Fun, educational website for kids

I just have to share this! http://kidsedwebsites.com/ is a website that posts a daily learning activity for kids. Recent ones that I glanced at were: design and test a catapult, build a pyramid for pharoah, solve a medical mystery, and create and explode a volcano.

Spring Wildflowers

Spring has finally started to appear! Can you believe it? Of course, they're still talking snow. I thought the FCC has rules about saying naughty words on air, but "snow" must not be one of those naughty words, at least by their rules. In April, it's a naughty word by my rules, however!

Anyway, ds7 and I found the following while we were riding on the Rail Trail the other day: bloodroot and two little sprigs of Dutchman's breeches. I showed him how the bloodroot leaves and stem "bleed" (it was more orange than red, strangely...usually it's red!) Dutchman's breeches are my favorite...they're so cute and they really do look like upside-down Dutch boy pants hanging from a clothesline. The timing was especially appropriate, as we had just finished reading The Wheel on the School the night before :-) In my yard there are three little wild strawberry blossoms (so far). I'm so glad to see the first signs of spring. Bring on some more flowers, and some wild strawberries to munch on, too!

Overheard in the backseat...

DD11 gets a text message from a friend, Julia. DS7 asks "Who is Julius?" I interjected that it was Julius Caesar. After a moment, DS7 replied that Julius Caesar is already dead. DD11 referred to the texter as "she", at which DS7 informed her that Julius Caesar is a boy, not a girl. Um-hm, sounds like somebody's been eavesdropped on core 6 again ;-) That was two or three months ago when we covered that time period. Yay, he remembered!

Invasion of the Cat Burglar

So picture this. DD11 is sitting on the "throne". She's alone in the house...I'm at work, the "boys" are asleep. Suddenly, she hears a noise in the bathtub. Unable to arise and discover the source of the noise, she sits quietly, contemplating the causes. A mouse? A burglar? A CAT burglar? Suddenly, a head appears. A furry orange & white head. Thankfully, it was nothing more serious than the dreaded cat burglar.

So now we have discovered why our septic system gurgles and blurbles. The cat has been bathing while we are away, and filling our septic tank. I thought he'd smelled sweet and clean lately ;-)

Another record maple syrup year...

I just realized that the last thing I said about maple syrup season was that there'd been a fire. Oops! Things didn't halt because of a little thing like a fire. My dad ended up with 850 gallons of sap (100 more than last year) and 15 gallons of cooked syrup. Would have been 20 gallons if he hadn't lost sap in the fire, but he was in danger of losing the sap to spoilage because he was having trouble getting it cooked fast enough, so perhaps the fire was a bit of a blessing. Anyway, everything is packed away for another year, which we are of course looking forward to, but we'll take spring, summer, and fall first, thank you very much ;-)

What to blog about?

I was reading about the International Food Blogger Convention. Wow, does that ever look fun? Food and blogging...two of my favorite combos. But really, I'd rather blog about education, because I have this:

Yippee, boxes of books...some of them new, some of them being recycled (hence the non-Sonlight box...that's core 2 that I pulled off the shelf...so easy thanks to the nice orange spine stickers SL provides :D)

So yes, I'm at work. I'd prefer not to have to save any lives today, because those books are speaking to me. Very soon they shall be in my hands, and then, woe to anyone who dares to interrupt me for something so trivial as...say...needing an ambulance ;-)

Fire Photos

Before picture, from maybe three weeks ago. Note the large blue storage tank...actually, there were two of them and they each held 60 gallons of sap.

After, pointing toward the side where the blue tanks were. You can see the black area extending out from the front of the cooking area. The woodpile has greatly diminished because much of it was at least partially burned, so he has finished off burning it in the cooking fire.

Charred stump that has been used as a chopping block in the past.

Trash by the road, awaiting tomorrow morning's pick-up. The blue things are obviously the storage tanks. The greenish thing between them used to be a very large trash can. The buckets are his 5 gallon pails that he used to carry the sap that he emptied out of his tap containers.

Other side of the trash pile.

The good news is that the fire is still burning and the sap is merrily boiling away. Takes a lot to shut down Poppa's Syrup Operation!

