I am frequently awestruck by the sights of nature. The “entirety” of nature appears to be… incredibly perfect by design. At least it seems that way to me. The things in nature do exactly what those things are supposed to do. At exactly the right time. Left to their own accord… they would go on “being” without any help from us.

I think it is pretty magical, really. Or superior. The notion that a small seed which falls into dirt, and somehow finds water… can eventually become something as grand as a tree.

The cell for instance… which is the basic unit of life…. is a design that is amazingly intricate and elaborate. It is far more complex than any man-made technological product.

Think about it. We humans have ideas all the time time. To bring them to fruition, takes a high level of intelligence, planning and design. A car. A house. A watch.

Heck… most of us can’t even bake a cake without a recipe.

I will never, in my little human brain, understand by what means all of this came about. It is far too Gordian for me to comprehend.

Yet. Yet, yet, yet. I feel very much a part of it at times. I am thankful for this.   And for the perfect balance which can potentially exist.

What isn’t so perfect, is when I am running and playing with the dog, and I don’t see that big tree standing there. Not until it is much too late.

I can tell you what bark looks like.
I can tell you what bark sounds like, as I am lying flat on my back… and the dog barks in astonishment at the force with which a human can run into a tree.

Ahhh… the beauty of nature.

“If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.” – Yogi Berra

As it turns out, most of the time….. I DO want a cracker. But when people ask me the question, they are completely insincere in their offering.

No, no, no. They just spout it off… without  a mere thought of the consequences. Like no one in the world has ever mentioned the phrase to me before. It just rolls off the tongue like a red carpet.

Polly wanna cracker.

One of these days… I’m going to come up with an adequate response. For now.. they best I can do is flap my arms up and down like a parrot, rock back and forth on my imaginary perch…. make a squawking noise, and retort in a screechy voice “Yes. Polly wants a cracker. Polly wants a cracker. Bwaaaaawwwk!”

So I mentioned, I do like a good cracker. Saltine. Club. Ritz. Goldfish. Makes no difference.

Yet…. they all have come from quite a history…. I’ll tell you that much right now.

The first cracker was made in 1792 by John Pearson in Massachusetts. Make a better biscuit for sailors… is what he was trying to do. They called them Hard Tack, Pilot’s Bread, or Sea Biscuits.

They weren’t really named crackers until later. A guy named Josiah Bent accidentally burned a batch of those tasty treats. As the crackers burned, they made a crackling noise. And that inspired the name.

Finally, old Josiah made a LOT of good crackers… as it all played out. And The National Biscuit Compay (we know them as Nabisco) bought old Joe out.

Nabisco… used Bent’s fine recipe (not the burnt version). They eventually released the saltine cracker in 1876. And wouldn’t you know. Nabisco’s slogan for this new cracker was “Polly wants a cracker?”

Great. Thanks Nabisco. You have no idea. Really.

So… if you see me… and make the offer… you better have the Hard Tack to back it up.

“Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.” – Harry S Truman

Today, I was looking back at some of my old entries here on the Projects. Believe or not, I started this mess nearly four years ago and I have been making daily entries ever since. Some better than others, that is for sure.

There have been reoccurring themes along the way. Definitely sock monkeys, cows, chicken eggs. Numerous entries about our dogs. Lots on insects. Yep. Plenty of Usual Suspects.

But this thing has changed from when it first began. I started this while I was working on my Bachelor’s in Photography. I needed to shoot more. So I decided to shoot, process and post an image a day. I’d write one line about it. “This is a roof on Tradd Street.” “This is the deaf dog on Atlantic Street.”

Stop the presses.

But my little head started playing Hopscotch, and before you knew it, I was writing more than shooting.

So… the “project” has changed. Evolved. Transformed.

Coincidentally enough, I was working on some spiritual readings this morning, and one of the big messages that came up was the idea of exploring our potentials. The notion is this.

We cannot evolve, or grow, unless we detach from the past. Simply said, if we keep relying on what we know, doing what we always do, staying in the sameness…. we never explore the infinite possibilities which exist in the universe. Within ourselves.

Inventions would never be invented. You wouldn’t be reading this on the internet. Cell phones wouldn’t exist. We’d still be communicating with smoke signals and such.

So… I am glad that things have gone the way they have. But I try not rely on past “entries” here. Each night… I look for something new to write about. A new avenue… something fresh.

Despite the fact that I’ve probably posted 300 photos of leaves….
I can’t help it.
They just jump of the trees when I need them the most.

“Everything has been thought of before, but the difficulty is to think of  it again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is so much about life… I don’t quite understand. But I keep trying.
Here are a few things that really baffle me.

