Thursday, March 5, 2009

How the Book was Done and Cawfish Homes

I was asked many times how my wonderful family made my blog into a book. My sister, Amanda, just opened my blog and started to copy it. She would highlight my blog and then right click and copy it. Then she would paste what she copied in Microsoft Word. In Microsoft Word, she then reformatted my blog into a two column format. She ended up saving over 400 pages of just one year of my blog. Now, as how the cover was made to look like my blog. My sister and I do digital scapbooking. She has lots of papers and cool things to make scrapbook pages with. All she did was designed a "scrapbook" page that looked like my blog to the size requirements for the book. The program that we both use is Photohop Elements. So, the front of the book is a wonderful copy that my really talented sister made to look like my blog. She is really super fantastic. Plus she is really artistically talented. Here is the back and side of the book again. When she had completed all the coping and pasted, and the design of the cover, spine, and back of the book. My sweet sister then uploaded everything to the online book publishing site, Lulu. Lulu is a self publishing web site. It's pretty neat. So, that is how the book was done! And now you all know! Some one else was wondering exactly what this was....... That is a crawfish hole. When it rains here the crawfish build up these fantastic mud "castles". There is a hole in the center of them, and yes, there are crawfish inside of them, but way down in the earth. We live in an old rice/crawfish field.The rice fields and crawfish ponds look the same, except crawfish ponds have traps in them to catch the crawfish. The crawfish will come out of the ground to eat and get caught in the traps. Then farmers come in their boats and pick up the traps and collect the crawfish. But our land is no longer set up for crawfish farming. It has been leveled out for many years now, but we still get those crawfish coming up out of the ground. And you don't have to live on an old crawfish farm to have them in your yard. They just live down here, everywhere. So, we get a lot of these crawfish towers in our yard. The kids step on them, kick them, throw them at each other. And we run them over with the lawn mower. I need to get a pictures of when there are hundreds of them all over the field. It's really weird looking. Little mud towers everywhere. And the crawfish do come out of their holes from time to time. That big guy came out of a sack of crawfish that was going to be boiled and then ate. The ones that we find in our yard are a bit smaller. But now you know, and you all can sleep better knowing what a crawfish home looks like.

16 comments:

kdwhorses said...

Very interesting, I defintely learned something I didn't know about crawfish!

The book was such a cool gift, alot of thought!

Hohni said...

I used to live in Baytown, TX. Our ditches always filled up with crawdeads when it would rain!!

~Rachel~ said...

I live just south of Baytown and I cannot wait for spring crawfish season.... Yum-O!!!!

The digital scrapbooking is really cool. I might have to invest in Photoshop and learn how to do it. I love your blog design!

TjandMark/AKA PearlandHawkeye said...

Weird. We call them mud bugs and crawdads. But I have only seen them near water. Does this mean that it is pretty wet out in your pastures?

Danielle Michelle said...

Mmmmmm....I love crawfish. Maybe I should move on down there with you. One thing for sure, if for some reason we couldn't go to the store we wouldn't starve!!! Lol

I LOOOOOVVVVEEEE Photoshop Elements!!! I just don't play with it enough because I really need a new computer for photo stuff.

Hey - baby contest on my blog!

Unknown said...

We have crawfish! Clear up here in Washington state! Ours don't have a muddy flavor through cause our water is mostly clear and they mostly don't live on ground.

Mostly in lakes, ponds and creeks. I love catching them with my bare hands - sneaking up behind them then grabbing them just where their pitchers can't reach. When I get about a pan full - I steam or boil them. Yummy! One of my most favorite camping treats! Pairs up great with fresh lake trout.

Unknown said...

OOOOOOmYYYYYYYYYYGaWWWWWWd!
They live in the ground?
They come up in your pastures and yard?
That gives me the heeeeeeebyjeeeeby's so bad:(
I thought they lived under rocks in the pond. Thats where ours live, under rocks in the pond and they stay there, under the rocks in the pond and they dont come out of the pond, they stay under the rocks in the pond until we set traps with cat food.
This fact will give me nightmares you know......

Trailboss said...

We have those too around the house and pond. Especially around the house when it rains a lot. Our dogs have a ball with them!

Tiffany said...

LOL You're a swamp teacher now. So I'm glad to know my little wild child isn't the only one to throw and kick them. LOL

And I remember as a kid, having crawfish mound fights. Although some of them really hurt. LOL

The Caple Crew said...

ew we are constantly finding those dang crawfish mounds in our backyard! They are so gross and they so totally need to leave me alone! YUCK!

Shauna said...

I am new here! What an awesome blog :)

Anonymous said...

Your sister is very thoughtful and creative....and I didn't know anything about crawfish....

The Wades said...

Max has a cousin from Mississippi that leaved here in Alb for a while. Max and his cousin's husband would go get crayfish out of the Rio Grande so we could have a boil. Weird, huh? My children LOVE LOVE LOVE playing with them. Any critters, really. I had no idea they made mud towers. I'll have to show my oldest son tomorrow.

I am off to contact your sister now. It looks like she did a GREAT job!!

Amanda said...

I never knew how much I missed crawfish holes till I saw your photos. WAH!! You will now have to educate the masses about fire-ant mounds. If you could get a video of them seething out when you step on the mound, people would be blown away!! Fire-ants are one of the main reasons I left the South.

Anonymous said...

you have now made me hungry for crawfish...LOL

Heather said...

You have a very very nice sister!