The Well-adjusted Child

My kids have always learned at home, so with my oldest being 12 I feel like we have been at this for awhile. Whenever someone new to homelearning has asked me about it I always suggest that the first thing they read is Marty Layne's treasure of a book. Reading it really gave me a sense of how I wanted our life of learning to look and, more importantly, how I wanted it to feel. When I read her book I felt as though I was sitting down for coffee at the kitchen table of a wise friend, someone who was able to gently guide me to where I wanted to go...even though I didn't even know that place existed yet. She gave me a real insight to how gentle, loving, fulfilling and natural learning at home could be...for my kids and for myself.

A couple weeks ago I ordered The Well-adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling from our library and now, whenever someone new to learning at home asks me for some book recommendations, I will tell them about this one as well. What a fantastic book for someone new to learning at home... and also for someone who has been at it for years. I think it covers every cause for concern someone (or someone's relative) could ever have. It is a very empowering book, it gives all kinds of supportive information in a very straight-forward, clear manner as well as lots of stories from homelearners themselves.

One of my favourite parts is the story the author tells in the introduction, it starts out "Once upon a time, all children were homeschooled." Something that our society seems to have forgotten.

Catching up

Lately we have had that feeling of playing catch-up...a lot.....and not really getting caught up. ;-) There are always so many things we want/need/plan to get to and only so much time in the day. Last week S got to the finishing touches on our brick path project from last year. We also, after reading The Green Gardener's Guide (love this book!!), got motivated to finally put a proper tap in our rain barrel. I love this and now want more...more...more. We don't live in a particularly rainy area but this spring we did have quite a bit of rain; it really made me realize just how much water we could have saved if we had more barrels and some storage tanks. Tanks are our next want/need/plan-to project. ;-)

Anyway, slowly, slowly we are getting things done, and I do love this pathway.

And so does kitty, see her there?

Peas!!

On Friday afternoon I found one plump ripe pea pod. A quick glimpse around assured me that I was alone in the garden, safe from the eyes of E, and so I quickly tasted the first pea of the year. Delicious. Yesterday afternoon I was telling a friend about what I had done and how I had made sure not to tell E that some were almost ready. This morning he found out for himself. Sigh!! I guess that one pea was it for me for this year. Good thing I enjoyed it so thoroughly. Now the race is on - first come, first serve. Will the rest of us be quick enough to get any peas?

Flea beetles on My tomatoes??

On Monday E and I were out in the veggie garden and we noticed some holes on my tomato plants. (My mom had just phoned me the day before asking me what could be making holes on her plants.) I took a closer look on mine and found little black flea beetles. Lots of them.Well, you can imagine how I felt about these wee little beasties attacking my tomato plants. My tomato plants are to me like blue suede shoes are to Elvis....

Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh,

Honey, lay off of my.... tomato plants.
Don't you chew on my tomato plants.

You can do anything but lay off of my tomato plants.

Ahem. I do love my Elvis songs. But seriously, it is a bad idea to mess with my tomato plants, they are the main reason for me gardening...and perhaps one of the reasons I so wanted to live in the Okanagan. Anyway, some of the books I checked suggested a garlic spray - but my garlic is special. I get it from a grower my mom knows and I only got 10 lbs this fall. I have no garlic to spare for nasty little flea beetles. Instead I ran an onion through the blender with some water and strained it to use as a spray. I tested it on two plants but didn't want to spray all my plants just in case the onion spray ( especially in the hot sun) did some damage as well.
Being the Impatient Gardener that I am, I spent a ridiculous amount of time going around the garden and squishing the nasty things with my bare fingers....taking great pleasure in it too. It takes quite awhile to squish tiny little flea beetles off of 90 tomato plants. (I'm not entirely sure how I ended up with 90 tomato plants but I did) As I crushed them I thought of all kinds of nasty things about them, I even thought nasty things about all their relatives...and all their future relatives - and what fun that is, it's quite easy to come up with all sorts of rude insults for any little creature who would chew up the leaves of my tomato plants. In the evening I was back at it and when I came across two mating and told my husband about it he asked me if I had squished those ones too. I guess he expected me to show my usual admiration for all things to do with creating life and to spare them. But....I crushed them and felt especially happy that I had prevented another generation of these beggars from being born. E and I were back at it yesterday - squishing and some onion spraying. I learned that if you put them in a bucket of water, instead of squishing, they will find a way to crawl up the sides of the bucket. Better to squish, I say. Afterwards I went to check on the two onion spray test plants and to give them another dose of spray. As I breathed in the evening air I noticed that I was craving onion rings....Elvis would approve, I feel certain.

P.S. - If you do know any surefire ways to get rid of flea beetles will you let me know? And just so you know that it isn't all doom and gloom in my garden right now you might want to have a look at these beauties.

A bit of Veggie Garden Tour

I spent most of yesterday in the garden. It was a lovely day. So lovely that I plan to do the same thing again today.

The pole beans are climbing.

The peas are starting to plump up. The eggplants are blooming.
The Egyptian walking onions are....walking?? Now what do I do with them? The carrots are being eaten by little boys.

These carrots are all from your seeds, Andrea.

The apples are growing and, thankfully, not getting eaten yet by a little boy.

And the poppies are about to burst into bloom and then before I know it there will be loads of poppy seeds to be used in muffins, cookies, crackers and saved for friends.

And lest you think that gardening is all bliss, tomorrow I will tell you about the dark side of gardening - Flea beetles.

A handmade gift for Dad

I saw this gift idea on this blog (thanks, Denise) awhile ago and thought the boys would like to try it. E decided to make it as his Father's Day gift to S. It was well received and has gone off this morning to be put up on his office wall to be displayed proudly.

Garage sale

Over the years we have found all kinds of things at garage sales. We don't go often anymore, just when they are in our neighbourhood and we can walk to them. This morning we went to one and found some goodies.

I have been wanting some more cast iron pans and have not been wanting to pay the price that I have seen them for at our thrift stores; my patience paid off and I found two - the exact sizes that I wanted - today for 25 cents each. Now I will scrub them up and season them and they will be better than new because they are the old, thick heavy kind.I got 6 of these big jars at 25 cents each - some for me and some for a friend. They are great for storing dried fruits, making sun tea and storing flour or oats. And I got a washboard for $1 to replace the one I broke the glass out of years ago.W got a heavy metal toolbox for himself for $1 and E got a bag of Lego (with mini figures) for 25 cents. This is the kind of garage sale that we love and what a nice way to start our weekend.