Potpourri

One of our friends, Tim Roberts, is a fire spinner.  He has always been fascinated by fire, and he has really taken to this sport.  He and some friends perform in central Illinois.  Recently Tim did a show for us, and my partner Doug Edwards took photos.  

Today is International Literacy Day.  Previously I listed some resources for celebrating this holiday.  You can also visit the Bloggers Unite event page. Here are some activities today that celebrate literacy…

A friend’s mother started raising chickens this spring.  The hens are now laying. Yesterday, we received a batch of three dozen farm-fresh eggs from hens who get to run around a yard instead of spending their lives in tiny cages.  I am so excited!  The eggs are still small, pullet eggs really, but there are plenty of them so I can just throw an extra one into recipes as needed. The eggs will get bigger as the hens grow older.  These eggs are a beautiful brown color, from Rhode Island Reds if I remember right.

I’m holding a Poetry Fishbowl in The Wordsmith’s Forge today.  The July theme is ”cyberpunk.”  Come watch poetry created live from reader-generated prompts!

Wild rabbits have discovered the wild strawberry patch in my butterfly meadow.  In exchange for the fruit they’ve eaten, they have left a deposit of fertilizer.

Recently I decided to buy a cheap digital camera (98379 Series by Digital Concepts/Sakar International) to see if I could use it for snapshots without having it die on me.  So far it has survived, although the picture quality is not what I’d call great.  Lance asked to see some of the photos; below is a sampling of the tolerably good ones.