It was very simple, just taking a picnic basket and some egg salad sandwiches, sardines (yes, I said sardines), and other various and sundry things, like apples, . . . → Read More: A Sunday Picnic]]> “I love it when we do things together with the children,” I said to Mr. Carpenterman, batting my eyeslashes.  So we went on a tiny little picnic over the weekend.

It was very simple, just taking a picnic basket and some egg salad sandwiches, sardines (yes, I said sardines), and other various and sundry things, like apples, sunflower seed butter, chips and crackers.  Oh and some iced tea.  Yes, it was beautiful and warm enough to run and play. 

Four of us drove to some beautiful woods and had fun eating and walking and exploring.

Standing in front of some beech trees

While some of us climbed trees, some of us walked gracefully around and looked for identifying marks on trees and rocks and the like.

Our two youngest had fun getting out some energy.  Is there anything better than the woods for what ails you?

We examined trees with odd growths on them.

There was quite the stand of broomsage, and the carpenter said he’d be sure to tell me when it’s green so that I can make a broom. 

The Carpenter, who is an excellent woodsman and knows all of his trees, pointed out this and that.  I told the children they had to listen carefully because they would be tested before we left to go home.   We are homeschoolers after all.  They laughed and ran off.

Well, not really.  They listened to their daddy explain how this redbud had bloomed last year.  You can tell because of the seed pods.   He pointed out many a beech tree, silver and white maples, the eastern red cedar, sourwood and more.  He talked about the trees like he knew them personally.  I think they know him, too.

I love to see these HUGE quartz rocks!

We noticed a deer skull and wondered what had happened to the deer.  It was interesting to look at the teeth.    These are the molars and premolars. 

An outing doesn’t have to be expensive.  It doesn’t have to cost much of anything actually.  This was just the cost of our brought-from-home food, and it was so much fun!

A great longing for the old days when the trees could talk in Narnia came over her.  She knew exactly how each of these trees would talk if only she could wake them, and what sort of human form it would put on.  She looked at a silver birch:  it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face, and fond of dancing.  She looked at the oak:  he would be a wizened, but hearty old man with frizzled beard and warts on his face and hands, and hair growing out of the warts.  She looked at the beech under which she was standing.  Ah!–she would be the best of all.  She would be a gracious goddess, smooth and stately, the lady of the wood.  Prince Caspian, The Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis

The tree we have chosen is . . . → Read More: Our Faithful Dogwood]]> My dear friend Marqueta recently posted about her quest to follow one tree by observation and journaling for a year.  The idea started with this blog (The Tree Year) and is being referred across the internet by friends as a great idea, so Michaela and I are going to take part as well.

The tree we have chosen is a dogwood tree.   We are calling her Faithful.  I love Marqueta’s idea to name the tree.  Michaela and I will be journaling about her, taking pictures of her and learning about her.  At a recent visit to the Scrap Exchange, I found a wonderful notebook that will be perfect for this endeavor. 

Faithful’s lovely silhouette against a cold winter sky.

Her bark, which is medicinal, we hope to learn more about and actually use.

When I took off for my walk with Annie today, I carried a walking stick from a downed dogwood tree that the Carpenter found in the woods.  It’s my favorite walking stick, but I suppose I take it for granted too, and where it came from.

Here is today’s journal entry:

The Dogwood ~ Our Tree Journal
begun on 01/25/2011

Our dogwood tree is in our front yard and is about 10 years old. It started as a tiny, tiny sapling brought home from Grandma and Grandpa’s woods.

I think we may take our tree for granted. It’s always there for us, holding a bird feeder, but do we really notice her?

I think we’ll name her Faithful. She was faithful to grow, against all odds. She faithfully blooms. She faithfully houses our feathered friends and gives them rest.

A few more pictures from today’s walk.

I love this little spot beside the railroad tracks.

Another beautiful spot where you can hear water and see (below the water’s surface) old tracks–train tracks?–that run underneath the current train trestle.

