Organic Learning

I am THAT mom...

2010-07-27T07:22:00.003-05:00

You know, the kind that makes conventional neighbors want to put up a fence so their kids can't see how much fun we're having at 9pm on a school night... doing shoulderstands with each other and looking like carny folk.

I'm that mom who cut my hair off and dyed my bangs green just like my daughters because we all thought it was fun.

I'm that mom who knows how to make delicious food from scratch and grow beautiful, nutritious food that everyone loves. I'm that mom who doesn't always have the energy to do that anymore but who finds the time to nourish one child's desire to learn to do it for herself.

I'm that mom who always takes my children seriously as the fully-formed people they are and encourages exploration of their own life paths even when they differ from my own. I'm that mom who always views my children with eyes of amazement and wonder at the people they are and the people they are becoming.

I'm that mom who no longer has small, dependent children and is grateful for this next phase of our lives that allows me more time and space to explore who I am and who I'm growing into.

I'm that mom who dances like a crazy fool to the Black Eyed Peas even though I don't like their music all that much.

I'm that mom who will go rock climbing, kayaking and surfing with her kids even though I'm old and not that great at it. And I'm that mom who will free climb half way up a rock when a child gets scared to talk them down and reassure them even though I'm afraid of heights.

I'm that mom who follows her passions fully and freely and invites her children along for the ride.

I'm that mom who's learning to play a musical instrument for the first time in her life and loving the passion for music my kids are developing alongside me. I'm that mom who buys her kids a ukulele and a djembe and a keyboard so we can make crazy mishmosh music together without harping on them to practice.

I'm that mom who plays World of Warcraft and runs dungeons with her kids and enthusiastically shows them her new drake mount and lets them fly it all around. I'm that mom who will spend her morning helping a child level up a character while they sleep soundly in their beds.

I'm that mom who's cool and kinda crazy and will talk openly, honestly, and from the heart about anything and everything, admitting freely that I don't have all the answers but that I'll always have a whole lot of love and compassion.

I'm that mom who always lets her kids play in her closet and dress up in her clothes.

I'm that mom who no matter where we are or where we go will always give her children a sense of home and comfort in her hug.

I'm exactly that mom I always said I'd be even when my own mother told me it would never happen and I'd know better once I had my own children.

Soooo much to catch up on!

2010-02-07T18:15:00.003-05:00

Gonna have to start doing a series of catch-up posts... kind of a photo documentary. I'll start with some great climbing photos from this fall:

Friendly Neighborhood Farmer

2009-06-27T07:25:00.003-05:00

The fella who hays the farm across the way invited us to come check out his machinery, an offer the kids gladly took him up on. He explained how the mower worked with the cutters and flails, why it works that way, and how the entire process of hay baling works from start to finish. I wish I'd gotten a picture of his square baler shooting the bales back into the wagon because that was pretty stinkin' cool. After he was done showing us, he offered to take two of the kids for a ride while he finished cutting the last couple of rows. Jules and Sam had a blast riding with him. What a great guy!

Campfires

2009-05-05T06:17:00.003-05:00

Brief Message: My apologies to all who've left comments recently. I think I have that all figured out now. Geesh.

We had our first campfire of the season the other evening, and it was so much fun that I thought I'd share some of the photos here. We had a delicious dinner of rotisserie chicken and homemade bread that made excellent sandwiches. Jim and I had fresh, roasted asparagus and homemade cheese on ours, but the kids skipped the asparagus. Man, they don't know what they're missing, but that's okay—more for us!

Fixin' sandwiches:

Roastin' marshmellows for s'mores:

Runnin' with a pointy, burning stick:

On the Joys of Anachronism

2009-04-15T12:50:00.008-05:00

On our trip to Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown, Jules really wanted to get a ridiculously expensive Native American dress. They wanted $40 for this dress, and she had her own money. I talked her out of it, reasoning that we could make one for just a third of the money that would be even nicer. That if we did that, she could keep her money to spend on something else. She wasn't convinced.

Her father offered to take pictures so we would remember exactly what it looked like. That helped a bit. I promised we would make one, that we wouldn't forget or get too busy.

By the time we got to photos of the back of the dress and had a chance to talk about accessorizing the dress, she was a bit more on board with the idea, as you can see. Accessories always sweeten the deal, and it wasn't too hard to beat the lame fabric paint on this gift store dress. She settled, instead, on a Native American necklace for $9.99 that would go well with the dress we'd be making.

The first weekend we were home, true to my word, I took Julia to the local fabric store to see what we could find. We found a great faux suede fabric that was already fringed. Perfect! We brought it home and set about designing the dress, what we wanted it to look like, how we'd make the pattern, etc. I finally finished it yesterday, and it took maybe an afternoon, at most. Thinking through the different parts took longer than actually making it, and for the same price as the dress in the gift shop, we got enough fabric to make her dress, a dress for Em, and a pair of fringed pants for Sam. I, of course, happily picked up the tab on this one.

Here's the finished product, minus the cool shell beads that Jules will add herself:

She looks pretty darned pleased, doesn't she? She hasn't taken it off yet to add the shells, so I'm guessing that's a yes. Em braided Julia's hair for her and is looking forward to finishing both her Indian dress and the new Colonial dress we're working on that didn't get finished for our trip. Ah well, there's always Mt. Vernon.

Another cool aspect of this has been the kids' interest in learning to use the sewing machine. Here's Julia learning to sew, wearing her Indian dress. Not terribly period-appropriate, but way cool. ;)

She's been practicing all afternoon on different scraps of fabric and even made time to show her brother how to use the machine:

They finished Izzi!

2009-03-30T14:15:00.007-05:00

Okay, I know I'm a total nerd, but we've been playing with this puzzle off and on for a while now (cleaning it up each time because it gets knocked out of whack), and we always get within one piece of finishing it.

I was messing around with it this weekend while Jim's folks were visiting because his dad really likes puzzles. We got within one piece, played around with the possibilities for a while, and then I got bored and started playing Bananagram solitaire.

Sam wandered in and got interested, and he and grampa finished it! Here's Sam feeling mighty proud of himself.

Editing: OMG, I just found the mistake! Shhhhhh, don't tell Sam. Can you find it?

Great Wolf Lodge

2009-03-13T13:42:00.009-05:00

We just got back from an awesome vacation to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, Virginia. We had a total blast, and this time, Jim was able to come with us, which is always a special treat. Thanks Steph for farmsitting!

The water park is awesome, and we were lucky enough to get a really good deal on the room rates with a group discount. The slides and flow rider were the most fun for Jim and I, but the kids really loved the big water fort and the lillypad pond. They spent hours and hours just playing on the floating log rounds.

And here's a totally blurry picture of Jim doing tricks in the flow pool, mostly because it's pretty cool and because there's just no way I'm putting a photo of myself up here:

We also spent time in Colonial Williamsburg and the Jamestown Settlement, two of our favorite places to visit. Sam and Jim spent lots of time talking to the blacksmiths at both places, picking their brains about how to get started and getting tips on how to build a backyard forge. Guess what we have in our future?

The weather was gorgeous the day we went to Jamestown, though it cooled down considerably for our visit to Colonial Williamsburg. While several of the Williamsburg exhibits that we enjoy were closed for the winter season, most notably for me was Great Hopes Plantation, I was pleased to be able to check out their winter gardening techniques and to get time to talk to some food historians in one of the house kitchens.

Em got to try out her new piano skills on a beautiful handmade harpsichord at the cabinet maker. Of course, I had to ask the man who worked on it how much they sold for because it was such an incredible piece of art and craftsmanship: $30,000. Wow! Jim asked and found out that they use bird quills for the picks that pluck the strings, giving it the characteristic tinny sound. Cool! We just love learning, and we learn something new every time we go there.

We had a blast, but still, it's good to be home!

Interview

2009-02-25T19:40:00.006-05:00

Thanks to Madeline for this awesome meme. I'm going to treasure these answers, even if some of them are an absolute riot!

I interviewed each child separately, and Sam was kind enough to pause his game to humor me. What a guy!

1. What is something your mom always says to you?
Emily: I love you.
Julia: The more you clean up, the more you find.
Sam: Don't listen to your daddy.

2. What makes your mom happy?
Emily: clean floors
Julia: Seeing our smiles.
Sam: Seeing her children have fun.

3. What makes your mom sad?
Emily: She doesn't get sad very often, but when she yells at me she does.
Julia: When she and daddy argue.
Sam: Seeing her children being really sad and hitting their own selves.

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
Emily: She tries to tell a bad joke. when there's no laughter, I start laughing.
Julia: Makes jokes at my dad.
Sam: By tickling me so much.

5. What did your mom like to do when she was a child?
Emily: I really don't know; she doesn't talk about her childhood much.
Julia: Look in the garden for gnomes.
Sam: read books.

6. How old is your mom?
Emily: 38
Julia: 37
Sam: 38

7. How tall is your mom?
Emily: shorter than daddy
Julia: How do I know!?
Sam: 7 feet

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Emily: garden
Julia: garden
Sam: garden

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
Emily: Have private time with daddy.
Julia: Be on the computer.
Sam: garden

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
Emily: her delicious food
Julia: our farm
Sam: gardening

11. What is your mom really good at?
Emily: everything
Julia: farming
Sam: gardening

12. What is your mom not very good at?
Emily: video and computer games
Julia: math
Sam: building houses

13. What does your mom do for her job?
Emily: provide food
Julia: farm
Sam: gardening

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
Emily: cheese
Julia: chicken giambatta
Sam: salad

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
Emily: So much stuff, I can't choose one thing.
Julia: her gardening.
Sam: That she builds the strength to do what she does today even though it's very hard.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Emily: Nausicaa
Julia: Princess Jasmine
Sam: Superwoman

17. What do you and your mom do together?
Emily: So many things I can't think of one. We talk together, help me read and write, and she cares about me.
Julia: play bananagrams
Sam: play

18. How are you and your mom the same?
Emily: we're very alike. We have a lot the same personality. We both get very powerful sometimes and a bunch of other stuff.
Julia: We like baking.
Sam: we both like snuggling with each other

19. How are you and your mom different?
Emily: I've got thicker hair and I'm younger.
Julia: she likes to weed; I don't.
Sam: I know how to do a lot of computer games and she doesn't.

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
Emily: That she's caring enough to do things for me.
Julia: Cause she takes care of me.
Sam: Because she says it every day, and I know she means it. And she doesn't, like, roll her eyes.

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
Emily: I don't know. There's so many things she likes about him.
Julia: Him.
Sam: Everything.

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
Emily: the garden
Julia: the beach
Sam: The family room because it has all the family in it usually.

On Autonomy and the Politics of Unschooling

2009-02-22T12:41:00.019-05:00

I'm lifting this post from an unschooling list where the list-owner understandably prefers to keep political discussions off list. Neither the quote nor the response in the box below are my words, but I've had some ideas floating in my mind as a response to this particular post and others for the past couple of days, and here seems as good a place as any to explore them and get them out of my head. I jump around quite a bit, and this is as much a genealogy of my own foray into the concept of autonomy as it is any kind of coherent statement; think of it as a citation of sorts of my sources. I do hope to draw the threads of my thoughts together by the end, but I make no promises. Mostly, I'll just be impressed if anyone gets to the end.

And yet we all have that need, to greater and lesser degrees, to have relationships be on our terms.

It's a luxury, to have anything on one's own terms. It's an exception in the history of the world.

The fact that having something on one's own terms is a relatively recent phenomenon doesn't make it any less worthy a goal. For the founding fathers of the United States, the ideals of self-governance were something worth declaring and fighting for: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The fact that those men fell short of imagining how these revolutionary ideals might extend to women or people of color does not detract from the import of the ideals themselves. The fact that the world is still in a state of becoming does not detract from the appeal of the dream.

We have come a long way towards the guarantee of those inalienable rights within the United States, and though we still have far to go, we can choose to stop and savor the idea that perhaps—even if not exactly linear—there is progress and hope for improving and going beyond what our forebears might have been able to accomplish or even imagine in their cultural moment. Here in America, we're lucky enough to be able to homeschool and even make claims to the notion of autonomy; that's certainly not the case everywhere in the world even today. We have gone from black slaves building the White House to a black family living in the White house, and although this is not a fulfillment necessarily of Martin Luther King, Jr's dream, it is definitely a watershed moment.

Dreams of a better and brighter future are always worth having, and dreams that encompass humanity and social justice are by their very nature political. I believe that our choices and actions every moment of every day reflect our own dreams and ideals of humanity and social justice. The personal is political.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk once nominated by Dr. King for the Nobel Peace Prize, together with a small group of his fellow monks developed the idea of "engaged Buddhism," a way of imagining the religious and the political together in the face of an ugly war where the people were hurting. This need to meld religious practice with political action was a direct reaction to the apolitical nature of Buddhism that was abandoning the people of Vietnam. Engaged Buddhism encouraged monks to speak out against government atrocities and engage in efforts to alleviate suffering, turning their personal practice into political statement.

bell hooks, African-American teacher and activist, imported this idea of engaged Buddhism into the classroom, calling for what she termed "engaged pedagogy," or a form of teaching that has at its core the self-actualization of both teacher and student, transforming the classroom into a place where relationship and learning are central and extending the notion of "classroom" out into the world. bell hooks and other educational activists like Paolo Freire, Henry Giroux, Gayatri Spivak, and several others explore the political nature of the intersection of teaching/ learning/ culture, and each has in common a recognition and insistence that personal practice is political, that teaching and learning and dreaming are themselves political acts.

Unschooling, for me, is fundamentally a political act. Choosing not to send my children to the state-run schools was and is a political statement. Of course, that's not all it is, in a reductionist kind of way; it's lots of other things as well—a way to continue the connection with my children that we enjoyed when they were little, a way to preserve and protect their freedom and authenticity, a way to offer them the chance to grow into themselves unfettered by others' expectations. That, and much, much more.

Each of these things is political in its nature in large part by virtue of the fact that they run counter to the norm of society, so even to make those decisions is to reject at some level the cultural conventions that prevail. To make these choices is to make a stand, and the very visibility of that stand makes a statement. Each time my kids and I are out in public, people are reminded that they, too, have choices. True choices, though, depend upon the freedom to make those choices, the personal autonomy to make those choices, and that's a word that's become a bit of a bugbear in certain unschooling circles recently.

Autonomy isn't a new concept. It's been around since the 1600s and came into vogue with the Enlightenment and German philosopher Emmanuel Kant's exploration of moral philosophy. These ideas were circulating at the time the Declaration of Independence was written, and the idea of the autonomous individual is fundamental within the context of American political thought. Indeed, the very idea of "the individual" behind the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness is a product of Enlightenment thinking. Prior to that time period, people tended to be thought of in context of community, class, family, church. The dream that a person could step outside of that structure and define himself was pretty revolutionary.

"Put most simply, to be autonomous is to be one's own person, to be directed by considerations, desires, conditions, and characteristics that are not simply imposed externally upon one, but are part of what can somehow be considered one's authentic self." America itself was founded on these ideals, and the American dream is inextricably caught up with the notion of the self-made man and the colonial context that provided the material trappings of his making. The fact that the autonomous individual was always a white male, usually from a colonial power, within these discourses (with the notable exception of Mary Wollstonecraft's feminist treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman) has been a particularly problematic legacy for thinkers like bell hooks, Paolo Freire, and others who have simultaneously embraced the idea of autonomy and critiqued the oppressive power structures of its cultural legacy. They have sought through their own revolutionary discourses to claim access to and ownership of the notion of political autonomy with the classroom as the locus of their intervention.

During the 20th century, the idea of autonomy as a basic human need emerged within the field of psychology under the Self Determination Theory, which has, in turn, sent the concept out into all kinds of arenas ranging from education, as in hooks and Freire, to health care to parenting. Within this context authors like Alfie Kohn, Naomi Aldort, and Marshall Rosenberg have discussed children's autonomy both in relation to schools and to their parents, and their work has been influential on a number of other writers and parents alike. Autonomy has become a fundamental term in educational theory and a definite trend in alternative parenting theories, and the notion of supporting children's autonomy rather than gaining authority over them has become commonplace in this genre.

The question for me, and others I think, is whether we haven't sacrificed something by adopting the dream of the autonomous individual. Enlightenment ideals encapsulated by the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness sound grand and lovely, but they are inherently defined against the notion of an oppressor, operating within the master/ slave dialectic: we're either autonomous or we're oppressed. That dichotomy is problematic and, largely, what I personally am seeking to move away from in the way I choose to live with my children.

But there's a paradox here for me: the way I seek to live in partnership and respect with my children seems to have the notion of autonomy as its foundation—the idea that children are people and that people have a basic need for for respect and self-determination. I'm caught up in the power matrix by virtue of living in a culture that defines parenting in adversarial and authoritative ways. I'd like a new term, a new image, a new model of mutually respectful interdependence, but at this point I can't even imagine what a truly communal identity would look like outside the tyrant/ victim worldview. I suspect, hope, believe (or perhaps console myself) that this new concept is still in its early stages of becoming, still in its own imagining and that the choices we're making as unschoolers are part of bringing it forth into the world. The every day act of living in partnership with our children whether we name it or not gives birth to this new way of being.

I have more ramblings having to do with John Holt's Escape from Childhood, but this is long enough already. I'll post more later this week as I sit with these ideas a bit.

There are times when I fear that someone reading this, even if not yet totally converted to neoliberal pragmatism but perhaps somewhat contaminated by it, may think that there is no more place among us for the dreamer and believer in utopia. Yet what I have been saying up to now is not the stuff of inconsequential dreamers. It has to do with the very nature of men and women as makers and dreamers of history and not simply as casualties of an a priori vision of the world. ~Paolo Freire

New Favorite Games

2009-02-12T21:54:00.007-05:00

Izzi. We found this one recently, and it's totally addictive. And way hard. This is one of those puzzles that you want to come back to over and over again, and the different iterations make it challenging each time you sit down. This is one to leave out for folks to tinker with as they walk by.

Bananagrams. Thanks Kelly for this one! We've been playing constantly. Loads of fun, this is a kind of scrabble meets crossword game that can be played with one to several players. It's loads of fun and can be modified for many skill levels.

Maya Madness. This is a card game similar to Uno, but based on adding and subtracting numbers and dealing with both positive and negative numbers. It's fast-paced and really reinforces both the way numbers work together and the importance of zero while also being a lot of fun to play.

The cool thing with all of these is that they're small and easy to take along wherever you go.

Confusing Messages

2009-02-04T19:01:00.003-05:00

I was gazing at my oldest, amazed by the adult she's rapidly becoming, when it occurred to me that all my hopes and dreams for her come in an awful jumbled emotional mess. This all came clear in an instant as my tenets flashed through my head:

1) you are perfect and infinitely lovable just the way you are.

2) happiness comes through being happy just where you are.

3) but don't ever be satisfied to be just where you are.

Interesting. There's a lot caught up in that third notion of goal-setting, striving, and ambition....

We went snowboarding!

2009-01-15T08:50:00.004-05:00

Ouch is about all I can say.

I'm taking the photo, but I promise I snowboarded too--twice. My tailbone is still lecturing me about it.

