Our First Weeks of School

Hi friends,

Wow! I haven't blogged since right after our computer crashed. I know I promised a post about our first week of school as soon as our computer was repaired, but after we got it back, there was an issue with our camera card and I couldn't upload photos from it.

I finally found a way around that issue and can upload photos now. Whew, this has been an electronically challenging 3 weeks!

During the first week while our laptop was in the hospital, we used Kindles and the old laptop when it let us use it. It has a mind of its own and turns on randomly. But we have hard copies of books, too, so all in all, the week wasn't too bad. Besides, for our family, the first week of school is a week of adjusting to the new schedules, getting used to the new books, etc, so adjusting to not having the laptop wasn't that big of a deal, since we were already in adjustment mode.

So, what have we been doing the past few weeks? Well, I would give a play-by-play of our recent goings on, but to be completely honest, there isn't time for that. I can't figure out why, but for some reason, schooling this year is more time-consuming than in previous years. Maybe because the children are each a year higher in AO and it's getting to be more of a load for each child. Maybe because my energy levels have bottomed out because of sleep deprivation. Whatever the reason, there is very little time for me to be online at all..which could actually be a good thing, right?  :)

However, I can squeak out a few minutes to share some photos of what we have been up to.

Math lessons..

Of course, Kim had to get back on the Math bandwagon, too.  He needed to brush up on the months of the year. ;)

Readings..

Narrations..

Online Spanish lessons..

Nature sketching..

Musical instrument practice..

We also had our annual Nature exchange with my dear friend, Silvia. That's always a thrill.  :)

There it is in a nutshell , a very small nutshell, mind you. :) I hope to be back in a week or two to share some of our handicrafts with you.  

Until then, I hope you are having a great year so far!  :)

Crash!

Happy Sunday, friends! I hope you are having a lovely Lord's Day.
I have been awol for the past week. There has been so much that I have wanted to share about last week- our first week of school. The week came in not with a bang, but a crash...as in the hard drive on our newest laptop, which we bought in April of last year, crashed on Monday morning.
Now, we have Kindles and an old pre-historic laptop that operates at will, but all of my AO bookmarks were on the newer laptop! Ack! And being the techy illiterate person that I am, I googled how the laptop was acting -or not- to diagnose the problem. After some research, I guessed it was the hard drive. So the next day, I dropped it off at the local computer fixer upper and he confirmed it was the hard drive. He performed the necessary surgery a couple of days later, and I am going to pick it up tomorrow. But all of my bookmarks, photos, downloads..basically everything is lost!! Ugh!!
I am trying to remember "in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thess. 5:18) But sometimes it's hard to be thankful when things go wrong, isn't it? *sigh*
Anyhoo, I am posting this using my phone, so please forgive any grammatical  and spelling errors. I have never done a blog post on my phone before. But desperate times call for desperate measures, right? ;)
I hope to post about our first week of school sometime this week.
Until then, have a blessed week!  :)

Nature Study - Natty and Her Butterflies

We have been having alot of activity around our Butterfly Bush lately. Butterflies of different colors and sizes have been stopping by for a visit. All of us have been enjoying watching these beautiful creatures,

but Natty, in particular, seemed especially interested in them. She began catching them in a net and looking them up in our butterfly field guide to identify them. The other children got in on it, too, by looking outside and letting her know when they spotted a species she hadn't identified yet.  It became a family activity!  :)

Next, she wrote down her discoveries in a notebook: the date, the species, and the location.

Then, she sketched several of the species in her new Nature journal.

By the way, her butterfly study continues: she is filling up her notebook and can identify virtually every species that she sees!  :)

Now some people might  think all this independent Nature study is no big deal, but I do.  Why? Because I am seeing some of the fruit of a Charlotte Mason education. Stopping, observing, sketching  - in a word: keeping. Natty will always remember these days of catching, identifying, and sketching her butterflies. And I will always remember the thrill of watching her and thanking the Lord for leading us to the CM philosophy of education.

"Let them once get in touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life. We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things."
~ CM Series, Volume 1, page 61

sharing with Celeste (Keeping Company)

Prepping for a New Year

Well, friends, it's that time of year again - our school books for the new year have arrived, and I am in a planning frenzy! Actually, the frenzy has died down a bit, and I am in the process of re-organizing our school room to make room for the new books. We have been in dire need of bookshelves for a couple of years, and, thankfully, my mom recently gave us some cedar lumber that belonged to my dear Dad. So hubby and the boys are planning on making new cedar bookshelves as a fall/ winter handicraft project.  I can't wait to see how they turn out!  :) 



But back to the books. Our children will be in yr10, yr8, yr7, yr6, and yr3 this year.  Here is a peek at some (not all) of their books, in no particular order. As I mentioned above, we in the organizing stage, so the books are here, there, everywhere! But here are the ones I could track down.  ;)

 We have Kindle books, too, and some online readings, as well. But I really want the children to have hard copies of the books. So I make sure that they each have hard copies of some of their books.

