House Guest

My husband and I often sit out on the deck in the evenings for a cup of coffee. We have recently heard a strange noise coming from the surrounding greenery, a noise completely unfamiliar to us. Was it a bird? An insect? A toad?

Then one evening when my husband was away, I saw this frog hanging on my glass sliding door. Here was obviously the answer to our mystery. I took a good look at him to see if I could figure out how he managed to hang from slick glass. I noticed that he had little round disks at the end of each toe (toe? claw? paw?)

My little bit of research identifies him as a tree frog, and those round discs on his feet have adhesive qualities. Interesting creature~~~but I was ready to go inside.

I gingerly began to slide the door open, hoping the little fellow would just hop off. Instead, he slid himself through the crack straight into my kitchen! There he chose to hang on the inside of the glass slider. Happily, after all the children had the chance to take a good look at him,my son was willing to play the hero on my behalf and take prince frog back outside where he belongs.

Love Thine Enemies: A Slice of Nebraska History

Our 4th of July travels took us beyond our usual haunts, and as a result we were thrilled to discover a jewel of a museum near Holdrege, Nebraska. The Nebraska Prairie Museum was HUGE; over one acre of indoor collections in pristine condition. We saw period clothing, antique toys, farm equipment, tools and household items, a unique W.W.II German POW exhibit room, and even fine art.

I was surprised to find the very classy art gallery in a separate section; it houses an exhibit that tells the story of a unique chapter of history: a German POW camp. This was a chapter of history with which I was completely unfamiliar, and it was fascinating!

The POW camps in Nebraska were not widely publicized. People would have panicked had they known that 100,000 Germans passed through the camp gates, right in the heart of our country. Those numbers are huge when you compare them with the population of the county, which was less than 9,000 total.

Half of the male population in Nebraska was engaged in military service, which created a crisis on the farm. Labor was sorely needed on the family farms. The government's answer to this was to provide a German Prisoner of War Camp, built near Atlanta, Nebraska. This was not slave labor or a concentration camp. Prisoners were treated humanely and could volunteer for all types of work. They were then paid by their local employers through a U.S. government agency.

Only about 8% of the POWs were hard core Nazis, and these were identified and separated. The majority of the prisoners were friendly and willing to work for "our side". Most poignant to me were the letters that the prisoners wrote to the farmers after they were released and returned back home when the war ended. Genuine friendship and love developed between the prisoners and the host families. The farm wives baked them cherry pies and treated them with great kindness , so that lifelong friendships resulted. Some of the prisoners opted to stay in the USA and became citizens.

Artist Thomas F. Naegele worked at the prison camps as an interpreter. He painted life as he saw it in the camp, often using pieces of wood that were in the wood pile for burning. His series of pictures is entitled, "In the Eye of the Storm", to capture the conflicts of the world at that time between two theaters of war, the calm that prevailed in the life of the German soldier held in Camp Atlanta.

Here are a couple of samples of his work; a more complete series can be viewed here.

Liberty by Lynn Curlee

Liberty was our family read aloud on Independence Day, a great book for the occasion and a little something to make the miles zoom by faster! Lynn Curlee is a gifted illustrator and combines architecture, art, and history in a fascinating way. Though considered picture books, none of the titles I have seen have been too juvenile for an adult to enjoy. Boys who like to build things and figure out how things work will especially enjoy the Brooklyn Bridge title.

Back to the subject at hand......Liberty is the story of our own "Mother of Exiles," the Statue of Liberty, from her earliest conception to her recent renovation. It is a fascinating journey that begins in Versailles, France at a dinner party. American admirer and law professor Edouard deLaboulaye was hosting a dinner party at his home in 1865, and during the course of the evening's conversation suggested that a monument "Be built in America as a memorial to their independence...by a united effort...the common work of both nations."

His words planted a seed of vision in a young sculptor named Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, a man who knew how to dream BIG. Building a modern day colossus, a tribute to liberty, became his obsession. Liberty details the travels, fund raising, the public relations efforts and preliminary sculpting that the young visionary had to go through in order to see his dream become a reality.
One thing I found astounding was that Bartholdi began his work (on the hand and torch) before knowing HOW the immense copper statue would actually be held up. It seems he had the boldness to begin his project, and the momentum brought it forward to the point where each problem was solved in turn.

The armature of the statue was was designed by Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, the famous French engineer known as the "magician of Iron." He would later (in 1889) go on to build his own masterpiece, the Eiffel Tower. The support system was comprised of iron beams and ribs and 600,000 rivets. All of this is intricately and clearly explained in the book.

The picture I loved best was one depicting the head of Lady Liberty being transported in a wagon of straw with 13 huge draft horses pulling her through the streets. On her way to a Paris exposition, she seemed almost alive as the movement gave her the appearance of nodding to the onlookers.

The Emma Lazarus poem, "The New Colossus" has become inextricably linked to Lady Liberty, and is quoted and explained for young readers.

I came away with a sense of awe as I closed the book~~ what a magnanimous gift our country was given. I hope someday to see her for myself. But beyond that~~my hope is that somehow, in spite of the quagmire of immigration tangles, we may continue be known as a nation equally magnanimous and wise in giving the gift of light and liberty to "the huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

Pioneer Village

How do you celebrate Independence day? Our family's 4th of July traditions are almost as firmly embedded as our Christmas traditions. We make a three hour trek to a small town in Nebraska to visit Pioneer Village. It is about as non-glitzy as you can get; I think it is the antithesis of modern American attractions. I fear it may not be able to remain solvent forever, because the crowds are always small and some of the collections are sorely in need of a little TLC. Still, it has a place in our hearts and it just wouldn't be Independence Day if we didn't go! There will be patriotic music from the Senior Citizen's Band, a picnic on the grass, and small-town fireworks after dark. Sometimes we get in on the Civil War re-enactments and the historical cannon salute at nearby Fort Kearny. I'm thankful that our fun can also serve to reinforce in our children a sense of history and patriotism.