Sam and Julia absolutely loved it, and they were naturals. Em, not so much. She and my friend (the one in the photo) hit the lodge after their first run while I went back up with the rest of the kids for another run, masochist that I am.

Unfortunately, my surfin'/ skateboardin' honey couldn't come with us, so we'll have to go back again when he has off. Em and I plan to try skiing next time, but the rest of the gang will snowboard. More power to 'em. I used to be a pretty avid skiier back in high school, so I feel confident that it won't hurt nearly as much. At least that's what I keep telling my tailbone.

We were able to go for the Pennsylvania learn to ski day, so we got a lesson, the equipment, and a half day lift ticket for $10 per person. It's a really great deal and worth checking into if you live anywhere near a mountain. Of course, we got sucked into buying their special beginner package, but we live so close to the resort that it seems a sin not to take advantage of it now that all the kids are old enough. Jim has every other Friday off of work now, too, so we'll be able to do a lot more family trips on off hours. Yay!

Holiday Fun!

2009-01-06T08:38:00.005-05:00

Here's one of those drive-by picture posts, just so I can say that I've updated the blog, and so that I can prove to Madeline that we made good use of her gingerbread mold that I still haven't returned.

Christmas morning. Those are original Lionel trains under the tree that Jim's dad had when he was young. It's hard to say who has more fun with them every year: Jim, his dad, or the kids. I'm in the back checking the fire in the wood stove:

Here's Sam with his new cowboy guns. I think they're the same ones that he wanted to win so desperately from Marty Dodd at the St. Louis Live and Learn Conference several years ago. He's quite pleased with them! Better late than never. And yes, Kelly, if you read this blog, those are our caricatures from the conference on the wall behind the sofa. Connections, connections!

This is also a good shot of the basement family room we've been working on, for those following that ongoing saga:

Gingerbread house fun on Christmas Day:

Not a particularly good picture of the gingerbread houses, but it's photographic proof anyway:

An afternoon romp in the pastures, trying to work off all the food we've eaten already. Don't know if you can see them, but Sam has his guns and holster for good measure:

I'm bringing up the rear a bit more slowly. It's the mimosas and the eggs benedict draggin' me down. Jules, of course, was sweet enough to run back down the hill to keep me company:

Had to include this one of tattoo fun:

And last but not least, a New Year's Day hike on the Appalachian Trail. Happy New Year all! Maybe this year I'll get my new year's cards out before April. Maybe....

Connections Ezine now free online

2008-12-18T15:32:00.002-05:00

Our hiatus has evolved into full-blown defunct status despite my denial. The energy involved in this project is now expended in other directions, and many of our writers have moved on.

I thank our subscribers and writers for making the existing issues possible. By way of thanks, I have opened all issues for public access in hopes that they will help many families on their unschooling journeys. There's too much wisdom, experience, and insight contained in this collection of ezine articles to simply let go.

I will use the remaining subscription money to continue to fund the website maintenance both here and at OrganicLearning.org I welcome any future donations to keep Connections alive. Please continue to submit resources, and I will do my best to keep those pages up to date.

Connections: ezine of unschooling and mindful parenting

Again, my humble thanks to all who helped make this project possible.

I know, I know...

2008-08-19T15:09:00.005-05:00

It's been forever since I posted. What can I say? This is busy season on the farm, and my computer time and energy is limited. Here's a recent photo of the kids making their own pizzas one night for dinner, a common occurrence round these parts.

Em turned 11 a couple of weeks ago, came down with chicken pox yesterday, and started her first knitting project. She's quite proud of herself and has something to do while sitting in bed watching movies. You can see she has a new haircut, too.

The other kiddos are doing well, too. Jules is learning to knit as well, and is working on her own scarf. She also planted her own garden this year. Her siblings had small plots as well, but never got into it as much as she did, and she did much of the work for them as well. These sunflowers are some she painstakingly transplanted out of my market garden—volunteers for last year's crop that would have been tilled under. She also planted tomatoes, beans, potatoes, and pumpkins, though the pumpkins never materialized. She also graciously (or begrudgingly, depending on the moment) loaned me some garden space for my medicinal herbs until I get the new bed made. Here, she's dressed up as Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean III for a game they're playing, which I dragged her away from to get the photo before the sunflower came and went.

Sam's big into swimming and The Legend of Zelda these days. Oh, and Mythbusters—he absolutely loves Mythbusters. He's grown so much this past year, emotionally and physically, and he's such an amazing soul. He was so pysched to be able to climb to the top of the water truck that brought the water for our swimming pool.

Photo Friday meme: Destruction

2008-06-06T05:41:00.001-05:00

This is from a meme challenge from last year on another blog I was keeping, but have now deleted. I wanted to save this post, so I brought it over here... seemed to fit well.

Destruction...

Of course there will be all kinds of posts about war, natural disasters, violent deaths...so much destruction in the world.

But I wanted to explore something a bit more mundane. Something that captured the essence of life with children and the inevitable destruction that flows rampant in their wake.

This is a photo of my girls' room. You probably can't tell, but the carpet is a sandy colored shag, which is great for hiding wear. Unfortunately, it's also great for swallowing itty-bitty Polly Pocket shoes, legos and all the other minutae of childhood, which then get sucked into the vacuum vortex never to be seen again.

Or, if it happens to be a heavy magnetic geomag ball, it whips around the beater bar at such velocity that it blows a hole in the back of the vacuum, requiring yet another application of that universal problem-solver (sounds like something put out by the pentagon, doesn't it?)—duct tape!

This photo captures the essence of householding itself and the entropy held barely at bay by even the most assiduous. Sadly, it also serves as a symbol of so many parent/child relationships.

"Clean your room!" rings out, the unfortunate litany of beleaguered mothers across the country who unwittingly—or perhaps they can't help themselves because they really have become their mothers—turn a 12x12 space into a battleground upon which die innumerable relationships each week.

What if, instead of a battleground, a mom chose to turn this scene into an opportunity for connection, into precious moments spent getting to know children simply through the offer of help?

What if, instead, a mom presented her energy and aid as a gift to her children and helped them sort through their many treasures strewn across the floor as she might help a hopelessly disorganized friend find her basement, enjoying the conversation and connection along the way?

What if...

What's the sound a cow makes?

2008-05-31T15:16:00.002-05:00

That's not the sound a cow makes!

Now, that's the sound a cow makes.

Emily with our new cow, Bella. (Yes, for those of you who read my farm blog, we've finally settled on a name for her.) We have raw milk coming out the wazoo and it's wonderful!

Um, not really the wazoo, you know.

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

2008-05-29T04:31:00.006-05:00

The girls, my mom, and I headed over to the Sheep and Wool Festival in May, something I've been wanting to do for a few years. Now that we have our own sheep and the wool from a recent shearing, we were all motivated to go. Except the boys that is.

There were hundreds of vendors there and so many, many beautiful things. Really too much to take in in only one visit. The natural broom stall was a Harry Potter fan's dream, and the girls ooohed and ahhhed and wished they had the $60 to spend on one, especially those with the beautifully carved handles that Emily's admiring. We contented ourselves with photos and imagination in the end.

I could have spent at least another hour just looking at all the different breeds of sheep, several I'd never even heard of. Some of them were so huge that they looked more like miniature horses than sheep, like this Lincoln here in the background. I also got to see one of my favorite breeds, the Leicester Longwool and I fell in love with the Cotswolds. Something about those long curls just makes them irrisistable. Of course, I still adore my Navajo-Churros, especially their size! But mostly I love the range of natural color fiber they offer in lovely shades of browns and creams and blacks and grays. I spoke for a bit with one of the Dine who was there in the main showroom with some gorgeous (and fabulously expensive) Navajo rugs.

We had gone there looking for some tools to work our fiber, and unfortunately missed getting a Navajo spindle by about 2 minutes. The lady had just finished paying for it and felt so badly that we weren't going to get one that she offered to return it! I assured her that we could find another one or make one ourselves, but I thought it was a very sweet offer. We were able to pick up some wool carders and some felting needles, so we were pretty pleased. We also bought some of those lovely Cotswold curls dyed in a whole array of colors. Best part was that they were sold by a local farmer here in Maryland. The girls got to see lots of spinning and asked many questions, and we were all felting away into the night.

Building Beehives

2008-04-14T08:52:00.004-05:00

We're getting bees this spring, and the first step is to build the hives, which arrived precut in about a thousand pieces. This quickly turned into a family affair even though the bees are my gardening thing.

The kids helped glue and hammer, and Jim lent his building expertise to be sure we didn't mess up (which, judging by this photo, I didn't always agree with!). We were able to get four hive bodies put together along with five frames. We still have two honey supers and 35 frames left to go! Once we're all done, we'll stain them and get them set up out in the hedgerow. Our bees will arrive mid-May, so we should be on a pretty good trajectory. I'll post pics once they're all set up outside.

Recent Projects

2008-04-10T06:12:00.008-05:00

The kids have been exploring all kinds of things lately, so I thought I'd do a kind of catch-up post on their projects.

Lego building and dioramas:

Jules's dollhouse: You can't see all the details in the photo, but she's been making this all winter by herself. There's some sewing, some tape. Many of the household items have been fashioned out of sculpey. Up in the attic, there's lots of winter stores made from pipe cleaners and salvaged packaging—if I recall correctly, she has lots of pumpkins and gourds, onions, and lettuce. The circular blocks out in front represent the well, and the smaller building on the side is the barn with a goat stall and yellow straw bales in the loft. We have plans to begin knitting some oxen for her family, but I have to figure out how to cast on again before we get started. (It's hard to have to wait for mama to get stuff done!) Much of this is a spin-off of our reading this winter. Jules really loves the Little House on the Prairie series.

Gaming: Of course, there's been plenty of gaming around here between the new ds's and the gamecube. Computer games, too, hold loads of fun and learning. Sam's particular favorites right now are Call of Duty for the gamecube and Ages of Empire/ Mythology for the computer. These games have played into Sam's interest with guns and have spawned a huge interest in World War II.

Embroidery:

And, of course, lots of other fun stuff. Reading is exploding around here, as we've enjoyed many, many books this winter. While we've always enjoyed reading, this has been the winter of the series book: Series of Unfortunate Events, Circle of Magic, Little House on the Prairie, Artemis Fowl. Both Emily and Julia are jumping into reading books on their own, and Emily in particular is becoming quite fluent, quite quickly, reading the Mysteries of Droon series on her own now. It's wonderful to watch all their interests emerge and overlap and lead into other things—the organic nature of learning is absolutely thrilling to see unfold.

Liberty Science Center

2008-04-04T07:33:00.005-05:00

On a recent trip to my in-law's place in North Jersey, we spent the day at the Liberty Science Center, which is quite a fun little museum. Being so new, absolutely everything in there is hands-on, and there are several fun learning exhibits. Jules spent quite some time working out math puzzles—she and her grampa like doing the sudoku puzzles together.

I enjoyed the alternative energy room where we got to play around with solar, wind, and water power. We're hoping to pull together a small portable solar station to run our well pump during power outages, among other things. I also loved the huge Hoberman sphere in the lobby.

Sam really liked the balloon wall and the Eat and Be Eaten room with all the insects and animals. Em just loved being there and exploring everything! Another highlight was the observation deck where we got to see the Statue of Liberty. Just doesn't get cooler than that!

November Catch Up

2008-02-21T08:00:00.008-05:00

As promised in an earlier post, here are some photos of a couple of trips we took in November. We spent time at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in the rocks, minerals, and gems room, one of our favorites. This time the kiddos were really interested in looking at the jewelry and hearing the little history blurbs about where it came from—even Sam was dazzled by the gems' beauty and brilliance.

Afterwards, we walked over to the National Museum of the American Indian where we had lunch at our favorite cafe. We zoomed through the museum kind of quickly, as our time to escape the city before rush hour was quickly slipping away.

We were able to see the introductory movie this trip, though, which is well worth seeing if you're ever there. They do a great job of connecting the present and the past, debunking the still pervasive myth that Native people's and their culture are a thing of the past. One of the kids' favorite parts of the museum and a do not miss is the contact room with all the gold artifacts and weaponry. Sam picked out his favorite revolver, Em got a shot off with an old long rifle, but Jules apparently goes for the heavy fire!

Later that month we also took a trip down to Luray Caverns, in Virginia, which was a neat follow up to the Smithsonian trip, as we got to see some rock and mineral formations up close. We'd been to the caverns a few years back, but the kids didn't really remember it and were awed anew.

There are several really stunning moments in the caverns: the reflecting lake is gorgeous, and the stalactite organ is really cool and amazing to hear. The kids were especially taken with the organ. They did not, however, like experiencing total cave darkness—that pretty much freaked them out, as did the legend of Neptune's ghost, a specific formation in the caverns. But they loved, loved, loved the wishing well and being able to rub the "fried eggs" for good luck, the only formation they were allowed to touch.

Making Butter

2008-01-30T17:35:00.001-05:00

This month we made butter for the first time. It was easy and loads of fun to watch whipped cream turn into butter. As it whips past the stiff peaks it gradually takes on a yellowy color, and just when you think it will never go to butter, BAM! In the blink of an eye, all the buttermilk falls out and voila! Butter.

Once the butter has formed, simply drain off the buttermilk, and rinse the butter well under water, kneading it to remove any remaining buttermilk, which could cause it to turn rancid.

Gingerbread Holidays

2007-12-30T12:25:00.000-05:00

This is what our kitchen looked like Sunday before Christmas. And pretty much on Monday, too... and not much different on Christmas day. This year, the kids were way into baking, even more than last year, and Jules even made the pizzelles all by herself from start to finish. Em and Sam are working on our baking center—a part of the counter a few inches lower than the rest, making it easy to roll out dough with leverage and having the added advantage of being perfect kid height. Yes, Em decided to get in the baking spirit by dressing in her colonial attire. She does love to be in character.

This year, we added gingerbread houses to our repertoire, something we've been wanting to do for a couple of years, but never quite found the time. Once she heard this, our generous friend Madeline insisted we borrow her stoneware gingerbread mold since they would be away over the holidays. (We've considered holding it hostage to get them to visit in the spring, but that wouldn't be very nice, would it?) It took all day Christmas eve to bake enough pieces for three gingerbread houses. By evening, they were cool enough to begin to assemble.

We cut down some egg cartons to place in the middle of the house, giving us some structure to work against. Before dinner, we made some royal icing and glued the houses together, giving them plenty of time to dry before decorating. By the time we were done eating, everything was set to go. The kids had a blast, and we all decided that this was the perfect way to wile away Christmas eve—it gave us all something to focus on besides just the anticipation of Christmas morning!

Everyone had fun eating and decorating, and by the time we were done, Sam decided we should make a gingerbread house for every holiday occasion, already making plans for his Valentine's house.

Of course, the next day (note the sleep mask from Santa) the girls decided that their houses weren't quite done after all, and they spent another afternoon decorating, this time with colored royal icing for garland and windows.

The finished products from left to right: Julia's house, Em's house, and Sam's house. I'm looking forward to making a Halloween house next year—yet another wonderful idea of Madeline's.

My friend Madeline

2007-12-16T18:52:00.001-05:00

After we left Williamsburg, we headed down south to Georgia where my unschooling friend Madeline lives with her amazing organic-farmer husband, Nicolas, and her two fantastically adorable and impressive sons. We drove 9 hours just to get there, and I woke up at 5:15 am to get us out of the hotel and to her place at a decent hour. And every bit of it was worth the effort!

We had so much fun and felt so welcome in their wonderful home that we really didn't want to leave when the time came to drive up to the Lovejoy's for a house concert with Amy Steinberg. I think that's why we dilly-dallied so long, lingering over these amazingly moist pancakes that Gillen made for everyone. Gillen was an amazing cook, totally comfortable in the kitchen, and he and Julia bonded over chocolate and baking for Madeline's birthday (though I hear he does that with all the girls).

That afternoon we enjoyed a lovely visit to their farm where we took a nice hike out to a beautiful meadow and field of quartz crystals. The kids had a blast playing "predator," a combination of tag and hide-and-seek through the tall grass. We lucked out that there were no hunters on the property that day, considering it's deer season. Along the hike we got to see a beaver dam and the habitat they're creating in the woods. Crystal hunting was such fun, kind of like being on a geology dig, especially after our recent trip to the Smithsonian rocks and gems collection and Luray caverns (more on those trips later). I kept finding these amazingly perfect small crystals that looked bizarrely like teeth from a crystal monster. I kept envisioning this giant mouth full of crystal teeth along the lines of the abominable snow man or something.

We had a perfectly relaxing, beautiful day with everyone, and luckily we were all smart enough to go to sleep far earlier than we had the night before. The worst part about the whole visit was having to bully them into letting me help, though Nicolas was pretty much a push-over in that arena. I would have stayed and helped him at the farm all day if I could have—hopefully without botching the job too badly along the way. Next time maybe I'll have Jim along with me for a trip to my mom's place, and I'll get to do just that. Though if he'd have seen their hunting set up, he would've been itching to be out doing that! (For the record, I do believe Gillen is at present the only hunter in their family—see another great evil way to get Gillen to push for a trip up here in the spring!

Stepping Back In Time

2007-12-11T08:31:00.000-05:00

This past week, the kids and I have been on one of our whirlwind trips, gallivanting across the South. We began at the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, VA, and had a raucous good time! While there, the kids and I enjoyed a 2-day pass to Colonial Williamsburg where we had loads of fun stepping back in time and imagining ourselves living in 18th Century Virginia. The highlight of the trip for me was exploring the Great Hopes Plantation site, which is growing slowly and beginning to take shape.

They've been building this plantation for the last several years using all period tools and techniques, and it's been amazing to watch the progress. This trip I learned from one of the interpreters that this plantation would have had about 150 acres of tobacco and 50 acres of corn production, relying on only about 7-10 slaves to do that work, a number which I find absolutely dumbfounding when I consider the amount of work these people were required to do, knowing as I do now what it takes to farm just one acre.

Sam's favorite part, not surprisingly, was learning all about the weaponry and what it meant to join the army. We spent quite a bit of time at the magazine listening intently to all the descriptions of the guns, bayonets, militia, and military innovations. While the girls had their own costumes from our last trip about 3 years ago, Sam decided to rent a costume this year, which meant he was given a letter with several different assignments, one of which was learning to drill, which he was able to do both days much to his great pleasure. The girls were thrilled just to dress up and enjoy all the attention it garnered them throughout the streets. Em, particularly, was in her element as she role-played the entire two days we were there.

We spent our third day at the Jamestown Settlement where we spent a cold afternoon learning all about the voyage over to the New World on the Susan Constant, what it might have been like to live in Powhatan village, and the significant differences between life in a native village and a colonial fort. Of course, once again, the highlight of the day was learning all about the weapons and armor and getting to watch them fire a musket. Sam was thrilled to hold the shield for his musketeer, a very important job as the musketeer needed all his hands to load and fire. Although, just as interesting was the time was our time spent talking with a female blacksmith about the trade now and then. She had a wonderful way of talking with us, interacting with the kids on the same intellectual level as an adult, and I kept wanting to ask if she weren't homeschooled but never quite managed to work it into the conversation.

Some recent projects, among many others

2007-11-28T08:03:00.000-05:00

Here's one of those boring collected photos posts just to keep up with some of the projects the kiddos are up to these days.

