An Update with Pictures

We've been pretty busy lately. So I've been having trouble picking what to post for you next. I'll start with the beginnings of our autumn colors. It has been cooling slightly and we are starting to feel autumn coming around the corner.


Our pomegranates are ripening. I don't know how much jelly we will make this year since our crop is much smaller than in the past.


Our garden is almost done for the season. We have potted our pepper plants, the pumkins are ready (a month earlier than we intended), we have one lonely canteloupe ripening up and a couple of overgrown tomato plants at the end of their productive season.


Here is another picture of that nice big pumpkin in the garden. I haven't measured it, but it is between 18 inches to 2 feet tall. We also have a slightly smaller orange pumpkin and a much smaller white pumpkin.


With the pumpkins ready a month before Halloween, plus the fact that the baby is due about that time. We will probably be cutting these lovely things up for cooking. We got ourselves a real pressure canner to handle canning vegetables. So we plan on trying it out by preserving our pumpkins for later use. The kids love pumpkin muffins and we will be able to make a lot of muffins with these.

Now we haven't just been gardening. After we replaced our livingroom/diningroom floor recently, we were planning to make changes to our kitchen floor next. You see the poor floor has looked nasty since we bought the house, it was discoloring, and we were tired of it. This is one of the few pictures we have taken that shows the old floor.


You can't see much of the floor. It was linoleum that had a white/cream tile print on it. It had at least a couple of deep cuts in it that went all the way down to the cement slab. It had scorch marks on it of all things. It was slowly discoloring to a grayish color and had been for a few years. About a month ago, while we were canning salsa, we were running our dishwasher more frequently than usual to clean canning jars. We noticed that when we did this we had water seeping up from the cuts in our floor. This should not happen. After checking for leaks under the sink (nope) we tried living with out the dishwasher for a few days (everything dried out), then ran the dishwasher (wet again). Yep... we had a dishwasher leak that was seeping under the flooring. Apparently the flooring only went a few inches past the front of the dishwasher then the machine was sitting on the bare concrete slab. When the leak happened, it was dripping on the concrete and seeping under the flooring. This must have been an ongoing leak for some time because I have been noticing the growing grey discoloration for at least a couple of years now. We were growing mold under our floor.

With our intentions of changing out the floor soon already firmly set in our minds, plus the added incentive of a leaking dishwasher, we decided that this was one change that was not going to wait until after the baby was born. So last weekend, Tim and a friend from work moved the appliances so we could do the replacement. We touched up the cabinet paint while we were at it. We also bought a new dishwasher. So our kitchen is back together, it is fully functional again, and the floor looks good for a change. It is relatively inexpensive vinyl sheet, but that is perfect for a kitchen. What do you think?


We are still eyeing the remaining floors. Perhaps we can finish up the floors in the family room and our tile entryway sometime this spring. We will progress as we can afford it. In the meantime some springs in our most heavily used sofa just gave out last night. We will be in the market for a sofa next.

That's probably enough for now. I'll do another post soon giving an update on the pregnancy. I have an appointment on Monday.

A Picture Post...Finally!

I intended to get this post up a little earlier, but life sort of got in the way for awhile. I needed to recharge the camera battery for the longest time. So here are a few pictures to show you what we've been doing lately. First, a picture of Tim and the kids taken in our backyard one evening. It is noteworthy mainly because it is a halfway decent picture of four of us simultaneously.


Next comes further evidence that our backyard is keeping us busy. Here is a picture of the vegetable garden currently providing tomatoes, peppers, carrots, cabbage, and perhaps in a couple of months cucumbers, cantaloupe, and pumpkins.


Here is a picture of our grapes (up close) with not yet ripe golden plums in the background.


We just finished up a harvest of nectarines. This is what the tree looked like after harvesting several dozen.


I finished dehydrating the last ones this past week. We will have nectarine chips for several months. Lots of plums too. The Santa Rosa Plums finished up just as the nectarines came ripe. I think that peaches will be ready next, but I have a bit of a breather before then.

For the last month, we have had regular visits from some wild guests. These fowl seem to like our yard. They hang out in our front or backyard for several hours every few days. We seem to have some tasty bugs and we let them eat what blueberries are left at this point. In this picture you just see the mom and one chick. There are three chicks altogether. They have gotten more feathers in and are now about two thirds their mom's size. The mom stands about three feet tall when standing sentry.



