Oct. 26, 2009 - In Praise of Sleep

   Once a month, our church holds an evening service and last Sunday was the night.  Some of you may recall that on our way to September's service, our van window blew in when a piece of metal catapulted through it.   We are nothing if not intrepid, so this weekend we headed out again. This time, we got to the service safe and sound.  Our time there was wonderful and blessed and long; the result was that we got home after 9 p.m., and the kids were in bed by 10 p.m.

  I am on the compulsive side where bedtime is concerned.  As a morning person, I am not at my best in the evening. By the time 7 p.m. rolls around, I am ready for the children to be in bed so I can rest and spend some time with Kevin.  They are NOT in bed at that point, but we start doing baths and night chores and night snacks, and usually everyone is in his/her bedroom by 8:30 p.m.  Our older girls read until 9:15 p.m. and then turn off the lights and talk until 9:30 p.m.  The younger ones usually are asleep earlier, except for Angela; she still takes a nap and can occasionally be heard babbling at 9:30 p.m. but at least she is resting and in the right place for sleeping.

  What does sleep have to do with homeschooling?  Well, I would argue A LOT.  Yesterday was a very rough day around here after a short night of sleep.  I had hoped they would sleep in but mostly they did not.   The children were  tired and crabby.  Our 2 and 3 year old girls are by nature argumentative, and when they are tired, they are argumentative squared.  I'm not technically homeschooling the younger ones, but when they are crabby, I'm more stressed.  There is more noise.  Everything is a struggle.

  I'm glad we went to church, but I'm glad we don't often go out at night.  I think it is a valuable thing for every family (homeschooling or not) to ponder sleep issues occasionally.  Are the children getting enough sleep?  Are we?   

  One of the blessings of homeschooling is that we can choose our schedules, and indeed sleeping in can be a fine thing.  I know of families where the children stay up late so they can spend time with their father who works odd hours.  That is great, so long as the kids can also sleep in in the morning. 

  But many families in our culture are pushing the sleep envelope. They are so busy with all the activities and opportunities, that they don't make sleep a priority.  Sleep seems like an "optional" thing, and in my younger days I made the mistake of not getting enough.  Somewhere along the line I learned that a super tired woman is not as able to be the wife, mother, and friend that God wants her to be.  And chronically tired children may suffer from more illness and less patience to cope with the challenges of life.

  So let's get enough sleep!

 

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Oct. 24, 2009 - Organizational Woes: Part 1

I’ve been on a painfully slow organizing frenzy for close to a month now. By that I mean that I have been seized with fervor to organize our lives better, but have been hindered and flummoxed in my ability to do so quickly and thoroughly.

I’m going to try to blog a bit about organization, including comments about my challenges and my triumphs.

 But let me start with Woe #1.

 We have too much STUFF.

Ok, no huge surprise there.  I’m guessing most Americans have too much stuff.  It is a cultural problem. 

In many ways, we are very blessed because we have a big house with lots of storage.  So it isn’t like piles of stuff are littering the floor.  If they were, I probably would do something about them.  My sweet mother wasn’t the tidiest of housekeepers growing up, but she always had a clear floor so I am used to a clear floor.

I’m not really a pack rat either, except where books are concerned.  My parents moved often during my childhood and always unloaded a lot for each move, so I learned to throw things out.

So what’s the problem?  I’ve been pondering that. I think the problem is that throwing things out, donating them, and organizing them, takes thought power and energy and time.  And I feel short on all three

Because really, a great deal of our ‘excess stuff’ is in decent shape, and I don’t want to just throw it out.  I’d like to bless someone else with it by finding a friend in need, or giving it to the Salvation Army, or something like that.

But you know how it is to open boxes and burrow through them, or go through bins of clothing – for awhile, the mess gets worse instead of better, and I have to evaluate everything. Furthermore, I am surrounded by small and active children who would like nothing better than to snatch something out of a box and take off running.

So, I’ve made progress this month, but it is slow progress.  One thing I did manage to do was thin out my clothing collection for the young ones by giving items to friends who needed them. That was emotionally taxing to some degree as it was a physical sign of relinquishing hopes for another baby. But I really felt strongly that the Lord would have me bless others in this way.  (And you know, if we do ever have another baby, there are thrift stores where we can buy more clothes as needed.)

