Boys Club -- Thoreau

This spring in our Boys Club, we've been studying naturalists. We studied Henry David Thoreau. The weather was not cooperative, so instead of galavanting about the park and searching for plants and other wildlife, we stayed inside and built our own "shelter" by Walden pond...using popsicle sticks!
We have some very creative kids. Some kids made Teepees, others made traditional log cabins. Christopher's was the biggest. I thought we'd just spend 30 minutes on it then go on to other games...but the boys in our group loved it and kept working at it for a good two hours!
I think the boys were shocked that it took more effort than they thought. I think kids are more used to things like Lincoln Logs and Legos...things that are designed and made to stick together. It's much more difficult when you have to do the gluing, taping, and designing yourself. It doesn't look as professional, but it's a greater feat that brings more satisfaction!
We also played the game where you pin a name on your back and you have up to 20 questions to guess what it is. We used all plants or animals that we could see from our window or that live in our neighborhood. We went through about 30 labels! The kids got pretty good at deduction.
We had a great discussion, watched a short movie, and saw lots of pictures of Walden Pond.

For my preparation for this meeting, I began to read "WALDEN". I was pleasantly surprised that some of the boys read parts of it, too!

I can see why this memoir became such a life changing classic for so many people. I was very surprised, however, to see how many quotes from Walden have made it's way into our common cultural language. Many sayings, including "March to the beat of a different drummer," came from Thoreau! Christopher even found out that the Science poster he's had on his door for 7 years has a quote from Thoreau...and he'd never even noticed it!

That's what I love about education...when you learn about something new, all of a sudden you are "woken up" to a whole new realm of being that you were never even aware of before. Suddenly it seems to surround you, and it didn't magically appear...it had always been there, only you were slumbering in it's presence.

WOW!

Ballet in Portland

We had a wonderful opportunity to see a full scale ballet in Portland put on by the Metro Portland Ballet Company. The ballet was Alice in Wonderland. It was very well done. I love seeing a story told entirely by dance. It took my kids a while to realize that there wasn't going to be any words. Once they got used to that, they enjoyed it and had an easy time following the story.
It was a great show for the entire family. If I had known it would be this entertaining, I would have brought my younger children as well. There were about 50 children involved in the ballet, and it was adorable to see everything from 3 year olds to teenagers play key parts in all the scenes.
The Queen of Hearts was MARVELOUS...she was just perfect for the part. When we got home, all the kids celebrated our day out with watching the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. They appreciated the story much more after the ballet!
The concert hall was beautiful. We were seated way up high on the balcony.
A few weeks earlier, Mary took the older kids to see the Eugene Ballet Company perform a full ballet of The Diary of Anne Frank. It was not as suitable for younger children.

What a blessing to have a variety of cultural experiences so close by to enjoy and learn from!

Polk County Museum

This year we finally made it to family day at the Polk County Museum. We had a blast! That museum is really a gem to our community, and the kids learned a lot about local history. We will definitely go again next year!

Chicken Exasperations!

We had chickens for about 2 years on and off illegaly till one of our neighbors complained, and the city police came by, and we had to get rid of all our chickens that same day??? During that time period, we had individually asked each neighbor in our area if they cared if we had chickens, because if they didn't mind, we were interested in getting some, and they would be welcome to our extra eggs. Everyone seemed quite excited. But someone went behind our backs and complained to the city, so we had to get rid of them. I felt bad about it because we knew we weren't in accordance with the current code, and I also felt badly that someone felt like they had to complain to the authorities, instead of just talking to us directly to see if there was a better solution. Sad memories. The most annoying thing about it was how the police treated us, interrogating us as if we were criminals hiding some horrible secret, but the officer warmed up once he realized I was going to be honest with him and wasn't going to lie about the situation.

Well just THREE MONTHS after that whole drama with the police, they LEGALIZED owning up to 5 laying hens in Dallas City Limits as long as chickens are kept FENCED IN and their coop is 10 feet from any lawn boundary. We celebrated by picking up some laying hens that very evening!

So, we've had chickens again for the past year in our back yard. None of our neighbors have complained about them back there...but then I guess they can complain all they want now that they are legal, right? No one can say boo to us now, right? Wrong!

Right now our backyard is really really muddy. So it's time for us to replant grass. We are also planning an entire backyard overhaul:

New grass

New patio,

new garden...(no more green house, just a bunch of freshly built grow boxes)

terraced blueberries, grape arbor

and as much edible landscaping as we can afford to put in, etc, etc.

So in the middle of all this hullabaloo, we decided to move the chickens into the front yard. Scott created a super cheap pvc pipe and wire chicken coop for only $19.00. It's not the prettiest thing, but it's not too bad looking either.

