UPDATED: FEB 09 – I thought I would share this great experience we had with a skunk last summer for the Outdoor Hour Challenge. Isn’t she adorable. She was released back to the wild once she could hunt on her own.
Remember that baby skunk I mentioned last week? We got an up close introduction to her today. I never in a millon years would have thought we would happily hold a SKUNK… but isn’t she cute?! Bella is actually quite sweet, similar to a kitten and the kids enjoyed getting a chance to hold her. We also got to see her bottle feed.
Fairy really enjoyed petting Bella.
She was even willing to hold her until Bella tried to climb on her shoulder.
The girls meeting Bella.
Pixie wanted to hold her and was mad when we wouldn’t let her.
Bug was a bit more cautious but did finally decide to pet her.
Well, it has been a quiet week around the house… meaning that we haven’t been here at all. LOL. The kids have been at Vacation Bible School all week and loving it. I was nervous because they don’t normally care for Sunday school but fortunately they are thoroughly enjoying VBS. I was one of the preschool group leaders today and will be again tomorrow. I must say… we are not used to the “get up and go” every morning routine. Boy, is everyone dragging!
Here is their craft from today’s workshop. Refrigerator frames with a picture of their camp groups. The theme is Power Lab, God’s Awesome Power (or something like that) if you are wondering about the beakers and such. Maybe I will actually remember my camera tomorrow to get some action shots.
I am updating this post with some action shots. ‘A’ was having a hard time on the last day since I was in ‘L’s group. So he joined us for a bit before deciding that it was more fun with his friends and returned to his group.
‘L’ working on her beaded necklace.
We finally got the veggie beds ready to plant. I’ve been working at digging them out the last couple weekends and Sunday we moved some top soil in from a bunch of old planter boxes we are removing from elsewhere in the yard. We set up the sprinkler to test out the coverage and left nice, wet, loose soil to plant in today.
So with seed packs in hand we went out this afternoon and… planted in the deer hoof prints. LOL! I’m sure that this isn’t a good sign. But maybe with veggies as an offering they will LEAVE MY HASTAS alone.
Anyway, most of the planting was actually done by ‘B’ so it will be a fun surprise to see what pops up where. I know the peas were waaayy over planted. But she was having fun. We planted some pumpkins, squash, sunflowers, beans and peas. Honestly, all I’m really hoping for this year is a few pumpkins because they are so much fun to watch growing and I think the kids would enjoy carving a pumpkin that came from our own garden. I’m not really expecting to gain anything truly edible but who knows. Maybe the deer will leave a few beans for us… but that is definitely a big maybe. 😉
The kids planting pumpkins.
The girls were a big help.
UPDATE: The deer ate everything! When we got home from the wedding it was all gone. ‘A’ was in tears over the pumpkins. I knew it was a long shot without a fence but I was hoping the pumpkins would make it. We plan to turn it all under and try again next with a fence in place.
Normally art around here is basically free play. We get out the paints, play dough or crayons with little to no direction. But today I decided we were going to make more of lesson out it. So with aprons on, paper in front of them, I read the story “Mouse Paint” by Ellen Walsh. I then placed out red, blue and yellow paint. We each painted “mice” in the primary colors… and then mixed the paints to produce the secondary colored ‘puddles’ from the book.
I think all the kids enjoyed having a more structured art assignment and I am going to try and incorporate more lessons in art (or maybe more to the point… more art in lessons). Not all the time though. I still think they need plenty of free time with art, but maybe once a week I will have a destination in mind when we start.
I think it is fun to see the difference in the art produced from the kids at very different stages (spread over 3.5 years). My example is the one on top, then ‘A’, ‘L’ and ‘B’s.
Yesterday was one of those perfectly serendipitous nature days. It started with bunnies playing in the backyard. After lunch, we found an American Toad under the play structure at my mom’s which we moved to the back of the lot away from the dogs (and had a big lesson in really washing hands after handling nature – toads can excrete poison). Then, while the kids were chasing the millions of butterflies in the neighbors field, we stumbled upon a baby skunk!
Ok, so the baby skunk (which ‘L’ says has the ‘most beautiful tail’ – she is all about accessorizing) had us scrambling to get the dogs in the house. My mother then called her neighbors to let them know a skunk was hanging out by their backdoor… comes to find out that their oldest son (recently grad from college) rescued it off the side of the road and was nursing it with cat formula until its teeth come in. Who rescues a baby skunk? Well a homeschooled grad of course 😉 .
Here is ‘A’s nature study from yesterday. This is what he learned about American Toads.
We found him at Gammy’s house under the playfort. You have to wash your hands very good if you touch one ’cause they have poison. They eat crickets, flies and worms. They sleep in tunnels.
For more information on American Toads visit eNature, one of our favorite online IDing sites.
