Agricultural Products Identification Contest

Recently, my siblings and I went to the Heart of Texas fair to participate in Ag Id. Ag Id stands for Agricultural Products Identification Contest which is a contest where youth go to different stations and have  to identify a produce item and answer a question about the item. Station 9 had a picture of grapes and asked which of this product is not a variety grown in Texas? The answer was Edelweiss so you would bubble in D. on your scantron. It sounds easy at first, but you have to study a long list of products and facts about each one. Also there is a lot of competition; we were competing against 45 other teams. The team that I led won 1st place senior team, my sister placed third place high point individual, and I placed high point senior individual and a scholership as well.

Texas Waterfowl Brigade

A few weeks ago, I attended the third battalion of the Texas Waterfowl Brigade. The Texas Brigades is  a four and a half  day camp where you learn almost everything you need to know about five different topics. Those topics are Buckskin Brigade (deer), Bass Brigade (Bass), Bobwhite Brigade (quail), Ranch Brigade (cattle), and the Waterfowl Brigade(ducks and geese).

This building is where the cadets slept.

The stomach/gizzard contents of a duck

The first day that I was at camp I took my hunter's education quiz and attended a short orientation. We also broke up into flocks. Then I participated in a get to know each other activity, which was very fun. After that we went outside and took a quiz on ducks, wetlands, feather types, hunting laws, plant species and much more tricky information that I did not know about. If I was scored on the test, I would not have passed. Luckily for me though, that test was just to show how much you didn't know and at the end of the camp you would retake the quiz to show how much knowledge you gained.

After that, each flock went out on the porch and performed necropsies on ducks. The importance of this was to study the duck's anatomy, learn what they ate, and their age. The duck that my flock and I worked with had been eating seeds, millet, and small pebbles. Other ducks had eaten corn, peanuts,and fish. The purpose of knowing what they eat is so that we know how to attract them and how to help them survive. After that each flock took turns visiting different stations. One station talked more about duck anatomy,one about duck breeds, one about wing identification, and so on. My favorite station was when we got to learn  about the bones and skeletons of ducks. After that, we listened to a few presentations inside and ate dinner. After we ate, we cleaned up, and went outside to participate in team building activites. After that we listened to
another talk, and went to bed.

Even though the Waterfowl Brigade was only four and a half days long, it covered too much information to explain day by day. Instead I have posted more of a summary of what I did on my 1st day at the camp. If you are interested in attending any of the Brigades you can go to their website at http://www.texasbrigades.org/  

I would highly recommend this camp to anyone who enjoys nature, animals, biology, ecology, watefrowl, public speaking, or hunting.

Colton, my assistant flock leader and I. 

Being mocked interviewed for media practice.

Free Rice

In this post, I am going to tell you how you can feed hungry people and supply people with a daily meal, all while learning and improving your grades. All you have to do is go to freerice.com. Once, there you can choose from 8 different school subjects and it will start asking multiple choice questions for that subject. For every question you answer correctly, 10 grains of rice will be donated to people in need. For an example, I answered questions for about 45 seconds and won 120 grains of rice. That rice will go to whoever needs food. Currently, Free Rice is aiming to feed 2.5 million people in Syria each month. It doesn't get simpler than this, do you want to help feed the needy of not? Don't make any excuses for yourself, help the hungry today.

Dallas World Aquarium

Recently, we drove to Dallas and ate at one of the Pappadeaux restaurants.
 After that we went to the Dallas World Aquarium. I don't know about you, but when I think about an aquarium; I picture fish and other aquatic animals. If you come to the D.W.A. just wanting aquatics then you're in for a surprise! As you walk up to the entrance, there are cages that hold exotic birds, fish ponds, and turtles. When we got to the entry booth, we were in for another surprise that wasn't so good. This surprise was the price; it was seventy-five dollars for two adults and two children. After my family and I walked up a set of stairs felt we were transported to a whole different country.
The room we were in was huge and there were several stories. There was a waterfall going all the way down and a pond that housed a manatee, fish, and turtles.  

The first stop was kind of like the canopy of a rain forest; we could see all the way up and down. In the trees we got to see monkeys that were playing and grooming each other. You could see all types of  exotic birds which were flying around.

