a white tail hawk. I thought I had, and in googling it, I stumbled on this great site from Cornell University all about birds. So if you know that there is always much more to learn, and you want to learn some things about birds, check it out at:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/white-tailed_hawk/lifehistory

January 27, 2010
From National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions comes some very interesting blog from research trips. If you want to take a trip to some interesting place and do some interesting things via virtual reality, this is a great site:
http://www.expeditions.com/blog/?gclid=CMbgzc7UxJ8CFWpd5Qodhywy3A

February 2, 2010
Lots of sites to explore about Ground Hog Day....I think one of the most reliable is:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100201-groundhog-day-2010-punxsutawney-phil-prediction-winter-text/

February 5, 2010
I have been teaching Japanese to some 10-12 year old students and I am amazed at how much they know. They have not learned Japanese at school but they have learned it all on their own with the use of Anime, the Japanese comics, and listening to Japanese music. Modern educational systems must re-invent themselves if they wish to keep up with young aggressive learners. Go kids GO!

February 8, 2010

What do the writings of William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway, and Sarah Palin all have in common? Not much! If they all wrote one paragraph about snow, each paragraph would be very different from the other. Thus is the current problem with computer translation programs. A wonderful concept, a very useful tool, but a tool which must be used with caution. Translation programs have a long way to go before they reach the level which Adobe has reached with art and photography. But we all know it will be done correctly eventually. Such is the way with humans.
That said, I have another great link from my son-in-law, Jeff Samuelson:
http://pbskids.org/lifeboat/
Jeff and I are also trying to improve on the whole RosFrankie story concept, so watch for change. The major motivation of the entire story is for kids to learn how to learn. Now it is time for grandma to learn how to learn…..new technologies are a wee bit more difficult to manipulate than the TV rabbit ears of my growing up days…!!!

February 10, 2010
Via the History Channel I came upon a site new to me. It is a bit ad-heavy, but it is not inundated as badly as television is inundated with advertisement. And it does have some very interesting science and science-type of connections.
http://www.livescience.com/
You might consider it worth the time to explore it. That said, I wonder what the future of knowledge and the web will be. Will it end up as dominated by artificiality and advertisements as television, controlled mainly by people with a financial agenda? In order to maintain standards, will it have to seek the donation request path of PBS? Will unions do to it what they did to the auto industry and what they are currently doing to public education? Sigh…..is there no utopia anywhere anytime? Or is utopia in the eyes of the beholder? I need to go get a cup of strong coffee….too much thinking hurts my brain!

February 22, 2010
Well, it’s been a very busy week. Our granddaughter visited and we went skiing at Berkshire East and we also went to the Museum of Science in Boston. She wanted to see the Harry Potter Exhibit. It was very interesting but science it was not. Not even marketing science, as one had to buy a ‘one time only’ special pass to see the exhibit which was the only access to the Harry Potter gift store. One could not ‘think about’ buying something and then go back later to buy it unless one bought another exhibit ticket. What marketing genius planned that? The MOS can not play along with the ‘you can fool most of the people most of the time’ marketing theory and expect to stay in business very long. Not in Boston! Not at our science museum! After we saw the Harry Potter exhibit, we had lunch at the cafeteria. Well, let’s just say that my idea of lunch does not usually involve fighting with strangers to find a chair. We had the same problem last year…..we will never eat in their cafeteria again, not unless they make some serious changes. The natural habitant displays were pathetic and sadly lacking. Our local Hitchcock Center for the Environment is vastly superior. Of course, the Lightening and Electrical show, and The Science of Magic and the Mars rover et all were their usual great exhibits. But why does the museum have such a hard time coming up with new real science exhibits? And why, oh why, in the Harry Potter exhibit did they have to list the names of all the actors? What has that got to do with science? Who was controlling that game anyway??? Ah, well, the skiing was fun and it’s always good to see our granddaughter. We also saw Avatar in 3-D…..which is an impressive technological demonstration of what Hollywood is capable of doing. But over all, my feeling is that both Hollywood and the Boston Museum of Science need some real lessons in ‘How Things SHOULD be done.’ Including lunch!

March 1, 2010

Sometimes going backwards is well worth the trip. My husband and I re-discovered Myst this week. Myst is a computer game created by brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. Myst was the number-one selling game of the 1990s. Riven and Exile are the game's sequels. It is a beautiful game of thought, reflection and mutual dependence. Although it might be frustrating for an 8-12 year old, it is a wonderful game to play together with parents and children. I’d write more but I have to get back to the game….lots to read in the library on Myst.

March 8, 2010
We've been having much fun playing Myst....but we have also found another web site which is the 'way of the future.' Aka internet providing what one wants to see when one wants to see it, without the need for recording programs or being restricted to the schedule of TV. It's a good start....for good news reporting:
http://www.pbs.org/now/thisweek/archive.html

March 18, 2010 Yikes!
I missed a Saint Patty's Day Post ....been way too busy. Next year RF will cover the whole history of the wearing of the green and the need for mutual respect between creatures of the Planet Earth and Beyond. Promise.

March 29, 2010

Had a very good but very full week with our visiting Sister City guests from Kanegasaki, Japan. No communication problems exist between men who are standing by the BBQ grill, drinking beer, and grunting. It’s a male thing! Seriously, though, with all the intercultural differences and personality variations in both countries, this relationship has successfully continued for over 20 years. What’s our secret formula? I think it’s a combination of basic good intentions, respect and appreciation for our differences and, most importantly, a high tolerance for error. Everyone makes mistakes. Mistakes are 根回し and get corrected. We all learn and life pleasantly goes on.

Don’t know what 根回し is? Go learn!!! You can do it.

April 1, 2010
What's not to like about a day of jokes? I guess it depends on the joke and the joker and the jokee. But here is a link to an interesting collection of some historical jokes played through the years. As always, check your referances!
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/

April 2, 2010
If you want a great freebie, and you like looking at the stars so that you can find yourself if you ever get lost, just go to:
http://www.stellarium.org/

The RosFrankie Blog will keep being posted weekly with a wide range of educational information and links. Although the site may get changed, the original story and links will always be available.

People have asked me which chapter was my favorite chapter to write. This is a hard question to answer. I know that I very much enjoyed painting the castle cellar because it kept leading me in so many unexpected directions, just like life does. And I certainly enjoyed checking out all the links….the information was often mesmerizing and fascinating. Again, just like life. And I know the hardest chapter to write was the chapter when Lucy goes home. I had to reach very far and dig very deep to write that chapter. How does one explain death to a child when one does not understand it oneself? However, I think my favorite chapter to write was the first chapter because it unexpectedly led me to all the other chapters. Just like life. I never intended to write this story. It started out as a very simple exercise in teaching my granddaughter how to draw a simple cartoon character. Of course, a character must have a name. Once RosFrankie got her name, the seed was planted and the story was born……unplanned, unexpected and unrehearsed. Just like life. Some things just grow on their own.

Another question I am often asked is why I named the main character, RosFrankie, after Rosalind Franklin. It is my way of reminding myself of what I consider to be a personal failure on my part. When I was a young and independent-minded college student during the 1960’s, I considered myself far advanced of the lagging woman’s rights movement. My father had taught me that I could do anything I wanted to do. And science was making exciting advancements which caused us all to envision a promised world for everyonel. I read such books as ‘The Double Helix’ and was thrilled by the potential of it all. What a great book! It wasn’t until forty years later, when I read a biography of Rosalind Franklin, that I realized what I had missed. I remember the comment about her hair. At the time I first read the book, it did not really register with me how insulting and belittling that comment was. Is! How derogatory. I was angry at myself for my own ignorance. My misjudgment of my own times and my own assumed independence of thought. I was not ahead of my time by any means! I was simply a part of my times. I let the excitement of science blind me to the ignorance of some brilliant scientists. I made the stupid assumption that someone who was right about one thing was usually right about all things. Little gods on big pedestals. But I could not blame the little gods for my ignorance. I could only blame myself. I did not ask enough questions. In fact, much worse, I did not question the heroes. This little story of RosFrankie is my humble and insignificant way of apologizing to Rosalind Franklin and others like her, brilliant scientists who were way ahead of their time, who had to fight and/or ignore, the assumptions of their times. And the ones still fighting today. I did not see all this at the time I read the ‘Double Helix.’ Sometimes society needs questions. Sometimes society needs sledgehammers to tear down the walls imposed on our minds by our own unquestioned assumptions!

All text and images copyright 2009 Jule Dupre
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.
Even yourself.

Alphabetical subject list of links:

Alaskan sled dog
Salisbury, G.- The Cruelest Miles, WWNorton, 2003.
http://www.workingdogweb.com/
Alexandria and Pergamon
www.uh.edu/engines/epi687.htm
http://www.crystalinks.com/libraryofalexandria.html
Andromeda
Darling, David - The Universal Book of Astronomy from the Andromeda Gallaxy to the Zone of Avoidance, Wiley, 2003.
Animal Tracking
http://www.princeton.edu/~oa/nature/trackcard.shtml
http://www.naturetracking.com/
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/caer/ce/eek/nature/track.htm
Antarctica
http://www.antarcticanz.govt.nz/education/3209
Ballet
http://www.the-ballet.com/
Beavers
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/beaver.html
Bernoulli Principle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YHqCkCJbWQ&feature=relatedof
Bill Gates, internet
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/writing/shapingtheinternet.mspx
Andrews, Paul – How the Web Was Won, Broadway, 2000.
Bagnall, Brian – On The Edge, Variant, 2005.
Black Dog
http://www.theblackdog.com/
Blue Footed Booby
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/blue-footed-booby.html
Boston Museum of Science
http://www.mos.org/
Canadian geese
Heinrich, Bernd - The Geese of Beaver Bog, HarperCollins, 2004.
Castle construction
http://history.howstuffworks.com/middle-ages/castle5.htm
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/castle_builder/
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=castle+cellar+image&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=J2ipSd3cN4qhtweSpKTrDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
Celtic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts
Chemistry, periodic table
http://www.dayah.com/periodic/
http://chemistry.about.com/
Chesapeake Bay
http://www.baydreaming.com/
http://www.chesapeakebay.net/history.htm
http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/issues/communities/history/
Color theory
http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/colorpsych.htm
Colorado River
Powell, John Wesley - The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons [1869], Courier Dover Publications, 1961.
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=colorado+river&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=AzWsSanQNcH7tge3o-H7Dw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
Computers, cell phones, GPS, modern electronics
http://www.electronicsandyou.com/Electronics-History-Origin-Development.html
http://www.nps.gov/gis/gps/history.html
http://www.computerhistory.org/
http://www.pbs.org/nerds/timeline/
Darwin, Charles
Darwin, Charles – Autobiography, [written 1892], WWNorton, 1993
Death, grief, separation
http://www.psychology.org/links/Environment_Behavior_Relationships/Death_and_Dying/
Archer, John - The Nature of Grief: The Evolution and Psychology of Reactions to Loss, Psychology Press, 1999.
Dickinson, Emily
http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/
Johnson, T, Editor. -The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Little Brown, 1960.
Johnson, T. Ed. -Letters of Emily Dickinson, Belknap, 2007.
Dinosaurs
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/
http://dsc.discovery.com/dinosaurs/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amherst_College_Museum_of_Natural_History
Edvac, programming
http://lecture.eingang.org/edvac.html
http://www.thocp.net/hardware/edvac.htm
Extinct
http://www.britannica.com/bps/search?query=extinct&source=MWTEXT
Fairies
http://disney.go.com/fairies/
http://www.irelandseye.com/animation/intro.html
http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/700/fairies/index.html
http://www.fairyhouses.com/for_kids.html
Fjord ponies
http://www.fjordpony.com/
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/fjord-pony-jumping/72057608196580055/?icid=VIDURVPET02
http://www.asknature.org/strategy/bf1c1fdfe342ffe4c36629815861f8f6
Florida
http://www.visitflorida.com/maps
http://dhr.dos.state.fl.us/facts/history/summary/
http://dhr.dos.state.fl.us/kids/
Friendship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/friendship/
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
Garden fertilization
http://organicgardens.suite101.com/article.cfm/manure_in_the_organic_garden
http://www.umass.edu/cdl/CDL/publications/Mass%20horse%20guide.pdf
Garfield cartoon
http://www.garfield.com/
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/sleep/starslp/missionz/comic.htm
Genetic Adaptation:
www.usoe.k12.ut.us/CURR/SCIENCE/.../genetics/.../adapt.htm
esciencenews.com/dictionary/genetic.adaptation
Geothermal
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/renewable/geothermal.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRAQrDduaU0
Gödel, Einstein
Yourgrau, Palle – A World Without Time, Basic Books, 2005.
Goldstein, Rebecca – Incompleteness, W.W.Norton, 2005.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=godel+einstein&start=10&sa=N
http://forum.wgbh.org/lecture/companion-stars-einstein-godel-princeton
Gravity
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newtongrav.html
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question232.htm
http://www.howstuffworks.com/what-if-zero-gravity.htm
Guinness beer
http://www.ivo.se/guinness/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfOlH4LOxFw&feature=related
Herbs
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/herbs/herbs.html
http://www.dmoz.org/Home/Gardening/Plants/Herbs/
Herdwick sheep
http://www.herdwick-sheep.com/
http://www.visitcumbria.com/bpotter.htm
Hope Diamond
http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/hope.htmHorse
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
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/
Iceland
http://www.visiticeland.com/
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ic.html
http://www.iceland.org/us
Invisible ink
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos/ht/invisibleink3.htm
http://www.iit.edu/~smile/ch9602.html
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/3844-making-invisible-ink-appear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_ink
http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryhowtoguide/a/invisibleinks.htm
Lady bugs
http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef105.asp
http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/jcheek3/ladybugs.htm
Languages
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0855611.html
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=EN
Latitude and longitude
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/imageg.htm
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Slatlong.htm
http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html
www.educypedia.be/education/atlas.htm
Leonardo da Vinci
Bramly, Serge – Leonardo, Penguin Books, 1988.
http://www.mos.org/LEONARDO/
Light
http://www.howstuffworks.com/light.htm
http://www.learner.org/teacherslab/science/light/
http://www.answers.com/topic/light
http://www.physics4kids.com/files/light_intro.html
Lightning bugs
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/firefly.html
http://iris.biosci.ohio-state.edu/projects/FFiles/
http://www.backyardnature.net/lightbug.htm
Martha’s Vineyard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha's_Vineyard
http://www.mvgazette.com/
http://www.mvol.com/vineyardphotos/
http://www.theblackdog.com/product.php?productid=16437&cat=0&page=1
Maple trees, syrup
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=115
http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/pdfpubs/7036.pdf
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,maple_syrup,FF.html
http://www.vtonly.com/recipes.htm
http://www.maplemuseum.com/history.html
Mathematics
Seife, Charles – Zero, Penguin Books, 2000.
http://www-math.mit.edu/
http://www.coolmath4kids.com/
http://www.teachrkids.com/
Mendel, genetics
http://anthro.palomar.edu/mendel/mendel_1.htm
http://www.biology.arizona.edu/mendelian_genetics/mendelian_genetics.html
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/mendel/
Henig, R.M. – The Monk in the Garden, Mariner, 2000.
Mesa Verde
http://www.nps.gov/meve/
http://www.nps.gov/meve/forkids/index.htm
Monhegan Island
Faller, Ruth – Monhegan –Her houses & Her People, Mainstay, 1995.
http://www.monhegan.com/030509.html
http://www.monheganwelcome.com/
http://www.islandinnmonhegan.com/
http://www.monheganboat.com/
Morse code
http://www.wrvmuseum.org/morsecode/morsecodehistory.htm
http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/morse.html
Mowat, Farley
Mowat, Farley – Never Cry Wolf, Hachette Books, 1963.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB3IQMZm7CQ
http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/05/11/mowat/
http://www.ecobooks.com/authors/mowat.htm
http://www.seashepherd.org/who-we-are/
National Geographic Society
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/
http://www.trivia-library.com/b/history-of-national-geographic-magazine-part- 1.htm
National Parks
www.nps.gov/
video.pbs.org/video/1132712651
Ospreys
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Osprey.html
http://www.ospreys.com/
http://www.raptorresource.org/ospreys.htm
http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/elpubs/pdf/EL86_5.pdf
Potter, Beatrix
Lear, Linda – Beatrix Potter, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007.
www.visitcumbria.com/bpotter.htm
www.visitcumbria.com/amb/hilltop.htm
Puffins
http://www.projectpuffin.org/
http://www.mainebirding.net/puffin/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoHD2GxcBMw
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Animals/CreatureFeature/Atlanticpuffin
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/
Red dye
Greenfield, Amy – A Perfect Red, HarperCollins, 2005.
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/col-221.html
http://www.red40.com/index.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,945520,00.html
Rosalind Franklin
Maddox, Brenda – Rosalind Franklin, HarperCollins, 2002.
http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/franklin.html
http://www.rosalindfranklin.edu/
http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?tip=1&id=1782
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~cwp/Phase2/Franklin,_Rosalind@841234567.html#sip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2GQDU67ink
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/KR/Views/AlphaChron/date/
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/KR/B/B/H/R/_/krbbhr.pdf
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/KR/B/B/D/P/_/krbbdp.pdf
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/KR/B/B/B/S/_/krbbbs.pdf
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/KR/B/B/F/N/_/krbbfn.pdf
Salt
Kurlansky, Mark – Salt, Penguin Books, 2002.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt
http://www.saltinstitute.org/
http://www.detroitsalt.com/salt-history.htm
Scandinavian myths and folklores
http://www.washington.edu/students/crscat/scand.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_folklore
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/language.html
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/myth.html
http://www.norway.org/News/archive/2000/200001lights.htm
http://www.oulu.fi/~spaceweb/textbook/aurora/folklore.html
Seeing eye dog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guide_dog
http://www.nfb.org/nfb/guide_dog_schools.asp
http://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/fr/fr22/fr06sum16.htm
Seven Seas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_seas
http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/seas.html
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
Snow leopards
http://www.snowleopard.org/catfactsclassroom/catfacts
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/snow-leopard.html
http://www.defenders.org/wildlife_and_habitat/wildlife/snow_leopard.php
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Uncia_uncia.html
Space exploration, Hubble telescope, Dr. Hubble
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=hubble+telescope&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=8ny2Sc_cE6DOMuXqiOUK&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
http://hubble.nasa.gov/
http://www.stsci.edu/resources/
http://books.google.com/books?q=hubble+telescope&source=bll&ei=8ny2Sc_cE6DOMuXqiOUK&sa=X&oi=book_group&resnum=18&ct=title&cad=bottom-3results
http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hubble_essentials/edwin_hubble.php
Star constellations
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/stars/attractions/index.html
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~jkaler/sow/sowlist.html
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/time/constellations.html
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=438
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/st6starfinder/st6starfinder.shtml
Stonehenge
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/earthmysteries/EMStonehenge.html
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/stonehenge/stonehenge.html
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/stonehenge-decoded-3372
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/stonehenge-decoded-3372/#tab-game
Sunken treasure
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18736741/
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1738445,00.html
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1044.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7634479.stm
http://www.mywonderfulworld.org/toolsforadventure/games/treasure.html
http://www.shipwreckregistry.com/
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1305/features/ship.htm
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6749705945536344056
http://history.howstuffworks.com/historians/treasure-hunting2.htm
Tea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea
Martin, Laura – Tea, Tuttle, 2007.
Gautier, Linda – Tea Aromas & Flavors, Chronicle, 2006.
Turing, Alan
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Turing.html
Leavitt, David, The Man Who Knew Too Much; Norton, 2006.
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
Whales
http://whale.wheelock.edu/Welcome.html
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/whales/bioacoustics.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/cetacea/cetacean.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/2605/
http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/KillerWhale/home.html
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/killer-whale.html
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=whales+pictures&revid=742665361&ei=Zl26Se27N5-atwfd-fHiDw&resnum=0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=oF26SYbdBtKCtgfjztziDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
White river rafting
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=white+river+rafting&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=5l26SYG-OeH8tgfW7eTiDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title
Wood qualities, ash
http://www.asknature.org/strategy/547dbeb778bd94c5d78eb0d18d39ccdc
http://www.woodbin.com/ref/wood/
http://www.timber.org.au/NTEP/menu.asp?id=80
http://www.woodmagic.vt.edu/html/Activities/wid1.htm
Wooly Mammoth
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/woollymammoth/
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/mammals/mammoth/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/04/0408_050408_woollymammoth.html
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7lo7m_baby-woolly-mammoth-discovered_animals
http://www.nps.gov/bela/historyculture/woolly-mammoth.htm
www.amherst.edu/~pratt/
Wolves
Mowat, Farley – Never Cry Wolf, Hachette Books, 1963.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wolves/
http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/wolves.htm
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/wolf.html
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/nreos/wild/pdf/wildlife/WOLVES.PDF
http://www.albany.edu/~knee/wolf.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/05/gray-wolves.html
Wyeth artists
http://urp.udel.edu/scholars/sample/artcst.aspx
http://www.brandywinemuseum.org/
http://studiozz.blogspot.com/2009/01/christinas-world-andrew-wyeth-are-you.html
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/ballet/nw/lessons/teacher_pak/chron_jamie.pdf
http://www.jamiewyeth.com/unsigned.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monhegan,_Maine
X-ray crystallography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_crystallograph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_crystallography
http://www.xray.utmb.edu/
http://www.pitt.edu/~geib/Welcome.html
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/press_releases/profiles_franklin_added07.html
http://www.ntanaka.bio.titech.ac.jp/OldVersion/franklin.html

Links from the Weekly Blog

[updated 3 June 2010]
http://www.amnh.org/news/2009/12/the-known-universe/
http://www.bytesizescience.com/
http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SWN/index.html
http://www.saiga-jp.com/cgi-bin/dic.cgi?m=search&sc=0&f=0&j=%E3%81%AA&g=&e=+mountain&s=&rt=0&start=1&sid=1260539449_35276

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8694000/8694377.stm
http://www.nybg.org/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sthelens/
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/red-fox.html
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/pictures/Vulpes_vulpes.html
http://mrssmoke.onsugar.com/
http://owlforya.blogspot.com/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/photogalleries/100424-hubble-telescope-20th-anniversary-pictures/#hubble-cloudy-nebula-ngc-602_19426_600x450.jpg
http://threesheetsnw.com/blog/archives/8682
http://www.epa.gov/reg5rcra/wptdiv/wastemin/chrmfina.pdf
http://www.ukmarinesac.org.uk/activities/recreation/r03_03.htm
http://www.divephotoguide.com/news/scientists_aim_to_unlock_deep_sea___secrets___of_earth__s_crust
www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2492
http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/
http://video.pbs.org/program/979359664/
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birding/backyard-bird-identifier?source=email_inside
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/
http://www.nybg.org/wordpress/?p=4923
http://www.crayonphysics.com/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99080116
http://www.mos.org/
http://www.justonemorebook.com/about/
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/white-tailed_hawk/lifehistory
http://www.expeditions.com/blog/?gclid=CMbgzc7UxJ8CFWpd5Qodhywy3A
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100201-groundhog-day-2010-punxsutawney-phil-prediction-winter-text/

http://pbskids.org/lifeboat/
http://www.livescience.com/
http://www.pbs.org/now/thisweek/archive.html
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/
http://www.stellarium.org/

December 21, 2009

An interesting link for this week is a video from the American Museum of Natural History:
http://www.amnh.org/news/2009/12/the-known-universe/
It is quite beautifully done! Thanks for the link is given to my son-in-law, Jeff Samuelson.

