I'm excited: Once upon a time, I used to participate in the Daring Bakers cooking challenges, but I struggled to keep up and dropped out after a while: it was too hard to be consistent. When I finally felt ready to try again, they had finished. And I haven't found a different baking challenge -- until now. King Arthur Flour is hosting one. And they're doing Gruyère-Stuffed Crusty Loaves. I'll need to find the fancy cheese, but otherwise, it's ingredients that I've got on hand. However, it's a method that I've never tried before, so that ought to be fun to do.
A kind stranger on a forum helped me to find several resources for learning how to better care for the apple trees that we put in the back yard. It will be good to know more about how to get them to bear well!
Easily the most exciting thing in my week has been a huge leap forward in my Japanese studies! I recently started browsing through the All Japanese All The Time blog, and came across his suggestion to study whole sentences, rather than vocabulary and grammar in isolation. I've been trying this week, and I don't think that I've ever done anything so effective! Part of the magic is the way that he suggests collecting: out of real Japanese materials (not the Engilsh-Japanese student "ghetto") that you're using because they are fun. Right now, I'm enjoying my flashcards immensely. Can't get enough. I've always kind of liked reading the dictionary, and right now the sample sentences in my Japanese-English dictionary are completely fascinating, so I'm building a list of sentences out of my dictionary, built around words I already know. So lots of the sentences I'm studying are ones that have one or two words that are new, and the rest is familiar. But the really cool thing is that I'm learning to say things in a Japanese way. And, being more comfortable with saying things in a Japanese way, the simple ebooks I've been working on are getting easier -- after only one week!! I have my eye on some Stargate episodes in Japanese, and I've kicked up the Japanese talk radio background noise, since that helps to get the language and patterns into my ear. The kids were eating up the Avengers in Japanese that I found on YouTube, and they ask for Shimajiro. I switched my phone's default language to Japanese, and I'm trying to persuade my phone to show me stuff in Japanese on Pinterest. And it's working. For all of us. Every day I understand noticeably more than the day before - without putting in tons of effort. Because, after all, there's still the rest of life to accomplish.
And, in spite of my enthusiasm for my dictionary and flash-cards, we did do quite a bit of non-Japanese stuff.
Nature Study went particularly well. Our pond is really coming to life. We saw tadpoles - the first time I've seen them, ever - and fed turtles. The kids got muddy. We watched water-scooting bugs and listened to bird song. I found plantain and burdock, and identified the remains of the Jack-in-the-Pulpit we found last week, even though the flower was broken off. We noticed that "our" mouse has opened a new hole - the 3rd we know of on his house. I still have some wildflower photos to identify. The pond was gorgeous. The woods were beautiful. It was fascinating. I love Nature Study!
Hero(8) has been hard at work, learning to blow bubbles. Not that that's terribly educational. But it's important to him, and he's so happy with himself! We've had several pieces of gum hit the floor... ew. But he's making progress. Even if it is hard to photograph his successes.
We were minding our own business, attempting some bookwork on Friday, when Nature Study came to us. We discovered that a Mama Mallard built her nest in the neighbor's rhubarb. Happily, they don't eat the rhubarb; hopefully they'll wait until the ducks are done nesting to finish taking out the plants. In the mean time, we have front-row seats, since the fence is easy to see through. I've seen 5 or 6 babies, but didn't get a good enough view for a reliable count. The neighbor says there's 8. I'm wondering why they decided that a suburban yard, a mile or more to the closest drainage pond, much less a real pond, is a good place for a nest? No idea. But I'm delighted.
The kids have been doing some great stuff around the yard. Hero has decided that mowing is one of his favorite jobs. And they all like the planting we've been doing. Hero and Dragon each did their own pots. Dragon chose red ones, appropriately, Snap-dragons. That makes me smile.
I've got a bunch of herbs that I'm trying not to kill.
Maybe trying not to kill them isn't such a lofty goal, but that's about where I'm at right now. Since they have survived our unusually hot summer, and I've got a day an hour or two to play in my dirt, I'm trying to find out what kind of pruning they need to have, and what sort of care they should have been getting.
First, I looked at lavender. I have a lavender plant. I split it last year. Turns out that probably wasn't such a hot idea. I'm kind of amazed that they survived, after reading up on them a little. But it's done now, so I want to see what I can do with it. This lady says that I should have pruned it at least a month ago, but I'm going to try doing it. This other site says that it can be done in the fall as well, as long as it's well ahead of any frost, which we still should be.
