Walking Through the Woods

Moving to Bramblewood

2012-02-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

Life got really busy there for awhile after my last post. Even with some relaxing down time, I got out of the blog habit. I have been writing in my journal, which is satisfying in a different way than blogging, but I do miss the very visual aspect of the blog.
July and August saw the final building of the house, which was incredibly exciting and stressful beyond most projects I undertake. Not only was there all the paperwork and last minute well issues (who is going to come up with $5000 quick?!? Builder? Owner? Lender? etc.) but we had to paint the entire interior and exterior of the home. That was a seriously huge undertaking on our part, yes indeed. Not only did we save over $4000 doing it ourselves, it was something we got to physically contribute to the building of the house. Sinse I had the dream of building my own home for over 15 years, I think I needed that involvement and control physically and emotionally.
We spent the last half of July painting the interior, meanwhile maintaining 3 4x15 community garden beds, 3 4x8 garden beds at the upper meadow that needed water hauled in (yes, it's true), 10 chickens and 2 cats that needed looking after, 2 kids that were under a lot of stress themselves (but they did awesome, those guys!), keeping the ice cream business afloat, and working on my resume. After a completely grueling 5-day stint scooping ice cream at the Hood River Fair (Columbia Valley Cone's official last event...sniff) I was out starting on the exterior. Bless the boys; they really did a lot of work. Ealom and Gil pretty much did all of the interior ceilings, and Aidan and I painted walls. Outside, we all pitched in, working our butts off in blistering hot weather to get the paint done before closing. The timing was excellent though; painting in extremely dry weather is a true blessing around here.
Things got really crazy when on August 22, I took a new job as the Head Cook and Food Manager for Skamania County's Senior Services Food Program.
We did our final walk-through with the builder and signed the closing papers with USDA on September 1, and we spent Labor Day Weekend moving in. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we moved most of our belongings and Sunday was the big day of bringing over the beds and cats. So, September 4 was the official starting day of living at Bramblewood. The cats are happy here, and of course, so are we.

Here are the garden beds at Bramblewood:

And here are the guys with our community garden bed that won "Best of Show" at the county fair:

Two Flocks of Chickens

2011-07-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

Aidan and Athena, 14 1/2 months old:

Aidan and Back-up, 4 1/2 months old (I would give her a better name, but she was the one with the neurological problem when she was a baby that made her back up and roll over and the name stuck. Btw, she completely healed after a week of Vit. B, Vit. E, neck rubs, and isolation in the house for a week. This was when she was 4 weeks old and we think it was something called wry neck because that was her other symptom; she tucked her neck under to the point that it was twisted nearly all the way around. You'd never know by looking at her now.):

It's not easy integrating two flocks. We are keeping a barrier between the two until the younger hens are eating the same feed blend as the layers. The older one's are aggressive enough that the younger ones will just stay in their coop and not come out during outdoor time if the barrier is down. I know they need to have their pecking order and get that established, so we take the barrier down for awhile every day, but I want them outside also, so we'll put it back up after Athena (the warrior name, go figure, lol) chases them all back inside. If we walk away, she'll even go in and eat up their food, so that's reason #2 to keep them seperate for now. It's interesting to me that Snowball, who is the most skittish around people, is completely accepting of the younger chickens, even sharing scratch with them, which none of the other hens will do.

In a month or so, we'll be building yet another coop (good golly, the FIFTH time) closer to the house and they will all be eating the same feed rations, so they'll just have to get used to each other.

A Few House Updates

2011-07-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

The kitchen after sheetrock:

After we painted and they installed the cabinets and sub-floor:

Here are some of the appliances being stored in Aidan's bedroom before they get installed elsewhere:

Ealom's bedroom:

The boys sitting on rolls of carpet padding in mine and Gil's room:

Master bathroom:

Living room with rolls of carpet and trim:

Interior paint

2011-07-12T23:57:00.000-07:00

The sheetrocking was completed on June 30, and then it was our turn to work on the house; interior painting. What a job! It's nice to have a strong young man for a son who doesn't even need the extension wand to paint ceilings. (I did recommend it nonetheless, but he enjoyed doing it this way also):

Aidan takes a break from painting to make a cleaver belt:

I will have to post more pictures later. :)

Doe With Twins

2011-06-28T23:32:00.000-07:00

House update

2011-06-09T23:57:00.000-07:00

Things are moving right along with the house. The crew worked right through Memorial Day weekend to lay the floor joists, some plumbing (mostly drainage) and get the frame up:

June 1st saw the rafters and roof sheathing go up. It's starting to look like a real house!

This past week has seen the rain gutters added; they are all connected and attached to a huge drainage pipe directed several yards away from the house, which I think is fantastic. In the future the pipe will either get hooked up to a water storage container or empty into a pond.
The shingles were put on, and Aidan got to assist the builder, Darin Baker, staple a few areas of Tyvek wrap with a staple hammer, which was quite the thrill for him.
The electrical and plumbing both have been roughed in, and the following have been installed: the heaters(zonal fan type, which I'm really happy about and hope they are as neat as they sound), shower, tub, and exhaust fan piping.
We visited today and Darin had finished the wrapping and was installing the windows.

We are responsible for clean-up and the boys have been a huge help sorting through piles of rubbish and sorting it all out. I hate all the trash, but we were able to recycle quite a bit, used the cardboard to supress weeds in my future garden area, and we have a huge pile of solid wood scraps for future projects, namely a tree house. I even used quite a few scraps to make a chicken coop extension and the building superintendant, Eric Sundby, came out and used leftovers to build us a shed/well pumphouse. It's not in his contract to do so, but he did. I was quite surprised to see him out there contructing and grateful to have such a great guy supervising our project.

Aunties!

2011-06-09T23:16:00.000-07:00

A few more pictures I should've posted a few months back. :)
Bonny came to visit in February and the day after she left we got a visit from Molly. The weather was partly sunny, gorgeous and felt like spring for Bonny (I guess that's why they call it "false spring"), and then Molly got our last winter storm. It was wonderful to see them both.

We had just finished a picnic at a Hood River park:

The boys were sledding on the elementary school hill behind us:

Easter with cousins

2011-06-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

I know Easter is well behind us, but I wanted to share a couple of pictures of the boys with their cousins.
I am cracking up that they all wore camouflage to go hunting eggs.

Afterwards we went to the park and I got this shot, which I just love:

Concrete!

2011-05-25T00:09:00.000-07:00

We were pleasantly surprised today by the presence of cement mixing and pouring equipment, as well as a whole crew of workers out at Bramblewood. They poured the footing for the house and the foundation for the well pump house.

We came back later after they had finished. They did this all in one day. Pretty amazing.

Property Improvements

2011-05-23T02:04:00.000-07:00

We were told on Thursday that the building permit is ready and will be picked up by Adair (our builder) first thing Monday morning. 7 1/2 months after filing, it better be ready. I never would have imagined it could take the county that long to get their stuff together and I must say I remain unimpressed with their abilities down at the planning office.
Nevertheless, building should get started soon and we have a few improvements to report on, namely; a much nicer driveway that you don't need 4WD to drive on:

We also have electricity, a well liner, our water report shows good, healthy drinking water (woo-hoo!!!), and they've started to dig out the foundation. You can see the former and the latter in this picture:

New coop

2011-05-23T01:51:00.000-07:00

We worked really hard on the new coop and are now starting the expansion to accomodate the chicks when they move in. The expansion will remain separate for a week or so with just chicken wire separating the two flocks before we remove it and they get to interact after having lived next to each other, seeing and hearing each other for a little while first. Hopefully it will make the transition easier, but who knows? I'm just hoping it goes fairly smoothly and nobody gets terribly victimized. I love chickens and am constantly impressed with their antics and cleverness, but they can sure be cruel to each other and could care less as long as they get what they want at times.
They've never picked on each other badly enough to cause any real concern though, and are a pretty darn contented flock most of the time.
Peck still sings everyone to sleep and their instincts are in excellent working order. An example: we've had a hawk fly over a couple of times and I was struck by how quickly they ran for cover before I even noticed it up above. The second time it happened, Peck was still scratching and the others were huddled under a tree hollering at her to get to safety. She looked up like, "what's all the fuss about", then realized what they were bawking about and ran over to join the group. Then they all just waited quietly together for a couple minutes, then back out to peck around some more.
It was actually quite neat to watch, I just hope they stay safe. I know hawks don't need much space to swoop down and grab some dinner.
Here's the coop, done enough to move everyone in:

And here it is a few days later, looking a little more finished:

New Brooder

2011-05-23T01:18:00.000-07:00

The chicks were getting a little big for their plastic tote brooder, and I knew they wouldn't be getting into their outdoor space for at least 4 more weeks, so I decided to turn our old utility trailer into a huge brooder.
This was a few weeks ago when they were 6 1/2 weeks old. They are now almost 10 weeks and still have plenty of space; I just want to get them outdoors soon!
Here they are inside:

And here it is from the outside:

New Chicks!