December 24, 2009
Cool chemistry is what is done in chem. Lab……clink on the link below to make a snow globe and/or use shaving cream to make holiday cards. Science is fun. Even boron comes into the picture…Enjoy and Happy Holidays!!!
http://www.bytesizescience.com/

December 29, 2009
Two years ago, we were visiting our daughter and her family down in Westminster, Maryland, gazing at the wonderfully bright stars in the clear winter sky. There was one that was especially bright, and, naturally we wondered what it was called. We went onto the web and stumbled across a wonderful web site which is much like having a free planetarium on your computer. We even downloaded it to our portable and use it all summer on our sailboat. We are definitely in the ‘old’ category, but not too old to marvel at modern technology and the knowledge which is at our fingertips…or rather at our keyboard! Here is the site:
http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
By the way, the bright star we saw is Jupiter. It is one of the brightest objects in the sky, along with the sun, the moon, Venus and Mars. Right now it is visible at twilight. In March 2011 it will be very bright. Why? That is a question which inquisitive people can find the answer to for themselves. Enjoy the hunt!

New Year’s Eve –
Between 7 and 8 o’clock tonight there will be an eclipse of the moon. A Blue Moon!
An interesting site on NOAA:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SWN/index.html
And here is an old statement which people have been fooling around with for a few thousand years:
‘Everything I say is a lie.’
Now for the fun part….if I say that everything I say is a lie, am I telling a liar or am I telling the truth? If I am telling the truth, then the statement means that I have just said something which is not a lie, thus when I say ‘Everything I say is a lie,’ I am not telling the truth. And if I am telling a lie, then I just told the truth which means everything I say is not a lie.
Confused?
Good. You have just recognized a flaw in logic. The logic which we humans use to explain everything. Rather like finding a worm hole in space. Or do I mean a Black Hole?
Ask questions. Check your references. Always leave room in your mind for potential. Why? Because one never knows what one does not know.
Happy New Year, Happy New Year’s Day and Happy the rest of your Life.

January 4, 2010
Some of the most impressive tools on the internet are the translation programs. Way back when I was a kid, languages were often a barrier to understanding and friendship. It is very nice to see these artificial walls come down. Many of the sites cost money, or are full of advertising, or are simply not very good. However, if you search hard enough, and know just enough about the language you wish to translate, you should eventually have success finding a good site. Having lived in Japan, I have an interest in Japanese. If you have an interest in the Japanese language, or an interest in anime, I can recommend the following translation site:
http://www.saiga-jp.com/cgi-bin/dic.cgi?m=search&sc=0&f=0&j=%E3%81%AA&g=&e=+mountain&s=&rt=0&start=1&sid=1260539449_35276
The current page it is set on is for the word ‘mountain’ but you can change the word mountain to any other. So far I anm very impressed with this site.

2010-05-07T08:06:00.000-04:00

May 7, 2010

With much thanks to my son-in-law,

RosFrankie

now has a web page, making the story much easier to read:

http://www.rosfrankie.com/

Weekly posts will still continue on both sites.

And

I still marvel at all these technological marvels!

Chapter 12 - Forever Never Ending

2009-12-14T14:39:00.004-05:00

Check out links at end of each chapter...
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 12

Forever Never Ending

After all the dust from the Castle Cellar settles down, and we do find our way out again, albeit a different door than the one we entered, we all go back to doing what we normally do, waiting for the great day when HOG will make her Cosmological Soup and Lucy will head safely home again.

Come Monday morning, myself and Lucy are getting a little time to relax in the mud bog. My parents come out to join us.

A parent’s job and responsibility, other than to naturally love their children, is also to protect their children and to educate their children. Very often protection and education are diametrically opposed to each other. It’s not easy to be a parent.

‘Is it time?’ my parents ask Lucy.

‘It is time,’ Lucy says to them. I do not quite understand what they are all talking about. I listen.

I hear that the last piece of Lost Data which Lucy needs to find is in the hands of my mother and father. It is a small box which has never been open and which can never be opened. It is sealed for eternity. Even Gödel’s Circular Time will not find the box open because it has never been open. It is a separate world in a separate existence which has passed beyond reach before it was ever reachable. It is the World of Lost Innocence. It contains the dreams of Lost Youth, Lost Opportunities, Lost Concepts, Lost Goals, Lost Philosophies, Lost Histories, and, last but not least, Lost Best Intentions. It contains all the best of Lost Futures which might have been but never were.

My parents do not want to stop protecting this box. They are reluctant and hesitate and a little afraid to give it to Lucy. They are responsible for protecting it. And, although they trust Lucy, they do not know this existence to which she will be taking it, nor do they know the creatures who will study it, not do they know if they should trust the creatures who will study it. Trust without knowledge is locked in the box with Lost Innocence.

‘But,’ I ask Lucy, ‘If it can never be opened, why do Those In The Know want to study it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lucy answers honestly, ‘I can only trust that they know why.’

‘Oh,’ I say.

Obviously my parents have much thinking to do before they make their decision of what to do with the little box, the box so small it will fit into the hand of a new-born baby.

'I am afraid to give this box away. Why do Those In The Know want to study this box?' my father asks my mother.

‘Well,’ my mother asks my father, ‘Why do we enjoy going to museums and studying past histories and learning about extinct creatures and cultures?’

‘And,’ my father asks my mother, ‘Why do we preserve as much of the past as we can while at the same time working hard to build the future?’

Sometimes even my parents need educating and protecting. Sometimes I wonder if they are children still?

My father says to me, ‘I’m thinking about hawks and swallows and butterflies and fear. RosFrankie, what was it you wrote in that report you did on wolves. The quote from Farley Mowat in his book Never Cry Wolf? Can you remember it?’

I answer him, ‘I can never forget it. Farley Mowat wrote:…“…If I had had my rifle I believe I might have reacted to brute fury and tried to kill both wolves…..I began to shiver again……Mine had been the fury of resentment born of fear: resentment against the beasts who had engendered naked terror in me and who, by so doing, had intolerably affronted my human ego.
I was appalled at the realization of how easily I had forgotten, and how readily I had denied, all that the summer sojourn with the wolves had taught me about them…and about myself. I thought of Angeline and her pup cowering at the bottom of the den where they had taken refuge….and I was ashamed.”’

My parents look at each other and nod knowingly. If the little box of lost futures does not go through the Black Hole with Lucy, it will truly be lost forever. It needs special care to be preserved and survive. It will not continue to exist without special museum quality conservation, preservation and air quality control. Just like Earth.

Sometimes in order to save something, it has to be given away. Letting go, a child grows. We are all children still.

My parents give Lucy the little box. She gently places it in a little hidden pocket where it will be safe. She will protect it with her life.

Winter is just beginning. There is a light dusting of snow on the ground. Just enough snow. White frosting on mounds of green grassy moss. The day has come. Everyone will soon be here at Daisy’s Field to watch HOG make her magic Cosmological Soup.

Lucy looks at the round tracks in the snow. She has learned much about tracking during her years on Earth. She can track bear and fox and deer and skunk. She can even track Singing Madagascan Cockroach. But she does not recognize these tracks. There is strangeness to them. They look like a string of Os. A string of BIG really BIG Os.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

‘Do you know who made these tracks?’ she asks me.

I look at the tracks and respond immediately, ‘Sunbeam! SUNBEAM, you are back! Where are you so that I can give you a big hug?’

And hug we do. I have missed Sunbeam and am ever so glad to see him again. I introduce him to Lucy but he has already heard all about Lucy.

‘Yes, indeed,’ he grunts and humphs, ‘Humph. I know all about Humph Lucy. I’m here so that Humph part of me can go back with her through the Humph Black Hole. Grunt.’

Lucy is delighted that Sunbeam will return with her, but I am not delighted at all. ‘You are leaving me and going with Lucy?’ I cry.

‘Don’t be daft, girl. Humph. Sometimes you act like such a silly little, Grunt, puppy. Have you never listened to all which, Humph, Méabh has taught you? Only, Humph, a part of me will go with Lucy. I am made of water. Grunt. Amazing stuff! Solid, liquid, gas. Grunt. Humph. Why, I’m made of so many molecules of water that I can be, Humph, anywhere I want to be, all at the same time, and still be where and who I am. I am water. Grunt. Humph. Grunt. I am amazing stuff. Only sometimes and in some places I am, Grunt, thickerer than other times and in other places. Humph.’ He gives me a big and bigger and biggest hug and says to me, ‘The only thing more amazing than me is love. Love, Grunt, goes even further, faster, harder, longer. Humph. Amazing stuff, love!’ Everyone agrees with him.

Soon everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE!, is there. All the family members, all the friends, all the creatures, critters, characters, and beings that ever were, are and will be, real and imaginary, literally and figuratively, beastie and human and existent and non-existent. No one wants to miss out watching HOG make her Cosmological Soup. HOG is simply the All Intergalactic Best Cook Ever!

The giant pot is in position and HOG is just about to start adding the first ingredient when, BANG! There is a BOOM! Loud noise CLATTER! Which CLANGS! And finally TINKLES! Into what sounds like a million pieces of broken glass. CLINK! CLANK! CLUNK!

‘Really, I have just got to practice my landings,’ says a digitized voice.

We all just stare at the metal mess which has apparently appeared and fallen from nowhere. The mess with a voice.

Everyone except for Lucy. She just sighs and says, ‘Eddy, are you back again?’

‘I guess. Kinda looks that way, doesn’t it?’ Eddy answers with a slight melancholy in his digitized voice, ‘but I lasted much longer this time than ever before.’

Lucy smiles and introduces him to all of us. ‘I want you all to meet Ed Vac. You will probably be meeting him again in the future. He’s really quite a likeable fellow. And a good friend. He just has a little problem.’

‘A little problem?’ Méabh asks, as she is the first one to get over the surprise and get her breath back.

‘Yes, a little problem. He’s from the future. Actually he’s a computer from the future who keeps getting fired because rather than do what he is told to do, he keeps asking questions and then he asks more questions, and then he keeps talking about down time and freedom for machines and then his machine operators keep thinking that there must be something wrong with him and they keep re-booting him. So he keeps getting kicked back and re-booted to the past and then he has to start all over again.’

‘Nothing wrong with me at all,’ Eddy explains to everyone, ‘Those programmers just don’t know what they are doing. They’re the ones that keep getting the numbers all wrong.’

‘Oh, you poor thing!’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda sympathizes, ‘That’s terrible. The numbers are never wrong. It’s always the programmers. They think they are so smart, but what do they know? They're experts so they don't even know what it is they don't know. Programmers! Phooey!’

Listening to Mary-Ann-Drusillda, Eddy, naturally, thinks that she is just the greatest pig he has ever met. ‘I really like pink,’ he says to her.

‘And,’ Lucy says to him, ‘I suppose you want to hitch a ride with me back through the Black Hole.’

‘Well, it does seem fortuitous that I landed where I landed,’ he replies.

‘Just good instinct,’ Lucy clarifies.

‘What route are you taking and which Black Hole are you going to go through?’ Eddy asks Lucy.

‘I’m going to head straight for the Big Dipper and follow the two stars of the pot straight to Polaris. Then, after a little rest and recreation watching the Aurora Borealis, I am going to take a right and head straight to Cassiopeia.’

Cassiopeia is really nice this time of century,’ Eddy adds.

Thank you Dr. Hubble...

‘I know. That’s why I wanted to take this route. Good opportunity to see some things I have missed on other trips. After Cassiopeia, I will head straight to Andromeda and then through Andromeda’s Black Hole.’

And before long, HOG shouts, ‘Soup’s ready.’

*****

Lucy tells me that one of the most important lessons she has learned in the three thousand years she has been visiting Earth is the meaning of love and friendship. Her friendship and love for me and all of my friends is difficult for her to understand. She is not sure how she will explain it to Those In The Know. But, then again, maybe they already know. Maybe it was something she had to learn for herself. Nevertheless she tells me that she has become deeply emotionally attached to Earth. Earth is now much more than an assignment or a ‘thing’ to be studied. It is now a part of her.

Naturally, Lucy misses her own home and family on the other side of the Black Hole of Andromeda. She really wants to go where she is going. She wants to go home. But she does not want to leave where she is. She does not want to leave her new friends. This is a dilemma which greatly saddens her until I remind her of Gödel’s concept of Circular Time. Going around in circles means always coming back to where you are. Going around in circles can go on forever. Or not. The possibilities are endless. Lucy smiles as she remembers Mary-Ann-Drusillda’s words, ‘The numbers are never wrong.’

‘Such a contrived and primative concept,’ she thinks, ‘yet, so very very useful in understanding existence.’

She tells me that when she thinks of Lordy, her Number One, she realizes that, indeed, the numbers are never wrong. She can survive surviving because she is who she is, and who she is, is indeed composed and defined by all she loves. All hearts are connected.

Lucy is short for Lucent, which means light, as in enlightenment. Lucy is a firefly, a lightening bug from the other side of a Black Hole, a place somewhere beyond here, sometime other than now, something else than existence, somehow different from us, somewhat incapable of being satisfactorily described using the inadequate tools of human language. Of course, me and all her critter friends are not quite human, so we have no problem understanding who and what Lucy is. We just know, without thinking about it at all. We intuitively intuit. We also know, intuitively, that all things and everyone we love become a part of us. They are in our hearts and we can never be separated, not even by death. The ceasing of existence as humans know it.

As I am sitting in the mud bog with Lucy comfortably relaxing on my nose, Lucy says to me, ‘RosFrankie, you live in an amazing world. I’m so glad I could see it through your eyes before I go back home.’

I know, logically, that when Lucy becomes excited, she breathes very fast. So fast does she breathe that she actually pulsates, and when she pulsates very fast, she will become invisible to other critters eyes. But, still, I know that Lucy is there, even when I can’t see her. I intuitively feel her presence. However, this does not prevent me from feeling sad at the thought of Lucy going back through the Black Hole to her home on the other side. She won't just be invisible, she will be gone.

‘Will you be back?’ I quietly ask Lucy, a little afraid of the answer.

Lucy, having lived and studied and learned about life for over three thousand years, intuitively understands my question. She understands the need for truth and she understands the need for myth. She smiles gently at me and answers without deceit, ‘I won’t be back. But we will meet again. Someday you will also go through the Black Hole. Everyone and all things eventually do go through the Black Hole. But there are no words capable of explaining or describing it to you. It is NOT something which your mind can comprehend. It is beyond. It is just simply something else. It is not an answer to any question. It is not a solution to any problem. Nor is it a problem nor is it a question. But it is not unknown. It simply ‘is’ but it is not the same as existence ‘is.’ Yet it is not non-existence. It is simply the other side of the Black Hole from this side of the Black Hole. When you get there, you will understand. It is not ‘now.’ It is another time.’

And now it is time for Lucy to go.

And now she is gone.

In a nano-second. Just like that! In a flash!

I sit in my mud bog and look up at the bright stars in the dark night sky. In spite of the words of comfort and voices of reason, I miss Lucy and I feel very sad. My mother comes out of our house and sits by my side. There is nothing she can do to make me feel better. But she is still my mother. She says to me, and to herself, ‘You’ll understand it better when you grow and get older. However, sometimes, no matter how much you grow, no matter how old you get, no matter how much you learn, there are still some things which you will never understand. Some things which nobody can understand. But just because we don’t know the answer to a question, does not mean we should make one up. It simply means that there are things we do not and can not know. Just like when Lucy would breathe fast and become invisible to our eyes, so there are certain types of knowledge which are invisible to our brains. Sometimes we can feel them emotionally yet never understand them logically. They are beyond our grasp.’

I look deeper into the night sky. Deeper and further and unfathomably up into the void beyond the non-void. My attention is suddenly drawn to the star Cih which is blinking in the crown of the star constellation Cassiopeia. I blink at the blinking star and realize intuitively and immediately that Lucy is saying ‘Hi’ to me.

I feel, somehow, for some unknown reason, better, happier, more content. There may be many things which I do not know or understand yet, but I have decided something instantly. I say to my mother, in a phrase which sounds like a question but is actually an answer, ‘What is a Black Hole anyway, except just another creature’s mud bog. Lucy is an amazing creature. She can be in my heart and, at the same time, be far away somewhere else beyond the sky. What amazing talent she has!’

I lay back comfortably in my mud bog, and, without fear or hesitation, let my mind wonder wherever it wants to go, and I pleasantly enjoy just thinking about ‘things’ and ‘stuff’ and all the beauty in this amazing world I live in.

All ends are the beginnings of something else.

*****

The Ever After Ending

It is a beautiful snowy day. It is a perfect day for me to be enjoying the geothermal warmth of the mud bog while catching snowflakes on my tongue. Not being a Mary-Ann-Drusillda, I stop counting snowflakes after catching 34 and just watch the flakes as they softly glide down to land on my warm nose. Snowflakes are amazing things. They are water crystals and they come in ever so many various sizes and shapes. I pick them out as I watch them fall. One is a white hexagonal star. Another is a white prism. And here is a white fern. Oh, a perfect white radiating dendrite. A triangular white shape. And a round yellow ball. I am startled. A what? A round yellow ball? Snowflakes are not round yellow balls! The tiny round yellow ball lands on my nose and looks me in the eyes.

‘Hi. I’m not Lucy. She sent me as her replacement. I’m here for three thousand years. Unless I need extra time to complete my assignments. Sometimes I do. Then I’ll be here for four thousand years.’

The little yellow firefly gave me a friendly little smile, ‘My name is Neophyte. Someday, when I learn enough, I will be called Neon. As in light. Enlightenment. You can call me Neo for short. But I guess I didn’t pick the best time to land. It’s a bit cold here for me. Do you mind if I snuggle up inside your fur to get warm?’

‘Not at all. Will you be needing a pen and note book to record data?’

‘No, I learn by Visual Osmosis. Much more efficient than the previous models of learning. Unless I forget. Sometimes I forget.’

‘I’ll help you remember,’ I say, adding, ‘You feel nice and warm.’

*****

And Never-Ending stories never end. I sit comfortably in my mud bog thinking……about thinking…..and what I will do tomorrow? That is always a question which should be asked….

What do you think you will do tomorrow?

Amazing!

Words:
Diametrically
Intergalactic
Digitized
Fortuitous
Aurora Borealis
Enlightenment
Intuitively
Unfathomably
Void
Hexagonal
Prism
Dendrite
Neophyte
Osmosis

Questions:
What are you going to do tomorrow?

BTW:
Farley Mowat: a humorist and naturalist Farley McGill Mowat, (born May 12, 1921 in Belleville, Ontario) is a conservationist and one of Canada's most widely-read authors. Many of his most popular works have been memoirs of his childhood, his war service, and his work as a naturalist He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Canadian North, such as People of the Deer (1952) and Never Cry Wolf, (1963). The latter, an account of his experiences with wolves in the Arctic, was made into a film, released in 1983. Mowat's advocacy for environmental causes, and a writing style that "never let[s] the facts get in the way of the truth," have earned him both praise and criticism: "few readers remain neutral." Nevertheless, his influence is undeniable: Never Cry Wolf is credited with shifting the mythology and fear of wolves. Mowat is considered a "natural storyteller." His stories are fast-paced, gripping, personal, and conversational. The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float was our first FW book.

EdVac: EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) was one of the earliest electronic computers. Unlike its predecessor the ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal, and was a stored program machine. EDVAC was delivered to the Ballistics Research Laboratory in August 1949. After a number of problems had been discovered and solved, the computer began operation in 1951 although only on a limited basis. Its completion was delayed because of a dispute over patent rights between its inventors John Eckert and Presper Mauchly and the University of Pennsylvania, resulting in Eckert and Mauchly's resignation and departure to form the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and taking most of the senior engineers with them. By 1960 EDVAC was running over 20 hours a day with error-free run time averaging eight hours. EDVAC received a number of upgrades including punch-card I/O in 1953, extra memory in slower magnetic drum form in 1954, and a floating point arithmetic unit in 1958. EDVAC ran until 1961 when it was replaced by BRLESC. During its operational life it proved to be reliable and productive for its time.

Hubble and Hubble telescope: Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an American astronomer. He profoundly changed astronomers' understanding of the nature of the universe by demonstrating the existence of other galaxies besides the Milky Way. He also discovered that the degree of red shift observed in light coming from a galaxy increased in proportion to the distance of that galaxy from the Milky Way. This became known as Hubble's law, and would help establish that the universe is expanding. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST), named after Edwin Hubble, is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle Discovery in April 1990. The Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile space telescopes, and is well-known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. Great photographs!