Another plant that I'm thinking about picking on today is my lemon balm. Turns out, I am pretty lucky that it's not taking over the world. I'm OK with that. It's a mint, and they like to grow and spread, but mine seems to be behaving itself pretty well. Being a mint, it's supposed to be pretty forgiving, and not mind being chopped at pretty much any time, so I'm going to give it a trim this afternoon as well.
I'm thinking that I'll make potpourri with my lavender and lemon balm, but I thought that this was pretty interesting. Turns out that lemon balm has a bunch of medicinal properties but, being pregnant, I'm not going to mess around with that this year. But potpourri sounds like it would smell wonderful, and I think that it'll probably mix nicely with the lavender.
I got an oregano plant at the Chicago Botanic garden a couple years ago, and I've done a little bit with it; used it in some tacos, I even dried some and used it part of the winter one year. But I need to learn a bit more about it to really get the best from the plant. So I'm watching and reading about that one too.
Early in the week, we tried to get the last of our garden chores done before the snow came. It's been unseasonably warm, and it makes it feel like early fall, rather than late fall. I even briefly contemplated moving some strawberry plants, but decided that it's too late. Good thing I left them where they are: now we have snow on the ground. But it was a balmy 50F the day we worked in the garden.
Our Little Golden Dragon is struggling to get over a relapse of his bronchitis that he had a while back, but he's a trooper and is mostly cheerful most of the time. He and Monkey enjoyed an art project this week. They painted egg cartons, and Monkey has ambitions to turn his into a caterpillar. This is one of several crafts that Monkey thought up this week. It's fun to see him gaining enough confidence to think up his own crafts and then get them started! These caterpillars, being a painting craft, he had to ask for help. But one day this week I finished putting Dragon down for a nap and found him hard at work on a new folder game for us to use in phonics. We worked together to finish it off, then played with it right away. I need to find my contact paper and cover it, so that it will last through many games.
Speaking of phonics, it's going so well! We introduced the silent e this week, and Monkey had no problems with it. There for a while I felt like we were going sooo slowly, and wondered if we would ever get to the long vowel sounds, and now here we are! OPGTR actually breaks the silent e words into several lessons, but we covered a couple of them this week, in spite of not doing anything with it on Monday and Tuesday. We used a "magic e machine" (a cardstock frame we put the CVC words into to change the vowel sound) and his new folder game to practice. I just love hiding our phonics drill in games. We'd have fights over it every day if it wasn't for Happy Phonics and the other games we play!
In History, we covered Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as Joseph in Egypt. We also had a look at the royal burials in Ur, since that's where Abraham came from. We were working with the Scripture Storybooks the Church puts out, since SOTW doesn't quite match up. Ur is pretty interesting. We spent some time exploring Queen Pu-Abi's tomb. Monkey didn't know what a lyre is, so I found a youtube clip to show him. It's Anglo-Saxon, not Sumerian, but it's the same general idea, and was enough that the picture made sense to him. We talked about the cylinder seals they used, and a little of what they used them for, then we used the clay that was leftover from making our cuneiform tablets to make a cylinder for Monkey and put a little cuneiform on it. Unfortunately, it was a short night last night, and so when I was putting Dragon down for his nap I passed out too... and the cylinder was burned black. We may make another one. Which would be OK. Turns out they had holes in them to string them onto pins and wore them. So if we do it again we'll try to make a hole through the middle (a needle maybe?) to make it more accurate. He had a great time working the clay and made quite the collection of little balls and even a turret while he was "getting it soft." The Sculpey being hard didn't seem to bother him much! In any case, we had a good time looking at pictures of cylinders, checking out Queen Pu-Abi's cylinder, and later I did some reading about them too. Interesting stuff.
Here's his narration of the story of Joseph in Egypt. I'm thinking that we may look to see if Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is still on YouTube. A while back we watched it, since someone had helpfully put it all into a playlist.
Joseph was a righteous man. He taught his brothers about his dream, and then they sold him some Ishmaelites. They took him to Egypt. Potiphar bought Joseph. He was happy that he had Joseph and he put him in charge of his whole house. Potifer’s wife tried to make him kiss her, but Joseph didn’t, and he ran away from her. Then Potiphar’s wife told Potiphar that he kissed her. He put Joseph in jail.
He got out of jail when the king put him in charge of his whole land. Joseph was supposed to give them food for the seven years of no food. His brothers came to buy food. He told them that he was Joseph because they didn’t know it at first. He told them to come to Egypt. They did it.