So, how do you find time to get rid up stuff?  When do you do it?  Do you have your children help?  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

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Oct. 23, 2009 - 20 eggs from 20 chickens

   Yesterday was truly a red letter day.  Every last one of our sweet chickens laid an egg! 

 

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Oct. 22, 2009 - Warm Autumn Day

After a cold fortnight, we're enjoying warmer temperatures and sunny skies this week.

Two days ago, the younger children and I went for a walk in our back 3 acres.  Kevin cut a walking path around the edge, but other than that, it is thoroughly wild.

I haven't been back there in several months, which I know sounds ridiculous. But the last two times I went for a walk, I was accosted by bugs when I got to the back.  They buzzed me, threatened me, and upset me.  I ended up running all the way back up to avoid them, which was good exercise but not conducive to enjoying the scenery.  I also had to check for ticks after my walks, because the back 3 acres are tick infested.

Tuesday's walk was delightful. The recent frosts apparently killed both bugs and ticks.  The weather was beautiful, and we had at least one cat accompanying us.

 

Here's a picture of our house from the back.  The landscape is filled with the browns and gray-greens of fall.

  These berries have taken over the edges of our property.  Kevin says they are poisonous and very common, but couldn't remember their name.

  Lydia wandered off by herself in search of a cat.

  The 4 younger ones finished up their walk by swinging for a time.  Well, the 3 littles swung, and Isaac did gymnastics.

P.S.  Sorry that pictures are small.  For some reason, I can't copy the bigger images today. 

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Oct. 20, 2009 - A New Decade

Tomorrow will be crazy busy as I am working and then Kevin and I are going to a Bible study tomorrow.  So I will write today about tomorrow, which is rather a momentous day for me.

Tomorrow is my birthday.  And it isn't just any birthday, it is one of the big ones -- the big FORTY!

Yes, tomorrow I will be 40 years old.  I am sure it is normal to feel a little strange at turning 40.  And there is no harm at all, and probably much good, in doing a little contemplation about my life.

Mostly, I feel very grateful for my life.  When I look back at previous decades, I think I can say with truth that I am a more joyful and content person at age 40 than I was during any of the previous decades.

At age 10 I was in the jungles of Bolivia where my parents were missionaries.  There were great things about living in Bolivia, but some challenging things happened too.

At age 20, I was a junior working on an undergraduate degree in metallurgical engineering in "snow country" (Houghton, Michigan.)  I was an exemplary and successful student, but not a peaceful person at that time. And while I knew Christ as Lord and Savior, I didn't really know Him as my Friend.

At age 30, life seemed somewhat simple!  We had just moved down from Michigan, where Kevin had recently completed his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in Materials Science and Engineering.  When I turned 30, I was very pregnant with our first child.  How simple that life seems now!  I had no children in the home, just one in the womb.  My primary focus was getting out house unpacked and getting ready for being a mom.  I really can hardly BELIEVE that I have six children now.  I never would have imagined that we would be so blessed to have 6 children in 8 years!

And now I am 40.  Life seems busy, crazy, and stressful at times. But it also is a delightful life, a blessed life, a joyful life.  I am privileged to be married to the best man in the world for me.  I adore my children with all their quirkiness.  I am growing in my maturity as a child of God, as a wife, and as a mother.  I have a long way to go, but have faith that God will grow and teach me as the days and years go on.

I would say the one rather sad thing about turning 40 is that I'd love another baby, and it seems likely we're done with six.  But six, wow, SIX!  We are so blessed to have six sweethearts.  I am grateful for them and need to be peaceful with moving into a new phase in life.  And who knows, maybe in 11 or 15 or 18 years, we'll have a grandchild or two. 

So, happy birthday to me!

 

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Oct. 20, 2009 - Peanuts

  Kevin experimented this year by growing some peanuts.  I am astonished to realize how little I used to know about peanuts.  Firstly, I had this vague idea that peanuts would not grow this far north. I knew they were grown by the ton in Georgia, so assumed it was a warm weather plant.  Not true!  They grew very well here though they were smaller than southern peanuts. But perhaps that was just the variety.