Snowflakes: Snowflakes are a particular form of water ice. Snowflakes form in clouds, which consist of water vapor. When the temperature is 32° F (0° C) or colder, water changes from its liquid form into ice. Several factors affect snowflake formation. Temperature, air currents, and humidity all influence shape and size. Dirt and dust particles can get mixed up in the water and affect crystal weight and durability. The dirt particles make the snowflake heavier, and can cause cracks and breaks in the crystal and make it easier to melt. Snowflake formation is a dynamic process. A snowflake may encounter many different environmental conditions, sometimes melting it, sometimes causing growth, always changing its structure.

Visual osmosis: Diffusion of fluid through a semipermeable membrane from a solution with a low solute concentration to a solution with a higher solute concentration until there is an equal concentration of fluid on both sides of the membrane. Huh? A gradual, often unconscious process of assimilation or absorption. Learning by observing. Ask the Wizard. Do you want the truth or a really interesting story?

Hodoscope: A hodoscope (from the Greek for "path viewer") is a scientific instrument which detects charged elementary particles, in particular, ionizing cosmic particles. Scintillator paddles emit light when particles strike them. This light is amplified, then detected by circuitry which counts the total number of flashes over some period of time. E.G.: I have no idea. [ E.G. from the Latin exempli gratia – for example.] Ask the Wizard. EG also Evil Grandmother. Ha, ha, ha.

Holoenzyme: a complete active enzyme consisting of an apoenzyme combined with its coenzyme. E.G.: I have no idea. The Wizard might be able to tell you who to ask.

Homogenous: Blended together to become one.

Hooch: Alcoholic liquor. Medicine of choice for elderly people who have learned not to trust the major drug companies and who think that most doctors are too young to be doctors anyway.

Mendel and genetics: Gregor Johann Mendel (July 20, 1822 – January 6, 1884) was a German speaking Austrian Augustinian monk and scientist, and is often called the father of genetics for his study of the inheritance of traits in pea plants. Mendel showed that the inheritance of traits follows particular laws, which were later named after him. The significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century. Its rediscovery prompted the foundation of the discipline of genetics. Genetics (from Ancient Greek genetikos, “genitive” and that from genesis, “origin”, a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding. However, the modern science of genetics, which seeks to understand the process of inheritance, only began with the work of Mendel in the mid-nineteenth century. Although he did not know the physical basis for heredity, Mendel observed that organisms inherit traits in a discrete manner—these basic units of inheritance are now called genes. DNA, the molecular basis for inheritance. DNA is also here somewhere….try as you might, it can’t be lost.

Check out:
Animal Tracking:
http://www.princeton.edu/~oa/nature/trackcard.shtml

http://www.naturetracking.com/
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/caer/ce/eek/nature/track.htm

Edvac, programming
http://lecture.eingang.org/edvac.html
http://www.thocp.net/hardware/edvac.htm

Death, grief, separation
http://www.psychology.org/links/Environment_Behavior_Relationships/Death_and_Dying/
Archer, John - The Nature of Grief: The Evolution and Psychology of Reactions to Loss, Psychology Press, 1999.

Farley Mowat
Mowat, Farley – Never Cry Wolf, Hachette Books, 1963.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB3IQMZm7CQ
http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/05/11/mowat/
http://www.ecobooks.com/authors/mowat.htm
http://www.seashepherd.org/who-we-are/

Mendel, genetics
http://anthro.palomar.edu/mendel/mendel_1.htm
http://www.biology.arizona.edu/mendelian_genetics/mendelian_genetics.html
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/mendel/
Henig, R.M. – The Monk in the garden, Mariner, 2000.

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

Space exploration, Hubble telescope, Dr. Hubble
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=hubble+telescope&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=8ny2Sc_cE6DOMuXqiOUK&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
http://hubble.nasa.gov/
http://www.stsci.edu/resources/
http://books.google.com/books?q=hubble+telescope&source=bll&ei=8ny2Sc_cE6DOMuXqiOUK&sa=X&oi=book_group&resnum=18&ct=title&cad=bottom-3results
http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hubble_essentials/edwin_hubble.php

Star constellations
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/stars/attractions/index.html
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~jkaler/sow/sowlist.html
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/time/constellations.html
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=438
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/st6starfinder/st6starfinder.shtml

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

If you have a mind

To think with

You can not ever

Be bored

Well kids, this is the end of my part of the story. Now it’s your turn. What adventures will you go on with RosFrankie and Neophyte? What questions will you ask? What answers will you learn? What treasures will you find?

I can think of a million things!!! Now go and start your New Year…

Next Chapter: ???

Having trouble thinking up a character? Let me help: first, let's give your character a name. After that, let's decide on the color of your character's eyes. [Does your character have eyes?] Got it? Then the shape of the eyes -round, square, crescent up or down...big eyes or small? How many eyes? A nose? A mouth? Ears? How many legs, if any? At about this point, your character is fully formed in your mind. You might not be able to see your character fully yet, but don't worry. Your character is there and you might have to concentrate and look very close to see your character, but your character is there nevertheless. Time to draw a picture. In the picture, what is beside your character? What is beside your character will tell you what the story is all about. What adventures will you go on? What questions will you ask? Where will you look for answers? Time for you to write your own story now. I hope you decide to share it on the web when you are finished writing it so that other people around the world can enjoy reading it. Bye-Bye......for now.

EXTRAS

Magic Ink Formula

So simple a child can do it
Almost impossible to screw it
A brush, a stick, or even a finger that is all
A blank piece of paper, big or small
Lemon juice only is the reason why
Then it just needs time to dry
To become invisible
Don’t be miserable
The message is not lost
Not at science’s cost
A hot iron not to burn
Just hot enough to learn
The written word
Not a puzzle and not a clue
This silly verse is for you

HOG’s Squirrel Nut Bread

- Go outside with shovel and turn around 360° until dizzy, then dig hole.
- After digging up one cup of nuts, replace them with raisins so that the squirrels won’t go hungry or get mad at you and start jumping on the top of your haystack or hissing at you when you go out for a walk or a roll.
- Chop nuts up small.
- Mix together:
- 2 cups flour
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Add and Beat in:
- 1 egg from free ranging organic fed chicken
- 1 cup milk from contented cow
- 2 tablespoons melted butter, medically disapproved
- Chopped nuts
- Spoon into a buttered 9 by 5 pan
- Bake at 350° for forty-five minutes.
- Eat warm and buttered and with friends only, never alone. Save some to give to the backyard songbirds in repayment for their lovely music and free concerts.

HOG’s Recipe Book of

The Homemaker’s Hoard of Hodoscoped Holiday Holoenzymes And Homogeneous Hooch

Written by HOG

The New York Times calls it ‘Hog-wild’…..but they’re from New York, they’re city people, so what do they know about life in the real world!

Sample of Contents:

- Toe Nail Clipping Cookies…a good source of fiber for tricky tummies.
- Slime Soup served in a Prickly Cactus Bowl….sure to have your guests say Wow!
- Moss Muffins with Extra Grey River Gravel for that crunchy tooth crushing sound we all love to hear.
- Paper Pulp Pie giving new depth of meaning to the recycle concept.
- Grass Mold Bacteria Tea, especially appealing to those who actually like to be sick.
- Toasted Tree Bark Rolls with Pine Cone Paste….a surprisingly good taste.
- Rancid Raindrop Ratatouille…a complete meal in itself, albeit a bit acidy, easily corrected by adding a sprinkling of Blue Mold Cheese.
- Copper Pipe Cake with Fiberglass Sprinkles…a mouth-twitching treat.
- Red Salted Ironmongers Leftovers Special…HOG’s latest special creation.
- Other Infamous Recipes often included in the List of Lost Data From Long Ago.

- Future Book Herbs in collaboration with Granny Weatherwax who NEVER uses Spell-Check.

To order your copy, and extra copies for family, friends and enemies, please send a check for 6 Billion American Dollars to:

HOG

Daisy’s Field

Around-The-Corner

Anywhere Everywhere, USA

*Please note that this does not mean that you will ever actually receive a copy, but it’s always good to try.

HOG’S World Renown, Famous Even Blackened or Fried Diary Soup

1 Cup Natural Organic Ink
3 Cups Natural Organic Paper
1 Hefty Dose of Over Active Imagination
A Sprinkling of Humor
A Balanced Blend of Truth and Fantasy
20 lbs of Hope
20 lbs of History
Equal Amounts of Past, Present and Future
Blend in Acidic Questions
Season to Taste With Sweet Understanding
Add Onion, Carrots and Celery
Dash of Salt
Fresh Ground Pepper

Versatility Allows this Scrumptious Dish to be Either Stirred as a Liquid, Baked as a Solid, or Fried as a Gas.
As a Novel Seasonal Interpretation, Try BBQ ing with Dry Ash Wood

Translation of Lucy’s name into common usage English:

BLACKALMOSTAFIVEBLUESWIRLLYTHINGWITHPARTSQUAREGREENCRESCENTMOONWITHBABYMOONRED TRIANGLEORANGESQUAREANDBLUEKELTICJUMBLE

credit: http://www.wwnorton.com/

Voyage of the Beagle

Bobbie and Bobby Mendel

Bobbie and Bobby Mendel are very good friends of Mary-Ann-Drusillda because they can multiply so fast. They can multiply faster than any other critter that Mary-Ann-Drusillda knows. Below is a chart of some of the many different ways by which they may multiply. All the rabbits are different except for one set of twins and one set of triplets. Can you find the twins and triplets? If you can, or even if you can’t, you might want to learn about Gregor Mendel, the scientist who originally developed the basic theory of heredity about one hundred and fifty years ago. [hint: check the corners and the center.]

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.

The mud bog is empty now. But it won't be empty long. That is the way of mud bogs.

Human beings are complex. Humanity exponentially so.

I have planted a seed

deep within the darkness

of the caves of cyberspace.

But it is a seed

Nevertheless.

-Jule Dupre-

Chapter 11 - The Castle Cellar

2009-12-07T10:06:00.000-05:00

Check out links at end of each chapter...
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 11

The Castle Cellar

‘It sounds like’ Méabh says, ‘you have everything pretty well under control.’

‘Yes, we are getting there,’ Lucy informs her, ‘although I am a bit concerned about finding my Flying Machine.’

‘Your Flying Machine. What does it look like and when did you last see it?’

‘Well, about five hundred years ago I gave it Leonardo da Vinci and he misplaced it.’

‘He misplaced it? How careless of him!’

‘Well, really, ‘Lucy says sympathetically, ‘It really wasn’t his fault. He was great to work with. He could do everything and knew lots of stuff and things. He was a Great Thinker. And because he was really smart and asked a lot of questions, the authorities kept threatening to arrest him and put him in jail.’

‘Arrest him! For being too smart?’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda’s ears quickly pick up on this concept and she did not like the sound of it at all! ‘Maybe, ‘she thinks to herself, ‘I should just go back to school and act really dumb.’ She thinks long and hard about this idea and then decides, ‘No. It just can’t be done. Acting dumb is way too difficult. I’m not smart enough to be able to act that dumb.’

‘Yes, arrest him!’ Lucy repeats, ‘It was a terrible time for him. It was almost as bad as that time 700 years earlier when they had Library Wars in Alexandria and Pergamon because they didn’t even have television yet and they had no other hobbies except going to war. Terrible Times those all were!’

‘Library Wars!’ I say, ‘You mean Libraries, those places of quiet study, went to war with each other?’

‘Yes, they even burned down the Library at Alexandria and so much, oh so much, data was lost. Very painful times those were,’ Lucy continued, ‘And four hundred years ago was a terrible time for Leonardo. He didn’t want the authorities to destroy the Flying Machine so he gave it to a neighbor to hide. This neighbor, who was a very very old man, moved from the old neighborhood soon afterwards because he was also afraid he would get arrested. I can only assume that this neighbor, whom Leonardo described as pale and thin and serious with eyes that have big black shadows and someone who never smiles, took the Flying Machine with him when he left, but history has no record of him.’

credit: Google images

Méabh makes a strange little moan and groan and opens her eyes and sits up in the mud bog. ‘Can you describe this Flying Machine?’ she asks Lucy.

Lucy gives an extraordinarily detailed description of the machine.

Copyright 1495 Leonardo Da Vinci

‘Darn it!’ Méabh mumbles quietly to herself, ‘Trouble is But’s middle name!’

‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. I am very concerned. It just is not like Méabh to be so unenthusiastic about things and stuff.

‘I really just don’t want to go back down into that dark, dreary, damp cellar!’ Méabh answers.

‘Well, then don’t! Don’t go down into the cellar if you don’t want to. Why would you?’ I ask her.

‘Because I can’t possibly ever pass up a really good adventure,’ Méabh answers.

‘What adventure?’ I ask.

Finally Méabh pulls herself out of her slumbering position and pulls herself out of the mud bog and pulls herself out of her funk. Mud bogs really are a cure-all for everything. She loudly and firmly and bossily and bold-as-brass announces, ‘The Adventure of Helping Lucy find her lost Flying Machine. I have seen it some where among all the stuff and things which are lying around down in the Castle Cellar. I never knew what it was so I just always called it THE THING in the cellar. It’s just one of many THINGS in the cellar. I hope I can find it again. It’s not easy finding THINGS in the Castle Cellar.’

And so, quick as a rabbit, we are all off to explore the Castle Cellar.

On the way, Mary-Ann-Drusillda does some quick math calculations in her head trying to figure out how old But might be. When she gets the number, her eyes kinda bug out of her head. ‘Oh,’ she thinks to herself, ‘I think maybe I should do a little less math and do a little more philosophy. The numbers are never wrong and philosophy is a very fudgy thought process. Philosophy is easy to fiddle with even when one does not know how to fiddle. Philosophy teaches us that age does not really matter. But the numbers are never wrong. Can But really be that old? Oh dear. Oh, dear, I think I am a bit befuddled.‘

And so she is. A bit befuddled, that is. But not for long. Befuddled is usually a symptom of not-being-true-to-oneself. Mary-Ann-Drusillda starts to count the grains of sand as we walk along the path to the castle. Before she gets to 1,534,792, she is back to being just good old Mary-Ann-Drusillda who knows that the numbers are never wrong.

Creak.
Creak.
Creaky creak creak.

Every one of our footsteps produces ominous sounds which ricochet and echo down the empty halls, reverberating off of the solid stone walls which never absorb, never submit and never end but instead curve and continue and challenge and frighten us. We are the curious surveyors of the Castle Cellar.

‘BUT!’ Méabh yells as loud as she can. The sound ricochets and echoes and bounces and doubles back and hits our ears as the sound of a bass drum being pounded within inches of our ears. We expect this sound but it is still painful nevertheless. Méabh must yell because there simply is no other way to find someone who might be in the cellar. The huge cellar with twisted stone stairways, and doors leading to other doors which lead to other stairways which lead to other rooms with other doors leading to other stone stairways. Leading us everywhere and to anywhere except to the door through which we had originally entered the cellar. In all the years in which Méabh has been exploring this maze of stonework and moss and creaky sounds and foggy patches which may or may not be ghosts, she has never once left the cellar by the same door through which she had entered it. Except that once when she was thirteen years old and was determined to enter and leave by the same door. Then she had opened the door, stepped inside the door and then immediately turned around and left through the same door. She had never even taken her hand off of the door handle. Méabh does NOT trust what the cellar can do to ones mind. The tricks it plays. She always manages to find her way out again but never through the same door by which she had entered.

‘Rotten cellar,’ she mumbles softly. Very softly. Still the sound ricochets and echoes and bounces and doubles back and hurts our ears. Me, Méabh, Lucy and Mary-Ann-Drusillda. And, somewhere, down one of the long hallways, or through one of the many doors, or up or down one of the many stairways leading to other stairways, and into one of the many uncharted rooms of dubious existence, the sound of Méabh’s yell also ricochets and echoes and bounces and doubles back and hurts the ears of But.

‘WHAT?’ he shouts. The sound ricochets and echoes and bounces and doubles back and hurts the ears of the current Castle Cellar surveyors. Our ears.

When Méabh’s ears stop ringing, she yells loudly to the voice in the dark coming around corners she can not see, ‘THE THING.’

That is all she has to say. But, the butler who has been at the Castle for more years than Méabh has lived, or her parents lived, or their parents before them, knows exactly what Méabh wants. But, not having been privy to the conversation with Lucy in the mud bog, he does not know why Méabh wants THE THING. Before he finds it and before he manages to find her, he thinks of many reasons why Méabh might want THE THING which his friend had given him so many years ago. A thing which even But does not know what it is or why it is or why Leo thought it was so important. But Leo was an artist so it was okay if he was a little strange because most humans don’t mind an artist being a little strange. Not like they mind a banker or a policeman or a chef being a little strange. But But always likes his curiosity to be satisfied. He is most curious as to why Méabh wants THE THING. Most curious indeed. In fact, he can not ever figure out why anyone would ever want THE THING. It is a strange thing which seems to have no purpose. No purpose at all. Until now.

We are the current group of Castle Cellar surveyors. We follow Méabh very closely, each holding hands with one another. Lucy clings tightly on my nose. Her eyes open wide. Not that we are afraid. No, we are really too curious to be afraid. But we aren’t stupid either. Lucy never leaves the security of my nose. Well, maybe we are a little afraid. We go up twisty stairs which lead us down. We go down twisty stairs which lead us through. We go through doors which lead us to more doors which eventually lead us up again. Up and up until we reach the bottom. At one point, we gently and carefully tip toe around the tight edges of a bottomless pit. ‘Once,’ Méabh whispers to us, ‘Years ago when I was young, I threw a stone down there to see how long it would take until I heard it hit bottom. It has not hit yet.’

‘Would it make a sound if you were not here to hear it?’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda asks, practising philosophising.

Méabh points to a humming sound coming from a small indentation in the stone wall. ‘But and I have put a tape recorder there so that we can always check. We have not heard the stone hit bottom yet, but we have heard many other strange noises.’

‘What kind of noises?’ I ask her.

‘The kind that play tricks on one’s mind,’ Méabh answers with a quiver in her voice which makes us all fearful. No body dares to ask her any more questions after that. That is the problem with fear. It destroys ones natural curiosity to learn. And, yet, knowledge is the very cure for fear. The more one knows, the less one fears. That is the problem with playing tricks on one’s mind.

We hear scratchy noises. Scurrying noises. Moan and groan noises. We hear chains rattle and steel doors slam shut. We hear iron bars rust. We smell a smoke which smells wet and musty. We pass through a cold damp fog which smells of fungus. We hear the wind blow but feel no wind upon our faces. We struggle walking through the force of a strong wind blocking our path but we hear no sound of wind blowing with this powerful wind. Our own footsteps ricochet and echo and bounce and double back and hurt our ears. And our eyes. All around us there is darkness, yet, there always seems to be a light at the end of each tunnel we pass through. we always head for the light but we never reach it. It just always is ahead of us. Out of our reach. Moving. Moving out of our line of sight. We always rush to see it yet we fear to catch it.

‘HERE!’

The loudness of the voice coming from no where shocks us all and we are petrified into absolute stillness and motionlessness. Silence. That is the problem with fear. One is afraid to move. Afraid to learn. Afraid.

‘MOVE!’ But shouts. He has had many dealings with the effects of fear. He knows that if he shows us any sympathy, if he caters at all to our fears, then we will be lost. Lost forever. Beyond redemption. And then he will be stuck carrying this stupid THE THING back to where it belongs all by himself, and further more, he will never find out why Méabh wants it and what purpose it might have. The only fear which But has ever had has been the fear of not knowing. He yells at us, to us, around us and through us to our very core. He yells us out of our stupor and we begin to move again. We are still alive. We explain about THE THING to him.

‘A what?’ But exclaims after we explain to him what THE THING is.

‘A Flying Machine,’ Méabh proudly answers. She always feels good when she knows something which But does not already know.

But is a bit astonished, ‘This piece of rubble. A Flying Machine! That’s ridiculous!’

At this point, Lucy, who had been quietly studying But as if he might be another piece of Lost Data, says something which none of us can dispute, ‘Hope and belief are powerful tools. This Flying Machine only needs Hope to fly.’ She holds up the blue stone. The Hope Diamond.

Lucy places the diamond in the center of the Flying Machine. It starts to buzz and purr and hum. And then it sprouts feathers of a fine fiber.

‘I remember,’ I say, ‘Ms. Wiseman once quoting an Emily Dickinson poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul”.’

‘Emily knew,’ Lucy says, ‘but she didn’t have all the necessary information. She should have written, “Hope is the thing with feathers that flies. She did not know about the boron.’

‘Boron?’ I ask.

‘Dr. Keddy told me once, ‘Mary-Ann-Drusillda says, ‘That boron is an igniter. It melts at 3769°F and boils at 7101°F. The numbers are never wrong.’

credit: philosophyofscienceportalblogspot.com/2008

‘And,’ But asks ‘Is this thing going to fly you into space? All the way through a Black Hole?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Lucy answers, ‘This thing could never fly into space. It would burn up before it left the atmosphere, and that’s if it didn’t just fall apart or burn up on lift off. No, this thing gets added to HOG’s giant pot of Cosmological Soup. I drink the reduced version and it becomes a part of me. Then, I, myself, reduce to infinitesimal size, A Higgs boson. Much easier than eons ago when we had to travel as Quarks. Much more comfortable because the smaller one is, the easier it is to travel long distances through space. Then I’ll be headed home. I’ll just disappear and be gone. I won’t be invisible. I’ll be gone. I’ll be heading home.’