2011-03-21T23:40:00.000-07:00

We have been busy building a chicken coop at Bramblewood, the first structure to grace the new farm. It's coming along nicely, but taking longer than it should because of all the rain. I read that this area averages 17 days of rain in March, and we've had at least 19 so far. The area of excavation and building (all by hand) around the coop is a sticky muddy mess, so I headed out to the feed store for a couple of bales of straw. I got the straw, but I also came home with chicks. :-)
We have been planning on getting 5 new chickens; 3 Barred Plymoth Rocks and 2 Rhode Island Reds, but I figured we'd get them in a few weeks. Well, the feed store had just those two varieties, with other breeds coming in over the next couple of months, but no more of these particular two. It seemed rather fortunate, and since Aidan was begging and making promises of all the work he will be doing if we could just get the chicks today, I figured now was as good a time as any.
It was pretty nice just having to buy food and grit, knowing that we have everything at home from last year. We brought the chicks home, scrubbed and sanitized everything, and they are chirping away merrily. I think they are about six days old.

Here they all are:

And here is a close-up of the tiniest of the flock:

Chicken Waterer

2011-03-16T01:27:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I read on a blog about how to make a chicken waterer with a bucket and poultry nipples, but now I can't find the blog, so unfortunately can't give proper credit to the inventor of this ingeneous little waterer.
It's pretty simple, so at least I remember how to do it. Theirs did involve two buckets, cutting the bottom off of one and then sliding this completed one inside with a little glue so that you can fill it easily and not crush the nipples on the ground, but I figure we can just set ours on a couple of scrap pieces of 2x4 while we fill it. In our climate, mold is a real concern, and I didn't want cracks I can't get to and clean.

Here is how we made ours:
First I ordered some nipples from www.farmtek.com, STK# WC1030
and a food safe bucket lid (I ordered mine from Azure Standard, but unless you already order from them as a co-op member, you'll have to find one somewhere else. I already had a food safe bucket scavenged from a friend who works at a natural foods store.
The nipples were only $2.05 each & you only need two for each waterer, but the shipping was $11+ whether I ordered 2 or 4, so I ordered 4, figuring I'll be making another waterer eventually anyhow.

Here is what you need:
3 or 5 gallon bucket with lid
2 poultry nipples
drill
11/32 drill bit
silicon (you can buy a small squeeze tube and you won't even need the caulking gun, but I happened to have both of these latter items on hand already)
scissors or in my case wire cutters to snip silicon tube end

I also found these items handy during the process:
pliers (to tighten nipples; looks like they can be tightened with a socket wrench, but pliers were closer and worked just fine)
paper towel to wipe excess silicon and popcicle stick to smooth it:
:

First, drill two holes in the bottom of bucket:

Screw the nipples (from the outside bottom of the bucket) in by hand and then tighten with pliers:

Apply silicon around the base of the nipples, on the outside bottom of the bucket (I smoothed mine with a poscicle stick, but it's probably not necessary:

Let dry for 24 hours, then wash everything, fill with water, put the lid on, and hang from a chain, which is attached to hooks installed in the coop frame. The actual making of the waterer was less than 10 minutes, but of course there is the gathering of supplies and subsequent clean-up, but all in all a very easy project that my 10 and 14 year old sons put together all by themselves with my assistance and direction.
Apparently, some people's chickens catch right on and other's don't, so I can only guess that like many animal "issues", the problem is with the people. One blogger mentioned clicking the little nipples and showing the chickens what to do, and they went for them right away. I'll let you know how it goes and share a couple of pictures of the completed project, as well as it in use.

Silver Lakenvelder

2011-01-17T21:25:00.000-08:00

The Lakenvelder has laid nary an egg for the last several weeks, while the Black Stars and Light Brahma continue to lay one every day or every other day at least. Her eggs are very pretty though, they are a white egg called "tinted"; we like to call it "pearl". My picture just doesn't do them justice.

Snowball loves to fly up and hang out on the pole fence, nibbling at pine needles. Of course, that's her favorite spot to escape the yard also.

We have a rare bird

2010-10-15T07:14:00.000-07:00

While we were moving our chicken coop from our house out to Sharon's farm, the chicken's had a good time in their temporary home; under the trampoline. It took us two evenings and since it wasn't all that secure under the trampoline, we made a little area in the back of the garage and carried them in there to sleep at night. It was quite an ordeal transporting all five chickens back and forth that night and morning, but all was well. We spread straw all over the floor and provided cardboard boxes and pet carriers in case anyone wanted to get cozy, and they just slept until I got them out in the morning. Gratefully Snowball was in one of the pet carriers, so I was able to just pick up the whole thing and move her to the trampoline area. She is the most flighty and easily startled bird, while the rest are quite mellow and tame. Interesting, because she was hand-fed and raised with lots of holding and petting. Well, come to find out, there's a biological reason she's so wild acting; turns out that she is a "Silver Lakenvelder", a chicken breed that hails originally from Germany and they are known to be less sociable with humans. She gets along great with the other birds though, lays beautiful tinted white eggs, and is a handsome bird that loves to be outdoors with the other chickens. Her breed is rare, but not critically endangered. She has inspired me to check into other rare breeds and potentially raise mostly endangered chicken breeds. Peck is a "Light Brahma" and is a sweet and friendly bird who has kind of taken over as the leader of the flock. She lets everyone know when it's bedtime; when the Black Stars were smaller, she would gather them up and literally sing them to sleep. I had no idea that chickens did that, but Peck sits in there cooing in the sweetest little voice that sounds just like a type of singing until everyone settles down.

Here is Snowball:

Peck:

Their temporary under the trampoline digs:

Snowball and Peck with two of the Black Stars getting their daily outdoor time. The Black Stars are named Matilda, Venus, and Athena:

First Eggs!

2010-10-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

How did we end up with chickens? I have been wanting chickens for several years, but hadn't found or had the opportunity. Last April, there was a chicken show at the fairgrounds over the weekend, and when we came into work Monday morning, found that a chick had been left behind. She was running around the barn frantically and one of the ladies caught her and put her in a box. She called OHSU and they asked her to find someone willing to take it home, as they weren't driving all the way back out from Portland for one little chick. Nobody could or would take her and I figured, why not? Yes, I can think of a few reasons now why not, but it seemed like a fine idea at the time and even though it has been an ordeal, I don't regret the decision.
We brought her home, made a little pen out of a rubbermaid tote, drove to the farm store in Carson for some food, bedding, dishes, and a heat light, and set "Snowball" up in the garage. Sharon took pity and offered her a buddy, as chickens are flock animals and really do need other chickens to be with, and she had 15 chicks. We gratefully took in "Peck" to keep Snowball company. Peck was just a few days old and Snowball was about 3-4 weeks, the 3rd week of April. They got along immediately and hunkered down together at night from day one. I started reading about chickens and learned that while 2 chickens do okay, 3-5 is really the best minimum for a decent flock. On May 5th, Dickey Farms had another round of chicks come in, so we went out and picked up 3 Black Stars, or Black Sex Links, 2 days old. I don't know why I didn't take more pictures, they were just little balls of black fluff, so cute.
We set up a 2nd brooder and raised them separate from the 2 bigger chicks, since they needed a little more heat and I wasn't sure how they would all get along.
By the middle of May, we were taking the big chicks outside everyday for some fresh air and exercise, they had a bigger pen in the garage, and it was time to build a coop. We scavenged materials around here and bought a few things like chicken wire, screws, poultry tacks, and plywood.
To make a long story short, everything went great for a couple of months, the chickens all got along after we introduced them, and we were all enjoying the new additions, when we got a visit from a city planner who told us we couldn't have the chickens and they would have to be removed. It is the most ridiculous thing, but quite common to have ordinances against chickens, many people in towns and cities are working to change the laws, but not here yet. We were given until August 20th to move the chickens, so we moved the entire coop out to Sharon's place. I am hoping to get the law changed here, but the city told me that it will take at least 6 months and by then we will be moved out to the property where chickens are allowed. I will still help folks here, but in the meantime, the chickens live in Carson, and we have to drive daily to care for them and collect eggs. We let them out into the barn yard while we are there and they have a great time running around, scratching, pecking, and eating bugs and weeds.
The first eggs were a real thrill for everyone, they came the 2nd week of September and we have been getting eggs daily since then. We have gotten five eggs in one day twice, and a double yolker 3 times.

