Last November my husband noticed lots of wood chips under a large oak in our backyard. Sure enough, a woodpecker had been working hard, digging for bugs in a large branch.. The hole it made was enormous!!           
       A big gust of wind blew down that huge branch last week, the calamity due to its recent run-in with the woodpecker, no doubt. The limb missed the house and the garage. Now it's waiting to be chopped into firewood.       
       I got to thinking about all the trees I’ve known. When we were kids, my sister and brother and I used to play with my grandparent’s tree, Charley. I don’t know what kind of tree Charley was, but he was big and gave us plenty of shade. We fed him squashed berries from one of the shrubs growing near the house. I really liked taking care of Charley. He was a good listener, too.           
       The most beautiful dogwood in the world lived outside a house trailer I lived in early in my first marriage. That tree was majestic. The pink blooms covered every inch of each branch. It took my breath away.                   
       One Fourth of July in my first house we got ready to walk to the main street for the parade. I looked out the window. and found the lawn covered in white, with more white heaped up at the curbs. What?It was July! It was a cottonwood! I was so surprised. Cottonwoods are not among my favorite trees.
        Seems like yesterday when our next-door neighbor’s climbing tree was the perfect hide-away for my ten-year-old daughter. She spent an entire summer in that next-door tree with her books and her solitude.
        And back to the broken tree in my backyard. I’ll have to call someone to have a look inside. I can’t imagine that it is very healthy, what with woodpecker holes and all. That tree fed squirrels. It gave shelter to robins, cardinals, and too many sparrows, starlings and finches to count. It provided hiding places for insects, till last week. Thinking of losing such a venerable and lovely tree fills me with sadness.
       I better walk the yard before it snows again, Maybe the squirrels left an acorn or two laying around. I know I have an old pot and some soil in the garage. Spring will be here soon enough.
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                                                                   --stay curious!

At lunchtime, take a break. Have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich washed down with chocolate milk. This will be your last solid earth food.
From now on it’s all space food, nourishing, flavored glop, squirted through a straw in your space-helmet.
                   from How to Bicycle to the Moon to Plant Sunflowers
                                                           by Mordicai Gerstein

        Re-supplying a space-station must be a tricky business. According to NASA's recent news release, cargo contracts have been awarded to three private companies, guaranteeing six restocking missions for each of the companies. They will also dispose of unneeded cargo, and return research samples and other cargo from the station back to NASA. 
       Kinda like me going to the grocery store and returning home to off load and restock my shelves. Then sorting the unneeded cargo into compost bin, recycle bin or trash. I'm sure I won't be returning to the store with any research recipes I've tried.
       So I'm wondering, who gets to decide if they have chicken-noodle space soup or tomato space soup. Do any of the astronauts have a say about spaghetti or donuts? And toothpaste: gel or regular?
       But seriously, this is a very big deal. When I was young, I remember feeling thunder-struck watching the moon landing. A grainy black and white picture, fuzzy communication and Frank Sinatra crooning "Fly Me to the Moon" off stage. Wonderous!
       My kids grew up thinking flying to the moon was part of life.
       Now my grandkids are little and we have an International Space Station with six brave astronauts from different countries living together. My grandkids will grow up believing that nothing is impossible.
       Dream on!
If you've read this far, you might want to have a look at the NASA website. It is current, easy to use and full of really interesting content!
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
                                                                   --stay curious!                                                     

       All at once the door opened and in came a little man. "Good evening," he said. "Why are you crying so?"
       "Alas!" answered the girl. "I have to spin straw into gold, and I do not know how to do it."                                                                                                                    from Rumpelstiltskin
                                                      adapted by Paul Galdone     
       I might be the only person in the world who did not take Basic Chemistry in High School or college. My understanding of chemistry involves clouds releasing water, yeast working to raise bread dough, and dissolving food color in Cream of Wheat. I’m not sure how those things work or even if they involve chemistry, but I think the yeast in the bread dough does.
       Four new chemical elements were added to the periodic table this past week. As reported on CNN, elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 have formally been recognized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the U.S.-based world authority on chemistry. The organization's announcement means the seventh row of the periodic table is finally complete. Woo-Hoo!
       Imagine, scientists are still making important discoveries. So maybe it really is possible to spin straw into gold. Or at least make something beautiful from raw, ugly matter. Like how coal turns into diamonds with enough heat and pressure, and lots of time. Or how my children and grandchildren are always the most beautiful and the smartest of all my friends. Or how the world is noticeably brighter when I smile, even when it's raining..
       Maybe it’s an attitude thing.                                                                                                                --stay curious!
      
       

Their intricate patterns were even more beautiful than he had imagined. He expected to find whole flakes that were the same, that were copies of each other. But he never did.
                                                                      from Snowflake Bentley
                                                                   by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Considering snowflakes seems at first
as futile as considering stars
or the sprouted leaves of the
forest canopy.

The infinity of stars is the
stuff of dreams
or reality.
 
The vast black canopy is 
cozy safeness
or fear of
something lurking.
 
But
snowflakes are unique in the world
soft, fragile, gone in an instant--
like babies.

I marvel at them all.
                                                                   --stay curious!