Ordinary Time

A Friday with absolutely no obligations and decent weather. How often does that happen? Not nearly enough, that's for sure. My garden is doing well, if well means growing a bit out of control. The early greens are done and I need to pull them and replant. I have beets I need to pull and pickle and I'm just staying ahead of the green beans. There are four or five little tine watermelons started, but I can't find a single pie pumpkin. The zucchini are starting to produce a bit more and the tomatoes are just now starting to ripen. But really, lets talk about cucumbers. I'm picking cucumbers every day. I think I have picked all the cucumbers that are big enough. Then, the next day I go out and am able to pick these. These are monster sized cucumbers. Do you see the bottle opener for size comparison? Here is the current pile of cucumbers from yesterday. The okra, perhaps taking a cue from its next door neighbor the cucumbers, has decided to try growing to mo

"Children have a natural impulse to explore and manipulate their surroundings, but increasingly in contemporary life this impulse is suppressed. Much of the time, this lack of opportunity is not even recognized as deprivation, because children are easily distracted by the latest technology, and in staying indoors there is a perception that they are being kept 'safe.' With its various gadgets and gizmos, technology delivers a wealth of preprogrammed play, but for all their variety and ingenuity, such manufactured illusions keep us in a sate of dependence  -- they could not be further from the kind of creative and empowering illusions that Winnicott and Milner [authors mentioned previously in the chapter] wrote about. As children, and let us not forget it, as adults too, we need to dream, we need to do, and we need to have an impact on our environment. These things give rise to a sense of optimism about our capacity to shape our own lives."  -- from The Well-Gardened Mi

If you were to walk into and around my house right now, you would see: Over 20 cucumbers waiting to be turned into pickles in the kitchen An Australian saddle in my living room waiting for its next dose of oil to keep trying to soften up the leather Too much laundry piled up in the utility room, but also some kombucha that most certainly has turned into vinegar at this point A table in my studio piled high with books and notes that I've been using to plan our homeschool year An unfinished dress on the dress form, as well as other smaller projects waiting to be finished in other corners of the room Also in the studio is a spinning wheel with a half-filled bobbin waiting to have more yarn spun A stack of books in my bedroom either begun or waiting to be read. (You'd also see a basket of folded laundry waiting to be put away, but I'm ignoring that right now, so you can, too.) In both my studio and bedroom are knitting projects that are half completed Vegetable garde

Well here I am on a Tuesday again fussing with meal planning and grocery shopping, when in my head I am really doing this on a Monday. I feel as though I've briefly lost my meal planning mojo. The trouble is that when you have 12 other people who think they should eat every day, you have to do it whether you feel like it or not. At least this week I have actually made a menu. It's a step in the right direction, huh? Tuesday, July 28 Tacos      We'd had tacos recently, but when I asked for suggestions this was popular, so that's what we had. Plus, it's easy. Refried beans      I had cooked beans in the freezer, so I just needed to heat them up. Wednesday, July 29 Italian sausage, pepper, and onion sandwiches      I do this in the crock pot, and since I had frozen sausages and languishing peppers, it seemed like a good choice. I'm hoping to talk G. into making buns to eat it in. Sauteed long beans      The long bean plants are producing a lot, so we

The school planning is going well. I have found a free middle school chemistry resource that looks as though it will be a great structure for what we will be doing; I'll just need to add extra things. Having found this, I decided to first work in earnest on Ancient Greece. My studio table is piled with books. I have a lot of books about Ancient Greece and there is not enough time room to have them all spread out singly. Last year I had found the Oxford First Ancient History which we used quite a bit for Ancient Egypt; it is proving equally useful this year. I'm using it as our outline for what we cover and when. I'm currently up to the Persian Wars, focusing particularly on the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis. (Since I've just been writing down lists of readings, activities, and documentaries so far, I'm starting to be concerned I'll have far more than we will be able to use during the school year. There is still quite a bit I need to add... phi

Yesterday was an eventful day in the barn. In the morning as G. and I were feeding, turning out horses, and doing stalls, I tied up Java to pick her feet just like every day. I turned to get something and realizing she is going berserk behind me. I get to her quickly and calm her down, having no idea what set her off. Even after she is somewhat calm again, I notice that she is doing something extremely odd with her mouth. At first I thought it was just Java being Java, as she is prone to doing odd things with her mouth, but then I looked more closely. She has a tendency to throw her head about, and must have caught her nostril on a nearby hook, ripping a good section of skin at the same time. It was definitely time to call the vet (again) and have Java stitched up (again), this time on her front end, rather than her back. While the vet was stitching Java up, we were chatting about the goofy horse. I mentioned that she always has had difficulty knowing where her head is and is often r

