Day 19: Popcorn Pops

Friday and Saturday nights mean staying up a little later in our house.  We grab handfuls of popcorn and enjoy the feeling of a less scheduled next day. 

Our next farm kid story involves twin boys with fraggle-rock hair researching information about popcorn while preparing a batch on the stovetop.   

 

In the quest of discovering why mom keeps popcorn kernels in the fridge, the boy with glasses decides to “go look it up” in a book.  While he reads aloud popcorn facts, his brother warms oil in a pan and pops popcorn.  He perhaps places too many kernels in that pan by the end of the story.  POP!

 

“Popcorn pops because the heart of the kernel is moist and pulpy and surrounded by a hard starch shell. When the kernel is heated, the moisture turns to steam and the heart gets bigger until the shell bursts with a ‘pop.’”

 

The author draws cartoon characters and includes their popcorn research findings in conversation boxes.  The page that describes an Indian legend where a demon lives inside each kernel of popcorn shows a jumpy, angry man in different temperature stages.

I remember making popcorn at home as a child with a stovetop hand-crank popper.  I used my index finger to spin the crank on the orange lid, and the crank swirled the kernels inside the pan. 

 

I used my other hand to grip the long red handle, which my mom told me this week was “married” to the popper when the original orange handle fell off one day.  It’s vintage.  It’s charming.  And it makes great popcorn. 

No microwave popcorn for us tonight.  We can make it the real way.   And if one of our hands is reaching for the popcorn bowl, we have room for a good children’s book in the other.

What is your favorite weekend night snack?

Lauren

Lauren

My Library List:
Preview Day: 30 Days of Farm Kid Stories
Day 1: One Moment
Day 2: Perfect Pizza
Day 3: Our Heartland
Day 4: Pasta Fistful
Day 5: One Fast Grower
Day 6: Farmer Seuss
Day 7: Just One Cookie?
Day 8: Frowns Turn into Smiles
Day 9: BOO-HA
Day 10: Big Red Barn
Day 11: Magic with Vegetables
Day 12: Call to Action
Day 13: BOOM
Day 14: Ponies and Cowboys
Day 15: Value to our Trees
Day 16: Tractor Time
Day 17: Wishing for a Washing
Day 18: United Tweets

Our blogging host Holly Spangler writes “30 Days on a Prairie Farm” this month on her blog: My Generation.

Day 18: United Tweets

I didn’t plan on picking favorites this month.  It just happens.  I have to say this next farm kid story is really good: United Tweets of America: 50 State Birds.

 

Author Hudson Talbott writes a story about state birds competing in a pageant of sorts.  Each page labels the state bird, as well as other state facts including: mottos, flowers and capitals.

 

State birds on opposing book pages exchange dialogue such as singing contest appearing on the Montana and Nebraska pages, which are both diva Western Meadowlarks. Actually seven states choose the Northern Cardinal as their state bird, and I enjoy how the author ties this into the book.

 

If you love the musical Oklahoma, check out the Oklahoma page (ok, duh moment) for a show-time singing Scissortail Flycatcher.  Cultural references such as the Mississippi Mockingbird dressed as “The King” brings humor adults can appreciate. “Thankyouverymuch.”

Next door on the Missouri page a flapping male bluebird says: “…and baby, I’m gonna make you a nest that will be the Taj Mahal of birds’ nests!”  To which the cool-eyed female bluebird says “Oh yeah? Show me.”

Show me?  Get it???  Think Missouri state motto here.     

The illustrations throughout this book display details of state facts in creative ways.  The multiple perched Purple Finches on the New Hampshire page overall create the shape of a large bird of the same variety.  I could write pages about this book.

That is what a good book can do: Inspire you.

(Inspire me to continue writing another 12 posts, hopefully. We are on the homestretch, blogging folks!)

What are your favorite bird books?