Enjoy what remains of the day.

We’ll sit side by side on the little bench and look through my Beyond Five In A Row book of lessons.  We can have coffee and watch the goldfish.

Every Tuesday morning marks the beginning of three days off work for me.  I always think I’ll get . . . → Read More: Join Me For Planning]]> Would you care to join me by my little frugally-built pond?

We’ll sit side by side on the little bench and look through my Beyond Five In A Row book of lessons.  We can have coffee and watch the goldfish.

Every Tuesday morning marks the beginning of three days off work for me.  I always think I’ll get so much done, but then the days become a flurry of appointments, a violin lesson, a co-op or a fieldtrip, cleaning and menu planning, and, well, here we are at Friday morning again.

This Friday morning, I found my spot by the little goldfish pond to be a haven — I got some thinking done and, if nothing else, was able to clear my mind and relax enough to ease into a couple of work days. 

Let’s look around and see what we can find for nature study.

What a very large slug!  I told the carpenter about it and he said I should kill it.  Oh.  I cannot.  Not like this.  It’s a creature.  The carpenter said that’s the whole reason we cannot have a garden.  I love creatures too much.  We do have a garden, but I’d hate to see us try and feed six people from it. 

Not the prettiest of creatures, but fascinating for sure!  Reminds me of a leopard and an elephant all wrapped up in one tiny little specimen. 

There were butterflies everywhere this morning!  I counted about 20 on the front of the house!  They were fluttering all around the garden.   They were landing on my dress.  I had four on the front of my dress at one time!  My mother said it was supposed to be good luck  to have a butterfly land on you, not that we are superstitious or anything, but when it comes to creatures…

It seems the perfect morning for nature study, and we have just enough time to get in a little lesson.

I believe the butterflies must think they’ve moved into a Shabby Chic economy apartment.  You can see the old quilt through the plastic.  I mean, who’s to say they don’t just dig their new home?  They certainly are coming around.  Anyhoo…

Butterflies love tiny bits of water.  Where little drops splash out onto rocks, where little drops are hiding in leaves, where rocks in a potted water plant are moist from the pond water, that’s where the butterflies will be.

This sweet little buttefly looks like she’s looking right at me.  I’m not sure if she’s upset or glad to see me.  I think she’s glad because she sat very still for several photos.

Well, come to think of it, she looks a bit mad.   Maybe she wants her shabby chic home all to herself.

Enjoy this day!  More later on our nature studies, our math program, and our Five in a Row co-ops on Betsy Ross.

The morning sun was causing my green tea to absolutely gleam in its little Japanese cup . . . → Read More: Starting A Day]]> The mornings are still hot.  Even when we first wake up, we are met at the door with North Carolina’s humid, heavy summer air.  Still, I know that September mornings, and then the cooler mornings of October, are not far away. 

The morning sun was causing my green tea to absolutely gleam in its little Japanese cup yesterday as I started the day.  I thought of school, how I live my life, household things that needed to be done, and getting some “Mother Culture” in for myself during my days off. 

Time surely flies.  Yesterday is over now, and here I sit, this morning with a cup of coffee, wondering again how to order my day. 

Tomorrow’s our first co-op of the school year.  I hope to do a school post soon about how we’ll use Beyond Five In A Row, Ambleside, and the other eclectic sorts of things I tend to do around here.

One thing I can tell you is that we have five huge “Charlottes” (writing spiders) now.  You can be sure that our science and nature journaling will begin with these amazing spiders. 

Argiope aurantia with a cicada (if that tells you how big the spider is).

There were buttercups, purple vetch, oxeye daisies, white yarrow, yellow and orange hawkweed, honeysuckle, and yellow mustard.  A spittlebug was hiding in its lump of bubbles along the stem of the hawkweed.  I picked off a leaf and rolled it up to poke at . . . → Read More: Strictly Wildflowers]]> Strictly Wildflowers. One of my favorite chapters in Karen Andreola’s Pocketful of Pinecones.

