Three Plus Two

Summer School

I'm trying to keep everyone somewhat busy and yet still do a lot of sitting (and nursing).  "School" is therefore in session... sort of.  I'm reading aloud in the mornings and requiring math of the big kids and some phonics of Farmerboy (starting next week, after I get our Explode the Code online account set up.)  That's it.  But here's what our days have actually been like...

What we did yesterday:

• Read aloud 1 chapter of Minn of the Mississippi, 1 chapter of Robin Hood (the Howard Pyle version - forsooth!) in the morning, You Can Name 100 Dinosaurs to Chipmunk and Pip at naptime, and at bedtime Andy read 1 chapter of The Buffalo Knife, by William O.Steele (to everyone) and a chapter of Mattimeo, Redwall #3, (just to the little boys).  
• Gareth read The Tombs of Atuan (Ursula K. LeGuin) to himself.
• Katydid wrote... something.
• Boys all built Lego castles.
• Katydid made sandwiches for lunch and brought them outside for a picnic while I nursed the baby.
• A discussion about the physics of trebuchets at lunchtime.
• Everyone played in the hose... for hours and hours.
• Gareth looked over his new Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra.
• Katydid did a couple of pages in her Key to Decimals workbook.
• Katydid and Farmerboy made an "ocean" in a big Rubbermaid container.  Then Farmerboy made his own ocean in a 2 liter bottle (i.e., water + dirt, rocks, shells, sticks, etc) and noted later that everything had settled to the bottom.  Had a discussion about sediment.
• Gareth and Katydid played Wii Secret Agents.
• Everyone except Gareth (who had a doctor's appointment) spent a good long while watching the Giant Ocean Tank webcam at the New England Aquarium... and also grousing about how their mother had already packed all the ocean books.
• Kids decided to watch Finding Nemo.  Gareth and Andy went to Scouts.

What we did today: (I'll try and update tomorrow, since we still have an evening to get through!)

• More webcam watching to start the day.  The nurse shark with the ripped fin was somehow christened "Fred". 
• Scrounging for unpacked books resulted in a little information on tidepools, coral reefs, and sharks.
• The latest "cliffhanger" chapter of Mattimeo narrated to me by Farmerboy (don't worry; I don't assign narrations of bedtime reading!!)
• Taught Katydid to make fried eggs.
• Read aloud Little Farm by the Sea to Chipmunk and another chapter of Minn of the Mississippi, roughly half a chapter of Robin Hood.  It's not bedtime yet, but I expect that Andy will continue to read from The Buffalo Knife and Mattimeo (especially since Farmerboy is adamant about NOT MISSING any of these books.)
• Katydid drew in her nature journal.
• Gareth worked on a map for the novel he's writing.
• Lots more play in the hose.
• More model "oceans".
• Discussion about how the oil spill might affect migrating birds.
• I boiled a batch of eggs.  (Hey, that was a big deal.  I have a 3 week old baby.)
• Katydid worked on decimals some more and Gareth started on chapter 1 of LoF: Beginning Algebra.  He got frustrated when he saw how much there was to chapter 1, but felt much better when we looked at the table of contents and realized that if he did an entire chapter a day he'd finish algebra I in 12 days.  We're shooting for 45 minutes/day.
• I read more of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and discovered that lichens are so slow-growing that big ones are probably hundreds or thousands of years old.  Had to stifle the impulse to run out to the woods and see some really OLD lichens.  I was sitting on the couch, nursing.

Blackberry Picking

Last Saturday we went blackberry picking at "Scout Farm", a piece of land near us that is owned by the Boy Scouts.  The wild blackberries are free for the picking, and all Scout families can go up there whenever they like.  My kids (especially Chipmunk) tend to eat every single blackberry off our bushes as soon as they are picked, and I wanted to make a cobbler.  So we packed into the van and headed up to Scout Farm.

I have to warn you, though, the whole experience was less idyllic than those of you who live in the city or suburbs might assume.  In order to thoroughly understand this experience, you must add to these pictures the sounds of gunfire not as far away as you might hope (target practice, I am assuming); the grumbling noise of construction equipment; and the chug-chug of an old tractor cutting hay.  Mix them all together, and you have a nice "quiet" day in the country.