I mentioned in previous posts, that I was quilting up a storm to make a baby quilt for my brother and sister-in-law who will soon be having a baby. I managed to get it ready for the baby shower with one day to spare. Tim did the design work and I did the construction. We are pleased with how it turned out.



Here is another view:


I also include for your enjoyment pictures of the fancy dresses that I made last year. I promised pictures of them so long that the girls have outgrown them and I didn't get pictures of them wearing them.


That's the Pillowfight Fairy's choice of colors. She fell in love with the lemon yellow golden color and the overskirt and shawl are sheer with glittery sparkles.



The Adrenaline Junkie just likes pretty stuff and didn't care to choose her own fabric so I got to pick out the fabrics unhindered. That's a flowered satin with golden overskirt. They looked very lovely in them, but The Fairy started to get annoyed how often people called her "Belle" in her dress. They were thoroughly overdressed for everything except perhaps the ballet.

Next for your enjoyment are a couple of pictures giving a before and after view of our livingroom. This past weekend, we went nuts, enduring more chaos than normal, and changed out a floor. Here is a before picture from last year (the people are fun, but notice the carpet):



Now for the after picture (once again, I like my husband, but notice the laminate on the floor):


We love having the new floor. We like it so much we are planning what will be next, since we don't really like any of the flooring in this house and never have. So when time and resources are available, we will be making more new changes.

So, with all of the gardening, sewing, remodeling, and oh yeah I'm six months pregnant and four weeks into the new school year, I hope you don't begrudge me the time to rest a little and not take the time to blog. I've been really tired.

A Scattered and Miscellaneous Update

So much has been going on lately, I feel like I need to do several posts on different topics to keep from having a horrendously long post updating things. But it is difficult to decide what to start with. I'll start in and see where it takes me. I might be able to do an all-encompassing update after all.

Tim and the Pillowfight Fairy have completed practices and performances of the Mikado. They thoroughly enjoyed it and will probably do more play productions in the future. The Fairy is apparently just as much a ham as her Daddy. Tonight she told us that her favorite actress is herself.

I have managed to get our taxes prepared, but need to sit down with Tim so he can check my work. That's been hard to manage. Partly because, after all, who really wants to do taxes? But we also seem to be taking turns being absolutely beat soon after the kids go to bed.

We are very close to the end of the school year. About seven weeks left to do. As a result, I have a pretty good idea what the Fairy needs to do for next year. There is a part of me that relishes the planning stage of a new school year. But, It is a lot of work the way I plan it. I do a complete year lesson plan in detail down to what lessons on what day. I've bought curricula for spelling, grammar, writing, history, math, and latin (that's right... latin). I've gone through and planned out the flow of the lessons and what pages will be on what days. In addition, I have some lessons I plan on my own (literature, religion, art, and science), which takes a good deal of time to plan. Then Tim plans out the music lessons. Seeing as we typically start our school year in early July and spread it out over 10 months (breaks every six weeks), I like to start my planning in the spring to have time to get ready for the new school year. I really like how the new year is shaping up. For literature we will be reading classic literature from the time period covered in her history in the form of chapter books adapted for elementary age readers. She will be reading Robinson Crusoe, The Three Musketeers, Alice in Wonderland, and many other wonderful books. The Latin lessons are very basic and not too onerous. I think I have discovered a way to balance out her spelling, grammar, and writing lessons so that they aren't all heaped on top of each other, but instead spread out a little bit more. She also gets to learn some chemistry in the coming year and kitchen/backyard science experiments are way cool.

As for the Adrenaline Junkie, she will be continuing Kindergarten until she gets a little better with the reading, writing and math. She actually can read a decent amount when she tries, she just doesn't like to do it. She loves writing, she just isn't very consistent with her letter formation. She is getting better and doesn't write her letters and numbers backwards as much as she used to. She also doesn't like to sound out words while spelling. It's the same issue as reading. With consistent practice she will get more comfortable with it. The biggest challenge with her is slowing down her overly active body and brain to be able to think through a complete thought at a time. If any of my kids is a kinetic learner, she is probably it. That means I need to be a little more creative in how to approach her lessons. That is something else I need to put into a lesson plan.

The Happy Boy is all about play. But his schoolwork will be art (drawing and writing practice in disquise), having books read to him and when he is ready, phonics (he is already wanting to sound out some of Hop on Pop).

