A Harvest of Knowledge

The autumnal equinox has come and gone.  The nights are getting longer and the days cooler.  Trees are dressed in their finest colors, and squirrels are busy gathering nuts.  It’s definitely Fall here in the northern part of the United States, and that means the end of the growing season.  Harvest time!  For our family it means the end of our first season of vegetable gardening, and what a season it has been!

We started in January with a question.  “ Wouldn't it be great if we could grow our own vegetables?”  We live in a city lot with four active children who like to run around the yard; we don’t have much room to spare.  We certainly don’t have the room for a long row-style garden.  Yet there was one unused square patch of grass off the back deck.  I wondered if we could grow vegetables in raised boxes.  That way we wouldn't have to dig up the grass or worry about where and how deep the sprinkler lines are buried.  I mentioned the idea to a friend, and she said “Oh, like square-foot gardening.”  Square-foot what?  I looked it up.  Yes, like square-foot gardening!  It’s a method by which one can grow 100% of the vegetables in 20% of the space, and it recommends doing so in raised beds.  The space we had to use would accommodate six 3’x6’ boxes.  Half of each box would be 12” deep to accommodate root vegetables, and the other half would be 6-8” deep.  My oldest son, Zac, found the size boxes we wanted in a catalog at a very reasonable price.  Best of all, the boxes could be put together with no tools.  In addition to raised boxes, square-foot gardening recommends growing vertical.  With some grid paper and careful thought, a trellis system was designed to maximize the spaces between the boxes and at the north end of the garden.  It was decided to use bamboo poles and a snap system to connect them.  The material orders were placed and the commitment began.

We learned that the best soil is made from scratch.  We’d never put much thought into what makes up soil until this project.  We started with vermiculite and peat moss, and then mixed in manure and compost.  Horse manure was first.  We learned that even fresh horse manure doesn't burn delicate seeds and plants.  In the days when horse-drawn buggies made deliveries to the house, horse manure was “garden gold.”  A housewife considered it a great day if the horse pooped in her yard.  She’d go get her shovel, scoop it up, and dump it on the vegetable garden for some of the biggest and tastiest produce in the neighborhood.  We also added rabbit and chicken manure.  Each kind of manure contributes a different nutritional value to the soil.  We also noticed that the kind of animal poop we should be putting on the garden is from herbivores.  Never did we expect to become poopologists from growing vegetables!  But, even when we thought we had the perfect soil mix, something went wrong.  Almost as soon as we put our tomato seedlings in the ground, they turned purple and started to wither.   Yikes!  Zac remembered seeing something in our reference book that looked like our purple plants.  Sure enough, there was a picture of a tomato plant that could have been taken from one of ours.  The problem was low phosphate.  The solution was to add rock phosphate.  Unfortunately we live hours from a major city, and we were not going to be able to acquire rock phosphate in our small town.  A neighbor told us that she always put eggs shells under her tomato plants, so we had eggs for lunch that day and every tomato plant had crushed eggs shells slipped under their beginning root systems.  An internet order and a tense few days to await delivery and the rock phosphate was added to every box.  Within days the tomato plants started to turn green again and perk up. 

The next question was, “What do we want to grow?”  There are as many theories on what to grow as there are people to write about them.  Some say grow what you can’t buy locally.  Others say grow what is more expensive in the grocery stores.  And yet others say grow only what you normally buy to eat.  So we had a family discussion and decided on a mix of things that we normally eat, things that we’d like to try, and then I added things that we should be including in our diet but can’t because they are not available locally.  We made a list of everything from tomatoes and hot and sweet peppers to five kinds of summer squash, two varieties of winter squash, four kinds of beans, three varieties of peas, beets, carrots, broccoli, kale, spinach, Swiss chard, strawberries, onions, various herbs, and an amazing squash called a tromboncino, which can be both a summer or winter squash and can only be found in an heirloom variety.  A friend was so encouraged by our endeavor that she gifted to us green onions and asparagus from her well established garden.   

Now that we had made our growing selections, “Could we could grow heirloom vegetables so that we could harvest seeds and sustain our garden?“  Yes we could, but that meant starting almost everything from seed.  We quickly learned that the number of days until harvest marked on the package doesn't include germination time, and yet germination time can be faster with heated seed trays.  Zac and I spent a cold March afternoon tucking seeds into our heated seed trays.  We were having what I thought was a conversation on miracles that was unrelated to seeds when Zac held up a tiny seed, and said, “Yes, Mom it really is a miracle.”  “What do you mean, Zac.”   “It really is a miracle that we’ll be eating vegetables and fruit in August that come from plants that grow from these tiny seeds.”  It was one of the speechless Mommy moments that reinforced that if we had just one something to eat out of the garden, the lesson would not be wasted.   When it was time to plant seeds directly in the garden, we had a little homeschooling biology fun.  We planted the beans in the garden, and we planted some in a jar.  We took a piece of black construction paper and wound it inside a clear glass jar, and then we placed a bean seed between the jar and the paper.  We filled the jar with water just until the paper absorbed all the water.  The boys made their hypothesis as to which would appear first, the shoots or the roots.  When the shoots appeared in our jar seeds, they were also appearing in the garden. We had a sneak peek at what was happening underground by watching our jar.

If we were going to the trouble of growing heirloom seeds, “Could we grow an organic garden?”  When we transplanted seedlings into peat pots, the plants were fed fish emulsion.  A stinky process, but one the plants apparently loved.  In our history lessons we had learned that Squanto taught the pilgrims to plant their corn kernels with a fish.  Squanto’s advice began to take on reality as we watched our young plants grow green and healthy with fish emulsion.  For bug control, we companion planted.  Sage was planted with carrots to discourage carrot flies, borage to repel tomato horn worms, nasturtium for squash bugs and whiteflies, and marigolds to protect beans and squash from beetles and eggplant and tomatoes from harmful nematodes.  As the garden began to grow, we began to see these pretty little white butterflies.  I wasn't so sure that they were as harmless as they were pretty.  Turns out they were cabbage moths and the cute little green inch worms that they produced were wreaking havoc on our broccoli and kale.  A solution of diluted soap sprayed on the plants in the early morning and hand picking the worms off the plants kept the damage in check.  Another weapon in our arsenal was the ladybug.  We bought a ladybug hatchery and ordered the larvae.  Good thing too because if I’d seen ladybug larvae in the garden I would have thought they were ugly enough to be the bad guys.  We watched the larvae go through their lifecycle and develop into ten pink ladybugs.  The best thing about their color was that they were easy to spot among the foliage once released into the garden.  But, as the summer progressed and the bad bugs became more prevalent, we had to move on to stronger tactics.  The next release of ladybugs was an order of more than 1,500 that were turned out in batches over a three day period.  It was a little like sending out the troops in shifts.  The mass ladybug releases coincided with hanging packets of lacewing eggs on the trellises and the application of beneficial nematodes into the soil.  Within only a few days there was a noticeable improvement in all the plants, but especially the squash.  New green leaves began sprouting from what had been yellowing plants.  The beneficial nematodes were waging war on the bad larvae in the soil that was damaging root structures.  I compared the release of the nematodes to faith.  Nematodes are microscopic.  We can’t see them unless we look at them under a microscope, but we can see the evidence of what they do.  In early September we had cucumber beetles, despite that we didn't grow cucumbers.  They had multiplied so quickly that they were virtually swarming.  They decimated the beans within days and were even attacking both the sweet and hot peppers, varieties that are supposed to be bug resistant.   I finally relented and sprayed the entire garden with neem oil. Neem oil is an organic product.  Its only side effect is that it can be harmful to bees, which are the very creatures that we were relying on for pollination.  The lavender planted in the flower beds near the garden attracted the bees. But it was either the beetles or the bees, and the beetles far outnumbered the bees.  One application was enough to stem the tide of destruction and reduce the beetle population to something more equitable in the bug battle that waged under the leaves and in the soil.    

Was all the planning and effort worth the results?  Oh, yes.  All summer we had the best tasting and freshest fruits, vegetables, and herbs on our table.  We ate what was in season and planned our meals around what was available in the garden.  My baby daughter had her first taste of strawberry fresh from the plant.  My older children ate sugar snap peas right off the vines.  They loved them so much that I had to show them to wait until the pods were as long as the palm of their hand and as big around as their thumb.   Patience isn't a strong suit for my 5 year old.  He’d pull the pods off and then measure them.  “It’s big enough Mom,” he’d call out.  “Well, that’s a good thing,” I’d chuckle as I’d watch him stuff it in his mouth.  Many of the plants produced abundantly and we have stocked our freezers with tomatoes, leafy greens, squash, and peppers to enjoy during the winter.  We discovered some new favorites and learned a lot about botany along the way. 

In late August, Zac was helping me dice tomatoes and I asked him if he remembered our conversation in March about miracles.  “Sure do,” he smiled as he popped a juicy tomato into his mouth.  It was a lesson we’ll be happy to live again next year.

Making Friends Through Homeschooling

One of the most asked questions I get when people find out we homeschool is “What do you do about socialization?”  It seems that the paradigm of socialization for children is that children can only socialize and make friends in a public or private school setting.  As homeschooling parents, we've had to put some serious thought into what is socialization.

The main thing we've learned is that socialization is a process.  It’s not something that just happens when children are put together.  An infant’s first show of social skills is a smile.  That smile soon progress into simple expressions and gestures.  It’s the baby’s way of communicating with its environment.  As older babies and toddlers, children engage in side-by-side play with other children.  Direct play usually begins in the early preschool ages, and then children should learn about ownership, sharing, and empathy.  By school age, children should begin to deal with responsibility, respect, and conflict resolution.  None of this progression can happen without adult guidance.  A loving adult has to be there to smile back when that infant first smiles.  An adult should be present when side-by-side independent play gets too close, tempers flare, and teeth are bared.  Adults have to teach preschoolers how to share and care about someone else’s feelings.  And school age children still need adults to teach them when to use words and what words to use instead of their fists to resolve conflicts.  Socialization is a process of learning skills for interacting with people in ones environment.  Just like learning about letters and numbers, socialization has to be taught by adults.  

Any home with more than one child has the perfect environment for teaching the process of socialization to children.  Relationships between siblings are some of the most intense and most important of a person’s life.  I have yet to talk to a parent of more than one child that doesn't remark about the bickering, fighting, and arguing.  Each family has it, and some more than others.  It’s natural.  Toys and clothes get mixed up, personal space gets invaded, and the sparks fly.  “He’s touching me!”  “She hit me!”  He’s annoying me!”  In our house, the children are both worst enemies and best friends.  They spend much of their time fighting, arguing, and generally pestering one another, but if anything threatens any one of them, one of the siblings always rushes to the defense.  When my oldest, Zac, was being bullied by another boy, his younger brother had a hard time understanding why we were taking so long to handle the situation.  He took matters into his own hands one evening when he walked up to the bully and punched him in the arm, and hard enough to make the boy double over.  The bully was four years older and a lot bigger than my youngest son, but by gosh, no one was going to pick on his older brother without having to deal with him!  When my oldest daughter was a toddler, a preschooler shoved her down.  Zac went to her rescue and gave the other child a taste of her own medicine, and then he picked up his little sister and dusted her off.  These are the same children that sit at the breakfast table bickering and teasing each other until Mom and Dad think we are going to lose our minds.  No, retaliation isn't necessarily the social skill their Dad and I want to instill in them, but it is good to see the sibling bond at work.  It makes it more tolerable and gives us hope on days when we spend a lot of our time teaching conflict resolution.

As for friends, homeschooling gives us a unique advantage.  Their Dad and I are so involved with our children, all the time, that we not just know who their friends are, we know their friends.  We have a boy that lives near us who is between the age of our sons.  The first few times he played in our yard, he was destructive to our toys, overly aggressive with our children, and mouthy to me and my husband.  My husband and I made the decision that this wasn't someone that we wanted as a playmate for our children.  We had numerous discussions with our boys about why we had made our decision.  My youngest son was relieved.  He didn't like the way this child treated him or his stuff.  I didn't like that this boy taunted and tried to block Zac from getting out of the deep end of the swimming pool.  One day when the boy was being especially persistent, I heard my oldest raise his voice and say “Would you please stop!”  When I looked in his direction, the lifeguard had heard Zac’s cry and intervened.  Zac had done exactly what we had taught him to do.  He didn't resort to his fists.  He clearly and loudly told the boy to stop, and that got the boy’s attention as well as an adult’s.  So many parents are concerned about parental controls for television, computers, and movies, but parental control over friends is just as important.  Actually, in our family we think it’s the most important.  The friends will influence what and how the child wants to watch and play.  Because we are with our children every day all day, we can and do exercise parental control over budding friendships. 

Public or private school is not the only place where children are around others their age for the opportunity for friendship.  There is church, sports, scouting, and a tremendous variety of other extra-curricular activities.  This summer, our main activities were baseball and swimming.  Zac was very nervous about the first day of baseball practice.  Our town is very small and most of the children go to the public school.  They all know each other well.  Sure enough, at the first practice most of the boys looked at Zac with a wary eye.  At the second practice it was obvious the word had gotten around.  One of the boys approached Zac and sneered, “Oh, you’re the homeschool kid.”  Then the boy walked away.  Zac wasn't sure what to make of the encounter, so he went back to playing ball.  At dinner that night he mentioned what happened and had tears in his eyes.  All he really wanted was to be accepted.  A simple request, but in our town, anything that’s out of the norm isn't accepted very easily.  His Dad and I told him to brush it off and play the best baseball he could.  A tall order for a boy who is one of the youngest on the team.  After a few more practices, the other boys started greeting Zac by name.  Then they started cheering for him when he was up to bat.  His hard work was paying off, and the boys were beginning to recognize that Zac was just a boy who happens to be homeschooled.  When Zac and I would hit balls in the batting cage, we had often had his teammates join us.  They even encouraged my youngest son to try hitting and catching with them.  Accepted at last!  Near the end of the summer, I overheard a boy at the pool call out, “Hey Zac, want to play?”  Music to my ears.  Such a normal phrase, and one that we’d prayed for.  Zac’s response was a casual “sure”, but I heard so much more.  I heard a little boy going through the process of growing up and finding his way in the world, even if his whole world right now is limited to one small town.

Gone Squirrely

 








Early last spring, our family adopted three orphaned baby squirrels.  We were going about our regular routine on an unusually warm and sunny Wednesday afternoon when my oldest son came walking up the front sidewalk with this little ball of fur toddling and hopping after his heels.  My husband and I thought it looked like a squirrel, but it didn't move like a normal healthy squirrel, and it was so small.  Zac wasn't sure he was okay with this thing jumping at him, so he climbed the front steps.  I sat down on the sidewalk to take a closer look.  With Zac out of range, the little thing turned towards me.  It toddled over and sat just out of reach studying me.  It looked to be about 6 weeks old.  Perhaps it had fallen out of a nest.  It didn't take long for the baby to toddle over to me and climb into my lap.  I was so stunned, I was afraid to move.  I certainly didn't want to break its trust.  The little guy found his spot and tucked himself under my arm.  I must have smelled like a Mom to him.  After a few minutes I carefully picked him up and Zac, my husband, and I started the search for the nest.  We walked around our block searching the treetops for signs of a squirrels’ nest or squirrel parents who might be frantic about their missing baby.  Then Zac yelled out that there was another squirrel at the base of a tree in our front yard.  My husband and I both were thinking, “Oh good, squirrel parents,” only to discover another baby squirrel.  I resumed my spot sitting on the ground, and seeing his brother safe in my hands, squirrel #2 came over to take a better look at me.  My family played outside with baby squirrels for the rest of the afternoon.  Four young children, two baby squirrels, a couple of apples, and some curious neighbors made for hours of fun.  Even our cat got in on the act.  She kept her distance for more than an hour, and then her curiosity got the better of her and she slinked over for a sniff.  She seemed to understand when we told her not to bother the babies, but we knew that if given a chance, there was no way those squirrels could out run a cat.  Towards evening, we still had no sign of squirrel parents, and we knew we were about to have a cold end of the week/weekend.  We just couldn't leave these guys out in the elements and at the mercy of the neighborhood cats.  Our cat carrier made a nice temporary nest box, and we had two house guests for the weekend, or so we thought.

The next evening, some neighbor kids knocked on our front door to announce that they had found another baby squirrel in the intersection in front of our house.  So my husband grabbed a towel and went to rescue baby #3  and then canvas the surrounding blocks for a nest.  Squirrel #3 was the same size and age as the first two, and when we put him in the carrier, he promptly settled down with his brothers.  Three baby boy squirrels together again.  I couldn't help wonder if there were any more. 

We thought our front hall closet would be warm enough for the babies, especially since they slept huddled together.  They spent the nights there and the days in their carrier on a dining room chair.  Over the years we’d had various wild babies that we’d tried to rescue.  We had put together a wild baby rescue kit, which consisted of a glass eye dropper, powdered kitten milk, pine shavings, and a pet nursing bottle with bottle brushes.  The baby squirrels could eat apples, but were not interested in anything harder, like peanuts.  My husband thought the squirrels might like the goats’ milk better than the kitten replacement.  The goat’s milk was a huge hit and resulted in all sorts of squirrely antics to be the first in line at feeding time.  I fed them with the glass eye dropper.  They may have been little, but their very sharp baby teeth would have easily shredded a plastic or rubber nipple.  I did a little investigating on baby squirrel diets.  So far so good on the diet, and we had acquired a water bottle.  All we had to add was a little dry puppy food for the extra protein and fat that their little bodies needed. 

Everything seemed to be going well until Sunday morning.  I pulled the carrier out of the front closet and reached in to find cold, almost lifeless squirrels.  All three were barely breathing, and not responding to the goats’ milk or much other stimulation.  My husband handed me some warm towels and had me sit and hold the squirrels between my body and the towels.  The squirrels were so lifeless that even their fleas were jumping ship for warmer territory…me!  I sat for hours holding the babies, expecting that I’d be the last thing they knew before they died.  Shortly before lunch time, they started to respond to my constant body heat and stroking.  Instead of dying, they were reviving!  They wanted to eat, not much at first, but it was a good sign.  By early afternoon, they were moving around again, and by that evening, they acted as if nothing had happened.  We padded the dining chair with several towels, a heat mat, and another towel, and we kept our infrared heater running all the time next to their carrier.  The indirect and diffused heat did the trick, and the babies stayed warm and cozy.  Obviously they were not old enough to regulate their own body temperature.  Our weekend house guests were here to stay indefinitely. 

We named the squirrels Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, but I couldn't tell which was which until feeding time.  Theodore was the most reserved, and was content to eat the apples, carrots, and puppy food that I put in small bowels in the carrier.  Sometimes he’d show up after his brothers had finished their share of the goat’s milk and take a taste or two.  Alvin was the most aggressive about his milk.  He would sit on the hand that was holding the milk bottle in order to catch the eye dropper just as it was pulled out of the bottle so he could shove it as far into his mouth as possible and gulp the tasty milk.  Simon was also enthusiastic about the milk, but when push came to shove, he’d let Alvin fill up first and then take his milk with as much enthusiasm as his brother, but with a lot less competition.  Eventually the goats’ milk became a treat and not the mainstay of their diet.  For special treats, we’d gather maple seeds and fresh leaves from our trees.  To help with their constant need to chew, we kept them supplied with sticks and pine cones.  Like most babies, the squirrels grew rapidly.  They needed more space and we wanted our living room back.  We set a release date for Mother’s Day.  The weather was warm and sunny.  We took the carrier outside where we had first discovered the squirrels.  Everyone sat down and waited to see what would happen.  Would they bolt and run for their freedom?  Would they hide in the carrier?  When the carrier door was opened, one tentative little nose peaked out, then another.  Then one of the squirrels saw me sitting next to the carrier, and he made a beeline for my lap, closely followed by both of his brothers.  Obviously they were not ready for the great outdoors.  Gently we put them back in the carrier and everyone trooped back inside. 

One of my sons asked where the squirrels would sleep once they moved
outside.  Another asked how we were going to feed them.  We explained that the squirrels would learn to forage like “regular” squirrels, but the questions did make us think about the transition to outside from the squirrels’ perspective.  If we released them with no shelter or food source, would they survive?  I started shopping for a squirrel house and feeder.  The feeder was easy to find, but housing was a different matter.  I needed to know what kind of squirrels we had in order to know how big the house and its entrance hole should be.  With a little research and a lot of luck, the boys and I found a picture that identified our squirrels as Eastern Fox Squirrels.  With that information, I contacted someone who makes squirrel nest boxes.  I e-mailed him our situation.  Yes, he could help us.  Not only would his box would be big enough for three squirrels, he was able to confirm that we’d done everything correctly so far in rehabilitating the babies, and he told us what to do next.  It was good that we followed the clues that the squirrels gave us when they were not ready to be released.  They really were still too young to be out on their own.  We were reassured that the squirrels would let us know when it is time.  We learned that the best location for a nest box is about 10’ up a tree with an eastern exposure.  The box should not be made of cedar because cedar can make squirrels sick when they chew on it, and they were expected to chew on the box, especially around the entrance hole.  They would customize the hole size, and enlarge it as they grow.  Also fire-hardened wood would last longer than non-fire-hardened wood.  We also acquired a large, folding, wire dog crate.  It was big enough that both the cat carrier and the new nest box would fit inside.  It only took a couple of days for the squirrels to move out of the cat carrier and into the nest box.  They loved their new home!  Once I pulled the cat carrier out of the dog crate, there was more than enough room for the nest box, the squirrel feeder, and some small logs for playing and chewing, plus lots of room to run and play.  And play they did.  They’d play “king of the nest box;” one squirrel would sit on top of the box, and the other two would take running leaps at him to see if they could knock him off.  They’d race each other in circles around the cage and then suddenly stop in the middle of the top and swing upside down like monkeys by their back feet.  And like all babies, they had to have nap time, twice a day, and bedtime was at about 8:00 p.m. 

Everything was going well until one of the squirrels figured out that if he turned his head just so, he could squeeze between the bars and escape.  The last thing I needed was an escaped squirrel running wild through the house.  So we wrapped the cage in chicken wire.  That at least slowed down our little escape artist, but when he did manage to get a taste of freedom, he always headed to the front door.  Was he trying to tell us something?  My children figured out that we were close to releasing the squirrels.  Oh, the tears.  They had become such an integral part of our family in a very short time.  We picked a place in a tree in our backyard for the nest box, and a fence post on which to mount the feeder.  The day we took the nest box to the tree to design the support pad for the box was very upsetting for the squirrels.  They didn't like their house gone.  When we put it back in the dog crate, they climbed inside and wouldn't leave for more than 12 hours.  After the pad for the nest box was built, we waited for a long stretch of good weather. 

Release day number two arrived.  I captured one squirrel in the cat carrier and his brothers dashed into their nest box.  We took the box and the carrier into the backyard.  As soon as I opened the carrier, that squirrel took off like he had been shot out of a cannon, and he never looked back.  The other two were more tentative.  I think they were concerned about losing their nest box again.  I finally coaxed them out and handed the box to my husband for him to mount.  A couple of screws later, and their home was installed in its new location.  We spent much of the afternoon looking in the trees to see how many squirrels were still around.  Weeks went by and we’d never see more than one squirrel in the backyard at a time, but was it the same squirrel, or were all three still around?  Then one magical day arrived and I saw two of the squirrels chasing each other across the backyard and the third one was at the feeder!  Almost a month after their release, they were all still alive and healthy and happy.  Now they are one of our great joys to see around the yard.  They won’t approach us close enough to be touched, but they do look in our windows to see if we’re around, and they chatter at us from the tree tops when we’re outside. 

All of us have learned so much from Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, and we have the immense satisfaction of raising and successfully releasing three squirrels.  It’s been a great hands-on biology lesson!

The True Treasures of Christmas

This fall has been a very trying time for our family in what could be appropriately called a season of death.  My Dad died in an accident in his home at the end of August and my father-in-law passed away in mid October just weeks shy of his 100^th birthday.  Christmas has been a little strange this year with both Dads being gone.  It's not that they are missed because it's “Christmas;” neither one spent Christmases with our family.  It’s more that Christmas seems to be a benchmark time of the year.  Just about everybody worldwide celebrates/recognizes the day.  I think it's a day of reflection more than most other holidays.  Last Christmas Dad was alive and well and working at a contract engineering job.  My father-in-law was in the hospital after hip surgery and baffling the doctors who couldn't believe a 99 year old was as resilient as he was.  This Christmas they are both gone, and we are down to just our immediate family.  

Just as the Christmas season was starting this year, we were returning from an almost month-long trip to clean up my parent’s things.  I had spent days and days digging through their belongings trying to decide what were the true treasures that I wanted to keep; knowing that so much would have to be sold and all I’d be left with were the memories.  Limited time and space gave me encouragement to decide what things were most important.

We returned home just in time to meet the Christmas season head on and in full swing.  So, like most of the fall, Christmas seemed a little rushed this year.  Late Christmas Eve afternoon I rolled out a new recipe for gingerbread cookies, just in time to have cookies for Santa.  The three oldest children helped cut the cookies into gingerbread men, stars, snowflakes, and Christmas trees. Christmas night I read a story to my 4-year old daughter while she was curled up in my lap, finishing her Christmas cookie.  I asked her what she liked best about the treat. She thought a minute and then quietly sighed and said, "It smells like Mommy."  I had to think about that one, then I realized it was the most wonderful thing she could have said.  For her it was a combination of the making of the cookies with Mommy and her liking the taste.  I doubt in years to come that she’ll remember what she did or didn’t get for Christmas this year, but I hope when she smells gingerbread cookies baking, she'll have something more important, a treasured memory of this Christmas with her family.  I know I will. 

After I tucked my oldest daughter into bed, my 1 year old was fussy (cutting a tooth), so I wrapped her in her blanket and settled in the recliner in front of the Christmas tree.  We rocked quietly for a long time, until I finally started to see her eyes close when she just couldn't keep them open to look at the tree any longer.  She heaved a sigh and settled her head against my chest as she fell asleep.  Of all the gifts that were given and received this year, that precious time snuggling the baby was my true treasure of Christmas.  

Summer Reading Programs

 Ah, Summer! The sun, the fun, the summer reading programs. So many from which to choose. The local public library is always a good one. Then there is our church, some on-line homeschooling resources, and a few local restaurants…pizza prizes anyone? This is our fourth year participating with our library, and our first year with three readers. My oldest two have discovered literally hundreds of new books over the years thanks to our public library reading program. This year their younger sister has joined in the fun.

  

Folks around town have been amazed at how many books my children can read in a few months. It’s a feat at which I marvel, but I’m not surprised. My children LOVE books! They have been read to since before they were born. In their unquenchable thirst to learn, I taught them to read at an early age. My youngest reader so far started reading books shortly after her third birthday. She followed the same path as her brothers. First simple sight words, then phonics overlapped with reading videos, and a generous dose of snuggle time curled up in Mommy or Daddy’s lap with her favorite story books. It’s all about words, words, words, and more words. It also helps that we don’t have television reception at our house. We have discovered that we didn’t have time to watch t.v. when we were busy learning about and enjoying life. We have televisions, but they are used to watch educational and other parent-approved material. Without hours a day in front of a t.v. with mindless programming, my children willing read books and use their imaginations.

They have discovered the magic and power of books. Board books at first with best loved authors like Margaret Wise Brown (The Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon), Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?), and Sandra Boynton (Blue Hat, Green Hat and Opposites). Then on to Dick and Jane, the Berenstain Bears, Dr. Seuss, and the wonderful vocabulary of Fancy Nancy. There really is magic when Ms. Frizzle class boards the Magic School Bus for her wacky science field trips. My 3 year old can’t see a school bus on the street without yelling out “Magic School Bus!” My children have sailed around the world with Ferdinand Magellan; visited Egypt, ancient Greece, Italy, China, Spain, and other foreign lands; as well as going back in time to the Middle Ages and when Jesus walked the earth. Their grasp of history has improved through the adventures in the Magic Tree House series, and they have become acquainted with the greatest of history’s men and women, including this country’s founding fathers, through numerous biographies, especially in the Step-Up series. They have lived on the Mayflower, in colonial times, through the American Revolution and the Civil War, as well as attending the signing of the Constitution through the “If You Lived…” series. They have expanded their math skills and science knowledge with the Charlesbridge math adventures and the Cat-In-The-Hat Learning Library. They have explored the depths of a tide pool with a hermit crab named Pagoo. Many meaningful conversations have been initiated thanks to Max Lucado’s religious parable books for children. Summer reading programs have taken my children on rafts down the mighty Mississippi River with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, riding with the wind in their hair on the Black Stallion, and into a land that can only be found through a mysterious wardrobe in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. And of course they have discovered the friendship and mutual love of ponies in the Pony Pal series at our local library.

