Benjamin has been trapping again this year, but hadn’t caught anything until today when he found the two opossums in the barn. Today is also the last day of the trapping season here in Missouri until next winter.
Sometimes Benjamin kills the animals he traps and skins them, but he decided to go ahead and let these two marsupials go.
A…potentially historic and destructive winter storm will unleash its fury beginning Monday and will last through Wednesday.
…the storm may very well impact a third of the population of the United States; approximately 100 million people.
We usually keep a pretty good supply of food and water at the house, but we drove to town just to grab some more…you guessed it….bread and milk. We also looked into 
We ran into Lowe’s to see what options were available in generators and kerosene heaters, but most of their stuff had been sold out. Noah and I filled up the van with gas and also filled up an extra gas tank we had brought along.
Some friends had let us know that Wal Mart was an absolute zoo, but by the time we arrived the store was beginning to settle down. I had fun seeing what supplies and food people would buy when a catastrophe was at hand. Here are a few pictures:
Camping supplies: propane heaters and stoves
Flashlights
Toilet Paper
Paper Towels
Plastic Plates/Napkins
Milk
Eggs
Chips (I never could’ve guessed that chips would be hit, “Preparedness” item!)
Packaged Deli Meat
Cheeses
Produce
Campbell’s soup, didn’t seem to be a very “hot” item. You see, making a can of soup is just TOO much work to do for a meal…
…but Ramen noodles are just SO much easier to make.
However, none of the items above competed with the scarcity of:
The folks stocking up for the storm primarily bought food that were easy to make and inexpensive. (Not that this information is particularly helpful, but the habits of the world around us can be fun to observe.)
I have a theory that this storm is all just a conspiracy dreamed up by food manufacturers and grocery stores, but I suppose only the skies will prove whether or not this is just a lot of hoopla or not.
Tomorrow night we may be reaching for the warmth of the hearth or sleeping in a room full of a candles, so I’d better enjoy a night’s warm, heated sleep while I can. So if the internet goes down soon-au revoir until my next post.
-Andrew
Friday night, just before bed, Noah was hungry as usual. Mom called downstairs to tell him that his sandwiches were ready. As he rushed toward the stairs, he tripped and somehow his big toe curled-under and he landed with much of his weight on that still, curled-under toe. He lay on 
Saturday afternoon, Mom decided that it may be best to get his foot x-rayed.
At the ER, they confirmed a break near the joint of where his toe meets his foot. They put on a temporary cast and want him to see an orthopedic on Monday to have it replaced with a "real" cast.
Noah with his temporary cast.
Mom stopped in at Bob Evans to pick up a slice of pumpkin pie for Noah (his favorite), on the way home from the hospital.
-Lisa Wong
Today we ate lunch at “Mr. Harry’s Carnival Foods” where they serve food that you’d find at a carnival and also serve smoked meat. They had hot dogs, chili cheese dogs, snow cones, popcorn, cotton candy, ice cream, meat sandwiches and ice cream.
After we ate lunch we grabbed some plumbing supplies at Lowe’s (and of course Lydia came too!)
Benjamin and Noah were dressed like twins.
I’ve been working through Rushdoony’s American History to 1865. I tried using the print outs that were included, but as you can see in this picture I ran out of room for my notes! I suppose I’ll have to switch to just a plain ole’ notebook!
I worked with Glenn this afternoon and we installed the new ceiling fan in Benjamin’s room.
Once we got the fan running I tested out some of my camera’s ISO settings.
Back in the day of photographic film the size of the tiny crystals in the film affected how quickly it would react to the light. The larger crystals would capture the light faster and expose the film less than smaller crystals.
In digital cameras ISO refers to the speed at which the digital sensor reacts to the light. ISO also affects the clarity of the image. Faster ISO speeds produce noise, but the slower ISO produces a smooth image that is very susceptible to camera shake.
Most of the photos that I post on this blog have been taken on the fly and usually with one hand! When I know I may need to take a photo quickly and probably without stabilizing the camera I set my camera to a fast ISO setting.
The images below demonstrate a few different ISO speeds:
ISO: 1600 The larger the number the larger the crystals were.
ISO: 800 High ISOs speeds are hard to blur with camera shake, but they can also create noise/grain.
ISO: 400 Take a look at the 3 photos above and look at the darker parts of the photo you see the little dots? That is noise.
ISO: 200 With the slower ISO the picture looks smoother, but more blurred.
ISO: 100
ISO: 80 The ISO speed is so slow that you can’t even distinguish the ceiling fan blades.
If you take a look at the photos above they all look very different even though the speed of the fan’s blade’s never changed. Whenever you are taking pictures of moving water like a waterfall adjusting the ISO is one of the ways to get different photo effects.
Kate playing and singing on a very out-of-tune piano, but it doesn’t matter too much when the words are so good.
The video above shows us sledding with Aaron in our backyard. Stay tuned at the end of the video for a short clip that I edited and made a lot more dramatic. Sometimes I think that I just have too much fun editing.