Sad news for the maple syrup operation

There was a fire at the maple syrup operation tonight. Not the fire that was supposed to be. The area around the stove burned in a small brush fire. Gone are 150 gallons of sap that were waiting to be cooked, along with the two large storage drums and a few buckets that held the sap, plus equipment, including damage to the nice big floodlights my dad used at night (I think a new cord will repair those...hopefully anyway!) I'm not sure if his woodpile burned or not. I'm at work...my poor mom was home alone when it happened. She was blaming herself until my ds7 pointed out that he's seen my dad extinguish small fires that could have gotten larger as this one did. Ironically, the boiling fire itself was fine...the sap was cooking away merrily when the fire department arrived.

Not sure at this point what my dad will do...he obviously has no storage facility now for any sap he collects. I don't know if he will rush out to replace his equipment, or call it good for the season and pull his taps. He's got a good syrup harvest even if he doesn't continue to make any more this year. He probably doesn't know at this point either...by light of day he can assess and rebuild.

God is good tho...there was no wind so the fire didn't extend toward either of our homes. No one was hurt. Nothing was damaged that can't be replaced. It happened while it was still daylight, not overnight when we were sleeping.

Japanese Tanka Poetry

DD11's language arts this week dealt with forms of Japanese poetry, and she was assigned to write a tanka, which is a traditional poetry form. It consists of 5 lines, with the syllables following this pattern: 5-7-5-7-7. In an effort to inspire her to work on her partially-complete tanka, I created one myself:

Maple trees in spring
Dull branches appearing dead
Hidden life within
Sweet sap, vital nutrients
Fire, thick syrup emerges

Amazing Hiccup Cure

Believe it or not, there's a cure for hiccups, and you probably have it right in your kitchen. Eat a spoonful of peanut butter. Amazingly, that's all there is to it! Both of my kids have tried it, and it works instantly. It's pretty funny, when they start hiccing away, to see them run to the kitchen and rummage in the drawer for a spoon so they can dive into the peanut butter bowl ;-)

Spring with the Raptors

My dad has been observing spring raptor rituals, since he's out in the backyard with his maple syrup operation a lot. We finally decided, after looking at these spectacular raptor photos, that he's been watching a pair of cooper's hawks in their spring mating ritual. They've been calling back and forth a lot. We hear them even when we can't see them. He's observed what appeared to be show-off aerial maneuvers. Today one of them flew very low over our house, so we could clearly see his feather markings, which is what enabled us to positively identify them. Very cool to see and hear!

Another sign of spring...

The annual "exit of the river ice" has occurred. Unfortunately, however, it decided to sneak out during the night, so for the first time in 7 years, we totally missed it :-( Oh well, there's always next year. It seems strange to look down at the river and see brown instead of white. Then again, it's nice to not see much white anywhere, because surely that means that soon there will be green, and flowers, and all of those nice things that make us want to be outdoors more! Hurray!

More spring

So yesterday it was all about maple syrup...today it's about cooking. My dh bought us a grill over the winter and it's been sitting in the pole building awaiting good enough weather to get it to the back deck. The deed is accomplished. He even had a propane bottle so he could get it hooked up right away! The kids were just DYING to have something cooked on the grill, so I fixed the whole meal on it. Mind you, I'm not a griller. Or at least I haven't been until now. But I think I'll be liking this! I made dilled red potatoes (grilled in foil), homemade vegie burgers (YUMMY) served with cucumber raita sauce, grilled tomatoes (yummy and dh loved them) and we grilled a piece of Indian na'an bread that was in the frig. The only thing that didn't get grilled was our salad ;-) Oh, and dessert was s'mores on the grill. I thought I did really well, for a short-notice and last minute change of dinner plans, and for not really having much in the house that could be grilled.

Spring Has Sprung!

There's lots of activity around our house these days. Here are a couple of taps. The view is down over the riverbank, so that's the frozen river below and the opposite riverbank as well.

This was what I found when I came home from work this morning. Activity, already. And children, willingly out of bed and dressed and doing things. At 7:30 in the morning!!! What is it about maple syrup time that gets them going so well, LOL?

