Last Fire

Although I love spring, I am always sad to see the end of buring season come. I love the smell all over the area of woodsmoke as we and our neighbors burn the deadfall from the winter storms.

Spiraling Around Fairies

Spirals are so wonderful and organic and somehow cozy and scary all at once.

I have always loved the educational notion of a spiral of learning as opposed to a linear progression. After all, isn't that how we learn in real life? I love the image of swirling around ideas and falling into them as one falls into a whirlpool, reaching deeper and deeper (maybe even scary) levels of understanding.

One thing that we have revisited over and over is the Spiderwick series of books. They are captivating, and as they captured the imaginations of Ella and then one friend and then another and another, or then she was given a field guide, the interest would be rekindled.

I remember feeling that way about gnomes. I still have the Gnome Gnotebook that Meg's mom gave me when I was about Ella's age.

Now that Spiderwick is going to be a movie, we did the books with our Coastal Free Learners homeschool group. We also found out it is going to be a game and I am so excited! It 's going to be very fun! There is so much information about the books on the internet, along with games and downloads, etc. What is so wonderful about these books is that the kids seem to take them so seriously, and really feel connected to the Grace children and the invisible world all around us.

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We had a blast today making Sprite outfits. It was so fun to hear the children earnestly discussing the merits of leaving milk out for Brownies, and whether or not fairies liked fairy houses or felt that they were some sign from us that we thought them incapable of housing themselves. Ella has researched the authors, their influences and even their pets (pugs, of course!). Even the boys had fun drawing and making the Sprites have warrior helmets on their head..

Night Time Sledding

One of the things I love about homeschooling is the freedom to do things at different times. Like sled late on a Wednesday night.

We were hanging out with the dogs (Joy for some reason is all thrown off by the snow and can't just do her usual quick business), and the small rise behind our house had become a slippery frozen slide.

Oh so very fun!

Let it Snow

Yippee!! It finally snowed here! I have been so jealous of our nearby neighbors who have gotten snow. That darn sea breeze keeps much of the snow away, but we are getting slammed today! Ella loves the snow. At the first sign, she is always out there making, if not snow men, snow slugs.
Happy snow-baby *g*. Plus, any decrease in sunlight is a "wicked good" excuse to turn on the Christmas lights.
Declan, on the other hand, was quite content to eat butterscotch oatmeal cookies and pulled a chair up by the window to watch the action. If you look closely, you can see Milo waiting for some dropping crumbs.
Then, stood by the deck door to kind of get in on the action. Ella threw snowballs at his face as he stood there laughing hysterically. It was great. he did go out, but well, the snow has never been so much to his taste.
Evidence of the sister trying to massacre her brother, I mean, the deck door.

Gobbling Up the Last of the Sunny Fall Days

We went on the Cape Cod Rail Trail today. It was a beautiful morning for a ride. You can see in the path there is quite an leaving of bits and pieces from the trees, but it was not too bumpy for riding.

We all rode three miles (round trip). It was about as far as Declan can do right now, and it was kind of complicated riding. There were more people out there than I thought! I guess lot of people are feeling like they need to have as much outside as possible right now.

It was cold enough to have to wear gloves, but we all just had long sleeved shirts and felt fine.

After, Ella had a craving for Wendy's and since we rarely rarely eat fast food, we stopped for some chicken nuggets. We decided not to do that again as the wicked fast food chemicals began to override the good endorphin flow we were feeling. We had to stop at a park on the way home and get more endorphins flowing.

Ella wants me to show her a math workbook this afternoon. She asked to do it! I'll keep you posted on how that turns out.

Aftermath of the high winds

When this branch (we are calling it "the stick") fell on our house, I was sitting right in front of that middle window. Our lovely sturdy house barely shook.

Tom and Jenny were with us when it happened, and we all tried to down play it as the kids were freaked out enough as it was.
Tree yoga.
These groovy little pumpkins stayed right on the porch all during the storm.

It seems that we were the beneficiaries of Mother Nature's latest extreme winds. In Barnstable, they were 89 miles per hour. And you could tell! We finally have phone/internet/cable again, and our power came on yesterday morning.

On a positive, I was able to get my word count on NaNoWriMo up to over 6600 yesterday without the distractions.

Was that a hurricaine?!?!

I'll post pictures later. I am using the lap top, as the computers are not back up yet. We were really hit with some serious winds last night. A tree branch about 12 feet long hit our house right in between the windows. What a near miss!!

The power is back on, but not the phone or the cable. I wonder how my mom is doing right on the water! There must be a cell tower out, since our cell phones aren't working. but we'll take a drive later to view the damage and to make some calls.

We had a lovely chili dinner last night (I had cooked all morning so there was food ready while I am NaNoWriMo-ing (is that a verb lol). Tom and Jenny braved the walk through the yards to joins us.

All is well and the sun is out.

