My Strawberry!

My strawberry!
Since I have taken The Agriscience in the school, I’ve learned the knowledge about the progress of Agriscience and how to plant a plant. I couldn’t wait to cultivate my own plant. Fortunately, my host mom brought me to Lowe’s, a warehouse for every need of a house. I was expecting to plant strawberry because I through USA is a country where strawberry and cherry (which is very expensive in Taiwan) are cheap and easy to grow. Finally, I found out boxes of strawberry runners and picked up two kinds of strawberry: Tristar and Surecrop.
Replanting the strawberry from the box to regular pots wasn’t a difficult work but you need to handle it carefully. I carefully move my strawberry from the box, separate them and replanted into the pots though I caught cold and felt dizzy that day. Because each box has about 10 strawberry plants crowded in a small area, they didn’t seem to be healthy when I planted it. Physically, they pretty weak then. I separated them into 3 boxes watered them and put in my host mom’s garden room. Supposedly, I could have my first harvest during May.
Everyday, I came back from school and walked into the garden room checking my baby strawberries. Since the first day I check them, they grew awfully fast. Couple days later, they seemed to adjust the new environment completely. A week later, some of them seem to be 3 or 4 inches tall. Now, I have to put them under sun in the most time of the day to prevent they to be too leggy. My host mom taught me how to water them as they need. Too much or too little are not good for them. She took my hand and put on one of her plant. I felt the top soil is really dry and definedly need some water so we water them. To water the strawberry, I need to use the same logic too.
My said she will teach me how to strawberry short cake when I harvest. Normally, strawberry is for eating freshly. Some of friends like to eat strawberry with yogurt and cream or eat with cake. I purely just want to top the strawberry on my daily cereal bowl.
Strawberry is a romantic plants. As my host mom said “ it has the most beautiful flower among the fruit plants.” It is also excited to me cultivate and take care of a plants with love and expect. Day by day, the strawberry grows taller and taller. When will I have Ruby-strawberry?

Puppies!

These days have been cold and windy. Actually, it made me a little homesick because of the weather. I remembered during the winter of Taiwan. We have monsoon from the northeast. The cold air carries water vapor from the sea can really make me feeling cold as it enters my body. While the cold weather was driving me crazy, our family had really good news. Our Joonburg, the blue heeler girl had Puppies!
The afternoon of February 6th, Joonburg had the first puppy that is a boy. Couple hours later, she had another one who is a boy too. Unfortunately, one of the puppies died before it was born but in the late evening, we got another boy. The next day, which was Chinese New Year, we had another one, but again, one of them just fell asleep and never woke up. Totally, we had two puppies. One with big spot on the eye called ”Shiner” and the other one called ”Breezier”. Viva!
We were all excited about the new lives coming. Since 2 and half months ago, weeks. At the start, they just stayed away from each other. When they touched each other, they would just bark and still had not right chemical. After the week, we moved them to the neighbor’s pen to see if they would mate in the different place. Neighbor Tart separate them in the different place and couple days later put them together to see if they would miss each other. Anyway, they didn’t seem like they like each other so we had no choice but gave up.
Two weeks later after she came back home, we found out her belly growing bigger and bigger day by day. We were so happy and looked forward to see what will the puppies look like. There came a question, we didn’t know whose puppies father. Actually, Joonburg had three chances to get pregnant. The first guy was the one who is living in the third paragraph in this article now. The second guy was our little boy Ret Butler, the Pomeranian. We freed him in order to chase the deer away from eating our plants and he was a really naughty boy. He likes to urinate on everything to reasonably declare his territory but he had a strange habit. He liked to smell and even licked on Joonburg buttocks. In fact, we saw him being able to make Joonburg lying down so we didn’t underestimate this boy at all. By the way, another guy was Neighbor’s golden retriever. Once a while, Joonburg unusually sneak out of the property and came back couple hours later. Maybe she was dating with her boyfriend.
Finally, everyone wanted to know whose is it badly. Can you imagine how the mixture of a blue heeler and a Pomeranian look like?
During Joonburg childbirth, our host mom had a touching experience. She saved one of those puppies that are alive. When she found out the second puppy was born, she quickly knew the puppy had problem to live, she was calm and tried to help the puppy. She uses her hand and blew air into puppy’s tiny mouth and pushed his teeny-weeny ribs. I am a student of lifeguard but I never knew how to do CPR for doggie. As I said, it was a state-in-arts ”high technology”. I was happy to see a saved life.
Life is always cherished and holy. I am glad I can sit here and tell you a story today because of my mom and my dad. Maybe somewhere in the future, I will have my own ”puppies (babies)”. I must be a good dad!