Here is a description of Pioneer Village taken from their website:

Relive America's Golden Yesterdays You have to see it to believe it... The largest private collection of Americana anywhere. The Pioneer Village complex comprises 28 buildings on 20 acres housing over 50,000 irreplaceable items of historical value, restored to operating order, arranged in groups and also in the chronological order of their development. There are 12 historic buildings around the circular "green". There's a Frontier Fort, a real honest-to-goodness Pony Express Station, an Iron Horse, and a home made of sod. There's a general store and a toy store, chock full of all the goods from yesteryear. An original art collection including 25 Currier and Ives prints, 23 Jackson paintings, and the largest single collection of Rogers statues. You can ride a priceless steam carousel, see 17 historic flying machines and marvel at 100 antique tractors. See a 1902 Cadillac and a 1903 Ford, both designed by Henry Ford, plus 350 other antique cars, all displayed in their order of development. For a relaxing trip into yesterday, come to Pioneer Village.

• Pony Express Relay Station
• Original Elm Creek Stockade
  
• Historic Country Church
  
• Historic General Store
  
• Historic Sod House
  
• One Room School House
  
• Antique Toy Collection
  
• Blacksmith Shop

Zebra Brownies

Zebra Brownies will certainly be in our picnic basket tomorrow. It's my most requested treat; I could probably whip up a batch in my sleep because I' ve made them so many times. Here is the recipe:

One package of brownie mix (20 oz.)
8 oz. pkg. of cream cheese, softened
1/3 c. sugar
1 egg
1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare brownie mix as directed on the package (cake-like option). Pour most of the batter into a greased 13-by-9-inch baking pan, but reserve a little of the batter for the topping.

Next, beat the cream cheese and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add the egg and vanilla and beat well. Pour the cheese mixture over brownie mixture. Top with dollops of the remaining brownie batter that has been reserved. Cut through the batter with a knife for a marbled effect.

Sprinkle with chips. Bake 35 minutes or until cream cheese mixture is lightly browned.

Makes 18 servings.

***Here is my best brownie tip. Use a plastic knife to cut the brownies. The knife will glide right through without gunking up like a metal knife will.

Enjoy!

Teen Girl Book List

As I was wrapping up the records for the past school year, I was feeling guilty that we didn't quite make it through the Winston Churchill book we had chosen as the spine for my oldest daughter's history studies. But then, I compiled a list of all that she HAD read and I ended up feeling happy rather than guilty. Here are the books my 14 year old daughter, Melody, read the past 9 months:

The Great Little Madison
The Birth of Britain (20 chapters)
The Wind in the Willows
The Velvet Room
Beautiful Girlhood
Ivanhoe
Watership Down
Mary Emma and Company
The Care and Feeding of Me
The Yearling
The Sea Around Us
Two from Galilee
Wandering through Winter (portion)
Coincidence, Chaos, and all that Math Jazz (portion)
Christie's Old Organ
Shaking the Nickel Bush
Dickens' Christmas Carol
Last Days of Pompeii (portion)
How the Heather Looks
Tennyson Poetry
The Gift of Music
Our Town (play)
The Joy of Mathematics (portion)
Mornings on Horseback (audio, portion)
Great masters: Mozart- His Life and Music 5 lectures on audio (Teaching company)
Mere Christianity (in process)
Lilias Trotter: A Passion for the Impossible (in process)
Christy
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
The Hollow- Agatha Christie
Robin Hood- Pyle selected chapters

I'm finally relaxing to the point where we can enjoy some books in part without reading every single chapter. Like the math books. They make a fabulous change of pace from the everyday workbook assignments, but we just dip into them on occasion. I'm growing! I'm not as enslaved to lists and schedules as I once was, though I still like to have a plan down on paper. Sometimes the deviations turn out to be the best part of the school year!

Modeling Grace

"Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons:" Mark 3:14-15 (emphasis added)

I usually think of the twelve apostles in terms of their calling to preach, heal, and cast out demons. But their first calling, before all of that activity, was to simply be with Jesus.

When a disciple spends a great deal of time with his or her teacher, some of the learning is "caught" rather than "taught." The teacher imparts intangibles by modeling truth in everyday living. The disciples were with Jesus as He walked, ate meals, handled large crowds, confronted opponents, and blessed children. They never had formal training in crowd control or conducting children's ministry; they simply watched Jesus.

When I think of discipling others, I think first of my own children. Though I consciously and carefully prepare lessons for them in our homeschool and in our devotional time, much of what they learn from me is "caught".

They catch my attitude when they watch me engaging in crowd control (hordes of neighbor kids in our pool), as they see me offering hospitality, or simply mopping the floor.

As they are with me, I wish my disciples were immune to "catching" my sin. My little students no doubt learn new ways to sin from me, because, unlike the Master Teacher who was spotless and blameless, I am a fallen creature.

Ah, but there is grace that is greater than all my sin. And after these entrusted to me have been discipled, have been with me as the twelve were with Jesus~~ then there will come a time when they will be sent out. This is parenting by faith; expecting His grace have the upper hand.

"And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all." Acts 4:33

LORD, I have need of your great grace. May that grace be upon us all this day. Amen