The Hour of the Day

 Blog names from here on out:
Tali  (me, as always)
LS1 (little sister one)
LS2 (little sister two)
LS3 (little sister three)
LB1 (little brother one)
LB2 (little brother two)
D     (Dad)
M    (Mom)


Some time ago, my aunt Litbit, (blog name,) asked if I could take a picture an hour of everyone for the entire day. Well, I didn't get the whole day, but I got the hour of 1:00pm.
The pictures are black and white because I thought they would look very nice and matching for this post. Some people were easy to sneak up on, like LS2, (second to youngest of my sisters,). And some were not so easy. LS2 is blogging as a part of her writing assignments. For those of you who wish to visit her blog, the address is : heritagespot.blogspot.com 
 I helped her put up her blog background.  
Like my blog, it is also about random things of life around here, but LS2 picks different things to share and has a unique perspective. There are examples of the beautiful pictures that my LS1, and LS2,  take of sunsets, pets, wild animals, and the like at our house. In her blog, you may learn about the names and titles of the hills and ponds that my siblings have assigned everything.

While I am on the subject of that, LS1 also has a blog now, and has been keeping it up for a while. LS1 writes of her farm experiences, critters she finds, her dog, riding lessons, etc.
brinaslifeonthefarm.blogspot.com

And here, LS1 is helping LB2 with his cub scout bird badge. They have hung a bird house, put bird feed out, and studied birds. Next to this bird house there is a hide out for bird watching to see without being seen. LB2 and LS1 even came across a Bald eagle while finishing up. Unfortunately, they Couldn't get pictures of him.

  Below, LB1 is has finished his math and is reading the Work and the Glory series. He was laughing about something funny, but as soon as I pulled out my camera the transformation was immediate . He became solemn and blank faced. Oh well. :) I know he enjoys those books. Later...

when I'd finished photographing LB2 and LS1 making a bird paradise, I caught him walking home from the mailbox. But instead of going straight home he went around and cut through a pasture and into the forest first. I had a video clip, staring LB1 and his imaginary foes that he hacks down with a foam sword, (I'll talk about those later,) but it took forever to load. I was almost surprised with how close I could get without him noticing me while I did this. I was laying on the grass, (it was a very warm day today, and I was stalking him Native American style,) as he came up swishing that sword and making his own sound effects.  :)
He saw me only after I turned off the camera and said, just as he pretended to "die,"

"Mortally wounded, the lone hero makes his way through the dark forest, there is only one question---to be..." I raised the camera, "Or not to be?"

But we both know I only did it out of a nice sense of  humor. :)

Last, but not least is LS3. She has become quite the lego house builder since Christmas, and is playing with her lego people. She told me their story as I took this picture.

This family had all stacked their lego hats on the chimney, which caused smoke to fill the house.
"Oh no! Quick, get a ladder daddy!"
The daddy climbs the house and gets on the roof. As soon as he takes the hats off the chimney, poof!! The trapped smoke shoots out.

I don't know where she gets those ideas. Most of her stories are more mild.
:)

So that's all for now.  ;)

Hee-haww

Yes, if you are wondering I am sort-of-in my er ...pajamas? I didn't want this picture to be taken while I was in these clothes, but my sister insisted that she wouldn't get me to pose any other time than while I was doing my chores. In a big short sleeve shirt, (it was kind of warm that day...)
 And cowboy boots. Oh well. :) 

So that's Rufus and I. He is a jack that we have been taking care of for some family friends. Yeah, I'll admit I tried saddling him. I got that far, but that was about it. At least we got him to come to his name. You know what one of the differences seem to be between horses and donkeys? Donkeys are neat and tidy with everything but eating. I had to to fence in the bottom of the hay bale. What he's really tidy with are his poop piles. He doesn't mess the whole barn, but has these particular spots. Which makes it easy to clean it up.

Our chicken coop is in the same pasture, and every morning my little sister goes out to let out her rare anaconda duck flock, Rufus tags along to watch those funny waddling creatures. Or, maybe he's just hanging around for any extra grain...

I'm back!

