More About Snakes

All this snakey talk got me doing a little more research on snakebites. Here is what I found out:

• 90-100% of reported snakebites occur between April and October, NOT in February.


• The national average for snakebite-related deaths is only four per year, with Texas, Florida, and Georgia being the states where snakebites occur the most frequently.  
  


• The vast majority of snakebites (is that one word, or two?) occur on the hand, NOT on the ankle or leg, which explains the next fascinating fact:
  


• The most common profile of a bite victim is a young intoxicated male. (Duh.)
  


• The ratio of male to female vicitims is 9:1.  That means most of my five-female, one male family is safe, lol.
  


• Many adult venomous snakes deliver "dry bites" containing no venom, since they prefer to warn larger animals away without wasting the venom they need for their next meal. They know a human is too big to eat.
  


• In this country, more people die from being hit by lightning each year than from being bit by a venomous snake.


• Injuries and fatalities caused by dogs, cats and horses also vastly outnumber problems caused by snakes!

So.  This last little tidbit puts us in a much safer environment than some of our friends here, PlainJane and Cherryblossoms.  Ha ha!

Homeschooling Dad

We have found that the best time to teach the kids a lesson is when Dad doesn't believe it.  Over lunch one day Mom and Dad and Alizona were talking about gravity, and why things are heavier on the earth than they are on the moon.  This led to a discussion about the classic experiment that is attributed to Galileo (but he probably didn't do it), in which two similar objects of differing weights dropped from the same height both hit the ground at the same time. Dad said, "Wait.  You mean to tell me that if I drop a bowling ball and a marble from the roof, they will both hit the ground together?" He looked doubtful. Alizona insisted, "Yes, they will!" So Dad and Alie did some experiments, and she gave the scientific explanations for the results. We made a believer out of Dad, and a teacher out of Alison.  See?  Homeschooling IS for everybody.

Where Are the Snakes??

Copied from a comment on the previous entry:

"I was wondering while looking through the photos, don't you have to worry about rattle snakes out there in the desert?"
No. The snakes know it is still winter (and many of you would agree, I know), and they are hibernating, or at least cold enough not to move around. Well, let me do some research... tick tock tick tock tick tock... Okay, here ya go. All of the info I saw on snakes says that they come out of hibernation after the last frost.  Oh. Heh, heh, we don't have frost around here too often... Well, let me think about this.... okay, here's a good theory:  The area where we were hiking is a couple or three thousand feet higher in elevation from where we live, so it is cooler there, and the nights are still cold. So we are safe, right?   We have hiked around here for over four years, and we have yet to see or hear a live snake. We have not even seen a dead one.  Most of them are timid and will get out of the way when they hear/sense someone coming. We do have one aggressive variety, the dreaded Mohave Green Rattlesnake (no, that is not one in the photo -- that one is rubber, ha ha!), but locally, every time someone has been bitten the idiot victim was trying to prove something to his drunken buddies and was harassing it or trying to pick it up. This does not happen often in these parts. (The biting part, I mean. The drunkenness happens a lot, unfortunately.)

So the answer is, at this time of year we are about 99.5% safe from snakebites.  We don't start hiking until about November, and we don't hike into April. But we probably could.  There are plenty of poor ol' homeless fellows, real Louis L'Amour types, who sleep in the desert year 'round.  I'm sure a few of them have had a snake or two curl up in their bedrolls at night.  Eeeek!  But us, we're safe.  Right? Right, Cherryblossoms? We're safe?

The Desert in February

Congratulate me! I do believe I have set a personal record for non-blogging, eight days!  I have been keeping up with most of my blogging friends, but we have been so busy enjoying the lovely local weather here that I have not been posting anything, not even comments!  And sometimes it seems I just can't come up with anything interesting to say, even though things have been happening, Emily is still asking questions, and there have been lots of informative and interesting posts out there (made by other people, not me!) to share with you all. Call it blogger's block.

This is the time of year when I used to call home crying, "Please let me come home, I HATE the snow!!!" I lived on my college campus in Minnesota. I hated February and March, and  we were always blessed with a blizzard in April, too. Shudder. So I am very happy to say we have had some delightful days here the past week, and I feel so sorry for some of you who are still in the land of Winter!

We have some fun and exciting visitors with us this week, my MIL and FIL, who drove all the way from Virginia to see us! Here's what we have been busy with the past few days.  Don't hate us.  We can't help it that we live where the sun shines.

The big girls skated to the park this morning while Nana and Emily walked, then I did some errands and joined them at the park with Emily's bike:

We broke the rules.  Wheelchairs only!

Yesterday everyone but Emily and me went for a desert hike. (We had a nap.   That smiley is me.  This one is Emily:  ) These pics below were taken either in California or Nevada, somewhere close to where they meet on the map. Yes, behind those heavy, snowy clouds  hovering over those of you who are in Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc, the sky IS blue still!





Nana brought along something I was supposed to take home with me when we were with them last year, a vase-painting kit for the girls. (We didn't have one extra inch of space!) So the girls enjoyed painting yesterday morning with the warm sun on their backs:





And the big guys went for a macho bike ride.  Out here in the West, image is everything, you know.  That is why my DH is wearing long pants and is barefoot, lol! Yes, he always wears long pants (modesty is for men as well as for ladies), and no, he does not really bike in his bare feet. We call him Pants Armstrong, lol.

