Where we are

Well, another big pause between posts. I just can't get my groove on in terms of finding a pattern for writing. I think about it all the time but the opportunity to sit down and put finger to keyboard is fleeting.

Obviously, there are the daily chores (getting up with the chickens, walking the dog, etc) that have to be done but we've also begun a new routine for "school" this Fall, which is very new to us. I haven't shared much about what we're doing this year, mainly because I was trying to figure out how to wrap it all up into a neat little descriptive package, easily accessible and understandable to all. But the truth of the matter is, it's not a neat little package (what in my life is, really?) nor is it completely formulated. It continues to evolve and take shape, much like the personalities of my boys.

Until this year, we were, primarily, an unschooling family. We had no set curriculum, no textbooks, no agenda. Well, that's not exactly true. I did make it my goal last year to teach Aidan to read and I used a book to guide us on that path. And I had heard of this neat math program that was a series of four workbooks, meant for a child to work through at their own pace. We got those books and gently introduced Aidan to early math concepts. But even those "formal" activities took up 30 minutes a day, maybe. The rest of our time we just read lots of books, hung out at the library and checked out more books (about anything and everything). I really let the boys call the shots.

This year, I longed for a little more direction. Just something to give me a small nudge in order to get this clan moving. Then, once the motors were warm, we could run amuck, letting our own interests take over.

Now understand this, I've always had a very strong suggestive nature with the boys and I've never shied away from picking out books that I want them to read and slipping them in with our other library selections. I've long been a fan of Charlotte Mason and her love and respect for the natural intelligence found in children. Her insistence that children hear and read beautiful language and living ideas through their books has always ruled our literature choices--since the beginning. And her commitment to nature study, art and music only solidified my respect for this woman's philosophy. We've kind of always "done" Charlotte Mason, but more as a lifestyle choice rather than a purely educational approach.

But, although I've always been drawn to the unschooling idea, I also have traditional leanings. I believe in phonics, I took Latin, my husband was a Classics/Philosophy major... you get the idea. The idea that my children would naturally fall upon these ideas on their own, no matter how much I was an unschooling believer, just didn't seem likely. How many seven year old kids pick up a Latin book and say, "I want to learn this!"? Maybe one or two? (Really?)

So, I started researching more about the Classical Model. The Well Trained Mind, by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, was a fascinating read. This philosophy centers around the classical pattern called the trivium, a way of organizing learning around the way a child's mind is naturally maturing. There are three stages-- the "grammar, logic and rhetoric."
The "grammar stage" is early elementary, where the child's mind is naturally tuned to memorize.
The "logic stage", or later elementary/middle school, in which the child begins to think more analytically.
And lastly, the "rhetoric stage", at the high school level, where the child learns to write and speak with more confidence and authority.

These authors have also penned different books, history and language "textbooks", that fall in line with these learning stages. The Story of the World is a four part series of history books that explore history from the Ancients through Modern times. We checked out from the library the first in this series last year and the boys really enjoyed the way it recounted history so easily, in the form of a story.

So, after a lot of contemplating, reading, researching, stalling... you name it, I decided to attempt to follow the Classical approach for the grammar stage. We now have a more formalized pattern for studying history, language and science. We are using The Story of the World for history, along with its accompanying activity book. Aidan LOVES, LOVES, LOVES it. Last week he told me that he wanted to read through the whole book as quickly as possible so he could get to the Greeks and Romans (is he his father's son or what?!?!). The activity book that goes along with the history book has map studies, coloring pages and other activities that Aidan begs to do. It also includes suggestions for supplemental activities as well as literature selections that complement the history study. I have found the literature suggestions to be worth the price of the book. I never would have known about the majority of the titles and the absolute bonus has been that our library has almost all of them! What a boon! We have been introduced to titles that have greatly enriched our history study. For example, we are reading through a book titled, When the Beginning Began by Julius Lester. It is a collection of stories gathered from Jewish legends and the author's own translations from the Hebrew of the Book of Genesis. It is totally rocking my world! The stories are fantastical, beautiful, humorous and they put an incredibly original spin on how the world was created. And they leave me thinking, deeply, about the concept of creation and evolution and that whole mixed bag of ideas and beliefs. This is not a trite little Sunday School lesson--this is the kind of stuff that I want to think about, along with my boys.