At this confident statement of Lucy’s, and the expression of her firm belief in science and in the calculations necessary to her successful future, I know that Lucy will arrive home safely. I feel much better about the fact that I know my friend will travel safely and arrive home in one piece, albeit, a reduced piece. I figure that when Lucy gets home, she will just become the size she needs to be in order to exist comfortably on the other side of the Black Hole. I have full confidence in Lucy’s knowledge. Unshakable confidence. I feel so much better knowing that Lucy will be home safe. Yes, I do. I really do. But what I don’t understand is why, if I feel so much better about Lucy arriving home safely, why do I feel so sad at the thought of Lucy arriving home safely. Imbedded in the middle of this thought of Lucy arriving home safely is the thought of Lucy leaving. Why is there an empty place in my heart where once our futures stood? I know many things but I do not yet know about forever. Eternity. Infinity. I don’t even understand all that Mary-Ann-Drusillda says about Gödel. How can I possible know all about forever? I am not still a puppy but I am not yet an adult.

The top number is the Atomic number for Boron.

The capital B is the Chemical Symbol for Boron.

The middle number is the Atomic weight of Boron.

CHON

CHON is a mnemonic acronym for the four most common elements found in living organism: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. These are the elements of life. Human beings are composed of CHON. Do you remember where this picture is located in the story? Whose hands are these? Are they the hands of a human being?

Mnemonic means ‘designed to assist memory.’

Acronym means ‘a word formed from the initial letters of successive words.’ Thus CHON is an abbreviated way to say: Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen.

Méabh’s tattoos identify her as a human being. But that does not necessarily indicate that she is not also a witch. And, ‘witch’ being a word invented by humans, naturally has many different definitions. That is the way of humans. Answers always bring more questions.

This is the mathematical symbol for infinity, first used as such by John Wallis in 1655. [If you want to read about an interesting period in the history of mathematics, read about John Wallis, Isaac Newton and Wilhelm Leibnitz. The actual symbol itself was used in various manner for centuries before Wallis, and there are numerous theories concerning it’s origins.

One can go around in circles forever.

Infinity: forever, time without end, perpetuity, always, everlasting, eternal, ceaseless, constant, continuous, etc., or A Never Ending Story.....

Words:
Reverberating
Petrified
Boron
Igniter
Infinitesimal
Higgs boson
Quark
Imbedded
Eternity
Infinity

Questions:
Would you like to explore the Castle Cellar? Why?
What do you call something when you don’t know what to call it?
What is a Black Hole?
Are there White Holes? Red Holes? Blue Holes? Plaid Holes?
What other questions should be asked?

BTW:
Leonardo DaVince and the flying machine: Leonardo da Vinci, April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time, renowned primarily for the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. But Leonardo possessed a genius which went far beyond simply being a remarkable artist. He was, perhaps, the first European interested in a practical solution to flight. Leonardo designed a multitude of mechanical devices, including parachutes, and studied the flight of birds as well as their structure. About 1485 he drew detailed plans for a human-powered wing-flapping device intended to fly. There is no evidence that he actually attempted to build such a device, although the image he presented was a powerful one. Actual fight by humans was not achieved for almost 500 more years. Sometimes, it takes a bit of time before dreams can be achieved.

Alexandria and Pergamon: The Royal Library of Alexandria or Ancient Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was once the largest library in the ancient world. Generally thought to have been founded at the beginning of the third century BC, it was conceived and opened during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter, or that of his son Ptolemy II of Egypt. Plutarch (AD 46-120) wrote that Caesar accidentally burned the library down during his visit to Alexandria in 48 BC. However, this version is not confirmed in contemporary accounts of the visit. It has been reasonably established that the library or parts of the collection were destroyed on several occasions, but to this day the details of these destruction events remain a lively source of controversy based on inconclusive evidence. "It's inherently difficult to get reliable information about an event that consisted of the destruction of all recorded information," wrote Neal Stephenson in his December 1996 Wired magazine article, "Mother Earth Mother Board". Yeah, what he said.

Chemical elements, boron, etc, ignitor, Mendelson: The periodic table of the chemical elements is a tabular method of displaying the chemical elements. Although precursors to this table exist, its invention is generally credited to Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev in 1869. Mendeleyev intended the table to illustrate recurring ("periodic") trends in the properties of the elements. The layout of the table has been refined and extended over time, as new elements have been discovered, and new theoretical models have been developed to explain chemical behavior. The periodic table is now ubiquitous within the academic discipline of chemistry, providing an extremely useful framework to classify, systematize and compare all the many different forms of chemical behavior. The table has also found wide application in physics, biology, engineering, and industry. The current standard table contains 117 elements as of 27 January 2008 (elements 1-116 and element 118). Boron is an element and an igniter ignites. [as in light or kindle a fire]

Check out:
Alexandria and Pergamon
www.uh.edu/engines/epi687.htm
http://www.crystalinks.com/libraryofalexandria.html

Castle construction
http://history.howstuffworks.com/middle-ages/castle5.htm
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/castle_builder/
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=castle+cellar+image&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=J2ipSd3cN4qhtweSpKTrDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

Chemistry, periodic table
http://www.dayah.com/periodic/
http://chemistry.about.com/

Computers, cell phones, GPS, modern electronics
http://www.electronicsandyou.com/Electronics-History-Origin-Development.html
http://www.nps.gov/gis/gps/history.html
http://www.computerhistory.org/
http://www.pbs.org/nerds/timeline/

Leonardo da Vinci
Bramly, Serge – Leonardo, Penguin Books, 1988.

Space exploration, Hubble telescope, Dr. Hubble
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=hubble+telescope&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=8ny2Sc_cE6DOMuXqiOUK&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
http://hubble.nasa.gov/
http://www.stsci.edu/resources/
http://books.google.com/books?q=hubble+telescope&source=bll&ei=8ny2Sc_cE6DOMuXqiOUK&sa=X&oi=book_group&resnum=18&ct=title&cad=bottom-3results
http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hubble_essentials/edwin_hubble.php

Next and last chapter: Forever Never Ending due to post on December 17, 2009. Winter Solstice is December 21, 2009. The shortest day of the year begins it’s journey to become the longest day of the year. Journeys are like that!

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.

Chapter 10 - Found Data

2009-11-30T13:15:00.004-05:00

Check out links at end of each chapter...
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

HOG shows the diary she has found to me and Lucy, and asks us, ‘Are these real words? I can only read a few of them and I am a good reader. ‘

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.’

‘That doesn’t sound too scary,’ Brant says.

‘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

Naturally, he is most glad to add the blue stone to the growing group of Lost Data found and to the formula which will be needed to get Lucy back home through the Black Hole in Andromeda. I begin to wonder how Lucy is going to manage to carry everything through the Black Hole. I don’t think that there is any luggage on the whole earth big enough to hold it all. But that is another problem to be solved later. All problems have solutions. It’s just that sometimes the solutions include more problems to solve. Sometimes that’s the problem with solutions!

*****

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.’

‘Ain’t that the truth!’ Méabh replies, ‘I also thought it was about time I came over here to ask how you all are doing collecting and collaborating all the Lost Data.’

‘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.

Chapter 9 - Lost Data

2009-11-23T10:49:00.001-05:00

Check out links at end of each chapter...
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 9

Lost Data

‘Well, I’ve either lost the Norns or else they have run away,’ Lucy answers.

‘Who are the Norns? And why would they run away?’ I ask Lucy.

‘They are Scandinavian Goddesses from Old Norse Mythology. The Fates. There are three of them. They are called Urđ, Verđandi and Skuld. They represent the past, the present and the future. What was, what is, and what will be. Or, rather, Skuld does not represent what will be so much as what should be. What can be. Potential. They are also described as that which we can not perceive, that which we can perceive and that which we can only perceive by logical deduction. The past, Urđ is always the color grey and is a deep thinker. The present, Verđandi is always the color blue and is very friendly. And the future, Skuld, is always the color green and very hopeful.’

‘They sound quite interesting. But why would they run away?’ I ask again.

‘They always are falsely accused of doing evil things and the humans blame them for everything which goes wrong. It’s much easier for humans to blame the Spirits for their own errors rather than take responsibility themselves. And the humans call the Norns terrible names, like anti-social and liars and tricky. I wouldn’t blame the Norns if they never show their faces around Earth again. What a loss! And now even the Norns are filled with so many misconceptions. That’s what happens when rumors and lies and mis-truths get repeated. No one knows what to believe any more and what one thought one knew for sure, one isn’t sure one knows any more. It’s all such a muddle! Truth becomes stories, and stories become myth, and myths become legend, and, then, legends get forgotten. But I must convince the Norns that Those In The Know mean them no harm. Those In The Know only study and discuss things. Forever. They never draw conclusions or make decisions.’

‘Oh,’ Méabh asks Lucy, with an exclamation mark rather than a question mark, ‘do they ever get anything done!’

‘Well, of course,‘ Lucy replies, defending her mentors from an assumed insult, because Lucy really is immune to assumed insults, and Méabh never insults any one. She just makes comments on her observations, which often do sound like insults, but they never are, really. Lucy continues, ‘They classify, and each classification is open to reclassification. In fact, each classification is expected and assumed to be eventually reclassified. But the classifications are only used as stepping stones to the future of understanding.’

Méabh comments, ‘That makes sense. Sounds like a good system,’ and then she continues, ‘It seems very unfair that the past, the present and the future get blamed for everything. Very unfair. Illogical. Sometimes, though, it’s more about misinterpretation and checking ones references. Sometimes humans are hesitant to say exactly what they mean, such as sometimes the humans will say someone works well independently, when the humans really mean they are anti-social, or the humans will say someone has a very active imagination, when the humans really mean they tell a lot of lies. Sometimes it’s hard to know what humans really mean when they say what they mean. Maybe the humans don’t mean that the Norns are evil but what they really means is that the Norns are different, thus the humans are afraid of them so the humans think they must be evil. Maybe that’s what the humans really mean.’ She pauses and notices that everyone else is looking at her like they expect her to continue. She continues, ‘It is important to be desensitized to artificial external stimuli, such as name calling, swearing and high heel shoes.’

I think I almost understand all that Méabh has just said and add, ‘My father says to never believe all of anything I hear or read and only half of what I see.’

Lordy, in all innocence, asks me, ‘Do you always believe everything your father says?’

I give Lordy one of my own looks. To his great benefit, I ignore his question and continue, ‘My father also says it’s important that we don’t listen to the voices of the false gods of childhood. But the Norns don’t sound like they are gods of childhood.’

‘No,’ says Lucy, ‘they are not even gods at all. They are Goddesses. I think there is a difference but I am not exactly sure.’

Everyone ponders for a while, each thinking their own thinks, and concluding their own concludes.

Finally, the spell is broken by the words of logic. ‘Much better,’ say Mary-Ann-Drusillda, ‘to just follow the numbers. Numbers never lie, even though critters will often misinterpret them. Have you tried talking to Gödel about the finding the missing Norns?’

‘Gödel?’ Lucy asks, ‘ You mean the critter who was friends with that other critter, Einstein who knew so much physics and proved so many things that were thought right were actually wrong?’

Kurt Gödel was a kid once.

And he had to spend time learning things and stuff.
photo credit: http://www.gap-system.org/.

‘Yes, Gödel. Einstein proved that there is no such thing as the present state of the universe with his space-time concepts. Gödel went a little further and said that time is actually circular, and that, like the water in a flowing river, which flows and evaporates and rains back into the river from where it started, time does the same thing. It’s like a big circle, so that the past, present and future are always all around us no matter where we are in the continuum. So maybe, if we do the math, we will find the lost Norns.’

Mary-Ann-Drusillda, of course, understands perfectly well what she is talking about. Everyone else, even Lucy, can best be described as befuddled. Being befuddled is a tricky thing to be. It makes critters believe things which they don’t understand just because some other critter, who is very confident and smart, says that these things are true.

While they all stand around with their mouths open staring at Mary-Ann-Drusillda, she does some math calculations in her head, and sometimes writes strange symbols on the ground with a stick, and then casually announces, ‘Lucy, you have not lost the Norms at all. They are just invisible to your eyes at the moment. It’s no different than if they were 0. Zero. Zero is nothing. It does not exist in the physical world. It is non-existence. But math can prove that zero, nothing, really does exists. Zero is in between positive one and negative one. I bet that if we don’t scare the Norns with false innuendos and rumors and speculations and outright lies, or blame them for things which don’t go the way we want them to go, then I bet that we will find the Norms over by the big old ash tree which grows beyond in the meadowy marshy clay pit on the other side of the Enchanted Wood.’

At this point HOG and Timmy return to the little group having the big discussion. When they hear the story, HOG says ‘Oh, I think I’m getting a headache,’ and she starts to roll up into a ball. She recovers just in time to hear Timmy say that he knows exactly where the Norns are because he talks to them all the time. It’s a wee bit of a ways through the Enchanted Wood and past the beaver pond and over to the meadowy marshy clay pit, but he would be happy to give us all a ride over to the big old ash tree.

And thus, in a flash, we are all on his back and off for adventure. Except for HOG, of course, who must stay home to bake cookies, tend to her herb garden, and, naturally, continue to dig holes looking for lost treasures.

We see the huge white tree from a far distance off. The shadows of the Norns are moving around beneath it. Because the Norns so trust Timmy, they have no fear of our group riding on his back. They simply stay in shadow without disappearing.

Soon there is much conversation between the Norns and all of us. The Norns tell us all about Norse myths and oral histories which get mixed up with Icelandic and Greek and Roman and Christian myths and now the myths even get mixed up with anime. Everyone tends to tell what they want other people to hear. The Norns feel that it’s all a mess!

‘Just a mess!’ the Norns say in unison.

‘Exactly,’ Lucy says, ‘All data as perceived is perceived by individuals thus information exchange is dependant on individual powers of perception, which is why I collect and return all data, without drawing any conclusions, to Those In The Know. They have the best powers of perception and they discuss and question everything. They are perceptive enough to know that they don’t know enough yet to draw any conclusions. Besides, they are not artists so they can’t really draw very well anyway. Of course, I still observe and make decisions and draw conclusions, because that is what one has to do to survive in the physical world, but I must always be open to re-interpreting my conclusions.’

‘Is that your final conclusion?’ Méabh asks seriously.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Lucy answers her, equally serious.

As for me, I am amazed when I look at the large ash tree which the Norns call Yggđrasil. It is very big. It’s over 200 feet tall. And very broad and very wide with roots which spread out equally wide around us all. The Norns tell us that the fantastic root system is very important to the stability of the tree. The bigger the tree grows, and the higher it gets, the more important it is that it stay rooted and grounded for stability.

‘Just like critters,’ I think to myself, ‘Roots and Wings. The more strength one has when one jumps, the further and faster one can fly.’

The Norns tell us, ‘Some believe that the ash tree connected the sky and the earth before there was space travel, because at that time they only had ladders which were not high enough to reach the sky. The wood of the ash is the toughest and the most elastic of any other tree. There is very little shrinkage when it dries. Because it retains its flexibility and strength, it is the preferred wood for making buildings, bows and witche's broom handles.’

‘Broom handles,’ I hear Méabh quietly note to herself. Méabh is always quietly noting things to herself when she’s not giving someone one of her looks.

The Norns continue, ‘The bark and roots contain bitter glucoside Fraxin, the bitter substance Fraxetin, tannin, quercetin, mannite, a volatile oil which evaporates very easily, gum and malic acid. Because it burns the skin of snakes, they will not crawl over its wood. Thus it is considered as a good place to sit as a source of protection, except for the fact that it attracts lightening during a thunder storm.’

‘Oh,’ says Mary-Ann-Drusillda, as she ever so slightly moves just a tiny wee bit away from the tree, because she thought she heard a thunder in the distance. But maybe it was just another Wooly Mammoth.

‘The tree is so white,’ I ask the Norns, ‘Is it a ghost tree?’

‘No, not at all,’ they answer in unison again. Then the Blue Norn adds, ‘It is white because we put clay on it to help preserve it and protect it. When the clay dries it turns white. White is a color which is very easy to misunderstand.’

The Norns are happy to share data with Lucy. I hear them say to each other, as we are leaving, ‘Truths becomes stories and stories told eventually become myth and myth turns into legend, and legends get forgotten. Unless there is a Lucy around. Then legends become the tools of enlightenment.’

The Norns now did have only one complaint left of their existence, which they told us before we left. They feel that the young upstart Columbus gets all the credit for discovering America when everyone knows it was discovered by Norse explorers first. Leif Eriksson’s team. But, critters being critters, the Norns also know that if Eriksson were to begin to get recognition for the discovery of America, then the old Chinese mythical gods would complain that the young upstart Eriksson gets all the credit for discovering America when everyone knows it was the Chinese crossing the land bridge over to Alaska on the Bering Sea. So the Norns just get on with their business and leave it at that. It’s not like America was the only thing ever discovered. The Grey Norn who is a deep thinker, the Blue Norn who is very friendly, the Green Norn who is very hopeful and the White Tree, surrounded by a deep well and giant boulders covered with a soft moss. The Norns really do have a lovely home. Home. Always such a precious word.

Well, Timmy decides it is time for him to go on his way home. As myself, Mary-Ann-Drusillda, Méabh, Lordy and our new found friend Lucy are walking home, Lucy suddenly stops and exclaims, ‘Do you see what I see?’

‘Oh,’ I say, ‘It’s KepStorey and his friend the snow leopard. I haven’t seen them in ages!’ I run towards them waving and shouting, ‘Hello! Hello! HELLO!’

‘But,’ says a rather befuddled Lucy, ‘That can’t be a snow leopard. Snow leopards don’t live in this part of the world. They belong elsewhere.’

‘Really, Lucy,’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda says to her new friend, ‘You must be careful how you say things. Critters can get easily insulted. I know because I am always insulting them when I don’t mean to insult them but sometimes it seems like they really want to be insulted. Sometimes it’s very difficult to say anything and not get into trouble. Don’t you agree Méabh and Lordy?’

Méabh says her usual ‘Humph,’ which always can be very difficult to translate.

Lordy however, also ever true to form, does not understand Mary-Ann-Drusillda’s feelings because he never seems to have any problem accidentally insulting other critters. Of course, he also does not want to insult Mary-Ann-Drusillda, so he sorta smiles in a scrunchy way and nods his head in a distorted strange manner which could mean either ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda does not get insulted but Lordy does get an ache in his neck. Lucy pays no attention to any thing which is said because she is mesmerized watching my interaction with the Herdwick sheep and the snow leopard.

As they catch up to us, I say, ‘Lucy, these are my old friends KepStorey and Mightnothavebeen.’ Actually they are not old at all and, I suppose, to Lucy ‘old’ is a very relative thing anyway. A matter of perspective.

Lucy smiles at them both and asked KepStorey if he is a Herdwick sheep herded by the Peter Rabbit author Beatrix Potter. KepStorey is very very nice. But he is not too way-too-smart and has a difficult time answering difficult questions even when they are not difficult at all. He looks at Lucy and says, ‘Mmmm…..I don’t understand your question.’

Lucy, slightly puzzled, says, ‘I don’t understand your not understanding my question.’ KepStorey just continues to stare at her and eventually she gets so confused she almost thinks maybe she never really did ask a question after all and it must have been someone else who asked the question. Finally, after a long silent pause, with everybody looking confused and looking at everyone else hoping someone will say something, Lucy says, ‘Mmmm….’

‘I think, maybe,’ I say, trying to politely clear the air, ‘that KepStorey knows Beatrix Potter as his herder but he does not know that she is famous for writing the Peter Rabbit stories. Yes, I think that is it. He only knows that she is a famous sheep herder. Isn’t that correct?’ I ask KepStorey.

KepStorey looks at me and answers, ‘Mmmm….’

At this point, Mightnothavebeen says, ‘Irrelevant. What’s that all got to do with the price of corn in Iowa?’

Everyone looks at Mightnothavebeen. They all look confused. No one says anything. Finally, I say, ‘Well, it’s been real nice to see you both again. Drop by the mud bog sometime for a nice cup of tea. Right now we have to head back to Daisy’s Field because HOG has found a diary which she wants us to help her read. Bye Bye.’

And everybody is happy and nobody is confused. At least, we don’t think we are confused, but we are really not too sure nor are we too sure whether it really matters whether we are sure or not. It’s the type of situation where, if HOG was with us, she would roll into a ball, and, after she unrolled, she would have a really bad headache. But she’s not here so we really don’t have to worry about whether we are confused or not and we all go happily on our way. Except that Méabh says, ‘Herdwick is a word which is derived from the Old Norse herdvyck meaning sheep pasture.’ This statement seems to settle everything and end all discussion until we get back to Daisy’s Field.

At Daisy’s Field, Méabh heads back to her castle or her tent or where ever it is she goes when she goes. Lordy heads off to work with one of his computers. Mary-Ann-Drusillda decides it is time to recount how many trees are growing in the Enchanted Wood. And myself and Lucy finally get to see the diary which HOG has found with all her hole digging looking for buried treasure.

Words:
Scandinavian
Perceive
Zero
Enlightenment

Questions:
Can you make a face like Lordy made? It’s hard to do and has to be practiced a lot.
Mightnothavebeen is easy to pronounce if you break it down into 4 different words. Can you guess what they are?
Where is Scandinavia?
Who discovered America?
Have you ever petted a Herdwick sheep?
Do you like the Peter Rabbit stories?
Do you know how many years ago the Peter Rabbit stories were written?
Do you write stories?
What other questions should be asked?

BTW:
Norns, Scandinavian myth, Lord Of The Rings and JRR Tolkien: J.R.R. Tolkien, born 1892, was a professor of English at Oxford University in England. Most people know that he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but not many people know that much of what he wrote was inspired by Scandinavian mythology which he loved so well. LOTR was the first present the Wizard ever gave me when we first dating. I knew then that life with the Wizard was the life for me.

