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

I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because even homeschooling educator mommies can make mistakes!!" It has been a whirlwind of events since May 30. Though in actuality, it has just been life. My younger son was supposed to be going off to camp in the mountains. A colleague from LDA had secured him a place in an adventuring camp. He has been before and loved it. It was a great experience for him before, but it is a bit beyond our finances to be able to afford him the opportunity to go. He was supposed to spend the weekend whitewater rafting, rappelling, and doing a ropes course. I had planned to spend the weekend in the mountains recuperating from what seems like a series of weekdays with no weekends. I was supposed to go on a foraging hike that I had scheduled some time back and wanted to go to the wild foods market. After he broke his wrist, he could no longer go to the camp, so I thought the mountain weekend was out. Alas, despite the broken arm, we left for the mo...

been a baking/cooking machine today...made an apple yum yum and homemade pizza for dinner. made some banana bread for my younger son's homeschool social group tomorrow. tomorrow my neighbor and her junior league are taking some children from the children's home to the marionette theater. i made some banana muffins for them to have. :0) yummy!!  since i will be gone next week to the lda conference, i know my hubby and children will not be huge on cooking the veggies bought from the farmers' market and produce co-op. my younger son boiled all the corn after i shucked it. i flashed rinsed it and froze it for later. we flash froze the cauliflower as well. tomorrow i flash freeze the zucchinis. i am thinking of either eating the cucumbers or pickling them tomorrow. i am not sure what to do with the kale. i have 1.5 bundles of it. i thought of making crockpot apple and pear butter to use those up and canning the this weekend. i do not want then to go bad.  i harvested some ...

It is not finished....well, it is finished...but, I have to still nip the drainpipe to the gutter...then I can actually put the lid on without the drain going through the screen...   drew cut out area on top piece   notched it to start cut out   beginning to finish the cut out for the rain to enter   hole for water cut out   layered with one piece of screen   layered with two pieces of screen   lid view from top   preppinng for where the bottom spicket will go   bottom spicket hole drawn to cut out   prepping spicket to place on barrel   out spicket on barrel   bottom spicket nutted from inside   overflow hole cut out   overflow spicket in place   overflow spicket nutted from inside   barrell in place under gutter...just need to nip the drain shorter

been sick for days now...every time i feel better and start to do something, i quickly realize i should not have done anything... yesterday took its toll on me...5 hours teaching was too much...it equalled 5 hours in the bed yesterday afternoon...12 hours of sleep has left me feeling no better today... my children cleaned and locked up the resource center for me last night. my older child did boy scout runs and retrievals...my younger child is cooking tonight's dinner, feeding chickens and collecting eggs... i feel blessed...sick, but blessed. :)

About three months ago, when we were fully engulfed in learning and trying to teach my son many of the things he was working on for advancement or merit badges in Scouts...reading and explaining was just not getting the job done for my youngest child. He is a hands-on learner...So, I set out to do the things with him for better overall impression and retention of skills. We determined to build a make-shift shed. He got to cut and measure and hammer and nail and drill and such. It took about a month to look like anything that would hold anything. A greenhouse roof was applied. I had a place to hold the new planting items for the small garden we made. The new neighbor's dog had also learned in this time frame to scale the fence next door and escape. He likes my yard more than hers apparently. He dug up my new plants. He took off with pieces of my mulch. He takes my pots off the front porch. Lately he has ate my best pair of flip flops and ran off with one of my garden glov...