The other big part of this approach is Narration. We were already familiar with this because it is also a huge part of the Charlotte Mason approach. The idea is simple. After reading about anything, I have Aidan narrate back to me what we just read. The reason that I really like this is that it allows Aidan the opportunity to "write" down his thoughts without being slowed down by the mechanics of writing. Although Aidan can write fine enough (and very neatly for a lefty, I might add!), he is still very slow about it all and he can't spell everything he wants to say. I know for a fact that if he was required to physically write down a narration, rather than dictate it to me, we would be lucky to get a sentence out of him. His frustration would overrule everything else and he would just give up. This way, he gets to practice putting together his thoughts and communicating them clearly without the worry of how to spell everything correctly. I love this practice because it is already obvious that Aidan is a good writer. He uses transitions beautifully and his language is much fuller when he dictates to me. He still gets writing practice in when we practice spelling and copy work or when I make him write thank you notes, so it's not like he never picks up a pencil. It just makes sense to me to focus on the thinking aspect of the writing process while he is still building up his endurance physically writing. Plus, it is such a testimony to the fact that he has been filled up with good books and stories when he dictates to me, "Once there was a brave explorer who had found some pretty interesting things. People were curious about the legend of a cave filled with crystals..." He really likes to draw in his reader and then surprise them.

So, all of this to say, for someone who was all loosey goosey last year, this year looks like boot camp. I have run into what I feared I would if I ever chose a specific curriculum. Because I am such a rule follower, I find myself kind of hyperventilating when we don't do things exactly the way they suggest in The Well Trained Mind. I really have to coach myself down from the ledge of "All or Nothing" where I seem to gravitate. When I let go and just use these guidelines as what they are--guidelines-- than it's okay if I make it my own. That's hard for me but I'm slowly getting there.

So, today it will be the Assyrians and some multiplication problems and some phonics and lots of stories (like Sindbad, from the Tales of the Thousand and One Nights and and Gilgamesh The King and The Boxcar Children and the Mountaintop Mystery).

And of course, there are always the chickens to observe and feed and love on and sunshine to soak in and songs to sing and pumpkin bread to bake.

It's all good.

Chicken Butchering 101

Well, we were finally able to rope someone in to helping us butcher our chickens. That "someone" was actually a mother and her two teenage sons. They were one of the families that responded to my cry for help on my homeschool list-serve and, ultimately, they were the only ones whose schedule meshed with ours. I now realize that they were sent from heaven to help us do this task.

**A small interruption to let you know that I will not be using their real names or using pictures that have their full identities revealed because I did not ask for their permission to do so.

They drove up yesterday morning in their older model mini-van. The mom, a 56 year old, gray headed, strong-in-a-very-gentle-kind-of-way, woman greeted us first. Her face was completely enveloped in a smile and I instantly relaxed. She was immediately gracious, warm hearted and obviously, completely up for this challenge and I can't tell you how much that reassured me. Her two teenage sons lumbered out of the van next. If I told you that they weren't wearing any shoes, would you imagine some backwoods kids with dirt on their faces and a couple of bad teeth? Nothing could be further from the truth. They were shoeless but they were also tall and lanky and had these beautifully ruddy faces that just seemed to be walking advertisements for health and vigor and free spiritedness and .... Let's just say, I instantly trusted their abilities.

After some introductions and a very brief tour of our place we got down to the business of preparing. First, we gathered all of our supplies, which included: propane burner for heating water, rope for hanging the chickens, makeshift table for gutting and cleaning, knives and miscellaneous other things that I may refer to throughout.

The oldest son (who was 16) got to work rigging up the ropes from which we would hang the chickens, first to kill them, then to pluck them. Then, we had to go about the business of catching our hapless victims. I say "we" but really it was the mom and the oldest boy who did the hard work. We all decided that it made sense to catch George first, as he was the meanest and would probably be best to just get out of the way. Plus, he wouldn't be able to terrorize any of the other chickens while we were trying to catch them. It was that first catch that was the hardest. Getting up your gumption is hard, even for the most seasoned veterans of the butchering clan. But, George was eventually caught. I believe it was a classic "sweep the leg" move that did it.


Once you catch a chicken, you begin to swing it like you would your arms while walking vigorously. (This isn't George, but another rooster. The one of George being caught and swung was too blurry.) They said the swinging makes the chickens dizzy and less able to "fight the power", if you will. Then, we hung him upside down from the foot noose that the boys had rigged. The boys proceeded to catch three more chickens and we hung them upside down, as well.


Here are the boys with George. August was glad to be able to get up close in a way that he had not been able to do since George was a chick. In fact, in the last few weeks, all of us tried to stay as far away from him as possible. The boys said their farewells and then...


