new year, old pancakes
A couple days before Christmas, our neighbors came by with a gift. They moved in a in the summer, so we've only known them in the pandemic times and barely had a chance to get to know them; not that we would anyways, since they're much classier than we are. Very kind, too: they brought us a gift basket with Wilson Farm pancake mix and syrup. Awesome, we love pancakes! Only it turns out we're a little spoiled. We made the day after Christmas, having missed our usual Friday pancake day—though when I saw that the recipe called for nothing more than the mix, water, and an egg OR two tablespoons oil, my hopes were not high. Accurately; they weren't bad, by any means, but thin and kind of tough and pretty much blah. We ate them, of course! With the syrup and leftover Christmas ham they made a fine breakfast. But then today was Friday again and we got to have the real thing. True, stores aren't carrying wheat germ any more so I've had to adjust our recipe, but with white and whole wheat flour, buttermilk, two well-beaten eggs, and plenty of butter we have pancakes that come out light and fluffy and tender to the fork; just about perfect. A good way to start a new year.
moments from the week
wishing the ice were harder
Moments from the past week.
warm moments in December
can't trust the ice... can you trust the tree?
friends' fire
hide-and-seek
New Years Eve
first adventure of the new year
our Christmas performance
While I've seen a bunch of Christmas trees out on the curb already (trash pickup was today in Bedford) it really still is Christmas, so it's not too late to show off a Christmas delight we participated in. Way back in late October I volunteered to be part of our Church's prerecorded Christmas choir—I was excited for the opportunity, because I'm usually too busy with Kids Church to participate. But when it has to all be recorded well before Thanksgiving? That I can do! In theory, at least: I did wait until the day it was due, as usual. But I got it done! If it was just me, I wouldn't bother to tell the world, but for one of the two songs the whole family got in there—and they liked us so much we're the last people to disappear at the final fade out. Check us out!
(I have to say, though, the sound of the choir is so good that it makes me think Matt, our music director, used ringers for the audio. Like maybe a prerecorded track by another choir? But never mind, we look good and that's definitely for real.)
distractions
This evening I was trying to work on a different blog post, a post about what is happening in our lives this week, but I've been too distracted by the news of this afternoon's attempted coup-slash-insurrection in the capital. At supper Leah told the boys they were living through times much more interesting than what we experienced as kids. "Is that good or bad?" Harvey wanted to know. Some of each, I guess?
Then a little bit ago I let the dogs out, and after a few minutes Scout asked to be let back in. I can almost open the door from my seat here, so I didn't really pay attention to him. But then when Blue didn't follow right away I turned to Scout to ask him where his brother was—at which point I saw that his face was covered in blood. Yikes! I ran right outside and found that nobody was hurt, it's just that the dogs had killed a rabbit and Blue was eating it. Judging by the considerable amount of blood on Scout—enough that I had to get a wet cloth to clean him off—I'm sure he must have made the kill, and then have mean Blue take it from him. I gave him a rawhide chew to make up for it, but it's not the same. So yes, interesting times.
back to school
I don't know how the school kids felt about going back this January, whether to their classrooms or their remote terminals. Given what Christmas looked like this year, maybe they were fine with it; even excited. But there's no way they were as happy as we were, because our return to "school" this week has been absolutely delightful. We started off on Monday with a joyful reunion with our bubble group, who came over for the day. Certain of the children were looking forward to doing some math work, but that didn't happen; instead, we talked (and wrote and drew) about what we're looking forward to in 2021, listened to some stories, ate lots of dessert together, then took a long walk in the woods. After school time ended, the kids who got to stick around a little longer did woodworking in the basement and made some swords, which they of course proceeded to battle with.
school friends together
On Tuesday Harvey's online classes started back up. He enjoyed playing his banjo with his grandpa and cousin in his music class, and had an even better time hanging out with the boys of the ancient history class. The younger boys did Zoom yoga with Grandma, which activity has replaced their read-aloud now that they've finished Tuck Everlasting (and received yoga mats and blocks for Hanukah!). And Wednesday was the online book group party celebrating the completion of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Elijah was super excited to wear his monkey costume and bring a peach, and the other boys were interested enough to come up with costumes of their own. In the event peaches were not available, it being not at all the season, but Lijah was contented with a jar of canned peaches from the basement. The best part of the party, though—the best part of this whole book group—was the tea: herbal tea has a fairly important part in the story, so one of the things all the kids enjoy is having some as they listen. I'm working during book group time so the boys have to make theirs themselves... which I think makes it even more fun.
