School

I think sometimes that as a homeschooling mama I forget the good things about public school. There are good things, not everyone can stay home with their kids and educate them, some families feel the need to have dual incomes. Not every family feels they are capable of home education, even though they probably are. Some families are abusive and the kids are better off away from them all day. There are plenty of needs that families have that are met by an education system that is collective and not run by parents.

I have met so many awful people who are teachers though. Horrible people, people who are mean to kids, people who hurt children, people who are control freaks and lash out at those minors under their care. Not to mention the absurdity of textbook data and group field trips where children are herded like cattle through things that might interest them.

And yet, many of the awesome moms I know were once elementary school teachers. A person in church cried last week because they were worried about their students and making a difference in their lives, genuinely moved because of their dedication to those children. My own life was touched in many positive ways by the good teachers I have had over the years and by the refuge from an abusive situation at home. Public school is not evil, though it may be flawed and corrupt in design, the people teaching are called to the profession and most love the children in their care.

As my thoughts were meandering a bit this morning, my heart settled on a particular problem I am having. There are social circles that I encounter parents who think homeschooling is a terrible injustice to my children, that homeschoolers are weird and their kids will be freaks, and some that think our decision is poorly thought out. This frustrates me. I don't immediately jump to those conclusions about public schooled families. Is every kid in PS a social butterfly with grace and wit? No. I certainly wasn't. Are there weird and quirky kids who get picked on and don't fit in? You bet. So all those worries about socialization? Yeah. Public school doesn't fix that and homeschooling doesn't cause that. I could cite academic statistics up and down the wall about achievement and success. It doesn't matter though.

What does matter is how my children and I are best suited for our educational choices and if someone decides to be snooty about it or demeaning it is on their heart and their issue not mine. Someday they might turn to me in need and I am not going to close doors to people just because of their ignorance. A fine example of this would be the grace extended to me years ago. I challenged some mamas about TV watching and video games on a homeschool list and instead of the firestorm that was likely by my negative attitude and disparaging comments...they walked gentle and simply educated and prodded me to think about my reasoning and what things might have led me there. They could have just closed the door.

Five years later I count these mamas in my circle of friends and admire them more and more with every encounter. I may not agree with them 100%, but the more I live this life the more I have to learn.

I find myself asking myself this dazzling grey morning, what losses have I incurred from closing doors on people? What loss from being locked out on the other side of that door? How much better would it be to simply stand firm and welcoming in my ideology to shine the light on ignorance or prejudice? I'm not saying it is better to never shut the door, sometimes it just needs to be slammed and barricaded and booby trapped to keep out evil but I think more thought should be put into that door and its traffic flow. You know?

Anyway, I was just thinking about this as I iron out my thoughts about how to better handle some of the negativity I am dealing with from a public school teacher at church. I wonder if I can better handle myself, not bristle so much when the negative comments are made. How can I set an example for my daughters that is graceful and patient both face to face and when I start fuming about it at home?

I'll let you know.

Good Start to the Day

More Things I didn't Expect to Be a Part of Our Farm Adventure

Worms. Worms are gross. Not the earthworms some people keep for kitchen compost or fishing worms.....no I mean gut worms, tape worms, round worms- worms in poop. No animal of mine has ever had worms.

Then we moved to a farm. The pigs had worms, three kinds. We took care of that and all was well. I never thought twice about the domestic animals though. I read that chickens can get worms, but I figured we deal with that in the Spring.

Then one of the dogs pooped in the house and was sick. As I was cleaning it up I noticed the noodles, um, worms. Great. The vet was surprised that I was surprised by this. It is apparently something all the farm folks know, farm dogs and cats need to be wormed 1-2 times every year. So on my great big list of things people should know who are considering farm or rural life: worms, get to know all about worms. Ew.

Then there are skunks. There are a couple seasons where the skunks are worse than usual, where you are more likely to encounter them with your vehicle for example. However, don't think that skunks only magically appear in April and September and hide the rest of the year. No no, they are always out there waiting to spray which ever animal you have decided can live in your home and sometimes they steal eggs and bees too or just generally muck up the normally heavenly smell of fresh farm air.

Add to the list of critters you'll have to deal with as a threat to your own livestock and/or kids and family: coyotes, opossums, raccoons, snakes, rats, owls, weasels, muskrats, foxes, skunks, neighbor dogs, feral cats, deer, bob cats, reckless hunters, mink, hawks, moles, loose cattle/bulls, mice, spiders, ticks, lions, tigers, and bears oh my. Oh and poachers/tresspassers/reckless drivers. Just saying. It is not all fantasy land safe to let the kids run around outside, there are different things to worry about, but things to worry about none the less.