Lauren

My Library List:
Preview Day: 30 Days of Farm Kid Stories
Day 1: One Moment
Day 2: Perfect Pizza
Day 3: Our Heartland
Day 4: Pasta Fistful
Day 5: One Fast Grower
Day 6: Farmer Seuss
Day 7: Just One Cookie?
Day 8: Frowns Turn into Smiles
Day 9: BOO-HA
Day 10: Big Red Barn
Day 11: Magic with Vegetables
Day 12: Call to Action
Day 13: BOOM
Day 14: Ponies and Cowboys
Day 15: Value to our Trees
Day 16: Tractor Time
Day 17: Wishing for a Washing

Our blogging host Holly Spangler writes “30 Days on a Prairie Farm” this month on her blog: My Generation.

Day 1: One Moment

Day 1 of "30 Days of Farm Kid Stories"

I’ve been repeating “One Moment.”  

“ONE Moment” I say holding up my pointer finger and stressing the first word.  I’m attempting to convey the subject of patience to a 2 year old. 

No wailing, G.  Please.  I will help you. I will get you what you need (probably.)  But I’m not going to race.  

I want to help G learn.  I think it’s working.  G responds to my “One Moment” these days with his own sincere “One Moe Moe.”

I’m a momma who desires to raise a child….who will change the world.  

The WORLD?  Yes, really.  I just read Andy Andrews book, The Boy Who Changed the World and I feel inspired.

The book is an interconnected story with a simple message: “little things can make a big difference. Everything we do matters.  Every action you take, even small things, can change the world.”

The author writes about Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug who saves the lives of more than two billion people by developing high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties… or as Andrews calls it “super seeds.”    Several lives are connected in this story to create a butterfly ripple effect. 

Book illustrator, Philip Hurst, captures the beauty of light sources. When characters Henry and George go on expeditions in the countryside the pages show a tree backlit by a warm afternoon sun.  Hurst captures the blinding light that peaks between tree branches so well, I literally squint my eyes looking at the page. 

Color blending directs me to the details on the pages:  the emotions, the story characters. Complementary colors splash on rippled water color-like paper.  Reds paired with deep greens. Teal blues friended with oranges.

Andrews is not a new author to our bookcase.  I’ve read The Traveler’s Gift book, and I’ve listened to his own words while at a work conference where he was the motivational speaker. 

Motivated?  Yes I am today. It’s time for G’s bath time and a good book at bedtime.  What are you reading tonight?

Lauren

My Library List:

Preview Day: 30 Days of Farm Kid Stories
Day 1: One Moment
Day 2: Perfect Pizza
Day 3: Our Heartland
Day 4: Pasta Fistful
Day 5: One Fast Grower
Day 6: Farmer Seuss
Day 7: Just One Cookie?
Day 8: Frowns Turn into Smiles
Day 9: BOO-HA
Day 10: Big Red Barn
Day 11: Magic with Vegetables
Day 12: Call to Action
Day 13: BOOM
Day 14: Ponies and Cowboys
Day 15: Value to our Trees
Day 16: Tractor Time
Day 17: Wishing for a Washing
Day 18: United Tweets
Day 19: Popcorn Pops
Day 20: Busy Places
Day 21: Peas Please
Day 22: Thankful

Our blogging host Holly Spangler writes  “30 Days on a Prairie Farm” this month on her blog: My Generation.  

It’s a group party, of sorts!  Please join fellow bloggers as they tell their agricultural stories:

Beyer Beware: 30 Days, 30 Things You Never Knew About Food
Black Ink: Beef’s a Trip – 30 Days from Gate to Plate
Confessions of a Farm Wife: Life on Our Farm
Go Beyond the Barn: 30 Days of Farm Life Blessings
Kelly McCormick Photography: 30 Days of Thankfulness
Le Jardin da ma Vie: 30 Reasons Why I Love Being a Farmer’s Wife
Pinke Post: 30 Days of North Dakota November
Rural Route 2: 30 Days of the Not-So-Glamorous Life of This Farm Wife

30 Days of Farm Kid Stories

Please join me this November for my series called:  30 days of “Farm Kid Stories.”  That’s right.  One post each day about my chosen topic: Farm kid stories.  A challenge for me… for sure.  I love deadlines.

Please also join Prairie Farmer’s Holly Spangler for her 30 day series of “Agricultural Something.”  I can’t wait to read what her subject will be this year.  For the past two years, Holly has picked a farm-related topic and wrote about it every day for the month of November.  This year she extends a warm invite to other bloggers.

