Last of 23 Things

I’m taking forever to finish this thing, partly because I’ve enjoyed it so much. And to be honest, I bet I’ll keep up this blog, although not so faithfully, once the course is over. Maybe it will become my sheep blog, and I’ll attach it to my web page. (Which doesn’t have its own address yet, because Marlboro College is still hosting it. Gotta get going before Jen starts a new course on Dreamweaver.)

I’ve looked everywhere for the learning contract that I filled out. Do you suppose that I wrote on a hard copy and it’s somewhere on my desk? I’ll probably find it next December when I have to clean this room so my brother can stay. So, I don’t exactly remember what I said when I began. On the other hand, I’m always looking to try something new. And I get very intense about that something new. I really enjoyed trying so many new and different things, and finding that I want to keep many of them up. And, I’m NOT giving up on MySpace yet.
It’s just like me to make myself a to do list. I hope I have the time and energy to keep looking back. I know I have the inclination.

I’ve never really taken a course on-line before, so I don’t know what other ways there are to do it differently in format or concept. What I did like was going at my own pace, with still setting my goal of finishing before summer reading got too intense.

If you offer another discovery course like this in the future, I’ll be there.

This has been a great experience.

Looking Back

I’m going to track down my unfinished business.

So, going back to January, I realize that I am really using some pieces I learned about. Nothing on hold. I’m slow to add to the bookblog because there’s too much to do, but it’s on my to do list. Just keeps getting shoved back.

In February, my goal was to put up photos of different programs. I’ve put up a few, and I’d still like to find a secure way to share them. They are so easy to prepare for a slide show, that I find it time-consuming to prepare them for the web. Well, I got to mySpace, but how do I find the stuff I put there? This is a good review

Oohh, I forgot. I wanted to link my myspace page to the library page….if I can think of a good hook.

Time to go bring in the sheep and feed them. There are now 12 lambs, one more mom to go. Unfortunately I’m having to bottle feed 10. He’s just so weak he doesn’t have the strength to nurse. Right now, it’s every 4 hours, which is why it’s unfortunate to have a bottle baby.

March- Getting a whole slide show “narrowcast”. Getting the date and time right on my posts. Need to remember how to do things on mySpace. Maybe I can use it to “narrowcast”. Need to explore further what I meant about the “group joining” when I was in mySpace. I sent something to Laura about writing about the book group, but I realize she can write it, I’ll have to post it. Need to go back there and figure out what I meant. My links to pages are wrong if the page has changed. I don’t think I need to go back to fix the link in a blog. But do I? Oh, and I wanted to put vacation pictures on mySpace. Never did figure out that mosaic, but I’d like to still. And I have re-read Van de Water, although I haven’t yet bought the missing book. But I keep thinking about it. Thinking about the book group, I need to explore LibraryThing more closely.

April-Re-reading my diatribe about Technorati, I was thinking, I should take this whole course again, and focus on the parts I brushed off the first time around. I probably won’t get around to it, but it made me wonder. Will this stuff (23 Things) be around for a while? There’s more than one thing I want to find again for reference. And to learn about when I’m in a different frame of mind. I definitely have to do more exploration of wikis. I think it was a dud with board members about reviewing the by-laws. But I still want to try it with arranging a multi-faceted project.

First real baddie. I did not link the FLIKKR account with anything. How will I find it again? Seems like I felt satisfied that that was my “narrowcast”. Will have to search around for that. Oh, yah, I’m using delicious to mark web sites that I can use on any computer. Frequently.

May- Do things with all this stuff with the kids who walk down to the library with me. As soon as they get detached from Magic School Bus. (my language has gotten so PRECISE.)

So, this is my TO DO list. And I’ll probably just want to keep it going.

A little eye candy.

Thing 23, At Last

This has been a long and exciting road, but it’s very nice to be reaching the end. One of the ideas that has been intriguing me, is that new things keep getting thrown at me, and I don’t really have time to absorb them, before it’s time for the next thing. So, I shall use this Thing for absorption.

It may take a while.

I have not spent an equal amount of effort of each thing, because, obviously, some things I have not been very interested in. That’s one thing I really like about adult education. You can choose what it is you want to learn, based on where you are in your life.

One realization I’ve had for the last few weeks, is that I will have to review my whole blog, because I left little notes to myself about what I wanted to pursue further. What I do pursue will be what I have really learned. I hope I have learned a lot, because I certainly have been introduced to a lot.

