These lists seem to be all the rage in the blogging world. For once, I'll hop onto the bandwagon and make one, completely ignoring the fact that my last birthday was over 4 months ago. Because I'm cool like that.
my list:
1. Learn to drive a car.
2. Learn to shoot a gun.
YEAH!
3. Finish Algebra 1. Yuck.
3. Write a novel.
4. Buy something from ModCloth. I love their clothes. 2/12
5. Go to Glacier National Park in Montana, and/or hike (part of) the Appalachian trail.
Oh yes, and I'm finally reading The Hunger Games. Pretty good so far, well-written, although part of me wonders why they don't have any guns, for Pete's sake...
If you've never raised sheep before, you probably think of them as boring, rather stolid balls of wool, who happen to possess tasty loins. All of this is true; but there is much quiet joy and peace in their very stolidity. Hang out with a flock of sheep for a while and you can't help but realize the overarching rhythms which make up the animal world.
photo from gopetsonline.com
{via} Sheepish actions never change. The things they do now (eat, breed, poop, give birth, play) are not new, and they aren't going to change anytime soon.
{via} Babydoll Southdowns--AKA the cutest sheep ever.
And yes, sheep do play. They jump around, run and leap up with all four legs off the ground for no apparent reason, like a carefree young child on a beach.
This is very amusing to watch. Not so amusing is the crazed rush of every single animal towards you when you're carrying their food....
Good news: my mother found my long-lost (long story) iPod touch! Extremely exciting!!!
Bad news: why would you care if I have my iTouch back or not? It has nothing to do with you, as I am sure you have your own set of problems to deal with.
Thoughtful quote:
It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings collected together are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.
~ Thomas Jefferson
We would all love there to be no confining, restrictive rules. And in the beginning, before sin entered the earth, there were no rules (excepting one!). But since there are natural rules, it is better to simply obey the sensible ones as a duty instead of trying to flout everything and live your own way, which is not possible on this corruptible earth, unfortunately. That is the foundation of the Constitution in America: working with the way men are naturally, accepting the fact that we are sinful instead of trying to make up new, Utopian and perfect rules, which are easily corrupted by inevitable megalomaniacs. (Think the French revolution)
~ ~ ~
Having spoken of the world at large, I will commence to speak of what happens to by on my mind: breeding sheep. I am preoccupied with rams, ewes, ewe lambs, lambs, and suchlike at the moment....I have decided to breed my two ewe lambs at the age of nine months, to lamb at fourteen months old, in lateish April, just as the nutritious spring grasses come into their own.
Sadie and Amelia at almost seven months old, currently.
The wide, wide world is so full of so many, many things (yes, I feel it is necessary to repeat myself) and yet I haven't been able to think of a subject on which to blog.
I don't want to merely tell my readers about my life, and opinions, but would like to stimulate their minds. I also want to exorcise any discussion of
smiley faces, crushes, "boys" in general (OMG!!!) or country music from ever be-dewing these beautiful pure white pixels.
Today for school I read a biography on George Fox, who founded the Society of Friends, known to most laymen as the Quakers.
He was in himself, judging from this short bio, a peculiar and interesting man. Obviously stubborn, and probably also blessed with that capacity some people have of being so strongly embedded in their principles they can't see anyone else's. Yet this can also be a good thing.
I also looked up modern day Quakerism and found this and this. Interesting indeed!
Excitement excepting unpleasant ones such as finding that the sheep refuse to enter their fence has been served up in limited quantities here. Several members of this household, namely my brother and mother, are ill, thus rendering them grouchy, tired and sick and altogether unfit for human consumption! Yet we shoulder on....
I have been doing a bunch of reading on my Kindle. I am reading the Emily trilogy by L.M. Montgomery, and am finding them more enjoyable than Anne of Green Gables. The Emily books are more sophisticated, darker, and Emily is interesting herself. I loved Ilse, her b.f.f., and her hilarious epithets in the first book. Lastly, I completely agree with Emily as regards to poetry: Keats is indeed TOO sweet (I found him mostly incomprehensible, excepting this poem which is great) and as for Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Arthur is too perfect, and Guinevere is stupid as "Lancelot is odious." I agree with J.R.R. Tolkien who though the King Arthur tales were immoral and Frenchified. I do like some of Tennyson's other work though, "Crossing the Bar" is a fine example.
And as for music, I have been stuck in a rut listening to Beethoven's piano concertos 4 + 5 over and over--I already knew them well, and their beauty is comforting. And you should read this essay about classical music. Taking a cue from the list at the end of it, I listened to part of Mozart's 40th symphony on Youtube the other day--it was great!
