Saturday, May 28, 2011

Homeschool Picnic and "Farm" Day

Homeschool Family Picnic

Friday, June 17
5:00 P.M. (Feel free to come later if you can't make it at 5:00. We'll probably be eating between 6:00 and 6:30.)

Directions:

5081 E. Hwy 61
Hovland

We are on the upper side of the highway just past the Hovland Volunteer Fire Department. We have a red house with a green roof.

We'll be supplying hot dogs (Applegate Farms beef, **gluten free**) and lemonade. Please bring a dish to share. We look forward to sharing your company!

Questions?: E-mail me, leave a comment on the blog, or call 475-2343.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Lake View Natural Dairy


The cream separator was really interesting. The kids watched the cream going into a jar to be used in making butter while the skim milk went into a bucket to be given to the pigs.


Looking at the bull and the cows in the night pasture.



That bull with the ring in his nose was pretty rank. OK, not really. His name was Cupcake, and he looked pretty sweet. :)



Molly couldn't resist taking a picture of a pig's nose.






Bottle feeding the calves was a big hit with all the kids. :)




If you haven't been to Lake View Natural Dairy lately, you should definitely check it out. I recommend Heidi's wonderful homemade cookies with a glass of all natural, healthy and super fresh milk...or chocolate milk...or take home some wonderful yogurt and add strawberries and maple syrup (my favorite). There's sure to be something there to tempt you!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

VERY HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are some inspirational Mother's Day quotes for you. Hopefully there's something special here for each of you. You are a bunch of fabulous women and mothers, and I'm glad to have each of you in my life

"The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness."
-Honoré De Balzac

"A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts."
-Washington Irving

"The mother loves her child most divinely, not when she surrounds him with comfort and anticipates his wants, but when she resolutely holds him to the highest standards and is content with nothing less than his best."
-Hamilton Wright Maybie

"All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."
-Abraham Lincoln

"We never know the love of the parent until we become parents ourselves."
-Henry Ward Beecher

Sometimes the poorest mother leaves her children the richest inheritance.
-Ruth Renkes

A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
-Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.
-uthor Unknown

Who is getting more pleasure from this rocking, the baby or me?
-Nancy Thayer

By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacation-less class.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Making a decision to have a child-it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
-Elizabeth Stone

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.
-Tenneva Jordan

Women do not have to sacrifice person hood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women's opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering.
-Elaine Heffner

Woman in the home has not yet lost her dignity, in spite of Mother's Day, with its offensive implication that our love needs an annual nudging, like our enthusiasm for the battle of Bunker Hill.
-John Erskine

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.
-Rajneesh

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
-Author Unknown

All mothers are working mothers.
-Author Unknown

The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes

God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.
-Jewish proverb

Remember that behind every successful woman......is a basket of dirty laundry.
-Author Unknown

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Summer Field Trips

Our field trip on May 20th will be the last field trip that Renee will be planning for the year. For the summer months, please contact me if you have a field trip/outing idea, or want to plan one and invite the group. I would love to know what people are interested in for the summer months, and suggestions as far as how often you would like to have a group activity.
In September, Renee will resume the planning/coordinating of the field trips, so you can again contact her with requests, ideas or offers to help plan an event.


I would like to invite all of you, husbands/fathers too, to a picnic and "farmish type" day at our house on Friday June 17th. If things go as planned, we should have cuddly little bunnies and fuzzy baby chicks for everyone to see by then. We'll spend some time getting to know the animals (I'll try to talk about their care, how their babies are hatched or born and how they care for their young. The kids can gather eggs and feed some treats to the animals. After we're done exploring the barn and possibly gardens (should anything actually be growing in them), we'll have a cook out. We'll provide grilled hot dogs and drinks if you all can bring something to go with that. Plan to bring some camp chairs if you have them. We look very forward to having you here!
I would like to know from any who plan to come what time you'd like to meet. Would it be better to start in the AM, around 10:00, and eat lunch around 12:30, or meet after lunch and have supper together.
If the day happens to be rainy, we'll set a new date and try again.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Fire Department Field Trip and Great Expectations Science Fair

The fire department field trip was lots of fun, and also very valuable. I'd never considered before how frightening a fire fighter fully dressed in all the gear, oxygen mask and tanks included, crawling around inside a burning house would be to a small child. It was so great that the children all got to see what that looks like, and were reassured to run to them and not away if ever their house was on fire. I'm so glad that our kids are getting some exposure to all of these different facets of our community!
It was also great to meet more homeschool families at the fire station. Our group is growing! :)





The Great Expectations science fair was a very good experience for some of our group. Alice, Boston and Hattie Rose each did a wonderful job presenting their projects to the group.
Alice asked the question, "What kind of cheese do mice like best?" She put her two pet mice in a big bowl with some different varieties of cheese that she'd weighed. She left them in the bowl for 1 hour. Then she came back and weighed each cheese cube. If I remember correctly, she found that they liked colby the best. She was surprised by their choice. She'd guessed that they might like mozzarella the best, since she does. Mozzarella turned out to be their least favorite cheese variety. We all were able to visit with her little pets at the science fair. They were very popular! :)



Boston studied volcanoes, and built a model of a volcano. It was a very impressive model - the largest I've ever seen. It had a magma chamber, into which they put some baking soda. They then added vinegar to make it erupt. It was very exciting!



Hattie Rose wanted to know, "What is static electricity?" She studied atoms, with their neutrons, protons and electrons. She found out that when a balloon is rubbed against something like hair or a wool sweater it gathers electrons from that object. When it has extra electrons in has a negative charge. A negatively charged balloon can do many things. At the science fair, Hattie touched a negatively charged balloon to a neutral fluorescent light bulb. When the electrons rushed into the bulb, it flashed. She also attracted a neutral piece of cereal to the negatively charged balloon. The cereal was able to stick to the balloon until some of the electrons from the balloon went into the cereal, then they pushed away from each other. The flashing light bulb was very surprising to all of us!