As you walked down a little way there was a station where you could feed birds blueberries and on the other side you could see a small type of monkey.

At the second station there was an enclosed area that had different types of birds and Golden Tamarinds. Next to this enclosure, they had a little store where you could buy inexpensive food for an expensive price. In front of this little store there was a tree that a sloth was sleeping in.

Before you got to the third station there was a insect area, and an otter pool with no otters inside.

The third station was at the bottom or the waterfall and you could see crocodiles and turtles in the pond. You could also see ducks, swans, and other birds.

When we had reached the bottom of the rainforest  we followed the map down to a different part of the aquarium. Before we walked down to our destination, we got to see below the rainforest's pond. Here, there was a full glass wall where we could see fish and a white manatee.

As we continued our walk we passed the restrooms and a theater that was not active. Next, we entered a room that had large aquariums on the walls that held  the fish from different countries. Each tank had the name of a country above and the fish that lived in that country below. In a large corner of the room was a cafe area where you could eat and watch the fish.
It was kind of hard to take pictures in here because of the lighting, so I apologize for the quality of fish photos.

After touring the Fish of the World exhibit, we moved on to the penguin exhibit. The penguin exhibit was in an outside area that had a pond with a stream for the penguins to swim in. There were only three to four penguins out so we didn't spend a long time over there. Next to the penguins was a large group of reptiles that we observed. 

Our next destination at the aquarium was the shark tank. The tank that held the sharks was a huge pool which had a tunnel that was going through the middle of it. It was an extremely neat opportunity because there were many different types of sharks that we could watch  up close but safely. The exit of the aquarium came out at the gift shop, so we looked around a little before we left.

Some of my favorite parts of the aquarium were the signs that they had telling in sharks and the open rain forest area.

Advice- 
If you are homeschooled I would recommend not visiting in the summer because it was busy the day we went. Also, I would look for discounts or coupons before going.

Rabbits

Ms. Fluffy Bunny is the oldest of the females.

Recently we bought four black Mini Rex rabbits to show in the upcoming HCLS show. We paid more for these rabbits because they came from a well known breeder. The rabbits we got are two males and two females. The male rabbit's pictures should soon be on my little brother's blog here.

My youngest bunny eating feed.

If your wanting raise to rabbits you will need a good cage to keep them in, food, water, feeder, waterer, a platform for them to get off the metal cage, and gloves to handle the rabbits with. If you get black rabbits, you will want to keep them away from the sun. If not, their fur won't stay dark black. Unlike the stereotype, lettuce and large amounts of carrots are not good for rabbits.

Rabbits top front teeth should be hanging over the bottom two teeth. Rabbits teeth are constantly growing so it's good to put a block of untreated wood or a pine cone in their pen for them to chew. Another important thing is to put a small piece of untreated wood or drywall in the rabbit pen so that the rabbits don't have sore feet.

If you have any questions about raising rabbits, please leave a comment on this post and I will try my best to answer it.
  

Rabbit scratches from not wearing gloves.

Babirusa

The answer to the What is this animal 2 blogpost is a Babirusa. This animal is very rare, they live only in Indonesia and the Philippine Islands. Here the Babirusa like to stay near mud pits and bodies of water in the rainforest.They are omnivores meaning that they eat plants and meat. A typical  Babirusa diet consists of insects, fruit, roots, and other vegetation. The male Babirusa has tusks and can weigh up to two hundred and twenty pounds. Female Babirusa either have small tusks or none at all. The tusks are actually not tusks but teeth that have grown through their skull. A very interesting video that explains this process is listed below: http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/28358-fooled-by-nature-babirusa-pig-teeth-video.htm A very strange thing about the Babirusa's teeth is that they will eventualy grow through the skull. This doesn't happen to all male Babirusa, because their teeth break easily during fighting. 

I hope you enjoyed reading my post, and have learned more about God's amazing creatures. Genesis 1:25 says that And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Cattle

For Christmas, I received a 4-D cow anatomy kit which I put together yesterday. I was really pleased with the finished product, but one of the pieces broke off and the instructions were very hard to read. What I did like about the model was that it explained the function of each piece and was highly detailed. The booklet had a few pages of information and then a mini test to take to see what you learned. 

