Further Homework

Homework from my botany class--rose hip diagram.

Labeling of the rose hip inner workings.

Last week I was with my daughter and her family in Maryland.  One of the charms of her home is its proximity to extensive wooded areas and a small lake with wide paths around its shores.  I think that she and her husband decided to buy the home because of the natural areas--one path leading right past her tiny back yard--rather than because of the home itself.  

Jon giving me "a face" to photograph, Meg and Kate--who is busy pulling the berries off
of a small branch she pulled from the bushes at the side of the sidewalk.

Beaver-chewed tree from beside the nearby lake.

Maryland wildflower.

Another Maryland wildflower.

Meg is a firm believer in "outside time."  When her two children are cranky or out-of-sorts, she does not park them in front of a movie--like 99% of the mothers I know--she packs them a snack and they go for a long walk.  Her 4-year-old Jon has a Nature Box where he can keep anything that he finds outdoors.  

During one of the walks we took, Jon would pick up cool looking rocks or leaves and tell us about them.  Then, in a tone that indicated he had deliberated carefully, he would announce that he was NOT taking the item home to put in his Nature Box.  

Megan would then respond "That's OK!  It's OK to pick up something and look at it and then put it back."  

During most of these walks, Kate was sick with a bad cough, runny nose and congestion--on top of having her last two molars coming in.  When she could breathe and wasn't coughing, she would chew on her fingers (sometimes gagging herself and then throwing up).  So Orajel was added to the routine and that, along with a little frozen hand chewy, made life a little more bearable.

On the first morning I was there, we went shopping.  Jon and Kate got to pick out a toy (Jon's was a monster truck and Kate's was a trio of small Hello Kittys, just the right size to fit into her hand.)  When Jon was not looking, I picked up a box that contained 5 small monster trucks.  He did see it after we had checked out--and even carried it home, worrying aloud the entire time who would get to have those trucks and if they belonged to everyone and when would we open them?

For Jon, coming surprises cause an internal agony, rather than a happy anticipation engendered in most of us.  Uncertainty in any form is  horrible--he is only content when he knows where everything is, knows who is going to be around him, and knows what is coming next.  

My own son Nathan shares that same characteristic.  For years the most important issue of the day was "What are we having for dinner tonight?"

His life has expanded since then--now it is "Do we have to do homework TONIGHT?  Before DINNER? . . . What are we having for dinner, anyway?"

Things do not get easier or simpler or funner . . .  they only change.

Kind of.

There will always be dinner to worry about . . . and homework.

For all of us.

The Miracle of It All, Rabbits, and the Small-flowered Woolly Bean (Strophostyles leiosperma)

Small-flowered Woolly Bean (Strophostyles leiosperma)

The flowers on this legume are small--but beautiful.

This photo is courtesy of my dear husband, who indulges my evolving interests by getting me everything that
I could think to ask for . . . usually before I ask.

I love the shape of these compound leaves.  I have come to depend upon leaf shapes
more and more for identification.  Blossoms are usually what catches me eye, but leaf
details are always there.  Dependable.  I like that.

The afternoon is quiet today.  The rabbits aren't even bumping about in their enclosure.  

I was going describe where the buns live as a "cage," but that seems like such a cruel word.  They are dwarf bunnies, and they each started out with their own 32" X 32" enclosures.  There were four of them then.  

(My The Peter Journals blog is named after the first miniature rabbit who acquired me.)  

Now, though, there are only two rabbits left alive.


To the left is a photo of Roo right before I took her to be put to sleep.  She succumbed to a parasite infection in her brain--and lost control of her muscles.

Now Oops and Murphy remain.  Two of the original enclosures have been combined into a single 64" X 32" living space that occupies one wall of the family/TV room.  Oops and Murphy are accustomed to the air conditioning and get baths if I am thoughtless enough to offer treats that cause . . . ah . . . messy potty-going.  

The fact that it is enclosed obviously restricts their movements while they are inside--but in with them are toys that make noise--that they can throw around.  Some toys are attached to the walls or sides and they can be swung or knocked about.  There are things to chew with different textures and tastes--and two large, deep potty boxes layered with pine pellets and then aspen shavings.  Their boxes are changed every day and sometimes topped off with fresh timothy hay. 

So as far as I can tell, they should be happy and comfortable--but of course they leap from their home almost as soon as I open the door for their evening constitutional. 

Tonight I have given them run of the kitchen as well as the TV room . . . and Nathan just pointed out that they have both snuggled down behind me on the bottom floor of the cats' 4 story tower.  

With two huge rooms to explore and in which  to run, they have converged to cluster together, sharing the same 12" square of space.  

I see myself in these two rabbits.  

With the whole world to explore every day, with every possible physical necessity and comfort provided for me, with safety and love granted me at every turn--I do not stretch my mind or my body with the magnitude of time and resources I hold--but spend the afternoon reading or napping or thinking and writing about my thoughts.  

I keep myself inside myself--squirreled away inside my comfortable, "12 inch square" of space.

