http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/csa/

I got my first box today. I ordered a "small" box (usually a family of 2) for $28 and this what I got.

ALL are organic and many are local.

Mushrooms - 2 bags of 6 oz each (I chose not to receive mint and instead get a double portion of mushrooms.
Salad mix (green and purple stuff) 5 oz
Cabbage - medium to large head (maybe 2.5lbs?)
Kale - 10oz bunch
Peas - 13oz (they are in the pod, but you don't eat the pod)
Carrots - a bunch of 7 - weighing 14oz
Green onion - one bunch (3oz)
Honey Dew melon - small about the size of a large grapefruit
Zucchini - two, weighing a total of 13oz
Tomato - two large, weighing 14oz
Oranges - 4, weighing 2lbs (I chose these in place of limes)
Peaches - 4, weighing 14oz total
Nectarines - 4, weighing 1lb total

My best estimate is that these would have cost my $32-$35 at the store - although I've not seen all those products in organic at the store.

Each week you can chose three items to omit and select from a small list of replacements. The boxes are dropped at various points in the community and you are given a window of time within which to pick it up (Wednesdays 3-7pm). My drop point is not much past my closest grocery store, and is actually closer than the "good" grocer.

Another benefit is that the prescribed box 'forces' me to try to new things, or to 'indulge' in things that I would otherwise go without. Today we had linguine with sausage and kale. Ymmm...

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He answers to many names, among them are: Honey, Daddy, TiVo King and (the coveted) Happy Fun Dad. Once when Rachel was about 18 months old, she called him, "Honey-Daddy."

Daddy wears several hats: Bread-winner, Lawn-mower, Thingy figure-outer, Chief dishwasher,  Leader of adventures, and (reluctantly) Substitute duck-feeder.

He takes our daughters to classes and lessons; he attends recitals and performances.

Happy Fun Dad has taught our children to high-five, 'clink' glasses for a toast, and tie their shoes.

He lets them 'drive' his truck in the driveway and he is showing them the proper use of power tools.

When the girls find a dead bird, snake, or rodent, guess who helps them to bury it and even conducts a service for the dearly departed! That's right: Daddy.

He is also the best loose-tooth-puller in the house.

When our cat died, my dear husband stood in the rain, breaking frozen ground to dig her grave.

If a child has occasion to cry over a disappointment, he cries with them (but tries to hide it).

Daddy takes the girls with him when he votes.

He takes them to Memorial Day and Veteran's Day services.

Daddy teaches the children to honor our community's first responders and our nation's soldiers.

He's a great dad!

And I love him.

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I spent two hours outside today and got all of the tomatos, peppers, cucumbers and herbs set out. I still have 44 little broccoli waiting for my attention, but they look okay in their nursery pots. Good thing, because I won't get them in the dirt until Monday.

I hilled the earth up around my volunteer potato plants, and gave them some compost as well.

I'm just fascinated by compost: one takes garbage and it becomes 'brown gold'. It's wonderful. I will plan to do a whole entry on compost at a later date. Anyone with a patch of yard can (and IMO should) make compost - if nothing else, one can spread it on one's lawn or around one's flowers; it's not just for vegetables.

Lastly, I moved a 'volunteer' pumpkin plant to where I want pumpkins to grow. It didn't look so good, but hopefully, it will perk up tomorrow.

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I set out all my herb starts, seven of the tomato plants, and a dozen of the pepper plants. My mom came over to help (we only had about an hour and a half) and she pulled weeds and levelled things, and started planting pea seeds. I also watered all the other starts that are still straining in their little plastic cages.

As I was setting out the transplants, I had the first-time joy of giving each plant a large handful of my own homemade compost. What a delight that is! It even looks and smells rich. :)

I have three potato plants that are 'volunteers' from last year. Since I was unable to get seed potatoes, I'm certainly doing to let these grow. I think I'll save them for seed for next year. I doubt they'll be enough for more than a meal or two, if we just ate them now. By saving them, I'm guaranteed at least some seed next time.

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The fence is up around the garden plot, and yesterday, I went to the nursery. I needed to buy all my stuff for this year at one time because I had a terrific 20% off coupon!  I'm so excited!

I got most of what I needed. It's too late for strawberries and they were completely out of seed potatoes. Some of the other things, I didn't get exactly the variety of plant that I had originally intended, but what I did get should work just fine. I was actually pretty pleased by the selection, despite the late date.

I bought:

Vegetable starts: 2 grape tomato, 21 sauce tomato, 4 cucumber (I haven't grown cukes before), 16 bell pepper, 4 jalapeno pepper, and 44 broccoli (I wanted more, but that was all they had left).