Math is going awesome as well. Monkey's fine motor skills are starting to catch up a bit, so I started teaching him his numbers this week. Not too shabby, for the first official instruction. He decided that he likes the other kind of 4 - the one that's open on top - better than the one in the font, and I'm fine with that. In addition to learning to write the numbers, we continued to work on addition with sums to about 15. We also bumped into multiplication, played with some inequalities, and did some dot-to-dots. The choose-your-own adventure style math that Miquan suggests is working out beautifully! He's requesting certain types of sheets, which makes me happy since he's practicing his facts happily, and it makes him happy because he gets to choose what he wants. His choices are based on the decorations, which makes this very easy right now! We even discussed negative numbers just a little bit, courtesy of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, our current read-aloud: If Grandma Georgina is 78, and she eats 4 pills that each take 20 years from her life, how old is she? Why did she disappear? We used a number line, and it took 2 tries to explain it, but I think he followed the logic of the negative numbers. He wasn't that interested, which is fine, but I think he got the concept. I like that.
Other than that, the main excitement in my week was getting nominated for the Homeschool Blog Awards - super exciting! (I'm under Variety and Methods.) How was your week?
I was recently called as our ward's Welfare Specialist, and my Bishop has me working on a couple of projects for our ward that have got me studying the principles of welfare in the Lord's Church. I thought some of this stuff might be interesting to others, plus, a blog is a useful tool to organize it all as I get my thoughts straight in these projects, so here it is. There are some wonderful quotes, council, and promises associated with self-reliance.
What is Self-Reliance?
Self-reliance is the ability, commitment, and effort to provide the spiritual and temporal necessities of life for self and family. As members become self-reliant, they are also better able to serve and care for others.
Church members are responsible for their own spiritual and temporal well-being. Blessed with the gift of agency, they have the privilege and duty to set their own course, solve their own problems, and strive to become self-reliant. Members do this under the inspiration of the Lord and with the labor of their own hands.
-Handbook 2, section 6.1.1
Since the beginning of time man has been counseled to earn his own way, thereby becoming self-reliant. It is easy to understand the reason why the Lord places so much emphasis on this principle when we come to understand that it is tied very closely to freedom itself. -Marion G. Romney, "The Celestial Nature of Self-Reliance," October 1982 General Conference, emphasis added.
President David O. McKay said, “Let us … realize that the privilege to work is a gift, that [the] power to work is a blessing, that love [of] work is success” (True to the Faith, comp. Llewelyn R. McKay, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966, p. 287), Quoted by Franklin D. Richards in "Personal and Family Financial Preparedness, April 1979 General Conference.
ProvidentLiving.org breaks self-reliance and family well-being into several topics: employment, finances, gardening, home storage, physical health, social and emotional strength, combating pornography, education, and emergency preparedness.
Doctrinal Basis of Self-Reliance
In modern revelation, the Lord has given us these commandments: “Verily I say unto you, concerning your debts—behold it is my will that you shall pay all your debts” (D&C 104:78). And again: “Pay the debt thou hast contracted. … Release thyself from bondage” (D&C 19:35).
President Joseph F. Smith advised the Saints to “get out of debt and keep out of debt, and then you will be financially as well as spiritually free” (In Conference Report, Oct. 1903, p. 5).
-Franklin D. Richards, Personal and Financial Family Preparedness, April 1979 General Conference
In 1936 the First Presidency outlined a welfare plan for the Church. They said: “Our primary purpose was to set up … a system under which the curse of idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift and self respect be once more established amongst our people. The aim of the Church is to help the people to help themselves. Work is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1936, 3). -Handbook 2, section 6.1
“If ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (D&C 38:30).
Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work –Exodus 20:9
“Thou shalt not be idle; for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer.” [D&C 42:42.]
There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven, upon which all blessings are predicated, and no man will get the blessing without fulfilling the law [see D&C 130:20–21]. I wish to impress upon the Latter-day Saints that we get in this life what we work for, and I want to urge every Latter-day Saint to be a worker.
-Heber J. Grant, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church - Heber J. Grant, Work and Self-Reliance.
Why do you think the Lord has given us these commandments? Why is it important for us to work for what we receive? How can failure to be self-reliant affect us individually? as families? in our communities and nations?