Closer inspection revealed Poppa getting the bricks built up to seal the heat in for the hottest cooking fire...

...And K2 stacking his pile of kindling that he's been working on collecting...

...And using his new hatchet to chop bigger sticks down to useable size.

Tada, things are off to a rolling boil! The sap is flowing like crazy...last report was 40 gallons of sap collected, and he hadn't checked all of his taps (some have bigger collection containers so he doesn't check them as often)

In other news, the going rate for pine cones collected from the yard is a penny a piece. K2 picked up 119 of them today, for which I paid him and then gave them to Poppa to burn. We have a super-abundant crop and he barely made a dent in the mess!

Heaven!

Doesn't that all look YUMMY??? Might fill him up for...oh...1/2 an hour, I think!

OK, don't panic...I really didn't buy all that popcorn and force the poor child to eat it. It was given to him :-) Actually, we had a small role in the filming of a commercial, and this was his prop. Yes, he did get to eat some. No, it's not "real' movie theater popcorn...no grease or sodium here folks!

Dental issues

Something important happened at our house yesterday! This is how ds6 looked when he got up in the morning (yep, scary hair and all ;-) You'll notice a hole in his mouth, btw. Well, he's been persistently wiggling the tooth next to the hole, and he informed me while I was fixing breakfast that his mouth hurt below where that tooth was loose, and that the tooth needed to come out, and the sooner the better!

His "dentist" was in the shower, so he waited for her to exit the bathroom, and informed her that he needed to schedule an appointment with her. Having not heard the conversation between myself and him, she was quite confused as to why her younger sibling would need an appointment with her but he finally cleared her confusion on the matter. So, here they are. I think one of them looks waaaaay too happy, don't you, LOL?

He actually ended up sitting on my lap. They tried the "jerk head" method that successfully removed tooth #1, but that didn't work. This tooth required the "twist and pull" method. It sounded...ummm..let's just say uncomfortable...but it was quick and definitely effective.

Now he has a hole for sticking his tongue out, hee hee ;-)

My favorite vacation spot...

suggested by Work at Home Musings

"What is your favorite vacation spot? Why?"

Without a doubt, it's South Manitou Island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. According to Native American legend, a raging forest fire in Wisconsin drove a mother bear and her two bear cubs into the lake, where they swam toward Michigan. The mother bear reached shore and climbed to the top of a high bluff to await the arrival of the bear cubs, but the cubs had tired and could swim no longer. They drowned within sight of the shore. The Great Spirit Manitou created two islands to mark the spot where the bear cubs drowned, and then created the solitary dune to represent the mother bear.

South Manitou Island lies about 17 miles offshore and is accessible by private boat, or passenger ferry. Don't plan on finding any modern amenities when you arrive at the island, however. Whatever you're going to need, you'd better bring yourself. Forget electronic devices if you plan to stay for long...once they're dead, you won't be able to recharge them ;-) You have your choice of three campgrounds to backpack to. We camped at Weather Station Campground, about a 1.5 mile hike from the dock. It lies on the southern end of the island and overlooks the Manitou Passage and Sleeping Bear Dunes. The sunrises and sunsets out over the open water are spectacular. The peace and quiet is awesome. When you disconnect from all distractions, your mind is so much more open to God as he speaks to you. Nature, God's second book, is abundant, from plants and flowers below, to virgin white cedar above. With no artificial light for miles around, the night sky shines with unforgettable clarity. There are unique features to the island. There are no deer on the island, so plant life exhists in a way not found where there are deer grazing on it. Twelve species of orchids can be found on the island. There are no skunks, porcupines, or red squirrels on the island, tho an abundance of chipmunks makes up for the lack of squirrels. Only one species of mouse, the woodland deer mouse, is found on the island. Snowshoe hares are found on South Manitou Island, but not on neighboring North Manitou Island.