Changing topic again: We planted a spring garden last weekend. This year we are doing snow peas, cabbage, radishes, carrots, lettuce, spinach and cantaloupe. I'm going to try to stagger plantings for a more prolonged harvest. The kids also planted some flower seeds. Tim replanted our strawberry patch, too. Too early to say how it is going, but we are watering every day. The kids love that part.

My craft binge has slowed down tremendously the last few weeks. Partly because of all of the previous items in this update. I am still working on a needlepoint and a quilt. I'm just taking my time. I've been very tired. Even though the weather has turned nice again, I haven't wanted to go for walks much either. I let the kids play in the backyard for exercise (keeping track of them and checking the garden is my exercise). I've also been very, very hungry. Tim keeps telling me that he's eating better these days. I've been spending more time thinking about and cooking food. These are some clues for you. This type of behavior is not normal for me. I usually like to get out for walks in nice weather. I usually couldn't care much about food as long as I'm fed three times a day. I usually hate cooking. What has gotten into me lately?

....

If you haven't guessed yet, I'm pregnant. Yep. That's another one of those big things that is happening lately. If you have followed mine or my husband's blogs over the last year, you know that this is momentous for us and a little scary. Having a baby die not quite a year ago, we know that so many things can go wrong. But, we would rather hope than live in fear. So if you can spare a prayer for us on this journey, it is much appreciated. I am still in the first trimester. My first doctor's appointment to check the baby is going to be at the end of next week. We are a bit nervous to say the least.

So that is the latest news from our family. I think I did manage to give an update on all of the main things without making the post too horribly long. Life is sure to stay interesting for a while. I'm sure I'll have more to post soon.

Is this nesting instinct?

I've always had trouble differentiating my normal level of wanting to get things accomplished from the overdrive version most often referred to as the "nesting instinct." The nesting instinct is supposed to be where a pregnant Mom starts to be compulsive about getting things ready before a baby comes. For some women it occurs as late as when they begin labor. For me, I think it is not much different from my normal behavior where I'm planning ahead before I'm even pregnant.

This past week, however, has been pretty busy and I've begun to wonder if I'm pushing the limits of sanity. Over last weekend, we finished up our taxes and I sent them out as soon as I could. We've been doing schoolwork, much to the Pillowfight Fairy's dislike. We've finished our math curriculum and grammar curriculum and as a result, I'm speeding up our history lessons to get as many of them in as possible before the baby comes. The Fairy told me today that she thinks a better schedule would be school on Saturday and Sunday and the rest of the week off. She has a bad case of spring fever. I've been staying up late nearly every night working on next year's curriculum, not just for the Fairy but for the Adrenaline Junkie too. Last night I took the time to do some much needed mending. Yesterday, was Tim's day off and I scheduled us for some new family pictures, which took a big chunk of the morning. (It was about time, the last time we had family pictures made was nearly three years ago.) So family will be glad to hear that we will have new pictures for them very soon.

Today felt like a bit of a marathon. I added a trip to Target to return merchandise to my usual trip to get groceries. By the time I got home, unloaded the groceries, and put them away, it was lunch time. After lunch we all went outside to play and I decided to go ahead and weed the garden. Now our garden is relatively small (compared to what it could be). I've only planted about a third of my garden area this time. But, I've neglected it a bit and it has gotten rather weedy. Those of you who have seen me in person lately know that I am... ahem... really big right now. At nearly eight months pregnant, I make people nervous that I'm going to have the baby any moment. Perfect strangers come up to me and ask if I need help, when I'm doing what to me are perfectly normal things (like lifting my two year old out of his stroller and into a car seat). I have a definite waddle when I walk. I can't move quickly or easily. Watching me get up or down is either painful or comical to watch (or both). But yet, I determined to weed my garden. Now, I do have a nice long handle cultivator that I could use to get between my rows. But, I needed to get the weeds out where they are growing alongside my veggies. I needed to do close work. How in the world was I going to do that? The garden cart didn't have enough room to be used since I have narrow and close rows. I couldn't stand and bend over long enough to make much progress (I did that a few weeks ago and I wouldn't be able to do that again). Kneeling would be impossible, I would need a rescue to get me back up. I finally found a way. We have some plastic stack able patio chairs. With a little experimentation I discovered that if I place one just right, the legs of the chair just fit within two neighboring troughs. I could place my chair so that I could sit in the garden with each foot in a trough and a row directly in front of me. If I sat at the front edge of the chair, I could pivot so that I could reach one row to the left, and one row to the right as well as weed the one in front of me. I wasn't too high to reach the ground, and I wasn't so low that I had trouble getting up. It worked. So I spent the next three hours weeding the garden. As a result, I know what veggies are actually growing in half of my garden. The other half of the garden will have to wait for another time. I exhausted myself.