I thought today might be a bit of a letdown, with nothing on the schedule, but that was actually perfect for Harvey. He's been after me for a couple weeks to teach him programing, and today we finally had time to get started. Not that I know too much about the subject, but more than him—and certainly enough to pique his interest. Today we wrote some pseudo-code to talk about functions and loops and things, and then did some actual programing in Apple Basic (which, delightfully, is implemented in Javascript here). And we also took a good exploring walk. All in all, I think our first week back is going pretty well.
moments from the year
not so hot here!
Here are some of the our top moments and images from that remarkable year, 2020. I picked my favorites of the photos posted this past year in the blog—some for aesthetic reasons, others because of how much fun the moment was... and some to try and tell the story of 2020. I limited myself to three photos for each month, which was really hard: even in a pandemic we did lots of amazing, beautiful things. Here's to lots more moments in 2021!
January
new year beach
whee!
ever driven to explore further
February
in the wild
penguins don't need sleds
games at a library
March
a crowd to celebrate Elijah
this is our life now
new horizons
April
out in the green
what a smore should look like
he did it!
May
what a cheerful sight!
introducing Blue and Scout
expedition to the airport
June
morning trail
splash!
what the kids do these days
July
the yard's bounty
love those dogs
our happy place
August
an ocean of their own
trying hard things
co-kings of the world
September
the island looming through the fog
what could be finer?
the dawn of a new era
October
sharing the dogs
Lijah the woodsman
boy and dog adventures
November
they all came down
bubble school is comfortable
Thanksgiving beach walk
December
almost sliding time
decorators
starting the longest night
moments from the week
farewell to gingerbread
Moments from the past week.
back to school, with dessert
balance
I don't think the ice is safe, but they do!
time for school for time
up a rock
light already
It seems like just last week we were celebrating the solstice, but it's clearly long behind us now. I headed out this afternoon at quarter past four to walk the dogs in the woods, and I didn't even think to take a headlamp along with me. No need: it was still totally light when I got back half and hour later, and even well past five. The times are changing!
With the longer days we're starting to talk about seeds. Leah and I were talking yesterday about it, thinking about if we're going to try anything new or just plant the whole garden in kale, tomatoes, and butternut squash. That sounds good. Today my best seed-starting friend and I were vowing each other that this year—this year—we were going to get our seeds in on time, and take care of them right. So many things can go wrong! With gardening—with seeds especially—it can be hard for me not to focus on the negative. At least the January sunshine always feels positive.
on the ice
As much as I'm loving the light lately, we do love winter—and it's been a little disappointing lately in the snow and ice department. There's still no snow around now, but it's been cold enough overnight the last few days that the ice is finally solid, on ponds at least. This morning we got to enjoy it on the Old Reservoir.
Harvey is demonstrating the "starfish slide"
The dogs have been braver than any of us over the last couple weeks so they've had plenty of ice time already, but today it was firm enough that they felt completely confident and chased each other around without a care. I wish I had a video of the the flailing legs every time they tried to change direction or accelerate suddenly. But with four legs to flail, they never fell down! Unlike the children who fell down constantly. Of course, they loved it!
