Recommended Reading: March

We have been reading some wonderful books this month. The Bartimaeus Trilogy has been our car-ride-read-aloud this month.  We are half way through the last book. Bartimaeus is a witty character and it is refreshing to read a magic/fantasy series that is not weighed down by the same old elf, fairy, troll parameters. Plus, the language and and plot is clean and not too scary for the kids. I highly recommend it for boys and girls 7 and up.

We listened to the last two Narnia books in the car during one of our trips, but have since been re-reading the whole series as our before bed reading. It's been fun to clue big sister A in to a few Christian parallels (especially in The Last Battle) and see how she has started seeing the story differently. I love the questions that it raises in her mind about good and evil.

Storey's guides are my favorite resource for each new farm animal to join our family. They are written by experts with decades of experience and full of details and diagrams. I read Raising Chickens before we began that endeavor. Of all that I have read so far, Raising Rabbits, was the most fun to read. His writing style is so down-to-earth.

During our visit to Utah and Idaho over the holidays one of hubby's childhood friends recommended All the Light We Cannot See as his favorite book. More than half of the story is set in St. Malo (Brittany), so of course I felt an immediate connection, having been there several times. It takes place in the years just before and during WWII and the main plot is about a German orphan and a blind French girl. An incredible story, it is history and science, and drama and mystery, all wrapped up tightly in a nest of of loving relationships.  Definitely for grown-ups only though - their is a fair amount of violence, some swearing, and some heavy philosophical thinking.

Family Schooling Summary

Big sister A and I made a new chalkboard calendar for our fridge (chalkboard contact paper and chalk markers). The front of this new model fridge is not magnetic! We are all sad and disappointed. A has started taping her artwork to the front.

A couple more cool projects that they brought home from co-op school -- cycles of the moon, made with oreos from their "Science as Art" class.

Their creative writing/story telling class is called Fantastical Creatures.  They talked about Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Ogopogo last week.  Here is M's clay versions of the Ogopogo and the big foot. 

The boys watching A having her riding lesson. Ever since her fall, she rides the littlest pony. His name is Rolo.  He is a 30 year old shetland pony. 

We had some friends over to visit on Easter Sunday (after I had already made the Easter post). They brought a dessert that everyone could help decorate -- bunny cake!

I think I am going to start calling our driveway "White Way of Delight" (Anne of Green Gables).

 

 We are still not sure what kind of trees these are. I am hoping for a variety of cherry.

 We let the old hens out several times this week.  They are happily laying 3-4 eggs a day.  I think they like it here. I was not sure what Theodore (right side, by the base of the bird feeder) would do... He just watched them.

Baby L on the other hand wanted to pet them all. She is such an animal lover. Lucky for her we are going to have plenty of animals here.

 

 
It's hard to see all that is happening here - some planting of seeds they received in Primary, and M at the far end of the wall reorganizing the rock collection again.

We have found that the soil is different here from our old house. It's surprising since it's only 30 minutes up the road. The ground is a lot rockier, but the dirt is more loamy (less clay).  I planted two baby hazelnut trees this week. It was a bit of a shock to strike rock right under the grass.  Here is a picture of my big rock pile after digging a smallish hole. Other parts of the yard have not been as bad. Maybe there was a landscaping feature here in the front?

Tree Clearing aka Making Light

One of the reasons that I vetoed this house the first time we looked at it was that it didn't have enough light for a big garden in the backyard.  You would think that with 5.6 acres there would be plenty of room for it, but with tall trees encircling the only open area, the backyard will be all shade when the trees leaf out.  By the second time we looked at the property I had done some research on Maryland Forestry's website and about logging.  Basically, if you have good quality lumber, they will come and cut it down and haul it away for "free".  That was great because the regular tree service company's estimate for the work was around 40,000$.
We used a logger that was recommended on the Maryland Forestry Service's website.  They came this week and clear cut a little less than 1 acre of land all together.

 

 To the left of the barn were some large pines. They were the first to go. That made a more room for the truck.