One of the first things we saw were these prints.  The picture doesn't do them justic, because they were big.  Bigger than dog prints.  Bear maybe??

This is a beaver pond, but we couldn't find the lodge.

Andy and Katydid did most of the picking.  I was busy keeping track of Chipmunk, and the boys decided they would rather "hunt bear" than pick blackberries, even with the promise of blackberry cobbler.

Fortunately, they did not find one. 

Katydid and I had more luck "hunting" with the camera.

Frost Aster, by Katydid.

On the way home, we saw a porcupine crossing the road, but Andy couldn't get a good picture.   Can you see him in the grass there, a big blob of white-tipped quills?

Landscapes from the way home...

And finally, blackberries for cobbler:

  

Week 1

Before I forget what we did in week 1 ... here's a run-down, heavy on the little guys.

Also...

• Ice Cube Necklaces

Water and Weather:

Pop went through a phase where he would come in from playing outside every night and ask to check the weather for tomorrow.  The boys also watched a show about the effects of hurricanes: what hurricane force winds would do to a mobile home, how water could push a car off the road and wash it away, etc.  Ever since we watched the NOVA Flood! back in the spring, the twins have been fascinated by floods.  They build floods (using pillows and blankets) and pretend they are "flood monsters" who hatch out of "eggs" (they cover themselves with their pillows.)  So I decided to start out with a relaxed focus on water and weather.

 I made a weather chart for our first week.  Farmerboy enjoyed filling it in, but we forgot about it a few times.  I'll have to make another chart and get going again.

Week 1 was hot, so the boys played in the hose quite a bit.  Playing in the hose involved flooding certain areas of yard and driveway, and doing experiments with matchbox cars and other objects, to see how much water force was needed to push which toys.  I think Farmerboy did a few float-and-sink experiments on his own as well.

And we read a few books:

• Weather Words and What They Mean
• The Storm Book
• The Magic School Bus Inside A Hurricane

Pip and Pop drew pictures of thunderstorms, but for some reason I don't seem to have any photos.  Hmmm.  Could have sworn I took some pictures of their pictures...

Art:

Quite a bit of "random" and not so random art in the house during week 1.  Over the weekend prior to our first day of school, I chanced upon a Jo-Anne's while we were out looking for clothes for Andy.  I rarely get out to actual craft stores, so I jumped at the chance.  Then I remembered why I don't usually go to craft stores; they make small children nuts.  Anyway, I stocked up on a few supplies: clay, stickers, fabric for Katydid, wooden stuff to paint...

Pip loves to paint and will do it for long periods of time.

He's using a foam paint I bought a long, long time ago from Discount School Supply.  I got it out for Chipmunk to smush around with his hands.  The paint itself is like shaving cream. I'm not sure Discount School Supply carries it anymore.

Katydid used tempera paints to paint a crucifix.

It was kind of funny; as soon as I took all of the containers of dead tent caterpillar moths and dirt that once housed earthworms out of our science/nature area and cleaned it up, Pip immediately brought in an orange bucket full of dirt and we needed a place to dry treasure chests and crosses.  Oh well.  It exists to be used, right?

In the category of "themed" art, Katydid drew a Victorian girl to accompany her Sunflower Basket...

And Gareth, inspired by the book Swords: An Artist's Devotion, began a series of pencil sketches of swords, which he continues to work on.  (He's experimenting with shading these days.)

We also got out the new clay.

 

And had baths.

The theme of the day seemed to be "farm animals".  Pip and I made that cow in the center.   Pip gets very frustrated when he can't make his hands and materials cooperate with the vision in his head.  It's my job to provide him with direct instruction on how to use the materials, show him how to use the materials, and to be very, very patient.  He really wanted to make a cow, but he couldn't get the "foot" to stick onto the leg he'd made.  So I showed him how to rough up the clay and use slip to stick the parts together.  Then he was still upset so I had him guide me through the process of making the cow.  After we were done, he happily made a snake on his own, using the techniques I'd shown him to attach a head to a body.

(These are my new shelves, by the way.  I originally wanted them for paint, but they seem to have begun holding in-progress work by default.)