Poop. Farm life is all about poop. You or I can romanticize it plenty and talk about bacon and apples and honey and fresh milk- but really my life right now is about 80% poop. Cleaning out the chicken coup- poop. Pig poop. Cow pies. Identifying predator poop outside the chicken pen. Septic problems/ maintenance, worms in poop, watershed concerns, manure for garden fertilization, horse apples, diapers (ok, that's just because Blueberry is potty training but not yet there and not just because we live on a farm), ect. It just seems like I am constantly scraping poo off my boot. Like I am just surrounded by a bog of poop. I have even learned to tell the subtle difference in the scent of each critters poo- so I KNOW what I have stepped in or which way the wind is coming from. Not all the smells out here are woodsy pine or fresh cut hay. Alas.

Utilities are ruthless. Not that I have ever been late, but there is no grace period. If you are late with a payment, and they are up front about this, your utilities get shut off. In the city, you have a month of grace and can work something out if something comes up. Not out here. That applies to water, electricity, Internet, and propane. I have to read my own water meter which is 1/2 a mile away from my house and then calculate my own payment from a confusing chart. Also, utilities are more expensive by unit here, though we use less than we did in the city so they are lower payments for us compared to what we are still paying in Des Moines for the house that won't sell.

Gas is more expensive than in the city. In Des Moines right now gas per gallon is about $2.36 but in the nearest town to us it is $2.56.

Trash. Burn it or haul it. Disposable diapers and the like do not burn. It is a good thing we use cloth. You know what though, much of what we throw in the garbage doesn't burn either so we have to haul it and the dump is 45 minutes away. $10 per truckload though.

Tires. We have had more flat tires here than in the city and tires made for gravel and dirt roads are more expensive. Tractor tires go flat too. A lot.

4 wheel drive. Required. Often. Sometimes it is not enough.

I am sure there is more. I know that as we were getting ready to move out here I asked people to share these kinds of tidbits with me and none of these things except the flat tire issue came up. None of these would have deterred me though. I would have just liked to know.

Foggy Day, Foggy Mind

   

Our days have been icy and foggy. We had a hoar frost and I missed photographing it. We had everything coated with an inch of ice and I missed photographing it. So, today when the fog rolled in so thick that Lil'Bug thought we were in the clouds of heaven I ran out to try and snap a memento. Fog, however is a tricky subject to capture. I did my best. I think I prefer my view from the inside.

 My mind lately has been full of ideas and regrets and contemplation. I've tried to meditate to slow things down a bit and gain some clarity, tried to talk things out with friends to process and sieve, but to no avail. Then we had no Internet for a week. My fault entirely- I used up ALL of our allotted whatevers watching BBC comedies, in their entire runs (you know, like 6 seasons.....). We'll be back up soon. Until then I have used the free wifi at the local Pizza Hut parking lot, a local coffee shop, some random person's unsecured signal in Sherman Hill....ugh.  

Being without Internet has brought me to the conclusion that I waste a lot of time on the Internet. Not in quantity but rather in how it breaks up my day and steals from my creativity. If I need a recipe, I just look one up. Music, just turn on Pandora. Need a contact? Just google the yellow pages? A question answered, again just google it. In some ways this should free up my day to do other things, time saved would be put to good use, right?  But instead it allows my easily distracted brain and thought pattern to wander online, check emails, update facebook, pause longingly at blogspot feeling guilty about not updating my blog.......start another draft to add to the 45 drafts I have lingering there, IM with Aunt Bee for a while......look up a book on Amazon that I can't justify spending the money on......look up bank account status to verify that......and suddenly 2 hours are lost and the dishes have piled up and the girls are fighting and dinner needs to be made and maybe the pipes have frozen.

I am tired of winter. I am tired of being sore and cold. I am tired of ice, freezing pipes, propane bills, shoveling snow at the house in DM and getting fined anyway. I am sick of  car problems and furnace problems and everything else that has gone wrong this winter. I want and need sunshine. I dreamed of warm sun shine on my skin last night. Soaking in the vitamin D. Eating spinach and strawberries and Reichart's Dairy-air feta cheese.

Maybe I am just getting older.

So....all of the frozen-ness has got me out there with a mental ice chipper trying to break free. I have a couple things that I have decided to actually complete before moving on- like my novel that is a couple chapters short and the submission folder in my office drawer will get returned as requested. I have a couple of volunteers to read and edit and the feedback has already been amazingly helpful. I really feel like I need to get these things done and out of the drawer to be able to move on.

So this week has actually been really good even if we are just now cutting through the fog and breaking ice dams.

 

Oh and also here are some random pictures from our week for Grandpa who is starting his new job really far away!

 

Blueberry loves to help me cook and to steal my tea. 

We had a chicken get locked out of the hen house, actually maybe two or three did, but I found this one and brought her in. I thought she was frozen and dead and then she blinked at me. She stayed in for a couple days and the girls cared for her and then brought her back out. The other two were attacked by dogs and killed. I am really sad about one of them, as it was Rainbow, one of the gentler Americauna hens.