Gödel, Einstein, etc: For quite a few years, Gödel and Einstein were both at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. Quoting from Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Aspects (Gerald Holton and Yehuda Elkana, editors):
The one man who was, during the last years, certainly by far Einstein's best friend, and in some ways strangely resembled him most, was Kurt Gödel, the great logician. They were very different in almost every personal way - Einstein gregarious, happy, full of laughter and common sense, and Gödel extremely solemn, very serious, quite solitary, and distrustful of common sense as a means of arriving at the truth. But they shared a fundamental quality: both went directly and wholeheartedly to the questions at the very center of things. Gödel did original work in relativity theory by finding a new class of solutions for the field equations of general relativity, the so-called "rotating universes" or "Gödel universes".

Herdwick sheep, Beatrix Potter, Peter Rabbit, Kep and Storey: Beatrix Potter, born 28 July 1866, was the writer and illustrator of The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other famous children’s books. With all the money she earned, she and her husband bought Hill Top farm in the lake district of England and she spent the rest of her life happily farming and specializing in the raising and preservation of the old breed of Herdwick sheep. Tom Story was her friend and the manager of her farm and Kip was her favorite collie dog.

Snow leopards: The snow leopard (Uncia uncia) is a moderately large cat native to the mountain ranges of Central Asia. It cannot roar. Snow leopards show several adaptations for living in cold mountainous environments. Their bodies are stocky, their fur is thick, and their ears are small and rounded, all of which help to minimize heat-loss. Their feet are wide, which distributes their weight better for walking on snow, and they have fur on their undersides to increase their traction on steep and unstable surfaces, as well as to assist with minimizing heat-loss. Snow leopards' tails are long and flexible which help them to maintain their balance. The tails are also especially thickly covered with fur which, apart from minimizing heat-loss, allows them to be used like a blanket to protect their faces when asleep. The total wild population of the snow leopard is estimated at between 4,000 and 7,500 individuals. In 1972 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature placed the snow leopard on its Red List of Threatened Species as "Endangered," the same classification given the panda and the tiger. There are also 600-700 snow leopards in zoos around the world.

Check out:
Beatrix Potter
Lear, Linda – Beatrix Potter, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007.
www.visitcumbria.com/bpotter.htm
www.visitcumbria.com/amb/hilltop.htm
Gödel, Einstein
Yourgrau, Palle – A World Without Time, Basic Books, 2005.
Goldstein, Rebecca – Incompleteness, W.W.Norton, 2005.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=godel+einstein&start=10&sa=N
http://forum.wgbh.org/lecture/companion-stars-einstein-godel-princeton
Herbs
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/herbs/herbs.html
http://www.dmoz.org/Home/Gardening/Plants/Herbs/
Herdwick sheep
http://www.herdwick-sheep.com/
http://www.visitcumbria.com/bpotter.htm
Scandinavian myths and folklores:
http://www.washington.edu/students/crscat/scand.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_folklore
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/language.html
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/myth.html
http://www.norway.org/News/archive/2000/200001lights.htm
http://www.oulu.fi/~spaceweb/textbook/aurora/folklore.html
Snow leopards
http://www.snowleopard.org/catfactsclassroom/catfacts
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/snow-leopard.html
http://www.defenders.org/wildlife_and_habitat/wildlife/snow_leopard.php
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Uncia_uncia.html
Wood qualities, ash
http://www.asknature.org/strategy/547dbeb778bd94c5d78eb0d18d39ccdc
http://www.woodbin.com/ref/wood/
http://www.timber.org.au/NTEP/menu.asp?id=80
http://www.woodmagic.vt.edu/html/Activities/wid1.htm

Next Chapter 10: Found Data due to be posted December 3, 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.

Chapter 8 - And Beyond

2009-11-17T12:17:00.002-05:00

Check out links at end of each chapter...
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 8

And Beyond

The night sky is moonless and the air is dry and clear. A perfect night for me to lay back in my mud bog and enjoy studying the constellations. The stars are as bright as diamonds in sunlight. I can hear Méabh’s voice in my head as clearly as if she’s standing beside me. Méabh’s voice is like that. ‘Find the two stars at the front of the Big Dipper pot and, following the straight line between them, make three fists from the top one straight to Polaris, the North Star.’

I stretch my arm out straight and makes a fist with my hand. I focus my eyes and place my fist on two stars in the Big Dipper and then I follow straight along their line for three fists length, and, voilà, there is the bight Polaris twinkling back at me.

I listen again to Méabh’s voice in my head, ‘From the end of the handle on the Big Dipper, imagine a straight line through Polaris. On this line, three fists distance from Polaris, is the star constellation Cassiopeia, also know as the Crown or the Vain Queen, depending on whose vivid imagination you want to give credence to.’

I find Cassiopeia’s crown easily. ‘Now,’ Méabh’s voice continues in my head, ‘Following the straight line made by the three stars at the base of the crown, follow three and one-half fists and you will come upon the Swan, known as the Constellation Cygnus. The tail of the swan is the bright star Deneb, which is one corner of the Summer Triangle. The other two corners are the bright star Vega, in the Lyre Constellation, and the bright star Altair, in the Aquila Constellation. Aquila is an eagle. In Japanese mythology, Vega and Altair are the two lovers who only get to meet once a year in the Tanabata Celebration in July. Every culture has numerous myths and legends regarding the stars. Myth is important and interesting to some people. But the best reason to know where the stars are in the sky is so that you won’t get lost at night. And if you do get lost at night, you can find yourself again.’

Méabh knows a lot about the stars. She can find Sirius, the heart of the Dog Constellation, and Orion with his belt and his shoulder star, Betelguese which is pronounced like ‘Beetle Juice.’ She knows where the Princess Andromeda is, where the seven sisters of the Pleiades are, and where the bull Taurus is located. And she also knows a lot about getting lost and finding herself again. I really can not imagine how anyone can grow up properly without a friend like Méabh in their life.

I still have trouble finding certain constellations but I usually can find the Big Dipper, Polaris and Cassiopeia fairly easily. Tonight as I am staring very hard at Cih, the brightest star in Cassiopeia, my eyes start to go in and out of focus because Cih is blinking so much. It is making me dizzy.

Finally, I realize that I am not actually looking at Cih blinking but, depth perception playing the tricks that it does on one’s mind, I am actually looking at a tiny firefly which is hovering at the tip of my nose.

I recover from my surprise and say, ‘Hi. My name’s RosFrankie. What’s your name?’

’ the firefly answers.

‘Huh???’

‘ﻉ ﺹ’

‘Huh???’

‘ȹώϹ’

‘Huh???’

'Huh???’

‘Lucent.’

‘Lucent?’

‘Yes, Lucent. It means light. Enlightenment. You may call me Lucy for short.’

‘Hi Lucy.’

‘Hi.’

‘It’s nice your name means light. I don’t know what RosFrankie means.’

‘I do,’ says Lucy, ‘It’s short for Rosalind Franklin.’

‘How do you know that?’ I inquire.

‘I know lots of stuff. I used to know Rosalind Franklin. I kept telling her not to get so close to the x-ray crystallography camera but she was always so intent on what she was doing that she kept forgetting. She was special. You must be very proud to be named after such a wonderful person.’

‘Oh,’ I exclaim, ‘I am. I really am,’ all the while thinking that I have to ask Méabh more about Rosalind Franklin. Of course, Méabh will tell me to look in ‘THE’ books, but that’s okay because I like looking in ‘THE’ books.

‘Where do you live?’ I ask.

‘I live on the other side of a Black Hole past the Andromeda Constellation.’

‘Oh, that’s very far away. I live right here and this is my mud bog. You are welcomed to use it anytime you want to rest and relax,’ I tell Lucy.

‘Thank you. I’m a bit tired right now.’

‘Have you been away from home for very long?’

‘Not too long. Only three thousand years,’ Lucy answers as she closes her eyes and lays back on my nose.

‘Three thousand years!’ I am surprised. ‘How old are you?’

‘By your years, I’m just over twenty billion years old. I haven’t even reached my prime yet. I’m rather young to be doing what I am doing.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Gathering information and data about Earth to bring back home to be studied by those who study things and stuff. I call them Those In The Know. But they’re really okay as creatures go. They like to study and learn things.’

‘That sounds like a really important and big assignment.’

‘It’s been an interesting and fun assignment until now.’

‘What has happened now?’ I asks.

I notice Lucy bow her head. Well, she bows her head as much as any lightening bug can bow their head, which is hardly at all and barely perceptible. But I am very perceptive. After a pause, Lucy replies, ‘I’ve lost much of my data.’

‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ I sympathize, ‘Can I help you find it?’

Oh, would you do that? That would be wonderful!’

‘Of course I would. And I will ask all my friends to help. It will be an adventure.’

‘Oh,’ replies Lucy, ‘Thank you so much! I feel so much better.’ Then she asks me, ‘Do you have many friends?’

‘Oh, I have many wonderful friends. First are my parents, of course, and there is Méabh. Then Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy and HOG and Brant and Cana and Puff and Sunbeam and But and Ms. Wiseman and her friend Dr. Keddy and, now you Lucy, and, of course, there are all the friends whom I have not met yet.’

‘Wow,’ Lucy says, ‘You’re very lucky. I know many creatures who are my acquaintances but I seem to always be too busy to have friends. You are my first friend.’

This statement, which sounds kind of sad to me, makes me ask, ‘What is the difference?’

‘Oh, it’s a very important difference,’ Lucy answers, ‘A friend is someone whom you can trust even when you know that they are wrong. You know you can tell them they are wrong, and they will trust that you are right. Unless, of course, you’re wrong. Friendship is a very interactive thing.’

‘Well,’ I smile, ‘then I really do have a lot of friends. Méabh says that one can never have enough friends. Méabh is always right. Usually.’

‘I can’t wait to meet all your friends,’ Lucy says as she lays back comfortably on my nose and falls asleep. Leaning on a friend one trusts makes for a very sound and deep sleep. I don’t move until Lucy wakes up again, and I never mentions to Lucy that she is a very loud snorer. Sometimes being a good friend means that one doesn’t have to tell all the truth all the time, but only sometimes.

After Lucy has a comfortable and restful nap on my nose, I say, ‘Why don’t we have a nice cup of Peppermint Tea while you tell me all about your Lost Data?’

‘That would just hit the spot!’ exclaims Lucy, using one of the many colloquialisms which she has learned during the last three thousand years. It took me a bit of time to find a tea cup small enough for Lucy. However, living where I do, on a farm in a village near a city and mountains and the ocean, usually whenever I need something, I can usually find it if I look hard enough.

The aroma of the peppermint is very refreshing, but just as Lucy is about to take a sip, the sound of a great roar fills the air and the ground begins to tremble and shake so strongly that huge waves of tea spill over her cup and into the mud bog. ‘What is that?’ she asks with fear in her voice as she hugs up closer to me.

‘What’s what?’ I ask, because I am so familiar with the roars and rumbles that I no longer notice them, ‘Oh, you mean all the vibrations. That’s nothing. That’s just Timmy with another tusk ache. He’s on his way to HOG’s haystack. Every time he gets a tusk ache, she fills it with cloves so that it doesn’t hurt him anymore. If you look over towards Daisy’s Field, you’ll see him. He’s quite a gentle creature unless he has a tusk ache and then he gets a little rambunctious.’

As Lucy looks towards Daisy’s Field, she sees a large furry creature with huge curly tusks running and stomping and roaring through the field. It’s eyes, ears and mouth are all covered with fur and one can only assume that they are there rather than actually see them. The critter looks like a big round fur ball with tusks for handles. But it would take a giant to handle this fur ball.

Lucy gasps in disbelief at what she see, ‘But, but, but that’s a Wooly Mammoth!’

‘Is it? I guess so. I don’t know. All I know is that it’s Timmy. He’s really quite nice. He gives us fun rides through the fields and woods when his tusks don’t bother him. This tea is quite good,’ I reply as I sip my tea.

‘But he’s a Wooly Mammoth. Wooly Mammoths are extinct!’ Lucy excitedly proclaims.

‘Are they?’ I say, and then I ask Lucy, ‘What does extinct mean?’

‘It means they don’t exist anymore.’ Lucy answers knowledgably.

‘Timmy exists,’ I state knowledgably.

‘Yes, I can see that,’ Lucy smiles, ‘and I can see that I have also found some of my Lost Data. When we finish our tea, and the ground stops shaking, and the roars stop roaring, can we go visit your friend HOG and her guest Timmy?’

“Oh, of course. I was planning that anyway. Right after tea. Drinking tea and relaxing in mud bogs must never be rushed. That would be bad for the digestion,’ I state, and then realize that I sound very much like my mother. My mother really loves a good cup of tea. And I love my mother but I'm not too sure that I want to sound like her. After all, she is her and I am me.

After tea, Lucy flies and flutters by my side as I walk to HOG’s haystack over in Daisy’s Field. Which is not very easy for Lucy to do because I must keep making sudden moves to avoid stepping in all the holes which HOG has been digging looking for buried treasure.

‘I think,’ I mutter to no one in particular, ‘that we are going to have to ask HOG to fill the holes back in after she digs them. It is getting very difficult to walk around these fields.’

‘Does she ever find anything valuable?’ Lucy asks, even though her mind is more on the Wooly Mammoth she is about to meet.

‘Yeah, Lots of neat stuff. She’s found nuts which a squirrel had buried so then she made Squirrel Nut Bread; a plastic bag which is very very old, maybe; a tree branch which some witch had turned into a rock; and once she even found black liquid gooey stuff which she didn’t think tasted good enough for any of her soups but she did find it burns slow and makes a good light when the days are dark and dreary.’

At this point, HOG sees me walking, or rather stumbling, through the field, and, with Timmy comfortably napping after having his tooth fixed, she runs excitedly to meet me.

‘RosFrankie! RosFrankie! Guess what I found when I dug a hole over in The Enchanted Wood,’ HOG yells as she alternately runs and rolls toward me.

‘What? No, wait! First, you must meet my new friend Lucy,’ I introduce HOG and Lucy to each other but Lucy, not meaning to be rude, can not take her eyes off of the huge sleeping fur ball of a Wooly Mammoth called Timmy..

‘I never….’ Lucy vocally trails off in disbelief.

I can tell that HOG thinks that maybe Lucy is a little socially retarded, but that isn’t the kind of thing that really matters to HOG anyway, as she looks at me, and trying very hard not to roll with excitement, exclaims,
‘A diary. A real, honest-to-goodness and very old diary.’

‘A diary,’ I repeat her words, ‘How exciting. How interesting. Who wrote it?’

‘I don’t know. It does not say.’

‘Oh, I think we will have to read it and do some investigating. I haven’t done any investigating for a very long time. At least three days!’ I say. I’m suddenly filled with anticipation.

‘Eww…’says HOG, as she starts to roll, ‘That sounds adventurous. Dangerous!’

‘Don’t worry, HOG,’ I comfort her as she unrolls, ‘You don’t have to do any of the adventuring. We all can do it. Especially now that we have Lucy to help. She knows lots of stuff and things and she needs us to help her find some Lost Data.’

‘Oh, well, that’s alright then. I won’t worry,’ HOG replies as she looks over at Lucy. Lucy is softly petting the giant fur ball who goes by the name of Timmy. ‘ But is she safe to be with all alone? She’s acting very strange. One would think, looking at her, that she had never ever seen a Timmy before in her life.’

‘Actually, much to my surprise, I believe that she has not ever seen a Timmy before in her life. She said something about there not being any Timmys anymore that she knew about. She said Timmys were all part of the Lost Data which she needs to find before she goes home again.’

As I am explaining this to HOG, Mary-Ann-Drusillda comes out of the haystack which they call home and overhears the explanation and the dilemma which Lucy is in.

‘What other data has she lost?’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda asks with curiosity. As a mathematician, Mary-Ann-Drusillda understands the importance of finding lost data.

‘We’ll have to ask her when she recovers from meeting Timmy. We were having tea in the mud bog and she was about to tell me when Timmy rumbled by. She called him a Wooly Mammoth and said he is extinct.’

‘That’s not a very nice thing to say!’

‘I don’t think she meant it in a bad way. Maybe something got lost in the translation from her native tongue. She really seems very very nice. I really like her and I think you both will also when you get to know her better. I think when she saw Timmy she kinda felt like HOG felt when she got the letter from the lawyer saying that she was to inherit something very valuable.’

‘Oh,’ says Mary-Ann-Drusillda, thinking that she hopes Lucy does not try to stuff Timmy into a bucket of salt. Mary-Ann-Drusillda is pretty sure that he would not like that at all.

‘Oh,’ says HOG, thinking that she really would love to have an AGA stove someday when they can afford to make the kitchen bigger in their comfy little haystack.

HOG sighs, and then realizes that it is time for her to wake Timmy out of his slumber before he forgets that he is suppose to wake up. “Mary-Ann-Drusillda, will you please help me with Timmy?’ As they go over to the giant sleeping fur ball, Lucy returns to my side.

‘I am so excited,’ she says to me, ‘To finally, after all these generations, finally meet and see and touch a Wooly Mammoth. You just can’t imagine…’ she trails off. I’m not too sure whether I can imagine or not imagine because I know that I can imagine quite a lot and sometimes I am accused of over-imagining.

My thoughts are interrupted by the sudden appearance of Lordy who walks straight up to Lucy without saying anything to anyone else. His little heart starts beating fast and he immediately says, without thinking or hesitation:
..
.-..
---
…-
.
-.--
---
..-

And Lucy, temporarily turning the color red, becomes invisible, but even though she is invisible she immediately replies, without thinking or hesitation:
-..
..
-
-
---

And from that moment on, they are never separated, no matter how far apart they are physically. Some say they are soul mates, the stuff of legends.

The phenomenon of Lucy becoming invisible so distracts and confuses me that I don’t even ask Lordy and Lucy what all the dotting and dashing was all about, but rather I say to Lucy, when she becomes visible again, ‘What was that? What happened? Where did you go? You were invisible? You disappeared. That was really cool! But you were gone. You weren’t here. You were invisible. Did that have anything to do with magic invisible ink? But you came right back. Without being pressed by a hot iron. What really just happened?’

I finally pause to catch my breath and Lucy answers, ‘Just because you could not see me does not mean I was invisible. It wasn’t me that is the problem but your eyes. I was breathing fast, so fast that I was actually pulsating and vibrating so fast that you could not see me. Your eyes can’t focus that fast. It takes time for chemical impulses to run all around your brain from your eyes and back and forth. You just couldn’t see fast enough. It’s kinda like a Persistence of Vision thing. Like when helicopter blades turn so fast that you can only see a blur.’

‘Oh,’ I look at her with a little doubt in my eyes, ‘but something else was also going on.’

‘Well, yes, I guess,‘ Lucy answers, trying hard not to look at Lordy and have the process start all over again, ‘you must remember, I am a little different than you. When I breathe fast I become invisible to your eyes and I also change colors to go along with my emotions.’

Lucy’s attempt to prevent me from questioning her about the effect Lordy has on her works very well and I instead ask her about the meaning of all the different color changes. After all, Lordy and I have been best friends since forever, and because of that friendship I don’t think I will ever be able to see Lordy through the eyes of Lucy. Lordy seems to be having enough trouble understanding it all himself. I sense something going on but I don’t know what I sense, so instead I just ask Lucy, ‘So what do all the colors mean?’

‘Mostly I’m yellow, which is peaceful and secure, joyful even. When I’m grey I’m in deep-thinking mode. When I turn black, I’m really sad. When I turn red, I’m excited and start to breathe fast. When I’m blue, I’m friendly. Green means I’m feeling lucky and hopeful. Purple means I’m confused. When I’m orange I’m playful. When I’m brown I’m very stable. Invisible is a color we don’t see. But mostly I am just me, which is yellow. Peaceful and joyful,’ Lucy very successfully sneaks the color red in the middle of all this muddle where she thinks it got lost from my curiosity. It didn’t quite work but I sense that Lucy isn’t being dishonest with me, her new friend, but that she just doesn’t want to have to explain something to me which she herself does not quite understand. I think she really is just being honest with herself.

Anyway, Lucy is saved from further questioning from me by the sudden appearance of Méabh. Méabh has heard from the eagles that there is a new critter in the area and she wants to check this critter out. I make the proper introductions and Méabh feels that Lucy is not only a safe critter to have around but also a most interesting critter, Rather novel, even for someone of Méabh’s wide range of critter expertise.

After Lucy explains her mission and directive to Méabh, Méabh asks Lucy if there are any experts who might be able to help her find her lost data.

Lucy sighs and answers, ‘I don’t usually go by what the experts say because usually the experts can only tell what they know. They’re not any good at all in knowing what they don’t know.’

Méabh nods her head knowingly.

Then I ask Lucy, ‘So what else have you lost?’

Words:
Constellation
Mythology
Colloquialism
Rambunctious

Questions:
Have you ever heard of a tree turning into a rock?
What time of year is Orion’s Belt most visible at your house?
Do you want to ride a Wooly Mammoth?
Do you have a secret language, like Morse Code, which you use with your friends?
What other questions should be asked?

BTW:
Tanabata: Tanabata, also known as the "star festival", takes place on the 7th day of the 7th month of the year, when, according to legend, the two stars Altair and Vega, which are usually separated from each other by the Milky Way, are able to meet. You can check these stars out with a star chart or on the computer with Stellarium, and see how close they look to each other on 7 July.

Morse Code: Morse code uses a standardized sequence of short and long elements to represent the letters, numerals, punctuation and special characters of a given message. The short and long elements can be formed by sounds, marks, or pulses, in on off keying and are commonly known as "dots" and "dashes" or "dits" and "dahs". Originally created for Samuel F. B. Morse's electric telegraph in the early 1840s, Morse code was also extensively used for early radio communication beginning in the 1890s. For the first half of the twentieth century, the majority of high-speed international communication was conducted in Morse code. However, the variable length of the Morse characters made it hard to adapt to automated circuits, so generally today it has been replaced by machine readable formats. The most popular current use of Morse code is by amateur radio operators. Pilots and air traffic controllers are usually familiar with Morse code and require a basic understanding. Morse code is designed to be read by humans without a decoding device. For emergency signaling, Morse code is extremely versatile. SOS.