I finished the book, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover a couple of days ago, and have been processing about it ever since. I ended up reading it as I read The Handmaid's Tale nearly thirty years ago... in great big chunks because I just needed to be done, but didn't want to leave it unfinished. It was just too traumatic to take my time through it. This post is probably more of me trying to work out what I think about it, so I apologize if it meanders a bit. Once again, I'm late to the party. The book was released in 2018, so while it is still relatively new, the hoopla surrounding it has died down a bit. If you know me, this shouldn't be a surprise, as I tend not to want read anything that is too popular at the moment; I'm just reactionary like that. With our library opening back up a couple of weeks ago, but inter-library loans still not an option, I needed some books I knew our library had, and I knew Educated was on the shelves. I'm not quite sure wh

It's good that it's Friday, because short, unrelated stories about general life is about all I can handle writing-wise at the moment. Some days I feel so overwhelmed by the world, that I just have to turn things off. I find it a tricky balance to stay informed and to maintain mental health. We are slowly continuing to work on the barn and get things as I would like them. J. has measured for the tack room, with the next step being ordering the lumber. We did figure out a way to close off the two big doors so we can keep them open now to let air in. See? They make a huge difference. TM, of course, took a much more interesting photo of the door guards. I finished reading Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover last night. Yikes! Oh my goodness, I have so much to say that it is going to have to wait for another blog post. I fear that we have reached a new level of division in our country where one gets asked if one is an athiest if one severely criticizes the potu

I have begun the homeschool planning for the upcoming school year. I think I have mentioned before that we will be learning about Ancient Greece and chemistry. I've actually been more excited about chemistry (which is probably making my mother laugh to read that), mainly because it is something new, and I like nothing better than researching and planning a new subject. Greece? Not so much. I figure this is about my fourth (maybe fifth?) time through Greece. We have always cycled through the eras of history, spending a year each on Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. Anything past that we would handle as a separate unit study. After the Enlightenment, we would head back to Egypt (again), because there were always younger children ready to start and older children who could do more in-depth learning. Around and around and around. So here we all are back to Ancient Greece. I was feeling it to be a little difficult t

Sometimes I just don't get to the meal planning. It's not actually my favorite task, so I tend to put it off. Then sometimes, such as this week, I put it off for a bit too long. Sure, I could have come home from my riding lesson, made my list, then gone back out to the grocery store(s), but that would've ended up taking the majority of the afternoon, and I was unwilling to devote that much time to it. Instead, I drove straight to the store after my riding lesson without a list. I knew what I needed to restock, and figured I would made up the meals as I went along. I think it worked, though I still have to write them down and assign days. Here are the meals that I bought ingredients for: Yellow potato and chicken curry with naan Lemon spaghetti with garlic bread Grilled pork and pineapple served over rice Steak, blue cheese, and caramelized onion salad Cherry chicken pasta salad Gazpacho (At least I bought tomato juice. I've never made gazpacho, but it's going to be

What with storm troopers having invaded Portland where they are beating unarmed, non-violent men and tear gassing pregnant women, not to mention that it looks as though the data (what there is that people can find because the dictator-in-chief doesn't want any data shared) that Covid-19 death rates seems to be significantly higher for individuals with intellectual disabilities, it just makes me want to curl up in a ball until it all goes away. But since curling up a ball isn't an option, the next best choice is finding books that can at least make me forget the utter disaster our country has fallen into. Contrary to what you might think, I don't always read serious books. I read plenty of fluff; I just don't blog about it because... well... it's fluff. What else is there to say? I thought perhaps you might need a few titles to help you escape the current chaos, so I'm going to share some of my favorite very unliterary, escapists, pure fluff books. Think of t

God tells us in the Bible over and over and over again to not be afraid. I'll admit, there are times when I find this directive to be pretty difficult to follow. I also know that all the times I have been afraid, God has been there to carry us through the hard. That is what I am holding onto right now, because I'll be honest and say I am finding it difficult to not let fear take over.  I find it difficult to not let fear take over when I see reports of unmarked soldiers carting people away without any evidence what they have done wrong or where they are being taken. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/17/portland-protests-federal-arrests/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&fbclid=IwAR2Z4OYgtGZ907g41lrWyDG_TmP_kyxuFpqvv5d_1NZvxZ73k9mT_NvsYuc https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-use-unmarked-vehicles-to-grab-protesters-in-portland?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term

TM took this tonight. It's good to pause and appreciate the beauty of the world God created when the hand basket we are all riding in continues to plummet downwards.

