Finally Snowing Again

After the devastation of the October snowstorms I wasn't sure if I wanted to see any more snow, but having made it through all of November and December without a flake, I fully admit that I changed my tune.

Today, I woke up to "Hey! Snow!" from my husband, and not long after "It's Snowing, It's Snowing. IT'S SNOWING" from my little ones. Instant happiness. We love snow in our family. A lot.

The kids were outside playing before I even got breakfast on the table.

Snow angels, forts, snowmen,

and lots of snowball fights.

We even almost got the steps shoveled off ... almost. Well, we thought about it anyway.

With such an exciting start to the day, I knew that school would be out of the question unless I switched priorities fast, so we made the day into a snow focused party. We read books about snow (Snowflake Bentley being the favorite of the big kids, and The Snowy Day won high accolades from Little Miss), did snow crafts, wrote snow poems, and did everything else "snow" that we could think of.

My floors are still littered with mittens and boots, snow-pants and soggy socks. Proof that we played hard.

It's funny what a difference a snow day can make.

Sticks and Stones

My kids come from a long line of collectors. Stamps, shells, stickers, tools, nothing is safe with us. Their daddy once even owned a stump collection (yes, STUMP, as in the bottom of a tree, and he posessed several).

Each child has found something that they love and they happily squirrel away bits and pieces. My son loves bottle-caps, and his older sister is well known for her nature discoveries that she keeps in her own museum.

My youngest, well, she is well on her way to becoming a rock collector like her grandpa.

No gravel driveway is safe with this little girl around. And my washing machine isn't safe either. The poor thing has taken some very LOUD beatings recently (Eeek! Just realized how terrible that sentence is. Edited to clarify that it is the washer, not the child, that is being beaten up.)

I think my little girl and her grandpa are going to have lots in common.

Including heavy pockets.

Intimidated by Ma Ingalls

We have been reading the Little House series, and I am beginning to seriously develop a complex because of Ma Ingalls.

That woman must have been something else. She not only happily trekked all over the country in a covered wagon, but she was able to keep her family alive throughout the journey. My crew wouldn't be so lucky in that situation. We would be very cold, very grumpy, and very very hungry.

I am not a gardener by any stretch of the imagination.

For years, we happily cultivated weeds and other miscellaneous growing things in an area of the back yard we called our "botanical garden," but really it was just a neglected pile of dirt that was too steep to mow.

I wish I could become a gardener, but truth-be-told, I don't like dirt,

or bugs,

or being too hot,

or tedious labor . . .

which places the whole gardening thing a bit (okay a lot) out of my happiness zone.

Luckily, my husband loves labor and dirt and he has taken the time to not only identify the bounty in our backyard, but to pull it from the trees, separate it from the weeds, and cultivate some wonderful-ness for our family (including self-watering garden beds). The kids seem to be following in his footsteps, and are thrilled to be turned loose every afternoon to pick, eat and enjoy. They love it.

Me? Well,

I'm afraid that if our local grocery store closed, my family would . . . have to drive farther to go to the grocery store. That's the reality of my life. We aren't self sufficient. We aren't even close to it.
But, despite my differences from Ma Ingalls, we are able to grow enough to make these little guys smile.
I guess that's all we need, because I'm not planning on pioneering through the wilderness in a covered wagon any time soon.

Sunny Snow

We have had a lot of snowy days lately. Unlike my big kids, usually my youngest stays in the house. She has a circulatory system that causes her to quickly prioritize her blood-flow away from her limbs, and learned the words "Cold, COLD" very quickly. This past week we had a nice warm day, so we bundled up baby and took her out for some fun in the sun ... snow... hmm ... sunny snow... which sounds like an oxymoron but isn't. There should be a better word for this.

Obviously, she thought this was a perfect time for a photo shoot:


She was all smiles at finally getting to play outside with her brother and sister.
Of course she needed to taste the fluffy stuff.
It's not as good as it looks.
The fun lasted for quite a while until she decided that she was tired. Off came the mittens so that she could suck her thumb. Off came the hat so that she could twirl her hair. 10 seconds of contented baby bliss then "Wahhhhh!!!!"

We will try again on another snowy day with warm sunshine - grrrr... there has got to be a better way to describe this weather phenomenon.

I'm off to google Inuit snow words because that will be a very productive use of my time this morning. Really. Self education. It's a good thing. I'm not procrastinating. Really. Really!

Turkeys

Happy Thanksgiving from the turkeys on Liberty Hill - and their feathered friends too :)

These guys have been visiting us every day between 10 and 2 since spring. There are at least 2 families, and they are about as sweet as can be. We can play on the swingset without bothering each other, they don't chase my 6 pound dog away when she decides to yap at them, and they happily remove the evil ticks from my yard.

No wonder Ben Franklin preferred them to the eagle - still love our eagle family though. I'll keep both thank you very much.

Enjoy your day with family and friends !

Do you know what today is?

A cause for celebration in our house. Any guesses?

Snow! - What you don't see it? Yes, we are celebrating the fact that approximately 12 flakes fell from the sky in our backyard. You should have heard the chaos when my big girl spotted it. Whoops! Cheers of "It's ski season! It's ski season!" Chairs squeeking as they were pushed away from the table! The sound of elephants stampeding as the kids rushed to the window. General mayhem all around.

There was no way to keep them indoors so out they went to enjoy the 2 remaining flakes. They asked for snowpants - I bartered with them and we settled on Yes to hot chocolate but No to ski pants. I'm a softie :o)

Baby preferred to watch the chaos through the window. I don't blame her. It was nutty out there!

Just wait and see what we can do with two dozen flakes!

Nature study for non-artists

Recently, I've been reading Pocketful of Pinecones (great book BTW) and mulling over the whole Charlotte Mason style emphasis on Nature Study.

Nature is fun. It is interesting.

So, why do so many of us avoid teaching it? Okay, to be more real, why do we (we meaning "I") avoid nature all-together? Why do we sit snug in our warm homes thinking that it is just too much of a bother?

I think I've made nature too complicated. I can't even tell you how many times have I decided to be "intentional" about enjoying nature with the kids. I've bought books about it, collected art supplies & backpacks, packed lunches, and tromped the little ones an hour into the woods just to hear "I need to go potty!"

Enough!

I somehow have created this idea that NATURE is only located far away from home and we need to be actively pursuing it. How ludicrous!

Whatever happened to kids playing in the rain?

Or

Catching bugs?

Or

Pulling the bark off of a tree branch?

Or

Just sitting outside doing nothing at all?

Nature shouldn't be made boring by over scheduling.

Nature shouldn't be made difficult by forcing kids to examine details when they are uninspired, write when they aren't able, or draw when they struggle with dexterity.

At the beginning of this school year I decided that I wanted to find a way to make nature study a joy for my kids, rather than another task to be done (and grumbled about), so nature study looks really different at my house now. It is intentionally tailored to my kids passions & strengths (photography for my boy and creative writing for my girl), avoiding our weaknesses (handwriting & drawing).

This is what I have found to work for us:

Day 1 - Enjoy nature

• Hike, look through a collection, observe the back yard, play in a mud puddle AKA - send the kids outside to play and don't tell them what to do (they love this part), but be diligent about asking questions about what/where they were playing when they come back in and make a mental note of their answer
• Allow kids to photograph items of interest, even if it is a poorly composed picture of mud

Day 2 - Research

• Based on their observations on Day 1, choose a photo and print it in Black & White for each child (we use sticker paper, but regular copy paper works great too). Google images is a great source if the kids aren't in a picture taking mood or the photos are too fuzzy
• Encourage kids to identify the subject themselves
• While kids color the photo (colored pencils work best), mom reads aloud about the subject from the internet, guide books, etc. but only while the kids are still interested - when they tune out, I stop. If they stay interested for 2 hours, we keep going for 2 hours (or at least until the baby wakes from her nap). We love using the FIAR digital nature studies . It is one of the highlights of our homeschool.

Day 3 - Write (or more specifically, Talk)

• Allow child to dictate a story about the subject they chose, using it as a character or setting. Whimsey and fiction are not only allowed in our house, but encouraged. (Burgess style - fiction with lots of accurate detail about nature) Mom types while the child talks.

Day 4 - Assemble Nature Journal

• Print dictation
• Ask child to copy as much as is age appropriate (sometimes we skip this, depending on the workload that week)
• Allow child to paste into their journal: dictation, copy-work, & photograph, - Usually the topic that they choose is something of interest to them so they will have a random assortment drawings, magazine clippings, leaves, notes, coloring pages, & internet images that they want to add too.

*I had photos of our journals to include, but I accidentally deleted them (blah). I'll try to add them again later.

We don't do this every week, simply because of time constraints, but it is a system that my family has been able to not only stick to, but enjoy and look forward to.

~ Got a good mud puddle near your house?

Inspiration

We visited Vermont for an anniversary party last weekend. 40 years of marriage is inspiring. My husband's aunt and uncle have been through it all and they still adore one another. It is evident in the way they speak to, and about, each other.

Their home is a labor of love too. Check out these gardens - so many hours, and years of effort. Thoroughly inspiring. I took photos, gathered seeds, and thought to myself ~ I can do this, I can create a beautiful space that will attract dozens of hummingbirds and butterflies. I can take care of a few flowers. I can move rocks and pull weeds. I can. I really can.

Then I got back home where I was hit full in the face with reality. Baby crying. Kids needing attention. Laundry piled knee deep. And there just mocking me was our lawn. A lawn that looks as if we haven't mowed it in 3 weeks . . . um . . . okay so we really haven't touched it in 3 weeks. So what?

My husband knows me enough to build me flower boxes that water themselves because I can't be trusted to keep even a few simple plants alive. Thanks goodness for technology.

So my inspiration was short lived - but the reality is that I truly admire anyone who has the dedication to commit themselves to something long term. Marriages and gardens both take lots of effort and time, but the results are beautiful. My husband will get 40 years of commitment from me (Lord willing he will get even more) but my garden, sadly, hasn't made it that far up the priority list.

Too bad for the garden. I really was inspired - for a moment.

Eagles on Blueberry Island

I promised to post better photos of our eagles. Aren't these guys amazing?

Psalm 103:2-5

Praise the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits -

who forgives all your sons

and heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the pit

and crowns you with love and compassion,

who satisfies your desires with good things

so that your youth is renewed

Like The Eagle's.

The photo below has all 4 eagles hiding in it.

Happy 4th of July!