Here is the coop:

And here are the boys with the first eggs:

I will make another post later with better pictures of the chickens and describe their types and temperaments.

Ealom's Art

2010-10-12T07:41:00.000-07:00

Ealom had a fantastic opportunity last month to attend a class on creating characters for comics taught by a professional comic book artist. The kids got to submit their comic book covers to The Maryhill Museum of Art for display in their "Comics at the Crossroads" exhibit. We went to the opening event of the exhibit, where the kids got to present and talk about their art pieces, and attend the social event afterwards. Here he is, his cover is on the lower right:

As an added bonus, which was probably even more fun than the event itself, was the attendance of COUSINS! Maryhill is in between Yakima and Stevenson, and we were thrilled that Katy was able to come and bring 3 of the kids. Here are the boys under a sculpture entitled, "The Taco Bell":

I had gotten out of the habit of blogging last summer, so I am going to share a couple of photos from another class Ealom took a year ago. This class was "Claymation" and was held at OMSI, all day long for a week. The class was incredibly inspiring and Ealom learned a lot, still using skills he learned at that class in his current projects. I am disappointed that he couldn't go again this year, but we plan on sending him next year.
Here he is outside the studio holding the DVD he made, entitled "Gump":

And inside:

I will try to upload the claymation he made at that class to Youtube and link it here.

Property History

2010-10-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

My job does have some perks, such as asking around about local history, and someone is sure to know something. I asked Jeananne Wiseman, who was born and raised in Stevenson, about our property. She actually remembered the folks who owned the house on our property, but couldn't remember when it was torn down. Her aunt used to live just around the corner and Jeananne remembered walking around the area. I'm going to be asking more questions and talking to more people, but I want to write down what she told me so far.
The house was built by Miles and Mildred Stevenson, relatives of the founders of our town. According to Jeananne, Miles was an enormous man with an equally matched appetite for alcohol and fighting with his wife. Rumor has it they were both fighters when they drank and had some rip-roaring times. Miles was a logger and lived to a ripe old age, but not sure when he died. Mildred died about 4 years ago at age 98. Jeananne recommended visiting the local museum and asking them about the place. She also said she'd bring in some photos of Stevenson from the 1940s when the road through town (now Highway 14) was gravel and the sidewalks were wooden. She has pictures of the house she was born in, which is now the Marylin Bolles Art Studio downtown.

Wildcrafting at the Property

2010-10-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

So, the previous property owners were telling the truth; there are indeed apple trees down by the creek, and while I had thought there wasn't any fruit, we found some. It was nearly three weeks ago when we found the apples, gleaned about 2 gallons from the ground and picked a few from the trees. The trees are old and neglected, but we got enough apples to make a crisp combined with blackberries. Yum!
Here is our harvest, along with gift veggies from our next door neighbors garden:

Here is the crisp:

Black bears love apples also. This picture was taken yesterday. Yep, that's black bear scat chock full of apples. The fellow wildcrafter was spotted on the neighbor's property the night before. Wishing we had a really big dog.

Excavator and surprise

2010-10-06T07:57:00.000-07:00

The excavator came out and removed an entire area of brambles in less time than we spent making a little path through it. This is the same area where you can see our little path in the post below:

A shot of the enlarged meadow (building site):

And surprise...there used to be a house here, which was apparently torn down and the spot used as a dump. Of course, they left the foundation, and I have no idea if it was broken up before or if our kindly (ha) excavator tore it up and moved monstrous chunks of concrete around. Luckily it's not at our building site, but out at the front of the property next to the road. It would be cool if there were actual treasures in there, but I'm pretty sure it's mostly junk. Aidan and I did find 2 forks and 2 butter knives, which he promptly put to use digging at some copper wire and tubing that was stuck in the ground. As soon as I told him you could trade that stuff in for cash, he was all over it. :) He'll have to come back with a shovel of course, but Gil and I had a good chuckle watching him squatting in the dirt trying to dig with a knife and fork. I am guessing the dump to be 1920s-1970s, perhaps the house existed 1920s-1950s? It's interesting, I am going to try and find out more about the history here. Gil is looking at parts of an old wringer washer here along with a chunk of the foundation:

The path

2010-09-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

My goodness, brambles are hard work to get rid of. I know that goes without saying (or writing) but whew! We cut a crescent path through the woods from one corner of the east side of the building site/meadow to the south end and it took us almost three hours. I had hoped to hack all the way to the creek on the east side of the meadow because I wanted to see how steep the slope there is and the previous owners told us there were apple trees over there, but about 15 feet in, we discovered a deer path going south and decided to just widen that back up to the meadow, since after 3 hours, we were ready to be done with that area, I know how steep the hill is, and I spied some ancient looking apple trees that are either done producing for the season or completely retired.
We had already spent two hours before that picking berries, hacking at the sides of the driveway, and removing snags and some brambles from the creek path. The creek path is one that is clearly used by deer and perhaps even neighbors. I removed several dangerous looking snags, lots of dead logs and branches and over-hanging brambles, and I have to say, as hard as the work was, it was all very satisfying, the scratches and sore muscles being well worth it.

Here is a "before" picture:

Oh, and of course, this before picture: ;)

And here is after 3 hours of heavy labor:

I will try and not focus on the fact that we took out less than 1% of what needs to be removed, and the ones we chopped down still have their big knotty roots in the ground, which will re-sprout and still need to be dug up or chopped up somehow (rototiller?) if we want to plant anything else there. Boo to people being irresponsible stewards of the land! This is what happens when land is logged and then ignored. The excavator will be removing some of it, but that tears up the land so badly, including anything native that has survived the logging and invasive species onslaught, that we are hoping to save some of it. I have uncovered many native plants and if we we just tear up the land, it will all be lost. We will be doing it in some areas anyhow, and replant, plus we do want a small lawn and garden areas. The excavation (backhoe) also churned up all the topsoil and it is a clay mess and can destabilize the land. The one good thing about it is that it brought a lot of the rocks to the surface, which we are going to try and use for landscaping.

We signed the papers!!!

2010-09-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

Finally, six months and multiple headaches later, the property is in our name! We are so thrilled, I cannot begin to describe how much. We signed on Friday and went out Sunday to assess the work and have a picnic. We couldn't help ourselves, brought out the tools and chopped a path into the woods off the side of the building pad. 5 1/2 hours later...with a bucket of blackberries and scratches on hands and arms, we have a beautiful little meandering path and more room on the sides of the driveway. Now we can almost drive all the way in with the windows down! haha.

Here is the the driveway from the road, catching Ealom in the act of blackberry picking:

Here is the driveway from the building site (we are calling it "The Meadow"):

The Meadow / building site:

What Aidan spent 80% of his time doing the last 2 days at the property (the other 20% was at the creek):

Trip to the Coast

2010-09-13T14:59:00.001-07:00

We had a great time at the coast this year. We are members of the NW Civil War council, participating in living history and battle reenactments about 5 times a year. It started out as a good excuse to go camping, not to mention great rates (free w/ our membership) and stays at beautiful state parks. The Ft. Stevens event falls on Labor Day weekend every year and we decided to stay an extra day and go exploring further north. We headed out to Ft. Stevens on Friday evening, setting up camp in the dark with a slight sprinkle. We have a large cabin tent and with our 10x10 canopy and 20x30 tarp covering the whole set-up, we stayed dry and toasty. We have gotten spoiled on having our business stuff to take camping; hot water hand washing station, folding tables, marine cooler, etc., which is all quite nice and makes camping pretty smooth. We would eventually like to go all rustic and camp with the living history group, but for now we stay in "modern camp", since we have all of the equipment already.
The weather cleared up Saturday, and stayed beautiful all Sunday and into Monday. Gil had a fun time playing soldier, the boys had a great time camping, going to the beach on their own, hiking and biking around and I had some much needed rest and relaxation. Saturday night was the dance and Gil and I danced the Virginia Reel, some other fun "period" dances and Aidan and I waltzed.
Sunday night was the company potluck, and everyone was asking when we are going to get our Civil War gear and camp with them. This is our 2nd full year doing this and I did notice 2 families that have joined after us are already camping in "Civilian Camp". I'd love to, but we are saving up for a real house folks!
Monday afternoon we headed north to Cape Disappointment and the weather turned nasty. Fitting name, eh? We got camp set up and went to the beach, getting completely soaked and chilled in the foggy rain. We stayed warm and dry in our shelter though, and the rain let up long enough for us to sit around the campfire and roast hot dogs and marshmallows.
Tuesday we got packed up and went to Long Beach to visit Marsh's free museum and gift shop, which is something unto itself. The place is packed with trinkets, stuffed animals that are falling apart because they are so old, crazy old antiques, a "mummified alligator man" (oi vay!) and all of these old contraptions dating from the mid-19th century that you can put a coin in and get some sort of show; organ machines, periscopes, games, weird little shows, you name it. It was really amazing and quite entertaining. After that we headed up to Ocean Park to visit Jack's, a general store that has all kinds of old-fashioned gadgets and candy. The boys spent all their money on candy and I spent mine in the kitchen section. Got those cool little corn-on-the-cob holders, a neat nutcracker, some beautiful wooden utensils, canning supplies, rootbeer extract, and other fun goodies.
I guess we were all tuckered out because nobody cared to go to the beach again, just ready to go home, where we arrived at 9pm at night. What a trip!