Herbs (in 3.5-inch pots): 2 English thyme, 2 Greek oregano, 2 Genovese basil, 1 BBQ rosemary, 1 Arp rosemary, 1 Tricolor sage, 1 Berggarten sage, and 1 dill. Herbs are all new to my garden, but I have a nice area set aside for the perennials.

Seeds: corn, shelling peas, green onion, and parsnips. I have plenty of other seeds left over.

Oops and two blueberry bushes - sorry about that, honey, someone must have slipped those into my cart...but since they're here, would you mind digging holes and planting them?

Now...to get them, and all the other seeds into the ground.

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I want to tell you about two things. Some of you may be embarrassed that I even mention this stuff. My apologies to you. To the rest of you...please realize that there may be an easier way for you.

First topic: the "Diva Cup" (made from silicone) and the "Keeper" (made from latex). You can google them to find out all about them. Stays in place during all bathroom activities. It does take a couple of months to get the hang of seating it properly. I've had mine for two years and will never go back! The Diva cup offers a 90 day money back guarantee.

Second topic: Waxing away unwanted hair. I did this for the first time last summer. The only downside is the cost, so I limit it to summertime. It does hurt, but only for about 2 or 3 seconds. Then you have nice looking skin for a month. Try it!

Okay, end of discussion. :)

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Yes, this is still me. I've just changed the look of my blog. I was finding the black letters on orange background hard to read. So, I chose a different template. :) Hope this is easier on your eyes as well.

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Do you have trouble getting your children to eat enough fruit?

Frankly, I do not. My girls love fruit. But I recently discovered something that - for them - really increased their fruit intake. Hopefully this can help you.

I was thrift shopping and impulse purchased a beautiful glass bowl. I wanted to be able to see it regularly, so I decided to pull some fruit out of the refrigerator, put it in the bowl, and set it on the table.

On Tuesday afternoon, I put in 3 pears, 3 oranges, 3 apples and 2 bananas. By the end of lunchtime on Wednesday, the bowl was empty!That's 11 pieces of fruit between 2 kids over 3 meals! (Not to mention the vegetables that I serve at meals!) I refilled the bowl yesterday afternoon with 4 pears, 4 oranges, and 4 apples. There are now 1 pear, 1 orange and 3 apples remaining.

Somehow the visual reminder stimulates the appetite! I think this will also be great for days that Daddy is in charge. He doesn't remember to offer fruit, but with the bowl right in front of them, the girls will just ask.

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Because of my feet problems, I recently purchased a shower bench - a little plastic seat that allows to me shower quickly, but keep weight off my feet. Rachel enjoys a long shower, so she also started using my bench as she relaxed under the spray.

Randy mentioned something about it over dinner recently and asked her if she scrubbed the bench after using it. She had not, but I said that I didn't think it was a problem, as I wasn't worried about sharing "bum germs" (as we say in our house) with her.

Rachel asked, "Well what if Daddy used your bench?"

I thought I was being funny when I replied "Eww, that would be icky! If his bare bum touched it and then my bare bum touched it, well... that would be like our bums touching! Yuk." The whole time I was looking at Randy with a little spark in my eye.

Then Rachel said "Oh, like when his p*n*s stiffens and fits comfortably into your va-Gena to make a baby?"

We were  !

Now, she did not come up with this on her own...it is word-for-word straight out of Usborne Books' Pocket Scientist - Red. Which may be on your bookshelves, so watch out! :)

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Oh, what a dirty word! We all do it though, don't we?

I recently learned a very good lesson about procrastination. I learned that when I avoided a small problem, in my mind, that problem became much larger than it truly was.

The problem was a sundress that needed a small patch. Last summer, I'd sewn matching dresses for the girls, but on one, the piece of the bodice had folded over and gotten caught in the stitching that connected the bodice to the skirt. It was slightly creased, and frankly, Rachel's long hair covered the flaw, but I tend toward perfectionism.

So I removed the errant stitching and replaced it correctly. Unfortunately, this left a hole in the bodice (after doing the original sewing, I had trimmed the seam allowance). I wasn't sure how to patch this hole and have it look perfect, so the dress was guiltily stuffed in my pile of things to do later.

Fast forward ten months...I've been off my feet all month and working on a lot of sewing jobs. I decided to tackle that sundress patch. After all, if I ruined it, that wouldn't be any worse than it sitting in a box unused. I was debating matching the pattern of the print fabric, because, as I recalled, that patch needed to be large enough to cover a hole about 3 inches wide by 1 inch tall.

When imagine my pleasant surprize when I looked at the dress and realized that the hole and discovered it was only about 1.5 inches wide and less than a 1/2 inch tall!

I had it fixed in less than an hour. Rachel has worn her dress twice since then.

