Just Another Manic Monday...except it's Tuesday

Based on last nights sick and crying children, today our 'schooling' looked like this:

'Watching' books on a Read-Along DVD

Looking through this old book of birds and writing down our favourite ones

We also baked this delicious dessert!



Plus we somehow managed to fit in a Bible story, do our devotions and each girl had a math lesson. Some days are better than others...not quite sure where this one falls.

The blueberry crumb cake recipe can be found at:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/07/blueberry-crumb-cake/

Camping

The girls and I went camping on Friday night with some other lovely families from the homeschooling group we belong to. What a wonderful, crazy, difficult thing it is to camp with three young children for one night. Josh was quite busy working and umping a baseball tournament and despite my better judgement I decided to go ahead and camp without him.

One night worth of camping gear: minus the fishing rods and tackle box

We were sooo loaded up the girls could hardly move!

I really love the idea of camping. Setting up the tent, roasting hot dogs and marshmellows, singing campfire songs and visiting with friends. The reality is that I don't know anything about camping so I was very thankful for a dear friend helping me set up the tent, another friend who lent me the sticks for roasting, another friend who brought a much needed coffee on Saturday morning etc., etc....the list could go on and on of all the ways that I was thankful. However, even with all these fabulous people I have decided that camping really isn't for me. At all. Ever. Never again. End of Story.......I might change my mind in a year from now and only if Josh is available but I hope no one is holding their breath. (Because I'm not)

On a side note the girls had a GREAT time catching all sorts of critters; frogs, toads and snakes. In the end that made it worth all the effort...heartache...back pain...sleepless night...ok I'm done complaining (as McKayla reminds me of Phil. 2:14-15)

Back to School

So it's back to school again here in the Wall house. If you didn't already know, we are one of those 'weird' homeschooling families...okay so I don't really think we're 'weird' but for a lot of people homeschooling is a little out of the ordinary. On Monday Josh and I managed to clean up and reorganize the schoolroom/basement and get everything pretty much in order for the week.

School area - still have to empty the basket of books

 
Our first couple days getting back to the grindstone have been surprisingly fantastic. The two older girls have been working really hard and have been quite enthusiastic about getting back into a routine. Em, has proven to be a little bit of a challenge (no real surprise there) since she is very interested in doing exactly what the other girls are doing. However, we have come up with some fun ideas to keep her entertained and busy while we work on our core subjects. 




This salt sensory box has been a real lifesaver. Em has loved to mix and pour and generally make a gigantic mess all over the floor! We used coarse salt to fill it which has made it really easy to vacuum up at the end of the day.

Selling our Rooster!

Who knew...one of our 'laying hens' is actually a rooster. He is up for sale on kijiji.com....someone please buy him! Seriously best/fastest offer!

http://ontario.kijiji.ca/c-pets-livestock-for-sale-Rooster-W0QQAdIdZ309115310

...and then there were two...

We are down to two beloved chickens. We had to take the other four to the butcher so we would not have a repeat of 'dead chicken in backyard' scenario. All the children did really well with this although I was the one who got a little weepy, quite unexpectedly after Josh had left with them. The remaining chickens starting clucking and carrying on so loudly and in the end I had to put them back in their coop because it was only 7am and I really didn't want my neighbours complaining about our illegal chickens after I had promised up and down that they would never even know they were there! After about an hour they were fine and I could let them back out again but it was definitely a sad moment to think that they missed their sisters.

Also of note, the chickens have really grown and since we let them roam around most of the yard they have mastered jumping up onto the deck where they are able to have a free for all at eating my veggie planters, so I then moved the veggies up onto the patio table. Of course the ladies have now managed to find a way to jump from the patio chairs up to the table where they now freely poop on the table and finished eating all my green bean sprouts. Tomorrow morning will involve scrubbing of said table, chairs, and deck and we will have to work out a system to block off the deck. 

Oh and did I mention that they escaped yesterday??? Since it has finally dried up a bit in my backyard and the flood line has receded along the back fence I can now see that we missed placing a board in the far back corner where the fence doesn't quite meet the ground. The ladies decided that the grass looked greener on the other side and decided to go for a visit to Peter, my neighbour's, backyard. This resulted in McKayla and I chasing them around his backyard (after guiltily creeping in since he wasn't home) and trying to catch them. We succeeded and have since made the necessary adjustments to our ever evolving, changing, and slightly diminishing backyard.

... and then there were six

The inevitable has happened...we have lost a chicken. And by lost I don't mean that it has escaped and we can't find it, I mean that we came home this afternoon to a very dead chicken in my backyard. It was one of our juicy plump broilers that must have suffered a heart attack due to its immense growth in such a short period of time. The girls were heartbroken and I must say that I shed a few tears as well. We have learned today that those chickens were not meant for longevity but just for pure meaty deliciousness. Its a shame that she died but even more so that she has gone to waste...well I'm sure the vultures will enjoy her after we dispose of her but I digress. Needless to say we have an appointment at the butcher's first thing Tuesday morning where we will be saying good-bye to the rest of our white ladies. We will keep the two little layers and hopefully should see some eggs out of them by the end of this summer. Oh how the adventure continues...

More Writings from McKayla

I sent the girls in the backyard the other day to do some of their school work because it was just too gorgeous a day not to. I asked McKayla to write a paragraph about her chickens and she gladly did it (albeit a very small one as she needed to get done to play with them) and then she asked me if I could put it up on the blog for her. She gets such a kick out of seeing her words up on the computer!

My Chickens - by Mckayla Wall

We have seven chickens. They are soooo cute. We have five white chickens and two black and white chickens but they do not live in a chicken coop. The white chickens are so big and they have a red comb. When they walk they strut and they don't cluck loud.

Another addition to our backyard, I introduce to you 'Hopper'

The girls have named three of the chickens that they can tell apart from the other ones. The two little black ones are Buddy and Salty and the biggest white one is Trouble. He is always trying to escape and he seems to be the leader of this group and bosses the other ones around a bit.

Now Josh on the other hand has also named these chickens. His names go something like this: Cajun, BBQ, Fried, Drumstick...you get the idea right?