The Art Reception in Longwood Center of Visual Art

The Art Reception in Longwood Center of Visual Art
My host mom is a professional artist participates in many kinds of local art program and group. Fortunately, our local university, the Longwood University had established an art center for art exhibition or artist meeting. Every seasons, they have regular reception for the new coming art works. I am glad that I have the pleasure to participate this reception for mind and appetite (Actually I cannot wait!).
After swimming training, Vini and I walked to the Art center. On the way, the beauty of this charming little town came to my eyes. Farmville used to be a downtown for farmers shopping and gathering together. Since 1839, the Longwood College in Farmville has trained thousand of teachers for basic education and higher-level -occupational training personnel. Couple years ago, Longwood changed into the 4-year university with more resource and development. It has also brought the town lots of benefits on living quality and educational source. Obviously, the prize of the real estate has come up really quick. Lots of invest gives the town some public construction like the Art Center. It also makes the town classically elegant.
Although I was really hungry after swimming (the human mind is still operated by food), I was really excited and attracted by the art works. The topic of this season is the African Art From Permanent Collection. Though those little black native African masks were pretty cute but a little bit scary, I still loved the rural African wild atmosphere among that masterpiece.
But, actually the most thing catch my eyes was a assembled sculpture ” The Higgins’s Patent Headache Machine” by Richard C. McClintock. It is consist by several fancy gears in a church-like building. Beside the main machine, there is a little house ironically called “ the sitting house” and an old man with a ball head sitting under a big hammer, which is the end of the machine. When you rotate the handle of the base of the machine, it operates the whole machine and finally gives the man a big strike on his smooth head.
I like the idea and the constructional style and skills of the machine. It makes me laugh because I believe every busy people in this industrial and urbanized society is building his or her own patent headache machine. I hope I can stop build mine. Thank Mr. McClintock. He reminder me the fact that my machine is almost finished.
The gears were really fascinating for me. I took about 30 pictures and videos in every angles of the view of the machine and tried to figure out how it operates. My” special” behavior finally became a part of the artwork. People were interested about why this crazy boy stands around the sculpture for half hour with a camera.
Of course, the emphasis of the reception naturally felt on those delicious foods. On the big table, there were salad, fruit mixed, tacos, pastries, cheesecake, cocktails and chocolate-coated strawberry. Several servers shuttled gently among crowd with plates of beautiful pastries. I cough the moment and took the picture of this server with a big smile. I hanged around among people, artworks and food happily with the relaxed mood. Life is art, isn’t it?

