You Can Dress Them Up, But...

One of the silly activities the children can do at the fair is to dress up their animals and compete for the most creative idea. This is done on Sunday after all the shows and sales are ended and the crowd gets to participate in the choosing of the winner. The one that gets the most laughs is probably going to win! This year there were rabbits, sheep, and cattle that participated.


Here stands the heifer who wants to support the GOP by becoming a Republican elephant.What a party animal!

This is one of the boys' hunting companions. The sign says, "Eat more venison!" 

Here is the heifer who plans to retire from fair life. She has joined the Red Hat Society to show that she does not plan to do anything that she doesn't want to do.  

His name is Ears. We call him The King because he is twice
as big as some of our cats. He demands attention and will
nip at you if you ignore him. His paws are large, his hair is
long, and his heart is big.

Tearful Goodbyes

Today will be the day of sad faces and tears. I know it because I have seen it in the past. Children all over the area are going to cry and feel terrible because of the goodbyes they will have to say.

Wednesday my family set up at another fair. They took the show box and all their equipment and prepared the area in the barn assigned to them for the coming of their cattle. Thursday, they took their quilting and sewing, rockets and models, woodworking projects and art to be registered for judging and then they loaded the cattle onto the trailer and hauled them to the barns. Thousands of children have done this throughout the summer. It is a fun time and a time of very hard work.

Friday was the day for the judging of the cattle. The children washed, clipped, and fancied up their animals that they had spent the entire year feeding. These animals have been taught to lead on a halter by walking with them daily. They’ve been given baths several days each week, and they’ve come to trust their owners. My children had a good day, and they came home with two division reserve champion ribbons.

Today is Saturday, and this is the day that everyone will crowd into the sale barn and offer to buy the children’s steers, hogs, lambs—whatever is for sale, and then all of the children understand that these animals will be butchered.

This is farm life. We raise animals for others to eat. This is 4-H. We teach our children how to feed the animals and care for them. But if we are going to raise animals for food, then we are going to have to butcher them, right?

That is when the tears begin. How do you say goodbye to that big brown-eyed steer who likes to eat your shirt? What about the animal that chews its cud and looks ecstatic when you rub it in the right spot on its back?

What puts it all into perspective is that all of these children are most likely to be back next year to do the same thing. They have counted the cost. The children are growing up and are learning to deal with life in the raw. I suppose that is good. But it still makes me teary-eyed to watch their sorrow.

Keep them in your thoughts and prayers today.


My son's deer hunting stand received a blue ribbon at the fair. Everyone chuckled at its being the biggest woodworking project they'd ever seen!

Daily Bread

Someone once told me that when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we are not asking, necessarily, for our food only, but for all the things we need. As I ponder what it is I should put into my daily schedule, I keep coming back to this prayer. So what is the daily bread of a weekly schedule?

I live by schedules. Between Excel and me we’ve gone through a number of daily schedules over the years. We’ve mapped out each day’s activities, chore lists and charts. I have school schedules, books lists, and graduation requirements. These lists help me think, and I get more accomplished if I have something that helps me keep on track. Now as I prepare for the coming of our school year, I am looking at the 24 hour days allotted me and am trying to decide how much “daily bread” I need to include to be fulfilling my daily requirements.

Certainly, the first task is spending time with God. What would a day be without some time to worship the King and read from His Word? It is during this time that I have a chance to see what it is I have been created to do, how I am to live my life, and what the standards are that guide my life. I also see the need to spend time with my husband and family in daily devotions.

Another task that must happen is that of serving others. For a homeschooling mom this is probably the most time-consuming portion of the schedule. I need to keep the household running: meals, housekeeping, and laundry. I must teach and train my children in areas like history, English, and math as well as teach them to be honorable, honest, hardworking and kind. I need to carve out a little time for my husband and I need to leave some time for reaching out to people outside my home.

Before I can call my schedule complete, I must always remember that if I do not care for myself, I will not be able to continue the task of caring for others. Throughout my week I need to put blocks of time for grooming, exercising, relaxing, sleeping, and using my mind.

Life is short. Much of what is required of us today will not be a part of our schedule in 10 or 20 years. Most of the first 20 years of our lives is spent with family and in school. The next 20 or 30 years most people have some time alone, time with a spouse, and time with a growing family. And then the house empties out and, if we are lucky, we get to spend time with our grandchildren. At some time we may have to experience our handing over the responsibility of caring for others so that we can, again, have someone care for us. I believe that it is good to remember that what we do today will influence the quality of our lives in the next season of our life. Our relationships with our family, our caring for our body’s health, and our time with God—all of these things are important. So as I work on my weekly schedules, I must look ahead and include what I want to be when I am 80 years old in the schedules I build today.

