Yesterday was a really good day. I got to see my dh in the morning and he talked to Jonah about his attitude with schoolwork. He's been giving me some attitude when I tell him it's time to do math or grammar. Well, Pat talking to him really helped.
The kids got all of their sit down stuff done by 9:30!!! I still can't figure out how this happened. I'm going to work on making this into a new schedule. I realize we won't be done that early every day, though. They do get up pretty early and I think we usually just waste the morning. Susanna doesn't get up until 9am usually and it made it so much easier to do school without her getting into everything.
They got math lessons, grammar, handwriting and Memory verses done.
Then animal chores. Then, we went on an awesome field trip to a Buffalo farm. They took us out into the herd in a pick-up truck. What amazing animals!
The big one is their bull-Big Jim. Their last bull got loose (during an ice storm-all their buffalo got loose, but the girls followed the feeder wagon back) and after 4 days of tracking and trying to catch him and her dh being charged, they finally had to use guns and kill him. His head is mounted in their living room. These are some dangerous animals-their electric fencing is over 15,ooo volts. They do not handle them at all and it's a good thing they are naturally disease resistant. I can't imagine having to do vet work or any care with them. She said that even with the voltage, if the buffalos aren't happy and well fed, they'll leave. They have 62 of them.
Our guide told us lots of interesting information along with some history. The kids asked her lots of good questions and I think the fact that we have beef cows helped with that.
They sell Buffalo meat and butcher the 2 yr old bulls. They have to go out in the field and shoot them and move them with a loader. These animals can't be loaded on a trailer. She told us about 1 buffalo that opened up the top of the trailer with it's horns like it was a tin can. Also, buffalos are not good with stress. She said they very easily die from heart attacks if they get stressed. Also, stress ruins the taste of the meat.
It really was amazing to see these animals up close.
She told us that there are 3500 wild buffalo in YellowStone National Park-they are direct descendants of the wild buffalos from the days when Indians hunted them for their food.
Ted Turner has 45,000 buffalo and has more land than anyone in the country to keep them, plus uses federal land to graze them. Apparently he has a chain of stores and the sole featured meat is buffalo.
We really enjoyed this field trip!
In the afternoon we did some Konos activities and some reading-aloud.
We also listened to more of To Kill a Mockingbird. It is 11 CDs long! We're on CD #6 and I tell you, this story is riveting! There is some questionable language that was common in the day that this story is set in. It has caused very good conversation amongst us about prejudice. This is a concept very foreign to Hannah & Jonah-they haven't been exposed to those kinds of sentiments.
We've also read Macbeth over the last few days and they really got the idea that crime doesn't pay and that Lady Macbeth didn't plan the perfect crime like she thought she had. The kids said there is no perfect crime-even if it doesn't get found out by people-because God knows and because guilt will make you feel awful. In Lady Macbeth's case, she killed herself.
Pat hasn't been home for dinner much this week and the kids were getting tired of sandwiches. So, I made crescent roll dough and pizza filling(browned beef, pizza sauce, oregano, garlic pwdr) with mozzerella and made pizza pockets. They were so yummy!
No comments:
Post a Comment