Ordinary Time

The last thing we needed to do to finish biology was to dissect the buckets of specimens I had bought. I could do it, but I also knew W. could do it infinitely better. He agreed to be the dissection teacher and this afternoon was the first of three sessions. They started with a mussel (which was not overly exciting) then moved on to the worm and the crawfish. You can see that not everyone was fond of the smell of the preservative. But W. is an excellent teacher and here everyone had gathered closely to see better.

A few years ago TM bought some tablets for his younger siblings. H. has used hers the most and it has been a good substitute for a phone. She has been able to play music and watch drawing videos and whatnot. She has enjoyed using it. She has enjoyed using it until a couple of weeks ago, that is. As these things will, Minecraft has come around again as the popular screen activity for some of her siblings. This time, though, H. has been aware of it, asking J. to get her some library books about Minecraft. She was also interested in getting it put on her tablet. J. explained that he wasn't sure it would be compatible, but wouldn't know until he tried. H. was willing to take a chance and pay to buy it. Sadly, as J. feared, it didn't work. H. was disappointed.  For a couple of years, H. has been earning money by doing some daily jobs around the house. (One of those jobs is to fix R. breakfast, which is an immense help.) She doesn't spend it on very much, so just saves it. Th

Today was the first day of the weaving class I had signed up for months ago. I've been very much looking forward to the class. It was so wonderful to be back at Find Line. The class is about weaving turned twill. I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of you aren't interested in hearing the technical aspects of this weave structure, so I'll just show a picture of what I'm working on.  The other thing I've been working on... and finishing! ... is the card weaving I was working on. I think it's pretty good for a first attempt.  A close up of the pattern. Even though my inkle loom is small, it's about 1.75 yards. It's a narrow band, as you can see . What am I going to do with it? I have no idea. It's pretty sturdy and would be a good strap or handle. I'll add it to my stash until a need for it arises. 

From Y.  From H.  And a lovely day with many children spent outside. D. even planted my tomatoes and peppers, though I forgot to take a picture.  From W. and MC

For a week that looked easy because there was very little on the calendar, I felt as though I wasn't home much and was running all week. So all you get is pictures with a few words.  I figured out a way to let the ponies have the barn aisle on rainy days so they have more room to walk around.  It also means that I feel a bit like Grover in The Monster at the End of this Book, escalating my hay containment method to keep the ponies out of it.  The other day as I was leaving the barn I saw this. If you look closely you will see L. reading while sitting on Chuck the Tractor. We still have A.'s cats living with us. They very much like my reading chair.  And I am always fascinated by the sparrows in the barn. We've had nests of sparrow babies each spring for as long as the barn has existed. I'm not sure about this year, though. There are lots of sparrows, but nest building seems to be challenging for them. Take for instance, this next.  They usually don't have such a wil

Some weeks I find it easy to do the weekly meal plan, and some weeks, such as this one, there doesn't seem to be anything I want to eat.  While I was weeding a flower garden on Sunday, I came across quite a few wild onions. (Yes, they were indeed wild onions and not death camas, and I have the 45 minutes of Googling to prove it.) So I washed off the mud and stuck them in the refrigerator. As I was not coming up with any meals, I thought about the wild onions and put something vague about wild onions and eggs on the menu. Over the next couple of days, this went from a vague idea to an actual plan. I had some extra asparagus and bell pepper that needed to be eaten and there was arugula and spinach growing in the garden, so those were added to the onions. Then, I realized that we have a huge stand of stinging nettle over by the creek. (Did you know stinging nettle is really good for you?) So I sent L. out to do some collecting. L. is well versed in stinging nettle, because a few years