There were buttercups, purple vetch, oxeye daisies, white yarrow, yellow and orange hawkweed, honeysuckle, and yellow mustard.  A spittlebug was hiding in its lump of bubbles along the stem of the hawkweed.  I picked off a leaf and rolled it up to poke at the bubbles, revealing to Don and Emily the shiny little bug inside it.  Don drew the spittlebug and Emily drew the daisies.

Currently in the garden, on the lavender and on other plants as well, we have the spittlebug.  Dishes, dust and dirty clothes call out to me.  My computer — and all the fun therein, calls to me, but the spittlebug’s call is louder.  Or, at least, it should be.

One of most vital requirements of a healthy homeschool is action.  I am convicted many days because of my habit of spending too much time on line or occupying myself with things that are not feeding Michaela’s mind or heart.  We’ll hearken more to the call of the spittlebug and the wasp and the gentle education that occurs with a notepad, a basket of colored pencils and nature.

Nature’s colors are real.  Her lessons are enduring.  There’s a time and a place for everything. 

See you in the garden.

As one . . . → Read More: Lesson Planning]]> Ahhh, the school bell is ringing this morning.  Yes, it is.  The past two weeks have been full of fun and relaxation, and plenty of food and family and friends, but it’s time to put our thinking caps on once again.  I don’t know about you, but mine feels a little loose this morning.  Uh…

As one of my brooches says, I believe that we’ll get back into our school groove.

The brooch pins are coming along nicely.  We are working, working, and Michaela has found her own little niche, but more about that later.  I’ll let her post when she’s ready.  In the meantime, I am working on something special for my Etsy shop for Valentine’s Day.  When the Etsy shop is ready, I’ll be sure and post a link here.

For lessons today, the following is on tap:

• Ambleside Reading — will all be independent today, as I have to work
• Practice harmonica
• Math – Saxon next lesson
• Work on further training Annie
• Grammar will be copywork from Snowflake Bentley
• Review Snowflake Bentley as we have a co-op built around that book this week
• Science - Bug review sheet from a previous field trip
• Nature Study – More copywork – write the definition of metamorphosis and then glue pictures of butterfly life cycle onto cardstock for notebook – label.  (The pictures are lovely pictures from our garden from this past summer.  I think Charlotte Mason would approve.)
• Work on craft project
• Practice sketching
• Review Raphael prints for Ambleside art

I do hope you have a wonderful Monday.  Mondays are work days for me, and they are sort of hard for me — a real transition after being off with my family on Sundays.  But it is okay.  It really is.  I try my best every morning to smile out at the world and focus on everything that’s lovely and pure and of good report.  I believe God gives us grace when we really want to have a right spirit for His sake.

When I was a teenager we had a friend visiting from the mountains.  In driving around our county I was commenting on the beauty of it all.  My mother seemed a bit embarassed and noted that our friend, having come from the . . . → Read More: The Wonders of Nature]]> ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. ”  Psalm 19:1

When I was a teenager we had a friend visiting from the mountains.  In driving around our county I was commenting on the beauty of it all.  My mother seemed a bit embarassed and noted that our friend, having come from the mountains, was from a place where the land really was beautiful.  While I did see her point, I didn’t agree at all that the mountains were any more beautiful than the sandy soil, scrubby oaks, pine trees, and blue skies where I had grown up.

I used to kneel down in the woods behind our house and marvel at the soldier moss growing at the foot of one of our oaks.  The sandy trail that cut through our woods looked like a secret path to me, and I often saw snakes and birds sitting in the trees, looking at me as I walked on tip-toe trying to be really quiet like the Indians would have been.  We had a montrous tangle of blackbeery bushes that offered up many blackberry cobblers through the years.  I felt rich.

It is humbling to think of the beauty God has put around us to enjoy.  I went outside this morning and sat in the morning sun with a cup of water infused with a few drops of Ashwagandha.  (I think my adrenals are struggling, but that’s another post for another day.)

