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I hope ya'll are reading Amy Scott's How We Did It series. The nitty gritty of how the Scotts made their way to a 54 acre farm is intriguing.

Today, she remarked that they began married life with $318 a week. I just figured it out and we began our married life with $220 a week. That's a bit of a consolation when I wonder where my farm is. I keep asking for some chickens, but the suburbs are not the place to hear crowing at 4am. Besides, I'm not too sure I could manage the killing. Or the plucking. Or eating for dinner a chicken I'd known. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd fail at farmwifery.

I think I'll just continue to live my farm life vicariously through Amy's Farm Updates.

Reading this along with S; it's his literature selection right now. A slim, yet very deep book. Not just for little kids. Links for The Little Prince.

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Along with D for her literature, I'm reading The Epic of Gilgamesh at my Wiki. I wanted an online version I could edit for a twelvethirteen-year-old to read, but Susan Wise Bauer, in The Well-Educated Mind, recommends this one:

Here are some Gilgamesh links.

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On my own, I'm reading the third in the James Herriot series.

I had books 1, 2, and 4, but couldn't finish the series without 3. I recently got it free from PaperBackSwap and am now very happy to be back in the Yorkshire dales.

Right before the new school year started, I discovered pbwiki and I am so happy with it. This free wiki is just what I needed to consolidate the information I use for school. I've been adding the online helps that I normally print out, so this wiki helps cut down on the paper I use for homeschooling. Saves money and trees. It makes it easier for the kids, too, to be able to go to one page for a topic instead of combing through my links at My Del.icio.us.

Another use for this wiki is editing information. D is going to read Gilgamesh and I've put it on the wiki and am editing out the parts that are not for children.  Also, sometimes I find great information on a site, but the site isn't for young eyes. The wiki enables me to select and use the wheat and leave the chaff behind.

An additional reason I like the wiki is that it enables me to hyperlink text. I've hyperlinked new words in Carl Sandburg's poetry and hyperlinked people, places, and events in Anne White's Titus Flamininus study guide.

Here's the link to my wiki, but be forewarned: it is a cobbled mess right now and is copied and pasted from other sites. I've tried to acknowledge where info came from, but I've had lots of stuff saved in Microsoft Word for a while. Since this is for my personal use, I only feel a little bad if I've missed an acknowledgement. I'm trying to be more careful about linking to original sites and giving appropriate credit, though.

You can get your own wiki here.

I know I didn't say anything about the recent events in Georgia. So many did and I felt it unnecessary to chime in as well. However, I hope you are all keeping one eye on the Ukraine. This post from the Gates of Vienna blog tells why:

"The passports are issued by the Russian consulate in Sevastopol in the Crimea, in Ukraine. The country has around fifty million inhabitants of which ten million are ethnic Russians."

You get that? Russia is giving passports to ethnically Russian Ukrainian citizens. They did the same thing in Georgia. Keep watching people; a storm's a-brewing.

By the way, if you're interested in world news, especially the doings of Muslim extremists around the world, you really must read the Gates of Vienna blog. The blog's heading statement says it all:

"At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe. We are in a new phase of a very old war."

Lovers of history will want to read more on the 1683 Seige and subsequent Battle of Vienna. Food lovers will be interested in the culinary legends surrounding the 1683 battle. Supposedly, Europe was blessed not only with victory, but also croissants, coffee, and bagels.

Looks like Gustav is heading to Louisiana. Bobby Jindal, do us proud. I'd feel a lot better, though, if Ray Nagin, the King of "Chocolate City", wasn't still running the show in New Orleans. I'm praying for all ya'll in the Gulf, including my favorite Cajun blogger. I've also got one eye on Hanna.

When hurricanes come, I always think of the Breton fisherman's prayer I read in my childhood:

Dear God, be good to me;
The sea is so wide,
And my boat is so small.