And, I’m in this year.

Why do I blog?

• I feel like a momma rock star when I read to my son, G.   
• I record memories when I write about our adventures in reading.
• Finding the “funny” in parenting puts life into perspective.

Farm families could fill bookshelves full of agricultural stories.  It’s a library membership I would want. Please stop by my blog (often) this month and read my farm kid story of the day.

Lauren   

P.S. I send a big Thank You to my county farm bureau office and local libraries who let me borrow books to review.  30 books to be exact.


My Library List:
Preview Day: 30 Days of Farm Kid Stories
Day 1: One Moment
Day 2: Perfect Pizza
Day 3: Our Heartland
Day 4: Pasta Fistful
Day 5: One Fast Grower
Day 6: Farmer Seuss
Day 7: Just One Cookie?
Day 8: Frowns Turn into Smiles
Day 9: BOO-HA
Day 10: Big Red Barn
Day 11: Magic with Vegetables
Day 12: Call to Action
Day 13: BOOM
Day 14: Ponies and Cowboys
Day 15: Value to our Trees
Day 16: Tractor Time
Day 17: Wishing for a Washing
Day 18: United Tweets
Day 19: Popcorn Pops
Day 20: Busy Places
Day 21: Peas Please
Day 22: Thankful






Our blogging host Holly Spangler writes  “30 Days on a Prairie Farm” this month on her blog: My Generation.  

It’s a group party, of sorts!  Please join fellow bloggers as they tell their agricultural stories:

Beyer Beware: 30 Days, 30 Things You Never Knew About Food
Black Ink: Beef’s a Trip – 30 Days from Gate to Plate
Confessions of a Farm Wife: Life on Our Farm
Go Beyond the Barn: 30 Days of Farm Life Blessings
Kelly McCormick Photography: 30 Days of Thankfulness
Le Jardin da ma Vie: 30 Reasons Why I Love Being a Farmer’s Wife
Pinke Post: 30 Days of North Dakota November
Rural Route 2: 30 Days of the Not-So-Glamorous Life of This Farm Wife

  

Sleep the Olympic Event

I don’t like to “talk sleep” with other moms.  Sleep is sacred.  I love sleep. I miss it. When we go a week sleeping through the night, I forget what it’s like to wake with bright stars in the sky. 

I think we all do:  displace the memory of sleepless nights and do a happy dance when baby doesn’t “beat the alarm”. Lately G does sleep, meaning wakes up once or twice a night.  Getting him to go to bed is a bit harder. Most nights it’s an Olympic event of reading, bouncing, and finally tucking in for the evening.  Except instead of cheering from the stands, I growl “Go to bed G.”

G sleeps in his own “big boy” bed these days:  A short, twin bed squeezed into the corner of his room with a crib sized mattress on the floor to catch him if he rolls off (or feels like jumping like a kangaroo) So far this is working out… and with a recent addition of a side table and lamp this makes the perfect bedtime story area. 

Lately G really likes Eric Carle’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Slide and Find.  He actually wants to sleep with this book, but the problem is….. it’s not exactly snug-able.

This read is a hunk.  A hefty board book that I believe will someday give me a small injury.  Momma at eye level, little guy holds book and swings arms without looking. If ordering this book online, consider dropping a box of Band-Aids in your shopping cart.   

G loves to open the slide windows to look what each animal will see.  Brown Bear. Red Bird. Yellow Duck.

Pages 10-11 give G great frustration. “Augh Augh Augh.” G points to the blank right-hand bottom  corners and shakes his head.  No slide to move on these pages. Let’s write a letter to author Carle to let him know of his great mistake. 

Thinking back to my last blog post “G’s list of Ag Books”… I have 10 books on my list, and my goal is 50.  If you comment on my page giving me a book suggestion, I’ll enter your name into a drawing to receive one of the books on the final list. 

I just choose the prize:  How Did That Get in My Lunchbox?: The Story of Food by Christine Butterworth.  The vintage artwork on the front cover makes me want to read what’s inside…. right now.  This book recently won The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture’s Book of the Year 2012.

When I get to 50 books, G will draw a winner, and I’ll mail you this book.  Sound good?

