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Freedom for Education
2009 Homeschooling Adventures
Jul. 11, 2009 - PhotoHunt: "Garbage"
Does this look like garbage to you? Not to us! I photographed this atop the compost pile at this morning's fieldtrip to Captain Compost's home. We learned all about the science and methods of good composting resulting in no-till gardening.
Here's a link to his site if you want more information: Captain Compost
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Jul. 6, 2009 - PhotoHunt: "Pink"
Oh, my! I was blessed with the most awesome PINK for last Saturday's theme! Have you ever seen a pink katydid? My internet research indicates they are rare, but we found one right in our front yard last week! We kept it for a couple of days to show homeschool friends at park day and take lots of photos before returning it to the exact same place we found it.
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Jun. 30, 2009 - PhotoHunt: "Flags"
We have been SO busy the past month that I have not had time to even think about the PhotoHunter challenge. This is definitely not a great photo, but it does follow the theme that I am late posting for....
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Jun. 30, 2009 - Summertime Craziness
While most people, those outside of the homeschooling community, feel like summer is "boring" and can't wait for school to start again, we have actually experienced a surge in activities. Wow! It has been non-stop since the end of May. Our summer started out on an awful note with the loss of one of our family pets. We had to make the call to euthanize one of our Akitas, Bitsie, who had cancer. We miss her but know that she is no longer in pain. Here is a picture of her before she took a turn for the worse.
The boys were very upset by this as she was our first big loss in our family. It took several weeks before we could even mention her name without a few watery eyes. :-(
I tried to make sure we kept busy to take our minds off of the loss, and the boys enjoyed the summer workshops that the Bass Pro Shops offered during the month of June. They completed all eight classes in order to collect the pin for each one--Plants & Insects, Hiking, Camping, Animal Identification, Fishing, Bird Watching, Shooting, and Archery . Both boys also participated in a citizenship program at American Village, a local living history attraction, where we were swept back to 1775 when America was preparing to declare its independence.
We also finished our long-term temporary* chicken run for our younger chickens which are in the transition phase of moving from the brooder to the coop with the big ladies. We are still working on a second coop and run for our Ameraucana chickens to move into as soon as possible. They should start laying some blue eggs for us in about 6 more weeks. Yea!
Staying cool in this atrocious Alabama heat is hard to do, but attending a homeschoolers' pool party, visiting a splash pad park, and taking a dip in a cold creek at a local nature preserve always helps! We found an awesome nature preserve that is practically in our backyard, and we never knew it. We spent an afternoon with other homeschoolers relaxing on the banks or in the shallows of the "creek" while the kids played on the natural water slide. Of course, the begging to return started nearly as soon as we left!
It's hard to imagine that we have had the perfect space for a family-size vegetable garden since we've lived here (right at 13 years), and we are just now getting around to it. We have all spent countless hours working in our first-ever vegetable garden--planting, tilling, watering, weeding--and are now waiting to reap our rewards. So far, we have only harvested a few sweet banana peppers, but we will soon have pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli, corn, okra, squash, green beans, eggplant, peas, numerous colored bell peppers, and--hopefully--some cantaloupe, watermelon, and sweet potatoes. Since it is our first garden, we couldn't really decide what we wanted to plant the most, so we just planted a little bit of everything!
We wrapped up the month with our annual family reunion on hubby's side, but most everyone couldn't make it this year. Sure will be glad when we see some relief to this economy crisis! It is really taking its toll on many, including us these days.
I'm sure it is not difficult to see why I haven't had time to sit down and blog lately. I hope to work that back into my routine as I enjoy taking a moment to share our adventures!
*long-term temporary = my idea of temporary and most other people's is not quite the same--seems like all of our temporary arrangements end up pretty much permanent! LOL!
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May. 28, 2009 - PhotoHunt: "Plastic" (May 23 theme)
Well, I'm tremendously late on this post. It has been crazy the past couple of weeks--as it always is at the end of a homeschool year! I hate that I have not had time to spend on the past couple of weeks' themes, as they were not simple and required a little more effort than usual. As I was thinking about last Saturday's theme of "plastic", I thought there is really only one way that my family and I see plastic.......