Here we all are again at another Friday. I don't know about you, but it always seems like a minor accomplishment these days. Y. is an official family mower now. She did quite a bit of mowing for J. this afternoon. Y. and K. will have to sort out who gets to mow. J. is happy to off load the job, and we have plenty of grass to mow. As I was driving to one of the barns I routinely go to these days, I drove past a golf course. It was quite a hot day, and as I drove past I thought to myself how terribly silly those golfers were standing in the hot sun golfing. The irony didn't strike me until later that I was driving to go ride a horse in the blazing hot sun. I had a minor equine success on Tuesday. Remember my epic fall last year? It happened in the outdoor arena, and for various reasons, I didn't ride in the outdoor again last summer. On Tuesday I was back in the outdoor again, so it felt like a small victory to ride in it both without incident and without trepidation. T

I am kind of a grammar geek; grammar, in this case, includes punctuation. You know, all those little symbols we add to text to make it more understandable, such as commas, periods, apostrophes, and semicolons. You wouldn't think that punctuation is controversial, but it is. Take for instance the poor Oxford comma (or serial comma). It is such a useful tool; it adds clarity, meaning, and avoids confusion. Yet, the AP manual disallows the Oxford comma, leaving it off before the final conjunction, which, to my mind, just invites confusion. For instance, if I wrote the phrase, "The US president a racist and a misogynist... " you clearly can see that it needs some punctuation to add clarity. Without the Oxford comma, the phrase would read, "The US president, a racist and a misogynist..." This could easily be misconstrued, that perhaps I was trying to describe the president with these attributes. See how confusing not using an Oxford comma could be? However, when y

Can you stand one more post about homeschooling? The world has turned upside down and suddenly area homeschooling FB groups are seeing thousands of new members join each day. It's unreal. I am also finding it more than a little jarring for a variety of reasons. The first is that I am realizing that the vast majority of parents who use the public schools truly have no idea what homeschoolers actually do. It is so ironic that the moment when homeschooling is suddenly seen as a viable educational option for the majority that I have never felt so misunderstood in my life. I know we are a bit more relaxed (okay, maybe a lot more relaxed) than a lot of homeschoolers, but it utterly baffles me that it seems that so many parents have never stopped to give any thought as to what education and learning actually are and what they entail. I may have to scream out loud (as opposed to inside my head) if I read "state standards" or "accredited" or "I have to do everyt

I am off a day with the menu planning this week because I didn't get to the store yesterday. Since we had ordered pizza on a whim one one last week, I still had a meal left, so that is what we ate. I was tired, so was more than happy to put off the meal planning and grocery shopping. Tuesday, July 14 Meatball sandwiches      J. was late at work tonight, so I did a cheat dinner and used frozen meatballs and jarred sauce. I cook for J., so when he is not here, my motivation is low. Sauteed zucchini      These zucchini were left over from last week, because we had a bunch of green beans from the garden which needed eating. The zucchini needed to be eaten so it didn't go bad. Wednesday, July 15 Green chicken curry      A stand-by that I chose because we once again have a lot of green beans from the garden. Jasmine rice Dumplings Thursday, July 16 Homemade hamburger helper      Easy and I had most of the ingredients on hand Salad      I hope I can continue to ee

So you remember yesterday when I mentioned my cucumber vines and how at some point I would be inundated with cucumbers. Well, that point happened to be today. J. decided to poke around in the cucumber bed to see if there were any ripe and this is what he found. That's a lot of cucumbers for not knowing there were any ripe. While was picking cucumbers, I decided to take a look at the sugar snap peas. I've been picking these pretty regularly, but I still got quite a bit. Since I didn't really have anything planned, I decided to go ahead and turn most of the cucumbers into dill pickles right away. My family can eat their weight in dill pickles and we go through many quarts over the course of a year. I knew I was going to be doing a lot of pickling, so I planted quite a few dill plants in my garden. When I headed out to collect the dill... I thought maybe I'd just take a look through the cucumber vines one more time. Look what I found? Yep. More cucumber

Some weeks feel longer than others. This one felt like a long one. We finally had a huge thunderstorm last night. It certainly helped the temperature here. It did not help the fly situation, though. The horses are miserable despite fly masks and gallons of fly spray. I paid K. in ice cream to feed and water the chickens earlier this week. It was just too hot for me to contemplate adding chickens on to horses. Ice cream seems to be the ultimate bribe.  The cucumbers in the garden are exploding. Any minute now I will be inundated with dozens of cucumbers all at once. This is probably good since we opened our last jar of dill pickles a couple of days ago. But still, the vines are everywhere. It kind of feels like The Blob but in cucumber vine form. We have been able to swim a couple of days this past week. A good friend of ours, who only lives a few minutes away, has offered us use of their pool. We are very grateful. J. and I got to go out to dinner a few nights ago. We ate (outsid

A few days ago I came across an article titled, We're Dealing with Five Crises at the Same Time . Those crises are, 1. Global Pandemic 2. Economic Injustice 3. Racial Injustice 4. Threatened Democracy and 5. Climate Change. It is a well thought-out argument, which I agree with. There is a lot going on. But I also think the author missed a crisis: an educational one. If the pandemic has done anything, it has highlighted some real issues in education. The first is the inherent inequity. If you can afford to have a parent stay at home when school has gone all online, your child will have a much different experience than a family where both parents need to work in order to provide for the necessities of life. If you have computers and wi-fi at home, then it is possible to participate in e-learning; learning that becomes completely inaccessible for anyone who cannot afford these things. The system was already inequitable. When schools are funded by property taxes, then inequitable is