it must be spring

Why?

Several reasons. . . .

1) Because the frogs croak so loud at night now that you literally have to raise your voice to be heard.

2) Because it’s cold! Not the same frigid-type cold of winter, but the wet, blustery kind of cold, when big gray clouds go tumbling across the sky.

3) Because these guys are back:

See him?

No, not the rocks. The rodent.

This rodent. . . .

Call him a marmot, a rock-chuck, a groundhog . . . I honestly don’t know which he is. But I do know that he and his cronies are officially out of hibernation. And that my dad was not very happy to see them. (Farmers and rodents do not coexist well.) The attitude toward these things is a little more like this:


Anyway. What number are we on? Four? It must be spring—

4) Because the cows are calving like crazy! We now have thirteen calves, and they seem to be coming one right after another. We have four more to go, but we’re not completely sure that all of those four are pregnant.



5) Because marmots aren’t the only rodents out and about. So are the mice, which in turn attracts hawks, eagles, cats, and even coyotes, like this one:

(He wasn’t successful catching the mouse he’s pouncing on in the picture. Should’ve taken lessons from my cat, Lenny. I never saw Lenny make an unsuccessful pounce.)

6) And finally, the most exciting reason: because my 4-H ewe, Brietta, gave birth to triplets yesterday!!!

(Sorry the picture isn’t fantastic… it’s kinda hard to take good pictures of a trio of squirmy lambs in a dim-lit barn! Hopefully in the next few days I can get some better ones.)

The delivery was amazingly easy, and all three are bigger than average and very enthusiastic. They’re all girls, too! I’ve been trying to come up with names, but I just haven’t been able to think of three girls’ names that go well together. So if you have any ideas at all, they would be welcome!

I call that pretty convincing proof that it’s spring. The weather may do all it can to prove me wrong, but the calendar says March—not only in the big bold letters across the top, but also with how busy we’ve been!

It’s a busy time of year.


Croaking frogs, trilling blackbirds, my sister (or myself…) at the piano, lambs bleating, calves bawling, wind howling. Yes, it very much must be spring.

several lives

"Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book."  ~Author Unknown

"A good book should leave you... slightly exhausted at the end.  You live several lives while reading it."  ~William Styron, interview, Writers at Work, 1958

Don’t you love books? I love books.

The way they look… the way they smell… and, of course, the stories. Stories of Anne Shirley snubbing Gilbert Blythe, Jo March “falling into a vortex,” and Elsie Dinsmore awaiting her father’s return from Europe. Or, lately—thanks to my all-consuming British Literature class—Hamlet seeking to avenge his father’s death.


Hamlet is partially to blame for this post, in fact. I’m memorizing his famous “to be or not to be” and with that and a very long extracurricular to-do list, I haven’t really been out and about taking pictures. So I set some pictures up for myself. Not something I do too often, but it can be fun. :)


I thought this stack of old, thick hardbacks was cool looking. The one on top (and later, the open one) is a Bible… another one of my favorite books! :)


Ah, books. What are your favorites? I’d love to know. :)

this is me

It’s March!!! It’s holding true to the proverbial “coming in like a lion.” However, if it’s anything like last spring, it will be going out like a lion as well!

We got four or five inches of delicious snow last night. The problem with these wet spring snows is that they turn into rain. Which turns into slush. Which I had to drive in yesterday.

I discovered a profound gratefulness for these guys after that experience:
What does March mean at my house?

It means killdeer who wish they’d stayed down south.


It means fat chickadees demanding food… very loudly. (His name is Monty, by the way.)


It means the sheep are due to lamb in a couple of weeks and getting pretty fat to show for it.


It also means extraordinarily cute chocolate-colored calves!!


However, it also means something else. Something monumental.

Today, I have been blogging for exactly one year.

!!!!!

I love blogging. Even if my posts and pictures sit here in this small piece of the ultra-terrifying World Wide Web completely unnoticed, I still love blogging. I am a journaling fanatic (every day of my life for the past six years is recorded in ink!!) and this blog is like a photo journal of my life.

I posted awhile back about Bloom! magazine. (No, even if it seems like it, this isn’t a random change of subject.) This is an online Christian magazine that not only targets young ladies ages 11-20, it is created, written, designed, and illustrated by them! It features inspiring articles, recipes, an advice column with questions from our subscribers, amazing interviews, and much, much more in each issue. (People who are interested in subscribing [for free!!], visit the website.)

Anyway, I’m a staff photographer for this magazine, which is a lot of fun. One of my fellow staff members came up with a cool blog link-up/questionnaire so that we staff members could get to know each other.

So how does this tie in to my “blogoversary”? Well, I thought it a perfect way for you, my dear readers, to get to know me a little better too!!

(To anyone and everyone who is completely confused by the above three paragraphs… you can just skip to the “interview” questions. I know, multiple links to other pages from one page confuse me too.)

So here goes:


1. Name, age, location, and Bloom! staff position:
My name is Hallie Jo, and I am 17 years old! I live on a small farm of 92 acres in a very small town called Goldendale. My staff position at Bloom! is photographer.

2. How many siblings do you have and what are their names/ages?
I have four siblings. My brothers, Tim and Stephen, are 22 and 19. My sisters, Hannah and Amy, are 14 and 5.

3. How are you educated (homeschool, private school, public school, etc)?
I was exclusively home schooled through tenth grade. Now I am taking a few classes at the public high school, which has given me a BIG appreciation for how awesome it is to learn at home! Going to public school without having that solid Christian foundation would have been really difficult for me. But I’m glad I have experienced both so that, if I ever have kids of my own, I can choose the way to teach them based on the truth.

