Posts Tagged ‘science’

A Surprise Visitor

Friday, September 25th, 2009
hawk2

The wonders of nature are sometimes just outside your window...

Today it was such a joy to be reminded of important things in my life: staying home with my boys, living out in the country and homeschooling them. I’ve learned a lot through their eyes . . .
This morning right before they got started with Math my youngest was looking out the front window by his desk and said – “Mom, look at this owl”.  A brief Science lesson entailed checking out his “Owl”. Which turned out to  be a gorgeous hawk sitting on an upturned raised garden bed frame just outside the living room window.
Now, if he/she was in the back yard we would have had to really jump into loud action and get it away from the chickens . . . but here in the front we were able to observe his great beauty and grand stature. He turned his head completely around to look back at us. Probably thought those things in the shiny cage were rather strange. When the boys were very small we went to Wild Wednesdays in Kenton County and learned about these hawks but we had never seen one close up in our own yard before.
My camera didn’t do justice to him and the glare from the window makes it worse, but we’ve included a picture of our lovely visitor for you to enjoy too -

Marilyn, the Goat Woman

It could only happen to me

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

It could only happen to me…

The day started out on prescribed schedule: feed/water animals, milk, feed/water boys, do devotions, start school. School had been moved to the office where I sat labeling product for my show this weekend. Sam was in the midst of Language Arts. So far so good. Nathan had gone once to water the white turkeys and broilers. I sent him out again to open the back of the greenhouse for the broilers – I thought I hadn’t done that. Well . . . this is where the “it could only happen to me” day gets really going . . . .

He came running in and told me that the weasel that’s been coming every other day and taking a chicken or two out of the hay barn was after a turkey . . . OK, how’s the turkey??? Nathan claims that he hit the weasel with a machete! Now the machete is for the tall weeds that we can’t get with the scythe or the mower . . . I never knew that a person should have one handy for a weasel. He said he dealt it a mortal wound and it fled down the hill.

Back to the turkey . . . not going to make it Nathan said and was asking for permission to put it out of it’s misery (if it lasted that long). Well, here goes science class is all I could think. . . We went back in time and well, Nathan used the chopping block efficiently as good as his hero Almonzo or “his” father-in-law Charles Ingalls ever would have. So I guess that was history. Then we skinned it and my sink is full of chilling turkey. . . Cooking class???  I’m glad they’d already done their math – I’m not sure how I could have remotely  have thought that  could have been included as school completed. LOL.

I bet changes in schedule like that never happen to you!!! And I was planning on doing 7 more sets of goat hooves today – I think not!