So, standing out in my memory about the parts I liked best-adding a blog to a website. I started a bookblog for the library, and also did a blog for the Farmers’ Market about what was happening. This was an unexpected plus. (Had to go update that one.) I think it would be fun to have a blog of what’s happening after school on Thursdays. Of course, right now, we get there and they head for Magic School Bus games. Give them time.

Another, outstanding because I use it all the time, is del.icio.us. I’ve bookmarked some websites that I use at home, and want to find at the library. I love being able to easily find them, no matter where I am. Of course, my complaint about this is the same as for speed dial. My brain needs the exercise of remembering phone numbers and website addresses.

I hated my MySpace experience. It feels like meat on display, and I am the meat. On the other hand, the concept is great. There should just be a section for people who are not looking for mating. The ads are what makes it so objectionable. So maybe, in total, the experience is bad. But I do know what it is.

Just went down to check up on the little ones. 10 is still not nursing, according to everything I can see. Gave him a little bit of milk from Mama. Everyone else seems fine. We had an Open Barn today at 3:30. Nathan and Jessica came to visit and then Tenzin and his mom. Tenny brought his unfinished apple from lunch, and offered it to many, but soon discovered that Josephine would eat right out of his hand. So he brought her fistfuls of green grass. She loved it, and stopped stamping at him.

Lisa then came with her kids, Jenna taking pictures, and her whole extended family. While they were admiring, she milked Josie, got the lamb 10 to nurse a little bit, and wrapped up his legs so maybe he can walk straight.

Meanwhile Jessica and Nathan went out and got the triplets to play with them. They were carrying, petting, oogling and kissing those lambs. I would hear these weird sounds of lambs, and it was Nathan and Jess, mooing at the lambs. They’d come. What a pleasure. I LOVE having a barnyard filled with lambs and children.

No photos. Make a mental picture.

Got It!

I must have been very tired the other night, when I couldn’t subscribe to a podcast.

I found SirsiDynix and subscribed, although it might end up like This American Life - I erase it before I listen. There is so much information available to me now, and I just don’t want to spend my life listening to it.

Now, here’s some real information. The first grade came to visit the lambs this morning and I cautioned them that the lambs were uncivilized and would run away from them. Then we went to the barn, and they found 5 sitting in the doorway. 5 just lapped up their cuddling, sucking cooperatively on everyone’s finger. What do I know?

Here’s 5. Now, it’s your job to picture him surrounded by six first graders, and sucking on their fingers. I was so busy, I never took out the camera. Picture it in your mind.

The “older” ones were bouncing around in the pasture today. That’s everyone who was born before yesterday. We’re up to ten lambs with two more moms to go. This is the year of the single ram. Big ram lambs. Except for these triplets.

Tonight twins were born, but they’re rams, too.

I was thinking about podcasts and blogs as I was walking down to the library with a few kids from school today. Wouldn’t it be neat to do some “production” from the library, attached to our web page? I suggested a blog last week, but most of these kids right now don’t have a computer access right now, and just want to play games. I need some jaded individuals who need to create. Maybe next week.

I don’t see book reviews or library use videos coming. I see creativity. Maybe we’ll do something with the summer writing camps we’re having in July. Better write Genna about that.

I find I don’t quite get the difference between categories and tags. I’ve taken to listing the ‘things’ as tags, because they didn’t seem broad enough to be categories. I don’t find many things broad enough to be categories.

I think I want to keep this going as my journal. It’s become that, and I enjoy writing to it. I even shared it with Madeleine, who enjoyed reading it. Do I dare send it to friends? Would they be insulted?

What’s Wrong With Me?

I have been subscribing to podcasts for at least a year. My three favorites are Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, The Diane Rehm Friday News Roundup, and This American Life. To be honest, they are my only, because they are broadcast when I have to be elsewhere, and I want to hear them. But, I’m discovering that I erase them as often as I listen, even though I missed the original. I find that I’m not all that interested in being tied to the computer.
Now, if it were a chip in my ear while I was walking the fenceline?

I even bought an iPod to listen to my missed broadcasts when we went to Italy. I STILL haven’t used the thing.

Now, about subscribing to SirsiDynix Institute seminars, the instructions are all Greek to me. I can’t believe I’m so stupid. I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a while. I think I’m distracted. But, they are such rewarding distractions. They were born , strangely, without much of an ability to find food for themselves. All three had no idea where to find a nipple to get food. But, they were determined, and so was I. We’ve been working on it since Saturday night, but tonight they each went to sleep with a full belly, self-inflicted. I’m going to sleep.