No, your eyes are not deceiving you. That is my four and a half year old son, killing a chicken. I think that August must have had a need to exert some muscle over that beast. Whatever his reason, he piped up, all on his own, that he wanted to be the one to butcher George. This was totally on his own initiative. Honestly, I hadn't even thought to ask whether he wanted to help with this part. I just assumed that would be way too big of a task and beyond his abilities. Let's just say that this was just one of the many ways that I was schooled through this process.

August wasn't able to completely cut the head off with the loppers but, to his defense, none of us were. They simply weren't sharp enough. We had to finish George off with a knife and then, for the other chickens, we used just the knife. After watching one more kill I decided that I was ready. I was determined to learn how to do every step of this process and this was the most important one.

It was a lot less hard than I thought it would be. Notice that I did not say it was "easier" than I expected. It wasn't an easy task, but it was completely do-able. You simply grab the neck, pull it down a bit, pull back some of the feathers so that you can see what you are doing and begin cutting. When you get in about 1/2 and inch or so, the blood starts flowing. What amazed me the most was how hot the blood was. It was such a vivid marker of the fact that this was a living animal. Most times, before I could finish cutting all the way through, the poor bird would start flapping around desperately. This was where it got messy. I would hold on to the neck, the best that I could, but the furious flapping inevitably sent blood flying. Not quite as bad as a horror flick, but bloody, nevertheless. Then, once the head was all the way off, I would step back and let it bleed out.


Here I am after a few kills, with blood on my hands and knife. The picture doesn't adequately show the evidence as well as I would like but I think that you get the idea. In the background you can see the pot of water for plucking heating up on the burner.

And then, the ugly truth.

After we let the chicken bleed out for awhile, we then took it over to this bucket that was filled with 130-140 degree soapy water. You would simply hold it by its feet and swish it around in the water for a little while. Not long at all really, something like 30 seconds or so. Then, you would pull it up out of the water a bit and test a clump of feathers. If they came off easily, the bird was ready to come out and be hung again for plucking.


Here I am plucking one of the birds. I was amazed at how easily the feathers came off. I had heard and read horror stories of this stage of the process so I was really expecting the worst. The trick was to make sure that every feather was thoroughly soaked. If you had any dry feathers mixed in among the wet ones, it made for a sticky mess. This rarely happened because it was so easy to avoid. Even the wing feathers came out fairly easily. It was the pin feathers that were more of a challenge and, even these, were not that bad.


Here's a headless, naked George. The boys thought this sight was hilarious and they asked our helper to make him dance around on the table. Although you can't see her full face (on purpose) I think you can see a bit of the smile on her face. This was the countenance that she kept for most of the day. Truly remarkable.


This was the hardest part, the gutting. See my position. Not good on the back at all. The table needed to be a bit higher. I was taught how to completely clean out the chicken, which was also, not as hard as I imagined it would be. It was more time consuming than anything.


If you ever wondered what used to be in that hollow cavity of the chicken you brought home from the supermarket, well... here you go: The complete innards of a 20 week old rooster. Aidan, in particular, thought this was the coolest part of the whole day. He was absolutely fascinated by the internal organs and how everything worked. Our amazing helper took the time to painstakenly outline every organ, its purpose in the body and how it was connected to the other systems. Again, Aidan was enthralled.

I have to point something out from the picture above. See that white, kind of kidney shaped organ at the top left of the picture? Well, that is one of two testes. In a younger chicken, it would be the size of about a pinto bean. In our roosters, they were the size of an elongated plum. No wonder they were so full of machismo!

The only other organ that was bigger was the gizzard, which is their stomach. By the way, that was also fascinating to examine. It was this large white-irridescent type color. It was surrounded by very thick muscle which surrounded a very hard white "sack", within which was the gizzard itself. When you cut it open, it was full of the chicken's food and tons of little bitty pebbles. Those rocks, in combination with the incredibly muscular gizzard, are what help the chicken digest their food. Incredible!


Here is a chicken getting its last good rinsing before being put on ice. Something that struck me throughout this whole process was the "lack" of disinfecting practices. Every once in awhile, I would ask whether we needed to use something to make sure our surface was clean or the chicken itself or... you get the picture. I was reassured that all we needed to do was rinse well with water and we would be fine. Our helper went on to tell us that her brother (or husband, I can't remember exactly which one it was) used to work for a commercial chicken farm and that the USDA standards for chickens that are being chilled before packaging allows for them to sit in up to a foot of sludge. "Sludge" could include anything from blood, feathers, poop... you name it, it can be in there. Once I heard that, I was totally reassured that our processing was a hundredfold more sanitary. Furthermore, we were outside, in the sunshine and the fresh air, with fresh water flowing and clean ice waiting for the chickens. I don't know if I will ever be able to buy chicken from the store again. I realized a very important thing upon learning all of this. Although the chicken that you buy at the supermarket is cheaper than one you might buy from a smaller scale farm or local farmer, you can't put enough value on what is lost in terms of quality control and safety.