Well! The lack of activity here is another testimony of how facebook takes up blogging time. Facebook is fun, especially because nearly everyone is on it and you can get immediate feedback. But something you simply can't do on facebook is write a long post about fishing or drawing or whatever. You write " I had a lovely day fishing" or, "I went trail riding today" or even, "I burnt mom's birthday cake" but not the story.

 People visit your page to chat,(small talk really) see news and share jokes, but never lengthy stories. Not that I have a lengthy story, but I thought I might as well post something here. Since November, (Translation, NaNoWriMo,) I haven't drawn anything serious, and sometimes when I pause like that I start getting afraid of losing my talent for it.

Some people say, "After all those years, I found that I have lost my touch with the brush." What a nightmare. I don't want to do that. So I sat down and made myself practice imperfect doodle sketches and refused myself the luxury of using the eraser as much as possible. These pictures are what has come of it, and it's not too bad.

I write like
Leo Tolstoy

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Fair pictures

Well Aunt Litbit, I said I would get those pictures of the other drawings up. I haven't. I am sitting here on this Wednesday evening waiting for YW to start. I haven't downloaded the pictures to the dropbox yet. I don't have them on my laptop.
But everybody in our family got a ribbon, and everybody did great. Beckah had a cool technique of making watercolor flowers by making drips of paint run across her paper. It was very cool, and my YW president said she liked that one best. She thought it should have gotten higher than it did. I do to.
Sabrina painted a very tightly realistic and acrylic  peach, perfect circle, perfect shape, perfect color. It is Sabrina's painting style. :)
Joseph painted a acrylic bunch of grapes, but was disappointed that they placed higher than his dragon drawing. I thought the dragon was pretty cool, but I would have done it with a little more color. But because his grapes are a current work of his, it is a better piece than his dragon. I told him he needed to do something new, not use the same drawing from last year. Which, is okay, as long as it had been done in the last two years.
Benj entered a crayon drawing on black paper. It looked pretty cool. It was a picture of Benj in the back yard in the sun. Jessa did a similar picture. The sun was the prettiest part, with many colors of yellow. With that picture Jessa won first place in her age category. And that sums up  most everything. Pictures...will be coming. ;)

I won Grand Prize at the Fair!

 Mine is the one of two horses, of course. It is Titled, "Fritz and Prince".
The other is the Best Of Show of the adults category.

I think this is one of my best examples of shading so far, but not my best as far as a horse drawing. the horse on the left has a chest that is far out of proportion. But it looks beautiful nonetheless. Before entering, Mom fussed a little about the way I had just tore my picture out of my sketch book. she wanted me to cut off all the little fringes.
But I suppose the judge looked those little fringes over. I have entered many other times in the fair before and never got first place. It was quite a surprise. The lady at the desk in the art building pulled me aside and encouraged me to enter in another art show that will take place soon. I think I will.
Getting Best of Show, or any ribbon at all is fun, but the best thing is seeing my work up there.

2012 Puppies

Aren't they all adorable? These are younger and older pictures all together. Mom has written excellent descriptions on her ipad, and I will have to see if I can get them on here. These are Sabrina's puppies, and I know there doesn't seem to be many tri-colored in these pics, but there are about five.

Third year of seminary has been completed.

Time is going too fast.

One hundred and one dalmatians---or rather, English shepherds

Okay, moving on.
 Puppies!
Yesterday morning at five! fourteen little sable colored babies. There are...um, you ready for this number?
I hope you are, for here it comes.
No, it's not one hundred and one, thank goodness.
There are twenty six English Shepherd puppies---in all--- at our place.

NOTE: We are not a puppy mill.

Twelve were born a few weeks ago and are ready to for their first set of puppy shots and fourteen were born yesterday morning. We are going to get their parents registered so that we can give these puppies to new homes for about $350. each.
Except, the older puppies may be gone before we do that.
I have a dog blog---(I know, one blog is enough, isn't it?) And when it is ready to be presented, than I will post the address here. I will post stories and things of my experiences with these dogs, and my dog, Emma, will be the main star.
I love English shepherds. :) And puppies. They are all SO cute!