Things to do while staying on South Manitou Island include a variety of hikes to see various natural features of the island; visiting the village (now used as housing for staff and volunteers) and museum, climbing the 117 steps of the lighthouse, visiting the old one-room schoolhouse and the cemetery where many of the island's early settlers rest awaiting Jesus' 2nd Coming. Longer hikes will take you to see the cedar forest, a shipwreck on the shoreline (the Francisco Morazon, which ran aground during a November storm in 1960), or the bluffs, the highest point on the island, from which you have a 360 degree view of Lake Michigan. There's also the ambitious 10-mile hike around the island on the beach, should you wish to tackle it.

I recommend bringing hearty food, and a good book or two to enjoy while you're relaxing in the peace and solitude.

Friday Foodblog Fun

Sometimes a momma just has to escape the house to get a good meal. OK, that would soooooooo not be the case at my house...but I did make some "just for me to enjoy" food for my work weekend. First was Warm "Chick'n" Salad, which I served over freshly cooked brown rice. I have enough for another meal yet this weekend :-)


Since I *heart* Hungry Girl, and since someone gave me...for free...a nice butternut squash yesterday, I had to assuage my craving for Bake-Tastic Butternut Squash Fries. I peeled and sliced the squash at home and brought it to work so I wouldn't have to share ;-) Since I don't have convenient oven access at work, I modified the recipe slightly. I cooked the squash in the microwave until it was just tender, and then sauted it on the stovetop in a very small amount of olive oil to brown it. Delicious, and I have enough for two more batches :-)

Teaching common sense

Where has common sense gone? I have to wonder sometimes...although the "lack of" is job security for me and my dh! As we say, "There ain't no cure for stupid!" Anyway, I stopped at an accident last night. It was raining cats and dogs. To set the scene...the expressway has a crossover due to bridge construction, and there's a spot that collects water when it rains. It's clearly signed. Those yellow diamonds (ya know, WARNING signs!) that say "Water over road" do mean something. I think. Anyway, so this chick plowed thru the flooded roadway at 60 mph and spun out. She TOLD me the speed limit was posted 60 mph so that's how fast she was driving. Ummmmmmmmmm, right. That's where I wonder what has happened to common sense? Ya know, that little voice that whispers to you that perhaps you should slow down and drive in a prudent manner, as dictated by road conditions? Doi!

One good thing about those lacking common sense is that it affords excellent opportunities for us to teach common sense to our kids. We often discuss incidents like this, in terms of how a particular situation could be avoided, or what could be done differently. Hopefully by the time my kids are of the age of majority, we'll have drummed at least a shred of common sense into them and they'll actually REMEMBER what we've taught them!

How to completely surprise someone...

I don't do it often, but tonight, I did it. I pulled something off on my dd11! She was away for a few hours, and during that time, I arranged for her to spend the day tomorrow with her best friend. (Best friend lives several hrs away but BF's grandparents live 45 minutes away. BF is visiting grandparents this weekend...AND...my dh has a class to attend, in that same town. So, dd is riding over with him and spending the day with her BF.) Anyway, dd had no inkling whatsover that I had done anything of the sort, until BF called her and told her. The mild eruption that occurred in my house at that moment closely resembled activity at Mt. Redoubt at about the same time...perhaps those webicorders were really recording my dd, and not a volcano????

Anyway, ds6 and I get some quality time tomorrow. With only one child to educate, I may actually have time to breathe. What a thought!

The Well Educated....

Are you well educated? Could you be? Any homeschooler has probably at least HEARD of The Well Educated Mind so that's a good place to start, right? How else could you be well educated? Let me count the ways!

We find out that NH Imports the Well Educated.
Your well can be well educated too...now isn't that a deep subject, LOL?
And just what DOES it mean to be well educated, anyway? (Great article, btw!)

So anyway, I'm pretty sure you didn't predict the direction this was going to go...but my cat is well educated, too. Here's the proof!

Every time I sit down to read to my kids--that's the Sonlight Core 1 schedule on my lap, btw--Butterscotch appears. I know it's because he wants to learn. Otherwise, why would he insist on being as close as possible to the great books we're reading?

Current snow & ice pics

Would you believe, I had to post OLD sledding pics on Saturday because I didn't have any current ones? I have remedied that!