One of the reasons we enjoy having Nana and Papa with us is that they always bring such good things to eat with them!  This time they loaded us with oranges and grapefruits from Phoenix, as well as cookies from Germany, and roasted almonds from Costco, lol.  I think I will be 10 lbs fatter after this week, just when I was hoping to lose some weight. Well, I am ALWAYS hoping to lose some weight.  It never happens, and I know that is because weight loss DOESN'T just happen!  It's so much work.  Totally against my personality.  Like housework.  Housework and weight loss.  Same kind of thing!  sigh.

This morning my own parents left for a two and a half week trip to Thailand.  Not my first choice, for sure (I hear Bangkok makes Las Vegas look like kindergarten, and I know what Vegas looks like!) but I do enjoy seeing new places.  I think I got that travel bug injected deep into my veins when I was a little kid.  Unfortunately my DH seems to have been immunized against traveling, so we pretty much stay home.  But home is where the heart is, right?

Well, I am just blabbing for the sake of posting something, so I had better get off here and go do something real. I'll see you all here in the neighborhood somewhere!

 

Thankful Today

O Father up in Heaven
How good you are to me.
I thank you for the beauty
Of all the things I see;
I thank you for your kindness
In everything you’ve done,
And most of all I thank you
For Jesus, your dear Son.
I’m glad that he was willing
To die for me one day,
So he could be my Saviour,
And take my sins away.

Book Tag

PlainJane unfairly tagged me this morning with this book tag.  She knows this is a tag-free zone and she did it anyway!  How could she?! (She could, because she knew I would do this one!)  Okay, here's the tag:

Rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages.

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the 5th sentence.

4. Post the next 3 sentences.

5. Tag 5 people.

With all the junk on my computer desk, it's sort of weird that I would have to go hunt up a book.  But I found one, no, three.  Here you go:

From George Orwell's 1984:
But at some time or another he had tasted chocolate like the piece she had given him. The whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin down, but which was powerful and troubling.
    "Where did you get this stuff?" he said.
    "Black market," she said indifferently.

(Can you imagine a world without chocolate?  Horrors!)

Next, from The Sword, The Ring, and The Parchment, by Ed Dunlop, first in the Terrestria Chronicles:
    "Believe it or not, these people are subjects of King Emmanuel. If you were to ask any one of them, he or she would claim loyalty to His Majesty. In fact, every person here used to dwell in the Village of Dedication."
    Josiah looked at him in astonishment. "The village by the Castle of Faith?"
    Sir Faithful nodded. "Some of them used to dwell in the castle itself."
    "What happened to them? If they used to live in the Village of Dedication and they served King Emmanuel, why would they want to leave there and come to this dreadful place?"

And finally, from Daughters of Destiny, by Noelle Wheeler Goforth:
    In an instant the axe fell, and the tragedy was consummated. An involuntary groan from the assembled multitude seemed to acknowledge that vengeance had been satisfied, but justice outraged.
    Lady Jane -- or Queen Jane, as she should more properly be called -- was little more than seventeen years old when she thus fell a victim to Mary's jealous fears and hate. Her heroic death demonstrated how well she had profited by the lessons in her early years. She did not waver in her faith, but rather drew strength from Christ, the Great Comforter. With this vision before her eyes, Lady Jane bore herself with serene dignity and with the true courage of a martyr.

Excuse me while I get over my fit of giggles here, lol!  Jane, it's nothing personal, honest.  It's not revenge for tagging me, honest!!!  I pray your faith and courage might be as Lady Jane Grey's.

Okay, I tag some new friends:
hanbury
nikowa
honeybee10269
patiecake
bcdricks

God Knows What We Don't Know

"I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me" (Psalm 119:75).

One of the most perplexing aspects of the Christian life is trying to understand God's purpose when defeat or affliction comes into our lives, thereby hindering or even halting our ministry and testimony for Him. Many have been the servants of God who were sincerely working for Christ, seeking to obey His will and His word as best they understood them, but then suddenly were laid aside by sickness, or had their ministries stopped by the enemies of God (sometimes even by fellow Christians), or for some other reason, and could not discern why God allowed it.

What then? When affliction comes, we must simply trust God, knowing that whatever He does is right and that our affliction is invested with His faithfulness. He is our Creator and, through Christ, has also become our heavenly Father: "Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" (Hebrews 12:9). He knows what we don't know, therefore we can "know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).

This verse (Romans 8:28) is one of the most familiar and most wonderful promises in the Bible, but it is one of the most difficult to believe in time of affliction or loss. Nevertheless, it is God's promise, and "all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us" (II Corinthians 1:20).

God knows the end from the beginning, and in that wonderful day when Christ returns, "then shall I know even as also I am known" (I Corinthians 13:12). Until then, we must simply trust Him.

 

--from Days of Praise, daily devotions from the Institute of Creation Research.

more ?'s

What is my balance?
Why did they put John in prison???  Why did they cut his head off??!!
What does "transfigure" mean?
How do we make sounds?
What's a hard day?
What does heaven look like?
What are those strings that go whoop whoop between the poles?