A Wildflower Morning

This week my daughter started studying at the local community college.  I can’t believe how time has flown.  After her first day of school we spent some time together talking about what she remembered about her childhood as a homeschooler.  What did we do well?  What did she remember the most? What did she wish we would have done better? I was taking notes, thinking about writing on the topic, for this blog post, when she asked for the computer and started writing down everything herself.  Then she volunteered to be our guest writer for the day. What follows is her own words, maybe you could call it a concluding evaluation of 12 plus years of homeschool well spent.  In it you will see, through her eyes, a small picture of what homeschool is like in our home.  I hope it will inspire and encourage you to keep going, keep pressing on.  I noticed as we were talking that she mostly remembered the things that I didn’t call school, but were part of the rich, home envir

 My lettuce is doing great this year, even though the temperatures have been steadily warm.    This is unusual, because lettuce doesn't like our warm, inland Northwest temperatures, and usually quickly bolts.   The next issue is that my lettuce starts out tasting nice, but quickly turns bitter.  And then if it doesn't go to seed, it really doesn't matter, because I don't like strong tasting lettuce, and it usually doesn't get picked.   I heard that sweetness might be effected by the amount of water the lettuce gets, so I tried keeping the lettuce very moist.  But that only attracted more slugs, and the lettuce still got quite bitter. But this spring I saw something that gave me an idea.  Could it be that shade might help keep out the bitterness and keep the lettuce from bolting?  I decided to give it a try.  We pounded in some stakes, strung up some string, then used clothes pins to hold some old sheets up above my beautiful lettuce patch.  Th

 This morning I was working on reviewing the Bible verses I've been memorizing using Scripture Typer. Coming to the end of Mark chapter 14, I found my mind wrapped up in the story of Jesus being falsely accused and tormented in the middle of the night by the high priests and the whole council. His disciple, Peter was downstairs where the servants hung out, warming himself by the fire, waiting to hear the outcome. But he obviously was scared of getting into trouble himself, because when a maid of the high priest confronted him about his identity he “denied that he was with Jesus of Nazareth, and that he didn't even know what she was talking about. He went out on the porch, just in time to hear a rooster crow. Another maid saw him, saying surely he was one of the disciples, but he denied it again, even cursing and swearing that “I know not this man of whom ye speak.” Mark 14:71. And then the cock crowed again, and Peter remembered what Jesus had said. “

This is the perfect time of year to raise butterflies.  Six years ago, this month, my children and I raised Painted Lady Butterflies, so we could learn first hand about these beautiful creatures.  At that time I wrote about it day-by-day on my old blog.   Yesterday I wrote a new blog post our experience, including tips about how to do it with your own family.   Please join me over at the SDA Homeschool Blog .  

I'd like to invite you to read the guest post I wrote for SDA Homeschool Families yesterday.  It is more about Project Time: Developing Photography Skills .