"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another." - William James

Second post today. I'm feeling...wordy.

On the way home from small group Tuesday evening I had the classical music station playing and heard music from an opera by a Spanish composer I'd not heard of titled El Cid ("the Lord"). While introducing the music the announcer referred to El Cid as an historical character. I had no idea! I thought he was just a fictional movie character.

So the next morning I looked him up (El Cid, not the announcer). Goodness! His real name was Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar and he had quite the personal story. He is now a national hero in Spain. But my favorite part was the names. The Christians called him El Campeador, which means Outstanding Warrior. His horse's name was Babieca, which means Stupid. (That's what the horse's owner said when he gave Rodrigo his choice of horses and he picked this one. Turns out the horse was as remarkable as his owner.)

That Wikipedia article led to to another where I learned about the Berbers. From there to one about the Donatists, and before I knew what had happened I'd spent an hour learning all kinds of neat stuff.
All because of a Spanish opera.

Here is more awesomeness than I can believe, all in one short video. Some crazy skills here.

When I went out to feed the animals this morning it was in the mid-40's and I saw steam rising off the compost pile. That's a good and pleasing sight.

This afternoon I added to that pile by cleaning out the chicken coop. They LOVE it when I put in the fresh straw, scratching vigorously for what may lie beneath. (A: nothing b/c it's clean straw)
Apparently a clean coop is also an aphrodisiac because 30 minutes later Spike was on a tear!
Ladies, you can run but you cannot hide.

We have single strand spider webs everywhere, including running from the front porch to the fruit trees 20' away. How do they do that?

We have the noisiest refrigerator in the world. When it kicks on we have to turn up the TV's volume.
I have a fan set in the corner behind the wood stove to help circulate the warm air.
The freezer is in the extra bedroom next to the living room, with the door open.
We have so much white noise that I have to wear sunglasses in here.