Maggie's Farm

December 7, 1941. The Pacific Clipper, Queen of Pan American Airways fleet of flying boats is 6 days out of San Francisco, bound for Auckland, New Zealand. Captain Robert Ford receives a coded message: Japanese attack Pearl Harbor...Implement War Plan A...Proceed to Auckland, NZ...Maintain radio silence...Wait for instructions...Your aircraft is a strategic resource-it must not fall into enemy hands under any circumstances

Pan American Airways bases all across the Pacific were captured. Returning to the US west coast by the Pacific Clipper did not seem possible. A week of waiting, then another coded message:

DEC 14, 1941: Do not return to Hawaii. Do not return to US west coast...Strip aircraft of all markings and identification...proceed west...maintain radio silence...deliver aircraft to Marine Terminal, LaGuardia, NY. Good luck.

Over the transom:

My raft has a 15,000 lb capacity.  The deck is 18ft x 18ft with 12 plastic foam filled dock floats that are 4ft x 4ft by 18 inches high and the gazebo is 10 ft. Hexagon with a table and chairs. 

Inside, under the table is my trolling motor so I can take it out to my favorite fishing hole. The trolling motor is remote controlled wireless so I can be fishing outside and operate the motor.

On the top of the table I have a LOWRANCE Fish-Finder with depth sounding sonar's and temp gauge. I have 2 electric winches with 40 lb. anchors. I have also built in a water pump so I can clean the fish right on the spot.

Now I can relax and fish while my wife can sit and relax.

We visited the New Britain Museum of American Art this weekend, known as one of America’s most welcoming, distinguished, dynamic, and educationally ambitious art museums. They have a current exhibit (through April 11, 2010) entitled Inspired Innovations: A Celebration of Shaker Ingenuity.

The exhibition, organized into 12 Zones of Innovation and with three rooms resembling traditional Shaker quarters, will showcase some 350 objects spanning over 200 years from 1800 to 2000. A testament to the durability, practicality, and simplicity of Shaker ingenuity, with a focus on functionality, each piece is gracefully formed with a genuine devotion to ones craft that reflects the words of Shaker founder, Mother Ann: "labor to make the way of God your own; let it be your inheritance, your treasure, your occupation, your daily calling."

Maggie's readers will like this quote from Shaker Martha J. Anderson of Mt. Lebanon, NY: "The lamp of genius burns as it is supplied by the oil of enthusiasm." 

The New Britain Museum of American Art's founding in 1903 entitles the institution to be designated the first museum of strictly American art in the country. That year, a $20,000 gift of gold bonds to the museum's former parent, the New Britain Institute, from industrialist John Butler Talcott, created funds to purchase "modern oil paintings." Subsequent purchases, with advice from New York museums and galleries, further defined "modern" to mean American works of art, now numbering more than 10,236. With particular strengths in colonial portraiture, the Hudson River School, American Impressionism, and the Ash Can School, not to mention the important mural series The Arts of Life in America by Thomas Hart Benton, the museum relies heavily on its permanent collection for exhibitions and programming, yet also displays a significant number of borrowed shows and work by emerging artists. The singular focus on American art and its panoramic view of American artistic achievement make the New Britain Museum of American Art a significant teaching resource available to the local, regional, and national public.

As the Guide Michelin might say, "worth a detour".

I suppose "Partridge" could refer to Ruffed Grouse, Chukar, Huns, Red Grouse or any little chickeny bird. Even Cornish Game Hens or chicken. This was very good with my Chukars.

ACNA Recognized in Spirited Debate by Church of England Synod, thus joining the Anglican Communion. It begins:

A spirited debate by the Church of England Synod saw the newly formed Anglican Church in North America recognized by all three houses – bishops, clergy and laity in an overwhelming vote.

and

On any kind of reading the passage of this resolution sends a signal to The Episcopal Church that they are not the only Anglican players in North America and the actions of TEC at GC2009 accelerated what took place here today.

16,000 rounds/second, 250,000 explosive grenade rounds per minute.

A 15 mpg clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year uses 800 gallons of gas a year. A 25 mpg vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year uses 480 gallons a year.

So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. They claim 700,000 clunkers were turned-in, so that's 224 million gallons saved per year. That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. 5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.

More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars. So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million. We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.

I'm pretty sure they will do a great job with our health care, though.

From Dennis Prager's What I Said to the Republican Members of Congress:

It is very easy to say, "Vote for us and we will give you, we will give you, we will give you." It is much harder to advocate what is right and to say, "Vote for us, but no, we won't give you" -- even though that is the more moral and the more American position. So you have the far more difficult task.

John Rosemond, who writes books on child rearing, says that the most important vitamin you can give to a child is Vitamin N, his term for the word "No." You have given America Vitamin N.

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

Will Rogers

Good site for high quality farm toys: Carter and Gruenewald. What a great business to be in.

