Category Archives: Uncategorized

Computers developed from mechanical calculating machines. One of the earliest mechanical machines, still used today, is the abacus, a wooden frame with parallel rods on which beads are strung. In 1642, Blaise Pascal, while still a teenager, invented a simple … Continue reading →

Those gunny sacks full of oats were heavy. Gunny sacks are burlap bags woven from jute, hemp, or sisal fiber. Later in life, I encountered the same material in handbags. But for a kid on the farm, gunny sacks were … Continue reading →

Total color blindness is extremely rare. The most common type of color blindness is the inability to distinguish between red and green. Light enters the eye through the cornea, lens, eye fluid, and hits the retina, a meshwork of tightly … Continue reading →

“And other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” Mark 4.8 Oats was the first crop planted in the springtime. The Scheckel family had to “fan … Continue reading →

Bone is one of the tissues in the body that has the ability to mend itself when injured in much the same way as skin and other tissue. Fractured bones go through a natural healing process that includes the growth … Continue reading →

Those data recording Black Boxes are actually painted orange, so that they will show up better in any wreckage. There are usually two of them and they are stored in the tail of the airplane. Stored back there in the … Continue reading →

Each spring the sheep-shearing crew came around. Shearing is a once-a-year process in which all the woolen fleece is removed. Phillip, Bob, and I herded the sheep into an enclosure. Shearing was done in the horse barn because it had … Continue reading →

The first typewriters were made in the mid 1870’s by the Remington Company. Mark Twain was one of the first writers to use one. The standard keyboard (QWERTY) was designed by Christopher Scholes in 1872. Scholes sold his interest to … Continue reading →

Raising sheep was labor intensive because lambing occurred in the spring at the same time we were trying to beat the weather and get a crop of oats in the ground. A number of times, a ewe would not make … Continue reading →

The first Tuesday in November was established as the date for the presidential election of 1848. Zachary Taylor, known as “Old Rough and Ready,” ran as a Whig candidate. He was the last president to own slaves and had a … Continue reading →