Us classical music enthusiasts have a hard time out there in the 'real' world. If we are adult we are treated like high-society snobs, and if we are younger like myself we are just "weird". Oh well!
There is nothing particularly wonderful about being "weird (unquote) but if the weirdness is a fine, upstanding thing and nothing to be ashamed of, who cares?
Anyway, remember Life is a Gift, so enjoy it, use it, and do not be ashamed of what other people think!!!
I will be away for the weekend, returning on Sunday, so please don't expect me to post before then. Going to attend a baby shower for my as-yet-unborn niece, due in September. Very excited--who wouldn't be?I have never been an aunt before! My sister-in-law doesn't want any pink, so it took some ingenuity to make some baby items for her. I used an absolutely gorgeous brown, lavender, red and white.
We like babies here. And children. They can be *extremely* annoying but also keep life from becoming stagnant..........as do teenagers. I know that from first-person experience. LOL.
Just ramblings....so, as is my wont when inspiration fails me, I will post a lovely painting and a not-so-lovely painting.
"Shepherdess with her Flock" by Jean-Francois Millet. 1863. (I'm assuming "millay" rather than "millett" as it is French, but feel free to pronounce as you see fit!)
A lovely realistic painting of a French peasant girl. The girl is quite young, and the heathered tones of the painting are beautiful. And as a shepherdess myself, I can appreciate its realism. *Click on photo/s to make them larger* Side note: When my mom was this painting she said "Oh look! She's knitting!" If you look closely you can see that the young shepherdess is indeed knitting: a sock in the round, on four needles. This made my mother, an inveterate sock knitter, overjoyed.
~~~~~ Now contrast it to this truly horrifying painting by Jean-Honore Fragonard. Notice the dreamy looking sheep, whose face resembles a child, and who possesses a fleece of impossible whiteness. A real sheep would never consent to be away from the rest of the flock (in the right-hand bottom corner). It would be baa-ing it's silly head off, rather than dreamily admiring the basket of flowers. (Unless it was sedated?) And the shepherdess, with her plump white hands, goofy silk dress, and snowy bosom, looks like she never did a lick of work in her whole life. Seriously. I hate that shepherding was so romanticized by those out-of-it romantics This type of painting was extremely popular at one time (early 1800s) , and was enjoyed probably by the same ilk as Marie Antoinette, who was playing on a be-ribboned hobby farm while the real peasants were starving.
Real shepherds are like the top painting. Shepherding, or indeed any type of farming, isn't for the faint of heart. It is a dirty, complicated job which requires are patient constitution and a love for the animals, in this case sheep. It is not the kind of job where you can sit whispering words of love to your male companion while wearing an extremely tight dress and while petting a (sedated?) sheep..... Rant finis.
What paintings do you like? LMK in a comment! Also LMK how you liked the new format. I like it.
The lambs say hi! The goat, of course, being Nubian, prefers to stick his nose in the other direction.
After, much deliberation, fumbling, and devoted thinking on the subject, I've decided to post a poem, then my thoughts on some books.
"DEATH, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so: For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow; And soonest our best men with thee do go-- Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!" ~ Death by John Donne
I found this in my poetry book and found it rather beautiful, obviously written by man who had done some serious thinking upon the subject. This author, John Done, (15th century) was known for his love poems but also wrote some inspirational and moving religious poetry later in life. I know you are probably asking "Why so serious, Diana?" as you despairingly read comedic literature, but hey, life IS serious! "Life is real, life is earnest.." (Longfellow) Okay, I will stop now....
Finally, my $0.02 on some books I got from the library today. I read Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer (awesome sounding first name by the way!) first, and frankly, I was disappointed. From reading the previews on my Kindle I'd expected it to be a lot more interesting, or as we say here, interestinger. The book was all action, nothing else, and I couldn't keep track of what was going on three-quarters of the time! It was life one of the those movies where they keep going back and forth between characters in different places. Confusing! I did think Artemis Fowl was an interesting character but you never even got to know him in this book. I guess I will try the other books in the series, but hopefully they will make more sense. See this for a synopsis of the series (thank you, Wikipedia!). Artemis Fowl: I wish I'd thunk up that name first! I'm waaaaayyyy cooler than am Irish twelve-year-old criminal mastermind. Yes, I am! I'm also not quite as conceited and stuck up as those last three sentences may have led you to believe.
Book 2: I interlibrary loaned The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse after reading several other Jeeves stories. What can I say......all of the Jeeves stories are hilarious. English humor at its best. I suggest you give it a try!
Oh, and I'm starting Life of Fred math next week. I read part of the textbook, and it looked pretty funny. Is it even humanly possible to make algebra fun? We shall see!
Fred, the brilliant 5-year-old professor at KITTENS university.