Experiments in ice.

Geomag stegosaurus.

Helium balloon basket experiments.

Tangram tessellation I.

Tangram tessellation II.

Multi-tiered lego birthday cake.

Lego Halloween decorations.

Watercolor.

It's gonna blow!

2007-11-13T08:24:00.000-05:00

The other evening the kids and Jim built a Smithsonian model volcano that we've had sitting around for a little while. They were all very excited about building it and setting it off, painstakingly crafting and molding it and adding the food coloring.

Apparently, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, however, as you can see by their reactions in the photo to the right. Vesuvius it was not.

Halloween Festivities

2007-11-06T07:23:00.000-05:00

The kids had a blast on Halloween, and although they all got store-bought costumes, Sam was the only one to wear his—he was a ninja. The girls decided last minute not to be pirate wenches and went instead as Katara and a Kyoshi warrior from the Avatar series. They pulled to gether these costumes themselves from various articles of clothing and were quite pleased with them despite the lack of glitz, glamor and instant recognizability. I'm often amazed by their utter lack of pretense and their disregard of competitive, expensive appearances. Just one of the many perks of not being socialized in a school yard.

Another perk would be the kindness and consideration I so often see displayed. More than one person giving out candy Halloween night was surprised and pleased by how polite the kids were and pleasantly caught off guard by the well-wishes for a Happy Halloween, reactions evidenced in voices and profuse thanks in return.

The kids are not only kind to others, they're very often kind to each other, missing much of the sibling rivalry that's fueled by grade politics and conventional culture. At one point I overheard Emily telling Julia that she planned to give Jules and Sam all the candy she couldn't have because of her braces. To which Jules responded earnestly, "No Em, I'm going to trade you for all of it because I want you to have just as much candy as we have."

By the end of the evening, they'd traded to their hearts' content, sampled and discarded several treats, and enjoyed their fill of their favorites—all the while loading me up with my own favorites like Almond Joys and Butterfingers. The remainder, which filled a gallon ziploc bag, was bagged up and sent into the office with Jim for others to enjoy. The kids were surprised at how little of the candy they liked this year, and I think they're scheming for a way to have Halloween next year and all their favorite candy, too. I see visions of brief trick-or-treating just for the fun of it and store-bought bags of their favorites at home.

Although the pumpkin muffins I made for our Halloween Harvest party weren't a huge hit with my kiddos, the candy selection that filled our Halloween Hunt bags was. The added benefit of keeping all the extra bags was pretty great, too, not to mention getting to hunt for those extras all over again once the party was over. I'm suspecting that our Halloween party may grow as the actual trick-or-treating wanes. Unschoolers, yannow—we just like things the way we like them.

Playing with Fire

2007-10-31T07:57:00.001-05:00

Playing with fire is always a fun time in our home, not just because we're latent pyromaniacs, but because fire is all about experimentation. It's always changing, powerful, interesting. Here we are creating a vacuum with a candle—watch the rising water level as the candle uses all the oxygen in the jar.

Pumpkin Picking

2007-10-28T14:33:00.000-05:00

Although we grew our own pumpkins this year, there's still nothing more fun than going to a big pick-your-own pumpkin patch, and Summer's Farm is one of the best. My in-laws were down for a visit this weekend, and pumpkin picking seemed like a great way to spend the afternoon. Thankfully, after four straight days of rain, the weather cooperated, and we had a gorgeous afternoon in the sunshine. We enjoyed the giant corn maze, jumping on the huge air pillow, watching pig races, eating apple cider donuts, doing well-pump duck races, sliding down hay slides, and shooting off the corn cannon—arguably the most fun of all! And of course, we ended the day with a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch to pick our own pumpkins. The kids found some really cool orange ones for carving and some pretty small white ones, and I found some lovely decorative gourds for my Thanksgiving centerpiece, so I was pleased as well. My absolute favorite was a green apple gourd that I'm definitely going to grow here next year. I also got some fun ideas for our Halloween Harvest Farm party next week.

Creamery visit

2007-10-27T07:08:00.001-05:00

As part of our commitment to eating local, we've been searching for a new creamery. The one we were using—though mostly we just bought from the grocery store—recently lost its two biggest contracts to Organic Valley, taking its 25 mile radius all the way out to Lancaster. We'd known of a local on-site creamery for a while, but had heard mixed reviews, so we decided to head down and check it out for ourselves.

The kids were immediately enamored with the place, though they were surprised by the machine milking. I guess they'd pictured cows being milked by hand in the same way I'd been milking our goat every morning, and why not? Machine milking isn't exactly intuitive. But then, when one considers how many cows need to be milked twice a day at even a small dairy, machine milking becomes far more obvious a necessity!

We hung out for quite a while so we'd be able to help with the calf milking, which was hugely fun. We played on a giant straw playground they call "Hay Mountain," ate fresh ice cream, and talked briefly with several folks who live and work there. By the end of the day, the kids were begging to let this "please be our creamery!" Talk about buy-in! So, we've found a new creamery that the kids love to visit, making the 50 mile round-trip far more doable, and what's even better is that we can set up delivery for the cold, wet, dark winter and visit only when we want, as I imagine the creamery will lose a bit of its appeal in the coming months. But, then we'll be able to head down again in the spring for calving season, and what fun that will be!

Living....

2007-10-23T07:20:00.000-05:00

Just one of those typical day kind of posts, recapping a bit what life looks like here on the farm. We welcome the kids' help with the farm and CSA as much as they'd like, and now, they earn money by doing so. This has been a weird thing for me to figure out because with the house, we don't have "chores," and the money is simply family money. What ever is left over after having paid the bills gets distributed, and we have slush money that goes toward different necessities each month. With the farm, however, I wanted to do something a bit different because the farm and CSA are our "home business," and I wanted the kids to be able to earn money from it as well, for it to be our contribution to the family finances in an empowering way.

How to do this, however, was the tricky part, especially considering we're not yet making money, and the money that's coming in is still being reinvested in infrastructure. A bit abstract for the kids to grasp, and way too future oriented. So, I decided to just start paying them when ever they felt like working, and this system has worked out pretty well because it gives the kids a chance to earn money on top of their regular budget and save more quickly for things they're wanting to buy. No one needs to work who doesn't want to, and it's been interesting to observe the different motivations and work ethics. Jules often helps and has saved a considerable amount already. Sam and Em are far less inclined to help and often do far less work when they're out helping, so we've kind of developed a pay-by-the-animal system rather than an hourly system. Most of the time, however, Sam's content to play—he's being a Chinese dragon in this photo—and leave the money-making to others, though having fewer dollars on the chalk board is a bitter pill at times.

Most of all the kids' time is spent playing—as it should be—and they play amazingly well together most of the time. They recently made a pair of stilts with their dad and have been spending lots of time trying to master the new skill, working hard together. They've been very into building fairy houses recently, thanks to Devin Martin's introduction to the hobby at the Live and Learn Conference. They recently had more Devin-inspired fairy fun carving some of our home-grown pumpkins to build hanging fairy bowers in the front crab apple tree—our one small climbing tree. The girls have rediscovered embroidery, which seems to be a fall activity, brought on by the shorter days and the nesting instinct they generate in us all. Books on CD are a great way to wile away these hours, and we've recently enjoyed The Swiss Family Robinson and Alice in Wonderland, and Em in particular is begging for more. We're considering joining an online audio book club, a la Netflix but for books, to feed this passion, as our library selection is dismal. But while our bodies and interests are turning towards fall, our weather has been doing anything but, and we've enjoyed balmy dinners by candlelight on the patio filled with love, laughter, and delicious homegrown food. Life is good!

An Unexpected Gift

2007-10-06T15:45:00.000-05:00

While we've hosted several black swallowtail caterpillars, we've never had the honor of hosting a monarch until this September when Em found one on some milkweed in the pasture. (Milkweed is the only host plant for both the butterfly and the larva, so if you want monarchs, be sure to plant some.) Monarch chrysalides are especially beautiful, resembling delicate jewelry with their soft green hue and golden filament. I was so excited to host one in our home, but, of course, we were leaving in just two days for the Live and Learn Conference.

Upon returning, I was so disappointed to learn that the caterpillar had gone missing while we were gone. Figuring it didn't survive for want of food, I resigned myself to waiting for next year for a monarch. Lo and behold, look what arrived unexpectedly one evening! I still have no idea where it made its chrysalis, and we've looked under and in just about every kitchen surface we can think of to no avail. So much for enjoying the beautiful transformation, but the sheer beauty of this unexpected gift was enough for this season. The kids each got a turn holding it before letting it finish drying its wings on our screen door so it could begin its migration.

Washington, D. C.

2007-10-02T15:01:00.000-05:00

This Sunday we went into the city to meet my mother-in-law, nephew and sister-in-law, who was in town for a business meeting on Monday. We started at the National Air and Space Museum, which is always fun for the kids. We spent quite a bit of time in the hands-on "How Things Fly" section of the museum before moving onto the National Museum of the American Indian, which is conveniently right next door. We took time out to eat lunch in the Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe, which features different native foods that are representative of different cultures and regions.

After lunch we felt quite refreshed and headed to the top floor of the museum where, unfortunately, the introductory film "Who We Are," was not playing. But we still enjoyed walking around the different galleries and exhibits, listening to stories like the one about Devil's Tower, and visiting the hands-on portion of the museum. Afterwards, we enjoyed the weather and the gorgeous waterfalls that we'd viewed during lunch. (Sam's not angry in that picture—he's just feeling especially earnest about the turtle totem necklace he bought.)

The day was so beautiful and the kids still had quite a bit of energy, so we headed over to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights on display in the rotunda. The kids were totally psyched to see the original documents, and the adults thought it was pretty cool, too.
We were all surprised and a bit dismayed by how faded the documents are—John Hancock's signature is barely visible. Still, just seeing the original documents is such a powerful experience. Of course, we watched National Treasure when we got home that night! (Well, except for Jim who watched the Giants v. Eagles game.) Sam asked one of the guards whether there were really temperature sensors in the cases, but the guard said that part was only in the movie.

On our way home, we stopped for some ice cream and wandered through the National Gallery Sculpture Garden, which is always lovely and relaxing. The kids enjoyed some time by the central fountain, cooling tired feet. The day was absolutely glorious! Spring and Fall are beautiful times to visit D.C., and the best part about all these wonderful places is that they are free to visit—free of course because American tax dollars fund them, but hey, it's still pretty great!

Building an electromagnet

2007-09-28T11:45:00.000-05:00

The other day, Jim and the kids built an electromagnet together out of copper wire, a nail and a battery. Jim used a drill to wind the copper wire tightly around the nail, which was pretty cool to watch. Once hooked up to the battery, the kids were able to use the electromagnet to pick up random metal bits like this safety pin. While playing, the kids recalled a Scooby-Doo episode where there was an electromagnet used in a junk-yard and were thrilled to find out that huge magnet worked on the same principles as this small one they'd just helped build. They also tried to build a simple motor using magnets and the battery, but that experiment remains unsuccessful. Even after troubleshooting with a multimeter, we were at a loss. Back to the drawing board on that one.

Post Conference Triste, or Where's my Tribe?!

2007-09-23T06:05:00.000-05:00

This year after the conference, we were lucky enough to have two wonderful families from Albuquerque visit us at our farm and then again at our in-law's beach house on the Jersey Shore. I have no pictures of them at the farm, though Jenny assures me that she got some good shots and Beth has some really cute ones, but I have some really wonderful photos from the beach. The weather was a bit breezy and chilly, but overall it was gorgeous and sunny and perfect. We spent our days basking in the sun and splashing in the water while our nights were spent drinking too much good wine and eating too much good food (yeah, there goes those 5 lbs I lost at the conference!). Though come to think of it, Jenny and I were really the only gluttons there—and Beth left without revealing a single vice. No fair! I mean, she doesn't even drink tea in the morning to wake up, making my two cups of ultra-strong Peet's coffee feel like speed or something. Sheesh.

Hosting such lovely ladies was a pleasure, and I'm so grateful to my in-law's for letting us have the house for the week! The kids had a blast, I think, and overall, they did a fabulous job playing, getting along, and finding solutions, considering that several of them had been on the road for 3 weeks, all of them had just been to a huge conference, most of us were dealing with varying stages of cold/ fever ick, and space was at a premium with nine people in the house!

Of course, the space on the beach goes on forever, and thank goodness for the wind and waves that allow little
girls to squeal and screech with sheer delight while protecting adult ears! Watching kids on the beach in September is one of my favorite things ever because, for me, there's little else that symbolizes such perfect freedom and joy. They have the whole beach to themselves while other kids are in school, and between the sand and the water, it's just kid heaven. When we arrived at the beach, one of the first things I did was begin digging a hole, and Beth naively asked what in the world I was doing. "If you dig it, they will come, Beth," as Emma and Eli demonstrate. Kids and sand and holes and waves—yup, heaven!

Live and Learn Conference 2007

2007-09-11T13:45:00.000-05:00

We just got back from the Live and Learn Conference down in Black Mountain, NC, and it was a total whirlwind blast from the very first day of tie-dying t-shirts with the Smith family to the last night of the dance fever party! So many people put forth so much energy and enthusiasm to make this year one of the best years yet. The funshop offerings are just phenomenal and get better every year, I think.

I love hosting the letterboxing funshop, and the best part of the whole thing is taking the letterbox when we leave and seeing all the wonderful stamps that people have made. Liz's egg drop funshop was a huge hit with my kiddos, and it was the only funshop Sam really wanted to attend. I'm so glad we caught it before leaving town, and it really wrapped up the week for us on a positive note.

One of our favorites was the belly dancing funshop and performance, and I love the photo of my Maryland crew! There were so many other terrific funshops that it's impossible to list them all. Seeing all the kids' faces light up when they accomplish something new and even consoling them as they stretch their abilities and come up disappointed is a priceless part of the living and learning that happens all week long at the conference.

The best part of the conference though are the connections we get to make with such amazing people from all over the world! Getting to meet folks that we've gotten to know over the year online is so cool, and there's never enough time to spend talking and connecting with each and every person. The glow that comes from hanging out with other unschoolers just can't be beat!

Sleeping Babes, or my house in the morning

2007-08-15T15:09:00.000-05:00

Natural History Museum

2007-07-10T19:15:00.000-05:00

After dropping Jim at work, the kids and I went into the city to visit the Natural History Museum, arguably our favorite Smithsonian museum. We spent the day wandering through the evolution exhibits, primarily, as the museum was really crowded. We got into the gems exhibit enough to see a few of the large geodes and the Hope Diamond, but turned around because of the crowds. Unfortunately, the Insect Zoo was closed, one of our favorite parts of the museum. All in all, not a terribly successful museum day, but it was fun nonetheless. That's the great part about going so often—short forays are just as fun as longer ones, and there's never any pressure to see or do it all. Combined with the visit to daddy's work, it was a hugely successful day. Well, that's not to mention the three times I got lost while driving in and out of the city. Gawd I hate the GW parkway! I'm so good with everything else and once I get into the city, but we must've seen the Pentagon about 4 times that day! Rather interesting, actually, that we were able to get so close post 9/11—I mean literally in the parking lot right next to the building.

Visiting Daddy at Work

2007-07-06T07:11:00.001-05:00

The other day we dropped Jim off at work before heading into the city. His car had died, so he'd taken the truck into work the next day and had an extra vehicle to bring home, so we decided to make a day of it. He is a scientist, so visiting lab is always a whole lot of fun. Emily spent a lot of time in his lab at grad school while I was teaching or doing research, but since leaving campus, we've become very disconnected from his workplace. Adding to that the fact that he's a government researcher adds another layer of security and difficulty to visits, so the kids are always pretty excited when they get to go see daddy's lab.

Making Donuts

2007-06-27T19:40:00.000-05:00

The big thing on the farm these days is making donuts on the weekends. Jim found a recipe we could make in the bread machine, though this dough is so light that it really can't be made in advance with the timer.

They're really delicious dipped in powdered sugar while they're still warm. I tried making some glaze, but the recipe I used was a butter glaze and none of us really liked it. Next time, I'll probably try just a simple glaze with powdered sugar and water. We've also tried dipping them in the strawberry preserves I made, but found that it's just too sweet. The chocolate sauce didn't really cut it either.

Somehow there's just nothing better than the little bit of powdered sugar and, of course, fresh berries from the garden. Just ask Sam....

These donuts are best fresh, but they can be reheated in the toaster over the next couple of days and still taste pretty good. We've also discovered that if we add an extra egg to the batter, we can make a fluffier cruller-like donut.

Brainteasers

2007-06-17T06:53:00.001-05:00

One of the ways Jim stays involved in the kids' unschooling is to bring home brainteaser challenges for them every once in while. We've had a relatively typical, I guess, back and forth with regards to unschooling, Jim being the consummate skeptic and reluctant practitioner. With time, however, he's really been able to see lots of the learning that goes on naturally and come even to embrace the more relaxed pace our lives.

Periodically, however, he has that feeling of, "Okay, so unschooling works, but what if we aren't offering enough?" So, one of the ways I tried to find a way to honor that concern was to bring home a giant book of brainteasers I found at the local warehouse club.
If Jim wanted to be more proactive, then this seemed like a way to do that while still keeping things light and fun and voluntary for the kids. It's also been a great way for him to feel connected to our unschooling and to the kids while at work.

We'll, it's turned out to be a huge success with some tweaking along the way...like the kids requesting private time to work on the challenge rather than feeling the competition of working on it together, for instance, which took away from the fun of the individual challenge. This is the most recent challenge Jim brought home for the kids, "The Impossible Domino Challenge," and the one that's most lent itself to a blog post. The upper photo was Emily's first attempt, while the lower photo is Julia's solution. After a few tears but shear determination (Jules has the patience of Job, and always has!), Julia was the first to get it to work. Well, actually, this is Julia's second successful building, but the first to stay up long enough to take a photo, and in fact to stay up long enough for her father to get home from work and see it with his own eyes.

8 Things Meme (grumble, grumble)

2007-06-14T07:01:00.000-05:00

C'mon folks, I'm a dictionary; I'm really not interesting enough to come up with 8 things to tell about myself, yet I've been tagged twice, so I guess I'll need to try. Ren says she thinks it's ego that drives us to do these memes, but for me, it's more that pressure of not wanting to be the one to drop the ball—similar motivation for dragging myself to do chain letters and other obnoxious pressure-oriented stuff. Oh, and I guess I should link to Ren and Madeline who both tagged me.

Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1) Well, since I already shared this over at Ubasics, it's a no-brainer: when I was 16 I used to sneak out of the house at night. I'd jump off the roof below my window, put the car in neutral, roll it down the driveway, and spend the night at my boyfriend's house. I was always a bit of a rebel and really couldn't stand being told what to do...or what not to do as the case may be. I'm really not much different now.

2) Despite being a wild child, I have this incredible dose of Catholic guilt. In and of itself that may not be all that interesting except that I'm an atheist and was raised entirely without religion of any sort, well besides having to say grace at the dinner table. I have this major confessional streak, and I can't seem to release things until I've confessed them and tried to make amends. Maybe this is some kind of past-life residual thing.