So what am I growing? Well, the snow peas are doing fairly well and are about eight to ten inches high. I found one lone plant of broccoli, five or six cabbages (better than my one cabbage last year), a few celery seedlings that are barely visible, and a dozen or so onions. It looks pretty pathetic. In the half of the garden that hasn't been weeded yet, there should be carrots, parsley, spinach, and two kinds of lettuce. Among the profuse weeds I have so far only identified a few bits of carrot leaf and one spinach. I haven't seen one lettuce despite the fact that I planted three rows of them. It doesn't look like our garden is doing that well this year. Our fruit trees and other berries seem more promising (except that we seem to have a dying cherry tree). Also our recently planted flowers and bushes around the patio are growing and looking good.

So, it kind of begs the question: Am I going through some kind of extreme nesting instinct? or am I simply off my rocker to be concerned about my gardening at eight months pregnant?

One post a month?

Well, I do intend to get back to my series on how I look at the world differently. I'm contemplating a post on the abdication of responsibility in our society. But for now, since it is late already, I'll just give a quick update on how the fight against chaos is going lately.

We've been on schedule with the homeschooling. However, I've had to make this past week a vacation week because of two sick kids (and a Mom). I only had one more vacation week scheduled and I hated to use it early. But you do what you need to. As a result we have just six more weeks of school left on our schedule, and eight more weeks to the baby's due date. That's cutting it pretty close. Fortunately, the schedule is thinning out a little as we finish up some things early. Our math program should be finished in just two more weeks. I'm planning on spending time playing math-involved games after our math curriculum is finished. The Pillowfight Fairy was introduced to the game of dominoes (count by five scoring version) by my parents this past week and did quite well. The two girls also played their "Papa" at chess. He held his own against the Fairy, but was blindsided by the Adrenaline Junkie's nary a care aggressive playing style. I think he was a little embarrassed by being beat by a four-year-old, but not too much. After all, she's his granddaughter and she can beat someone at chess while only four.

I've got my garden in, but haven't seen much beyond weeds coming up. The only thing I recognize as desirable so far are the snow peas I planted. Other than that we have some stray onions that must be left from last year as they came up in completely the wrong place. I'm making an effort to keep them watered properly, so maybe they are just delayed with the weather. I did plant fairly early. Our fruit trees, grapevines, brambleberries, and blueberries are all showing healthy growth so all is not lost.

I had my latest round of doctor's appointments this week regarding the pregnancy. I am still in good health (not counting the cold). We had another detailed ultrasound to determine whether or not to have a caesarian delivery. The results are good. The concern was that the fluid in our daughter's brain would have caused the head to grow unusually large. That has not happened. So I have the go ahead to go through childbirth without the surgery. From my point of view that is a big plus. There are no changes as far as abnormalities that we already knew about. Our daughter is showing a strong heartbeat so far. So she may make it to term or close to it. She is also tending to be slightly smaller than my kids so far, but not drastically so. The medical concerns at this point are whether the abnormal pregnancy will trigger abnormal reactions near the end. My doctors want me to keep an eye out for signs of preeclampsia (more likely in these situations). The other concern is that the placenta (sharing some of the faulty DNA) will cause problems near the end of the pregnancy. I find it reassuring that so many people are praying for us. It helps me stay hopeful and happy, as I take life one day at a time. We really don't know what will happen. We don't know when the baby will be born. We don't know how well she will be able to survive after birth. We don't know what to expect. So we just concentrate on what we do know. I still have to take care of myself. I still have to my best for the kids currently depending on me. Tim still has to go to work. We still do laundry, get groceries, and take care of the house.

Other things going on? Well, those of you who follow my husband's blog know that he is about to embark on a new hobby. I'm finding it difficult to find the energy to work on our taxes in the evening (Yes, it needs to be done, but I can't do it when the kids are awake).