ABCs and 123s?

Well, a bit.  I was going to try to start doing some of Farmerboy's academic work with him in the morning so that the twins could sit in, too.  The problem: keeping the twins involved in the same activity for more than five minutes, and keeping Chipmunk from eating the tips off all the markers.  So Farmerboy is once again doing phonics and math in the afternoon. 

Here are a few of the Montessori-ish activities (homemade) the 3 and 6 year olds did this week:

I made up some pattern/matching cards using stickers. (I originally say this activity a long time ago on one of Katherine's blogs.) The boys did all the fish and butterfly cards --although the twins seem to have trouble with the idea of "matching" when their natural inclination is to make all sorts of interesting sticker pictures instead.  I have to admit that I'd probably rather make sticker pictures, too, but Farmerboy liked making the patterns and whizzed through the harder ones that I'd made for him.

Pop also did a bunch of scissors exercises, and Pip worked hard on coloring ladybugs and bees in the Handwriting Without Tears preschool workbook which I dug out of the basement for him.  They both want to do "math" like the big kids, complete with books, so I will have to see what I can do.

Ice Cube Necklaces

Yesterday was a tough day, and hot.  But there was a bright spot.  A cool spot?  The little boys and I made ice cube necklaces. 

I got the idea from More Mudpies to Magnets: Science for Young Children.  This is a book I have thought about buying for years.  This year I have a bunch (as in 3) experimentally oriented young children, so I bought the book. 

Ice cube necklaces are super simple.  All you need are a couple of ice cube trays, yarn or string, and a collection of smallish objects that will fit in each cube.  I took the boys on a walk around the yard and garden, and they collected flowers, leaves, sticks, rocks, and a small piece of sidewalk chalk.  I held the ice cube trays, and the boys just put their objects in wherever they wanted.  We insured that one row did not hold rocks or other small chokable objects so that Chipmunk could have a necklace, too, and the boys were warned repeatedly that they weren't to eat these ice cubes since we weren't using food to make them.  (Actually we did use some edibles -- dandelion leaves, rose petals, lemon balm -- but exceptions are too complicated.)

After you fill the trays with objects and water, lay strands of yarn or string across each row of cubes, making sure that the yarn dips down into the water in each cube.  Here's what our trays looked like when I put them in the freezer:

As you can see the most difficult part was ensuring that the yarn stay in the water.  It kept bobbing up and needed a little re-arranging.

The twins were not sure what would happen.  Farmerboy knew the cubes would freeze, but he didn't know how long it would take, so he kept checking until the big kids went outside to play in the hose.  It actually took about 4 hours for them to freeze.

The boys melted the ice in their hands, banged it on the deck to chip it into pieces, refroze parts of it, and tried to wear it... but it was too cold!  We talked about solids and liquids and states of matter, and how you could freeze grapes into ice cubes and then you could actually eat your necklace.  Later that night we read What Is the World Made Of? All About Solids, Liquids, and Gases (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science, Stage 2) and looked through more experiment books.

Simple. Fun. Cold. A satisfying bit of summer science. 

Our summer in pictures

Today will be our first day of school (i.e., doing math again).  The kids are ready to start again, I think, although I'm not.  I'm still trying to reorganize books, art supplies, and Montessori materials.  This past week and next week are also supposed to be the warmest of the summer -- highs in the mid-80s, which does get a bit warm when there's no air conditioning.  Anyway, the point is: by now I've learned that nothing will ever be perfect and it's better to be flexible and just start when you can. This is actually  the very first time ever that we've ever started a new school year on the day I planned to start it. As it is, we'll be easing into morning work... and continuing with the daily afternoon hours of playing in the hose.  These warm days won't last long.

I imagine Grandma will want to see some pictures before the maples change entirely.

  

Nature walks around the yard, observing the changes in our "mini pond" beneath the stone where the water gathers and duckweed grows and frogs hide...

Playing "army"...

A little chaos on the soccer sidelines...

Farmerboy played a lot of goal.

Katydid and Farmerboy both caught crayfish from the creek behind the soccer field and brought them home to observe.  Both crayfish molted and were safely returned to the creek at the end of the season, in spite of some accidental habitat spillage in the van on the way there.