Here we go:

Seed, Soil, Sun by Cris Peterson
Grades:  1-3

Amazing Grazing by Cris Peterson
Grades: 4-6

Farms Feed the World by Lee Sullivan Hill
Grades: K-3

Kids Gardening; A Kids’ Guide to Messing Around in the Dirt by Kevin Raftery
Grades: K-3

Life on a Crop Farm by Judy Wolfman
Grades: K-3

Portrait of a Farm Family by Raymond Bial
Grades: 4-6

How Did That Get in My Lunchbox?: The Story of Food by Christine Butterworth
Grades: K-3

I pulled the above books from a couple of neat websites: National Agriculture in the Classroom's national resourse directory and Boys Mills Press website and the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture.

Since I haven’t read most of the books on my list, I decide to request several through a local inter-library system.  Although our local library is fantastic, it is small. The library network proves useful: I can get my hands on books from area libraries in about 3 days. 

I go online to a website, search for a book, and with a click I send my request for a loan. My favorite phone call lately is from librarian Pat saying:  “Your book is here at the library.  We are open until 7 tonight.”

When talking to a mom of a newborn or a teething child, I try not to ask how the sleep thing is going.  I really should just offer her a cold Mountain Dew. I think the reason I avoid discussing sleep is because it’s unique per child, and it’s personal.  Maybe I’m just a bear without my 8 hours of snooze time.

Speaking of sleep, it’s time for the bedtime event.  We are going for the gold tonight (bedtime in less than 30 minutes). 

Do you have a children’s agricultural book you would like to read?  Please give me a suggestion for the list!

G's list of Ag Books

I enjoy making lists. Then I quickly lose them.  I painstakingly print grocery lists on bright post it notes, arrive at the grocery store and promptly need to “wing it”.  No note can be found.  I end up at home with five cans of French onion soup I didn’t need. (true story)

Part of why I like lists is the marking off.  The quick slash through an item feels good. 

Surely I can’t lose a list posted online.  So here it goes

My list of books to read to G in the future:  Topic Agriculture

1. Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown
2. Fantastic Farm Machines by Cris Peterson
3. Oh Say Can You Seed?: All About Flowering Plants (Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library) by Bonnie Worth.  
4. Who Grew My Soup? By Tom Darbyshire and C. F. Payne
5. Cattle Kids: A Year on the Western Range by Cat Urbigkit
6. Corn by Gail Gibbons
7. Farming by Gail Gibbons
8. Extra Cheese, Please!: Mozzarella’s Journey from Cow to Pizza by Cris Peterson
9. Tops & Bottoms by Janet Stevens
10. The Cow that Went Oink by Bernard Most

I gathered ideas from a couple of cool sources. A blog called Small Nebraska Farming: The Smaller Guy You Don't See shared a fun post called Top Books for Farm Kids. Also Minnesota's Agriculture in the Classroom lists a children's literacy book bundle with fantastic reads. 

Although I love books that feature farm animals such as Click, Clack, Moo by Doreen Cronin, the portrayal of a farmer feels somewhat cliche.  Do all farmers wear a straw hat, bib overalls and a scowl on their face? I suppose if playing Pictionary and my topic was television, I would definitely draw an old box TV with two V-shaped antennas (not a flat screen) Nostalgic image… I get it. 

If I ever became an author of a children’s farm book, my main character will sport dirt-covered, holes-in-the knee blue jeans, college T-shirt, and seed corn hat with red Gatorade in hand.  Just saying. 

A recent video on You Tube called “Farm It Maybe” parody to "Call Me Maybe"  displays a young farmer doing what he loves: working on a dairy farm.  My favorite verse of his song: 

"Yeah, I'm a Farm Boy

And here's my Holstein

It's just a heifer

It has no baby"

Great job representing agriculture in a fun and educational way littlefred2008!

Let’s go back to my list.  It’s only 10 books long, and my goal is 50.  I need some help here.  What’s your favorite ag-related kids’ book?  

I’ll keep adding books to my list… and when we get to #50 there will be a prize involved (meaning G will get a new book for his library… and so will someone else).  Stay tuned!

Lauren