I over heard a lady talking today. She was telling her friend how much she had paid for a pair of Book Ends. I don’t understand why she had to pay extra. I though all books came with ends. And beginnings in in-betweens. Book Ends should not be more expensive.

Another perplexing trend. A whole lot of folks seem to be on a mission to kill their Dandy Lions during the summer. They have a whole yard full of them, and they always ruin their grass. I for one have never met a Dandy Lion. Summer, Winter, or Fall. But I am sure if it were dandy, I would not want to kill it.

Are you only allowed to eat Lunch Meat at lunch time?

Most people refer to their Clothes’ Washers as Washing Machines. How come we don’t call our Dish Washers…. Washing Machines. People think you are loopy when you say you are putting the dirty dishes in the Washing Machine.

I’ve never seen a Cow Bell. Are they like door bells on a cow… or more like a bell in a steeple? Do they hurt the cow? What are they for? How often should your ring a cow?

Sometimes… I just don’t know what to believe. When I can’t quite figure it all out… I try to remember this.

A quote by William James:
“Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.”

I Believe.

Don’t you know? I love to sing. I sing around the house. I sing while I work… sing to my dogs. I even sing in the shower. Great acoustics in there.

I think it is in my veins. And now… I’m even more inclined to believe this. You see… with a last name like mine… and all other lineages on both sides… I am German to the core. Well, except for the part of me that is American.

Anyway…. German Heritage. I just read about a part of the German Culture I had never heard of before. They were the Singers. First, there were the Minnesingers (12th Century beginnings)… who were then replaced by the Meistersingers starting around the 14th Century.

The Meistersingers played a huge role in German Culture. It was a guild for lyric poetry & composition. It also included the unaccompanied art song. (I am not quite sure what THAT means… but perhaps the songs could go out at night by themselves…. maybe.)

The Meistersingers were drawn from middle class males for the most part. They had schools, and rules, and meetings and EVERYTHING. I can only imagine….

But the meetings were more than just meetings… and the rules were pretty stringent.

The meetings (called Schulsingen) were more like competitions. The people would come together to listen. Their were judges (called Merker).

Prizes were awarded. BUT…..dang it….those who sang poorly were fined.

The prize was sometimes money or EVEN sometimes a crown. There were challenges… and they dressed up…. in costumes. History books say they were sumptuous costumes… and not motley.

Is this sounding like the X Factor…. or The Voice to anyone else? I think it was the precursor to all these modern shows…. I DO!

They were mostly in Southern Germany… and that is where my ancestors came from. Maybe I descended from a Meistersinger. Krony the Sockmonkey Meistersinger. Yeah. It has a ring to it.

And that would explain why I like to wear sumptuous costumes without warning. I won’t even get in to the whole yodeling fixation. And why I think I can win the X Factor….

At any rate. Happy Birthday to Hans Sachs. Famous Meistersinger Extraordinaire (b. Novermber 6, 1494 (d. January 19, 1576). I bet I’m related to him.

I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing ‘Happy Birthday.’ – Stephen Wright

I am not sure what it is about an old abandoned house or barn… that makes me pull my car over to the side of the road and shoot it. But I always do.

If some friends are with me…. they usually comply. My really good friends… the one’s who know me well… usually SUGGEST we pull over. It makes me smile to think about this.

But back to the house.
I don’t know what my big interest is. Clearly, it has been abandoned for junk. There is no longer a purpose. No one wants it any more.

Yet…. I think there are a lot of memories in those walls. Happenings. Good things, bad things. People from all different walks having lived there. A farmer, or preacher, or salesman, or drug dealer.

Who knows.
I don’t.
But I think it is the intriguing mystery that attracts me to a certain house. Sometimes, I even get a “feeling” about it.

I can imagine it vibrant and full of life. Beautiful and kept. And now… even though it is old, worn out, and left to wither… it has a beauty all its own.

I find a certain splendor about this… and at the same time… a sadness.
This old house.  If these walls could talk.   Anything… might have happened there. And I am sure that some of it…. did.

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”  – Soren Kierkegaard

If I weren’t so sleepy, I could probably figure out something to write about tonight. But as it is….. I can barely keep my eyes open… for some dang reason.

I figure I am going to blame ALL of it…. on William Willett.

You see…. old Bill Willett was the first guy mainly credited to the invention of Daylight Savings Time. He came up with the idea in 1905.  Yep. He thought it would be a good thing to move the clocks forward in the summer to take advantage of the daylight in the mornings…. not to mention and the lighter evenings.