Taking A Break

Don’t know when I’ll get around to Things 22 and 23, because lambing has begun.

Peaseblossom had her lamb about 4 I think. It was still damp when I got home at about 5:30. When I went down to check on them at 8:45, there was Nancy going into labor. After I rearranged the lamb so its shoulders were straight, out it popped. Both are little black ewe lambs, 12 pounds each. Lambing 08 begins.

I’m Done with Thing 21

No Lambs yet. They don’t look ready at all, the lambs haven’t dropped, so the moms are just fat looking. Soon, I hope, before the flies get nasty.

I like YouTube. You can find anything you want there. I can’t immediately think of how I can use it at GFL.
But, kids are going to start walking down to the library with me after school tomorrow. Maybe they can help me figure out a great little movie to make. I think I can do that sort of thing with my digital camera. We’ll experiment. That will be fun.

Frustration! Success!

So, here I am at thing 21, and I’m trying to do the exercises in order. But, of course, I can’t exactly keep in order, just in the same way I can’t exactly follow a recipe. So, I explore things that interest me, and find a great little clip of a ewe giving birth to her second lamb. Since that’s all I think about these days, I try to add it to my blog. Wrong blog. Lost the blog. I can do it again later. Go to the clips about libraries. Find a GREAT one, I think, about cookie monster in the library - one I don’t remember. (We used to be faithful watchers of the Muppet Show.) It keeps hanging up in the middle. I WANT TO SEE THE END.

Let’s see what happens here. That doesn’t look right

I can’t believe it worked. I chose this to share because It’s very much what happens in my barn. Only difference - my sheep are sheared. I hope I can be sharing some pictures from my barn soon. As a visitor said recently - she looks like a double-wide.

Here’s a weird thing - I have the sound from that video clip coming while I’m typing this blentry- or is it blontry- or maybe it should be blogentry. No that’s not right. Got to go down and check on the girls.

Nothing yet.

Looking at all these videos. I would love to make a little video of what happened at the library last week. It was spring vacation and we had a three workshop program of signs of spring. ONE We listened for bird songs and made nests. TWO We found bugs in the stream. THREE We went out to draw from nature. Can I do something from a bunch of stills?

And, thank you, Brattleboro Reformer, for that great photo essay. Well, I tried to connect to it, but it’s not anywhere to be found. The Reformer did a full-page spread of our DRAWING FROM NATURE workshop, and even put in a little blurb about the other workshops in the series — and where the funding came from. (Imagine. Having to use words. HUMPHHH.)

Thank you, Winnie Belle Learned Fund.

Here’s the best part. The photographer gave me his card and said ‘Give me a call when you’re doing something like this again.’ Well, we’re ALWAYS doing ’something like this’. I have his card very handy.

So, now I have a few photos on FLIKKR, now all I have to do is arrange for them to be more like a slide show.

Here’s what I’m getting scared about - I’m using these photos I take and I think they’re going out to THE WORLD and I’m just looking and saying ‘what a nice picture.’ and not thinking a whole lot about privacy.

Well, it’s late, and I’m too tired to solve all the problems of the world.

Maybe we’ll have lambs tomorrow.

Flunking Thing 20

Oh dear, I’m not doing very well here at Thing 20. I’ve been searching through all the possibilities –and I must admit there are a lot–but not many of them seem interesting - or something I want to spend my time on. Doesn’t that sound elitist?

I keep coming back to the same old things : things that Mara introduced us to in Thing 19 (If I capitalize it, does that make it better?) Wanting to do collaborative writing and planning. Google.doc seems the better choice. How unimaginative.

Here’s what I want. An annual calendar. Does someone out there have that to offer?

I say that because I asked a question about another concern (not putting pictures of kids in our program out to EVERYONE) and someone from slideshare answered me back. Why would someone, besides one of us, be reading my blog?

I put our bylaws on google.doc and asked trustees to make changes. So far, the change suggestions have come by email-not changing the original document. No real experience in my major concern–that people would make changes and I wouldn’t even know what they were.

I think I’ll just keep working on the future I had mapped out for Thing 19, and not try to spread myself too thinly.

Oh, we had a great program today! River Exploration. OK, Stream. Everyone was looking under rocks and finding things. Gotta go now, so I can make a slide show about today. Tomorrow- Drawing From Nature.

Well, since I made my blog entry befo…

Well, since I made my blog entry before I read the next step - a pattern I’ve always followed- let’s see if I can post this mini to my major.