Along the back they clear cut this swath of trees to add to my garden space.

There were some nice red and white oaks, which are valuable and they were happy to have.

 We asked them to clear a perimeter around the barn.  Here is the before shot of that area:

After they were done:

We also asked them to take down several on the tallest trees on the western side of the yard. Here is the before shot of that area. They only did a few of the ones we had selected on that side. I think it would be helpful to clear most of it to allow for afternoon sunlight.

Here are some more after shots:

They hauled away all the biggest trunk pieces, but you can see that there is still a GIGANTIC pile of brush to be chopped up for firewood and chipped up for mulch.

Hopefully, that will allow me a middle back section of the yard that will get at least 8 hours of sunlight during the summer. They have offered to come back and "selectively" clear some additional trees for us next year.  This year will be filled with garden experiments.  Hopefully, I will end up with a space at least 2-3 times as big as my old garden.  That was the whole point of buying a house with more land after all.  If the clearing plan doesn't work out, I am going to have to plant up the front yard... Not the most attractive option, but it is the south facing side of the house.

Easter Festivities

 Happy Easter! Some new farm friends joined the flock this week: 6 ducklings!  They are all Khaki Campbells - land ducks.  They are so cute and fun to watch.

 We made a big brooder this time -- that way I won't have to do a renovation after a month, like I did last time with the chicks.

 We bought them as a "straight run" so we don't know how many boys and how many girls there will be.  They are VERY hard to tell apart.   Everyone wants to name or  hold "theirs" and we have been looking for tiny markings on feet and beaks to try to tell whose is whose.

Big Sister A's latest recipe creation- Biscuits. We had them strawberry shortcake style with mixed berries and cream on top. Yum!

 We had our annual Easter Egg hunt at Uncle P's this year.  I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed with home projects and Aunt H was kind enough to offer to have it there instead.

We used feed buckets for our Easter baskets this year.  They were having this special at the local Tractor Supply store, 20% off whatever you can fit in the bucket... We ended up with 3.

 Baby's first Peeps:

The Last Week of Winter

Homeschooling is ongoing, but A might want to start school in the Fall!  It is supposed to be the best elementary school around... We are still talking about it.  Co-op school is in full swing. I am having loads of fun researching outbreak case studies and other CSI type activities to do with my class. The kiddos just finished a session of home school swim lessons at a local gym.  We didn't have to get a membership to participate and I was still allowed to drop the younger 2 at the kid care center. That gave me a 45 minute window for swimming laps.  Heaven. It worked out so nicely.  Big sister A and Brother M each finished a workbook (about 250 pages of school exercises) and their reward was a date to the movies with daddy.  They went to see Zootopia.

Miss L has decided that she is far too grown-up not to be using a fork or spoon like everyone else. Notice which hand she is using? Might be a red-headed lefty like her Grandpop.

Cousins came over to visit while the chicken coop was finally moved from Uncle P's to our backyard. We had to be careful with the placement since they are right in the middle of clearing a bunch of huge trees in our yard.  I corralled everyone (8 kiddos) in the toy room/school room so that I could keep track of them. That worked for most of the time.  They wanted to make strawberry lemonade for lunch. Here they are mashing the strawberries. This is one of A's favorite things to make since she can do all except defrosting the strawberries by herself.

 I love stumbling on the kids making use of the library. And big sister reading aloud to the littles, there's not much better than that.

Home project for this week, one of several, just the only one I have pics of.  This light was already down before I could snap the before shot.  It was hanging in the "eat-in" area of our kitchen, which we won't be using as such, so we needed a ceiling light instead of the chandelier.

Another large brown fan - this one was pretty fancy, but the white one is still so much better.

 And Ta-da - unobtrusive white fan. The mess in the right hand corner is where the kitchen desk was. That was one of the things Uncle P helped us with on Saturday. The granite top was too heavy for me to move. Now we need to fill-in the holes left behind in the flooring and paint where the upper cabinets were.

Pie making today - apple with a pastry crust.