Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Lustron homes Kate told me the other morning that she saw an interesting show on PBS at like 3:00 am about metal and ceramic prefab homes from the 1940s.  I would have thought she was dreaming, but her story did not feature small animals chewing on her, so I knew it was real.  It was the Lustron homes story.  The story goes like this: Housing shortage after WWII Visionary inventor comes up with prefab houses that are cheap and last forever without maintenance. People line up to buy them.  Thousands are built and sold all over the country. unknown forces conspire against the company.  Company goes bankrupt.    Lustrons live up to their promise.  Their owners love them.  There are seven of these in Minneapolis. 12:27:06 PM    comment []

Kind of a homeschooling morning.  Maggie was contemplating a little card with the letter Z on it just now and she looked up and asked me, "Do numbers end?"    Also, she was watching me put honey on her toast and she asked me how bees make honey.  We looked it up and found out that honeybees have two stomachs, one for nectar called the honey stomach and another regular stomach. One kind of bee collects nectar and another kind masticates it until it is converted into simple sugar.  Then it is spread out to dry and the bees sit there and fan it with their wings until it is thick. Then they pour it into an honeycomb and seal it off with wax.  Then we looked at pictures of bee larvae and bee eyes.  We'll have to make a trip to a bee farm this summer. 12:08:33 PM    comment []