More thoughts on homeschooling

I haven't written about this in awhile.  We are still doing it though!  Which means I am still reading and thinking about it...
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-school

This article confirms what I heard from experienced homeschooling moms when I first started homeschooling myself.   "The kids will learn X when they are ready to learn X,"  and "The kids will learn Y when they need that knowledge/skill."

This bugged the living daylights out of me for a long time.  It was too laidback, too laissez-faire, too unschooling hippie-ish, too... right.  Over the last six years (figuring out that I have been doing this for six years about gave me a heart attack), I have learned that my children are NOTHING alike, that they learn what they like far better than what they hate, that they learn what they have a need for  ("I want to write a letter back to Grammu!"  "I guess you'll have to learn some handwriting then!"  "I want to write pretty like you do!"  "That's called cursive, and you can learn it..."  "I want to make dinner!"  "Here is how to read a recipe..." - Okay, I admit I'm the last person in the world who should be teaching anyone to follow a recipe, since I am constitutionally incapable of following one, but now the Princess' "handwriting practice" consists of copying one recipe each day from my cookbooks into hers - a recipe that she personally likes, with whatever changes I've made to it.  Eventually, she can practice typing the same way - just print it out add it to her book.  Maybe she can learn to do web searches by looking up recipes, too.  Her practice is now USEFUL to her, and she will have an end product worth keeping.

This is the difference between learning to use the library by being handed a worksheet and having to find everything on it whether one has any interest in any of those things or not, and simply being told to pick a topic one finds interesting, and locate one item related to that topic in every section of the library.  I daresay one will remember the second activity much better, and come home with a lot more books, audiobooks, DVDs, videogames, CDs, etc., than one would otherwise... thus learning how useful and fun a library can be, rather than finding it one more place where one is required to do busywork.

I think that rather than wasting children's time and energy with busywork, they should be put to tasks that will result in an end product they WANT.  They need some life experience to see the necessity for certain facts that are often memorized by rote, and too often forgotten before the child learns to apply them.  I've seen this with my youngest - math facts to her are just a bunch of numbers - I've put some thought into fixing this, and decided that we will be playing a lot of dice and card games this summer, because she needs to see how much more fun the game is when it goes quickly, and when she can win it...

Now I must go count the ducks and chickens and put them away for the night.  It is way easier to count the chickens by type than all together.  Then I can just add up the numbers at the end...

Cherries, Sand Cherries, Mulberries, Strawberries...

WHY must they all ripen at the same time?  This is NOT convenient in my kitchen!  I have 14# of strawberries to hull tonight (I picked them this morning), and a gallon of mulberries to stem.  I discovered one of the cherry trees by the paddock had set fruit and ripened and the birds hadn't eaten them all - though I was sharing them with Glory and Mrs. Cardinal while I picked, balancing precariously atop the step stool and pulling down the branches with handy garden implements.  I got a pint of sweet little cherries, so dark they are nearly black.  This will be my dessert tonight.  Or my breakfast tomorrow.  And since I figured one big red berry wouldn't kill me if I was wrong about what it was - I pulled one off the sand cherryish-looking shrub and popped it into my mouth and... it was sweeter than the mulberries (not quite as sweet as the real cherries), and still had that cherry taste.  So, I'm going to pick those tomorrow and eat them, too.  I don't think there will be enough to make jam or anything.  In fact, even if there IS enough, I'm not doing it.  I have three batches of spiced strawberry jam to make, and two mulberry recipes I want to try, and that's enough for this week.  If I do more than that, I'll never finish fencing the gardens to keep those voracious Vorpal Rabbits out. 

Munchings and Crunchings

I am feeling mildly guilty about the $153 I spent at Trader Joe's on my way home from the airport yesterday.  Admittedly that included two cases of Two Buck Chuck, which will last me for months.  And there was really only $5 of unplanned purchases in that, but I'm nothing if not neurotic about spending.  SO, since I am only cooking for me for awhile, I'm going to eat off the land as much as possible.  (And munch my way through the fridge and pantry for everything else - no trips to the grocery store for anything, if only because I have to get the car to the shop to have the brakes fixed, again).  That meant breakfast was eggs from the chickens (plus gluten free toast from Trader Joe's, and bacon leftover from last week which I have to eat or it will go to waste - at least that's my excuse).  Lunch is peas with mint (both from the garden) and cashews (most decidedly NOT from my garden, but OH how I wish they grew here!)  I haven't figured out what's for dinner yet... I have garlic and radishes and lettuce and a bunch of other salad greens and leeks and bunching onions, and more mulberries than I can measure.  And 16 eggs.  Mustn't forget those eggs...