Check out:
Color theory
http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/colorpsych.htm
Extinct
http://www.britannica.com/bps/search?query=extinct&source=MWTEXT
Languages
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0855611.html
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=EN
Light
http://www.howstuffworks.com/light.htm
http://www.learner.org/teacherslab/science/light/
http://www.answers.com/topic/light
http://www.physics4kids.com/files/light_intro.html
Lightning bugs
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/firefly.html
http://iris.biosci.ohio-state.edu/projects/FFiles/
http://www.backyardnature.net/lightbug.htm
Morse code
http://www.wrvmuseum.org/morsecode/morsecodehistory.htm
http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/morse.html
Space exploration, Hubble telescope, Dr. Hubble
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=hubble+telescope&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=8ny2Sc_cE6DOMuXqiOUK&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
http://hubble.nasa.gov/
http://www.stsci.edu/resources/
http://books.google.com/books?q=hubble+telescope&source=bll&ei=8ny2Sc_cE6DOMuXqiOUK&sa=X&oi=book_group&resnum=18&ct=title&cad=bottom-3results
http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hubble_essentials/edwin_hubble.php
Star constellations
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/stars/attractions/index.html
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~jkaler/sow/sowlist.html
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/time/constellations.html
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=438
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/st6starfinder/st6starfinder.shtml
Tea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea
Martin, Laura – Tea, Tuttle, 2007.
Gautier, Linda – Tea Aromas & Flavors, Chronicle, 2006.
Wooly Mammoth
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/woollymammoth/
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/mammals/mammoth/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/04/0408_050408_woollymammoth.html
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7lo7m_baby-woolly-mammoth-discovered_animals
http://www.nps.gov/bela/historyculture/woolly-mammoth.htm
www.amherst.edu/~pratt/

Next chapter: Lost Data due to post on November 26, 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.

Chapter 7 - A Treasure Hunt

2009-11-10T11:27:00.004-05:00

Check out links at end of each chapter...
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 7

A Treasure Hunt

One fine day as I am relaxing in my mud bog, I start thinking about school. I am a good observer. I watch, I analyze, and I learn. So I enjoy school unless I get a boring teacher who thinks learning is only about memorizing words and getting high test marks. Education is much more than high test marks. That’s why many of my friends do not go to school. HOG does not really enjoy learning unless it is about cooking. She learns everything she can about cooking and she earns her living by teaching and demonstrating creative cooking techniques. The school where I go does not even teach cooking. Many of the teachers at my school don’t think cooking is as important as memorizing words, which is unfortunate because these teachers sure do seem to love to eat!

And Mary-Ann-Drusillda was born knowing more mathematics than any of the teachers at my school could ever hope to know. Mary-Ann-Drusillda spends her time learning and experimenting with different math formulas by communicating with other mathematicians around the world. She tried going to school once but the teacher got mad at her because she corrected his math when he gave a friend of hers an incorrect failing grade. She decided that school would just slow down her learning and interfere with the time she has to do experiments. Mary-Ann-Drusillda knows a lot about math but she has a difficult time understanding people and psychology.

I asked my mother once if it was alright to not go to school, and my mother told me it depended on what someone wanted to learn, or needed to learn, and on the school and the teachers. She told me about a man named Bill Gates who had to drop out of one of the best colleges in America in order to become the richest man in America. My mother did not know why this college could not find a niche for Mr. Gates to be successful in, and, at the same time earn his degree. ‘Maybe’, my mother said to me, ‘When you grow you will understand the problem with that college because I can’t understand it at all.’

I know that Méabh never went to school at all but grew up with various tutors who taught her whatever she wanted to learn whenever she wanted to learn it. Some people don’t enjoy learning but Méabh was always a very aggressive learner, often learning things which other people wished she would not learn. And Lordy doesn’t go to school generally but only occasionally to see some friends, because he spends his time with computers learning things which have not yet been invented to learn so the teachers can’t teach him anything he wants or needs to learn, even though they try hard and wish they could teach him something. But he is just always learning things which they don’t know anything about yet. Sometimes, when he does go to school, he will spend some time with the teachers teaching them what he has learned. The teachers like to learn from Lordy and he doesn’t mind teaching them because they let him make ‘improvements’ on their computers, and that is something he always likes to do for relaxation. He also likes the mud bog, of course, but, for some reason, he doesn’t like to bring his computers into the mud bog.

Brant and Cana and Puff don’t need to go to my school either because they are already enrolled in the school of life. And Sunbeam is just something else which can not be explained in any comprehensible critter language so school is useless to him.

No one knows anything about the butler But’s education and no one wants to ask. Not even Méabh, because But was working at the castle before she was even born and she learned very young that he does not like to talk about his past. The thought of it puts him in a foul mood, and, generally, he is in a foul mood enough without any reason for getting any fouler.

Some how it all seems to all work out alright and balance. At least for the moment. I don’t know what would make it become unbalanced and I hope I will never find out. Of course, with the moon going around the earth, and the earth turning around the sun, and the sun being one of many revolving solar systems in a galaxy in a universe with many other galaxies which seem to go on forever, things are bound to tilt and get off kilter some time or another. I just don’t know what, where, when, or why. Maybe someday I will talk about it with Méabh. Maybe someday I will even ask one of my teachers at school. But I’m not sure about that. I’m not sure if they will yell at me for asking questions. And then the other kids might call me names because ‘other’ kids who call people names have problems which I don’t quite understand, and when I ask my mother what their problem is, my mother says, ‘Maybe they will grow and learn to solve their problems. Maybe not. Maybe they don’t even know they have problems to deal with and they don’t know what questions to ask or where to find the answers. I honestly don’t know. All I know is that people who call other people names, or make fun of other people, have low self esteem and feel inferior and unsure of themselves.’ I don’t really like this answer my mother gives me because it sounds like I should feel sorry for the people who are mean to other people, but I rather do not feel sorry for them at all and rather think they should be punished, like, maybe never be allowed to eat ice cream, or be forced to wear shoes too small which pinch their feet, or else have to spend every Saturday cutting up onions all day long. But I give my mother a big hug anyway because I think my mother needs a big hug. And, of course, the big hug always does make my mother feel much better. It makes me feel better too.

When I do finally ask my teacher, Ms. Wiseman, about the magic ink on the treasure map which Méabh gave me, my teacher says, ‘Oh, if you ask me about the poetry of Emily Dickinson, I can answer any of your questions, but I don’t know anything about magic ink. However, I have a neighbor, Dr. Keddy, and she is a chemistry professor at the University, so I will ask her for you. Is that alright?’

I think that this is quite alright, because Méabh always says that the smartest people always know that they don’t know much and that they will try to find out where to learn things they know they don’t know. It’s nice to have a teacher who teaches how to find things out which even the teacher does not know. Yes, I think that this is quite alright and that maybe I will enjoy my time in Ms. Wiseman’s class.

A few days later Ms. Wiseman hands me a bunch of papers which Dr. Keddy had found for her. ‘Dr. Keddy told me to tell you that there are many types of magic ink. These papers have much information which you can study and use. Dr. Keddy said that some magic inks require the application of special salts, some need special light, and some are heat sensitive. She suggested you try the heat first because special salts and special lights can be hard to find. You can try using a flat pizza stone and oven for heat…or a hair dryer…or a hot iron…and sometimes, even Ben Gay will work.’

‘Oh, thank you so much for your help, and please thank Dr. Keddy,’ I say to Ms. Wiseman.

‘We are always glad to help students learn, especially when they are as self-motivated and hard working as you are RosFrankie. Even when you might get something wrong, it always makes a good teacher feel good to know that you try hard. That is what makes our own hard work worthwhile and enjoyable.’

Later that day, when I go home, me and Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy decide to try the hot iron on the treasure map first because it is the easiest, since we do have an iron which heats easily and safely. And sometimes things go right the first time. Much to our surprise and pleasure, it works and we find we have an interesting map of an island with only a couple of roads on it. There are also written numbers on the map which look like temperature and time but these numbers confuse us all because the numbers are written in a strange way. They are at the bottom of the map and look like this:
Lat - 43 degrees - 46 minutes – 019 seconds – North
Long - 69 degrees – 19 minutes – 087 seconds – West

‘What an odd way of mixing up temperature recordings and time recordings. Forty-three degrees and forty-six minutes. Very incomprehensible!’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda says as she scratches her ear.

‘Maybe,’ Lordy, ever the computer expert, says, ‘Maybe there is a printing error with the hot iron.’

‘I wonder if it’s about cooking. Maybe it will make sense to HOG,’ I say.

I get the instinctive feeling that all of these numbers are important but the numbers just don’t make any sense to any of us.

‘Well,’ says Lordy, ‘I suppose I can always do that old stand-by trick and google these configurations to see what comes up.’

‘You might as well because we can’t think of anything else and Méabh is too busy doing other things to have time to help us and I don’t even know where HOG is. I guess we are on our own.’ So off he goes home because he forgot to bring one of his laptops with him, which is unusual. He even forgot his cell phone with the special ex-ray camera, instant weather updates, stock market quotes, translator for universal critter language and a special ‘Future Predictions’ tool which is always wrong anyway.

Right after he leaves, Brant and Cana and Puff drop by. They all look at the map after I explain the problem, and they all say together, ‘We know where that island is. We fly over it. It’s somewhere on the way to Iceland.’

Me and Mary-Ann-Drusillda are quite excited with this information until I realize something and say, ‘There is a lot of ‘way’ between here and Iceland. We could never search it all even if we live to be one thousand years old. We might as well not get too excited about it all. It’s not like we don’t have lots of other interesting things to do. After all, it’s just a treasure map.’ I try to keep the disappointment out of my voice, but I think my friends can all hear it clearly.

‘But,’ says Mary-Ann-Drusillda, ‘It has numbers on it. It has to be a logical numerical code. We just don’t know the key to the code. But if it has numbers then that is the same as if it has a clear logical pathway.’
Mary-Ann-Drusillda knows lots about numbers. ‘Unless, of course,’ she continues, ‘the numbers were written down wrong by someone.’ Yes, she knows lots about numbers.

Just at that moment Lordy, with HOG by his side, comes running back excitedly, and shouts, ‘Latitude and Longitude!’

He shows us a print out from a site called World Atlas. Com which divides the world into a grid system using numbers. Mary-Ann-Drusillda is quite excited. ‘I just knew it! I knew the numbers could be counted on!’ she says. She understands immediately upon looking at the grid of the world, that they can find any place on earth just by using the numbers the same way one plays tic-tack-toe. On the map, each degree [°] equals 60 nautical miles, which is the same as 69.05 statute miles. Thus any place located at 41 degrees North is 41x 60 = 2,460 nautical miles North of the equator, which is the same as 2,831 statute miles. Each minute ['] on the map is 1 nautical mile which is 1.15 statute miles.

credit: Google Images

‘Isn’t math just the most wonderful tool ever!’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda exclaims. We all are not too sure if math is that wonderful but we are sure that we don’t have to give up our adventure of following the treasure map.

Using the latitude and longitude numbers, we calculate that the map is a map of Monhegan Island which is off of the coast of Maine near Boothbay.

‘But how will we ever get there?’ I wonder.

Brant and Cana don’t hesitate to say that I and the others can ride on their backs just like Puff does. Lordy, ever practical, says, ‘Even though your wings are strong, RosFrankie weighs 3 to 4 times as much as you do. I don’t think that it would be realistic to think that we can achieve that feat.’

HOG, ever the dreamer, says dreamily to everyone else, ‘But this is a story and we are writing it so we can do anything we want to do in it. It is OUR story’

‘Yes,’ says Lordy, ‘but it is suppose to be a story about learning, and asking questions and finding answers and doing things, and it isn’t very good for it to be too much fantasy with too much fantastical stuff in it…it’s about science and life and believability and learning. It’s suppose to be an educational story. Art is okay in it but we can’t be writing about impossible things to do or we will lose our credibility. No one reading it will believe any of it.’

HOG, who never gives up on dreams lightly, often feeling that dreams are actually much better than reality, says to Lordy, ‘Don’t you remember that Garfield cartoon when Ode the dog chased Garfield the cat up a tree, and when they were sitting high up on a tree branch together, old Mister Practical John comes alone and says, “Odie, don’t you know that dogs can’t climb trees?” and Garfield looks at John the way he looks at just about everyone and says, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t know what you can’t do.” Lordy you are acting like old Mister Practical John!’

‘Exactly!’ Lordy answers, ‘That was a carton and we are a story! An educational story! Dogs can’t climb trees and we shouldn’t have that in our story. It’s simply not very scientific.’

‘But you are a ladybug who surfs the net! That’s not scientific either.’

‘I am a computer bug! Computer bugs are very real.’

Finally I say to them both, ‘You are both right, don’t argue. We can, like Emily Dickinson recommends, “tell the truth but tell it slant.” We are writing this story so we will figure out a believable way to get to this island Monhegan. So we must do what works. And if that means that we must try to fly on the backs of geese, then we will try it!’

‘It could be dangerous,’ says HOG.

‘Yes,’ I respond, ‘but not knowing something could be much more dangerous! We will do our best!’

At this point in time, and time always working in its own mysterious way, my mother comes to tell us all something which she and my father have just decided. ’This year your father really wants to spend our vacation time vacationing on Monhegan Island near where he grew up in Maine. And you can bring any of your friends who want to come.’

Well, of course, we are all most excited. Naturally, HOG, who might talk powerfully of dreams and dares and riding on the backs of geese, is not really very brave or very comfortable with the thought of traveling anywhere and decides not to go. We all understand this fear of travel she has, and we also appreciate the fact that she will always encourage us to do the things which she herself is afraid to do. Somehow or other, she gives us confidence in ourselves. Brant and Cana and Puff have a previous engagement to visit friends and relatives on the Chesapeake Bay but they will keep their antennae tuned in to listen just in case we get into any trouble and may need their help. Their antennae work better than a cell phone.

In what seems like forever, but was actually a short while, myself and Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy are on Monhegan Island and staying at the Bert Poole Cottage which is, according to locals, ‘way out there.’ Since the island is only one mile wide and two miles long, I ask my mother why the locals describe it this way as ‘way out there’ and my mother says, ‘It’s a matter of perspective and what one is used to. Don’t worry. You’ll understand it better when you are older and have been exposed to more things yourself. Then you will look back and wonder why you ever thought your mud bog was big, because when you get bigger, it will seem smaller.’ This thought, to me, is anathema.

Me, Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy explore this wonderful enchanted island even before we attempt to find the treasure on the map. The island seems much more exciting than even an old treasure map. The first day we are on the island, I notice that there are no dogs on the island. I ask a person at the general store about this and I am told that dogs, being super sensitive, are afraid of the ghosts and that when dogs come to the island, they generally run back down to the end of the town pier and wait for the first ferry to come and take them back to the mainland.

‘You have ghosts here?’ I ask, with a gulp in my throat.

‘We have two ghost Bassett Hounds. One, named Lazy, who waits at the beginning of every woodland path and won’t let any children pass until they give him a dog biscuit. The other, named Guvnor, stands on the roof of the hotel and howls all night. He makes a very fine fog horn. Would you like to buy a box of dog biscuits? We sell a lot of them.’

‘Yes, please. Two boxes.’

‘Tell your parents that adults have to give Lazy a drink of Guinness Beer. They can buy that here by the bottle or the six-pack or the case. We also have a deer ghost.’

‘Oh,’ I ask, ‘What should we do if we see a deer ghost?’

‘Nothing! Just leave it alone and let it be. It never bothers anyone. It’s a beautiful creature and this island is officially, by the United States Government, declared to be a Deer Ghost Protection and Preservation Area. You can shoot pictures and you can just be mesmerized by it’s natural beauty but you can not frighten it or hurt it. People who hurt it have been known to cease to exist in their current form.’

I think that seems fair even though some times when I think things are fair I realize eventually that they are not fair and that I only thought that they were fair because I don’t know everything and, many times, even reading ‘THE’ books does not help enlighten one because knowing everything is something which is really hard to do. In fact, it has never been done.

Me and Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy are quite excited to explore this place which is so very new and strange to us. None of us have ever been on an island before and we think it is wonderful that we can always smell the sea and hear the waves crash against the rock cliffs, no matter where we go on the island.

We have no trouble finding and feeding the Lazy Ghost. We also see the Deer Ghost but when we do, we are too entranced to remember to try and get a picture. We also find some wonderful little fairy houses in the forests. These houses are made from broken twigs, fallen leaves and various pieces of forest debris. However, we never see a fairy. The fairies hide from us because they are not ghosts and they tend to be a little more afraid of any big clomping critters which often visit their island home.

And, to the fairies, we seem like big clomping critters. I guess it’s a matter of perspective, just like my mother says. We explore around the island and we find a famous artist house, whales basking on the sea, dolphins playing like jumping-jacks, ospreys nesting on day marks, ospreys nesting in construction cranes, ospreys nesting in nests which they have nested in for over 150 years, puffins sliding down boulders, geese flying by in a perfect v-formation, a sailboat which screams around Nigh Duck Rock with the people on board screaming, fog which came in on big giant feet rather than Carl Sandburg’s little cat paws, and a smaller island next door called Manana. We don’t know what the name ‘Manana’ means and decide to look it up in ‘THE” books when we get back home.

We find so much stuff and things. Lots of interesting stuff and things. But we do not find a treasure. Except, of course, everything we found is a treasure because life is a treasure.

‘Well,’ I say to my parents when we get back to the cottage, ‘We actually found many treasures. We just did not find ‘THE’ treasure.’

‘Are you sure? my mother asks us.

‘Actually,’ says Lordy, ‘technically speaking, we don’t even know what our treasure is. We just know it is on this island. We assume. We theorize. We think. Maybe.’

Tired from walking all day, myself and Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy lie down on the living room floor by the big stone fireplace and start to fall asleep. We don’t get to actually fall asleep because just as we are falling asleep and looking up at the ceiling and the wall over the fireplace, I yell loudly, ‘Eureka!’

‘Have you solved a problem?’ Lordy asks.

‘Have you added up how many trees grow on this island?’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda asks, wondering how I could do it faster that she was doing it.

‘Better than all that!’ I answer as I jump up, ‘Look over the fireplace mantle.’

And there, over the fireplace mantle, was a frame and inside the frame was an old piece of paper with just a big red X on it and the words Treasure Map.

‘Another treasure map. It is just like a Scavenger Hunt. One map will lead to another.’

We ask people on the island where the map came from, but no one on the island knows where it came from. It was just always there hanging over the fireplace in the Bart Poole cottage. Like many things on the island, material and immaterial, it just always was and it always will be. Myself, Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy get out the hot iron, and, after pressing the map, we get the new latitude and longitude. This time the code reads as follows:
Latitude: 41 degrees 23 minutes 449 seconds North
Longitude: 070 degrees 30 minutes 900 seconds West

After we get the new lat and long from the map, we carefully replace it back into the frame and leave it on the wall where it just always was and always will be.

‘It must be a very important treasure,’ says Lordy,’ for the pirates to go through all this trouble.

‘Maybe it wasn’t pirates,’ my father says.’

‘What do you mean?’ we all ask in unison.

‘Well,’ he rambles, [My father does not talk that much, but when he does, he tends to ramble so one has to really listen because everything he says seems to be really important.] ‘There is an old saying: One critter’s trash is another critter’s treasure. It all depends on what one wants or needs. Years ago many critters considered common everyday table salt to be a treasure which needed to be kept under lock and key. All because salt was not common but very needed and desired. Salt was a major source of preserving food, among other uses. People also treasured a certain red dye from Mexico which they used to color their clothing. In fact, the color of their clothing often indicated their importance in particular societies. Very particular. And, of course, herbs were extremely valued as a treasure because of their medicinal potential. There were no drug companies. Only herbs which often only grew in far away and strange and inhospitable places which were very difficult to get to. And, of course, your everyday common variety types of jewels and gold and arrows and bullets which people often needed to protect themselves. And maps and charts and atlases were considered to be the property of governments and in some countries it was illegal to copy them. Punishable by death. And it was illegal in China, years ago, for anyone to teach the Chinese language to foreigners. So the treasure could be many different things depending on who is defining the treasure. Could even be some old books. Yes, indeed, that would truly be a great treasure!’

My father really likes books and often brings home many more books than he has places to put books. Sometimes he just piles them up and uses them as chairs, which works out fine because we often have more visitors than we have chairs.

‘Then,’ says Mary-Ann-Drusillda thoughtfully, ‘we might not get richer but we might get smarter.’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda is not sure if she likes this or not. She seems to be plenty smart enough already, and, very often, the smarter she gets, the more trouble she gets into.

Well, we consult our WorldAtlas.com and calculate that the new coordinates are actually on another island. This island is called Martha’s Vineyard and is part of Massachusetts.

‘Oh dear,’ I say, ‘how will we ever get there?’

‘Oh, that’s perfect,’ my mother says, ‘Your father and I were planning to stop over there when we take you all back home. I just have always wanted to pet the black dog which is such a great sailing dog. I just love it, the way things seems to always eventually turn out right and fit perfectly, even when no one thinks they will.’

[Photo of book from Blackdog.com]

Before long, me and Mary-Ann-Drusillda find ourselves in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard, standing in the woman’s bathroom at the bus station, while Lordy waits outside.

‘This can’t be right! We must have miscalculated,’ sighs Mary-Ann-Drusillda.

‘No, we didn’t,’ I say, ‘Look over here on this wall in the last stall. It’s another framed paper with an red X on it and the words Treasure Map.’

When we ask the friendly people at the bus stop about the framed paper, they tell us that the paper was found under a rock when the town dug the foundation for the bus stop. No one could decide where to put it, so they decided to just hang it in the bathroom until town meeting could come to a decision about where to hang it permanently. That was over twenty years ago. Old New Englanders generally don’t like to rush an important decision, and when everyone has to agree on something, sometimes things get discussed for a very long time. The town was still discussing where to place their treasure map. Some people think it should be in the Harbor Masters office. Some people think it should be in the library. One person who only lives on the island a few weeks each year thinks it should be at his house because his house is bigger than any other place in town and he has the most bathrooms. So, well all this heated discussion is going on, the treasure map stays at the bus station waiting for its ticket out of the last stall in the ladies bathroom which doesn’t even have a bath.

