Snow and Sun and Suzie

It's raining down huge snow flakes and the forecast calls for 100% chance of snow and sleet today.  Most of it is melting as it falls because the temperature is slightly above freezing.  Tonight though, 29 degrees is predicted.  On Tuesday the temperature was in the upper 80s.

This Saturday is the first day of Farmer's Market. We vendors may have to rely on unfamiliar details to recognize each other.  We're not used to seeing each other in parkas.

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I've been working on printing the graduation program and have noticed a pattern among second names for the 18 girls who are listed.  Four are Danae, two are Renee, and one is Janae.

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Yesterday Hiromi stopped in at our neighbor's place to provide some information, and Suzie O. talked to him about a project he had helped her with.  It was an electronic device which she was constructing to measure some aspect of solar activity--solar flares or sunspots or something like that.  Hiromi was amazed at her success in creating the equipment, with only a bit of help.

Yesterday she told him that she was one of only two people doing this research in the northern hemisphere.  She feeds her data to four different scientists.

She also showed him a picture of about 29 people besides herself--a group from all over the world, gathered in Arizona to share information on this subject.

Suzie has an observatory in her backyard.  It's a Sturdi-bilt barn with a slide-off roof, designed by her son-in-law who's part of the family-owned Sturdi-bilt business.  The large telescope inside was purchased from a hobbyist in Wichita.

Amateur is the correct term for Suzie as an astronomer because she has no academic background in the subject.  Her professional associates understand, however, that passion, personal investigation, and hard work make her work authoritative in every sense that matters.  I applaud this level of personal initiative and expertise, especially for a Beachy dairy farmer's wife.