Katydid named her crayfish "Bobby". 

Katydid's bantams have been interesting to watch, as they're more like little birds than chickens...

Farmers sometimes work inside, too, "buttering corn for horses".

We strung a tent on the deck.

Gareth and Andy learned how to prepare and cook fish the kids caught. (Gareth earned his Fishing badge.)

We visited Ft. William Henry in Lake George (more on that trip later - I hope!)

The kids built "huts".  (This one is Farmerboy's. I hope to do a longer post about the huts before the weather turns cold.)

Lots of running around with sticks... er, swords... er, guns... um, lasers? (I like this photo because Katydid caught Pop running right out of his boot.  Oh, and the white thing in the grass is a small chicken.)

Boys.

Katydid raised a Mourning Cloak butterfly from a caterpillar and let it go.  This was our first successful attempt at raising a butterfly. (Actually, the little boys raised lots of moths from Eastern Tent Caterpillars this year, too.  Our caterpillars usually don't do anything after we catch them -- except die (cough) -- so this was an interesting year.  I wonder what was different?)

And, of course, we spent a lot of time with the turkeys. A lot of time.

Seven Quick Takes

One

I'm trying to avoid typing any word with the letter k because Chipmun - k pried various k -eys off my k - eyboard with a for- k the other day, and the only one I can't get bac- k on is that offending letter that we've been tal-k-ing about.  So I have to remove the flat top piece and push the little rubber thingie underneath in order to... use that letter.

Two

I should be working (that letter again, slowing me down) on Katydid's IHIP right now.  My brain is not in gear, though. Ragweed season just started.  How do I know this? Because my cold that was not going away because of my allergies just got worse again.  And because there is goldenrod blooming in my field.  And because I noticed the first red leaves on one of our maple trees yesterday.  And because yesterday night at soccer we saw three wedges of geese flying south. We had 2 whole days of 80 degree temperatures, and now it is apparently fall.

Three

This is why I confused the heck out of my allergist.  She asked what time of year was bad for me, and I said spring, summer, and fall, and she looked at me kind of funny, and I said, well, ragweed season, and she said, oh, late summer, and I thought, I am in the wrong part of the country, aren't I?

Four

This is what my house mostly looks like right now:

Books everywhere.  I'm not going to show you my bedroom floor.

Five

Jen's post about aprons reminds me that I should wear mine more often.  I asked for aprons for Christmas a few years back, and Andy bought me 3.  I only remember to wear them when I'm already covered in flour, though, and they're a little difficult to wear in summer because they're full aprons, and we don't have any air conditioning.  (Not that we need air conditioning, mind you, but it does get a little warm here every now and then.)  What I really need to protect my clothing, though, is some kind of Mommy clean suit.  Jen says she can sometimes go a couple of weeks without washing an apron, but by the end of the day, particularly in the summer, I am almost as dirty as the boys.  Also, why is it that I find those books about homey hand-sewn creations like aprons and quilts so appealing when I can barely sew a crooked stitch myself? Living vicariously, I guess.  I also happen to be an inveterate armchair traveler.

Six

I made my first salsa of the season today, but the pepper I used (the first off the plant) had no heat.  Too much rain and not enough sun. Still, it makes me happy to have fresh salsa.

Seven

Last night we arrived home to find that tornadoes had touched down only miles away from Andy's family in Memphis.  A quick phone call and we were all grateful to hear that everything was okay.  Today we are getting the rain from that front -- an all-day soaking rain, but no tornadoes, thankfully.  On Wednesday, we did have a few storms and some torrential downpours... which knocked out power to the Amtrack trains, which Andy happened to be taking home from New York City, which meant that a 2 hour ride turned into a 6 hour ride.  He did, however, make it home for our 15th anniversary, which was yesterday.  We celebrated by eating McDonald's at a soccer game.

Country Diary: July Garden

I was going to name this post "Tomato Madness," but then I thought, well, there are other things going on in the garden, too.  So instead I went with the boring "July Garden".