Thoughts on unschooling

2010-06-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

A lot has been swirling around in my head regarding educational philosophy over the past several months and the path that we have taken, one definitely less traveled. We have been attending a group nearly every Friday that is composed of mostly unschoolers. I have often called myself "eclectic" because even when we studied using the Charlotte Mason method, we would often spend days and even weeks just doing as we pleased and that made us all quite happy.
We really do prefer the natural learning that takes place in an unschooling environment, but that seemed so scary for some reason. Cultural programming, public school propaganda, fear of the unknown, etc. and now thankfully I am ready to let go of all of that and really do our own thing.
We attended an unschooling conference two weekends ago called "Life is Good" and I saw firsthand the joys of natural learning and why I have been drawn to this path. I am recognizing how controlling I am/have been and I don't like it. I've always considered myself a fairly relaxed parent and maybe compared to much of our society I am, but we have a long way to go! The wonderful thing is that I have some really great friends who unschool that are great examples as we have turned our focus to this new path.
One thing that really draws me to unschooling is the opportunity for children to learn how to make decisions for themselves. I see so many people around me having an extremely difficult time making decisions, and I realize that the more I allow my kids to make their own decisions, the more comfortable they will be in doing so.
I'd like to share one thing that happened while at the conference that really helped me to see my controlling nature.
Aidan was playing DS with a buddy and the rest of us went in to see Kimya Dawson perform. Gil, Ealom, and I were sitting there laughing and enjoying it so much, I just knew Aidan would like it also, so I ran out to get him. Well, Aidan wanted to continue DS with his buddy. I started to try and convince him that he would really enjoy the show. Ginger Sabo was sitting nearby (it was her son Aidan was playing with) and she just said something along the lines of, "He can be here, it's no problem", in a very kind and calm voice. I had to think about that for a split second, but in that moment, I knew that she was right and I knew that he'd be just fine and that's exactly what this whole philosophy hinges on; letting him make that choice. I felt this wave of calm come over me as I thanked her and went back to the concert without Aidan. How wonderful that he could decide what was going to be the best place for him to be at that moment. So many times we don't know what we want. Why exasperate that problem by controlling a kid's every move?
Another challenge was becoming comfortable with the term "unschooling", since it seemed perhaps negative to me, with the "un" and all. The ah-ha came when I was telling my friend about the kids and I drying some herbs to make tea with and she asked me, "Is that for homeschool?" In response, I heard these words just came out of my mouth, "No, we were just doing it, not for school...just because we wanted to do it...we don't even DO school, uhm, we, uh, well, we unschool."
All of a sudden it had just clicked for me and all of these ideas suddenly made sense, the term unschool suddenly had meaning to me and I "got it". School has nothing to do with what we do, it's lost it's power over me. Wow! Big ideas.

Future Muñoz homesite

2010-03-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve had my eye on this neighborhood called Fern Meadow in Stevenson for over a year now and recently a parcel there became available. We put in an offer and it was accepted. It’s about a mile up the hill from town in an area of newer homes, with private newly paved roads, private wells & septic systems (just out of city limits), CC&Rs to avoid too much hillbilly (haha) action, but not overly restrictive, and it’s relatively flat for this area. It’s Stevenson, so of course there are rolling hills, huge rocks, and the entire area rests on a massive clay shelf in ancient and gulp, recent, slide zones. All properties in Skamania County in fact, must have a Geo Tech test to make sure your property will not be sliding down onto your neighbors in the near future. A massive earthquake would be devastating I’m sure, but there are no major fault lines right in Stevenson. The main issue is just that it’s the Columbia Gorge and every bit of the Gorge has moved and slid about at some point in history because of the Columbia River, glacial action in the past, and the fact that there is a lot of clay in the ground.
At the county planning office, Teddy (county planner) showed us a huge map of the entire gorge, which shows all of the slides over time. It’s extremely interesting to see how they were formed and how they all overlap each other. There is currently an active slide above Fern Meadow (the Maple slide) but it’s headed down the hill on the other side of us directly towards the LDS church, which will be swept away at some point in the next 100 years if they can’t stop that one (don’t know how they could), but it’s also sliding from the bottom, which is the Piper Slide; the lower part of the same slide across the street down the hill from the church. One family’s home (a block from the church) is currently sliding down the hill and the county built them a brand new home directly across the street from our new property, so clearly where we are buying is in a relatively safe area and not expected to slide any time soon. Kinda crazy though, eh? You can see all of this on Google Earth if you want to check it out. Just type in Stevenson, WA and zoom in. It’s hard for me to tell exactly what I’m looking at sometimes, but it is interesting.
Soooo, on to the property, now that we’ve had our geography lesson. lol!
It’s 3 acres, with a well, driveway, cleared homesite, Geo Tech tested, Kanaka Creek goes right through the property with a little waterfall, tons of native vegetation and wildlife (4 deer ran past us last time we were there), and it’s QUIET. Yippy! It’s in Stevenson, so of course it is partially sloped, but nothing major and there are plenty of flat spots. The slide thing might freak some people out, but after looking at several other properties that looked they were literally hanging on for dear life to the side of the gorge, this one looks wonderful.
It was kind of dark when I took the pictures, but I think you can see somewhat; the first one is the waterfall (my favorite feature on the lot!), next is the driveway (built in 2004, so overgrown a bit), and last is the view from the front of the property with the home across the street. The homesite is in the back and is mostly private. Look at all of those brambles! I know 2 boys who are going to be gearing up with machetes and going to work. :-)

Looking for that perfect land

2010-03-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

We've been looking for a place to call (permanent) home for almost 2 years now and finally put in an offer that was accepted! We've done a lot of research and our dream has been to find land that we can garden, have a few chickens, build tree houses and forts, and basically just run wild and enjoy nature right at home. I have researched cordwood and cob building, even living in a yurt, but we always keep our options open and even living in a fairly conventional home is fine, as long as we have some land to get creative on.
We have looked at dozens of bare land lots, as well as fixer uppers (even in Portland)and several nice homes on 1/2 acre+ lots, and put in one formal offer on a cute cottage on 1/2 an acre across the street from the library, which was a wonderful location right in town, but our offer wasn’t accepted, even $20k OVER asking price in this market?!? Which tells you something about Stevenson real estate; it’s just not suffering as much as other parts of the county. We are very grateful that our offer wasn’t accepted however, as we were totally doing the Tevya thing; “On one hand…., on the other hand…” lol.
The arguments:
Pros: It was cute as a button, 1950’s Cape Cod, all wood, we knew the previous owner (he died there last summer), he created beautiful gardens, all mature, nice landscaped creek, walk to everywhere in Stevenson, BUT…
Cons: busy corner (this was a huge one for us, as it’s one of the busiest corners in town and we felt a LOT of trepidation about it), part of the lot is steeply sloped, tiny kitchen and dining room, and there would be a few older house issues (they all have some!).
Soooo, after that disappointment, we set out determined to buy land and have a new home built on it. We have looked at LOTS of properties over the past 2 years, as far north as La Center, WA (not counting the sneak peaks at Mat-Su land!), east to Goldendale, WA, as far south as Estacada, OR, and west as far as Banks, OR. Phew! We’ve looked at so many Columbia Gorge properties; I was offered a job by Mal & Seitz Real Estate to be an agent – no joke! They are across the river in Cascade Locks and I went looking at properties over there with an agent named Ginger. We talked so much and I shared with her so many different loan options & building/developing ideas that I really impressed her and she said whenever I want to take the exam, they’ll save a desk for me. She even called me later to assure me that she was serious. :-) I love educating people on their professions – lol! At least Ginger appreciated it and I may even take her up it, I would enjoy working with her some more and I am looking at future career options. I’ve also had to educate my loan officer over at USDA rural, but that’s another story which hasn’t been nearly so enjoyable and has caused me a lot of unnecessary stress. I am going to make this a single blog post and talk about the new property in it’s own post, up next! :-)

When it's over 100 degrees...