3) I'm incredibly loyal and excellent at keeping secrets...except when it comes to gift giving. I have absolutely no will-power when it comes to waiting to give people gifts when I think they will really like it—the excitement is just too much. And on that same note, I was a terrible snoop as a child when it came to Christmas. I used to wait until my mom was out of the house, and then I would slit the tape on the presents under the tree, carefully unwrap them to see what was inside, then put new tape exactly on top of the old tape so no one would know. Of course, I was always disappointed Christmas morning when there were no surprise gifts—I could never understand why my mom didn't hold a few back.

4) I squeal like a little girl. No really, I do. I'm highly startle-able and excitable, and I squeal; it just pops out of me involuntarily. Sometimes Jim will chase me around the house, and I get all worked up like I'm about 5 years old, which of course just cracks him up. I have an overly-developed fight or flight sense.

5) I was supposed to get married once, and I called my wedding off 6 days before hand and went to spend the summer at the beach where Jim and I met. Jim and I have known each other since we were kids, and that summer something just clicked. Truth be told, he was a large part of the reason I called off the wedding. *eg* Though I had really just been looking for an excuse for a while to end a bad relationship before getting in any deeper.

6) I once spent 6 weeks backpacking around Thailand and China and signed up for the Peace Corps, but that was all part of that bad relationship, so the Peace Corps thing got called off along with the wedding, and I went to grad school instead.

7) I have a huge scar up the side of my right shin from a bike accident when I was 13. I had more than 70 stitches in multiple layers and was very lucky that the pedal missed my muscle when it ripped open my leg.

8) My first word was "flower," and I've always been a gardener at heart. I used to love spending time at my great aunt's farm, sleeping in the loft and riding in the wagon. My heart has finally found home here on our farm, and I feel myself putting roots down deep into the earth. This fulfills that part of me that has always felt unanchored, adrift, unconnected to the world as a child of adoption. My family is my world, and I'm finished this silly meme just in time to go outside and milk my goat.

I'm tagging:

Robin, Cheryl, Karl, Leanne, Wendy, Stephanie, Arun, and Christy

I'm a dictionary...

2007-05-21T16:10:00.001-05:00

Knitmoka, took it from Crystal, who got it from Mary, and damn if they aren't all really interesting people!

I, on the other hand, am a dictionary...

You're The Dictionary !

by Merriam-Webster

You're one of those know-it-all types, with an amazing amount of knowledge at your command. People really enjoy spending time with you in very short spurts, but hanging out with you for a long time tends to bore them. When folks really need an authority to refer to, however, you're the one they seek. You're an exceptional speller and very well organized.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Camouflage Sam

2007-05-08T12:31:00.000-05:00

Meet "Camouflage" Sam: he's a popsicle-stick figure that Julia made for her brother, and he's been on many adventures. He's been stampeded by chickens, held on for dear life as he ran through the pasture attached to a dog collar, and he even got snuffled by a pig. Em took the picture of Julia, Sam, and Camouflage Sam on the right. Emily and Julia have been having quite a fun time together, making a whole civilization of popsicle-stick figures clad in naught but pipecleaners. I have a lovely yellow dress and saucy red shoes. I like that about me. It took camo for Sam to become interested, but become interested he did! Camouflage Sam was his best buddy for at least a week, going everywhere with him.

Philadelphia Adventure

2007-04-27T13:43:00.000-05:00

We had a blast on our trip to Philly! While there, we saw the King Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute, though of course no photos were allowed. The exhibit was wonderful—at least twice as big as the recent Pompeii exhibit we visited in Mobile. A solid gold sarcophagus of either Tut's mother or grandmother was on display, and it was truly phenomenal, as was the small canopic coffinette of Tut himself, a glimpse of which you can catch for yourself at this brief National Geographic gallery of the exhibit. The kids were fascinated by many of the objects we saw, especially what was likely the young Tut's royal chair. One of the neatest things is being able to look back at some of the original Carter photographs and recognize items we saw on display like this dummy folding stool. Of course, the rest of the museum was loads of fun as well, and we explored electricity, air and flight, the body and, of course, the heart, and we also enjoyed the IMAX film Mysteries of Egypt.

Our plan was to stay overnight at the Hotel Windsor, just three blocks away, and finish the museum the following day, and we'd planned especially to come on a Wednesday because the museum has extended hours. Unfortunately, best laid plans often do go awry, and the museum was closed for a private event on Thursday! Gathering ourselves and the four free IMAX tickets that were our consolation prize, we headed over to the Academy of Natural Sciences to spend our morning. We had considered but ruled out a visit to this museum in favor of spending more time at the Franklin Institute, but apparently the universe was sending us a message. Although much of the museum was a replay of the taxidermy displays we saw on our trip to Cabela's, the butterfly room was loads of fun and in many ways the highlight of our trip. Sam thrilled when he showed the curator one of the butterflies ready for release. The staff in the butterfly room was absolutely delightful, and we really enjoyed our visit overall. Not a wasted day in the least.

Whirlwind trip

2007-04-23T07:54:00.000-05:00

I realized that I haven't blogged yet about our big adventure. Time being at a premium this time of year on the farm and all. We had a wonderful time down south, which began with a great visit with Ren Allen and her family. Unfortunately, I didn't get a single photo, but Ren did, so I'll post when she has a chance to send them.

Once we arrived at my mom's place on the Gulf Coast, we we joined up with some good friends from Albuquerque who met us there. We had glorious weather and loads of fun on the beach and at home. One evening, we sat up much too late and drank too much beer on the screened in porch. The kids were having so much fun, and we were all quite content. Sam was out picking jasmine flowers for the girls to make into leis. They must've been at it for about 2 hours! The adults, of course, were laughing about our sweat shop conditions, but the kids were really focused and intent upon their project.

During the week, we visited the Mobile Children's Museum The Exploreum where there was an exhibit called A Day in Pompeii with several of the body casts and artifacts. The kids were fascinated by the exhibit, though I thought it was a bit small. Em's favorite part was learning about religious worship in Pompeii and the variety of gods and goddesses from different cultures; Sam liked the cast of the dog. We'd watched the Discovery Channel dvd Pompeii: The Last Day before we went, so the kids and I had a sense of what we were going to see. The kids had the most fun in the permanent exhibits, however, which included a lab set-up by Ciba with several experiments the kids could choose. Jules is doing the tornado experiment while Em and Sam are playing with architecture and earthquakes.

On our way home, we stopped at the Lovejoy's to enjoy a fabulous house concert with Amy Steinberg. She puts on an amazing show, so if you ever have a chance to see her in concert, do! The kids had a blast hanging out with other unschoolers, and they were really looking forward to hearing one of their favorite artists. As Sam says, she sings "from her heart." Sam got to hear his absolute favorite song, "Exactly," before he fell asleep in between sets. I couldn't believe he actually went to sleep on the Lovejoy's living room couch! What a gift because I was able to enjoy both sets before needing to head back to the hotel with the kiddos. Of course, I managed to leave my camera on the emotional way out the door with tired kids and sad goodbyes, wishing we could be surrounded by such wonderful folk all the time. But, that meant I got to enjoy the Lovejoy's company one more brief time, as they kindly stopped by the farm to hand deliver my camera on their way home from Hershey. Man, what service!

The Earth Farm Song by Sam

2007-03-15T10:26:00.000-05:00

Time is big;
Love is big.
You can have your own world right in your own hands.
You just need to focus.

Time is love;
Time is god.
You’re bigger than any god.

Time is time.
Heart is heart.
Time is heart.

Heart is soul.
Fire is fire.
Fire breathes;
Fire’s bigger than flames

Fire is heart.
Smoke is gas.
Smoke is deadly, sometimes.

Heart can be soul.
Strength is wood.
Heart is love.

Scared of the dark?
Dark is not to be afraid of,
That is where love lies.

Life is the life.
Love is stronger than any goddesses or gods.
Zeus cannot be stopped,
But love can stop him,
Time can stop him.

When they work together,
Love and time can stop anything.

We are love.
We are made from our moms and dads.
We started out as a dream,
And one dreamed us.

We are love and time.
We can hold time right in our hands;
We just need to focus.

We can all be creative
When we see something we like;
We just need to think of it.

We are love.

Vegetables are fruit.
Words are knowledge.
Clothing is our wearing.
We are all love and time.
Time is love.

We are all people of this earth.
We can see anything that’s close enough.
We can see to the Atlantic Ocean.
We can see love,
But we can’t see the heart of the love.

But we know the heart of the love:
Earth’s heart, gaia’s heart is the heart of love.
That heart is invisible.
If they ever see it or find it, the lava will burn them.

Love is nature;
Love is stronger than any force.
Love is nature.
We all love our moms and dads;
We are stronger than any force.

Chinatown

2007-03-04T09:55:00.000-05:00

We went into New York City this year for our Chinese New Year celebration—the day after the big parade. We had lunch at a small restaurant called Singapore Cafe. The food was great; the service was great; and the kids really enjoyed the lazy susan table and the tea cups. Sam ate his requisite order of fried dumplings and was happy as a clam. Of course, we chose one of the coldest days of the year to go into the city, and I was concerned that the wind-tunnel effect on the city streets would make the trip unbearable. We layered and bundled, and overall, the cold wasn't too bad. The wind wasn't up, which really made all the difference.

After lunch we walked around Chinatown for a while and ended up at this awesome store in SoHo called Pearl River where we found our own tea cups, spoons and fabulous outfits for the kids. Of course, the kids had almost as much fun on the subway and commuter train as they did in the city, making the rush back meet the train mercifully easy. Here's a photo of the girls in their Mandarin outfits on the way back home in Cabela's, an outdoor/ hunting store that is an experience, to say the least. A 250,000 sf showroom with a 40' waterfall, bass pond and several diorama displays of stuffed animals—like real stuffed, not plush. Seeing the size of these animals was amazing! From black bears to grizzly bears to polar bears, from Icelandic fox to African elephant, Cabela's displays are truly worth seeing if there's a showroom near you. They make a great stop on a long trip—with clean bathrooms, plenty to see and a buffet restaurant. I'd highly recommend checking for locations if you're traveling.

I've been tagged on two different blogs!

2007-01-25T21:06:00.000-05:00

Well, I've already lost this post once, so I'll try again...

Here's the dealio—the idea is to tell 6 weird things about oneself, then tag six people, creating a weirdo ponzi blogoscheme kind of thing.

So...

1) I like to play with words like synonym and cinnamon, saying them alternately over and over again until they become jabberwocky nonsense.

2) I frequently dance with abandon in my kitchen, surrounded by three laughing children and two barking dogs.

3) I like to rock climb, but I'm afraid of heights

4) I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

5) I have a bizarre skin condition called "dermatagraphia," which means I can write on my skin and have it show up seconds later exorcist style—I definitely would have been burned at the stake in a previous life.

6) I still sometimes get scared at night after I get up to go to the bathroom, so I race back to the bed and dive in as quick as I can, worming my way as far under the covers as possible, just like I did when I was six.

I don't know if I know 6 bloggers who haven't already been tagged—I think our blog circle is becoming too inbred!

I'm tagging Julie, Amanda, Leanne, Jen, Manisha and Vicki

Television Journey

2007-01-20T18:27:00.000-05:00

In the interest of full disclosure, I thought I'd post about my family's radical unschooling journey with television.

I, personally, am not a tv watcher, though I do enjoy a couple of shows, Survivor being one I will admit. I was tv-free for ten years before we made the decision, together with our children, to bring cable into our home back in 2003.

When Em was little, we did restrict her "screen time" to under an hour a day or one movie, though she was so engaged, she didn't think much of it. When Sam came along, and I had three wee ones, all still in diapers, my mother-in-law purchased us a small tv/vcr combo for the living room that I will admit was an absolute godsend! She also single-handedly furnished our entire video library because she clearly (and good-naturedly) felt that her grandchildren were being seriously deprived of television culture.

So, the kids had many videos to choose from, ranging from Dora to Blues Clues to Bear in the Big Blue House. As I began later that year exploring homeschooling in earnest and discovering the wonder of unschooling, which seemed to fit our attachment lifestyle so beautifully, I simply began saying "yes" when the kids would ask to watch something, which still wasn't very often. We moved pretty seamlessly from limited screen time to the kids' free access to their video collection without them ever really noticing the transition.

When we decided to get cable, in large part for high-speed internet access, we simply continued that trajectory—saying yes when asked and transitioning seamlessly once again into unlimited television access. While we enjoyed having television and it enriched our lives in so many ways, I still somewhat resented the $40 extra it cost each month, and we began to look into ways to cut that price tag back, including exploring Verizon DSL over cable, ultimately deciding that we weren't ready to eliminate cable from our lives. Shortly after that, we moved and have continued to enjoy cable for the past year and a half in our new home.

This year, however, in a personal effort to simplify and trim expenditures where ever possible, I broached the subject of exchanging cable for Netflix again. To my surprise, this time my youngest child was completely on board, literally campaigning for the extra $40 a month! Jim, too, was on board with it (my boys are so motivated by their wallets!). The girls, however, were not as sure, and they took a few weeks to consider the option.

We are now officially cable free (though we do receive basic channels, which include PBS and the SciFi channel—how cool!) and very satisfied Netflix customers. The girls finally decided that they'd be willing to give a cable-free/Netflix-enriched life a try. As with everything, we all agreed that none of this was set in stone, that we could revisit and rework whenever.

The thing is, we're loving having more free time and being able to watch such a variety of movies and shows. Part of what spurred the kids' willingness to try this was the fact that we'd missed the whole first season of Avatar because they never really watched Nickelodeon. So, we purchased the first season on dvd as it was released and fell in love with the show. When we switched to watching season 2 on tv, the kids were irritated by the commercials. Then, when it switched from the first two hour-long intro shows to the half-hour show, OMG! all hell broke loose! The kids were devastated and infuriated all at once that their favorite show had just ended after only 20 minutes!

Now, with Netflix, although we're a season behind television and not all shows are available, there are loads of series' available, and the kids are loving being able to watch the whole season. More than that, they love the anticipation of movies on our queue and getting mail—mail is a really big thing.

So far, everyone is thrilled with our decision, thrilled that we have nearly $40 extra each month and thrilled with the selection of available dvds. We may change our minds, and we do really miss Dirty Jobs and Myth Busters, so there are are some downsides as with anything in life. But, for now, we're enjoying our Netflix romance and broadening our interests and activities.

Typical Day

2007-01-04T08:29:00.000-05:00

We had one of those magical days yesterday. A day where not a lot happens necessarily, but it all flows so joyfully and by the end of the day it feels so good to reflect on our time together.

In the morning, we read a fair amount. Sam and Julia really love Jan Hunt's children's book, A Gift For Baby, so we read that about three times along with several other books. I did a ton of laundry and cleaned up the kitchen.

Em and I played a really great game of chess, and though she eventually lost, it was a long game. Sam and I played yesterday, and he beat me for the first time, so he was thrilled. At one point during Em's and my game, Sam wanted me to get my queen back—Em had taken it, as had Sam the day before. I don't take back my pieces unless we want to redo a series of moves, but the kids do take back their pieces and have do-overs. That's our current mode of play—we've played differently over the years. Sam had a hard time, but really got a hold of himself quickly. Even though this is the way I play with him as well, I think he was overly identifying with me while watching—it felt like he was playing Em and wasn't able to get back his queen.

Sam began playing his Spy Fox game on the computer and eventually the girls went in and played with him for quite a while. I paid bills.

When the girls came back out to the living room, they built some beautiful creations with the wooden tessellating shapes. Jules made several snowflake like creations while Em was "drawing" with them, making scenes with suns, flowers, trees, people, stars, etc.

We decided to go out into the pastures to check on the piggies who have recently been moved to their own pasture (part of that fence job Jim was working on last weekend). We sat out on the hill in the sunshine for a long time enjoying the warmth and our conversations together, reflecting on our move and how much we love having the animals, thinking about the future, looking forward to baby goaties in the spring.

As we were sitting quietly, I reached over and grabbed a blade of grass and began whistling on it. I know I've done it before, but it's been a while, and I figure the girls will get a kick out of it. They did, so we spent the next half hour at least with me showing them how to get the blade of grass between their thumbs like a reed, Jules getting it, then Em getting it, then the two of them doing it repeatedly to make the turkeys gobble in the next pasture, trying to change pitch, blow a tune—all the while, excitedly saying things like, "We love grass whistling. We need to do more grass whistling!"

At that point, Sam came running out to join us.... One of my great joys in this world is watching my children run through the pastures. It's one of those mental snapshot moments where I just try to burn that image in my brain because it's perfection here on earth.

Sam wanted to know how to grass whistle, but there were too many steps and he got really frustrated and ran off, top speed down the hill. By the time he got to the corner of the pasture, he felt more calm. So, we all hung out for a little while, then went back inside.

At this point it was late afternoon, and Jim soon got home, going outside to tweak the electric on the piggy fence before it got dark. We went out with him and saw the most amazing moon rise! OMG! The moon was huge and full and beautiful, and the sunset across the way was glorious. Em ran back inside to grab some paper so she could sketch the moon. *sigh* What a gift!

We went back in to make dinner—Greek pizza with some spinach we still have growing in our garden!—and Em put on her colonial girl shift I made her a couple years ago (making it just like a mama would have, with lots of room in the torso to grow into and several pin folds in the skirt to let down) and a vintage apron I'd picked up for her at a flea market. She asked for the swiffer duster and proceeded to dust the house. We've recently moved the tv from our living room down to our ever-progressing family room in the basement that we're finishing, so the credenza? (not really a tv stand) is empty and we'd put a few books on it. Em pulled a bunch of our favorite "ology" books down and stood them up to display. It looked quite nice.

After dinner, Sam and I were in the living room, and he went to grab a book for me to read and accidentally knocked three down in a domino effect. Cool! He knocked the rest that way, which made a rather loud bang when the fell down to the floor. I suggested he try it down on the floor to begin with. Sam spent the rest of the evening creating domino structures from books, getting more elaborate with each try.

After watching a few, Jim, Em and I went back outside for a full-moon walk and to double check on the piggies to make sure they hadn't gotten out and had found their range shelter. Yes, they were buried deep in the straw in the shelter, with only their ears sticking out. Cuties. Jim went back in, but Em and I decided to take walk. What a glorious, clear, crisp night! As we were walking back, Em spotted a spark near the hedgerow—she'd discovered where along the fence line the electric was shorting out! Hooray! That discovery will save Jim loads of time and frustration of figuring it out.

We came back in to watch Sam's final big book-domino cascade. Jim got some of it on video, though I haven't seen it yet. If it's clear, I'll probably You-tube it and post it on my blog. Sam, Em and I then snuggled up for a while on the couch to search for domino videos online. We saw some pretty cool ones, which will definitely make it into Connections' Virtual Visit at some point! Jim and Jules were snuggled watching a movie back in our room, and we decided to join them. When their movie was over, the kids climbed into their nests, and we put in Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky to fall asleep to, which we'd held back from returning to Netflix until we get the new round.

What a lovely day! I love our unschooling life!

