Something really awful happened yesterday. Our cats are great ratters, and one of them (I presume) had dragged a fairly large but scrawny rat out of the barn and left it on the patio.(Not the same rat in the picture). Because of the stored animal feed, we have a constant supply of rats and squirrels…
Category: Homeschooling
TRAVEL JOURNAL 19: THE WWI BUNKER
As soon as the tourist office was open the next day, I was in front of the desk asking about buses, anywhere, we didn’t really care as long as it was away from this place, which a quote from 1864 in my guide book called “a wretched little hamlet”. The only bus, which was really…
The House of The Garden
I’m so lucky that I have such a big, sunny garden, but I’ve also come to realize that not being limited by space can be more difficult than having to squeeze things into a small area. Ethan called my garden plan this season “masochistic” after he offered to help and i told him what my goals were for the day.
Birthdays
This past week was full of rushing here and there and the birthday celebrations of my oldest – now 14, and my youngest – now 6. We made homemade corn dogs (hotdogs dipped in corn bread batter and fried in home-rendered lard. There were a few presents wrapped in paper feed bags and tied with…
Fruit, Nut, and Chocolate Easter Nibbles
I didn’t mean to skip this past week’s blog post, but the weather has been so wonderful, and we have been so busy in the kitchen, in the garden, wandering the beautiful pastures, and celebrating spring that the days slipped by, days full of fun, sun, work, and beauty. The natural dyes turned out very…
A Bad Haircut
This post is actually about TWO bad haircuts. One of them I actually had a hand in myself – but I’m getting ahead of the story. It all starts with our Great Pyrenees puppy, Cloud Bear. There’s a spot of cool weather now, but just last week it was hot, really hot. There were some…
Kids Love Junk
Clothilde yells, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!” while wearing ear protection. If you’ve ever visited our house, you will know something about us – we have junk. Lots of junk. I don’t necessarily like junk. Actually, if I had things my way, there wouldn’t be a scrap of junk and someone else…
Back To Homeschool
We started homeschooling again last week. It is nice to be back to fall structure rather than the loose, unplanned summer days. I realized we actually do homeschool year-round, but with different styles. Very structured schooling in Fall and Spring, unschooling in Summer. It seems to work well that way. Beginning of summer, the children…
Chalk Paintings
An artistic friend of mine has recently been making beautiful chalk paintings of flowers. We used to do a lot of chalk drawing on our tiny blackboard for home school, but I have abandoned that, largely because there is no paper-trail of work that way to show that we have done something other than bake…
Sick Days and Baking
Note: The two cake pictures were from the “Dad Bake-A-Thon”, and you can’t really expect anything to be put away or the table to look clean. We have been so, so sick. The kind of sick that strikes you down and crushes you so you can’t move. Clothilde spent four days lying in bed,…
The Patisserie
We have had the best summer crafty project going lately – in the summer I always like to have something fun to work on that we didn’t get time for during the rest of the year. Summer here is like the deep winter of other climes. The weather and bugs make you want to lethargically…
Florida Folk Festival 2016
We spent Saturday and Sunday at the Florida Folk Festival in White Springs. It turned out to be a beautiful weekend, and one of the best festivals we’ve attended in all these years. Ethan first attended the FFF when he was about seven weeks old, and our children have been there every year except last…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 