Three Poems by Julie

I. Blade of Grass

When the sun rises you will sprout.
First a seed, then green.
You will open your eyes and see
little white flowers
red berries hanging from a bush.
You see a butterfly.
Its eyes are orange.
It has spots on its wings.
They are black, blue, and white.
Below it
you see a cricket.
It chirps for a mate.
A squirrel in a tree –
its ginger-colored hair waves in the wind.

And then your eyes close.

II. East - West

The Sun rises in the East.
It is like a big ball of orange and red fire.
It rises from behind a mountain
like a dragon breathing fire.

The Sun sets in the West.
The dragon stops breathing fire.
The ball of orange and red fire goes out.
Thailand is dark.

III. Ocean

Ocean waters so blue.
And at the bottom lays life, lays love
Lays our feelings, lays us
Lays our hurts, lays our hearts
Lays our souls.
The sands turn silver in the moonlight.

Just Hanging Out

Here's some pictures of us.

More Bugs

Here are more amazing bugs of Thailand. You don't have to look hard for them or anything - they are just everywhere.

Stag Beetle

Tricked Out Spotted Grasshopper
Unbelievably Loud Burrowing Cricket

Beautiful But Dead Beetle

Metallic Greeen Beetle

Halloweeen Moth

This last one was a beauatiful metallic cocoon. We were really excited to find out what it would become (maybe a metallic beetle like the green one? but do beetles grow in cocoons?), but ants drilled into it and ate whatever what inside before it could grow.

You never know what to expect when you go to town

We were in the internet shop checking our email the other day when we got a visit from a baby elephant. He was with two guys and it you gave them 20 baht (75 cents) they gave you sugar cane to feed the elephant. It was kind of sad - it was horrible that these guys had the elephant. I wondered where they got him. But it was also very cool to see a baby elephant so close. You wouldn't expect them to have so may hairs. And the tip of his trunk was like a finger and a mouth, but it was really the tip of his nose. So it was great, but it was also very not great.

Kitty!

On the way to Bangkok last week, we stopped at a 7-11 and got some hot chocolate. Since the cups were too hot, we took two extra cups. But the 7-11 lady took them away and put our cups in plastic bags. When were were driving again, my brother spilled his hot chocolate all over the seat and on him. My mom got angry and told my dad to pull over at the bus stop on the side of the road. She got out of the car to clean up the hot chocolate mess. Just then she saw a tiny, motherless kitten! And we took it!

So now we have Kitty (aka Bus Stop or The Duke). He’s about 4 weeks old. He is brown with black stripes and big ears and buggy eyes. He meowed a lot at first, but now he’s a little listless, or at least lazy. He hangs out in our hut mostly and with us when we do school. We really love our cat.

School

Here's us at school. Our mom's actually a really good teacher and makes fun activites. We read and write every day, and do math and science like biology and plant life, and we talk a lot about different ideas. In our school hut, we have a Literature Timeline, which is a 6 foot piece of bamboo with centuries marked on it. Every time we read a book, we make a marker for the timeline with the name of the book, where it took place and when in time it was. So far we have books from pre-history (Wolf Brother), Ancient Japan (The Cat Who Went to Heaven), 1500's Japan (Vagabond), 1840's America (Tom Sawyer), 1970 Alaska (Julie of the Wolves), and the Future - 2194 (The Ear, The Eye, and the Arm). It's pretty cool.

Clay Zoo

A few weeks ago, we got some clay (7-11 – 20 Baht – about 60 cents). I made some clay animals.

Tiger and Cub


Meerkat

Panda

Orangutan (by Arjuna)

Progress on the Land

Here's some pictures of what's been happening on the land - the 2nd roof is almost done on the training hall, and there's lots of work that's happened in the garden - we've got trellises for long beans and cucumbers, both of which have sprouted. We've got starter trays of sunflower, basil, and salvia, and some watermelon, cabbage, kale, bok choy, parsely, and cilantro. We've also got a flower garden that's providing flowers for daily and weekly puja offerings. More pictures as things start growing...

Moo (which in Thai means pork)

We asked a cow man to bring his cows over to the land to graze. We have too much grass and we use the cow manure in the garden to make the soil better. Here is some of the herd. There were about 20 of them. They all had bells on. When they walked around it sounded like music – like a crazy kind of gamelan.