Down on the Farm

For my birthday this weekend, Daddy-O soothed this Country Bumpkin's city-jangled nerves by taking me to a farm! It was a beautiful day and the kids went wild with delight.

We all had a wonderful time, except for a bit of awkwardness at the end when I hid under the straw in the sheep pen, yelling "I won't go back! You can't make me go back!"




We found a living bee!




Little baby chicks under the heat lamp.


No, they're not organic. Yes, the kids are hyperactive.



Sigh...



The beautiful farmhouse.


Piggly-wigs, wallowing!


The black sheep.





HW

In Search of Spring!

Yesterday was gray and drizzly. The trees still have bare branches, and everywhere you look, it's brown.

Scooby asked when the flowers would start coming out, so I suggested we go for a 'Round the Neighbourhood Flower Walk!

It turned into a Flower 'Ride' -- see our preferred mode of transportation, left.

We hopped from garden to garden, looking for signs of life, and found many sprouting bulbs, budding magnolia trees and flowering forsythia.

The kids really got into it, hollering "I found more grape hyacinths!" and "Is this a crocus?" and arguing over whether the yellow ones are 'daffodils' or 'daffy down dillies.' It warmed my gardening cockles, I can tell you.












This was Baby Man's favourite flower (above). I thought he was going to pop a valve in his excitement to cross the street. I don't know what it is about Men and Earth Moving Machines, but it's hard wired.




We believe Spring is coming now!

HW

Constructions

Scooby gave me this rose today, and after I stopped blubbering I thought, 'gosh, that's pretty amazing for four, isn't it?' Daddy-O says she's not supposed to be able to do stuff like this yet, and blames my alien DNA.

Then she made our dog, Henry. Also pretty amazing. Then Baby Man ran away with the masking tape she was using and taped all of his cars together to make a choo choo train. It's clear to me they are just brilliant, that's all there is to it. Bloody brilliant.

HW

A Day at the Park

We are fortunate to live right beside a particularly nice 400 acre park. I'd say it's my favourite thing in the whole city, and the only thing I might actually shed a tear to leave when we move next month.


Today was one of those perfect spring days, so we tootled off to soak up some early spring sunshine. Most of the park is quite wild, thank goodness, but there are lots of "amenities" and "features" as these city types like to call them, which are highly useful when traveling with the Very Wee. This is the fantastic Adventure Playground, buried deep in the park.



This is Kate, who always comes with us. She had a great time too.


After hitting the Adventure Playground, gloriously empty during the week (aahh, homeschooling) we beetled on over to the park's intimate zoo to see the spring babies. There was the fuzziest little baby llama and the kids clung to the fence howling "Aaaawwwwww!"



The star of the show is always the Yak Poo. We even have songs about Yak Poo. I won't inflict them upon you.





HW

Raw Art

I'm really getting fascinated with children's art. Scooby's faces are getting more and more astonishing. The absolute unselfconscious freedom she brings to her creative expression makes me feel we are really doing something right.

She explores themes and repeats things, like the strange stubby arms and squarish heads she gave to a huge family of paper mermaids she constructed. Today she repeated this idea using wax. It's just so primal and stylized, it's amazing.

Junior Vets

Here is our poor, pathetic dog, Simon. He went out into the backyard in one piece, and came back in several. $1800 bucks later, the kids are catering to his every doggie need and having fun turning him into a quivering wreck by tapping on his Elizabethan collar.

Scientific Illustration

Scooby suggested we draw some spiders together! As there is nothing I like more than hunkering down and drawing me some spiders, and nothing that warms my cockles like the never-ending spider theme going on over here, I cheerfully joined in.

Here is my spider. In the large photo above, you will see Scooby's anatomically correct spider. She also cut it out with a suddenly acquired masterful dexterousness.

When she saw my spider, she rolled her eyes. Then she tried to fix it for me, but apparently I put its eyes on upside-down, and drew the mouth on the abdomen, which couldn't be fixed. I told her I would try harder next time.

