Higher Ideals

Autumn is rustling just around the corner. Can you hear the crunch of leaves under foot? Smell a pumpkin spice candle? Taste some hot apple cider? It's coming...

And I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when my 12-year-old couldn't remember how to read a clock last time it popped up in a math review 🙄

We were eating at a German restaurant that had a cuckoo clock, and my son excitedly pointed out the "hickory dickory dock." That's when it occurred to me that we don't have an analog clock in our house, so I'm not sure if he's seen them outside of our nursery rhyme books. I love watching Littles making connections. 🥰

I found myself thinking back to previous pear seasons... that first year I was doing it all on my own, and it was so much that I gave myself a repetitive motion injury from peeling and dicing so many pears. Contrast that with this year. I had multiple children excited to get to practice their knife skills. After a batch was prepped, I had helpers with washing up dishes, running scraps out to birds, and stirring substances heating on the stove. Through all this, I had kids who weren't even helping trickle in because they heard us blasting music, singing along, and laughing, and they wanted to join in the fun (and eat pear bites). Littles are sweet, but I love having older kids. 💕

Pear season has arrived! After a late frost took out our entire pear crop last year, I'm so excited about pears this year! Fresh pears, pear jam, pear sauce, pear pie... all the pears!

A few of my older kids and I were out floating on the rolling waves. One of my daughters turned and said, "Isn't it crazy to think about these waves being caused by the moon?" Yes. Science doesn't have to demystify; sometimes it gives us new cause for wonder.

Surf, sand, and a salty breeze...escape and relax

One of the advantages of homeschooling is you can plan vacations for when the rest of kids go back to school. Less crowds, less stress.

We found out on a visit with extended family that my grandfather ate pie for dessert at every lunch and dinner. So every Saturday, my grandmother and aunt prepped the week's worth of pies (15-20!). Since our trip, we've made pie weekly (just one a week!), experimenting with different types. This process has made me feel closer to my family, particularly the grandmother I never knew. (And James and the kids love it!) I made this apple pie with apples from the fruit trees we put in over 3 years ago. This year is our first ever apple harvest, and I'm so excited about it! As such, this seems an appropriate entry for the Monthly White Art Challenge's August theme of Harvest.

"Aw...to be free. Free to play whatever you want. Free to explore. Free to wander away from the house. Free to make mistakes. Free to jump, spin, dance, shout, and climb. Free to take risks. This is active free play—moving the body, stimulating the senses, and igniting the imagination so that the whole body and brain are engaged at once. Neurons are firing on all cylinders as children explore their surroundings. They are fully alive." – Angela Hanscom, Balanced and Barefoot

My older girls and I do a book club with my mom and brother. Our last few reads have been Agatha Christie books. We chose to name our sourdough starter Hercule-yeast Poir-dough, because it uses the little grey cells to rise to the occasion. Accordingly, it has the most impressive mustache of any sourdough starter I've ever seen.

Saturday breakfast staples: sourdough pancakes, bacon, and raw milk 💪🏼

My sourdough journey is relatively recent. I had some issues getting my starter going and thought I'd share my lessons learned for anyone who could benefit: 1. I read several places to use equal parts flour and water. The starter recipe I followed called for 1/2 cup of each. I regularly had water pooling at the top which I thought was hooch, but eventually I pulled out my food scale. Because my flour and water aren't the same density, I learned I needed to do 1/2 cup of water to 2/3 cup of flour, and instantly started getting better results. If your consistency doesn't look right, try weight rather than volume. 2. I had read I should put my recently fed starter in a warm location, but was just using my counter. About 10 days in, I still didn't have great activity. I was using my slow cooker that day, which puts off a lot of heat, so I set my sourdough starter next to it. The activity was amazing. Within 24 hours I had a mature starter and was making my first loaf of sourdough bread. Since then, I turn on my oven for a minute or so (just until it breaks 100°F) and let my recently fed starter do it's bubbly thing in the warmed-up oven. Heat really does help!

Tell me you're a homesteader without telling me you're a homesteader... while doing Mad Libs with my kids, one of them answered the category of "something alive" with "sourdough."

We try to do experiences, rather than material gifts, for birthdays. Today, we did a trail ride on horseback. It was a definite hit! If you are looking for more ideas of experience gifts, some that our kids have enjoyed in the past include: 🎈Ice skating 🎈Zoo 🎈Aquarium 🎈Botanical garden 🎈Rodeo 🎈Planetarium 🎈Museum (children's museum, science museum, art museum) 🎈Play/ballet tickets 🎈Pottery painting 🎈Painting with a Twist 🎈Cooking class 🎈Bowling 🎈Mini golf 🎈Go karting 🎈Ropes course/ziplining 🎈Medieval Times 🎈Ripley's Believe it or Not 🎈Escape room 🎈Indoor skydiving

When helping in the kitchen my kids get so much real-world math practice. We were adding fractions as we doubled recipes. We were doing conversions as we determined which pots and containers to use for our raspberry cordial. My kids still complain when doing math worksheets, but they don't ask me when they are ever going to use this. When we live rich, wide-ranging lives, they regularly see the practical applications of math.

I love that my daughter requested an Anne of Green Gables themed birthday. 🥰

"Look, Mom! We're going into a tree tunnel!" My son always gets excited when we enter the woods. It's not just how it looks, but the full sensory experience. It sounds different, the outside world muffled. It feels different (forests actually create their own microclimates!). It's like entering another world, just as surely as if you'd fallen through the looking glass, gone into the wardrobe, been carried off by a tornado, or flown to the second star to the right, and straight on till morning. Kids feel this. They sense the mystery and magic. ✨

When Laura Ingalls went to school on the prairie as a 7 year-old, each family sent their kids with whatever schoolbooks they had brought west with them. Different families had different books, and that was fine. As Laura explained, "A sum is a sum, no matter what the name of the arithmetic book." I love this, and I think it is something homeschool parents would benefit from hearing. I often get the question, what curriculum do we use, because new and prospective homeschoolers worry about finding 'the right one.’ There's no perfect curriculum. We all modify, remove, supplement, and replace as we go, adjusting for our family's values, number and ages of children, strengths and interests of individuals, the season of life that we're in, etc. We take resources that are a decent starting point, and make it work right now (and there are a lot of decent starting points!). Don’t overthink it. When it comes to choosing curriculum, perfectionism is the enemy of the good.

Had the kind of day where my 5-year-old got some scissors and cut a hole in our couch, and then my 3-year-old got some markers for him and his brother to color themselves, their bedding, walls, door, bookshelf, and toys. If you're having a rough day, hang in there. We're all gonna make it.