And here are all 14 roosters, on ice, ready to be put in the freezer after they have cooled for 24 hours.

It was an exhilirating, albeit exhausting, day. Up until the moment our helpers arrived, I was a complete basket case. I was totally overwhelmed at the task before us. I had so many mixed emotions as I approached what had to be done: fear of the unknown (that was an obvious one), apprehension about my abilities, sadness at losing some character from our chicken yard (but this wasn't that strong of an emotion), frustration that John was out of town and that I was the only one left to do this, but also, relief that this would soon be over and I could relax when I went to feed the chickens and clean their coop. All of those feelings and then the actual physical exhaustion I experienced, as well... let's just say that I was spent. I was literally sore by dinner time.

BUT!!!!! I did it and I could do it again. I know every step of the process and fully participated in those steps (except for the catching part, that's going to be tricky...) so I could very well do this again if I needed to. And I just might need to. We had made the executive decision to keep Obrahma because of his mild manner and beauty but, in the chaos of chicken catching yesterday, one other rooster was inadvertently missed. So, we have two roosters left in our yard. We're not exactly sure what two roosters and 36 hens will do to each other. Maybe Obrahma and "Red" will be so hen picked and outnumbered that they will become docile little roosters. More likely, they will get meaner, in order to have their way with as many hens as possilbe. We'll just have to see.

In the meantime, we now wait anxiously for eggs......

****Edited to add:
I forgot to mention that almost all of the above pictures were taken by Aidan. I desperately wanted a pictorial account of this experience but knew that I couldn't do two things at once. I asked Aidan if he would be the official photographer and he excitedly accepted. It turned out to be a great set up because that way that he could be involved without having to literally have his hands in the muck. He said that he really enjoyed taking the pictures and I think that he did a wonderful job.

Where is his body, exactly?

August fell asleep immediately after dinner, again, and when we went into the living room to begin our evening activities, this is what we found. Talk about an "out of body" experience! That boy was tired!

Morning surprise

When spider webs unite, they can tie up
a lion.
--Ethiopian Proverb

The other morning I woke up very early (just one of those days) to find the world completely draped in fog. Maybe because I was up just at daybreak but there was something very magical about it all. I did my chicken duties first and then I got Beulah and we went on our morning walk. As we were walking down our driveway I couldn't help but notice the incredible number of spider webs. Actually, it wasn't the number I was surprised by the most, as we have seen LOTS more webs around lately. It was the fact that they were so very visible. Upon closer inspection I realized the reason. Because of the very heavy fog, every inch of every strand was drenched in dew drops. I only wish the sun had been able to poke through the clouds a little more. If so, those beads of moisture would have glistened like diamonds. They were pretty miraculous anyway, despite the dreary light.

That bottom picture reminds me of the word pictures that form in my mind when I read Peter Pan to the boys. The descriptions of the wobbly fairies stumbling home from an all night party bring to mind strings of dewy pearls and fairy dust.

I'm sure that's what happened the night before last.

End of Summer

"Lord, it is time. The summer was very big. Lay thy shadow on the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go loose. Command the last fruits that they shall be full; give them another two more southerly days, press them on to fulfillment and drive the last sweetness into the heavenly wine."
-Rainer Maria Rilke

Well, yesterday may have been the "unofficial" last day of summer but, in a year where summer was very un-summerlike...well, it's hard to make that call. Plus, we're still getting goods from our garden. Yes, the yellow squash is done, as is the corn and the beans. But our okra and tomatoes don't seem to know the meaning of slowing down. We even still find the occasional zucchini, hiding under its own giant leaves. In fact, I made a vegetable lasagna tonight that used zucchini in place of noodles. It was very good, by the way, and I'd be happy to share the recipe.

As I shared back in May, we were pretty late getting our seedlings into the ground so we are just now harvesting our cantaloupes and watermelons. Above you will see our first Moon & Stars melon. It is an heirloom seed and was very common here in the Missouri Ozarks back in the 1800's. It was decently good. It wasn't a deep red but it was very juicy and eatable. In fact, John cut it up and we all sat on the front porch, slurping juice and spitting seeds. Our cantaloupes, so far, have been good as well. They have only a hint of a rind, which makes for just that much more melon. Once we cut up one of these puppies, we pretty much eat it at every meal. Thankfully, cantaloupe is one of the few fruits that August will eat.

