By the way side 4 June 2015

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Sally Gerard
Papa Smurf

Papa Smurf

I used to care a great deal about a lot of things I no longer give a thought to, except with some kind of fond nostalgia, an inner smile when I come across them:

 

Smurfs. I had a whole collection of the little plastic characters and was on the look out for more. The tiny blue elf-like critters were set up on various spots atop my bookshelves.

I saved this TV Guide cover for many years.

I saved this TV Guide cover for many years.

 

Baretta hats. I lived in mine, even though it wasn’t exactly like his.I’m not sure when I gave it up and quit caring. I still have a fondness for that Robert Blake character. I had this same kind of focus on Starsky and Hutch. I had S & H puzzles, board game, books-I never missed an episode, and I had both of David (Hutch) Soul’s albums. I still do.

IMG_3416I don’t really collect things anymore; I’m not a fan of stuff, especially if it has to be dusted.  I do have books, but not near as many as I did five years ago. I do cherish IMG_3414having my mother’s fine china and the little blue and gold IMG_3411Czech dishes from my grandfather’s house, and one of the Hummel’s that sat on the built-in nick-knack shelf in the  dining room part of our living room. What I love most about having these few things is thinking about the family I love who handled them, especially my mother, and the family I’ve never met who cherished them. When I hold them, it brings that family alive to me.

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Qualities 1 June 2015

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Sally Gerard

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What are the qualities that make overcoming obstacles and achieving possible? You have to have perseverance, to be able to doggedly stick to your goals no matter what people say and no matter what falls in front of you on the path. You have to stay focused and when you discover that you’ve wandered off your trail, be willing to drag yourself back on, one step at a time.

Once you figure out what has to be done, then plan it out and do it. Don’t let pressure from others sway you and be sure to reward yourself along the way. It also helps to divest yourself of any crusty attitudes- fixating on things that you have no control over. Getting rid of all those “what-ifs” thoughts that trample around in your head.IMG_3304

Of course it helps, if you have a good pot of hot coffee to ease your way down the narrow road- I think it helps with the focus too. Just like that bird up in shed rafters-she kept an eye on our as we moved the old sheets of aluminum out of the way, but she remained on those eggs with dogged determination.

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belonging to tomorrow 29 May 2015

Posted on May 29, 2015 by Sally Gerard

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I was thinking about procrastination and found that the origin of the word is something like pro, meaning forward and then crastinus, meaning belonging to tomorrow. So it’s like forward to tomorrow. It doesn’t sound so bad when you think about it that way. Of course sometimes it gets forwarded for several days and then it’s like one of those email forwards that you have to scroll down for fourteen forevers to find the message! Not that I am in a state of forwarding to tomorrow, but life keeps getting in the way of my ultimate summer plan: run, coffee, write.

The run comes easily and early and I enjoy it even when I feel clunky. I like the voice of my Fitbit App that tells me the average time for each mile as I go. I listen to books and the Scottish bent of this latest novel has the accent stuck in my head. But then, the universe conspires, or so it seems at the time, to wreak havoc on my routine. I have my Fitbit band on when I run, but during the day, I slip the little black shape into my pocket because the band bothers me-the Bit is a Flex, but the band doesn’t. Flex. IMG_3295

In a parking lot last night, I pulled my key out and inadvertently pulled the Fitbit too, but I didn’t notice it missing until fifty-four miles later when I got home. There would a very slim chance of ever finding it in a dirt lot full of mud holes and constant cattle truck traffic. I had to steel myself to run without it this morning; I’ve only had it for a few months, but I’ve grown fond of it. It was okay though, I had my Scottish brogue. I slipped on my headphones and hit the road…”You have reached the end of this Audible recording. We hope you have enjoyed…” Seriously! I’d finished the book in two lines, so no Fitbit, no book. Ugh. It was still a good run.

My new plan is to get a new start on my new plan Monday. Run, coffee, write.

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Summer 26 May 2015

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Sally Gerard

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The sky has been the most amazing color of brilliant blue today, with big huge puffy white clouds, their bellies painted silver. Sunday we had a gully washer with hail. It stripped most of my choke cherries and crab apples and did some damage to the wheat. But today was so incredibly beautiful.

