Solar Eclipse 2017

We had a lot of fun with the eclipse today.  Yesterday we made our viewing boxes so we could see the eclipse without having to look at the sun.   

We made a yummy eclipse breakfast.  We cut our homemade bread in the shape of a sun and our spam in the shape of the moon.

Mary had fun cutting that all up for me while I scrambled the eggs with the leftover spam pieces.

This is how it all looked on our plate.  It sure was yummy and Mary got such a kick out of it!

Our boxes worked out really well.

I took a few shots of the sun over my back.  It has been really smokey hear because of all the forest fires, so it made a little bit of a filter.

This is right when it was covered by 93%.  That was as much as we got here in Southern Oregon.  It was like sunset but it was 10:15 in the morning.  It definitely got colder as the sun's light was blocked.

Here is my shadow.  It is amazing how much light the sun puts out even if it is only 7%.

Another shot of the box viewer.

Mary had a lot of fun.  I had seen one eclipse before and so had Rich but it was a very long time ago.  This was Mary's first and she was just a little bit excited.  lol

One last look before we went in and watched the NASA videos on the computer.

Nap time after the eclipse.  It sure was a lot of excitement even for our little pup, Mac.

Number of Days

In February of this year my husband and I applied for a VA loan to purchase our house. My husband needed his DD214 papers to prove his service in the Army. He thought he had them in a box with all our keepsake and important papers that we had stored away. In this search I came across a large folder of papers that were lists and writings my mom had made years ago. I had intended to sort through them and read them. Right after her death it was too painful for me, so I stored them away and then with many moves, changes and birth of a child I had kinda of forgotten about them. So I got them out and began to read and sort through them when I had time. One list that caught my attention, began in the early 1980's. It was titled "Special Miracles and Answers to prayers (each one is a story of its own. I want to sometime put it on tapes)" 

 

As I began to read down through this list, many childhood memories flooded into my mind of my mother telling us kids these stories. They were the fabric of my childhood and really the thing that built my faith even more than sermons and Sunday School stories. They were the stories of my grandmother's life and my mother's life and how they lived out the truths of the Bible in their day to day activities. They were stories of God's providence and interventions through out their lives. Some were simple like finding lost items and other's were life and death, like the healing of gangrene sores. This list was made up of just brief one or 2 sentences for each entry, but they sparked my memory of the whole story. Two entries on the list caught my eye. The first one was dated 1929 and it said, "God telling my mother she would live to raise me" and the second was dated 1939 and it said, "The doctor telling my mother she had only 3 months to live unless she took insulin. She didn't take insulin and she lived 10 more years until I was 3 months from being 20 years old". I remember that story and I heard it many times but I decided to look through her other writings to see if she had expanded on that story and sure enough she did. This is what she wrote: "In 1929 when I was a small baby, Mama was again very sick and some people said to my mother, 'I don't know why you ever had this baby. You will probably will never live to raise her'. My mother was 41 years old when I was born. She earnestly sought God about the matter and God promised her that she would live to raise her family. In 1939 when I was 10 years old, my Great Uncle Romadka was a very famous physician in California. He told my mother she had Diabetes and without insulin she would not live 3 months. She was very sick at the time with large abscesses on her legs. She told him, "No, I will not die because God promised me I would raise my family and I still have a 10 year old to raise. She lived another 10 years and the Great Uncle died in 6 months."

  

Another detail in this story was that Grandma sought the Lord about her diabetic condition as insulin in that day was a cutting edge treatment and risky. Insulin from cattle and pigs was used to treat diabetes and caused allergic reactions in many patients. God told her that if she would follow a sensible diet, staying away from a lot of sugar and starch and eat healthy foods like vegetables and lean meat, He would preserve her life to raise my mom. So when the doctor told her she wouldn't live unless she took insulin, she held true to what God had told her and walked in faith and not in fear.

 

