Why Farms In America Are Increasing In Size

For my research paper I researched why farms in America are growing in size. This topic was very interesting. I learned many things while writing this paper.

One interesting fact I learned while writing my reasearch paper was that half of all farmers in America are between the ages of 45 and 65. This was interesting because many of my family members are farmers and the do fall in this age range but I have never noticed this before. Also, I am thinking about going in to a profession that has something to do with agriculture and this fact makes me want to go into the ag field even more because young people are very needed in the ag community.

Another interesting fact I learned was that the Milk Income Loss Contract has a cap on it. This contract means that the government will pay farmers when prices for milk go below a certain price. This amount is capped so bigger farmers cannot make as much money from the government. My family has a small farm and it is nice to know the government is making ways to help the smaller farmers.

Poem Reflection

A poem we read in class during our Romanticism unit was Tide Rises and Tide Falls. This poem was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It talks about a person dying and then life goes on. I like this poem because it uses the circle of life. The circle of life is inevitable and is a key part of nature. One thing I do not like is at the end of the poem life just goes on. I believe that everyone leaves behind a legacy. Some people may have a legacy that is only known to a few people. Others may be known to the world. Nobody is just forgotten after they die. We learned in class that this is how many people of the day also disagreed with the ending of this poem. Other than that aspect I thought it was a very good poem. Longfellow is an excellent author and used techniques such as alliteration and consonance to make the poem better. All together I thought it was a very good poem.

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Connection to Nature- Voki

Ending to Pit & Pendulum

All of the sudden some cawing noise is so loud above my head. Then a feel a bunch of birds! I wonder if this must be just another way of torturing me. All of the sudden I feel as if I am flying! The birds have just saved me! I have now escaped the Spanish Inquistion with the help of a huge flock of birds!

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Reflection on the Crucible

Abigail Williams as portrayed in The Crucible movie

The most of the characters in The Crucible seemed very shady in my opinion. This made me very angry because I knew who was actually at fault for the whole mess and witch trials but the blame just getting passed off. Abigail was my least favorite character because she kept ruining other people's good names. Just because she got into trouble doesn't mean she should push the blame off to someone else. Although this really bothers me I think that it happens a lot in today's society. We as the human race and our sinful nature are quick to push the blame onto someone else. So I think The Crucible gives us a good life lesson, to not make other people look bad because we do not want to get into trouble.

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Political Climate of the 1950's

 Elia Kazan

HUAC was established in 1937 by a man named Martin Dies. Dies was a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan and therefore had their support behind him in these investigations. HUAC was established to investigate un-American and subversive activities. In 1947 HUAC began to investigate people of Hollywood. 41 people were interviewed by HUAC in September 1947 and during the interviews they gave names of people who were supposedly holding left-wing views. People who held left-wing views were said to believe in communism. Elia Kazan was one of the people who gave names. The reason he gave names of people with left wing views was that he was afraid that he would go to prison. If people did not give names they would be added to the blacklist. The blacklist was a list of people with left-wing views and if people were on the blacklist it made it virtually impossible for them to get a job in Hollywood. HUAC was on a "witch-hunt" in the 1950's of the Hollywood community.

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Puritan Plain Style

The green leaves of summer

Have turned to red yellow and orange.

To everything there is a beginning and an end.

These leaves represent our lives

They are here one minute and gone the next

Therefore daily we need to do the right thing and love one another. 

This will give us a chance of being with God in Heaven for eternity. 

They All Played A Part

Squanto was a key person in the success of the Pilgrims who came from England on the Mayflower. Squanto did various things that kept the Pilgrims alive. First Squanto was an interpreter for the colony. Squanto had been in England before and while he was in England he learned the English language. Squanto helped the Pilgrims talk to Massasoit who was the chief of the Wampanoag. The Wampanoag was the tribe that lived around Plymouth. Second, Squanto helped the Pilgrims with food in the New World. Squanto taught them how to plant things such as maize. Squanto also taught the Pilgrims how to fish and hunt for food. In my opinion, if the Pilgrims did not have Squanto it would have been very hard for them to survive in the New World. Squanto was very valuable to the Pilgrims. He also played a key role in their success in the New World. 

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Journals of Discovery

This was a picture that I found on the Internet when i searched the First Thanksgiving. It shows the Pilgrims and Indians eating together in harmony. There are foods such as pumpkins, corn, squash, and wheat. Most of the food that is shown in the picture would be accurate. In Of Plymouth Plantation the food that Squanto helped the Pilgrims to hunt or catch was turkey, venison, and fish. Squanto also taught the Pilgrims about Indian corn. Never in Of Plymouth Plantation did it talk about squash and pumpkins but these could have been used just not mentioned. This picture shows the Natives eating with the Pilgrims. It does not talk about this in Of Plymouth Plantation. Indians were only mentioned a few times in the journal. The Pilgrims made peace with the Indians but the only Indian that they came in contact with on a daily basis was Squanto and he was with them everyday until he died. 

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Native American Culture

In class we watched a video about the Cahokia mounds in Saint Louis, Missouri. This video was very interesting to me. The mounds are large in size and must have taken a lot of work. All of this work was done by human labor. This seems like it should have taken a long time but in reality it did not take the Native Americans that long. The mounds were used as burials or places for ceremonies. The mounds show that the Native Americans were very intelligent. The mounds also showed that the Native Americans knew how to work with the land. In the video the man talked about how the Native Americans used different types of soil on different parts of the mounds. That shows their knowledge of the Earth. Overall the video was very interesting and the mounds are magnificent works done by the Native Americans.

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