Sixteen Sawtooth Stars

We visited the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point Monday. We love the dinosaur skeletons, but there’s lots more to see. In one of the last few rooms on our tour there’s a life-size elephant bird painted on a wall. He was the world’s largest bird, like an ostrich on steroids: ten feet tall and heavy as a horse. He lived on the island of Madagascar until about a thousand years ago. I hadn’t paid much attention to him before. He is, after all just a painting on a wall. But this year, the elephant bird was in the news. Twice. In April, someone rediscovered an intact elephant bird egg that had been forgotten in a cabinet in the Buffalo Museum of Science. And earlier this month some scientists at UT-Austin studying elephant bird skulls decided the elephant bird must have been nocturnal and was very likely blind. Like a kiwi bird, only much, much bigger. Cool.

Nine Feed Sack Cabins

Italy has the lowest birth rate in Europe, and it’s still falling. It’s not a coincidence that Italy’s economy is also in decline. In order to address both issues, they’re proposing a radical idea: free farmland for growing families. If the plan is implemented, Italian parents who have a third child between 2019 and 2021 would be given plots of state-owned farmland to run for 20 years. They’ll also offer interest-free loans to build homes nearby. I was skeptical when I first heard about the land-for-babies scheme. After all, governments can’t give anyone anything unless they take it from someone else. But Italy actually has half a million hectares of fertile agricultural land that isn’t currently being farmed. So I guess the only drawback would be if no Italian couples dream of becoming farmers. Before you pack your bags, you should know: the offer would only be available to families who’ve lived in Italy ten years or more.

Nine Sawtooth Stars

We’d bought several very large Honey Crisp apples last week, right before our veg box arrived with as many good-sized Fujis. I was suddenly reminded of Robert Frost’s After Apple-Picking: “I am overtired of the great harvest I myself desired.” We could never have eaten them all by ourselves, and they’re not varieties that make good applesauce. Instead they became dessert for Sunday dinner:

Apple Crisp

10 cups apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1 cup white sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup water

1 cup quick-cooking oats

1 cup flour

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350F. Place apples in 9x13” pan. Mix white sugar, 1 tablespoon flour and cinnamon together, and sprinkle over apples. Pour water evenly over all. Combine oats, 1 cup flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and melted butter together. Crumble over apple mixture. Bake 45 minutes. Serves 12.

Fifteen LeMoyne Stars

Keep your words soft and sweet in case you have to eat them.

Read books that would make you look good if you died in the middle.

Drive carefully. Cars aren’t the only thing that can be recalled by their Maker.

If you lend someone $20 and never see them again, it was probably worth it.

It’s possible your purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.

Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time. You won't have a leg to stand on.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Get up and dance.

When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

Some mistakes are too much fun to make once.

A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

You can learn a lot from crayons. They’re all are different colors, but they live in the same box.

Four Sawtooth Stars

“Unless you are in the service of your fellow being, you are not in the service of your God. Mormon expressed this thought, which was recorded by his son Moroni, when he said:, ‘Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth.’ I am persuaded that only this charity, this pure love of Christ, this love plus sacrifice, which is exemplified in the work that goes on in our temples, can save this nation and the world, for that matter when the Lord comes. The Lord was willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if Abraham could find just ten good men, which he could not do. I presume I could not have a more important hope for you and me than that we may be filled with this charity, this pure love of Christ, to serve our fellow man.” – Hartman Rector, Jr.

Four Feed Sack Cabins

In Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place, and in the sky, the larks, still bravely singing, fly,

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe! To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high! If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields. - John McCrae (1872-1918)

Sawtooth Star

At eleven o'clock in the morning on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 an armistice was signed between Germany and the Allies of World War I at Compiègne, France, signaling the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I. The armistice was essentially three-month cease-fire; the war didn’t actually come to an end until the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. In Great Britain Armistice Day is celebrated with poppies to commemorate the lives lost in World War I and subsequent wars. Tiny artificial poppies start showing up on lapels the last Friday in October and disappear after sunset November 11. In the US November 11 is called Veteran’s Day, a day to honor the service of veterans both living and dead. We reserve Memorial Day – Decoration Day – to remember those killed in action.