The asparagus season has ended and large fronds now gather the energy from the sun to nourish the crowns under the surface.
Strawberries are currently producing about a pound of fruit every two days or so. The kids love to eat them right after picking them. They are so sweet.
I have prepared half the rows yesterday. The potager garden concept is coming together. I have trays of seedlings which have been on the balcony hardening off ready to put in the ground.
I built a new arch for cucumbers, and the kids planted pickling and slicing variety today. They also planted some pumpkins today.
While I was pulling some weeds, I found a small oak tree sprout. I pulled it up and found the root and stem still attached to an acorn. I hope it will grow in a pot. I’ll relocate it to the back yard when it’s bigger.
This week, so many things happened. It was like a month crammed into a week. Fall is definitely here, but my rose is still blooming.
I was reading a fairy tale to Banana Cream Pie for her literature class. In the fairy tale, the prince has to find a girl to marry who is the richest but also the poorest. She interrupted to ask, “how can that be? How can she be the richest and the poorest?”
I said, “Often fairy tales have riddles like that. If we keep reading, we will find out how the prince solves the riddle.” Before I could start reading again, Banana Cream Pie jumped up excitedly.
“Oh this is reminding me of something!” she said. “This is reminding me of the widow and her two coins. She paid the least, but Jesus said she also paid the most.”
I was very proud that she made such a great connection and very grateful that she shared it with me. This is what education is about.
Our folk song for the next six weeks is “She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain.” We learned that the root of this song was an African American Spiritual song and it is actually referring to the second coming of Jesus Christ. It was then adopted by railroad foremen, who we learned were hired primarily for their singing ability because singing is how they kept the work crews working well together. Being excited for the second coming is a relatively recent feeling for me, and singing the song with this new knowledge was very poignant. What a glorious day that will be when Christ comes in glory, six white horses pulling his chariot. We’ll all go out to meet him. All hardship will be ended, and we’ll have the best food and gifts to offer him and celebrate his coming, and
“We’ll be singin’ hallelujah when she comes”
Princess Tooth
Tuesday, I took Banana Cream Pie to the dentist because she had a tooth that was hurting. The dentist assured her that she wouldn’t need numbing shots or anything and started drilling away. However, the decay turned out to be much deeper than he thought; and after she cried out a couple of times, he had to stop, give her gas, and several numbing shots before continuing. Once she had relaxed, Banana Cream became quite chatty and conversational. As the dentist was finishing up, she said,
“That took a lot longer than I thought it would.”
“Yes,” said the dentist, “I should have asked you if it had been hurting, it was worse than I thought at the beginning.”
To our dentist, who has been fixing teeth for so many years that he was my dentist when I was a kid, Banana Cream Pie said quite matter-of-factly, “Maybe you’ll learn from this, and next time you’ll be more careful and look more closely at the beginning.”
Doctor Stidham rocked back in his stool, laughing, and I told him he was lucky to be benefiting from the kind of helpful advice I get every day from this wise eight-year-old.
Jeopardy master
For Family Home Evening, we played our traditional family Conference Jeopardy. Cherry Pie has been in charge of this game for years now. She makes up all the questions, and sets up the board. We have to take meticulous notes to do well in the game. You might ask for “Sunday Afternoon for 100, please.” and get
“This color was the tie President Nelson wore during his closing remarks.”
or “Who provided the music for this session.”
or you might be brave and ask for “Saturday Afternoon for 500” and get a really tough one like
“Elder D. Todd Christofferson provided several ways that a society can be sustainable. Name 2”
or
“This General Authority related the firey darts of the adversary to a flaming empty microwave.”
We had a great time. I had forgotten about dessert, but one of the kids suggested apples and dip, and I have this great recipe from my sister, Katie, so I whipped it up fast.
Blueberry Pie
In a medium saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter, 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, 3/4 cup light corn syrup, and 1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk.
Stir constantly until mixture comes to a light boil. Remove from heat and add 1 tsp vanilla. Serve warm.
For art, we used chalk pastels to draw apples, focusing on drawing what we see and not what our brain knows an apple looks like.
We also practiced vertical strokes for brush drawing, and had time for a free drawing session.
I drew this as a gift for a friend.
Wednesday
This is my practice/demo of our handicraft for home school co-op. Paper sloyd teaches so much more than I ever guessed. My students are learning how to follow directions, how to measure accurately with a ruler, how to cut a straight line, how to fold a straight line, and how to tie a bow. This is only lesson 7! Who knows what practical knowledge heights we will climb with this “non-core” subject? P.S. my grandmother was so beautiful. I love her face, and even more, I love the legacy of education that she passed down.