2009-07-28T13:11:00.000-07:00

Get thee to a cool cave! Ape Cave, which is part of Mt. St. Helen’s lava tube system, boasts a balmy year-round temperature of 42 degrees.
We visited the cave for the first time in April when there was still snow on the ground and we had to hike in the last stretch of roadway because the last portion of the road leading up to the cave was closed. It was only about a mile long, but because we had to hike through the snow wearing just tennis shoes and light sweaters (hey, it was full spring at home!) we didn't feel like trying to reach the end of the tube that time. We probably hiked about halfway though. At least we had flashlights, but only two.
This time we were prepared with flashlights for all and long sleeve shirts to put over our t-shirts. We hiked in at over 100 degrees and climbed down to the sweet feeling of 42. Ahhhh...felt good.
We hiked the lower trail all the way to the end and the kids talked me in to crawling on all fours, and for about 15 feet on my belly, to touch the very end. Those few moments crawling on my stomach were rather disconcerting as I am definitely not a fan of being closed up in tight quarters and totally have a fear of being crushed, so squeezing through a tight spot hundreds of feet below solid volcanic rock was not my idea of a good time. Nonetheless, I was victorious, and the boys and I sat for a minute at the extreme end reveling in our cramped glory before shimmying back up and out. Here are a few photos; the one with both of them is at the very end:

When life gives you cherries...

2009-07-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

Get pitting! A fellow homeschooling mom whom my friend Deanne knows had an overabundance of cherries and because this has been a banner year for fruit (and everything else that grows!); there's a glut in the cherry market. This kind lady offered as many free cherries as a body could pick to whomever wanted to do so. Funny, I had just been wishing for some cherries to come our way, so it was quite serendipitous.
We went out early with Deanne and her boys and picked well over 100 lbs. We were guessing it was close to 180, but we didn’t have a scale. However much we got, it was plenty. The freezer is full of pitted bags full, I made cherry crisp, canned up to 7 quarts of pie filling and 8 pints of brandied cherries, started almost ½ gallon of cherry extract in vodka, sun-dried several lbs., and we are still eating fresh cherries 2 weeks later. I will make some cherry jam also, but I just may wait until it cools off and do it with frozen cherries, which works almost as well as fresh ones. Since it’s been in the upper 90s and low 100s, I actually canned the brandied cherries outside on our Coleman camping stove and started to do the pie filling, but had to finish up inside when I ran out of propane. So, before I can again, I have to get some more gas. Canning outside is SOOO nice! When we build our dream house, it will have an outdoor cooking room for sure! ;-)
Here’s a pic of the bountiful harvest, which took the boys and I three hours to pick. Btw, Ealom wins the prize as the fastest cherry picker – I think he picked the most.
Vans, Lamberts, and Royal Annes:
>
Both stores near us were out of cherry pitters (of course!) so I borrowed this cutie from my neighbor. It took about an hour to pit 5 lbs. of cherries and my hands were not liking the repetitive motion, but it is much more handy than nothing. The next day I had to go to Portland, so I picked up a large plunger type pitter, which pits oh so much faster; about 30 lbs. an hour. There is no way I would’ve gotten through all those cherries with that single extractor, but it is so cute, when I saw the exact one at a garage sale last week for 10c, I picked it up. Now two people can pit and trade off pitters. Yummy stuff; I love gleaning! :-)

Alaska2

2009-07-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was spent doing final wedding shopping. I was in charge of decorating, and there were a few things I needed to pick up in Anchorage. We also went to the Kobuk, which was a favorite shop of ours when we lived there, and visited Town Square, where we used to ice skate in the winter. We decided we were going to need a rental car after all, and so picked that up Tuesday after we finished the shopping.
Then we headed over to the airport to meet Nancy, Loei, and Walid. It was quite a big deal for them to be arriving, since they had worked so long and hard to get Walid his “green card”, not to mention the 27 hour trip from Cairo. Molly had gotten them buddy passes and worked really hard to make sure they were able to get there as smoothly as possible. All in all it was a huge deal for them and we were thrilled to be there when they arrived in Anchorage. I wish I had taken pictures, but we were all just too busy meeting and greeting. ;-) Poor Lolo was pooped, but in good spirits nonetheless and my boys were so happy to see him. Walid brought Gil an Egyptian drum that he had carried all the way. It is beautiful and Gil loves it. Mom and Molly were both there to drive the family and their luggage to Wasilla, and we stayed one more night in Anchorage.
Wednesday we finally drove out to Wasilla and then to Willow to hang out with Bonny and Jim. He’s a great guy, I could tell Bonny was happy, and they live at this awesome property with a cool house. Bridgette and Hatcher were so happy to see us and Hatcher even went over to the car looking for the boys, who had stayed in Wasilla with Uncle Benny. We had a great visit and I was wishing everyone lived closer, so we could’ve been hanging out there most nights!
Thursday and Friday were spent getting ready for the wedding. On Thursday we took a couple of hours out to meet up with some dear friends of ours, Kellee Ball and her children. We hung out at Wasilla Wonderland Park and then came back to the parent’s apt. building, where we all visited some more. I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of all the kids together! That really disappoints me. Sigh. Just can’t do it all. At least we got to visit.
Thursday evening, Bonny and Jim came over for final wedding plans and we got most everything planned and organized. Friday was spent doing all of the final preparations, with Nancy and Molly helping me make the final decorations, a group of us going to Target for wedding presents, and staying up until 3 in the morning helping Benny (bless his heart!) make fudge. :-) I’ll include a wedding picture of the table decorations in this post.

Alaska 1

2009-07-13T07:23:00.000-07:00

Bonny and Jim got married on June 20, and we wouldn't have missed it for the world! We hadn't been back to AK since we moved away, so the whole trip was a huge thrill for the boys, and bittersweet for me. I say that because while I am happy to live somewhere much warmer, I do miss Alaska and I miss my family up there like crazy. I of course cried all the way home!
The wedding was beautiful and we all really like Jim, so couldn't be happier for Bonny. An extra treat was that Nancy, Walid, and Loei flew in from Cairo. Yay!!
We only had 8 days, so it was a whirlwind tour and none of us felt like we were there long enough. I know that's normal for most vacations, but still...anyhow...here’s a brief recap. I will at some point add photos at Facebook, so will only include a few here.
We arrived around 1 am on Sunday the 14th, stayed up later talking to Lupe and Jessica, then slept some. We got up and headed out to the Three Baron's Renaissance Fair, which we had faithfully attended every year when we lived in Anchorage. Benny and Molly met up with us and we all had a great time. When we got back to Lupe’s, she drove us to Elderberry Park and we hiked the Coastal Trail, arriving back at the park just before midnight. Since Monday was Ealom’s birthday, we counted down the remaining seconds until he turned 13 in the midnight sun. I took some very nice pictures of his last minutes as a 12 year old and a very funny video of him counting down to 13. :-)
I arranged a party at the Imaginarium (our old Science Center) and invited friends and family on Monday. Since everybody on my side of the family was working and/or getting ready for the wedding, it was just Gil’s side of the family and some of Ealom’s friends. He had a pretty good time, but since we used to have huge blow-out parties at our home in Anchorage for the kids’ birthdays, Ealom felt a little let-down. I did my best, but I think it was like a lot of things in life, especially birthdays. You get all worked up for this “huge” event, but you don’t feel any different really, and it’s kind-of anti-climatic. Oh well, life goes on. We went back to Lupe’s for dinner and then headed over to our old neighborhood. It was really emotional for all of us to see the home where we had built so much of our lives for 9 years, but we were glad we went and hung out in the street with our old neighbors chatting until nearly midnight when we could stand the tiredness and mosquitoes no longer. It never gets dark of course. ;-)
Maybe this is why I don’t blog much – it takes me too long! I think I will break these posts up into a couple of days at a time, and add a couple photos each.
Here’s the boys at the 3 Baron’s Fair:

Ealom's last minutes being 12:

The final countdown to 13:

Ealom's birthday party:

Aidan's baseball

2009-07-13T06:55:00.000-07:00

Aidan was so excited to play baseball this spring and he did very well, as well as met some other great kids. Here are a couple of pictures taken at a game in Washougal.

