It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood… Gorgeous blue skies with a few fluffy white clouds. We got about another 3/4″ of rain last night – then it cleared leaving everything feeling fresh and new. Often we would have had a frost by now but the temperatures have been up in the mid to high 70’s. All hail global warming. Please keep driving your SUVs! :) Just kidding, right…!?!
I must admit I don’t mind the longer growing seasons we’ve had here in Vermont the past three years. Somehow I suspect it is is not any big climatic shift for our benefit. In any case we’ve gotten about three extra months of summer for the last three years. Winter is still about the same – it is fall and spring that have been shortened.
This was a big cottage cheese day at chores time. Cabot Creamery delivered 12 pallets of cottage cheese. It is amazing the amount of waste in industry. That is about 17,000 lbs of cottage cheese – all in 1 to 1.5 lb containers. The last batch was in 5 lb tubs which was a bit easier to handle. Now I know where I’m going to get my potting containers for next spring in the greenhouse! We also have a few friends who have asked for a supply of the containers to use in various projects. Reuse, recycle. Another benny was we get to keep the wooden pallets that this all came on. Pallets are great for keeping hay up off the ground, building sheds and other things.
Mind you I am not complaining in the slightest about the small containers. Free is free and it is great food for the animals. All that free food for the pigs and chickens is wonderful but it does take a bit of work getting it out of all those little containers. The sows and the boar love the stuff. They have been chowing it down to the tune of almost 50 lbs a piece a day. The piglets also love it and are growing great guns. It is a wonderful weaning food although slightly low in protein content. The chickens, ducks, goose and guineas also love it. Even the sheep come for a taste although they don’t eat very much before going back out to the pastures.
Doing the cottage cheese, like many daily tasks, keeps hands busy and minds free to do other things. It is a great time to do homeschooling, go over plans and just talk as a family. We always seem to end up working on math word problems part of the time. It is great practice doing problems in our heads. That is an important aspect of homeschooling – to always take the opportunity to learn.
Speaking of such things, we saw two red tailed hawks soaring on the thermals over the north home field this morning. Ben went and got his binoculars to look at them more closely. This led to him thinking about how to interface a digital camera to binoculars – great minds think alike as the saying goes. I explained that they now sell digital camera binoculars. He is thinking of saving up his money for a pair. Recently he has become interested in bird watching. In addition to the hawks we have owls, morning doves, ravens, woodpeckers, the occasional visit from an eagle and the usual assortment of jays and song birds. Last month we saw a peregrine falcon in the moose meadow up in the northern area of our land. For now his binoculars and a book on eastern birds will keep him busy while he saves up for more complex and expensive equipment.
Walter Jeffries Tinker, Tailor… A bit eclectic & a tad eccentric, polymath, quantum mechanic & Farmer. Also lucky at cards.
I think that is really neat that you home school your kids. I wish I was home schooled. I am 15 and HATE school. It isn’t the learning stuff. I liketo read and science and art and music. What I HATE is the bullies and cliqs. You’re kids are lucky! Anna
I’m sorry to hear you hate school but I’m glad it is the situation and not learning that is turning you off. When I was a child my parents insisted on me going to public school because it was politically correct. They felt it was imporant to support the public educational system. The system sux. It was aweful 30 years ago when I was in it and it is still aweful today. It is a a factory for turning out conforming units for the purpose of big business and government. Good little social units that will then be little cogs in the machine, paying their taxes and be fodder for the war machine.
Like you, I hated school. Most of what I learned I got on my own outside the structure of the school. Read all the books in the library. Learn all you can from the web. Teach yourself. Find mentors. Apply yourself and make the school irrelevant in the long run. Succeed despite the school. That is the best revenge. :)
Lastly, if you are having trouble with bullies, learn martial arts and practice every day. Turning the other cheek does not work. It just gets you slapped again. That was what my parents insisted I do. They were totally wrong and admit it now. When I was about your age I got training in self-defense. Then the bullies left me alone. Bullies can’t stand pain – they just like to deal it out. But don’t become a bully either.
Late, but better late than never.
Sorry that you guys hated the school environment. I loved school. I loved the learning & the bullies steared clear of me.
I didn't allow bullies. My elementary school was small enough that I could control it. Later, I couldn't forbid bullies… school was too big. But, they didn't ply their trade near me.
I grew up in a violent home w/ 2 older brothers. My sister figured it should roll downhill to me. I was & am an abject pacifist. I protected the smaller kids & did what I had to to do that. "Walk softly & carry a big stick."
Public school system did suck & it's gotten worse. My kids went to public school, because you risk having your children taken away by the state of California if you home school. I educated them at home after school & on the weekends.