Harvest time

Regularly harvesting all sorts of organic vegetable goodies which I grew myself. Gardening is not a passion for me as it is for some but it';s growing on me (haha) and harvest time is very rewarding. Some of my best crops this year were heirloom colorful carrots, probably got close to 10 pounds total, potatoes-grew almost 100 pounds of them, spaghetti squash, grew about 14, 2 of which were HUGE and of course beans and peas which are always prolific.

Carrots

Carrots

My humble sweet potato harvest, 3.5 pounds.

One of the large spaghetti squash

Some of the winter squash.

carrots, onions and greens.

worm bin, they give us good compost!

Corn crop

I didn't do so well with my corn crop, although what did grow was tasty. 

The BLACK BELT test!

All of my children have tried Tae Kwon Do and my husband has participated at times too. Hayley found TKD was not for her and left the sport after a few months. Trevor stuck it out until an injury took him out of the sport. He made it to the rank of blue belt. Tristan and Colin started as very little boys and took a break of several years after Trevor's injury. At that time we needed to focus on other things. Eventually a new, great for our schedule, homeschool class was formed at our old TKD studio and the boys and then later hubby signed up. These black belts were hard won and many years in the making. On September 12th 2015 Bobby, Colin and Tristan succeeded and passed the 2 day black belt test along with several others who were going for either their first black belt tank or a later rank up to 5th dan. Just a few of the photos from the test. Hope to load more when I get them off my old computer.

First day of homeschool 2015-2016

Two down, two to go. Homeschool students that is. Both Hayley and Trevor have graduated from homeschool now and are exploring their options for the future. Colin and Tristan remain with Colin being in 12th grade and Tristan 10th. After this year I'll have only one homeschooler left as Colin will graduate. As it is only Tristan is in our first day photo this year. Colin is mature and ready to make more of his own decisions and well...he just didn't want to be in the picture!

This year Colin will tie up any loose ends (math) and start looking into what he would like his next step to be. He is a smart, strong, hard working young man I'm sure there will be many possible paths he can take.

Tristan will be using the following materials, resources and classes this year: Math U See Algebra, Jump In writing curriculum, Spelling U See, Combination of Diana Waring's History Alive and Story of the World for ancient history/world history (depending on how far we get). Biology self designed labs and study, Zoology through lapbooking at co-op (with me as the teacher, have 18 students signed up for that class!!), Drama classes at co-op, this year there focusing on Shakespeare and Tae Kwon Do classes. He will also have a robotics set to work on just for fun and has expressed an interest in photography so we'll see if we can come up with any classes or resources for that interest.

Tristan first day of 10th grade.

Tristan and his cat Rufus, first day of homeschool year 2015-2016.

Today's garden harvest

I decided to dig up the potatoes in just one of the large tubs today. About 3 pounds of red potatoes had grown.

Continuing to harvest lots and lots of beans each week and sometimes each day!

One of these things...

Is not like the other. Or the family that eats together stays together. Choco the ferret thinks he's one of the cats.

Barn felling

What's the opposite of a barn raising? I guess a barn felling or falling. Well I did that. Almost entirely by myself I felled a large barn. I'm pretty small for a grown up and not super strong. I am strong willed though and that got me through. Also the songs from Matilda the musical. For some reason I relate to Matilda. Things like...Don't let a little thing like little stop you...and When I grow up, I will be strong enough to carry all the heavy things you have to haul around with you when you're a grown up....nobody but me is going to change my story.... those songs work for me. They helped me take down a barn. The cats 'helped' too and my turkey visitors. Must give credit to my crowbar which helped me from start to finish (which took 3 years) and my come along tool which helped with the final few beams and the back wall.

What did this barn look like before I took it down? I don't have any easily available pictures, the barn was huge and might have been quite useful but we didn't have the time and most importantly the finances to repair it. The barn was a hundred year old post and beam with metal roof. Sturdy in it's day I'm sure but NH winters took a big toll on it before we even owned it. A storm three years ago made the barn a safety concern and it just needed to go.

A couple old pics showing just the front.

Botany 101

Tristan is studying biology over the coming year for his science. We decided to do the botany labs on Fridays over the summer since plant experimentation and availability is much better in summer than winter. We have a Botany kit and also finding random experiments online.