Visiting family...

We recently made a trip back into Star Valley to help Matt's father farm and to attend a nephew's baby blessing.

The blessing went about as expected. The men all went up to the front to confer a priesthood blessing on the child while us wimmen-folk all sat in the audience with the children. Then I went to nursery with all of the Heiner children who are of age to attend nursery and prepared to babysit them for two hours, because of course we had to stay for the entire three hour block even though we were only there to witness a five minute blessing. Because DH's family is righteous like that.

Five minutes into nursery, when the kids had just transitioned into being in the play area, a family member comes barreling in and says that now we're all leaving because while the Heiners all want to stay, our SIL's family - most of whom are in that ward - are saying it's ridiculous to sit in church lessons for two more hours and that they're heading over to the house for a get-together and lunch. Fine by me. So now I have to transition the kids OUT of nursery which takes another five minutes because there are so many cool new toys in there.

After the lunch, Hannah was running around with her cousins when she stopped and threw up. I knelt beside her until she was done. She turned to me and said "Mommy, am I pegnant?" I told her that no, she wasn't pregnant, that she was probably just sick from too much sugary food and a lot of excitement. I haven't thrown up that much this pregnancy, but it's obviously been enough for her to notice.

On Monday, we tried to entertain the girls in the hot sun, and they ended up under the trampoline asking their very cool Aunt Jolynn to make up stories for them. The stories included farting geese and the girls loved them.



When the girls missed their daddies too much, we took them down to the field to see them. Most of the girls ended up in Matt's tractor. He called us an hour later asking us to come get three sleeping girls.


After the farming was done, we had a hot dog roast. Hannah figured out the fine line between just enough heat and too much heat and Ainsley had her first experience with a fire. She was fascinated, but cautious.

Hannah can now open the large freezer by herself. Ainsley enjoys it when Hannah does this.

She's using a Twix bar as a spoon. Because I'm a responsible parent. A kid can never have too much sugar - if you don't think they're getting enough, give them sugar to use as a utensil.

Disclaimer

I'm an idiot. Pregnancy makes me into an idiot. I cannot type, speak, or think coherently. Expect nothing brilliant out of this blog until after my baby is born. Give me about 18 years after the baby is born.

Until then, this is my home for noting what my children are learning without formal teaching and what we're doing in our lives. It is also where I will post links of blogs, essays, books, and other information I think is worth sharing.

What will they be learning and what do I think is worth sharing?

They will be learning about life, about animals, how to read, how to write, how to do math. They'll be learning about themselves, about others, about society, and in our house - about religion and the many different views people take of it. Right now their main interests are princesses (H), ponies (H), four-wheelers (A), gardening (H), laundry (A), machines (A), climbing (A), dancing (both), cooking (H), and eating (A).

I will be sharing what I'm learning also. One of the glorious side-effects, or maybe a necessary ingredient, of unschooling is that the parents show the children how to follow their interests by following their own interests. So I am currently interested in running our local Farmer's Market, putting my garden to rest for the winter, fixing my #*$(&# vaccuum cleaner, learning to ferment (my last batches of saurkraut and kimchi were fantastic successes!), traditional diet, positive parenting, and unschooling. Once winter sets in, I'll start planning next year's garden and animals, figuring out the logistics of starting a pasture-raised, organic turkey flock, knitting, gestating, and cooking lots of good food. Next year I would like to implement the 100-mile diet, so I'll be planning my garden around that.

I probably won't be sharing much of what my husband is interested in unless there's a great demand for favorite Simpsons quotes, so you'll see him only rarely on this blog.

Welcome!

Soul Manna quotes

"Our true home is in the present moment.
To live in the present moment is a miracle.
The miracle is not to walk on water.
The miracle is to walk on the green Earth
in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and
beauty that are available now."

--Thich Nhat Hanh

Removed 03/10

Rotating list.

Just housekeeping. Storing my favorites off of my 'Make me smile' widget on the side when it's time to switch them out for new favorites.

A New Look at Success
Trashing Teens
Beautiful Tribute to one of my heroes
Breastfeeding in public
Alternatives to Punishment

Sunitha Krishnan's Fight against Sex Slavery

Removed 03/10

Harvest time.

This time of year, it's all about preserving the harvest.

This past week we have been so busy processing corn and tomatoes. The corn we got in a friend's patch. The tomatoes we got at the Farmer's Market.

Here are Hannah and Ainsley helping get the cherry tomatoes ready for drying. We dehydrated the cherry tomatoes and romas and made sauce out of the sandwich tomatoes. The girls eat the dehydrated tomato "chips" like candy.





The corn was destined for the freezer. We shucked it, blanched it, cut it off the cob and froze it in bags.

This is Hannah at the corn patch. She had to take her pony just in case there was free time for practicing barrel racing.







The girls helped me out as much as they were able, each in their own way.

Hannah shucked the corn.





Ainsley handled the taste testing and played peek-a-boo with the kitten on the steps.





Halfway through, Hannah took a break to enjoy the raw corn.



A common garden snake found its way into one of the boxes. Since this is organic corn, the snake ate what earwigs he could find. Hannah enjoyed playing with him and watching how his body moved. She'd never noticed the fork in a snake's tongue before. When she put him under the bush, the cats watched her and quickly caught him and brought him out to play with and eat.







One of the perks of living on the farm is that nothing goes to waste. If the animals don't eat it, the compost pile gets it. The corn scraps were devoured by all the animals on our farm except for the dogs - surprisingly, even the cats liked the cobs.



This is my La Mancha milk goat, Popcorn, picking through the husks and bad ears.



This is just a random picture from that afternoon of my border collie herding the kitten.