Monday, May 30, 2011

Gleaning Facebook: Memorial Day 2011


More than barbecue, baseball, and a day-off, today is a time to appreciate that freedom is not free but the continuing result of the determination and sacrifices of our founders and the men and women of over two centuries who have labored to refine and protect our freedom. We revere the memory of those among them who made the ultimate sacrifice so that we, their posterity, can enjoy liberty.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Gleaning Facebook: Exhausted Hummingbird

This fellow somehow managed to get into our classroom. I used a large butterfly net to finally trap him. He was so exhausted that he rested in my hand for awhile before he revived enough to fly away as we watched him in our classroom courtyard.


Archilochus colubris, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, male Comments:

  • Terrell Shaw
    Seems like hummngbirds get into classrooms once or twice a year up our way. They. are. hard. to. catch. Fast reflexes - unless they are clobbered by the net frame!

    Jann Heaton Skeen
    One of my fave birds. 
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    Katie S. Kimbrough
    is that real? pretty though!

    Amy Brigham
    Wow, that's awesome! 
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    Tersi Bendiburg
    Awww! Terrell, in 1996 we took a family trip to Costa Rica and Panama. In Costa Rica, for one night, we stayed in a small town near one of the Volcanoes. The cabins we stayed in were surrounded by lillies. I woke up, before the guys, and went to the porch to sit on the rocker and enjoy the morning. No sooner did I open the door that I gasped. Hovering over the lilies were so many humming birds feeding that I couldn't count them! I back into the room slowly to wake the guys up. We all enjoyed the beautiful show! I'll never forget it! One of those lovely things you tuck away to think about during quiet times. : )

  • Lillian Shaw
    You named a male hummingbird Ruby?

    Tersi Bendiburg
    That's it's name. Ruby Throated Hummingbird. : )

    Betty Smith Franklin
    Can warm it in your hands and hen give it a bit of sugar water and it will be on its way.

    Tony Pope
    Hey, I caught one of these one time too! Well, caught and "trapped" in the grill of my 4Runner...same difference! It wasn't alive...! Don't know how long it had been there.

Cleaning Facebook: Awards Day 2011

From Angie Ray's Facebook:

The man behind the "Stars" Thank you Mr. Shaw for bringing out the star potential in your students. We will miss you when we go to 5th grade.

[with student Caroline Ray]

 

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Powerline Prairies


Asclepias purpurascens - Purple Milkweed



One of my cohorts on a botanical outing along Technology Boulevard (of all places) speculated that we may need to reevaluate the revulsion naturalists, naturally, feel toward the ugly long clear-cut swaths of powerline right-of-way that scar the modern surface of our earth. As our walk today illustrates they sometimes provide an oasis for some botanical beauties that otherwise would be crowded out of modern life. What a diversity of botanical beauties we found under the powerlines this morning. Please Georgia Power, don't spray herbicide here! The most outstanding attraction today is the rare Purple Milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens) in glorious bloom. What a beautiful plant! It has been identified nowhere else in Georgia. The Field Guide to the Rare Plants of Georgia states that there are only 60 individual plants in the state. I think we saw more than 60 under the powerlines this morning.


Asclepias purpurascens - the rare Purple Milkweed and a very bedraggled Monarch butterfly

Cornus foemina (Cornus stricta)

I don't know nothin' 'bout sedges.

I don't know nothin' 'bout sedges. Carex squarrosa?

Steve Bowling and Max Medley watch as Alan Cressler sets up a photo of Asclepias purpueascens.

Steve Bowling and Max Medley watch as Alan Cressler sets up a photo of Asclepias purpueascens.

Asclepias purpurascens - Purple Milkweed

Wild Garlic, Allium sp. (canadense?)

Matelea sp. (obliqua?), Milkvine

Matelea sp. (obliqua?), Milkvine

This Katydid has little eye-like spheres on its antennae. I wonder what purpose those serve?

Green Dragon, Arisaema dracontium, Berry College Campus, Floyd County

Amorpha fruiticosa? glabra?

Rosa setigera, Prairie Rose

Amorpha fruiticosa? glabra?