The Happy Boy is growing fast and not just physically. He is starting to talk a lot more and much more understandably. He is starting to build things with legos, color with crayons and play with his sisters. I even had a fleeting feeling once this last week that he was starting to understand reading. He pointed at one of the Pillowfight Fairy's school binders and said "Math". And, it was indeed the math binder. I couldn't figure out how he would have known that without reading the word on the binder, since I don't usually get it out or talk about it during the day. It just sits on the shelf like all the other books and binders as far as he is concerned. He also moved a chair in his bedroom, climbed up and removed the pendulum to the clock in his bedroom yesterday when he had a little free time after his nap. I think back to the stories my Mom told of my older brothers when they were his age and even younger and understand why she hesitated to have more kids. Let us hope that the Happy Boy uses his powers for good. He is acting anxious to be a big kid like his sisters.

As for the Adrenaline Junkie, I am still debating about when to start Kindergarten with her. She still needs to polish up some things I consider to be preschool level, but in other areas, she seems ready to move to Kindergarten topics. It doesn't really have to be much of an issue here at home since we can teach her at her pace. But, it matters at church. You see her birthday is just a few days after the official school year cut-off date. She would be kept behind a year (from our perspective) simply because of an arbitrary date if she were in public school. But, our church advances students to their new grade in the summer, a full six months before her birthday, and almost certainly before she is ready to change over. Added to this she is in a boomlet group at our church where there are around 20 kids in the Sunday School class. There is a 4/5 year old class and a Kindergarten class that will be able to accomodate them, but it is still a lot of kids to spread out even to two classes for those ages. One person suggested I could teach her at her academic level at home and keep her in her age level at church, but when I see it from my daughter's perspective that wouldn't work. When people ask her what grade she is in, she will respond to her school grade from home and will notice if she isn't in it at church. At this point, I think I will start a little more preschool work and reading practice at home during the summer. Then, when she seems ready, we will start her Kindergarten program in homeschooling her. The transition at church could be at the next convenient change of quarter.

So that is what's been going on with us lately. I've had a lot on my mind. Not to mention trying to get things ready for when the baby comes. After all, we may get to bring this baby home even if just for a little while. We have to have the basics ready, just in case. So, don't expect another post from me until after I get the taxes done.

Garden roulette

Every spring the same question comes to mind. When exactly do I plant my spring garden? You see, I haven't lived in this area all that long... just five years. I'm still learning when spring hits. Last year I thought I got a nice early start by planting on the first of March. But, most of our cool weather plants couldn't take the warm weather even that early. So this year I thought that I would try to get an earlier start. But how much earlier? We had a ridiculously mild January with many days getting up to 80 degrees by lunch time. But our nights were fairly cold. Then just when I thought it might stay mild, the frost came back.

I remember from my childhood in the Bay Area, that we would usually get some spring-like weather that caused everybody to plant their spring gardens. Then the frost would come back and kill everything off. Then people either would replant or give up. So, I'm trying to figure out if the same thing happens in this area. Did we get an early false spring this year? I've decided to take advantage of the prolonged rain forecast for the next week. I planted most of my spring garden today (in the middle of February) before the rain started up again. So we will see if I guessed right this year. In the meantime, we shouldn't have to worry about watering our garden for a week or two.

I hope I guessed right. If I'm right, we will start getting our spring veggies ripe in March and April this year. That is just about right for this year since our baby is due in May. I'm thinking that I'll be taking a bit of a break from gardening during the summer. If I plant anything for summer it'll be something that doesn't take a lot of constant care. I suspect that our family, friends and neighbors will be getting more of our fruit produce this year, too. Somehow I can't picture myself doing much fruit preserving while recovering from childbirth.

Maybe I'll skip summer gardening and do a fall garden instead. Then I'll have to guess how early it needs to be planted so that we get a harvest before the cold weather hits. If we stay in this area a long time, like we hope, I might get good at predicting the seasonal changes.

Gardening thoughts

We have lived in our home almost five years and this was the first year we have put in a garden. We have been adding trees little by little, but this is the first year that I feel like our garden is up and running so to speak. I guess it would be more accurate to say that it is in full production. This is an update on how our garden grows and what thoughts gardening has reminded me of.

