Jun. 14, 2009 - Update and Comic relief :)

Sorry to those of you who actually read my blog!  Life has been hectic lately.  My grandpa has cancer, and as of today it looks like he won't survive past this week.  Please pray for him and for our family especially.

So...what have I been doing this summer so far?  First of all Daniel, Emily, my mom and I have volunteered at Rock Ledge Ranch for this summer.  We get to dress up in period clothing, give tours of the historic buildings there at the Ranch, do demonstrations, and Emily and Daniel get to play in the mud. (Emily works in the garden and Daniel works at the cabin)  I'm a little disappointed that I don't get to play in the mud too, but oh well. :)  

At the gift shop at Rock Ledge Ranch I found this really neat little whistle for only $2!  It's wooden, and is played just like an Irish Whistle.  It's slightly out of tune, but is fine as long as I'm not playing with anyone else.

That's what's been going on here.  Oh and, by the way, IF YOUR LAST NAME IS ORFIELD YOU HAVE TO COMMENT.  Just thought I should add that.  And for comic relief:

I can't decide which one to post, so I'll post both.

Tim Hawkin's  'Subway'  and 'Imagine'


-Joy Bird

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Jun. 9, 2009 - Vintage Wedding Refashioned Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Vintage Wedding Refashioned Frock Giveaway

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Feb. 23, 2009 - The Sober Science of Migrating Rubber Duckies

"In January 1992, a freighter crossing the Pacific from Hong Kong to Tacoma, Wash., ran into rough weather near the International Date Line As the ship heaved through the storm-tossed seas, several cargo containers on deck--including one filled with tens of thousands of plastic tub toys--came loose, fell overboard, and broke apart. Seven months after the spill, the plastic ducks, beavers, turtles, and frogs began washing up on beaches. Scientists who track ocean currents were ecstatic. Even today, additional members of the tub-toy armada occasionally make landfall."

-Source: findarticles.com

A few months ago I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal about 'flotsam science'. Dr. Behar and his colleagues at the University of Colorado this past August set 90 yellow rubber ducks set afloat into the melt water flowing down a chasm in the largest of Greenland's glaciers.  Each duck had an email address and an offer of a reward in 3 different languages.  The idea is that, if all goes well, one day the ducks will come out on the other side of the glacier, which is 30 miles away.  This way they will be able to learn more about the currents, and what they have to do with global warming.  (Not that I think the earth is getting warmer or there's anything we can do about it)  They have been doing it in other places, too. Often the rubber ducks end up on the opposite side of the world from where the scientists were expecting them. 

So, why rubber ducks?  Well, they're cheap, brightly colored, and they are surprisingly durable. They endure cold and pressure under glaciers, and can float around and around the world for years.  Then there's the question of  'What if they get eaten?'   Hmmm....

Here is the link to the article:  The Sober Science of Migrating Rubber Duckies

Well, that's all for today!

-Joy Bird

 

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Feb. 11, 2009 - The Cliffs of Insanity...and the adventures met with there.

Note: Before you read this, you must know that when we were younger, we often made a pastime out of making up characters, and then performing plays about them for our parents. A few characters survived without getting killed in any of our plays, (and some even came back from the dead!) and they are still very much alive.

Here is a typical story about them that we made up the other day. Keep in mind that all of these were always performed by particular people: Dane the Galapagos Turtle, the steady one, is Emily. Miss Clueless is Daniel. Yes, Daniel. Daniel does the best Miss Clueless act, hands down. You may (mis)construe that however you like. Janks and Sally Dill are Rachel. (She being prone to double personalities...)

Also, some characters are modeled after real people. So without further ado; The Cliffs of Insanity!

It all happened one day when Janks, Miss Clueless and Dane the Turtle decided to go to the famed 'Cliffs of Insanity'. When they had all piled into the tourist tram, Sally Dill, who happened to be their tour guide, called out

"Please keep all arms, legs and baggage OUT of the vehicle at ALL times!" *BEEP*
"Guarde por favor todos los brazos, piernas y bagaje fuera del vehículo siempre!" *BEEP*

Miss Clueless, being the clueless lady she is, immediately thrust both her feet out the window and as a result lost one of her beautiful designer high-heeled sandals.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Well, that wasn't very nice of her to tell me that!"