Sad thing for this week:
Little Aztec has passed on. We gave him a good two weeks, after Blueberry Pie rescued him, but Wednesday, he ran under a vehicle in our driveway as it was backing out, and that was the end of his mortal existence. None of the kids were very upset about the accident, except the one who was driving. She had a tough couple of days. I buried the little puppy under the big cedar tree in our back yard, and even though the ground was really hard, I took the time to dig his hole big enough that he could lie comfortably, as if in a little bed. Rest in peace, Aztec.
The resident Captain talked me into doing this Couch to 10K in 13 weeks running program with him. I haven’t been walking recently because it’s dark in the mornings, and it’s harder to make myself go alone. So I agreed, and he bought me some special running shoes to correct for my over-pronating feet. I don’t enjoy running, but I like spending time with the Captain, and I like how my back hurts less when I get out and move. The shoes are making a big difference: I haven’t rolled my ankles once. Also, the kind of running I am doing is called “shuffle running” and it’s not much like any running I’ve ever done before.
I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more… rather than run.
Key Lime Pie got to dissect an owl pellet Friday. It was gross and cool and took forever. She considered the bone charts carefully and determined that our particular owl had digested a mouse and a vole, at least.
Friday morning, we had our first frost. I told myself that after school we would dig the sweet potatoes. But I had to take the van to get the tires replaced, and that took so long, I forgot about the potatoes. Saturday evening, around 8:00pm (It was after dark) I suddenly remembered.
An In-the-dark Treasure dig was announced, headlamps were handed out, and we trouped out to the garden to save the potatoes. We had planted the sweet potatoes in hills of mushroom compost, so we didn’t have to dig very much. Mostly, I pulled the vines back, and the potatoes came up. Some potatoes had grown down into the hard ground though, and we had to work harder for those. It was pretty fun, and Banana Cream Pie announced that it was Family Fun Night. Wholesome Recreational Activities? check!
The dining table is now heaped with our bounteous crop of sweet potatoes, and I’m going to have to do something with them.
Sunday Morning, I discovered that someone had thoughtfully placed T-rex to guard our treasure while we slept.
When I was a kid, one of the chores my brothers & sisters & I had every morning through the summer was to weed a row in the family garden. Since my parents grew an enormous and super abundant garden, this was no small task. I believe most of the rows were 50-70 feet long. It was a chore we all hated, and I remember many a time weeding my row with rebellion in my soul. Now I look back on those times in the garden as a family as some of the best times we had. We were all outside working together. We would sing silly songs like “There’s a Hole in my Bucket” “If I get to Heaven Before You Do” -we made up extra verses to this one “Johnny Verbeck”
and pretty songs in a round like “I love the mountains” “White Coral Bells” “Horsey, Horsey, on your Way”
But I digress. Going back to when it was a hated chore–no one wanted to weed, but no one was slow to get started because the last one out got the worst row. Some rows had more sticker weeds than others, and those were no fun. But the worst row was the row with the most Johnson Grass choking it.
Johnson grass looks a great deal like a young corn plant. But as you can see in the picture above, it has huge roots, including fat white tuber roots. You cannot just grab the top of a Johnson grass plant and pull it out of the ground. The top will rip off, leaving the root behind, and the plant will grow back. If you carefully loosen the roots and pull out the whole root & plant, you still cannot just drop the Johnson grass on the ground like an ordinary weed. If the roots are still touching the dirt, they will latch back on and the plant will revive and grow. The only way to kill Johnson grass that we knew of, was to extract it, complete with roots and throw it on an old piece of tin Dad kept at the end of the rows we were weeding. On the tin where it was prevented from touching the ground, the Johnson grass would wither in the sun and die after a few days.
I think that people are a lot like Johnson grass. Here we are on Earth, growing. Sometimes life rips our leaves off. Sometimes Satan puts us through such a hard time that we feel completely uprooted. But as long as we keep praying and reading our scriptures–as long as we keep digging ourselves back into that good nourishing word of God–we will revive and keep growing. It is only when we become separated from the nourishment we need that we wither and die.
The difference is, we are not weeds in God’s garden. He wants us there! It is Satan who is trying to pull us out. And it is our choice if we allow ourselves to be thrown up on that piece of tin and scorched. Satan can rip us up and rip us apart, but he can’t separate us from the Lord. We separate ourselves from the Lord or we can cling to Him and find renewal.
This is me recommitting to be more faithful in studying daily my scriptures. ❤ GlowWorm
They came in the mail this week in a very pretty tin. I showed the bulbs to Diva 2 and Diva 3. I explained that we would get some special dirt (potting soil) and plant the bulbs and they would grow into flowers. I read the names of the flowers off the little bags. There were
lilies,
daffodills,
and tulips.
Later, Diva 3 asked me, “Now can we go get the special dirt for the “tulip babies?”
Marvelous Pigs in Satin 