Our Whinona

C: Our cat Whiner was a very good but tough cat. We think that she died from kidney failure. She died this morning. Last night Mom took her from under the armoir, and into bed. She got under the bed, and died several minutes after mom brought her on top. I saw death, and felt terrible. I then remembered how long a life she had and felt better. She lived in Crestline, Coast Road, Big Basin, and here. The end.

Sam: Whiner was a lovable cat. We got her in a shopping center parking lot. She used to be mean, but as soon as she got love she found out it's true meaning. We loved her truly and she was my sister. I love Whiner.

Mom: One day, shortly after Dad and I got married in 1994, we had a discussion about getting a cat. Dad wanted a mature male, yellow, tabby cat. But when I saw a loudly whining, black, female, kitten in the parking lot at Goodwin's in Crestline, I forgot all about his criteria! We named her Whinona because she was such a vocal cat. A few months later I hit the mark a little closer, when I brought home a young, female, tabby from campground 76 at Silverwood. The two cats became close, but Whiner always ran the house, and dominated all of the animals, even the dogs.

When we lived at Coast Road, she would follow us on hikes through the brussel sprout fields to the beach. When we lived at Big Basin, she would follow us on the trails if we didn't shut her in. Even here, in our new house, I'll miss her following me around as I worked in the garden, and seeing her sleeping on the shelf attached to the south end of the house ("the cat deck").

She and Lulu used to run circles around the house, chasing each other. She used to act friendly to all of my friends, then scratch and bite them (even when they were warned!). For many years, we tried to find her a home in an old barn somewhere, but no luck. This past year she finally became a nice, lovable cat, and Sam enjoyed having her on the back of the piano when she practiced. Since she couldn't get a new kitten, she adopted Whiner as her "kitten" and spoiled her terribly. She had to have surgery last month and we've spent a lot of time nurturing her since, knowing that she didn't have much time left. So, we all had a chance to say goodbye to her. She was in a lot of pain over the last few days. But, I'll miss her, too.

Dad: What I'll remember most about Whiner is how smart she was. Intelligence is a very desirable trait in a dog, because is enables your loyal friend to do wonderful things for you. Of course your cat won't do anything for you that doesn't do more for her, so the cat's intelligence is used for it's own benefit.

So many of Whiner's alienating, infuriating, but endearing tendencies came from her creative use of her walnut-sized brain. Whiner truly did follow us around, especially when cruising for opportunities. She left no bowl of milk or stick of butter unmolested, and I truly miss her vulture pose as she watched me eating my cereal in the morning. I really don't miss the way she would claw at the edges of whatever newspaper, book, or magazine was lying on the bedside table at five in the morning to ensure that her cereal dregs wouldn't be late. I can tolerate the news that it's time to get up from an alarm clock, but it's hard to take from a cat who scratches and bites. Nonetheless, I miss her skinny rump in my face.

We held a touching ceremony to bury Whiner with written wishes for her journey in the afterworld. Kind words were said, poignant music was played, and a baby redbud was transplanted above her grave to mark the spot. Farewell Whinona, orphan cat of California.

Buttons

I got these buttons from a box of buttons that Mom has had for quite a long time. Some of them, which are now stuck to a paper, are antiques. Two of them are the Dutch republic's coat of arms. They say on them "Je Maintiendrai" which means "I will maintain" which is the motto of the house of Orange and Nassau, the royal family of the Netherlands.

We also have a Zodiac button, with a Centaur, somehow flying across the moon, with his bow aimed at something.

We also have another button with two dragons, with joined wings and tails, with a coat of arms, with no words or symbols on it.

We also have a black button, with an eagle carrying an anchor. On the back it says it was made in Waterbury (not pictured). Waterbury is a city in Connecticut that many troops came from in WWII. The button was manufactured there by Scovill, from 1850-1960. We don't know what year it was made.

From C

Bubbling and Burning

We recently did three chemistry experiments to supplement our reading about matter.

First, we dissolved a nail in hydrochloric (muriatic) acid. We diluted the acid with about 50 percent water and put it in a clear glass jar. It took about two weeks for the nail to dissolve. Here's what we observed and learned.