Janks groaned from under his hat which he had thrown over his face. If there was one thing he hated, it was clueless people.

"No one's ever called you a blond, have they?" he said, sarcastically.

Dane just munched his celery placidly. He didn't really like celery, but he ate it anyway. That was the way with Dane.

  Pretty soon they came to the cliffs. Sally Dill hopped out and said, laughing,

"Welcome to the CLIFFS OF INSANITY!! WHOOOOOOO!!"

"Ugg." said Janks. He really didn't want to be there, Sally had talked him into it.

"That's it!" he yelled, "I'm just going to jump off this cliff!"

And so he did. They heard a splash. There was a solemn silence for a while as if nobody knew exactly what to say, then Sally Dill broke it by saying,

"That looks like FUN!"

She took a running leap, and followed Janks off the cliff.

"W-where are you going?" yelled Miss Clueless.

She hobbled along on her one ridiculous sandal to the edge of the cliff, and then stopped, evidently trying to decide what to do.

"JANKS?" she called, "S-sally?"

All of a sudden she lost what footing she had and tumbled screaming off the cliff. As he looked calmly over the edge, Dane heard her scream,

"MYYYYY SSSHOOOOOOOE!!"

   Dane turned and started plodding down the stairs--the stairs which no one had noticed. He sighed. His friends were just too much. What were they thinking? But it was no use trying to figure that out. Dane had thought it over many times, and had concluded that it was impossible.
Janks was just dark. Dane was sure he had killed someone sometime in his life. Miss Clueless, well, there wasn't anything in her head to know, anyway. And Sally Dill? Well, Dane didn't know if even Sally knew what Sally was thinking, she was that unpredictable. He decided it was because she thought too fast. Sally could probably be a rocket scientist, he thought, if she would just slow down.
By the time Dane was done thinking all this he had gotten to the bottom of the stairs and was on his way to a little tourist beach.

  Not long after, Janks, Sally Dill and Miss Clueless dragged themselves wearily onto the beach.
Dane was waiting for them.

"Slow and steady wins the race, eh Dane?" said Janks grumpily. "Humph."

He evidently hadn't succeeded in whatever his purpose was in jumping off that cliff, and to top it all off, that dangerous missile that Miss Clueless called a shoe had hit him squarely on the forehead, leaving a nice big lump. Janks carefully laid out his hat and coat to dry in the sun, then threw himself on the sand.

Miss Clueless was on the verge of tears. Not only was she soaking wet, but she had lost both her designer shoes, (which, by the way cost $300 EACH) and her over-sized crocodile skin purse was ruined. Not to mention her i pod and cellphone; but that didn't matter because she had never figured out how to use them anyway.
Sally alone remained unperturbed.

"That was the most fun I've had in my LIFE!" she yelled in Dane's ear. "I'm going again if anyone wants to come with me!"

Then, kissing Dane on the head, "Dane dear, be a good turtle and take care of the others for me. If I'm not back by dinnertime, I probably got in trouble with the shrieking eels, and you'd better send a search party!"

With that, she went skipping down the beach.

But none of this every bothered Dane in the least. He just sat there, looking benignly on, placidly munching his celery. Everything would 'All fall to pieces' as Sally says; it always did, and it always will.


THE END

I hope you enjoyed that!

~Joy Bird

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Feb. 9, 2009 - Suman!

Ever since we left the Philippines I have been craving suman, so over the weekend we finally got around to buying the necessary ingredients and I looked up a recipe on the internet.  The final result wasn't quite what I had expected, because I had used too much water when cooking it the second time and the rice was sort of floppy and didn't hold together very well. However, letting it sit and cool for a while helped and overall I am very pleased.  Here are some pictures:

The Ingredients: Banana leaves, coconut milk, brown sugar and malagkit rice.

Once the rice is cooked, (using 2/3 of the can of coconut milk with some water to balance it out) I placed a couple spoonfulls onto each piece of banana leaf, and then folded it like a burrito.

When I had wrapped all of my rice, I put them in a pan, and put just enough coconut milk (the rest of the can diluted with water) to cover them.