Green Dragon, Arisaema dracontium, Berry College Campus, Floyd County


Asclepias purpurascens - the rare Purple Milkweed

Erythemis simplicicollis, Eastern Pondhawk (female)


Phlox sp.


Phlox glaberima

Ruellia strepens

Insect porn: Cycnia tenera, Dogbane tiger-moths, mating on Dogbane (Indian Hemp), Apocynum cannabinum

Carex frankii, I don't know nothin' 'bout sedges


Jack-In-The-Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum

Jack-In-The-Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum

Scutellaria integrifolia


Rosa carolina, Carolina Rose




Sunday, May 15, 2011

Didelphis virginiana

As newlyweds Sheila and I used to live at a Cave Spring address... Rt 2 Cave Spring... downtown Chubbtown in a little log cabin on Lake Creek a full mile from the nearest pavement.  It was the middle of nowhere in 1971.

Our first Saturday night in that cabin was a new moon night. When I clicked off the bedside lamp that evening I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. The screech owls whinnied in the woods. The cicadas and crickets and treefrogs filled the night with sound till we drifted into sleep.

Sometime in the middle of the night I fought my way to consciousness as I felt Sheila shaking my shoulders and whispering in my ear, “There’s someone on the porch!” I jerked up, and listened to the night sounds... those crickets and frogs and even a truck on US 27 a couple of miles away to the south, and my heart pounding, I thought, audibly. Then there it was ... sniff---sniff --- just a quiet little post-nasal drip.

The murderer had allergies, I guessed.

But I was absolutely sure now that my beautiful wife was wrong. The evil intruder ... sniff ... even now readying his knife to strike ... sniff ... was not on the porch. He was in the room with us!

My mind raced. ... sniff ... How could I save myself and my beloved? I’d been working down by the creek that afternoon, fighting the never-ending battle against invasive species  ... sniff ...  chinese privet and Japanese honeysuckle ... sniff ... with a machete my father had given me. It was leaning against the wall near the chest of drawers. If I could reach it  ... sniff ... before he struck maybe we’d have a fighting chance.  ... sniff ...

I inched my right hand toward the lamp as my left gripped the hem of our covers.  ... sniff ...  My heart pounded.  ... sniff ...

Click! I threw off the covers and swung my feet to the floor as the lamp illuminated the burglar...

... waddling with remarkable speed from under our bed between my legs.

AAAAAIIII!!!

A very young Didelphis virginiana, our only American marsupial, the Virginia Opossum.

We chased him with a broom and he ducked into the kitchen and scooted behind the stove. I left Sheila on guard with the broom while I went to get a flashlight so we could look under and behind the stove. As I turned toward the kitchen electric torch in hand, the night was split with blood-curdling screams!

AAAAAIIII!!!

I rushed into the kitchen to save my poor bride from some terrible monster and found her on all fours, nose to nose with a hissing little ‘possum, both of ‘em hysterical.

She had decided to pull the pots and pan drawer out of the stove so we could see behind it. She had gotten down close to it so she could peer behind it as it slid out. Well, that 'possum had taken refuge IN the drawer itself, curled into a bread basket, its sharp teeth bared, as surprised as she at finding itself nose to nose with a scary alien species.

Being me, I grabbed the old Minolta and snapped a few pictures before we put him out again.


We finally managed to make the little cabin Possum Proof, but he continued to hang around and we became kinda fond of the little guy and the bond seemed mutual. He made himself a nest under the eaves at the front of the house, and we left him scraps from our meals that he seemed to appreciate.

One Saturday morning I took my coffee and the latest Newsweek out the front door to one of the porch chairs to rock and read awhile. Lo and behold, that possum came down the corner logs and waddled right up onto the porch and climbed right up into the porch rocker next to mine.

We howdyed each other and enjoyed a little small talk. I asked his name and was surprised to find his mama and daddy must have known a little Latin, ‘cause he immediately identified himself as Didelphis Virginiana, but said most folks just called him Delphis, except of course, for his school buddies, who called him Doofus.