And the tomatoes... ah, the tomatoes. We somehow ended up with a ridiculous amount of cherry tomato plants, which has been a bit frustrating. We've made a few batches of sauce but we've basically frozen the rest. We figured, no sense heating up the kitchen now when we could do it in the cooler weather. But these tomatoes shown above are actually the volunteer plants that shot up late this spring. The previous owners had a few tomatoes planted along our house and a few of them were actually still producing tomatoes when we moved in last November! Many tomatoes, however, fell to the ground before we even showed up on the scene and from those seeds came the above tomatoes. And they are delicious! I made a grilled turkey, cheese and tomato sandwich on sourdough bread the other day and I do believe it was one of the best sandwiches that I ever did eat!

John has started some seedlings for a Fall garden, but I think it will be on a much smaller scale than the Summer garden. We've got a lot going on right now (he at work, me at home) and it seems right to rest a bit and regain some energy. It will be early Spring before we know it, anyway, and we'll start the whole cycle over again then.

Welcome!

I just wanted to take the opportunity to say "Hello!" to those of you that have begun to follow my blog on a regular basis. As much as I hate to admit it, I look at you all as my mini fan base, my groupies, my entourage, so to speak. Thank you for helping me grow a big ole head!

To my family and friends, thank you for your love and devotion. It is such a gift to be able to share my life with you and to know that, as much as is possible, you are still "right there". Leaving Atlanta and moving to a totally new city was a very difficult thing to do and it brings me so much peace and comfort to think that you get to stowaway on the journey with us. Please, continue to keep close.

And to those of you who have somehow stumbled upon this little speck of cyberspace, it is wonderful to have you. When I acquired my first unknown (to me, that is) "follower", I did take pause for a moment or two. I wondered if my writing voice would change or if I would start painting myself in a different light. But then I realized, I don't have time for the putting on of airs. It's hard enough to authentically share my life with you, let alone give my thoughts time to percolate in some hot house of chimeric ideas in order to create some phantasmic version of myself.

I'm afraid that all of you are only going to get plain ole me.

And, as always, I love to hear your comments. Please feel free to tell me what you think about what you see or read here.

Thanks again for reading.

"If the only prayer you said
in your whole life was,
'thank you,'
that would suffice."
--Meister Eckhart

Letterboxing

The boys, Beulah and I decided to go on another adventure today. Our purpose was multifaceted. The main goal was to enjoy, yet another, perfect weather day--the kind that gently heralds in Autumn. I am also trying to be creative about how to get the boys outside and moving. If I achieve that goal, then I also accomplish an exercise session with Beulah dog, which is vitally important. So I decided to try Letterboxing with the boys.

I had read about this activity before and thought that it sounded like the grandest fun. The best explanation for what it is comes from the description of the book The Letterboxer's Companion:
"Letterboxing is an intriguing mix of hiking, puzzle solving, treasure hunting, and rubber stamp artistry, topped off with the thrill of discovery."

Basically, people create boxes that hold inside a bound blank book of some sort and a rubber stamp and then they hide the box somewhere in the world. At the Letterboxing website, people post where they've hidden their box, along with directions on how to find it. Once you find the box, the idea is that you will take the stamp that is inside and use it to stamp your own book, showing that you found the box. Then, you are to take your own stamp that you've chosen to represent yourself or your family and you stamp it in the book within the box, recording that you, too, have found the box. Many people make their own stamps, which is so very cool. At the website, we clicked on Missouri and found locations within our county. All of them happened to be at the same park, but it is a BIG park with miles of trails that twist and turn throughout the woods, so there is still a sense of grand adventure.

I decided that we would try and find one of the five boxes, as I had no idea how difficult this would be or how long we would have to hike to find it. It turned out to be the perfect level of difficulty for my boys' first attempt. It was easy enough to find, yet provided a basic challenge in following directions. The above pictures show the tree, or crag as it was described in the directions, in which we found the box, the box hidden inside the tree, and then the book within that held the stamps of all those who had found the book before us.

We will definitely do this again. As I don't know how to carve my own stamp just yet, we'll probably just try to pick one out at the craft store. It might be neat for each of the boys to pick out one for themselves, as well as have their own books to be stamped. Then, whenever we travel somewhere, we could look up possible Letterbox locations in the area, and have a grand adventure somewhere else in the country.

Can you tell that I thought this was as much fun as the boys?

"I decided that adventure was the best way to learn..."

Lloyd Alexander