Now for scheduling...for the past 3 years, I have printed the AO weekly schedules. But this year, I decided to try the pdf versions of the schedules. They are smaller and use less paper and ink!  :) And I have the entire term on one page. I like that. If I need to look ahead for some reason, I can easily find the info on the chart. Now, will the children like them as much as the other schedules? That remains to be seen. Hope so.

I also print the Composer study, Hymn, Folksong, Shakespeare, and Plutarch schedules so that I don't have to keep going back to the AO website to look them up.

For Artist study, I print a copy of the painting and place it under our clear vinyl  tablecloth. 
It's always in view so the children become very familiar with it.   I also have a way of Keeping our Artist study, for those who may interested, but more on that in another post.

Now for the binders..we have previously used these folders (one for each child), which contains their schedules, maps, calligraphy paper, etc.

But the folders became worn, as you can see, and by the end of the 2nd term, they were overflowing with papers.

So I decided to buy each child a binder this year...

 Now, there is plenty of room for all their AO stuff!   And they had such fun decorating their cover pages.

Each child gets a new Nature journal this year. (There is nothing quite like a fresh, new Nature journal, is there?) I got these from Wal-Mart. They are smaller than the ones we have previously used. But the children picked them out, so I went with their suggestion.

Of course, my children aren't the only ones who get all the goodies at the beginning of the new school year. I get a treat, too. And this year it's a hard copy of the Charlotte Mason homeschooling series! All six volumes! No more highlighting on the Kindle! No more endless note-taking!

Happy homeschooling! :)

"All your children shall be taught by the Lord, 
And great shall be the peace of your children."" ~ Isaiah 54:13

Randomness

Just some random thoughts.....

Ian, our 16 yr-old, is 2 hours north of us working on the summer staff at a Christian camp for a few weeks. It's a familiar territory. We have been to the camp many times and Ian goes to the winter youth conferences there every January. Also, our oldest daughter worked there on summer staff when she was 17.  He is in his element up there: he is on the maintenance crew (he loves working with his hands!) and making new friends. But oh, how I miss him! He and I have such good conversations - everything from politics to theology, so I miss our chats. I miss his being in the kitchen and reaching things on high shelves for me, as I am vertically challenged.  ;) I miss his presence at the table when we eat and in the evenings when we have family devotions. I miss his chauffeuring me around on errand days. He will be coming home this Saturday, but he will be here for just 2 weeks, then he will head back to the camp to serve 2 more weeks in August. After that, he will be home for good and my separation anxiety will go away.  ;)

Our school books for next year are slowly trickling in. The arrival of new school books always makes me eager to begin the new school year. And in my eagerness and excitement to begin our new year of AO, I am wondering if we should begin lessons earlier than our original start date.  Of course, we can't start until Ian is home. But it's ok to daydream isn't it? ;)

One of Ian's books for next year is Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. I had heard of this book, but never read it. And since I usually try to pre-read most of the children's books before they read them, I started with this one. I read the first two chapters before hubby saw it lying on the coffee table and asked whose book it was. I told him it was Ian's book for next year. I gave him a short summary of what I had read so far, and he decided to read it, too. He read to chapter 2 and caught up with me. At his suggestion, we are reading it together every evening. I read; he listens, then we discuss it. I love it! But back to the book...it is very sad...very, very sad. I am dumbfounded - and angered - at the way the Americans Indians were treated by the white men. I knew they were mistreated, but I had no idea it was to the degree described in this book.  I can hardly believe what I am reading, and sometimes, afterwards, we just sit there and try to take in what I just read. As much as I love spending time with my hubby this way, it is not an easy read.  But I do hope that our reading together is the beginning of a new tradition with us. Maybe next time we'll read a more joyful book. I am open for suggestions for our next read, friends.  :)

Speaking of books, hubby and I went to our local used bookstore recently. Last time we were there, they had very little to pick from. But their inventory has really grown. Have a look at the gems I found.  :)

 Needless to say, we plan on going again soon.

Natty and Mimi are making a quilted wall hanging for their room. They picked out the material and cut the squares with my mom's square cutter and mat. Now they are ready to sew it together. The question is...what kind of pattern to arrange the squares in. Their goal is to finish it before school starts. Hopefully this winter, we will be doing more quilting, possibly making a twin-size quilt. Hubby and the boys will be making bookshelves, so our fall/winter handicrafts are all lined up. 

Remember Banty, our Bantam hen? Well, she's done it again. She has hatched 6 chicks. Adorable, aren't they? But we don't need more Bantams! Hopefully, we can find a good home for them.