I also didn't realize that peanuts develop and grow underground. The leafy plant has no apparent fruit, which of course meant we didn't know whether the peanuts were growing at all and if so, how many peanuts grew.  To our pleasure, we got quite a few peanuts from a few plants.

Once we had them, we had to figure out what to do with them.  Kevin read up on how to bake peanuts and gave it a try.

Baking them turned out to be quite a process.  He started with 20 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and they tasted awful.  He kept trying more baking in 5 minute increments.  He was just about ready to give up when he reached the 40 minute mark.  And success!  They tasted great.

  Here is the finished product.  The peanuts take time and effort to extract, so they are not the sort of thing you want to eat when you are starving. But for a light snack, they are wonderful.  Perhaps we'll grow more next year, or perhaps Kevin will try something else moderately exotic.

 

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Oct. 18, 2009 - We bought (part of) a cow!

 

Around here, life gets quirky fast.

  A couple of weeks ago, we got an email through our homeschooling group offering a piece of a cow.  Not a piece of a cow in the sense of eating the cow, but a "milk share".  See, here in Ohio, no one is allowed to have and consume raw milk unless they own the cow from which the milk comes.  It is perfectly legal for a number of people to own part of a cow, since a nice cow like this one will produce 4 gallons of milk a day and that is more than most families can handle!

  So, we decided to buy a "milk share" so that we can get raw milk.  Yesterday, we went to visit her and took the pictures shown above.  She has a name, but I've forgotten it.  Alice, perhaps?  Jenny?  I'll have to ask.

  Now truthfully, I'm a germophobe type of lady.  Germs make me nervous, and I know there were reasons why pasteurization was introduced.  It was and is easy for nasty microbes to make it into raw milk.

  On the other hand, there is evidence that pasteurization and homogenization destroy some good things in milk.  There are various enzymes that are destroyed in the pasteurization process, and the homogenization process changes the structure of the fat in possibly unhealthy ways. Oh, the milk is also completely free of any foreign hormones or other problematic additions.

  An interesting study out of England showed that farm children who drank raw milk had fewer allergies than those who didn't drink raw milk.

  The family milking "our" cow is super careful to keep the milk and associated utensil sterilized and clean.  My gut instinct is that large herds of cows with a huge number of workers are more likely to have cleanliness issues than one careful family with one fat cow.

  So, we're embarking on a raw milk journey.  I do intend to learn more about making kefir, which is supposed to be wonderful stuff. I'm always intimidated by a learning curve and I don't know HOW to make kefir, but I can read directions.  I'll figure it out.

 For now, we’re just enjoying the raw milk as is.  It tastes delightful.

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Oct. 18, 2009 - Ode To Winter

    Well, I confess the title to this blog is made tongue in cheek.  I don't really like winter, though there are good things about it.  As you'll see.

   But let me back up a bit.  Last Tuesday, I went to a homeschool meeting where the speaker was Julie Bogart, author and creator of Brave Writer, a writing curriculum aimed at homeschoolers.  She herself is mother to 5 homeschooled children, and is also a published author.

  I think I can say without seeming boastful that I write quite well.  Since I've lamented my struggles with sewing and art, you know I am aware of my weaknesses as well. But I've always loved writing.

  It has therefore been a strange and upsetting thing that I've found TEACHING writing to be so very difficult. I have a curriculum, recommended by a dear friend and mentor, entitled "Understanding Writing" by Susan Bradrick. There are great things about this curriculum, especially the sections devoted to writing in a way that is pleasing to God. 

   But Understanding Writing requires a great deal of preparation time and I haven't found that time.  So I've felt upset and concerned about how to teaching good writing skills to the children.  In spite of that, Naomi has taken off as a writer.  But I think it comes naturally to her, as it did to me.

  Brave Writer was like a drink of cold water on a sunny day in the middle of the Sahara Desert.  I haven't sprung for the expensive book yet "The Writer's Jungle" but I probably will.  Julie's description of how to teach writing seems delightfully organic.  It centers around the concept of freewriting.

