Advent

It's the third Sunday of Advent, and I thought it might be nice to post some prayers and meditation for the Advent season.

We are an Advent people.We live not satisfied but plagues with thirst for the coming of the Lord. Our tragedy is that we often do not recognize the source of our restlessness but seek to satisfy it with all sorts of things that anesthetize our longings but do not fulfill them. One of the gifts of Advent is to stir in us the recognition that what we truly yearn for is not some passing palliative but the One who has come and will come again, day by day and at the end of time, to those who seek him.

Litany of Longing

Response: Come, Lord Jesus!

In the dryness of prayer, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In the dissatisfaction of useless entertainments, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In the desert created in us by overwork, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our thirst to love and be loved, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our yearning for priorities that matter, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our desire for a just world, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In the darkness of our accumulated sins, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In the hopelessness of our addictions, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In the emptiness of habits of mind that nourish no one, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our restlessness for something beyond our present good, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our search for an anchor in this life, we long for you, O Lord! R.

In our pursuit of beauty and goodness, we long for you, O Lord! R.

A great article at InternetMonk about Advent.

JesusCreed also has a series going, looking at different Christmas Words. I liked this one particularly.

A Guide to Weather Terms for Kansans

Snowfall
less than 2" is a dusting or minor accumulation. If it doesn't cover the grass, you can't call it major accumulation.

2-6" snow is a noticeable accumulation. This isn't a "significant winter weather event."

6-12" is significant accumulation. You don't need to cancel everything. Really. Everyone leave 5 minutes earlier and don't drive like the raving maniacs that so many of you are.

>12" can legitimately be called a major winter weather event, particularly if coupled with wind and drifts.

Snowplows
A snowplow is a unique piece of road machinery that efficiently clears snow from the roadways. It is good to USE this piece of machinery to clear the roads of any amount of snow above 2", preferably before everyone goes out driving around.

A truck with a snowplow attachment is NOT a snowplow. Even a dump truck with a snowplow attachment does not a snowplow make. Sorry.

Temperature
32-40 degrees is chilly. It does not yet qualify for characterization as cold. If you like, you could also call it crisp.

15-32 degrees is cold. Although you are really better off avoiding the term cold until the temp is a couple degrees under 30. No, you can't call 20 degrees bitter cold, frigid, or very cold. No. Don't argue. You just can't do it.

0-15 degrees is very cold. A wind chill that drops the "real feel" temperature into this range can also be called very cold. Again, this range doesn't merit the use of frigid or bitter cold. Suck it up and buy a real winter coat. You wouldn't be so cold if you dressed properly.

-15-0 degrees can be called very very cold or downright cold. It's really not quite cold enough to use any of those more dramatic temperature descriptions.

<-15 degrees. You have finally reached the range where you theoretically use the terms frigid or bitter cold. Just a note of warning though...you probably want to wait until it's below -20 to really use those terms. We understand you will never be quite as tough as people from farther north.

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

I don't know how I ever survived without knowing this classic Christmas song...

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
Only a hippopotamus will do
Don't want a doll, no dinky Tinker Toy
I want a hippopotamus to play with and enjoy

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
I don't think Santa Claus will mind, do you?
He won't have to use our dirty chimney flue
Just bring him through the front door,
that's the easy thing to do

I can see me now on Christmas morning,
creeping down the stairs
Oh what joy and what surprise
when I open up my eyes
to see a hippo hero standing there

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
Only a hippopotamus will do
No crocodiles, no rhinoceroses
I only like hippopotamuses
And hippopotamuses like me too

Mom says the hippo would eat me up, but then
Teacher says a hippo is a vegeterian

There's lots of room for him in our two-car garage
I'd feed him there and wash him there and give him his massage

I can see me now on Christmas morning,
creeping down the stairs
Oh what joy and what surprise
when I open up my eyes
to see a hippo hero standing there

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
Only a hippopotamus will do
No crocodiles or rhinoceroseses
I only like hippopotamuseses
And hippopotamuses like me too!