C: At first we saw the nail bubbling and the vinyl coating was separating from the nail.

Sam: The nail was shiny. After five days the green vinyl was really peeling from the nail, and there were few bubbles. The nail was grey and dull, the water had turned black and smelled like burnt rubber. We took off the lid to see if it would make more bubbles. It didn't.

C: The liquid was bluish and there was black stuff on the bottom and floating on top. In the end there was nothing but blue liquid.


Where did the nail go?

Sam: It melted kind of...dissolved. It was in the water.

What made the smell?

C: Rusting and stuff. (Sam: The gases.)

We discussed the idea of a chemical reaction and pointed out three big points:

The total number of atoms of each element is the same before and after the reaction. All the metal is still there, but it's in the acid or the black stuff.

The form of the matter may change. The hydrogen from the HCl is gas or water now. The iron is no longer in the form of a nail.

Heat may be created or absorbed. Not applicable this time.


Our next experiment was about the reactivity of various metals in muriatic acid.

We put different metals in test tubes with muriatic acid (Dad did this part).

Sam: We observed that the lead and copper had not done anything in the acid. The aluminum was overflowing with bubbles, so we had to pour it out into our safety bucket of water. The steel made tiny bubbles, and the zinc was bubbling but not too much.


C: The zinc made much bubbles at first but then stopped once the zinc had been completely eaten away. (We used a galvanized nail and it had been stripped down to the steel.) Aluminum is extremely reactive in acid.

For the second part of our experiment we neutralized hydrochloric acid with baking soda.

C: I called this part HCl + NaHCO3 = Useless goop.

Dad: We had generated a small amount of waste acid that we needed to dispose of safely.

Sam: We used a test tube with acid and distilled water.

Dad: We used a pool test kit to check the ph of our acid as we gradually added baking soda. We noticed that adding baking soda made bubbles. When the acid was neutralized we didn't get many bubbles any more. We used the same technique to neutralize the leftover acid from our nail experiment.


Our third experiment was called Properties of Materials when Heated/Setting Things on Fire.

We used a propane torch to heat small samples of materials and wrote down our observations. We tested many materials. Here are our favorites.

C: Copper made green flame and melted into a blob on the end of the wire. Using a fat wire didn't work. We had to use a super-duper skinny wire.


Sam: My favorite was steel wool, because it made fire works. It made sparks and orange flame.


C: I liked the brass tea strainer because it acted much like the thin copper wire. It made a green flame but didn't melt.

Sam: Baking soda melted, but baking powder burned. They both made orange flames, and the baking powder had a burnt carbon smell.

Dad: Most of all we thought about the different ways we could make observations. No garages were harmed in performing this experiment.

C: We had a lot of fun with this experiment, and if you try it I bet you will too.

Writing Assignment

In the last two weeks, Grandma C took the kids to the Santa Cruz Mission, and then to Yosemite, to learn more about Native Californians. Next week we are going to Chaw'se Indian Grinding Rock to learn more. We have been reading some of the pamphlets they picked up, and The Ohlone People of Central California, an educator's guide, by Douglas Petersen and Linda Yamane, and some articles off of the internet about current California Indian Cultural issues. For example, we talked about how some of the modern Ohlone community is trying to get recognition from the Federal Goverment, and why they can have different laws on Indian land.

We studied creation stories, housing, regions, marriage traditions, games, food staples and gender roles. They each wrote some comparisons between Miwok and Ohlone traditional cultures.

Sam: The Ohlone are Indians that live on the coast. They believe that they were created by hawk, crow and hummingbird out of clay. Also, different tribes of Ohlone speak eight different languages. An interesting fact is that there are sometimes 500 people in one village. They have awesome tule houses that can hold 10 or 15 people. Their square acorn granaries are made from tule too! They have an outside dance place and an inside ceremony place. That is a few facts about Ohlone Indians.

The Miwok are Indians that live in the Sierra Nevadas, on the coast, and in the valley of California. They believe that they were made by Coyote out of sticks. Instead of having a separate dance place than their ceremonial place, they had them together in a ceremonial roundhouse.