Weather: 75 ish and the sun has come out again after a few brief rain showers.  I believe it has rained almost every single day this month -- at least a few sprinkles.  We have spent more than a few soccer games huddling in sweatshirts.  I made Italian sausage and onions Friday night.  It was raining again, as usual -- a steady cold rain -- and as Andy sat down he said, "Boy, this is a good dinner to warm you up..."  And I finished for him, "... on a cold July night."

In Bloom:

Black-eyed Susans at the edge of the comfrey bed...

Katydid's miniature wildflower meadow...

A closer-up view of Katydid's flowers...

The roses, which are a bit past their prime.  The old growth is already spent, and now only the new growth is blooming.  I'm not deadheading the flowers because I want to try to collect rosehips in the fall. 

The milkweed smells wonderful and has been buzzing with bees all week.  I haven't seen any monarch caterpillars, but...

Katydid found this Mourning Cloak caterpillar on the driveway and brought it inside to see if she could watch it form a chrysalis and turn into a butterfly.  We see a lot of Tiger Swallowtails around here, but we've never seen a Mourning Cloak, so it should be interesting.  The caterpillars feed on birch and wild roses, so it's strange we've never seen one before (as we have both in abundance).  Katydid has been taking pictures every day to chronicle the caterpillar's progress.  She reports that it has formed a complete chrysalis already.

Another insect related to blooms...

The milkweed beetle.

In the Barnyard:

Turkeys.

Actually, they're in the orchard with the elderberries.  The elderberries were teeming with Japanese beetles, and the turkeys love to eat Japanese beetles, so it seemed like a good match.  We have them enclosed with electric poultry netting, which does absolutely nothing to stop them from getting out.  Heritage turkeys are exceptional flyers.  And they don't seem to care about getting shocked by the netting either, which I find strange.  Their favorite place to go after they get out of the netting is the chicken coop, where they eat the chickens' food, then fly up to the roof to roost.  They have good personalities, though.  They're very inquisitive and people-friendly.  The Bourbon Reds and Blue Slates are not very smart.  The Naragansetts (the ones that look like wild turkeys) seem to be far hardier and more intelligent as well. Oddly, of the 8 turkeys that survived out of our original 15, only one is a tom.  He's the big Naragansett with the red neck.  I like the turkeys far better than the meat chickens, who will not only peck but bite you when you try to change their food and water.  (We ordered a straight run of White Rock and Delewares for meat birds, so I'm talking about the young cockerels here... Katydid has actually already decided which one she wants to eat first, which is something.)

In the Garden:

This is why I wanted to call this post "Tomato Madness":

We thought these tomato plants were going to die.  The night after we planted them, we had a light frost here and there.  Some of their leaves curled up and turned yellow and black.  Andy went out and bought more tomatoes to replace most of these, which looked pretty bad. Now they have formed their own tomato jungle.  These are not the only tomato plants I have.  In fact, this is just half of one bed.  I have another bed this size full of more jungley tomato plants.

I am really scratching my head about this.  Usually in a cold, rainy year, the tomatoes do not do well.  The plants don't blossom, the blossoms don't set, and the tomatoes take forever to ripen.  Or, they are ruined by slugs.

Can you see all the tomatoes in there?  They're pulling the branches so close to the ground the branches are developing roots.  (All those little hairs on a tomato plant have the potential to turn into roots, which is why when you plant tomatoes, you're supposed to stick them in the ground right up to the bottom of the first set of true leaves.)  It's been raining so much (or we've been at soccer so much) that we haven't had time to attend to the garden.  So now we have super-sprawly tomatoes and weeds run wild among the eggplants and cabbages.  Anyway, these are Early Girls (I think), a hybrid variety, but even my heirlooms (Brandywine, Striped German... and oh, I can't remember the others) are doing well for the most part.  I had to toss a big half-ripe Striped German to the chickens this morning because of slug-damage and rot (which made me gnash my teeth a bit) but most of the tomatoes don't look that bad, even though they're growing so close to the ground.

I did pick this one before it could get any worse, though:

First tomato.  Not pretty, but my expectations have been low in the garden this year.  Deer ate every.single.pea plant. Rabbits ate all (all) my lettuce and spinach.  Something is decimating the brussel sprouts. The squash and cucumber seeds rotted in the ground it was so cold and wet in June.  And crows stole all our corn twice.