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas is a Christmas novelty song written by John Coctoasten and performed by Gayla Peevey in 1953. It is a Dr. Demento Christmas staple, and is currently available on Dr. Demento's The Greatest Novelty Records of All Time Vol. 6: Christmas.

Here's an interesting fact about the popular Christmas hippopotamus song - in 1953 a ten-year-old girl from Oklahoma, Gayla Peevey sang the song as a way to raise money for the Oklahoma City Zoo's first hippopotamus. It became a nationwide hit after that, although John Rox wrote the song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" in 1950! The song was not written specifically for the Oklahoma zoo, its just that when they needed the hippo the song came out so the Christmas hippopotamus song just fitted in.

Ice and Snow

I would gladly give away the ice and sleet for a nice foot of snow. Ugh. I fail to understand how it can be 27 degrees and raining/sleeting rather than snowing. I'm told that it has to do with the temperature of the atmosphere, but it still seems rather ridiculous.

Anyway, I was in the office all week this week. Monday we decided that I needed to put out a newsletter as a vehicle for advertising the vegetable conference next month, so I spent most of Monday and part of Tuesday writing articles for that. It turned out really well though. Hopefully it is well received and gets a good response. I also got to meet the Extension vegetable specialist on Thursday at Master Gardener training and we talked for a little while about some ideas for programming and outreach here. I also got signed up to teach a gardening class next spring, so I started putting together the presentation for that class too.

Next week I'll be in Manhattan for 3 days: 2 days of Hort agent training, and 1 day of meeting with another mentor.

I'm trying to write some Christmas cards, but I have found that I'm severely lacking in addresses for people. So if you think you might like a Christmas card from me, you'd better email me your snail mail address.

Blog of the Week

It's been quite awhile since we've had a blog of the week, but today I'm highlighting 3 blogs.

1. The Epi-Log is the blog part of the Epicurious website.

2. I read Internet Monk frequently and there are always thought-provoking posts and articles there.

3. If you've never read WaiterRant, there are a couple great posts up right now about life from the waiter's perspective.

Long Time, No Blog

Since last blogging occurred, I went to Iowa for Thanksgiving with Steven and his family, then I was at KSU for the first round of "real" training. It wasn't too bad, actually. I was a little worried, because sometimes things like that aren't as useful as people running them would like to think. Then I was back in the office on Thursday and Friday, where I helped with Master Gardener training Thursday, and did odds and ends on Friday.

It is a trifle frustrating when I meet Master Gardeners, and they say, "I don't know why you like vegetables. There are so many beautiful things to plant in my yard, I just can't grow any vegetables." ARGH. Not that I'm opposed to a nice ornamental plant. I'm sure that once I have space and time, I'll find all kinds of bizarre and interesting irises and dahlias and such to plant. Ah well, I'm sure I'll have half a dozen who really like fruit and vegetable gardening eventually.

Next week I'll be in the office all week, probably working on presentations most of the time. December is kind of a slow month, so I'm not going to be running around like crazy...too much. It should give me time to continue getting settled.

I did drive around a bit yesterday, in an ill-fated attempted to do some Christmas shopping. I just seem to have no really good ideas for anyone this year. I'll probably do better with my online shopping. I was semi-productive last week, in that I wrote half a dozen Christmas cards. Now they still need addresses and stamps, so don't hold your breath waiting for a card from me.

Web Safari

Well, I have this collection of links from the past couple weeks. Hopefully most of the links are still good.

1. This books sounds interesting: Out of Print. What happens when all but a few passages of the Bible disappear?

2. Apparently there's also music hidden in Da Vinci's "The Last Supper. "

3. Things that the Class of 2011 have never known or experienced. I may have been young, but I do vaguely remember the Berlin Wall.

