YOUR PET / JAK!

Isn’t winter just the best time of all, Jak!

This gorgeous Golden Retriever belongs to Kandace Harrison Huyck. Kandy says, [Jak is] “our ‘more than we bargained for’ Golden Retriever. There is never a dull moment in our lives with this guy, but we love him so much!!!!”

Please join me in welcoming JAK to our “YOUR PET” circle of joy!

If you would like the chance to have your pet featured on YOUR PET, please email a .jpg photo to sue@sueharrison.com.

Blessings!

Sue

Photograph Copyright, 2012, Kandice Harrison Huyck

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2.20.12

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HAGGARD

Wild Word Friday!

I don’t know about you, but when someone comes up to me and says, “Sue, you look tired,” even if I’m not tired, I suddenly feel tired. And sure enough, the next time I glance in a mirror, I look tired. I look worn out. I look HAGGARD! So is that the power of suggestion or – horror of horrors – did I, unbeknownst to me, look HAGGARD all day? :-0

The word HAGGARD comes to us with an unusual history . The word entered the English language from the Middle French hagard, which was a word used in falconry. At that time the birds used in falconry were not bred in captivity but captured in the wild, either as an eyas (a bird taken from the nest) or as an adult. Adult birds were generally very wild and tough to train. An adult trapped in the wild was called a hagard, which in English became HAGGARD. Eventually, HAGGARD was also used to refer to wild or anxious people. Now HAGGARD is most often used as an adjective to describe the face of a person under duress.

File:Falconry Book of Frederick II 1240s detail falconers.jpg

There’s nothing that makes me more HAGGARD than lack of sleep. How about you? Do you have a stress factor in your life that makes you look or feel HAGGARD?

Counting my blessings, too~

Sue

(Information from THE MERRIAM-WEBSTER New Book of WORD HISTORIES. Photo from Wikipedia.)

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YOUR PET/Irwin & Figaro

Welcome to our new Wednesday Your Pet blog posts! Today we feature Irwin and Figaro.

Irwin, an Australian Bearded Dragon, and Figaro are housemates, but a nose-to-nose meeting with Irwin probably isn’t on Figaro’s list of “My Favorite Things.”

Owner of both animals, Cody Stevenson, tells us that most Bearded Dragons are brown and tan, although dragons in captivity have been bred with more unusual and brighter colors. All Bearded Dragons come from Australia and grow to be about 18-23 inches long. They live about 5 years in the wild, 8-10 years if well cared for in a captive environment. By the way, Irwin is named in honor of Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter, sadly missed by many.

Figaro was found as a kitten, alone and nearly dead on a gravel road, by Cody’s brother Eric on Cody’s birthday. Eric thought the kitten would be a great birthday gift, and he was!

Thank you to Cody for the information! He’s given our blog readers permission to copy this photo for their own blogs.  Just be sure to note a photo credit to Cody Stevenson.

If you would like to have your pet featured on our Wednesday YOUR PET, email a clear .jpg photograph to sue@sueharrison.com.

Blessings!

Sue

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2.13.12

Can you tell that this is the same summer sky as my signature blog photo? My husband took this shot just a little while later after the oranges and reds had faded to blues and purples. Blessings! Sue

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WALE

Wild Word Friday!

When anyone talks about WALE, I think about cloth, like corduroy, with raised ridges that are called WALEs, but I recently discovered a “new to me” meaning.

In Scotland the noun WALE means a choosing or a choice or something chosen as best. As a verb WALE means to select. This meaning comes into the English language from the very ancient (6,000 years old) Indo-European language, that mother of most European and some Asian and Middle Eastern languages. WALE comes from the same Indo-European base word as the English word will.

Our daughter just visited us for a few weeks. She lives in Europe, and we hadn’t seen her for more than a year. For one of our celebrations my WALE for dessert was an old (100 years old) Harrison family recipe. See if you like it:

Aunt Carrie Harrison’s Apple Delight

5 medium apples, cored, peeled, sliced and arranged in a greased pie tin. Mix 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup white sugar, 1/3 cup butter (not oleo) until crumbly. Sprinkle over apples. Bake at 400 degrees F. until apples are soft. Serve with whipped cream, ice cream or lemon sauce.

(Cinnamon to taste is optional, but 100 years ago cinnamon was not easily obtained in this part of the US, so it is not a part of the traditional recipe.)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Apple_Goodie_crisp.JPG/640px-Apple_Goodie_crisp.JPG

What’s your WALE for dessert tonight?

Blessings!

Sue

(Photo from Wikipedia.)

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Your Pet!

My parents tell me that I don’t remember my first puppy. Her name was Sniffer, and she was the first of three Sniffers in my life, after Sniffer came a multitude of cats and dogs, a turtle (Seedy) a bird (Pip, after the beloved canary in Little Women, although my Pip was a parakeet) and a rabbit (my brother’s) and Smoky, my uncle’s black horse, which was as close as I ever came to owning a horse.

File:Trillium Poncho cat dog.jpg

I’m an animal lover, so it’s no surprise that the novels I’m currently writing each feature a rescued animal. Beginning next Wednesday in honor of all those who care for and about animals, I will write a weekly post that features our blog readers’ pets. We would love to feature your pet or pets! Just send me a .jpg photograph to sue@sueharrison.com. Tell me a little bit about your pet, including his or her name and breed.

Hope you drop in next week for our first YOUR PET Wednesday!

(Photo from Wikipedia.)

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February ’12 Free Book!

Our February 2012 Free Book is 33 Men, “Inside the Miraculous Survival and Dramatic Rescue of the Chilean Miners”.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Fotothek_df_n-11_0000096.jpg/467px-Fotothek_df_n-11_0000096.jpg

From the cover blurb, “Award-winning journalist Jonathan Franklin takes readers to the heart of this remarkable story of human endurance, survival, and heroism. Based on more than one hundred interviews with the miners, their families, and the rescue team, 33 Men is the authoritative account of the disaster and the ensuing miracle rescue efforts. Filled with never-before-revealed details, this true story reads like a thriller.”

Our give-away copy is a new book club hardcover edition. To qualify for the February 29 drawing for this book, please leave a comment:

Q4U: If you knew you would be isolated from your family and the outside world for one month and you had enough food and water and were warm and safe, what one (non-electronic) thing would you take with you?

(Photo from Wikipedia.)

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2.6.12

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EAVESDROP

Wild Word Friday!

Once upon a time, the English had a law that required a homebuilder to get a permit before he could build eaves that allowed water to drip on land owned by someone else. Not only were eaves sometimes a controversial matter in ancient England, in the 1600s they gave us the verb EAVESDROP, which originally (dating from the 9th Century) referred to water dripping from the eaves.

According to THE MERRIAM-WEBSTER NEW BOOK OF WORD HISTORIES, an EAVESDROPper was someone who stood within the shelter of the eaves of a house to listen to what people inside were saying.  We certainly updated the whole process when the party-line telephone came into being. And now with all the social networking, it’s easier than ever to EAVESDROP. I guess EAVESDROPping is just a natural human inclination. I wonder what they called it back when people lived in caves.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Alt_Telefon.jpg/559px-Alt_Telefon.jpg

Do you remember the days of the party-line telephone?

Blessings!

Sue

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