If by Rudyard Kipling

 

I have been busy with poetry lately; writing some myself, reading some, and learning more about the craft. 

 I recently finished reading aloud The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling to my children. I enjoyed it very much. I had never known that The Jungle Book is several stories in one cover. The first story is about Mowgli and Sheer Kan. The second story is about a white seal in the North Pacific (Stellar Sea Cows are mentioned! I was so excited because I had just learned about Stellar Sea Cows last year when I read Sea Cows, Shamans, and Scurvy by Arnold). The third story is about Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the mongoose. The fourth story is about a boy who has a way with elephants. The final story is about many pack animals of the army having a discussion about their labor. That last story gave me a lot of food for thought. I had to reread it again for myself. I feel like there is a deep metaphor in the story and I can't quite grasp the whole meaning; something about consciousness and courage or the greatness of the collective at the expense of individuality. I can't put my finger on it exactly. I am open to ideas, if you have any interpretation on the story, please share them with me.

 All this reading of Rudyard Kipling put me in the mood to read some verses written by him. 

 This is a favorite poem of mine and I learned that I am not alone, apparently, it was the most beloved poem among Brits' at one point. It brings to mind many Biblical proverbs and inspires me to strive toward goodness, strengthen my integrity, and become a more humble person. 

What are your thoughts on the poem? How does it make you feel?

If

By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Nature | March 2026

 It's March! This is the first month of the year with flowers! We have daffodils and crocuses at our house. 

  My favorite picture in this month's collection is the picture of the ant. I was entranced when I saw this ant pulling a dried, dusty piece of hotdog up a vertical surface. It was grasping the hotdog particle in its mandibles and going it reverse the whole way up a perfectly straight up and down surface. It blew me away!

I saw some cat paw prints in the light dusting of snow.

This icy surface had a very interesting look. The day before had been very rainy and left a lot of standing water in low spots. The temperature dropped significantly over night and we got to see these ice formations in the morning. 

Further Learning About Roald Amundsen

In this post I want to compile some additional resources that I have been using to continue learning about Roald Amundsen. 

 This page on Cool Antarctica dot com is all about Roald Amundsen's attempts on the North Pole by air. There are real pictures of Amundsen and Elsworth and the airplanes being constructed. And best of all, there are links to real video footage of the men working on the airplanes and getting things ready for their expedition. I was fascinated by the old silent film recordings.

 I found this website for the Explorers Podcast. They have a whole page with an 8 part series dedicated to Roald Amundsen's life and maps that go along with the episodes. At the end of the series there was a interview with a modern day Norwegian explorer who trekked to the North Pole, the South Pole, and the summit of Mt. Everest. He has lived a very adventurous life and became a successful author, printing press owner/operator, and an art collector, on top of everything else.

  I have gone on to listen to other series on of the Explorers Podcast. Most recently I enjoyed learning about Hiram Bingham's scientific discovery of the Machu Picchu.

 I hope you are finding ways to enrich your mind and continue your education. I like what Lydia over at Home Living blog has to say about "homeschooling yourself." She advocates for coming up with subjects and books to keep your mind engaged throughout your whole life. Never stop learning.

Nature | February 2026

 My favorite picture of this month's collection is the first picture of the Yucca seeds pod. 

This time of year is pretty brown outside. I found some oak galls on an oak sapling. My sons had fun opening them and finding a little wasp pupa (I missed my chance to get a picture of the pupa.)

There are a lot of dried Yucca stalks around our lot. I thought the seed pods looked interesting from these angles.

There are a variety of birds that are active now. I hear woodpeckers in the mornings again. One morning I went outside to jump on our trampoline and found it riddled with these seeds and bird droppings. I deduced that the birds must sit in the branches above and snack and poop out these seeds. I admit the seeds were quite annoying underfoot while they looked pretty interesting. After I had some pictures I looked up some references to find out that these are Hackberry tree seeds.

The explanation for what happened with January's nature pictures is that I was able to capture some beautiful pictures of a gorgeous sunrise when we were in Canada. The morning was so memorable that I wanted to commemorate it with a few verses of poetry. I worked for a whole week on the poem to go with the pictures. After dedicating so much time to the poem I wanted a little recognition so I found a few literary magazines to submit my poem. The catch is that they don't want the poem to be published anywhere else before submission. I didn't want to publish the pictures on my blog without the poem and I can't include the poem until I hear back from the magazines. I don't really expect to get published but I can hope. 

Ice and Sky Book Review

 

This is the 2nd book that I've read/listened to this year. (I listened to the audio version of this book.)

Realm of Ice and Sky by Buddy Levy is all about attempts to reach the North Pole by air, both with dirigibles and airplanes. This book covers 4 major air expeditions. Starting with newspaper man, Wellman, in 1907. Wellman had no experience but confidently believed that the most feasible method to reach the North Pole would be by air ship, and he wanted to be on the cutting edge of exploration. Many people at the time (and even today) didn't take him seriously. The "real" explorers saw his efforts as a publicity stunt. Levy on the other hand insists that Wellman's efforts advanced air ship technology and opened the minds of those "real" explorers to the possibilities of the dirigible. Wellman was serious and his name should be remembered among the "real" explorers according to Levy.

