Aroma

Owen and Caedmon love little chicks.  Who doesn't?  Our most recent set included a bunch of yard chickens from a local hobby farmer, and the selection included some Araucanas, mixed Jersey Giants, and who knows what else.  Among the unidentified birds who were fated for the freezer and then the soup pot was Aroma, a little banty for whom Owen has a special place in his heart.  He likes to carry her around

and love her.  And, mostly, she tolerates all the attention she gets pretty well.  He has even taught her to perch ;o).  She was spared in the recent processing because she's Owen's special friend and because she wouldn't really be large enough to eat.

And just in case you are wondering, she smells about like the rest of our chickens - a little earthy and not at all bad.  

Caedmon's Birthday

Caedmon is two now.  He survived the candles and enjoyed multiple celebrations of the important milestone.  He can tell you he is TWO!

I made the same treats for the second year in a row, and now they are officially Caedmon's Birthday Muffins.


Caedmon's Pumpkin Muffins (GF and yummy!)
1 1/4 c. rice flour
1/4 c. corn starch
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/8 t. cloves
1/8 t. ginger
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. guar gum
2 eggs
1/2 c. butter, melted
1/4 c. milk
3/4 c. rapadura (unrefined sugar)
1 c. pumpkin

Mix dry ingredients.  Add wet ingredients, and mix well until no dry bits are left.  Spoon into 12 muffins cups.  Bake at 350 F for ~25 minutes.  Ice with cream cheese sweetened with maple syrup.


I also made him a set of - no, not tiny, graduated hats -

 felted stacking/sorting bowls using some stash left-overs (the purple possum did not felt-up).

Greenway

We've been taking a weekly, 5 mile walk along a section of the greenway in Murfreesboro with some other Mamas and children.  (We skipped this week as we were just getting over some colds.)  I can certainly tell a difference in Owen's stamina since our first walk a couple of months ago.  Every week we pass by a field with donkeys and Belted Galloway cattle, and on our last walk, the donkeys were close enough for some communion.

Abram and the boys took a walk along a different section over the weekend (while I stayed home and knitted and watched documentaries on Netflix - on the Dalia Lama, the Great Wall of China, and he canals of Venice - yes, that is what I do when I'm all alone :o).)  They saw a heron

and a turkey on their walk.  

We have enjoyed the greenway, and one day, Owen will be confident enough on his bike that we can start taking it along for him to ride while I walk with Caedmon on my back.

Unschool

Gardening (our poor, poor broccoli)

Gardening and fine motor skills (cutting)

(oh my, the cutting)

(and cutting)

(and cutting)

Physics (home-made parachute man)

(thank goddess for a tall set of stairs)

(It works!  Man is it hard to get a picture of a parachute dude in the hallway.)

Math (counting and patterns)

Snack (pomegranates are in season - yay!)

Physics (tower building from a moving rocker board)

Reading (Richard Scary)

Physics (What can these children not do on or with a rocker board?)

Art (drawing)

P.E. (tree climbing - wool hat . . . check, shoes and socks. . . nope)

(and fort building)

Biology (leaves)

Math (From the kitchen I hear, "Fourteen, seventeen, one, two, three, seven, eleven, fourteen."  I look in to find that Caedmon who is really into counting lately has found the Rook cards.  I. Can't. Wait.  Beverly, they are going to play Rook!)

Lean In A Little

This is what happens when you ask Owen and Caedmon to lean in close to each other.

Then this happens.

And then they're gone.

If Owen hadn't given himself a fancy yellow chin with face paint (better than the all-red face later in the week for sure), this might have been the Christmas photo for the grandparents.  As it is, they're pretty cute if I do say so myself.

Candy Fairy

Last year, Owen trick-or-treated for the first time.  We played candy fairy, and it worked quite well.
This year, we did it again.  After Owen had collected a bag of candy in Lauren and Steve's neighborhood, we let him have a couple of pieces that night and pick a few pieces to have after meals and the rest was left overnight for the candy fairy to collect.  In its place, he left a little Lego set which Owen put together before breakfast.

Eggs

A couple of weeks ago when we processed the chickens, Abram and I got to see firsthand developing egg yolks inside of a few chickens.  As in humans, they were inside the body cavity and ranged from ones that would likely have been laid that day (actually in the cloaca), progressively smaller to very tiny ones ones just a few millimeters across.  We brought them in for the boys to see and even added a few yolks to some scrambled eggs the next day.  They were encased in a really tough sac - maybe what becomes the inner lining of the egg when it has a shell?

Our garden spider who had been living outside the laundry door all summer is gone.  I checked on her Friday, and she was fine but was nowhere to be found Saturday, Sunday, or today.  In all she has left us 3 egg sacs full of thousands of tiny, baby spiders.  Hopefully a few will stay around here next spring just as a few of Charlotte's offspring stayed with Wilber.  

Unschool

Art (air dry clay work)

Art (colors)

Penmanship (with a feather and ink made from walnuts)

Creative Play (a donkey-pulled sleigh for a gnome)

(More) Creative Play and Sharing

Physical Science (fluid dynamics of corn starch and water)