Bones in the Woods

2009-04-24T00:23:00.000-07:00

We were checking out a property just up the road that's for sale and we came upon these bones. Not knowing what they belonged to and being the curious folks we are, we wanted to find out. Being the amateurs that we are, we were worried lest they be human bones. They are small, so the possibility of that made us concerned enough that we took a couple of photos and tried to figure it out from our anatomy books at home. I became fairly confident that they weren’t human based on how long and narrow the pelvic bone is, but I wasn’t positive, so we brought the photos into the sheriff's office. The officer there said we did the right thing, but that they aren't human. He's not trained in identifying animal bones, so had no clue what they did belong to.
Being the investigative homeschoolers that we are, we took the photos to the Parks Dept. and they didn't know what kind of animal they belonged to either, however, they said that it's likely they belonged to a member of the cat family. Bobcat? Cougar? Rather neat discovery either way. It’s impossible to ever learn everything there is to, but finds like this sure make me want to learn more. Nature continues to amaze me.

Christmas cookie baking

2009-01-16T12:22:00.001-08:00

In my attempt to post more often and keep my blog more updated, I figured I'd share these silly cookie making pictures. Leave it to my children to create appendages and digits rather than traditional gingerbread men. We did make lots of people, hand-cut birds (inspired by Tasha Tudor, may she rest in peace), trains, airplanes, stars, trees, etc. If I feel like it later, I'll post some of those pics, along with some Christmas shots.

At the feeder

2009-01-10T14:50:00.004-08:00

Some of the less frequent visitors to the suet feeder: Downy Woodpecker, Western Scrub-Jay, and Northern Flicker. Birds we see daily or quite often are: the Red-breasted Nuthatch, European Starling, Oregon Junco, Black-capped and Chestnut-backed Chickadee, and some of the finches (American Golden and Cassin's). Frequent visitors to the seed feeders are some of the above plus Spotted "Rufous" Towhees, sparrows (house, song, etc.), Steller's Jay, and once in a great while; the Varied Thrush and Mourning Dove. We also have a Pileated Woodpecker that visits the Holly tree in the yard once in a while, a few Hummingbirds that come by in the summer, and Turkey Vultures that hang out in the pine trees across the street during the summer.
I'm sure there are others, and spring brings the Evening Grosbeaks in large numbers, but these are what we've identified so far. Of course, down by the cove and the river is a WHOLE other story I'll have to post about later. :-)

Artist

2009-01-07T12:04:00.007-08:00

I decided to make our artist study more formal, so I created an "Artist Corner" with the featured artist and his/her art. This term is Botticelli, and I feel that after one picture chat and having our display next to our study area, we are already starting to "know" "Fortitude". It seems like having a nice display like this shows us all the importance of the artist and their works. Since our study area is also the dining room table, we are visiting with our artist constantly and it's involving dad more. Like all these types of things, I only wish I'd done this sooner! Next up, "Primavera". :-)

Arthur Rackham

2008-08-26T08:52:00.002-07:00

Just thought I'd share this wisdom from Arthur Rackham, an illustrator of fantasy art that lived from 1867-1939.
"I can only say that I firmly believe in the greatest stimulating and educative power of imaginative, fantastic and playful pictures and writings for children in their most impressionable years - a view that most unfortunately, I consider, has it's opponents in these matter-of-fact days. Children will make no mistake in the way of confusing the imaginative and symbolic with the actual. Nor are they at all blind to decorative or arbitrarily designed treatment in art, any more than they are to poetic or rhythmic form in literature.
And it must be insisted on that nothing less than the best that can be had, cost what it may (and it can hardly be cheap), is good enough for those impressionable years when standards are formed for life. Any accepting, or even choosing, art or literature of a lower standard as good enough for children, is a disastrous and costly mistake."

Starting up the new school year

2008-08-26T08:19:00.003-07:00

Wow. I haven't written or even checked in here all summer. I guess we've just been having too much fun. Summer has been full and beautiful. We had some days that were well over 100 degrees, which never happens in Anchorage, and while it's the natural inclination to complain, I knew better than that. I tried to enjoy it, knowing that I chose this. I'll take the few hot days in exchange for an extra 2 or even 3 months of summer compared to AK. March & April here felt like May in Anchorage. Here we are almost in September and it feels like July in Alaska. Woo-hoo! I am happy in my decision to leave Alaska. I miss it, and I miss my family horribly, but there will be a hard frost there within 2 weeks, and it won't happen here for another 2 MONTHS!!! Yes, doing a happy dance here, can't help it. :-)
I am currently reading, "Honey For a Child's Heart", and thoroughly enjoying it. I don't agree with everything the author, Gladys Hunt, writes, but so much of what she has to share resonates with me. It is a great book to inspire me as we start a new school year. I am so excited and ready to get back into the swing of homeschooling. Gil and I worked a lot this summer getting our ice cream business off the ground, and so we took the whole summer off of school work. I used to go back and forth in my belief of year-round school, sometimes doing some school work through the summer and taking longer breaks through-out the year, but this year I have absolutely loved taking time out to do whatever we felt like (and work!). I feel so much more ready to work hard on homeschooling now that we've had such a hearty break from it.
As to actually starting serious study, we have a sort of tradition, having done something similar since the beginning of our homeschool journey 8 years ago. Even when we did some "summer school", we always took August off. We have a big end-of-the-summer hurrah on Labor Day weekend and start homeschool the Tuesday after Labor Day. In Alaska we spent the entire weekend at the State Fair; this weekend we are going camping. Tuesday after Labor Day will start our "getting back to it" week. This week we have been talking about what we will be doing next week so the kids are prepped and are part of the planning.
Next week we will ALL together set up our study areas, put up maps, organize books and papers, and plan field trips and such. We will set goals and organize art supplies, packing away everything that will not be used this year.
We will do some copywork, one math lesson, and start a couple of our AO books. That's it.
More than likely we will be out berry picking some of those days!
On week 2, we will start our full load, or at least most of it. We won't start music lessons or some of the extra stuff until October. When it's a nice warm day out in September, I tend to say things like, "Forget schoolwork, let's go take a hike!" ;-) I don't like to be tied down too much.
BTW, the "planning and setting up week" was a cherished highlight of mine from gradeschool. I remember doing it in 4th grade with Ms. Price. Any wonder I loved 4th grade AND Ms. Price? She totally respected us, having us help her organize the classroom the way WE wanted. She was awesome.

We made it!

2008-04-19T02:49:00.002-07:00

It's been over a month since my last post, and what a month it has been!
It's been exciting, hectic, frightening at times, thrilling at others, and all-around traveling nuttiness. But, here we are, settled into a new home, bird-watching from the kitchen window and preparing real meals again.
We left Alaska on March 19th and flew into Seattle, where we stayed in a hotel for 3 days and played tourists. One of our main destinations was the Seattle Art Museum, where they had an exhibit of Roman art from the Louvre. It was amazing and well worth the trouble of getting there, part of which was parking 4 stories underground. Heights freak me out, but being that deep in the bowels of the earth, especially in a man-made parking garage, scared the crap out of me, I think even worse than being on the Space Needle. No, it's about equal. Of course I had to put on my happy face for the kids, but the whole parking garage thing rather sucked. Oh well, got over it as soon as we got off the elevator at ground level and I could breathe again. Phew!
We also went to the Science Fiction Museum (very cool) and the Experience Music Project (not as great as I expected).
Then there were the visits to the places we always have to go to in Seattle: Pike Place Market, Pacific Science Center (we've never had time for the Tropical Butterfly Exhibit, but we did this time, and it was very neat), Broadway, The Boardwalk, etc.
We also took the kids to Volunteer Park, which they hadn't been to before, so that was pretty cool. We have a favorite picture of Gil and I at an outdoor concert there in the summer of '92 when we were first together, and the kids were pretty impressed to see the actual setting of the picture.
I'm going to have to sign off now with that first trip installment, since it's late and I really need to get some rest.
Next post: Yakima with Katy's and Danny's families and the cabin in Cle Elum.
One more note though; Gil and I had our 15th year wedding anniversary yesterday. Just amazing that it's been that long and we are still very much in love. Wow. I feel very fortunate.

Spring

2008-03-14T03:13:00.003-07:00

Spring is coming. You can feel it in the night air. The daytime still feels like winter, but in another week, we'll be in Seattle, where it really is spring.
The following quotes fit my mood and what I have been going through with this move.