For a quick farm update six of our cows calved. Four of the calves are bulls that will soon become steers (steers are male cattle that can't be fathers) and three are heifers. One of our oldest cows had twins this year, this is good because it made up for a calf that had died in later years. All of the calves are doing great and are eating solid food.

Did you know?

• 99% of all dairy farms in the United States are family owned and operated.
•    Cattle have the same amount of teeth a human has which is 32.
•    The average lifespan of a cow is 20 years.
•    Cows can detect smells from 5 miles away.
•    There are more than 800 breeds of cattle worldwide.

Caribbean Cruise Day 3

Departing the cruise ship.

 Our first stop was Cozumel; Mexico, here we rented a taxi to take us around the island. First, our driver took us to a family owned chocolate shop which still used an Mayan recipe. Second, we drove around the city and then to a  less populated area of the island. Then we ate at an Mexican restaurant, walked around the beach on the Caribbean Sea. While walking on the beach a man approached us asking if we wanted to hold Alberto his iguana. Me being the animal lover that I am gladly took his offer.When Dad went to get my picture we were told that pictures were five dollars. After our time on the beach we went back to the boat. While at a gas station near the boat the car wouldn't start so we 

Cozumel means Island of the Swallows.

walked back to the boat and enjoyed a good dinner of Fettuccini Alfredo and Crème Brûlée.

Caribbean Cruise

The Caribbean Princess

Last month my family and I went on a cruise with some friends. The cruise took us to Cozumel, Mexico; Roatan, Honduras; and Belize City, Belize.
 

Boarding the boat

Saturday morning after feeding all the pets and making sure that they were all okay, Dad drove us to a hotel near the Port of Houston where we met up with some of the people we were traveling with. At the hotel Dad found out that there was a four hour delay. Due to the delay, we went to Target and then to where our deacon and his wife                  were staying. After visiting with them for a few hours, they went with us to see if we would be able to board the cruise ship. Despite having to wait a long time in traffic we were able to board the boat with-out  any problems. 

We found our rooms but our bags hadn't arrived yet so we met up with our friends and ate dinner. Then we explored the ship. I found out that the boat had eight restaurants, a poolside movie screen, a theater, two spas,a exercise room,a casino, a sports deck, Kid's and Teen's Centers, a Library, a café, an Art Gallery, shops, and lots more. It was getting late so we went back to our rooms and unpacked our bags.

The boy's room

The boy's bathroom

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The Ben Carson Story

For my birthday, I received a book called "Gifted Hands, The Ben Carson Story".  As I read this inspiring biography, I was amazed to find that his mother, Sonya only had a third grade education but encouraged her son, Ben to go on and become a brilliant neurosurgeon. If you want to hear the full review continue reading.

Dr. Carson was born as the second son of Sonya and Robert Solomon Carson. When he was eight years old, his Dad left the house and took all the family's money with him. This was no surprise because he had married Sonya when she was only thirteen years old to "rescue" her from the orphanage. Ben had one brother who was two years older than him named Curtis. When Ben was eight, he and Curtis attended Sunday school. One Sunday they heard about a missionary doctor who escaped some robbers. Ben thought that this sounded very exciting and wanted to become a missionary doctor. During this time, young Ben was doing very bad in school and his mother often took long breaks to "visit relatives". In fact she was  checking  herself into mental hospitals and getting counseling. When she felt better, she would go back to the boys.

To save money, Sonya moved with her sons to Boston, Massachusetts and stayed with relatives until they had enough money to move back to their house in Detroit. Which they were renting out. Ben and Curtis's mother made them stop watching television and start reading books to help improve their grades. It worked!

Ben saw the school spelling bee and the next year he practiced really hard and won it that year. During Ben's eighth grade year his family moved back to their old house in Detroit. Here he was picked on at school and developed a temper. One day he pulled out a knife at a friend, horrified he ran home and realized he need to learn to control his temper better. He asked God to help him and after a week he had learned how to better control his temper. Also, he wanted to  now become a regular Doctor because it payed better.

Ben graduated High school.