  The book starts to get really interesting for me when Roald Amundsen enters the scene. I found Roald Amundsen fascinating! Thankfully, I had had no prior exposure to Amundsen so everything about him read like a fictional tale. It helped that he lived an unbelievably adventurous life with a generous amount of stoicism. He seemed a little extra-human, if you know what I mean. Roald Amundsen made many trips into arctic and antarctic regions. He dreamed of going to the polar regions as a young person after reading grueling accounts from ground breaking explorers that turned out to be his forbearers. Somehow the suffering appealed to him. 

Realm of Ice and Sky covers Roald Amundsen's attempt on the North Pole by plane (1925) and then by a Zeppelin air ship (1926.)

 The last expedition in the book is Umberto Nobile's flight to the pole in a Zeppelin (1928) and (spoiler alert) crash and subsequent rescue. Nobile had been part of Roald Amundsen's expedition when he reached the North Pole by Zeppelin. The two had had a bitter falling out after that trip. Even after all those hard feelings Amundsen set out to rescue Nobile after hearing of the disaster. I was so happy to hear this. But, as the story kept playing and more and more details where related about how things were going for the stranded Nobile and party, and the different rescue envoys, and radio messages between everyone, it became very obvious that updates from Amundsen were not mentioned. I couldn't wait. I opened my Google browser and typed in, "Roald Amundsen."...... (BIG SPOILER) His date of death is listed as June 1928 Bering Sea. No! Right then I wished that Realm of Ice and Sky had been a work of fiction and Roald Amundsen could have stayed alive. But real life doesn't work that way and Levy had to write the facts.

 The conclusion of the book goes over the reemerging use of lighter-than-air crafts. We may see more travel and research done by dirigible in the future.

 Overall, I enjoyed this book even though I am generally not a fan of ice and cold. The story is crafted in a very compelling fashion and kept me interested the whole way through.

Five (Not) In Love Haikus

Number 1.

Floats, folds, tangles up

Clings to itself not to my plate

Convenient? No.

Number 2.

Glad wrap. Saran wrap.

More like sad wrap. Pathetic 

Excuse to ease life.

Number 3.

At my fingertips 

Weather, family, and news

Scrolling, scrolling on

Number 4.

Connected to all

Necessity or demise 

Notifications

Number 5.

Jesus said love them

But she has a wrong yard sign

He mows on my side

Commentary 

Frontier Poetry is hosting a themed Haiku contest. The haiku are supposed to be about something with which you have a love/hate relationship. 

Yesterday I sat down and wrote these haiku,.. haikus,... (I don't know the correct plural form) to go along with Frontier's contest. (Because the contest has a $10 entry fee I am just doing these for fun not for a real entry.)

The first thing that I could think of that I love/hate is cling wrap. That stuff is so annoying! But it can serve a very useful purpose. I wrote two haiku about cling wrap.

The second thing that I could think of that I love/hate is my phone. It's a really useful tool but can also be a huge time suck and productivity drag. Haiku 3+4 are about the smart phone.

The last haiku is the most thoughtful. It is about neighbors. Jesus said to love our neighbors but I don't always want to. I am pointing out a hypocrisy of Christians that we let little things bother us and keep us from treating our neighbors with love.

I wrote 5 haiku(s) because that is how many you can enter in the contest under one entry.

The contest is open through Feb. 15, 2026. You still have time to enter. The cash prizes are pretty good!

Do you love cling wrap or hate it? 

What is the first thing that comes to mind as something you both love and hate?

"Chicken Broth, Stat!"

Here is a quick idea that someone of my readership may also find handy.

I was out of chicken broth and needed some to make tomato soup the other day. I had this idea to use some partially thawed chicken leg quarters to make chicken broth in the soup while I cooked the soup.

I took the skin off a chicken leg quarter and cut it into a few pieces.

After I sweat the onions I added some celery seed to stand in for celery flavor that would have been in chicken broth and a little poultry herb blend.

Then the chicken pieces went in and simmered a couple hours with the soup.

Where the soup called for chicken broth I just added water and it turned into chicken broth while the soup cooked.

The gelatin that comes from the chicken adds a very comforting viscosity and mouth feel that makes for an exceptionally delicious tomato soup.

This turned out to be a great hack and the chicken we removed to eat later had a very good flavor.

The Best Pancakes: My Mom's Recipe!

Forgive me for dismissing all other pancake recipes in favor of my mom's pancake recipe. Trust me, after tasting this recipe you will need no other pancake recipes.

The stacks of pancakes are so tall and fluffy!

One technique that my mom always emphasizes is to hand mix the batter gently. No, beating or whipping. And it's okay if there are flour lumps left. It's better to have mixed the batter too little than too much.

The Best Pancakes 

3 cups Flour

2 TBS. + 1 tsp. Baking Powder 

2 tsp. Salt

2 TBS. Sugar

2 1/2 cups Milk

2 Eggs 

6 TBS. Butter, Melted 

In a large bowl mix together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.

In a large measuring cup mix milk, eggs, and butter together.

Combine the two mix. Stir until just starts to become cohesive. The batter will be thick.

Use a 1/4 cup scoop or ladle to pour onto hot griddle or skillet. 

Turn pancakes once you see a few bubbles have popped. Cook on the second side about a minute.

Makes 10-12 Servings.

Enjoy!