I finally worked the conversation around to the question that I guess just about anybody would want to ask a 'possum if they got the chance: just how it was that his tribe had acquired the ability to play 'possum?  He was ready for that one. He told me that his great granddaddy, who was generally called Brer Possum,  had told the story to Joel Chandler Harris a long time ago but ol’ Joel had got some of it wrong. Another fellow named David Holt had done a little better at telling the story. But now he had the chance to tell it, he hoped I’d take good notes and be sure to keep the facts straight.

I'll tell that story in another post.

Delphis the 'Possum, June 1972


© 2011 Terrell Shaw

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Gleaning Facebook: Back from Camp

I am semi-recovered from three days at "camp" with 120 fourth graders. A great experience that those kids will never forget. It's a joy to see them confront new challenges, learning to work individually and in teams to solve those challenges, and coming through in glorious and grinning victory....

I wish there were a way to move this experience to the beginning of the school year. It builds confidence, and it builds rapport between teachers, parents, and children.
But, goodness, my bones ache!


Comments:

Kristen McConkey
bolognaaaaaa.

Terrell
'Yes, we continue that tradition. I think you were my first echo. This year Olivia from our church was my echo.

Susan Cherones
I know y'all had a big time!

Ruth Baird Shaw
Your love and respect for your young studunts is refreshing in today's world. I can see why so many parents try to get their sons & daughters in your class...

Terrell🙂
Your love and respect for your young studunts is refreshing in today's world. I can see why so many parents try to get their sons & daughters in your class...
2 seconds ago ·
Thank you, Mother. There are some who tell the principal "Anybody but Shaw" too. 
You'll find this hard to believe, Susan, but one of the young counselors knocked down a wall at camp this year! We were all aghast! (Kristen, Susan is the Experience Works counselor who "knocked down" that big rustic primary support pole in the big lodge at Lookout Mtn Camp the night you were my "echo" in 2002. It's a wonder the old building didn't collapse!)

Ruth Baird Shaw
The" one" who said, "Anybody but Shaw", does not talk to me! <smile>

Gleaning Facebook: A Pitiable Thing

 

What a pitiable thing it is that our civilization can do no better for us than to make us slaves to indoor life, so that we have to go and take artificial exercise in order to preserve our health. 
-George Wharton James, journalist, author, and speaker (1858-1923)


Ruth Baird Shaw
Yes. "Pitiable." I am still of the old school; I.try to get my exercise by cleaning house etc



Saturday, May 07, 2011

Gleaning Facebook: Mother & Me Before 1950

My beautiful mother and myself squinting in the sun. From my mother's comment below, and my apparent age in this picture, I'm guessing this was made in or around Milstead, Georgia in the late forties. We lived in Milstead the first three years of my life, where my Dad had grown up, and where he worked at Callaway Mills.

Terrell Shaw
Taken, I think, outside the GI barracks at Asbury College, Wilmore KY where we lived part of the time Daddy was in school there. Is that right Mother?


Jared Lathem
It is amazing how much Lisette looks like Aunt Ruth.


Ruth Baird Shaw
Thanks Jared. I am flattered. I think Lisette is so beautiful. Terry. I do not remember where that pic as taken... you were three when we moved to Wilmore. That may be earlier...


Lisette Lewis
Thanks, Jared! I don't think anyone has ever said that before. 


Beth Shaw
I can't believe that Lisette - there is a strong resemblance. I can certainly see it in this photo.


Christie Hufstedler Boyd
Lisette, there is no doubt that you are half Shaw! You do look like your sweet grandmother!


Tersi Bendiburg
Beautiful photo.


Ruth Baird Shaw
Terry, This was still on Elm Street in Milstead, Charles's Home town...several years before we moved to Wilmore...


Janet Hughes Smith
Terrell, I never knew you were related to George and family! You learn something new every day.


Terrell Shaw
In this pic my wonderful mother was about 26 or 27, slightly older than Lillian is now, and slightly younger than Brannon is now.


Donald Murdock
Nice pic, Terry. You look a little grumpy!


Galen Dale Foster
97 Elm Street. 


Mike Bock
What a great picture. What a pretty Mom. I bet you were a handful. Happy Mothers' Day!