Ordinary Time

The last thing we needed to do to finish biology was to dissect the buckets of specimens I had bought. I could do it, but I also knew W. could do it infinitely better. He agreed to be the dissection teacher and this afternoon was the first of three sessions. They started with a mussel (which was not overly exciting) then moved on to the worm and the crawfish. You can see that not everyone was fond of the smell of the preservative. But W. is an excellent teacher and here everyone had gathered closely to see better.

A few years ago TM bought some tablets for his younger siblings. H. has used hers the most and it has been a good substitute for a phone. She has been able to play music and watch drawing videos and whatnot. She has enjoyed using it. She has enjoyed using it until a couple of weeks ago, that is. As these things will, Minecraft has come around again as the popular screen activity for some of her siblings. This time, though, H. has been aware of it, asking J. to get her some library books about Minecraft. She was also interested in getting it put on her tablet. J. explained that he wasn't sure it would be compatible, but wouldn't know until he tried. H. was willing to take a chance and pay to buy it. Sadly, as J. feared, it didn't work. H. was disappointed.  For a couple of years, H. has been earning money by doing some daily jobs around the house. (One of those jobs is to fix R. breakfast, which is an immense help.) She doesn't spend it on very much, so just saves it. Th

Today was the first day of the weaving class I had signed up for months ago. I've been very much looking forward to the class. It was so wonderful to be back at Find Line. The class is about weaving turned twill. I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of you aren't interested in hearing the technical aspects of this weave structure, so I'll just show a picture of what I'm working on.  The other thing I've been working on... and finishing! ... is the card weaving I was working on. I think it's pretty good for a first attempt.  A close up of the pattern. Even though my inkle loom is small, it's about 1.75 yards. It's a narrow band, as you can see . What am I going to do with it? I have no idea. It's pretty sturdy and would be a good strap or handle. I'll add it to my stash until a need for it arises. 

From Y.  From H.  And a lovely day with many children spent outside. D. even planted my tomatoes and peppers, though I forgot to take a picture.  From W. and MC

For a week that looked easy because there was very little on the calendar, I felt as though I wasn't home much and was running all week. So all you get is pictures with a few words.  I figured out a way to let the ponies have the barn aisle on rainy days so they have more room to walk around.  It also means that I feel a bit like Grover in The Monster at the End of this Book, escalating my hay containment method to keep the ponies out of it.  The other day as I was leaving the barn I saw this. If you look closely you will see L. reading while sitting on Chuck the Tractor. We still have A.'s cats living with us. They very much like my reading chair.  And I am always fascinated by the sparrows in the barn. We've had nests of sparrow babies each spring for as long as the barn has existed. I'm not sure about this year, though. There are lots of sparrows, but nest building seems to be challenging for them. Take for instance, this next.  They usually don't have such a wil

Some weeks I find it easy to do the weekly meal plan, and some weeks, such as this one, there doesn't seem to be anything I want to eat.  While I was weeding a flower garden on Sunday, I came across quite a few wild onions. (Yes, they were indeed wild onions and not death camas, and I have the 45 minutes of Googling to prove it.) So I washed off the mud and stuck them in the refrigerator. As I was not coming up with any meals, I thought about the wild onions and put something vague about wild onions and eggs on the menu. Over the next couple of days, this went from a vague idea to an actual plan. I had some extra asparagus and bell pepper that needed to be eaten and there was arugula and spinach growing in the garden, so those were added to the onions. Then, I realized that we have a huge stand of stinging nettle over by the creek. (Did you know stinging nettle is really good for you?) So I sent L. out to do some collecting. L. is well versed in stinging nettle, because a few years

"This was Dr. Ham's [Dr. Jacob Ham, psychologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC] whole theory: that because of its repetitive nature, complex trauma is fundamentally relational trauma. In other words, this is trauma caused by bad relationships with other people -- people who were supposed to be caring and trustworthy and instead were hurtful. That meant future relationships with anybody would be harder for people with complex trauma because they were wired to believe that other people could not be trusted. The only way you could heal from relational trauma, he figured, was through practicing that relational dance with other people. Not just reading self-help books or meditating alone. We had to go out and practice maintaining relationships in order to reinforce our shattered belief that the world could be a safe place." - What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo, p. 270 "It's not the fights that matter. It's the repairs ." p. 279 I finished reading this book

Today was R.'s birthday. She chose donuts for breakfast and dumpling stir fry for dinner with chocolate cake for dessert.  Clothes and coloring books are what she loves and so that is what got. She is having great difficulty deciding what outfit to wear first tomorrow.  And how can she be 19?! This is what I don't understand at all. 

It's so nice when adult children do something that gives me a ready made blog post. Last night in our family group chat, W. and MC shared that they had added two kittens to their home. Cute, aren't they? I have to admit I am kind of a sucker for little orange stripy kittens.  Of course, when G. and L. discovered there were kittens to be played with, they had to go over, so J. took them over as part of some errands he was running. 

Spring is officially here and it's lovely. I greatly appreciate being able to go outside and not have to put on a coat... or five. We are finishing up our school work for the year. I've gone through to figure out what we have left and have put the appropriate library books on hold.  There are flowers everywhere. This little crab apple tree has never bloomed to this extent before.  G. has pretty much perfected making focaccia and we are all most appreciative. With our co-op ending this past Tuesday, we are all feeling relaxed and as though we have a lot more free time. May is a very relaxing month for us. I apologize to all those who feel the exact opposite about May. I have begin the hardening off process with the seedlings.  Vienna continues to slowly improve. I had stopped poulticing a couple of days ago, but I think she is still fighting abscesses in her rear hooves, so they went back on today. They do make here feel a lot more comfortable.  Here is another reason I think sh

Recently I've been listening to a class on cultural literacy as I clean the barn. It's been interesting, but I wasn't expecting to be be blindsided by it. I like to think of myself as somewhat culturally literate. I read widely, I've had friends who come from myriad different places (though this was significantly easier in Evanston), and I have done some travelling which requires longer stays in a place and not just a few days.  This morning totally knocked me on my heels. The discussion was about cultures with collectivist outlooks verses cultures with individualistic outlooks. (The US is strongly individualistic while China is strongly collectivist, if you were wondering.) The teacher told a story tone of his children while they were living in Singapore and her reaction to some of the rules regarding dog ownership. Her reaction at four-ish years of age was extremely individualistic and he was surprised at the degree to which that outlook had been communicated to her e

I noticed this evening as I was flailing around trying to think of something to write that as of yesterday, I have written 4400 posts on this blog. That seems crazy. If I made a guess at average word length being 500 words for each post (which is probably low) that comes to having written at least 2,200,000 words.  So I'm just going to rest on my laurels a bit tonight and also lower my average word count by stopping right there. Even I can see the benefit of being brief every now and then.