Self Reliance is an Act of Faith
As in any area where the Lord gives us direction, obedience to the council given about self-reliance is more about faith than it is about anything else. Wherever the Lord gives commandments he opens a way to obey. This is true with self-reliance and preparedness as well. As the prophets and scriptures have taught, the distinctions between "spiritual" commandments and "temporal" commandments are artificial, and thus not useful. If we have the faith to begin to increase our self-reliance then the Lord will teach us the things we need to succeed.
Preparedness is Like Noah's Ark
In his teachings, Paul said:
“By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen … prepared an ark to the saving of his house.” (Heb. 11:7.)
President Kimball gives us this insight to Noah and the ark:
“As yet there was no evidence of rain and flood. … His warnings were considered irrational. … How foolish to build an ark on dry ground with the sun shining and life moving forward as usual! But time ran out. … The floods came. The disobedient … were drowned. The miracle of the ark followed the faith manifested in its building.” (Faith Precedes the Miracle, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1972, pp. 5–6.) ...
I wonder how many Saints will be able to withstand the disaster of their own personal flood by showing faith in the advice of modern prophets and building an ark of family preparedness.
-Loren C. Dunn (70), Building Bridges of Faith, April 1981 General Conference
“The revelation to store food may be as essential to our temporal salvation today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah” -Elder Ezra Taft Benson (“Prepare Ye,” Ensign, Jan. 1974, 69).
Blessings of Self-Reliance
In 1941 the Gila River overflowed and flooded the Duncan Valley in Arizona. A young stake president by the name of Spencer W. Kimball met with his counselors, assessed the damage, and sent a telegram to Salt Lake City asking for a large sum of money.
Instead of sending money, President Heber J. Grant sent three men: Henry D. Moyle, Marion G. Romney, and Harold B. Lee. They visited with President Kimball and taught him an important lesson: “This isn’t a program of ‘give me,’” they said. “This is a program of ‘self-help.’”
Many years later, President Kimball said: “It would have been an easy thing, I think, for the Brethren to have sent us [the money,] and it wouldn’t have been too hard to sit in my office and distribute it; but what a lot of good came to us as we had hundreds of [our own] go to Duncan and build fences and haul the hay and level the ground and do all the things that needed doing. That is self-help.”
By following the Lord’s way, the members of President Kimball’s stake not only had their immediate needs met, but they also developed self-reliance, alleviated suffering, and grew in love and unity as they served each other. -Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Providing in the Lord's Way, Ensign, Nov 2011, emphasis added
Things We Ought To Do
“We encourage you to grow all the food that you feasibly can on your own property. Berry bushes, grapevines, fruit trees—plant them if your climate is right for their growth. Grow vegetables and eat them from your own yard. Even those residing in apartments or condominiums can generally grow a little food in pots and planters. … Make your garden as neat and attractive as well as productive. If there are children in your home, involve them in the process with assigned responsibilities” -Spencer W. Kimball (“Family Preparedness,” Ensign, May 1976, 124, emphasis added).
“I quote with pleasure … from Lord Bulwer Lytton: ‘What man wants is not talent, it is purpose; not power to achieve, but the will to labor.’ Samuel Smiles has said: ‘Purposes, like eggs, unless they are hatched into action, will run into decay.’ -Heber J. Grant, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church - Heber J. Grant, Work and Self-Reliance.
The practice of coveting and receiving unearned benefits has now become so fixed in our society that even men of wealth, possessing the means to produce more wealth, are expecting the government to guarantee them a profit. Elections often turn on what the candidates promise to do for voters from government funds. This practice, if universally accepted and implemented in any society, will make slaves of its citizens.
We cannot afford to become wards of the government, even if we have a legal right to do so. It requires too great a sacrifice of self-respect and in political, temporal, and spiritual independence.
There is a spirit growing in the world today to avoid giving service, an unwillingness to give value received, to try to see how little we can do and how much we can get for doing it. This is all wrong. Our spirit and aim should be to do all we possibly can, in a given length of time, for the benefit of those who employ us and for the benefit of those with whom we are associated.
The other spirit—to get all we can, and give as little as possible in return—is contrary to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
-Heber J. Grant, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church - Heber J. Grant, Work and Self-Reliance.
“I quote with pleasure … from Lord Bulwer Lytton: ‘What man wants is not talent, it is purpose; not power to achieve, but the will to labor.’ Samuel Smiles has said: ‘Purposes, like eggs, unless they are hatched into action, will run into decay.'
-Heber J. Grant, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church - Heber J. Grant, Work and Self-Reliance.