  I can't do all of Julie's ideas justice at this point, and indeed I don't know them all. You can check out her website bravewriter.com, if you like.  But let me just briefly comment on freewriting.  She says that children need to practice writing without worrying about spelling and syntax and grammar and punctuation.  She says that good writers write about what they are truly interested in, so giving a topic is generally ill advised.  She suggested doing an 8 week experiment where we set the timer one day a week for 5 or 10 minutes, and just WRITE.  Then the kids will take one of those attempts and we'll do some polishing.  But for that first 8 week period, we won't be grading anything, we won't be analyzing anything, we'll just be writing.  We especially won't worry about SPELLING.

  So we started on Thursday. I've decided that I'll freewrite with them.  So here is my "Ode to Winter".

   

      Well, here it is, the 16^th of October. What is good about cold, wet days, anyway?  I love spring and summer and fall is Ok, but winter is too cold and too barren and too gray for my taste.

            So what is good about winter?  Well, I like cozy times in front of a kerosene heater.  I like winter fields covered with white snow.  I like millions of snowflakes filling the outdoors as far as the eye can see.

            I like a simpler life.  We don’t go many places in winter, which makes life more constricted but also less busy.

            I even like having the pool closed. I love the pool, but when it is closed we can just focus on indoor stuff.

            I am grateful that we have warm clothes and warm beds, insulation in our attic and a good roof over our heads, a 15 passenger van with plenty of heat!

            I like that the earth sleeps in winter.  The little animals are safe in their dens, and the ticks are DEAD!

            There are places with no winter at all.  I love heat, but such places also have many bugs.

            So yes, there are good things about winter.

_______________________

  It took effort, but I didn't edit that piece at all.  I could and would change a lot in a revision.  For one thing, the 16th of October isn't really winter, it is fall (though this week sure FELT like winter here in Ohio.  It has been cold!)  So, that's a good example of a very unpolished piece of writing that has some good themes and ideas, but could also use some work.

  Well, that's enough blogging for now.  One last caveat is that it was clear from the talk on Tuesday that Julie Bogart isn't quite as conservative as we are in some areas.  She mentioned Pokemon, Harry Potter, and crushes on boys in 4th grade in a calm way, and we're down on all three of those things.  So it is likely that "The Writer's Jungle" contains some stuff that I would want to edit out for my kids.  But that's Ok...one of the things I am learning to do is take what is good out of a curriculum and drop anything that won't work well for our family.

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Oct. 15, 2009 - A Bad Day

Ok, I confess that I am having one of those "bad days" that are amusing in hindsight, but extremely annoying to live through.

1.  I woke up this morning feeling agitated because of a vivid dream about losing my purse.  It started the day on a sour note.

2.  When I sent Naomi out to collect eggs, the chickens swarmed her again and we had another major chicken break.  The chickens were more clever after their escape of 2 days ago, and it took longer to corner them and throw them back into the coop and yard.  Did I mention that it was 42 degrees and drizzling?

3.  We have mostly banned apple juice in our home, but we bought some this week so I decided to give the kids a treat of juice for lunch.  Naturally, predictably, inevitably, Miriam dumped her entire cup of juice all over her seat and the floor. 

4.  Miriam and Angela are tired and CRABBY.

5.  Lydia and Isaac were playing sword fight with something inappropriate and Isaac got whacked hard in the ear.  That turned him into a whimpering mess, not surprisingly.

Lord, have mercy and grace on us during our bad days.

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Oct. 14, 2009 - Moving the Chicken Yard

As I said in the last blog, Kevin decided to move the chicken yard.  This great event occurred on Monday.

Before

Kevin putting up the first section of fence, with Joseph as an admiring audience of one.

Putting in the fence posts was hard work.  It'll be nice when our children are old and strong enough to help their Daddy with jobs like that.

Naomi helped Kevin with the boards at the bottom of the fence.  These are necessary to discourage dogs from pushing under the fencing.  We've had 2 strange dogs visit our yard this week, and we don't want a repeat of our spring tragedy when the previous set of chickens were killed by a neighbor dog.

The chickens were very confused during the construction.

"Why can't we come out?"

The last section is up!

Could anything be better?  After weeks of coping with a muddy yard, the chickens now have fresh grass and a garden.  They were ecstatic! 

Interestingly, the chickens most enjoyed the old garden because of the dirt.  It was nice, fresh dirt with plenty of worms and bugs and they have spent many happy hours scratching and pecking.

Now, for a story without pictures.

Kevin put up the fence on Monday as he had the day off.