So William Willett suggested moving the clocks 20 minutes forward each of four Sundays in April. Just 20 minutes. An then… he thought we could switch them back by the same amount on four Sundays in September.

Bright idea. No pun intended.
But now, the older I get…. the more convoluted it all seems. It gets dark in the middle of the day. This isn’t Alaska for crying out loud. I CAN’T see Russia from my house….. …. …..

But… before I get all wrapped up in this…
I guess I’ll just wrap it up.

So… all I have it this photo of a vine wrapping its way around a fence post. None too exciting or informative, I know.

But I’m still on the fence about all this. Falling off that fence …. sleepily.

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

The things we focus on… the things we pay attention to… are the things that become most prominent in our lives.

I think we all probably know this already.
Let’s say… you want to bake cookies. So that is where you put your attention…. your energy. You go to the grocery and buy the chocolate chips, and brown sugar, and such. You come home, get out the recipe for Tollhouse Bars… and mix away. Then you put that concoction in the oven… and guess what. All that energy you directed toward baking cookies… ACTUALLY BECOMES COOKIES.

Oh the other hand.. if you wish you could bake cookies… and then go play your tuba for three hours… you probably won’t have any cookies to show for it.

I think we can apply this very same and simple principle to any area of our lives we choose.

Whatever we begin to envision, and put our focus on… will eventually manifest itself to us.

This next story is a true one….
There was a guy named James Otis Jr. He was some sort of famous American Revolutionary. He was powerful in the political arena too. He invented the famous phrase “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” which became one of the rallying cries of the revolutionaries.

This guy….Otis Jr. was a solid, level-headed individual… save for one little thing. He always insisted that a bolt of lightning would eventually kill him. He repeated this belief… a whole bunch… to a lot of people. So much in fact… . that it became something of a joking point with those that knew him.

Well. Apparently…. the thunder gods were listening.
On May 23, 1783, our pal James Otis Jr. was standing in a doorway of a friend’s house when a lightning suddenly struck the chimney. That bolt came through the house…. killing him instantly without leaving a mark. Strangely, no one else was harmed there. And no further lightning bolts…. or, for that matter, any other storm clouds… were seen.

So… as the old saying goes… be careful what you wish for…. For you will surely get it. And if you wish for cookies… you better turn on the oven.

“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” – Aristotle

My buddy Isaac gave me this milk pod.

That got me thinking about the old pod adage….

Do you ever have that feeling with someone….. that you are two peas in a pod? Well…. me neither.

I don’t think there is another person who is two of a kind with me. In fact… I’m pretty sure no one would want that distinction.

But my life has some truly amazing people in it. My Soul Mate and Best Friend. A core of beautiful friends. Some amazing siblings… and parents. Spectacular kids and grandkids. And then there are the incredible four-legged people.

But not a one of them a pea in a pod.

My brother visited from Seattle. He stayed with us last week and left today. I miss him. We are like two peas in a pot of soup…

Tonight we had the kids and grandkids over for a pot of Chili and Wii Bowling. It was fun. We are like a whole bunch of peas in a mix vegetable bag.

My Soul Mate is always so kind to me. We are like two peas in a beautiful pea garden.

And if  all of this is as clear a split pea soup… let me put it this way.

Maybe we are just people who love and care about one another. And we know our peas and cues. … and p’s & q’s.

It feels good to be a pea.

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust

I used to love those good old days… when my Grandma Harriet would sit me on her knee… and tell me stories from their farming days. This was one of my favorites…..

~~~~~~~

It was a gloomy Wednesday morning.
Ol’ Betsy’s day had was simply out of sorts from the get go. She got off on the wrong hoof. And no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t get back on track.

The popular herd didn’t let Betsy play in their cow games. No.  All because she could only give skim milk.

So.

She decided enough was enough.  This would be her big day out….
and… she snuck out of the barnyard before the first milking.

First a stop at McDonald’s. Betsy thought it was an Irish Pub. She quickly learned the awful truth.
Next, a visit to Walmart.  She had never seen a Mart that sold Walls.  Instead…..it made her sleepy… with so many people wearing pajamas there.
And now.
Now…. it was getting dark and she was on the wrong side of town.

Oh to be back in the pasture, with the green grasses, and snobby clickish-Vitamin-D-Milk-cows.

Just then, Farmer Garth walked up with a purple cow leash, and led her back home… while feeding her sugar cubes along the way.

And then….everything felt just fine.

~~~~~~
You know…. I don’t think my Grandma was quite right…. but she made a great can of Chef Boyardee.

“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson