Pinocchio update

I am now the mother of two toys (possibly a toy soldier and a ball, or two balls, or two soldiers, but definitely no wind-up ballerinas) and a Pleasure Island child. We don't have to make rehearsal tomorrow afternoon, but from Wednesday to Friday, the kids have some long rehearsals. The boy toys from 3:45 to 5:45 p.m. every day, and Laura those two hours plus another two from 6:15 to 8:15 p.m. On Saturday, the day of performance, the kids start rehearsals at 2:45 in the afternoon and go until the first and only performance at 7 p.m.

Once again I'm grateful we homeschool. I have to talk to the teacher about letting the kids sleep in and skip some of that homework in the evenings, tee hee.

Nifty resource, and cheaper than a trip to DC

I read this weekend that the U.S. National Archives and Google have teamed up to digitize and make National Archives holdings available free to all online. This means anyone with a computer can now have access to historic movies, documentaries, and other films in the Archives.

You can check Archives' holdings at the official National Archives website as well as at a Google website. At the moment, the pilot program covers 101 films, including some U.S. government World War II newsreels; several NASA documentaries on the history of the spaceflight program; and some documentaries on the history and establishment of a nationwide system of national and state parks, Boulder Dam, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The kids and I took a look through the links and found the following gems (the download takes too long for us dial-up types, but one can hope):

• Marines raising the flag over Iwo Jima

• "The Eagle Has Landed", about the 1969 moon landing

• "Who's Out There", a 1975 exploration of extraterrestrial life narrated by Orson Welles, which made me realize that someone at NASA had a sense of humor
  

• the swearing-in of Harry S Truman as President

Even better news: the National Archives and Google are considering the possibility of expanding the current online collection -- which at the moment includes the Declaration of Independence, the 1918 influenza epidemic, 20th century photographs and photographers, the meeting of Nixon and Elvis, and much, much more -- and making the Archives' extensive textual holdings available on the internet. Yahoo! Er, I mean Google!

Hey, kids, let's put on a show

The Missoula Children's Theatre travelling group arrives in our nearby teeny tiny little town this afternoon with a van packed to the gills with costumes, props, and scripts, ready to cast the fractured fairy tale version of "Pinocchio". All three little hams are eager to participate (Davy, at five, is finally old enough), but we'll have to see who gets cast, especially depending on how many others show up.

It's a crash course in musical theater, with casting and some rehearsing beginning on the Monday and the performance on Saturday evening. It can be a long week with long evenings, especially for younger kids, and I honestly wouldn't even consider the activity if we weren't homeschooling -- with no school in the afternoons, and the chance to delay things in the morning, the theater project is much more enjoyable for everyone.

Laura made her children's theater debut in Missoula's version of "Hansel and Gretel" a few years several years ago, and the year after (Daniel's debut) in a production of "Snow White" by the more gentle, relaxed Story Man's Children Theatre, more like an English Christmas pantomime than the the manic Missoula all-hands-on-deck-all-week approach.

I should mention that it would never have crossed my mind as a child to do something like this; at Laura's age, I wouldn't (couldn't) ask strangers for the time. For my three, it doesn't cross their minds not participate. I have to thank Tom's family for the extrovert addition to the gene pool -- his sister in Toronto is an actor, singer, dancer, so at least the kids come by it honestly. Will keep you posted on how it goes this afternoon.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming

Today it's back to (home)school, the more formal, Well Trained Mind way, rather than the unschooling way we adopted in early December, when the kids (and I) set aside the books in favor of Christmas crafts, baking, and stories. And then travel/island school, which was heavy on the phys. ed. and unschooled science.

I threw a week or so of schooling in after the New Year, before all the packing started, and now here we are, tanned (well, sort of, kind of, barely, what with all that wind and rain), rested, and ready to hit the books again. Surprisingly, the younger folks are around here, the more eager they are. Laura and Daniel are eager to get back to the Story of the World; Daniel wants to start his new math book (I'm hoping I have a new copy, or at least -- for temporary use -- Laura's old erasable copy, of Singapore 1B) and resume proper reading lessons; and since Daniel has a good head start on reading now, I'll probably start Davy with some phonics lessons now. Over the past week he rediscovered one of his Christmas presents, Flip-Flash Phonics: Words & Pictures, a little McGraw-Hill flip book of high-frequency words (no, I'm really not a whole word kind of gal -- more a Rudolf Flesch kind of gal -- and the word "Dolch" tends to give me the shudders, but it looked cute, was dirt cheap at Bookcloseouts, and keeps the kid busy and happy). We'll have to start out slowly though, especially for Laura, adding a new subject every few days. I'm hoping we'll be up to speed by mid-March, just in time for calving and the local arts festival, where the kids will each be reciting a couple of poems, to slow us down again.

Food for thought

Click here to learn more.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig (belatedly)

We've been home now for nearly a week, since Sunday night. The bags are unpacked, the laundry is washed (but not all folded and put away), children reunited with favorite toys and books, our own beds collapsed in, and old daily rhythms rewelcomed.

We had a wonderful time with my parents and had a chance to visit with old friends and make some new ones; Laura discovered the local Brownie troop and, wearing her Canadian uniform complete with badge sash, was invited to make Valentine's crafts with the girls one afternoon. We went to favorite old places -- the calm beach with perfect sand for building castles, the rocky beach with all the conch shells, the noisy beach with the coral reef just off shore, the Friday night chicken and ribs barbecue sponsored by the local Water Department (to raise money to support their cricket team). The kids became part fish again, and we all enjoyed a new style of living and eating. Some of us, including the very youngest (ahem), developed a fondness for pina coladas, even with the rum; we're doing our darndest to continue the cocktail hour tradition in the evenings, but for a disconcerting absence of Coco Lopez from local store shelves. We just may have to ask the supermarket to bring in a case, just for us.

And Laura, with her grandfather's help and genes inherited from her grandmother, was able to indulge her growing love of luxury and dining out. Our farewell dinner was enjoyed at the Four Seasons seafood buffet on the beach, where we all stuffed ourselves with lobsters, shrimp, mussels, oysters, and crab legs -- happily, the kids weren't at all interested in the hamburgers or hotdogs made available to keep resort kiddie guests happy -- and then moved on to the dessert table, where my youngest discovered "Mom, I think it's drunken pineapple" (it was marinated in rum) and Daniel had four helpings of the chocolate sponge cake rolled up with chocolate icing and a banana in the middle.

And Tom was his usual productive self.



He spent most of his days, from 7:30 in the morning until 6 in the evening, in the guesthouse, which later this year should become the home for my parents' gardener and his family, he built back in 2003 -- this time, Tom built large closets in all of the bedrooms, cut out the openings for the kitchen sink and taps, installed the guttering outside, made and installed several lattice windows (the largest one is visible on the far right, bottom/basement level), and built two gorgeous bookcases, one extra deep to serve as master bathroom linen storage, out of Caribbean cedar. My started taking measurements in the main house, thinking that in future Tom could build another one or even two, and a few friends were wishing they could have placed orders. Maybe next time...

And this morning I'm home alone, savoring our house -- well, maybe not the unusually loud noises coming from the basement deep freeze on its last legs -- and even the winter scene outdoors. Laura is at her Brownies sleepover, happily postponed from earlier in the month, and this morning Tom asked the boys if they wanted to come along on the current building project, a shop for their uncle on his new property. I'll pick Laura up in a few hours, throw in another load of laundry, and put the wooden skewers into soak (dinner will be grilled garlic shrimp, with rice and maybe some broccoli). It is good to be home.

Discovering The Edge of the Forest

Remember earlier today when I was moaning about the fact that for nearly a year, as long as I've known about blogs, I had missed two great kid lit ones? Well, I'm happy to say that in my desire to catch up with Chicken Spaghetti and Big A little a, and the rather coincidental desire to, erm, put off housecleaning for a little longer, I happened on today's birth of The Edge of the Forest, a children's literature monthly. Head over for Volume I, Issue I, brought to you by Kelly and Susan and four other children's book blog friends (links to follow). And there's also a call for submissions. Congratulations to all at the Edge of the Forest, and all best wishes from Farm School for great success!

Even Luddites can sometimes be at the right place at the right time, even in cyberspace. Or maybe it was just good karma...

A new discovery (er, make that two!)

While writing yesterday's poetry entry, I did some Googling and ran across a new-to-me blog, dedicated to one of this household's consuming passions, children's literature. Kelly's Big A little a has lots of yummy things, including book reviews from around the world and some wonderful links.

I was especially glad to find Kelly's post on the Royal Society of Literature's "children's canon" of top-ten books for schoolchildren, which I had read about in the little (formerly British) island weekly, but that was mostly a garbled press release, and I never had a chance while there to follow up on it. Scroll down to the bottom of the Guardian article for the lists by J.K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, and, for the second day in a row here at Farm School, Andrew Motion.

Update: I was going through Kelly's blogroll and am now wondering how on earth in the last year (okay, 11 months) since I discovered blogs have I missed Susan at Chicken Spaghetti? But just in time to learn that Susan will be hosting the second Carnival of Children's Literature. The deadline is March 3rd, so you still have time to hurry over.

Poetry sings

On the way out of Toronto last month, I was gifted by the airport hotel with the Sunday New York Times, where in the Book Review section I was even more thrilled to find a tiny mention of the new book and cd set, Poetry Speaks to Children, edited by Elise Paschen.

We're big fans of the original, Poetry Speaks, subtitled "Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath," which is best not really for the book but for the three accompanying cds, on which you can actually listen to Tennyson, Browning, Yeats, Eliot and more than 30 other celebrated poets recite their works. Or, as kids in this house have been know to say, "That's what I thought he would sound like!" Tennyson's reading of The Charge of the Light Brigade makes my toes tingle, and when Carl Sandburg speaks you can hear a pin drop in our kitchen, which doesn't happen often. As my kids are learning, poetry (and plays) should be heard and not read.

Poetry Speaks to Children's book has 97 selections, from classic to contemporary, and is apparently profusely illustrated. The cd contains 52 poems read by 36 poets and artists, including such goodies as J.R.R. Tolkien reciting Frodo's Song in Bree from The Fellowship of the Ring; Robert Frost and his Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening; Basil Rathbone (aka Sherlock Holmes) reading Edgar Allen Poe; what I have heard is a lyrical telling by Jamaican-born James Berry's Okay, Brown Girl, Okay*, and -- well worth repeating from the original version -- Langston Hughes's moving The Negro Speaks of Rivers.

With a lineup like that, I'm willing to overlook what seems like pretty goofy cover art, a few apparently equally goofy poetry choices, and, grrr, the fact that the kid's version comes with only one cd rather than three. And, at under $14 US, you Americans are getting a deal.

*If these books whet your appetite, or if your library's waiting list is too long, or if even $14 is too much (so many books, so little money), then you'll be even more excited by the gem that is the UK Poetry Archive website -- the world's premier online collection of recordings of poets reading their work. The Archive includes sections for teachers, students, and a special Children's Archive. A heartfelt thank you to everyone before and behind the scenes at the archive, the brainchild of UK poet laureate Andrew Motion and recording producer Richard Carrington with boosts from former US poet laureate/New York State Poet Billy Collins, poet Seamus Heaney, and writer Melvyn Bragg.

Speaking of Jane Austen...

...this is going to be the soundtrack of our days for the next possibly very long while, and some of us are exceedingly pleased.*
Carl Davis's music is gorgeous, and if you aren't bothered by the fact that not all of the pieces from the broadcast made it on to the disc or that the piano summary is played a whopping five times (and neither of these is particularly bothersome to anyone who has watched the series over and over, and over, again and doesn't plan to mend her ways anytime soon), this one is a keeper.

The disc was a present from my father, who discovered recently that his music collection at the island house is, after 12 years, getting moldy. The simple solution is to swab the cds with vodka (not as sweet and problematic as island rum) and copy them into his iPod, and give away the actual discs. So we returned home with our bags full of weeks and months to come of happy listening, everything from Cole Porter and Ella Fitzgerald to Sousa and Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty.

* The others prefer a little more stomp in their music and have selected this instead.

Who is your Jane Austen?

Of course, I didn't even know I had my own Jane Austen, but then I haven't yet read The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. But reading through the newly revamped AustenBlog with the elegant new JA font, I discovered that I do, and so do you. Thanks to Fowler, you can take a quiz to learn Who's Your Jane Austen? Many thanks to the Editrix for the link, and to Fowler for the fun and games.

According to the quiz, I best resemble the character Bernadette: "Like Bernadette, your Austen is a comic genius whose characters and dialogue are genuinely funny. You may be thought unreasonably attached to Pride and Prejudice. You will not be afraid to wear purple in old age."

Spot on about the book, not to mention my burgeoning inner curmudgeon. Maybe it might be best to disguise it under a purple hat. And maybe I should get around to requesting the book from interlibrary loan while the days are still chilly enough to need a cup of tea, or two.

A Common Reader/The Akadine Press RIP

I made a timely but sad and unpleasant discovery today, now that we're back home and I have a computer at my regular disposal. I feel as though a friend has died, and I sincerely wish James Mustich all the best.

There's a lesson to be learned here, and that's to patronize our small, independent booksellers, even if it means spending a bit more money. Penny wise, pound foolish, and I'm feeling very foolish indeed for not making more purchases there over the years.

By the way, I'll return to regular blogging, and include some tales from our trip, once I've dealt with the jet lag and the last unpacked suitcase.

The first Carnival of Children's Literature

Melissa, at Here in the Bonny Glen, has prepared the very first Carnival of Children's Literature and there should be lots for everyone to enjoy, whether you're looking for something different for a family readaloud or a new treasure for your independent reader, or just wondering what others might think of some of your favorite children's books and characters. Some good lists, of authors' websites and such, as well.

Thanks, Melissa!

Celebrating Darwin Day: Many happy returns

Here's the official Darwin Day website, with all sorts of links to and about Charles Darwin and his Origin of the Species.

It includes links to an essay about Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought from Scientific American. All sorts of interesting things in the Essays section, including an essay by by Oxford University biologist Richard Dawkins and University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne on why not to accept intelligent design in the classroom; and on Undoing Darwin, an article published in the Columbia Journalism Review.

No longer on the Darwin Day website but worth digging around for at Google is the great Verlyn Klinkengborg's New York Times column from last summer, Grasping the Depth of Time as a First Step in Understanding Evolution:

It's been approximately 3.5 billion years since primeval life first originated on this planet. That is not an unimaginable number in itself, if you're thinking of simple, discrete units like dollars or grains of sand. But 3.5 billion years of biological history is different. All those years have really passed, moment by moment, one by one. They encompass an actual, already lived reality, encompassing all the lives of all the organisms that have come and gone in that time. That expanse of time defines the realm of biological possibility in which life in its extraordinary diversity has evolved. It is time that has allowed the making of us.

The idea of such quantities of time is extremely new. Humans began to understand the true scale of geological time in the early 19th century. The probable depth of cosmological time and the extent of the history of the human species have come to light only within our own lifetimes.

That is a lot to absorb and, not surprisingly, many people refuse to absorb it. Nearly every attack on evolution - whether it is called intelligent design or plain creationism, synonyms for the same faith-based rejection of evolution - ultimately requires a foreshortening of cosmological, geological and biological time.

Humans feel much more content imagining a world of more human proportions, with a shorter time scale and a simple narrative sense of cause and effect. But what we prefer to believe makes no difference. The fact that life on Earth has arrived at a point where it is possible for humans to have beliefs is due to the steady ticking away of eons and the trial and error of natural selection.

And don't forget to get your Darwin Day stocking stuffers here.

Swimming School

One area of our homeschooling that's blossoming while we're away is phys ed.

Thanks to my parents' pool, and without too much interference from the rain and wind (as Davy explained, "You're going to get wet anyway"), the kids have been having lots of fun and also making steady progress with their swimming, diving, and flips. Laura, so close to eight-and-a-half she can smell it, has been doing beautifully with the front crawl since last summer; however, her inability to do a proper dive, while Daniel has been making annoyingly perfect dolphin dives and flips for a couple of years already, had her in tears more than once since our arrival. But late last week, she started asking for help -- bend your legs more, Tom told her; keep your legs and ankles together, I offered -- and following it. And practicing, almost all the time. And believe it or not, she saw results late on the first day. Now not only are her dives are a thing of beauty, graceful and elegant and quiet, but she has a new understanding in the old saw, practice makes perfect. And today she managed a couple of decent forward flips.

Daniel, of course, isn't too happy to lose his lead as the best, and formerly only, diver of the three. So, at not quite seven years old, he's upped the ante by adding backward flips, and off the unauthorized diving board (installed by Tom, disliked intensely by my father) to boot. Frighteningly good. Davy has decided that he should be able to do back flips too and better dives, like his big brother, and the front crawl, like his big sister. There is no more powerful motivator than being the smallest and the youngest. Davy is also pretty good now at spending most of his time underwater, and reminds me of a small, sleek, brown (albeit hairless) otter, as he swims between my legs or hangs on to Tom's back as they swim the length of the pool floor.

And Laura and I have discovered that holding hands and bouncing in the shallow end while repeating the multiplication tables is great fun, and about as close as we can get to Shirley Temple's trick of singing the tables as she tap danced her way down the lighthouse steps in "Captain January."

No neat tricks for me, other than having the opportunity to read a book every day or every other day, and murder mysteries at that. The latest was P.D. James's The Lighthouse. Not one of her best -- James maroons Dalgliesh and his team on an isolated, supposedly secure, island off Cornwall, and then gives AD SARS -- but the writing is as strong and graceful as ever, and, with James in her late eighties, each volume is a gift.

More Julie

Just because it's my blog, and I can:

Julie Powell's latest blog, added to the blogroll on the right, too. I came too late to blogs, last year, and only twigged to the Julie/Julia business while looking for Christmas books for my mother, most of which tend to center around (other people) cooking. Fortunately, Mom brought her present down here, so I was able to read and enjoy it during our first week on holiday. Funny, warm, and introspective. Imagine Bridget Jones as an unsmug married, moving way, way beyond blue soup.

More carnival fun

The sixth Carnival of Homeschooling is up and ready to go. Enjoy! Since I'm in a part of the world where Carnival is a big deal -- and it's the kind celebrated with rum and soca music, not with popcorn and midway rides -- I'm going to enjoy it with a pina colada and some conch fritters.

For the liberty of unlicenc'd printing

"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties."
John Milton, "Areopagitica"

Last week, I just happened to find on my parents' shelves their copy of "Where There's a Will" by Rumpole creator and former barrister John Mortimer; it came out the other year when Mortimer was in his early eighties but seems quite prescient in light of recent events. The book amounts to a curmudgeon's -- and why does curmudgeonly increasingly seem to be a synonym for common sense? -- last will and testament of advice to leave behind, from the dangers of political correctness to the joys of outdoor sex. And surprise, surprise, one of the chapters (lucky number 13 as it happens) is titled "Causing Offence" which Mortimer, naturally, supports:

A life during which you're caused no offence would be as blandly uneventful as death itself. Being caused offence stirs up the spirits, summons up the blood and starts the adrenalin flowing. ... A state in which everyone tiptoed around whispering for fear of hurting somebody's feelings would be dull beyond human endurance. A political or religious belief which can't stand up to insult, mockery and abuse is not worth having. ...

It seems to me to be an insult to the religious beliefs, as well as to those who hold them, to say that they need the special protection of a law which makes it a criminal offence to hurt people's feelings. ...

In fact being caused offence not only stimulates debate but confirms belief and strengthens it. Milton, no enemy of religion, had it right when he wrote 'if we have free speech truth will look after itself'. And if we have a censorship which stops us offending anyone, the truth may be concealed in the surrounding blur.

Ups and downs

Ups: our first trip to the beach this trip. The kids had all but forgotten about it until our beachside visit to Four Seasons for lunch on Sunday, but since then having been begging for more. The beach I chose -- near the house of our gardener, to whom we gave a lift on the way -- isn't one of the best ones, not a lot of sand above the high tide mark and no shells for gathering, but nice and private and surrounded by a coral reef which makes for some excitement. The kids had a wonderful time digging canals ("just like in Holland" called out Laura, remembering some of our SOTW3 reading), and then she started collecting coconut husks "for a palisade," she told the boys. Then the boys realized that instead of shells, they could collect bits of coral, some of them quite large, all broken off by the waves from the reef offshore.

I reminded the kids that the ocean, even on the considerably calmer Caribbean side (the Atlantic side is so rough few dare to go in), isn't as safe as the pool and to be careful. When I mentioned the tide and the undertow, five-year-old Davy looked around rather panicked, and then I realized he thought I was talking some animal-like being that might grab him. So I had to explain that I was talking about the force of the water, and he relaxed, but not too much (which is good).

When the tide finally claimed the last bit of beach, and the kids were thorougly breaded with sand like little Wiener schnitzels, we headed home, where the kids showered all together and my wonderful husband made pina coladas, virgin and rum-laden, for each of us.

Downs: the pina coladas were followed by our French fairy godfather cooking French sausages -- andouilles -- for about the fifth night in a row. Even Daniel, who's quite fond of sausages, stood by Tom at the barbecue tonight and whispered, "Sausages? Again? Why can't we just have steak?" And the particular sausages tonight were particularly unappealing, essentially sausage casing around sliced tripe, which was just too much for my mother, who has been known to eat and like tripe. Not quite "Fear Factor" territory, though I did think of that scene in "Alien" when, rather disconcerted, I had cut into my sausage only to have the contents spill out in innardlike fashion. To their credit, the kids have been doing a dandy job of dealing with the gourmet concoctions, even without the reward tonight of fancy chocolates at the end; though to be on the safe side tonight, I set a tiny little metal condiment dish full of ketchup next to each of their plates.

Tomorrow is his birthday, for which he's cooking duck breast, accompanied by what he called "my recipe" of sauteed cabbage, which I apparently made last year. I can't recall either the occasion or the recipe, but I found it in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. Just heat some olive oil (or sesame oil) and garlic, and cook cabbage, and had some hot chili pepper to taste. I hope that's what he's expecting. And my parents and I are hoping that the duck breasts, which he brought with him a week ago and refused to store in the freezer, a) won't be past their "best by" date and b) won't be served rare, just in case.

Another up: we're concerned enough about food poisoning and the possible surprise of yet more sausages that we're not even going to bother with the State of the Union address. Hey, are there any more pina coladas?

Thought/quote of the day

From Sense and Sensibility:

"[B]ecause they were fond of reading, she fancied them satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical."

Island life

The weather hasn't been typically tropical, unless you're talking about hurricane season, which is supposed to be over and done with. The Christmas winds have turned into Valentine winds, starting long after they should have finished and considerably stronger than usual. Our first few days were quite nice but rather breezy, and the second half of the first week was downright miserable with near gale force winds and sheets of rain. Then we had some lovely weather (bordering on, I shouldn't even think it though Laura said it out loud, "almost TOO hot") from last Monday until Friday. Yesterday it turned crummy again, raining and windy, though today we have "only" the wind.

I've decided that since I can't do anything about the weather, and since most people in North America reading this are annoyed with me anyway for being in the West Indies in January, I'm just going to ignore it. Which includes letting the kids go swimming a) even if it's raining and b) when it's sunny even though they should be doing math because, let's face it, the sun won't last and the math will always be here. I'm also going to make lemonade out of lemons when it comes to the fact that, probably because of holiday and trip-planning induced brain fog, I completely forgot that Daniel was perilously close to the end of Singapore 1A and that I meant to bring along the start of 1B. Oops. So his formal math lessons may be coming to a screeching halt sometime next week, though I think I might have him nearby when Laura starts more multiplication work (four times tables) shortly. And continuing in the lemonade spirit, in part thanks to the weather and the fact that we have way more than our usual two channels (not to mention my father's incredible video collection) at our disposal, I've added some extra TV to the rotation. You might even go so far as to call it the new Boomerang homeschool curriculum, with oodles of old cartoons, especially Hanna-Barbera gems like Top Cat, Magilla Gorilla, and Wally Gator. Oh, with some National Geographic and Animal Planet thrown in.

Our day starts pretty early, at least on the sunny days. We have breakfast on the verandah, joined by some of the banana quits (little yellow birds) trying to steal sugar crumbs from the table, and while Tom and the kids have eggs or pancakes, I enjoy my toast and guava jam, with fresh coffee made by my father.

After breakfast, Laura and Daniel do a bit of math, which as you can see by the above is turning into a very little bit of math. And it's distracting too -- lizards climbing up and down the columns, the sound of the lawn mower from the end of the garden. So soon it's pool time, and Tom has installed the unauthorized homemade diving board, which makes the kids shriek with joy. One of our very kind neighbors, a widower approaching 80, who lives on the ridge above my parents' place, stopped me at the bank the other day to tell me how much he enjoys the sound of children's laughter. Bless him for another 80 years.

By then, it's time to follow around Dad, or Grandpapa, or the gardener, or plant the watermelon seeds from yesterday's lunch, or help me make lemon squares for dessert, and then time for lunch. After which it's time for some reading and reading aloud; our family readaloud at the moment is "Owls in the Family" by Farley Mowat, Laura is working her way through the collected stories of Felicity (one of the American Girls), I'm rereading Claire Tomalin's biography of Jane Austen as I do every trip here, and I'm reading Hakim's History of US/volume 2 to everyone.

If it's a normal day with normal weather, the hottest part of the day is over and the kids spend another hour or two in the pool, while I play lifeguard and read some more and the houseguest tries to swim laps in between crazy diving children. Yes, I have suggested (in both official languages) that he take his exercise before or after us, with no luck. I don't mind, and the kids sure don't, if he doesn't.

Another reason I'm willing to put up with my parents' French houseguest -- not only did he arrive with about 40 pounds of delicacies from France (fancy chocolates but no unpasteurized Brie) but he's also doing most of the dinner time cooking. Last night we had spicy lobster with Basmati rice, the night before Moroccan sausages with couscous, and sometime this week duck breasts with cognac and walnuts. Not exactly as I would prepare the main ingredient in the case of the lobster and duck, but hey, I'm willing to put up with a lot in exchange for enjoying such delicacies.

Speaking of food, my parents took us all to lunch at the Four Seasons resort this afternoon. The kids think Four Seasons is a magical place (and having seen how there seemed to be no wind there at all today, I'm inclined to agree) and had a marvelous time; Laura in particular had been quivering with excitement ever since hearing the news, because getting all dressed up in one's best sundress to go to a fancy restaurant and ordering from a menu one can read all by oneself is about as good as it gets. We had a table by the beach, and after enjoying lunch they were able to run down to the sand and play for a bit while the adults enjoyed their pina coladas and tropical sorbets. And in full hearing of my father, an elderly Englishwoman leaned over to me on her way out of the restaurant and purred, "Congratulations, dear. What beautifully behaved children." I thanked her and flushed, and it wasn't all the rum.

Four meme

Because I owe Maitresse a meme and four is ever so much easier and shorter than 15 lol, especially over the holidays and while getting ready to leave on a trip. La Mai, I'll give 15/Books my best shot after returning and unpacking...

And because four is my favorite number (and if I tell you that four is blue, will you think I'm nuts? I did, till I read several years ago about synesthesia. Five is orange in my head, by the way, and two is yellow.).

Four jobs you have had in your life:
junior account exec at a public relations agency in D.C.
congressional aide to a Congressman (D-CA)
picture researcher at the family historical picture library
farmer

Four movies you could watch over and over:
I Know Where I'm Going
Swing Time, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
The Grapes of Wrath, with Henry Fonda
Some Like It Hot

Four places you have lived:
Manhattan
Vermont
Washington, D.C.
Alberta

Four TV shows you love to watch (bearing in mind we have only two TV channels):
Law & Order (especially Criminal Intent)
The Amazing Race
The Sopranos
What Not to Wear (unfortunately, only when we go to hotels or visit my parents so no, the novelty has not yet worn off. And I enjoy Clint so much more than that long-haired buffoon.)

Four places you have been on vacation:
Manhattan
Prague
Zadar (in the former Yugoslavia/present Croatia)
Montreal

Four websites you visit daily (well, almost):
Google
Amazon.ca
Bloglines
Blogger

Four of your favorite foods:
Homemade chocolate pudding (heck, anything chocolate, as long as it's the good stuff)
Scrambled eggs cooked very slowly, made with farm eggs and fresh cream, and served with hot buttered toast
Breyer's coffee ice cream
Leftover pork tenderloin, which was marinated in Dijon mustard, curry powder, and garlic and then grilled, in a sandwich on crusty French bread with mango chutney and tomato slices

Four places you'd rather be right now:
Vermont
home
here
Somewhere picturesque with LOTS of snow and a fireplace (the grass is always greener)

Anyone else? I'm not tagging, but you're free to play along. And delurk, too, if you'd like.

New homeschooling blog

A homeschooling, invisible online friend of mine has a new blog, Kitchen Table Learners. Not only is Frankie a dedicated homeschooling mother to her son, but she's also den mother to his cub scout troop. The kind who doesn't flinch at painting 100 popsicle sticks blue for centerpieces for a den banquet. As someone who lasted one year as one of two leaders to the boys' Beaver group (eight boys, two of them mine, under the age of 8), my hat's off. And fun pictures of their homeschool classroom, aka Teeny Tiny Classroom; is it just me, or does anyone else like to see what others are doing for organization and storage...

Welcome, Frankie!

Alive and well, though wet and windswept

We arrived safe and sound on Sunday the 15th, after two full days of travelling. The first surprise was learning that my parents, who had changed their arrival date several times already -- they had planned to arrive at their home before us for a proper welcome-- weren't going to arrive the next day but Wednesday (which changed to Friday, which changed to yesterday, but I couldn't blame them for not wanting to fly with colds, coughs, and the flu). The next surprise was the nearly complete absence of sunshine. Instead, lots of clouds, then buckets of rain, and wind. Great huge gusts of it. The winds are traditional over the holidays, and are in fact known as "the Christmas winds", but they've been coming about a month later for the past few years.

Otherwise, we're all doing well and getting acclimated to life in the tropics. The kids have decided that a little bit of rain isn't going to keep them from the pool ("It's wet anyway," explained Daniel to his silly mother), and only two of the kids have been attacked by fire ants. And, despite my best efforts to do some shopping for my parents, no real milk or Heinz ketchup for the table. So we're making do with powdered milk and Hunt's...

Island School: All dressed up and nowhere to go (until tomorrow morning, that is)

The end is in sight. Which is a pity, because now some of us are left with not a lot to do, in order to keep the house tidy. Next time we go, I'm contemplating sending the kids out to a hotel until it's time to leave. This morning I actually found myself suggesting that they watch television instead of painting pictures.

Herewith a few necessary items from our bags:

Bug spray and sunscreen, because while available down south, everything costs two to four times as much, as in $20 U.S. for the two-liter container of Breyer's ice cream. Just about had me leap across the cash register and kiss the startled cashier on the cheek when we returned from our seven-month stay. Not to mention a generous supply of antifungal cream for the entire family (living in the tropics isn't all sunshine and bougainvillea) as well as butterfly bandages. On the kids' first trip, Daniel swung a kid-size metal golf club too close to his two-year-old brother, which is why Davy now has a dashing scar -- fairly faint to those who don't know and love him well -- on the bridge of his tiny nose. Tom and I weighed the pros and cons of having the local doctor stitch him up, and decided that he might end up with a bigger scar from a crummy sewing job, not to mention the even more real possibility of infected stitches (remember that fungus business?), then tried to locate some butterfly closures at the local pharmacies. Nada, not even at the well-stocked gift shop at the chi-chi American golfing resort. In the end Tom ended up cutting some out of regular Bandaids, but given the tendency toward liveliness and accidents in our household, better to travel with the real thing.

Bathing suits. I take back everything I've ever said about Sears's nasty habit about publishing the Wish Book in September and the fall/winter catalogue in April. I had thoughts of suggesting naturism to Laura upon discovering over the holidays that none of her summer bathing suits fit any more -- one had lost its elastic and the other two, thanks to a big fall growth spurt, were downright cheeky. And just where is one supposed to buy bathing suits in rural smalltown Alberta in January? Saved by the lovely woman at Sears, who told me that though none of my choices from last summer's catalogue were still available, I could order sight unseen from the new catalogue, only just back from the printer that very day. Wowee -- now that's customer service! She described a couple of suits to me in my price range (that would be "cheap and serviceable"), I ordered two of each in two different sizes, just to be sure (of course Sears has an easy and cheerful return policy). Laura is now the proud owner of two handsome and well-fitting swimsuits.

Our new readalouds (some are repeats for those who were too young the first time around to remember much): Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat, Gentle Ben by Walt Morey; Eagle Mask by James Houston; Davy's island must-have, the Ladybird Classic edition of Treasure Island; and two of our old stand-bys, Grimm's Fairy Tales (our older edition is illustrated by the wonderful Leonard Weisgard) and Canadian Wonder Tales. No, this list isn't final, subject to substitutions, suggestion, and the battling fears of 1) we're taking along too many heavy books and b) what if we run out of books so far from home.

Presents for our friends: Canadian books (especially multiple copies of Wild Alberta: A Visual Celebration by Wayne Lynch) and music (Sarah Harmer, Bedouin Soundclash, the latter of whom are very popular with our West Indian-East Indian friends from Guyana); Crayola Twistables colored pencils; the Klutz Solar Car Book kit (batteries, like everything else, are hideously expensive down there); Sudoku puzzle books from the supermarket; and little Clikits kits for Laura's friends.

And the various goodies and treats that some of us pine for but are allowed only on airplanes: chewing gum (I don't care what the dentist tells me about the benefits of Mal...) and those keep-fresh(?)-forever packages of crackers and cheeselike substance. And Davy's bright idea -- those mini boxes of cereal, especially those types that don't usually find their way into our cupboards -- Fruit Loops, Corn Pops, and Frosted Flakes. Ahh, vacation...

Vote early (if not often)

If you're Canadian, you can start voting today in the federal general election. Go Green, enjoy your ability to vote socialist with the NDP (Tommy Douglas lives, well, sort of), give the Liberals a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, or try to the keep the Conservatives on the back benches. Just vote. The kids and I are off today after lunch -- polls open in town at the Seniors' Centre at noon -- so I can perform my civic duty and pick up some more packing tape.

And if you're not Canadian and still want to vote, the polls are now open over at the Best of Blogs (BoB). While I'm new to blogging -- both the reading and writing of -- and I haven't heard of most of the nominees, which can only bode well for my ability to get other things done around the house, there are some terrific writers out there. In between travel stuff, I've been enjoying working my way through the food blogs, all of which are new to me.

Speaking of which, I'll have to nominate Stingy Scholar next year. He's had a couple of great links in the past few days, perfect for homeschooly types -- King Arthur Resources and today's Textkit for Latin and Greek. Thanks, SS.

Is it just me?

In between banishing dust bunnies, putting out new sheets and towels (hey, says Tom, is there room for a couple of halogen spotlights for your dad and our friend the Caribbean chicken farmer?), examining science experiments in the fridge (oops, and don't forget the camera!), and reading my email, I've spent the better part of the week compulsively examining our plane tickets and insurance documents "just in case." As if overnight the dates on the tickets might change, or someone's passport suddenly expire. As it is, Davy is good until 2010 with his new passport, and the rest of us can rest until late next year.

I think it's just the voice of experience, though. Last year, upon receiving our Air Canada tickets purchased online, I discovered that Master Davy had been relegated to a different flight, all by his lonesome, at the ripe old age of 4. Fortunately, one quick call got him on the same plane with the rest of us. And this past holiday season, my sister and her family in Kenya were getting ready to leave for the airport to spend Christmas and New Year's with my parents in New York when -- three hours before departure -- my sister discovered that her daughter's passport had expired earlier in the month. Double oops...

Mixed bag o' links

With apologies, because I have time only for links, and not all of them, right now:

According to The Sacramento Bee earlier this week, It's Hip to Be Gramatically Correct. Doesn't that make you feel better? Reporter Gina Kim wonders if the "language-maven type: the one with a sharp pencil in her bun who gasps in horror at misspelled words and corrects the grammar of strangers" is becoming cool, nay, hip. Proof? The success the other year of Eats, Shoots & Leaves and the recent publication of the illustrated Elements of Style by Strunk & White and the newly revised Woe Is I by Patricia O'Conner (and I'd be happy for some kind of review/comparison that would let me know why/whether I really need a second edition on my shelves). Tom will be happiest about this quote, "I think people who use grammar correctly are sexy because it means they're smart." And for other self-styled grammar cops out there, there's a test at the end of the article to enjoy.

And it's Carnival time, not just in the Caribbean. Second week of Carnival of Unschooling over here at Atypical Homeschool (Melissa's wonderful Tidal Schooling article, recommended here yesterday, made it over there in the nick of time). And another Carnival, this one the Carnival of Homeschooling over at Henry and Janine Cates' blog, Why Homeschool. I suggested an article (not mine, but one on Bean Dip on the never apologize/never explain/never defend philosophy I tend to follow with unbelievers) for the first one but never had a chance to mention it here. Thanks and congratulations to the Cateses and Ron and Andrea.

George Will on Ed Schools vs. Education over here, though I think his concerns are the tip of a very big iceberg.

Back to the feather duster, the industrial-size garbage can, and the clean sheets (or as Daniel said earlier today on seeing his room, "Wow, Mom, it looks like we're moving, not going on vacation!")...

BoB time

Because procrastinating by reading blogs is more fun than packing, I found out that some of my favorite blogs have been nominated for Best of Blogs (BoB) awards: Melissa at Here in the Bonny Glen and Maitresse at Alexander's Maitresse, and Doppelganger at 50 Books. Congratulations! Voting to come, I think.

Here's the page for Best Education/Homeschooling Blog nominees, by the way. We have to support our own, don't we...

Another great Wednesday post

Doppelganger at 50 Books has wonderful post on writing well, about George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language, which I think should be required reading for all high school students (along with lashings of E.B. White, with and without Strunk).

And if you like that one, try Orwell's Why I Write.

Schooling with the tides

Melissa at Here in the Bonny Glen has a brilliant post on Tidal Homeschooling today:

The truth is, I couldn't find any label that completely fit my family, so I made up my own. I call us "Tidal Learners" because the ways in which we approach education here change with the tide. Now, this doesn't mean that we're flighty or inconsistent, changing direction haphazardly. We aren't Fiddler Crab Homeschoolers. What I mean is that there is a rhythm to the way learning happens here; there are upbeats and downbeats; there is an ebb and flow.

Read the rest. It's lovely, lyrical, and has particular resonance for me right now as we get ready to set sail from our farm school to an island school.

The value of a dollar

Or ten. Or, in which Calendar Girl, Bionicle Boy, and Twinklette go shopping.

The kids each got $10 from an aunt and uncle for Christmas, and over the holidays the money was definitely burning holes in their pockets. Usually we ask that they save their money -- they don't get allowances, mainly because until recently only Laura had a good understanding about money and most of the time she (and we) forgot all about allowances whenever Sunday, allowance day, rolled around. Besides, I was raised with my parents buying most of what my sister and I needed, which allowed them to have a say over what we wore, read, and played with; though I have to say I don't remember too many occasions where I asked for something so outrageous (in quality or quantity) that it was denied. Frye boots and platform sandals come to mind, and looking back I'm more than relieved my mother said no. Of course, I was raised in a family where my allowance was a quarter until I started high school, when it was was raised to 50 cents, and then my father always gave us the chance of double or nothing by not talking all Sunday lol.

So watching how my three decided to spend their money, and on what, was a pretty interesting exercise. Laura went first, on Monday, when we went to the little city 40 miles away so Tom could get some building supplies (all the stores in our nearby town were closed for the holiday). Since the boys wanted to go with Tom to Totem Hardware, which not only sells tools but gives away freshly made popcorn, always a big draw, I asked Tom to drop the two of us off at the mall, where I needed a few things for our upcoming trip. At first Laura was rather taken by a Narnia calendar she saw in Zeller's, but it was $7.99 and she didn't seem entirely convinced by her choice. Then we happened on the free-standing calendar stand with more calendars than one usually sees all in one place, and Laura went straight past the six dozen different dog breed calendars to the kids' Make Your Own Calendar 2006, which she had received as a present a few years ago and enjoyed very much. Very canny choice, because all the calendars were 50 percent off, so she still has another $4 to spend one of these days. She's been busy coloring, drawing, and stickering every since. So busy that she hasn't though much about spending the rest, though she did mention bringing it along on vacation and asking if she could exchange it for the local currency.

Yesterday, the boys decided that they would spend their money on our weekly trip to town. Our first stop was the drugstore, where again I had a few more items on my trip list to cross off, and which the boys found a pretty tantalizing place. Daniel, like any good red-blooded Canadian boy, was first seduced by the NHL winterwear display. After realizing that he had less than half as much as needed for the logo-ridden winter hats (called toques up here) and gloves, he found a gaiter, which is basically a circular scarf, like a hat with the top cut off. Very handy for avoiding strangulation while playing, and a nice extra layer. The gaiter, with the Edmonton Oilers emblem, was item number one for quite some time, but then Daniel decided it was "too practical" and wanted to see what was available in town drugstore number two. In the meantime, Davy ended up in the stationery/school supply aisle (he is oh so definitely my child), where he was dazzled by the display of glitter markers (appropriately called "Twinklette"). I was dazzled by the price ($1.99 each, yikes), but explained that if he really wanted them, he could buy 5 for his $10 (I had decided the Christmas money didn't have to include the seven percent tax). His mind was made up, and he picked out yellow, dark green, purple, gray, and orange, studiously avoiding the pink.

At drugstore number two, Daniel was temporarily enamored of a couple of farm sets (though it's hard to get too excited when we already own lots of plastic animals and yards of little plastic fencing), a John Deere combination key chain/flashlight/bottle opener (where it was pointed out that a) he has lots of key chains already and still no keys, b) he has a much bigger and better flashlight, and c) he has no need of bottle openers), and some Lego Bionicles. Still hedging his bets, he asked if we could head over to the local department store, which has a pretty good toy department in the basement. Where he went up and down the aisles, stopping for an in-depth study of more Bionicles, especially Knights. After talking me into a quick review of the the True Value Hardware store, where his first choice was either a jackknife or a utility knife on a keychain (vetoed for safety's sake), it was back to the department store to fondle the Bionicle Knights some more. He finally decided on King Mathias, who started getting built in the back seat while still on our rounds. I still can't see the point of Bionicles compared to regular Lego, but Daniel is delighted by his purchase, and I was more than happy to see all the thought he put into the matter. Especially after I caught the tail end of Oprah's show (apparently a repeat from September) on getting out of debt the other day, the segment with the two teenagers who spend about $600 U.S. each a month on Mommy's and Daddy's credit cards. Double yikes. As Oprah's money whiz of the day, Dave Ramsey, said, if you're not teaching your kids about the value of a dollar before they leave life under your roof, you're not doing them any favors. In fact, I think he mentioned the words "child abuse" and also told the 18-year-old daughter that he wouldn't want his son dating her. Definitely some tough love for those who think they want to give their kids "everything."

Hockey Day in Canada

It's the annual Hockey Day in Canada on CBC today, and wouldn't you know, it's actually snowing outside. First time in months, and great big fluffy flakes at that. We're going to celebrate by undecorating the tree and playing outside in the snow...

Trivial and liberal

For Christmas I decided to treat myself to some of the items that had been languishing on my Amazon wish list, items whose purchase I couldn't much justify because they were just for me, or just for fun, or just nice extras rather than necessities. Pitiful, isn't it? Things like the Sam Cooke Portrait of a Legend cd and the Swingin' for Schuur cd, with the very swingin' Diane Schuur and trumpeter Maynard Ferguson -- because, really, I have a lot of Sam Cooke and Diane Schuur on vinyl (but it's so nice now to be able to play them on the cd player in the kitchen or driving around) -- as well as my latest read (admittedly not the best choice to start digging into while getting ready to leave on a long trip), The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric: Understanding the Nature and Function of Language, by Sister Miriam Joseph. I've wanted this one for a few years, even before we started home schooling, ever since seeing it mentioned in A Common Reader catalogue. But it always seemed like a nice extra as long as the kids are as young as they are.

It wasn't until getting my hot little hands on it earlier this week, when I got to read it backwards, starting with Sister Miriam's biography, that I learned the book is actually her version of a textbook for the college freshman course she began teaching in 1935: "Since no existing textbook was adequate for the course Sister wrote her own." So what it is is actually a fairly brief (265 pages, not including author bio, notes, or index) overview of the nuts and bolts of the trivium, written simply enough for first-year college students (well, from the thirties, which says more about the state of most present-day high school education than anything else), and so far quite agreeable and tolerable to non-Catholics. The chapters, in order, include The Liberal Arts; The Nature and Function of Language; General Grammar; Terms and Their Grammatical Equivalents: Definition and Division; Propositions and Their Grammatical Expression; Relations of Simple Propositions; The Simple Syllogism; Relations of Hypothetical and Disjunctive Propositions; Fallacies; A Brief Summary of Induction; and Composition and Reading. Nifty. A good overview for the homeschooling parent, especially for those of us who don't like surprises down the road, or aren't keen on spending time reinventing the wheel.

I'm up to page 22, and my favorite part so far, beyond the first sentence where Sister Miriam explained, "The liberal arts denote the seven branches of knowledge that initiate the young into a life of learning", is learning the motto of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland: Facio liberos ex liberis libris libraque. In other words, "I make free men of children by means of books and balances [laboratory experiments]." Good stuff, as one of my old college history professors used to say. Am wondering if I can get Tom to build a new house so he can carve this over the new massive wooden doorway....

Irving Layton, 1912-2006

Before moving to Canada, I didn't know much about the vibrant and prolific poet Irving Layton and his writing except for the fact that he had been nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Layton, larger than life for most of his life and full of the fullness of feeling, died yesterday at the age of 93.

William Carlos Williams wrote about him, "When I first clapped eyes on the poems of Irving Layton I let out a yell of joy… for the way he greeted the world he was celebrating, head up, eyes propped wide.… He inhabits the medium [of poetry] and is at home in it, passionately.… With his vigor and abilities, who shall not say that Canada will not have produced one of the west’s most famous poets?”

I first discovered the magic of Layton's poetry through the magic of farming, and my 1958 edition of The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse:

The Bull Calf
by Irving Layton

The thing could barely stand. Yet taken
from his mother and the barn smells
he still impressed with his pride,
with the promise of sovereignty in the way
his head moved to take us in.
The fierce sunlight tugging the maize from the ground
licked at his shapely flanks.
He was too young for all that pride.
I thought of the deposed Richard II.

'No money in bull calves,' Freeman had said.
The visiting clergyman rubbed the nostrils
now snuffing pathetically at the windless day.
'A pity,' he sighed.
My gaze slipped off his hat toward the empty sky
that circled over the black knot of men,
over us and the calf waiting for the first blow.

Struck,
the bull calf drew in his thin forelegs
as if gathering strength for a mad rush . . .
tottered . . . raised his darkening eyes to us,
and I saw we were at the far end
of his frightened look, growing smaller and smaller
till we were only the ponderous mallet
that flicked his bleeding ear
and pushed him over on his side, stiffly,
like a block of wood.

Below the hill's crest
the river snuffled on the improvised beach.
We dug a deep pit and threw the dead calf into it.
It made a wet sound, a sepulchral gurgle,
as the warm sides bulged and flattened.
Settled, the bull calf lay as if asleep,
one foreleg over the other,
bereft of pride and so beautiful now,
without movement, perfectly still in the cool pit,
I turned away and wept.

The Word of the Week is "Confiscate"

The day after Boxing Day I started confiscating the kids' favorite toys, clothes, and books, to aid my packing efforts. A week from Saturday we're departing Alberta for sunnier climes (and donkey spiders, flying giant cockroaches, and mosquitoes that require half my family to take extra-strength Benadryl) to visit my parents for a month. It's the second year in a row we've done this, after our seven-month stay back in 2002-2003. The timing works out well -- it's the only sort of slow period all year for Tom, in part because his apprentice is required to take a two-month college course. We're all hoping for a mild winter in our absence, the kids because they don't want to miss any really good snowstorms or too much skating, and Tom and I because we feel guilty enough already leaving his parents with our daily farm chores (feeding cows and chickens and washing eggs).

Thirty years ago my parents took their first kid-less vacation to the West Indies, and loved it so much that they were determined to find some land and build a house. Which they finally did about 20 years ago, though they have yet to move down full time. Yes, I love it down there, though I was never crazy about spending Christmas in the Caribbean, with an artificial tree to boot (in fact, Tom and I got engaged the year I left the family holiday early, just after New Year's, to rendez-vous with him in Toronto in the midst of a huge, beautiful, snowstorm -- yes, my family and friends thought I was nuts both to get engaged only a few months after meeting and to trade a vacation of sun and sand for one with snow). And a four-week stay at my parents' house is not as much of a vacation as, say, two weeks in a hotel where someone else does the cooking and shopping. Though life with a unfenced pool is much less fraught now that the kiddies all swim and dive like dolphins.

So there probably won't be a lot of blogging going on, though I hope to check in from time to time, on my father's computer.

There will be some schoolwork -- a bit of math, grammar, history, and lots of fun readalouds (the kids and I are still deciding which books to bring along) -- though we'll be unschooling science for the duration. Helping Grandpapa tend to the four-acre tropical garden, going to the beach, star gazing on warm evenings, and one or two sessions at the hands-on aquarium (where you get to pick up and hold various sea creatures) should do the trick.

Off to confiscate some more underwear. Oh, and some Lego...

New Year's day

"Hockey on the Pond" by Silvia Armeni

As I sit here at 11 a.m. in my pajamas in front of the computer with my mug of coffee and no plans to make (and therefore break) any resolutions, New Year's day has started off marvelously well, with a breakfast of pancakes and bacon (not cooked by me) and a CBC radio interview with (Baroness) P.D. James plugging her latest and talking about murder mysteries as "the literature of comfort"; as she said this morning, at the end there's always a solution, provided by humans by dint of human intelligence and human perseverance, though there's not always justice or fairness. Which is a very good explanation for why I enjoy the genre so much.

In a couple of hours, our friends will arrive (two kids, a daughter Laura's age and a son Daniel's age) for a game of hockey on the pond. We had a skiff of snow overnight, and though the weather warmed up to around 32F overnight, we're hoping the ice is still solid for skating. The two dads have planned to make a bonfire so we can roast marshmallows and hotdogs (with some kubasa -- Ukrainian sausage -- for the adults), so everyone is pretty excited.

A new year

"There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow."
O.S. Marden (1850-1924)

Our farewell to the old year and welcome to the new one includes lots of skating (the end of the month has brought some cooler temperatures, much beautiful hoar frost, but still no snow), and a meal tonight of fizzy drinks and hors d'oeuvres -- devilled eggs, shrimp and cream cheese on crackers (the kids' invention), smoked salmon (a delicious and thoughtful gift from some friends visiting for the holidays from B.C.), and such -- and decadent desserts. Then we watch old movies, I remember Guy Lombardo fondly, and we try to stay up until midnight, but if we can't we celebrate at New York or Newfoundland time. And I'm definitely in the "no New Year's resolutions" camp. Life is much too short...

A happy and healthy New Year to all!

"Viewpoint Discrimination"

Interesting article in the most recent issue of The Economist (December 17th) received here yesterday about an even more interesting California case with more than a couple of highly interesting ramifications for home educating families, secular and otherwise. Because the article is considered "premium content" and you have to be an Economist subscriber to get it for free, here's the long article, in its entirety. Rather more interesting passages highlighted by me.

United States: A new front in the culture wars: The Lord's word
"Are secular universities discriminating against religious schools? Or are they just setting high standards?"

(Los Angeles) In its opening pages, Biology for Christian Schools (Bob Jones University Press) comes straight to the point:

"The people who have prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word of God first and science second. To the best of the author's knowledge, the conclusions drawn from observable facts that are presented in this book agree with the Scriptures. If a mistake has been made (which is probable since this book was prepared by humans) and at any point God's Word is not put first, the author apologises.”

And that is precisely why a high-school science course using the 693-page book as a primary text does not meet the admission standards of the University of California (UC). It does not, argues the university, reflect “knowledge generally accepted in the scientific and educational communities and with which a student at the university level should be conversant.” The same, says the university, is true of some other courses—in history, literature and government—offered by Calvary Chapel Christian Schools of Murrieta, a small town south-east of Los Angeles. These courses also rely on books from the Bob Jones University Press and from another Christian publisher, A Beka Books.

Welcome to the latest front in America's culture wars. The Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), the Calvary Chapel Schools and six Calvary Chapel students are suing the university, whose campuses include that traditional bastion of liberal thought, Berkeley, as well as the huge UCLA campus, for what they call “viewpoint discrimination”. The Christian schools add that the university is violating the students' constitutional right to freedom of speech and religion. The university naturally denies the charges, and this week a federal judge in Los Angeles began considering the preliminary arguments of a contest which could eventually reach the Supreme Court.

So far the UC case has had less publicity than the argument about whether high schools can teach “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution (currently being fought out in a courtroom in Pennsylvania) or even a ferocious dispute up in Cupertino, where a history teacher claims he was restrained from teaching about Christianity's role in American history (parents had complained that he was acting more like an evangelical preacher). In fact, all these arguments are part of the same battleground, which pits an increasingly self-confident evangelical America against a secular education establishment.

The ACSI, which represents almost 4,000 Christian high schools in America, including some 800 in California, worries that if the Christians' challenge fails, UC's intolerance might spread to other institutions and other states. Moreover, says a lawyer for the plaintiffs, victory would be “a major blow to the arrogance of the ivory towers and their attempt to say that kids from Christian schools can't be well prepared for university.”

There is a lot at stake. California, with its ten-campus UC system and the 23-campus California State network, has America's biggest—and best—system of public universities. The case has arisen because of the way that UC, unlike other systems, intrudes into high-school education. Its Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools assesses high-school courses to see if they meet its standards (known as “A-G requirements”, and ranging from a two-year history syllabus to one-year elective courses in subjects such as the visual and performing arts).

UC denies it practices secular intolerance and “viewpoint discrimination”. It notes that it has approved plenty of courses at Christian schools and in the past four years has accepted 24 of the 32 applicants from the Murrieta school. And it says that if the courses had used these textbooks “as supplementary, rather than primary, texts, it is likely they would have been approved.”

What is really being challenged, says the university, is its right to set its own academic standards and admission requirements. In which case the question is what that right implies. The Christian plaintiffs say they have no objection to science students, for example, being taught conventional wisdom, but “their constitutional rights are abridged or discriminated against when they are told that the current interpretation of scientific method must be taught dogmatically, and must be accepted by students, to be eligible for admission to University of California institutions.” In other words, what the case involves is not so much the now-familiar tussle over intelligent design, but a student's freedom of speech and thought.

All of which, counters the university, is bogus. As long as they satisfy the A-G requirements, students who are headed into the UC system can believe whatever they choose to and take whatever additional courses—including religious ones—they like. In any case, the university's lawyers point out, there is plenty of precedent establishing a university's right to control a student's speech: witness a court ruling three years ago that a UC student did not have a first amendment right to write “fuck you” to university administrators in his master's thesis.

In theory, the UC case stops at California's borders: no other state's public universities interfere so much in the high-school system, so their “secular intolerance”, real or imagined, is less potent. In practice, whatever happens in the current case, more such conflicts will follow.

For instance, when home-schooled children or students from private Christian schools apply to a public university, they are typically judged by their examination scores—and, typically, they are required to perform much better than their counterparts from the public schools. By the reckoning of the Calvary Chapel plaintiffs, a student from a Christian school in California needs to score within the top 2-4%, whereas a public-school teenager with good course-work could meet the required score almost by guesswork.

Given the growth across America in both home-schooling and Christian schooling, there will surely be more “viewpoint-discriminated” students and their parents contacting their lawyers. And evangelical America will keep pushing. Christian universities such as Wheaton, in Illinois, are proof that decent scholarship can co-exist with evangelical faith; and, given the rise of born-again Christianity across the nation, more evangelical scholars are now found in secular faculties.

Fifty years ago there were only a handful of “megachurches”, drawing more than 2,000 each Sunday; today, there are more than 1,200 such churches, three of them with congregations of over 20,000. Not only is the nation's president a born-again Christian, but so (according to the Pew Research Centre) are 54% of America's Protestants, who are 30% of the population.

Will America's public universities take on a similar tinge? To the extent that educational establishments reflect cultural reality, it may be inevitable. After all, before the liberal era of the 1960s, there were no such things as courses in “Women's Studies” or “African-American Studies”. Now, no prudent American university would be without them. It would be odd if conservative Christians did not leave similar footprints on the syllabus.

Received and sent

Received in today's e-mail inbox:

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Sent in reply:

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Many thanks for the offer, but no thanks. Even were I more familiar with your publication -- I've seen a few issues, but so far haven't been tempted to subscribe -- I'm not interested in making any money from my blog, which I realize places me in rather singular and peculiar company. In fact, I started my blog more as a place to think out loud and share information about homeschooling and other subjects rather than as a money-making vehicle.

