Harvesting, Learning, and Nature Walks

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It’s almost time to organize our days sensibly.  With the harvest nearly finished, we soon won’t be ruled by ripening plants, rain, and frosty weather.  That will be so wonderful after the chaos of the last month!   I can’t wait until school is the main activity, rather than something that we fit in around the corners of our life.

This being harvest season, we’ve made gallons of sauerkraut and salsa.  Actually, the sauerkraut is still fermenting on the counter and should be ready next week.  Usually we can it, but we may freeze it this year.  That way all the goodness won’t be boiled out of it.  We’ve also frozen 27 meals’ worth of tomatoes, and the house is looking a bit more normal than it did. 

In school work, Miss 10 enjoyed a week of ALEKS, and so did Miss 8.  I was hoping to get a day in before our time expires, but that will probably not happen.  Other than that, the children have learned about root words, the Middle Ages, converses and contrapositives, local politics, King Alfred’s educational goals, graphs, Hugenots, visual basic, and more. 

We’ve also gone on many nature walks, individually and together.  Although we live in Ontario and have already had several nasty frosts, the Little Misses just happen to get very wet on most of our walks.  And then, of course, they may as well be swimming, right? 

On our last salsa making day, we let the children have individual picnics for lunch, something we do only a few times a year.  After scrubbing vegetables all morning, Mr. 15 took his sandwiches and his new camera for a long walk and came home with beautiful pictures.  By noon poor Miss 12 had salsa duty, scrubbing canning jars, so she stayed inside.  And the Little Misses took their sandwiches to the old willow tree and ate there.  A while later my husband, who was working at home, called me.  He pointed way down in our grassy meadow.  There we spied two little girls, swimming in an enormous puddle.  Their sweaters—turtlenecks, for it was chilly—were hanging neatly from the branches of a tree!

To see what other families have been up to, visit Canada Girl and Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.