See the corn plants here and there? (If you squint?)  We planted that whole space to corn.  The only corn that actually managed to escape the crows are two rows on the right, which happened to be under netting.

I'm not feeling very charitable toward the crows lately.  They run the hawks off, but I don't think that makes up for stealing the corn.

A few more garden pictures (because I like to look back from year to year to compare):

This is the first year we've grown cabbages, and they're doing well in this wet, cool weather.

My few remaining squash plants are starting to bear.

The peppers are not doing too badly.

The onions are getting rather large.  They like the steady supply of water.

The blackberry bush is still my favorite.  It's loaded with fruit and will need to be wrapped with bird netting before too long.

Harvest this week:

2 yellow squash, one sweet pepper, a handful of purple and yellow beans (not pictured),  1 zucchini, 1 cippolini onion that Chipmunk stepped on and knocked out of the ground, 5 giant Walla Walla onions (not pictured), 10 Yukon Gold potatoes, 5 stalks of rhubarb, roughly a half-pint of raspberries, eaten off the bushes, 1 cherry tomato, and 1 nearly ripe Early Girl tomato.

I made a strawberry-rhubarb crumble that everyone pronounced one of the top 10 best desserts ever... and a 3 bean salad (with squash and zucchini added) that I am going to have to eat all of myself. (Ahem.)

And now I had better go tie up some more out-of-control tomato plants. Before it starts raining again.

A Busy First Week

According to the state, our new school year starts July 1.  So every year on July 1 I have a tradition of shaking everybody's hand and informing them that they've moved up a grade.  My kids always laugh at this, because I'm sure they know how arbitrary it is. 

Theoretically, we are on summer "break".  All this means is that we're not doing math or diagramming sentences.  At our Little Flowers/Blue Knights picnic Saturday, one of the missionary brothers of LaSalette asked me if we were done with our school and if we would start again on September 8 when our homeschool group has its annual "kick off the new school year" picnic.  I have a stock answer for those sorts of questions, which is that we go year round, taking breaks as we need or want them.  It's hard for me to limit our "school year" only to those times when we do math, and as patient and kind as Brother is, I'm not sure he really wanted to hear the long, complicated explanation.

So even thought it's summer time, I'll be doing week-in-review posts for the new school year as I can.  At the end of the year I print out all the review posts and add them to our documentation.  Even so, they're just snippets of our lives.  If there's anything that seems to be missing or that you'd like me to elaborate on, please feel free to let me know! 

This week was probably one of the busiest of the year (which is why there were no blog posts.)  I still can't seem to adjust to the yearly rhythm of life in upstate New York.  It seems like everyone tries to cram every single activity that could possibly be done into the first two weeks of July.  This year summer soccer season began (three nights a week), Gareth had Boy Scout camp, Katydid went to a day camp at the Farmer's Museum, and our Little Flowers/Blue Knights group had a field day.  That was all we could possibly manage to fit in. What we couldn't do that we had wanted to were botanical drawing lessons and photography at our local arboretum. 

 

Scout camp.  Gareth came within 4 points of earning his archery badge in one week.  He did manage to earn his geology badge and come home with some nifty fossils, and he improved his swimming skills. The camp has a terrific fossil bed with Devonian-age fossils (mainly shells) literally every few inches.  Camp is only about fifty minutes away from our house, so Andy drove down every morning and met Gareth for breakfast, and I brought the little boys and Katydid down for a family outdoor meal, cooked in rock ovens and over the campfire, and for the closing ceremonies' barbecue.  After running around in the woods with the youngest son of Gareth's scoutmaster, hauling firewood, and cooking crescent rolls on sticks over the fire, Pop turned to me with huge eyes and said, "Can we live here???"  Gareth did well being away from home for the first time, but was happy to be back with a hot shower and all his books.

The Farmer's Museum is supposed to replicate a small village around 1845.  Katydid spent her week at daycamp weaving baskets, pounding iron hooks in the blacksmith shop, quilling, making folk art paintings, wandering around the art museum across the street, taking care of farm animals, and playing Native American games.  Since Thursday and Friday were nice days (the other days were cold and rainy), we walked around the museum after we picked her up.  The major exhibit indoors is called "Wild Times" and displays the main animals of the various regions of New York.  They've set up a puppet theater for the little ones -- easily the little boys' favorite place.

