Shenandoah Seasoned: February 29

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Submitted by treeman on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 11:07
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Gee, I let February 29 go by without comment.  I had fully intended to make a little splash about it as it is such a rare event here in the Shenandoah Valley.  Well, it snuck by and then last night I had a house full of State FFA officers to entertain and never did get o the computer. 

My son, Adam is a Vice President for the sate FFA organization here in Virginia.  A position that has required him to delay the start of college for a year while he gallavants across Virginia, the country and even a little hunk of the world(Spain) being an official representative for the FFA.  No pay, live off Mom & Pop, but lots of very good leadership and life experiences for one so young.  My guess is he will aquire as much good useful education at this as he would have as a college freshman.

 

Anyways, they have one of their state wide events scheduled at a a nearby school today, so we hosted a half dozen of them last night.  (we were fairly warned by past officer parents that we would become a B&B for the next year)These are really great kids and I am pleased Adam is having this exposure to them.  So we watched a movie or two and listened to their banter about their experiences during their year so far.  (it began back in June).  I cooked up a big pot of chili for their dinner last night, and Ann got up early to fix a breakfast casserole and pondhoss for them this morning.  Boy can these kids eat. 

 So thats what was exciting about the quadriennial 29th this time around.

 

So what does it mean?  Well, I guess it means that we finally have caught up on those lost 1/4 days we've been ignoring the past 3 years.  It also means there will be an Olympics this summer and a presidential election in the U.S. this fall.  Of course there are 366 days in 2008 and winter is a day longer.

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skbeal's picture

I'm terrified of heights, so

Submitted by skbeal on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 21:05.
I'm terrified of heights, so there's no chance that I'll go up! Besides, there's no way I'd be caught dead on the end of a robotic arm with nothing hanging on to me but the tether. I have fun watching the launch and the really deafening sound, mailing letters from the Cape with a post mark of the launch time and date, eating fabulous FL oranges and touring the Kennedy Space Center......Enjoying Florida weather isn't so bad either.

I know that Virginia Tech is a great school.....seems to me that as state universities go, Virginia doesn't make it easy for the residents of the commonwealth to get into theirs. Iowa can't make that claim in their undergraduate programs. As a matter of fact, students from Illinois wind up at Iowa when they get rejects from Illinois.

Here, Texas A&M is the agriculture school, and they have a fabulous horticulture program. They also have a medical school --which happens to be located in Temple, the town I live in. The teaching hospital isn't too far from where I live either.

I lived in Iowa for 22+ years, and learned from living there that farming is very much a part of life there. Iowa is the country's biggest producer of corn, soybeans and pigs. Seriously, though, that's where I learned to love gardening, and I've never stopped. I studied horticulture in high school, but what I did there was largely confined to house plants. The experience I got in Iowa was hands on from learning as I go....and screwing things up a lot along the way. I love having a huge vegetable garden....Now, if only I had a large freezer so I could freeze stuff and a large pantry where I could store canned stuff.

This site is responsible for getting me hooked on tropicals. Then again, I don't think I've ever met a plant I didn't like -- except maybe MUSHROOMS! (My cousin tells me that mushrooms are only a few cells removed from mold!)

Susan, the Texas Yankee, the Texas Rangerette and the Assistant Administrator

SKBeal's Snazzy Tra

Susan,The Assistant Administrator, the Texas Yankee and the Texas Rangerette.

skbeal's picture

Treeman! How dare you remind

Submitted by skbeal on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 11:24.
Treeman! How dare you remind me that winter is a day longer in 2008!!!!!!!!! I can't stand winter. Did you know that mosquitoes can survive winter in Texas? Yup, right here in my house, eating away at my not so lovely dry winter skin. I seriously doubt, however, that winter is the cause of its dryness. It's more likely the chlorine that I bathe in all summer long when I go to swim and cool off without having to resort to the expense of air conditioning.

Will your son go to UVA? I hear tell that it's a mighty fine school, and for a gardener, the proximity to Monticello. After all, Thomas Jefferson was probably this country's first organic gardener. My enchantment with UVA is two fold: the first part is because it's home to a yearly rare book school that's held every summer, and I'm a book historian (I study how books are made.) The other reason is because I'm a nut for architectural history and UVA has the only program in the country......Well, since the commonwealth of Virginia has so much history and so many historical sites, it's only fitting that they be host to such a program. I just sometimes wonder why there aren't more such programs.

I think the most EXCITING event that 2008 will bring for my family is a Space Shuttle launch that's scheduled for August 28 during which my cousin, Dr. John Grunsfeld will act as the payload commander on the shuttle's final mission to repair the Hubble Telescope. He's NASA's resident expert on the Hubble. Whether or not I get to go is yet to be determined. NASA is notorious for having to reschedule things, and since this is scheduled during the heart of hurricane season, who knows what might happen?

Treeman, forgive my ignorance. Most folks around here know that I am such a Yankee (yet wannabe southern belle,) that I am clueless as to what a lot of traditionally southern things are. I might be wrong, but I was surmising that pondhoss is some sort of southern dish. Please enlighten me. I haven't the foggiest notion as to what it is or what's in it!

If we have an extra day this year, how come it has to mean that winter is one day longer? Can't we have an extra day of summer or spring instead?

Susan, the Texas Yankee, the Texas Rangerette and the Assistant Administrator

SKBeal's Snazzy Tra

Susan,The Assistant Administrator, the Texas Yankee and the Texas Rangerette.

treeman's picture

   UVA?  UVA!? 

Submitted by treeman on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 20:49.

 

 UVA?  UVA!?  PERISH the thought!  That is a school for pansies!  This family is solidly in the Virginia Tech camp.  Now UVA may have an archetectural history departement, but Tech's College of Archetecture is reportedly second to none.  Yes thats a proud alum talking.  Actually Adam seems to be leaning towards a career in agriculture, and Tech is the natural choice, if he can get his jr college grades up to par to get in... acceptance very difficult, even in the College of Ag. 

 

"Whether or not I get to go is yet to be determined."  I think its great your cousin is thinking about taking you along!  When are you scheduled to launch?  Let us know and we'll all turn our lights on at the same time as a kinda giant Garden Here wave from Earth Laughing+Cool*Wink=Tongue out.

 

OK I gots to confess.... I am a mere yanquiee transplant also.... I am a son of a NJ florist who found bigger things (trees) at Tech.  And I didn't know what ponhoss was either when I matriculated.  But I was soon set strainght and I discovered that scrapple is called pondhoss in the south.  Soon after that I learned what "grit shirts" was and then what "blowin grits" meant and that no one down here knows what "use guys" means.  But I did marry a Belle and she keeps my back covered.

"Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does"-- George Bernard Shaw