Hello and thanks for stopping by for the word of the week.

This week our word is mudpuppy. According to the website Active Wild (linked below) the common mudpuppy is a large salamander found in North America. A few interesting facts about the common mudpuppy are:

1. It is also called a waterdog.
2. It lives in fresh water including ponds, streams, lakes, rivers and canals.
3. Unlike most amphibians it never loses it’s gills.
4. Upon reaching adulthood it continues to live in the water.
5. They are mostly active at night and they do not hibernate during the winter.
6. They are carnivorous and will eat just about anything they can catch including insects. larvae, worms, mollusks, small fish and their eggs, other smaller amphibians and spiders.
7. They can be preyed upon by large fish, crayfish, turtles, water snakes, and the North American river otter.

For pictures and more information check out the below article.

I have never actually seen a common mudpuppy though there is a chance that they may live in our pond.

I have however seen what we will call an uncommon mudpuppy. This uncommon mudpuppy does not have gills, and while he might visit fresh water sources he lives on land. He is very active during the day and prefers to sleep at night. He doesn’t hibernate during the winter but is most recognized (as a mudpuppy) during the spring.

He looks like this –

At times he might even be called a waterdog. 🙂

Hello and welcome.

This week I thought we would have a little fun with the word of the week so our word this week is Conundrum.

collinsdictionary.com defines Conundrum as:

1.  a riddle whose answer contains a pun

2.  any puzzling question or problem

I like the word conundrum because not only is the word fun to say (or maybe I’m just a little weird eccentric) the definition, a riddle, pun or puzzle, can be fun as well.

Here are a couple examples:

1. A poor old farmer had three roosters. One was a beautiful, robust, golden color, Buff Orpington; the second a prize winning Rhode Island Red; and the third an scrawny old leghorn.

Which one laid the golden egg?

2. If a plane crashed on the boarder of Canada and the USA where would they bury the survivors?

(answers at the end of this post)

Currently we are dealing with a bit of a conundrum in that the dog eats the cat food and the cat eats the dog food. It is a puzzling problem but we haven’t considered this too big of a problem since they do not fight over the food, none of them gotten sick, and they all seem to get enough to eat. I told my husband I will worry about it if the cat starts barking or the dog starts meowing. LOL!

Do you have a conundrum you would like to share? (go ahead make me laugh) Did you get the answer to my two examples?

Answers: 1. None of them – because roosters don’t lay eggs. 2. They wouldn’t bury survivors (those are the people who live). 🤣

Hello and welcome.

This week our word is anticipation. The Cambridge Dictionary defines Anticipation as the feeling of excitement about something that is going to happen in the near future.

I am confident that I am not alone in my eager anticipation of the arrival of spring. The blue skies and sunshine coupled with warmer temperatures have fostered these feelings, and the 10 day forecast is compelling evidence of an early spring. 🙂

To further fuel my excitement, yesterday I spotted daffodils emerging from their winter slumber. BRING ON SPRING!!!

Here’s a link for all you music lovers out there. Surely I’m not the only one who thought of this song when I said/heard the word.

Thanks for reading.

Hello and welcome.

This week our word is Menagerie. According to Merriam Webster menagerie means:

1a: a place where animals are kept and trained especially for exhibition

b: a collection of wild or foreign animals kept especially for exhibition

2: a varied mixture

They also note: “Back in the days of Middle French, ménagerie meant “the management of a household” or farm or “a place where animals are tended.” By the 1670s, English speakers had adopted the word but dropped its housekeeping aspects, applying it specifically to the places where circuses and other exhibitions kept show animals. Later, the word was generalized to refer to any varied mixture, especially one that includes things that are strange or foreign to one’s experience.”

Menagerie is a word I’ve used a few time in recent weeks to describe our household and it’s members. Before January of this year the term had never crossed my mind, but it was sometime during that month that Peanut came to stay.

You may remember Peanut, the cat, who had become a regular visitor at our farm over the past couple of years. Well in January my husband and Peanut decided that outdoors and out-buildings were not suitable winter accommodations for him. So with some rules in place (which he mostly follows) it was decided that he could reside in our home.

Hello My Friends and welcome.

Our word of the week is Always. Merriam Webster has 3 definitions listed for the word Always. They are: 1. at all times : invariably, 2. Forever, 3.at any rate : in any event.

I can’t help but wonder how the events of the past year have changed or will change the use of this word. So many things that, always (using the first definition) happened, suddenly came to a halt.

The person who always got to the office early to start their work day could no longer go to the office. The school bells that always rang at 8:00 a.m. to signal the start of classes were no longer heard. People who always went to church on Sunday could no longer congregate. Holiday gathering that always took place didn’t and the person who was always smiling wasn’t. We will be hesitant to think in terms of always?

Perhaps it will be more commonly used in terms of the third definition. The person who can’t go to the office can always work remotely; the children who can’t attend school can always attend virtual classes; if we can’t hold regular church services we can always have them online, and she can always wear a smiley mask. But are these thoughts or statements even accurate? Should we feel secure that some of the these new methods of doing thing will Always work.

I don’t know. These are just some of my thoughts as I read the definitions of this word.

The real reason I selected this word is because it is a word that my husband and I have used often. It is the second definition, forever, that we use and we use it to affirm our love and our commitment to our marriage. This week as we start into our 15th year of marriage I thought I would dedicate our word of the week and the rest of this post to my husband.

This small sticky note is attached to the calendar in our kitchen. It reads “Always Remember I Love You! :)” My husband left this note for me in December 2014. Each year as we hang a new calendar we attach this note to it.

A couple of songs dedicated to him.

This beautiful print that he bought me years ago hangs in our bedroom and although it doesn’t use the word Always the sediment is clear.

Happy anniversary sweetie. I Love You – ALWAYS❣