The Outer Bank beach

That was a midnight while I arrived the beach of North Carolina. The tiredness overcame me, through I still help camp staff to unload the car. My eyes dimmed with sleep and my brain covered with impatient. After I carried everything, put them in my room and settle down myself, I realized this is my first time being to the Atlantic Ocean. I, a wild child from my wild island can hardly wait to see the ocean again. I walked outward the door, climbed on the deck of the house. Suddenly, the wind of the Atlantic blew toward me with roar and salt. At midnight, the waves of the ocean were still clear with bright moonlight. 100 yards away from the coast, the waves came slowly but bumped into the sand and made loud eco. Amazing grace!
Actually, I forgot how cold the coast was. Especially in the winter, walked with the wind is very crazy. So? I am a crazy young boy!
Tiredness calmed me down and let me fell asleep with the melody of waves.
The morning of the next morning, I got up before the sun, changed clothes and remembered to put my heavy coat. I couldn’t wait until I saw the dawn of the morning. I walked toward the balcony, open the French window. The wind of the morning gave me a big hug and a big kiss on my forehead. Frozen my tear on eyebrows and shucked my hair like a durian. A great eastern coast style “Buenos Dias”(Spanish good morning). Good enough! I better went into the house.
A few moments later, seagulls came to our balcony. They hovered around 10 feet above my head. The first seagull passed through the roof rapidly but the others flew through the roof relaxed. I could see their beak, tiny eyes, white belly and black tail. Soon, another cool wind hit the bird to other direction. They flew before my eyes and left a M-shaped shadow disappearing in the edge the sea. Standing on the balcony, I watch the seagulls until it was out of sight with happiness. My mom said there is a Native American tradition. If you look a hawk in the position above them and can able to see its back leather, it is a good omen for your health and fortune. Although I didn’t see the hawk, instead of that, a little fortune of a little seagull is good enough for one day.
All day long, the rain fell on the balcony, house and sand. The wave of the sea was still going on. After raining, several strangers dug on the coast and threw the san into the sea and yelled to the sea. An old couple walked on the beach with hand in hand. The man took out a branch from his pocket, draw a heart and wrote,” I love you.” on the soft sands. They took pictures with each other and together, then stepped out of my sight with the big heart left. I liked to watch people, so is the sea, but the sea is more tolerable than everybody.
The night came again. The moonlight spilled everywhere and the night like the day. The reflecting silver sand connected to the silver waves. The night was still cold and wet, but in my dream, there was a paradise called” Outer Bank”, the place with dolphins and pirates.

The Agriscience field trip to local tractor company

Farmville is a little town raised based on Farming industry. Farm is well known as the farming place and the “ Ville” is the meaning of Village in French. Every farmer around here usually bought the agricultural supply and equipment in the downtown. Also, the town itself is a crop distributional center. In the other word, we can say Farmville testify the growth of the farming society in the south side Virginia.
Since the 1944, there has been a tractor company in the downtown serving the farmer around here. Fortunately, we have chance to visit the company and learn more about the agriculture.
This afternoon, we went to the company. In this around 10 acres area, lay about 100 vehicles. Hunting jeeps, Motorcycles and tractors are all brand new and cool. The storekeeper led us pass through the motorcycles and 4-wheels jeep and motorcycles in the store. It is very popular in Virginia to play motorcycle called the “dirt bike”. Although I don’t like this kind of sport at all, those motorcycles are all very cool and fashion to me. Later, we went to the workshop in the company. There parked about 4 giant tractors on the jack. The diameter of the wheel is about 4 feet long. The atmosphere of workshop was full of gasoline odor so I couldn’t breath comfortably.
Although it wasn’t smell good but the workshop was really organized and safe. The storekeeper said that the safety of every employee is the top priority. It is really important. Usually, the basic workers are all college-graduated and well trained. It is not a cheap job in the US.
Also, the storekeeper showed us about the history of the agricultural machines. There were two most important people, one was John Deere who invented steel plow and the other one was Cyrus McCormick who invented reaper. Their inventions graduate developed to the tractor and combine today. Now, the USA doesn’t produce this kind of machine. The foreign corporations own most of companies and the Japan exports the most agricultural equipments. The world changes rapidly, day by day.
After the visiting, I receive a T-shirt as a souvenir. I really got many things in this trip. It let me know and experience more about how important and the agriculture and Agriscience is, even the today’s society.
In the end of the trip, we went to the Dairy Queen as a treat. Of course, the retails are the final result of the whole agricultural process. Eating is simply the answer. This afternoon, I enjoyed the happy day with sweatiness of the Dairy Queen’s Snicker Bizzurd

The Snowy dawn

No more cotton skyline,
No more earth walked toward me,
Though snowflakes falls still.