getting our workout
The pandemic changed our lives in lots of ways, and one of them was to stop us playing Pokemon. In the before time, it was ever on our minds: when the next event was, how many points was Harvey at, what decks should we play, what cards were coming out in the next set... We played in events, we played at the local game store, and we played on Pokemon Trading Card Game Online. Then in March we stopped. Lately, though, we've been getting back into playing online (which is of course all there is), and for Christmas I got all the boys new cards. With our regained enthusiasm for the game, though, I was worried we'd lose all the fitness we'd gained from a summer and fall of off-road cycling. So now we're taking exercise breaks after each game, with jumping jacks and pushups. I don't know how it breaks down in caloric intake compared to actual outdoor activity, but today I did 225 jumping jacks and 63 pushups, which is certainly way more of either of those than I would have otherwise! The boys didn't get quite as many in, since I play faster than them and also I do seven pushups after each game to their five. And then we also took a walk and a bike ride. So while video gaming might not be the best for our bodies, I don't think we're doing too badly.
wet weather? let's go to the ocean!
It's been sunny and beautiful for at least parts of the last couple days, so of course when it turned gray and rainy we headed out to visit the ocean!
perfect beach weather
Actually, the timing wasn't really deliberate like that. It's just that we have a lot on our schedule, actually, and it's been a couple months since we've been any distance from home; so when last weekend I saw that Thursday was free I put a trip out to Cape Ann on the calendar. In my defense, the forecast at that point called for sun! Not that we minded the light drizzle—we're that hardcore, and we'd actually much rather have rain than crowds.
Our first stop of the day was the rocks along Atlantic Ave, where, before we did anything else, we had lunch (we got a late start because there was lots of school work to do first—like I said, busy schedule!). It turns out it's cold at the ocean; at least two of us wished for warmer clothes (not me! nobody dresses warmer that I do). But as soon as we finished lunch, an hour of climbing around the amazing rocks warmed us right up. Nobody died, either. When Elijah fell on his face it wasn't from 25 feet above jagged rocks, which had been my fear.
looks perfectly safe, right?
Then just as we were about done with the rocks, Harvey found a piece of sea glass, and then another one. I don't know if you're aware, but sea glass is rare in New England these days—maybe the only downside of people no longer routinely throwing their garbage into the ocean. So his find touched off a sea glass gold rush, and each of us got at least a dozen pieces. Lijah and I are going to combine our hoards and display them in a jar.
Next we went to Good Harbor beach. The tide was rushing out beautifully under the bridge and it wasn't at all crowded, but the boys were getting a little tired—and it turns out that without a full tank of physical and emotional energy the water's a little too cold mid-January to do much wading. We did find—and walk through—some very interesting sandy mud: it was almost fluffy, with a consistency like slush to a depth of three or four inches. It's lucky there was something harder underneath, or we would have sunk to our deaths!
We ended the outing with a visit to Rockport. We walked around town and out to the tip of Bearskin Neck, admiring all the closed stores and their range of varied and clever please-wear-a-mask signs. Then on the way back to the car we stopped at the candy store where we bought some fudge...eventually. It was actually kind of hard to come to a decision about what to get. It may be that she felt sorry for us or just that she's a wonderful human being, but the woman running the store also gave us—for free, gratis!—a bag of chocolate-covered swedish fish. I had no idea such a thing had ever been even contemplated, but they actually aren't bad! It helps that Tuck's Candy has, as well as wonderful generosity, really good milk chocolate. Tuck's Candy—check em out if you're in the area!
Then we went home. On the drive, both ways, we listened to an audiobook about Martin Luther King Jr. Because, you know us, that's how serious we are about school work!
Oh, I almost forgot the best part of going to the ocean in the winter! Even better than the empty roads and beaches: we found ice among the rocks! It may have been small, but our rink by the water was, for fifteen minutes at least, just about the best thing ever.
our two favorite things, together at last!
happy birthday Dr King
Today is Martin Luther King Jr's birthday. We studied his life this week, and today in Bubble School the kids each gave their reports. (I freely acknowledge the potential pitfalls in doing Black history with a bunch of white kids, but I think trying is still better than the alternative—and anyways, at this point 1/3 of our school population is 1/2 non-white, so there!) Our discussion was sensitive and nuanced. We talked about the considerable role Dr King played in the Civil Rights movement and also about the fact that there were others, less famous, who played roles that were just as significant. We talked about the importance of non-violent protest, and also thought about situations where violence is necessary for tactical or emotional reasons. And we celebrated that there is a Martin Luther King Day holiday, while also all agreeing that we have a ways to go, both as a country and as individuals, before Dr King's dream can come true.
