Louis Braille

Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809 in Coupvray, France. His father owned a vineyard, and he had three older siblings. While just a toddler, Louis loved to play in his father's workshop. When he was three, he accidentally put out an eye with an awl. Even with the best doctor's care it couldn't be saved, and he also lost sight in his other eye.

Louis studied in Coupvray until he was ten. Because he was gifted, he was chosen to be one of the first students to attend the Royal Institute for Blind Youth. His instructor there, Valentin Hauy, had developed a complicated system of raised dots to help the students be able to read some things, but his system took a lot of space, and the material contained a minimal amount of information. Later, Louis would develop a new, simpler system based on this concept.

After Louis finished the school, he remained as the teacher's assistant. Eventually he became a full professor at the institute. He was also an accomplished musician, and he wrote several books about his Braille writing. He had always been sickly as a child, and his condition worsened in adulthood. He may have had tuberculous. He died in 1853, two days after turning forty-three. But he had left a remarkable legacy to the world.

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The Preacher, Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards is perhaps the best known preacher of Early America. He was born in 1703 to a Puritan minister who tutored boys for college on the side in order to support his large family. He had eleven children, but Jonathan was the only boy. His wife, Esther, was the daughter of another minister, Solomon Stoddard, and she is said to have had "unusual mental gifts and independence of character."

Jonathan was taught at home until he entered Yale College at the age of twelve, where he graduated valedictorian.  He was interested in the sciences but saw them as evidence of God's masterful hand. In 1727, he became an assistant to his grandfather, but Jonathan was a student pastor and not a visiting pastor. As a rule, he spent thirteen hours a day studying.

In the same year, he married seventeen-year-old Sarah Pierpont. Her father was the main founder of Yale, and her mother was the great-granddaughter of Thomas Hooker. Jonathan had been impressed with Sarah's great piety and cheerful disposition. They also had eleven children.

Jonathan wrote many theological books and is considered as one of the leaders of the First Great Awakening. He's probably most famous for his sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," which he preached in Enfield, Connecticut in 1747. I had heard that he was not supposed to preach but the scheduled preacher didn't show up, and he was asked to fill in. However, in all my research, I could find nothing about this.

Early in 1758, he was elected the president of the College of New Jersey, later to become Princeton University. Even at that time, he was known as the most eminent American philosopher and theologian of his day. On March 22, 1758, he died of a fever incurred after being given an experimental smallpox inoculation. He was buried in the President's Lot in the cemetery of what is now Princeton beside his son-in-law, Aaron Burr. A large amount of his writings are available free online and he continues to influence Christian thought.

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Keep Writing

I became a writer about third grade, and I've been writing since then. No one ever told me how important it was for a writer to keep writing. Something within me just compelled me to write. To me, it was a natural progression of my love of stories. I've always had a vivid imagination, and my writing just seemed an extension of that and my love of reading.

If you're serious about your writing, you should write some everyday. Set a goal you can manage and adjust it as your situation changes. Right now, my goal is 1,000 words a day, and I know other authors who have this same goal. I have a lot going on, but this is something I can do. If you work another job and have a young family, you might want to set your goal lower. However, if you set a doable goal and stick with it, you'll be amazed at how much the writing will accumulate and how much you'll learn as you practice.

I've found something else helps me to pick back up my writing each day. I try to never stop at a stopping point. Instead, I stop where I know what needs to happen next in the story, and it's easier for me to begin again. Once I have the flow going, it tends to continue. The point is to find what works for you, and keep at it.

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A New Year

2015 was an exciting year for me. In March the print version of my first novel, Cleared for Planting, came out and I began promoting it. Besides being on a radio show, being featured in two magazines, and having write-ups in newspapers, I did 23 book signings all across the state of North Carolina and even took some to Missouri, Nevada, and Tennessee. That averages out to more than one every other week.