Mornings are always busy in our house, and Tuesday morning was no exception.  So as usual, I asked Naomi to let the chickens into their yard while I dealt with things in the house.  Two minutes after she left, she came running back in in a flurry.  The chickens are creatures of strong habit.  The door that is now the OUTSIDE door to the coop used to be the door into the yard. And the chickens, well, they assume when that door is open, they should run through it!  They stampeded poor Naomi, and 9 chickens, NINE chickens, escaped! 

  Isaac and I dashed out into the cool October morning (in our bare feet) and spent the next 10 minutes chasing chickens.  Some were relatively easy to catch, but the last one led us on a merry chase under and around and over anything she could find.  I eventually, with much difficulty, cornered her and threw her firmly into the yard.  Whew!

  So for a few days, I'll let the chickens out and I will use the ULTIMATE weapon to keep them from rushing out. An umbrella.  For some reason, our chickens fear and loathe opened umbrellas.  I've found that if I bring an open umbrella and lay it on the mud in front of the door, they will cower back in fear.  So we'll use the umbrella until they get used to the idea of not making a break for the coop door.

 

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Oct. 10, 2009 - Remembering the Chickens

  An important part of my blogging duties is talking about our chickens, and its been awhile since I've mentioned them.

  Firstly, and most importantly, they are healthy and happy.  We've been getting 16 to 18 eggs a day, an impressive number.  A few loyal customers are helping us by buying our eggs.  Otherwise, the entire refrigerator would soon be full of eggs.

  We have a minor problem, or perhaps problem isn't quite the word.  But a couple of pictures will demonstrate.

  Do you notice how the chicken yard is much browner than the normal yard?

  And here is a close up. That brown stuff... well, its mud.  The chickens have eaten almost every blade of grass in the chicken yard.  We've had a lot of rain lately.  Result, mud.  Lost of wet, squishy mud. When we go in to retrieve the chicken pan, it is easy to slip. The chickens currently have very dirty feet, which makes for dirty eggs (though they wash fine.)

  This is a long way from being a catastrophe and they may not mind at all, but Kevin has decided to move their yard to the other side of the coop.

 

   The plan is to move the chicken yard to the area that used to have our garden.  It is largely "done" for the year, but there is wonderful leftover vegatation that the chickens will enjoy eating.  Kevin will probably purchase some extra fencing to make the yard bigger, too.  Another advantage of the move is that the wind usually comes from the northwest, and the coop will now provide a windbreak for the chickens during the cold winter months. 

   Moving the yard will be a moderately time consuming project, but the children will enjoy watching and perhaps even helping a little. 

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Oct. 8, 2009 - Math Musings

           Last week, I purchased a CD-ROM with a series of math drills called Calculadder. This is a big deal for me and to explain why, I’ll have refer back to my own years in school.

            I will be 40 this month, so I have to think back 33 years to the time when I sat in a 2^nd grade public school classroom in a small town in the Thumb of Michigan.  Like most of my contemporaries, I spent considerable time doing math worksheets.  I’m sure you remember these; I had to solve 50 to 60 simple addition or subtraction problems in a short amount of time.  I remember rather enjoying it and was good at it.

            Math continued to be somewhat interesting through 6^th grade.  I attended a missionary school in the jungles of Bolivia from 4^th through 6^th grade, and it was quite a bit like homeschooling.  The classes were very small (4 to 5 students) and my parents were 2 of my teachers!  I remember my mother sitting down one day and showing me simple algebra, and I thought it interesting.

            We came back to Michigan when I was going into the 7^th grade, and I felt like I had fallen into a Math Black Hole.  I don’t remember learning one new thing in math for 7^th and 8^th grade.  I was bored and frustrated.  Every day, we were assigned 25 to 30 problems for homework.  I’m a first born compulsive type so I did them, but it exasperated me.  The school was small, rural, and inflexible and while my parents wanted me to take Algebra in 8^th grade, the Powers That Be refused.  Math got interesting again in 9^th grade, and I was permitted to double up Algebra 2 and Trigonometry in 11^th so I could take Calculus 1 at a local community college for my senior year.   My college majors were in engineering so I had lots of math, most of it challenging. At some point, I passed where I could really UNDERSTAND what I was doing; I felt that most in a graduate level calculus class where we were integrating over three dimensional objects.  The course was taught by an intelligent gentleman with poor English skills, and I only passed that class (indeed, I got an “A”) because I was good at following equations. But I didn’t really grasp the concepts well, and that frustrated me.