Without libraries the research was more challenging than it might have been—like everything in this pandemic. But our group found a way to make it happen, using a combination of web sites (mainly Wikipedia), audio books from Audible and LeVar Burton's Skybrary, documentary films, and audio of Dr King's speeches. Plus the diversity of sources gave us a chance to talk about historiography, and why you might want to seek out a variety of accounts about any one person or event.
Martin Luther King Day is Monday, of course. We're not taking school off that day, though; we're honoring Dr King's memory by meeting, talking about his legacy and the road ahead, and eating a cake to celebrate his birthday. We're looking forward to it!
moments from the week
on ice
A few moments from the past week.
playing with fire
a bat in his natural habitat
climbing by the sea
egg consumption outpaces production
It's surprising to me lately how many eggs we eat. Our friends with a new flock of chickens just told me that their hens kept laying right through the solstice; ours do no such thing. While it's true that they kept up production a little bit longer than last time I complained about it, they closed up shop for the winter after the second week of December. I can't be too upset: we do live just down the road from a farm where we can get day-old cage-free eggs for under $3 a dozen. But we need so many! When our hens are laying I don't really notice: we get four or five a day, and use as many, so it was kind of like water from the tap. Now with having to go to the store it's like we're in bottled water mode, and I have to pay attention in case we're going to run out. So, say, I can't plan to make french toast for breakfast and a Spanish tortilla for supper on the same day. It's hard!
On the plus side, visiting the store is a delightful experience, and the kids can use the trip to buy candy. So, while I'm looking forward to the return of the light and the eggs, I bet they're fine with things the way they are!
all kinds of learning
This past Sunday I titled one of our "moment" photos "playing with fire", because that's what the Bubble School kids are into these days. Both school days at our house last week they spent all their outside time making campfires and boiling water, and yesterday in Acton they were excited to do the same thing, with the additional fun of building a shelter by their fire pit (since our friends' yard isn't blessed, like ours, with a playhouse). Some of us parents were slightly worried about the possibility of conflagration—they were doing their fire-building in a corner of woods thickly carpeted with fallen leaves—but when I went out to check I saw that everything was so wet they could barely keep their kindling burning without constant effort from the lighter. So probably no conflagrations were likely, and we could rest easy with an occasional check-in glance out the kitchen window. Or so we thought!
No, the kids didn't set anything on fire (though they did succeed in getting the fire in their ring to be self-sustaining after a half-hour of sustained work!). But a neighbor was even more concerned than we were, and she came over and, after staring for a while, asked the kids if their parents knew what they were doing. Well of course we did! And as we heard the story afterwards, the oldest of our wonderful gang of kids—not Harvey, he's the second-oldest by a month and a half—had the presence of mind to answer. "Yes, they do, thank you," she said. "Goodbye!" (She emphasized afterwards that she said "goodbye").
Now of course, if they were hardened juvenile delinquents they would have scoffed at a question like that—or worse!—but our homeschool children are sensitive! There were some tears when they came in to report to us, and it took some work to reassure them that no, they hadn't actually done anything wrong. Some people just like to... involve themselves in other people's lives. It was too bad, but even as some kids were upset it was awesome to see how they supported and comforted each other. And even better, they went back out and relit the fire that they had stamped out after the neighbor's visit. And this time they set a guard to make sure they'd be ready if she came back!
is it my bedtime?
One minor benefit of blogging regularly for so many years is that it lets me see how well I've been managing my sleep schedule. Writing is often the very last thing I do in a day, so by checking the date posts are published I can see how long I've been keeping myself up. And it's been pretty late the last couple weeks! There are good reasons to stay up late—it's the only time I get a moment to myself, a moment to think without being assailed by the constant noise of our lovely household—but overall I think I'm better when I manage to retire at a reasonable hour. When I'm up til all hours I'm tired the next day, and then things don't go well and I get frustrated, and then I need even more time the following evening to calm down and collect myself. A vicious cycle.