Prom

Ah, yes. Surprise! 

I know, my dress is not black and gold. Oh, I still miss it. But on the very morning of the day on which the prom was to take place---(and that place was five or four hours away depending on how fast you drive so we would have to leave early to get there on time,) we realized my all finished dress, (obviously except for the zipper,) was too small. Nevertheless I went to the mirror wearing my too-small-dress and mourned the loss. It was elegant and very formal. It would fit perfectly if a zipper was not needed.
So.

I had two choises.
Well, really three.
1. try to sew in a extra strip of cloth to make it a sinch bigger and hope that my hair was long enough to cover it.

2. borrow my friend's dress, and scour the stores for a jacket to fit over the top.

3. Run to the store and get more cloth, a brand new and less mean sewing machine, more thread, and sew a new dress in less than five hours.

Well, we picked number three.

Mom and I scrambled to the store a few minutes after seminary and bought my second choice cloth,
(which I still prefer my black rose brocade to,)  and worked a solid four or five hours.I tell you, after all that work to get a prom dress sewn in two days and then another one in four hours, I was ready for this prom thing to end.
We finished it just in time to run over to my piano teacher's to get the zipper sewn into place. My prom driver met me there and I was whisked away.
However, there was a consequence for that fast and quite rushed sewing.
Of course my Nana  will know.

A lot of mistakes. For one, this cloth we bought frays like  sack cloth. ----does sack cloth fray? Maybe not. Well, this stuff frayed like crazy. Mom joked that I'd better move slow, so that my dress didn't become rags like Cinderella's.
It actually wasn't so funny.
Because  I was trying to sew the edges of my pieces so that they wouldn't do that. My friend called the sewing machine decided he was hungry. He thought my new pink cloth was Delicious. I guess I couldn't blame him. It was pretty.

But no worries, he didn't eat it to nothing. But if he ate a little more, then maybe it would be perfectly my size. The waist measurement was a little too big. Just a little. Not too much to notice. It was a precaution to make it not so small this time.
Better to wear something--- than than nothing because you can't fit into it.   ;)

the only other problem that was somewhat important, is that the pink gauzy on my back side was left undone. No time to sew it.  :(

So enough about that. I'm sure I looked well in the dress anyway. I had a gazillion complements. What else does someone want to assure them that they are pretty?
Oh, and if you could see their faces! when I told them I had sewn it---and then when it had been done in four/five hours. Of course however, with Mom's significant help.

This is turning out to be  a long post, and not just because. This is getting to be fun.

I shall include a short piece of the ride there. Nothing about the ride back---there's not much to tell. Except I went in and out of a light sleep, and arived back at like...four am? I was too tired to care to look at a clock.
On the ride there I was quiet.  At least for the first part.
I can hear a few of my out-of-state friends gasping.
"What?! You? Quiet? Never heard of such a thing! ...who's writing this? Get out of Tali's blog stranger."
Well, my fun friends, I have been practicing on my expressions. They have become very expressive and often talk for me. Or I hope so. They aren't always that effective.
Towards the time of our arrival, ( Yes, I did talk- how could you not imagine me saying at least one word?) we, (our driver and  the two other friends that came with me,) had a lot of laughs and fun playing car games. An interesting version of what I play with my siblings is a word/story game.
In the version that we played, we each took turns telling a story. Each person said one word on his/her turn. Until it ended.  They would result in funny short little stories.
 With my siblings this game is only slightly different. We go as far as we want in the story, and then when we run out of ideas we give it to the next person to add their ideas to. In my opinion it is a better way of making an interesting story because the person has more time to build plot and setting. And then when they're out of ideas the next person is ready with fresh ones to continue the story. the only problem is when the other players fall in love with what you've said and want you to continue the story by yourself.

Any way, I'm getting off subject. The drive up was fun.