The sun on my face felt so wonderful and Annie enjoyed running around in the garden.  Over the weekend I went on a foraging walk and gathered many rosehips for winter teas.  They are currently drying in a sunny, upstairs window. 

I woke up this morning so renewed and encouraged that Nature Study is a vital and easy thing to undertake.  Michaela’s first lesson today will be outside.  I may even have her continue there, but it’s cold.  We’ll see how warm it gets.  She’s been admiring the art in a new picture book here and I think I’ll have her experiment with the method of illustration done in the book.  It appears to be black outlining filled in with colored pencils.  I am hopeful that it will make a lovely start to Michaela’s Monday.  Surrounded by the beauty of falling yellow leaves, purple poke berries and bright nasturtium flowers, I don’t see how a bit of nature can escape from ending up in her drawing.

I thought you  might enjoy Charlotte Mason’s thoughts on sunshine, from Vol 1.  of Home Education, pp 34-35:

But it is not only air, and pure air, the children must have if their blood is to be of the ‘finest quality,’ as the advertisements have it.  Quite healthy blood is exceedingly rich in minute, red disc-like bodies, known as red corpuscles, which in favourable circumstances are produced freely in the blood itself.  Now, it is observed that people who live much in the sunshine are of a ruddy countenance–that is, a great many of these red corpuscles are present in their blood; while the poor souls who live in cellars and sunless alleys have skins the colour of whity-brown paper.  Therefore, it is concluded that light and sunshine are favourable to the production of red corpuscles in the blood; and, therefore–to this next ‘therefore’ is but a step for the mother–the children’s rooms should be on the sunny side of the house, with a south aspect if possible.  Indeed, the whole house should be kept light and bright for their sakes; trees and outbuildings that obstruct the sunshine and make the chidlren’s rooms dull should be removed without hesitation. 

With curtains open and rosehips drying in the windowsill, I’m busy working today and handing out school lessons from my work desk. The tea kettle is whistling. Enjoy this day.

I hardly noticed this little creature because he blends in so well with his surroundings.  I’ve noticed that different plants draw different creatures into the garden, which is one reason . . . → Read More: Just Random Thoughts]]> I don’t have much to offer today along the lines of one cohesive train of thought, but rather random thoughts and pictures, because that’s the way life is sometimes.

I hardly noticed this little creature because he blends in so well with his surroundings.  I’ve noticed that different plants draw different creatures into the garden, which is one reason I’m so fond of letting wild things grow. 

I stop and wonder how often in reality I don’t notice little spots of life around me — you know, the important things that really should get my attention but don’t because I’m zooming quickly by and they get lost in their surroundings: my busy existence.

Kitties growing up.  I know we don’t really need three more kittens, but it’s a wonder to watch them nurse and grow and jump and play.  It’s a wonder to see something grow up.  I stop with my tea cup in hand and look out at them for a little respite from bill paying and appointment making.

Another bright spider — a new one to me, that the Cassia has brought in.

This kitty stops playing for just a moment to look at his mommy.  Yes, we think this kitty is a male.

A Thought On CM – Nature

Why are we so instinctively drawn to nature?  Is it good to let children get too far away from nature?

All day long, every day, Laura and Mary were busy. When the dishes were washed and the beds made, there was always plenty to do and to see and to listen to.

They hunted for birds’ nests in the tall grass…

In the tall grass they lay still as mice and watched flocks of little prairie chickens running and pecking around their anxiously clucking, smooth brown mothers.  They watched striped snakes rippling between the grass stems or lying so still that only their tiny flickering tongues and glittering eyes showed that they were alive.

And sometimes there’d be a great gray rabbit, so still in the lights and shadows of a grass clump that you were near enough to touch him…  ~Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie

I’m looking forward to even more nature journaling, flower preserving, and herbal work this coming school year.  We’ll sketch and draw, press and label, and make plenty of projects in the CM way.