During the summer, the morning hours that would normally be devoted to homeschooling become reading time. As a homeschooling Mom I love that my children can learn and discover on their own through books. Last summer, my boys made it a mission to read every history and science book in the library within their reading levels. This year, my oldest has a new-found interest in animals and veterinary medicine, so James Herriot’s books have become frequent visitors in our house, as well as all the animal care books he can find.

In addition to the educational and entertainment value of books, the reading program has brought organization, responsibility, and respect into our summer. With three readers, we have three sets of books and three reading lists to maintain. We had to establish a routine of where library books are to be kept when not being read and where they are to be deposited when completed so that they can be logged on each child’s reading list. I keep a tracking system to ensure that each book is returned to the library safely and on time. No small feat for this Mom who has been up late at night updating the reading lists. The children are responsible for keeping up with their books, and I help with the tracking and communication with the librarian. Because most of the books are borrowed from the library or other sources, the children are also learning about respect for the property of others, as well as sharing. Library books are treated better than our own. They are not left on the floor to be stepped on or to be picked up and chewed on by the baby or left on chairs to be sat on. They have bookmarks instead of dog-eared pages or being left open face-down to damage the bindings. And they are returned as quickly as possible so that other readers can enjoy them too. It’s really just controlled chaos, but all in good fun.

 

Another benefit of summer reading programs is discovering treasures buried deep on the library shelves. Those treasures are the books that speak volumes through fabulous writing and captivating illustrations. Sometimes they are Caldecott or Newbury award winners, but many are not. They are the books that we love so much that we want them for our family library. They have varied from the amazing science books of Thomas Locker to our newest acquisition, Helen Haidle’s What Would Jesus Do?, the children’s version of the Christian classic, In His Steps.



In a few short years, I expect to add another child to the summer reading program. The baby likes to sit with her own board books and babble while I’m reading to her older siblings. It’s an exciting development for us. She is only copying what she sees, but what she sees is laying a foundation for her future. It’s a future that I expect will reflect the theme of this year’s summer reading program: Dream Big…Read!

Deciding to Homeschool

When Alan and I were engaged, we had all the planning conversations like how many children we wanted, how and where we wanted to raise them, how to manage the finances. But as with every major life decision, some things were never a consideration. Never did we even have the thought that we’d homeschool. I dreamed of raising my children in a suburban neighborhood filled with other children that would grow up with ours, walk to school together, celebrate birthdays and the last day of school, and all those wonderful things that I had while growing up in a great public school system. I envisioned my children would be in school during the day and I could do homemaker stuff in peace and quiet and efficiency. Then I’d greet my young scholars in the afternoon with a hug and a snack as they returned home from school ready to do their homework and play outside before dinner.

Fast forward nine years when our first child, Zachary, is ready for preschool. The local preschool in the small town to which we’d just moved wouldn’t accept him because he wasn’t 3 on September 1st. Zachary has a November birthday. We explained to the preschool teacher that he already knew a lot of the basics, so academically he was ready. But we were patiently but firmly informed that rules were to be followed, and his birthday excluded him that year. So we tried the local Christian private school. The day we toured the school, the 4 year old preschool class was learning “L” is for “lamb.” My husband looked at me and said, “Zac knew that when he was 2.” So we decided to skip preschool. Zachary had a thirst for learning, and we certainly were not going to wait until the school system said he was old enough. Fast forward another three years, and Zachary is finally old enough for Kindergarten. But during the years in between, he had learned how to count by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s all the way to 100, how to add and subtract, how to tell time to the quarter hour, and how to read, and he was reading at a second grade level. But he was a typical 5/6 year old boy in his maturity with a short attention span and likely to get into trouble if he wasn’t being challenged. His Dad and I realized we were at a crossroad. Do we put him in public school knowing he’d be bored in Kindergarten and probably a trouble maker, or do we continue with his education at home? The public school didn’t have the resources to accommodate an academically advanced 5 year old.

 We had lots of concerns. We had two younger children that needed mommy’s attention. How much time could I devote to homeschooling and taking care of the others, plus the general up keep of the house and family? Could Zachary learn from us at home? How would we handle subjects that we might not have done so well in when we were in school? Would he miss out on socializing with other children every day, all day long? Did we need to follow a particular curriculum? Could we afford the financial investment of buying materials?

The first thing we did was ask a lot of questions of other homeschoolers in our area. What did and didn’t work for them and why? What programs had they used for math, language arts, history, science, etc. The “why” became very important as we selected what we thought would work for us. I took every suggestion and searched online for reviews from other homeschooling parents. I asked questions of people who were selling their homeschool materials. Why are you selling? Did the program work for you or not? Slowly but surely we made one decision after another for each subject area that we wanted to teach that first year. We made the financial investment a priority. Once the everyday needs of the family were met, homeschooling materials were at the top of the budget list. I researched and negotiated material and shipping fees and traded or swapped for everything else. Many suppliers offered payment plans if we were to buy a year’s worth of material from them. My husband and I decided that buying homeschool materials wouldn’t be any different than our usual purchasing habits of paying for things in full.