When We arrived there, late, but in time for the dance, I walked in.
"Hi Tali!"
Oh I was so glad my trek brother recognized me in all my splendor.
"Hi Captain!" (that's his name on the blog,)
And then I went to sit for a while and hunt down other friends.
Okay, -I had a particular one in mind. I had good reason to believe that he was here, but things can happen, so I did have my eyes peeled. But lo and behold what do you know but he suddenly appears and sits right next to me. Now did he recognize me, or was he just sitting down in the nearest chair because he was tired?
I decided to let m=him speak for himself.
He did.
"You don't want to look at me?"
I smiled, and turned to him. " I was admiring the ceiling. You can't blame me when there's stars and planets projected all over it, can you?"
"Aw, yeah, I guess it's pretty. Are you on a date with someone?"
"Nope. Are you?"
"No. So do you want to dance with me?"
"Of course."

So yeah.

The music turns on...he leads me to the middle of the room....we danced with the lights of the projector overhead....he spins me...

---just kidding. xD

 How am I to spin in high heels anyway?
I was not romantic. How could I be?             ;) 
    I teased him, just a little, about the ceiling as his competitor. Then we talked of how things had been     going since last time we met, our siblings, and played the old tag game while dancing. I don't think anyone else but us were very interested though. Oh well. It didn't matter. We had fun.
I think all my friends had fun, even though some may say otherwise, I'm sure they did enjoy some part or another.
The last hour of the prom was my favorite.

I also danced with Captain as I always do. He asked questions like how I was doing, how my blog was coming along, how far on my story was I, and talks about my  facebook post about a green spider that turned out to be a strawberry top. I ought to ask him if he'd like to read my book. But maybe not. He's getting ready for collage.

When it ended, we all said our goodbyes and changed out of our prom stuff and got back into our street clothes. But I had a little difficulty. One of my friends that I came with helped me make a simple pink sash look beautiful. the picture does not do it justice. However, she had sewed it on my dress, and it was too tight to take off without having to cut it off. So we did.
Prom was really fun.
But if that's what public-schooled kids go crazy about every year I really don't see why. It was fun, and I loved wearing a princessy dress, but college proms--as far as proms go, have got to be better.
And I could definitely survive missing out on a school prom. ;)

Until next time, ---me.

this is when we came out of prom and changed back into our regular clothes. I am in the middle. We are all that came from our ward.

CUT!

Sorry to pause on the list of fishing tools, but I have to post and say to all my family---I am sewing my own prom dress. It's the priest and laurel prom, and it's taking place this Friday. And I haven't started sewing until yesterday!  :O
Ugh, and I have really truly have only tonight to finish it off...tomorrow is the day where we all have piano lessons and our piano teacher kindly volunteered to sew on the zipper since neither I or Mom can. But that's tomorrow and piano lessons start too early to do anything in the morning...don't know how I will wake up for seminary tomorrow, but I'm staying up all night!
But I will find a way. Even if I don't finish my dress I have a good friend who would like me to barrow her prom dress. It is beautiful, but I really want to ware mine, especially because I picked everything.
My prom dress is black with gold accents. Yeah, I know, teenagers should wear colorful stuff. That's what  Mom says to. But I am sticking to black and gold. It will go nicely with my liahona necklace form my grandparents. :)
I will post picture when I finish it---or actually, after prom. Wish me luck because I need it.
Your grandaughter, your niece, your cousin, your trek sister, your real sister, your daughter, your cousin, your friend,
Tali. ;)

Key number one: Observation

Observation and the question Why.