DD11 coming down the hill

DS 6 (aka "The Blue Marshmallow!" on the zoom

We had a minor flood a couple of weeks ago. Since there was still ice on the river when the water rose, unusually large chunks of ice broke up and were carried by the water. When the water receded, most of the ice sheets receded too, but a few were left behind on the riverbanks. They're HUGE!

"Icebergs" marooned on the river bank opposite us.

Looking upriver at some more ice sheets

You could slither completely under this ice sheet and down into the river, if you wanted to! Don't worry, my kids are NOT going to get wet feet...they wouldn't have been under there if I hadn't first deemed it to be safe. This ice sheet is the size of a small room...

probably at least 10' x 20'

This ice is over a foot thick!

Snow Fun!

When God gives you fresh snow, why not play? We got several inches of fresh new powdery stuff today, so the kids went out sledding, and after I finished shovelling the porch and sidewalk, I went to watch them. Watching ended up meaning "helping" because they chose to sled off of a steep hill. You just can't balance a sled on a 2-inch wide crest, without it sliding down before you're ready, right? So, with much sliding, slipping, and giggling, I held the sleds until they could get seated and then gave them a push. They excelled in trying to beat each other's distance records and tried to make it across the road.

Tomorrow I'm going out to take pics of the marooned ice chunks. Last week the river flooded, raising the ice, and some huge slabs got stranded on the riverbanks when the flood waters receded. Interesting!

Choosing where to live

"What are the most important factors for you in choosing which town to live? Some factors to rate are: weather, population, job market, accessibility, recreation, churches, schools, shopping, crime rate, etc."

Well, the HTML code for my prompt today got messed up somehow (I DIDN"T DO IT!) and it won't post correctly, so you get question only, no link today ;-)

Interesting question. I've never really had to choose where to live. When I left my childhood home, where I lived was dictated by my (now) dh's job. As a sheriff's deputy, he had to live in the county where he worked. After we were married, we did work together to buy 10 acres of wooded land and clear a spot to put a house on. We both liked the woods, and not having neighbors terribly close. Our main factors in choosing where to live was affordability of the land, being in the proper county, and the fact that we liked rolling wooded areas vs flat open acreages.

4 years ago, we moved again. We'd thought that perhaps it was time to move, since by then we were both commuting long distances to work and the kids were getting older and more involved in things that also required a commute from our old house. The blessing that happened was that the house next door to my parents...next door to my childhood home...went on the market, and we were able to purchase it! Our acreage shrunk and we're not in the middle of the woods anymore, but we now have a bigger house that works better for the size of our family, and a nice large yard to play in. I still look out my kitchen window at woods...it's just across the river now and I don't own it, but thats ok. It's still very quiet here, like at our old house. We're much closer to the places we need to go...church, shopping, kid activities, work. We're blessed to have my parents next door, and I know that as they age, it will be easier for me to check on them and help them with their needs.

The absent blogger re-surfaces!

suggested by throught the eyes of an everyday extraordinaire

"Let it be people, music, objects, or anything else, what inspires you in your life?"

Definitely music. Because of my gift of perfect pitch, I hear music very often. Usually it's multi-part harmony. Sometimes it's recorded music. Sometimes it's a little tune that I "hear in my head" and harmonize myself. Sometimes it gets stuck and I have a hard time getting rid of it...but that can happen to anyone. And sometimes it's so stuck that I still hear it over recorded music that I play to try to eliminate it, LOL.

Music has so many capabilities. It can stimulate or soothe...energize or relax. It can change your mood and help you release stress. It transforms our world from a dull, colorless place to a place that transcends ugliness. As a musician, I can express my very soul through what I play or sing. I can worship my God and Creator in music. I can stretch my mind as I think about the words I sing...about their meaning and how best to express that meaning. (That's something I'm trying to get better at doing...I'm a work in progress!)

Music is a universal language. I've played with musicians from all over the world. Musicians with whom I couldn't exchange a "hello" because of language barriers. Language barriers quickly fall when there is music, and instead, there is unity. Talk about fun!

My greatest wish is to be a musician in heaven after the Lord's Second Coming. I've not yet decided which I want to do first--learn to play the harp (surely it'll be easier in the perfect heavenly environment!) or sing glorious harmonies in that big perfect heavenly choir.