Changing Seasons

2006-11-12T09:45:00.000-05:00

Our bodies are beginning to adjust to the rhythm of the new season, enjoying more quiet time spent indoors by the fire. The girls have once again expressed an interest in learning to sew, so we've brought out the sewing kit and big bucket o' fabric scraps. They've been patiently focused on learning this new skill, mending anything they can get their hands on, including some of their dad's pants. Jules set up a stuffed animal triage center and mended all animals as good as new—some multiple times as Buddy, our one year old dog who still loves to chew, decided to help her out a bit. Even Sam got in on the sewing action, though not with the same singular focus as the girls.

The kids have been having fun helping to preserve, cook, bake and prep our own mixes. Jules made a bunch of jars full of pancake and waffle mix mostly by herself, which we're now able to pull out whenever. The kids also enjoy making monkey bread as a morning treat, which is basically dough balls rolled in butter, cinnamon and sugar, and baked together in a bread pan—a great homemade alternative to donuts.

We've had more time for reading, too, as the kids keep themselves busy sewing or building or creating. Even Sam, who used to get angry when we'd read because he didn't want to listen, has been passively participating more. Time and maturity have helped. We're nearly through the 6th book of the Harry Potter series, The Half-Blood Prince, which I've already read but the kids' haven't.

I love quiet, snuggly days inside—I love the balance of the seasons!

Farmlife

2006-11-07T12:49:00.000-05:00

This is one of those retrospective kinds of posts, full of snapshots from our first year on our homestead.

Deconstruction

2006-11-05T13:53:00.000-05:00

One of the rainy day activities we keep in reserve is a box of defunct small appliances and electronics that are fun and interesting for the kids to take apart. Sam was looking for something to do this gray day, so I pulled out an old keyboard for him to open and investigate. The girls soon joined in pulling apart an old coffee grinder—as you can see, this meant taking time out from the game they'd been playing.

This quickly led to the dismantling of all kinds of old toys, some that no longer worked, others that still worked but seemed more interesting as projects than toys. Sam chose to take apart one of his old Buzz Lightyear toys, a rocket that made quite a lot of noise. He hadn't played with the toy for a long time, but it offered a whole new level of interest once we could see inside!

Sam had the spaceship apart in no time, and play rapidly turned to cutting the electronics wires in a kind of Mission Impossible style game. Once Jim got home from work, Sam showed him lots of the wires he'd cut and told his dad that the toy had been working when he took it apart. Jim showed Sam how to strip the wires and splice them back together, and the two of them were able to play with the different buttons and see the electrical connections that made the different noises possible. Very cool!

Riding Lessons

2006-10-10T13:18:00.000-05:00

This week we had the last of our riding lessons, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. Leaving the barn yesterday, I felt so sad leaving all the horses behind. We've come to know several of the personalities at the barn, and the thought of not having any horses in our lif made me feel very melancholy.

Our plan is to go back for another round of lessons in January when we'll have a little more free time. The lessons are expensive enough (paying anything four times can get expensive!) that we don't want to pay for another session when we'll be gone much of December. In the meantime, we'll enjoy some time off and continue to read and learn about horses as we get our barn and property ready.

The long-term goal is to purchase a family horse of our own, and we've really received loads of help on that front. We have our eyes out, waiting for just the right beast to come into our lives. This spring, I'll be taking a horse ownership class down at a rescue organization called the Ranger Foundation, and we'll open a space in our hearts for a new old horse.

Lifecycle of Black Swallowtail

2006-10-05T16:09:00.000-05:00

One of our favorite things to do in the summertime is to bring a caterpillar into the house to observe. We used to make butterfly houses out of tulle, but now, we just let them free within the house. The larva is happy to stay where the food is!

When it's ready, it simply crawls around a little bit until it finds a suitable place to attach and begin forming the chrysallis.

When the butterfly emerges, it needs some time to dry its wings, which is usually long enough for us to find it for release.

2006 Live & Learn Unschooling Conference

2006-09-17T16:01:00.000-05:00

Wow! What an amazing experience, and I have so many things to talk about with no time to sit down and write them all out.

Briefly, my experience this year was overwhelming and wonderful and full of connections and joy, dampened only by the absence of my family and the reality of goodbyes at the weekend's end.

Until I have time to write and reflect a bit more on my experience, I wanted to share an exchange between dh and I over the L&L. Several folks may remember that he came last year and had a really difficult time--not wanting to join in and being totally overwhelmed by the energy and chaos of the kids' room.

This year, the venue was so amazing! There was so much more space in general, and the set-up of the toddler areas in the rooms themselves worked out really well, I thought. Kelly did such a fantastic job, and I kept saying to Jim on the phone, "I wish you guys had come this year instead of last."

When I left home to come to Albuquerque by myself, dh and I had a talk about my need to know he was going to be a gentle parent while I was gone and to really make an effort. He assured me he would and had the kids confirm it when I returned home. ;) These open conversations among all of us have been really transforming because he's talked to them about how he wants to be more gentle and solution oriented but that the knee-jerk/ obey me know mode is so much easier in the moment. Em's been able to talk about how that makes her feel, and Jules has been able to share how hard it is for her when he raises his voice.

So, yesterday while he was at work, I sent him an email thanking him again for caring for the kids and making my trip possible. This was what he sent back:

"I had a great time with the kids. It was good for the four of us to be on our own for a while. I feel like I connected better with the kids than I have for some time."

His words brought tears to my eyes, as I realized that yes, as Ren says, we were all exactly where we needed to be.

Live & Learn really is changing all of our lives; our journey just looks a bit different than the overnight conversions. ;) The outward bound type venue of next year's conference together with the closer location and my observations from this year's conference have very nearly convinced Jim to give the conference another try. (breathing deeply and fighting back the tears) I am just so overwhelmed and grateful for this, and we've already talked about a funshop he might be able to offer.

Thank you Kelly and Ben and everyone who puts their time and energy into this amazing weekend! You are all fairy godmothers, truly!

Color My World!

2006-09-02T07:56:00.000-05:00

An artist friend of ours visited recently with his family--his wife is my best friend from grad school--and the kids were enraptured with his process. He was so patient and encouraging, explaining his equipment and inviting them on painting jaunts through the meadow. The neo-impressionist landscapes (at least that's how I'd define them) Tom does are absolutely amazing--the texture and colors are palpable and vivid, which really bring the viewer into nature through the senses rather than realism. His website is being revamped at the moment, but hopefully will be back up soon at http://thomasannear.com

Everyday Happenings

2006-08-07T15:24:00.000-05:00

Consider this a catch-all post covering all the little things that happen day in and day out, warranting a picture but not seeming quite enough for a whole blog post.

Despite the fact that Em looks extremely bored in this photo (note to self: always take more than one!), she is in fact concentrating on learning cursive. Cursive, for heaven's sake! Who would've guessed that one? She had been looking in my farm journal, trying to decipher some of the notes I'd made for myself in my own hybrid cursive print. Next thing I knew, she was wanting to know what the letters were in the word "goat," then more and more letters, until I'd written out the cursive alphabet for her, and she began writing a story in cursive. Translated: "The girl is annoying to her brothers."

Sam loves building and was dying to build a new catapult with the tools he got for his birthday. Together with their dad, Sam and Jules helped build a trebuchet, capable of launching significantly further than the bungie cord catapult they'd built about a year before. Using several items on hand--a dowel rod as a pivot and a weight from a set of dumbells--they built a trebuchet that was about a foot high and able to launch small items between 10 and 15 feet away. The kids had loads of fun playing with it until the dowel construction gave way; they now have plans for building a 4 foot model that will be significantly sturdier.

All the kids enjoy creating with legos, and Em's recently begun building diaramas that are totally cool. This particular scene involves camping in an RV, though she's made mermaids and space scenes as well. The kids' creativity and internal motivation always amazes me, as they learn and explore in ways I never could have predicted. Learning truly is everywhere!

The Ag Fair

2006-07-28T12:22:00.000-05:00

Thursday, we visited the Ag Fair to check out the poultry show and the dairy goat showing, though it was so hot and the fair so small that we ended up coming home before the dairy goat time--just not enough to keep occupied for the 4 hours between the two. The poultry show was really disappointing, as there were very few birds entered--only one layer, for heaven's sake! I'm wondering if it had something to do with the recent mandatory poultry registration required in Maryland as a prelude to the NAIS.

Although the fair was small, it had some great kids' activities like the corn maze and the milking stations. The corn maze had four different animals cutouts to find, making it somewhat of a scavenger hunt. The kids really enjoyed making several crafts from origami horses and pigs to wooden sheep ornaments to which they glued real wool. They transplanted tomatoes, which the kittens made quick work of as soon as we got home, and they made soil profiles representing the different soil layers from bedrock to topsoil. Of course, the baby animals were a huge hit, particularly the swiss cow who had an incredibly deep moo and a very rough tongue!

Springfield Farm

2006-07-26T12:50:00.000-05:00

Last week, we took a small fieldtrip to Springfield Farm north of Baltimore to purchase some Narragansett hens. Although it was more than an hour drive, the kids had fun once we were there, checking out all the animals, choosing the hens and devouring a pint of cookies and cream ice cream from a local dairy.

While we were there, the girls fell in love with the Peacocks, and only the incredibly loud noise they make was enough to deter them from wanting to bring one home! Their call sounded a lot like a large woman shrieking for help, which would be enough to send the neighbors into a tizzy. For the moment, they were content with bringing home beautiful feathers, which have been everything from magic wands to royal crowns.

While there, we were able to see the breed of pig we're considering for our farm, Tamworths. Known for their flavor, lean meat and ability to do well on pasture. Sam and his dad are really looking forward to raising some feeder pigs for meat, but Jules is set on raising one to keep. Our big research project this year is to learn as much as we can about the Tamworths, so we'll be able to integrate them into our farm. Designing and locating the pen will depend in large part on where we can locate water and where we'd like to locate our fields. Our trip to Springfield gave us some good ideas and some visuals that will help our planning.

Kitchen Chemistry

2006-07-19T15:23:00.000-05:00

The kids have been having fun experimenting in the kitchen over the last several months, making different kinds of "soups" and "cakes." They love having the low baking center and their "own" oven--both parts of the kitchen remodel.
They've moved beyond the simple yucky-mix soups and into the actual chemistry of cooking, figuring out how eggs, flour, milk and baking soda effect the results of the "cake." They've helped bake enough now that they have a general sense of what goes into breads and cookies and have improvised some pretty interesting dishes.

Zoar Valley

2006-07-06T06:13:00.000-05:00

While on a recent vacation, we went on the most amazing hike into New York State's Zoar Valley. Wow! Well worth the trip for anyone living in the area. The hike was a good one down into the valley--maybe a mile and a half or two miles? The kids spent hours at this confluence point of two creeks, the Cattaraugus Creek and the South Branch Cattaraugus, wading, moving rocks, playing in all the small pools and falls spread out like a natural waterpark with the low water the day we were there.The kids, of course, had to try their hands at climbing the cascade, which was loads of fun and captured the attention of some Asian tourists in the valley. Em was the subject of several photos. We had a lovely day, and all the kids on the hike (there were 8 of whom Em was the oldest) were amazing in their energy and companionship. All but the two littlest walked the entire way with enthusiasm and thoroughly enjoyed all the exploring to be done.

Springtime on the Farm

2006-05-22T08:43:00.000-05:00

We had 50 chicks arrive by the 11th of May and hatched out 7 turkeys from 18 eggs we got through the mail. The turkeys began hatching on Friday, the 12th and finished up Saturday and seem to be doing quite well. The kids enjoyed watching the hatching process, running in and out of the room throughout the day to check for progress.

We have them brooding in a vacant stall while dh builds the new coop off the one side of the barn, which will feature a brooding coop and a breeding coop, one on either end, and a central, all-purpose coop. Sam has had fun helping build the coop here and there, using the new tools he received for his birthday last week, hammering, banging, holding, clamping, etc. Life is good.

Baby Bottles, Mammary Memories and Sleep Deprivation

2006-04-08T12:41:00.000-05:00

Good god, it's easy to forget what sleepless nights with newborns are like, and thank goodness I never had to sterilize bottles for my wee ones. This past week, we became surrogate mamas to five newborn kitties, and I can honestly confess to having delirious visions of multiple mammaries as all five clambor at the cage, mewing their voracious appetites. Feeding one kitten at a time not only seems unkind but it also rouses my maternal angst as the babies left behind bawl their indignance at fate's cruel twist.

MY babies, however, are having the time of their lives, having five brand new kitties in the house. They don't begrudge too much sharing their mama's time in such a big way. We've been able to read books while I feed the kittens, which is intensively hands-on, as long as the child's willing to hold the book and turn the pages for me, and we've had some lovely conversation time one-on-one as one child or another joins me to sit and chat and admire the lovely little creatures. We've enjoyed our busy role as surrogate mothers, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we ended up with five barn cats, as it will be so hard to let them go! Between the five of us, we've managed to settle on four favorites. Such is mother love.

Gender-bias inherent in Unschooler's Activities

2006-04-03T17:28:00.000-05:00

How's that for a headline? This past weekend, the girls all headed into New York City for a lunch excursion at The American Girl Place while the boys went for a hiking adventure in the South Mountain Reservation. Let's face it, sometimes divisions down gender lines are really in the best interest of all, with the fact that everyone actively chooses their preferred activity making all the difference.

As part of Julia's birthday celebration, which comes right after Christmas, we scheduled a trip into American Girl Place for early Spring. My sister-in-law works just down the street from AG, so she's easily able to get us reservations, train and subway tickets and lead us into the city without a moment's thought or stress on my part, and let me just tell you how wonderful this is! Our trip into the city was a girls' outing with Aunt Kim and Gramma, and Aunt Kim came over the night before to do a girls' spa night that included manicures, which went over big! Julia even got a quick makeover while waiting for the commuter train to arrive. We had a wonderful morning of shopping and finished our day with a lovely lunch in the AG restaurant with our new and old dolls! If you ever have a chance to go, I highly recommend restaurant reservations. The food is quite good and reasonbly priced, considering you're smack-dab in the middle of Manhattan.

Emily decided that she, too, would like her birthday celebration at AG, so we did a combined birthday for the girls, complete with shopping and lunch in the restaurant. Jules had been saving her money for this trip since her birthday in January, and both girls got all their birthday presents from myself, their aunt and cousin, and their grandparents. Let's just say, we had a few packages by the time we left! It really was the quintessential Manhattan shopping excursion, topped off by a white-knuckle cab ride back to Penn Station to catch the commuter train back into Jersey--way too many packages to deal with the subway on the way home!

Now, don't the boys look much happier out in the wild, moving and building things? Okay, so the camoflage was a bit over the top, but the boys couldn't have been happier. Sam got to spend the day with his best friends in the whole world--his papa, his cousin and his grampa, while his cousin got to play hookey from school and hang outside. Honestly, I can't imagine a single one of these boys enjoying one moment of the Manhattan shopping trip, though the older two are magnanimous enough to handle it very once in a while for the women they love.

The boys had new hats and shirts for their hike, new insect jammies to wear while the girls did their spa night, and new water bottles and carabiner clips complete with compass and non-working flashlight, which was apparantly a feature. But, what did I expect for a couple bucks in the Target camping section? The guys were thrilled, and that was the real goal. They spent their day crossing streams, creating dams and rock climbing. Ah, bliss!

MHEA Conference

2006-04-02T19:40:00.000-05:00

This Saturday, I spoke on two panels at the MHEA Conference, Maryland's state-wide homeschool conference. Probably the best part was connecting with other unschoolers and seeing some old friends from Southern Maryland.

Attendance this year was down, probably due to the keynote speaker. Last year was John Taylor Gatto, obviously a huge draw in the homeschool community. The year before that was Daniel Pink, author of Free Agent Nation that drew some really interesting and encouraging conclusions about homeschooling in the new economy. The year previous to that was Susan Wise Bauer, co-author of The Well-Trained Mind, not my cup of tea but a viable homeschooling speaker, nonetheless.

This year, it was a relatively unknown private tutor turned academy head from California who insisted upon referring to herself as a "homeschooler" because she schooled other people's children in her own home under California's homeschooling law. Just not the same. Moreover, her "hierarchy of knowledge" method was downright offensive from my perspective in it's claim that children should not be allowed access to information or opinions without the appropriate historical building blocks. That, of course, doesn't even get into the western cultural bias of her approach that was hugely ignorant of the world at large. Well, maybe the approach itself was not hugely ignorant, but it apparently insists that children remain ignorant of the larger world until they have mastered all of Western history, literature, etc. in order. Only then, perhaps, would students be able to understand contextually and hierarchically speaking the world and all its complexity.

Argh! Enough tirade.

The unschooling panels went well, I thought, and those who attended seemed genuinely interested in exploring unschooling. Parents, especially, seemed glad to have the chance to talk with grown unschoolers on the second panel about their reflections on unschooling and the doors it opened or closed in life after home. The three unschoolers on the panel made some really great points while honestly and objectively reflecting on their experiences. I was able to offer some of my observations teaching literature and writing at Penn State, and suggested parents check out Wes Beach's website, Beach High School--Freedom for Self-Direction for some really great information on a creative approach to highschool transcripts, college and the use of a high school education.

Beer Can Physics and Other Experiments

2006-03-21T15:19:00.000-05:00

In the past few weeks, the kids have been discovering some really cool physics experiments, along with dh's help at times.

Of course, we've done the wine glass sound wave experiment and the beer bottle pitch experiment, but we've recently discovered more alcohol-vessel fun for the whole family! Nothing like debauchery in a scientific context to lend it an air of respectability. As we were sitting in the kitchen, visiting and noshing, dh discovered that he could balance his bear can on the little concave lip around the bottom once the right amount of liquid remained to aid balance. The kids immediately joined in, trying to figure out what was helping it balance and retrieving empty cans from the recycle bin to figure out that empty cans didn't work and to proceed filling them with water to test them out. One thing led to another, and eventually, dh and the kids were poking holes in the bottom quarter of the can, balancing and trying to predict which way the can would fall as the water level drained out the hole. What fun!

We had some gorgeous weather recently, which translated into entire days spent outside playing and exploring. The kids took the old garden hose and started trying to rope the tree, creating "jungle vines" to fuel their imaginative fun. Pretty soon, the jungle vines became swings, and before long the kids had figured out how to create a rudimentary pulley system that enabled them to raise and lower themselves by pulling on the hose. Pretty cool, eh? Jules, possibly the strongest climber of us all, could pull herself all the way to the top of the branch--of course it helps that she has a crazy strength to weight ratio, weighing maybe 40 lbs. sopping wet.

Getting My Goat

2006-03-14T09:11:00.000-05:00

Or goats, I should say. Two weeks ago, our baby goats "Pumpkin Pie" and "Latte" arrived. They are Nigerian Dwarf Goats, a miniature dairy goat originating in West Africa and characterized as a rare breed that's growing in popularity. Pumkin is a "wether," a castrated male goat, and Latte is a doe. They were born just after Thanksgiving, and Latte will be ready to breed this Fall.

The goaties have settled in quite well and are becoming quite tame, considering they were not bottle raised. We've been feeding them by hand, holding and petting them as much as possible to socialize them to our family. Nigerian Dwarf goats are known for their calm, friendly temperaments, and these two are proving that true. Pumpkin and Latte are siblings, so staying together made the move a bit easier, and becuase goats are herd animals, they need the company of other goats.