Visiting Chloe

This is a place in Dover, New York called the Stone Church . It is really beautiful, and you should link to the site if you really want good pictures. Declan and Harry, Chloe's son, are both five and they played so well together.

Although Declan was a little tired at the start, after we got in the shade, we basically chased Harry and Declan to the stone church.

This is the view at sunset from Chloe's backyard. She was such a wonderful hostess and it was so good of her to have us come and stay. I am sure it isn't easy having me, my mom (the rabid Red Sox fan) and the kids come and stay in your home, but she was very nice about it.

It is so nice for my mom to have this continuing link to Lila, as it is just about a year since she passed away. It is one thing to lose a person, but to lose all connection to her family would be just too hard. Chloe has really been a wonderful bridge to make us still feel some kind of connection to her still, as I hope we are for her.

We were all talking about how much Lila would have loved seeing Chloe there, but would have wanted to make sure that the people she works for are treating her well.

This picture typifies the whole trip. Declan and Harry ran ahead of us pretty much the whole three days. I think Declan is still tired from it.

This is one of the vistas from Chloe's work. Her family seems very contented and happy there in this beautiful setting and great part of the country.

Ella said most of it was like a fairy garden, since there were little stone steps and big ferns and babbling brooks. It was so clean, Ella could walk barefoot through the woods, which was really fairy-like.


Oh, there is so much to write about, and life just keeps flowing on! I am trying to get to everything!

Cape Wildlife Part Two

Oh. My. God.

So after yesterday's post, we were sitting having lunch and looking at the very green backyard. It has been raining here, much much needed, and so everything looked just lovely and fallish.

Then, streaking across the lawn I see our cat, Ozzie, chasing a white cotton tail.

A very small, and fast, white cottontail. It looked just like this picture.

So, before I even open the door to the back, I am screaming like a mental case. Screaming and banging stuff.

Both the cat and bunny freeze, but where is the bunny? I know it has frozen, since it isn't moving, but I am left to wonder, Is it UNDER the killer cat?!?!?

Now, I am the one streaking across the backyard...well, not streaking exactly, but running, and yes in my pjs. As I reach the cat, he just lounges, as if killing sprees of baby bunnies is really nothing at all to get so worked up about. Lolls, really, the big brute, for a scratch or something.

I scoop him up in my armpit. I can't look at him. He must go INSIDE. FOREVER. NOW.

By then my kids are involved and although I don't relish the idea of them coming with me to discover the bloody corpse, I think the bunny is just in a panicked faint as bunnies can do. Of course, the woman at the Cape Wildlife Center had told me how bunnies just drop dead unless you approach them with a "yoga-like calm".

Hmmmmm.....I really really really tried.

And I tried to remember if I could touch it with my hands. Stories of mange, rabies, and other various common human mistakes were racing through my head.

It wasn't moving. Its eyes were open, and it seemed to be breathing, but there was a big smear of blood on its little cheek.

I called Cape Wildlife. They told me *not* to touch it, and wrap it in a blanket or towel and bring it in.

All the while, I am looking where it is sitting thinking, Get up and hop away. Get up and hippidy hoppidy along now. Go on. HOP!! HOP!! HIPPIDY!!!

So, out we go again and bring a shoe box and a towel. It is very still. I kinda poke it and it moves a little, so we try to scoop it up.

And it stirs. It hips. And then, it HOPS! It scampered off just like a little bunny should.

Hooray!!!

Nature lives another day.

Now, I am off to buy some cat toys for my indoor cat.

Stereotypical?

We found a teeny pumpkin for the fairies, and Ella made this ladder.

Ella's grandma gave her this. It is actually a Christmas ornament.

Somehow, I feel that this project was stereotypically homeschool-y.



Ella loves the Magic Cabin catalogue (well, who doesn't?).



She decided to make a fairy house like the ones that they have there. She has an old tree in the back, called Old Burl. A burl is an outgrowth on a tree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burl, but she got the name from a book called Tree Girl.



Here's the house. I love the slopey feel to it.
Anyway, Old Burl was willing to give us some rounds from his trunk, and although he is a fallen tree, he is not yet rotten. We measured and made a plan to make the house.



Ella has added these cute little wire figures, as well.


I think the wire dolls have a little bit of a punk rock feel.
So fun.

Look what we found!

We are pretty sure it is some kind of jelly.

But, we had an interesting debate about whether or not it was a horseshoe crab without its shell that got stranded.

Off to the library!

Fall at the Beach (and no, not off the lifeguard chair)

We had an amazing evening at the beach yesterday with the doggies.

It always feel like a gift to me to be at the beach after Labor Day. A hold-over I guess from school days.

We stayed until it got dark, and Ella jumped and jumped off the lifeguard chair.

That Joy loves Declan. She does whatever he asks her to do. Me, she just follows around, but Declan is her special love, I think.

Milo was snuffling and snuffling and came across a jelly fish. It was really beautiful, but I always think that then it is going to kill us. I know, I am totally paranoid about jellyfish (and don't get me started about TICKS).