"And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk to bloom." -Anais Nin

"In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice." - John Keats

How Do You Do History?

2008-02-12T17:20:00.000-08:00

A few days ago someone on the AO list asked, "How do you do history?"

Since I adore learning about history, I had to answer and thought it would be nice to add my response here at the Woods. What follows is slightly altered, but I changed very little:

My children are 7 & 11 and we are doing Y2. My kids are retaining a lot of what they are learning (they tell dad all about The Little Duke, AIS monarchs and battles, etc. and we talk about these historical people and events in conversations throughout the day), so while I am far from a perfect teacher, I think we are doing something right, at least in the history dept. ;-)

We do three main things:

1) read the selections from AO, and they take turns narrating.

2) draw or print a picture from the Internet and place it on our timeline(s).

3) point out on our map(s) where the events occurred.

Now the details; for the reading, I follow the AO weekly guidelines and for history, we always do narration. We read a full chapter of Our Island Story at a time, for The Little Duke we read anywhere from 3 pages to nearly a chapter at a time. We finished the D'Aulaire books; Leif the Lucky and Columbus, and read some from This Country Of Ours (TCOO). We are also reading Story of Mankind (SoM), but I'm finding some parts hard to follow myself and not getting the best narrations, so we may switch to Child's History of the World (CHOW) and perhaps read SoM later. My 11yo is really interested in the U.S. Revolutionary war, so I may let him read those chapters in TCOO now. He's read books about Paul Revere, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others. The timeline really helps when you jump around in history like that. A child might be able to figure it out in their mind, but I believe it helps to see it chronologically. For the timeline, there are countless ways to do this. I took a long piece of freezer paper (see pics above) and made tick marks every 100 years 2 inches apart, starting at 3000 BC and ending at 2010 (I'll add more paper later or make a new timeline). I got the instructions here:
http://www.susancanthony.com/pdfhandouts/Factshandout.pdf

I have seen other really neat ideas like the moms who tack a string to the wall and add cards with the different events/people with paperclips or clothespins. Here are pictures from a really neat blog: http://higherupandfurtherin.blogspot.com/2006/12/our-historical-wall-timeline.html

One benefit of this style is the ability to add and take away, however, we've not run out of space on ours yet. I like having one large timeline and making other smaller ones for specific periods or countries. I know a lot of families make a "Book of Centuries" and I'd like to do something like that in addition to the timeline here in the near future. The reason I want to add something else is that my boys and I really like the animal lapbooks they've made and I thought it might be neat for them to keep personal little notes (written narrations) and drawings about history in book form. I made some little books when I was in school and I still have and treasure them. They were tagboard covered in pretty wallpaper with blank paper stapled inside. So simple, but I thought it was the neatest thing when I was a kid. I'd really like to learn how to bind books, so I figured what a perfect way to learn; by making our own little history remembrance books.

We also have a vertical timeline of British Monarchs, made just like our other timeline, but done vertically, for no other reason than I wanted to do it differently than the main one. I had read that idea on Susan's website. We are pasting up a picture and description of each monarch as we go along in OIS. We have done an inventor/invention one and will do a US history one like it. If we stick with SoM, I'm going to do a special one just for it, so I can keep all those characters straight! For the mapwork, we have a large world map on the wall that is laminated so we can make little pictures of boats, people, castles, or whatever and tape them up and move them around. We had such fun moving Paddle (from Paddle to the Sea) along on his journey last year. We also have the Blackline Maps from Knowledge Quest found here: http://knowledgequestmaps.com/

We pull out the specific area we are studying and tack them up on the wall next to the dining table (also our study area). The drawings are simple and can be easily copied into a BOC if you'd like. I think it's good to have children hand draw maps. We also have a large US map and it's good to have one of the state/province you are living in.

Moose tracks in the snow!

2008-02-05T13:09:00.001-08:00

I'm not a huge fan of cold and snow, but I do try to "bloom where I'm planted" and I'm an avid believer in getting outdoors and breathing fresh air. I'm one of those strange types that actually enjoy shoveling for the exercise and outdoors aspect, and take great pride in trimming up the edges and doing a nice job. I always make specific hills the kids can play on (they do help shovel, too) and every year, I help the kids build at least one fort and tunnel, sometimes more.

I try to appreciate the snow and now I have another reason - animal tracks! We have been aware of tracks for years and have often noticed bird tracks and the tell tale moose droppings, but I'm not sure we were ever able to put together a story quite like we did these past few days.

Last week we put up a bird feeder in the middle of the woods out back, so we could be sneaky in our bird watching, which was quite fruitful (we got a lot of action out there) until we went out Sunday and most of the bird seed was scattered all over the ground. The feeder was still hanging there, and we were left wondering for a minute until Ealom noticed some funky tracks in the snow. Apparently a moose had wandered along our forest path and thought the seeds might be tasty. We followed the tracks back towards the house and discovered that there were actually two trails next to each other with one being smaller - a mama and baby! How exciting! Well, yesterday we were coming back from our walk out to the feeder and noticed that the moose tracks went over toward the yard, which we hadn't noticed the day before. The boys were running all over the yard following where the mama had walked around the snow people and snow horses without stepping on them and they saw where she did her business. Then they found the baby tracks and saw that it had walked around their snow fort without stepping on it either (but Aidan was disappointed that it hadn't gone inside). :-) Then we followed the tracks out the other side of the yard and saw where baby did it's business. The boys were quite impressed with how small baby's little nuggets were compared to mama's.

We all found a new appreciation for the snow, as we would've missed so much of the story if the snow weren't there to help us.

The Parable of the Seed

2008-01-30T08:28:00.000-08:00

One thing I’ve heard lately, and the other I’ve read, have given me pause to think on destiny, on the potential of the human being. Last night as I was driving to a church meeting, I heard a small snippet of a talk show, where a man was being interviewed. I wish I had caught his name, but the church is only five minutes from home, so alas, I cannot give proper credit here, but the small bit I did hear was truly profound. This man had an accent of perhaps Middle Eastern, his English was quite good. His reason for being interviewed was that some 30 years ago, he had started a bank. He had returned to his home country after spending time elsewhere. I can only guess that it must have been the United States or England, somewhere English speaking, but clearly a progressive country, as when he arrived home (to his 3rd world country), the shock of poverty overwhelmed him. He spoke with a banker about loaning money to the poor to help them to go to school, to start businesses, and so forth. This banker told him that you don’t loan money to the poor, they won’t repay, they are born poor, and they will always be poor. This idea was repugnant to this man and he set out to effect change. He told a little story about a seed. He said, “People are like seeds; if you take a perfect Bonsai seed and plant it in a flower pot, it will grow to perhaps a meter, then it will stop.” The attitude of the people in his country would be to blame the seed, to say something must have been wrong with it, but there was nothing wrong with the seed, it was perfectly good. It just could not grow because of the pot it was in. If it were to be planted in a forest, it would grow to immense height and be beautiful. He went on, “It is the same with people; these bonds of poverty are like the flower pot, keeping the poor from ever becoming their full potential.” I wish I could repeat what he said with as much eloquence. He talked about the human potential, and how the person born on the street and the person born in a palace are equally smart, equally with the potential to create and become something wonderful. The end of his story was that he started a bank to loan money to the poor, and there are now 7 million borrowers, among them doctors and engineers, whose parents and grandparents were illiterate, never expected to become anybody worthwhile. He talked about how poverty is man-made, that humans all have incredible potential within themselves, it is governments and rulers who keep people down. There is a great desire to have a peasant class, a slave class. We Americans are no better. We want our cheap goods, our $100 TVs, our $5 t-shirts. Sad, really sad, considering that we should know better.
This morning as I read Lés Miserables, this idea came again. Here is the passage:
“(England) believes in hereditary right, in hierarchy. This people, surpassed by none in might and glory, values itself as a nation, not as a people. So much so that as a people, they subordinate themselves willingly, and take a Lord for a head. Workmen, they submit to being scorned; soldiers, they submit to whippings. We remember that at the battle of Inkerman a sergeant who, so it seems, had saved the army, could not be mentioned by Lord Raglan, since the English military hierarchy did not permit any hero below the rank of officer to be mentioned in a report.”
This reminded me of my sister Nancy, who, while living in London 150 years after Hugo wrote that last passage, bought for herself an expensive pair of shoes. Her roommate was appalled and told Nancy that she should not be wearing those shoes, as they were above her station in life. What say you? The idea was completely foreign to us, but it made absolute sense to this Briton, for whom you are born in a certain class and there you stay. It is worth noting that although there is much in that British hierarchy way of thinking, which still in these days holds the Queen and the wealthy in the highest regard, there is also much progressive thought that comes out of England. I am reminded of Charlotte Mason and her belief that, “Children are born persons”. In that simple statement is a really huge thought, a completely new and different approach to viewing humanity. With the proper (equal) treatment and support, all people, like seeds, can grow to their full potential. I am indeed humbled and honored to be the caretaker of two little “seeds” myself, and I must see to it that they receive all the nourishment they deserve. A lofty responsibility indeed, being a homeschooling mom, lofty indeed.