C: The Ohlone and Miwuk are alike and different in many ways. First, they make acorn mush the same way (more on that later), and are both tribes of Native American people. Secondly, the Miwuks have houses of bark, whiel the Ohlones have reed housing. Third, the Miwuk have covered granaries while the ohlone have mere baskets. Last but not least, the Miwuk thought they used to be crows while the Ohlone thought that they are made from rocks, black dye and clay. These two tribes are alike and different in many ways.

Reading Journal Essays

Dad: Here are a couple of essays the kids wrote about their reading. We do these in stages. First, we brainstorm about them in the journals. C likes to use Venn diagrams to look at similarities and differences. From the brainstorming we look for a theme and topic sentence. The next day we make a rough draft. If necessary we rewrite. Finally, I type theme verbatim into the computer, and the kids type their own corrections.

Sam wrote about Tuck Everlasting...

Winnie Foster is the main character of Tuck Everlasting. She is a cheery, eleven year old girl. She has brown hair and blue eyes. She is very nice. Since her parents won't let her out of their yard, she ran away to the forest. In the forest she met Jesse Tuck. Jesse was drinking out of a spring. Winnie wanted some too, but Jesse said that she should not drink it because it was dirty. The real reason was you wouldn't grow if you drank it.

C compared and contrasted the attacks of the parties of Frodo Baggins and Bilbo Baggins by wargs (large evil wolves) in the Tolkien books.

Frodo and Bilbo are hobbits that each went on long and scary adventures and were attacked by wild wargs. The tactics and results of the battles were similar, but the battles were different in the reasons that the wargs attacked and the ways that the companies escaped the battles.

These battles were similar in that the wargs were frightened by fire. Gandalf, the wizard, used his staff to make fires that scared the wargs away. Also, the battles were both very minor and short but fierce.

The reasons for the battles and how the companies fought were the ways that the battles were different. The wargs attacked Bilbo and company because of the death of the Great Goblin who was decapitated by Gandalf, so it was an attack of revenge. The wargs attacked Frodo and company because of the birds that were sent by the dark wizard Sauron to find the company. Bilbo and company fled up trees and were rescued by eagles. Frodo and company fought the wargs using Frodo's sword Sting, Gandalf's sword Glamdring, a dwarf axe belonging to Gimli, Legolas' bow and arrows, and Strider's sword Anduril.

The battles with wargs were only small hurdles to jump over in the major races of adventures that Frodo and Bilbo's companies ran.


Dad: We are working on the idea of using topic sentences. C wants to just spill the facts, so much effort went into finding general ways of describing the similarities and differences to create a topic sentence that is juicier than "The battles are the same and different in many ways." C and I spent a lot of time on the mechanics of the essay: topic sentence and detailed supporting paragraphs with topic sentences of their own.

Santa Cruz Mission

We went to the Santa Cruz Mission and met our friends R, D, J and Twins. They thanked us for the trail-a-bike, and we found the flag, which D had been playing with, and had lost somewhere.

Then we went to a presentation about the Mission foods. First, we had two-rock acorn mush. It was called two-rocks to cook this batch, but it would usually take 3 or 4. We got to taste the acorn mush, in little paper cups with our fingers. It was really good, but the cups were really bad for the environment (because they are disposable).

Here is how you make acorn mush: First, you take the shells off the kernels, then you crush the kernels, then you did a hole in the riverbed and line it with leaves, and then you let it soak, then try a tiny bit, if its still bitter, let it go a little while longer, then keep trying it until its no longer bitter, then scoop it out into a basket, add water and stir. Then, if you have had rocks cooking in the fire for a few hours, then you use those and put them in the basket and stir them around. That will cook it. As soon as it is fully cooked (who knows how many rocks it will take) then you take the rocks out. And then eat it.

I am not sure how the man made the bread. But, he put it the hornita and put soaked burlap on the lid. And then, you put the lid on the hole, and then you put the handle of a hoe in the handle of the lid, and kick the blade as far in the ground as you can, and that will make sure it stays in.

The Ohlone were the indians who lived in Santa Cruz.