What do you do when life inundates you with daylilies? You eat them for lunch, of course! (With egg salad in this photo.)  :)

 Hope you all have a wonderful week!

The End of an Era

Hi friends,

I have been wanting to write this post for a several weeks, but it has taken me awhile to get my thoughts together. And it is a sad post for me, so I really haven't been in any hurry to share the news.

It's about our dairy goats.  Since we bought them 2 1/2 years ago, I have often blogged about them. If I counted correctly, 8 times!! Looking back,  it seems as if I  have shared most, if not all, of our goat news with you all.  :)

It has been such a wonderful experience for our family. Our children learned how to care for the goats, the kidding/birthing cycles, how to milk, how to give injections, and so many other things. And the companionship of the goats was wonderful, too - they were just like pets to us. But the biggest advantage to having your own goats is you have your own supply of milk! We drank it raw because that it is the healthiest milk you can drink.

When we first started out on this new adventure, I naturally assumed that the children would eventually adjust to the taste of the goat milk....even if it took a few months. And when I first tasted the milk, I thought, "Well, it tastes good -  a little different than cow's milk, but not in a bad way - just different. The kids won't have a problem with switching over to this."  Ian and Asher loved the milk and the cheese  right from the start. But the other 3 children? Not so much. They tasted it and didn't like it. I even made them drink a small glass of it now and then. But they never could get used to the taste. They wouldn't even have it on their cereal in the morning. I waited patiently - and a long time: 2 1/2 years - for them to get used to the taste of the milk. It never happened.

So, as much as I hated the thought of it, I began considering selling the goats. I asked myself, is it financially prudent to keep 2 goats (actually, 4 goats if you include Sorcha's babies) for 2 children?  With having to buy alfalfa hay, sweet feed, vitamins/minerals, straw for bedding, baking soda (to balance the ph in their rumens), other things that went along with goat herding, I knew that we were putting more into the goats than we were getting from them. Especially considering that there are 3 months out of the year that we don't get any milk from them since they are dried off during those months to prepare for kidding. I mentioned my thoughts to hubby and he seemed to be thinking the same thing. But he never mentioned it to me before because he knew how much I loved my goats.
So we began praying about it and asking the Lord for good homes for the goats - if it was His will for us to sell them. After a few weeks, we mentioned it to the children, and although they seemed a little saddened at the thought, they understood the reasons. They began to pray with us.

Fast forward to mid-June. We decided to try to find buyers for the goats. If we couldn't find any, we would take it as the Lord's will to keep them.  I remembered that there was a Toggenberg breeder about a 2-hour drive from us who once told me to contact her if I ever decided to sell my Toggs. I knew she would give Helena a good home. After all, she puts her goats in goat shows - they are treated like kings and queens! So I called her and asked if she would like to buy Helena and without hesitation she said, "Absolutely!" She came two days later and picked her up.  I watched them go down the driveway. Helena was watching me from the back window of the truck cap as she left. She had a look on her face as if to say, "Why are you getting rid of me?" It was so sad.

Maybe to help relieve some of the guilt I was feeling, we gave Helena a watermelon treat before her new owner arrived. See that look of bliss in her eyes?  Can you tell how much she loved watermelon?  :)

That left Sorcha (and her 2 babies), who isn't purebred like Helena, but she is an excellent milker.  I advertised them online, and that evening, I got text from a potential buyer 45 minutes away. I asked her a few questions and it seemed like the perfect fit: she had dairy goats on the farm she had lived on previously, but sold them before moving because it was too much to have to move them. She has 3 animal-loving children, too. I decided this was "the one" and asked when she could pick them up. Her reply: "I can be there in two days." Wow! It seemed as though everything was happening so fast. But I took it as of the Lord...I knew that He was orchestrating it all. And it made it a little easier knowing that the goats were going to good homes.

Our granddaughters visited a few days before, and gave Sorcha and her babies some going away treats.  :)
.

Two days later, we were putting Sorcha and her babies into the animal trailer of their new owner.
And like Helena, Sorcha had the same questioning look in her eyes right before they left. So I didn't watch them leave; I couldn't. It was just too hard. I went back into the house as the new owner drove away.

Several weeks later, it's getting a little easier, but it is still hard. I try not to go near the  barn unless I have to.  It's too quiet..no bleating..no bells..no nothing. The boys cleaned it out the straw for me soon after the goats left, and I have only been in it once since then. I still catch myself looking out the front windows first thing in the morning to check on them.  I really didn't think that selling them would affect me so much.

And so our goat-heading era has come to an end. The barn is closed up..and looking very lonely. But everything will stay as it is; even the "goat crossing" sign stays put. For now.

It was great while it lasted. Thankfully, we have much of it on video and photos, so we will always remember what we learned over the past 2 1/2 years.

I don't regret one minute of it. And my children don't either.