4. What denomination of Christian are you? What are your personal Christian beliefs, in a nutshell?
I’m part of the Grace Brethren denomination, but I don’t consider that nearly as important as my personal beliefs, which, in brief, are as follows: I was born a sinner and could do absolutely nothing to solve my inevitable punishment (Romans 3:23). But even though I deserve to be separated from God, He has provided His Son, Jesus Christ, to take my punishment instead (Romans 6:23). Jesus died in my place, but the awesome thing is that He rose from the dead and is my Living Savior!! All I had to do was repent of my sins and accept His sacrifice (Romans 10:9-10). Because of my love for Him and gratefulness to Him, I try to live according to His Word. And someday soon I’m going to see Him face to face in Heaven!!

5.What are some of your hobbies?
Photography, writing novels and short stories, bird watching, journalism, graphic design, singing, piano, riding my horse, people-watching, and collecting hats, buttons, and Breyer Stablemates horses.

6. Describe your personality in a few sentences:
I’m an observer, which can be seen as shyness, but once I get to know you I am fairly social. I love to laugh, I love to find beauty in Creation, I love animals, and I love people. I can be stubborn and independent. I’m also a perfectionist, which has a way of making me miserable!



7. Do you consider yourself more of a girly-girl or a tomboy? Or somewhere in between?
I’d say I’m in between. It depends on my mood. Some days I feel like dressing up and shopping and the typical girl activities, but most days, I’d rather be comfortable (for me, this means jeans) and do what I’m comfortable doing (which often involves a lot of climbing and crawling and riding and working!).



8. Picture yourself ten years from now. What will you be doing, where will you be living, etc?
Ten years? Wow, that’s a long time. I’d like to be living in the Pacific Northwest with my own photography and design business, taking senior pictures and engagement pictures. I’d also like to have my own designer brand name… designing cards and scrapbooks and websites and stuff like that. Maybe I’ll be married. Who knows?

9. What is some of your favorite books? Favorite movies? Favorite foods?
My favorite books are by far Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, the Elsie Dinsmore series. Every girl should read these books over and over and over again. I also love the Bible, of course, and I enjoy books by Joshua, Brett, and Alex Harris such as I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Do Hard Things.
As for movies, I love British period dramas like Pride and Prejudice (1995 version!), Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Cranford, North & South, Wives and Daughters, etc. I love The Young Victoria and Ever After, too! Beyond that genre, I love, love, LOVE Star Wars. I like historical movies like The Patriot, Gettysburg, and Gods and Generals too… So many!
And food--chocolate. Chocolate is wonderful. I love it. It’s glorious. However, I couldn’t possibly eat chocolate for three meals a day (well, I could, but I shouldn’t) so I also love pizza, pasta, cream-cheese-chicken-soup, and Chinese and Mexican food.

10. What got you interested in becoming a part of Bloom?
That it is a great way for me to use photography to bless other people!

11. What's one way that you've been blessed, inspired, and/or challenged through becoming a part of Bloom?
I’ve been inspired to go after my ideas and goals like KyAnn, our editor, did when she created Bloom!

12. What is your favorite thing about Bloom! as well as one thing you would like to see improved behind-the-scenes?
My favorite thing is seeing all the staff girls bring their talents to use for God’s glory! If I could change anything, I think I’d have the photographers work more closely with the writers so the photographers knew exactly what kind of pictures were needed.

13. What brings you inspiration?
Happy, joyful followers of Christ.

14. If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would you go? Who would you take with you and how long would you stay?
That is a really hard question! I want to go everywhere!! I’d like to go to Europe to see Norway and Germany with my family. With my best friend Amanda, I want to see Ireland, England, and Scotland. And with my sister Hannah and cousin Ben… just about anywhere!! And I'd stay till I'd seen it all!!

15. What's your favorite dessert/treat?
Chocolate. In any form. Ice cream, pie, cake, cookies, chocolate bar, hot chocolate, chocolate chips, chocolate milk, chocolate syrup…

16. Coffee, tea, or soda?
Soda. (We call it pop here.) Pepsi, preferably. I have never really entered the rivalry between coffee and tea.

17. What's your favorite color combination(s)?
Brown and green or brown, green, and pink are a couple of my latest crazes. I also love brown with teal or purple.

18. What's your favorite time of year? What about least favorite?
Favorite: June-October. It is so beautiful, and full of summertime activities like swimming, horseback riding, irrigating, working the lambs, etc. Least favorite: January-April (unless we get snow). It’s usually really, really cold and windy here then…

19. Would you rather have one very close best friend or a group of close friends?
That’s a hard one. I like having a group of friends, but my own closest  friend is irreplaceable.

20. Who is a role model for you in your life today (could be your mom, grandma, family friend, celebrity, etc.)?
My grandpa Loyd. He passed away in 2008, but he was an amazing person. He never attained or even sought fame or wealth or anything like that, but he is nevertheless unforgettable for his Godly, selfless life.

21. Share a favorite quote or Bible verse. Why is it your favorite?
Oh, I like so many!! Can I do more than one? Here’s a few….

• “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” - Jim Elliot. I love this one because it reminds me that so many things in this life are temporary, but God’s gift of salvation is eternal. It transcends this earth.
• “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I wish to be, I am not what I hope to be, But by the cross of Christ, I am not what I was.” -John Newton. This one is an amazing reminder that God’s salvation is the bottom line. It’s what we really need.
• “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine.When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” - Isaiah 43:1b-3a. I love these verses because they emphasize God’s loving protection. He will call us by our own names and protect us no matter what!

22. What is one thing that you've been trying to accomplish in 2011?
I’ve been trying to prioritize and budget my time effectively.

23. What is one way that you are trying to strengthen your relationship with Christ this year?
Getting into God’s Word more!


So there you have it! A little about me and who I am. Got it digested? It’s okay if you don’t--here’s a few more March snowstorm pictures for dessert. :)




Happy March!!!