Thoughts on Les Mis

2008-01-11T13:49:00.000-08:00

From pg. 53 – “His universal tenderness was less an instinct of nature than the result of a strong conviction filtered through life into his heart, slowly dropping into him, thought by thought; for a character, as well as a rock, may have holes worn into it by drops of water. Such marks are ineffaceable; such formations are indestructible.”

This passage is prefaced with the fact that Monseigneur Bienvenu had previously been a violent man, and yet now, wouldn’t even step on a spider, he’s become so refined. I appreciated these thoughts on the formation of character and how even being born with or learning to have a violent nature can be changed into goodness and patience with small changes in habit, daily “drops of water”, if you will.

pg. 55 – “Was this narrow enclosure with the sky for a background not space enough for him to adore God in his most beautiful, most sublime works? Indeed, is that not everything? What more do you need? A little garden to walk in, and immensity to reflect on. At his feet something to cultivate and gather, above his head something to study and meditate on, a few flowers on earth, and all the stars in heaven.”

This beautiful passage reminded me of how little we really need to live a fulfilling life. People are so busy filling their lives up with useless junk, they have no space to till a little spot of earth, and so busy filling up their days with needless activities, they no longer have the time to contemplate. We are so busy seeking something, anything to entertain us, it is now seen as something deplorable to just sit and ponder. How many times have I heard someone say they are bored? What? Because you are no longer being entertained? I am never bored, I have my parents to thank for teaching me that reflection is a virtue, that solitude is sublime.
There is this constant message, especially from the public school institutions that humans, especially children, must have specific socialization, must have their hours filled with “something to do.” What a sad state of affairs when every moment must be planned, every spark of impulse and creativity vanquished! I remember many lovely hours spent outdoors, lying in the tall grass looking up at the clouds in the sky, or sitting up in a tall tree looking out over the landscape, just thinking. These are precious memories and little did I know at the time, moments spent forming character, learning the appreciation and wonder of nature.
Children nowadays are expected to be “properly socialized”. What does this mean? It means that our society thinks it beneficial for a child to be subjected to 6 ½ hours of dull education with the influence of 20-30 other children of the same age who’s values and ideas are generally not in accordance with our own. It’s thought to be good for them to have the influence of as many people as possible, no matter the moral values of those people. We as a society have forgotten how little we need, how excess is actually detrimental, how beneficial solitude is, how children can grow in strength and character with only the influence of family and community, how there is no need for formal so-called socialization.
I wish I could remember the exact words from the "Tao of Motherhood" by Vimala McClure, where she writes about simplicity. It was something to the effect of, "the more things we buy for our children, the more space we put between them and us." I totally botched that, I'm sure, but it struck me and continues to reverberate in my mind when I look around and see how much excess stuff we have, and how as soon as we get rid of things (workbooks!) or unneccessary classes or whatever, how relieved we feel, how much smoother life flows.
Successful homeschooling comes from simplicity, keeping things real. I've totally rambled off track now. :-) I better go pull some boys away from Legos and to their copywork.

WCPE - Link to WCPE

2008-01-10T20:10:00.000-08:00

WCPE - Link to WCPE

On Les Misérables and Reading Only the Best

2008-01-09T23:56:00.000-08:00

I am finally reading Les Misérables, having decided to do so well over two years ago at the behest of my mother. I’ve seen the movie version with Liam Neeson, which was arguably a decent movie, and read a highly abridged adaptation, so I’m familiar enough with the story, but oh! the richness of Victor Hugo’s writing! If only I could read his original French version, but alas, I’m sadly monolingual. Sigh… I am reading the unabridged translation by Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee based on the classic C.E. Wilbour translation, and I’ve been told they do Mr. Hugo justice, so I can only trust that they do.
When I first took up the book to read, I observed that there were some 1463 pages. I figured that if I were to read roughly 10 pages per day, it would take me nearly 5 months (!!!) to read. This train of thought led me to ponder on how many (adult classical) books I could possibly read in the time I have left on this earth. Oh dear! Obviously, I could poof out of existence at any moment, however, even living to the ripe old age of 90 and taking into account that most books aren’t as long as Les Misérables, most being even 75% less, I could read an average of 8 books per year. Since I am 37, that leaves me able to read, gulp, 424 books. There are so many more!
Now, some days I read a lot more than 10 pages, some days less, and this is just me figuring in my current novel. Besides that, I read countless pages of classic literature to my children, pre-read books for my children’s personal reading, I often read and study the writings of Charlotte Mason and also the wonderful books based on her teachings (Penny Gardener, Karen Andreola, etc.), I am studying the mechanics of building a cordwood/cob home, I read magazines and internet articles about design, cooking, teaching, handicrafts, gardening, health, religion, faith, and more, not to mention e-mails and yahoo groups (which I’m trying to keep to a minimum-it’s SO hard!).
Another consideration is the idea of only reading 10 pages per day of a particular work of literature. Why not read more? Like I mentioned earlier, some days I do, however, this is an average, and I am not a fast reader when it comes to the classics. I can read a good, but fairly twaddly book in a considerably short amount of time, but I love more thoroughly getting to know the story and characters in classics by taking it slower, really appreciating what’s being read, pondering the ideas. Charlotte Mason was a big proponent of this type of reading, as others have been also. Victor Hugo spent nearly 15 years writing Les Misérables, why should I plow through it in a rush?
I could read faster and more hurried to “get through” as many classics as possible, but that’s not the point. There are pages I’ll never turn, I accept that. I read slowly on purpose. I have to accept that I’d rather savor 10 books than put quick checkmarks next to a list of 100.
This leads me to two separate ideas; the first being that I have made a goal to write a review of each book I read. For a book like Les Mis, I will make periodic notes as I go along, writing down favorite passages, and I’ll be sure to post some of them here.
The second idea, or goal, if you will, is that I am simply not going to waste my reading time. I have been a proponent of avoiding twaddle for several years now, but every so often (more than I care to admit!) I find myself reading pointless newspaper articles, junk mail, catalogs, etc. I am not going to limit myself to only classic literature just the same as I am not going to go through life only eating ice cream. Magazines and the like are relaxing and require very little of me and I think we all need that at times; just not too often. There are good reading choices, better ones, and then there are the best. I read a lot and since I have it within my power to choose from the latter group, I am resolved to be more discerning in my choice of literature.

Expanded intro and philosophy

2008-01-07T01:41:00.000-08:00

I homeschool my children following the ideals of Charlotte Mason, and of course, enjoy the bountiful style of education her methods provide. I absolutely love teaching and learning with my children. We’re all doodlers, writers, and weather-watchers, but are just learning to sketch still life and keep formal nature notebooks; we all absolutely love it!
I also enjoy studying history, reading great literature on a variety of subjects, writing, gardening, wildcrafting, cooking, baking, canning, and doing pretty much anything with my hands from knitting, sewing, and felting to building furniture and tree houses.
Some day my husband and I hope to build our own home using the cordwood method.
I love to hike and take walks, and I also try to find time to ice skate, swim, and in the summer, bike. It’s imperative that we have daily doses of fresh air and exercise. Keeping our bodies healthy with proper nutrition and exercise is extremely important to me. Whole, organically grown foods and daily walks “through the woods” are as important to me as what we are learning academically.
I feel a great responsibility to provide ample opportunities for my children to build strong relationships with their family, other people, and the world around them.
Children (and all people!) should have access to the best ideas, literature, music, science, art, etc. available.
It has been said that “Education is the science of relations.” Humankind has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts; I feel it is our responsibility as parents to provide the best that life has to offer to enable our children to make sense of these relations. It is said that an educated adult, when presented with new information or ideas, will already know something with which to connect the new knowledge.
We are fellow students of life with our children, and as such, I do not pretend to be the sole source of all information, rather, I try to share as much as I know and give my children the inspiration and tools to discover more on their own.
It is the ultimate responsibility of the parent-teacher to raise children who have developed a love for learning, a desire for knowledge, and the skills to pursue these independently.