I would like to see the rabbits running and leaping; expressing joy and finding new places to explore--smelling new smells, seeing new colours, hearing new sounds.  But they do not.

When Brent gets home at night, I would like to have him look around our home--or look into my eyes--and see that something wonderful happened while he was gone.  

Today, though, Brent got home and I was asleep on the porch--on the swing that Nathan helped me assemble so that I could read scriptures in the afternoons this next year.

Brent found me asleep.  He woke me up and noticed that there were extra parts.  He looked at the swing and put the last two screws into the swing supports.  Then we went shopping for food to take with us on our fossil hunting trip tomorrow.

There was nothing that I had finished today.  There were no wild flights of fancy or duties fulfilled.  

But Brent came home anyway--and when he got here he stayed.  

I think, for me, that is the fancy, the duty--the magic and miracle of it all.

The flowers that actually become the bananas.

Teaching, Tests and Always Being There

Photo of the Salt Lake Temple in SLC, UT.  The inside is even more
inspiring inside . . . and I appreciate that wonder because there are guidelines
I have to follow to be allow the privilege of entering in.

Version of nitrogen cycle that I made on my iPad 

I have just finished an on-line final for a Botany class. (I got 85 out of 102 points . . . two stupid mistakes, three others I just didn't remember.)  It was a fun test--kind of a weird thing to say I suppose.  I like tests, though.  They give me a chance to see how well I have learned the material . . . and sometimes a small thrill that I can still recall information that was a challenge to acquire. 

My dad taught me about appreciating tests.  At 26, as a teacher of college English classes, I actually hated grading papers and essay tests.  They were boring like nothing else I could name.  At that time I had two toddlers (or, a little later, two pre-schoolers and a baby), and after a long day I would have to fight to stay awake.  I was complaining to my dad about it, and he pointed out that tests were an indication of the ability of both the student and the teacher.

Rose hip before it's mature.  I love all the tiny fibers that were there--and that only one seed formed.

I took this observation to heart and changed the way that I thought about teaching. 

Brent took this of me in Central Park, NY.
It was cold--with a strong cold wind . . . thus the tear.

From then on, I began each semester by introducing myself and telling my students that I was there to have a good time.  If I had to be there, so did they.  If I had to read their papers and fell asleep, then the paper didn't get a passing grade.  

I also promised them, though, that if they would attend class and do the assignments as I taught them to, that they would finish the semester having learned how to write interesting, captivating prose that would engage and challenge their reader (or at least me) to wonder about the ideas that were presented--and to stimulate him/her to think about his/her world differently.

At that point, there were a number of people who usually slipped out the back of the class or slumped down in their chairs--if they had been able to they would have begun texting their friends or surfing the net for a good place to go drinking that night.  I am talking, though, about a time that was way back when the best phone was the smallest phone--and when all that phones did was call people.  

Back to class . . . from that time forward I had only myself to blame if someone was able to foist a boring, wandering essay on me to read.  

Something else happened to me as I did this.

The underside of the leaf of a lavender--all that intricate faceting is beautiful to me. 

I began to believe what I was teaching.  I had only my own perspective--my own history as a reference for all that was going on around me every day.  When I helped these people to write well, they were able to show me things I had never thought of as interesting in a new light.  They helped me find new meanings for words that, before then, were one-dimensional and bland.  They taught me about what was important to them and why they believed it was of worth.  

Close up of common Florida weed.  The flower is actually about the size of the nail on my pinky finger.

The essays were short--I'm talking about Freshman Composition classes here--but they learned how to decide what they thought about their subject before they handed in a paper.  They learned how to limit their subject so that what they had to say actually meant something.

Photo that I took a few years ago in my side yard--mallow plant.
I think of this as an example of the first statement below--the details are assumed because
the writer hasn't allowed the reader to see the details that she/he does.

Rather than start with "My mom is really cool.  She is always there for me.", they began to see and express their ideas so that I could enter their worlds:  "There is no other person who listens as well as my mom.  When I got a D+ on a math test, she didn't yell at me for being so stupid.  Instead, she let me rant on for awhile and then offered to look at the test with me.  It took a couple of days, but by the time I had told her about each problem I got wrong, I was able to teach her how I should have done it.  By the time we got done, I understood the math.  She took a lot of time to listen to me.  I still hate math, but now I know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions."

Way different ways to express a feeling that, to that writer, was saying exactly the same thing.

This--an example of the second writing above . . . focused on one thing, but also put into context.

I am enjoying the classes that I am taking right now.  Mostly they are horticulture classes.  I just finished taking Nathan through a pre-calculus class--taking notes, doing homework with him.  It has been a long time since I have taught.  

I guess I do miss it.  What I miss most, though, is the combination of teaching and taking classes at the same time.

As a graduate fellow, I was able to do that.  Taking and giving tests at the same time.  If nothing else, it always made me feel more compassion for the people I wrote for--and who had to write for me.  

It was a good balance.