Look closely to see what I'm talking about. ;-) R-R-R!!
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Apr. 26, 2009 - PhotoHunt: Protect(ion)
This week's PhotoHunt theme was pretty easy for me....Can you guess what this photo is?
 (Click on the photo to see an even bigger version)
I'm sure you probably know what this belongs to, but you can double check with this photo: Full Photo of "Missy"
Here is another link to more information about this critter: Information
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Apr. 26, 2009 - What is that?!?
While we were at a local hardware store today to pick up a few things for building another chicken coop/run, Alex found this very strange "bug".
I'd never seen anything like it. We put it into a spray bottle we were buying out of the $0.99 bin to bring it home and identify it. Turns out it is supposed to be quite common--called a House Centipede or a Kingston Bug. Despite the hideous and threatening appearance, it is actually a beneficial critter, eating other insects that do cause damage. We're assuming this one must be on its last leg...well, one of them at least (LOL)....because they are supposed to be quite fast. We let it go outside...maybe it will benefit our upcoming veggie garden project.
Here's a link to find out more about this crazy looking bug -- Iowa State Univ: Dept of Entomology
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Apr. 19, 2009 - PhotoHunt: "Purple"
If you've been following my PhotoHunt posts, you probably won't be surprised that I am posting flowers for this week's theme of purple. I love taking photos of flowers--they are the best subjects with no running around, complaining, or talking back...LOL!
(click for a larger view)
I love all of the flowers above, but this is one of my favorite since I got these Irises from my great grandmother's property right before she was moved out of her house....pretty much the only thing of hers that I have.
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Apr. 19, 2009 - PhotoHunt: "Triangle" (posted late--for 4/11)
Well, I thought triangle was going to be so hard to find. Camera in hand, while the boys were in science class at the B'ham Zoo, I set out to find some triangles.....
Very near the Zoo I found several in the Mountain Brook area:
How many triangles can you count in these pictures? (click for a larger view)
Then, on the way home (thank goodness hubby was driving), I snapped a quick, crooked photo of all these triangles--look closely, there are many more triangles than just the roof peek:
Lacking all the ornate triangles of the above architecture, I think these steel frames are just as interesting:
 
Finally, I found these triangles just down the road from our house. This is my favorite photo out of all of these:
(I count 24 visible triangles--how about you?)
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Apr. 5, 2009 - Wildlife Weekend
We are having a really rainy spring this year in Alabama, but you can definitely tell it's springtime! We finally had a day of sunshine this weekend. Saturday was a beautiful sunny day in the low-mid 70's--perfect for getting outside and enjoying nature. Wow! Did we enjoy nature! Saturday afternoon while the boys were jumping on the trampoline, Alex spied a black rat snake sunning on some lumber nearby. It quickly hid under the straw and piece of metal when we moved closer to get a better view. I was able to snap one quick pic before it completely hid beneath the lumber
Black Rat Snakes are very common here in Alabama, and since we live in a semi-rural area, this non-venomous, docile indigenous species is always a welcome natural rodent control tool! Nature surely has a way of keeping everything "in check". Here is a great link with information about the Black Rat Snake
Today, Sunday, was not nearly as nice--a rather dreary day, in fact. However, that didn't slow down our other rodent control machine, aka: Pepper 
This afternoon, my hubby and the boys came to get me to ask what we should do with "Simon":
Best we can tell, "Simon" is an Eastern Chipmunk that is a very lucky little critter. It appears to be fine--just in a temporary state of shock after lunch with Pepper! We placed it in a critter cage for the afternoon and overnight, and we plan to let it go tomorrow morning after some time to recuperate. Normally, we let Pepper do her job, but we haven't seen chipmunks around here in quite a while, so we saved this one!
We wrapped up this critter friendly weekend this evening with this cute little amphibian:
We haven't seen many frogs around here in a while, but last summer we were booming with them. Apparently, they are back this year. Yea! This is simply a Green Tree Frog. Here is a link to an informational site on Alabama species: Discovering Alabama The photos on this site are ones that I sent in last year for indentification...I wonder if this is the same frog...??
Wonder what we'll find tomorrow?
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