The first day of *home*school

Last week our school district had their first day of school, but as I was waiting for books to arrive I waited until this monday to start our school year.  Even now I still am missing Aurora's math workbook and several other books, but they should be coming in the next week or so and we don't need them right now.

It's funny how big a deal school can seem, and in reality how little it changes our daily routine.

Like every other day we got up, ate breakfast and really did our own things for several hours this morning.  I had phone calls to make, the kids played imaginative games.  They were dancers and fancy ladies and gentlemen.  Aurora listened to Little Women for a while (an audio book that we downloaded for free from librivox.org) while she crocheted and the boys played legos and looked at books.

Once I was finished with my calls we went outside and did our social studies lesson, a chapter from Story of the World, talked about what we read and then did a workpage.  Michael and Gabe just sat in the sandbox and played the whole time (not that it took us very long).  After that the older kids got clipboards, paper and pencils to draw trees with, their science project for the day.  And once naptime for Gabe came around I sat Michael down with Bob the Builder and reviewed Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons with Aurora.  I was so pleased that she hasn't forgotten a thing!  She got everything I asked her to do right up to the lesson we left off at.  Who says kids forget everything over the summer? :)

And that was school.  Of course we did all kinda of other things that I count as schooling, such as chores, walking, and we talk all the time.  We had an impromptu geography lesson over lunch (which tends to happen a lot since the wall is covered in a huge world map).

I love teaching my kids at home

The End of August Update

It's taken me a long time to get these pictures.  We went to CA the middle of this month for my grandma's 80th birthday.  It was a wonderful trip that was super jam packed and recovering from it has taken longer then anticipated.

It was thrilling to come home and see how beautifully everything was doing here at home.  When we left the summer crookneck squash was almost ready to pick, as were the cucumbers.  When we arrived home both were producing and we have had a steady stream of fresh produce trickling in from outside.  The tomato plants are so big they are falling all over the place, even with cages on them.  Red potatoes I'm digging a bit later then I could have and are now quadruple the size of an average red potato (which works for me) and taste wonderful!  This is our first year growing red potatoes.  Corn is huge and, save for a few stalks that fell over during storms, seems to be doing beautifully.  With luck (lets hope the raccoons don't know where we live) we'll be eating corn by the end of the month.  And the squash is doing AMAZING!  It is so beautiful to see this sea of squash vines climbing throughout the garden.  They were planted under the corn and have spread out over potatoes and a few other beds.  To be honest I really don't have a clue how much squash is in there.  It's a huge area and the plants are waist deep for me.  I know on the ends I can see pumpkins and acorn, spaghetti and butternut squash, maybe even a few other varieties.

Two of my Blue Andalusian hens

 Chickens are all doing well.  It was only after I started writing this that I realized that I never posted about the stinky little visitor we had a few months ago that killed half our chicks. :(  A skunk dug under our chicken tractor and killed my rhode island reds, all my meat birds and the fancy mistake birds.  All that we were left with was a buff orpinton rooster, a buttercup hen and a turkin hen.  It was quite really frustrating.  We fixed the chicken tractor (put a good sturdy bottom on it) and have had no predator problems since.  We only found out it was a skunk after our dog, Midnight, recently found it near where the tractor had been and got sprayed.  (Poor Midnight grabbed the darn thing by the tail and got sprayed in the face.  Glad the skunk got a beating though, and Midnight is doing fine now.)
We've just moved the chicks into one of the runs off the main chicken coop and they seem to be loving it.  A lot more freedom.  That tractor was getting awfully small for all of them.  It's been a very intense chicken year and I'm thinking that next year we will probably be getting laying breeds and less fancy breeds, but we'll see how I feel once these girls start laying.

It's been a busy year for us.  We all feel quite please with everything that has been accomplished so far and look forward to the harvest months ahead of us. :)

Garden pictures

Forest weeding

Hugelkultur potato bed

Yay!  Strawberry plants!

Black raspberry hedge.

North side of the garden looking south.

It took a long time, and is still a work in progress, but we got our hugelkultur beds made, mulched and the garden fenced in.  We also have strawberries, asparagus, corn, squash, potatoes and tomatoes successfully growing and looking beautiful.  We planted several other things (like peppers and brassica) but the slugs leveled those, sadly.  We also have woodchucks and gophers that are getting in (fencing isn't completely done yet) and they have been working on the beans and cucumbers we planted.  These pictures were from several months ago, hopefully I will get to go out and get some updated pictures for comparison.  All in all we are very proud of what we have accomplished even if it's not exactly what we thought it would be.  We should have plenty of potatoes and squash at least this winter. :)