I really want to start raising some chickens.  I would love to have about 15, 12 hens and 3 cocks.  If anyone reading my blog has any experience raising chickens in their back yard feel free to share your words of wisdom and helpful links.

I am looking into making my own chicken tractors but it looks like I'll need to make 3 separate ones to hold all 15 chickens.  Is that correct?  Boy do I have a lot to learn, yet.   I grew up on a farm but my parents didn't raise chickens.  Well they did when I was real little but they had a chicken house and didn't use them for eggs just selling them and butchering them.  Then when a tornado took the house, they never rebuilt it.  So I know next to nothing about raising chickens.  I am reading several books on it so I am slowly learning.

© Copyright 2008 Peaceful Meadows

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I believe that we should always be willing to try new things and hone new skills.  We should not be afraid to try something we have always dreamed of doing but never tried because we thought it was not a gift of ours.  Instead, we should drop all inhibtions and try something new! I am going to do just that!

I want to model learning to my boys.  I already do that through showing them that learning is what we do from birth to death and willingly saying, "I don't know.  Let's find out." when I don't know the answer to their inquistive questions.  I want to take it one step further, though.  I want them to learn to not be afraid to stick their necks out and try something new even though it may be difficult or a bit scary to them.

I have decided to model that.  I have always wanted to write poetry and short stories but felt inadequate to do so.  I felt that I wasn't talented enough but finally decided to give it a try and created The Tea Room.   This is my safe corner to do try my hand at writing.  I also hope that it will model to my boys that one is never to old to try new things.

I deleted my JTF blog where I was blogging about my weightloss (that was not going very well) and created The Tea Room instead.  The Tea Room will be a bit more uplifting for me.  It will not be a reminder of my failed attempts to watch what I eat.  LOL

Shyly admitting that I posted the poem that I wrote in March as my first entry.  It's nothing special but my little attempt at dusting off my skills and giving a go at writing poetry again.

© Copyright 2008 Peaceful Meadows

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We have been enjoying the spring weather.  Last Saturday I got our screens cleaned and put in so now I can enjoy the birds chirping.  I still need to get my house decluttered and organized.  My goal is to have that huge job finished by the end of may.

Tuesday I took JM to the doctor on Tuesday and after his appointment took the oldest two boys to a friend's house so that they could still go on our planned field trip to Hans Herr House.  (I was disappointed that I couldn't go because of JM being sick but at least they were still able to go.)

Today we went to a Native American Festival.  JT is looking forward to going and learning more about Native American's and their culture.  Well, I am not really feeling very talkative and also need to run and start my day. 

Starting a fire:
 

The boys would like one of these:

© Copyright 2008 Peaceful Meadows

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We are studying George Washington and the Revolutionary War. Last week we read about the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere's Ride. My boys then started acting out what we have studied in their play.  It was fun to see them dress up and act out what stuck out to them.  One was George Washington, one was Paul Revere and one was "a Brittish captian who was very angry that they tea got dumped into the ocean."  They played like this for hours.  It was fun to listen in on their play and hear what they imagined it would have been like then.

I checked out some videos about George Washington and the boys really enjoyed watching them, as well.  I wish that I had the oppertunity to learn history this way rather than from dry school textbooks.  I think that I would have remembered a lot more!

© Copyright 2008 Peaceful Meadows

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Well we are back to business now that Christmas break is over and we have started the New Year. A new year means a new beginning, right? Well we have made several new beginnings at our house.

I have a chore chart up and going again and it is going well. It is helping *me* in being more consistent in getting the 2 older boys to help out around the home. The boys each have a day when they help me prepare dinner. DT does it Mon, Wed, Fri and JT does it Tues, Thurs, and Sat. DA can help both of his brothers if he wants to help. They set the table and wash the dishes the day they help with the meal.

I also have them helping sort and fold the laundry (they each fold their own clothes) and they each are responsible for vaccuming and dusting the living and family room. They have those scheduled and switch off too. Having those things on the chart has cut down on the complaining. I just say, "It's on the chart and you have to do it before you do anything else. Once it's checked off you can do ___________."

So far they love the helping with dinner and they hate the clean up jobs. LOL

I am reading the Bible through this year and have one that is set up in chronological order and has each section dated for you to read. So far that is going well. DT is reading a kids devotional Bible through this year, too. So far he has been reading it with me helping him. He reads a paragraph and I read a paragraph. Of course we are only on day three but so far that is going well.

I got us back on a loose schedule for school. I need that so I can get all accomplished that I want to. We are finishing up Astronomy, then will study the human body for a month and then move on to another apologia elementary science book. I'll let the boys choose.