Julia has been wanting goats since she met the goaties' dam, Strawberry Flip, a little over a year ago. These goats are Flip's second round of kids, so Jules has been waiting a long time for her baby goaties! Jules feeds them twice a day and takes her responsibility very seriously; she loves going out to feed them and pet them, talking to them, as does the rest of the family. We're all in love with our new additions and look forward to adding some babies early next year!

Mardi Gras Madness

2006-02-28T10:01:00.000-05:00

Phat costumes for Fat Tuesday! The girls decided to dress up for our Mardi Gras celebration at the last minute. Can anyone say "German engineering in the haus!" The girls had a blast, though they looked more like they were headed to a rave than to Bourbon Street. We had a delicious New Ahlins style meal--cajun shrimp etouffee, rice, black beans and cornbread. Mmmmmm-mmmmmm!

The girls, however, are not the only ones with a distinctive fashion sense in this family. Not to be outdone, Sam's dressed up in his pjs reminiscent of a Seussian style, accented with his Daniel Boon hat. Golly, my kids have style! Gotta love the free spirits of unschooled kiddos! This picture was taken a few weeks ago, but I just had to find a way to work it in to the blog somehow.

2006-02-15T20:16:00.000-05:00

Catch that Train...

The following represents a series of conversations that occurred over our Valentine's dinner. I wanted to take the time to type it out because I (and many other unschoolers) often talk about all the learning that goes on just by having cool conversations with our kids, and this seemed like such a great example. This one was rather heavy on my interests, but we're just as likely to have really cool discussions that are heavy on science--dh's field of interest--or anything else for that matter.

Hanging out with the kids while having hors d'oevres, we began talking about loads of things that led to a really cool series of discussions throughout the rest of the evening until we finally wrapped up over strawberries dipped in chocolate sauce. Many of these topics were very cursorily covered, at a level the kids could grasp and as the result of questions they asked or attempts to illustrate the topic with an example they'd be familiar with, but nevertheless, we created and reinforced loads more connections on our grand unschooling dot-to-dot!

See if you can catch this crazy train...

bolting food--new puppy

Pip from Great Expectations, Oliver Twist--recent commercials--Dickens, serial publications, Industrial Revolution

Child labor laws, current poverty level across the world

sweatshops, illegal aliens, Men in Black--opening scene

American wealth, unable to fathom poverty

"full fathom five thy father lies" --Shakespeare, Donne or Hopkins--look it up because I can't remember which--it was Shakespeare, but GM Hopkins' "Wreck of the Deutschland" was the other poem I was thinking of

Master and Commander, sea measurements, Mark Twain

dirty limericks in which dh always tries to rhyme "Hohakas" (don't ask me why, except he's from NJ--reminiscent of Hackensack?)

iambic pentameter, trochaic meter

Tyger, Tyger--one of the kids' favorite poems--Little Lamb, William Blake

innocence vs. experience

Christian mythology, garden of eden, tree of knowledge, fall from grace

All of which ended with a really deep discussion of whether we'd choose knowledge or painless obedience--guess which we all chose? ;)

2006-01-31T13:44:00.000-05:00

Recent Projects

Julia's ATC Swap Series "Valentines Forever"

Emily's ATC Swap Series "Snowfall"

Danielle's ATC Swap Series "Typeset"

As part of an Imagination Tribe ATC swap, the girls and I made 26 Artist Trading Cards each. We began with a poster board canvas, which we painted and then cut into individual cards. We worked with acrylic paints coated with a clear shellac. Jules focused on mixing her own paint colors; Em focused on different brush strokes; I worked with a texture-technique using plastic wrap. My cards featured two textured layers of paint, a gold-foil alphabet letter, and several alphabet add-ons--stickers, rubs and metal letters. We had a blast creating these and are looking forward to the next mini-trade and a collaborative ABC book trade coming up.

The kids each received a plaster model kit for Christmas this year, which they had fun mixing and painting. Emily got a T-Rex skeleton, which she pieced together like an archaeology dig. Jules got a cast of several different butterflies, and Sam got a NASA kit with a cast of a rocket, sattelite and the space shuttle. Unfortunately, I can't find a picture of Sam's creation. They had fun mixing the plaster, pouring it and painting it with the paints provided.

2006-01-27T12:54:00.000-05:00

Chinese New Year

In celebration of Chinese New Year, the kids and I went into Chinatown in D.C. Of course, the beautiful, warm weather we'd been having gave way to real January weather for our trip, but the restaurant was warm. While Chinese food is one of our favorites, this was the first time the kids had been out for dim sum--a great way to sample different Chinese foods! The girls were content with white rice while Sam devoured an entire order of pot stickers by himself. The green onion pancakes and spinach dumplings I had were delicious! The wait staff was very kind, picking rice out of Em's hair and bringing me several vegetarian dishes to try.

After lunch, we headed over to a Chinese grocery and picked up a few things for our own Chinese New Year celebration. The kids each chose their own rice bowl to take home, and I grabbed a 5lb bag of jasmine rice to cook at home. The kids also chose their own mini-statues of Lao Tzu--the lion guardian--that they fell in love with outside the restaurant. The grocery also doubled as a Chinese apothecary, and the man showed us some of the different dried Chinese herbs he was weighing out and packaging.

Dim Sum was definitely the kids' favorite part of the trip, but the metro ride to the Air & Space Museum came in a close second. The museum itself didn't hold the kids' attention in part because we've been there so often, but also because of the lack of hands-on activities. One can only look at planes and rockets so many times. Even the gift shop seemed tired this time around. One of these days, we need to head out to the Annex out near Dulles Airport, which I hear is quite interesting.

2006-01-20T12:02:00.000-05:00

Chess Tournaments

The current passion at our home is chess. We've all been playing lots and often have a game going in the background even when we're off doing something else, which we'll pick up, play a few moves, then leave it for a while again. The kids have been learning to play off and on for a while now, and Sam has recently decided to start playing seriously by the rules. As the kids have learned to play, they've alternately played with rules and just played imaginatively, either making up their own rules or playing with the pieces in altogether different ways. We've just always followed their lead. Sam's favorite way to play for a while was with me using the rules of the game and talking out how the different pieces moved while he moved his pieces in any direction, any number of spaces to take my pieces one after the other. He just recently decided that really wasn't a fun way to play anymore once he'd grasped the rules and really wanted to play for real.

Emily got interested in chess a couple years ago, so we got her a computer program called Learn to Play Chess with Fritz and Chesster. She played with it off and on, but recently the kids have rediscovered it, and Julia's been playing with it non-stop, valiantly battling King Black. It's cool to watch their critical thinking and problem solving evolve. I've been playing with them either fully or with a handicap if they choose, and they're really getting quite good. It won't be long before they'll be able to beat me pretty consistently, I'm guessing. Even Sam, at age 5, has a really good grasp of the board and can anticipate different attacks and think non-linearly with his knights.

2006-01-10T16:06:00.000-05:00

Mean Moms

Someone on the Ubasics list posted this blurb that was circulating and being celebrated on a local list of hers. I re-wrote it from my own perspective and wanted to share it here as well...

Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will tell them, as my Mean Mom told me: I loved you enough . . . to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home. I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover that your new best friend was a creep. I loved you enough to make you go pay for the bubble gum you had taken and tell the clerk, "I stole this yesterday and want to pay for it." I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes. I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, and tears in my eyes. Children must learn that their parents aren't perfect. I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart. But most of all, I loved you enough . . . to say NO, when I knew you would hate me for it. Those were the most difficult battles of all. I'm glad I won them, because in the end you won, too. And someday when your children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates parents, you will tell them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just for kicks, I wanted to write this out as it would look for me....

Someday, when my children are older, I will tell them:

I loved you enough to care about where you were going, with whom, and what time you'd be home and to help you get there, have fun, and come home.

I loved you enough to be silent when you needed me to be silent and to be there when you needed to talk, to give you the space to discover for yourself who your true friends were and to help you pick up the pieces when you were hurt.

I loved you enough to help you pay for the bubble gum you wanted and to make things right when they felt wrong.

I loved you enough to stand by you for a lifetime, to be by your side for two hours while we cleaned your room, a job that would have taken me 15 minutes, but the conversation was too precious to lose.

You learned that I wasn't perfect as we shared our lives together.

I loved you enough to let you make choices even when the stakes were high and to help bear your burden whenever I could.

But most of all, I loved you enough to always help you get what you needed, to put our relationship first and to walk in your shoes instead of engaging in battles.

I'm glad you came to me, because in the end, you've helped me grow and become a better person, so I won, too, in this relationship.

And someday, when your children are old enough to understand the principles that guide this legacy of parenting, I hope you tell them how they helped you grow and become a better person.

2005-12-17T13:22:00.000-05:00

What's Black and White and Wiggly all over?

Our new pup, Buddy! After much searching, we finally found the perfect rescue pup for our family. Buddy was found hiding under a trailer and rescued by A Forever Home, the same organization from whom we adopted our older dog, Boo. Sam has been wanting a puppy for some time, and Boo has been wanting a playmate. We found both in this little guy and feel very lucky to welcome him into our family.

We were able to meet Buddy last Thursday, as his foster family willingly drove half the distance to meet us. We all piled in the car, Boo included, to meet this little guy and see if he was meant to be part of our family. The two dogs got along great, and, well, Buddy pretty much stole our hearts. We were smitten!

I drove several hours on Sunday to pick him up from the rescue's adoption event, and he slept the whole ride home. By the time we got back to our farm, he was ready to play and he's been playing ever since! He and Boo have had so much fun romping in the snowy pastures, and the kids have adored playing with him despite all the puppy nips. Mr. Buttons, our kitten, however, has been slower to warm up to the notion of having this bundle of kanine energy in the house and continues to give him a very wide bearth. A border collie/spaniel mix, Buddy is full of life and is very smart and eager to please. He's learning quickly and promises to have plenty of energy to keep up with this high energy crew.

2005-10-21T15:12:00.000-05:00

EARTH SCULPTING

I spent the weeks surrounding my birthday building a new pond. I missed the pond I built at the old house, and I wanted something larger here to attract wildlife and help mask traffic noise. We moved the existing pre-formed pond to the back garden to create space next to the patio for a larger fish and wildlife garden, and now we have two ponds in our backyard. The birds can splash in the smaller pond in the back or wade in the pebble beach of the new pond, and we've already had a frog come to live in our new pond!

Sam, who is my wildlife and nature buddy, helped a good bit throughout the process. His papa bought him a shovel just the right size, and he helped me dig some of the hole. Jim helped dig the holes as well with this pond--unlike the one I built at the previous house. Thankfully, too, because hardpan piedmont clay is much harder to dig than silty bay clay! Of course, I had to choose an exceptionally dry summer to begin this project, as well. Our Massey-Ferguson tractor, or "Big Red" as Sam and I call it, helped tremendously. Dh was able to move most of the rock for the pond in the front end loader.

Here, Sam helped me dig the lower pond, and he enjoyed testing the depth and level for me with the carpenter's level and the yardstick. Dh and I worked with the mattock, sledging the dirt away bit by bit to get the level deep enough to over-winter the koi. As I worked, that song "I owe my soul to the company store" looped through my head. Pretty good work out though!

Once dug, the pond needs an underlayment to protect the epdm liner from punctures; we reused the carpet padding we ripped out when we got new carpet. Emily helped me roll the padding out in the yard and check carefully to be sure all the staples had been removed. I crawled around several times on my hands and knees, squeezing each part of the padding between my fingers. One rogue staple could be a fiasco! Piecing the padding together was a bit of a puzzle, but it made a great, if somewhat bulky, underlayment.

Next step was to spread out the flexible liner, which is incredibly heavy and definitely a two-person job. The weight of the water helps conform the liner to the shape of the pond, and the biggest job is to tuck and fold the liner as the water fills so it looks as smooth as possible.

I finished laying the stone on my 35th birthday, and it was the best present I could've received. I thoroughly enjoyed the process from start to finish, and I'd learned so much from the first pond I built. Although this pond is about 1000 gallons smaller than the old pond, I think it's a prettier pond as a whole. Of course, the landscape I was working with was entirely different this time around, lacking the natural slope of the old yard. I ended up designing kind of yin/yang upper and lower ponds that nest together nicely. The bottom pond has a bog garden off the back side, which Sam and I plan to fill with carnivorous plants in the spring. This waterfall is significantly lower than at the old house as the grade was so flat, so I made it wider in order to maximize the sound.

All in all, I'm incredibly pleased with the result, as are the kids. They have their sitting ledge again where they can dip their toes for the fish to nibble. The surrounding landscaping is coming together, and I was pleased to find a trumpet creeper vine at Lowe's this fall--a native flowering vine that the hummingbirds love. Sam and I plan to place a mister within the rocks so the hummers can frolick. Yes, the vision is coming clearer.

2005-10-13T08:24:00.000-05:00

2005 LIVE AND LEARN CONFERENCE

This year's conference was amazing! The number of people there, the energy and excitement and interest--it was all totally overwhelming and awesome. This was my second year attending, but the first year the kids came, and they had a blast doing the funshops with their dad. The balloon shapes and craft funshops were two of the favorites from what I could gather. There were a couple that I really wished I could have attended with the girls--the ATC funshop and, of course, Henna by Brenna.

The talent show was wonderful again this year, and I was in total awe at my kids' performance. It was a bit shorter than the private shows they put on for me, but it was a very accurate glimpse into our improv shows at home. I am always so impressed by the unshakable sense of self that these kids--all of them, not just mine--possess, which shines through as they share a bit of themselves with an audience bigger than many of us can imagine. At these moments, the core of who these kids are and the gift of their lives glows so brightly that I just know we've made the world a better place. Not in the future, but right here and now, in the lives these kids lead and the strength they find in themselves.

The size and energy of the conference was, as I said, overwhelming to those of us who are highly sensitive to the noise and controlled chaos of crowds. Dh and the kids spent much of their time either in our room or at a local park, removing themselves from the hustle and bustle of bodies. On one of their excursions, they popped into Borders Books to buy the new Shark Boy and Lava Girl dvd that the kids have been dying to see. Dh brought our dvd player from home, and we were all able to veg out with family movie nights in our room, reconnecting after the day's absence.

Saturday night's excursion to The City Museum was amazing and amazingly assaulting on the senses. There was so much to take in at once, that I found it impossible to focus on anything and spent most of my time there walking around like a deer trapped in the inevitable onrush of headlights. Sam and dh climbed around through the maze of tunnels in the entrance for most of our visit, though we did take some time to explore the upstairs. A sturdier person could easily have spent hours in this amazing place, though we spent only about two. It took about five minutes of quiet car being to bring our voices down to a normal decibel level, having been shouting merely to be heard for the past couple hours. There were weddings going on at the museum and living lofts above--I truly can't imagine either scenario for myself. I would, however, have loved a private tour of the museum when no one else was there to really appreciate the incredible beauty and creativity of the artistic space.

Our friend Ken took this amazing picture of the kids at the arch on Sunday. It was by far the best shot of the kids and the arch that we got--it deserves a place of honor. We had fun at the Museum of Westward Expansion; it was just the right size and perspective for the kids to really enjoy. For about 48 hours, Em planned to be a pioneer girl for Halloween, but that, of course, has changed about 4 times since. Cahokia Mounds on Sunday was wonderful. The kids loved exploring the museum and relaxing to the intro movie, and Em was totally awed by the size of Monk's Mound and the concept of creating an earthen pyramid. Dh and I were talking about how the whole concept was such a product of the plains geography--testifying to the human need to ascend heavenward whatever the effort.

I left the conference on a total high, feeling thrilled and exhilerated by all the energy and potential contained in a single space. So, too, did I leave disappointed at not having more time to make connections and more time to spend quietly talking with people. The break-out sessions were one of my favorite aspects of the conference because they came closest to the intimate discussions I was imagining. There's just never enough time! I've decided that I really need to have each family over to my home individually for dinner so we can have that connecting time I missed. So, everyone start signing up for a weekend! My girls have taken this desire one step further and are seeking an unschooling commune where they can be surrounded by unschooled friends every day! Land anyone?

2005-09-27T11:58:00.000-05:00

Wild Wildlife
Snapshots of some creatures we've been finding...

A praying mantis.

The chrysalis of a Baltimore Checkerspot--absolutely stunning to see, which doesn't translate in this dismal photo. This silver and goldish orange spots make it look like a piece of jewelry.

An American Painted Lady visiting some recently transplanted sedum.

The kids and I have been enjoying Animal Planet's new series Backyard Habitat and plan to submit our new yard for certification as a backyard habitat through the National Wildlife Federation. The tv show is interesting and includes several craft ideas for the kids that can easily be done at home. We've been having fun creating and designing several new habitat, having learned lots from our projects at our old home. We'll have a meadow and thicket, brush piles and stone piles, a butterfly and hummingbird garden, and a water garden--all of which offer different habitats for different wildlife species. If you build it, they will come.

2005-09-27T11:49:00.000-05:00

TRAMP CAMP

We recently purchased a trampoline from JumpSport, and the kids have been having a grand ol' time on it. They helped dad put it together the night it arrived--what a sport! Dad that is, not trampoline jumping, though that's quite fun as well. It only took about an hour to get up and boinging--the newest verb in our home.

Jumping was only half the fun that evening, as things quickly turned to thoughts of a camp out. Of course, they didn't end up staying out all night--the planning is half the fun. Schlepping everything out is always so much easier than getting it all back in. Sam looks quite at ease--he's considering moving out there, I think. Hmmm...he'd probably miss his computer and the tv pretty quickly though. The peace and quiet just watching the clouds go by, however, might be worth the trade off.

2005-08-25T07:43:00.000-05:00

The kids have been having a blast taking apart some little games that came with a McDonald's Happy Meal. The games were fun to play, but apparently even more fun to take apart, as Julia keeps congratulating herself for having the stroke of brilliance to take them apart and her siblings whole-heartedly agree. They've been taking apart the games, old cameras and any electronic toys that no longer work for the past couple days. Em got a shock yesterday from a camera, which dh said was likely caused by the capacitor that charges for the flash.

Em and I have begun reading a really great version of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels adapted by Martin Jenkins. The illustrations, by Chris Riddell, are fabulous, and Emily is absolutely entranced. Julia and I are reading through a boxed series she recently bought called W.I.T.C.H.. We just finished the first book, The Power of Five, which the girls are really enjoying. Em and I had a really great discussion about the book the other evening at dinner, analyzing the different characters and the ways they represent their different elemental powers. We were discussing which characters we most closely identified with and why. Hugely fun.

One of Emily's current passions is designing. She loves to design costumes, rooms, whatever, and I was her latest creation. Once she was through, she took pictures and graciously allowed Sam to enter the designing action, who found waiting for his turn absolutely excruciating. I'm sure I was quite lovely, as the children kept assuring me I looked fabulous. My gentle readers, however, may draw their own conclusions. This particular design was for a costume ball the kids planned for lunchtime. We waltzed through the kitchen (our closest approximation of a waltz anyway), trading partners in quite a civilized fashion.

