Yesterday was a really full busy day, but when I went to bed it looked like I had done nothing with the house. I'm sure I remember vacuuming and doing the dishes twice and Hannah folded laundry. But, there was the sink full of dishes and laundry on the table. I was too tired to deal with it last night, so they are this morning's chores.
Pat & Jonah went out in the woods to cut trees for awhile. At one point, I caught a flash of movement in the window. It was Jonah running from the barn with an axe. I yelled out and stopped him. It turned out that a tree didn't fall exactly the way Pat wanted it to and the chainsaw got pinched in the tree. I told Jonah that he was to walk with the axe or else we'd be dealing with an ER visit along with the pinched chainsaw.
I sent Hannah with him to make sure he walked and see if Daddy needed help.
Susanna & I went to the garden to clean out the raised beds. I only got 1 done. Susanna picked 2 zucchini-I thought I had pulled them all out, but there was one plant hiding with the cherry tomatoes. We also ate the last few green beans.
We came across another praying mantis-this one was a male. Susanna exclaimed and jumped and wanted it to sit in her hand in the worst way-but they kind of scare me, so I wouldn't let her.
A friend had given me more butternut squash, so I cooked all of those and later scooped out all the meat to make a "pumpkin" pie and 2 loaves of "pumpkin" bread.
The kids came back and I left Susanna with them so I could walk thru the woods to find Pat. The chainsaw wasn't damaged and noone was even close to being hurt, he says. I rode back with him on the 4-wheeler and we all had lunch together. He had to work in the evening, so I made dinner for lunch so we could have a meal together.
When he left, I got Susanna down for a nap and told the kids I was going to do to them what my mother always did to us. I was sending them outside to play for the rest of the day and they weren't allowed to come in. They kept asking to watch TV and with it being a beautiful day, that wasn't an option. I got the house cleaned up (again) and then went out with them to help them build a shelter out of sticks. It's not done yet, but when it is, I'll post a pic-it is really nice.
Then we went on a nature walk in our woods (Susanna still napping) and found so many great things! We took our Trees & Nonflowering Plants book from Reader's Digest for North American Wildlife. This book is awesome-so far we have been able to identify every single thing we've ever found. I really need one for flowering plants now.
Yesterday we found (and took pics, but it takes forever to upload pics to photobucket) chanterelle, witch's butter, bay gyromitra, pear-shaped puffball, crowned clavaria, artist's fungus and confusing peziza. These were all in the mushroom section.
I'm going to print out our pics and have the kids write the latin names and descriptions & habitat, etc and put them in protector sheets for our nature notebook. I am so excited about all our finds and also very excited that the kids kept taking the book from me to identify their own finds by themselves! I've always been in charge of the book and as pleased as I am that they wanted to do their own discovering, I found that it was hard for me to give it up-isn't that odd? They didn't know this-I gave them the book without hesitation-it was something I was feeling and thinking to myself. I was so excited about our new finds that I wanted to identify the specimens!! LOL. I guess, it's time to pass the baton and this is one of the goals-to let them learn independently and to love doing it.
We got back to the house, Susanna woke up and I made dinner with all the leftovers in the fridge. It was a very odd combo of foods we ate.
Hannah helped me work on the squash, Jonah stirred the pumpkin pie filling and Susanna got into as much flour as she could.
It was finally bedtime and Jonah wanted me to read Winnie the Pooh. The last time we read that book they were 4 and 6. I love this book-I love the whole collection. These books and also our big collection book of Beatrix Potter stories bring back cherished memories. They both still love these stories. I noticed something different though. When I read it to them at ages 4 and 6, they didn't laugh much, but loved the stories. I found myself laughing constantly-even at the introduction-just giggling uncontrollably. I love A.A. Milne's sense of humor, beautiful vocabulary and his way with words. I also love his poetry.
Well, last night as we read chapter 1, Hannah was giggling all thru it and Jonah laughed here and there, but he still mostly listened quietly. It was neat to see that Hannah was getting the humor now. I guess she's growing up, which is pretty obvious to others, but still hard for me to handle. She's almost as tall as me and has bigger feet!
I want to put down one of my favorite poems-it's at the end of the book, Now We are Six . I read this poem at both of the older kids' 6th birthday parties.
When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three,
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But, now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.
So, I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.
A.A. Milne
Every time I get to the last two lines, I cry--every single time. I could barely read those lines out loud at their birthday parties. I'm all teary-eyed right now even. I am so glad I'm going to get to read this poem out loud again when Susanna turns 6.
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