Keeping a Book of Centuries
  • welcome
    • About the Book of Centuries
  • in my notebook...
  • One Hundred Days
  • One Hundred Words
  • conversation
    • presentations
  • shop

In My Notebook...

In my Nature Notebook...

4/3/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture

​Cornell says vernal pools are decreasing.  I think about this as I listen to the Spring Peepers and the Wood Frogs. 
0 Comments

In my Nature Notebook...

3/11/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture

The calendar says 10 days more of winter but today it might be time to read the sky instead and reach for a kite.
​

Picture
Welcome, March Artwork: George William Russell
0 Comments

In my Nature Notebook...

4/5/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
Pink Moon over Water, Georgia O'Keefe 1924
  April's full moon is sometimes called the Pink Moon. 
​ Looking for it tonight.
0 Comments

In my Music Notebook...

12/8/2022

0 Comments

 
"Birds, though you long have ceased to build,
guard the nest that must be filled.
Even the hour when wings are frozen
God for fledgling time has chosen.
People look East and sing today:
Love the bird is on the way. "

from "People, look East" hymn for Advent II 
Picture
"If the chickadees coming to the feeder are fluffed fat as tennis balls the temperature is in the low thirties, plenty cold enough for a muffler."  Hal Borland
0 Comments

In my Nature Notebook...

11/8/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
The magnolia leaf fall has made a paper wasp nest visible outside the bathroom window - evidence of a very busy summer.  I learned the queen starts the nest with chewed wood fibers, adding the first layer and laying eggs of the workers who will expand the work. 
0 Comments

In my Nature Notebook...

5/16/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Winslow Homer, "Moonlight, Wood Island Light" Click image for 10 famous moon paintings.
Super Moon, Blood Moon, Flower Moon...wants so much attention it can even interrupt our sleep!
0 Comments

In my Nature Notebook...

2/2/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
"Groundhog Day," Andrew Wyeth
Groundhog Day

"...Early tribesmen credited various animals with the ability to forecast weather. The Egyptians relied on bears.  Early Europeans turned to wolves for prophecies. In England they put their faith in  otters and badgers. Early English colonists in America, never skilled in identification, mistook woodchucks for badgers, which often were called groundhogs in England. The badger was the Candlemas forecaster in England, so the American marmot inherited the prophet's mantle. And just to round out the tangle of identities, the name 'woodchuck' came from the Algonquin wejac, which meant fisher, a cousin of the weasel." Hal Borland
0 Comments

In my Nature Notebook...

11/30/2021

0 Comments

 
Enduring Voices 
(First Week of Advent)

"Now that autumn's silence is upon the land, one can hear the big, enduring voices which seldom shout the things they have to say. One can hear the earth declare that ice, the counterpart of fire, must be reckoned with. One can hear the hills assert their stony structure which forever underlies the soothing green of leaf and shade. One can hear the wind and water discussing polar regions and the fundamental wedge of frost that can level mountains. Listen closely, and one can hear the patient throb of almost suspended life in the root, the bulb, the seed, the egg, waiting for another spring."

​- Hal Borland

0 Comments

In my Nature Notebook...

10/16/2021

2 Comments

 
Picture
Shaker Village Canterbury NH, Photo Laurie Bestvater
"A Man can muster a variety of reasons when he goes for a walk. It's a nice day. He needs the exercise. He hasn't' been out in the park, or the fields, or the woods, for quite a while. He wants a breath of fresh air, needs to stretch his legs.
     Excuses, all of them, and good enough. But they aren't reasons. The reasons are both personal and complicated. How can you explain that you need to know that the trees are still there, and the hills and the sky? Anyone knows they are. How can you say it is time your pulse responded to another rhythm, the rhythm of the day and the season instead of the hour and the minute? No, you cannot explain. So you walk."
  Hal Borland
2 Comments

In my Nature Notebook...

10/5/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Introduced to my first Monkey Puzzle Tree.  Astounding!  I will never not know this one when we meet again.
0 Comments
<<Previous

    "Ideas 
    ​won't keep; something must be done about them."

     ~ Alfred Whitehead

     

    A Charlotte Mason education leads to all kinds of ideas! Join me in keeping one or several of the notebooks she prescribed and discover the Science of Relations and the Art of Mindfulness.

    Picture

    Laurie

    "Perhaps this is one of the secrets of life--to know 'glory' when we see it." 
     ~  Charlotte Mason

    Virtual Life?

    A wee explanation: this website was created as a way to amplify the daily surprise of seeing glory in one small life.  The notebook entries represented here are all selected from things actually lived and noted on paper in an effort to live the full life British educator Charlotte Mason so ably championed.  ​ 

    In Appreciation
    Images are linked to their original posts where possible.  They were chosen because I have found something of value there and hope my readers will likewise find a helpful resource as we explore the philosophy of Charlotte Mason together.  In the case of miss-attribution or if you desire your work not be linked, please let me know.

    Categories

    All
    Book Of Centuries
    Book Of Firsts
    Church Year
    Commonplace
    Copywork
    Enquire Within
    Fortitude Journal
    Gratitude Journal
    Keeping
    Music Notebook
    Nature Notebook
    Notebooks
    Picture File
    Poetry
    Prayer Journal
    Recipes

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • welcome
    • About the Book of Centuries
  • in my notebook...
  • One Hundred Days
  • One Hundred Words
  • conversation
    • presentations
  • shop