Cardiocerebral resuscitation (CCR) is a new approach to patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest that has been shown to improve rates of neurologically intact survival by 250%--300% over the approach advocated by the 2000 American Heart Association guidelines. And EMS systems can realize these improvements without having to buy a single new gadget or device.

 

People try to die all the time, in church, in parking lots, in supermarkets. Here's the new method to try to save them from the Grim Reaper:

How could anybody not love a guy who can write like this:

"The brambles and the thorns grew thick and thicker in a ticking thicket of bickering crickets. Farther along and stronger, bonged the gongs of a throng of frogs, green and vivid on their lily pads. From the sky came the crying of flies, and the pilgrims leaped over a bleating sheep creeping knee-deep in a sleepy stream, in which swift and slippery snakes slid and slithered silkily, whispering sinful secrets."  From James Thurber, The 13 Clocks (New York, 1957)

Now for some Thurber dogs -

I notice that our Editor is getting into wild animal recipes again. We must not forget this one (definitely use the bear grease if you have any left over.)

French Fried Skunk
2 Skunks, skinned and cleaned
1 tb Salt
Water to cover
2 c Bear fat or lard
2 Egg yolks, beaten
3 c Milk or cream
1 1/2 c Flour
1/2 ts Salt
2 tb Baking powder

Clean and wash the skunks, making sure that the scent glands are removed. Cut up into small serving pieces. Put a soup kettle on the stove and add the meat. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat and boil until the meat is tender, about 40 minues. Remove all the scum that rises to the surface. Make a batter by mixing together the egg yolks, milk, flour, salt and baking powder. Mix real good until the batter is about like cake batter. Heat the bear fat or lard in a deep fryer to about 360 degrees. Dip the pieces of skunk in the batter and then fry them in the deep fryer until golden brown. Drain well and serve.

Great wedding:

Or dumbest?

O.K.....the game is on!! Travel Scrabble. Keep it going. Change one letter of the bottom word posted in the comments and let's see where we get stuck and can't continue!

Rules: You cannot add letters. You can only use English. You can only change one letter - one letter only, please - and you cannot change the letter sequence.

Our starting word is TRIP - We will do the first one below, and all can add their words below (don't violate the rules, tho).

Our old English long-case clock rang 12 times on New Year's Eve, as it has for my wife's family here in New England for between 240 and 300 years.  There’s a note pinned inside by her great-great grandfather that reads “This clock was buried in the basement of one of our ancestors during the Battle of Bunker Hill” (which you will recall took place on June 17, 1775).  History records that the London clockmaker, Devereaux Bowly, opened his shop in 1710 and died in 1773, so the clock had to have been made between those dates.  My wife’s patronymic ancestor, a sea captain, was in Boston by 1736, so he could have brought it to Massachusetts any time during that period.

Of all the furniture that the past bequeathed to the current day, most of us have a particular soft spot for the long-case, or grandfather clock (so-named after the popular 1876 song, My Grandfather’s Clock). It is still and no doubt will be for many years to come the most popular form of household timepiece.  Clocks give life to a room, but the tall clocks of the peculiar form that is now 300 years old have a special dignity.  To the early American colonist, owning a clock was a status symbol.  Most people of that time could not afford a clock of their own and had to rely on the church clock on the town common for the time of day.  Privately owned clocks were only found in the finest of homes and were certain to be displayed in a prominent place for all to view.

Long-case pendulum clocks were still a new invention in 1736.  In 1580 the Astronomer Galileo observed a swinging lamp suspended by a long chain from a cathedral ceiling. He studied its swing and discovered that each swing was equal and had a natural rate of motion. He later found this rate of motion depended upon the length of the chain or pendulum. In 1640 he designed a clock mechanism incorporating the swing of a pendulum, but he died before building his clock design.

It wasn’t until 1656 that Galileo’s pendulum principle was put to use by Dutch scientist Christian Huygens, who was the first to develop a pendulum based clock.  Huygens’s invention however allowed clocks to run accurately to the point of three minutes loss or gain per day.  Some years later in 1670 the English clockmaker William Clement noticed that a longer pendulum kept better time, so he lengthened the pendulum to over three feet.  This of course required a longer case for the clockworks, and so the long-case clock was born.  From then on the clocks were variously called long-case clocks, floor clocks, and even coffin clocks because they resembled the shape and size of the simple wooden coffins of that time.

Grandfather clocks were first made for royal families and nobles, but in time their production cost were cut down to where they were affordable for merchant families and became a symbol of socio-economic status and wealth.

Around 1685, long-case clocks were imported into American colonies for the first time and roughly 10 years later their construction in the New World began.  New York, New England, Pennsylvania and Virginia became long-case clock making centers, but, until the 19th century American introduction of inexpensive brass movements, English clockmakers reined supreme.

Ed. note: I'm sure most of our readers are familiar with My Grandfather's Clock: