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Neuroception

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"Horses, as prey animals, rely heavily on neuroception [an unconscious process by which the nervous system continuously scans the environment for cues of safety or danger, shaping behavioral responses accordingly] to assess their surroundings and determine whether they should engage socially, flee from a perceived threat, or shut down in response to overwhelming stress. Unlike cognitive perception, which involves conscious awareness, neuroception is an automatic, subcortical process that allows an organism to react before it has had time to think. In horses, neuroception is finely tuned to detect minute changes in their environment, including human body language, vocal tones, and the emotional state of those around them. This sensitivity explains why horses often respond to subtle shifts in human intention, posture, or energy before explicit cues are given." (pp. 124-125, Horse Brain Science by Dr. Stephen Peters) This is why Equine Assisted Learning works. When watching a cl...
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Back to school

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This morning L., Y., and G. headed off to school. (Actually G. started yesterday.) L. and G. are Josh school seniors doing dual enrollment and Y. is officially a college freshman. She's going to do this year at the community college and has plans to transfer later on.  So this is G. and L.:s last first day of school picture. (Which is amusing because they're first one was last year.) It also marks my last year of being a homeschooling parent. This will be my 31st year, though I think that's stretching things a bit because really the two being "homeschooled" are taking college classes and doing their own individual learning. My part in all of this is incredibly minor.  The only real difference for Y. from last year is that she is taking a heavier load, but still continuing with Japanese tutoring. The way we homeschool, they'd is a rather blurry line between high school and college. I'll spare you my actual thoughts about typical high school right now, thoug...
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Fiber Monday - What do you do when you have a lot of projects started?

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And some of those projects really need to get done, especially if I am going to weave things to sell at Christmas. You start a new and completely unrelated project of course.  Over the weekend I became overwhelmed with the desire to make a quilt I have the pattern for. No, I don't know why, but that's what happened. So on Saturday I dug through fabric and on Sunday I spent much of the day cutting out all the pieces.  Some of those piles have 48 pieces in them, most have between 12 and 24. It was a lot of cutting especially because I was mostly using up scraps, which meant I couldn't make nice piles and cut several at the same time.  Here is what I'm going to make. Cute, huh? This is made with solid colors, but I realized I don't have a lot of solid colors in my stash. Mine will have more patterned fabrics. My color palate will also be different. Here are the four colors that will make up the birds. The whole quilt will have a slightly darker toned aspect to it.  My ...
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Mowing the pasture

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The pasture is kind of out of control with things the horses don't really like to eat. J. usually mows them with Chuck the Tractor. This time we thought, "You know who really like this plants? Sheep!" We have sheep. We have portable fencing. We had a plan. So J. and G. set up the fencing in a corner of the horse pasture. This morning, before I turned out the horses, they brought over the sheep.  The horses were very interested in what was going on.  The sheep got right to work.  We weren't sure what the horses would do when they were turned out. The answer was not much. By the end of the day, the sheep had eaten down about a third of the weeds. I expect it will take them another couple of days to eat this patch down. But don't worry! There are plenty more patches in the pasture for the sheep to eat. 
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I've homeschooled for 30 years and have some opinions, but they might not make people happy

Schools are starting back (even though it's still summer to my way of thinking) which means there are a lot of people asking about how to start homeschooling. I just counted and this year will be my 31st (and final) homeschooling year. I have a lot of opinions and a lot of experience with which to back up those opinions.  1. Homeschooling is not traditional school and trying to make it look like traditional school is a quick path to frustration, burnout, and general insanity. 2. You can homeschool successfully with a library card. Full stop. 3. The vast majority of online schools, programs, and curriculum publishers don't really care much about your child, just your dollars, and they're willing to use fear to sell their product.  4. Homeschooling is not a program to enroll in. We call that public school.  5. Elementary aged children (and probably older) should not be learning online. It is not developmentally appropriate and could actually do harm.  6. Actual homesch...
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Evidence of felt safety

I didn't really have anything to write so was going to skip a day. That was my plan until R. stepped into the breach to provide some blog fodder.  I have been listening to her getting ready for bed while she sings her own little recitative. [Recitative, for the non-music majors out there, is the narrative part of an opera that is sung, but instead of being melodic, it focuses more on the speech rhythms using a limited number of notes.] At first I wasn't really paying much attention, but slowly the words she was singing came into focus. Her recitative entailed several repetitions of, "I am awesome," followed by the single line, "I'm so cool," then going back to the awesome line. Set on repeat. It's charming. And not something I could have dreamt as being possible even as recently as three years ago. 
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Returned to Life

I was not expecting to be so blown away by A Tale of Two Cities. I haven't even really begun a new book yet and it's been over 48 hours since I finished it. Usually I close the book I've finished and immediately pick up the next book and begin reading. It is the very unusual book that makes it impossible for me to do this. I'll also say that A Tale of Two Cities has leapt into my top five favorite books of all time, displacing Possession by A. S. Byatt.  I wonder if my reaction to it is because I went into it cold. Not really knowing anything about it other than it was set during the time of the French Revolution was one of my reasons for picking it up. I did scan the introduction a little bit and it gave me the clue that there was a substitution of victims, so I was aware of that part, but I did stop reading the introduction because they are dreadful about spoilers and I didn't want to know any more.  That said, I'm going to pause here for a moment. If you have...
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