The morning came without any sunshine, suddenly, the cloud and the earth combined together with slowly rain. It confused me with the same color. The snow. Snow came to us, fell on the roof and landed on the freshly morning grass. As the fairy of winter came, she coated the land with her feather and silver hair. As soon as I opened my eyes, the whole universe came same to me. Like I came to heaven and the endless daydream. Now it comes true.
How Almighty the nature is, changed the usual house, usual tree and flowers and us, the mortal creature into the whole different world.
Irresistibly, I opened the door. There came the wind with a little mist of morning. I whispered” As usual.” But later I walked outward the porch and stepped on the soft and white snow. As in the dream, I felt I couldn’t know where the bottom was. Several steps later, I founded out that I was in the gorgeous winter palace. Snowy sloping driveway led me to the endless white land. As I walked through the trees, the oak branches with snow passed by my face. How frozen the snow is! Later I walked by the path in the garden. The spring was still going on but around the pond there were piled with snow. The pine tree I planted at the Christmas now became the real Christmas tree with real snow on it.
I took many pictures and enjoy the snowing hour and came into the house. In the way to the house, there was a small bush with little scarlet berry on it dressed with little snowballs. It let me a Chinese song” Seek plum flowers by snow”.
Far away, there was bell ringing all over the wood. There came our dog, the Red. Excitedly, he came with snow on his head and escape onto the porch. On the snow, he looked very pleasing and cute. After him, Kitty came to me trembling on the porch. They were both excited about the suddenly snowing.
I rested in garden room. Several birds flew across the house and landed on the birdfeeder for breakfast. Preeminently, there was a red bird stand in the crowd. I remembered my mom gave me a card with the same red bird on it. Soon, I took out the camera and binoculars, assembled them together and attempt to record this touching moment. While I just stepped out of the garden room, the red bird flew away and never came back. The gorgeousness always passes fast.
Afternoon was raining. The rain washed most of the snow or made them stick together. As we look back for the beautiful stuff in the pass, usually, it is gone already.
Cherish the every coming moment in our life!

The swimming team

The Swimming Team
Swimming is always my favorite since I have over came the fear of the water. I feel free like an astronaut when I am floating in the water. I like the water and wave pass through whole of the body. It is the natural massage. Also the speed in the water let me merge with the unexplainable power.
In the Fuqua School, I still keep my swimming skill and practice very hard to enhance my skills and stamina. I have joined our school team, “The Falcons” and the local YMCA swimming team, “The Stingray”. Everyday, I swim around 1 kilometer. It makes me have a regular exercising habit. Sometime, I want to take a challenge so I swim continually for 2 miles or more. I also join a “ Cross the English Channel Swimming Marathon” of the YMCA. I get to swim for 19 miles.
My coach is a patient and experienced teacher. She teaches me how to swim efficiently. I couldn’t do diving couple months ago. After she encouraged me try to jump into the water safely and smoothly, I tried many times to dive but like a cannon ball, I always splash over the place and hurt my belly. As a proverb says” Practice makes perfect”, I practice it everyday. I didn’t if it is because my belly becomes stronger for big crash or my diving skill is really better, I started feel better after diving. Gradually, I Started flying for couple yard and then entered the water. Now, I can accelerate myself since the deck, go into the water with a smooth curve in the air and start paddling after sliding for 25 yard.
The swimming team is like a big family. We have traveled to the other school for meeting. We practice together, laugh together and even sleep together in the activity bus. I made many friends in the team. They are all very good at swimming and friendly to me.
The latest meeting, we went to the Hargrave Military Academy for meeting. That was two hours from our school. On the bus, everybody crowded together and chatted. We arrived the pool and started warm up. The swimming pool has 26 lanes and the deep altitude. When I started swimming, I realized that the water is really powerful to make me floating. Sooner, the meeting started and I would have 4 events. I got to swim 500 yards continually in one event. Because it was the first time I swam in the large pool, I couldn’t realize the environment very well. I didn’t know which lane was mine so I spent lots of time on finding the lane. When I got the right lane, I wore my goggles in rush. While the second I jumped out the deck, suddenly I realized I wore the goggles upside down. Of course the rapid water took my goggles off so I stop in the other side and tried to put it back. I wasted lots of time on that. That was my most funny memory. Swimming is a great way to make your body natural and strong. Anyone can swim and it is not a dangerous activity at all when you go to the right place. To me, swimming is another way to social other people.