More importantly I learned a valuable lesson about myself: the more I stew about a problem and the more time that passes, the bigger that problem becomes in my mind.

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Christian Novels:

A Higher Justice by James Scott Bell

Sisterchicks Down Under by Robin Jones Gunn

Sisterchicks Ooh la la by Robin Jones Gunn

Non-fiction:

Home Sweet Homestead – Sketches of Pioneer Life in Interior Alaska by Joy Griffin (highly recommend!)

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So, how is that I'm comfortable? How do I know that my kids are learning in our very relaxed environment?

Well, it takes time. I cannot evaluate each day, nor even each week. I've found that it takes about a month for information that went in to come back out. I would imagine that during that time, the child is digesting the information, comparing it to other information previously gathered, and testing that information against various theories.

About one month after reading a book on spiders, Rachel might see one outside, study it for a few minutes, then come to me and spend 10 minutes telling me everything she knows about spiders. Telling me those things is also known as narration. She will, in fact, often tell me things I didn't know about spiders. If ask where she heard something, she can tell me which book it was in.

It also takes about a month to see advances in language arts learning, particularly reading and spelling. The improvements made on a daily basis are so small that I don't notice them. But if I look back over time, I see vast improvement.

Vocabulary development also takes time. After hearing words used correctly (again and again) children will adopt those words as their own. (So watch out! ;) )

I evaluate math learning less by looking at work books and more by looking at reasoning and estimating skills. For example today, Rebecca said, "I've done two rows of four math problems. That means I've done eight problems." That statement told me more about her mathematical thinking than anything in that workbook.

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We're in the Mountains Not Over the Hill - Tales and tips from seasoned women backpackers by Susan Alcorn - I have a certain friend that I'd like to buy this for; I think she'd really enjoy it.

My Antonia by Willa Cather - a nice novel.

Waiting - the true confessions of a waitress by Debra Ginsberg - very entertaining and informative.

Crossing Over - a Mexican family on the migrant trail by Ruben Martinez - I confess I've only read about a fourth of this. I was really hoping for some insight on illegal immigration, but I'm having to slog through a lot of other stuff to find it. I think I will try to at least skim the rest of the book, or check out certain chapters. The author definately has a left slant. It's interesting how a true story can be told in so many different ways with so many different meanings.

A Greater Glory by James Scott Bell - a Christian novel I just started this, but it looks to be a quick read. I also have on hand its sequel: A Highter Justice.

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but I have times of doubt.

I look at my girls. They are happy. They are comfortable. They are learning.

But it's happening in such a relaxed way that I don't always see it in progress. Sometimes, I only see the results much later.

I read homeschooling books, message boards and yahoo groups and I see all these other homeschool moms that are SO organized and structured. I think I should be.

I could be; I'm very good at organizing. Friends call ME when they need help organizing their homes or finances.

I see these schedules. For instance: My First Grader is doing XYZ for science & history, ABC for math, QRS for language arts, This for music, That for Bible.

We have no schedule. We do have curriculum, but we do not use it in the manner in which it was designed and we do not require any of it be completed. I have yet to feel the need for any language arts program (reading, spelling, grammar, vocabulary). No music program. No Bible curriculum.

We do have math workbooks.

So how are they learning? How do I know it's okay? How do I know it's enough?

I'll answer that question next time. :)

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Rachel is exploring new areas of interest. She took a break from gymnastics and is taking both ice skating lessons and a ballet class. I'm hoping that she'll return to gymnastics; she is very skilled, but, of course, it's up to her. I'm planning to enroll her in the summer session, which is a short one. If she really doesn't like it, it's a short commitment. But if she's ready to go back, she'll probably be on the team, starting in fall.

Rachel also developed an interest in participating in a Spelling Bee. I have not yet located one for her to participate in, but I did download a First Grade study list of 313 words. As an unschooler, I still have moments where I wonder if I'm doing the ever-elusive "enough." Much to my relief, she can already spell about 75% of the words on that list. She is studying the rest. Those that she knows, she knows just from reading good (and bad LOL) literature.

Rebecca is just about to finish the first of the Horizons K Math book. Two books cover the whole school year. She is also expressing some interest in learning to read - mostly because she's feels left out when everyone else has their nose in a book. She does not know all the lowercase letters, so it's time to begin working on those. I think I'll just make up cardstock cards with both the uppercase & lowercase on one side and the just lowercase on the other. So, one side would have " Aa " for her to study, and the other side would have just " a " for her to test her knowledge. Then, she can self-tutor.