            My 7^th and 8^th grade and my graduate level calculus experience considerably affected my teaching style in math.  I have a strong desire to make math interesting for our children; I’ve also felt it far more important that they understand the concepts behind something then that they memorize a bunch of facts or formulas or methods.

            In this I was reinforced by Ruth Beechick’s small book (part of the Three R’s series) about teaching math.  She believes that schools often err by focusing too much on rote memorization, and not enough on conceptual understanding.

            The result of my experience and reading led me to focus on teaching concepts and disdain drills.  I read articles and talked to friends who believed that children needed to memorize basic math facts so that they could work problems quickly, but I didn’t agree with them.  Oh, I did buy a couple of math drill games like Quarter Mile Math and Timez Attack, but I didn’t consistently have the children use them.

            My belief was that if we practiced enough interesting problems, the children would just “pick up” the basic math facts.  I felt that math worksheets were boring and I didn’t want the kids bored, so we would just progress onto more interesting problems and pick up the math facts along the way.

            This method worked fairly well with our eldest child, who did pick up math facts easily.  I am guessing Timez Attack helped her with her multiplication tables considerably and she played it because she enjoyed it.  She did NOT like Quarter Mile Math and I didn’t press it, but she knows her basic facts.

            Our 3^rd child and 1^st son also remembers facts easily.  (He also has a passion for Timez Attack, with the result that at age 6 he has largely memorized the times tables through 12 X 12.)

            And then there is our 2^nd child.  Lydia has math aptitude and grasps math concepts easily, but she hasn’t memorized her basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts.  And surprise, surprise, it is slowing her WAY down.  A few weeks ago, I realized that those friends and articles that emphasize some rote memorization are right where she is concerned.  She needs to memorize her basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts, and the sooner the better.  So I purchased a CD-ROM with Calculadder worksheets, and we’re doing timed tests every day as she works on quickly solving simple addition problems.  Of course, we’ll move onto subtraction and multiplication after she has those addition facts down.

            This whole issue reminded me again that I need to hold my homeschooling opinions somewhat lightly.  I tend to be opinionated about how to teach certain areas.  Sometimes I’m wrong. Sometimes what works well with our first child doesn’t work well with my second.  I pray that God will grant me the wisdom to see when I’m wrong about something, and the wisdom to change course when it is necessary.

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Oct. 4, 2009 - Fall Harvest

Isaac and I just finished reading "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I think it is my favorite of her books, and that is saying a lot.  The book is a fictionalized account of a year in the life of her husband, Almanzo Wilder, when he was about 9 years old.  He grew up on a large farm in New York State, complete with horses, cows, chicken, sheep, grains, and vegetables galore.

One thing that strikes me about that book is that everyone worked very hard.  During spring and summer, everyone was extremely busy with planting.  In late summer and fall, they had potatotes and carrots and pumpkins and grains to bring in for the long winter months.  I'm guessing that winter was a pleasant time for them because while the work never ceased, it diminished.

So, we are facing our own "fall harvest" though admittedly on a tiny scale compared to the Wilder family.  Kevin is, as I've said before, is our gardener. 

  Here are some of the last green beans of the year, along with some very attractive carrots.  The carrots have been a work in progress for several years.  Our experience is that they are persnickity.  In particular, they don't grow well in heavy soil.  We've had many a carrot that was very short, very skinny, or both. Also, the seeds are very small and it is extremely easy to get too many in a small space.  This year, Kevin thinned them carefully.  We don't have a large patch of carrots, but the ones we have look and taste wonderfully.

 And here is Joseph, proudly holding a sweet potato.  Kevin planted more than 50 sweet potato plants, and dug up about 12 plants last week.  Sweet potatoes are also sensitive to heavy soil that has not been plowed well.  Last summer, we got a host of strange, skinny sweet potatoes because the soil hadn't been plowed well. This year, we got 60 lbs of large and beautiful sweet potatoes, and obviously we still have many more to dig up! 

