Thursday, October 29, 2009

History the Homeschool Way Part 2


I finished my "postcard" mentioned in History the Homeschool Way Part 1. It turned out great. Here is one of the pictures that went onto my "postcard". It's of the Acropolis in Athens. Here is a (very) brief history lesson on the Acropolis. The Acropolis was in the middle of the Ancient Greek city of Athens and it was the highest part of the city. Acropolis literally means 'high city'. This part of the city was jammed packed with temples and the houses of the rich. It was considered the most cultured part of the city. So there you have it a (extremely) brief lecture on Ancient Greece. I'm off to have my authentic Greek snack of Greek yogurt with honey and dried fruit.

Jordan =^..^=

wind-powered dryer


Several months ago I decided to stop using my dryer. Donald hung a clothesline and the rest is history. I have pretty much consistently used only the clothesline ever since. It is really awesome - so relaxing! Sometimes it can be annoying or more time consuming, but normally I just love the opportunity to get out in the fresh air, think about each family member as I am hanging their clothes and save money too. I'm not exactly sure how much we're saving each month, but every bit helps. As it gets colder, I'm sure I'll have to go back to the dryer - but for now - I love it!
This picture shows our little clothes line, our shed/chicken coop in the background and also one of our cats, Rufus -- who we rescued off a roof of a church a couple of years ago, but that's a whole different story.
~cindy~

History the Homeschool Way

I'm learning about Ancient Greece in History right now, so I'm just about start making a "postcard" from Ancient Greece. This will be a project that will include pictures of Ancient Greek landmarks, ie temples, statues, and other important places. I might post a picture or two later.

Jordan =^..^=

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Jam packed day


We made Dutch Apple Pie Jam today along with a batch of applesauce. Too bad no one is getting credit for a cooking class. It was so rewarding to hear those little metal lids snap down in place - sort of like when you're vacuuming and you hear all that junk, that you didn't know was there get sucked up. photo taken by Jordan.
~cindy~

Apple pickin'


We took a field trip to an apple farm and picked 53 pounds of apples. All different varieties. It was really fun. They juiced a bunch of apples for us while we were there and we all had yummy,fresh squeezed apple juice. Travis came home and immediately baked an apple cobbler - Home Ec. right?
Photo taken at our kitchen table by Jordan.
~cindy~

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

lazy layers

I just started reading this interesting book called The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan. I just cracked up a section in the book that compared good layers to lazy hens. The book suggests that you can improve your overall laying average by culling and slaughtering the lazy layers. Culling is actually one of Travis's vocabulary words for this week - so in true homeschool fashion, I think I will have Travis cull and slaughter our lazy roosters who will never lay an egg and only seem to eat, poop and wake us up at 4:00 a.m. Cull - verb, to pick out, select, to examine carefully.
In case anyone is interested, a good laying hen produces about 20 dozen eggs in her first year. Productivity seems to drop off as they get older, but not by much. They lay larger eggs as they get older. There is actually a series of "easy" tests you can do on your hens to see which ones are good candidates for "harvesting". Such as looking at her comb and wattle - which I guess I can do. However, once the book started to tell me to check out the hen's vent and pubic bone - I was done. I'm off to have scrambled eggs!
~c~

Gourds and Pumpkins Galore


Bumper Crop!!

chicken house


Here is the promised picture of our chickens. Isn't the chicken house adorable?? My dad built it.They have the yard and they can go up their ramp into the enclosed house when it gets chilly.
Jordan =^..^=

summer fun


Here is a picture of our garden, early in the season. The bean tee-pee was a big hit. You can also see our corn, tomatoes, squash and our adorable bucket-head scarecrow! When Jordan saw the title summer fun - she couldn't believe that I was referring to our garden. fun? the garden?
~C~

brown, white and blue


Aren't they beautiful?!

Feed, Fertilizer & First Aid


Above is a picture of our dog Daisy. She is covered with flower/weed debris after chasing peacocks in the grove. Isn't she cute? She looks like she is smiling.

Yesterday was another interesting and eventful day on the homeschool homestead. Not much homeschooling happened on this homestead. The boys had a First Aid/CPR class in order to renew their certificates -- good to know that someone could save me - if they really wanted to!

