Monthly Archives: April 2008

The Montessori child at home

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A child who is being trained in the Montessori system should also, as soon as it is at all possible, beging to share in the work of the household. If he is provided with a small broom and dustpan there is no reason why he should not keep his room fresh and clean and also clean up the litter of paper or dirt which he makes in the course of the day.

Pains should be taken to allow even the very little child to watch from a comfortable position any household operation in which he shows an interest. Fortunate indeed the child whose mother still cooks and sews and bakes and washes and allows her children to aid in these processes. Such children receive Montessori training without any formal apparatus.

-Dorothy Canfield Fisher 1913

Piano Recital

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This one is for the grandma’s. : ) The children had their piano recital Friday evening. Tess wasn’t feeling well so I wasn’t able to stay and listen. One of Asher’s friends recorded all three of them so we could enjoy it at home. The video is done on a regular camera and the lights are quite low, hence Asher looks a bit like the headless pianist in places.

Asher –

Alannah –

Moira –

More on the Family Closet and kid organization.

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We chatted about family closets some time back. I was sending links to a friend yesterday and found this one. She includes many photos of individual shelving units and floorplans. Notice in particular her use of clip art to help children sort and find their clothes.

Picture labels work well no matter where the clothes are stored. It is also a great idea for toy bins. You can find bin labels here. This blogger made photo labels for those ever-so-wonderful canvas bins. (I want some!)

Now, know you will need a little time for this next link. Ohdeedoh held a Now You See It, Now You Don’t contest to highlight the best ideas for children’s toy and clothes storage. I love the custom labels in this closet.

I am thinking more and more these days about the common thread in many dear friends essays about organization. Ultimately this is a stewardship issue. I was reading Meg Lund’s article about Knowing and Respecting Our Stuff. She makes some compelling points. If we make a sweater for instance, we spend time selecting yarn and patterns. We spend even more time crafting it. If a hole should appear we would immediately grab a darning needle and repair it so as not to see all our hard work lost. She contrasts this with our vast pile of throwaway possessions, some of which we are relieved to see broken so we have an excuse to rid ourselves of them.

The truth is we can only properly store and care for a limited number of things. This concept is a challenge for me. In a thrifty household we rarely spend a great deal on any one item. If clothing wears out we don’t sweat it. Apparently we don’t sweat it when toys and school manipulatives wear out either, judging by the deep cleaning done this week. : / It occurred to me that we have passed on a bit of a throwaway mentality to the children. There is only so much they can be expected to revere. We should have limited our stuff to just that type of item. Otherwise it is hard to instill in them the proper appreciation necessary to be good stewards.

I haven’t worked out all the answers by any stretch. I have decided I want to be very selective with what is presented in the school room. I will only make homemade school supplies that are of high quality. Otherwise I will purchase or go without. With clothing, we continue to pare down to a few nice outfits which can be easily stored in the available space. If we exceed that space it breeds poor stewardship – read: cramming. Right now, laundry has been very feasible. Hopefully, similar culling in the school room and craft areas will make those spaces as manageable.

Enough random thoughts for one day. Thank you to all the very sweet ladies who sent birthday wishes! I admit this one was not high on my list. 40 was at least a milestone. 41 is just, well, older than 40 lol!

Oh where oh where….

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Have I been? Under the weather. By way of quick update all of our does have kidded over the past week. We had twins on Wed, triplets (!) on Thursday, and a single on Friday. Whew! What a week. They are all up and outside, bouncing around like they do.

Allen and Moira ran a 10 and 5k respectively on Saturday morning. Moira came in 3rd for her age group and Allen was first for his! They were both pleased. It was an especially good morale boost for Moira since it was only her second race.

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We took the crazy cow to the auction this weekend. Nothing seemed to work with her. She has gone under, over and through everything we have attempted to contain her inside. I share this so you know that homestead projects don’t always go as planned. You prepare, you follow directions, you seek advice from oldtimers. And sometimes they tell you, “Some are like that. Sell her.” So we did. We kept the bull calf. He has been a sweetie since the day he arrived. We are hoping he remains so. If not, we know the way to the auction. This is all about trial and error. You win some and you lose some. It is a great life. It is not one of ease though.

Otherwise, we are working on finishing up some deep cleaning projects which are never a once and for all event, are they? I have some new fabric here I would like to make up into a skirt for Tess. All the preschool stuff needs to be reboxed and moved around to marry the craft area with the rest of the school room.

Sooo, it’s all that. : ) All that and a bout of bronchitis that has set in and not let go. But, it can’t last forever right? I am hanging onto that light at the end of the tunnel. And yes, I know what they say about those…

Snow babies

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It looks like this outside:

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And it seems nothing says “Lets have a baby!” to our Sapphire like a spring storm. Last year she delivered during the big power outage and we were maneuvering with flashlights and bottled water. This time was pretty uneventful so far. (Agh. Did I actually just tempt fate that way?) She produced a buck and a doe in record time. Both were up and nursing right quick. Moira tells me they are Daisy and Dandelion – this year botany is the theme. : )

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Pearl kidded a large single buckling on Friday. I have yet to get the pics of Basil. He is doing very well too. I love springtime babies. : )

Homesteading in the News

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We were recently interviewed by a local paper. I hadn’t linked since I assumed this was a local “thing” but then I got a call from a woman in Oregon yesterday. Apparently it went out into the world a fair ways! The article is here.

The very nice woman wanted to pick my brain about income potential on the farm. At the moment I know more about feeding very cute, but not very fiscally advantageous, critters. I know about husbands who are working ridiculous hours and trying to squeeze fencing and farm chores into their spare moments. I don’t know so much about wildly successfull fulltime homestead ventures. I did get a great article from my friend Barb today, however, showing that there ARE folks out there making a profit in unexpected ways. Think a one acre rented garden plot. Think your backyard, minus sod. Think $56,000 gross income for one enterprising gentleman. I kid you not. It’s called Spinfarming and it is a variation of the intensive, square foot gardening concept.

While you are thinking of these farmers say a prayer for the Colorado ranchers battling grass fires tonight. As the sun set over the Peak tonight all we could see was a wall of red haze. Over a thousand acres have burned so far and they will likely be at this a while. Folks are being evacuated in more than one area.