4. McDonald's is joining the specialty coffee market.

5. An interesting article about atheists, by an atheist.

6. And in case you haven't heard, there was a stem-cell breakthrough.

7. I don't often play computer games, but for some reason I like this one: Plant Tycoon.

It's Been Awhile

What with all the travel and training and lack of internet in my apartment as yet, blogging is likely to be light for another month or so. Anyway, a short update.

I spent the entirety of last week in Olathe, KS mentoring with the two hort agents there. I also spent one day at the KS Turf conference. It was a good week. I appreciated the opportunity to see another program and learn how things work there. One of the agents there was relatively new, so she had good insights into getting started and being the new agent. It is also going to be nice, because our background complement well, so she can help me with turf stuff, and I'll help her with fruit and veg.

I spent the three days this week in my home office. I spent the better part of one day going around to different places in the county with the other agent so I could see things and meet people. I'm starting to develop ideas for programming in the spring garden series, the HUGE garden show, and classes for farmers. The advice that I think is sound, but that I'll have a hard time following is to pick one or two things and really focus on them and use them multiple times in different contexts for the entire year.

I definitely am planning on working up a presentation and class on salad greens, which is a pretty wide topic that can be narrowed down and focused for numerous audiences. Anyway, I'm going to be at 3 days of orientation at KSU next week, so that will have to wait for later.

Yes, It is Too Late to Plant Grass

I am now officially one week into the new job. I spent the first day doing training at the KSU, learning about benefits, "professional scheduling," and signing paperwork. The rest of the week I spent in my home office, getting to know some of the ropes.

The biggest challenge so far, and I think in general for the next several months, will be adjusting to a different climate zone. I have learned that it is generally too late to plant grass seed, but sod is still okay. It is also fine to plant peonies, trees, and shrubs yet. To my northern Wisconsin mind, you don't plant anything in November, except maybe snowmen. It was 65 here the day that it was snowing up there, this past week.

Anyway, I'm starting to get the feel of the office, and I mostly know my way around. I know the people on the Ag end of the building, and I'm getting a start on the FACS (Family and Consumer Sciences) end. Tuesday I got to/had to sit in on 9 hours of Pesticide Recertification Training for Ornamentals and Turfgrass professionals. Several of the speakers were really good, others weren't. I got to meet the state turfgrass specialist, who is also an ISU alum. The last speaker of the day gave a really interesting talk about an injection procedure he helped develop to protect Scotch Pine trees from Pine Wilt.

I've also gotten my start in answering phone calls from various people. So far it hasn't been too bad, although one guy calling with a lawn issue gave me a bit of a work out last week. But that is a story for another post.

My next couple weeks are going to be kind of crazy, since I'll be in a county 3 hours away from Wichita for mentoring all of next week. Then I'll be back in Wichita for 3 days before Thanksgiving. Then I'll be back at KSU for more training the week after Thanksgiving. I'll be home for another week at that point, then at KSU for another week of training/mentoring.

Web Safari

1. Adoro Te Devote has a great post this week entitled, "What do You Seek When You Dream of Happiness?" about how our lives ultimately make the most sense through Jesus.

2. Steven provided this informative link about How To Build a Lego Trebuchet.

3. Rachel brought this site to my attention, where you can answer vocabulary questions correctly and various companies will donate 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. Not that I'm necessarily giving unqualified support to the UNWFP, but the vocab is fun, and donating rice doesn't hurt anyone. Certainly there are better ways to fight world hunger, but I see nothing wrong with having wealthy American companies donate rice to hungry people.

4. Scot McKnight is blogging through the book unChristian, and he is looking at Ch. 6 which discusses the impressions that Christians are "sheltered and irrelevant."

5. Hallowed Ground has some really nice paintings and pictures posted...I particularly like the last one in the post.

6. This 10 page article in the New York Times Magazine, entitled "The Evangelical Crackup" looks at the shifts that are taking place in the way that Evangelicals interact with politics, particularly on a national level.

7. In Illinois, apparently boys are consistently falling behind girls in testing and achievement at school. There are debates over whether it is because of changes to the tests or to the education in general.