Category Archives: Nature

Getting started – Biology

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Kerry

In 2011-12 we’re going to adopt a nature study approach to biology! We’ll meet on Monday evenings, 7-8:30 p.m., beginning Sept 12. Occasionally, we’ll fall back to either Friday morning or Saturday morning, particularly when there are field trips. I’d … Continue reading →

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Karl Barth on horses

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Kerry

“a really good horseman cannot possibly be an ungodly person” – Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4, p. 352. Some people would be startled to find this superlative assertion in the major work of the 20th century’s most significant theologian. No … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature, Theology | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Dashing pell-mell around the Colorado Plateau

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Kerry

Moon rising over Delicate Arch, photo by Jackson Mann “A weird, lovely, fantastic object out of nature like Delicate Arch has the curious ability to remind us – like rock and sunlight and wind and wilderness – that out there … Continue reading →

Posted in Family, Nature, Travel | 5 Comments

Candace Moon

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Kerry

There’s an Owl Moon, a Harvest Moon, a Bad Moon, a Mississippi Moon, a Moon River, Shepherd Moons, and a Grandfather Moon; so why not a Candace Moon? As Rachel puts it: Even the moon celebrates Mom’s birthday! Tomorrow, March … Continue reading →

Posted in Family, Nature | Tagged | 2 Comments

MacDonald on waiting for a snow storm

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Kerry

As I led Adela, well wrapped in furs, down the steps to put her into the carriage, I felt by the wind, and saw by the sky, that a snowstorm was at hand. This set my heart beating with delight, … Continue reading →

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Christmas nights: Winter Solstice

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Kerry

Index of Christmas holiday posts Happy Winter Solstice! If you face east from your front yard, or say, from within the circle of Stonehenge, then on different dates through the year you will see the Sun rise at points running … Continue reading →

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Christmas gifts: You are a meteorite

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Kerry

Index of Christmas holiday posts Update 2022: Meteorite fragments I’m giving out this year are pieces from the largest group of meteorite fragments ever found — more than 100 tons have been recovered so far from this single fall, which … Continue reading →

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Evangelicals and Evolutionary Creation

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Kerry

Darwin 2009 – OU History of Science Collections from Kerry Magruder on Vimeo. This Darwin 2009 video (m4v, mp4, download) explains that the OU History of Science Collections is one of the handful of places in the world where one … Continue reading →

Posted in History of Science, Nature | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Horse Sense of John Lyons

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Kerry

I’ve just finished Moira C. Harris with Tammy Jo Lyons, Mastering the Art of Horsemanship: John Lyons’s Spiritual Journey (Irvine, California: Bowtie Press, 2003). The photographs by Charles F. Mann are alone worth the price of this biography of Lyons, … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature | Tagged | 8 Comments

The Horse and Her Gal

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Kerry

Uncle Mitch, who frequently gets together to ride with Dad and Uncle Charles and Marvin (my brother-in-law), sent this video around recently by email. You’ve seen it before, but it’s good enough to watch again. It shows Stacy Westfall’s championship … Continue reading →

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Aurier vs. the positivists

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Kerry

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” I selected this saying of Einstein’s for the motto of the History of Science Collections blog in part because it thoroughly undermines the positivist philosophy which was rampant in Einstein’s day and which remains … Continue reading →

Posted in Art-Music-Lit, History of Science, Nature | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Melville and Mortality

Posted on May 27, 2010 by Kerry

“Call me Ishmael” is not how Moby Dick begins. Rather, the work opens with a scene of dusty old books, pervaded by a sense of mortality, followed by extracts “toward a Cetacean taxonomy” supplied by a “sub-sub-Librarian.” As a curator … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature, Theology | Tagged , | 2 Comments