Big Universe, Small World... ©2013-2020

today we passed by this street and the child remembered reading about sleepy hollow in literature for 7th grade...evidence, to me, from the conversation that followed that homeschooling works for us.

  Earlier this month, this pretty choc-labby was one of the rescues we transported for Wild Heir Labrador Rescue to Luck Farms. We went back for her last week. She has been with us for almost a week now (I think), as we test her out with her family and other labby girl. She seems to be fitting in with us and I think she may have found her furever home. We are calling her 'YaYa'...a name suggested by the WHLR owner. Please consider fostering a dog and get your pet spayed or neutered.

3 inch egg that was almost two inches wide...our chicken, Flo, laid that large one...  

    Jewish World Review June 10, 2002 by Bruce Tinsley not mine - from http://jewishworldreview.com/strips/mallard/2000/mallard061002.asp

I am watching Cold Case tonight and it is a tale of a murder/disappearance of a white child who was best friends with a black child. The story unfolds of how it was the friendship of the innocent children that led to the death and/or disappearance of the white child... A young teen boy in the story tells the two little girls they should not be friends because they cannot play together. The teen uses an analogy of horses and chickens don't play together. My immediate thought, is that the horses and chickens might not play together...but, everyone lives in the same barnyard and all get along just fine. It just seemed like a good learning point. The world belongs to all of us and we all live in the same yard! picture found at http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com/index.php?/contents/comments/barnyard_animals_v._human_beings/ .  

It is getting warmer lately, which makes me think of taking vacation and taking breaks...or, just maybe doing things we enjoy that do not involve work...

Bigger mushrooms today and some new smaller ones popping in to say, 'Hi!' This top picture was from this morning. These are from tonight. Keep your bad thoughts in your head.

A friend of mine on facebook posted this picture the other day: It is from a facebook site called Laugh, It's Free. It reminded me instantly about the comments we still sometimes get about how could possibly never expose our son to any type of socialization activity. When my son started to withdraw from youth group activities at church, I worried instantly about him getting enough exposure to children of his peer range in age. After talking to one his therapists and some friends on an online support group...I realized how he is socialized all week in a multitude of scenarios where he has to interact and be civil to people and each setting has different rules. So, it occurs to me to follow one typical week for us and think about all of our activities. Mind you these are not necessarily in order, but here goes: church grocery store Boy Scouts Music lessons Art class                   ...

A while back...we saw this grow your own mushrooms from coffee compost kit...it was like $14.00, but I thought, 'hey, why not!'  We set out to growing our own mushrooms. We followed ALL the instructions specifically...We did not want to mess this up. Pictures of the process we had to follow can be seen here . Needless to say, the first attempt was a total bust. I was disappointed. The child was disappointed. I felt like I had wasted 15 bucks. What a bad chunk of luck! The directions do say that when you have finished growing the mushrooms on one side of the box to turn the coffee grounds over and to split open the other side and you can grow from it as well. This is supposed to allow you to grow twice as much crop. As the first side never produced anything....we turned it over and did not follow the instructions explicitly the second time. I just split open the plastic on the front, in a star pattern and sprayed it daily as directed. I did not soak it or all the other s...

It is amazing how many words and conversations can be fit into the small space of an afternoon. Tonight in talking with the child.... the conversations followed throughout the evening as numbered - though this was not all of them by any means... #1 - while watching DOOL - child walks through room and comments on why it always seems everyone is having sex on this show? #2 - convo 2 with child - our fireplace logs look like a face... #3 -  convo 3 with child - if you stand in front of the fire too long, your butt gets really warm... #4 - convo 4 with child - he has 5 drumsticks on his plate - i ask why he has so many - he tells me there were 15 chicken legs - i tell him i had planned to freeze half of it for later - he asks me if i want him to go put 6 of them back - i mention he has only 5, so how could he put 6 back - he looks at the plate and then looks back at me and says he can put one piece back twice. :) #5 - discussing Chief SOHCAHTOA from math lesson ...

Sometimes, I think we will not be homeschooling that day, and then when the day is ending, I realize that the entire day was really a homeschool moment unfolding before me... We started the day taking a walk for about a mile (to try and ease the pain in my back and neck before too much time of the day was underway). The little one and I retrieved three puppies and a mama labby from Wescott Animal Rescue to take them the rest of their way to their new foster home,  Luck  Farms, for Wild Heir Labrador Rescue. We got to Luck Farms to get the puppies and bigger labby lady settled in... While we were there...Charlie worked to earn some service hours for Scouts. (Did I mention he earned his first class rank the other day for Scouts!) He shoveled and scooped! He helped with cedar shavings for the kennels! I will have to admit, the child does know how to do his share of the work and he does it (most often) with little to no complaint. After this, we walked the property ...