When I used to fish in the fishless ponds around my house, I didn't know they were fishless.
People don't fish in fishless ponds, if they can help it. And How could I know that the two beautiful ponds in front of my house had no fish? No body told me they didn't have fish.
In fact, a friend's dad was told that one of those ponds had big fish some years ago.
But---that was years ago. And he'd never fished the pond himself.
When I slapped a red base ball cap on and grabbed a five gallon bucket, all my fishing stuff, (four tackle boxes with every artificial lure available under five/eight dollars, two water bottles, snacks, beads, butterfly net---you never know just what you might need, lots of hooks, bobbers, weights, a few fishing books and all things considered,) my brothers and sisters knew where I was going.
Many of them always begged to come along, and while I was grateful of the company of one or two, I didn't want all of them to come. After all, the books say you should be very, very quiet.  ;)
And that's exactly what my siblings were not.
They were more interested in exploring and splashing then waiting for me to catch an folklore animal called a fish.
Many times I'd have to take whoever wanted to come, as long as they'd finished their chores.
The pond was a short walk away. We could see it well from our kitchen window.
Once there, my siblings would go to one side of the pond, and I the other. I was determined to catch a fish, and every time I went I saw myself , (in my mind,) lug a huge Large mouth bass home. Loud noises, if they must travel with me, were not to be near me when we reached the actual pond.
When I reached my favorite end of the pond, I turned my five gallon bucket over, and sat on it.
It would be about five-thirty. The sun would be casting goldish highlights on the upper parts of trees, and drawing darker shadows below. Little Spring Peeper frogs would begin to sing from all sides of the pond. Sometimes, a wood duck pair would come and fly around the pond before seeing us; many times they'd land in the water and swim a while without noticing us, and yes, sometimes my sibling could be that quiet.
Now this particular pond we have named Raccoon Pond for all the racoons tracks we find on the banks.
As I sat on my bucket, I tied a hook on my line, and many times strung a few beads on the line as well, before tying the hook on. Then I would put some bacon fat, a live worm, a cricket, or even a plastic worm, and sometimes power bait of dog food on the hook. Not all at once of course. But I tried everything in our food cupboards and out. Then I would cast, and let it sit on the surface, or sink in the water. Waiting, I would keep my eyes on the bobber for the for the first few minutes, then get tired of it and watch the water.
How still it was.
How plant-less.
How clear.
And, all the cow manure around the pond...could fish live through that? 
And, how still. Only the breeze disturbed the surface.
The only living things I could see were tadpoles. Lots of them. Little black things with big heads.
Frog babies.
Since long before moving to the Ozarks, my brothers and sisters and I have been naturalists.
 Each in our own ways, of course. At that time I knew was the name of that little frog, that was so abundant in this pond. But I didn't know anything about it. This little frog, about the size of your thumb, is called a Spring Peeper. Others may know them from another name, but this is what they are called in the books I have read. A few months passed, and my mom got a audio tape about frog calls. So we would listen to them and learn to identify each one. The first time listening through it, one thing stood out. Spring Peepers breed in fishless ponds. That is the first thing I learned about fishless ponds.
And yes, the tad poles in Raccoon pond were Spring peeper frogs. However, I continued fishing there. Resulting in other findings of clues.
Other little animals that live in peace without being eaten by carnivorous fish.
The still water.
The cow manure. That is noxious to water creatures such as fish. The fact that cows themselves, (and they weren't our cows,) were allowed to bathe and hang around the pond banks, was bad.
Cows are heavy enough that when they walk to the pond, they push the dirt into the pond, causing the pond to, over time, become too shallow for fish to live.
 Raccoon pond is owned by one of our neighbors, who keep land only for beef cows and their care, and does not attend to ponds that other wise would be a favorite to the neighboring little girls who he gave permission to do so. But fishless, Raccoon pond is a pretty pond, and for the while that it is, we still go there for picnics and to look at the raccoon tracks.

I found the same to be with other ponds around our house. There are about ten, and only two of them have fish. Those two are as we named them, Discovery Pond and Bass Pond.
We do not own either, but have permission to fish in both.
I do not pretend to know everything or even a great deal of fishing, but I value the knowledge I do have, and am eager to try out another fisherman's advice when it is given.  :)
Another thing I have found through observation is how to read signs in the water. First, the most easy things to notice are the big swirls of water that are made when a particular fish called a Large mouth bass strikes at something like a grasshopper stranded on the water surface.
Bass Pond, is named for those fish.
It was a favorite thing to do in July and August on a fishing trip to catch a few homegrown grasshoppers, (not homegrown on purpose,) and throw them out in the middle or deep end of the pond. Within seconds, there would be a swirl of water, and the grasshopper would disappear under water.


