Tuesday was a very long day-but only because it started out so early. We had the biggest thunder & lightening storm in the middle of the night that I have ever seen. It actually scared me. I went back to sleep, but then woke up from a nightmare about ants in my pantry-LOL.
Couldn't get to sleep, so I got up and went downstairs and then thought I heard coyotes yipping down by the cow pasture. It wasn't, thank goodness. The horses aren't with the mama cow & calf right now, so I am a little nervous about the calf, especially since he's been getting out of the pasture.
Since I was up so early, I spent some time on the computer trying to find cow print flannel.
We had a fun school day today. Got our seatwork done early and then the kids went swimming for awhile. Susanna played in her sandbox and I did some sewing.
Hannah came in to talk to me for a bit. She was telling me she thinks she wants to work in a bakery as a cake decorator and then when she has kids she could have a little business doing that at home. I was so thrilled to hear her say that! I told her she could start learning how to be a cake decorator right now. We talked about kitchen design, counter space, cake mixes, frosting recipes. I have a lot of counter space, so was telling her how she could have things cooling in one area while working in another. She said she would love it if Daddy built her some shelves outside on the back porch. I didn't understand why, so she said that they could cool outside. I mentioned bugs landing on her pies, etc and she said, "well, Mrs. Engles just puts towels on them. " LOL
She often "lives" in Little House land-just like me.
Anyway, my MIL used to do quite a bit of cake decorating, so she is going to get Hannah started next week with frosting bundt cakes and making frosting flowers, etc.
We'l get some books out about it, too.
She made a recipe out of one of her cookbooks yesterday and it was awful. I knew it would be just looking at the recipe, but I thought it would be good for her to learn that herself. The bottom was grape-nuts, then a layer of sliced bananas, then spread with heated up blueberry filling. It was so nasty and the grapenuts got soggy. Jonah was quite truthful in his opinion of this dessert, while Pat & I said it was alright. Hannah agreed with Jonah and really had a good attitude about it. I told her part of learning to cook & bake is making flops and then I told her some of my major flops, which they thought was funny.
Besides that, we also learned more about Japan. We read a book called A Carp for Kimiko by Virginia Knoll. It was about 2 Japanese holidays for kids-Dolls Day (for girls) and Boy's Day (now called Children's day).
For Doll's Day in Japan, they take out their really fancy Geisha dolls and set them up. They're not played with and only come out once/year. So, Hannah set up her dolls and we made orange blossom baskets-baskets made our of oranges with jello & mandarin oranges inside.
We also did Boy's Day. In the book Kimiko wants a carp kite of her own for Boy's day, but her father says no because it's only for boys due to tradition. The question from them was, "well, why did they have to do it exactly according to tradition?" So, we had a conversation about tradition & culture.
Kimiko was given a real carp the morning after boy's day and she was very happy, so we talked about how kind her parents were to try and make her happy on boy's day. Her mother really was very sweet & patient-a good example for me.
Here's their carp kites:
They turned out beautiful! You can't see it in the pic, but they glued sequins to both sides, too. In Japan, they put a carp kite for each child on a pole in their courtyard. They say carp, but in the book, they really looked more like large goldfish.
The kids learned Japanese words for grandmother (ohbahsan), grandfather(ohgeesan), father(ohtohsan), mother(ohkasan), brother(moosookoh) and sister(moosoomay).
While looking for boxes for the doll display, Jonah found a box with Chinese or Japanese characters on it. So, they decided to copy all the characters and did a very nice job. I have planned on them doing actual Japanese characters, but we haven't gotten to that yet.
After all that, they went back outside to swim and I got Susanna down for a nap.
My friend Chris and her 2 boys then pulled in the driveway. The kids all played together while she & I visited. It was fun! Pat got home from work early which is always a pleasant surprise. We worked on the solar-electric panel for the big pasture to hopefully make it stronger so the calf stops jumping thru the wires. It's high tensile wire, 5 strands already.
Pat hung up a new feeder for the chickens and I put new bedding in there and sprinkled DE on the roosts & floor.
The roosters are starting to get more aggressive. There are 2 that are marked to be butchered first-they are obnoxious. I am a little nervous about butchering day. We've never done it before. Pat's not concerned, but I think it will be hard for me. Well, that was our Tuesday.
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