The poster on the wall in the teachers’ lounge made us chuckle; it read, “Life is short. Eat dessert first.” I believe that it would be more appropriate for us to post “Give us this day our daily bread.” Even so, I do think that in some ways the two sayings are related. Both require us to remember to do what is most important. There will always be activities that we would like to do that do not get done. If we do not decide what we will schedule into our day, we may get through a season of our life only to find out that we forgot something important. So as I go into a new school year, I am going to sit down with my computer and decide what needs to go into my schedule. I’m sure that I would be more comfortable with 36-hour days, but that is not reality. Priorities need to be set, and decisions need to be made. And when it is all done, it needs to be a practical schedule that can be accomplished on an average day.

Anyone want to enter the world of building schedules and setting goals with me? Pointers are welcome!

Blessings.

Gone with the Wind? My daughter's friend made this outfit. They have been attending a yearly Civil War reenactment ball--she did such a nice job that she was asked to model it at the State Fair. Isn't it beautiful?!

It's Monday!

The beginning of another week; perhaps I can finish my spring cleaning, organize the last lesson plans for the school year, and take some time to put my feet up before school starts. Right?

The evening sky was gorgeous last night with pink clouds decorating the western horizon. The clouds floated above like ships upon the water; I always wonder if that makes me the fish. I did not stay out late enough to find the constellations, but as I walked the neighbor’s horse was snorting in the pasture over the hill. Otherwise the evening was quite except for the normal sounds of crickets and frogs, farm dogs and cattle bellowing for their calves, cats mewing because I’m walking too fast and they cannot keep up, and the sound of cars on the distant highway.

The crickets, by the way, have completely invaded my home. If you go into the basement in the evening you will hear their chorus. We have an old farmhouse with rock walls in the basement and it is not good at keep a number of small things outside. The spider population is a bit overzealous with all the spider webs, and these are everywhere, not just the basement. I cannot stay ahead of their spinning and weaving around the corners of my walls and curtain rods.

And now I sense that the small rodents that like to find a nice warm place for winter have started attempting to find their way into my basement as well. How can I tell? Snowflake. He use to curl up at night next to me on my bed, and now he only has eyes for the basement stairwell. He searches and looks and is all perky-eared every time we move a shoe or a basket in the entryway. Although I’m not too excited about his eating mice, I must say I prefer their being eaten to their infesting my house.

The glorious farm life that everyone wants, right?

Hey! Have a good day!


Jacob and Luna waiting to go into the show ring

Another Fair Day

The children are out washing their cattle. The quilting is done, the sewing project is pressed, and the pictures are framed. This is just a one-day fair, but come next week, we will have 4 days at another fair. Company is coming Monday and Tuesday of this week and Tuesday through Thursday next week. And then... school. When was I supposed to finish the spring cleaning? Should I just till the weed patch under rather than pretending that it is a garden?? I still think mothers should be allowed to work from midnight to six. Why do we need to sleep? LOL!

Does anyone end his summer with a quiet lull? I’d like to hear about it!

Blessings.

Betelgeuse (pronounced Beetle Juice), otherwise known as Bug, is the one outside kitten that really misses us when we travel. 

I went for a walk at dusk last night. I watched the first evening stars come out and saw Venus and Jupiter setting in the west. In the east the full moon was rising. 

Right next door to the cattle at the fair were the llamas. I think I'd like one of these! When my son went to the wash rack with one of his cows, there was a curious llama on the other side of the wall. The llama's head came over to take a look at the cow and the cow, frightened of the strangely appearing head, tried to butt the llama, so the llama pulled its head back. Since the head of the llama disappeared over the wall, the cow pulled her head back, which made the llama decide it was safe to take another look over the wall; of course, the cow tried to butt the head of that strange animal heading over the wall... A tug of war between the owners of the pets pursued while they attempted to get their animals tied to the wall for their morning bath. I do think I need one of these so that I can knit llama wool from my own pets! 

At the Fair

When we go to the fair, we have to set up the area for the cattle.

The cattle are outside in a grassy spot at night, so they have to be walked up to the barns each morning. 

Once in the barn, the first thing we need to do is clean them up... 

And blow their hair dry. 

Then it is time to make them beautiful.  

Mom gets the hard job of holding the tail. 

Once the cattle are groomed, they are ready for the show ring! 

It's hot and muggy here today, and I thought it would be nice to browse through the winter pictures. Aaaaaah! Winter is my favorite season. Soon the cool weather of fall will be here. Soon, soon...