We've had the chickens out there for only a few days. It's been pretty amusing to watch people walk by our house and then stop...and STARE AND STARE!! Sometimes their faces are amused, other times people's expressions are horrified. We've gotten some good laughs watching people's reactions to our chickens. The dogs like it, anyway. ;)

Then today, the Dallas Code Enforcement Officer arrived on our front porch. I laughingly call him the "Sheriff of Nottingham" because he is so loyal and dedicated in his job of taxing and fining small infractions of our city code, instead of taking care of the bigger things that REALLY matter. I know laws and codes have their place, but this fellow should be paid a bonus because he takes his job VERY seriously!!! I've heard numerous stories about how he is quite dedicated in persecuting little old ladies who can't park their cars straight. We've seen this fellow several times in the past. One time he came by, warning us that if we didn't move our car we'd have to pay a hefty fee. He said that you can never leave a car in the same place for more than 3 days in a row. He said that he drives by our house EVERY DAY, but the car is always parked in the exact same place! I explained to him the reason why: my husband works at night! Come back at night, I told him, and you'll see the car isn't there! He looked pretty sheepish about that one, and apologized quite nicely.

So, this time around, he came to tell us we were breaking the law by having our chickens in the front yard.

Scott asked where in the law did it say that? It just says to have the coop 10 feet from the boundary line. We read the law, we fought for the law to get passed, we are in keeping with the code, and will take very good care to make sure that our chickens stay cooped up far away from our neighbors.

The officer says his Boss is INTERPRETING the law to mean that you can't have the chickens in your front yard...unless you have a fence....and that you shouldn't have them in the front yard at all, so he wanted us to move them to the backyard right away.

So Scott is in the process of communicating with the city manager. We'll see what he says, and hopefully we can keep the chickens in the front yard at least long enough to get the grass planted in back before the chickens eat all the seed and make the mud worse.

We'll see what happens!

If enough citizens make a big stink, they could take away our right to have chickens again. I should probably attend the city council meetings so I can be more in tune with the city management and fight for those laws and codes that preserve our freedom. I mean honestly...chickens!!! Isn't there more important matters for them to spend their time and money on?!?

I feel bad that some of our neighbors get so upset with us for all of our crazy efforts to live more green, environment-friendly, clean-eating, low-energy, self-sustaining lives. I know it really irks our neighbors that our yard is messy and our children are noisy...it is at times like this that I really long for a big house in the country where no one would care WHAT we did with our little piece of land!!! Ooooh.....the ambitions we have that are so frustrated by the stilted, limiting, hampering suburban lifestyle!

Don't they want our big families who are "overpopulating" the planet to stay off their grid?

Snow Day

A few weeks ago, we got a SNOWDAY in March! March snow storms are my favorite, because it feels like the last chance to play in the winter weather. I didn't get any pictures of the incredibly fun day we had, because I was too busy playing outside with all my kids! We had a friend come over with her 6 children, and we built snowmen, and played all kinds of snow games. Best of all, we built a SNOW ROLLER COASTER down my driveway! We spent HOURS carrying sledfuls of snow from all over the street and yard and piling it up on one of the sled runs on my driveway which is very very steep. We made a ramp at the bottom which allowed us to go flying in the air! We had so much fun we ruined a sled or two and even popped our nice intertube...because there really wasn't enough snow for what we were trying to do, and no matter how hard we tried to pack the snow up, we went down the driveway so much we ended up grinding on the pavement. It was all worth it, though!
Poor Julianna got a bit frostbitten after the hours in the snow, so I gave her a nice tepid bath to get the color back in her extremities. We ended the day with Hot cocoa, treats, and movies. We watched My Fair Lady. Courtney is still walking around singing her favorite song from the score "Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait! You'll be sorry, but your tears will come too late...."
Dorathy wants to set up and POSE her toys...not play with them. Then she gets mad when Julianna destroys all her hard work...*sigh* that's life for you, isnt' it?
Julianna thinks snow is only for eating, you have to watch her constantly, or she'll eat dirty snow....or yellow snow. When, oh, when will she outgrow the eating everything stage? I despair sometimes. I panicked when I found out all the Rhododendrons in our front yard that are so beautiful are poisonous. I'll be watching her carefully when she's in the front yard.

Potty Training!!!

Julianna is officially potty trained!
She has been my earliest, fastest, happiest potty trainer! She just took it into her own head to do it all on her own...and she did!
She got so much positive attention and cheers from the rest of the family, it was all so precious to watch. For the first week, the kids were sitting down with her all the time to read books with her and encourage her. The second week she was doing it all on her own. Now in the third week she is able to stay dry when we leave the house and she is able to communicate her needs effectively. Julianna is almost 3 years old...and she is finally talking in complete sentences! Her words are slowly becoming clearer and easier to understand. There are still many consonants she can't say, but it is getting better. Thank goodness her communication skills are now good enough to ask for help with potty business.
Julie is so fiercely independent with her potty training, that she insists on doing everything herself. This can cause some real tricky messes when she is wanting to carry the pot to dump and flush into the toilet!
Two birds with one stone! Courtney was happy to read many books to Julianna while she sat on her potty. Courtney made up the term "potty pot", and now that's what everyone in the family is calling the potty! It makes us all laugh.

Gilbert House Field Trip

Our favorite local museum is definitely the Gilbert House!!! We also have this lovely foot bridge over the Willamette that we enjoy crossing on the rare winter days where we get some decent weather!


One day for homeschool, we went to a wonderful percussion concert and heard a talented musician perform for us on the Marimba. Afterwards, we celebrated the birthday of AC Gilbert at the Gilbert House!