In August, I had the privilege of attending a writers' retreat in Lake Tahoe and visiting with two of my favorite authors, MaryLu Tyndall and Tamara Leigh. Then, in September, my second novel, Sown in Dark Soil, was released, and the excitement rekindled. Now the third one, Uprooted by War, is with the publisher, and it should be out before March. 

In fact, by all indications, 2016 is shaping up to be just as thrilling. I have one last book, Transplanted to Red Clay, to bring out in the Appalachian Roots Series, and it should be out sometime during the year. In addition, I'm working on self-publishing my first book. It's a stand-alone entitled When Winter is Past and is set in Pennsylvania in 1739. It is likely to be out in ebook form sometime this month and in print soon after that. There's also many more possibilities, and I can hardly wait to see what 2016 has in store. Isn't it exciting!

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Do - Overs

It's rare that we have do-overs in life. One of the many reasons I enjoyed teaching was it could feel that way. As each new school year began, I had a chance to apply the things I'd learned from the previous year and hopefully make things better, more interesting, and more exciting for my students, so they would learn more.

Of course, in my Christian faith, God offers forgiveness and a chance to start over, too. His grace is truly amazing, and I never cease to be awed by it. Jesus died on a cross that we might have that forgiveness through His sacrifice, because we could never be good enough to make any sort of restitution on our own. It's the ultimate do-over, because we can have a whole new life.

People view the beginning of a new year many different ways. Some party it in, some make resolutions, and some watch in on television. This year, why don't you treat the start of 2016 as a new beginning, a chance to correct the problems you see in your life. Make your family relationships stronger, readjust you priorities to what's really important, and make 2016 the best year you've ever had!

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Belted Cattle

When I first noticed belted cattle, I thought they looked more like some of the hogs my dad used to raise. But these breeds are actually old ones, and they're becoming popular again. Two of the better known belted bovines are the Belted Galloway from southwestern Scotland and the Dutch Lakenvelder from Holland. 

The Galloways adapted to the poor grassland of the uplands and the windswept moors. These cattle have high quality marbled beef and are usually raised for their meat, although they can also provide milk. In America they have the nickname of "Oreo cows," due to their color. 

The Dutch Lakenvelders are probably the oldest of the two and were highly sought after and admired by most people from royalty and noblemen to the the common farmer. They can be traced back to the original belted breed. They began to flourish in Holland in the mid-1700's. P.T. Barnum used them for exhibition. This breed is usually raised as dairy cattle. They can be black or reddish brown with the white band, but their hides are smoother than that of the Galloway.

My father used to raise a few head of cattle. In fact, he saved the money from their sales to put me through college. My son-in-law now farms on the side and has a small herd. Neither of them have ever had a belted breed, but I find them interesting. As you drive through a farm area, you may want to look for them.

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When Weather Is Subjective

Have you ever thought about how relative the weather, especially temperatures, can be? It all depends on what we get used to. I went to college at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, located in the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge. The climate zone there resembles parts of New England or Canada more than it does the South, where it's located. When I graduated and moved down the mountain, I didn't wear a coat at all for two winters, because they seemed so warm to me.

Leah experiences some of the same things in my novel, Sown in Dark Soil.  When she gets to the mountain farm, she can't believe Granny Em complains about the summer heat, when Leah thinks it's cool enough and quite comfortable, because she's been used to living on a southern plantation to the southeast. By Uprooted by War, the third book, Leah has become accustomed to the place, and she agrees with Granny Em. However, Leah's sister, Ivy, and the former slave, Moses, nearly freeze their first winter there.

Until I went to the Philippines to teach for a semester in a school for missionaries' children, I thought North Carolina could be warm and muggy. Spending Thanksgiving and the first part of December in their climate made it hard for me to get into a holiday mood. It wasn't what I had been used to. India was also extremely hot and humid the summer I spent there. New Mexico was so much drier than anywhere else I had lived that my skin didn't like it. However, before I left, I had adjusted. Despite the changes, I love to explore new places and stay there long enough to get to know the place - weather and all.

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