School is in Session

I can't imagine having gone to a school like the farm school my older kids have attended.  Can you imagine shearing the sheep and washing the wool; carding and dyeing; making felted puppets to act out the poems you've created? Picking the apples and making applesauce; honey harvested from the bees, and candles from their wax; outdoorsy time in the trees and swamp, indoorsy time in pine-cosy shelters and homes with tables in the floor and ponds, inside?  Singing and playing and eating and enjoying.  I wish everyone's school was like this school.

You see how the older ones have graduated from decorating windows with stars and watercolors to quadratic equations.  It can't be helped, really.

How is school getting along at your place this year?

Got Mail

The little kids are getting to that really awesome age where they are beginning to take in more of their surroundings, ready to learn all about things outside their immediate vicinity.

I really love the preschool age. Everyday events are just fun, fun, fun with preschoolers.

One day over the summer all the little kids wrote letters to each other, and we went off to the post office to mail them to ourselves.

We addressed the envelopes, and bought stamps to put on them. Then we pushed the letters through the mail slot at the post office.

On the way home, we stopped at the library to check out some books about mail service. The kids were really curious about what was going to happen to their letters.

The very next day, all the letters arrived back at our house, and we found them in our mail box.

There was a very excited flurry of letter-opening, and everyone had a letter from someone. Not all of it was decipherable, but it was all written with love.

Gater had the biggest surprise in her letter.

That was really fun.

Why I've Been Away

Life is never dull around here, I can tell you.

August saw the start of a new homeschool year with a high schooler, a junior high student, a second grader, two preschoolers and a baby. Mamma knows when Mamma needs help, and this year we chose to enroll the three school-age children with K-12, online public schooling.

This is what we got in the mail.

Crazy, huh!

I thought they were going to send teachers, but came to find out that it was just me again, with more stuff and someone else's schedule.

The 2nd grade curriculum wreaked utter devastation on our formerly happy, laid-back style of homeschooling.

It's been a heavy couple of months.

Pulled the 2nd grader out.

Sending a lot of this stuff back.

The 8th and 9th graders are doing fine. They started very well and are continuing on that way.

Good now.

Post more soon :-)

Art Museum

We go to the museum to see the art


but sometimes we become the art.


Actually, I have recently come to see my kids, my home, and my family life


as being my best, most vibrant, most expressive, most intelligent, most life-filled, most moving ongoing work of art.

I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Zoar, OH -- Second Camping Trip

While we were camping in Amish country last October, we decided to drive out to Zoar, OH -- another town based on a religious community, but not Amish. Zoar is less than an hour from where we were located in Amish country.

The settlers of this town were German separatists, who immigrated to escape persecution in their own country. They had quite a rough go of it, as they did not have help similar to what the Amish had when they came.


Zoar's history is just as interesting as Amish history, if not more so.
Part of its charm, as a town, is that people actually live in the historic, numbered houses, and as far as I can tell, the residents of the town keep the historical stories alive.


The drawback to this, is that Zoar is not primarily set up for tourists -- and there wasn't a lot open. Fortunately, we had packed a picnic lunch. And there were public restrooms.


The weather decided to be gorgeous that one particular day, and we almost even got hot walking around the town.
This garden in the center of the town is built around some religious ideas having to do with the Book of Revelation. It was at the end of its season, of course, but pretty nevertheless, and we were able to walk in it and enjoy it.


It was amazing seeing all these old, old log cabins and houses -- most with additions which had been built on over the years. The houses of the original religious town were marked with numbers, so you could go and see them all, and find out about the people who originally owned them.


Wannie and Joman
particularly enjoyed the fine weather. Wannie was really getting quite heavy to carry around for lengths of time, so we kept swapping duties.


Gater was anti-shoes that day. After picking them up off the ground 3,206 times, we gave in and let her go barefoot.




The residents of Zoar take evident pride in their town -- and so would you, if you lived there. I wanted to move there pretty much immediately. Such a quiet, pretty little place.








We really had a very nice day, walking around Zoar! Zoar is located by the Erie Canal, which we discovered quite by accident as we were walking around.








I think we may try to visit again when some of the buildings are open, and do a more comprehensive tour. It's a place to see!