 

Although Farmerboy also liked the bear rug. 

Katydid has been very upset with her brothers lately, because they never want to play soccer with her.  Having to play soccer after spending all day at camp made her tired, but happy!

So our daily routine was a little unusual this week, but by the end of the week we had fallen into a predictable pattern.  Andy would get up super early to take care of all the chickens and turkeys and drive down to Scout camp to have breakfast with Gareth.  I would get up and take an incredibly fast shower so I could be in and out by the time that Chipmunk realized I was gone and woke up.  Then I would get everybody breakfast, and we would be out the door by 8 AM-ish.  On the way there and the back, the boys would quiz me on my knowledge of dinosaurs, boa constrictors, insects, and Star Wars.  When we arrived back home, Andy would already be there, getting ready to go to work. We'd chat for a few minutes, then I'd wash dishes and do laundry while the boys watched a little TV or played. After that habits would kick in and the boys would demand to work on some kind of project.  After they were satisfied with their project work, they'd wander off to play before lunch. I'd take a quick break at lunchtime, then more dishes and laundry while the boys played, and it was off a little early to get Katydid so the boys could have a nap in the van. After this week, I have no idea how mothers of large families who have their kids in school manage. We are all very tired and ready to stay home in the mornings.

The one thing I did find very interesting this week was how deeply ingrained our "choice time" routine has become.  I suggested exactly one activity this week, and it was on a morning when some of us were recovering from a little mystery virus that has been going around -- nausea, stomach upset, and cold symptoms, all together.  Everything else was suggested -- "demanded" might be a better word -- by a child.

Here's the breakdown of what the little boys did this week:

Monday: Helped Andy build a chicken tractor. (Andy took Monday off.) Monday was mostly sunny.

Tuesday: Built spaceships out of cardboard boxes. This is the one activity I suggested.  Pip was still recovering from the sudden onset of our virus on the sidelines of a soccer game the night before, Farmerboy wasn't feeling too well, and neither was I, so I let the boys watch an episode of Star Wars: Clone Wars.  It was raining, and after the TV was turned off the boys were a little at loose ends, so I thought spaceships might be welcome.

 

This is Pip's spaceship.  We covered the outside with aluminum foil. The paper plate "steering wheels" were Farmerboy's idea, as are the feather "lasers".

Wedsnesday: Yet another TV inspired activity, I'm embarassed to say, but this one was entirely the twins' idea.  They'd watched an episode of Sid the Science kid about leaves. Pop immediately wanted to draw leaves, and then collect his own leaves. Pip really got into collecting leaves (in between rain showers). He did not want to draw them himself, so I relented and drew for him.  Both twins wanted to tape leaves on their papers. And Pop told me some stories about them to write down.

We put them on the bulletin board.

Thursday: Another cold, rainy morning. After a long discussion about fossils in the van, the boys arrived home ready to work, and my desire to load the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher was nothing but a pesky obstacle.  I decided to get with the program and do my chores later. First the boys got out the fossils, then the shells, and then the playdough to make their own "fossils":

 

 

Pop lined all his shells up below a fossil guide.

Then the boys decided they wanted to paint.

 

Pop and Farmerboy are painting dinosaurs. Pip likes to paint boxes.

 

Farmerboy's dinosaur. 

I have a whole post I want to do about painting with little ones. Hopefully soon.

Friday: Friday morning was sunny -- finally.  The boys found some earthworms and rolie-polies in the flower bed where they can play with their trucks and spent a good long while setting up worm farms and rolie-polie habitats in my good freezer containers. (All in the name of science, right?) Then Pip wanted to build a bug out of clay. They used sculpey, plastalina, and florist's wire.  (And Pip actually made a spider.)

 

Rolie-polie habitat.

 

Studying insect books.

 

Pip's spider close up.

A rolie-polie Pip made, Pip's spider, a bee Pop and I made together, and a plastalina butterfly with proboscis by Farmerboy.