Because it was such a rainy weekend, we set out early Saturday morning to pick up single stem roses and to visit and remember the graves of those who came before us. It is a solemn kind of vigil, but one that I have such respect for; it means a great deal to me to call to mind family and friends.

Moving heifers and adding the bulls to the mix took up most of the day.IMG_3290 Everyone is settling in and soon we’ll have baby mammas wandering the pastures! The yearling bulls aren’t much bigger than these young heifers; it’s funny to watch them interact.

Our cold fall was so hard on the fruit trees, so today we replaced the five cherry trees we lost with three cherry trees designed for Canada, a plum and peach for the same cold region, and one blueberry that I added into the mix in hopes of something to put on morning cereal!

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Finals 21 May 2015

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Sally Gerard

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I gave my first final yesterday and I’ll give one today and one tomorrow. My freshmen are reading their narrative quests and their mentor letters out loud to satisfy our oral communication standard. They aren’t nervous because they’ve been sharing their writing everyday since the first day of school. It is always fun to hear them read their own work as they pause momentarily catching an error or because they’re caught up in the story and a smile grabs onto lips or a sadness crosses their threshold. They remind me, sometimes, of my horses- clearly sending out information to each other without speaking.

When we wrote our last entries in our writer’s notebooks, in class anyway, two days ago, one student was reading his work and went on about how he’d be watching good shows on TV, listening to good music, and hanging out a lot. In an effort to suggest that he be a bit more detailed in his summer plans, I said, “Oh, so you’ll be watching that antique tractor show on RFDTV, blasting out the John Denver and going to places like the IMG_3261Windmill State Park in Gibbon, Nebraska? Me too!” They all groaned but the point was made. His narrative quest detailed his journey through his first full day of school-from his mom gently waking him and getting him to school to finding his name on his own desk to his teacher leading his new class on a tour of the school and his relief to get back to his desk because his name was something he knew. The letter he wrote to that first teacher was comical and also disconsolate as he recalled how wonderful nap time was and how much he missed the dark quiet of mats on the floor after lunch.

My prayers this week have been for all of my students, in brick and mortar and online, for the long summer and their ability to capture some adventure, for their safety, for their longing to belong, for their families and their travels, and yes, for their writing.

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Simple Thanks 19 May 2015

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Sally Gerard

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We’ve written the final versions of our own hero narratives. Yesterday, I asked my students to think about those mentors and helpers who guided them along the path of that particular journey and to compose a letter to that mentor. I wanted them to thank that person and to describe all the ways that person helped them and to tell their mentor what they learned from them.

As always, once I shared my own process and letter-constructing it in front of them, off they went! There was a wide variety of mentors too: coaches, friends, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, and one wrote to God. IMG_3271I’ve read all the drafts of their hero narrative and now all of their mentor letters-their words make me laugh and cry. During the actual final period, they will read a portion of their narrative to the class along with their mentor letter and this will satisfy our oral presentation standard. I cannot wait to hear the telling of these stories from their own voices.

This time of year is always difficult for me. I have such hope that they will continue to write and to cherish the writer’s notebook they’ve composed during this short time with me. I cherish all of mine. I know they’ll say hello to me in the halls next year, and many of them will eat their lunch in my room just as last year’s freshman are doing this year, but I want them to remain in my little sheltered writing space. I’ll just have to continue to pray that they find their own.

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Onward 15 May 2015

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Sally Gerard

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This day was born under such a beautiful rising of the sun. A burst of light from behind the clouds shone on the tractor by the barn and I felt the pull of the tractor, waiting with its one-way disc plow, to get into the field and work! Still too wet. While I’m off to my youngest son’s graduation at Hastings College today, my students are continuing their work with their hero narratives.

Completing our rough drafts, we diagrammed them with highlighters. IMG_3232We were looking for excellent description, sensory detail, realistic dialogue, and the details of setting. Once we’d highlighted in different colors for those items, we began revision-seeing in full color what was lacking. We’d already discussed what we liked about our favorite authors and novels and it came down to those four things.