Even worse, I don't even get to share the evening time with the one member of the family I'd actually like to hang out with by that point. Leah needs to go to bed early; most nights she barely manages to stay awake longer than the kids (in fact, often she doesn't even do that!). So really, I ought to go to bed early and get my quiet alone time in the morning when I'm not collapsing from tiredness. I'm going to try it... keep an eye on those post times if you want to know how I'm doing!
moments from the week
winter fires are hard work!
Moments from the past week.
drama
geography time
this, too, is school
adventuring again
we're hardy folk
It got cold this past weekend. Not super cold, like single digits, but certainly lots colder than it has been for a while now. Which is hard when we're not used to it; also, cold feels colder when there's moisture in the air, which is the case when the temperature takes a sudden drop. But we didn't want to let winter being winter keep us from playing outside this weekend! Saturday morning, Harvey and I started the day with a couple hours of riding the trails in Landlocked Forest (the good thing about below-freezing weather is no more mud!). We were chilly as we got started but warmed up well before too long. Then after lunch the smaller boys and I rode up to the skate park to meet some friends. By that time there were clouds threatening the sun and the breeze was picking up, so there were moments when saner folks wondered if it was time to go home—or at least reminded their kids to keep their hoods up. Zion took off his shoes for better traction climbing on the half-pipe. Between the skate park and the playground we were out for close to two hours and had a lovely time.
Then yesterday other friends invited us to join them at Great Brook Farm for a hike. Seems they'd had plans to meet another family there, but when they backed out citing the cold weather we got the call. Because you know that if you ever need a cold-insensitive B-list family, we're there for you! In the sunshine it was actually quite pleasant and we all had a fine time sliding on the ice and climbing on the rocks. In fact, Elijah's friend even fell waist-deep into the icy water fully half a mile from the parking lot, and he didn't die! I will say, though, that while we are pretty hardy, I'm glad it wasn't any of my boys who went in. Cold air is one thing, but we do have limits!
wave your hands in time
I didn't move as much as I might have liked to today. The boys and I did get to take a walk with my mom, like we do every Tuesday morning, and I had to go out and find the dogs when they found a hole in the fence (not much finding... they came when I called, once I figured out where they were), but other than that I spent the day perched in front of the computer editing videos. This Sunday we're doing a Kids and Youth service at church, and the elementary kids not being willing to appear live on Zoom (nor I to let them) we invited them to submit videos, and I've spent the last week or so working to assemble them into a coherent whole. You haven't lived until you've spent three hours syncing up twelve different performers in preschool and early elementary doing the hand motions to "Peace Like a River"! When we did our star turn at Christmas time the music director included instructions to clap in time before we started the song, which gave him a cue to get all the tracks in line together; we didn't do that for the kids. You might say that their hand motions wouldn't be particularly in sync if we were doing this live, which is true, but I still have to make it look like they're at least all listening to the same music—so their vagueness and distractibility is, in this case, only making my job harder. I know what song is going to be stuck in my head when I finally get to bed this evening!
this morning
Some days I wake up ready to jump out of bed and face the day with vim and vigor, and then other days are like this morning. Elijah came into our bed sometime in the early morning hours, and then Zion joined him at first light. Cuddling with them was lovely but not conducive to jumping up—especially with the outside temperature below 10° and the inside temperature well below 60. Then the dogs came home from their walk and showed us that they were up and ready by bounding into the bed. The licks on my face I suppose were alright, but I really didn't appreciate the icy cold paws lacerating my chin and neck. I got up after that, but my energy and goodwill for the day was already running low!
moments from the week
ice is unexplored country
Lots of moments from the past week.
unsafe farm ice
dad rock
practicing for when it's his turn
another day, another ice adventure
a little snow? a little snowman!
river dogs
a little tree climbing
did you know you can make cotton candy at home?
Saturday morning