Came across a great teaching tool while reading the January 13 (2012) issue of Science journal: Fakebook. The concept is based on the popular social media, Facebook. The example shown was a page from Fakebook page of Plant Cell Wall with various Friends: Ribosomes, Chlorophyll, Plant, Nucleus, etc. Brilliant!

Being the science nerd that I am, I started one for the Chihuahuan Desert and will add content when whim strikes. Meanwhile, also on Fakebook appears:  Desert H. Biome and Hot Desert .

Science can be fun!!

Home is where some hang their hats. Home is where some hang their spurs. Home is where I hang my heart.

Returned in body but not in spirit to this place I call Another Wrong World. Where I continue to be Zombie-like, play the academic, watching out for the cityzens always in a hurry to die, my head and heart still back in the desert covered with desert dust fairies and blown asunder with gritty joy, grinning like a mad fool at the blazing color show as the sun crawls over the Chisos, Christmas and Corazón Mountains. My spirit and heart, my corazón, are trapped there in the desert of Big Bend. Here, I'm just a clone doing its job, biding its time, until the stings and chains are cut loose and I can fly south with whatever else flies. Put me on the back of a strong hawk and send us south to the desert: remote, quiet, harsh, and unforgiving.
But I call it Home.

I usually avoid or ignore my birthday. Actually, I often forget it. This year, when asked, "What do you want for your birthday?", my response was "Nothing. I don't want any 'thing'. I want to go camping and be with my wild buddies." And so we did. 

We spent a lovely weekend at the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge near Lake Texoma (a reservoir on the Red River, bordering Oklahoma). We tent camped in the woods along the shore (or, what was once the shore) of the lake. Most of Saturday and Sunday, we hiked and explored the refuge. We also partook of a fund-raiser for the refuge; the Wild Pig BBQ. Smoked and roasted by volunteers and staff right there on the refuge (overpopulating feral pigs are an ecological problem on the refuge).

How does one describe seeing, experiencing this?

Wonderful, awesome, magnificent, incredible? I choose sacred. Because they take you up and along with them in spirit during their flight. We are humbled by something so majestic and beautiful.

It is sacred.