I’ve never used this method before, but I will use it again. Some students could find nothing to highlight and so had a much work to do! Some found this to be very helpful, and following my example done on the projected in front of them, they made all kinds of notes as they highlighted. These notes to themselves served to make revising much easier as they knew exactly what needed to be changed. This has been an awesome addition to the mono-myth study and I’m sure I’ll do it again with a few tweakings.

IMG_3233Teachers are always dreading phone calls from parents; the one I had this week touched me deeply. She wanted me to know that her son had never talked about this very personal family story before he decided to write about it for this assignment. She told me that it meant healing for him and she was so thankful, but wanted me to know how difficult it had been both for him to have written and to have shared it with her. That makes it all worthwhile.

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13 May 2015

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Sally Gerard

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Yesterday we wrote about what we’d do on our first day of summer, that being the first day we don’t have to wake up and go to school. You know most of the responses including sleeping in for much of that first morning free of alarm clock or parents coming in to rouse groggy students from their beds.

Each day, we take turns sharing the writing we do as soon as the bell rings the start of class, and I was in the row to share that first day of summer writing. I wrote something like, “Summer Day One: I will wake up like usual and go for my run. When I return, I will not need to get ready and drive 54 miles to school. Instead, I’m going to take a pot of coffee and some kind of roll (hopefully cinnamon) with me to the barn loft and write to my heart’s content. Around noon or so, I’ll head back to the house IMG_3209and do my online work. I’ll go back to the loft with, yes, more coffee, and write until my hand can’t take it anymore. Then, I’ll saddle Indian and ride for a while in the late afternoon/early evening. After that, I think popcorn and movie will be in order, and, if I’m feeling really wild, I might have an RC Cola.”

My students laughed and said, “No one does that on their first day of summer, Ms. G.” I thought about that and then told them that the chances are I really would make that my first day of summer because I’d written it down. When I write things down, they tend to materialize much more readily than when I don’t. I really hope they think about that and go back and write down the things they want to do this summer that don’t involve sleeping it away. I have much to do and I don’t want to waste one minute!

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Wind and Snow 11 May 2015

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Sally Gerard

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What an awesome weekend. The snow moved in after the rain of the last several days, early Sunday morning. We woke to ferocious wind and that wet, heavy snow of spring. It was just enough to make a mess and, except the ditches, was gone by afternoon. Others in Colorado did not fare so well with flooding and, in some spots, twenty inches of snow or more. We had this same weather on Mother’s Day last year, but we’d been able to get into the field before that storm. Not so this time.

The jury is still out on what kind of damage was done by the two nights of temperatures IMG_3203below freezing…I’m hopeful for our fruit trees and for little damage to emerging wheat heads. We did get a little nuts, inside for so long. But, there is fresh sour dough bread, chocolate zucchini cake and a batch of paleo pancakes! The time was a gift. Thanks be unto God.

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Call to Adventure 7 May 2015

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Sally Gerard

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We continue on our own narrative quest/hero’s journey. My students have chosen various parts of their lives to write about: home burglaries, first day of school, first music tour, and some have simply sketched their life up to now. I chose to write the adventure of moving to Colorado after my first year of college at UNL in Nebraska when I was hired as a riding staff member at a girl scout camp in the mountains of Allenspark. This move took me on a long journey of mountain summers with horses and campers, both youth and adults. I loved every minute of that almost thirty year adventure!

After completing our maps, we began to draft yesterday and will continue today and IMG_3195tomorrow- just, as I tell them, “to vomit out everything we want to be sure to say” and then we’ll go back in to revise and finesse. I’m trying something new with them, because they have a very difficult time giving good feedback to each other on writing. Once we have the drafts, we’ll take highlighters to them and “diagram” different elements that we’ve discovered make good stories. Our list so far: realistic dialogue, amazing description of setting, sensory detail-we joke about how we know it’s good when we want to eat the page after a good description of food, and several other items.

IMG_3196They don’t realize how much they have to offer with their stories. Even as I sit among them, writing my own story, I can’t help but stop when it’s quiet to look around and smile because they are bent over a Chrome book or their paper and they are writing! They are so engaged in their own story. This was not the case during Romeo & Juliet. 🙂 When they write about their own lives, my classroom is so quiet and I can feel the energy of a roomful of writers. It’s incredible.IMG_3197

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