The lovely thing about taking a week off of school last week is that this week, it doesn't feel so hard to get the work done. Well, except for that in addition to the regular stuff there's a whole world of yard work that it's finally warm enough to do, and suddenly the garden has to go in right this very minute. And there's been lots of rain the forecast this week. And Daddy has been getting lots of overtime, which significantly reduces the amount of time he has for other things. But we've had some lovely park days, and that helps a lot.
We stayed right at home today for our nature study: we worked in the garden. Monkey went out with his Daddy first, and did some fixing on the deck while Daddy mowed the lawn. It was awesome enough to make me stop my own getting ready to outside to take a few pictures!
When I got out, the first thing we did was fill the small birdfeeder. The big one needs it too, but I decided that it needs to be washed before anymore birdfood goes in. The poor thing has gotten sort of nasty. But this one is still OK, and we miss having the birds by the deck, so we filled it right up. Monkey is getting to be able to do more and more of this by himself. It's so fun watching him become more independent!
Next, we turned our attention to the garden. After being out of town for most of the month of May, it was in sad shape. The weeds have been very happy while we were gone, and at first they were so big and so many that I had to do something about the ones growing in the path before I could seriously think about getting rid of the ones growing where I want to put my plants. This was a little disheartening, but we made a good start. Monkey and I quick went to the yardwaste site for some barkmulch, and then worked on killing weeds. There are a few good plants in there, mostly perennials that we put in last year & the year before, so Monkey got some good practice in distinguishing weeds from plants we want to keep as he was digging. He even pulled a few for me, which made me happy! While he was doing that, I knocked down the weeds in the path, covered up the old path with cardboard to keep those pesky weeds from coming back, and then covered the cardboard with the mulch. Monkey spread the mulch for me.
All that took about an hour, bringing us to lunchtime, and also using up all the energy I had. Hopefully tomorrow morning we can get a bit more done before the rain we're supposed to have for the next few days settles in on us. All that rain would be really wonderful for new plants!
Back in late March and early April, they were doing wildflowers at The Outdoor Hour and I was all excited about finding some of the early spring wildflowers that Barb was talking about. But in spite of several trips out looking for wildflowers, we never did find any. They're blooming now. I guess that Barb is considerably further south than we are. Also, I looked in some different places. We recently discovered a bike trail that leads right to our "big garden," avoiding nearly all of the traffic between here and there. As if that wasn't wonderful enough, it goes through the local tech collage grounds and they have some lovely grassy flowery stuff to ride through. Here are some of the things we saw on our most recent trip through our trail and to the big garden.
Tall grass with Queen Anne's Lace, or wild carrot.
Here's a close-up of the tiny blossoms that make up the flower head.
And this is the very striking flower bud.
Then there's this dainty little cluster, which I don't know the name of, though it's very common around here. Grows along the edges of all sorts of places.
And we've got some wild daisy-sunflower looking things. I haven't had a chance to look these up either, but it's on the agenda. Once I know what they're called, I can have a look at the Handbook of Nature Study and see if there's anything in there for any of our flowers.
Our new bike and trailer have been great for getting out there and finding the flowers. We would likely never have found the little nature spot at the Tech had we not had the bike. There's quite a bit to explore back there.
Already, I'm beginning to see how the awareness of nature is becoming a part of Monkey. When we got to the garden, I was tired, so we sat for a few minutes on the picnic table, and Monkey saw this feather underneath. It took several tries for him to communicate to me that there was something interesting under there that he wanted to show me, because when I looked I just didn't see it! But finally I found the tiny feather that had caught his interest, so we took a picture for his nature book.
One of the pleasures of the garden is the raspberry patch that is sort of a free-for-all patch. Monkey approves.
While we were there, Monkey showed me a cloud, so we took a picture for his book.
This cute little bunny told me something I've been wondering about.
Turns out the spot in my flower bed is a bunny-shaped spot. I'd thought I got those flowers moved out far enough that the roof shouldn't be pounded down by the rain.
The little blue flag that Monkey is hanging on to here marked the spot where the last people to pick in our row had stopped. So we started picking where the flag was, and when we were done we moved the flag to where we stopped. Simple, but effective.
Here are some more pictures of the trip to the berry farm.
Monkey tried out the chop sticks when we had raman noodles. I was pretty impressed with how he did!
This is chives from our garden. Our first harvest of the year!
These are bags that I'm making. They are works-in-progress, still needing handles & linings & such. Jessica, you should let me know which you like better.