One of our projects this morning was recycling all our little broken crayon bits into new block style crayons. It was a fun an easy craft and the kids really enjoyed using their ‘new’ crayons. I followed the basic directions provided on Martha Stewart’s site.
Basically you just peel all the crayons and break them up into pea sized chunks. (I used a butter knife on a cutting board to break some of them up).
Let the kids fill mini-cupcakes tins with their choice of colors.
Bake in a 200 degree oven for 15min – or until completely melted.
Cool on a rack.
Ours popped out without any issues.
We actually ran out of jam this past year. I had to resort to buying it at the grocery store. Maybe this does not seem like a big deal to some… but around here it was almost unfathomable. I grew up Jamming. My mom displayed her jam jars with pretty calico fabric tops proudly in the kitchen. There were always plenty on hand to give out as gifts and with the yearly canning… it never seemed to run out. Well, after being a bit busy the past few years with young kiddos we were behind on jamming and at last the cupboard was bare. So we have vowed that this is the summer for some series jamming and canning. Strawberries, blueberries, cherries, raspberries will be jammed and syruped. There will be pickles and pepper relish. Mint jelly, applesauce and well… the list goes on. Maybe it is a bit ambitious to catch up all in one summer but we are trying.
Up first… strawberries! My mom and I took the kids out to pick with the thought that we would pick for awhile to get the kids involved (our picking in the last few years only yielded enough for single batch of strawberry shortcake) and we would buy the rest at the farm stand. Well, the kids were actually quite helpful this year. They both happily picked for awhile and more importantly were just on their very best behavior so we could do some series picking ourselves. ‘B’ was quite happy strapped to my back, she even dosed off for a nap, and we were able to pick about 40lbs of berries. It helped that we had the nicest picking day I ever remember. 65 and partly sunny… can’t beat that!
After cleaning and cooking… we now have several beautiful rows of Strawberry Jams and Syrups stacked up. And a couple weeks off before the next round.
Waiting for the wagon to the fields.
The kids in the field.
‘A’ picking strawberries.
‘L’ picking strawberries.
Picking with ‘B’ on my back.
‘B’ discovered the bowl of cleaned berries.
Updating….
Just thought I would share the fruits of our labor ;). Isn’t that a beautiful site! Rows and rows of Strawberry Jam stacked in brand new, homemade cabinets. No there are no doors yet, but who cares when the shelves are so prettily filled. That is my mom’s “new” kitchen.
Jam on biscuits, jam on toast,
Jam is the thing that I like most.
Jam is sticky, jam is sweet,
Jam is tasty, jam’s a treat —
Raspberry, strawberry, gooseberry, I’m very
FOND… OF… JAM!
“Bread and Jam for Frances” by Russell Hoban
Here is L’s first Dance Recital… Tiny Tots Lucky Duck Dance. This is actually the rehearsal… cameras and videos were not allowed during the ‘real deal.’ She knew her dance well and did a great job. Actually I think she did better in the rehearsal because they were really trying to get all the girls to dance the night of and it was a bit of chaos and confusion… totally cute though! She loved it all and was excited to dance for so many people. Not an ounce of stage fright in that one! For her it was pure joy (not sure where she got that from). And the perfect hostess, as always. She thanked everyone for coming to see her without any prompting. Actually to my dad she said, and I quote… “Thanks for coming. It was so good of you to show up.” LOL.
We took advantage of some nice weather between storms and spent some time at the farm for Father’s Day with my Dad and Grandma ‘S’. We took the kids on a horse drawn wagon ride (something we haven’t done at the petting farm before).
The kids always enjoy the walk down to the Kids’ Cottage too. It is a mud brick structure with an old fashion thatched roof. They are supposed to start offering classes in the Cottage this fall and I’m looking forward to seeing what they will offer.
Here we go…
Walking to the Kids’ Cottage.
We found a bird nest in the rafters.
‘B’ loves the ducks!
‘L’ playing in one of the barns.
‘A’ petting ‘Jazzie’ the English Spot Rabbit.
Daddy walking with the girls.
‘B’ playing in the Hay on the Wagon Ride.
The Horse Drawn Wagon.
The kids listening and looking around.
We made Blue Bird houses with the kids a couple weekends ago. Othy precut all the wood for us and everyone got to ‘make’ their own. We finally got them up yesterday and after a nasty storm this morning, we watched a cute little bird (I didn’t get a good enough look for a true ID but it looked like a Wren) checking out each of them. The kids were very excited to see a bird using their houses. It was actually very funny to watch. The Wren flew in and out of each on, sat on top of each one, flew from the door to a nearby branch from each and in general was performing a full blow home inspection. We saw the Wren again about an hour later… but I’m not sure if it has set up a permanent residence yet.
Here we are in the process of building our bird houses.
The Girls Working on a House.
Othy Helping ‘L’.
The Boys Building.
Updating with a bird house plan link and a couple fun game sites.
Blue Bird House Plans free from the Progressive Farmer