We already have a decent fruit orchard: red plums, golden plums, cherries, nectarines, peaches, asian pears, standard pears. We also have a decent section dedicated to berries: blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. This spring, we planted a variety of herbs, salad greens, radishes, cabbages, carrots, onions, and brussel sprouts. Of those only about half germinated. We got a large crop of lettuce (two kinds), radishes, and carrots. We are still waiting on the brussel sprouts. They are currently forming the little edible sprouts, but it is taking a lot longer than we expected. We only got one cabbage, which sprung up where I didn't plant them.

Once we harvested most of these foods, we planted the summer crop: Sunflowers, pole beans, peppers, pumpkins, zucchini, crookneck squash and a cherry tomato plant. We also planted four grapevines which will be a permanent part of the garden. I'm planning on training them into a fountain form instead of the traditional way. About the time we put in the summer plants, we also put in a drip irrigation system. The plants did better at this point.

All of this gardening has prompted a variety of thoughts:

1. Food grown in your yard tastes better than what you get at the store. The flavors of everything, even the most hum-drum foods, are stronger.
2. We spend a lot less on produce these days. One of our daughters thinks she can't go a meal without fruit and our son is starting to think the same way. We used to buy a lot of produce, not anymore.
3. When you decide to plant food crops, and land, water, and sun are sufficiently supplied, God will provide an overabundance. I'm inclined to believe that this is because He is generous. I am also inclined to believe that he expects us to be generous with his bounty. Thus some of the food should be given away. Unless you are selling it for a profit, this is a necessary activity if you don't want perfectly good food to go to waste. I'm pretty good at using and saving, but we can only eat and preserve so much. I've got a quart ziploc in the fridge filled with fresh green beans ready to use or preserve. I've made apricot jam (from a neighbors donation). I've made two blackberry pies. I've made dried plum chips (not exactly prunes). I'm making plum fruit leather (my first try at this as I'm desperate to use a huge supply). I've made plum pie (rather tart, note to self... use more sugar). We're having trouble keeping up with the strawberries despite the children's fondness for them so strawberry jam will be made in the next few days. I'm contemplating drying some of the green beans to use in soups this winter. I am so glad my Mom gave me her dehydrator. Thankfully, the blackberries, cherries and plums are finishing up or done. But the Nectarines are starting to ripen. The tree is full. One branch broke the other day and we lost 50-100 nectarines. That was a small portion of what is still on the tree. We will have to work harder at thinning the fruit earlier in the season.
4. Gardening helps me refocus on time in a different way than we are accustomed in our culture. You prepare the ground at the right time of year. You plant the seeds when those seeds need to be planted. You water and weed without any sign of growth for weeks. Only then, with patience, do you get the new plants sprouting. You tend and watch them grow. All you can do is water, weed and wait (some people add some fertilizer). You can't make plants grow faster than they do. You can't rush the new fruits or vegetables to form at your convenience. They are ready when they are ready. Once it is time to harvest, you harvest or lose it. Once you harvest, you use it, give it away, or preserve it for later use. If you don't let the garden guide your time-table, you will be doing the needed things at the wrong times and therefore getting a bad result.
5. Farming is hard work. I already knew this and I'm not considering myself a farmer. Both of my parents grew up on farms and I visited my grandparent's farm on many occasions. I do not have an idealized view of farming. It is hard work. It is hard on the people working in the fields. It is hard on the people processing the food for later use. You have to be the right kind of person to thrive in this setting. My grandpa was one of those people. He loved being a farmer. He loved trying new crops, working with the animals, keeping bees, going fishing in the pond. It was harder on my grandma, but she managed to run the kitchen, raise six kids, and help sell some of the food to the neighbors (she also learned to paint and became a income tax preparer in her later years). Having a big garden like we have, I understand better what my grandparents were doing with their kitchen garden (about the size of our entire backyard). They fed themselves all year with what they grew in that garden. The field crops were for market. Besides the honey, milk, meat and eggs that they got from the animals (of which they kept only a small portion for themselves and sold the rest), the kitchen garden was what they lived on. My Dad remembers that they would supplement with wild berries and a few fruit trees in the summer. I remember my grandparents had a huge pecan tree in their front yard. They would send us a box of pecans at Christmas time which would last us most of the next year in my Mom's baking of desserts. I realize that we could create a similar kitchen garden to help us lower our food purchases. However, such a garden is a full-time job throughout the growing season. As the kids get older, it is more feasible to do this. Right now, it is just an intense hobby.
6. My kids are learning about plants and where food comes from. A garden is a great way to teach botany. The kids can help plant, water, weed and watch the plants develop. They also get to taste the results of the work. Young kids like ours, don't have a lot of patience for the everyday stuff like watering and weeding. But they are fascinated with planting and harvesting. The Pillowfight fairy loves to help me harvest berries. She has plenty of patience for that since she loves to eat them. I'm glad that I'm passing along some of what I learned when my family had a garden when I was a kid. Maybe, at least some of my kids will show an interest in growing some of their own food as they grow up. I will try not to expect them to love it as much as I do.
7. Being outside in the garden and just outside in general, is good for us adults. In many ways, our backyard is becoming a little oasis from the cares of the world. That is a very worthwhile thing.
   