2005-08-22T08:45:00.000-05:00

MICROMANAGING AND OTHER FUN STUFF

Well, micromanaging seems an inevitable part of human nature, as my kids have learned little from their own autonomous urges when it comes to our kitten Mr. Buttons. He is just too cute to leave to his own devices, apparently, as they poke, prod, place and generally petrify the poor creature. No amount of, "It looks like he wants to be left alone" can persuade the children to let Mr. Buttons be. A few scratches and a very skittish kitten do little to further persuade. In the meantime, I patiently bandage the scratches and bide my time until the novelty wears off and continue gently to encourage respect for Mr. Buttons' autonomy.

We have recently acquired one of the most fabulous toys ever designed--the frigit. After more than a year-long quest for this toy, which I had seen years ago in a catalog before the kids were old enough to be interested, an online goddess dropped the link in my lap: Frigits. Sam has been enamored with Rube Goldberg machines for more than a year now, and this toy provides exactly the kind of creative fulfillment that the game mousetrap never quite did. Sam has thoroughly enjoyed creating new "machines" by reconfiguring the different frigit pieces, experimenting with pitch and speed. He's made very direct, nearly vertical routes that shoot the marble straight down and very circuitous, horizontal switch-back routes that meander and swirl. Hard to say which provides more satisfaction--satisfyingly different, I would say.

The girls have been writing poems lately, and they've really zoned in on the rhyme and rhythm of language that they've been hearing in song lyrics and the strongly rhyming poetry of Silverstein and riddles we've been reading. They've both offered some samples for me to post on our blog.

Jules:
Daisies are yellow
The Sun is bright
just like my future ahead of me.

Nature is ahead of me
When I go into my heart.

Em:
Pain and suffering is no way to go
As the chimney smoke on the lavender blow.
How can your heart beat when it's beating so slow?

Flowers are blowing and
Flowers are going.
Why can't the flowers just stay when the wind is blowing?

We've also been exploring the sun some more--Em's current online interest--learning about angstroms and light wavelenths. The Sun-Earth Viewer has lots of neat images to click on, showing the sun in different colors based on the wavelength of light. We found a really neat website on frisbee history, an inquiry spurred by our recent family frisbee games. The girls were so excited to find a family connection in the frisbee history--Ultimate Frisbee originated in Maplewood, NJ where dh grew up! Now, that's a small world!

Sam and papa spent the weekend building their first robot together, realizing one of Sam's greatest passions. Dh has been looking for robot kits that would be simple enough to keep Sam's interest but complex enough to be satisfying. His criteria also included that it be a "real" robot not just a remote controlled device. He finally found a couple of kits at Discover This that he felt would be worth trying out, and they arrived this Friday. He and Sam put together the first kit, the "weasel," that can follow walls or a black line on the floor. Sam was in absolute heaven building a robot with his papa! He kept running in to show me the next completed step, the electronic "brain," the wheels. By the end of the weekend, he was doing excited acrobatics over his "weasel," as it followed the black line of electrical tape along the kitchen floor just as it was supposed to do.

2005-08-20T11:23:00.000-05:00

THE AWAKENING

While walking through our meadow one evening, we spotted an Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillar dining on some Queen Anne's Lace. (That's him hanging upside down in the bottom left corner of the photo to the left.) We brought him inside and continued to find fresh food for his dining pleasure for nearly a week before we were rewarded by a bright green chrysalis. The picture's not great, but it's so cool to watch the transformation. The caterpillar eats and eats and gets huge. Then, it dumps all the waste food and liquid in its body and begins climbing all around, looking for a suitable attachment point. Once settled, it begins to curl and shrink, resembling a chrysalis shape but still very obviously a caterpillar. Next morning, voila! A chrysalis.

After several days of checking on the chrysalis, the kids eventually forget about it and go about their business. The other morning upon first waking and sitting down on the couch, Julia spotted something black and moving--the butterly had awakened! You can see the butterfly drying his wings right next to the now brown, discarded chrysalis. As we brought the butterfly outside where he could fly free once his wings dried, we got a really good look at the beautiful markings on his wings--the orange eyes, yellow and blue on the top, and the orange on the underside. By checking out the coloring, more yellow than blue on the top, we were able to confirm that our caterpillar had, indeed, been a "he." Now, we look for him while out walking, squinting hard trying to catch sign of color or size that might distinguish him from the other black swallowtails floating through the flowertops.

Our meadow is home to some amazing creatures, which we only hope to increase in the coming years by diligent native habitat management. We plan to increase the number of host plants for insects, place birdhouses and plant native berry plants and winter food for the birds, hang bat houses, put out salt licks for the deer in winter--ahh, we have grand plans. While walking this week, we found an argiope web, distinctive because of its zig-zag writing pattern in the center, and very quickly spotted its maker off in the corner, apparently resting after her exertions wrapping the week's meal. Often called a black and yellow garden spider or garden writing spider, the Black and Yellow Argiope is stunning and somewhat imposing due to the female's massive size. This argiope's abdomen was more than an inch long, and she's been snacking on a good size grasshopper throughout the week. We'll be keeping an eye out for the possible egg sack in the coming weeks.

2005-08-12T15:31:00.000-05:00

Living and learning fun--ahhhh, it's starting to feel like home again! Em made one of my favorite statements today: "I LOVE learning! It's just so cool!" Yeah, me too, Em.

Of course, moving to a new area has meant dealing with rounds of colds as our bodies adhjust to new germs. While Em was sick, we were talking about how germs get in our bodies, about how antibodies work and about the fact that once we get one cold we don't get it again because our body has already manufactured the necessary antibodies with which to fight it. We found a cool website that explained it in a way that Em could really understand and had some really neat graphics.

Jules and I are now working our way through a nasty virus. We visited the doctor the other day to be sure Jules didn't have strep--her throat was hurting so and she was on about day 7 of her cold. While there, we talked about different kinds of whales spurred by the orca whale border and Sam's love for the story Baby Beluga--I think he really responds to the "swim so wild and you swim so free" line. We remembered a Smithsonian book we'd gotten once on harp seals (also in the border), which the kids found terribly traumatic because the mothers just abandon their babies after a certain age. (Smithsonian really doesn't do children's books very well, imo. No warm fuzzies there.) Jules was a trooper when the nurse swabbed her throat, and we talked about the differences between bacterial and viral infections and how we'd find out which it was with the throat culture.

Yesterday, the electric company turned off our power for a couple of hours while taking down the lines that run through our backyard to the house; they've been in the process over the last few months of switching over to buried cables. We decided to take advantage of the opportunity and pull out the Harry Potter book we've been talking about starting. All afternoon, we read several chapters--nearly a hundred pages--and couldn't wait to read more. Later in the evening while relaxing in the tub, I found a cool article on sharks in the new Smithsonian Magazine that I'll have to point out to the kids some time soon.

Today, during a commercial break for Looney Tunes, Em turned to me and asked whether or not the sun rotated like the earth. Hmmmm? Good question. I'm not sure it ever would have occurred to me to even ask this question, but I did what I always do: I said I didn't know, suggested who might know and offered to look it up online. We went to ask.com and turned up a really cool NASA site and followed all kinds of cool links, learning about differential rotation and sunspots.

After Looney Tunes, we turned off the tv and pulled out the Harry Potter book again, reading another several chapters while the kids built with geomags. While taking a break for some food (and to give my voice a rest!) Jules pulled out some of her quarters to show us. She had about five different state quarters, which prompted us to start searching our big change jar to see how many different states we have--I think the total count was 26. We had fun talking about the state symbols and why they were representative of that particular state. We also found a couple of Canadian nickels, a 50 cent piece with JFK on it that their great-grandmother had given us, a Susan B. Anthony and a Sacagewea dollar. Many, many connections.

Yes, life is grand and our natural rhythm is falling back into place. *sigh*

2005-08-10T19:19:00.000-05:00

MR. BUTTONS AND OTHER MUSINGS

Julia's longtime wish came true last week--she got her kitten! We had talked about getting a kitten when we moved to our new house, and she's been patiently waiting while we finished most of the painting and new flooring. Last weekend we went to the Adoption Day at Petsmart, and she found a black and white kitten who spoke to her heart.

After waiting nearly a week, we picked him up at the pound and brought him home. "Mr. Buttons" has quickly worked his way into all our hearts--even dh has admitted that he's pretty darn cute. Of course, he doesn't seem nearly so cute at 2 am when he's chasing marbles on the bathroom floor and drinking from my bedside water. Ah, having a baby in the house again. *sigh*

We're settling into our new home more each day, and one of our favorite rituals is taking our evening walks through our meadow. The dog loves the walks as much as we do, and forgives all the attention lavished on Mr. Buttons the minute she hears, "Where's your ball?" We have big plans for the meadow to help attract even more wildlife. After the fall cut, I'm going to seed with some native wildflowers, and we plan to build and place several birdhouses along the perimeter before spring. Several of the plants we moved, including one of our butterfly bushes, survived, as did my white milkweed and spicebush seedling. We've seen lots of deer, and we're looking forward to placing salt licks along our walk this winter. With any luck, we'll get some good snow and finally be able to break out our cross-country skis, which haven't been used since our Pennsylvania days. It's good to be home!

2005-08-03T15:21:00.000-05:00

SETTLING IN

Well, looks like another two months have passed without blogging. That'll happen when life takes over!

We've been busy settling into our new farmette--5.25 acres in northwestern Maryland. The move itself was difficult emotionally, as they always are, but all in all we handled it quite gracefully I would say. The kids are adjusting amazingly well to their new home, enjoying it more and more as it gets closer to being finished and feeling like home. We're renovating the kitchen, painting and putting in new carpets and floors; you know, all the stuff it takes to really make it ours.

Em and Jules are sharing a room still, though with a bit more room to spread out. They've had fun choosing new bedding and colors for the wall and have put together a truly beautiful room that reflects both their personalities. For a while they went back and forth trying to settle on a theme for their room, and they're so different that it was hard coming up with something that worked for them both.

Em would've liked an Egypt or Dragons room while Jules would've loved a pink and purple Princess extravaganza. They finally settled on a "Rock Star" room, which has morphed into what dh thinks is a very good impression of an opium den. The walls are plum while the bedding is a deep plum and mauve iridescent line from Target. We found a great little chandelier on sale with diamond and grape colored jewels. They decorated lampshades with feathers and glitter, and they have spiral lanterns across the top of their valences. All in all, it's quite lovely.

Sam's cowboy camp room is slowly coming together. He wanted a sky on his ceiling that went from day to night, so we decided to paint it a soft blue with clouds for the daytime sky. We'll cover it with those glow-in-the-dark star stickers that will come out when the lights go off for the nighttime sky. He wants me to paint murals of trees and I'm not sure what else, and we're going to build a teepee in the corner of the room that he can play in.

The dog has adjusted to the move quite well and absolutely loves having all the acres on which to romp. Her favorite part of the day is when we go for our walk in the evening through our meadow, which I must admit is my favorite as well. My heart sings watching my children run through the mown path with wild abandon--I feel as if I have everything I could ever want right in front of me.

Emily enjoyed her 8th birthday at the end of July. We had a hoe-down for friends and family to come see our new home. Dh gave the kids a spin on the tractor, which they all thought was fabulous. Sam, of course, immediately grabbed the wheel--he wasn't riding, he was gonna drive! Even my mother-in-law tried it out. Dh barbequed some pork shoulder, my mom made her famous potato salad, and I made about 2 dozen farm fresh deviled eggs that were delicious! I think the highlight of the weekend was my nephew's sheer pleasure exploring the land and watching the chickens. Despite the fact that he was sick, he enjoyed himself immensely just taking time to walk and watch the ladies. He was in heaven when I gave him a dozen eggs to take home. Apparently, he's been talking non-stop about getting some chickens of his own, much to his mother's chagrin. He'll just have to come visit our chickens more often.

2005-06-03T05:47:00.000-05:00

The Quail Chronicles

Besides the move, we have been incubating and hatching Bobwhite Quail as part of a somewhat controversial repopulation effort. We began by building our own incubator out of a styrofoam ice chest. At the bottom of the ice chest, there is a pan filled with water to help maintain the proper humidity necessary for incubating and hatching eggs, which is different by the way. We used an incandescent light bulb as our heat source, which was rather tricky trying to regulate within the one to one and a half degree margins necessary for the embryos. On the top of the incubator we cut out a viewing window and covered it with plexiglass, allowing us to check the temperature and watch during hatching.

As you can see, the quail eggs are quite tiny--that's a regular size light bulb in there. Next to the eggs is a rectangular thing, which is our remote thermometer and hygrometer. Bobwhite quail take approximately 23 days to incubate, though ours took between 23 and 25 days to hatch. While it was cool to make our own incubator, the downside was the lack of fine temperature control and regulation, which meant that I was up multiple times each night for those 23-25 days checking the temp of the eggs. That got a bit old, but I must say that the remote thermometer I splurged on really saved me. I could bring the main unit into the bedroom at night and just check on them with the touch of a button--kind of like hitting that snooze button--not enough to totally wake me up.

The incubator temperature needs to stay between 97.5 and 102 degrees, depending upon the kind of incubator, and the eggs must be turned at least twice a day. The last three days before hatching, we stopped turning the eggs, decreased the temperature slightly and increased the humidity to prevent the shell from sticking to the chick. The really neat part about the whole process, however, was "candling" the eggs as they developed, which simply means putting the egg on top of dime-sized light source that shines through the shell and allows one to see the developing embryo. The kids thought this was great, and even dh was interested enough to check out at least one each time we did it. By the end, the whole egg is filled, and as I candled the couple eggs that weren't hatching with the others, I could actually hear the chick inside peeping. Totally cool.

The chicks began hatching out on the 24th day at around 12:30 am. I know this because I woke up to go check on them just as the first one began coming out of the egg. It was pretty amazing to watch, and I was surprised at the struggle. Birth is not an easy thing. I learned some pretty interesting things during this process as well. The first crack in the egg is called a "pip" and made with an "egg tooth" on the top of the chick's beak that disappears shortly after birth.

The very first pip is the result of a neck spasm in the chick induced by a build up of carbon dioxide within the egg. As the embryo grows, it fills a greater and greater space within the egg, eventually puncturing the air sac in the top of the egg. As this happens, the chick's lungs begin to work for the first time, taking over from the embryonic system that has sustained it while in the egg. There is enough oxygen in the egg sac for the lungs to begin to work, and as the chick uses it up, the build up of carbon dioxide causes a muscle spasm, which breaks the egg shell and allows fresh air to penetrate. After that point, the chick takes anywhere between a few hours to 24 hours or more to begin systematically pecking a circle around the top of the egg, perforating an escape hatch of sorts. Once it breaks a complete circle, it must then push its way out--no small feat for such a tired little thing.

While this has been a tremendous learning experience, it's also been fraught with stress and anxiety. We began with 25 eggs, four of which were not fertilized,and as we incubated the eggs, one either stopped developing or became contaminated, dropping us down to 20. At one point, early in the incubation stage, I switched the bulb to a higher wattage, trying to increase the temperature slightly; within 20 minutes, the temperature soared to 108 degrees, high enough to cook or seriously compromise the embryos. Luckily, I caught it quickly before it likely did too much damage, but it was enough to make me quite upset and feel terrible about it for several days.

We hatched out 18 of the 20 remaining eggs, two died shortly before hatch as we discovered after cracking them open. That, too, was a bit difficult to handle. Once the quail chicks were about a week and a half old, we lost several chicks in one day, one after another for no explicable reason--none drowned, none got wet or chilled, none were pecked at, though a couple may have been smothered--a danger when the chicks pile together for warmth. Since then, we've lost four more here and there and are now down to nine. The chicks are now four weeks old and about 4 weeks away from release. It's been really hard losing the chicks, though I know that some loss is inevitable. All in all, however, it's been a great experience to do once; I'm not sure that I would do it again this way. It's a whole lot easier to get the day old chicks in the mail!

2005-06-01T08:39:00.000-05:00

EGADS! What happened to April & May?

Whew! Two months have come and gone with no blogging whatsoever? What in the world could keep me quiet for that long, you ask? Must be something catastrophic at the very least.

Not exactly. We've been quite busy, actually, contemplating, setting up and now preparing for a move cross-state. We've had many family discussions about all the pros and cons of moving, done several reconnaissance missions, bought a house, sold a house, ushered through many an inspector and are now, somewhat anxiously, awaiting the closing date and the physical move, though we've pretty much mentally moved already.

We'll be moving to 5.24 acres in Northern Maryland where we can spread out and begin living some of our dreams. I've been wanting to homestead for quite some time, well, homestead-lite, really, and the kids are looking forward to getting more animals than we've had space for in our present home. There's a barn with three 12 x 12 stalls, which will make a great temporary home for our chickens until we build them their own digs, and which will make a great home for Julia's Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats in the spring. Emily hopes to get a horse in a couple of years, so I imagine she and I will be taking riding lessons together next year. Sam's looking forward to getting a puppy this fall and some roosters in the spring--I think his plan is to build up the male population of our little homestead.

Currently, we're having discussions back and forth about what bedrooms will look like, who will sleep where and with whom, that kind of thing. I'm planning my new kitchen, which will have double ovens and a five-burner cooktop by the time I'm through with it. We'll be laying aside some money to put in a pool next spring, which will be fun for everyone, and once we finish off the basement this winter, there'll be lots more room for us all to spread out a bit--a big rec room, a combo office/ guest room, and a stylin' exercise room with a climbing wall, dh's bike, yoga/ pilates mats, meditation cushions and maybe even a sauna. Fun for all, we hope. It helps to be handy and do as much of the work ourselves as possible, short of digging out the pool by hand, that is. I gotta draw the line somewhere.

2005-03-21T13:05:00.000-05:00

The kids and I made our own homemade broom from a broom plant that I pruned. They've been having fun playing Harry Potter and taking turns flying around on the broom. They've also made some really cool spears for themselves after watching Troy. Achilles weilds a mean spear, that's for sure! The kids loved watching the mythological world of their Age of Mythology game come alive. We watched the bonus features disc, a National Geographic special on the Making of Troy, and read a couple of excerpts from The Iliad. As chance would have it, Emily had picked up a children's version of The Odyssey from the library, so we got a sense of what happened to Odysseus on his way home from the Trojan War.

This weekend, Jim set up an old CD player in the girls' bedroom, and they've been having a ball listening to all their CDs and feeling quite grown up. Julia put in a disc that had come with a ballerina book Em got ages ago, and she immediately recognized the music from Swan Lake. I was quite impressed. She then proceeded to tell Sam all about the story.

Friday and Saturday the kids and dh helped me get the vegetable garden turned over. There's still quite a bit of clay that each year we work hard to get rid of by taking as much out as possible and replacing it with good organic matter from our compost bins to mix in with the remaining soil. I turned the garden over, the kids helped pull out any rocks and clay while breaking apart the shoveled clumps and Jim hauled the compost. By the end of the day Saturday, it was looking pretty good, and the chickens were loving the compost top dressing, which we'll turn in with a friend's rototiller sometime this week, hopefully.