HW

And........we're back!

This is a tad belated, thanks to The Plague, but we had to share our eggs.

I'd like to go all June Cleaver here, but producing these was in fact, an experience in Pure Toddler Impossibleness, and if I'm wrong about things, and there is in fact a Hell, I now know I will spend eternity colouring hard boiled eggs festive colours with a gaggle of Urchins Who Are About To Get The Flu But I Don't Know That Yet.

Can't...Stop...Writing...Words...

Does anyone else see the little dried grass thing making a (backwards) check mark? As though a left-handed Mother Nature is marking her work! Or maybe I just need to get out more.

The Great Bunny Cometh

We sprinkled some hyacinths about and the whole world smells like spring!

I had to go trotting out to find some after reading Waverly Fitzgerald's "Hyacinths for Nawruz" which included this poem...

If, of thy mortal goods, thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves
alone to thee are left,
Sell one & from the dole,
Buy Hyacinths to feed the soul

-Muslihuddin Sadi, 13th Century Persian Poet

The Great Bunny came to our house with pint-sized gardening tools, flower seeds and enough chocolate to kill a supermodel.



Marmalade and Bootsie woke up to discover they had been magically changed into Bunnies. Happy Easter everybody!

Baby Man Befriends Cantaloupe

What? My Maid of Honour was a plum.

Suffice to say there was much distress and rapid concealing of Cantaloupes in shirts one day when I began waving around a gigantic knife and talking trash about eating it (the melon, not the knife...)

When I saw its friendly, open face, I just couldn't do it.

Reason #65 Why We Homeschool...

Skill Gathering

The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Here at Free Range, we're a bit "skill-centric."

The most famous List of Skills is, of course, The 64 Arts of The Kama Sutra, which one was expected to acquire in order to become a Worthy Marriage Partner.

Many of The 64 Arts are huge categories, like "Skill at Youthful Sports" which then lead to another hundred million activities.

In my early twenties I wrote them out and stuck them on the wall, intending to work my way through them and become Thoroughly Well-Rounded, not necessarily with Marriage in mind...

Some of the Arts on the list, like the Quail and Ram-Fighting, Precision Petal Strewing and Turban Decorating might not float yer boat, but it's easy to think of modern equivalents...ok, except for the ram-fighting.


Using that list as a starting point, I have, through the years, updated and added skills I thought it would be fun and/or useful to learn or obtain deeper knowledge of. If something really interested me, I pulled it out from a larger, vaguer category.

Although my expertise is in List Making, I've tried and studied many of them and mastered a few!



Now we're using The Ever-Growing List as a mental launching pad to help brainstorm ideas for our TV-free evenings, projects and general "environment enrichment." I think perhaps I might print it out in large type and post it on a wall again. If the Sprouts ever complain about 'Having Nothing To Do' when they are older, I'll just wave in the direction of The List.

Here is The List... in "Chaos" order for maximum dendrite stimulation:

