Humphrey and his wife Hildy had ten white sheep, eight black-faced sheep, and five long-legged lambs. Early every autumn, they would drive their sheep onto the ground beside the big, yellow barn(畜棚). Then Humphrey would hold each sheep still while Hildy cut off the wool.

When they finished, there were twenty-three soft piles of wool on the floor, and twenty-three pink, skinny sheep jumping around happily as they were freed into the field. Humphrey and Hildy collected piles of wool and put them in the house.

The next few weeks were very busy. They finally finished on a cold, fall evening. Twenty-three bright, woolly blankets lay in cheerful piles around the kitchen. They would sell the warm blankets when winter came. By the time the snow flew, the sheep's wool would have grown long enough to keep them nice and warm. Humphrey and Hildy both smiled, content with a job well done, and went to bed early.

The alarm clock went off at 5:00 a. m. Humphrey and Hildy listened to the local weather report. "The earliest cold air in history," The announcer said, "has brought a freeze(霜冻) to our area! So put warm coverings, folks!" They stared at each other in horror.

"The sheep!" shouted Humphrey. They hurried to put on their clothes and raced outside. What a freeze it was! The golden autumn grass fell to the ground, and the sheep without wool were shaking with cold painfully. Their pink skins had turned blue.

注意：续写词数应为150左右。

"What will we do?" Hildy cried. "The barn can't hold so many sheep."

Outside the messy kitchen, Hildy had a good idea, eyes falling on the blankets.

Breakfast is food for the brain and for the rest of your body, say experts in children's nutrition. And taking in those morning calories are worth it, even for people concerned about their weight, a new study finds. Middle-school students who eat breakfast are more likely to have healthy weight than those who skip breakfast. This is true even for students who eat two breakfasts—one at home and one at school.

"Not skipping breakfast sets you up to not overeat later in the day, " concludes Marlene Schwartz. This psychologist studies obesity(肥胖) and directs the Rudd Center for Obesity & Food Policy at the University of Connecticut in Hartford.

Breakfast is considered so important that many schools now serve it as well as lunch. But at least one study has found that a lot of these kids who take part can end up eating two breakfasts, Schwartz says. People become concerned that kids who eat breakfast at home and at school may become obese.

In fact, Schwartz now says, that's not what her data have turned up.

Her group studied some 600 middle-school students. Over three years, students from 12 different schools—in fifth, sixth and seventh grades—were asked about their breakfasts. Throughout the study, about 34 to 44 percent of all students said they regularly ate breakfast at home. Up to 17 percent, or almost one in every six kids, regularly ate breakfast at school. On the whole, about one in every 10 kids ate breakfasts both at home and at school.

Eating habits change somewhat as the kids get older. For instance, fifth graders were more likely to regularly eat breakfast at home. But by seventh grade, 22 percent of the studied kids skipped breakfast frequently. Surprisingly, at every age, kids who ate breakfast were less likely to be overweight.

Jeffrey Hall, a teacher of Communications from the University of Kansas (KU), has used his research to define the exact amount of time necessary to make friends with someone. He's also found how long it will take to deepen a relationship. His new study found that it takes around 50 hours of time together to go from being someone's acquaintance to a casual friend. It takes about 90 hours to go from being a casual friend to a friend, and more than 200 hours before considering someone a close friend or best friend.

But it isn't spending just any kind of time together that deepens a friendship—hours spent working together, for example, don't count as much as hours spent getting to know someone by hanging out, joking around, playing video games, and doing more playful activities. The study explains that these kinds of activities help us to form a deeper connection with someone. "We have to put that time in," Hall said. "You can't make friends without any effort."

The results of the study come from the analysis of 355 responses to an online survey from adults who said they had moved in the last six months and were looking for new friends in their new environment. Survey participants were asked about new relationships as well as hours spent together and activities they did. They were then asked to rate their resulting relationships according to one of four stages: acquaintances, casual friends, friends and close friends.

The main conclusion that Hall came to is that making close friends takes serious effort. So if you want to have some best friends, you have to know that spending time with someone is the most important thing.