Well, it has been a long while since I’ve posted on here. But, although I have not spent eleventy-one years here, I shall quote Bilbo: “this is the end. I am going. I am leaving now. Goodbye!”

However, while I shall not be seen in this Shire again, I do not intend to leave off blogging; indeed, I hope to blog more often and better: just not here. Instead, I shall be found at How the Sun Rose, where I already have my first post up.

Thank you, dear family, for your kind and helpful reading and commenting on here. While I have—mainly to leave behind an awkward name—decided to immigrate, I hope to see you all over at How the Sun Rose!

We’ve (at first leisurely and fragmentedly) started off school over the past month… so I’m a sophomore. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. I’m in my second year of high school? I’m in double-digit grade numbers? I only have three years of homeschool left? Yikes!

But we’ve started school, so I thought I’d kick off (approximately a month late) on my blog with a science notebook entry from Chapter Two of The Cloudspotter’s Guide, by Gavin Pretor-Pinney. This book is science as it should be taught, or maybe as everything should be taught: through story. It is well-written and amusing, presenting memorable details instead of lists of facts. There are stories of mythology, history, of Air Force pilots (one, at least; he fell forty-seven thousand feet through a cumulonimbus cloud and survived) and even—occasionally—of weather.

It isn’t a good idea, for various reasons, to put a full-size image in a post; but if you’d like to see a larger version of this photo, you can find one here.

On Sunday and Monday last, Dad took Nathan, Gregory, and me on the first backpacking trip of the season.  Leaving the house in the morning, we arrived at the rather nondescript Lake Spaulding trailhead a bit before noon.  From there, we set out on a (rather hot) hike to Fordyce Creek.  Around twelve forty, we stopped at one of the powerhouses on Lake Spaulding for lunch—and, of course, pictures.  There was a good view across the lake, and I was able to identify several of the features we could see. (more…)