The girls also have their own gardens to plant this spring. We are continuing with a shared annual flower bed in one corner of the front yard. But each girl also has her own long narrow (so they can reach without stepping in) garden near the family garden. They want to plant flowers and some carrots to feed to our neighbor's horses. Mean-old-mom never lets them take our organic carrots for the horses. LOL.

Randy is working on plans to build a tree house out back for them. It would be in the trees just behind the garden and would give the girls another place to play when I am gardening.

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This year, my plans include:

Strawberries

Herbs: basil, oregano, sage, bay laurel, cilantro, chives, dill, spearment, rosemary, thyme

Carrots

Onions (yellow - for storage through the winter)

Green onions

Parsnips

Spinach

Tomatoes (sauce tomatoes, fresh salad tomatoes & cherry tomatoes)

Lettuce (some for us and plenty for the ducks, as well)

Peppers (bell peppers to chop & freeze, and one hot pepper plant)

French beans

Pole beans

Dow Gauk (an asian vegetable called the 'yard-long bean' - it's supposed to taste like asparagus)

Zucchini

Pumpkin

Sugar snap peas (the kind you eat in the pod)

Shelling peas (the kind you shell and eat as little round green things)

Broccoli

Corn

Potatoes

Sunflowers

I'd like to add a couple of more blueberry bushes, a couple more small apple trees, and a special apricot variety that will grow in this climate, but I think, budget-wise, I may need to wait until next year.

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As well it should be! :)

One Saturday in mid-March, Randy rented a gasoline-powered sod cutter. A finer tool I have never seen! In only 45 minutes (and $48 of our cash), it cut the sod off of 600 square feet of lawn, leaving only dark dirt and confused worms. It then took another two hours to actually remove the neat rows of sod. With them we created "the mountain," which is the girls' new favorite play area.

The duck are currently making "deposits" onto straw covering the new area. I'm planning to keep them there through the middle or end of this month, actually rotating through a few different locations.

So the end result is that this year's garden will be 30ft by 35ft, a total of 1050 square feet - compared to my 866 square-foot house. I love it!

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Wow! What a crazy month! My apologies to those of you who check in regularly for updates.

Randy's construction company had a bit of a slow down in February and March. My job, on the other hand, got crazy-busy! We've had three sets of triplets so far this year, countless twins and plenty of sick or early singleton babies. So, when Randy didn't have much work, I was able to step up and work lots of extra hours. My contribution to our finances kept things from getting painful last month. But it also left barely enough time for household management, and no extra time for blogging.

But I'm back now! :)

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So with this extremely relaxed method of educating my children, how do I hold myself accountable?

I sat down, reviewed my goals for the children, and made myself a mental checklist. Each day, I want the children to:

1. do gross motor work (physical activity)

2. do fine motor work (handwriting or embroidery or beads)

3. be read to

4. look at/read books independently

5. do some sort of consumer or household math

6. do some sort of critical thinking or strategizing (not necessarily daily)

7. do something creative (usually involving crayons, markers, tape, staples, paper and glue)

8. listen to music

9. cover some form of science (playing with bugs counts)

10. cover some form of social studies

Of course, many of these overlap. Applying this checklist to the sample day posted as "So what do the children and I do all day?" we find that all the areas were covered.  They often dance to music (physical activity), and making their magazines required writing and drawing (fine motor work) and was also a creative endeavor. The math game required strategizing. Plus, Rachel and I did a lot of math at the fabric store. And even more over dinner table when we talked about her entrepreneurial project. Dh had her use felt to sew a case for his safety glasses - at one end it flips over to close the case. She is now making 6 or 8 that he is selling to his co-workers for $2 each (for 12c worth of felt each). We talked a lot about business record-keeping, advertising (business name and product name), the concept of 'added value,' and giving back to the community from your profits.

Plus science and social studies/history come up. Our Spiritual beliefs also come up regularly, and we have a great story bible that they love for me to read, plus easier bibles to look at/read independently. To me that's adequate education for this stage of life.

More recently, I picked back up with Sonlight Core K and Science K. We are NOT following the IG (instructor's guide). I made a single sheet listing every book. For those in which only certain pages are read, I listed those page numbers. When it's time to read to the girls, I strategically choose from what we 'still need to do.' I've also left space to add in the titles of all the other books we read or listen to on tape/CD.

Finally, I've added back in a requirement to complete one math lesson each day. I did NOT make this requirement because I think they need more math. I made this a requirement because I found that they need a bit more structure in their day. As a matter of fact, we do some pretty complicated (for their ages) math verbally as things come up. Rachel has mastered money and nearly mastered time. Rebecca is working on money, and can add, subtract and multiply (with manipulatives). The children also get some great math concepts from watching Cyberchase (on PBS). To my amazement, they not only understand it, but retain it and apply it.

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