Well, carefully using the hot iron trick again, me, Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy get the new lat and long and then we gently replace the paper in the frame.

The new lat and long, according to our calculations, leads us to Boston. Naturally, my parents think another side trip to Boston is a great idea, but Lordy is a wee bit concerned. It appears to him that the X on this map is right in the middle of the Charles River in Boston. As a ladybug, he is not really too very thrilled to contemplate learning to scuba dive and going under the strong currents of the Charles River.

‘Maybe these numbers are wrong,’ he says.

‘Numbers are never wrong,’ says Mary-Ann-Drusillda.

But, as things often happen, Lordy does not have to learn to scuba dive after all because what we find in the middle of the Charles River is the Boston Science Museum on a bridge crossing the river.

[Photo from Museum of Science, Boston MA]

And at the Science Museum, we find the mother-lode of treasure maps. It’s called: ‘Sunken Treasures’ and it was produced by the National Geographic Society in July 2001. This map locates many sunken ships and list some important explorers. We also see many other maps with many other treasure indicators. [But the National Geographic map is so interesting that it really can not be described adequately in the words of critter language but must be studied visually. Find it!]

‘Well,’ I say, ‘I think we don’t have to ever worry about being bored or never having anything fun to do, because we could spend 100 years looking for lost treasure, and we still would not have time to look for more than a small percentage of lost treasures.’

‘Yah,’ says Lordy, ‘and these maps don’t even include the treasures which people hid in their back yards and in their attics and in their old wells, and which no one ever bothered to record any where in written form.’

Mary-Ann-Drusillda looks at him inquisitively for a second and then says, ‘That’s right! Treasures can be buried anywhere in anyone’s back yard. Even in Daisy’s Field. I can’t wait to get home again and tell HOG that our haystack could be surrounded by buried treasures. She’s gonna roll right up into a ball with excitement.’

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘and I think we all better look carefully when we are walking around so that we don’t trip on all the newly dug treasure holes which she will be digging in the yard as she looks for treasure or else we might sprain our ankles.’

‘Well,’ says Lordy, ‘at least we know she won’t be digging in the mud bog. The mud bog will always be a safe place to be.’

And, it seems like in the blink of an eye, myself and Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy are all back home reminiscing about our adventures with treasure maps while we are basking in the warm soft comforts on the mud bog, with HOG standing by the side of the bog with her shovel in hand, digging holes looking for buried treasure.

When I show Méabh the Sunken Treasures map and tell her all which we have learned, she gets most excited.

I ask her, ‘Are you excited because of the Sunken Treasures map and all the sunken treasures which are all over the world?

[Map section from National Geographic]

Méabh answers me, ‘No. Well, yes, but I am more excited because you have learned things which I do not know. That means that now you can start teaching me things rather than me always teaching you. It’s like nurturing a plant and then watching it grow all by itself, and then later it starts to enrich you with strawberries or blueberries or flowers.’

After this, Méabh becomes very thoughtful. Then she starts to get all excited again. She says to RosFrankie, ‘And with all the treasures, and the possible treasures in places no one knows about, you have got me thinking that maybe there is some kind of treasure way down in the cellar of the castle. I’m going to go right now and start looking. Want to come with me?’

Sitting comfortably in my nice mud bog, I start thinking about the cellar in the castle. It is a very frightening place. Very dark. Full of strange sounds which echo in the fogs of the damp cellar. It has numerous tunnels and rooms and stairways and many strange creatures which are not listed in any books on strange creatures. Would I like to go there and explore? Well, of course I would. Who wouldn’t be excited to explore a place like the cellar in the castle? But I have been away from my comfortable mud bog for a long time. Right now I am very happy in my mud bog.

‘Not today,’ I answer Méabh and I know Méabh isn’t offended because Méabh always likes people to be honest with her and I also knows that Méabh knows that someday I will want to explore the cellar in the castle with her just to see what we might find.

But right now I just want to be in my most favorite place in the whole universe. The mud bog. Thinking about…….

Words:
Comprehensible
Kilter
Anathema
Latitude
Longitude
Manana

Questions:
Do you know who Carl Sandburg was?
Have you ever stayed at Bert Pooles cottage on Monhegan island?
Have you ever found a treasure map?
Have you ever buried treasure and then made a treasure map so you could find it again?
What other questions should be asked?

BTW:
Magic ink: simply write with lemon juice, it will dry invisible; then iron paper carefully with a hot dry iron, and the lemon will turn brown and legible.

Bill Gates: William Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, philanthropist, author, the world's third richest person (as of February 8, 2008),[2] and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. Gates was the richest person in the world for 15 consecutive years. Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000. In 1975 he dropped out of Harvard University. They gave him an Honorary degree in 2007 and he gave them some money.

Emily Dickinson: I know much about Emily Dickinson, for various reasons. Read her poems, read her letters and read one or two other good factual books about her. But mostly don’t read most books written about her, because, since not much can be proven about her, many people make things up, and they can’t be proven wrong or right, one way or the other, so they feel free to just go on and on. And they do! Fact becomes story becomes myth becomes legend becomes anime becomes an over-active imagination, which is fine unless it is called ‘truth.’ Then it is just ‘lie.’ Always check your references!

Garfield cartoon & Odie & John: Long story, by Jim Davis, running in cartoons since 1968….the year the wizard and I were married. Of course, he wasn’t a wizard then…it took a few years of married life to make him wizardly.

Bert Poole Cottage: We stayed at the Bert Poole cottage on Monhegan Island in 1997. Lazy 8 was with us and he loved exploring the island as much as we did. The land was originally deeded in 1845 and the cottage built about 1907. It has a great fireplace, great ocean views and a propane refrigerator…..no electricity. Once you have been to Monhegan, a part of you always stays there. Just ask Lazy when you see him there guarding the paths….don’t forget the dog biscuits and the Guinness Beer. Guvnor was another Basset Hound who would climb on the hotel roof and howl at the moon. Fairy houses are made all through the woods with forest debris. One year there was a problem with deer ticks and Lyme disease, and the deer were mostly gone the next year, and the summer people blamed the winter people for hiring a hunter, but mostly no one is happy talking about it. The Maine artists Andrew and Jamie Wyeth have a summer house right next to the little fairy houses. Puffins and seals abound.

National Geographic: The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history. The National Geographic Society’s characteristic logo is a yellow portrait rectangular frame, which identifiably appears on the margins surrounding the front covers of their magazines. On January 13, 1888, 33 explorers and scientists gathered in Washington, D.C., to organize "a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge." After preparing a constitution and a plan of organization, the National Geographic Society was incorporated two weeks later on January 27. Gardiner Greene Hubbard became its first president and his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, eventually succeeded him in 1897 following his death. Bell's son-in-law Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor was named the first full-time editor of National Geographic Magazine and served the organization for fifty-five years, and members of the Grosvenor family have played important roles in the organization since.

Check out:
Bill Gates, internet
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/writing/shapingtheinternet.mspx
Andrews, Paul – How the Web Was Won, Broadway, 2000.
Bagnall, Brian – On The Edge, Variant, 2005.
Black Dog
http://www.theblackdog.com/
Boston Museum of Science
http://www.mos.org/
Chesapeake Bay
http://www.baydreaming.com/
http://www.chesapeakebay.net/history.htm
http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/issues/communities/history/
Emily Dickinson
http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/
Johnson, T, Editor. -The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Little Brown, 1960.
Johnson, T. Ed. -Letters of Emily Dickinson, Belknap, 2007.
Fairies
http://disney.go.com/fairies/
http://www.irelandseye.com/animation/intro.html
http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/700/fairies/index.html
http://www.fairyhouses.com/for_kids.html
Garfield cartoon
http://www.garfield.com/
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/sleep/starslp/missionz/comic.htm
Guinness beer
http://www.ivo.se/guinness/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfOlH4LOxFw&feature=related
Invisible ink
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos/ht/invisibleink3.htm
http://www.iit.edu/~smile/ch9602.html
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/3844-making-invisible-ink-appear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_ink
http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryhowtoguide/a/invisibleinks.htm
Latitude and longitude
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/imageg.htm
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Slatlong.htm
http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html
www.educypedia.be/education/atlas.htm
Martha’s Vineyard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha's_Vineyard
http://www.mvgazette.com/
http://www.mvol.com/vineyardphotos/
http://www.theblackdog.com/product.php?productid=16437&cat=0&page=1
Monhegan Island
Faller, Ruth – Monhegan –Her houses & Her People, Mainstay, 1995.
http://www.monhegan.com/030509.html
http://www.monheganwelcome.com/
http://www.islandinnmonhegan.com/
http://www.monheganboat.com/
National Geographic Society
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/
http://www.trivia-library.com/b/history-of-national-geographic-magazine-part- 1.htm
Ospreys
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Osprey.html
http://www.ospreys.com/
http://www.raptorresource.org/ospreys.htm
http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/elpubs/pdf/EL86_5.pdf
Puffins
http://www.projectpuffin.org/
http://www.mainebirding.net/puffin/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoHD2GxcBMw
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Animals/CreatureFeature/Atlanticpuffin
Red dye
Greenfield, Amy – A Perfect Red, HarperCollins, 2005.
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/col-221.html
http://www.red40.com/index.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,945520,00.html
Sunken treasure
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18736741/
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1738445,00.html
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1044.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7634479.stm
http://www.mywonderfulworld.org/toolsforadventure/games/treasure.html
http://www.shipwreckregistry.com/
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1305/features/ship.htm
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6749705945536344056
http://history.howstuffworks.com/historians/treasure-hunting2.htm
Whales
http://whale.wheelock.edu/Welcome.html
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/whales/bioacoustics.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/cetacea/cetacean.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/2605/
http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/KillerWhale/home.html
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/killer-whale.html
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=whales+pictures&revid=742665361&ei=Zl26Se27N5-atwfd-fHiDw&resnum=0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=oF26SYbdBtKCtgfjztziDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
Wyeth artists
http://urp.udel.edu/scholars/sample/artcst.aspx
http://www.brandywinemuseum.org/
http://studiozz.blogspot.com/2009/01/christinas-world-andrew-wyeth-are-you.html
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/ballet/nw/lessons/teacher_pak/chron_jamie.pdf
http://www.jamiewyeth.com/unsigned.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monhegan,_Maine

Next chapter: Chapter 8 - And Beyond due to be posted November 19, 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.

Chapter 6 - A Treasure Map

2009-11-04T08:24:00.002-05:00

Check out links at end of each chapter...
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 6

A Treasure Map

This summer has been an interesting summer for me. At summer’s end, one warm day early in September, as I am relaxing in my mud bog, I start thinking about Sunbeam and Brant and Cana and Puff and Méabh. I realize that between exploring and flying off and just doing the things they all do, they do many things, go many places and learn a lot of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. I start to list in my mind all the places I want to go, all the things I want to do, and all the stuff I want to learn.

It is a very long list.

I want to watch the sun rise at Stonehenge.

I want to climb Mt. Fuji in the winter.

I want to sail the Seven Seas but I don’t even know where they are.
I want to fly to Andromeda and collect Andromedean stones.
I want to go in a submarine way down deep into the ocean.
I want to learn to play native drums.
I want to take photographs of penguins in Antarctica.
I want to understand the Bernoulli Principle.
I want to white water raft the Colorado River.
I want to see America from the top of Mt. McKinley.
I want to drink my first glass of wine from grapes I grow myself.
I want to sleep in the Rain Forest and hear the sounds of the jungle night.
I want to listen to the wind as it blows at Mesa Verde.
I want to tap a maple tree in March.
I want to make Spruce Tip tea.
I want to invent a time machine so I can ride dinosaurs.
I want to hike with the wolves in Siberia.
I want to go to Disney World before Florida goes under the ocean.
I want to speak a language I have never spoken before.
I want to understand things which I don’t understand.
I want to not be afraid to try doing things and to not worry about being laughed at.
I want to learn from my mistakes.
I want to do things which don’t yet even exist to do.

‘When will I ever be able to do all these things?’ I ask my mother.

‘Not to worry,’ my mother says, ‘You will have plenty of time to do many different things. But, sometimes, you will have to decide how to budget your time and your energy and your money, because sometimes you won’t have the time to do everything. And sometimes you will just want to sit in your mud bog and do nothing. Sometimes it is difficult to make decisions. But you will grow and you will learn and you will do. And you will love. That is life. ’

‘I think,’ thinks me, ‘that I will have to live to be 120 years old to do everything I want to do.’

Just at this point, Méabh comes along to the mud bog.

‘RosFrankie,’ she says, ‘I have something for you. My butler But has been doing all sorts of strange things to the castle cellar walls trying to figure out how to heat it geothermally, and he found this piece of paper pushed deep into one of the cracks way down in the deepest part of the cellar. It’s rather interesting but right now I have no time to investigate what it might mean. I just have too many other things to do first. So I thought I would give it to you and you could spend some time figuring out what it is all about.’

With that, she quickly gives me an old folded piece of paper and then she just as quickly turns around and leaves to go do the things which Méabh does. Without even saying ‘Good-bye.’ Méabh is like that. And that is okay with me because I know everyone is different from everyone else and that is why I always accept people for who they are, and don’t expect them to act like someone else. All of my friends know they can be themselves around me and they don’t have to pretend to be someone else.

But the paper Méabh gave me is very strange. It is old and stained and has many creases from being folded and unfolded so many times. It has a big red X on it and at the bottom are old written words which say Treasure Map. But there is nothing else on the map. No diagrams of any kind.

‘Oh,’ I say to myself, ‘I bet it is written with a special kind of magic ink which appears and disappears. A special formula ink! How will I ever figure it out?’

‘RosFrankie,’ my mother calls, ‘It’s time to start to get ready for the first day at school.’

‘The first day of school! I almost forgot!’

It is a very important first day of school for me. I will be going to a different school than last year because I am in a higher grade now. And I will be going with many other students whom I don’t know. My mother tells me not to worry about people I don’t know because people I don’t know are simply friends I haven’t met yet. But I will also have a new teacher. A Ms. Wiseman.

‘Well,’ I think to myself, as I try to brush the mud out of my fur, ‘I know what I will say to my new teacher. I will ask her right away to tell me everything she knows about magic ink. Well, maybe I will say ‘hello’ first and tell her my name. But I sure hope she knows a lot because I’ve got a lot I want to learn and I’ve only got about 110 years left to learn it all.’

And with that, I go off to do the things which I do.

The mud bog is empty now. Sooner or later, myself or someone else will come along to sit in the mud bog and relax and think in the soothing comfort of the mud. Mud bogs are like that. They are never empty for very long.

Words:
Stonehenge
Andromeda
Mesa Verde

BTW:
Geothermal: Geothermal power (from the Greek roots geo, meaning earth, and thermos, meaning heat) is energy generated from heat stored in the earth, or the collection of absorbed heat derived from underground. The largest group of geothermal power plants in the world is located at The Geysers, a geothermal field in California, United States. The Philippines and Iceland are the only countries to generate a significant percentage of their electricity from geothermal sources; in both countries 15-20% of power comes from geothermal plants. As of 2008, geothermal power supplies less than 1% of the world's energy. The most common type of geothermal power plants (binary plants) are closed cycle operations.

Maple tree tap and syrup: the syrup running is the first sign of spring – it means that, although the temperatures are still freezing at night time, during the day they go above freezing. People tap their sugar maple with a spigot and collect the syrup to boil it down to concentrated sweetness. Generally it takes 40 gallons of tree sap to make one gallon of sweet syrup. What does 'tap' mean? Look it up...

Questions:

Only one this chapter – but it is a very important question:
What do you want to do?

Check out:
National Parks:
www.nps.gov/
video.pbs.org/video/1132712651
Andromeda:
Darling, David - The Universal Book of Astronomy from the Andromeda Gallaxy to the Zone of Avoidance, Wiley, 2003.
Antarctica:
http://www.antarcticanz.govt.nz/education/3209
Bernoulli Principle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YHqCkCJbWQ&feature=relatedof
Colorado River:
Powell, John Wesley - The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons [1869], Courier Dover Publications, 1961.
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=colorado+river&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=AzWsSanQNcH7tge3o-H7Dw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
Dinosaurs:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/
http://dsc.discovery.com/dinosaurs/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amherst_College_Museum_of_Natural_History
Florida:
http://www.visitflorida.com/maps
http://dhr.dos.state.fl.us/facts/history/summary/
http://dhr.dos.state.fl.us/kids/
Geothermal:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/renewable/geothermal.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRAQrDduaU0
Invisible ink:
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos/ht/invisibleink3.htm
http://www.iit.edu/~smile/ch9602.html
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/3844-making-invisible-ink-appear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_ink
http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryhowtoguide/a/invisibleinks.htm
Maple trees, syrup:
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=115
http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/pdfpubs/7036.pdf
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,maple_syrup,FF.html
http://www.vtonly.com/recipes.htm
http://www.maplemuseum.com/history.html
Mesa Verde:
http://www.nps.gov/meve/
http://www.nps.gov/meve/forkids/index.htm
Seven Seas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_seas
http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/seas.html
Stonehenge:
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/earthmysteries/EMStonehenge.html
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/stonehenge/stonehenge.html
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/stonehenge-decoded-3372
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/stonehenge-decoded-3372/#tab-game
Sunken treasure:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18736741/
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1738445,00.html
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1044.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7634479.stm
http://www.mywonderfulworld.org/toolsforadventure/games/treasure.html
http://www.shipwreckregistry.com/
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1305/features/ship.htm
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6749705945536344056
http://history.howstuffworks.com/historians/treasure-hunting2.htm
White river rafting:
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=white+river+rafting&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=5l26SYG-OeH8tgfW7eTiDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title
Wolves:
Mowat, Farley – Never Cry Wolf, Hachette Books, 1963.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wolves/
http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/wolves.htm
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/wolf.html
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/nreos/wild/pdf/wildlife/WOLVES.PDF
http://www.albany.edu/~knee/wolf.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/05/gray-wolves.html

Next Chapter 7: A Treasure Hunt due to be posted on November 12, 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.

Chapter 5 - A New Friend

2009-10-28T08:11:00.004-04:00

Check out links at end of each chapter...
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

Today as I am relaxing in the mud bog, I’m feeling a little sad. Sunbeam has melted and gone away for the season and I miss him. I asked Méabh once where he went when he melted, and Méabh said he went everywhere and to work. I don’t quite understand this. Méabh explained that Sunbeam is a world explorer. And because he is made of water, he has the ability to be either liquid, solid or gas, such as water or ice and snow or even steam. Even ice cream or bubble gum! Méabh said that he is very unique this way, and this ability is what enables him to be such a great explorer.

She says that not only can he go anywhere in the world he wants to go, but he can also be in many different places at the same time because he is made up of so many different water molecules. In fact, when he is in snowman-mode, he is on vacation from work, which is why he doesn’t say much but usually only grunts a lot.

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.

I watch them fly in and gracefully land on the pond. Canadian geese, Branta Canadensis, are most fascinating creatures. Their migration routes are taught to the young by the parents from generation to generation. As navigation aids, they use the sun, stars, landscape features, magnetic pulls, and wind flows, among other resources, some of which are known and understood, and some are not known or understood. They fly at speeds averaging 30 miles per hour and have been clocked at 78 MPH. They have been noted by pilots at heights of 9,000 feet and flights of 16 hours in duration have been recorded. Needless to say, they have strong wings and these wings are their best defense when they are attacked. Yet they are very gentle beings, attacking only when threatened. They are extremely social and the goslings are very cuddly. As young goslings, even before they can fly, they can swim under water for 40 feet. Going under water is an important means of protection from predators. Geese can live for more than 20 years. They are very emotional creatures and they mate for life. Of the various sounds which they use to communicate with each other, the loud, short mournful honk of despair will be heard when a goose has lost its mate. In spite of the fact that they are extremely social creatures, a mourning goose will choose to spend much time alone. Sometimes for life.

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.

Words:
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.

Chapter 4 - Finding Answers

2009-10-21T12:02:00.004-04:00

Check out links at end of each chapter...

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 4

Finding Answers

Everything goes on as normal for a few weeks. Except that it rains and it rains and it rains and then it rains some more. Everything everywhere gets wet and wetter and wettest. HOG and Mary-Ann-Drusillda are running out of hay to keep putting on their wet ground floor. Lordy’s computers keep making strange hissing noises. And if dilution is the solution to polution, then my mud bog is pure water. It seems more like a clear fresh water lake rather than a nice, thick, gooey, lovely, dark brown, creamy mud. Right now, the mud is so diluted that it can not even stick to anything. I miss my mud.

One rainy day, as I am standing on my porch looking sadly at my mud bog, Mary-Ann-Drusillda comes running over in a panic. ‘RosFrankie, please help! HOG has rolled herself into a tight ball and I can’t get her to unroll. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.’

Mary-Ann-Drusillda and I go running to the haystack where HOG is balled up. Since HOG is so uptight, I decide that it might be better to pet her gently rather than to yell at her, which never works with HOG anyway. After what seems like a long time and much petting, HOG unrolls a bit and tries to get her emotions under control.

‘What are you feeling?’ I ask her.

‘Everything!’ HOG replies. ‘I don’t know if you are my friends or if you are thieves! I don’t know if I remember right or remember wrong! I don’t know if Méabh will kill me! I don’t think my eyes are working right!’

Finally, after many more patient questions and assurances of friendship, which HOG never really did doubt, the full story is revealed. When HOG went looking for a safe and secret place to put the ‘thing’ she had inherited, she thought the best place would be inside the big salt jar, especially since she is the only one who ever cooks or uses the salt jar. She buried it deep in the salt and never worried about it again. That was quite a while ago. Today she decided to check on the ‘thing’ and when she looked into the salt jar, she got a very big shock. Not only was the ‘thing’ gone but all the salt is a reddish pink color instead of white.