Fencing out the evil beasties

I noticed a couple days ago that my corn was getting SHORTER instead of taller.  And I noticed that every time I stepped out the door, or drove back into my driveway, that I spooked numerous nasty wabbits.  Okay, they are cute LOOKING rabbits.  But they are RABBITS and not BUNNIES.  Even at the age of three my youngest knew the difference (bunnies are pets, rabbits are dinner).  Anyway, I had to do something to keep them and the chickens and ducks out, and I didn't have time to sit in the yard all day and night with my trusty .22 (and don't want to shoot the chickens and ducks anyway), so I rummaged through the barn for some fencing.  The previous owner had left little bits of several kinds, and being chea - ah, I mean FRUGAL, I thought I'd use it instead of shelling out for new.  So, my little corn plot has two different types of chain link (different heights and gauges both), some four foot high coated green rectangular wire stuff, some uncoated wire fencing in the same rectangular pattern but taller, and when the deer become an annoyance I'm going to slap a higher round of chicken wire above all that.  And I'm holding the whole thing together with wire ties and old fence metal fence poles El Jefe removed from random locations around the farm.  That used up everything except a chain link gate and another piece of chain link, and three rounds of chicken wire.  Unfortunately, I have two more similar sized plots to fence.  The beastly bunnies don't seem to be bothering the taters or maters or onions yet, but either they or the chickens are chomping on this year's pickle crop.  Darned if I am going to go without relish or pickles, so I am about to see if the chicken wire will improve matters at all.  I wouldn't worry about it if it were 5' chicken wire, but it's the short 3' kind and my Rocks can easily fly that, even if the Red Rangers won't.  I really think it's the rabbits, though, so I'm going to see if this works...

Duck... it's what's for dinner!

For supper tonight we had Braised Duck with Pineapple from The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook by Gloria Bley Miller.  It is supposed to serve six to eight people, but the four of us left nothing but the bones.  I am retracting my "No more messy ducks!" statement, because that meal was just that good.  I want more ducks.  I think twenty-four ducks.  So I could eat like that at least twice a month.  Actually, there are 73 duck recipes in that cookbook, and that doesn't include the variations on the individual recipes.  Maybe 52 ducks, so I can try a new recipe every week... and still I won't get through them all in a year...  much less the recipes I have in other cookbooks on my shelf that call for Duck... The only hassle is going to be figuring out how to process the darn ducks myself, because $7/bird is kind of expensive.  And buying another freezer to store all those ducks.  I could give up venison for duck.  Then I wouldn't need another freezer.   I could give up shrimp.  That would save space, too.   I could, dare I say it, even give up LOBSTER.  Which I'm only saying to express how much I like duck, not because there is ever any lobster in my freezer... hmmmmmm...

Gimpy Duck

After I got the ducks (they were 9 days old), we noticed one was a bit gimpy.  Well, Gimpy got progressively gimpier, and my best poultry book has gone entirely AWOL, so I had to look up online what could possibly be causing him to walk on his heels with his useless webbed feet up in the air.  The two options I came up with online are either infections in the joints (which would be more believable to me if it were not a bilateral problem), or a niacin deficiency, which ducks are apparently prone to suffer.  So the duck is getting niacin supplements.  And I'm giving it to the rest of them in smaller amounts, just in case (there are two more ducks out there that are clumsier than the rest in their walking - they step on their own feet because they are so pigeon toed).  They are only going to be with us for about two more weeks, and then they will be in the freezer, so I am not sure that is enough time to see if the niacin improves the condition or not.  I just feel bad for the gimpy duck.  This isn't going to prevent me from roasting and eating him.

Poultry Oops

So, um, did I post about the ducks?  And then the chicks arriving?  And then my hen Golden Claw deciding that NOW would be the perfect time to set on 8 eggs?  (She had 11, but I stole the three white ones because I don't want anymore TopHats or Andalusians).  Well, then she got off the nest for a drink about a week into this process, and two of her buddies decided to lay more eggs in her nest.  I had stupidly NOT dated the ones she already had, so she is sitting on 10, but only 8 of them are going to hatch, at most.  Still, that is 15 ducks, 8 laying hens, 19 Red Ranger meat birds,  and 9 Wyandotte chicks all currently clucking, plus whatever Goldie hatches on or about May 10.

In the future, I will NEVER get ducks so early in the year that I have to keep them in the laundry room, because they are messy, smelly and loud.  Instead, I will get them after May 1, and slaughter them in July... Except any I keep for eggs, because I ate a duck egg for the first time last week (not one of ours) and it was good.  One duck egg and two slices of bacon is a good size breakfast.  I have to admit I was surprised at the size of the egg, and the yolk in particular. 

At least only the Wyandottes and the crippled duckling (at night) are still in the laundry room.  It just sounds like more because the Pirate has taken up crowing to express herself when she isn't singing the "I want a horse" song...