1. Wilderness Survival Skills
2. Bricklaying
   
3. Ballroom Dancing
4. The Art of Conversation
5. Plowing with a Team of Clydesdales
   
6. The Art of Listening
7. Kite Making
   
8. Fungi and Edible Wild Plant Identification
   
9. Horseback Riding
10. The Art of Building Dry Stone Walls and Bridges
    
11. Origami
    
12. Sailing/Seamanship
13. The Art of Becoming a Master of Disguises
    
14. Singing
15. Knot Tying
    
16. Reading & Writing Music
    
17. Camping Skills
18. Sleuthing
    
19. Playing Musical Instruments
20. Photography
21. Magic Tricks/Sleight of Hand
    
22. Documentary Film Making
    
23. Writing
24. Walking Through the Woods Without Snapping a Twig
    
25. Calligraphy/Illumination
26. Hot Air Ballooning
    
27. Typing
28. Making Dyes from Plants
29. Illustrating Children's Books
    
30. Reasoning, Debating Skills
31. Sheep Shearing
    
32. Drawing
33. Falconry
34. The Art of Carding and Spinning Wool
    
35. Painting
36. Beer Brewing
    
37. Sculpture
38. The Art of Becoming Ping-Pong Champion of the World
    
39. Pottery
40. Painting Murals, esp. Gigantic Illustrated Historical Time Line
    
41. Making Stained Glass
42. Whittling
43. The Art of Being Present
    
44. Glass Blowing
    
45. Scrapbooking/Making Beautiful Photo Albums
    
46. Jewelery Making
47. Knowledge of Metals and Gemstones
    
48. Acting, Theatre, Performance
    
49. Culinary Arts
50. The Art of Very Fancy Cake Decorating
51. Chess
    
52. Preserving Food from the Garden
    
53. The Art of Entertaining
54. Foreign Languages
55. Bird Watching/Identification
56. The Art of Building an Igloo
    
57. Interior Design, Home Beautification
58. The Art of Dog Training
59. Knowledge of Antiques
    
60. The Art of Feng Shui
61. Puppet Making
    
62. Metalwork, Welding
    
63. Sewing, Knitting, Embroidery, Crochet, Quilting, other fibre arts
64. The Art of Mimicry esp. Animal Noises, in particular Roosters
    
65. Woodworking/Furniture Building
    
66. Toymaking
    
67. Riddles, Tongue-twisters, Puns, Limericks, Wordplay
68. The Art of Domestic Bliss
    
69. Storytelling, Chanting, Narration
    
70. The Art of Fencing
71. The Art of the Bow & Arrow
    
72. Martial Arts/Self Defence
    
73. Downhill Skiing/Cross Country Skiing
    
74. Carpentry
75. The Art of Keeping One's Skin Impossibly Smooth
    
76. Architecture, Building
77. Knowledge of Art History
    
78. Mineralogy
79. Snowshoeing
    
80. Navigation by the Stars
    
81. Swimming
    
82. Astronomy
    
83. Knowledge of Healing Properties of Herbs
    
84. Plumbing, DIY About the House
    
85. The Art of Growing Old English Roses
    
86. First Aid, CPR
    
87. Landscape Design
88. Agriculture, Farming
89. Growing Heirloom Vegetables and Possibly Boars
    
90. The Art of Creating Formal Herb Gardens
    
91. Animal Husbandry
92. Meditation
93. Knowledge of Exotic Spices
    
94. Emotional Skills, eg. Forgiveness, Happiness, Moving On
    
95. Art of Teaching Parrots and Starlings to Speak (just couldn't bring myself to remove it)
    
96. Botany
    
97. Poetry
    
98. Card Games and Board Games
    
99. Vigorous Sports, Assorted
    
100. The Ancient Healing Art of Yoga
     
101. Nutrition, Holistic Healing
     
102. Art of Judging Character (in a non-judgmental sort of way, obviously)
     
103. Floral Design, Perfumery, Aromatherapy, Petal Strewing
     
104. Candlemaking
105. The Art of Making Natural Soaps and Household Cleaning Supplies
     
106. Blacksmithing
107. The Art of Tie Dye
108. Parenting Skills
109. The Art of Massage, Reiki, Reflexology
     
110. Printmaking, Stamp-Carving
111. Beekeeping
     
112. Juggling, Acrobatics, Fire-Eating
113. Bartending/Very Fancy Cocktail Making
     
114. The Art of Unicycling
     

We'll let you know when we've accomplished all of this. Please feel free to submit skills we haven't thought of!

HW

Get Outside and Play! G'wan, Shoo!

One more reason to get out there and play in the dirt, weed your flower garden, grow your own food! An article from the BBC today linking a friendly soil bacterium with positive effects on human health.

Imagine! Looks like maybe, just maybe, we are supposed to be outside in the wonders of nature, not hunched over video games! Amazing. Will the wonders of science never cease.