  We haven't eaten any of them yet, as sweet potatoes store well and some other garden produce is deteriorating on our kitchen counter.  Kevin planted 4 varieties of sweet potato, and it'll be interesting to determine which variety tastes best.  I probably need to get a little inventive with sweet potatoes.  That's a LOT of sweet potatoes. They do store well in a cool, dry place, though.  Hopefully they'll last well into the winter.

 

 

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Oct. 2, 2009 - Sewing Lessons

  I think I've mentioned before that I am sewing impaired.  I own a sewing machine and can (and have) made curtains, but that's about it.  I'm confined to straight seams.

Our older girls have repeatedly expressed interest in learning to sew.  Last weekend, Kevin's mother kindly came over to make pillowcases with our girls.  They had a wonderful time and learned a few things about sewing machines and sewing seams.

  Here are the finished products.

  And now a question for you kind readers with more sewing acumen.  What should I do to encourage my girls in this area?  Kevin's mother is extremely busy, and will not have time for frequent lessons.  I would like the girls to be able to do something with cloth like substances, but feel stymied by my own lack of knowledge.  Yes, I could probably learn how to sew, but realistically I'm not up to tackling it right now with everything else that is going on.  Is needlepoint simpler?  Are there kits out there where we could make something simple by hand sewing?  What about knitting, is that moderately easy?

  I just hate to see all this enthusiasm go to waste, but feel so limited here.  (This may sound like a repeat of my last blog.  I am art AND sewing impaired.)

 Thanks for any suggestions.

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Oct. 1, 2009 - Atelier Art

I've mentioned before that I am art impaired, and blessed with children who are excited about art.

Kevin and I attended the vendor show at the Cincinnati Homeschool Convention this spring, and Atelier Arts caught Kevin's eye.  The lady selling it said that it was a DVD curriculum where you could put the artistic paraphernalia on a table, turn on the DVD, and walk out the door.  That sounded like a perfect fit for our family!

After much effort in collecting the appropriate supplies, we started Atelier.  It has been a resounding success.  This week, the older girls finished the last project in Module 1.

Lydia constructed the first picture, and Naomi the second.

I confess I was more dubious about this project than the others, because it involved potato prints.  We cut some potatoes in half, the girls covered the halves with brownish paint, and then stamped them on the paper. After they dried, the bodies were filled in with oil crayons.  This is supposed to be our family and I thought they turned out beautifully.

After the girls made the potato prints and set them out to dry, they asked to have a painting free-for-all.  It got messy, but it was creative. 

  I am thankful for our "sunroom" which has a tile floor and a very old table, both appropriate for creative messes.

  Interestingly enough, the children's great-grandmother (my paternal grandmother) was a commercial artist in Chicago during the depression, and my brother is an architect.  There are definitely artistic and creative genes floating around in the gene pool.  It is a challenge for me to teach those areas where I feel so deficient, but God makes a way. 

 

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Sep. 29, 2009 - Egg Production

There are times when my lack of blogging savvy shows up clearly, and this is one of those times.  I can't figure out how to copy a chart from Microsoft Excel, so was forced to take a picture of it and display it that way.

  And its not the greatest picture, but you can see the general and wonderful trend is UP.  We are getting, on average, 16 eggs a day.  We saw a definite increase from 13 to 16 a few days after we installed the light in the coop.  Now that our chickies are waking up at 4:30 a.m., they have plenty of time to eat.  And that means more eggs.

  Of course, there are eggs, and there are eggs.  We've gotten some whopper eggs, all double yolked ones.  These result when a young pullet gets a bit off on her egg laying cycle, and encases 2 yolks in one large shell.  And then, we get little eggs sometimes.  Yesterday, we got the smallest egg we've ever seen from our chickens.  It looks like it ought to come from a robin, not a chicken, though of course the color is right.

  The one on the left is a normal large egg, and you can see how very small the one on the right is.

  Small and cute.

  You can tell we are enjoying our chickens. I have been thinking this winter will be less fun as I tromp out to the coop in the morning to make sure they have water and food.  But it looks like they will continue to lay eggs, which will be great fun.

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Sep. 28, 2009 - Another van picture

  Kevin carefully vacuumed the van for glass last night, then had Naomi sit back in her seat so you can see where she was.  I am still shaken up but full of gratitude.  It is astonishing she wasn't hurt.