As the day grew near to turn in our public school exemption form and officially become a homeschooling family, I grew ever more nervous. This was a big commitment. Could I really teach this child? I had a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in English and Psychology. My husband has a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering, so he has a strong emphasis in math and science. Between the two of us, we had the basics covered. But we are not certified teachers, and my husband’s duty is to provide for the family while I stay home to raise our children. That means that the bulk of the teaching would fall to me. One day I had a moment of clarity: I had been teaching Zachary all along. The reason we were in this predicament wasn’t because of his November birthday, it was because he had been learning since he was a baby, and I had been the one doing most of the teaching. I could do this! We knew he was ahead of his peers academically, so if we had to take it slowly at first, we could. We became acquainted with our state’s homeschool laws, turned in our exemption form, and launched out on a new adventure.

We started out slowly. Thirty-minutes at a time was all the attention span Zachary could muster. We’d work a while, and take a break. Then we’d work some more. Games were a new and fin incentive for him. The biggest adjustment for Zachary was understanding that home wasn’t just for playtime anymore. Up until that point, learning had been mingled with playing. Now it was a little more formal, and I felt the responsibility to make it as routine as possible. Most days we finished all our school work by lunch time. As the months went by, his attention span lengthened. We could get more work done in a shorter amount of time. I made sure to include a reading session at the end of his morning workbook sessions. Reading time was our favorite. Zachary would cuddle in my lap, and we would settle in with a history or science book. It was soon obvious to me that we could use “regular” books for teaching.

While we were establishing our homeschooling schedule, I had to figure out how to weave in the needs of Zachary’s then 3 year old brother, Nathan, and 1 year old baby sister. The baby was the easiest. She took several naps a day, and I could usually work around her schedule, but Nathan was a challenge. He was a busy little boy and as eager to learn as his brother. We don’t have television reception at our house; we have never put in cable, and we would have to have a huge antennae to have any kind of reception. So using the television as an electronic babysitter was out of the question, but could I use it as a teaching tool for a preschooler?

Then I had another moment of clarity. We had already been doing just that. We had an extensive DVD and VHS library of preschool and early learning material. I had watched all of it with baby Zachary sitting in my lap. I couldn’t watch it with Nathan, but he could learn from the safety of his highchair while I worked with Zachary. So the juggling act began. I would work with Zachary until whatever Nathan was watching ended, and then I’d run to the other room to start another DVD and dash back to refocus Zac on his school work before I completely lost his attention.

A mother from my homeschooling network told me about a free online program for phonics building. When I discovered that Zac needed help with phonics, we started using that program. Nathan and the baby were equally as entertained with the program as Zachary was, so we made it a family affair. Zachary was soon accelerating his reading skills. Then, much to my amazement, Nathan was reading. Not single words, but first grade readers, and he wasn’t even 4!

Throughout the process of teaching and establishing a routine that worked for the family, my husband participated by being a good sounding board for me and a P.E. coach for the children. He would take them out to play every day. It was a way to give me a few minutes of peace, and them some time to work off their wiggles. They would go to the park and he would teach them to climb, slide, throw a ball, ride a tricycle or bicycle, etc. Sometimes they would encounter other children at the park. My husband noticed that the children whom we knew were in daycare were reclusive and non-responsive when our children approached them to play. One of our boys would walk up to another child and say “Hi I’m, Zachary. Would you like to play?” And the other child would look at him mutely for a few seconds and then walk off. We started observing our children more critically in public. When we made the decision to homeschool, many people asked us about “socialization.” What we discovered is that there is a misconception that there is a direct correlation between public or private education and a child’s ability to socialize.

I drew a crude, but effective parallel to socializing children and dogs. If one were to take a bunch of dogs and put them together, one would have a pack of wild dogs. It’s not much different with children. It takes adult interaction to teach children how to socialize, and that starts at home. Our children have been taught how to say Please and Thank You, as well as “I’m sorry” when they’ve hurt someone else. We eat every meal together, and we stress table manners appropriate for each age level. We are teaching our children about respecting other people and their property, starting at home with their brothers and sisters. Because we homeschool, we are immersed in “socialization” every day all day long. Our children learn about honesty, integrity, and personal responsibility at home, and then take those lessons and apply them out in their world, which consists of the park, church, the swimming pool, and anywhere we go that they encounter other people.

A recently discovered side benefit of homeschooling is that our children are relatively insulated from bullying. Now that Zachary’s peers have been in school a few years, we’ve noticed some bullying tactics cropping up amongst the public and private school children. Zachary isn’t old enough to be able to put a label on it, but he knows he doesn’t like the behavior or how it makes him feel. We’ve used those unfortunate interactions as teaching moments for things like The Golden Rule: “If you don’t like the way it makes you feel, then don’t do it to others.” Bullying has also made his Dad and me more vigilant in watching what happens with our children’s social interactions, but that is our job as their parents, homeschooling or not.

So many parents have said to me “I couldn’t possibly homeschool my child.” The reasons given are as numerous as the parents who say they can’t. One of my favorites is that they didn’t do well in a subject like math when they were in school, so how could they possible teach math to their child. “Guess what?” I respond. “This time you get the solutions manual! Plus you get to pick the math program that you understand. That makes it a lot easier to teach.” I usually get a smile if not a nervous chuckle. But, alas, sadly, they are correct; they probably can’t teach their child. Not for lack of ability, but for lack of determination.