Spring means renewal

I like spring. Spring is a time of renewal. When I was a kid I liked summer better. I could play outside most of the day without any school. But now, Spring is the season I like best. Where we live, the trees are blooming the allergens are wafting on the breezes and the home improvement stores and plant nurseries are packed with people ready to get going on the projects they have in mind for good weather.

We are always busy, but it has seemed busier than usual this sping. We just mailed off our tax returns, so that is done. We finished out our new garden this weekend by putting in supports and planting snow peas and grapevines. The garden looks mostly like a muddy mess right now, but I've started to see tiny radish seedlings poking up (they are always the first ones, right after the weeds). We are all well again after a three week bout of illness which put all plans on hold. I don't think my husband will mention it, but he got a promotion and raise. It is always nice to be appreciated by one's employer.

Between the return of sunny weather, the garden, and life seeming good right now, It feels strange to be saying that the school year is running down. I can see the end of our currently scheduled work in just a month or two. We also do some kind of schooling pretty much all year, so it feels strange for that reason too. I have had trouble in the past being in sync with the traditional academic year. Somehow our daughter seems ready for something new long before fall, so for the past two years I have started her new school year in the first week of August. We are usually well finished with what I had planned by May, so June and July become a very light schooling time and we spend more time going for walks, playing outside, and doing fun things. That time becomes my planning time to get ready for the new school year.

This year however feels like a bigger challenge. Although I've been homeschooling for two years now, it has been preschool and kindergarten. Our daughter is above average in reading ability at this age so her reading skills are probably a grade or two advance. Still, This coming year is first grade. This fall she will be required by the state of California (based on her age) to be enrolled in a legally accepted educational situation. If you follow my husband's blog, you know that their is a current court case that has the homeschool community stirred up about whether homeschooling is legally recognized in our state. I will let him worry about that for now. What worries me is that I expect so much of myself in homeschooling our kids and this year was the year that I was going to be adding probably twice as much work as we currently do. In addition, my next daughter is probably ready to start working on some pre-reading skills.

I have heard numerous times from homeschoolers that the first year is the hardest. I think it was true for us (at least so far) because we were feeling our way and our daughter was so young that many curricula were just mismatched to use with her. This past year has felt easier. We had our plan of action, it worked relatively smoothly, and we made steady progress. I was pleased with the curriculum materials we had chosen. We covered language arts appropriate to a Kindergartener (reading practice, writing practice, memorization, vocabulary words, and spelling words), beginning math skills (using Horizons Math published by Modern Curriculum Press), Piano and lots and lots of art.

Next year we are adding formal grammar, history, and science. My first challenge is to finalize our plans about what we will be doing and what curriculum we need for what. We are planning to follow a classical education plan (for those of you who are familiar with educational theory). We still have not decided about when to introduce a non-English language and which language that would be.

Since we are winding down on our current school year with what we had planned so far, and since my daughter always seems to be ready for something new when everybody else is taking a break, I am tempted to try something new. I am tempted to take our year-round school literally and slowly add new aspects that we plan to cover next year a little at a time. I know that she is ready for more formal grammar instruction for example. Why don't I go ahead and get that started and keep up some form of reading and writing practice like we already do. Maybe I could just do the reading and writing in a new way to keep it fresh for her. We could do more math play during the late spring and summer to keep her from forgetting it all before I start her in the next level. It would also help reinforce her understanding of the facts she has covered so far. I already know she needs more work on learning money and measurements. Those are both best learned by hands on practice. Once she has had the added work for a month or two, I could try adding history or science. That way when we start school up in the fall as a first grader, It won't all hit at once and feel overwhelming.