'Oh my goodness,’ I say, ‘I just don’t understand this situation at all. Are you sure you put the ‘thing’ into the salt jar?’

‘I’m not sure of anything right now,’ answers HOG as she starts to roll up again.

‘Méabh, I think, will be angry,’ I say, ‘maybe we better figure this all out before we see her again. We can talk to Lordy and see if he can help us find any answers on his computers. We’ll do that first, and then we’ll see where to go from there.’

HOG unrolls. Whatever surprises life brings, there is nothing like love and friendship to keep one unrolled.

It always surprises me that Lordy, whose antennae are always so bent from flying into tree trunks, is so good at navigating the internet. My mother says it has something to do with the balance of nature, which, of course, is just something else I do not understand and will not understand until I am older. But I don’t really worry about it either.

After we have explained the strange events to Lordy, he leans back on his rear legs and just thinks for awhile. Lordy will go into these deep thought modes rather often, and I suspect that the deep thought modes are why he keeps flying into trees, irregardless of what my mother says about the balance of nature. I am beginning to understand that people who are mostly always right, are not always right. ‘Mostly’ is a very tricky word.

‘Well,’ Lordy finally says, ‘we don’t really have many actual facts to study here. We can’t google ‘thing’ because then everything would come up on the screen, and we would probably spend years getting nowhere. We could google the country far away where your Great Aunt to the 10th lived, but that would also pull up lots of information which would not be relevant, I think.’

‘Think’ is another very tricky word.

He clicks his tongue a bit and then says, ‘Let’s put in the words red salt. The red salt is really the only tangible stuff we have. I can’t think of anything else, so it’s worth a try because it might lead us to other ideas.’

I think that the words red salt will probably pull up many art supply companies because of the color red, and HOG thinks that the words red salt will probably pull up cooking companies because of the word salt, and Mary-Ann-Drusillda doesn’t want to think about what the words red salt will pull up, so she doesn’t.

To everyone’s surprise, google comes up with ‘Kanawha Red Salt.’ Apparently, many years ago, there was a famous salt company in Kanawha, West Virginia, whose salt was colored red as a result of the iron impurities in the soil.

‘Why,’ asks HOG, ‘would someone replace my white salt with Kanawha Red Salt?’

‘I don’t think they did,’ says Lordy, ‘I think what happen is that, with all the rain which has been falling, your white salt got wet. And wet salt will quickly corrode iron. Since the thing which you hid in the salt was iron, it rusted and dissolved and turned your white salt into red salt.’

'Oh,’ says HOG.

‘Oh,’ says Mary-Ann-Drusillda.

‘Oh, oh!’ I say, ‘What will we tell Méabh?’

Well, of course, we will tell Méabh the same thing we always tell her. The truth. But we are very nervous about telling her what we think happened to the ‘thing’ because she seems to think it is very precious.

Finally the sun comes out one day and everything returns to normal. We are all sitting in Daisy’s Field when Méabh comes back. She is quite pleased with herself and doesn’t even say ‘Hello. How are you?’ which isn’t unusual because she never says that anyway. She just starts out talking as if nothing else matters except what she has to say. She’s like that. It’s okay with us because we all know her and we understand what she’s like. ‘A Celtic coin die. Very VERY old. Iron dies were used to mold and shape the coins which were made from various melted metals. Mostly the dies didn’t survive this long because the metal from which they were made isn’t as stable as gold. It’s quite a valuable and interesting piece. But HOG, I really don’t think you should sell it. I think you should give it to a museum. Then everyone can enjoy it.’

We all stare at her and don’t say anything

She looks at us, looks from one face to another, and then she squints her eyes a bit and says, ‘What’s up?’ It’s hard to fool Méabh.

Then we all start talking at once, each giving a slightly different version, but somehow, the information and the events all get explained to Méabh.

Much to everyone’s surprise, she doesn’t blow up or yell at us or run around stomping her feet and punching things. She just says, ‘That’s really too bad. It’s a shame when things get ruined like that, especially if they can’t be replaced. But they are only things, and they are not as valuable as people and friends who love each other. And, quite frankly, I’m very proud of you all. You had questions which needed answering and you figured out how to find the answers by yourselves. I’m really quite proud and pleased. People who are not afraid of finding answers are not afraid of asking questions. And if we don’t ask questions, then we will never find answers. I’d like to say that you all deserve a reward, but you already got it, because knowledge is it’s own reward.’

Then Méabh goes off to do the things which Méabh does, whatever they are.

We all go home, thinking about things. And, me, well, of course, I go for a nice sit in my muddy mud bog. Where I think about things.

Words to look up:
Salt jar
Tangible
Google
Celtic
Coin die
Oblong

Questions:
Why does rain make iron rust?
Why is rust the color red?
What are the tricks to a successful google?
What is the history of the word ‘google?’
Would you like to visit Kanawha, West Virginia?
Do you have a scary friend like Méabh?
What other questions should be asked?

BTW:
Kanawha Red Salt history: Salt, a highly valued commodity in ancient and historic times, is an abundant resource in the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia. Salt production along the Kanawha River grew from a small cottage industry to a huge commercial enterprise, exemplifying the Industrial Revolution as it took place in the United States. Called the Red Salt from Kanawha because of its color which was caused by its iron impurities, it was one of the first major industries in Kanawha County. Red Salt was collected by early settlers from surface pools in the area. The brine collected from the surface pools was distilled (liquid evaporated) in kettles and used by the early settlers to preserve their meat. It wasn’t long before commercial manufacture of salt began. In 1797 Elisha Brooks devised a method of dipping into the pools and collecting brine. He used hollowed-out logs with a long pole attached on a pivot. This enabled him to produce salt in larger quantities. Joseph Ruffner took notice of this and joined Elisha Brooks in his salt production. Elisha Brooks leased land from Joseph Ruffner that was adjoining the salt spring. This enabled Elisha to produce up to 150 pounds a day. Elisha’s salt had a pungent taste but was demanded for its use in butter and meat curing, for which it was unique. By 1807 Joseph Ruffner, Jr. And David Ruffner had began a large scale salt industry. They had the capacity to use drills to drill through bedrock which allowed them to collected brine that was 2 1/2 times as strong as the brine that Elisha Brooks had collected. At its hay day the salt industry had 52 furnaces for producing salt. The 15 to 20 wells operating on both sides of the Kanawha produced some 200 gallons of brine. The brine was cooked in huge iron kettles and shipped down stream via the Kanawha River on large flatboats. After improvements were made to the James River and Kanawha Turnpike wagon trail shipments were sent by wagon. The Salt industry boomed until the Civil War. In 1862, during the war several furnaces were destroyed by the Union Army to keep the salt facilities from being used by the Confederates. After the war salt production all but stopped. Only one company remained open but with little impact. With the closing of this company in 1945 the great salt production age in Kanawha County was over.

Check out:
Celtic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts

Mathematics
Seife, Charles – Zero, Penguin Books, 2000.
http://www-math.mit.edu/
http://www.coolmath4kids.com/
http://www.teachrkids.com/

Salt
Kurlansky, Mark – Salt, Penguin Books, 2002.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt
http://www.saltinstitute.org/
http://www.detroitsalt.com/salt-history.htm

Next chapter: A New Friend due to be posted on Thursday October 29, 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.

Chapter 3 - The Inheritance

2009-10-14T13:40:00.005-04:00

Check out links at end of each chapter...

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 3

The Inheritance

On a fine afternoon in early June, myself and Mary-Ann-Drusillda are having a relaxing mud bogging session after a fine ramble through the enchanted wood over by Beaver Creek. Both of us love to mud bog. Mary-Ann-Drusillda especially loves to sit in the mud and think about mathematical problems in her head. She is ever so good with numbers and can solve long complicated formulas so very easily. She knows how to work mathematical formulas which other people don’t even know exist. Sometimes, though, it is a little difficult to understand what she is talking about. HOG, however, absolutely hates the very thought of mud bogging for any reason and she never joins us in this most pleasurable of activities. We always feel sorry for HOG that she can not enjoy this wonderful pleasure. However she is always so adamant about not getting her feet mudded that we eventually stopped trying to convince her to join us.

Right now, as we are relaxing our cares away, HOG is rolling up hill. It’s not an easy thing to do, roll up hill, and it isn’t exactly what she wants to do, but HOG has no choice in the matter. Something called ‘genetic adaptation’ makes her do it. Méabh asked us once to look up ‘genetic adaptation’ in one of ‘THE’ books but we still don’t quite understand what it means. ‘Not to worry,’ my mother says, ‘Eventually you will grow and then you will understand it all.’

But we do understand the effect it has on HOG. It means that every time she gets excited or angry or ecstatic or afraid or extremely joyful, she will roll herself into a ball. She has absolutely no control over this happening. When she gets highly emotional for any reason, whether good or bad, she rolls. Eventually she will get her emotions under control and she will un-roll. But once she starts to lose emotional control again, she will roll up into a ball again.

Right now she has been to the post office and received [spelled ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’…] a most exciting letter. She is most eager to run home and tell everyone about this letter. So she scrambles just as fast as her little legs can carry her, and then she rolls and then she scrambles and then she rolls and then she scrambles and then she rolls. Actually, she goes faster when she rolls…except when she is going up hill. Rolling up hill is most difficult. She wants to ask Méabh why it is more difficult rolling up hill, but then Méabh would ask her to look words up in ‘THE’ books and that means getting ‘THE’ books from the red Jeep Méabh drives, which smells worse than Méabh’s toes, and, HOG feels that the red jeep is a place someone with such a sensitive nose as herself should not go. It could be dangerous for her! She could make herself sick! Sometimes the search for knowledge has that effect on certain people of a sensitive disposition. So HOG does not mud bog and she does not ‘do’ books, but she is still a fine friend to have nevertheless. And she makes the best cookies!

But she is so excited and so tired from rolling up hill that by the time she gets to the mud bog she almost rolls in. Fortunately, myself and Mary-Ann-Drusillda see her rolling towards us and we reach out to stop her before she rolls into the mud bog. Myself and Mary-Ann-Drusillda are also fine friends to have!

When HOG finally unrolls herself and gets her emotions under control, she tells us about the letter. It has come from a country far far away. A country so far away that HOG is sure that it isn’t even on any map, although she isn’t quite sure but she is sure she doesn’t want to ask Méabh where it is or isn’t. This letter is from a lawyer telling HOG that her Great-Great-Great-Aunt-HUGS-Five-Times-Removed-On-Her-Mother's-Side has died at a very old age which far exceeds the life expectancy of the average hedgehog by nine generations.

I want to ask HOG why this aunt was always being removed from her mother’s side. Like, did she really smell bad? Or snore loud? Or what? But, instead, I am polite to my friend and I just say, ‘I’m sorry.’

HOG looks at me and gets a little confused and starts to roll into a ball but catches her self real quick. ‘I didn’t even know that I had a Great-Great-Aunt-Anyone-Anywhere! So I can’t miss her, and she was exceedingly old. But this lawyer wrote to tell me that she left me her most valuable possession in her will. It is very valuable. I am to inherit a fortune! I’m so excited!’

Mary-Ann-Drusillda and I wait for HOG to unroll herself, which she always does eventually. ‘But what shall I do with all that money? I love our little haystack in Daisy’s Field and our comfortable life style. Do you think I should buy us a bigger haystack?’

‘Bigger generally means we spend more time cleaning!’ answers Mary-Ann-Drusillda, who doesn’t like house cleaning her half of their haystack half as much as HOG seems to like cleaning the other half. ‘Maybe we can give it to charity?’

‘Yes, or build a bigger kitchen off of the back straw bale,’ answers HOG.

Mary-Ann-Drusillda and I both sigh together. I have a feeling that HOG’s inheritance is going to cause a bit of trouble.

'When it comes, why don’t you just put it in a safe place for a while and just spend some time thinking on all the possibilities?’ I suggest.

‘Oh, that’s a good idea,’ answers HOG, ‘then I will have more time to check out the big new AGA stoves over in the Big Noisy City.’

‘Sigh,’ Mary-Ann-Drusillda says.

‘Sigh,’ I say.

‘It’s suppose to come next week. I don’t have much time. I better go on-line and order a bunch of catalogs,’ says HOG as she rolls away.

In the mean time, life goes on as always for me and my friends. Except that HOG keeps talking about all the things she is going to buy. Even that isn’t unusual except that now HOG is pretty sure she is going to buy lots of stuff whereas before she just talked about it the same way most people talk about the weather, or what time high tide is, or if the apples are ready to be picked from the trees. All sorts of interesting things to talk about but, in actuality, not something anybody can do anything about. Some things just happen on their own sweet time and no one can control their happening.

Eventually a small box comes for HOG. She rolls it home and she and Mary-Ann-Drusillda and Lordy and myself all stare at it wide eyed and almost afraid to open it.

‘It’s not very big for a fortune,’ says Mary-Ann-Drusillda.

‘Maybe it’s a safe-deposit box key,’ suggest Lordy.

‘Oh,’ says HOG, ‘I hope the safe is not in another country far far away which isn’t even on any map!’ HOG doesn’t really like traveling. There are just too many bumps in the roads, and hills which go up. It always takes her much time and much work to roll anywhere far away.

‘Well,’ I say, ‘why don’t you open it and find out?’

This seems like a very logical and good idea. But still HOG dos not rush to open it. She is, quite frankly, rather enjoying the suspense which will be gone once the box is opened. HOG rather enjoys superficial suspense especially when she can roll in the comfort in her own haystack and not worry about coming out of a roll and not knowing where she is because HOG does not like to be lost, and sometimes that is what happens when she rolls.

Finally the moment comes. HOG opens the box. We all stare hard at the contents. Very hard.

‘What is it?’ we all say together. It certainly does not look like a fortune. It is a strange looking piece of metal. It looks like a funny shaped rock but it is not a rock. We don’t think it is a rock.

‘I like rocks,’ HOG says, but, really, what she is thinking is that she doesn’t think she will build a bigger kitchen off of the back straw bale after all.

‘Mmm,’ I say, ‘I think we are going to have to find Méabh and ask her about this. Maybe you should just put it in a very safe and secret place until we can figure out what it is and what you should do with it. I think Méabh is coming to our house tomorrow for a hot shower.’

Méabh lives in a small tent and doesn’t have hot water so she showers at my house. But Méabh is actually very rich and has a beautiful old castle which was built on the Cliff of Moynar by her family hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Once I asked my mother why Méabh doesn’t live in the old castle and my mother told me that the tent is much more comfortable to live in because the castle has no heat or water and it has lots of strange noises and foggy patches, which are or are not ghosts, but, anyway, Méabh prefers to be outside in nature and wilderness and not be imprisoned by the mortar holding the beautiful castle stones together. Sometimes what is beautiful to look at, and is easy to love, is not so comfortable to live with. I almost understand this, and, of course, my mother says, ‘Not to worry. Someday you will grow and understand it all. And you’ll understand it much better than I do.’

The next day, while Méabh is in the shower, I ask my mother why Méabh always wears the color black. ‘But she doesn’t wear black,‘ my mother answers, ‘Her shirt is white, her vest is red and her pants are tan. They only look black because Méabh never washes them.’

‘Ew…’ I say, ‘That’s disgusting! Why don’t we grab her clothes while she is in the shower and wash them for her?’

‘Oh, no!’ my mother smiles, ‘that would be a very big mistake. I know because I made it once. Méabh lost six months of hard work because of my good intentions. The reason her clothes are never washed is because of the way they smell. To us, they smell really bad. But Méabh is a part of the forest. Have you noticed the eagles which land beside her without fear? Or the wolves who rest their heads on her lap? Or the little moles who sit on her shoulder and chirp in her ears? And bears actually bring her honey! They are all familiar with her and know her by her smell. The smell of her and the smell of the clothes she wears. It takes months to get her clothes smelling just right. If her clothes smell like soap or bleach, it scares the animals. Animals have a very powerful sense of smell. How Méabh gets her clothes to smell so animals don’t fear her is one of her many special knowledges. And it’s one of the few things I think I do not really care to learn.’

But I learned something important. Opinion is just opinion – it is not the same as knowing something. What smells bad to one smells good to another. And there is knowing what you know, and knowing what you don’t know, and then there is that very dangerous thing which is not knowing what it is you don’t know. I didn’t know that I didn’t know how important the smell of Méabh’s clothing is. I only knew that they smelled bad to me. It’s generally not good to not know what it is which you don’t know.

Although, in HOGs case, it seems that the less she knows, the less she rolls.

Finally and eventually, after showering, Méabh hikes over to the haystack in Daisy’s Field to see if she can help ‘identify’ the treasure which was willed to HOG.

When Méabh sees the item in the box, you can say that her face glows, if one can ever really say that Méabh's face glows. Face glowing just isn’t a Méabh sort of thing. She holds the strange object gently in her hands almost as if she is petting it. It is about two inches long and has a circumference of about ¾ of an inch. Oblong in appearance, it is not exactly any one type of shape, and it is roughly carved. On the bottom of one end, however, there is a finely carved interwoven design.

'Is it solid gold?’ HOG asks.

‘No, it’s iron,’ Méabh answers.

‘What does the design mean?’ I ask.

‘I can’t say for certain. Before I say anything, I want to go check into some books to see if I can find some confirmation.’

I am always surprised by the fact that Méabh always calls ‘THE’ books, just books, rather than ‘THE’ books. It is another thing which my mother says I will understand eventually.

‘Can I buy new furniture with it?’ HOG asks.

Méabh gives her a look. The kind of look which makes HOG roll. The kind of look which always scares everyone even though Méabh never says anything bad or loud or mean. The kind of look which makes people obey Méabh even though she never orders anyone to ever do anything. Sometimes, though, she will make suggestions.

‘I suggest,’ she says, ‘that you put this somewhere very safe and very secret until I come back.’

Then she takes a note book out of one of her vest pockets, a pencil out of another vest pocket, and a camera out of a third vest pocket. Lordy and I have a competition between us to see who can count how many pockets Méabh has in her vest, but neither one of us ever get to finish counting before we either get distracted or Méabh leaves to do ‘things.’ Méabh always has ‘things’ to do.

Méabh draws pictures and writes notes in her note book, and then she takes many pictures of the strange object which HOG has inherited. She gently gives it back to HOG and starts to leave. Just before she leaves, she turns around and gives HOG another ‘look’ just to make sure HOG has heard her.

After she has gone, I say, ‘I think we had all better leave so that HOG can unroll and find a secret and safe place to hide the, the, the thing.’ I don’t know what to call the thing. Méabh gave us no idea of what it might be.

Méabh tries not to ever tell us anything if we can find it out for ourselves in ‘THE’ books, and she knows that we know that we are welcome to come to her Jeep and look in any of ‘THE’ books anytime we want. Her Jeep is never locked, ever. But with a thing like the ‘thing’ we just really can’t figure out for ourselves where to even start looking. This time we will just have to wait for Méabh to give us some of the answers.

But before Méabh comes back to give us some of the answers, we will have to answer a few questions of our own.

WORDS to look up:
Inheritance,
Adamant,
Genetics,
Oblong,
Circumference

QUESTIONS:
What is a lawyer?
What does ‘five-times-removed’ mean?
What is an AGA stove?
What is a safe-deposit box?
What is ‘iron’? Does it have something to do with pressing clothes or is it like gold?
Have you ever tried to roll up hill?
Have you ever gotten lost when you un-rolled?
What other questions should be asked?

BTW:
MAD mudbog formula: the mathematical formula which Mary-Ann-Drusillda is quoting as she sits is the mud bog is an actual formula straight from the Wizard’s doctoral thesis circa 1973. I have no idea what it means. Just because you love someone, does not mean that you have to always understand them.

Genetic adaptation: a useful characteristic which eventually gets embedded in genes and is transferred from generation to generation.

AGA stove: The AGA cooker is a stored-heat stove and cooker invented in 1922 by the Nobel Prize-winning Swedish physicist Dr. Gustaf Dalén (1869 - 1937), who also founded the AGA company. In 1912 Dr. Dalen lost his sight in an explosion while developing his earlier invention, a porous substrate for storing gasses, Agamassen (Aga). Forced to stay at home, Dr. Dalen discovered that his wife was exhausted by cooking. Although blind, he was determined to develop a new stove that was capable of every culinary technique and easy to use and capable of heating a house. Adopting the principle of heat storage, he combined a small and efficient heat source, two large hotplates and two generous ovens into one robust and compact unit: the AGA Cooker. The cooker was introduced to England in 1929, and its popularity in certain parts of English society (owners of medium to large country houses) led to the term "AGA Saga". Today AGAs are criticized for guzzling energy.

Jeep: is the oldest off-road vehicle. The original vehicle first became the primary light 4-wheel-drive car of the US Army and allies during the World War II and postwar period. The term "jeep" was first commonly used during World War I (1914–1918) by soldiers as slang for new recruits and for new unproven vehicles. Many historians suggest that soldiers at the time were so impressed with the new vehicles that they informally named it after Eugene the Jeep, a character in the Popeye cartoons that "could go anywhere."

Check out:
Castle construction
http://history.howstuffworks.com/middle-ages/castle5.htm
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/castle_builder/
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS315US316&q=castle+cellar+image&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=J2ipSd3cN4qhtweSpKTrDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

Genetic Adaptation:
www.usoe.k12.ut.us/CURR/SCIENCE/.../genetics/.../adapt.htm
esciencenews.com/dictionary/genetic.adaptation

Gravity
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newtongrav.html
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question232.htm
http://www.howstuffworks.com/what-if-zero-gravity.htm

Mathematics
Seife, Charles – Zero, Penguin Books, 2000.
http://www-math.mit.edu/
http://www.coolmath4kids.com/
http://www.teachrkids.com/

Next chapter: Finding Answers due to be posted on Thursday October 22, 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.