On the days when there is more arguing and bad attitude than progress, homeschooling is discouraging at best. It can be infuriating and frustrating for everyone involved. One child’s bad day can bring the entire household to a screeching halt. Too many days my husband has come home to find a child sulking and me in tears, ready to quit. Homeschooling brings a whole new level of discipline to the family. Not only do I have to address “normal” infractions of sibling rivalry, I also have to deal with bad school-related behavior. I wear two hats, Mommy and Teacher, and the line between the two is all too often blurred. What gets me through and beyond those bad days is the determination that teaching my children is my responsibility. Success or failure is up to me, especially while they are in their early grades. Without that determination, no parent can possibly homeschool their child.

And yet determination doesn’t keep us homeschooling year after year and with each successive child. Every year we evaluate our progress and our children and make a conscious decision of whether or not to homeschool. What keeps us going is the realization that we know our children better through homeschooling than we would any other way. I know that Zachary needs a time limit challenge to complete his assignments, and when he says he doesn’t like math, it’s only because he is so far ahead of grade level that it’s finally becoming challenging for him. I know that Nathan learns better when he can manipulate things. And I know that when my children are cuddled in my lap for reading, they absorb more material than when given an assignment and sent off to do it by themselves.

When I realized my son was having trouble determining when to borrow while doing a subtraction problem, and I wanted to kick myself for not catching it two months earlier when we were learning about multiple-digit subtraction, I reminded myself that we homeschool. That means that if we have to stop our progress and back up, we could do that, again and again and again until he gets it. Public schools don’t have that time to devote to an individual child. That “no child left behind” would be, well, left behind. But not my children.

After only a couple of years of homeschooling, we have enough science and math manipulatives to rival the best private schools and a children’s library that would make most public libraries envious. But why do we homeschool?

It’s because we get to be there for every discovery, every break through, and every moment when we see the light on their faces as they master a new skill.

It’s for the days like when I put the Base 10 blocks on the dining table, and my sons’ suddenly realized that there is a realm of numbers beyond the count of 100.

It’s for a day like we had last week when Zachary was looking through our microscope at pond water and discovered there is an entire community of microscopic creatures, and I watched the expression on his face as the world as he knew it suddenly expanded.

It’s for the overheard conversation between our local state representative and a fellow veteran after my children greeted him as “Mr. Putnam.” The veteran commented to the representative that “you sure have those children trained,” and Mr. Putnam responds with a chuckle that in a culture where children are being mislead that they are equal to adults, their parents have done a good job with them. It’s for when my 5 year old starts talking about the meaning of Greek and Latin root words with his pediatrician and leaves the man shaking his head in amazement. It’s for when my 3 year old daughter climbs into that same doctor’s lap, the very person who delivered her, and reads a page to him from her Dick and Jane reader. It’s for when I catch my children curled up in a chair together sharing a book. It’s for this incredible adventure of being an integral part of our children’s lives. That’s why we homeschool.

An Apple Tree

  We were living in Las Vegas in a rented townhouse and Zac was 2 years old. Alan was working for a large company on a specific project. Occasionally the company would cut back on its work force. We had weathered several of the storms knowing that if the next one eliminated Alan, we were living in an expensive city and couldn’t stay there for long without an income. But we had nowhere else to go. I wanted a home; a nest in which to raise our two boys, and Alan didn’t want it to be in Las Vegas. He owned a house in Platte, South Dakota that he bought before we were married, but it was a fixer-upper located within a stones throw of a major highway with a very tiny yard. Not something in which we could raise a family.

One a Zac’s favorite books was Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. It’s a beautiful story about the life-long relationship between a boy and an apple tree. Zac loved that book so much that when he heard us talking about looking for a house, he wanted it to have an apple tree in the yard.

Every once in a while, Alan would make a trip to South Dakota to check on his property and take care of business. When Zac was 2.5 and Nathan was 6 months old, we made one of those trips a mid-summer family vacation. Off and on for almost 10 years Alan and I had looked at houses in the Platte area hoping to find one in which we could raise a family, but so far, none had been just right. So, as usual, we did some house hunting on that trip. I felt like Goldilocks…this one is too big, this one is too small. On a whim, the day before we were scheduled to fly back to Las Vegas, we drove to a neighboring town. We looked at three houses. One was just right. It was a 100 year old house on Main Street that had recently been refurbished by a couple who lived down the street. It had all of the charm of an old house with the updates of new construction. After our tour, Alan and I climbed into our rented car and he turned to me and said “You like it don’t you?” Gee, was it that obvious? I didn’t say anything for a moment and then Alan admitted that he liked it too, but we couldn’t afford it. I asked if he had asked the “how much” question. He said no. Well, I had, and when I told him how much, he excitedly exclaimed “We can do that!” Yes I know. But we left without making an offer.

Alan doesn’t do anything without a lot of research, thought, and prayer. Usually it takes him forever to make big decisions. Imagine my surprise when he called me at lunchtime a few days after we returned from our trip and said that he wanted to make an offer on that house. He felt an urgency, and I felt a peaceful excitement. So he made the phone call to the husband of the couple who owned it. The wife answered the phone, and after Alan identified himself and why he was calling, the wife asked if her husband could call him back when he returned from trimming the apple tree. Well, of course, but what apple tree? The one in the backyard of the house that you want to buy. The tree that neither of us had noticed. The house was an answer to prayer for me and Alan. But more importantly, was the prayer that God answered for a little boy. An apple tree in the backyard of the first home we owned as a family.

Zac is 7 now. He has climbed that tree, swung from its branches, and played in its shade. And so have his little brother and sisters. In the spring it graces our yard with gorgeous apple blossoms and in late summer it produces apples from which we’ve fed babies homemade applesauce and apple butter and made delicious apple wine.

I love the constancy of trees. Children will grow and change. The baby that I nursed under that blossoming apple tree one spring will too soon be grown and raising babies of her own. But the tree will remain to shower us with sweet smelling blossoms in the spring, apples in late summer, and orange, yellow, and red leaves in the autumn, year after year after year.