Edited to add: I joined my friend Rhoda’s summer porch party and added a few pics of my screened porch to this post!
In case you’re on the fence about homeschooling this year, I thought this might help push you right over the edge.
You’re welcome.
Homeschoolers? Bringing sexy back. One over due library book at a time.
And btw, Ryan Gosling? Homeschooled.
🙂
xoxo
Here’s more where those came from!
My little Elea Grace (called ‘Goosie’ by her parents) loves to text me in the mornings precisely when I’m on an uphill climb on my morning run.
Which means I get more texting done than running.
Which means I may never run that marathon.
But her texts are pretty much hilarious and are usually chocked full of exclamation points and question marks.
And they’re nearly always about food.
Which confirms her status as my daughter.
The interruptions are so worth it.
And I know—I’m totally a pushover.
Oh, and her texting ‘handle’ is DANCE-DANCE-DANCE!.
🙂
1) strawberries (well, truth be told, I didn’t grow them but I did pick them!)
2) the strawberry jam collection
3) endless summer hydrangeas
4) the garden (2 weeks old)
5) succulents (by the mailbox)
6) an improved Meyer’s lemon tree (I ordered it from this website and love it! I hope I can keep it alive )
7) chickens (they’re in the awkward, homely teenage phase and the coop gets delivered tomorrow!)
8) the ducks (who think they’re chickens and waddle back up from the lake every night to sleep with the chickens. Heaven help us!)
9) a single carolina wren hatchling (which is living in a patio planter and may not make it–may have hatched too soon)
10) two scurvy dogs
11) four great kids (Taylor and Caiti will be around some this summer but both are taking summer classes and working)
who even agreed to go on a hike with their mother and didn’t complain when it came a downpour with an hour left to go!
We are still four days away from finishing our spring semester (at home) but I’m pretty sure summer has already begun here!
Hope you’re growing good things too.
Mwaahhhhhhhh!
I can’t remember the exact circumstances in which she said it but I’ve spent a lifetime trying to grow into it.
Thank you, Momma, for your tireless example of what it means to give yourself away to others.
And to all my strong and brave momma friends—-the sun (Son) always shines where you are too.
Thank you for living in the light. You are like warm sunshine in a dark, cold world.
Happy Mother’s Day.
You’re my heroes.
I’m downright shaken to the core by Wendell Berry’s writing. When is the last time you read someone who simultaneously made you want to be a better mother and wife, grow a garden, raise some livestock and read more poetry and Homer? He is a prophet of sorts, providing insightful and critical commentary on our modern way of life and the sad separation between us and our land, our food and most importantly our families. We have grown up in an era where we are cut off from so much of our humanity. We have become poor caretakers of all entrusted to us and the result is a society that is overfed but undernourished, information rich but wisdom poor, exhaustingly busy but often lonely and unsatisfied.
He offers some complicated analysis on how we got to where we are but his solutions seem to be fairly simple. Slow down. Grow some food. Cook it yourself. Raise a few animals. Know what you’re eating. Be faithful to the land, to your children, to your wife. Relearn the simple pleasures of life that can’t be bought but must be nurtured.
His writing has been so timely for us too. We had already committed to raising a few chickens and growing a small kitchen garden. But the way he writes about it makes it seem so much more meaningful and profound. He advocates change in the only way it’s possible—-“I bid you to a one-man revolution—The only revolution that is coming.”
So, I thought I’d show you the tiny little spot we carved out for a kitchen/herb/vegetable garden. We’ll be ready to plant soon so I’ve been doing lots of reading and planning. It’s about 10×12 feet and right beside our garage. It gets full sun until around 2p and is within our sprinkler system so watering will be easy!
I found some good information on this site, including some help in planning my layout. I’ll keep you updated on the progress!
“Sowing” by Wendell Berry
In the stilled place that once was a road going down
from the town to the river, and where the lives of marriages grew
a house, a cistern and barn, flowers, the tilted stone of borders,
and the deed of their lives ran to neglect, and honeysuckle
and then the fire overgrew it all, I walk heavy
with seed, spreading on the cleared hill the beginnings
of green, clover and grass to be pasture. Between
history’s death upon the place and the trees that would have come
I claim, and act, and am mingled in the fate of the world.
