Apple in My Eye

Last week a co-worker of Dearest's invited us to pick apples at her farm.

Ooooooh. Apples. I love apples. Really. A lot. (((((drool)))))

I finally had an excuse to buy a fruit picker arm.


The drive there was lovely.

Once we were there an older guy was working on a tractor. He helped me at first as I got set up and got the hang of it. He thinks the apple tree is the variety Wealthy. Neat. Also, they are absolutely delicious.

They are organic by neglect. Appearantly no one even picks them. I don't understand. How can you not eat the glorious fruits if they are growing in your own back yard.

While I was picking, Lil'Bug got a hold of my camera. I have never let her touch it, somehow she not only got the hang of it but has excellent eye for composition. I'll do a separate post with her pictures.

I got the hand of the tool, but before that happened I was beaned in the head a couple times by falling fruit. No, I did not invent calculus later that day. I did however eat a lot of apples!

I brought home a bucket load. Wealthy are not good for storing so I will be making pies, pie filling, and apple butter.

Easy as Pie

My first from scratch, apples I picked, dough rolled by hand pie.

Good flavour. Things to note: I love hot right out of the oven pie BUT this pie needed to rest for 1 hour for the juices to distribute. 1 hour does not mean 39 minutes.

Pie dough wasn't rolled thin enough or else I should use more apples, about double what I used.

Local mamas: if you'd like to try a piece, we're home all day Friday! I'll be baking more pies. Lots more pies. Call me and come over!

Monday, Monday

Blah. I have the sniffles complete with sinus headache and scratchy throat.

I love Mondays lately. Despite my frustrating weekend, Monday leaves me with a clean house because Sunday morning we clean it as a family to prepare for Dearest to have band practice. Clean house is good. Usually I am also caught up with laundry because that's what Lil'Bug and I do while Dearest is playing music downstairs, but Blueberry was fussy last night and I still have about 5 clean loads to fold and put away.

Mondays are also free train rides for members at the zoo, wading pool park day, and a good day to go to the Historical museum (it used to be closed on Mondays so everyone thinks it still is).

With all of that available we will likely only go to the library today, clean out the car again, and try to buy an apple picking tool to prepare for our orchard trips. Very busy day.

Oh, and I'm going to attempt to make shortcake today.

Whew.

Serious Consideration

We have planned for many things. What we have not planned for is a long term educational plan if something were to happen to one or both of us. It is important to me that my children are cared for, respected, and allowed to learn joyously.

A couple things were churning in my brain as of late. One our our local moms was killed in a car accident this summer. I'd only met her once, but the incident stirred in me a sudden urgency to document our choices and discuss plans with each other and our family.

Until this summer the RU term has been lightly and quietly spoken. After all, MIL is a public school administrator and while our homeschooling "whim" has thus been tolerated, concerns over curriculum and socialization are already rising to the top of the brine.

So what is to follow is a series of posts on unschooling and how we have adapted it to our learning and lives. For me at this point in time it is not enough to have ring links in the sidebars.

Evie also sent a comment a while back wondering how we do it (RU), how it works for us. At the NBTS party I ranted and raved about how anything, (YES ANYTHING,) can be a unit study. No really, anything. Name it and I can get at least three "disciplines" to go with it naturally (not forced).

So, you've been warned. The posts are coming.