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Narnia: Better than the book...

and I don't say that often. In fact, I don't think I've ever said that before. Ever. Then again, the book wasn't one of my favorites (rare for a children's book). And the movie was thin in parts -- the scene with Aslan at the Stone Table reminded me of the Star Wars bar scene -- and between the animation and the voice (as other critics have mentioned, Liam Neeson's voice coming out of a lion is rather disconcerting), not deep and noble enough I thought, the lion is more of a pussycat than the awe-inspiring wild cat he is supposed to be. But the movie has all of the richness, depth, pageantry (Peter, in full armor, on a unicorn!), feeling, and Magic I missed in the book. And the kids are wonderful.

Waiting for the Magic

Today, the kids and I are going to finish up with our reading of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and catch Narnia, possibly with Tom, at the local theater before it departs tomorrow.

I'm still waiting to get captivated by the book, and can't shake the impression that Lewis must have said to himself, "And now I think I shall write a children's book" (or the impression that the kids view the book not as a particularly good story but only as a means to an end -- our third trip to the movie theater). I'm rather disappointed by the lack of depth and detail, and by so much going on so quickly (perhaps a slower pace would have solved my need for more depth and detail) and by too much repetition, especially that bit about the importance of leaving a wardrobe door open; perhaps Mr. Lewis thought we wouldn't understand or realize that good, thoughtful children leave wardrobe doors open and bad, thoughtless children close them? And I know the Pevensie children, and we, are supposed to care innately about Aslan because the author says we are supposed to -- "the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different" -- but I just, er, don't. For the same reason none of us felt particularly sad or upset or involved, as we were supposed to, when Aslan ended up on the Stone Table, though the violence of the scene was certainly felt.

I can see the magic in the book -- witches, dwarves, talking wolves and lions and beavers (which, you'd think, should have some special hold on Canadian children), and a portal to to a different world -- but for the life of me I can't find the Magic, the same Magic that I find effortlessly (and the kids do too), or rather that finds us, in Understood Betsy, Blueberries for Sal, the works of E. Nesbit and E.B. White, Anne of Green Gables, and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Maybe we're just missing the Narnia gene, she wondered with a sigh...

Christmas in the Country, Part 2

Here, as promised, is the rest of Justin Isherwood's magical holiday essay:

Christmas is a time that makes us believers in magic. We as a people are so touched by the season that the selfish find themselves generous and the quiet find themselves singing.

It is a time when people become a little crazy, a time when normal people take to hiding things in secret places. It is a time when country children sneak to the barn on Christmas Eve to wait in the dark so that they might hear cows speak in human tongues.

It is a time when the week pullers of summer walk their fields spreading thistle, sunflower, and rye seeds to gain the blessed flight of birds over their land, in belief that feathered prayers are best.

That the season is generous cannot be doubted. Cash register carols ring in the ears of the nation's GNP. While we have gained with invention a multitude of curiosities, we have lost something of self-expression, a quality thought quaint. Yet, it is personal expression that reinforces the bonds of friends and family and that repairs the rents made in the communal fabric. Its quality is one of goodness. For those having a generous solid character; what is put in will also flow out. Gifts make people as sure as people make gifts.

Remembered are all the knitted socks, caps, and mittens that mothers forced habitually on children, despite their best efforts to lose, mutilate, or outgrow them. Somehow mothers embodied good health in their children by the sheer number of such articles they could produce.

Flannel pajamas and quilts stuffed with raw wood or old wedding suits gave warm comfort in wood-heated, sawdust-insulated houses, which held pitifully little heat by morning.

Indeed, there were store-bought BB guns and toy trains that puffed flour smoke. There were Raggedy Ann dolls, and bicycles, and light bulb ovens, and baseball bats, and Flexible Flyers, and ice skates and, and, and -- and all so child necessary. Beyond store-bought things were those contraptions, those inventions of glue and jack plane, alchemies of counter-sunk screw and dovetail mortise. They were gifts of the sort remembered, which gave off an affection if only from the lingering warmth of their manufacture. The spokeshave conveyed the heat of the builder into the wood grain. It was caught there, enmeshed in the fiber and net of a tree's core, only to be released slowly, the effect left to ripple across generations. There were dollhouses with tiny doors and itsy-bitsy cupboards. There were bookshelves and basswood mixing spoons, breadboards and spice racks. A coffee table with purple blemishes testified to the fence staples some great grandfather had driven into the tree, the iron taken till all that remained was the tinted tattle of wood. There was a child's wagon and lathe-turned white ash wheels. The basement oozed to the rest of the house the aroma of woodworking king. A cradle birch headboard and rockers cut from wind-shaped limbs, a dulcimer of prized black walnut, a four-horse team with bobsled whittled from a block of white pine all took form there. Patient fingers made little ears and whittled almost breathing nostrils. The leather harness had all the lines; and the ironbound bobs were connected beneath by tiny iron rods so the bobs would swing opposite, just like the real bobsleds that hauled away the great trees of the once near wilderness. A gift of the early days, it ties together all the years. And a rocking chair -- made from homegrown pine, pegged, and glued -- lulled to sleep three generations and rocked away the anxious days of two world wars and one jungle fight.

There were simpler gifts of a pancake breakfast taken to neighbors, or the sudden appearance of two full cords of oak firewood, or snowtires mysteriously installed. Notes found in the bottom of stockings promised two Sunday afternoons of ice-skating adventures or three Saturday mornings without chores to go romp in the woods. Other simple notes promised to show a favorite fishing hole or a tree where flickers nested.

There was gift in all the cookies made and cut in the shape of angels, stars, and deers that flew. A haunting gift of powerful pride was given child, that they might decorate stars from the humble perch of a country kitchen, cloistered behind its steamed-up windows.

The season was popcorn, grown in the garden and wildly crossed with Indian corn to produce among the bright yellow kernels spotted ones of red and purple. Shelled on the living room floor, the cobs were tossed to the fire. Hazelnuts were just for kids sitting cross-legged to crack. Ice skating on the irrigation pit meant popple branch hockey sticks and granite stone pucks. Hot cider, suet pudding, black fudge, cranberry bread, popcorn balls, and oyster suppers punctuated the season.

And the great green tree brought home from the woodlot in the emptied honey wagon swelled the whole house with its vapors. Its fragrance and good cheer left few lives untouched.

Christmas in the township catches hold of the generosity first given by the land. It is a season that knows what a good gift is, one that keeps on giving, echoing down what hard walls time makes. It was in just such a country place that angels were heard to sing of a child lain in a feedbox. It was, as all farmers know, a good place to be born and a good place for a promise to begin.

A Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Christmas in the Country, Part 1

Our main holiday celebration is Christmas Eve, so, before I go off to bake lemon shortbread squares for tonight's dessert, here's my Christmas Eve present to all of my invisible friends, by way of Wisconsin farmer and writer Justin Isherwood, from A Farm Country Christmas:

Winter brings an armistice to the countryside. The fields lie frozen, resting from the marathon event of summer just run with the sun. A peaceful product grows now from the land.

Christmas is a farmer's holiday. The reason is one of logistics. Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day all come in the green season, at a time when farmers cannot take liberties with their vocation. That the nation does celebrate with mass exodus all the cars packed and outward-bound to some haven, makes little difference.

Christmas comes at a time when work has cooled its fevered pace; the mows, granaries, and warehouses attest to the fulfillment of spring, summer, and harvest. The great work is finished.

Christmas has a primitive heritage. Sky watchers, who by nature were farmers, have for millenia noted the autumnal declination of the sun, noted the days becoming both shorter and colder. Because they had a direct relationship with the earth, this no doubt caused a reverberate fear the sun would sink altogether beneath the horizon, never to rise again.

Perhaps their celestial instrument was a tree seen from their habitation, perhaps a large rock. One day, two-thirds of the way through December, notice was given the sun would rise high again. This observation of the sun rising on the north side of the tree assured the farmer of the return of the sun and its connected growing season.

Modern farmers are yet tied to such ancient solar rites; some small muscle twitches at solstice. A near universal time of celebration, feast days, dances, and gift giving, its importance is held within our blood as an almost genetic response to a tilted planet's return swing about a nearby star.

Winter always provides the struggle to survive. We have little difficulty in understanding why this is so, with blizzards and the worst cold yet to be told. The fall rush of canning, pickling, and hunting is but preparation to endure winter's coming, to survive to a distant spring.

To be continued tomorrow, Christmas Day. Merry Christmas!