While we were working on Friday, we found a six-spotted green tiger beatle, which was really cool--an amazingly brilliant, iridescent emerald green. We were able to use the bug vacuum Sam bought at the toystore a few weeks ago to suck it into the magnifying canister and then identify it with our insect book. While I was inside getting the book, Sam let the beatle go, so at first we had to identify it from memory. We narrowed it down to two from the pictures, then used the description of the habitats to determine which it was. As we did, we found the beatle crawling on Sam's jacket, much to his chagrin, and were able to recapture it, and sure enough, those six spots were clear as could be under the magnifying glass.

Then later, as I was moving some rocks around for my rock walls, I found a black widow and was able to suck that up as well for safe viewing. It was beautiful, and it's not the first one I've found in my rock walls, unfortunately. We supposedly have brown recluses in the area too, though I've never found one, and we need to be careful of copperheads, as well. Basically, we're all pretty careful to wear our work gloves when ever we're handling fire wood or rocks. And we scout out our climbing area pretty carefully when we head over there, too.

2005-03-14T12:43:00.000-05:00

Slacklining Adventures

We had a blast this weekend hanging around the house. Jim set up a slackline, which we all tried out. Instead of a "tight" rope, it's a "slack" rope, which has a fair amount of give in it, bending with weight. Sam was having so much fun using his weight to bounce up and down, which he thought was much cooler than just trying to walk it.

A slackline is basically a piece of webbing, connected between to points--in our case, two trees. Jim had used some climbing webbing, 'biners and a come-along to set it up, but this time he was able to procure a tie-down used to secure gas canisters at work, which has a clamping device built in to the line. You can read more about the sport at Slackline Brothers. Slacklining is loads of fun and surprisingly difficult. I was amazed at how much my leg would wobble back and forth the instant I weighted it, making it nearly impossible to walk without holding onto someone. I was laughing so hard! Obviously, it ought to become easier with practice, but it's amazing that folks actually walk across canyons this way! Julia was really good at it, not surprisingly. Her balance and concentration are phenomenal!

2005-03-09T08:09:00.000-05:00

We've been fighting off some kind of bug, though none of us has been out right sick, just a bit off-kilter. The girls have been playing with "paper dolls," coloring and cutting out historical figures from some of their Dover coloring books that we've picked up on our travels. They've been coloring in dresses from Colonial and Civil War eras, and even Sam's been getting in on the action.

We've also been watching several DVDs from the library. We've watched Little Women and Sherlock Holmes Mysteries, both of which have given us lots of opportunity to talk about those historical moments. The girls loved being able to watch Meg and Jo get ready for the dance in Little Women, comparing the dresses to those that were in their coloring books. They were outraged that the teacher hit Amy, and we all cheered when Marmy made her speech about keeping her home.

Sherlock Holmes was fun, though a bit on the scary side for the kids. We had seen Jackie Chan's Shanghai Knights first, which made all kinds of references to Sherlock Holmes, even portraying a character supposed to be the author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, showing "how" he became a knight. Pretty funny all of the connections, and we laughed about the tall-tale nature of Shanghai Knights.

We watched Master and Commander, which was an amazing movie, packed with historical information. The kids were fascinated by life on board a ship, and they really identified with the character Lord Blakeney, because he was so young. The Napoleonic Wars serve as the movie's backdrop, creating another Napoleonic dot for the kids, which began with the movie The Count of Monte Cristo, connecting to the apocryphal story of Napoleon shooting off the nose of the sphinx, connecting to this movie.

We tracked the journey of the ship on our world map, adding yet another journey to those of Pocohantas, Amelia Eerhart, our own and others. We talked about the birth of Natural History, represented by the doctor's fascination with the Galapogos Islands, and Lord Blakeney's desire to follow in his footsteps as a "fighting naturalist." This led to discussions of biology, evolution, Darwin, and much more. The next day, we found a bug in the house and were looking it up in our book, when Em found a picture of a bug that disguises itself as a thorn--just as Doctor Maturin showed. I love this!

After the movie, we visited the Master and Commander website, which is filled with interactive information. The site has even more information about life on a tall ship, a captain's log, a detailed map of the journey, specifics about the different ranks and responsibilities. It's just amazing what's available these days!

Of course, we've also been doing other things this week as well--lots of claywork with sculpey, lots of painting--including arms and faces! Yesterday, Sam and Julia pulled out all of our cardboard slated for recycling and began building. Julia made a really cool dollhouse while Sam worked on a castle. At one point, Emily pulled out a measuring stick the kids had been given at the local hardware store, and they all began measuring each other, how high the boxes were, etc. Two days ago, the weather was glorious, so we spent most of the day outside, soaking in the sunshine and listening to Harry Potter on CD, drawing and playing. Life is one grand learning adventure!

2005-03-06T22:11:00.000-05:00

TV OR NOT TV, THAT IS THE QUESTION

We've had cable television for almost 2 years now; prior to that I was tv-free for nearly 10. And now, after 2 years of unlimited access to cable channels such as HGTV, Disney, The History Channel and Cartoon Network, my family--yes all of us!--have made the decision to give up cable. But what brought us to this point?

When I went to grad school, I made the decision not to have television in my life, the mountains of Central Pennsylvania and a graduate student salary aiding my decision. With so much work, I felt that I would carefully weigh the decision to watch a two hour movie in a way I would not turning on the tv. Thus began my blissful life without the "plug-in drug," causing me to miss the entire Seinfeld and Friends eras, shamefully unaware of the cultural references shared in the grad student offices. Did I miss out? Yes and no. My life was rich in other areas, and let's face it, I can now enjoy all those missed seasons of Friends on DVD--they're all new to me!

So what does this all have to do with our Unschooling adventures? Well, what to do with that 20th century entertainment box is a perennial question for child development experts, educators and, by extension, Unschoolers. The big question becomes does television expand or limit one's world?

Over the past 2 years, we have all enjoyed free access to the channels and information brought to us by cable tv. We have enjoyed "Bloody Rome" week on The History Channel, "Landscape Challenge" on HGTV, and my children have discovered shows like "Kim Possible" and "Teen Titans." Cable television has expanded our interests and our world, even when I haven't always liked the ways in which it's been expanded. Even shows like "Ed, Ed and Eddy" and "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" have offered us insights and information.

Never once has television limited our world or our lives. Critics talk of the addictive or passive nature of television, but our experience has born out neither of those criticisms. There have been days when the kids have watched, enthralled, and other days when they have never turned on the tv. Always, the shows have fueled their imagination and curiosity, informing their play, their art, their questions.

Why then choose to cancel cable? The question for us has been one of economics. We now have the option for DSL instead of the cable modem, a switch which would cut our monthly bill by $70. The question for us was whether the shows we watched were worth $70 a month to us, the answer to which was ultimately no.

The children had just as much a say in that answer as we did. We talked over all of our options and decided to digitally record as many of their favorite programs as possible, nearly all of which are reruns any way, before cancelling cable. This way, they will have these shows available on DVD whenever they choose to watch. We also have joined Blockbuster online, which will allow us unlimited movie rentals each month, many of which offer their favorite characters. We decided that the difference between these options and cable was not worth the nearly $60 a month it would cost.

We will still enjoy our favorite shows, "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race." We will still get Fox and PBS. We will still have many options available, all of which enrich our lives. And, we will have an exta $60 a month that will make saving for our December trip to Disneyworld that much easier, eliminating the need to sacrifice little luxuries like gameboy games and chinese take-out. We will still have trust and freedom, but more than that, we all have had the power to decide what works best for us as a family.

2005-02-24T20:53:00.000-05:00

We're getting crushed by a snow storm today--we probably have about 8 inches out there already. It's a wet, heavy snow, which you can see by the way it's coating my rose trellises and the birdhouses. The kids have been out playing and sledding, and the poor puppy has baseball size iceballs caked in her fur.

Just two days ago, we were outside enjoying the sun and warmer temperatures. The kids played spy/survivor out in the woods behind our home, running around the wetland streams and communicating on walkie-talkies. They played out there for the better part of an hour, having a blast with the independence. It's great now because the leaves are off the trees, so I can still keep an eye on them. I'm wondering what we'll do when the leaves come out, along with the poison ivy...

When they came in, Sam took a nice long tub to warm up, drained it, soaped up the tub and walls and proceeded to "ice skate" for an hour, assuring me he would hold onto the railing to stay safe, which he did and had a ball in the process!

The girls read through Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom together, which I'd read to Julia that morning. They were both going through, working it out and going through the lower case and capital letters. When they were through, they pulled out their "Survivor" jug, in which they keep slips of paper with names from present and past episodes. The girls sat on the couch and sounded out the names, with Em helping Julia with the different sounds. At one point, Em discovered that Julia had writen down all their names as well, and she was a bit indignant that she could now get voted off the island. ;)

When they were through, Sam and Julia played, while Emily made herself a pad of paper by stapling some scrap paper together. She asked if we could write some words together with me writing them in lowercase while she would write them in caps. We went through a series of about 8 or 10 words, playing around with rhyming sounds and word families.

The kids had a great day, which they topped off by playing with some Crayola model magic, creating a kind of currency with it, which they then used to play store. They put on their gis and practiced their karate moves for a while. They capped off a great day by camping out in the living room on the sofa cushions. Yes, life is good!

Yesterday morning, the kids played with Sculpey on the back deck, making coil pots and letters. We baked it with the windows wide open, and the kids painted their creations in the afternoon. The girls have been really into figuring out words, playing around with the magnetic poetry words on the fridge and sending emails. Email accounts and online games have been big motivation with the reading. It's interesting watching the girls learn together, with Emily, older, having the stronger skills, but Julia, younger, having the greater motivation--the same way they potty learned. Guess that shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

2005-02-20T22:57:00.000-05:00

LIFE'S A MUSICAL AND OTHER MUSINGS

We've been to a couple of musical theater productions in the past few months, and we've rented some musicals to view at home over the past several months--The Sound of Music, Cats, West Side Story, Camelot--that compliment some we have at home, including Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Moulin Rouge (bits and pieces). Emily now spontaneously bursts into song wherever she goes. It's amazing to watch how she incorporates the lyrics and choreography into the things she's doing, like raking leaves with me or playing with one of her dolls. It's a wonderful reminder that even the most mundane parts of life are worth singing about!

The other evening I was in my room putting on a DVD, and Em walked in and told me,

"I know there are 60 minutes in an hour. Because if a half hour is 30 minutes, then 30 plus 30 is 60! I knew that because 3 plus 3 is 6."

She figured out time for herself by extrapolating what she already knew and using her understanding of fractions and math. Pretty cool!

This weekend we've been participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count through Cornell Ornnithology Labs. It's such fun--I do love my birds! We were able to count the following birds during our observation hours:

Carolina Chickadee
Carolina Wren
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Downy Woodpecker
Red Bellied Woodpecker
House Sparrow
White-Throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Tufted Titmouse
Dark-eyed Junco
Blue Jay

and near the feeders:

Robin
Red-Shouldered Hawk
Turkey Vulture

Unfortunately, we didn't see some of the other species that occasionally visit our feeders such as the Northern Flicker, Eastern Bluebird, Mourning Dove and European Starling. We submitted our checklists for three of the four days and plan to participate in Project Feeder Watch throughout the year as soon as we receive our kit.

2005-02-16T09:10:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting outside on my top deck typing this, enjoying the glorious weather we're having before the temperatures drop again. The sun is about 65 degrees warm on my face, I can hear the birds singing all around me, the delicate music of my waterfall flowing, and I see the antics of my silly chickens who are loving the warm weather almost as much as I. Julia is up early this morning and has several of her "animals" outside to soak in the sun. I've now had stuffed doggy and kitty kisses galore.

We had a lovely Valentine's Day. The kids were so excited and planned our celebration all weekend. At 4-H and throughout the week, we made Valentines to take to a local Senior Center, and with the scraps, the girls made confetti for their family celebration. Julia worked all week making special Valentines for everyone in her family, givign them to us and mailing them out.

Sunday night, Emily decided that she wanted to give gifts to her siblings. She worked so hard to fill two boxes she pulled from the recycling pile with gifts she thought her siblings would enjoy. She gave her the new bridesmaid outfit for her American Girl Samantha that she'd asked for this Christmas to Julia, who really loved it. She also gave her one of her tutus, her crown, a dress for Belle and one of her Teen Titan figures. For Sam, she put together a box with a new Winx Club DVD, her Teen Titan vehicle for Robin that he loves and some other small things. When she was satisfied with her gifts, she wrapped them and brought them upstairs for Sam and Julia to open Valentine's morning.

During the week Julia had made herself a fort out of a big box that we had in our recycling pile--the only large one there at the moment and one that Sam desperately wanted. For Valentine's Day, she made a Valentine heart that said "Love Sam," pasted it on the box and gave it to him as a gift. She couldn't figure out what to do for Emily, and it really didn't occur to her to give things she already had. Finally, she decided to make some special Valentine's for Em and to give her a rainbow unicorn she had drawn. Sam gave Emily one of his Rescue Hero animals Sunday night, because he couldn't wait another day.

When Monday morning came, the girls waited until Sam woke up, and then they spread their confetti and opened their gifts, and they were all so pleased. After opening her gift from Emily, Julia wanted to give some of her treasures to Em and Sam as well, so she ran to put together two more gifts. She gave Sam her William doll from Williamsburg and her spy wallet that she'd bought at the Franklin Institute that Sam had been wanting so badly and which she truly loved. For Emily, she gathered some of her Barbie's together to give.

It was so incredibly beautiful to watch the joy and generosity flowing out from their hearts for each other, like the beautiful story The Gift of the Magi in my very own home. It truly was the best gift of love I could have received for Valentine's Day!

At lunchtime we took our Valentine's over to the Senior Center where the children really brightened their day. We don't make a big production out of it, just pass them around the dining hall, wishing them well and stopping to chat with those who feel like it. It takes maybe 20 minutes of our time to do and gives so much to our lives and to the Senior's as well.

When we came home, I made Sam's Valentine gift--a Jedi cloak, which he adores. We made some Valentine sugar cookies and ran out of time in the day. I made the beginning of the girls' Valentine gifts yesterday morning--skirts for their Oriental outfits. The jackets I'll tackle this week, but the girls are thrilled with the skirts and wore them to bed last night. It's a real lesson against perfectionism for me: I look at the skirts and see all the mistakes but the girls see only the luxurious brocade beauty of them. Learning to see with the wonder and joy of children's eyes is a lesson from which we all could benefit immeasurably! How lucky I am to receive this lesson with an open heart from my beautiful children--the greatest teachers I have ever had!

2005-02-11T15:39:00.000-05:00

Wednesday was Chinese New Year, which we celebrated with some friends at a local restaurant. The kids had a blast learning more about their Chinese sign, which element they were--earth, fire, water, wind or metal--and most of all, eating the buffet! One of the gals who organized it made sure that there were New Year party favors for all the kids, which they got to take home. The Chinese dragons were a huge hit, as were the snake dragons.

When we got home, we popped in a documentary we had borrowed from the library on China, and the girls and I watched a bit of it, learning some things about the Revolution. But, it was kinda boring, so we turned it off after a while and put something else in. The kids played on my bed for hours with those snake dragons, making letters out of them and taking turns guessing what it was supposed to be.

Jim was out to dinner with a guest speaker from work, so he didn't get home until late. The kids and I had a liesurely dinner, and the girls made themselves oatmeal for the first time. It was so cute to watch them standing at the stove in their aprons. Em even had to put on her Colonial dress for the full effect. Too cute! Afterwards they made some chocolate milk, and then started playing a game in which their "mother" would not let them talk to each other, so they had to write notes. For the next 45 minutes, we all wrote notes back and forth to each other, using a combination of pictographs, squiggles and real words. They never cease to amaze me with the things they come up with!

Thursday, we spent a glorious morning outside at the Battle Creek Cypress Swamp with our 4-H Gardening club in preparation for the Great Backyard Bird Count, birdwatching and just enjoying the weather. Cypress trees send up "knees" from their roots that help the tree to breathe, a great shot of which I got in the morning sunshine. We saw several birds, mostly by the feeder at the Visitor's Center, but a few during our walk.

When we returned from our hike, we spent some time in the Visitor's Center reptile room, where we got to see several black snakes at various stages of growth, a copperhead and even got to hold a corn snake. There are so many things for the kids to explore and learn about in the little hands-on museum there, from paw print identification to a see-through beehive. It's a wonderful place to explore!

2005-02-04T16:30:00.000-05:00

While Jim was away in San Diego, the kids and I made our own "litmus" paper from boiling red cabbage. Simply chop up the cabbage and boil it for a few minutes, and you have an instant home test for acids and basics. We tested all kinds of things from vinegar and lemon juice to baking soda. The colors turned an incredibly vivid color, and the kids had so much fun watching them change and trying to change them back again. Once we'd done all the tests, the kids decided to try to neutralize the results, turning the pinks and blues back to the neutral purply color. This was, of course, great fun as the acids and bases reacted, sending purple fizz everywhere!

After a week away, Jim was much missed, and the kids had great fun reconnecting with Papa. Elaborate wrestling games were the order of the day, as Jim donned the dragon costume and Sam, brave knight, rescued his princess sisters. The dog, of course, couldn't resist joining the fray, though it's hard to say what her role was supposed to be. I believe by the end of the game, she had taken on the part of Shrek's donkey.

2005-02-01T20:40:00.000-05:00

This morning, we went to see Freedom Train , a Theatreworks musical about the Underground Railroad. The kids and I really enjoyed the production and felt it did a good job balancing the harshness of reality with humor.

When we got home, we pulled out a multi-media kit on the Underground RR that Emily had picked out about a year or so ago at the National Civil Rights Museum giftshop. We watched the video and listened to some songs, both traditional and more recent. Afterwards, we read biographies of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, from David Adler's Picture Book Biography Series. This is a great series for younger children--some good detail, but short enough to read in a single sitting.

The kids spent the afternoon playing underground railroad, and after dinner, Emily did an improv musical number. Just one more way Unschooling parents KNOW their children are learning:

I'm so tired from workin' all day,
Scrubbin' the floor and
Moppin' the floor.

No more doin' what Master say,
Oh Grandmother Moses,
Oh Grandma Moses,
Show us the way!

Just look toward the Northern Star,
Your only compass is the Northern Star,
You'll go through water,
Push through the bushes,
Grandmother Moses will be your guide.

Follow the Drinking Gourde!
God will find your way.
God will know you say
No more scrubbin' floors
No more dustin' ceilings.

Just follow the Drinking Gourde!
Just follow the Drinking Gourde!
Just follow the Drinking Gourde!
Now, you know what to do,
Just follow the Drinking Gourde!

It may look like a big spoon,
But it's the way to freedom.
Oh Moses! Oh Moses!

Oh Moses, please guide us to heaven.
Just guide us to freedom.
Just guide us to freedom, please,
You know what I'm talkin' about.

No more listenin' to Master say.
Send secret notes.
Say secret passages.

Go ahead and walk through streams
Carry your own young when they're so tired.
Go towards freedom.
Go or die.

No more words to say,
No more whips; no more cryin'.
Go on an Underground Railroad.
Go on an Underground Railroad.

It is a trail of houses,
Moses led more than 300 people to safety.
Women aren't weak!
Stand up whether you're black or white!

Just to be free!
That's what matters!
Now, you should know what I'm talkin' about:
Freedom!
Freedom!
Freedom!