The Shepherd Life

So last year I was somewhat regularly blogging about the goings on here at the homestead.

You may recall that I left the "social scene" on facebook nearly a year & a half ago, I do have a page now but no friends waaawaaa and its mainly to keep track of homeschool activities, curriculum etc.. After awhile I decided to start a blog to keep family current on things that I would typically have put on facebook. So I decided to join up with godaddy and wordpress and I don't even know what ever else attempting to "own" my blog. I managed this at what I thought was a reasonable price until my subscription renewed a year later hahahhahahahh *crazy laugh* that price was not so reasonable anymore so I shut the whole thing down.

Now that summer is winding down a bit and I actually find myself with a little free time I thought I would give er a try again.

So here's the run down.

Bernie - still sous chefing it up at Bonges and the man around the house...although looking out the window I think he's a little behind on our firewood stash for winter ;-) He hates this weather, with every fiber of his being, if its above 80 degrees he turns into a hobbit er something. Tomorrow he gets the pleasure of putting a new alternator into his truck, lucky him! By the way, if anyone wants our subaru please come haul it out of driveway, I'm tired of trimming around it.

Anyone friends with Bernie on facebook is probably well aware of his support for Gary Johnson in the upcoming election :) Speaking of election, does anyone know how glad I am to NOT be on facebook right now??? its the best thing ever!

Bernie....what else. He's sporting a bit of a mohawk these days, not quite Magua level but a mohawk none the less. He does yoga daily in an effort to heal his back. He still wants to move to the middle of no where and live off the land....preferably the U.P., he was just reminding me this morning how temperate it is up there right now. :-/ and of course I always think of how frozen and cold it is there in ....May. He's catching up on the latest season of Elementary. I don't think he's reading anything since you know, its not his time to yearly read The Lord of the Rings. :)

He is dying to go to the state fair, I don't know why. He hates, no he abhors this weather but he wants to go walk around in it with thousands of other people. On the topic of the fair, I plan to sign Eva up for 4H next spring, we've already discussed some of things she could do....she of course, wants to show horses.

Homeschool - we started "school" a few weeks ago. Currently we're working on All About Reading and Right Start Math. I'm more happy with these two programs than I have been with anything else we've done. They both include a lot of activities in each lesson which is good for Eva's short attention span. Right Start Math is Montessori style so she's using a lot of manipulative and an abacus.

She joined her first co-op last year, which went well but we're thinking we might opt to join American Heritage Girls this year instead of co-op. I think that activity will be better suited for Eva, it will be more fun and not time spent in classes that we don't really need at this point.

She's learning a French word each day and a Greek/Latin root word each week. We're also working through Charlotte Mason's Elementary Geography and Longs Home Geography for primary grades. I've enjoyed those two especially, she's learning things I never learned in school.

We're still following the Year 1 curriculum through Ambelside Online but we're putting off the literature & such until fall. I started Eva early in Y1 despite many AO moms telling me to wait because it gets intense in a couple of years - the older the better. So instead of waiting we're spreading it out, I plan to wrap up Y1 in either the spring or late summer of 2017. No need to rush.

This fall we will start working out of The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock. We will start with birds, specifically the chickens :) Even though we've done bird study before, this will surely be more thorough.

I started off in July having a daily ukulele lesson but Eva complains about the uke not being comfortable so I'm going to try stringing it for a lefty and see if that helps...so uke lessons are on hold until I actually get around to doing that.

Eva - still horse crazy. Is currently enjoying Batman, Rescue Bots and Kipper on her kindle...weird combo I know. She recently discovered the people er bi-ped?? version of my little pony that she was pretty excited about for a while there.

She refuses to eat almost all meat but ate nearly an entire bag of broccoli today. She's missing her two front, top teeth. She has refused to wear shorts all summer, so shes been wearing sundresses everywhere for months....I'm so tired of seeing her in the same 5-6 dresses all-of-the-time! :)

She really wants a fish tank and is currently saving her allowance for it.

