Ordinary Time

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. 

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...

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. 

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...

Those were the exact words that flashed across my mind right in between grabbing onto a ladder in the barn at the exact spot a wasp had been resting and the extreme pain from its sting on being grabbed. I was right. It did hurt very much. But, I finished up with the last few barn chores because a storm was coming and I needed to get everything set in order to get the horses under cover.  The intense pain had dulled somewhat by the time I made my way back to the house. I put some baking soda paste on it and are my breakfast. Somewhere between finishing the New York Times puzzles and finishing my coffee, I became aware of my finger swelling. That alone would be unpleasant, but did I mention which finger the wasp stung? That would be my ring finger, the one with the already slightly too small wedding ring on it. I hurriedly took an antihistamine, but based on the fact I could now feel my pulse in my finger it seemed it wouldn't be able to work fast enough if it was going to do anythin...

On my business cards and website I have a tag line that says, ,"Creating awareness to make room for positive change." This is pretty straightforward when it comes to working with horses. It is actually a pretty good definition of what Equine Assisted Learning is. It might not be immediately evident how it fits into my fiber activities and teaching. Since I have nothing to show you that looks very different from the last time I showed it to you, I thought I'd discuss this idea a bit.  I think my fiber activities and my tag line actually fit quite nicely together. There is nothing like watching fiber being prepared for spinning, learning to spin on a suspended spindle, then realize all you have done is make the yarn that needs to them be turned into fabric to help you see the clothes you are wearing in a new light. If we learn to appreciate textiles for what they are, perhaps we can become better consumers of them, or at the very least consume less and extend the life of wh...