  We need to contact our insurance company and then get an estimate for repairs, so I'm guessing our big van won't be operational for at least a week.  That will mean a quiet week at home, obviously.  It gives me a slightly funny feeling that I CANNOT take the kids anywhere.  I don't go out all that often anyway, but it is strange being truly trapped at home.  Of course, our culture is somewhat odd in that most families do have more than one vehicle.  Certainly 50 years ago most wives and children out in the country didn't have the option of driving off in the second car since there wasn't one.

 

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Sep. 27, 2009 - Praising God for His Protection

 

 

 Kevin and I are praising God tonight that our children are all safe. 

  Our church holds evening service one night a month, and tonight was the night.  We were driving down the highway to church when there was a sudden and dramatic smash.  I looked back to find that the driver's side back window had shattered.  Naomi was right next to it and was covered with glass.  Kevin pulled over and went back.   A car had apparently kicked up a 6 inch piece of metal that went slamming into the window, knocked Naomi's book out of her hand, and landed between Naomi and Lydia.

  Miraculously, Naomi wasn't cut or hurt, and neither were Lydia or Joseph (who was one seat forward on the driver's side.)  We moved the girls forward and Joseph away from the window, and moved to a less busy street.  Kevin then got out and knocked out the remaining glass on the window that was loose.  We then drove slowly and carefully home.

  So our van needs some work and we missed church, but we are deeply grateful.  A couple of "funny" things happened.  One was that Kevin repeatedly had an impression today that we should have the cell phone numbers for somebody at church in case something happened on the way to church (he was supposed to play drums). The other was that I was praying for protection out loud right before it happened.

  I will say we are ready for dull around here.  It's been a crazy week with the emergency room trip and now this.  But as I said, we are extremely grateful that all our children are safe and sound.

 

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Sep. 26, 2009 - Field Trip to a One Room Schoolhouse

  Our older girls went on a field trip to a one room schoolhouse on Wednesday. The Collins School was in operation from the 1850's through 1945.  The teacher was responsible for grades 1 through 8.

   The field trip was arranged through a local homeschool co-op. We aren't members of the co-op, but a friend  told us about it.  The teachers at the Collins School host school groups through year from public school and other groups.

  Unlike most public school classes, our group was heavily weighted on the female side. There were a great many little girls dressed in old fashioned dresses, bonnets, and aprons, and just a few boys in overalls and the like.  I'm guessing we're not the only family that loves Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, and this schoolhouse is from her era.

 

 Here are Naomi and Lydia with their lunch basket.  Kevin's sweet mother stayed up late the night before finishing up their bonnets.

  And here is a row of sweet girls, with a few boys wandering about.

  Naomi and Lydia had a fabulous time.  They toured the grounds and looked at the old style pump and the outhouses, and then enjoyed some teaching in the schoolhouse.  Naomi did particularly well with a math problem on the board, and Lydia delighted in sewing a small fabric heart.  (She has worn that heart constantly since Wednesday.)

  For us, it was just a tiny taste of letting go.  We rarely leave our kids with people we don't know, but in this case decided after consideration that the four adults at the school would take good care of our girls. And of course they did.

 

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Sep. 25, 2009 - Update

Miriam is much better, praise the Lord.  Not surprisingly, it is hard to keep her somewhat quiet, and that is the most important thing right now.  When she does run around, she starts coughing.  Still, she is much better  than she was on Wednesday.

I appreciate the comments regarding what to do on a "crisis" day.  Two comments specifically spoke of the value in children caring for a sick sibling.  It occurs to me that part of my training for my kids is to teach them to play gently and quietly with a sick little one.  Our older girls are very good with the young ones, but they tend to be rambunctious with them, which is exactly what Miriam DOESN'T need.  Well, there is always room for more training.

I find myself experiencing some emotional let down today.  Adrenalin carried me through the ER trip and a difficult week on the homefront, but now I am worn out and struggling with some cabin fever.  I have been praying for patience and a guard on my lips, and thankfully the Lord is answering.  We are having a fairly good day.  I hope to get a nap today so that I am relatively alert for "date night" tonight. Kevin and I schedule a date night for almost every Friday night and while we rarely go out, we always do something together.

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