And I didn't need to bring so much stuff. Not everything in the store will work everywhere and every time. I discarded a few things in my tackle box, and then took what I found best and took and put it into a smaller tackle box. No need to carry a big box. All I needed on a single fishing trip was about two of best for the season lures and four hooks or so, a few weights, some extra fishing line, and a bobber.
Here is my list of months and what baits and lures are best.
But first, you need to know what I fish for. :Large mouth bass, White Crappie, (It's said, Craw-pee) and Blue gill  whenever it strikes.

On a warm February morning: Spring peepers are excellent Crappie bait in Discovery pond and a Bluegill favorite in both ponds. Live worms work as well for those two species, and in Discovery pond i like to put them on a hook and throw my line out, (it doesn't have to go far,) without any weight or bobber and let it just sit on the tension of the water's surface. For that your worm has to be small, preferably the Redworm that I find in Mom's garden, and your line should be about 8lb. When the line twitches, or, of course, if it goes down, you have a fish. But if you don't have a bite within two minutes, throw it out again, and try a few feet away from the last spot.
For me and thease ponds, I find that live bait works best in the colder months. But I have never caught a fish in December. I think they are just too lazy. I wonder at people who go ice fishing.

April and June: Fish feeding frenzy! Fat night crawlers are chief here, as well as small plastic grubs or even a fake fish egg. I was given a little packet of fish lures for my birthday two years ago, and there was a foamy little yellow and orange ball. the size of your pinky nail. I thought it was weird, but Discovery Pond's fish love it. As for the plastic grubs I think that the ones with tails about an inch or more work best and in lighter colors.But not yellow. When fishing with a night crawler worm I either put a bobber six inches to two feet from the worm, or just cast and reel the worm in---slow or fast, depending on what the fish like that day. And during these months you have to be careful in the way you put the worm on because fish are suspicious little snatchers and some are professionals getting away with the worm without ever being hooked.

July: Possibly my favorite month for fishing even though a fishing day in July is quite lazy and can be catch-less. But this is big fish month. In the hot sun a plastic worm six to ten inches long is like magic. You can cast out, let the plastic worm sink a bit, reel him in, let him sink, make him do acrobatics in the water, and then wham, you have a Large mouth bass. This is my favorite lure for this particular month. And though some people don't think the colors of the artificial lure matter, I think they do. Not all fish are curious. Some are terribly shy.
For curious or aggressive bass, I like sparkly blue, green or dark purple worms. For the shyer ones I think green, green and black or brown colors are better. You know, more natural.
Shy fish think a sparkly blue worm is terrifying.
Nightcrawlers are still in the menu. And fished with the same way as in June and April, but waiting is more important. Grasshoppers and crickets are hot-topic. This is because it is the natural time for grasshoppers to be clumsily falling into the water anyway. There are different ways to fish these guys. Sometimes fish like them struggling  on the water's surface with no weight or bobber.
After all, grasshoppers float.
But other times you may want the grasshopper to sink below the water's surface but not too much. use a weight and bobber.
Spinners are flashy and pretty lures, and I like them because of that. I haven't caught as many fish with them as I have with plastic worms, but I keep one or two. Those and the peanut-butter like power bait are the things I've caught my rare trout whenever we go to a trout hatchery.

August and September: End of fishing season. It's not illegal to fish in any month here, but it's just that  these  months that fish just get lazier and lazier. Frogs are great if you can catch them, and best fished at night along the banks. The same is with July. Plastic worms and night crawlers are fun, and grasshoppers for as long as you can find them. I have caught fish in November, but this is pretty much the end of my fishing season.

But why some good baits just don't work on the days they're suppose to is not for me to answer.
It's for the fish.
The person sitting next to you isn't always going to know weather you feel like pasta or pizza. Or carmel. Or would you rather have chocolate on your ice cream?
So that's that.
Oh, and my favotite weather for fishing is either after a rain, or a clear warm day where it isn't.
Rain gets in my way. I still fish in the rain though. But just imagine holding an umbrella at the same time as a fishing pole, and not being able to let anything just "sit" on the water tension. and comming home all wet. :(
It has been rain for the last couple weeks. But today is clear, and it is said that it will be beautiful weather this week. Let's see.