I've Always said Homeschooling was a Marathon and Not a Sprint

I have spent many hours this summer getting my school lesson plans ready for the fall. It seems as though I spend a lot more time than I did in the past. All of the classes are more of a challenge now that we are doing high school. The books my children read are hundreds of pages long now, and for some classes I need to do a lot of studying so that I can be better informed; overall, the work is at a level that stretches my knowledge and abilities.

As a young adult I read a lot of good books. I started working at our small town library when I was 16, and I pulled a lot of books off the shelf to read that were well worth my time—Jane Austin, Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy were some of the authors I enjoyed. Many of these books are ones my children are now reading, and even if I have read them, I usually reread them so that I can better discuss them. This year, however, we will be doing books I have never read. The Odyssey is one of them. I plan to try using some of the lessons in Veritas’ Omnibus—I hope we enjoy them. Even the history books seem to bulge with more pages than can be read in a single class—Spielvogel’s World History: A Human Odyssey is over 1,000 pages long. Preparation for these large tomes takes much more time than putting together lesson plans for Blueberries for Sal and The Long Winter! It takes a lot of time and effort to prepare for the literature and textbooks that are used for high school, rhetoric level students.

This year we will be studying American government and economics. I have several texts and materials lined up for these classes. Although my father was and econ teacher, I must admit that I never took a class in that subject area. I am grateful for the help I have received from so many other homeschoolers who know more about this than I do. Between my own studies and their knowledge and help, I do believe that we will have an excellent class this year—and I will have learned a lot, too. Throughout our past 11 years of homeschooling, I have studied and learned many things—much has been a review of what I learned before, but I have also added new knowledge and depth of understanding that I would not have had if I had not taught my children at home. I have worked hard to give my children a good education and have benefited, myself, a great deal as well.

When my children were small, my children learned phonics and spelling. We studied the pilgrims and looked at the parts of flowers under the microscope. The children added and subtracted and learned their multiplication tables. Today what my children study is beyond what I studied and learned in high school. Although I took several years of Spanish, I have found that Latin demands and teaches a child a lot more about language and grammar. We all studied composition, but the progymnasmata teaches a use of words that I did not begin to study in school. Logic class has trained our minds to think and reason in ways we did not know possible. I am grateful that my children and I have had the chance to be challenged at this level of learning and understanding, which goes beyond normal expectations. It has been worth our while.

Now we are coming to the end of our summer, and although I am not as ready as I would like for the coming year, I am glad that we are going to be starting our 12th year of homeschooling. Soon my oldest will be applying to colleges and be preparing to move outside of my little schoolroom. She will be ready. I am grateful for the years we have had together and would not exchange them for anything! At times I could have said that “I found myself astray in a dark wood where the straight road had been lost”, but I know that we will not be sorry for the road we have chosen—you know, "the road less traveled…." We take the knowledge of having studied Dante and Frost and so many others with us. Who could regret it?

My sister's dog, Bagel 

Silly Ruffy 

Updates

A week ago we attended one of the area fairs. It rained and rained until everything and everyone was soaked. We still had fun.


A soggy boy and his cow, Rigel

And when we got home from that, I called my sister and found out that all of her children were going to be home, so we jumped into the car and headed to Florida. Thursday we packed the car and headed out. We made it about half way through Indiana. Friday we drove until we got to the southern end of Alabama. We negotiated Birmingham in rush hour traffic--do they always have multiple accidents there? Yikes! At the end of the day we encountered a rainstorm that made it hard to see the road and pulled off into a rest area—nearly full with other travelers who were doing the same. We crept down the road to a nearby town and found another hotel room so that I did not have to find my sister’s home in the dark.

By morning, we were all in better spirits, and we were at my sisters by 10:30 or so. We attempted to visit the beach but were rained out. In the evening there was a baby shower for my nephew and his wife—he will be shipping out to Iraq later this year. Sunday was a great day at the beach and time to chat with family. By Monday, the nephews had headed out and the house was growing quiet. We chatted until after lunch and then started the journey toward home once more.

That evening we had the chance to meet Dy and her family. How pleasant! I’m certain my children would not have sat at a restaurant at 9:30 at night letting me chat with others when they were that age! Such sweet, gentle folk—I hope to see them again on another trip south.

Shortly after 5 A.M. the next morning we were already on the road heading north. Fourteen hours later we were turning into our drive and greeting the kitties. I’m glad we went.

So now I’m back to blogland. I still need to clean my house and get ready for school, which is coming up too fast. Let me know what you have been doing lately!

Thank you for all your prayers for our safety. I really think I needed them! Blessings.

Fun at the beach