Have you heard of Team Rubicon, a group that provides disaster relief? Here’s a letter we received yesterday:
I just wanted to let you know that we love your product. We were on the ground in Tacloban, Philippines, 4 days after the storm hit doing relief work and setting up operations for our teams out there. Conditions that first week were challenging and extreme. We never complained, and your instant (just add water) pouches of food sure helped.
We ate the awesome Outrageous Outback Oatmeal in the mornings and fought over the Shepherd’s Pie in the evening. We didn’t have the luxury of taking a lot of them, but when the 15 of us were able to sit down to eat them, it was all smiles.
I have some photos of us enjoying it, if you’d like them. We’d love to stay in touch and take them with us on our next deployment. We’re exploring the possibility of heading back there in the coming weeks.
Thanks!
Kirk Jackson
“The story of Team Rubicon was written by a team of eight who travelled to Haiti to provide aid immediately after the 2010 earthquake. Today, that story is continued through the service of over 8,000 strong. The phrase “burn the boat” refers to the general, who upon landing on the enemy’s shore, orders his men to burn the boats so that there is no path other than forward toward victory. From Joplin to Burma to Rockaway Beach, we’ve crossed the Rubicon. Now, we burn the boat.”
Find out how you can support or join the team at http://www.teamrubiconusa.org.
And take a minute to watch their awesome video. Just AWESOME!
When temperatures drop and the forecasts fill up with snow, many of us feel irrepressible urges to create.
You’re feeling it, right?
Me too.
Thoughts of knitting, baking, and holiday decorating …
But when I caught wind of a sonorous story lilting from the frozen waters of Siberia’s Lake Baikal, I realized …
Not all cold weather creativity happens indoors.
Needless to say, the Russians are a hearty breed, and a particular group of intrepid percussionists have not let sub-zero temperatures keep them cooped up inside.
Sergei Purtyan, a member of the Etnobit Percussion Group, discovered themagically melodic potential of the world’s deepest lake when his wife took a tumble on the ice.
Let’s just say, a new form of holiday music was about to be made …
“As she landed on the ice, she made a very musical ‘boooooom’ sound, so nice and deep that her husband, who has a very good ear, said ‘Hold on, what was it? How did you make that noise?'” the group’s founder, Natalya Vlasevskaya, told the Siberian Times: “She laughed, but then got curious, too, and they started touching and drumming on the bits of ice, realizing it was making a melody. He recorded it on the phone, got back to Irkutsk, and let us listen, asking if we might want to go together to the same spot and try and record our ice drumming.”
For some reason, as yet unknown, the specific spot where Purtyan’s wife fell has unique resonance and harmony when thumped, and Etnobit was thrilled to try their hands at ice drumming.
“Never mind that it was a six-hour drive to that particular spot!” Vlasevskaya says.
Ice in other parts of the lake, which reaches depths of 5,387 feet, doesn’t produce the same sounds. The group’s natural masterpiece was recorded with only about 15 feet of water below them.
“You see your hand touching the ice, you hear the sound, but your mind just can’t take it in,” Vlasevskaya explains. “You cannot believe that, yes, this beautiful clear sound is indeed produced by ice.”
It is lovely, as you can hear for yourself in this video:
In honor of legendary author Doris Lessing, who died on November 17 at the age of 94, I’d like to take a moment to recognize a handful of my favorite literary bluestockings.
Photo of Doris Lessing by Elke Wetzig via Wikimedia Commons
I did say “bluestockings.”
Would Lessing be offended?
I think not.
While it almost sounds like a derogatory term (think: “blue hair”), bluestocking is actually an old English term that describes a “woman with considerable scholarly, literary, or intellectual ability or interest.”
The word appears to have originated in the 18th century, when “bluestocking” referred to worsted wool stockings worn as informal attire (in contrast to the black silk stockings that were fashionable at the time) by a specific group of intellectual women led by Elizabeth Montagu, a British social reformer, patron of the arts, literary critic, and writer.
Portrait of Elizabeth Montagu-née Robinson, artist unknown, via Wikipedia
Here are a few lovely literary bluestockings who preceded Doris Lessing.
Charlotte Brontë:
Portrait of Charlotte Brontë, 1873, by Evert A. Duyckinck (based on a drawing by George Richmond), via Wikimedia Commons
Virginia Woolf:
Portrait of Virginia Woolf, photographer unknown, via Wikimedia Commons
Beatrix Potter:
Photo of Beatrix Potter and her dog Kep, 1913, reportedly by father Rupert Potter, via Wikimedia Commons
Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
Portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Engraving September, 1859, by Macaire Havre, engraving by T. O. Barlow, via Wikimedia Commons
Baroness Karen Blixen (with her brother, engineer Thomas Dinesen):
Baroness Karen Blixen and her brother, engineer Thomas Dinesen, on the baroness’s African farm, 1920s, by Gottlieb Foto, via Wikimedia Commons
My sister’s daughter, Tina Withers, her husband Ron, and three of their children stopped by en route home from Thanksgiving with his family in Spokane. I asked their son Andrew, an 11th grader, “Has anyone ever said you look like Matt Damon?” “They have,” he replied. I wonder though, can Matt play the piano? Andrew can; he plays at church and school functions. Does it help that Andrew’s younger brother is named Matthew? What do you think? Look-alike? Easily a stand-in? Carbon copy? Ringer or dead ringer?
Here’s a post from the last time they were here.
Buy props used in MaryJane’s books and magazine!
5% of profits will benefit www.firstbook.org, a non-profit that provides new books to children from low-income families throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Here’s how:
MaryJane will post a photo and a description of a prop and its cost along with a few details as to its condition here: https://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/MaryJanesCurations. It’s a playful way to be the new owner of a little bit of farm herstory.