This week was a lot of work, but I was pleased with the results.  I was proud of Gareth for doing so well at camp, happy that Katydid was able to follow her own interests, and very satisfied with how independent and motivated the little boys were in doing their own work.

June Blooms

 

 

Peonies, by Katydid

Violets?, by Katydid

 

(by Katydid)

 

Wood Anemone?, by Katydid

 

Lily of the Valley in the woods, by Katydid

 

Daisies in the garden (by me)

 

Yarrow?

 

Potatoes

 

Mysterious blue flower from the wildflower mix Katydid sowed in the garden

 

More flowers from the wildflower mix

 

Grass in the field

 

Black-eyed susans

 

I thought this was cranesbill, but after googling, I've discovered it isn't.  Any ideas?

Fruit Trees and berry bushes

Gae asked recently about our fruit trees.  I tried to leave a comment but I'm having trouble commenting on my own blog. Gae, I'm working on your Reggio questions in a different post, but since I was out working in the garden today, I thought I would take some pictures and answer your question at the same time.  (The sun was out so I needed to take advantage of it!)

Gae wanted to know if our fruit trees provided enough fruit for our family.  Unfortunately... no.  This is only their fourth season, so the only tree bearing fruit right now is one of our peaches.

 

They're very small right now and will ripen next month. Last year was the first year this tree bore, and I am very happy to see it bearing again. Our other peach bore a few peaches last year, but this year there isn't a single one on it.

It's also become apparent by now that our cherry trees have died (possibly because they've been repeatedly stripped by deer every winter).  Our apple trees are bigger, but it takes 5-7 years for an apple to bear.  So no apples yet.

 

One of our young apples.

Our trees are all semi-dwarf or dwarf varieties.  Some of them are smaller than others.

 

If you look closely you can see that this volunteer squash plant (growing out of a compost top dressing) almost completely dwarfs this dwarf tree.  I think the tree is a pear. It's not supposed to be this small.  I think it's been hit by a few too many late cold snaps and a few too many hungry deer.

On a totally unrelated note, I am going to stop planting winter squash.  The best plants always grow out of the compost.  The others get eaten by cucumber beetles.

Anyway, Gae, if you're looking for a new place, one with mature fruit trees already bearing would be a HUGE plus in my opinion.  I wish the doctor who built this house fifty years ago had planted apples instead of crabapples.  If we ever end up moving away from here, mature fruit trees will be high on my list of what to look for in a new place.  Mature fruit trees and barns.  The house would be optional. ;-)

Berry bushes are a different matter, though.  They bear in a year or two.  We've had the best luck with blackberries.

 

This is one bush, which is also in its fourth season. It is loaded with flowers and berries this year.  It's also propagated at least one more bush which is bearing this year, too.  When we planted it, it was tiny.  Last year, blackberries were selling for $4.95 a half pint.  We paid 4.95 for the bush, and it gave us -- oh, I can't remember how many quarts of berries.  We ate most of them within 30 minutes of picking them.

We also have blueberries, which are doing better this year -- their second season.

 

We fertilize them with pine shavings from the chick brooders because they like an acid soil.  I don't know that we have enough bushes to really be self-sufficient with them... or maybe self-sufficiency is just several years down the road. They're very small bushes right now.

Andy also planted some less common berries this year which are doing much better than say, our grapes and raspberries...

  

These are jostaberry bushes.  Jostaberries are supposed to be high in vitamin C.

 

And these are elderberries.  They have blooms already, so I think we're going to get berries in the first year.  You can make wine out of elderberries, but I believe we'll stick to jam. ;-)

Well, that was probably more than you wanted to know... but I was so excited to see the sun today I couldn't help myself.  Of course it's getting to rain... again... but that brief glimpse of summer was nice.

 :-)

ETA: I totally forgot about the highbush cranberry in the front yard, and after I took these pictures, Andy cut the grass and discovered a seaberry we thought had died.  The seaberry was actually in pretty good shape, so we were pleased.  And we also noticed that the blackberry bush has another new bush on its other side. 

I also have to apologize for the template flipping.  I liked the honeybees, but I couldn't take the small photo size.