Reading this story sparked my curiosity. Who was this Dr. Romadka and why was he famous in California. Well, if he was mom's great uncle, then he was either Grandma or Grandpa's uncle. When I considered the family tree, I knew Grandpa's side, especially the Judd side was heavily laden with doctors, lawyers and statesmen. So, I decided to check there first. Romadka was not a family name I had heard, so I decided it had to be an aunt that married a Romadka. I went down the list of Grandpa's aunts and the only one not accounted for that did not have a married name listed, was his mother's youngest sister, Ethel Leone Judd. My paper said she died in Santa Monica, California. So with that information I went to the internet. The first thing I have learned is that his name was spelled Hromadka and his first and middle name was August Benjamin and I also found out one of the reasons he was famous. He and another doctor in 1926 founded the now UCLA hospital in Santa Monica. Here is the link to that: https://www.uclahealth.org/santa-monica/about-the-medical-center the next thing I found out was that he did indeed die in 1939 on October 26th but I didn't know what caused his death. My final piece was a write up in the LA Times of him the day after he died. It said, "Santa Monica Physican Dies" Dr A. B. Hromadka, 59, fellow in the American College of Surgeons, died of a heart attack early today in Santa Monica Hospital of which he was a co-founder. He was a past president of the Santa Monica Bay district branch of the Los Angeles County Medical Association. Together with Dr. S. S. Mortensen, Dr. Hromadka opened the Santa Monica Hospital in 1926. He was a past master of West Los Angeles 373, F&AM and founder of the West Los Angeles Lions Club and American Legion post. He leaves his widow, Ethelyn; two sons, Dr. John Hromadka of Santa Monica and Ralph Hromadka, Manager of Santa Monica Hospital. Funeral services will be conducted Saturday at 2 pm in the Todd and Leslie Chapel."

 

So my mother's Great Uncle Hromadka, truly was a famous physician and quite well to do. My grandmother was the wife of a farmer and had lived a simple life but she had great faith in the one who held her life in His hands. She knew God held the number of her days and she would live as long as He said she would. I learned from this story that God is not concerned with social position, high education, or wealth but with a heart that has faith in Him.

Our Garden Plans

OK, this spring, after we bought our house, we covered most of our front yard and all of our back yard with black plastic to kill the grass because we wanted to do pebble walk ways and raised beds.  Flowers for the front yard and mostly veggies for the back yard.  We measured our yard and then used graph paper to plan out our beds and walk ways.  Here is the plan for our back yard :

 

 

Our next step was to figure out what we were going to use to make the raised beds out of.  First we were thinking of using cedar boards but that can be quite expensive especially with the amount that we want to do.  So Rich was thinking maybe cement but I wasn't thrilled with the idea.  Rich then found this really cool process called hypertufa that is way less expensive than wood, very durable, light weight, great for the plants and looks like ancient stone.  He showed me some wonderful pictures of the internet of pots and planters and I fell in love with it.  Here a few ideas he showed me:

 

I was sold on it.  We began to dream of all we could do with it like stepping stones with scriptures on them, pots in the corners of our pathways with zinnias, milk weed and golden rod in them for splashes of color and attracting some good bugs for your garden.  Large pots for our back patio area.  So many wonderful ideas and such a great price.  Rich's experience in ceramics is a big plus as he is so good with making molds.  This morning we went to Lowes and got a small amount of materials to try it out.  I don't think I have had more fun since I was a little girl and was making mud pies.  It is so easy that even Mary loved it.  We will see how our stepping stone and 2 pots turn out in a few days here.  Martha Stewart has a great video on how to do it.  Here is the link to that: http://www.marthastewart.com/268962/hypertufa-pots 

 

Here are some pictures of our project this afternoon.  If you want to know more about hypertufa, just google it on the computer and there is tons of pictures and articles on all kinds of projects.  We are so excited to start doing this and making our garden look like a garden in Ancient Rome.

County Fair

Last week we went to the county fair.  Rich always takes 2 days vacation for the fair, so we can make 2 fun days of it.  We do the exhibits and animals the first day and then the rides the 2nd day.  We also take in all the great food both days.  We have never been to Disneyland with Mary or to a big city zoo, but she enjoys this just as much and we have built so many sweet and fun memories for our family at the fair. 

 

The fair grounds are just on the other side of town, so we don't have to go very far.  They had some great new animal exhibits this year.  There was a reptile show.  They had so many different kinds to look at and they had educational stations that I even learned some things about reptiles that I didn't know.  They also had a petting zoo.  Mary just adores this every year.  She loves feeding the sheep, goats and llamas.  They also had an exotic animal exhibit with a baby tiger, a full grown mountain lion, and several other wild cats.  Walking through the cow, goat, turkey and pig barns are fun and Mary loves watching the horses perform in the open air arena.

 

We also took in the baking, gardening, sewing exhibits.  I think we are going to make some food entries next year and Mary wants to do an art project to submit.  So that will be fun.

 

We loved the rides.  Mary is very much like me as a kid.  I. did. not. like. fast. rides.  So we all went on the ferris wheel, then she went on the carrosel, mild roller coaster, and her and I went on a twirling ballon ride.  She was so happy to get cotton candy each day, her yearly treat.  Here are some pics of our fun at the fair and a slide show I put together.

 

Here is the link to the You Tube video: https://youtu.be/_lAr4TM2hb0