We are doing MUS (Math-U-See)and it's going really well. Also doing LLATL the old books (I like them better because they are less workbooky. I use them as a guide and add to them when I see the need.), BF History (we are on a break from it at the moment), and All About Spelling, I see that helping DT's reading improving as well. We are only spelling 3 letter words right now which is way behind for him but I think that will help him get a good foundation in phonics that will last a life time. (When I had him evaulated she said to really reinforce the phonics because of him natural tendancy towards sight reading.) Being "behind" is worth it if it gives a good foundation for spelling (and reading) that will help him for a life time. In e-mailing with the author of All About Spelling, she suggested starting him at the beginning of the book on the easy words and just moving at his pace in order to give him a good foundation and be sure to cover what he may have not picked up before. So far in following DT's pace, we are doing a lesson a day (the lessons are set up to take more than a day) and if we continue at this rate, we will clip through the book and get to "grade level" in no time.

I am also more actively looking into guitar lessons for DT. My goal is to have him taking lessons by fall. I just need to find out if he can use a full sized guitar or if he needs a smaller sized one and find the right teacher for him. (If anyone living in the Eastern Lancaster County area knows of a good guitar teacher LMK!)  We had a full sized guitar offered to us if he can use it so I am hoping that he can use that.

We are fighting colds here and I am feeling stuffy and miserable because of the cold I am trying to loose some weight. I am doing that by exercising daily, watching what I eat (eating healthy, smaller portions, and cutting way back on sweets, refined sugars and starches.) and taking time to strengthen my spiritual life. I would like to loose about 30 lbs. The cold put a stall on my excercising, though. I don't really feel like doing anything right now. LOL

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We are studying Early American History this year. Last month we studyed William Penn because our support group was taking a field trip to Pennsbury Manor. I wasn't able to get as creative with that as I had wanted because of canning and stuff so the boys thought the study was sort of boring.  They loved the field trip and thought Pennsbury Manor was a blast!

We started Studying Lief the Lucky this month and I decided to pull some Viking Study into this, too. So we made Viking boats and I made a Viking Meal for dinner last night. Here is what I posted on an email list I am a part of:

We are studying Leif the Lucky as part of our American History and that is leading us to study the vikings. I did a search on the internet and made a viking meal.

Fish (they would have had fish, beef, pork, or maybe chickens since they raised their own livestock. I did fish because of that water connection and I didn't have any pork or beef.)

Pea Porridge (I don't like the recipe I used and will be looking for a different one if I make this again.)

boiled herb potatoes (that was a controversial dish some say some vikings ate potatoes others say they didn't.)

tomatoes (not sure if this is a viking dish but I had some that needed using and they ate fresh veggies. LOL)

Whole Wheat bread with honey and butter (most likely they would have had rye or barley bread but I had made whole wheat bread recently and wasn't going to go out and buy rye flour to make rye bread.)

The boys didn't like the peas porridge and they asked me to make another viking meal next week but to roast beef with cabbage, carrots and other veggies in with the beef like we read in a book that Vikings did. So I guess we'll be having another viking meal. LOL

I'll post pictures of the boys Viking boats later. I forgot to get pictures of them. I hope to finish up our fun Viking study this week and move on to Christopher Columbus next week. I want to get to the Pilgrims and Iraqois for November.

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Today the boys (and I) learned that the number of spots on the sun control the climate here on earth. We used a magnifying glass to melt chocolate but it didn't work well because the good magnifying glass with the glass lens got misplaced so we only had the one with the plastic lens and it didn't work. We are going to hunt down our good magnifying glass and try that experiment again! LOL

The boys sailed to India today on their ship. They ate Mexican food at a Mexican food joint in India for lunch. After lunch they toured India to see what they could see. They wandered to a rural part of India and ate Lentils, rice, tossed salad for dinner. Then they went back to their ship and sailed away. Around evening snack time they arrived in America and had apple crisp and ice-cream. They then boarded their ship and headed for Dream Land. They are wondering Dream Land at the moment and I am hoping they only see pleasant sights there.

DT enjoys reading to his baby brother. His reading is improving and I am grateful for that! It is a lesson to me to relax and not to worry. Reading is like walking and potty learning it will come and really can't be pushed. I don't know why I panic about things like that. I need to learn to trust God and DT. As long as I read a lot, expose him to books and just relax, it will happen. If I push we both panic.

I need to do the same with Math! I just need to make sure he is exposed to it in real life, has fun math games around to play, fun math stories to read, and just relax. He needs to see that math is a fun part of life and nothing to be afraid of then I think that will blossom just as reading has.

We came up with a family motto: Learning is life! Life is learning! That is so true! Learning is something that is taking place all the time. Our world is our classroom. Learning is fun and active. We are learning all the time!

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