Ordinary Time

Three quotations from two very different sources to start us off. "Allowing horses opportunities for decision-making -- such as choosing a route on a ride or approaching a novel object at their own pace -- stimulates dopaminergic circuits involved in reward, motivation, and curiosity. These include pathways connecting the ventral regmental area to the nucleus accumbens, systems that support approach behavior and promote cognitive engagement. Structured choices, introduced in controlled settings, help horses learn that they can influence their environment, building flexibility and trust. These moments of agency are not just training tools; they are exercises in shaping the brain. They reinforce circuits that allow horses to remain curious under pressure, rather than shutting down or reacting defensively." (p. 144, Horse Brain Science: The Neuroscience of Ethical Horsemanship by Dr. Stephen Peters) "From a neuroscience perspective, psychological robustness comes not from o...

It's hot and I am not enjoying it. Neither are the horses nor the sheep for that matter. I take care of the horses early in the morning and sweat through the first outfit of the day. At lunch I head back out, give everyone water and hay, spend some time sponging the horses off, head inside and collapse while I cool off. Repeat several hours later over and over. All I can think about is freezing temperatures where there are no bugs and I don't start sweating just walking to the barn. I am more than ready for fall.  Until the weather breaks, just read this post each day because it is what I would write. I have no margin for writing by the time evening comes. This is especially true if I have spent much of my day working on an abstract to submit for an upcoming conference which is what I did today.  So you can hope right along with me that the weather cools off and I can write interesting blog posts again. 

Yesterday I spent the day driving places... carting children places, going to the grocery store, going to another grocery store, going to the library, etc. It left me with awkward bits of time throughout the day. This turned out to be a good thing because I was in the middle of a book that I desperately wanted to keep reading. It seemed the perfect activity for all those awkward bits of time where you can't really begin anything. When the day began I was halfway through a 650 page book. At 11:00 last night I had finished it. Now I read fast, but that was a pretty good amount of reading to get done even for me. It also shows how totally engrossed I was.  And what was the book? The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson. First off, it's fantasy. If that's not your genre, this is probably not the right book for you. Some aspects of the book were pretty typical for fantasy: contests to see who would rule the county next, different houses/clans/mentors that organize society, magic, an...

It seems only fitting that the weaving project that caused me no end of problems at the beginning should have some drama at the ending as well. Yarn chicken is the phrase fiber people use when they are worried they will run out of yarn before the end of a project. Sometimes it works out and other times it doesn't. This project leans towards the not working out side. I could have woven nearly half a yard more fabric if I hadn't run out of the weft yarn I was using. I even thought about purchasing one more come, but it was out of stock everywhere I was willing to purchase from. It's probably just as well. I did end up with a bit over three yards of fabric.  I decided to use the variegated yarn in the weft for the rest of the warp. I figured it might end up being a nice bit of contrasting fabric. But I conveniently forgot that I don't really like variegated yarn in the weft of things with complex patterns. This doesn't change no matter how many times I try it. This one...

The boats L. works on go up and down the Fox River and there is a recorded narration of what the passengers are seeing. L. has now heard this commentary a lot. When we were wondering what we should do today, L. said she would like to go wander around the fen she passes in the river. This seemed like as good a plan as any, plus I am always up for visiting a new to us forest preserve. So those who were interested hopped in the car and we headed towards Person Creek Forest Preserve and fen.  A fen is like a bog , but with a lower pH. (I had to look it up.) It turned out to be a little rainy, but more sprinkling and not downpours.  I had never seen a plant like this so I looked it up. It is Clematis Virginia a; a vine in the ranunculus family. L. wasn't in it, but it was fun to get to see one of the boats she does work on pass by. The Fox River  Do you see that house through the trees? According to L., our resident expert on this section of the river, it was a stop on the Und...

"Hate is the satan of love. Exclusion is the satan of inclusion. Oppression is the satan of justice. Tearing down is the satan of building up. Competition is the satan of cooperation. Revenge is the satan of Mercy. Harm is the satan of care. Hostility is the satan of reconciliation."       - from Reviving Old Scratch by Richard Beck as quoted in Liturgies of the Wild by Martin Shaw, p. 205) "Beck uses an example of the banality of evil , a phrase that comes from the writer Hannah Arendt. When Arendt, a Jewish political philosopher, got to meet the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, she was almost disappointed by what she experienced. That he was less Grendel and more party clown. That he had unthinkingly followed orders. And it's that unthinking obedience that she saw as the ordinary face of evil. No one is foaming at the mouth or bellowing in Latin, but just quietly 'getting on with it.' And in that 'getting on with it ' they are a satan in the face o...