We're currently reading Pinocchio & Marie-Grace, Americal Girl book....I personally liked Kit better than Marie ;) Prior to that we read Island of the Blue Dolphin which we both really liked. I think we might stick to the American Girl Series for a little while, I like how the historical characters also teach Eva about significant events in history. For instance Kit was set during the Great Depression.

Eva loves to sing and isn't really shy about it, I think she can hold a decent tune so I'm thinking voice lessons might be something to look into someday.

This fall Eva's gets to take horse riding lessons, she's very excited. A gal Bernie works with is offering them for free so mom & dad are really excited about that. Also this will be our opportunity to get that kid into jeans for the first time in .... 3 years? We also need to get her some roper boots, she'll be so cute. She came home from goodwill with a flannel shirt this week, she was so excited she wore it outside to swing in 85 degree weather lol She might be our kid after all :) and last but not least she's currently listening to Christmas Music on her CD player.

Home - Hank has discovered he can jump a short section of the fence...although I think he catches his "dog parts" when he does because anytime I'm around and he jumps the fence it's always accompanied by a short yelp. Andy is getting old, I think he might be a little senile. I've started giving him rescue remedy to mellow him out because he always seems so stressed and he wakes me up at night pacing on the hardwood floors....(a crazy face emoji would be appropriate here).

I have every intention of building more raised beds this fall despite anything you may have heard from my husband. The raised beds have done so well that I'm convinced they are far superior to the in-ground garden...in our yard at least. When ever we own "real" farm land I'll go back to in-ground row planting. Chickens are good, still pulling their weight in eggs :) Currently we have roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucs coming and volunteer gourds. We also have a giant pumpkin plant growing out of our compost, up into the neighboring hackberry "weed" growing next to the house and almost into our second floor bathroom window.

Sometime very soon I hope to be power washing the green funk off of our entire house.

Tuesday we have an insurance adjuster coming out to look at hail damage on our roof & gutters....keep your fingers crossed / prayers prayed for a new roof & gutters!

In a couple of weeks we will start demo-ing the east wall of our garage that I discovered this past spring, is non-existent. At first I though it was a water problem from the foundation but upon closer inspection Bernie discovered it was termites, probably a long time ago. Seriously, there's nothing left of this wall, how the bathroom up stairs hasn't fallen into the garage isn't a bit of a mystery. So we're all looking forward to that....

Me - Still drafting 1/2 days. I discovered Librivox last fall, its awesome! I like to listen to public domain books while I work. I recently wrapped up the Odyssey & Girl of the Limberlost (I'm a new fan of Gene Stratton Porter). I watched all but the last season of Downton Abby last fall, finishing up with the last season here recently. I tried reading Swiss Family Robinson but ugh...it just got too repetitive for me. I tried reading the Odyssey but that was hard so listening went much better. I then started reading Hiawatha & Last of the Mohicans but LofM won out, I'm still working on it....its one of my favs. I'll pick up with Hiawatha after that.

I'm currently watching The National Parks, America's Best Idea, its been a very interesting series. I can relate to the naturalists like John Muir and their love for God's awesome handiwork. I don't think it quackery at all to think that one can find peace and even healing just getting away from this crazy manic world and being surrounded by nature the way God made it. To think that they felt this way 100 years ago can you imagine what they would think of our uber fast speed, hyper connected society we live in today? Its a sketchy history, no doubt but I can't help but think that there may have been a higher power at work in the end result. Had it not gone about the way it did, I don't believe man by himself could have accomplished such a feat let alone kept it for a century. Its a tricky subject for a libertarian thats for sure lol

I might be a little obsessed with the Hudson River Valley painters, Albert Bierstadt & Thomas Cole.

And I recently discovered Oliver Kemp not a HRV but still love his work. Given the opportunity I would have their artwork everywhere if only I were a millionaire :)

Spring & Summer 2016 Eva Pics