Then I let them boil for at least an hour. I should have let them boil until the water was gone, but as I said before, I added too much water, so that wasn't very practical. I took them out after watching a movie, and then we ate them dipped in brown sugar. 

Aaaaah! My craving has been satisfied. :)

 

And now, just one more picture: While we were at the Filipino grocery store in town, we also bought some hot tamarind candies with chili powder. They're very good.

 

~Joy Bird

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Jan. 22, 2009 - Music Page

Well, it seems that I have not succeeded in getting any comments. Oh well.  But maybe this will be more interesting.

  Daniel and I have been working on recording songs that he composed, and we have put them up on our website.  You can listen and read about them here:  http://lambsundries.com/music.html

The songs don't have any names yet, so we would like it if you would give us some suggestions.   Please tell us what you think! and I hope you enjoy the songs.

~Joy Bird

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Jan. 15, 2009 - The Gun Game

IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND YOUR LAST NAME IS ORFIELD, YOU HAVE TO COMMENT. THANK YOU.

The gun game.  It suddenly dawned on me the other day what a violent game it is.  Really, it's horrible. I mean, killing people?  Especially for little children.  But I should explain.  It all started one hot muggy day in the Philippines when Daniel, Vivian and Alli were sitting on the swing,  twiddling their thumbs, humming, and in general just being boring.   Then Alli suggested that they play a game.  Since all of the regular games were either really boring, or labeled as 'dangerous' by the parents, they decided to make one up.  Daniel sighed and said "How about we play something like charades?"  Alli laughed and pretended to shoot Daniel with her gun, and  the gun game was born.    

A while later, I came out to find Daniel, Vivian, Alli, and Anna along with some other kids visiting the Guest House all lined up on the front lawn.  Alli ran up to me and proceeded to explain  what game they were playing and how you play it.  "It's called the gun game."   "Who made it up?" I asked.  "Daniel and Vivian." she replied.   Alli ran back  and took her place in front of the line of people.  "Ok. I'm going to shoot you...hmmm.....with a pistol....in the stomach!"   Then she started saying the alphabet.  "A, B, C, D...."  Here, Daniel gasped and grabbed his stomch. He slowly dropped  to the ground, groaning as he went, and then slumped, sticking his tongue out for added effect. Alli giggled and continued;  "E, F, G, H...etc..etc"   until everyone had 'died'.   Then Alli walked around to judge who she thought had died the most realistically.   Daniel was still laying there on the ground, wheezing pathetically, sticking his tongue out.  "Daniel wins!" said Alli. "So now Daniel is 'it' and gets to shoot us."  she explained aside to me.   But it seemed that 'it' didn't have to stick to guns, he could also choose other ways of killing people.      Daniel got up and announced cheerfully,  "You're all going to be run over by a train!"

*edit: Just so you know, after we realized how horrible the gun game was, we immediately stopped playing it, and we don't play it at all anymore. ; ) *

Eventually we got tired of the gun game, and Anna said, as if it were the most original thing she had thought of all day, "Hey, let's go swimming!"    Silence.   "But we went swimming yesterday."  I said.  "And the day before.."   added Vivian,  "And the day before that." said Daniel.  "But it is very hot..."  I said.   So, Anna won and we went swimming. Then, immediately upon entering the pool, Viv instantly turned into a paranoid monkey with nine lives who always insisted on drowning herself, and then blaming her death on her owner (Me).  To solve this problem, I held onto her with a death grip. Anna was now Icecream-girl, who demonstrated her super powers by shooting icecream out of her fingers like Spiderman.  I requested coffee icecream.  Finally, Alli proudly announced that she was going to do a flip off the side into the deep end.  This scared me a little since I can't do a flip myself, especially with no diving board, and Alli is only 3.  I watched nervously as she catapulted her little self into the air, and then landed safely  in the water.  We all applauded, which pleased her greatly, and then she offered to do it again, but by then it was time for dinner. So ended a not so boring day in the Philippines.

~Joy Bird

 

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Dec. 15, 2008 - Charlie Chaplin Video

Here's a funny video we found on Youtube--The song is 'If I Were A Rich Man' from Fiddler on the Roof.  Enjoy!

 

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