Donald is trying to be helpful and keep busy, so he decided to tear out a couple of flower beds - I ask for trimming and cleaning up - I get a whole new nursery in my backyard - and a huge mess! He means well.

Our poor little chickens were on a diet for a day. Well, not really, we just had a limited amount of feed left, so we gave them tons of weeds and veggies. Anyway, they thought they were starving. Around dinner time, I remembered and I skidded into the feed store just as they were closing and was able to buy some more food for them. Tulip practically jumped into the food bin when I came in to feed everyone. They are eating so much lately, we're thinking that we need to thin the crop a bit - ie, reducing the non-producers. eek!

J and I are off to the coffee shop to have our weekly coffee/history time together before going to ballet.

We will try to add a couple of posts that have more pictures attached. Due to our lack of modern technology at the homestead, we can only add pictures when we are working on the lap top in town - thank goodness for Wi-Fi!
~Cindy~

Saturday, October 24, 2009

the girls....and boys

We have chickens and we get 5-6 eggs a day. It doesn't sound like much but it really adds up! We have even started giving away some eggs as "Thank Yous".
Our hens lay white, brown and blue-green eggs. The blue ones are beautiful, they look like robin's eggs. My favorite chicken is Nugget, she is a small Buttercup hen. She's golden with speckles of black. She is so cute and sweet looking. Her husband's name is Mc --- as in McNugget! hee hee! He is our smallest rooster, but seems to have a bit of a Napoleon Complex - what a bully!
Our chicken coop is painted to look like a barn - red with gray trim. We will add picture once we figure out how to do it.
Jordan =^..^=

Friday, October 23, 2009

What we're all about!

I realized today as I was posting our very first blog - that if anyone really ever reads this, they would have no idea how this started. So I thought I would give a little background. First, this blog exists because Jordan, my 12 year old daughter, thought it would be fun to write about our life. Also, because my friend Laura, thought that our friends & family would get a kick out of all of the crazy things that seem to happen on a regular basis at our little homeschool homestead.

One memorable event was when a peacock flew across our property right into a power line - killing itself and blowing the power for about 3 miles. Really, it happened! Maybe we will have to go back in time and share a few of these interesting events.

About us - we're a family of five. Donald, Cindy, Alex, Travis and Jordan. We live on 4 acres in Southern California. We just started our 10th year of home schooling. Alex is a senior, Travis a freshmen and Jordan is in 7th grade. We have 3 dogs, 3 cats, 2 birds, 1 turtle, 1 fish, 14 chickens (11 hens and 3 roosters) and too many wild peacocks to count! We have all kinds of science and zoology experiments happening everyday right in our own backyard.

We planted a giant garden this year and enjoyed the fruits of our labor - literally. The kids even set up and worked a vegetable stand to earn extra money. Now that we are in the throes of another school year, it's a bit more difficult to spend time working the garden. But we have loved it - well, sort of - I think it's a bit of a love/hate thing.

My hope is that we will be able to share news, events and pictures with our friends and family. It could even turn into a bit of a computer, photography and writing lesson for each of us. Except for Donald - he doesn't "do technology"!
~Cindy~

Pumpkins & Surfing

Friday's are always our Surf PE day - only in So. Cal, right? Travis and I leave early in the morning and head to Buccaneer Beach. Surfing is from 7:00 - 10:00 a.m. I normally hang out and have coffee at Buccaneer Brew while I correct papers. If I'm pretty caught up on my correcting, I have time to take a walk. The exciting life of homeschoolers!
Today, I went for coffee and a bike ride with Laura. How fun! It was sunny, warm and beautiful. The surf was a up a bit today, the water was about 69 degrees and there was almost no wind. While I was working hard at the beach, Donald and Alex picked pumpkins and birdhouse gourds. We had a pretty good crop. We're not sure yet what we will do with all of the gourds. We need to finish cleaning things up a bit in the garden and then get to planting our winter garden. Oh my - I think I will have a few family members ready to strike soon. They are so done with the garden! But after all of the summer veggies - don't we need to try the winter ones?
~cindy~