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...

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...