I suspect it would be easier on me that way, too. I know I don't like feeling like I've had extra work dumped on me either. And whether I like it or not, teaching children in the early grades requires a lot of one-on-one attention. I keep hearing that the older they get the better they work independently. I know that my daughter can work steadily for hours without help if she loves it (art is like that for her). But however good she is at other subjects, she needs someone right there to remind her what she should be doing.

So I am in the process of figuring out how to renew our homeschooling for another year. Let's hope the court case allow us to do this for many years to come.

Light at the end of the tunnel

The wave of winter illness struck us almost two weeks ago. The first two kids to get the virus that causes fevers for up to seven days, have now got their appetites back and are merely drippy nosed. Those two happy ones are the Adrenaline Junkie and the Happy Boy. Somehow they managed to get sick on the exact same day (unless I misread symptoms). Now the Pillowfight Fairy is sick with the fever and off her feed. So far, Tim and I have not come down with it. I've been fighting something like a cold the whole time. As of today, however, I'm beginning to think that it's Spring allergies.

It's not easy going through a wave of illness like this. I'm grateful that this time the parents were well, during the bulk of the kid-sickness. We are still on the brink of a serious case of cabin fever, however. At least we have had nice weather for the last week. There were a few days when we were able to get outside for walks or playing in the backyard (hence my suspicion of allergies) and that seemed to help us a little. The trees and flowers are blooming and it feels like spring. Day by day we are getting closer to being well... the light at the end of the tunnel.

My husband is planning on doing a post on our project today as we took turns taking care of kids while the other parent worked outside. I will summarize from my perspective. We planted a vegetable garden. Yesterday, Tim moved around dirt to level things out, killed a bunch of weeds with Round-Up, and mowed. Today he roto-tilled the garden area for me. Then I raked it level, divided it up and made rows. Then I bought seeds and planted. It doesn't look all that big when you see it in context with our huge backyard. But, it is really a very big garden.

I've waited four and a half years to plant that garden. It is an early spring garden, so I've planted cooler weather vegetables: carrots, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, radishes, onions, chives, parsley, basil, and brussel sprouts. Next weekend, we hope to get supports in so we can plant grape vines and snow peas. We decided that a spot in our small orchard would work for our compost pile. We have almost finished our backyard. Once again a light at the end of the tunnel.

I'll be spending a little time every day watering, weeding, and eventually picking fresh veggies. There will be a lot of weeding. The weeds have spread widely since we've moved in. We keep underestimating how fast the weeds go to seed, and kill them after they've gone to seed. As a result, we have more weeds. So much of this coming growing season will be a fight against the weeds. We will need to eradicate them from several large sections of our yard and then put down ground cloth and wood chips. In the garden, I expect that I'll be pulling weeds nearly every day.

Since finances have been a little tight after the big project from last year and several unexpected expenses, we don't think we will be finishing up all the landscaping just yet. But to make the patio area pretty, I think I'll sow several packets of wildflowers that I already have.

Getting outside and making things look nice again has been really satisfying. I'm sure it will take a few seasons yet before everything is just the way I imagined it. But, it is getting there.

As for the sick days we have had recently, I've had a lot of "light at the end of the tunnel" thoughts. Our oldest child is five years old. Five-year-olds are still fussy and clingy when sick, but they are much easier to work with than a three-year old or an infant. The three year old is super fussy and clingy when sick, but at least she can talk and communicate how she feels, if she's hungry, or if her food is about to come up. The baby (or I should say toddler, since he's walking) is as hard to figure out as ever. If he's not happy, something is wrong.

I realize that sick days will only be getting better as the kids get older. The Pillowfight Fairy is ten times better as a sick child now than when she was three. I have wondered how many of those people I know who decided to stop having kids after one or two, decided this after a bad bout of sickness while the kids were preschool age or younger. I know it crosses my mind on those really tough days.

Somehow, as my kids get older I am seeing another light at the end of the tunnel. We still hope to have another child, but even so I'm not going to be having pregnancies much longer. I'm forty. If we are blessed again, it will be our last I think. Eventually, the baby years will pass. The Toddler years will pass. Preschool years will pass. I will get to rid myself of spare toys and baby clothes, maternity clothes and bottles. Some day we will no longer need booster seats at the table. I am looking forward to the older kid stages.