I highly recommend The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
My new blog friend, Marie, has a great blog about all her farming/growing adventures! And she recently had a chocolate chip cookie taste test that looked so much fun!
Now tell me all about your gardens, I’m dying to know!
Also, check out lifeingracegirls today where Meaghan is doing the most adorable bow tie tutorial!
I went to Johnson City today to spend the day with my two oldest joys on Friday. Taylor had a medical school tour at my very own alma mater and then a spring concert (he’s in choir at ETSU.) It doesn’t hardly seem right that he could be old enough to be applying to med school. It only seems like yesterday that I was starting myself but I guess time only flies. His journey down this path has always seemed inevitable to me. He looked perfect in that seat when he was four years old, tagging along with momma. Caiti’s been studying so hard and often brings her books home to study anatomy and physiology in the workroom. She thinks that room has magical powers but I think the 106 she made on her last test was a lot of hard work and study time. I’m so proud of them both and it was beautiful having them home for Easter and spending the day with them yesterday.
Spring has been glorious in these parts. There’s been lots of sunshine and plenty of cool-ish nights which make for perfect lazy evenings by the fire reading and talking and watching the sunset. We are still putting the finishing touches on our landscaping but I’m so happy with it. I’m planning a post, once we’re done, to tell you all about it. Right now, I’m preparing to plant a ‘kitchen’ garden of herbs, tomatoes, lettuce, etc. in an otherwise wasted spot by our garage. I can’t wait to show you—it’s almost ready to plant!
In other news, the chickens and ducks are HUGE and eating me out of house and home. We are still trying to decide exactly what to do but I think we’ve got a plan. We’re going with a smaller, less expensive coop for now, until we see how it goes. They’ve been so much fun and I can’t wait until we start collecting eggs! We take the ducks down the lake everyday to swim and they are hilarious, diving under the water and playing!
I’ve been in a homeschooling slump of epic proportions. Too much distraction, too little patience, a bad case of spring fever, full plate, no passion. Oh, it’s been bad. So, my first little sign that we could possibly be moving through the pain was this. Ummmm, why is there whipped cream randomly sitting on the table in the middle of Monday for no justifiable reason? No one confessed but I’m pretty sure they were just squirting it right into their mouths. Whatever it takes to get through Monday, I suppose. And that’s about the time I found Andrew Kern’s website CIRCE and proceeded to listen to some wonderful podcasts and this wonderful interview with him on classical education that were just the shot of whipped cream inspiration I needed to keep on trucking. I’d love to go their annual meeting this summer if I can work it out. Homeschooling is not easy and I’ve been working from a place of stress and compulsion rather than from a place of rest and compassion. He made a statement in one of his talks saying that, “The goal of education is virtue and repentance.” Wow. My kids needed me to hear that.
After reading, listening to, rereading, and seeing Hunger Games, we’re committed fans. My girls have made bows and arrows out of sticks and string and finally made the smart move to ask their dad to get them a real bow. He had that thing ordered before you could say deer jerky. So we headed to Sneedville to our farm to pick up the girls from Grannies’ today and Stevie taught the girls (and I) how to shoot.
I think I could totally embrace a ‘live off the land’ lifestyle. I’ve always had a secret fantasy of being Ma Ingalls. I could raise my own chickens and goats, churn my own butter, bow hunt and make homemade wine. Except for the part about no internet and no artificial hair color and no indoor plumbing. Otherwise, I think I’d be just fine:) What about you? Aren’t you smitten with country life?
My girls did NOT want to leave the farm. They had a ball and made their daddy tell them the entire story on the way home of how he bought the farm 10 years ago and spent countless hours of planning and labor to design the pond and house. It was a wonderful day, unplugged. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have phone or internet for nearly an entire day.
And those are my random thoughts for the weekend. Hope yours is turning out to be perfect, full of the things and people you love with lots of whipped cream on top!
p.s There are two new posts up at lifeingrace girls; a movie review of ‘Beware of Christians’ (and Lelia is giving away a copy of the movie!) and a post about turning your ‘can’ts’ into ‘cans’! Go check them out 🙂
