A Dozen Ducklings (Awww Monday), Inspiring Quotes of the Week, and Poetry Monday (Stem)

Please Note:  This post did not publish for some reason and I had to repost it with some changes.

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Awww Monday is hosted by Sandee at Comedy Plus.

Join us every Monday for Awww...Mondays.  Post a picture that makes you say Awww... and that's it.

Make sure you get the code from Sandee's site, linked above, and leave a link to your post so we can visit you.  What better way to start the week than with a smile!

I was at the shelter and noticed a mama duck with at least a dozen ducklings walking past.  I hurried to get some of the old cat food to take out to them, they love it.

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Sparks is the brainchild of Annie of McGuffy's Reader, who wanted us to post something positive and uplifting at the start of the week.  While she no longer blogs, i like to post an Inspiring Quote of the Week in her honor.     

Please note, with our poetry topic being "stem," I mostly used it in its sense as an abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

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Our dear friend Diane is taking a break

accommodations we must make

we miss her poetry and wit

so carry on as Poetry Monday's a hit!

Poetry Monday was started by Diane at On The Alberta/Montana Border.  Charlotte/Mother Owl and i are keeping it going while she takes a blog break, we hope temporarily.  Anyone else is welcome to join in the fun, just let us know!

This week the theme is Stem.                       

They inspected my car from stem to stern

and only one thing did they learn,

my indifferent car horn will only sound a toot

when it decides to give a hoot!

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I kept trying to tell STEM jokes

but couldn't get any traction,

the audience wasn't scientific

and no one had a reaction.

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The STEM lab broke laws of gravity

and the whole world was upended,

prosecutors brought them to trial

but the sentence was suspended.

Future themes are:

May 19 Stem (Today!)

May 26 Lead

June 2 Captain

June 9 Sting

June 16 Possible

June 23 Uniform

June 30 Scramble

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Today is:

Boy's Club Day -- founding in 1906

Celebrate Your Elected Officials Day 2025 -- unless you don't like them, then get to work electing better ones; if you know of a good one, take time today to thank her/him

Circus Day -- the four Ringling Brothers opened their first circus on this day in 1884

Discovery Day -- Cayman Islands

Greek Genocide Remembrance Day -- Greece

May Ray Day -- to celebrate being able to go out into the sun's rays as summer nears

National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day -- US (information at Banyan Tree Project)     

National Devil's Food Cake Day

New England's Dark Day*

Plant Something Day -- because it's fun, and summer is coming so you can!

Praia Municipal Day -- Praia, Cape Verde

St. Dunstan of Canterbury's Day (Patron of armourers, blacksmiths, blind people, gold workers and smiths, jewelers, lighthouse keepers, locksmiths, musicians, silver workers and smiths, swordsmiths; Charlottetown, PEI, Canada)

St. Peter Celestine's Day (Patron of bookbinders; Aquila, Italy)

Victoria Day -- Canada

Youth and Sports Day / Commemoration of Atatürk -- North Cyprus; Turkey

Anniversary Today:

Eric Clapton marries Pattie Boyd, 1979

Birthdays Today:

Rachel Appleton, 1992

Jordon Pruitt, 1991

Eric Lloyd, 1986

Kevin Garnett, 1976

Kyle Eastwood, 1968

Grace Jones, 1952

Joey Ramone, 1951

Archie Manning, 1949

Andre the Giant, 1946

Pete Townshend, 1945

Nora Ephron, 1941

James Fox, 1939

Francis R. Scobee, 1939

David Hartman, 1937

James Lehrer, 1934

Malcolm X, 1925

Ho Chi Minh, 1890

Nancy Astor, 1879

Johns Hopkins, 1762

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith(Film), 2005

Smokey and the Bandit,(Film)oikRoom Service"(Play), 1937

Gone With The Wind(Publication date), 1936

"L'heure espagnole / How They Keep Time in Spain"(Ravel comédie musicale), 1911

Today in History:

Jacques Cartier sets sail on his second voyage to North America, 1535

Anne Boleyn is beheaded, 1536

Queen Elizabeth I orders the arrest of Mary, Queen of Scots, 1568

French forces under the duc d'Enghien decisively defeat Spanish forces at the Battle of Rocroi, marking the symbolic end of Spain as a dominant land power, 1643

The Long Parliament declares England a Commonwealth, and England remains a republic for the next 11 years, 1649

King George II of Great Britain grants the Ohio Company a charter of land around the forks of the Ohio River, 1749

*A combination of thick smoke and heavy cloud cover causes complete darkness to fall on Eastern Canada and the New England area of the United States at 10:30 A.M, 1780

Napoleon Bonaparte founds the Légion d'Honneur, 1802

Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo thus ending the Mexican-American War and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States for $15 million USD, 1848

Jan Matzeliger begins the first mechanized shoe production, 1885

Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol, 1897

White women win the right to vote in South Africa, 1930

Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind is published, 1936

Churchill and Roosevelt set May 1, 1944 as their goal date for D-Day (it had to be delayed over a month because of weather), 1943

The Soviet Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus, 1961

Croatians vote for independence, 1991

The Sierra Gorda Biosphere, the most ecologically diverse region in Mexico, is established as a result of grassroots efforts, 1997

Hundreds of Albert Einstein's scientific papers, personal letters and humanist essays were make available on the Internet. Einstein had given the papers to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in his will, 2003

A rare 19th century torpedo is discovered off the coast of California by the US Navy dolphins, 2013

UK inflation is recorded as a negative for the first time since 1960, 2015

EgyptAir flight MS804 goes missing over the Mediterranean on route Paris to Cairo, 2018

Greenhouse gas emissions dropped 17% worldwide in April 2020 when most of the world was in lockdown according to a study, 2020

According to a major new study, environmental pollution caused by “obesogen" toxins is having a significant effect on the obesity crisis, 2022