(Right to left)Sonya, Ben, and Candy

In 1969 he was excepted unto Yale. Yale was pretty hard for him and he almost flunked chemistry.  He prayed to God to help him with final test so that he would be able to move on in chemistry. God blessed Ben with a dream. In that dream were the exact questions and answers that were in the test the next day.
In his third year at Yale he met Candy Rustin on campus. He invited her to church with him and they got to know each other better. She was studying to be a nurse. Ben had finish up at Yale and went to the University of Michigan School of Medicine. Candy still had two more years at Yale so they wrote to each other every day. Ben did wonderful in medical school and invented a new faster way to find the foramen ovale which amazed all of his teachers. during this time he decided to become a neurosurgeon. Between his second and third year at medical school he and Candy got married and moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan. here he finish up his last years in medical school. during 1978 to 1982 he worked at the John Hopkins hospital. Then he and Candy moved to Australia for one year. Here Dr. Carson trained students at a medical school over there. when they came back to America they brought their new son Ben jr. or BJ for short with them. Dr. Carson went  back to John Hopkins hospital and became their chief neurosurgeon here he did a hemispherectomy (where you remove half of a brain)on a three year old. Dr. Carson did one of his most famous surgeries in 1987 which was when he separated two craniopagus Siamese twins for the first time. before the end of his career he became famous for separating many craniopagus Siamese twins and for all that he has done in the medical career.        
The picture on the left shows Dr. Carson with his family. His mother is sitting in the middle.

I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it because this is a inspiring, Christian biography.







                                                                                    .





To learn more here are some helpful websites.
Teen Ink Gifted hands review
National Review Gifted Hands
 Ben Carson .achievement.org
Ben Carson bio.

Stamps

One of my many hobbies is stamp collecting. What first made me start collecting stamps was when I was going through our garage's loft and found my Dad's old stamp collection, which he let me have. Since then, I have started keeping interesting stamps which I find, and my grandparents, who owned a business sent me their stamps which they received. When my great grandmother passed away I was given her stamp collection which was very fascinating because she went on many trips and brought back stamps from her travels. I have around five hundred stamps in my collection. If you are interested in collecting stamps I would recommend going to a local hobby store such as Hobby Lobby and buy a stamp collecting package. The package comes with stamp sleeves, a stamp collecting book, and stamps.

What are some of your hobbies?

A helpful stamp book which I use.

Louisiana

I will be doing two posts about a vacation we took, here go's. The first state we went to was Louisiana, we drove to the town of  Baton Rouge and spent the night in a hotel. The next morning, we drove to the Oak Alley Plantation, just outside of New Orleans. As their website states "It's more than a house. It's a majestic place by the Mighty Mississippi River where 300 year old oak trees have held root through times of prosperity and through times of suffering". This southern mansion is commonly called "The Grand Dame of the great river road" and that is what it is A beautiful house right next to the mighty Mississippi River. The admission to tour this house is $20.00 an adult, $7.50 for children 13 to 18 and $4.50 for kids who are between 6 and 12 years old. Even though this house is on the expensive side to tour, I would say that it is well worth it. The house and grounds take around two hours to see. My favorite parts are the antique vehicles and learning the history about the house. My favorite room of the mansion is the dining room. In the middle of this room, hung from the ceiling is a wood piece with fabric hanging from it.  A slave would have a rope tied to it and would slowly pull it to create a comfortable breeze. The dining room once had marble floors, but when the house was abandoned, cows got inside the house and cracked the floor and made a mess so the floor had to be changed into a wood floor.  I really enjoyed this tour and would go back again if I had the chance. The first image below is a video of the house taken from their website.

Master bedroom.

Bedroom.

Slave Quarters.

Grounds of the mansion. 

The parlor.

The dining room. 

Another thing we did in Louisiana was drive to the French Quarter in New Orleans and eat at Deanie's Seafood. To tell you the truth, I have had better seafood. After that, we drove to Mississippi; but that is an  another post....

A helpful tip for when visiting Louisiana is the following:  Louisiana is known for its gambling, so when driving through do not get tempted to do evil; for James 4:17 states "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin".

                                  Louisiana Facts                                       

                                         *State nickname is Sportsman's Paradise.

                                     State Motto is "Union, Justice, and Confidence "

                                  The Catahoula Leopard Dog is their state dog breed. 

                              Louisiana has the tallest state capitol building in the U.S.A

                                   Louisiana was named in honor of King Louis XIV.  

                                        State mammal: Louisiana Black bear.