September 12, 2023 a thought for today, Blame yourself if you have no branches or leaves; don't accuse the sun of partiality. Chinese Proverb

The first upload for yesterday was “in the middle.” I shot several in the middle subjects today and settled on this one of my snowball bush in the middle of the panels of my neighbor’s fence. 

Today is the funeral service so things are going on all around me. We are going to have some rain accompany us today. Hopefully it stays light or better still holds off until we are inside. 

I am trying to get things done around here before I leave so I won’t have anything on the  agenda later.

The second upload for yesterday was from my archives and was for one of the “my choice” uploads. The storm clouds presented themselves for this moment in time capture. 

This is a small thing compared to what else is going on but last night I realized we are out of Sweet Pea’s “midnight snack.” So when I do get home I am going to be making her “special” meatball recipe. Maybe that will have a double purpose along with making her treat it may take the edge off the emotions of the day. 

The first upload for today is “I can’t live without” ....my photography. This is one of my older cameras. I use it octagonally but I use a smaller Sony still with a Zeiss lens more often. 

The word for today is growth. Enough shovels of earth -- a mountain. Enough pails of water -- a river, Chinese Proverbs.  A tree trunk the size of a man grows from a blade as thin as a hair. A tower nine stories high is built from a small heap of earth, Lao Tzu.  Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken but I hope into a better shape, Charles Dickens. If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing, Saint Augustine of Hippo.  The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice, George Eliot.  Your hand opens and closes opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds wings, Rumi. Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent, Johann von Goethe.  Growth is the only evidence of life, John Henry Newman. Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution, Johann von Goethe.  A mind that is stretched by new experiences can never go back to its old dimensions, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.  From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow. Aeschylus. Grow in the root of all grace, which is faith. Believe God's promises more firmly than ever. Allow your faith to increase in its fullness, firmness, and simplicity. Charles Spurgeon.  The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit. Moliere.  I grow old learning something new every day. Solon.  The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds. Joseph Addison.  As we grow old, the beauty steals inward. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

My second upload for today is on the Columbus skyline as the sun was starting its journey to a close for the day. This is another of the “my choice” uploads. 

I some times write about things kids ask about. This article comes from the site that I use for that, most of what I have been using is slanted more toward kids than adults. This one seems more toward the adult in us.  The title is “Canines go to college in this class that seeks to give shelter dogs a fresh start.” This is one of a series of “Uncommon Courses .............highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching” that this site covers. The teacher of this course said that as she was growing up the love of animals “led me to volunteer at animal shelters.”After becoming a teacher of psychology she decided to carry on with this urge for caring for shelter animals in another way. Some of what used in the psychology courses about learning could be used in her other interest, training shelter dogs. Some shelter dogs “display” behaviors like “fearfulness, destructiveness and disobedience.” With these problems they become less adoptable. She developed a course to use “behavioral analysis and modification techniques toward the training of shelter dogs.” Along with the normal training “cues,” sit, down, stay and so on there is the exploration of “the emotional, psychological and physiological benefits of the human-animal bond.” They study reducing stress by urging the dogs into “educational and therapeutic environments.” One of the methods is to have the dog sit by them quietly through the students whole lecture. The students also take their assigned dog to the clinical facilities like a mock hospital, with emergency rooms, intensive care rooms, patients rooms, maternity and exam rooms. They sit by wheelchairs and beds as the students are “affectionate and nurturing.” Beyond the one-on-one with a dog the students learn about grants and funding to support the shelters. This course is meant to create “a collaborative and reciprocal partnership between a university and the community.” The students will use their training to work with shelter dogs as well as experience “this knowledge can later be translated to other domains of their lives...... and develop into ethical and responsible citizens.”

There was a luncheon at church after the service so dinner will be on the snack side of things.

Joy

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